Michael Caputo, former Trump campaign aide and chief marketing officer of
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Animal rights activists have expressed outrage after a report on Japan’s “scientific whaling” programme showed that more than two-thirds of the female minke whales harpooned in the Southern Ocean earlier this year were pregnant females. The report, submitted to a meeting of the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission in Slovenia earlier this month, also showed that 53 of the 333 whales slaughtered were juvenile animals. “The killing of 122 pregnant whales is a shocking statistic and sad indictment on the cruelty of Japan’s whale hunt”, said Alexia Wellbelove, of the Australia branch of Humane Society International. “It is further demonstration, if needed, of the truly gruesome and unnecessary nature of whaling operations, especially when non-lethal surveys have been shown to be sufficient for scientific needs”, she said. Activists accuse Tokyo of ignoring a ruling in 2014 by the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, that Japan’s whaling was a commercial exercise rather than a scientific research programme and that it had to halt. Japanese whaling vessel the Nisshin Maru returns to the Shimonoseki port in southwestern Japan in this photo taken by Kyodo on March 31, 2017, after it and two other vessels hunted 333 minke whales in the Antarctic Ocean Tokyo, which provides large subsidies to keep its domestic whaling industry afloat, responded by adding new research procedures and resuming operations in 2015 with a quota of 333 minke whales. To protect itself from further legal challenges, Japan also withdrew its recognition of the International Court of Justice as an arbiter of disputes over whales. Whale meat used to be an important source of nutrition for the Japanese but little is consumed by the general public today. Instead, whale meat is served in school meals and a handful of specialist restaurants, with the rest frozen or used as pet food. A spokesman for the environmental group Sea Shepherd said it appeared that the Japanese whaling fleet had been “targeting pregnant females, for some reason”. Bob Brown, the former head of the Australian Green Party and founder of an environmental foundation, told The Telegraph that the harpooning of pregnant whales was “barbaric and illegal”. “These are the most gentle of whales and people go to the Great Barrier Reef just to rub noses with these creatures”, he said. “Then they fall pregnant, go to the Southern Ocean and get harpooned by the Japanese while the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Britain, the US and everywhere else sit on their hands and say this criminal behaviour is okay because the Japanese government is funding it. “The leaders who are today failing to take action have the blood of these innocent whales on their hands,” he said. “This is an international disgrace and an environmental crime”.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Some elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan are showing interest in peace talks, the top U.S. commander in Kabul said Wednesday, citing "off stage" contacts involving what he described as mid- and high-level leaders of the insurgency.
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An airplane flying from China to Vietnam turned back to make an emergency landing after cracks appeared in a window, just two weeks after another airliner's cockpit window broke mid-flight in the country, state media said Wednesday. The Beijing Capital Airlines flight bound for Nha Trang in southern Vietnam with 211 people aboard returned to the eastern city of Hangzhou around an hour after take-off on Tuesday, the official Xinhua news agency said. Several disgruntled passengers refused to board an alternative flight because they considered the compensation too low and were upset that the airline did not offer an apology, it said.
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Just a day after Roseanne Barr’s ABC show Roseanne was cancelled over a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, the former television star has tweeted a defence of herself saying she is “not a racist”. Barr had said just after her show’s cancellation that she was leaving Twitter, but stayed on tweeting and retweeting accounts defending her and asserting she is not racist. One stupid joke in a lifetime of fighting 4 civil rights 4 all minorities, against networks, studios, at the expense of my nervous system/family/wealth will NEVER b taken from me,” Barr wrote in a tweet Wednesday afternoon.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said his nation could go to war if its soldiers were hurt in the disputed South China Sea, a top aide said Wednesday after allegations emerged that Beijing had harassed Manila's troops in the area. National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon made the comments as Duterte's administration pushed back against criticism its response to Chinese activities in the hotly contested waters had been weak. Pag-asa, better known as Thitu, is the largest of the islands and outcrops garrisoned by Philippine troops in the disputed areas of the South China Sea.
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Many residents subsequently left.A closer look at the Buckee calculation shows that while the researchers estimate 4,645 deaths, statistically there's a 95 percent chance that the actual number could be as low as 793 and as high as 8,498. When the researchers tried to adjust for the fact that people living in single-person households couldn't report their own death, they estimated 5,740 excess deaths, with a margin of error ranging from 1,506 and 9,889.The Buckee number is more than four times higher than a December estimate by the New York Times, which reported that the actual death toll was probably about 1,052 excess deaths based on data from the island's vital statistics bureau and a comparison of deaths during a comparable period in the two previous years.
