August, 2022 | últimas notícias

Student loan pause: Cardona says decision coming in ‘next week or so’ – USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration will announce in “the next week or so” a decision on student loan payments, which have been on pause since March 2020, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

The student loan payment pause is set to expire Aug. 31.

“We’ve been talking daily about this, and I can tell you that the American people will hear within the next week or so what the president and the Department of Education will be doing around that,” Cardona said.

Beyond the pause in loan payments, the Biden administration has been under pressure from some Democratic lawmakers and student loan activists to forgive up to $50,000 in student loans.

Student loans:Student loan pause set to lift in September. Should borrowers repay or wait for forgiveness?

President Joe Biden in April said he was at the stage of looking at student loan reduction, but it would take a few weeks, but no formal announcements followed.

Cardona also addressed teacher shortages, saying they are “a symptom of what I call a teacher respect issue,” and added that “we need to respect the profession better.”

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/08/21/student-loan-payment-pause-cardona/7860072001/

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Liz Cheney ‘disgusted’ Mar-a-Lago FBI agents names became public – Business Insider

Liz Cheney condemned the leak of the names of FBI agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid.
Conservative outlet Breitbart News first published the warrant without the names redacted.
The FBI said it’s received an increase in violent threats since the search.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney condemned the leak of the names of FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

Prominent Republicans, including Trump, spent the past two weeks admonishing the FBI after the agency searched his Palm Beach, Florida, residence on August 8 and seized government documents. The FBI said it had received an “unprecedented” number of threats following the search.

During an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Cheney said Republicans continued “stoking the flames” despite the growing threats.

“This is a really dangerous moment and to see the former president of the United States, my colleagues, stoking the flames of that instead of saying, ‘We need to learn the facts. We need to learn the evidence. We need to learn the information about what happened,'” Cheney told ABC co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

“To jump reflexively to attack law enforcement and to say then, ‘Well, we back the blue, but we’re going to attack these people for doing their job,'” she continued. “I think that the American people see what hypocrisy that is and it’s dangerous hypocrisy.”

Cheney said she was “ashamed” that Republicans had spent time going after the the FBI agents who executed the search warrant.

“I was disgusted when I learned that President Trump had released the names of those agents, when he released the unredacted search warrant, and that has now caused violence,” Cheney said. Cheney did not provide evidence for her claim that Trump was behind the release of the agents’ names.

Three days after the raid, conservative outlet Brietbart News published an unredacted version of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, which included the names of FBI agents involved in the search. The site was accused of doxxing the agents.

Some people, including a national security lawyer and a CNN correspondent, suggested Trump or someone close to him may have leaked the unredacted warrant, although no evidence of that has emerged.

“Liz Cheney just suffered one of the most devastating and embarrassing losses in political history, but it appears that hasn’t stopped her from literally making up stories to stay relevant,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told Insider.

Representatives for Cheney did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-cheney-trump-mar-a-lago-fbi-gop-republicans-doj-2022-8

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Russia Opens Murder Investigation After Blast Kills Daughter of Putin Ally – The New York Times

Daria Dugina followed in her father’s footsteps as a commentator who combined hawkish, imperialist views with jargon-laden political philosophy.

On Thursday, two days before her death in a car bombing outside Moscow, she argued on a state television talk show that “the Western man lives in a dream — a dream that he got from his global hegemony.” On Friday, she delivered a lecture on “mental maps and their role in network-centric warfare,” describing atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb, as a staged event.

And before she died on Saturday, she attended a nationalist festival with her father outside Moscow called Traditions. In a selfie posted by Akim Apachev, a Russian nationalist musician, Ms. Dugina, 29, appeared beside her father, Aleksandr Dugin, with a military camouflage jacket tied around her waist.

“The enemy is at the gates,” Mr. Apachev wrote on social media on Sunday. “Rest in peace, Daria. You will be avenged!”

Last month, the British government imposed sanctions on Ms. Dugina, citing her as a “frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms.” The United States imposed sanctions on her in March, describing her as the chief editor of an English-language disinformation website owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch known as “Putin’s chef.”

