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Pregnant woman killed by dogs in France during hunt in forest

A pregnant woman has been killed by dogs in a forest in northern France where a hunt with hounds was taking place, investigators have said. The body of Elisa Pilarski, 29, who was walking her own dogs, was discovered near the town of Villers-Cotterêts. She died after "several dog bites to the upper and lower limbs and the head," prosecutor Frédéric Trinh said.

Police said they were carrying out tests on 93 dogs and that they had opened a manslaughter investigation. The tests, comparing fresh DNA samples with those taken from Ms Pilarski, will try to establish which animals were responsible for the attack and who they belonged to. Five dogs belonging to Ms Pilarski, who was reportedly six months pregnant at the time of her death, were among those being tested.

[...] The pack of hounds was out hunting deer in the forest, the local newspaper Le Courrier Picard reported on Tuesday.

A person associated with the hunt, Angela Van Den Berghe, confirmed that an event had taken place on Saturday but told the L'Union news site (in French) that "to our knowledge, the tragic accident that occurred has no relation neither with our dogs, nor with the hunt with hounds".

The actor Brigitte Bardot, who is president of an animal welfare foundation, called on French authorities to immediately suspend "all hunt authorisation for this season". But the French hunting association insisted there was no evidence of "the involvement of hunting hounds in the death of this woman".

Also at CNN and France24.

A senior U.S. diplomat told lawmakers on Wednesday that President Donald Trump expressly ordered him and others to help pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival of the president, providing some of the most significant testimony to date in the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry.

Senior U.S. diplomat says he followed Trump's 'orders' on pressuring Ukraine

Pompeo announces reversal of longstanding US policy on Israeli settlements

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced a major reversal of the US' longstanding policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, rejecting a 1978 State Department legal opinion that deemed the settlements "inconsistent with international law."

The announcement, which breaks with international law and consensus, is the latest in a string of hardline, pro-Israeli moves that are likely to inflame tensions between the Trump administration and Palestinians and widen the divide between the Trump administration and traditional US allies in Europe.

"After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan: the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law," Pompeo said, citing President Ronald Reagan's 1981 assessment that the settlements were not "inherently illegal."

Pompeo said the US government is "expressing no view on the legal status of any individual settlement" or "addressing or prejudging the ultimate status of the West Bank."

Trump has been a tool of Israel. But this move might not be good for Israel's long-term future.

That's what duckduckgo offered, but no results.

I think this lady is trying to start something

Anyway... you guys seen that movie "Dave"? Think they're using Alec Baldwin this time?

Micron announces 1TB industrial microSD, aimed at surveillance markets

The Micron i300 microSD card is available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities, and is built using its 96-layer 3D QLC NAND. Micron uses the high-capacity NAND in its products, including the aforementioned microSD cards, as well as SATA and NVMe-linked SSDs, as well as selling NAND to other companies to pair with custom controllers in their products.

Micron is positioning the card for edge compute, with surveillance systems increasing storing video on-device, rather than transmitting everything to external storage as it is recorded, eliminating the need for on-site DVRs, lowering TCO costs.

This may be an application where QLC NAND makes sense, if it takes three months to fill the microSD on a continuous write (though increasing the resolution of the storage image could undercut this). Given that QLC is rated for 100 to 1,000 erase/write cycles, for three months per device write, a pessimistic view would put the lifespan at 25 years.

An even more pessimistic view would note that no MicroSD card ever made has survived for 15 years, much less one with crappy QLC NAND, since the MicroSD form factor was finalized in 2005.

"You're Essentially a Prisoner": Why do Dubai's Princesses Keep Trying to Escape?

The story of Sheikh Mohammed and Haya’s parting of ways is a winding tale, full of unexpected twists and turns and the font of so many rumors that I could barely keep them straight. The Gulf states are involved in an information warfare campaign at the moment—in particular, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are pitted against Qatar—and conspiracy theories in many realms abound. It’s possible to even hear impassioned explanations of how the real killers of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident and Washington Post reporter, were actually Qatari spies who framed the Saudis to get back at them for the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. (And, by the way, part of why the Saudis blockaded the country was said to be jealousy over Qatar landing the 2022 World Cup.)

Theories about Haya’s departure, too, have come hot and heavy. Facts are scant—and certainly not found in the public square. It is simply understood that the emir’s wives and daughters are off-limits as a subject of chatter. “It is said that human scorpions dwell on the earth in the form of gossipers and conspirators, who trouble souls, destroy relationships, and subvert the spirit of communities and teams,” is the way that Sheikh Mohammed has described loose talk.

But in private among Arabian experts, royal watchers, and journalists in the West, each move in Haya’s departure from Dubai has been scrutinized. Many question why Sheikh Mohammed, who is known to keep close tabs on his citizens, would have allowed his wife to leave when Dubai has more surveillance than anywhere on Earth, with 35,000 cameras trained on street corners (Washington, D.C., only has about 4,000). If the sheikh had an inkling that things were awry in his marriage, wouldn’t he have asked one of his ministers to monitor his wife’s digital footprint, and even revoke her privileges on their (multiple) private planes?

Many are also questioning what exactly Haya’s escape may have to do with Sheikh Mohammed’s daughter Latifa fleeing on a yacht and if the two departures are linked. The downside of monarchical prerogative may be felt through the heirs, as it is so often. The sheikh needs to run his state and keep his offspring from embarrassing him, and he may do that in a strict and potentially brutal way.

