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ISIS "Beatle" Pleads Guilty In US To Killing Hostages, Including Americans

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="ISIS 'Beatle' Pleads Guilty In US To Killing Hostages, Including Americans" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-09/6o3gtnuc_british-bea_625x300_02_September_21.jpg" title="ISIS 'Beatle' Pleads Guilty In US To Killing Hostages, Including Americans" /></div>
Alexanda Kotey has been accused of conspiring to kidnap and murder western hostages
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Alexandria, United States:
Alexanda Kotey, a member of the notorious ISIS kidnapping cell dubbed the "Beatles", pleaded guilty in a US federal court Thursday to conspiring to kidnap and murder western hostages, including four Americans.
The 37-year-old former British national is accused of participating in the murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, killed in 2014, and that of aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller, among others.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/isis-beatle-alexanda-kotey-pleads-guilty-in-us-court-to-killing-american-hostages-2528071">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/isis-beatle-alexanda-kotey-pleads-guilty-in-us-court-to-killing-american-hostages-2528071</a>

news world ISIS "Beatle" Pleads Guilty In US To Killing Hostages, Including Americans

Alexanda Kotey has been accused of conspiring to kidnap and murder western hostages Alexandria, United States: Alexanda Kotey, a member...

China Promised To Keep Afghan Embassy, Increase Humanitarian Aid: Taliban

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="China Promised To Keep Afghan Embassy, Increase Humanitarian Aid: Taliban" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-08/9e29odsk_suhail-shaheen-taliban-spox_625x300_19_August_21.jpg" title="China Promised To Keep Afghan Embassy, Increase Humanitarian Aid: Taliban" /></div>
China will continue and increase its humanitarian assistance, Suhail Shaheen said
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Kabul:
A Taliban spokesman said Friday that China has promised to keep its embassy in Afghanistan open and to increase humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged country.
Abdul Salam Hanafi, a member of the Taliban's political office in Doha, Qatar, "held a phone conversation with Wu Jianghao, Deputy Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China," spokesman Suhail Shaheen tweeted.
"The Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister said that they would maintain their embassy in Kabul, adding our relations would beef up as compared to the past. Afghanistan can play an important role in security and development of the region," he said.
"China will also continue and increase its humanitarian assistance especially for treatment of covid-19," the spokesman continued.
There was no immediate confirmation from Beijing.
Much of the world has adopted a wait-and-see approach to engagement with the Taliban as they shift gears from an insurgent group to governing power.
But China has repeatedly slammed what it sees as a hasty and ill-planned withdrawal from Afghanistan by the United States and has said it is ready to deepen "friendly and cooperative" relations with the Taliban following their takeover.
China's embassy in Kabul remains operational, although Beijing began evacuating Chinese citizens from the country months ago as security deteriorated.
But Beijing has not yet recognised the Taliban as the de facto government and is wary of the terrorist group providing support to Muslim-minority Uyghur separatists looking to infiltrate its sensitive border region of Xinjiang.
For Beijing, a stable and cooperative administration in Kabul would pave the way for an expansion of its overseas infrastructure drive, analysts say.
The Taliban, meanwhile, may consider China a crucial source of investment and economic support.
Chinese companies have also been eyeing Afghanistan's vast copper and lithium mines, but experts say the perilous security situation means any immediate commodities rush by investors is unlikely.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-promised-to-keep-afghan-embassy-increase-humanitarian-aid-taliban-spokesperson-suhail-shaheen-2528062">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-promised-to-keep-afghan-embassy-increase-humanitarian-aid-taliban-spokesperson-suhail-shaheen-2528062</a>

news world China Promised To Keep Afghan Embassy, Increase Humanitarian Aid: Taliban

China will continue and increase its humanitarian assistance, Suhail Shaheen said Kabul: A Taliban spokesman said Friday that China has...

Small Aircraft Crashes Into Building In US' Connecticut: Report

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Small Aircraft Crashes Into Building In US' Connecticut: Report" src="https://i.ndtvimg.com/i/2017-06/police-line-do-not-cross_650x400_41498536630.jpg" title="Small Aircraft Crashes Into Building In US' Connecticut: Report" /></div>
No one has been taken to the hospital, the police said (Representational)
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Washington:
A small aircraft crashed into a building in Connecticut in north-east United States after suffering a mechanical snag, the local police said.
"We are responding to a plane crash into a building at 111 Hyde Rd. Media can stage at the intersection of New Britain Ave and Hyde Rd for now," the Farmington Police Department said on Twitter.
A video published by news channel NBC Connecticut showed fire billowing from one section of the building. The police are yet to confirm if there have been any casualties.
Farmington Police Department officer Tim McKenzie said the aircraft - a small private airplane made by Learjet - appeared to have crashed due to mechanical issues as per witnesses reports.
He said that authorities do not have an official count of the number of passengers on board. He, however, noted that no one has been taken to the hospital.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/small-learjet-aircraft-crashes-into-building-in-us-connecticut-report-2528046">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/small-learjet-aircraft-crashes-into-building-in-us-connecticut-report-2528046</a>

news world Small Aircraft Crashes Into Building In US' Connecticut: Report

No one has been taken to the hospital, the police said (Representational) Washington: A small aircraft crashed into a building in Conne...

