Plane Crashes Into Apartment Building In US: Report

A small aircraft crashed into an apartment building off Interstate 85 in northeast Atlanta on Wednesday, police said.

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"Politics Over Dead Bodies": BJP Leader On Mamata Banerjee Remark On J&K

A BJP leader on Wednesday slammed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for blaming the central government over the killing of five labourers belonged by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam...

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5 Cheap(ish) Things to Take Stargazing

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Kind of Experiment

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Philippines Struck by Second Big Earthquake in Three Days

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LIVE Updates: PM Modi In Kevadiya On Sardar Patel's Birth Anniversary

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at the ''Statue of Unity'' in Kevadiya, Gujarat, to mark his 144th birth anniversary on Thursday.

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J&K Not A State From Today, Officially Split Into 2 Union Territories

Nearly three months after the central government scrapped Jammu and Kashmir's decades-old special status under Article 370, the state has officially been split into two Union Territories - Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh - from midnight. The two new Union Territories have come into existence on the 144th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who is credited for the merger of over 560 princely states into the Union of India. Today, October 31, is also celebrated as National Unity Day. With the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir, the number of states in India has come down to 28 and the number of Union Territories has gone up to nine. While Jammu and Kashmir will continue to have a legislature, like in Puducherry, Ladakh will be without one, like Chandigarh.

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"Putin's Chef", Who Influenced US Polls, Now Meddling In Africa: Facebook

Facebook announced Wednesday that it had removed three networks of accounts it says are associated with Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Kremlin-linked businessman whom U.S. authorities...

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Many Arrested In Kolkata For Bursting Crackers On Kali Puja, Diwali

As many as 1965 people were arrested in two days from different areas of the city during Kali Puja and Diwali celebrations, police said on Wednesday.

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Ford and U.A.W. in Tentative Contract Deal

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Kashmir An Issue between India, Pak, UK's Stance Unchanged: Boris Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday said in Parliament that the UK's long-standing stance of Kashmir being a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan remains unchanged although the...

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Centre Notifies Regulations On Ownership Rights In Unauthorised Colonies

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has notified regulations to confer ownership rights to residents of 1,731 unauthorised colonies in Delhi, setting a two-year deadline for the DDA to...

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The Clintons and Justice Ginsburg on Judicial Nominations, Then and Now

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Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Says Baghdadi's Death Falls Short Of Justice

Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad said Wednesday the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a US raid over the weekend was not enough to compensate for the atrocities committed by his ISIS.

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New ISIS Leader Could Replace Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi In Weeks: US Official

The ISIS's leadership has a "deep bench" and a replacement for deceased chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi could surface within weeks, the US government's top counter-terrorism expert said Wednesday.

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Your Move, Facebook

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Twitter To Ban All Political Ads Amid 2020 Election Uproar

Twitter on Wednesday said it would ban all advertisements about political candidates, elections and hot-button policy issues such as abortion and immigration, a significant shift that comes in...

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Twitter To Ban Political Ads Worldwide On Its Platform

Twitter said Wednesday it would stop accepting political advertising globally on its platform, responding to growing concerns over misinformation from politicians on social media.

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How to Eat Alone (and Like It)

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Georgia Plans to Purge 300,000 Names From Its Voter Rolls

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Stick to Sports? No Way. Deadspin Journalists Quit en Masse.

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Hundreds of U.S. Troops Leaving, and Also Arriving in, Syria

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Iraq Prime Minister Pressed to Quit as Protests Clog Streets

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2 Girls Missing From Odisha Shelter Home Rescued From Bengaluru, Chennai

Two girls who were missing from a shelter home in Odisha's Kalahandi district since last month have been rescued from Bengaluru and Chennai, a police officer said on Tuesday.

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Telangana Girl, 17, Battling Cancer Made Police Commissioner For A Day

Rachakonda Police Commissionerate on Tuesday fulfilled the cherished wish of a 17-year-old battling blood cancer by making her Police Commissioner for a day.

