Turkey: Dollar bills seen as evidence of coup-plotter links
Turkey: Dollar bills seen as evidence of coup-plotter links
ISTANBUL (AP) — After raiding a home and business owned by someone suspected of loyalties to a banned Muslim cleric, police listed the incriminating evidence they found: two shotguns, a pistol, ammunition, a fake identity card — and three $1 bills.
The serial numbers, they noted, all began with the letter F.
In one of the odder twists in Turkey’s failed July 15 coup and the subsequent crackdown, authorities are citing U.S. banknotes — and $1 bills in particular — as evidence that people are followers of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim cleric whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating the coup. Gulen, whose broad but secretive movement runs schools, charities and businesses across the globe, denies any involvement.
“There is no doubt that this $1 bill has some important function within the Gulenist terror organization,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag recently told the A Haber television channel. “Prosecutors are asking as they investigate what these are. What does this mean? Why are they being carried? Does it signify a hierarchy to them? Is it some sort of ID that identifies them to one another?”
The minister said he had received information speculating on the banknotes’ significance, “but contrary information may also surface, so I don’t want to share it at this moment. This will be clearly revealed once the investigation is complete.”
Trump strains to fix split GOP, blasting common foe Clinton
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump faced an all-too-clear sign of GOP divisions Friday in Midwestern battlegrounds, embraced by party leaders in one state but ignored in another. He unleashed a scathing attack on Hillary Clinton’s character as he tried to overcome deepening concerns about his presidential candidacy.
Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad appeared with the celebrity businessman at an afternoon rally, his third appearance in the swing state over the past two weeks. But in neighboring Wisconsin, a state Trump insists he can win, the state’s best-known Republicans said they were too busy to attend an evening event.
House Speaker Paul Ryan cited a scheduling conflict, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he’d attend an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner instead of appearing with his party’s standard bearer.
“Welcome to Wisconsin, Mr. Trump, but let’s get something straight,” Wisconsin’s Assembly Speaker Robin Vos wrote in an open letter to his GOP colleagues ahead of Trump’s arrival. “We are Ryan Republicans here in Wisconsin, not Trump Republicans.”
The tale of two states underscores Trump’s mounting challenges during one of the most tumultuous weeks of his unorthodox campaign. He has skipped from one misstep to the next, sparking a fresh wave of Republican defections among longtime party loyalists who refuse to support their presidential nominee — including some who even publicly support for Democrat Clinton.
Belgrade Zoo claims oldest captive American alligator
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — In the Belgrade Zoo, special treatment is reserved for one elderly resident.
Muja, an American alligator, is the oldest animal in the Serbian capital’s small zoo. Moreover, the zoo boasts that he is the world’s oldest American alligator in captivity.
Aleksandar Rakocevic, who takes care of Muja, said Friday that information available from other zoos and animal rights groups support the claim that the alligator is the oldest of his kind in captivity.
At least 80 years old, Muja arrived fully grown from Germany in 1937 — one year after the zoo opened. He has become one of its symbols and the favorite of many generations of keepers.
Muja has been a silent witness of the Serbian capital’s turbulent history — he has survived a world war, three bombings of Belgrade and the Balkan crisis of the 1990s.
Clinton acknowledges trust issue, blames them on Republicans
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton acknowledged Friday the challenge she’d face leading a country where most Americans don’t trust her, saying she takes “seriously” the work she must do to build confidence in her character.
But the Democratic presidential nominee also claimed that a broad electoral victory over Donald Trump in November would give her the capital needed to push her plans through Congress with Republican support and appeared to blame her political opponents for her low approval ratings.
Clinton pointed to the high ratings she won as secretary of state and as a senator from New York, arguing that voters like her more when she’s working than when she’s campaigning — something she attributed to campaign attacks on her character.
“Were 67 percent of the people in New York wrong? Were 66 percent of the American public wrong?” Clinton said. “Just maybe, when I’m actually running for a job, there is a real benefit to those on the other side with trying to stir up as much trouble as possible.”
Clinton’s trustworthiness has emerged as her biggest weakness in the fall campaign, one worsened by her responses to questions about her use of private emails servers as secretary of state and her reluctance to take regular questions from journalists.
Video shows Chicago police firing at car as it drives away
CHICAGO (AP) — Video released Friday shows Chicago police firing repeatedly at a stolen car as it careens down the street away from them, then handcuffing the mortally wounded black 18-year-old who was at the wheel after a chaotic foot chase through a residential neighborhood.
None of the footage from last month shows the moment the suspected car thief was shot in the back. Shortly after the shots are fired, Paul O’Neal can be seen lying face-down on the ground in a backyard, blood soaking through the back of his T-shirt.
An officer is heard angrily accusing the suspect of firing at police. Another officer asks, “They shot at us too, right?” suggesting police believed they had been fired upon and that they did not know how many suspects were present.
No gun was recovered from the scene.
Attorney Michael Oppenheimer, who represents O’Neal’s family, said the video showed officers taking “street justice into their own hands.”
DC-area mayor faces drug charges after meth-for-sex sting
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A three-term northern Virginia mayor was arrested on drug charges after he tried to trade two grams of methamphetamine for sex acts in what turned out to be an undercover sting operation, police said Friday.
City of Fairfax Mayor R. Scott Silverthorne was arrested Thursday night after meeting at a Tysons Corner hotel just outside the Capital Beltway with undercover detectives he approached through a website used to arrange casual sexual encounters between men, Fairfax County police said at a press conference.
Police Capt. Jack Hardin said they received a tip that Silverthorne had been arranging drugs-for-sex encounters. Police then set up an online profile on the website, and within two days Silverthorne made contact online with the detective who set up the profile, Hardin said.
“We had information on what the mayor was looking for, what types of activities” he wanted to engage in, Hardin said.
Silverthorne, who also worked as a substitute teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools, was arrested and gave a full confession, police said. He was released on his own recognizance while he awaits a preliminary hearing Oct. 31 on a felony charge of drug distribution and a misdemeanor charge of possessing drug paraphernalia.