Posts on Sunday, January 12, 2020
OAKLAND — One of the homeless mothers who has been living in a vacant West Oakland house since Nov. 18 scoffed Saturday night at an offer by the house’s owner to pay to move them out and shelter them for the next two months, calling the offer “an insult.”
Earlier Saturday, the property owner planning to have two homeless mothers evicted next week from a West Oakland home offered on Saturday to pay to shelter them for the next two months. Real estate investment firm Wedgewood Properties is offering to foot the bill for their move and to pay a
‘We will not be silenced’ – Megan Rapinoe says
of new rules on political protests at Olympics replies
of new rules on political protests at Olympics replies
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — U.S. Women’s National Team and Seattle Reign FC star Megan Rapinoe responded Friday to the new guidelines from the International Olympic Committee on political protests at the 2020 Tokyo Games. “So much being done about the protests. So little being done about what we are protesting about. We will not be silenced,” Rapinoe wrote on an Instagram story Friday. The IOC published guidelines Thursday specifying which types of athlete protests will not be allowed at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Athletes are prohibited by the Olympic Charter's Rule 50 from taking a political stand n the field of
The national co-chair of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign tore into former Vice President Joe Biden’s record on race in an op-ed Sunday.Biden has “repeatedly betrayed black voters,” Nina Turner argued in an op-ed published in South Carolina newspaper The State.She hammered Biden’s opposition to forced desegregation busing and his work with segregationist senators and wrote: “Biden didn’t just vote for bills designed to prevent black students from accessing white schools: in a series of personal letters he actively courted pro-segregation senators to support the legislation.”“Sanders, by contrast, began his work in politics by organizing civil rights protests. As a college student,
A bug in the code of a Facebook update rolled out last week accidentally made it possible to see which accounts were responsible for posts to Facebook Pages, including those of celebrities and politicians, for a period of several hours.
"All it took to exploit the bug was opening a target page and checking the edit history of a post. Facebook mistakenly displayed the account or accounts that made edits to each post, rather than just the edits themselves," explained Wired.
Facebook was quick to post a fix, thanks to a security reacher who alerted them to the big. "We quickly fixed an issue where someone could see who edited
Sir Roger Scruton Is Dead
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Very, very sad to get the news that Sir Roger Scruton has died of cancer. (Snip)
I interviewed him for my forthcoming book about what the experience of resisting Soviet-bloc communism has to teach us about resisting the soft totalitarianism emerging today. Sir Roger was strongly supportive of this book, telling me it was urgently important. I feel so humbled by his friendship and encouragement.
Sir Roger himself took great risks in the 1980s to help the resistance in Czechoslovakia and Poland. Last year, in this piece for the Daily Mail, Sir Roger recalled his role in setting up underground seminars to keep real knowledge and scholarship alive, despite the dictatorship.
The nation’s top spy court appointed an Obama-era Justice Department official who has denied and downplayed FBI surveillance abuse to assess the FBI’s response to a scathing new report cataloguing problems with how the agency secured authority to spy on a Donald Trump campaign affiliate.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) presiding Judge James Boasberg appointed David Kris to review the FBI’s proposed changes to its surveillance application process even though he spent the past few years running interference for the FBI as substantive criticism of the agency mounted.Lengthy investigations in the House of Representatives and by the Department of Justice inspector general
Meghan Markle's voiceover deal with Disney could have been swung by Harry after video footage emerged of the Prince seemingly trying to persuade franchise boss Bob Iger to give his wife a job.
At the Lion King premiere in London last July, the Duke of Sussex collared the powerful Disney chief and advertised his ex-actress partner's 'interest' in doing voiceover work.
During the hushed conversation, caught on camera by a fan, the Prince gestures to Meghan and says: 'You do know she does voiceovers?'
Iger can be heard replying: 'Ah, I did not know that.' Harry then responds: 'You seem surprised. She's really interested.' The Disney chief then says:
A former Marine who was kicked out of the military 10 years ago has been charged with impersonating one of the soldiers guarding President Trump’s Marine One helicopter.