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Boris Johnson Wins Support For Early Election, Brexit Center Stage

Parliament will dissolve next week, and the parties will go into overdrive on their five-week campaigns.

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India, Saudi Arabia Sign Several Pacts As PM Modi Meets With Crown Prince

India and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday inked over a dozen agreements in several key sectors including oil and gas, defence and civil aviation to bolster their ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held...

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Maharashtra Couple Robbed Houses After Watching Videos Online; Arrested

A couple in their 20s have been arrested for allegedly robbing houses after learning various methods of break-in by watching YouTube videos, police in Maharashtra's Nagpur said on Tuesday.

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Trump Official Testifies In Impeachment Inquiry, Hints At Abuse Of Power

A new witness in the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump rocked the White House Tuesday with testimony that he personally witnessed officials pressuring Ukraine to help Trump...

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White House Ukraine Expert Sought to Correct Transcript of Trump Call

By BY JULIAN E. BARNES, NICHOLAS FANDOS AND DANNY HAKIM from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2BUttVr

Sony to Shut Down PlayStation Vue, a Cable Alternative

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New top story from Time: Judge Strikes Down Pittsburgh Gun Laws Passed After Tree of Life Massacre

A judge on Tuesday struck down gun restrictions that the Pittsburgh City Council imposed after last year’s synagogue massacre, noting that Pennsylvania state law forbids municipalities from regulating firearms.

Pittsburgh’s trio of gun ordinances violate state law and are therefore “void and unenforceable,” Allegheny County Judge Joseph James ruled.

State law has long prohibited municipalities from regulating the ownership or possession of guns or ammunition, and Pennsylvania courts have thrown out previous municipal attempts at regulation.

“We are extremely pleased with Judge James’ decision today striking down the City of Pittsburgh’s unlawful firearm ordinances and signage, which only sought to eviscerate the inviolate right of the residents of the Commonwealth to keep and bear arms and ensnare law-abiding citizens through a patchwork of laws,” said attorney Joshua Prince, who represents Firearms Owners Against Crime and other groups that sued to overturn the measures.

City officials vowed an appeal.

Pittsburgh “will continue to fight for the right to take commonsense steps to prevent future gun violence,” said Timothy McNulty, a spokesman for Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto.

The gun restrictions were passed in April after a mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 worshippers. The ordinances would have restricted military-style assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle authorities say was used in the attack. It also banned most uses of armor-piercing ammunition and high-capacity magazines, and allowed the temporary seizure of guns from people who are determined to be a danger to themselves or others.

The overwhelmingly Democratic council passed the legislation, and Peduto signed off. Council members who voted no called the legislation a waste of time and money, given the uncertainty over whether it would ever go into effect. Supporters said it was worth the effort.

The city “expended a large amount of energy” arguing that its new laws did not run afoul of state law, the judge noted, but city officials “are not able to avoid the obvious intent of the Legislature” to prevent municipalities from enforcing their own gun laws.

Pittsburgh tried enforcing an assault-weapons ban in 1993, but the state Legislature quickly took action to invalidate the measure, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that city officials had overstepped.

WhatsApp Accuses Israeli Firm Of Helping Governments Hack Phones

The messaging service WhatsApp filed suit in federal court Tuesday against the Israeli surveillance company NSO, claiming it acted illegally in helping governments hack into the mobile devices of more...

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Why New York Can’t Pick Up Its Trash

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British Family To Sue American Suspected Of Killing Their Teen Son

The family of a motorcyclist killed in a crash involving the wife of an American diplomat have announced they are planning to sue US President Donald Trump's administration over an alleged cover-up.

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Toyota’s Support of Trump Emissions Rules Shocks Californians

By BY TIFFANY HSU from NYT Business https://ift.tt/34gMn5g

US House Of Representatives Recognises Armenian Genocide In Historic Vote

The US House of Representatives took the historic step Tuesday of passing a resolution officially recognizing the "Armenian genocide," a move sure to anger Turkey amid already-heightened tensions with...

