I stay hungry pic.twitter.com/6yDo9RNJaN
— Jem Wolfie (@IamJemWolfie) April 21, 2019
Hi Wolfgang how are you? Can we please talk about health for a minute? Even though I take extremely good care of my body some things are out of my control. That’s why I choose to make decisions over the things I can control. I do not drink alcohol, I have never done drugs, pic.twitter.com/Tqt9rRaB6G
— Jem Wolfie (@IamJemWolfie) April 26, 2019
How a former City Hall staffer’s trip on magic mushrooms last fall helped Oakland become the first city in California to decriminalize psychedelic drugs, including peyote and ayahuasca. https://t.co/1wX6sdVcQ8
— Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) June 22, 2019
Please read this story. I’m hoping it makes you think about those at risk who we can all help. I’ve never covered a story like this. https://t.co/wLfCX26ovj— Molly Hennessy-Fiske (@mollyhf) June 20, 2019
He was dashing up the mountain into darkness, chasing a friend armed with a shotgun.Excellent piece.
Taylor Hudson yelled for his friend to wait, to stop.
They had rushed together toward danger so many times before on the battlefields of Syria. They had protected each other, made it home safe.
Cactus pierced Hudson’s sides as he scrambled up to save his buddy.
Then he heard the gunshots.
Hudson had met Kevin Howard three years earlier in eastern Syria, where they discovered they both had volunteered for the French Foreign Legion.
Hudson, 35, was an idealist raised in Pasadena, a lanky college dropout and ironworker kept out of the Marines because of a wrist tattoo he unsuccessfully tried to burn off with battery acid.
Howard, 27, was his opposite: short, with a blond crew cut and tattoos up to his eyebrows. Adopted at birth, he’d been rejected by his new parents at 12, then raised in a San Francisco orphanage. He left at 17 to join the Marines, trained at Camp Pendleton and served from 2006 to 2010, deploying twice to Iraq as an anti-tank missileman.
The men had both joined the French Foreign Legion for adventure, Howard training as a sniper, Hudson as a medic. They adopted noms de guerre: Howard chose Kane Harlly; Hudson became Paul “Doc” Hetfield. Howard had the title of the legion’s anthem tattooed above his right eyebrow: “Rien n’empeche.” Unstoppable.
But they became disillusioned as superiors confined them to southeastern France and enviously followed news of the war raging in Syria. In 2016, each joined U.S.-allied militias to fight Islamic State.
“The war was like a sanctuary, as crazy as that sounds,” Hudson said as he sat in his spare Tucson ranch house. “It was black and white, good and evil, the most pure fight in modern times. That feels so good to be with people in a righteous cause. When that’s over, what has meaning in civilian life?”
A month after Hudson arrived in eastern Syria, he met Howard. Howard served with a poorly outfitted group of Kurdish fighters, who had stopped to visit Hudson’s unit bivouacked in the cow shed of an abandoned cheese factory. Hudson noticed Howard’s camouflage legionnaire pants and struck up a conversation.
The pair soon began working as a team: Howard as a sniper; Hudson, his lookout.
“I knew we were always going to stick together,” Hudson said.
They shifted to an allied Christian militia, the Syriac Military Council. Before an important battle, their commander left and the unit voted unanimously for Howard to replace him. Hudson became chief medical officer. They were reluctant leaders, Hudson said, but “sometimes you find yourself in situations where you know you have a responsibility.”
In summer 2017, the unit moved to the outskirts of Raqqah, capital of Islamic State’s caliphate, for the start of a siege. They remained holed up in abandoned, bombed-out buildings for months.
That July, during an interview in a crumbling house they had converted into a sniper’s roost, Howard and Hudson appeared weary but committed. They pointed out Islamic State strongholds a few yards away and warned that drones sometimes buzzed nearby, dropping bombs.
They never felt safe. Their fellow fighters had scant training and could be careless with guns. The pair looked out for each other, sleeping in shifts.
Howard recalled his time as a Marine, battling Muslim extremists in Kurdish northern Iraq. He had tried returning to civilian life, but “it just didn’t work out.” Staying home as a war raged felt wrong, he said.