Brandon M. Magnan, 37, was arrested by the Secret Service and charged on Monday after he allegedly breached two checkpoints at Palm Beach International Airport and posed as a member of the security team assigned to Marine One. Magnan, a resident of Naples, Florida, was charged on January 6 with false personation of officer or employee of the United States, according to The New York Times.If convicted, he faces up to three years
Tehran – Iran signalled Sunday it favours “de-escalation” after 10 days of heightened tensions with the United States that saw both sides fire missiles and led Tehran to accidentally shoot down a passenger aircraft. Security was stepped up in Iran’s capital after a vigil the previous night for those killed in the air disaster turned into an angry protest and police temporarily arrested the British ambassador for being there.US President Donald Trump meanwhile warned Iran against harming demonstrators and against a repeat of a deadly crackdown against rallies in November sparked by a fuel price hike. “To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,”
A new anti-Trump Republican group, the Lincoln Project, is out with their first ad targeting President Donald Trump as the group looks to chip away at his support among evangelical voters. The video titled "the MAGA church," which comes on the heels of the Trump campaign investing big in evangelical outreach, features a string of unflattering clips of the president along with the message: “If this is the best American Christians can do, then God help us all.” The ad is a first test of the type of firepower the Lincoln Project can produce as the group of anti-Trump Republicans
A WPIX cameraman was fired after a Muslim anchorwoman and other station staffers falsely accused him of racism and Islamaphobia, he claims in an explosive lawsuit. “I feel heartbroken and morally and professionally violated,” Ken Evseroff, 52, told The Post. In October 2018 Narmeen Choudhury, who had worked with Evseroff in the field as a reporter when not filling in on the anchor desk, first complained to the station’s human resources department about Evseroff. The Queens-born Choudhury, 38, a Muslim Bangladeshi-American and mother of two who has worked at WPIX since 2011, claimed the white Evseroff made “rude, racist and/or sexist comments” during nearly every assignment they
Never put a time limit on your doomsday predictions. This rookie error has been the undoing of charlatans, cultists and false prophets through the ages, from Martin of Tours, who predicted that the world would end by 400, to Harold Camping, who claimed it would happen on Sept. 6, 1994. The latest poor saps to join the oops club are the authorities in charge of Montana’s Glacier National Park. For years they’ve been warning on their visitor signs that their main attraction, the glaciers, would be “gone by 2020.” Instead, it’s those misleading signs that have had to go, because 2020 has now arrived and those pesky glaciers
Donald Trump's decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani has triggered a major rupture between the United States and its historically closest ally in the United Kingdom. In remarkably outspoken comments, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Sunday that Trump's isolationist foreign policy stance meant the UK was now looking for alternative allies around the world.
"I worry if the United States withdraws from its leadership around the world," he told the Sunday Times.
The nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency is in shambles. Following a series of internal investigations, in addition to extensive reporting on the misconduct of former top officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is suffering a crisis in confidence from the very people it has a sworn duty to protect: the American public.(Snip)
Unfortunately, the man now in charge of the FBI, Christopher Wray, is not the right man to clean up the rot left behind by his predecessor. Wray’s filing this week to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is another example of why President Trump needs to find a replacement for the nation’s top G-man and to do
In the cascade of attention swirling around the death of General Suleimani, there was another story out there — a very significant media story — that has a major impact for America. It was a press release that began this way. IHeartMedia Extends Partnership with Rush Limbaugh--New York, NY – January 7, 2020 – iHeartMedia, the leading audio company in America with a greater reach in the U.S. than any other radio or television outlet, announced today it has renewed and extended its partnership with Rush Limbaugh, the most-listened-to national radio talk show host in America. Specific terms were not announced,
The death of Qasem Soleimani (aka General سم سلیمانی, in Persian) may have done more than lop the head off Iran's terrorism forces. The regime change foreshadowed by a trucker's strike last June may come to fruition.
The Jerusalem Post reported, "A group of Iranian protesters demanded Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei step down on Saturday after Tehran said that its military had mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 people on board.
(Snip)
"This is the first protest since the assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani. Last November, hundreds were killed in protests in multiple cities across the Islamic Republic.
With increased scrutiny toward the actions, and lack thereof, from current FBI Director Christopher Wray, another sketchy aspect deserves some scrutiny.