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Woman Who Oversaw Robberies Targeting Asians and Indians Gets 37 Years in Prison

By BY MARIEL PADILLA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/369Aa3Q

72 British Lawmakers Condemn ‘Colonial’ Coverage of Meghan

By BY ALAN YUHAS from NYT World https://ift.tt/2BRnK2I

House Passes Resolution Recognizing Armenian Genocide

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Despair for Many and Silver Linings for Some in California Wildfires

By BY THOMAS FULLER, JULIE TURKEWITZ AND JOSE A. DEL REAL from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/32WbkCw

Can the Nationals and Astros Turn This World Series Into a Classic?

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‘Fear’ Review: 3 Men in a Shed, 1 Missing Girl on Their Minds

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Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Declines Environmental Award

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday refused to accept an environmental award, saying the climate movement needed people in power to start to "listen" to "science" and not awards.

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WhatsApp Sues Israeli Firm NSO Group Over Cyber-Espionage

WhatsApp on Tuesday sued Israeli technology firm NSO Group, accusing it of using the Facebook-owned messaging service to conduct cyberespionage on journalists, human rights activists and others.

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New top story from Time: George Papadopoulos, a Key Figure in the FBI’s Russia Probe, Seeks Rep. Katie Hill’s California Seat

LOS ANGELES — George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide who was a key figure in the FBI’s Russia probe, filed paperwork Tuesday to run for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Democrat Katie Hill.

Papadopoulos didn’t immediately comment, but on Sunday he tweeted, “I love my state too much to see it run down by candidates like Hill. All talk, no action, and a bunch of sellouts.”

Hill, whose district covers Los Angeles County, announced her resignation on Sunday amid an ethics probe into allegations she had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.

She’s admitted to a consensual relationship with a campaign staff member, but denied one with a congressional staff member, which would violate U.S. House rules. She’s called herself the victim of revenge porn by an abusive husband she is divorcing.

Papadopoulos, meanwhile, was a key figure in the FBI’s Russia probe into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. That investigation began after revelations that Papadopoulos had learned in 2016 from a Maltese professor that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. He then used that connection to try to set up a meeting between President Donald Trump, then a candidate, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Papadopoulos eventually pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and cooperated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He was sentenced in fall 2018 to 14 days in prison.

He enters a field of at least three other Republicans and one Democrat. The other Republicans are Navy veteran Mike Garcia, bank executive Angela Jacobs Underwood and Mark Cripe, who works for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Former Republican Rep. Steve Knight, who lost the seat to Hill in 2018, is also considering running.

The seat was the last Los Angeles County seat to be held by Republicans before Hill’s victory and was one of seven Democrats flipped last year.

State Assemblywoman Christy Smith is the only Democrat in the race so far. She quickly criticized Papadopoulos on Tuesday.

“If he pled guilty to lying to the FBI – how do we know he’ll tell us the truth?” Smith tweeted. “We deserve someone from our community serving as our voice – not (Trump’s) wannabe political hack!”

"Great Job": Trump Tweets Photo Of Dog Who Chased ISIS Chief In Raid

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Dead: The military dog slightly wounded in the US raid which resulted in the death of jihadist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is recovering and back on duty, the chairman of the US...

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As Kurds Tracked ISIS Leader, U.S. Withdrawal Threw Raid Into Turmoil

By BY BEN HUBBARD AND ERIC SCHMITT from NYT World https://ift.tt/32T0GMQ

What the U.S. Withdrawal Cost the Kurds

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"We Know We Made Mistakes," Says Boeing CEO On 737 MAX Plane

Boeing Co Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg will acknowledge on Tuesday that the aircraft manufacturer made mistakes, as he appears at a congressional hearing on two 737 MAX crashes that killed 346...

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"Ahead Of Schedule" On China Trade Deal, Says Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he expected to sign a significant part of the trade deal with China ahead of schedule but did not elaborate on the timing.

