Iran claims its authorities arrested 17 spies recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on the Middle East nation's nuclear and military sites.

A man charged with killing a reputed New York mob boss was deluded by internet conspiracy theories and thought he was helping President Donald Trump defend Democracy, his attorney said in court papers filed Friday. Anthony Comello is facing murder charges in the March 13 shooting of Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, an alleged leader in the Gambino crime family. In a legal filing, attorney Robert Gottleib said Comello was gripped by an irrational belief that Cali was part of a "deep state" that secretly controls the U.S., and went to the gangster's home on Staten Island with handcuffs with the intention of arresting him.

Sanders is seen as a possible 2022 Arkansas gubernatorial candidate.

A French submarine that went missing in the western Mediterranean in 1968 has been found, officials said Monday, ending a 51-year wait for families of the crew who continue to seek answers to the naval disaster. The diesel-electric Minerve submarine was lost off France's southern coast with 52 sailors on board on January 27, 1968. "We found the submarine Minerve last night located 45 kilometres (30 miles) south of Toulon, about 20 kilometres further south than where it was searched for in 1968," the French maritime prefect of the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Charles Henri du Che, told reporters in Toulon.

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], the Chinese company put on a U.S. blacklist because of national security concerns, secretly helped North Korea build and maintain its commercial wireless network, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing sources and internal documents. The Chinese telecommunications giant partnered with a state-owned Chinese firm, Panda International Information Technology Co Ltd., on a number of projects in North Korea over at least eight years, the Post reported. Sources briefed on the matter confirmed the Commerce Department has been investigating Huawei since 2016 and is reviewing whether the company violated export control rules in relation to sanctions on North Korea.

“It had come up and it lunged out of the water"

Reacting to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) call for a “9/11-style commission” to be convened to investigate the Trump administration’s child separation policy at the border, Fox News host Pete Hegseth said on Monday that there should instead be an investigation to see how the progressive lawmaker was elected to Congress in the first place.During a town hall in her district on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez called for a lengthy study into the president’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, adding that it’s what’s “required in order to reunify as many children with their parents as possible”On Monday’s broadcast of Fox News’ early-afternoon chatfest Outnumbered, the panel discussed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s recent visit to border detention centers, noting Schumer and other Democrats called the conditions at the camps “inhumane.” Fox News host Melissa Francis then contrasted this with President Trump’s weekend tweets about Schumer’s visit in which he said Schumer “must have seen how dangerous & bad” the border crisis is now.“What’s ironic now is both sides are saying the exact same thing which is, it’s a mess of the border,” she added.Hegseth, serving as the female-centric program’s lone male guest host, agreed that the border is a mess and that it’s of Congress’ making before immediately pivoting to AOC. (Fox News has devoted three times more coverage to the freshman congresswoman this year than the other cable news networks.)“We shouldn’t take anything she says seriously,” Hegseth said of Ocasio-Cortez while labeling her the “de facto” speaker of the House.“You talk about what’s happening at the border—she compares it to 9/11,” he continued. “She talks about concentration camps where 6 million Jews were killed. And then when she talks about the Green New Deal, she likens it to the challenges of World War II where 70 to 85 million people were killed.”He then essentially called the Boston University graduate too stupid to be in the House of Representatives.“You know what we need a 9/11-style commission on?” Hegseth asked his colleagues. “How in the heck does someone like her get elected to Congress?! What’s happening in our public schools or other schools? What is she learning that gives her a platform to feel like these comparisons should be taken seriously at all?”Later in the segment, after the other hosts debated whether or not a study into the policy was worth Congress’ time, Hegseth, who serves as an informal adviser to Trump, took a final shot at AOC.“She also doesn’t want a commission, she wants to demagogue,” he exclaimed.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

NASA hopes the capsule will take astronauts back to the Moon, and Mars after that.

Research found as percentage of black officers who fired in fatal shootings increased, the citizen shot was more likely to be blackThe report also found that of all the shootings analysed, in 56% of fatal officer-involved shootings a single officer fired their weapon. Photograph: Eric Thayer/ReutersIncreasing the diversity of America’s police officers will not necessarily cut racial disparities in fatal police shootings, according to a new study which claims that race-specific crime rates are a bigger factor than the race of the officer.Research published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday found that as the percentage of black officers who shot in FOIS (fatal officer-involved shootings) increased, the citizen shot was more likely to be black than white. In a similar vein, as the number of Hispanic officers went up, the person shot was more likely to be black or Hispanic than white.The authors, led by David Johnson, a social cognitive psychologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, said the link between officer race and the race of citizens fatally killed are the result of officers and citizens usually coming from the same population base.They claimed to find no evidence that white officers were more likely to shoot minority groups than officers of colour.Researchers came to their conclusions by creating a database of more than 900 FOIS that occurred in the US in 2015, including officer race, sex and years of experience, using information from the Guardian and the Washington Post. Researchers then analysed the different factors to try to predict the race of the person shot.The Guardian’s the Counted investigation found that in 2015 a total of 1,134 people died at the hands of law enforcement and that young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers.While this latest study by Johnson acknowledges there are racial disparities in shootings, it claims race-specific crime rather than officer race best predicts the race of the victim.It found that in counties where minorities were responsible for higher rates of violent crime, a person fatally shot was 3.7 times more likely to be black than white and 3.3 times more likely to be Hispanic than white.“Although officer race was related to racial disparities, the fact that black and Hispanic civilians were more likely to be shot by same-race officers was largely explained by similarities between officer and county demographics,” stated the report. “Because racial disparities in FOIS do not vary based on officer race, hiring more diverse officers may not reduce racial disparities in FOIS.”While it acknowledged that greater officer diversity would probably have other benefits – such as improving police understanding of communities and increasing trust – it said it would not “meaningfully reduce” racial disparities in fatal shootings.It added: “One of our clearest results is that violent crime rates strongly predict the race of a person fatally shot. At a high level, reducing race-specific violent crime should be an effective way to reduce fatal shootings of black and Hispanic adults.”The report also found that of all the shootings analysed, in 56% of FOIS a single officer fired their weapon. In nearly 40% of cases, between two and four officers fired. In the research, 79% of officers were white, 12% Hispanic, 6% black and 3% from other racial groups. Nearly all – 96% – of officers were male and on average officers had nearly 10 years of experience.