(Snip)Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Pientka III was first identified by Senator Chuck Grassley in May of 2018 as the second FBI agent involved in the 2017 interview of Lt. General Michael Flynn.
Frustrated by the FBI stonewalling his Senate inquiry, Chairman Grassley dropped the revelation publicly on May 11th, 2018, in a letter to the FBI.(Snip)[…] please make Special Agent Joe Pientka available for a transcribed interview with Committee staff no later than one week following the production of the requested documents… (link)
The FBI never produced Supervisory Special Agent
Every January, tech companies large and small converge on Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. And with that comes a slew of announcements about new computers, TVs, smartwatches, home security devices, and on. Take a look below for the most intriguing products and concepts at CES this year.
A Tale of Two Terrorists
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It was the best of people, it was the worst of people…
Osama bin Laden deserved to die. Only the fringe of the fringe disagree with this statement (looking at you, British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn), which is why no one seemed to mind when Seal Team 6 invaded Pakistan to upgrade his train ticket to Hell to first class.
Make no mistake: the word “invaded” is the correct word. We did not have permission to enter, nor did we tell them we were coming. There was a chance, however remote, of something horrible happening that could have started at least a serious battle,
By modern standards, my grandfather would probably be considered an environmental criminal. To clear land for his farmhouse in north-eastern Victoria — and for his milking sheds, pig pens, chicken sheds, blacksmith shop and other outbuildings — he cleared hundreds of trees. And he cleared thousands more for his wheat fields, cattle paddocks and shearing sheds.
Old man Hobbs would probably be found guilty of cultural appropriation, too, because he adopted the Aboriginal method of land-clearing. He burned all of those trees. He also established fire-delaying dirt paths through surrounding bushland.
This was once standard practice throughout rural Australia, where the pre-settlement indigenous population
One of two U.S. service members killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Saturday has been identified as Miguel Villalon, a 21-year-old from the Chicago suburb of Aurora, Illinois.Villalon was one of two fatalities in the attack, which was claimed by the Taliban. Two other American soldiers were injured, according to the Pentagon.'Our prayers and condolences are with the Villalon family during this tragic time,' Aurora Mayor Richard C. Irvin wrote in a statement. 'Miguel was a young soldier with dreams for the future and a desire to make a difference in the world today.
As anti-government protests swept Iran in the aftermath of the downing of a Ukrainian plane, students from Tehran avoided walking on massive American and Israel flags placed on the road in front of them. (Tweet) Videos circulated on social media showed Iranian students parting as they approached the large flags, taking pains to avoid stepping on them. A few people who did walk over the flags were booed by protesters in the area with chants of "Shame on you."
Some reports said that the protesters near the flags chanted "Our enemy is in Iran, not America." (Tweet) Hillel Neuer, the executive director of NGO UN Watch, tweeted in response
California waterways polluted with alarming
levels of dangerous fecal bacteria due to
homelessness replies
levels of dangerous fecal bacteria due to
homelessness replies
California’s beaches, rivers, and streams have become contaminated with alarming levels of dangerous fecal bacteria thanks to the liberal state’s escalating homelessness crisis. President Trump recently spotlighted the terrifying epidemic on Twitter, when he wrote: “We should all work together to clean up these hazardous waste and homeless sites before the whole city rots away. Very bad and dangerous conditions, also severely impacting the Pacific Ocean and water supply. Pelosi must work on this mess and turn her district around!” (Tweet)
A top British official condemned Saturday’s arrest of the U.K. ambassador to Iran during anti-government protests in Tehran, calling the detainment “a flagrant violation of international law.”
Rob Macaire, who has been Britain’s envoy to the Islamic republic since March 2018, was arrested as he stopped at a barber shop for a haircut after attending a vigil for the victims of a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed in Tehran last week, the BBC reported.