He divided western volunteers in Syria into four groups: politically motivated anarchists and socialists; “starry-eyed” dreamers; those fleeing their past; and the “legitimately crazy.”
Hudson noted that his friend hadn't classified himself, and Howard laughed.
Hudson took breaks from the front lines, staying with a Christian Syrian couple. He fell in love with their daughter, got engaged and started planning a future.
Howard had two words tattooed on his knuckles: “love” and “lost.” He stayed in Raqqah and embraced the Assyrian Christian cause, including a new nom de guerre: Hawro, or “Brother,” Christian.
“They are arguably the most oppressed people in the world right now,” Howard said. “I believe in staying and helping them fight because it’s what I’m good at.”
In time, both men soured on the militia.
Hudson, wounded by shrapnel and a drone bombing, left the front line to get treatment. His fiancee broke off their engagement. Commanders refused to allow him to return to battle, he said, even as they pushed Howard south toward the worsening battle in Dair Alzour.
Each of the men heard the other had been killed. When they were reunited weeks later, they decided it was time to leave the militia — and Syria.
Eventually, Howard and Hudson returned home after harrowing months detained by their own militia. Howard was also held by authorities after crossing the border into Iraq, released only after U.S. officials intervened.
Years would pass before they reunited.
*****
Howard floundered in the U.S., stripped of his gun, his unit and his cause.
He visited friends in California and Idaho; reconnected with his birth mother in Grants Pass, Ore.; worked oilfield jobs in North Dakota and west Texas. For a time, he ran with the Hells Angels in Oakland.
Last year, he became homeless in the Dakotas, unable to claim veteran’s disability benefits because he couldn’t find the necessary paperwork until he asked friends to help.
Hudson had built an extra room in his house for Howard, and urged him to visit. Howard initially demurred. Then one day he texted Hudson a photo of pill bottles, threatening suicide. Hudson wired him plane fare. Howard flew to Arizona the next day.
There Hudson helped him rent a nearby house, a life goal Howard had written on a list he carried in his pocket.
Howard went to doctor’s appointments at the Department of Veterans Affairs for post-traumatic stress disorder and got a caseworker. He adopted a cat. He met a woman. Three months ago, at an iconic mountain west of downtown known as Sentinel Peak, he proposed. She said yes.
Hudson thought his friend was healing.
But after Howard’s girlfriend moved in, the couple fought. He suspected her of cheating. His caseworker knew he had been drinking too much and tried to get him into rehab.
Howard told friends he missed Syria.
Hudson understood how Howard felt: “That was where we belonged. That was our place and our time in history. We were motivated and focused and knew what we had to do. That’s what’s missing when you get home, that mission-oriented way of thinking.”
Half of their former unit was fighting alongside rebels in Ukraine. But Howard didn’t want to join them.
“It wasn’t really his fight,” Hudson said. “He did love the lifestyle — the camaraderie, the guys. But he wasn’t willing to join a cause he didn’t believe in.”
Howard considered going back to Syria, or joining rebels in Myanmar. Hudson found that odd.
“He didn’t even know what side he was going to fight on,” Hudson said. “It made him seem suicidal, like, ‘I’m just going to roll the dice.’”
Howard admitted he still contemplated suicide. So the two friends made a pact: If one decided to kill himself, he would call the other first...
Penélope Cruz, in the midst of the dizzying heat of Cannes, is Tatler's August issue cover star https://t.co/nwz0kg2XJu pic.twitter.com/xjkZH5VzDe
— Tatler (@Tatlermagazine) June 21, 2019
Penélope Cruz sets pulses racing in a VERY sultry photoshoot https://t.co/Vaf6jLGgIl
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) June 22, 2019
Baywatch vet Donna D'Errico, 51, flaunts her figure in a plunging blue dress as she shares 'find the positive in every situation' https://t.co/RyZOVzwQmn
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) June 1, 2019
Petra Nemcova Pantie Upskirt in London - https://t.co/BuDGo46eaq - pic.twitter.com/a1758bL72p
— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) June 21, 2019
Our love for Paulina Porizkova will last forever! ❤️ https://t.co/ZI9afTN3K1 pic.twitter.com/NLSBFEhWyo— Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) June 17, 2019
Olivia Culpo gets top spot in Maxim’s Hot 100 ranking for 2019 https://t.co/lDWLM6mAaF pic.twitter.com/pL943FsHTl
— Page Six (@PageSix) June 11, 2019
See EVERY beauty who made the list. https://t.co/u5Ed6tSFOp
— Maxim (@MaximMag) June 16, 2019
The United States is likely to take military action against Iran in the coming days for Tehran's downing a U.S. drone in international airspace on Wednesday near the Strait of Hormuz.