(Bloomberg) -- Tankers are offloading millions of barrels of Iranian oil into storage tanks at Chinese ports, creating a hoard of crude sitting on the doorstep of the world’s biggest buyer.Two and a half months after the White House banned the purchase of Iran’s oil, the nation’s crude is continuing to be sent to China where it’s being put into what’s known as “bonded storage,” say people familiar with operations at several Chinese ports. This supply doesn’t cross local customs or show up in the nation’s import data, and isn’t necessarily in breach of sanctions. While it remains out of circulation for now, its presence is looming over the market.The store of oil has the potential to push down global prices if Chinese refiners decide to draw on it, even as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies curb production as growth slows in major economies. It also allows Iran to keep pumping and move oil nearer to potential buyers.“Iranian oil shipments have been flowing into Chinese bonded storage for some months now, and continue to do so despite increased scrutiny,” said Rachel Yew, an analyst at industry consultant FGE in Singapore. “We can see why the producer would want to do so, as a build-up of supplies near key buyers is clearly beneficial for a seller, especially if sanctions are eased at some point.”See also: Iranian Oil Tanker Daniel Enters Chinese Port: Ship TrackingThere could be more of the Persian Gulf state’s oil headed for China’s bonded storage tanks, Bloomberg tanker-tracking data show. At least ten very large crude carriers and two smaller vessels owned by the state-run National Iranian Oil Co. and its shipping arm are currently sailing toward the Asian nation or idling off its coast. They have a combined carrying capacity of over 20 million barrels.The bulk of Iranian oil in China’s bonded tanks is still owned by Tehran and therefore not in breach of sanctions, according to the people. The oil hasn’t crossed Chinese customs so it’s theoretically in transit.Some of the crude, though, is owned by Chinese entities that may have received it as part of oil-for-investment schemes. For example, one of the Asian nation’s companies could have helped fund a production project in Iran under an agreement to be repaid in kind. Whether this sort of transaction is in breach of sanctions isn’t clear, and so the firms are keeping it in bonded storage to avoid the official scrutiny it would if it’s registered with customs, according to the people.Nobody replied to a faxed inquiry to China’s General Administration of Customs.Lack of ClarityThe build-up of Iranian oil in Chinese bonded storage has yet to be clearly addressed by Washington. The White House ended waivers allowing some countries to keep importing Iranian oil on May 2.There are currently no exemptions issued to any country for the import of Iranian oil, and any nation seen importing cargoes from the Persian Gulf producer will be in breach of sanctions, according to a senior Trump administration official, who asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter.“The U.S. will now need to define how it quantifies the infringement of sanctions,” said Michal Meidan, director of the China Energy Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. There’s a lack of clarity on whether it would look at “financial transactions or the loading and discharge of cargoes by company or entity,” she said.See also: China Buying Iran LPG Despite Sanctions, Ship-Tracking ShowsChina received about 12 million tons of Iranian crude from January through May, according to ship-tracking data, versus about 10 million that cleared customs over the period. The discrepancy could be due to the flow of oil into bonded storage. China will release June trade data that will include a country-by-country breakdown of oil imports in the coming days.One of the Iranian tankers that appears to have loaded oil after the U.S. waivers ended is VLCC Horse. It discharged at Tianjin in early-July after sailing from the Middle East, where shipping data showed it signaling its destination as Iran’s Kharg Island on May 4.Several other Iran-owned tankers offloaded in China or were heading there, according to ship tracking data. VLCC Stream discharged at Tianjin on June 19, while Amber, Salina and C. Infinity offloaded crude at the ports of Huangdao, Jinzhou and Ningbo. Snow, Sevin and Maria III were last seen sailing in the direction of China.Putting crude into bonded tanks in China also means Iran can avoid having to tie up part of its tanker fleet by storing the oil at sea for months at a time. The Islamic Republic used floating storage in 2012 to 2016 and again in 2018 as buyers shunned its crude due to U.S.-imposed trade restrictions.Should the Iranian crude leave bonded storage and end up in the market, it could pressure oil prices, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. West Texas Intermediate plunged more than 20% from late April to mid-June as the U.S.-China trade war intensified. It’s since recovered some of those losses, partly as a result of the rising tension between Washington and Tehran, and is trading near $57 a barrel.“A further escalation in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods could jointly drive global economic growth a lot lower and encourage Iran-China cooperation,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a June note. “If Chinese refiners start to purchase Iran oil in large volumes on a sustained basis as U.S. tariffs rise again, WTI could drop to $40 a barrel.”(Updates with mention of June trade data in 12th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Nick Wadhams.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Serene Cheong in Singapore at scheong20@bloomberg.net;Sarah Chen in Beijing at schen514@bloomberg.net;Alfred Cang in Singapore at acang@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Serene Cheong at scheong20@bloomberg.net, Andrew JanesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.