Macaire left the vigil after it became a demonstration but was later accused by Iranian authorities of helping to incite the anti-government protest, The Independent of Britain reported. He was released after three hours but the arrest infuriated
Protesters in Iran are calling for Ayatollah Khamenei to step down. During Saturday’s demonstrations in Tehran, protesters were heard chanting “commander in chief resign” and “death to the liars.” (Tweet/Video) The protests came in response to the Iranian government’s admission of guilt regarding the Ukrainian passenger plane crash, which killed 176 people this week. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard took full responsibility for wrongly striking the plane down and claimed it was “unintentionally” seen as a “hostile target.” The regime initially denied any involvement, but changed their stance after an initial investigation.
Washington– Donald Trump warned Iran Sunday against killing protesters who have risen up over the regime’s downing of a civilian airliner as his defense secretary left the door open to talks with Tehran without preconditions.Trump’s salvo came as Iran’s Islamic regime faced a challenge from angry street protests, having come to the brink of war with the US with a series of tit-for-tat confrontations.“To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” Trump tweeted, warning the world and “more importantly, the USA is watching.”In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” just before the tweet,US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is working on implementing clean car standards. Gov. Tim Walz directed the agency to begin the process in September.
"If Washington won't lead on climate, Minnesota will,” Walz said in a news release. (snip) “Transportation is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in our state, so tackling climate change means tackling emissions,” said Amanda Jarrett Smith, the MPCA climate and energy policy coordinator.
Meghan Markle reportedly has signed a deal with Disney in return for a donation to a wildlife charity.
U.K. newspaper The Times reported Markle would do a voiceover for an unspecified Disney project in exchange for a donation towards conservation charity Elephants Without Borders.
The deal was set ahead of Markle and Prince Harry announcing they are preparing to "step back" as senior members of Britain's royal family. The royal family responded to the couple's announcement via its official Twitter account and website with the following statement: "Discussions with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are at an early stage. We understand their desire to take a different approach, but
Montpelier, Vt. — A bill has been proposed in the Vermont Legislature to decriminalize adult prostitution. The legislation is co-sponsored by four female legislators. Rep. Selene Colburn, a Burlington progressive, said she thinks that decriminalizing sex work will improve safety and health of prostitutes, mynbc5.com reported. “The underlying question is do we need to criminalize consensual sex between adults on any terms?,” she said. Sex trafficking, exploitation and solicitation of minors will remain a serious felony, she said. The bill is in the House Judiciary Committee.
Even as Progressives double down on their claim that Trump was somehow responsible for the Iranians shooting down a passenger plane, Iranian protesters are rising up against their government because Trump has told the truth and is actively supporting them.
In mid-2009, shortly after President Obama took office, Iran had its own presidential election. Voters believed (reasonably) that the election was rigged and started protesting. For months, hundreds of thousands of people were on the streets in protest. Over nine months, the government arrested at least 10,000 people and killed over 100. Never once did Obama give the protesters a single word of support.
Obama’s silence was deadly.
The British Royal Farce
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Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns. Don't bother — they're here. (snip) Megxit is a problem, a drama, for the Royal Family, but it is not a constitutional crisis for the monarchy. It is a drama of friction between two brothers and their wives for reasons not made public, but probably over differences over the haste of Harry's marriage to Meghan. Harry has said, without explanation, he was on a completely different path from his brother William,
Bernie Sanders's campaign ratcheted up its attacks on Joe Biden's claim that he did not support the Iraq War nearly as soon as it started. “It is appalling that after 18 years Joe Biden still refuses to admit he was dead wrong on the Iraq War, the worst foreign policy blunder in modern American history," Sanders senior adviser Jeff Weaver said in a statement Saturday. "Unlike 23 of his Senate colleagues who got it right, Biden made explicitly clear that he was voting for war, and even after the war started, he boasted that he didn’t regret it." Biden voted
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace doesn’t think President Donald Trump or anyone else in his administration should be surprised that Congress and the American people are not taking their claims about an “imminent” threat from Iran at face value. Speaking to Fox News’ Bret Baier on Friday afternoon, Wallace said, “I think to a certain degree, the administration has itself to blame. Because right away the president and Mike Pompeo, when he was doing all five Sunday shows this last week, was saying ‘imminent, imminent, imminent.’” He said that “understandably” people want to know what “imminent” actually meant in
Gabriel Sherman is a widely published writer of articles in some of the country’s leading mainstream magazines. Currently, he’s a Vanity Fair special correspondent in addition to being a frequent NBC News/MSNBC contributor. (snip) On Friday, it appears that Sherman was finally hoisted on his own petard – or, in the current vernacular, “punked.” Appearing on fellow Vanity Fair special correspondent Nick Bilton’s podcast Inside the Hive, hosted on the magazine’s servers, Sherman told an anecdote that he and Bilton gleefully agreed summed up “the latest evidence of the president’s mental decay.”