US Regulator Grounds Virgin Galactic Over Flight Deviation From Planned Trajectory

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="US Regulator Grounds Virgin Galactic Over Flight Deviation From Planned Trajectory" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-09/lhhe68os_virgin-galactic_625x300_02_September_21.jpg" title="US Regulator Grounds Virgin Galactic Over Flight Deviation From Planned Trajectory" /></div>
The move represents a blow to the private space company.
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Washington:
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Thursday said it was grounding space flights by Virgin Galactic while it investigates why the company's July 11 voyage carrying Richard Branson deviated from its planned trajectory.
The move represents a blow to the private space company as it prepares to carry paying customers following its first fully-crewed test flight.
It is now unclear whether Virgin's next test flight, involving members of the Italian Air Force, will take place as scheduled in late September or early October.
"The FAA is overseeing the Virgin Galactic investigation of its July 11 SpaceShipTwo mishap that occurred over Spaceport America, New Mexico," the agency said in a short statement.
"Virgin Galactic may not return the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to flight until the FAA approves the final mishap investigation report or determines the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety," it added.
The news came after a report by the New Yorker said the flight experienced cockpit warnings about its rocket-powered ascent that could have jeopardized the mission.
The article, by investigative journalist Nicholas Schmidle, said the pilots encountered first a yellow then a red light, indicating the spaceplane's climb was too shallow and the nose was insufficiently vertical.
Without corrective action, the vessel would not have had enough energy to glide back to its runway.
"According to multiple sources in the company, the safest way to respond to the warning would have been to abort," Schmidle wrote -- though Virgin has disputed this.
Aborting would have dashed flamboyant billionaire Branson's hopes of beating rival Jeff Bezos, whose own flight to space was scheduled a few days later.
The pilots did not abort and instead attempted to correct for the trajectory problem, now flying at Mach 3 with a red light on.
The vessel went on to reach 85 kilometers (52 miles) in altitude -- above the US definition of space -- and landed safely, but data retrieved from FlightRadar24 showed it had flown outside its designated path.
- 'Misleading' -
"Whether or not (the pilots') decision was motivated by programmatic pressures and the hopes of their billionaire bankroller sitting in the back remains unclear," wrote Schmidle.
Virgin Galactic told AFP it disputed the "misleading characterizations and conclusions in the New Yorker article."
"When the vehicle encountered high altitude winds which changed the trajectory, the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters," it said in a statement.
"Our pilots responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions exactly as they have been trained and in strict accordance with our established procedures."
The company acknowledged the flight had diverged from the initial plan, but characterized the deviation as a short period of one minute and 43 seconds when it flew below its prescribed altitude, rather than a change in the areas it flew over.
"At no time did the ship travel above any population centers or cause a hazard to the public."
Virgin Galactic has had close calls and accidents in the past -- most notably in 2014 when a crash killed one pilot and injured another.
Schmidle also wrote that key personnel who were critical of the company's safety culture had resigned or been sacked.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-regulator-grounds-virgin-galactic-over-flight-deviation-from-planned-trajectory-2528038">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-regulator-grounds-virgin-galactic-over-flight-deviation-from-planned-trajectory-2528038</a>

news world US Regulator Grounds Virgin Galactic Over Flight Deviation From Planned Trajectory

The move represents a blow to the private space company. Washington: The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Thursday said it w...

At Least 14 Dead After Bus Plunges From Mountainous Road In Iran: Reports

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="At Least 14 Dead After Bus Plunges From Mountainous Road In Iran: Reports" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2019-06/92sge9_bus-generic_625x300_16_June_19.jpeg" title="At Least 14 Dead After Bus Plunges From Mountainous Road In Iran: Reports" /></div>
The semi-official ISNA news agency reported 16 deaths and 12 wounded. (Representational)
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Tehran:
At least 14 people were killed Thursday after a minibus plunged from a mountainous road in western Iran, news agencies reported.
The vehicle was travelling between Marivan and Kamyaran in mountains of Kurdistan province, state news agency IRNA said.
The minibus "fell into a ravine due to driver error," it reported, giving a toll of 14 dead and eight injured, one of them critically.
The semi-official ISNA news agency reported 16 deaths and 12 wounded.
Iran's road network is generally good, but suffers among the highest levels of accidents in the world.
Many accidents are caused by poor driving standards and cars in a poor state of repair, in a country strangled by US sanctions.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/at-least-14-dead-after-bus-plunges-from-mountainous-road-in-iran-reports-2528035">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/at-least-14-dead-after-bus-plunges-from-mountainous-road-in-iran-reports-2528035</a>

news world At Least 14 Dead After Bus Plunges From Mountainous Road In Iran: Reports

The semi-official ISNA news agency reported 16 deaths and 12 wounded. (Representational) Tehran: At least 14 people were killed Thursda...

