Ariel Helwani and Chael Sonnen discuss Conor McGregor's UFC 246 win over Cowboy Cerrone and why they think McGregor's next fight should be against Nate Diaz.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Angered by deadly airstrikes targeting an Iran-backed militia, dozens of Iraqi Shiite militiamen and their supporters broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, smashing a main door and setting fire to a reception area in one of the worst attacks on the embassy in recent memory.
American guards fired tear gas, and palls of smoke rose over the embassy grounds.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw flames rising from inside the compound and U.S. soldiers on the roof of the main embassy building with their guns pointed at protesters.
A man on a loudspeaker urged the mob not to enter the compound, saying, “The message was delivered.”
There were no reports of casualties. The State Department said all American personnel were safe and that there were no plans to evacuate the embassy. The government planned to send more troops to protect the compound.
The breach followed U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters of the Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Kataeb Hezbollah. The U.S. military said the strikes were in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base that the U.S. blamed on the militia.
President Donald Trump blamed Iran for the embassy breach and called on Iraq to protect the diplomatic mission.
“Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!” he tweeted from his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
By early evening, the protesters had retreated from the compound but set up several tents outside where they said they intended to stage a sit-in. Dozens of yellow flags belonging to Iran-backed Shiite militias fluttered atop the reception area and were plastered along the embassy’s concrete wall along with anti-U.S. graffiti. American Apache helicopters flew overhead and dropped flares over the area.
Trump, who is spending the holiday week at his Florida home, is in “close touch” and receiving regular updates from his national security team, said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. She echoed the sentiment contained in Trump’s tweet earlier Tuesday.
“As the president said, Iran is orchestrating this attack, and they will be held fully responsible,” Grisham said in an emailed statement. “It will be the president’s choice how and when we respond to their escalation.”
The developments also represent a major downturn in Iraq-U.S. relations that could further undermine U.S. influence in the region and American troops in Iraq and weaken Washington’s hand in its pressure campaign against Iran.
Iraq has long struggled to balance its ties with the U.S. and Iran, both allies of the Iraqi government. But the government’s angry reaction to the U.S. airstrikes and its apparent decision not to prevent the protesters from reaching the embassy signaled a sharp deterioration of U.S.-Iraq relations.
Iraqi security forces made no effort to stop the protesters as they marched to the heavily fortified Green Zone after a funeral for those killed in the airstrikes. The demonstrators were allowed to pass through a security checkpoint leading to the area.
The marchers, many of them in militia uniforms, shouted “Down, down USA!” and “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” outside the compound, hurling water and stones over its walls. The mob set fire to three trailers used by security guards along the wall. AP journalists saw some try to scale the walls.
Others then smashed the gates used by cars to enter, and dozens pushed into the compound. The protesters stopped in a corridor after about 5 meters (16 feet), and were only about 200 meters away from the main building.
The sprawling embassy compound enjoys a prominent position on the banks of the Tigris River in the heart of the Iraqi capital. Resembling a fortified college campus, the complex is rimmed with thick blast walls and cylindrical watch towers, lending it the look of a modern-day castle.
Gates visitors use to enter the complex consist of an airlock-like vestibule fortified with heavy doors and bulletproof glass. Even if protesters breached the first set of doors, they would have to force past heavily armed military contractors and U.S. Marine guards and a second set of heavy doors before entering the main compound.
Numerous buildings are inside the walls, including dormitories for staff, well-stocked dining and recreation facilities, and a power station.
The protesters taunted the embassy’s security staff, which remained behind glass windows in the gates’ reception area. They hung a poster on the wall declaring “America is an aggressor” and sprayed graffiti on the wall and windows reading, “Closed in the name of the resistance.”
“This is a victory in retaliation to the American airstrike. This is the initial retaliation, God willing, there will be more,” said Mahmoud, a fighter with the Imam Ali Brigades who was carrying a black bag filled with electricity cables that he said he took from the reception area.
A video obtained by the AP showed militiamen trashing the reception area and taking away paperwork.
The embassy, on its Facebook page, urged American citizens not to approach the compound and “to review their personal security and emergency preparedness.”
An Iraqi employee at the embassy told the AP that the embassy’s security team had evacuated some local staff from a rear gate while others left by helicopters and the rest remained inside “safe” areas within the embassy. The employee spoke on condition of anonymity because of not being authorized to speak to journalists.