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A British man died after falling from a plane on to a runway at Dalaman airport in south-west Turkey early on Tuesday morning. Local media reported that staff were trying to remove the 30-year-old when he fell from a door. The unconscious passenger was taken to hospital where he was found to have broken ribs. The man - named by a relative as Andrew Westlake - never regained consciousness before dying later that day, according to Hurriyet newspaper. It reported that the man had spent three days at the airport waiting for a flight home after losing his ticket. After finally boarding the aircraft at 3am he became argumentative with cabin crew and was ordered off the plane as a risk to flight safety. Dalaman airport serves the south-west of Turkey, including resorts such as Marmaris Credit: Alamy Stock Photo An investigation has been launched. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting the family of a British man following his death in Turkey and are in touch with the local authorities.” Dalaman airport is one of the country’s busiest and serves seaside resorts including Marmaris and Fethiye, which are popular with British tourists. Some four million passengers pass through the airport each year, and it handles airlines including EasyJet and seasonal charters operated by Thomson Airways.
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Russia's embattled liberal community was reeling Wednesday from the murder of fiercely anti-Kremlin journalist Arkady Babchenko who was gunned down in Ukraine after leaving Moscow following a campaign of harassment. A prominent Russian war correspondent, Babchenko, 41, was murdered on Tuesday evening in a contract-style killing in the stairwell of his building in the Ukrainian capital Kiev where he moved last year. The journalist was killed less than a month after President Vladimir Putin was inaugurated for his fourth Kremlin term and as Russia gears up to host the World Cup later this month.
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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — In a story May 29 about a Russian journalist killed in Ukraine, The Associated Press and other media organizations reported, based on fabricated information from Ukrainian authorities, that Arkady Babchenko was shot and killed. Babchenko showed up at a news conference on Wednesday, saying that Ukraine's security services faked his death to thwart a plot on his life.
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LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man arrested on suspicion of having explosives after a blast killed his ex-girlfriend at her day spa has walked free after U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday that they had dropped the charge against him.
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By Jolyn Rosa HONOLULU (Reuters) - Fast-moving lava from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano forced officials to close part of a highway on Tuesday, and they warned that sharp, thin strands of volcanic glass fibers carried by the wind could injure eyes and lungs. As lava crossed Highway 132, officials shut a stretch of road from Lava Tree State Park to Four Corners and told residents who had not evacuated to leave the area immediately. The lava flow destroyed a farm where Kevin Hopkins and partners raise tropical fish and the ornamental carp known as koi.
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The family of a small boy found hanging from a balcony in Paris have expressed heartfelt thanks to the Malian migrant who saved him. "He's truly a hero," the boy's grandmother said of Mamoudou Gassama, who climbed four floors before a crowd of well-wishers to pluck the child from danger. The four-year-old's father, who had allegedly left him in their flat to go shopping, and then stayed out longer than planned to play Pokemon Go, faces charges of child neglect. The daring rescue, which has earned him the nickname of Spider-Man, saw Mr Gassama become an overnight national hero and he was offered French citizenship. President Emmanuel Macron awarded him a medal for bravery after inviting him to the Elysée Palace on Monday and offered him a job in the fire brigade. “Thank you France. That’s all I can say,” said Mr Gassama after coming out of the state prefecture in of Bobigny, north or Paris, where he was handed a residency permit while awaiting full citizenship. It transpires that the boy had left Réunion, the French Indian Ocean island, where his mother and grandmother live, only three weeks ago for Paris to join his father, who works in the capital. His mother and the couple's second child were due to join them in June. The boy had already fallen one or two floors before somehow managing to grab hold of the fourth-floor balcony, as he is said to have pointed upwards when a resident in the neighbouring fourth-floor flat asked where he came from. His mother told Antenne Réunion that the boy's father had little experience looking after him on his own and that this was not the first time he had left him alone. "I can't justify what my husband did. People will say it could have happened to anyone and it has happened to other people. My son was just lucky," she said. Speaking of Mr Gassama’s act, she said: “If I were to meet him, I think I would say what everyone is saying: thank you, thank you!” “At any rate, I wouldn’t have been able to go one better than the president. He has been recompensed for his act.” There have been questions over why a man on the balcony of the neighbouring fourth-floor flat couldn’t simply pull him to safety. Mamoudou Gassam rescues young child from building in Paris Credit: Telegraph But the neighbour told Le Parisien that he could only hold the boy’s hand but not pull him up because there was a divider separating the two balconies and he feared dropping him. "I didn't want to take the risk of letting go of his hand, I thought it better to do things step by step," he said. The child had been wearing a Spiderman outfit, he said, and was bleeding from his toe and had a torn nail. The boy was briefly taken into care by French authorities while police questioned his father, who was reportedly devastated, but social services concluded that the child risked no further imminent danger so gave him back custody. However, the father faces charges of failing in one's legal duty as a parent, punishable by a maximum two years in prison and a fine of €30,000 (£26,000). His mother is also due to be interviewed by social workers in Réunion. Emmanuel Macron awarded Mamadou Gassama a special medal and diploma for bravery and devotion Credit: POOL As for Mr Gassama, the 22-year-old left his native Mali in West Africa as a teenager in 2013, according to Le Monde. He crossed the Sahara desert through Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya and then traversed the Mediterranean to Italy in 2014 at his second attempt. His first bid failed when he was intercepted at sea by police. He told Mr Macron that he had travelled to France because he did not know anyone in Italy and his brother had been living in France for many years. According to Le Figaro, he has been living in squalid migrant lodgings in Montreuil, east of Paris, with three brothers and several cousins.