What’s in the new Republican voting law that passed in Texas?

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On August 31, both houses of the Texas Legislature passed an <a href="https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB1/2021/X2">elections bill</a> that inspired many of the state’s elected Democrats to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/13/22573680/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-quorum">flee Texas in an unsuccessful attempt to block the bill</a>. The Texas Constitution requires two-thirds of each house’s members to be present in order to approve legislation, so Democrats delayed passage of this bill by preventing the state House from achieving a quorum.
Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is an outspoken proponent of the election bill, known as SB 1, and is expected to sign it into law.
SB 1 has morphed and changed considerably over the last several months, and the final version does not include some of the most aggressive attempts to limit voting rights that were included in previous iterations. The final version stripped a provision that would have <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463490/voting-rights-democracy-texas-georgia-suppression-jim-crow-supreme-court-sb7">shut down many urban polling precincts</a>, and another that would have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/09/1014579306/texas-republicans-have-a-new-voting-bill-heres-whats-in-it">ended early voting on Sunday mornings</a>, when many Black churches sponsor “souls-to-the-polls” drives.
It also doesn’t include anything resembling the most troubling provision of Georgia’s recently enacted election law, which permits Republican officials to <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-suppression-sb202-jim-crow">take over election administration in Democratic strongholds</a> such as Atlanta, which has the potential to disenfranchise voters en masse.
That said, the bill does include a number of provisions that either make it harder to vote in Texas or tweak the state’s election rules in ways that advantage Republicans.
In 2020, for example, a few polling places in Harris County, a highly Democratic area that includes Houston, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/30/texas-voting-restrictions-bill/">remained open for 24 hours</a>. The Republican bill bans this practice while simultaneously expanding early voting in many smaller counties — which tend to be the domain of the GOP.
Similarly, the bill imposes new restrictions on absentee voting, such as a requirement that most voters provide their driver’s license number in order to vote by mail, and a provision that makes it a felony for election officials to send unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters. In 2020, Republicans were much less likely to vote absentee than Democrats, most likely because then-President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/11/21358960/trump-mail-voting-sabotage-explained">repeatedly denounced mail-in ballots</a>.
But the spike in absentee voting in 2020 is largely attributable to the pandemic — many voters did not want to risk voting in person when they could catch Covid-19 — and that concern is unlikely to play much of a role in future elections. Plus, Texas already has extremely rigid restrictions on absentee voting: Most Texans <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/22/21265163/texas-voter-suppression-age-65-ken-paxton-democratic-party-abbott">under the age of 65 may not vote by mail</a>. So the new restrictions are likely to have only a marginal impact on voter turnout.
That could be enough to flip a very close election, but the new restrictions on absentee voting are unlikely to turn a comfortable Democratic victory into a Republican win.
One potentially troubling provision of the GOP bill requires election officials to conduct monthly purges of the state’s voting rolls, ostensibly to identify noncitizens who may have registered to vote. Another provides new legal protections to partisan poll watchers, who are permitted to observe elections and the vote-counting process — but who may also <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/13/22573680/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-quorum">attempt to disrupt the election</a>.
Yet, it’s worth noting that both of these provisions are less aggressive than similar provisions written into earlier versions of the bill.
No one who cares about voting rights should celebrate SB 1. It erects unnecessary barriers between voters and the franchise, and it subtly changes Texas’s election law in ways that are likely to benefit the party that wrote the bill. But much of SB 1 makes only marginal changes to Texas’s already quite restrictive voting laws.
With that overarching picture in mind, let’s dig a little deeper into the two most troubling parts of the bill.
In 2019, then-Texas Secretary of State David Whitley produced a list of nearly 100,000 registered voters he claimed might not be US citizens. And he called for a review of the state’s voter rolls to purge any supposed noncitizens.
It turned out that the list was <a href="https://www.kut.org/politics/2019-04-26/texas-will-rescind-its-list-of-possible-noncitizen-voters-ending-botched-review-of-voter-rolls">deeply flawed</a>.
Whitley’s office compiled the list by matching the names of registered voters against the names of Texas residents who told the state they were not citizens when they obtained a driver’s license or other ID card. But the list included many lawful voters who were not yet citizens when they received their driver’s license but were later naturalized.
Ultimately, Whitley <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/05/28/727528998/texas-voting-chief-who-led-botched-voter-purge-resigns">resigned his office</a> — he’d been serving in a temporary capacity and could not be permanently confirmed as the state’s top elections officer after he falsely accused thousands of Americans of being noncitizens. Texas also agreed to scrap the planned purge of its voting rolls as part of a settlement of three voting rights lawsuits.