The U.S. ambassador was traveling outside Iraq at the time of the attack and planned to return, the State Department said.
Some commanders of militia factions loyal to Iran joined the protesters outside the embassy in a strikingly bold move. Among them was Qais al-Khizali, the head of one of the most powerful Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq who is on a U.S. terror list, and Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the state-sanctioned paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units, the umbrella group for the Iran-backed militias.
Jaafar al-Husseini, a spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah, said the protesters had no intention of storming the embassy. He told the AP that the sit-in will continue “until American troops leave Iraq and the embassy is closed.”
The U.S. airstrikes — the largest targeting an Iraqi state-sanctioned militia in recent years — and the subsequent calls by the militia for retaliation, represent a new escalation in the proxy war between the U.S. and Iran playing out in the Middle East.
The attack also outraged the Iraqi government, which said it will reconsider its relationship with the U.S.-led coalition — the first time it has said it will do so since an agreement was struck to keep some U.S. troops in the country. It called the attack a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.
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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in West Palm Beach, Florida, Adam Schreck in Chicago, Samya Kullab in New York and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report
Posted by ChasinDatPaper on November 14, 2019 at 12:21pm
Rochester NY emcee Jae Hussle has just dropped his full-length project Reflections: A Story Of My Lifetime Vol 1. Available for digital purchase via Bandcamp (link below)now. The entire eleven tracks were produced by Kidd Called Quest (Big Shug of Gang Starr Foundation, Trife Diesel). A true for dolo effort, the only features on the project are from fellow 585 representatives Curt Laisi and spoken word artist Tearz (who previously appeared on Benny The Butcher and 38 Spesh’s Stabbed and Shot album). UK songstress/producer El Ay (The Winners) provides a hook on the track “Time After Time” as well.
Listen and Purchase album fanlink.to/ybg
Tracklist:
1.Intro feat. Tearz 2. Reflections Of My Life 3. More 4. Time After Time 5. Streets Raised Me feat. Curt Laisi and El Ay 6.Talk To EM 7.Stamina 8. The Come Up 9.Friend Of A Enemy 10.Circle Of Life 11.Shea Butter
Mackenzie Dern joins Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show to preview her fight vs. Amanda Ribas at UFC Fight Night: Joanna vs. Waterson in Tampa, Florida. Dern, who just gave birth in June, describes her journey back to fighting and her decision to return to the Octagon so soon. (12:00) Dern says her metabolism has changed and losing weight has been easier.
Jorge Masvidal joins Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show to recap his flying knee knockout of Ben Askren at UFC 239. “Gamebred” says he’s watched the KO a lot, but won’t be telling his grandkids that it’s one of his proudest moments in fights. Masvidal wants to get paid and will weigh his options for who he will fight next.
Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless react to Anthony Davis being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and draft picks. Watch Shannon celebrate the news and explain why he thinks the Lakers clearly won this trade; but Skip disagrees.
Rachel Nichols joins SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt to recap the 2019 NBA draft lottery, where the New Orleans Pelicans landed the No. 1 overall pick and positioned themselves to draft Zion Williamson. Nichols analyzes the implications for Anthony Davis' future and describes how Zion reacted to the lottery's outcome.
Report via NBC Bay Area -- Rio Vista Police Department started an excessive force investigation after one of its police officers was captured on camera slamming 31-year-old Cherish Thomas to the ground following a traffic stop.
Officers stopped a vehicle with four people inside on Harris Drive on Sunday for a suspended registration, NBC-affiliate KCRA first reported. All four refused to leave the car which prevented officers from impounding it, according to police, and that's when Tyrone Clayton Jr. called relatives to come to scene and they recorded the incident on a phone.
"Just being pulled over, I fear for my life every time as an African American in Rio Vista," Clayton told KCRA.
Thomas and Deshuanna Payne, who are Clayton's stepsister and stepmother, arrived to the scene when things escalated, Police Chief Dan Dailey said. Dailey said Thomas and Payne obstructed police investigation.
Chief Dailey also said a third vehicle arrived on the scene with even more family members who were "confrontational and uncooperative"
The recording showed only a short part of the incident, according to police. Officers said Thomas pushed one of them and Payne tried to hit another officer. Dailey said that's when the officer picked up Thomas and slammed her to the ground.
"(The) officer tackled her to the ground in order to gain control of her while his partner stepped in to take Deshaunna Payne into custody," Dailey said in a news release.