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Syrian Agent Stole ISIS Chief's Underwear For DNA Test Before His Death

A Syrian Kurd undercover agent took a pair of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's underwear for DNA identification ahead of the US raid that killed him, a Kurdish official said Monday.

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Army Officer on White House Staff Reported Concerns on Trump’s Ukraine Dealings

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Baghdadi Aide Killed In "Continuation Of Previous Operation" In Syria: US

The United States on Monday confirmed the killing of Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, ISIS spokesman and a high-ranking figure within the terror group, in a separate U.S operation, according to a senior...

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An Alternative to the Salad Spinner

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Cookbook Authors Discuss Jewish Cuisine

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Flavored Salts From Momofuku

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The Baltic States Get Their Culinary Due

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Boris Johnson Loses Early Election Bid Hours After Brexit Delay Agreement

British MPs on Monday defeated yet another attempt by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to force an early election, just hours after the European Union agreed to postpone Brexit for up to three months.

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New top story from Time: Lone Oregon GOP Congressman Greg Walden to Retire

SALEM, Ore. — The lone Republican in Oregon’s congressional delegation won’t seek reelection to a 12th term, throwing a huge district covering a conservative part of the state up for grabs.

With less than seven months to go before the 2020 primaries, Rep. Greg Walden’s videotaped announcement on Monday sets up further changes in the U.S. House of Representatives, which Democrats regained control of in the 2018 midterm elections.

Walden is the 19th House Republican to announce he or she will not seek re-election. Three other GOP lawmakers have resigned.

Walden is a former chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee and now serves as the top Republican on the energy panel. He was a key player in GOP efforts to replace President Barack Obama’s health care law but was considered a moderate.

The surprise resignation injected drama into Oregon politics, with the race for secretary of state having been considered the most compelling. One of the Democratic candidates for secretary of state, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, had run against Walden in 2018.

McLeod-Skinner indicated she was considering her options.

Oregon GOP Chairman Bill Currier said the group expects to have a strong nominee.

Walden said he could have won the next election based on recent polling and strong fundraising. But he said he will instead pursue new challenges and opportunities.

Walden, 62, did not specify what he wants to do next, but it won’t be running for a different political office.

“I will not seek re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives, nor election to any other office, but instead I will close the public service chapter of my life, thankful for the friends I’ve made and the successful work we’ve done together,” Walden said. He addressed the camera from the deck of a home with a backdrop of tall fir trees.

Walden is a former radio station owner and was first elected to represent Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District in 1998. The district of 70,000-square-miles (180,000-square-kilometers) covers high desert, mountains and forests and is the second-biggest in America among states with multiple districts. Far from the liberal Portland metro area, the district voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in 2016.

Walden likely would have had an easy path to re-election, though parts of the district, like the outdoorsy retirement mecca of Bend, have become more liberal.

A town hall that Walden staged in Bend, in 2017, became raucous as constituents packed into a high school gymnasium clashed with him on issues like gun control, health care, immigration and the environment. Walden told the town hall he was not a climate change denier and that he supports renewable energy. But he took flack for backing construction of a pipeline was halted amid protests in the Obama administration, but later approved by Trump.

Walden grew up on a cherry orchard and is from Hood River, a town along the scenic banks of the Columbia River.

Like Bend, the demographics of surrounding Hood River County have also been changing. In the 2008 election, Walden won almost double the votes in the county as his Democratic challenger.

In 2018, McLeod-Skinner — who ran a tireless campaign, touring the vast district in a Jeep pulling a teardrop trailer that she slept in — turned the tables and received 6,735 votes in Hood River County compared with 3,578 for Walden.

“Walden’s decision not to seek reelection demonstrates the power of our efforts last year to flip the House and establish accountability,” McLeod-Skinner said in a telephone interview. “Since his statement, I’ve received a lot of calls, and I’m going to take a little time to return them.”