Abbott later <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/05/31/former-secretary-state-david-whitley-back-greg-abbotts-office/">appointed Whitley to a $205,000-a-year job</a> in the governor’s office.
SB 1 contains some language that will revive this purging effort, although with an important safeguard that wasn’t in place during Whitley’s failed 2019 purge. The purge will resume under SB 1, but the state “may not consider information derived from documents presented by the voter to the department <a href="https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB1/2021/X2">before the person’s current voter registration became effective</a>.”
In theory, this provision should provide a check against voters being disenfranchised if they obtained a driver’s license first and then became a citizen. A voter who obtains a driver’s license in April, becomes a naturalized citizen, and registers to vote in July could not be purged just because the state has evidence that they were not a citizen prior to July.
That said, voter purges of this sort are <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/13/22573680/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-quorum">notoriously unreliable</a>, often resulting in false positives <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/voter-purge-rates-remain-high-analysis-finds">among voters with common names</a>. To give one example, there are more than <a href="https://clustrmaps.com/persons/Juan-Gonzalez/Texas/Dallas">130 people named “Juan Gonzalez”</a> living in Dallas. If just one of these individuals is a noncitizen with a Texas driver’s license, that could lead the state to falsely identify a different Juan Gonzalez as an unlawfully registered voter, especially if the noncitizen has the same birthday as a citizen with the same name.
Texas law does require the state to notify a voter swept up in such a purge and give them an opportunity to prove their citizenship. But the burden of providing such proof is likely to fall disproportionately on citizens with Spanish surnames, or on those who are otherwise disproportionately likely to be falsely flagged as noncitizens.
Like many states, Texas permits candidates and political parties to <a href="https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/forms/pollwatchers-guide.pdf">appoint poll watchers</a>, who observe the voting process and the counting of ballots. In 2020, however, some poll watchers appointed by the Trump campaign in several key states <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/13/22573680/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-quorum">behaved disruptively</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21550772/trump-lawsuits-vote-counting-pennsylvania-georgia-michigan">made frivolous legal claims</a> against the election officials they observed.
Earlier versions of SB 1 made it <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/7/13/22573680/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-quorum">quite difficult</a> for election officials to remove poll watchers who disrupt an election. The final version does permit the senior-most election official at a particular polling place (known as the “presiding judge”) to “call a law enforcement officer to request that a poll watcher be removed if the poll watcher <a href="https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB1/2021/X2">commits a breach of the peace or a violation of law</a>.” But in most cases, presiding judges cannot remove a poll watcher unless an elections official personally witnesses them violating the law.
SB 1 also makes it a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail, if an elections official “intentionally or knowingly refuses to accept a watcher for service when acceptance of the watcher is required by” the law. So officials may be reluctant to remove a disruptive poll watcher out of fear they could be prosecuted and face a draconian sentence.
Indeed, one feature of SB 1 is that it imposes extraordinarily high criminal penalties on elections officials who commit minor violations. An official who “solicits the submission of an application to vote by mail from a person who did not request an application” commits a felony, as do most election officials who send an unsolicited application to vote by mail to a voter. Officials who send “an early voting ballot by mail or other early voting by mail ballot materials to a person who the clerk or official knows did not submit an application for a ballot to be voted by mail” risk up to 180 days in jail.
With such high penalties for such minor offenses, SB 1 risks discouraging qualified individuals from serving as election officials. Why take such a job if it can land you behind bars?
All that said, SB 1 is much less likely to produce the kind of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22607616/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-suppression-sb202-jim-crow">widespread disenfranchisement of Democratic voters</a> that Republicans could pull off under Georgia’s new election law. But it will make it harder for some voters to cast a ballot, and it likely foreshadows a <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463490/voting-rights-democracy-texas-georgia-suppression-jim-crow-supreme-court-sb7">much more consequential fight over gerrymandering</a> in Texas.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22652172/texas-voting-bill-sb1-republican-elections-restrictions-early-absentee-purge-greg-abbott">https://www.vox.com/22652172/texas-voting-bill-sb1-republican-elections-restrictions-early-absentee-purge-greg-abbott</a>

vox What’s in the new Republican voting law that passed in Texas?

On August 31, both houses of the Texas Legislature passed an elections bill that inspired many of the state’s elected Democrats to flee Te...