Susan Collins Working with
”Small Group’ of GOP Senators to Rally
Support for Impeachment Witnesses replies
”Small Group’ of GOP Senators to Rally
Support for Impeachment Witnesses replies
The moderate Republican, who signaled that she is open to witnesses in a Senate impeachment trial, told reporters on Friday that she is working with a “fairly small group” of GOP senators as part of an effort to solidify support for witnesses in the impeachment trial in the Senate.
“I am hopeful that we can reach an agreement on how to proceed with the trial that will allow the opportunity for both the House and the president’s counsel if they choose to do so,” Collins said, according to Bangor Daily News.
It is easy to construct a scenario in which tit-for-tat actions by the Americans and Iranians lead to all-out war, close off the Gulf, send oil prices soaring, crash the global economy — and, if you are really going to go for it, end in nuclear conflagration. But what about the alternative outcome: that conflict between Iran and the West precipitates a counter-revolution against the mullahs and leads to an end of the 40-year Iranian theocracy?
The overthrow of the Iranian regime is the black swan event — or maybe it ought to be called a white swan event — which no-one is talking about, which is odd
Trump Is Toto
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If you remember The Wizard of Oz you will recall that Toto, Dorothy’s dog, pulled back the curtain, revealing that the wizard was just a little guy working a panel of sound and light gimmicks to fool people into thinking he was more omnipotent than he really was. In the same way, the President’s killing of Qassem Soleimani and the aftermath reveals the four-decades-long treatment of Iranian terrorism and Israel by the foreign-policy establishment -- our presidents from Jimmy Carter up to now -- and Congress was based on myths.The brilliant Caroline Glick makes the case. For the past 40-odd years, two narratives have guided American Middle East policy.
Of course Jeffrey Epstein was murdered.
And there’s no reason to whisper around that. It’s impossible to conclude otherwise — particularly in the face of the latest announcement about the final hours of the jailed convicted sex offender’s life, that video footage of his first suicide attempt had been inadvertently destroyed.
Mistakenly erased. It “no longer exists,” said federal prosecutors.
That’s not just curious. It’s beyond-the-pale outrageously suspicious.
Let’s just take a look at the facts: Epstein was arrested in July on sex trafficking charges and jailed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. That was after a long and wildly horrible life
A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
I keep thinking about the above quote whenever anyone claims that the Obama administration was scandal-free. How many more times are we going to hear people make this claim and see it go unchallenged?
During an interview on CNN on Friday, former Secretary of State John Kerry, who's in Iowa campaigning with Joe Biden, echoed the oft-repeated claim that the Obama-Biden administration lacked scandals.
"I believe Joe Biden is the only person who has the set of relationships around the world, who has had this unbelievable breadth of experience as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and then as vice president for eight years —
For most of the twenty-first century, the world’s oldest surviving democracy has been led by a chief executive who received fewer votes than his opponent in an election for the position. The first of these executives started a war based on false pretenses that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. The second — a serial abuser of women who hired as his campaign manager a lobbyist for violent dictatorships - authorized an immigration policy that forcibly separated migrant children from their families and indefinitely detained them in facilities described as “concentration camps.” Democracy, as they say, is messy.
More than a dozen Saudi servicemen training at US military installations will be expelled from the United States after a review that followed the deadly shooting last month at a Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, multiple sources told CNN.
The Saudis are not accused of aiding the 21-year-old Saudi Air Force second lieutenant who killed three American sailors in the December shooting, two sources said, but some are said to have connections to extremist movements, according to a person familiar with the situation.
A number are also accused of possessing child pornography, according to a defense official and the person familiar with the situation.