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minnesota, chairman of the House GOP campaign arm, said Walden assured him that he will remain heavily engaged in ensuring his seat remains in Republican hands.

“This is a solidly Republican district, and it will remain so in 2020,” Emmer said.

The Oregon Farm Bureau called Walden a “stalwart champion for Oregon agriculture.”

Rep. Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, said he was honored to represent Oregon alongside Walden. He was “always working to promote bipartisanship and fairness,” Schrader said.

___

Daly reported from Washington.

2 Photos of Tense White House Moments: Note the Differences

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A Chocolate Bar With a Golden Blockchain Token

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In Praise of ‘Human Scum’

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No, the Nationals Are Not Cursed by an Early Plan to Celebrate

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Iraqi Antigovernment Protests Grow, Part Battle Lines and Carnival

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With California Ablaze, Firefighters Strain to Keep Up

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His Mind Fading, a Former Football Star Wonders but Cannot Know

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US House To Hold First Formal Impeachment Process Vote Against Trump

The US House of Representatives will hold its first formal vote Thursday on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, a senior aide said, as Democrats forge ahead with a process that...

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New top story from Time: A Dutch Inventor Has Unveiled a Device that Scoops Plastic out of Rivers

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch inventor Boyan Slat is widening his effort to clean up floating plastic from the Pacific Ocean by moving into rivers, too, using a new floating device to catch garbage before it reaches the seas.

The 25-year-old university dropout founded The Ocean Cleanup to develop and deploy a system he invented when he was 18 that catches plastic waste floating in the ocean.

On Saturday he unveiled the next step in his fight: A floating solar-powered device that he calls the “Interceptor” that scoops plastic out of rivers as it drifts past.

“We need to close the tap, which means preventing more plastic from reaching the ocean in the first place,” he said, calling rivers “the arteries that carry the trash from land to sea.”

Slat’s organization has in the past drawn criticism for focusing only on the plastic trash already floating in the world’s oceans.

Experts say that some 9 million tons (8 million metric tons) of plastic waste, including plastic bottles, bags, toys and other items, flow annually into the ocean from beaches, rivers and creeks.

Three of the machines already are deployed to Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam — and a fourth is heading to the Dominican Republic, he said.

Izham Hashim from the government of Selangor state in Malaysia was present at the launch and said he was happy with the machine.

“It has been used for one and a half months in the river and it’s doing very well, collecting the plastic bottles and all the rubbish,” he said.

Slat said he believes 1,000 rivers are responsible for some 80% of plastic pouring into the world’s oceans and he wants to tackle them all in the coming five years.

“This is not going to be easy, but imagine if we do get this done,” he told his audience of enthusiastic supporters, who whooped, clapped and cheered his announcements. “We could truly make our oceans clean again.”

The vessel is designed to be moored in rivers and has a nose shaped to deflect away larger floating debris like tree trunks.

He used his live-streamed unveiling to appeal for support from countries committing to clean up their rivers and businesses prepared to inject funding and help with the operation of the devices.

The interceptors work by guiding plastic waste into an opening in its bow, a conveyor belt then carries the trash into the guts of the machine where it is dropped into dumpsters. The interceptor sends a text message to local operators that can come and empty it when it’s full.

Slat showed off how it worked by dumping hundreds of yellow rubber ducks into the water at the launch event in Rotterdam’s port. The interceptor caught nearly all of them.

The machines currently cost about 700,000 euros ($775,600), but Slat said the cost will likely drop as production increases.

Jan van Franeker of the Wageningen Marine Research institute has been critical of The Ocean Cleanup in the past, but said the new device looks promising.

“I am really happy they finally moved toward the source of the litter,” he said in a telephone interview. “The design, from what I can see, looks pretty good.”

Slat argued that the economic impact of not picking plastic out of rivers is higher than the cost of buying and using the machines.

“Deploying interceptors is even cheaper than deploying nothing at all,” he said.

