Top Stories Today – July 8, 2019
Top Stories Today – July 8, 2019
USA women win World Cup
The United States won the Women’s World Cup for a record fourth time as they eventually overpowered the Netherlands in Lyon. Megan Rapinoe’s penalty and Rose Lavelle’s fine run and finish gave the defending champions victory in the second half, after resilient first-half defending from the Dutch.
Netherlands reaching the final in only their second World Cup, but the USA, playing in their third consecutive final, continued their reign as the world’s finest side as they added to their titles of 1991, 1999 and 2015. Rapinoe’s goal also meant she won the Golden Boot after finishing with six goals and three assists, while she also took the Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player. BBC
Iran enriching above deal’s limit
Iran began enriching uranium Monday to 4.5%, breaking the limit set by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, semi-official news agencies in the country reported. The acknowledgement by the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran comes a day after Iran pledged to break the deal’s limit of 3.67%.
Experts warn higher enrichment and a growing stockpile could begin to narrow the one-year window Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic bomb, something Iran denies it wants but the deal prevented. Trump warned Tehran on Sunday that “Iran better be careful.” He didn’t elaborate on what actions the US might consider, but Trump told reporters: “Iran’s doing a lot of bad things.” Iran has been closely monitored by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. The Associated Press
S Korean man defects to N Korea
A South Korean man has defected to North Korea to permanently live there and work for its unification with the South, Pyongyang’s state media reported. Choe In-guk is the son of two high level diplomats who also defected to the communist North in 1984 after a political dispute with then-South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The state-run North Korean Uriminzokkiri website reported that Choe would work at the guidance of the country’s Chairman Kim Jong Un.
The website published images and footage showing Choe in a beret reading a statement upon his arrival at Pyongyang’s international airport. Choe said he is over 70 years old and that he made the decision to fulfill his parents’ “dying wishes” for him to “follow” North Korea and work for the unification of both countries, a written statement published on the website said. The Voice of America
ICC convicts Ntaganda on war crimes
The International Criminal Court found former Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda guilty Monday of all 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ntaganda had denied being a killer and a war criminal when he spoke at his trial in The Hague Thursday. Ntaganda insisted he was a soldier, not a criminal He said, “I have never attacked civilians…I have always protected them.”
he comments pose a sharp contrast to the image painted by ICC prosecutors, who say Ntaganda commanded a rebel group, the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), that killed, raped and exploited people in Congo’s eastern Ituri province in 2002 and 2003. A lawyer for victims told the court that girls as young as 12 were forced to serve as so-called wives to senior rebel commanders. The 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, included charges of murder, sexual slavery, enlistment of child soldiers and forcible transfer of population. The Voice of America
Billionaire due in court on sex trafficking charges
Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein is expected to be formally charged in a Manhattan court on Monday following his arrest over the weekend on charges of sex trafficking of underage girls. Federal agents arrested Epstein, a convicted sex offender, at a New Jersey airport on Saturday evening, and raided his Manhattan home an hour later.
The charges, which reportedly allege that Epstein sexually exploited underage girls in his Upper East Side and Palm Beach homes, are expected to be at least partly revealed on Monday. Epstein, 66, served 13 months in a Florida jail under a heavily criticized 2008 plea deal signed by Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, then US attorney in Miami. The Miami Herald, The New York Times via The Week
ICE is collecting American’s driver license photos
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been scanning through millions of Americans’ driver’s license photos without their knowledge or consent, using controversial and error-prone facial recognition technology, The Washington Post reports, citing new documents unearthed by Georgetown Law researchers using public-records requests.
Civil libertarians and a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers decried the use of facial recognition as an unsanctioned privacy violation of law-abiding Americans. The FBI has also conducted more than 390,000 searches through DMV and visa application photos over the past decade, a recent Government Accountability Office report found, but this is a first known evidence that ICE used facial recognition technology on state driver’s license photos. The Washington Post, The New York Times via The Week