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October 15, 2018 at 7:41 pm
Paris - Flash floods that tore through several towns in southwest France following an overnight storm killed at least 12 people, authorities said Monday. Some residents had to be helicoptered from rooftops as the equivalent of several months of rain poured down in a few hours and turned waterways into raging torrents.
Initially, the French Interior Ministry reported 13 deaths from the floods in the Aude region. French officials lowered the number to 10 later, saying some victims had been counted twice. The Interior Ministry and Aude officials put it at 12 after two more bodies were recovered in the towns of Trebes and Carcassonne.
At least six of the deaths happened in Trebes, Mayor Eric Menassi said. Eight people were injured throughout the affected region and one person was missing as ...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:37 pm
Chicago, IL - The real estate investment trusts that own the malls and shopping centers where many Sears stores are anchor tenants have waited years for the retailer’s demise to renovate the sites and boost rent, although redevelopment costs may strain some plans.
Most large U.S. malls are controlled by REITs. In recent years, the REITs have cut their exposure to Sears Holdings Corp, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. Sears said it plans to close 142 stores.
Sears now accounts for less than 1.0 percent of many REITs’ base rental income. Gaining control of vacated sites will be costly, while rebuilding the stores can run about $10 million to $12 million, or about $100 per square foot, for each site.
But most REIT shares gained on Monday as investors focuse...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:34 pm
Lynn Haven, FL - President Donald Trump marveled at the roofless homes and uprooted trees he saw Monday while touring Florida Panhandle communities ravaged by the force of Hurricane Michael.
Trump toured devastated coastal communities by air, land and foot before he and the first lady helped hand out bottled water at a Federal Emergency Management Agency aid distribution center, where the needy signed up for temporary housing and picked up clothing, diapers, water and other supplies.
The president said someone described Hurricane Michael to him as being “like a very wide, extremely wide, tornado.”
“Look behind you. I mean, those massive trees are just ripped out of the earth. This is really incredible,” Trump said.
Trump narrowly won Florida over Democrat Hillar...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:34 pm
Bangor, Maine - A hazardous materials team was called Monday to investigate a suspicious letter sent to the home of Republican Sen. Susan Collins, police officials said.
Police and fire vehicles were parked outside her home, and several people in hazmat suits were seen entering the home. Yellow police tape was wrapped around the perimeter of the property.
The senator’s husband, Thomas Daffron, was at home but Collins wasn’t there at the time.
“Her husband is at the house now, and she’s on her way home,” said Annie Clark, spokeswoman for Collins.
Critics have vowed that Collins will for voting to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But it was unclear who sent the letter or why.
Bangor Police Sgt. Wade Betters said that the public isn’t bel...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:33 pm
Istanbul - Saudi Arabia is reportedly ready to concede that a missing Saudi writer was killed in its consulate in Istanbul.
CNN reports that the Saudi government is preparing to say Jamal Khashoggi died during an interrogation that went wrong. The report was attributed to two unnamed sources. It says one of the sources told them that the intention was to abduct Khashoggi and it had not been authorized by the Saudi government.
President Donald Trump told reporters Monday that he was aware of the report but did not know if it was correct. He says the U.S. is working with Saudi Arabia and Turkey to figure out what happened.
Trump calls Khashoggi’s disappearance a “terrible situation.”
Khashoggi wrote for The Washington Post opinion pages. He was last seen entering the Sa...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:33 pm
PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — Records released by prosecutors reveal that Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz trespassed on school grounds about six months before the massacre that left 17 dead.
A Parkland computer science teacher says she saw Cruz on the first day of school in August 2017, carrying a backpack and hanging with other students as if he were one of them. He was kicked out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School the previous year. Sandra Rennie's interview was released by prosecutors Friday.
She said Cruz told her he was a student again and she welcomed him back, but immediately asked an administrator whether he was in her classes. She said the administrator left to escort him off school grounds.
Rennie had previously taught Cruz. She said he once became angry b...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:32 pm
MEXICO BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The Latest on recovery efforts after Hurricane Michael (all times local):
5 p.m.
Researchers at the University of Florida estimate that Florida's cotton crop has been nearly decimated by Hurricane Michael's rampage.