New top story from Time: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Is Dead. Where Does That Leave ISIS?

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the fugitive emir of ISIS, the man who transformed a breakaway al-Qaeda group into a transnational terrorist franchise that brutalized and killed civilians in more than a dozen countries and who threatened to rewrite the map of the Middle East by luring foreign recruits to wage jihad in Iraq and Syria, is dead.

So what happens to the terror organization that he painstakingly assembled?

In many ways, the group is already evolving. ISIS leadership ranks have proved resilient despite more than five years of war. The group has been quick to adapt to new circumstances. No longer capable of seizing and holding territory, the surviving foot soldiers have instead gone back to their guerrilla roots, carrying out ambushes, bombings and assassinations. And despite the loss of its territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has expanded its reach to include 14 separate affiliates in countries across Asia and Africa.

In the long-term, analysts say, what may be most significant about Saturday’s Special Operations commando raid is not al-Baghdadi’s decapitation from ISIS’ shadowy hierarchy but the ease with which he will be replaced. The group, like its predecessor organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq, routinely taps new commanders to fill the vacuum left by those who are assassinated. The replacements occur with such regularity that the U.S. Special Operations community jokingly refers to removing leaders as “mowing the grass.”

“Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death —welcome and important though it may be— is not a catastrophic blow to the quality of leadership in ISIS,” says Michael Nagata, who retired as Army Lieutenant General and strategy director from the National Counterterrorism Center in August.

Nagata, who served in the Middle East as a Special Operations commander in 2014 when the counter-ISIS campaign began, says ISIS now has a cadre of young battle-hardened leaders who are climbing toward the top echelons and establishing themselves in the terror group’s global network. “ISIS isn’t a crippled organization because Baghdadi’s gone,” he says. “The depth and breadth of ISIS leadership, in my judgment, is unprecedented for this type of terrorist group.”

Since the first days of U.S. involvement in the war against ISIS, Special Operations forces and intelligence agencies hunted and killed the group’s leaders one-by-one. But they’ve always regrouped.

“As we’ve seen over the last several years, the group also has a strategy to carry on operations into the next decade,” says Aki Peritz, a former CIA counterterrorism analyst and co-author of “Find, Fix, Finish: Inside the Counterterrorism Campaigns that Killed bin Laden and Devastated Al Qaeda.” “It’s good to take out the leader, but it’s not just a terrorist group —it’s an ideology as well; stamping out the idea of the Islamic State will prove to be much more difficult than one successful military/intelligence operation.”

“It’s good to take out the leader, but it’s not just a terrorist group—it’s an ideology as well.” After all, al-Qaeda endured after founder Osama bin Laden was killed in a 2011 Navy SEAL raid. And Al Qaeda in Iraq lived on as ISIS after its founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a 2006 U.S. airstrike.

U.S. counterterrorism officials expect ISIS to name a successor in the coming days or weeks. A likely candidate is al-Baghdadi’s defense chief, Iyad al-Obaidi. But regardless of who leads the Sunni extremist group, it is now a shadow of the organization that launched a lightning offensive in Iraq and Syria that resulted in the seizure of territory the size of Britain and raked in millions of dollars a day.

The seeds for resurgence, however, are there. According to a recent Defense Department Inspector General’s report, ISIS has between 14,000 and 18,000 members who’ve pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi. In addition, there are more than 30 detention camps that hold about 11,000 ISIS fighters, sympathizers and other associated detainees across northern Syria. Another camp for internally displaced persons known as al-Hol, in northeastern Syria, holds nearly 70,000 people, including thousands of ISIS family members. The U.S. military reported in February that “absent sustained pressure,” the terrorist group would re-emerge in Syria within six to 12 months.

Moreover, ISIS remains a worldwide threat because the group has a constellation of affiliates in places as far-flung as Nigeria and Pakistan, according to a report from the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. “ISIS’ global presence provides footholds from which to further metastasize, launch attacks, and gain resources to fund its resurgence in Iraq and Syria,” the report said, documenting recent plans for attacks on the West that emanated from affiliates in Libya, Somalia and the Philippines.