The Central Command said an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone aircraft was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace around 7:35 p.m. on Wednesday.
President Trump suggested retaliation for the attack is coming. "Iran made a very big mistake," the president tweeted.
Later during an Oval Office meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, Trump was asked about a military strike against Iran and repeated that Iran "made a very big mistake" because the drone was flying over international waters.
"Iran made a big mistake. This drone was in international waters, clearly," he said. "We have it all documented scientifically, not just words. And they made a very bad mistake."
Trump suggested that the drone was mistakenly shot down and noted that "I have a big, big feeling" an Iranian air defense operator erred in attacking the drone, someone "loose and stupid who did it."
Asked what will come next, the president said "You'll find out."
Air Force Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, commander of Central Command air forces, said the RQ-4 drone was conducting surveillance over the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz in international airspace near recent IRGC attacks on two tankers. The drone was struck by an IRGC surface-to-air missile fired from a base near Goruk, Iran, he said.
"This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset that had not violated Iranian airspace at any time during its mission," Guastella said in a statement. "This attack is an attempt to disrupt our ability to monitor the area following recent threats to international shipping and free flow of commerce."
The three-star general also said that Iran falsely claimed the aircraft was shot down over Iran. "The aircraft was over the Strait of Hormuz and fell into international waters."
"At the time of the intercept, the RQ-4 was operating at high-altitude approximately 34 kilometers from the nearest point of land on the Iranian coast," he said. "This dangerous and escalatory attack was irresponsible and occurred in the vicinity of established air corridors between Dubai, UAE, and Muscat Oman, possibly endangering innocent civilians."
"Iranian reports that the aircraft was over Iran are false," said CENTCOM spokesman Capt. Bill Urban. "This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset in international airspace."
Tensions have increased with Iran since last week when the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Tehran's shock troops, were caught removing a limpet mine from the hull of a Japanese tanker that had been hit by other mines the United States has concluded came from Iran.
Another tanker also was attacked with the magnetic mines last week.
Several earlier Iran-linked attacks were carried out, including mines on the ships, an attack on a Saudi pipeline, a rocket firing near a U.S. embassy, and an attack on a NATO convoy in Afghanistan.
White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said in an interview last week the United States is set to retaliate for Iranian military provocations.
"The National Security Strategy lists Iran as one of the four top threats and we just need to be sure we've got the capability to deter them from these kinds of activities, threatening American lives and facilities, threatening the international oil market," Bolton said when asked about the Pentagon's plan to dispatch around 1,000 additional troops to the region.
"They would be making a big mistake if they doubted the president's resolve on this," Bolton added, echoing the president's tweet.
The latest confrontation sent crude oil prices higher over concerns of a new Middle East war. Oil prices increased more than $3 to $63 a barrel, Reuters reports.
U.S. national security officials have been debating how to respond to the recent Iranian military attacks carried out through proxies in a bid to avoid a head-on conflict with the United States.
Options are expected to range from covert action against Iranian military targets using special forces commandos to airstrikes against Iranian bases.
The administration is weighing what it regards as proportional responses to recent Iranian actions...