She was a co-author of a forthcoming book on the war in Ukraine called “The Z Book,” after one of the identifying markings painted on Russia’s invading tanks. In June, she traveled to the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol after Russian forces captured it in a brutal campaign. She told a state-run Russian radio station that the Azovstal steel plant, where the city’s defenders made their last stand, was filled with “Satanist,” “black energy.”

Echoing her father, Ms. Dugina’s public commentary provided an ideological framework for Mr. Putin’s aggressive foreign policy. In an interview with a Russian broadcaster hours before her death, she cited the theories of Samuel Huntington and other scholars to describe the war in Ukraine as an inevitable clash of civilizations.

“This is liberal totalitarianism, this is liberal fascism, this is Western totalitarianism,” she said, describing what Russia, in her view, was fighting against. “It has reached its end.”

Ms. Dugina was not well known in Russia beyond ultranationalist and imperialist circles. But the widely read bloggers and commentators who knew her described her death as a tragedy and called for revenge.

“This happened in the capital of our Motherland,” a pro-Kremlin television host, Tigran Keosayan, wrote on social media. Referring to the location of the Ukrainian president’s office, he added: “I don’t understand why there are any buildings still standing on Bankova Street in Kyiv.”

— Anton Troianovski

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/21/world/ukraine-russia-news-war

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Ukraine War News: Blast Kills Daughter of Putin Ally; Russia Opens Murder Investigation – The New York Times

BRUSSELS — With anxiety mounting about the dangers to Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant, which is occupied by the invading Russian Army, there finally seems to be some movement to get international inspectors into the facility to verify its safe operation.

In a conversation late Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russia “had reconsidered” its insistence that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first travel through Russian territory to reach the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to the French presidency.

The Russian presidency was less explicit, stating that “both leaders noted the importance of sending an I.A.E.A. mission to the power plant as soon as possible” and that Russia had “confirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the agency’s inspectors.”

The two presidents will speak again about such a mission “in the next few days following discussions between the technical teams and before the deployment of the mission,” the French said.

The I.A.E.A. — the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog and monitoring agency — has met with several obstacles in its discussions with Russia and Ukraine to get into the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, since at least June.

Ukraine objected to the idea that the inspectors would enter through Russian-occupied territory, an option that would seem to underscore Russian control of the plant, which provides at least a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. The United Nations had significant security concerns about having inspectors travel through the front lines of this bitter war, with so much shelling.

As Russia and Ukraine blame each other for bringing the possibility of nuclear catastrophe to the plant through the artillery war — part of what a senior Western official on Friday called “the information war” — pressure has grown on Moscow to relent about how the inspectors might arrive.

That pressure has also come from Turkey, which has tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine on the issue, as it did in the recent deal to free grain shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports amid a Russian blockade, and from the United Nations itself.

When António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, visited Ukraine this past week along with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to discuss grain shipments, the U.N. leader also urged quick movement to try to keep the Zaporizhzhia plant safe.

Mr. Guterres warned Russia not to disconnect the facility from the Ukrainian grid, as Kyiv says Russia intends to do, in order to switch the supply into the Russian grid. Such a move could interrupt the vital cooling of the reactors and cut electricity to millions of Ukrainians.

Western officials consider the main danger of a nuclear accident coming less from a shell hitting one of the containment buildings around the six light-water nuclear reactors, which are constructed to withstand a 9/11-like impact of an airliner, than from an interruption in electricity. Should that happen, and should the plant’s generators fail or be damaged, then a meltdown could occur.

The main concern in that respect, a senior Western official said on Friday, would be if the plant suffered a loss of cooling due to the loss of backup electricity, should Russia take it off the Ukrainian grid and should backup generators fail.

There is also worry that a shell could hit one of the ponds that store spent nuclear fuel, but that would have a more minor and localized effect.

Russia has rejected the plea of Mr. Guterres to demilitarize the area around the plant.

On Friday, the I.A.E.A.’s director general, Rafael M. Grossi, “welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia supported the I.A.E.A.’s aim to send a mission” to Zaporizhzhia.

The Russian ambassador to the agency has suggested that such a mission could take place in early September. But even if inspectors can verify the safety of the plant at the time, the dangers will inevitably persist as the artillery war continues.