But Thomas says she didn't push the officer and Payne says she wasn't trying to attack anyone. They were both charged with resisting arrest and obstructing an investigation, KCRA reported.
"I wasn’t trying to attack them. He slammed my baby," Payne told KCRA. "I went in mother mode to protect my child."
Thomas went to the hospital for her injuries and returned home on Monday. She said she suffered from headaches, sore legs and arms since the arrest.
Two people who were detained during the traffic stop were charged with felony vandalism after police said they tried to escape the patrol car by banging on the doors and windows.
Payne says she would like to see the officer fired. So far, no actions have been taken against the officer, KCRA reported.
Chief Dailey says he will release the officers' camera videos by the end of the week to "show the totality of this situation."
Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe discuss the New Orleans Pelicans winning the NBA Draft Lottery in what is the Zion Williamson sweepstakes. Hear Skip make a case for why Anthony Davis should consider staying with the Pelicans because of Zion, while Shannon strongly disagrees.
Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe discuss Tiger Woods winning the 2019 Masters Championship after his decade long drought. Hear Skip break down how Tiger rose all the way back to the very top of sports after overcoming his past issues.
(Fox News) Devastated Wendy Williams is “not in a good way” after being rushed to the hospital — hours after her husband’s alleged mistress gave birth.
The talk show host was found drunk on Monday, soon after Page Six reported that Sharina Hudson, the alleged longtime love of her husband Kevin Hunter, had given birth.
She was taken to the hospital where she was given IV fluids — however, she still showed to the set of her show and filmed on Tuesday.
The star had left the sober home in Queens where she has been staying, sparking a hunt for her before she was found.
But she’s now back at the facility, we’re told.
It’s widely believed that Hunter is the father of Hudson’s baby.
And a source said: “Wendy is not in a good way, everyone is so concerned for her. The sad thing is that she’s been working so hard to stay sober and she’s been so honest in her struggles with all her fans, and this just tipped her over the edge.
“But the fact she still came to the set just shows how strong she’s trying to be.”
Williams is due back on air for the foreseeable future, however, production staff are taking things “one day at a time.”
We’re told it was Hunter who told her to go to a sober home with complete strangers.
Last week, she revealed she was living with “a bunch of smelly boys who have become my family” in a sober house.
Hunter’s alleged mistress is believed to have given birth in Philadelphia.
The couple was sharing a home in New Jersey, before Hudson moved into an apartment in New York.
The Daily Mail first reported Williams was rushed to the hospital.
A rep for Williams could not be reached for comment.
CHICAGO (AP) — R. Kelly was taken back into custody Wednesday after appearing at a child-support hearing, authorities said, hours after the broadcast of an interview in which the R&B star cried and ranted about being “assassinated” by allegations of sexual abuse that led to criminal charges last month.
A spokeswoman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said Kelly would not be released from jail until he pays $161,000 in back child support.
Kelly’s publicist, Darryll Johnson, said Kelly came to the hearing prepared to pay $50,000 to $60,000, but the judge wanted the whole amount. He said Kelly did not have the whole amount because he has not been able to work.
“He came here expecting to leave. He didn’t come here to go to jail,” Johnson said.
Addressing the court’s refusal to accept the smaller amount, he said “in the end nobody wins. The kids still don’t have any money.”
The singer’s next hearing is scheduled for March 13, sheriff’s spokeswoman Sophia Ansari said.
Kelly was charged last month with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse and has pleaded not guilty. He spent a weekend in jail before someone posted his $100,000 bail. His defense attorney said at the time that Kelly’s finances were “a mess.”
The interview with “CBS This Morning” was Kelly’s first since he was charged . Kelly called his accusers liars and alleged that people are after him for his money. He told interviewer Gayle King that he never sexually abused women or controlled their lives.
The 52-year-old singer is accused in Chicago of sexually abusing four females dating back to 1998, including three underage girls.
“All of them are lying,” Kelly said in segments of the interview broadcast Wednesday. “I have been assassinated.”
At one point during the interview, Kelly angrily stood up and started pacing, his voice breaking as he yelled: “I didn’t do this stuff! This is not me!”
He cried as he hit his hands together. “I’m fighting for my (expletive) life,” he said.
Kelly, who is out on bail following his Feb. 22 arrest in Chicago, said earlier in the interview that he had done “lots of things wrong” in relationships with women, but said he has apologized. He denied doing anything against their will. The songwriter said he believes social media is to blame for fueling the allegations.