In a 600-page book on conservatism George Will does not mention Donald Trump, which tells you something about what he thinks of recent political developments https://t.co/fLRKNRvthz
— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) June 20, 2019
Back on @Page3 of @TheSun today! 🙋🏼♀️ https://t.co/Kzo3AxKKAv @jamesrudland pic.twitter.com/0myE79a0sS— Rhian Sugden (@Rhianmarie) June 21, 2019
Beautiful! #KeepAmericaGreat #KAG #ThankYouTrump 🇺🇸 https://t.co/qLf99UfF8B
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 21, 2019
Fuck u and the power u think you have over me. I’m gonna write about this in my next book😡😡😡 pic.twitter.com/0Ep0iXgW51
— BITCHIMBELLATHORNE (@bellathorne) June 15, 2019
Everything going on in the Bella-verse right now, including her upcoming book, her taking the initiative against hackers, & her response to Whoopi, are things to add to this list of why we adore @bellathorne
— Ranker (@Ranker) June 19, 2019
"Edgy Facts About Bella Thorne": https://t.co/PR0gIXFSA0#BellaThorne
“God, we give thanks for our jobs and the love we feel for our horses. Please don’t let something bad happen to our track.” For Santa Anita’s low-paid workers, horse deaths bring pain and fears about the future. https://t.co/RIo0p3qLdo with @r_valejandra— Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) June 21, 2019
Dagoberto Lopez begins each workday at Santa Anita Park at 4:30 a.m., checking on the five horses under his care: War Beast, Of Good Report, Carnivorous, Kissable U and Juggles.
He checks their temperature. He makes sure they’ve had enough to eat. He gives them sponge baths. On race days, he braids their hair and talks to them, hoping they’re not nervous.
“They’re like another child for us,” said Lopez, a 63-year-old groom from Cudahy who has worked at the racetrack for 35 years. “They’re like humans. They just don’t talk.”
A steady beat of horse deaths at Santa Anita — 29 since the start of the race season Dec. 26 — has animal rights activists and politicians calling for the suspension of racing at the track. Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that he was troubled by the fatalities and “enough is enough.”
But many of the roughly 1,500 humble backstretch workers like Lopez who labor behind the scenes — grooms, trainers, exercise riders and stable cleaners — say powerful people and the media are talking over them, unconcerned about their fate.
Among the employees, mostly low-wage Latinos, there is a growing sense of being an invisible underclass in the sport of kings.
On Thursday, with a June gloom haze hugging the San Gabriel Mountains behind them, dozens of backstretch workers and their families held a news conference at Clockers’ Corner, a dining patio beside the track, in an attempt to make their voices heard.
They held handmade signs behind a podium:
“We love our horses. We love our jobs,” one read.
“Soy madre soltera. Necesito mi trabajo,” read another. I am a single mother. I need my job.
From the podium, Arnie Lopez, a deacon who hosts Bible studies at Santa Anita and helps employees apply for U.S. citizenship, sprinkled holy water on the workers and said a quick prayer: “God, we give thanks for our jobs and the love we feel for our horses. Please don’t let something bad happen to our track.”
On Thursday, backstretch workers said they feel like the track has been vilified by journalists, politicians and animal welfare groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. But few people, they said, talk to them.
Their biggest fear is that the track will be shut down permanently amid the controversy. Two other major California racetracks have been shuttered in recent years to make way for new development. Hollywood Park in Inglewood closed in 2013 after operating for 75 years, and Bay Meadows in San Mateo closed in 2008 after 74 seasons...
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shot down a U.S. surveillance drone Thursday in the Strait of Hormuz, marking the first time the Islamic Republic directly attacked the American military amid tensions over Tehran’s unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.RTWT.
The two countries disputed the circumstances leading up to an Iranian surface-to-air missile bringing down the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737 jetliner and costing over $100 million.
Iran said the drone “violated” its territorial airspace, while the U.S. called the missile fire “an unprovoked attack” in international airspace over the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf and President Donald Trump tweeted that “Iran made a very big mistake!”
Trump later appeared to play down the incident, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he had a feeling that “a general or somebody” being “loose and stupid” made a mistake in shooting down the drone.
How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran’s potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. According to open-source order of battle data, as well as relevant analogies from military history and GIS maps, Iran does possess significant littoral warfare capabilities, including mines, antiship cruise missiles, and land-based air defense. If Iran were able to properly link these capabilities, it could halt or impede traffic in the Strait of Hormuz for a month or more. U.S. attempts to reopen the waterway likely would escalate rapidly into sustained, large-scale air and naval operations during which Iran could impose significant economic and military costs on the United States—even if Iranian operations were not successful in truly closing the strait. The aftermath of limited strikes on Iran would be complicated and costly, suggesting needed changes in U.S. force posture and energy policy.The full article is available in pdf format here.
