October 5th, 2019

The official offered few details of Friday’s meeting between peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban delegation led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the movement that was ousted in 2001 by the U.S.-led coalition. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

U.S. officials have been keen to say peace talks haven’t resumed, at least not now in Islamabad. Still, the meeting is noteworthy as the United States seeks an exit from what has become its longest military engagement. More than 14,000 U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan and Trump has repeatedly expressed his frustration with their continued deployment, complaining they have taken on the duties of policing the country, a job he said the Afghan government needed to do.

The North Korean negotiator, Kim Miyong Gil, said the talks in Stockholm on Saturday had “not fulfilled our expectations and broke down. I am very displeased about it.” Speaking outside the North Korean Embassy, he read a statement in Korean that a translator next to him read in English. Kim said negotiations broke down “entirely because the U.S. has not discarded its old stance and attitude.”
[...]
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Kim’s comments did “not reflect the content or the spirit” of the “good discussions” that took place over 8 ½ hours, adding that the U.S. accepted an invitation from Sweden to return to Stockholm in two weeks to continue discussions.

The deal provides for increasing joint U.S.-Greece and NATO activity at Larissa, Stefanovikio, and Alexandroupoli as well as infrastructure and other improvements at the Souda Bay naval base. “Greece can play an important strategic role here in the region,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “This is a dynamic region, with lots going on, lots of change taking place, and we are very confident that together, we can work to ensure that Greece can be a pillar for stability in this region.”

Not only are the Do Nothing Democrats interfering in the 2020 Election, but they are continuing to interfere in the 2016 Election. They must be stopped!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2019

Fox News confirmed the State Department is in touch with the three House panels regarding the deadline breach. Trump told reporters he would send House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter Friday, saying the White House would not comply with the impeachment inquiry until it is made official by a vote before the entire chamber. It was unclear if the State Department failed to comply with the subpoena at Trump's request.

Pentagon chief spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Defense Department offices have been instructed to “provide any pertinent documents and records to the office of general counsel for cataloging and review.”

Mr. Hoffman said the step is appropriate because of a “significant level” of interest from Congress in the matter.

The Pentagon has been pulled into the mounting controversy because it abruptly put on hold a key shipment of weaponry to Kyiv this summer for reasons that are now under sharp dispute...

The request to limit the size of the NSC staff was conveyed to senior agency officials by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and O’Brien this week... Two of the people familiar with the decision to shrink the NSC insisted it was largely rooted in both the transition to O’Brien’s leadership as well as Trump’s desire to increase efficiency at the agency, which grew under former President Barack Obama. About 310 people currently work at the NSC. All of the people asked not to be identified because the plan to reduce the NSC’s size hasn’t been made public.

In the summer of 1996, Maria Farmer, then 26, says the late Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged "madam," Ghislaine Maxwell, sexually assaulted her in New Albany, Ohio. Farmer, an artist, had been offered a two month-stay in a home deeded to Epstein by the L Brands CEO Les Wexner, who owns Victoria's Secret, and developed much of New Albany.
Wexner says he had never heard of Farmer before her allegations surfaced, but she told The Washington Post that while living on the billionaire's heavily guarded estate she had to get permission from Wexner's wife Abigail to even leave the house.
Farmer also said that after Epstein and Maxwell assaulted her Wexner's security guards, some of whom she was told were contracted from the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, tried to prevent her from leaving.

David Campbell, 32, copped a plea for his role in a 2018 beatdown outside the Night for Freedom party in Manhattan organized by right-wing activist Mike Cernovich. Campbell pleaded guilty to two counts of felony assault and will be sentenced on Oct. 23 to 18 months in the slammer, reps for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. told The Post...

Police say a 24-year-old suspect is in custody but has not yet been charged. The suspect was arrested with a weapon still in his hands, officials said. “The motive appears to be, right now, just random attacks,” Chief of Manhattan South Detectives Michael Baldassano said Saturday at a news conference. There was no evidence yet that the victims were “targeted by race, age, anything of that nature," he added.

Two flight attendants employed by South African Airways (SAA) were arrested last week for allegedly attempting to smuggle about $3 million worth of cocaine into Hong Kong International Airport, in what’s been described “the largest drug trafficking case involving flight crew members” detected by local customs in the past decade.

On Sept. 22 and 24, law enforcement officials busted two SAA workers for the reported drug haul, TravelPulse reports. Almost 40 pounds of cocaine was discovered soon after the unnamed woman and man arrived separately to the airport, touching down from two different flights between Johannesburg and Hong Kong.

Why is this happening? PayPal hasn’t provided a specific reason, but the announcement closely follows a report from the Financial Times that the company did not attend a meeting of the Libra Association on Thursday and had been considering dropping out of the project. According to the FT, this was due in part to the chilly reception that Libra has received so far from regulators.

More defections coming? The FT report came after a separate report from the Wall Street Journal that Visa and Mastercard were also “reconsidering their involvement following a backlash from US and European government officials.” ...

That last sentence is damning.

"On Friday, sources also told Fox News that Atkinson also revealed that the whistleblower volunteered he or she was a registered Democrat and that they had a prior working relationship with a prominent Democratic politician."

How prominent? This is going to get juicy.

The Trump administration will deny visas to immigrants who cannot prove they will have health insurance or the ability to pay for medical costs once they become permanent residents of the United States, the White House announced Friday... Trump issued a proclamation, effective Nov. 3, ordering consular officers to bar immigrants seeking to live in the United States unless they “will be covered by approved health insurance” or can prove that they have “the financial resources to pay for reasonably foreseeable medical costs.”

Michelle Louise Kolts was arrested early Friday and booked on 24 counts of making, possessing, throwing, projecting, placing or discharging a destructive device... During a search of Kolts' home in Wimauma, investigators also seized pistol powder, knives, hatchets, nunchucks, BB pellet rifles and handguns and books and DVDs on murder, mass killing, bomb-making and domestic terrorism...