U.S. House Speaker Ryan Cancels Joint Event with Trump over Sexist Comments

WASHINGTON – U.S. House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan withdrew on Friday his invitation to the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for a joint event, which was to be the real estate mogul’s first appearance after a recording of his sexist comments surfaced in American media.

“I am sickened by what I heard today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests,” Ryan said in a statement, adding that, “In the meantime, he is no longer attending tomorrow’s event in Wisconsin.”

Ryan referred to the controversy unleashed following The Washington Post’s publication of a clip in which Trump used vulgar language to talk about women and women’s bodies.

“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. Grab them ... When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump says at one point on the tape.

Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus similarly condemned the words spoken by Trump, saying that “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner.”

The event this Saturday in Wisconsin, where the congressman’s re-election will play out in November, would have been the first campaign in which Ryan appeared together with Trump, as the two have expressed their differences to the public on many occasions.

Ryan delayed giving his official backing to the real estate magnate for several months due to Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, but eventually held several meetings with the billionaire, saying he will accept the will of the voters.

However, Ryan has stayed away from the Republican electoral sphere since Trump was officially confirmed as the party’s candidate at the convention held in Cleveland last July, something unusual for someone occupying a senior political post in the U.S. conservative bloc.

Indiana Governor and vice presidential candidate Mike Pence finally travelled to Wisconsin in place of Trump, as confirmed by the Trump campaign, explaining that the tycoon will now stay in New York to prepare for Sunday’s debate with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Trump Makes Lewd Comments about Women in 2005 Tape

WASHINGTON – The Washington Post on Friday disseminated a 2005 video clip in which Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is heard describing a failed attempt to seduce a married woman and boasting that his celebrity status allowed him to grope women.

Trump made the comments in an off-camera exchange with Billy Bush, then the host of the television program “Access Hollywood,” as the two men were aboard a tour bus headed to the set of a soap opera that was to feature the millionaire in a cameo appearance.

The conversation, which was captured by a microphone attached to the real estate mogul’s lapel, occurred several months after Trump had married his third and current wife, Melania.

Trump, who was 60 at the time, shared with Bush a story about an unsuccessful bid to seduce a woman he identified only by her first name.

“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and f--k her. She was married,” Trump said. “I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there.”

Subsequently, Trump notes the presence outside the bus of an actress.

“Whoa!” he says. “I’ve gotta use some Tic-tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything ... grab them by the p---y. You can do anything.”

The Republican candidate responded to the disclosure of the tape by offering a rare apology.

“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended,” Trump said in a statement.

The tape emerged just two days before Trump is to face Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the second of three scheduled debates.

“This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president,” Clinton said Friday on Twitter.

U.S. Formally Accuses Russia of Mounting Cyber-Attacks (Putin I don't know anything)

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government on Friday accused Russia of being behind recent cyber-attacks, including the hack that targeted the Democratic National Committee.

“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement.

Publication of hacked e-mails by sites such as DCLeaks.com WikiLeaks and the person or group known as Guccifer 2.0 “are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” according to the statement.

“These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” the government agencies said. “We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

In July, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton blamed Russia for the hack that led to the publication of some 20,000 DNC e-mails.

The e-mails revealed that the DNC sought to undermine Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Bloomberg News raised the issue of the DNC hack in an interview last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who denied any involvement by Moscow.

“The important thing is the content that was given to the public,” Putin told the news agency. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.”

51 Women Rescued from Traffickers in Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Mexican authorities rescued 51 women from traffickers and arrested seven people, the capital district attorney’s office said Monday.

The suspects hired the women as dancers, but then forced them to perform nude and engage in prostitution at two bars in Mexico City’s Cuauhtemoc borough, the office said in a statement.

For a three-drink minimum, patrons at the La Tirada and By Latino establishments were entitled to have sex with the women for a fee subject to negotiation, according to the statement.

The investigation was launched in response to an anonymous tip from an employee at one of the bars.

Police arrested bar owner Francisco Javier Soto along with Gerardo Panfilo Guerrero, Ruben Lopez, German Bolaños, Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Jose de Jesus Echeverria and Hugo Cesar Cubillos.

The women rescued from the traffickers are receiving psychological counseling and legal advice, the DA’s office said.

Cows trample German to death in Swiss Alps

Published: 03 Aug 2015 09:20 GMT+02

A woman was trampled to death by cows near Laax in the Swiss canton of Graubünden after walking through a field containing grazing cows and their calves, cantonal police have reported.