The death of militant leaders, however, frequently leads to fractures within terror organizations and new directions in strategy, says Norman T. Roule, a former senior CIA officer with experience in Middle East issues. “In the wake of Baghdadi’s death, ISIS groups abroad could go in a number of directions,” he says. “Some may decide to reconcile with al-Qaeda, some may decide to undertake revenge operations to demonstrate that ISIS remains potent. Some planned operations could be accelerated if the ISIS planners believe the intelligence found with Baghdadi might identify them.”

Omar Haj Kadour—AFP/Getty ImagesA Syrian man inspects the site of helicopter gunfire near the northwestern Syrian village of Barisha on Oct. 27, 2019.

Colin P. Clarke, a fellow at the Soufan Center and author of “After the Caliphate: The Islamic State and the Future of the Terrorist Diaspora,” says there have already been signs of an “ISIS 2.0” emerging. “It’s unclear what Baghdadi’s death could do to exacerbate the changes underway,” he says. “Baghdadi was the face of the ISIS brand. He had a cult of personality.”

Born into a religiously devout lower-middle-class Sunni Muslim family in Iraq in 1971, Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim al-Badri, who years later adopted the nom de guerre al-Baghdadi, was an unexceptional, shy child, according to recent biographies based on interviews with those who knew him. He never excelled at religious scholarship but was talented at the recitation of Quranic verse. In college and graduate school, he studied the style and technique of reciting the Quran, and he wrote a master’s thesis on a medieval commentary on the subject.

Al-Baghdadi’s finishing school in radicalism was unwittingly provided by the U.S. In February 2004, after the invasion of Iraq, he was visiting a friend in Fallujah when U.S. Army intelligence officers burst in and arrested them both. Al-Baghdadi was taken to the notorious prison at Camp Bucca, which inadvertently came to serve as an incubator for Sunni jihadism, according to former camp officials. There he was a skilled networker, courting radical factions and building a reputation as a religious leader based on his Islamic studies.

These talents didn’t register on his captors, though, who judged al-Baghdadi to be a low-risk prisoner. Released at the end of 2004, he returned to the Iraqi capital, where he pursued a doctorate and joined a series of jihadi groups invigorated by the fall of Saddam Hussein and the U.S. occupation. In early 2006, he found his ultimate home in the Iraqi al-Qaeda offshoot led by Zarqawi, a former violent criminal from Jordan whom U.S. forces killed that June. Al-Baghdadi’s nominal religious qualifications and rigid dogmatism carried him quickly through the ranks, and in May 2010, after the U.S. killed the only two men above him, he emerged as the emir.

Along with his ambitious territorial goals in the Middle East, al-Baghdadi elaborated an apocalyptic vision of a final battle between the forces of radical Islam and the West. In a Ramadan sermon in mid-2014, he declared slavery the universal human condition: Muslim believers are indentured to Allah, while nonbelievers are the rightful property of Muslims. He also said the time of death for each man and woman is preordained, implying that all killings must be the will of Allah. This teaching paved the way for his chief spokesman to deliver the following message to ISIS supporters everywhere a few months later: “If you can kill a disbelieving American or European,” the spokesman said, “kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military.”

Gabriella Demczuk for TIMEPresident Donald Trump announces the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a raid by American special operations forces in Syria, at the White House on Oct. 27, 2019.

The bloodthirsty rhetoric, often relayed on slickly produced videos that pin-balled around social media, proved an innovative tactic that resonated with disaffected youth. ISIS recruited around 43,000 fighters from 120 countries to the caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Some acted in al-Baghdadi’s name at home, killing hundreds of innocents at hotels, mosques and concert halls from Paris to the Sinai, Beirut to San Bernardino, Calif.