[...] In Dubai’s royal family, for women, life may be stricter. “You have the fancy title of being a princess, and of course you have people waiting on you [hand and foot], but you’re essentially a prisoner,” says an Arab dissident. “You’re not supposed to socialize. You don’t have a normal life.” Though some women in Dubai’s royal family are educated abroad and have public profiles, others simply bear children, spend their monthly stipend, and remain quiet. “If you want to be in favor, you buy into what the king does. If you’re not, you’re pushed aside and nobody really cares about you—you’re not a high-profile monarchy anyway,” says a source with knowledge of Dubai’s royals.

[...] In 2001, according to The Guardian, Sheikh Mohammed’s daughter Shamsa bint Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, a tall, dark-eyed college student and equestrian who once came in behind Princess Anne in a long-distance horse race, abandoned her black Range Rover near the stables at the family’s Surrey estate. When the vehicle was discovered the following morning, Sheikh Mohammed took a helicopter from another racing area to join the hunt. Shamsa was eventually found in Cambridge, after which she was reportedly snatched by bodyguards and returned to Dubai; her father followed up by moving 80 horses off the property and firing nearly all of the estate’s staff.

When this news spilled into the press—via Shamsa hiring a London barrister and also reportedly calling British police from Dubai—there was an outcry. In London, the government opened an investigation into whether she had been taken out of the country “against her will.” But the investigation apparently languished, and Shamsa remained in Dubai, though she has not appeared in a photograph circulating on the internet or elsewhere in the intervening 18 years.

Could this court case unlock the mystery of Dubai’s missing princesses Latifa and Shamsa?

Princess Haya in court for London hearing in legal battle with Dubai's ruler

Roger Stone, a veteran Republican political operative and longtime confidant of Donald Trump, was found guilty by a federal jury in Washington, D.C. on Friday in his false statements and obstruction trial.

The verdict, announced after two days of deliberations by the jury, adds another chapter to Stone's long and colorful history as a self-described dirty trickster.

It also means Stone, who is 67, likely faces prison time, even as a first-time offender. Stone stood as the verdict was read on all seven counts in this case but did not speak.

Stone was arrested in January at his home in Florida on charges brought by former special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the Russia investigation.

Stone pleaded not guilty to making false statements, obstruction and witness tampering. He did not take the stand during the trial.

Roger Stone, Political Operative And Trump Aide, Guilty In False Statements Trial

Student protesters fortify campus occupations as Hong Kong braces for more violence

The CUHK campus was on Tuesday the scene of some of the most intense fighting in the city since demonstrations began in June, with hundreds of riot police firing more than 1,567 canisters of tear gas during a chaotic and ultimately aborted clearance operation.

Throughout Wednesday and Thursday, protesters and those helping them continued to pour into the sprawling grounds by road and by foot, bringing supplies, including protective gear, food and water.

A highly organized operation was launched inside the campus, sorting and distributing the supplies, building and reinforcing barricades, and stockpiling weapons, including petrol bombs, bows and arrows, javelins, and pieces of wood hammered with nails.

[...] On Thursday, China's top state-run television channel issued an online editorial telling protesters their actions are "undisguised terrorism." "We have had enough talking, persuasion and warnings. To stop the unrest has to be implemented and advanced more resolutely now. The country will never accept the situation to be out of control, justice to be covered or Hong Kong to be sunk," the editorial from CCTV read.

It echoed an editorial in the state-run tabloid Global Times suggesting the People's Armed Police and the People's Liberation Army were ready to back up Hong Kong's government "when necessary." "We also warn the radical protesters: You are on the edge of doom. Those who are coerced to be 'valiant' should walk away as soon as possible when you still can make the call," the editorial said.

See also: Hong Kong is still ‘a very good proxy’ for Chinese assets despite the unrest, says an economist
U.S. Senate Sets Up Expedited Vote on Hong Kong Democracy Bill

ABC scrambles to figure out identity of Amy Robach leaker, who goes by ‘Ignotus’

ABC bigwigs are going potty to find the identity of the leaker behind the Amy Robach tape — after the alleged source posted a letter online slamming the network under the name “Ignotus,” a wizard from the “Harry Potter” franchise.

After junior producer Ashley Bianco denied leaking the tape, on which the anchor complained that ABC News killed her interview with Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre, someone purporting to be the actual leaker and still working at the network posted a letter on Project Veritas blasting ABC’s “mission of seek and destroy” to conjure up the mysterious mole.

Project Veritas editors confirmed the missive was penned by the same ABC News insider who gave them the tape “in light of the actions taken against those wrongfully identified as involved in the leaking.”

An ABC insider said top execs were particularly puzzled by Ignotus. He is possibly best known as a Harry Potter character, a pure-blood wizard who has a cloak of invisibility, passed through generations, finally to Harry Potter. Ignotus also means “unknown” in Latin.

The ABC insider said, “They are freaking out over the Harry Potter reference. Does this mean the leaker is a Potter fan, likely one of the younger staff members who work the overnight shift? Or is the leaker citing Latin, which means he or she could be an older member of staff. I mean, how many young producers speak Latin these days?”

Previously: Jeffrey Epstein and ABC

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