The 77-year-old was on her way to the Grauberg gondola station from the Nagens mountain restaurant on Friday when she took a path through the alpine pasture, police said on Saturday.

After passing through the electric fence, she was attacked by cows grazing on and around the trail, who knocked the woman to the ground and trampled over her.

A cyclist witnessed the scene and called air ambulance Rega, but the woman died at the scene from her injuries, despite attempts to resuscitate her.

According to Germany’s DPA news agency, the woman was a German tourist from Berlin.

Hikers often encounter cattle on paths throughout the Swiss Alps.

Attacks are rare but do occur, especially when the herd contains calves.

Last year a family of tourists were attacked by a cow with a calf above Davos, also in Graubünden.

In 2012 a woman was attacked by cows in a pasture above Saint-Gingolph in the canton of Valais.

Speaking to Swiss radio, Walter Grass, president of the Association of Graubünden walking trails (BWA), called for action to prevent future incidents, reported newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung on Monday.

In a letter to municipalities, the association asked them to check the safety of their trails and seek a dialogue with farmers over the issue.

The problem can only be avoided entirely if footpaths are diverted or completely fenced off, the paper reported.

Fugitive cow outwits police for 4 weeks before capture

Published: 02 Aug 2016 18:06 GMT+02:00

Updated: 02 Aug 2016 18:08 GMT+02:00

Kaiserslautern police sent out helicopters to track down Johanna. But again and again the canny cow slipped through the net of the law.

The wild goose chase is finally over. Western Germany can sleep easy again at night.

After fruitlessly searching for an elusive fugitive for a whole month, police in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate made a triumphant announcement on Tuesday. The net had been closed on the runaway - the cops had got their man.

Well, man might not be exactly the right description. This was a female for a start. And she was one of the four-legged variety.

A month ago a plucky bovine dodged a bullet when she escaped from a slaughterhouse in Kaiserslautern, reports broadcaster SWR.

Police subsequently received reports from multiple worried road users who reported seeing a brown cow tromping towards the city centre.

Several police helicopters were dispatched to hunt the escapee, who has since been named Johanna.

Although officers spotted her now and then, Johanna immediately disappeared again each time, and police abandoned the search in frustration.

But, after a couple of weeks, the slippery beast once again ventured out into the public eye, walking down a street.

When cops moved in though, Johanna was already gone. She had fled into a nearby forest where, among the trees, she was practically impossible to trace.

Perhaps embittered that the humans who had raised her to adulthood now wanted to put her on a plate, Johanna turned to ever more radical means.

She began straying onto railway tracks, disrupting the service between Kaiserslautern and Landstuhl on several occasions.

A reward was placed on her head (by an animal welfare organization). But one professional animal catcher soon gave up, claiming the bovine simply couldn't be found.

As is so often the case with free spirits of her nature though, Johanna eventually rode her luck too far.

Her next target was a factory owned by the car maker Opel. At 3am on Tuesday she crossed into the premises. What devious plan she had in mind, only she knows. But security guards caught her movements on CCTV and alerted the fire brigade.

By the time Johanna noticed that she was being tailed, it was too late. As she turned to make a getaway, firemen drove her into a closed-off area and her dramatic time on the run was over.

But the story doesn't end there. Johanna's life is to be spared.

In the next few days, she will be taken to an animal sanctuary in northern Rhineland-Palatinate to live out her days. But the animal keepers there will no doubt be under strict instructions to keep a very close eye on her.

Spain- Police called to home " exorcism taking place ?"

A young woman was rescued from a ‘cult exorcism’ taking place in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo after her "blood-curdling screams" were heard by neighbours.

Police said they were called to a flat near the Plaza de la Gesta at around daybreak last Saturday after a neighbour called in to report the "blood-curdling" screams of a woman.

"I heard a woman screaming and it frightened me," one neighbour told local media. "The screams were blood-curdling, like she was being slowly murdered."

The woman, who has not been named but is said to be of South American origin, had to be hospitalized after being found in "a state of great mental anguish".

She was discharged hours later after it was confirmed that she had suffered no physical injury.

The woman was reportedly undergoing an ‘exorcism’ in the presence of several other young people and led by a "shamen".

"It absolutely had nothing to do with sanctioned Catholic exorcism," Benito Gallego, dean of Oviedo Cathedral told La Opinión A Coruña. 

"It may be that it was some sort of cult ritual, faith healing or voodoo, but is far removed from the exorcism practised by the Catholic Church," he said.  

Sanctioned exorcisms are regularly carried out by the Catholic Church in Spain.