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Police in a Southern California coastal town said that a Tesla in autonomous mode hit a patrol car parked on the side of a road on Tuesday. No one was in the patrol car when the collision took place in the late morning, the Laguna Beach Police Department said in a message posted along with photos on Twitter. "When using Autopilot, drivers are continuously reminded of their responsibility to keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of the vehicle at all times," a Tesla spokeswoman said in response to an AFP inquiry.
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By Wednesday afternoon, most of Arkady Babchenko's friends and colleagues had gone through the familiar cycle of grief and confusion that follows the killing of a Russian dissident journalist. Obituaries had been written, travel arrangements were in train for the funeral, and Western politicians including Boris Johnson had announced they were "appalled". Meanwhile, Ukraine had blamed Russia, Russia had blamed Ukraine, and both launched rival investigations to prove their stories. And journalists in both countries, taught by bitter experience not to trust official probes into the deaths of their colleagues, pledged to run their own investigations. But then came a twist that no one could have predicted: Vasily Gritsak, the head of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU), called a press conference and announced the whole thing had been a hoax. Arkady Babchenko, centre, told a Press conference in Kiev the reported murder was part of sting operation to catch a hit squad Credit: VALENTYN OGIRENKO /Reuters For a moment, there was an uncomprehending silence. Then a door opened, and in shuffled a familiar shaven headed man. Arkady Babchenko was wearing light trousers and a black hoodie. And he was looking somewhat sheepish. "I have buried many friends and colleagues many times and I know the sickening feeling," he said, by way of explanation. "I am sorry you had to experience it. But there was no other way." "Special apologies to my wife. Olechka, I am sorry, but there were no options here," he said. "The operation took two months to prepare. I was told a month ago. As a result of the operation, one person has been captured, he is being held," he added. Mr Gritsak said Mr Babchenko's fake death, which fooled his closest friends and family, as well as international media and world leaders, had allowed Ukrainian agents to thwart a genuine plot to take the journalist's life. Arkady Babchenko was a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin Credit: Vitalii Nosach/Reuters Staging the murder, he implied, was necessary to gain evidence of communication between the hit man and his handlers, who he said worked for the Russian security services. Yury Lutsenko, Ukraine's prosecutor general, said the alleged plot had involved a Ukrainian citizen recruited by Russian handlers to carry out the murder. The SBU later released video of what they said was money being handed to the hired killer. While I am very happy Arkady is alive I am also angry and confused because my fellow reporters and I spent yesterday posting and reading memories we shared of him and feeling very down and out. This was apparently some kind of sting operation. I hope it was worth it.— Simon Ostrovsky (@SimonOstrovsky) May 30, 2018 The death and resurrection of Russia's most famous war correspondent is one of the strangest episodes in the bitter confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. Kiev hailed a victory and Moscow condemned a stunt. Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee of the upper house of the Russian parliament, compared Ukraine's actions to Britain accusing Moscow of being behind the nerve gas poisonings of a Russian former spy and his daughter in England. Russia vehemently denies poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal. "The logic is the same - to defame Russia," Kosachev told the state news agency Tass. But the move also drew criticism from journalists and media freedom groups who said it undermined faith in reporting and played into the hands of governments who dismiss unwelcome coverage as fake news. News of Mr Babchenko's "death" sent shock waves through the Russian journalistic community and opposition circles when it was announced on Tuesday evening. Ukrainian police officers guard the entrance to Babchenko's home in Kiev after his body was apparently found Credit: VALENTYN OGIRENKO /Reuters Ukrainian police said the veteran war correspondent had been killed by a gunman lurking in the stairwell outside his Kiev flat late on Tuesday evening. Police said his wife, Olga, found his body on the threshold of the flat with several gunshot wounds in his back and that he died in an ambulance on the way to hospital. All of this seemed entirely plausible to those who knew him. The 2016 Kiev murder of Pavel Sheremet, another journalist, has still not been solved Credit: VALENTYN OGIRENKO Mr Babchenko was an implacable public critic of the Kremlin whose public statements had become increasingly abrasive, and the death appeared to fit with a pattern of murders in Kiev. The unsolved deaths include that of Pavel Sheremet, a prominent Belarusian born liberal journalist who was blown up in his car in 2016. The gunman in the stairwell and the shots in the back also recalled the deaths of two other prominent Kremlin critics - Anna Politkovskaya and Boris Nemtsov, who were murdered in Moscow in 2006 and 2015. One Russian war photographer and friend of Mr Babchenko told the Telegraph he was "not surprised," on