The Vatican’s long-promised report on the Theodore McCarrick scandal has yet to materialize. Meanwhile, his “nephews” continue to rise in the Church, often taking positions within the inner circle of Pope Francis. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who roomed with McCarrick for five years in Washington, D.C., has been appointed by Pope Francis to the position of camerlengo, which means that he will preside over the next papal conclave. According to the National Catholic Reporter’s Michael Sean Winters, who serves as a stenographer for the American bishops around Pope Francis, Farrell may receive another papal plum this year: a seat on the powerful Congregation for Bishops.
Harry and Meghan don’t know how good they have it. They want to bust out of their gilded cage and roam free, but they’re so naive they’re like fluffy kitties who have never crossed a busy road before and are likely to get squashed if they try.
A key motivation to the shocking Megxit announcement this week — even as the Queen warned Meghan and Prince Ginger Whiskers against going public with their moronic plan — was their fury with the media. They hate the “Royal Rota” system, in which a designated royal reporter and photographer cover their events as representatives of the entire media and the royals
The Global Fertility Crisis
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South Korea recently denied draft exemptions for members of the K-pop boy band and international sensation BTS. BTS is one of South Korea’s most dynamic economic and cultural exports, worth about $4.65 billion annually to the South Korean economy. But despite the hundreds of millions of dollars of lost economic output involved, the boys of BTS must serve. The South Korean military cites many reasons for the denial of exemptions, but one reason may simply be urgent need. Thanks to the nation’s critically low birth rate, just 0.88 children expected per woman at 2019 levels, the army is expected to shed over 100,000 troops in the next four years.
Caught red-handed with solid evidence showing it shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane – tragically killing all 176 people aboard – the government of Iran had to admit Saturday that it was guilty of the horrific attack.
Iran bears full responsibility for this unprovoked mass killing and should be required to pay compensation to the families of the dead passengers and the airline – although no amount of money can make up for the lost lives.
And airlines from around the world would be wise now to consider whether flying into Iran is worth the risk. If some international airlines stop service to Iran it would strike yet another economic blow
Iranian female Olympian defects,
calls out regime's 'hypocrisy'
as she exits country permanently replies
calls out regime's 'hypocrisy'
as she exits country permanently replies
Iran’s only female Olympic medalist has reportedly defected, posting a goodbye letter to Iran on Saturday, calling out the government's "hypocrisy" as she announced she had permanently left the country.
"Should I start with hello, goodbye, or condolences?" Taekwondo athlete, Kimia Alizadeh, 21, posted on her Instagram in Farsi, Agence France-Presse reported.
Alizadeh did not disclose where she was going, but Iran's ISNA news agency reported she had gone to the Netherlands, according to AFP. The Iranian report quoted Alizadeh's coach as saying the athlete was injured and did not show up for trials ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
In 1991, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell were riding high on their Persian Gulf War
triumph. More than four million New Yorkers poured into the streets to cheer the ticker-tape parade they led up Broadway.
“The most effective combination we’ve seen in this country since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig,” gushed one Republican lawmaker.
President George H.W. Bush basked in a 74 percent approval rating, and his two top military advisers, Cheney as secretary of defense and Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were a perfectly unified team.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be confronted with the dire financial impact of abandoning the Royal Family at an extraordinary Sandringham summit tomorrow.
Royal aides and Government officials have drawn up a range of scenarios setting out the ‘stark implications’ faced by Harry and Meghan if they abandon or dramatically scale back their royal duties – including a major tax trap.
In what sources described as a ‘reality check moment’, Harry will travel to Sandringham for a showdown with the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William. Meghan is expected to join by phone from Canada, where she is caring for their eight-month-old son, Archie.
Around 13,000 people will be evacuated from their homes after unexploded World War II bombs were discovered in a German city, authorities believe.
Officials suspect the bombs were dropped on Dortmund by Allied forces during World War II.
The city - in Germany's industrial Ruhr region - is to be brought to a standstill after the evacuation affecting retirement homes, hospitals and the main train station.
In an online statement, Dortmund city hall said they had identified four locations where they suspect the bombs are buried.
The suspicions were based on 'anomalies' detected during construction projects, the statement said.
'Only an excavation' could confirm the existence of bombs, it added.