Researchers at the school's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences said Monday that about 90 percent of Florida's cotton crop remained in the fields when Michael struck. They also estimate that about 40 percent of Florida's peanut crop is lost.
The researchers say they haven't yet calculated the value of Florida's crop losses from the Category 4 hurricane, which crashed ashore last Wednesday. They say the hurricane potentially impacted 3.6 million acres (1.4 million hectares) of upland forest and 1 mill...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:32 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions created a new task force aimed at zeroing in on the three of the world's most notorious drug cartels and the brutal MS-13 street gang, already considered a top priority for federal law enforcement.
Speaking to a group of federal prosecutors on Monday, Sessions designated five groups as top transnational organized crime threats and said the new task force will "develop a plan to take each of these groups off of our streets for good."
Sessions, who been on the receiving end of relentless verbal jabs from President Donald Trump and may be in the final stretches of his tenure, was speaking directly to one of the president's prime targets amid the administration's broader crackdown on immigration: MS-13.
Trump has sa...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:32 pm
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Concerned about downed power lines sparking wildfires, two major California utilities took the rare step of cutting power to customers amid high winds — and another power provider was considering similar action.
Pacific Gas & Electric for the first time began cutting power Sunday night to tens of thousands of customers in Northern California after the National Weather Service warned of extreme fire danger across the state due to high winds, low humidity and dry vegetation.
San Diego Gas & Electric followed suit Monday, turning off power to about 360 customers in foothill areas near Cleveland National Forest, where multiple blazes have scorched large swaths of land in recent years.
SDG&E has pre-emptively shut off power to customers in the pas...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:31 pm
SEATTLE (AP) — Paul G. Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates before becoming a billionaire philanthropist who invested in conservation, space travel and professional sports, died Monday. He was 65.
He died in Seattle from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, his company Vulcan Inc. announced.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called Allen's contributions to the company, community and industry "indispensable."
"As co-founder of Microsoft, in his own quiet and persistent way, he created magical products, experiences and institutions, and in doing so, he changed the world," Nadella wrote on Twitter.
Two weeks ago, Allen announced that the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that he was treated for in 2009 had returned and he planned to fight it aggress...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:28 pm
Trenton, NJ - Drugmakers will start disclosing the prices for U.S. prescription drugs that are advertised on TV, but the Trump administration said the move announced Monday doesn’t go far enough.
The prices won’t actually be shown in the TV commercials. But starting next April, advertisements mentioning a drug by name will include a website where the list price and other information will be posted, the industry’s largest trade group said.
The announcement came hours before a speech by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on a new administration proposal to require prices in the ads. Azar responded that the industry’s announcement is a “small step in the right direction” but the government’s plan “will go further.”
Most Ameri...
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October 15, 2018 at 7:20 pm
BOSTON (AP) — Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday released the results of a DNA analysis that she said indicated she has some Native American heritage, a rebuttal to President Donald Trump, who has long mocked her ancestral claims and repeatedly referred to her as "Pocahontas."
The Massachusetts Democrat and potential 2020 presidential contender challenged Trump to make good on his pledge to donate $1 million to charity if she provided proof of Native American heritage, a moment that was caught on video. Trump falsely denied ever making the offer and later said he would donate the money only if he can personally administer the genetic test.
The analysis was done by Stanford University professor Carlos D. Bustamante, a prominent expert in the field. He concluded that the great majority ...
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October 15, 2018 at 3:45 pm
ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish crime scene investigators dressed in coveralls and gloves entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Monday, nearly two weeks after the disappearance and alleged slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi there.
Police officers carrying files and equipment walked through the heavy metal doors of the consulate after sunset, carrying out an extraordinary search of a diplomatic post that is otherwise considered foreign soil under international law as worldwide concern grows for the missing Washington Post columnist.
The search represents new cooperation between Turkey, which says it fears Khashoggi was killed and dismembered there, and Saudi Arabia, which maintains the allegations it faces are “baseless” despite being unable to explain what happened to...
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October 15, 2018 at 3:05 pm
The Israeli Defense Ministry recently completed the construction of a nine-meter high concrete wall — topped by steel fencing — along a 12-kilometer stretch of the Israel-Lebanon border, the Hebrew news site Walla reported on Sunday.