reflection, that his friend had been killed. Babchenko had fled Russia over fears to his safety Credit: Akrady Babchenko/Facebook Several acquaintances of Mr Babchenko, many of whom had posted tributes online or even written obituaries for the Russian and foreign media, expressed relief mixed with deep unease over the deception. And media freedom groups condemned the hoax, saying it could put other journalists in danger and play into the hands of those behind real murders. "It is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive," said Christophe Deloire, the head of Reporter Without Borders. "All it takes is one case like this to cast doubt on all the other political assassinations." Babchenko, a conscript in the Chechen wars, was a fierce critic of Putin Credit: Akrady Babchenko/Facebook Nor did it shine a light on the other unsolved murders - which some Ukrainian activists say the authorities have been distinctly reluctant to investigate with anything like the same level of commitment. When a Ukrainian journalist asked about the investigation into "a real murder - that of Pavel Sheremet," Mr Gritsak replied: "We have a different topic today." The Russian government, which in the morning had condemned Mr Babchenko's murder and denied accusations of involvement, in the evening welcomed his recovery and swiftly condemned the hoax as "propaganda." Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko Credit: AP "The fact that Babchenko is alive is the best news" said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the foreign ministry. "The fact that the whole story was created for propaganda effect is obvious." The Ukrainian government was defiant over the operation on Wednesday night. "I congratulate the SBU. You have conducted a brilliant operation to protect the life of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko," Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, wrote on Facebook. Anton Geraschenko, an aide to the Ukrainian interior ministry, justified the pain caused to Mr Babchenko's family and friends by the hoax saying Sherlock Holmes had used the same tactic. "Wasn't that also painful for his relatives and Dr Watson," he wrote on Facebook. Ukrainian Journalists, who originally rallied at Independence Square in Kiev to mourn anti-Kremlin journalist Arkady Babchenko, celebrate after he appeared alive and well Credit: AFP Dozens of journalists descended upon the central square in Kiev late on Wednesday, laughing, hugging and quaffing sparkling wine as they celebrated the "resurrection" of Mr Babchenko. "It's an incredible story of a resurrection," joked Russian journalist Pavel Kanygin who like several of his Russian colleagues had rushed to Kiev to cover the story. "It's a miracle, but a miracle that turned out to be a staged drama". Mr Babchenko himself was in a meeting with Mr Poroshenko as the group of journalists from local and international media popped corks and took selfies. "We were preparing for the funeral, Many of us didn't sleep last night. We bought plane tickets for the first flight to Kiev," said Kanygin, who works for the investigative Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. ATR journalists react on Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko's appearance during a news conference, in the ATR newsroom in Kiev Credit: Reuters He was at the offices of the Ukrainian private television ATR, where Mr Babchenko works, when the "murdered" journalist made his surprise reappearance. "Everybody just erupted, shouting 'hooray, he's alive,' it was an incredible moment," he said.
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Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens announces his resignation during a hastily called press conference, May 29, 2018. Politicians rise and fall, but it is difficult to think of an ascent as swift, or a downfall as brutal, as that of Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri. Celebrated only months ago as a potential Republican presidential candidate, Greitens resigned the governorship on Tuesday, as state legislators in Jefferson City expanded their inquiry into potential wrongdoing related to campaign fundraising — and moved to impeach him over the alleged blackmail and sexual assault of a woman with whom he’d once had an extramarital relationship.
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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — In a story May 29 about a Russian journalist killed in Ukraine, The Associated Press and other media organizations reported, based on fabricated information from Ukrainian authorities, that Arkady Babchenko was shot and killed. Babchenko showed up at a news conference on Wednesday, saying that Ukraine's security services faked his death to thwart a plot on his life.
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By Idrees Ali ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Tuesday that the United States would continue to confront what Washington sees as China's militarization of islands in the South China Sea, despite drawing condemnation from Beijing for an operation in the region over the weekend. Reuters first reported that two U.S. Navy warships sailed near South China Sea islands claimed by China on Sunday, even as President Donald Trump seeks Chinese cooperation on North Korea. The operation, known as "freedom of navigation," was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing's efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, where Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies operate.
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