The widespread violence earned al-Baghdadi a $25-million U.S. bounty on his head and enemies across the world. He went underground. For years there were erroneous reports that he was seriously wounded or killed. After the collapse of his self-proclaimed caliphate, al-Baghdadi had been shuttling back-and-forth in the desert between western Iraq and eastern Syria, traveling mostly in cars and Toyota pickup trucks with a small entourage that included heavily armed bodyguards, according to a U.S. intelligence official. He rarely stayed more than one night in the same place, and like bin Laden, communicated by courier rather than using phones or computers, the official said. Al-Baghdadi was located when Iraqi forces picked up two members of his entourage in an unrelated operation and passed the intelligence they collected to the CIA.

After a five-year absence from public view, al-Baghdadi had appeared April 29 in an 18-minute propaganda video. In a black tunic with a Kalashnikov rifle at his side, he stated that ISIS’s fight against the West was far from over. “Our battle today is a war of attrition to harm the enemy, and they should know that jihad will continue until doomsday,” he told a roomful of followers seated cross-legged on the floor.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on al-Baghdadi’s death, told TIME that danger still looms from al-Baghdadi’s call for followers to shift from larger attacks to more small actions outside Iraq and Syria. Even so, the official said that al-Baghdadi’s death, while partly symbolic, would “silence maybe the most inspirational terrorist voice that remained.”

—with reporting by John Walcott and Kimberly Dozier from Washington

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PHOENIX (AP) — A lawsuit filed against Southwest Airlines by a flight attendant alleges pilots on a 2017 flight had an iPad streaming video from a hidden camera in a bathroom in one of the airline’s jets.

Southwest responded Saturday by denying it places cameras in aircraft lavatories and by calling the 2017 incident an “inappropriate attempt at humor” not condoned by the company.

The lawsuit alleges flight attendant Renee Steinaker saw an iPad streaming video from the plane’s forward bathroom when she entered the cockpit to be the required second person in the cockpit when the pilot left to use the bathroom about 2½ hours into a Feb. 27, 2017, flight to Phoenix from Pittsburgh.

According to the suit, Steinaker saw the pilot in the streaming video on the iPad and the co-pilot “with a panicked look on his face” acknowledged that the iPad was streaming from a camera in the bathroom but asserted it was a “new security and top-secret security measure installed in all of Southwest’s Boeing 737-800 planes.”

The suit said Steinaker took a cellphone photo of the iPad video, provided the photo with a report to Southwest management and was warned by a supervisor to not tell anybody about the incident.

According to the suit, Steinaker was warned, “if this got out, if this went public, no one, I mean no one, would ever fly our airline again.”

Court filings by attorneys for Dallas-based Southwest and the two pilots denied the livestreaming allegations, and Southwest on Saturday issued statements saying it will vigorously contest the suit and denying it places cameras in aircraft lavatories.

“When the incident happened two years ago, we investigated the allegations and addressed the situation with the crew involved,” the company’s second statement said. “We can confirm from our investigation that there was never a camera in the lavatory; the incident was an inappropriate attempt at humor which the company did not condone.”

The suit against Southwest, a company known for its joking and irreverent behavior by flight crews, and the two pilots was announced Saturday by attorneys for Steinaker and her husband, also a Southwest flight attendant.

The suit was originally filed on behalf of the Steinakers, who live in metro Phoenix, in an Arizona state court in October 2018 and was moved in late August to federal court in Phoenix.

An attorney for the couple, Ronald L. M. Goldman, said the alleged livestreaming would compromise safety by distracting crew members and intrude on the privacy of those using the bathroom.

“The cockpit of a commercial airliner is not a playground for peeping toms,” Goldman said in a statement.

An initial version of the suit alleged that both spouses experienced discrimination, harassment and retaliation in connection with Renee Steinaker’s reporting of the in-flight incident.

A later version of the suit didn’t include those allegations but said they would be restored if the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission approved suing on those allegations.

No trial date has been set for the suit, which seeks specified awards based on various damages claims.

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