“I have been buried alive, but I’m alive,” he said, later adding that he needed someone to help him “not have a big heart.”
When pressed about whether he was attracted to younger women, Kelly said: “I’m an older man who loves all women.” He acknowledged being in a relationship with two young women who live with him.
The recording artist has been trailed for decades by allegations that he violated underage girls and women and held some as virtual slaves. Kelly has consistently denied any sexual misconduct and was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008. Those charges centered on a graphic video that prosecutors said showed him having sex with a girl as young as 13.
He and the girl allegedly seen with him denied they were in the 27-minute video, even though the picture quality was good and witnesses testified it was them. She did not take the stand. Kelly could have gotten 15 years in prison.
As part of the current case, prosecutors have described a witness who had access to videotapes showing Kelly having sex with a 14-year-old girl. The witness turned the tape over to authorities and identified the girl, who repeatedly states her age on the footage, according to court documents.
Interviews with the two women who live with Kelly will air Friday, including one young woman whose parents say she is being held against her will. Kelly suggested during the interview that the woman’s parents were in it for the money and blamed them for his relationship with their daughter, saying they brought her to watch him perform when she was a teenager.
A lawyer for the couple bristled at the allegation, saying Timothy and Jonjelyn Savage never asked for or received money from Kelly. The couple said they have not spoken to their 23-year-old daughter for two years and asked Kelly to make her available to talk to them.
“At no point did this family sell their daughter to anyone or provide their daughter for anything for money,” attorney Gerald Griggs said Wednesday during a news conference.
CBS said it interviewed Kelly for 80 minutes. More of the interview is expected to air Thursday.
In an excerpt that aired Tuesday night, Kelly told King that allegations of him having sex with and abusing underage girls were “not true.” He called them “rumors.” When King asked Kelly if he has held women against their will, he replied, “That’s stupid!”
“Use your common sense. Forget the blogs, forget how you feel about me,” Kelly said. “How stupid would it be for me, with my crazy past and what I’ve been through — oh right now I just think I need to be a monster and hold girls against their will, chain them up in my basement, and don’t let them eat, and don’t let them out.”
King told Kelly that he seemed to be “playing the victim card.”
“I’m just telling the truth,” he replied. He said he was emotional “because this is the first time I was able to say something.”
Kelly noted his acquittal in the child porn case and accused prosecutors of trying the same case again.
“When you beat something, you beat it. You can’t double jeopardy me like that. It’s not fair,” he said.
Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for two Kelly accusers, responded to Kelly’s double jeopardy comment Tuesday on Twitter.
“He fails to understand that it doesn’t matter ‘how long ago’ it happened. And he also has no clue as to how ‘double jeopardy’ works,” the attorney tweeted.
In a follow-up tweet, Avenatti addressed the emotion that Kelly shows in the interview: “R. Kelly’s tears are out of fear and despair. Because he knows that after over two decades of sexually abusing underage girls, we blew this wide open and have him and his enablers dead to rights.”
JUST IN: Cook County Sheriff's Office: R. Kelly taken into custody at a hearing over unpaid child support; he will be be transferred to county jail - @NBCChicagopic.twitter.com/Q2YNAMVnYc
(WPBF) -- A Florida man showed up to a junior high school with a loaded AK-47 pistol after his son video-called him to say he was "slammed" by a teacher, according to police.
Christopher Freeman, 27, showed up to school visibly upset on Monday because of the alleged incident. He was arrested at Bear Lakes Middle School and charged with possession of a firearm on school property, aggravated assault and disruption of a school function, WPTV reports.
The school's assistant principal told police Freeman told him in an ambiguous threat during a call that "you're all dead" in relation to the incident with his son.
A school resource officer said he located Freeman in front of the school's main office with a gun sticking out of the front of his pants.
"I want to see the guy who slammed my son. I've got something for him," Freeman said, according to an arrest report.
Officers put the school on lockdown and searched Freeman – finding a loaded AK-47 Mini Draco pistol, according to police.
According to the arrest report, Freeman said he received a FaceTime call from his son at 3 p.m. He told police his son was crying, saying a teacher had slammed him.
Freeman, whose bond was set at $75,000, told police he was upset and came to the school, but didn't realize he was carrying the weapon because he carries it all the time for protection. Freeman told police he didn't intend to harm anyone.
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