— Steven Erlanger

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/21/world/ukraine-russia-news-war

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Sen. Lindsey Graham granted temporary delay for Ga. grand jury testimony – The Washington Post

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/21/lindsey-graham-trump-grand-jury-georgia/

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Car bomb kills daughter of ‘spiritual guide’ to Putin’s Ukraine invasion – Russian media – CNN

(CNN)Russian authorities said Sunday they had opened a murder investigation after the daughter of influential, ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin was killed by a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow.

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CNN’s Alex Stambaugh contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/20/europe/darya-dugina-killed-car-explosion-alexander-dugin-russia-intl-hnk/index.html

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Somalia hotel siege: More than 20 die in al-Shabab attack – BBC

“It has been terrible, really terrifying living next door to the gunfire, the explosions. It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen in Mogadishu,” Abdisalam Guled, a former deputy director of Somalia’s national intelligence agency, told the BBC.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62621205

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A Whitey Bulger mystery endures: Why was the ailing gangster moved to a violent prison? – NBC News

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U.S., South Korea Revive Live Military Drills After Four-Year Hiatus – The Wall Street Journal

SEOUL—For the first time in four years, the U.S. and South Korea will revive their live-action military drills, sharpening their preparedness as the North Korean nuclear threat worsens and China steps up its presence around Taiwan.

The 11-day joint drills, which start Monday in South Korea, are expected to feature once again jet fighters soaring in the skies, tanks rumbling down roads and thousands of soldiers simulating a conflict with the Kim Jong Un regime.

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-south-korea-revive-live-military-drills-after-four-year-hiatus-11661074202

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Body recovered at Playpen after boater sighting ID’d – WGN TV Chicago

CHICAGO — The body of an man was recovered from Lake Michigan, according to Chicago police.

The man was identified as 29-year-old Spencer Williams. His body was recovered in the 1000 block of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive just after 5 p.m. on Saturday.

No additional details were made available but the Chicago Tribune reports that a boater in the Playpen noticed the victim’s floating body and alerted authorities.

The recovery comes days after Chicago first responder agencies came together to highlight water safety on the lakefront, specifically the Playpen.

Early Thursday morning, a 38-year-old man was pulled from the water near Montrose Beach and died at the hospital.

Wednesday evening, near Navy Pier, WGN News was told someone passed out on a boat and was taken to the hospital in critical condition, while a second person from that boat was still missing in Lake Michigan.

On Wednesday, a man was also found dead in the water near 37th Street.

Also, on Wednesday, a 43-year-old man was found dead after allegedly slipping and falling into the water in Diversey Harbor.

Days earlier, two women were critically injured Saturday in a rafting accident. One suffered severe injuries to her hands and the other, Lana Batochir, had her feet severed. Batochir, a mother of two, has since had three surgeries to amputate both legs 10 inches below the knee.

Source Article from https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/body-recovered-at-playpen-after-boater-sighting-report/

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Zelenskyy warns of ‘particularly cruel’ Russian attack as Ukraine prepares for Independence Day – CNBC

Ukraine’s president has warned that Russia could do something “particularly cruel” as Ukraine prepares to celebrate Independence Day on Wednesday — a day that also marks six months of Moscow’s invasion.

In his nightly address on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to be strong and to keep fighting, as the country prepared to mark its independence from Soviet rule on Aug. 24.

“We should be aware that this week Russia may try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel,” he said without providing details.

He charged that one of Russia’s key aims is “to devalue our capabilities” and spread despair, fear and conflicts.

“Therefore, it is important never, for a single moment, to give in to this enemy pressure, not to wind oneself up, not to show weakness.”

Ukraine will be celebrating its 31st Independence Day on Wednesday — which marks six months since Russia’s unprovoked invasion, referred to by Moscow as a “special military operation.”

“A significant milestone is ahead – six months of this full-scale invasion,” Zelenskyy said in his video message, calling it “the war that changed everything for Ukraine, for Europe, and for the world.”

According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, more than 5,500 civilians in Ukraine have been killed and nearly 7,700 civilians injured from the start of the war to Aug. 15.

“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, including shelling from heavy artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes,” according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Separately, Russian state media accused Ukrainian forces of launching an artillery strike at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Located in southeastern town of Enerhodar, the nuclear plant was captured by Moscow early in the war.

Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti said Ukraine’s armed forces have regularly attacked the Zaporizhzhia facility in recent weeks, risking a large-scale nuclear catastrophe.

Both Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the power plant.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/21/zelenskyy-warns-of-cruel-russia-attack-ahead-of-ukraine-independence-day.html

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California drought restrictions breed enforcement. Will it be even? – USA TODAY

From working-class neighborhoods to the celebrity haunts of Malibu, residents in the Los Angeles area have been getting visits from what is essentially the water police as California remains in a near constant state of drought.

Six million Southern California residents are under the toughest water restrictions in the nation. And because of the patchwork of different agencies overseeing different areas, that means different rules for everyone, sometimes even neighbors who live across the street from each other.

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/21/california-drought-water-restriction-enforcement/10174631002/

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Car bomb kills daughter of ‘spiritual guide’ to Putin’s Ukraine invasion – Russian media – CNN

By Fred Pleitgen, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Josh Pennington and Jonny Hallam, CNN

Updated 5:43 AM ET, Sun August 21, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/20/europe/darya-dugina-killed-car-explosion-alexander-dugin-russia-intl-hnk/index.html

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Body recovered at Playpen after boater sighting: report – WGN TV Chicago

CHICAGO — The body of an adult male was recovered from Lake Michigan Saturday evening, according to Chicago police.

The body was recovered in the 1000 of N. DuSable Lake Shore Drive just after 5 p.m.

No additional details were made available but the Chicago Tribune reports that a boater in the Playpen noticed the victim’s floating body and alerted authorities.

The recovery comes days after Chicago first responder agencies came together to highlight water safety on the lakefront, specifically the ‘Playpen.’

Early Thursday morning, a 38-year-old man was pulled from the water near Montrose Beach and died at the hospital. Wednesday evening, near Navy Pier, WGN News was told someone passed out on a boat and was taken to the hospital in critical condition, while a second person from that boat was still missing in Lake Michigan.

On Wednesday, a man was also found dead in the water near 37th Street.

Also, on Wednesday, a 43-year-old man was found dead after allegedly slipping and falling into the water in Diversey Harbor.

Days earlier, two women were critically injured Saturday in a rafting accident. One suffered severe injuries to her hands and the other, Lana Batochir, had her feet severed. Batochir, a mother of two, has since had three surgeries to amputate both legs 10 inches below the knee.

Source Article from https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/body-recovered-at-playpen-after-boater-sighting-report/

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McConnell complains about ‘candidate quality’ while investing in Senate races for GOP contenders – Fox News

Video

Sen. Grassley says that McConnell is aiming to ‘wake people up’ with threat that GOP might lose Senate

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, spoke with Fox News Digital about top voting issues for Iowans, the FBI investigation into former President Trump and reacts to Mitch McConnell’s recent statement that the GOP might not win Senate control.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell could soon be faced with a new wave of Republicans in the Senate who oppose his messaging, however he continues to offer support for those representing the GOP on the ballot amid “candidate quality” concerns.

On Thursday, when asked for his 2022 prediction at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce luncheon, McConnell cited “candidate quality” as a reason why he believes Republicans will face difficulty in flipping the Senate in November and instead might only be able to flip control of the House.

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” said McConnell, who has led the GOP in the Senate since 2007. “Senate races are just different, they’re statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”

Despite McConnell’s remarks, The Associated Press reported that the McConnell-controlled Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) purchased $28 million in advertising this week to boost Republican J.D. Vance in Ohio, a seat many Republicans thought to be safe for the GOP. The SLF also announced this month that it had invested more than $34 million into the Pennsylvania Senate race featuring Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, who will face off against John Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor and the Democratic Senate nominee, in the general election.

MCCONNELL MAKES GRIM PREDICTION ABOUT REPUBLICANS IN SENATE RACES, REFERENCES ‘CANDIDATE QUALITY’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he believes the GOP will struggle to regain control of the Senate in the November midterm elections.
(Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Other spending from the SLF includes a $141 million in fall advertising reservation for elections taking place in Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The spending on advertisements — which will begin airing on Sept. 6 — is more than double the $67 million SLF spent in 2020, setting a record-high for the PAC.

Prior to his remarks over the “quality” of Republican candidates running in Senate races, McConnell also issued support for GOP Senate candidates facing tough elections against Democrats, including Herschel Walker in Georgia and Adam Laxalt in Nevada — both of which received endorsements from former President Donald Trump.