According to the Walla report, the new barrier will make it more difficult for Hezbollah fighters to conduct cross-border attacks.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has threatened that in a future war with the Jewish state, members of his group will take over Israeli military posts and border communities.
The building of the wall has increased the sense of security felt by local residents, and will enable the construction of homes closer to the border, the report said.
The Israel-Lebanon border has remained largely quiet since the summer of 2006...
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October 15, 2018 at 3:04 pm
Following a weekend that saw around 15,000 Palestinian rioters wreak violence on the Gaza border, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu issued a warning to Hamas on Sunday.
“Hamas, apparently, has not internalized the message,” Netanyahu said of the Gaza-ruling Islamist terror group at a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. “If they do not stop the violent attacks against us, they will be stopped in a different way and it will be painful — very painful.”
“We are very close to a different kind of activity, an activity that will include very powerful blows,” the prime minister continued. “If it has sense, Hamas will stop firing and stop these violent disturbances — now.”
At least seven Palestinians were killed on the border on Fr...
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October 15, 2018 at 3:03 pm
Mitt Romney came to Arizona to help out a fellow Senate hopeful and he ended up getting in a jam himself.
At a rally in Arizona to support a fellow Republican Sunday, former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was asked what happened with his efforts to stop Donald Trump from becoming president in 2016.
Romney responded by denying being a leader in the so-called “never Trump” movement.
“President Trump was not the person I wanted to become the nominee of our party, but he’s president now,” Romney said. “The policies he’s promoted have been pretty effective. And I support a lot of those policies. When there’s a place where I disagree, I point that out,” he said.
That description runs counter to what many remember from the 2016 campaig...
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October 15, 2018 at 3:02 pm
NYS Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) says cries of “Allah! Allah!” during today’s attack in Brooklyn make the nature of the crime clear. “This was a hate crime, absolutely, despite any reports to the contrary,” said the Assemblyman. This evening, Hikind was summoned by the family of Lipa Schwartz, the 62-year-old victim, and asked to stand by them at a press conference where details of the attack were revealed.
“Lipa’s English isn’t perfect,” said Hikind “He’s more comfortable speaking Yiddish, so we want there to be no mistakes. This was a hate crime, not an act of ‘road rage’ as some reports mistakenly called it. The attacker had no previous encounters with the victim. Mr. Schwartz was walking, on...
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October 15, 2018 at 2:56 pm
Republican critic of President Donald Trump, Jeff Flake, slammed a reported proposal for the U.S. to resume separating migrant and refugee families at the U.S. border, saying such a policy “simply is un-American.”
Sen. Flake, R-Ariz., responded to a question from ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday about a report that the White House is weighing a new effort to separate families at the border in hopes of reducing the number of people trying to enter the country illegally.
“Is the president making a mistake here?” Stephanopoulos said.
Flake responded, “Yes, he is. We shouldn’t bring that policy back. That, that simply is un-American, and I think everybody recognized that. The president seemed to. Certainly the ...
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October 15, 2018 at 2:46 pm
Supreme Court justice David Mintz escaped a violent assault by three men armed with hammers as he drove on a West Bank highway near his home in the settlement of Dolev on Monday morning.
The Israel Police said in a statement that it received a report of an Israeli resident who was driving through a junction on Route 463 in the central West Bank when his car was blocked by a Palestinian vehicle.
Three men carrying hammers emerged from the vehicle and approached his car, police said, but he managed to drive away.
Police opened an investigation into the incident.
Read more at Times of Israel.
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October 15, 2018 at 2:43 pm
The deadline to register to vote in Maryland is Tuesday.
And state elections officials say there are more and more Marylanders who have already registered and the number is expected to go up in the next day.
Nikki Charlson, the deputy elections administrator for the Maryland State Board of Elections Anne Kramer that Maryland could be on track to reach four million voters after the deadline passes.
Registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans 2-to-1 in Maryland. But Charlson says as of Sept. 30, there were 2.2 million registered Democrats, one million registered Republicans and 700,000 registered as unaffiliated.
Charlson says there is usually an increase in registered voters before a gubernatorial election but not the size of an increase before a presidential ...
