Democratic emails: All about the hack, the leak, the discord
Democratic emails: All about the hack, the leak, the discord
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — First came the hack, then the leak. Now, the Clinton and Trump campaigns are fighting over Russia’s role in the release of thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails.
At least one thing is clear: The email uproar is an unwelcome distraction at the launch of the Democratic National Convention, inflaming the rift between supporters of Hillary Clinton and primary rival Bernie Sanders just when the party was hoping to close it.
As the Philadelphia convention got underway Monday, developments in the email story rolled out in rapid sequence:
Clinton’s campaign, citing a cybersecurity firm hired to investigate the leak, blamed Russia for hacking the party’s computers and suggested the goal was to benefit Donald Trump’s campaign.
Trump dismissed that idea as laughable, tweeting: “The new joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails.”
Flight 370: With search suspended, a cold-case file awaits
BANGKOK (AP) — For two years and more, it has been a lost ship, a metal container carrying 239 souls that simply disappeared one late Asian night never to be seen again. And now, the search for the remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 likely will become a thing of memory, too.
With Friday’s announcement that the meticulous ocean search for the missing jetliner will be suspended — in effect, called off — one of this decade’s most tantalizing unanswered questions is headed toward becoming, in effect, a cold case.
“I am not surprised it’s coming to an end without any answers,” Tony Wong, a businessman in Kuala Lumpur, said Monday.
“People are slowly forgetting the incident,” he said. “No one will ever know the truth.”
The truth may be out there. The problem is, you have to know where to look. And that’s been precisely the problem all along.
Georgia appeals court says ‘upskirting’ not against the law
ATLANTA (AP) — A man admitted he surreptitiously took cellphone video up a woman’s skirt while she shopped at a grocery store, but a Georgia court said he didn’t break the law.
A divided Georgia Court of Appeals this month tossed out the conviction of former grocery store employee Brandon Lee Gary, who recorded videos up a woman’s skirt — known as “upskirting” — while she shopped. The 6-3 majority opinion said Gary’s behavior, while reprehensible, doesn’t violate the state’s invasion of privacy law, under which he was prosecuted.
In a ruling issued July 15, Judge Elizabeth Branch said it is “regrettable that no law currently exists which criminalizes Gary’s reprehensible conduct.”
“Unfortunately, there is a gap in Georgia’s criminal statutory scheme, in that our law does not reach all of the disturbing conduct that has been made possible by ever-advancing technology.”
In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Amanda Mercier argued there is no gap in the law and that Gary’s actions were clearly illegal.
Houston Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Hartwig said in an email Monday that his office asked the Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision. If that is denied, he will likely appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, he said.
Buddhist monk gets prison for stealing from temple to gamble
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A Buddhist monk was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $260,000 from the Louisiana temple he led and gambling most of the money at a casino.
U.S. District Judge Donald Walter also ordered Khang Nguyen Le, 36, of Lafayette to pay nearly $264,000 in restitution, U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley’s office said in a statement.
Le pleaded guilty in March to one count of wire fraud, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Le served as presiding monk of the Vietnamese Buddhist Association of Southwest Louisiana’s Lafayette temple from 2010 through October 2014, when he stepped down amid the investigation. Le’s indictment said he lived and worked at the temple and earned a salary of $1,000 per month.
Finley’s office said Le, a Vietnamese citizen, might face deportation to Vietnam after his release from prison.
UN calls for 48-hour humanitarian pause in Syria’s Aleppo
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Weekly 48-hour humanitarian pauses are urgently needed in Syria’s Aleppo city, where fighting has left more than a quarter of a million people trapped and in desperate need of aid, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Monday.
Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council that he could not stress enough “how critical the situation is” in the eastern part of Aleppo, which risks becoming the largest besieged area in the country. Food supplies are expected to run out in mid-August and many medical facilities continue to be attacked, he said.
“This is medieval and shameful,” O’Brien said. “We must not allow this to happen. But the clock is ticking.”
Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said he received an email Monday morning from a doctor at Aleppo Children’s Hospital saying “if nothing is done we are surely facing death.”
“Eastern Aleppo City is now encircled by the regime,” Rycroft said. “The Castello road, a vital route for food, medicine and supplies, is cut off. … Yet, another humanitarian catastrophe awaits.”
Syrian government forces and their allies cut the Castello road, the main link to rebel-controlled parts of the country, July 17 — laying siege to opposition-controlled parts of Aleppo. The country’s largest city and former commercial center has been contested since July 2012 and Aleppo residents have been reporting shortages of food in rebel-controlled parts of the city because of the siege.