Several GOP Senate candidates have expressed reservations about McConnell’s leadership for the party, with some insisting that he should no longer represent Republicans at the helm in the Senate.

During a podcast interview last September, Vance, who seeks to defeat Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, in the Senate race later this year, insisted it was time for “new blood” in the Senate and suggested that McConnell had shown at times that he was “out of touch” with Republican voters.

“I think McConnell has shown at times that he’s a little out of touch with the base,” he said. “I think that it’s time that we moved beyond the very old leadership class that’s dominated the Republican Party for a long time. We’ve got to do it. We’ve got to bring some new blood in. We’ve got to get people the base is really excited about.”

JD Vance, co-founder of Narya Capital Management LLC and U.S. Republican Senate candidate for Ohio, speaks during a campaign event in Huber Heights, Ohio, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022.
(Gaelen Morse/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In another interview, Vance claimed he is the “only person in the Ohio Senate race who’s actually been willing to criticize leadership” and that he “will continue to criticize leadership” when he believes “they’re wrong.”

MASTERS CHANGES TUNE ON MCCONNELL, SAYS HE’S HOPEFUL GOP LEADER WILL OFFER FINANCIAL SUPPORT IN ARIZONA

Last month, Eric Schmitt, Missouri’s current attorney general and the Republican nominee for Senate in the state, called for “new leadership in the Senate” during a conversation with a reporter at a campaign event.

“Mitch McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1985. I think the party’s priorities changed pretty dramatically. And I don’t think he’s kept up with that. I think that most recently, evidenced by the disastrous infrastructure bill, I was vocal about not supporting this gun confiscation law, the red flag law. I don’t support that,” said Schmitt, who is seeking to replace outgoing GOP Sen. Roy Blunt.

“I’ve been endorsed by Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Mike Lee,” he added. “I’d love to see one of them run. I would support that. Mitch McConnell hasn’t endorsed me and I don’t endorse him for leadership in the Senate.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, also the GOP nominee for Senate in the state, speaks to reporters in front of the Supreme Court of the United States on Tuesday, April 26, 2022 in Washington, DC.
((Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images))

NRSC BOOKS MORE THAN $2.2 MILLION IN ARIZONA, WISCONSIN ADS AFTER CONTROVERSY OVER CANCELED SPOTS

Blake Masters, the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, has also taken aim at McConnell in the past.

Earlier this year, Masters, who looks to defeat incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in the state’s general election, weighed Senate GOP leadership replacements for McConnell, saying he’d support Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri or Tom Cotton of Arkansas for the position. In addition, he also said he believes McConnell is “not good at” legislating.

“I’ll tell Mitch this to his face,” Masters said during a GOP primary debate in June. “He’s not bad at everything. He’s good at judges. He’s good at blocking Democrats. You know what he’s not good at? Legislating.”

Republican candidate for Senate Blake Masters speaks at a ‘Save America’ rally by former President Donald Trump in support of Arizona GOP candidates on July 22, 2022 in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

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Despite his comments about McConnell at the time, Masters predicted Friday that the GOP leader will receive another term as GOP leader and that no Republicans will challenge him.

“I think he’ll be in charge. And I’m not just going to be a senator that falls in line to whatever he says,” Masters said, according to The Associated Press. “I’ll hear him out. I’m happy to listen. But my vote doesn’t belong to Mitch McConnell. It doesn’t belong to Donald Trump.”

Fox News’ Andrea Vacchiano and The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Kyle Morris covers politics for Fox News. On Twitter: @RealKyleMorris.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcconnell-complains-candidate-quality-investing-senate-races-gop-contenders

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More Than 20 Dead in Terrorists’ Siege of Somali Hotel – The Wall Street Journal

More than 20 people were killed and others feared dead as Islamist militants continued their siege of a popular hotel in Somalia’s seaside capital.

Intermittent gunshots could still be heard Saturday night outside Mogadishu’s Hayat Hotel, more than 24 hours after gunmen stormed the well-known hangout for Somali officials and businessmen after evening prayers on Friday.

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/gunmen-storm-hotel-in-somali-capital-leave-20-dead-11661017058