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US President Joe Biden has awarded the nation's highest military medal to a Vietnam War helicopter pilot who disregarded a direct order and saved his comrades. Retired Army Captain Larry Taylor, 81, received the Medal of Honor at the White House. In 1968, he flew his Cobra attack chopper into a firefight to rescue four US troops from near certain death. His actions had never before been attempted, the Army says. On the night of 18 June 1968, the long range reconnaissance patrol team that then-1st Lt Taylor saved came under heavy fire and was surrounded by enemy troops outside Ho Chi Minh City. Running low on fuel and ammunition, he made low-level attack runs as the enemy returned intense ground fire for about half an hour. Upon realising that the team's escape route was a death trap, he radioed with a new extraction point. When the men arrived at the location, 1st Lt Taylor landed the helicopter "with complete disregard for his personal safety" to pick up the four troops, the White House said. The men had to cling to the outside of the two-person aircraft as there wasn't room inside. President Biden said at Tuesday's medal ceremony: "The rescue helicopter was not coming. "Instead, Lieutenant Taylor received a direct order: Return to base. His response was just as direct: 'I'm getting my men out. I'm getting my men out.' FULL STORY

"People have been let off the leash," Thomas Mayo says quietly, swiping through screenshots. Racist memes depicting First Nations Australians as "grifters", "wife beaters" and "primitives" flash across his phone. Then, personal threats appear - accusing him of "providing cover for evil". Mr Mayo is one of the public faces of the Yes campaign in Australia's historic Voice to Parliament referendum, to be held on 14 October. If successful, the vote will change the nation's constitution for the first time in 46 years, creating a body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to advise the government on policies affecting their communities. Opinion polls had long shown support for the change but now suggest the No vote is leading. Though some argue the shift reflects public sentiment, Yes campaigners blame it on an ecosystem of disinformation - which they say is being led by figures in the No camp and "amplified" by suspicious accounts on social media. Independent experts say the most "pernicious" and pervasive falsehoods "spreading like wildfire" online concern race. Amid all the noise, concerns are growing over the mental health of First Nations communities, who find themselves at the centre of an increasingly divisive debate. And questions are again being raised over whether Australia is ready to grapple with the open wounds at the heart of its nationhood. FULL STORY

Wagner, the Russian mercenary group, is set to be proscribed as a terrorist group by the UK government - meaning it will be illegal to be a member or support the organisation. A draft order to be laid in Parliament will allow its assets to be categorised as terrorist property and seized. The home secretary said Wagner was "violent and destructive... a military tool of Vladimir Putin's Russia". She said its work in Ukraine and Africa was a "threat to global security". Suella Braverman added: "Wagner's continuing destabilising activities only continue to serve the Kremlin's political goals." "They are terrorists, plain and simple - and this proscription order makes that clear in UK law." Wagner had played a key role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as operating in Syria and countries in Africa including Libya and Mali. Its fighters have been accused of a number crimes including killing and torturing Ukrainian citizens. Is Wagner still a threat to global security? In 2020, the US said Wagner soldiers had planted landmines around the Libyan capital, Tripoli. And in July, the UK said the group had carried out "executions and torture in Mali and the Central African Republic". FULL STORY

The Proud Boys' former leader has been jailed for 22 years for orchestrating the US Capitol riot, the longest sentence so far for a ringleader of the raid on the seat of American democracy. Enrique Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy, a US Civil War-era charge, and other counts in May. Tarrio, 39, was not in Washington during the riot, but helped organise the far-right group's involvement. More than 1,100 people have been arrested on Capitol riot charges. Before he learned his fate on Tuesday, an emotional Tarrio apologised to police and residents of Washington DC for his role in the 6 January 2021 riot, when supporters of then-US President Donald Trump stormed Congress as lawmakers certified Joe Biden's election victory. "I am extremely ashamed and disappointed that they were caused grief and suffering," he told Washington's federal courthouse. "I will have to live with that shame for the rest of my life." Tarrio, wearing an orange jail uniform, added: "I was my own worst enemy. "My hubris convinced me that I was a victim and targeted unfairly." Acknowledging that Mr Trump had lost the November 2020 presidential election, Tarrio said: "I am not a political zealot. "Inflicting harm or changing the results of the election was not my goal. "I didn't think it was even possible to change the results of the election." "Please show me mercy," Tarrio asked the judge. "I ask you that you not take my 40s from me." FULL STORY

As a resident of Florida, I have carried a concealed firearm almost everywhere for years, everywhere, except where it's specifically prohibited by law or by the policies of a specific business. Hanging in my office is a 100% American-made Gadsden flag. For quite a while I voted exclusively for Republicans, including twice for former Donald Trump, and once for Ron DeSantis, in 2018. I was formerly a lifetime member of the NRA — until I renounced my membership. I used to own an AR-15. And I'm here to tell you that Second Amendment mythologies and revisionist history continue to result in needless firearm-related deaths, suffering and trauma. If law-abiding gun owners do not start publicly speaking up, we cannot expect to find solutions to our nation's unacceptable levels of gun-related violence. I understand and appreciate why gun owners — the large majority of whom are law-abiding — are reluctant to risk the slings and arrows of the Republican Party, the conservative media, right-wing pundits and conspiracy theorists and pundits, and perhaps even their friends and family. I ask gun owners this, respectfully: Which is more uncomfortable — the pain of potential ostracization, or the pain of a nonstop loop of stochastic and targeted terrorism, aided and abetted by an endless supply of handguns and rifles, the latter often equipped these days with 30 bone-shattering rounds per magazine? If you're a parent with school-age children, the fear of a Columbine, Parkland or Uvalde-type event is impossible to fully suppress. Last week in Jacksonville, Florida's most-populous city, we saw a ghastly mass shooting perpetrated by a delusional neo-Nazi yearning for the resurrection of the mythical Aryan super-race; in addition to taking his own life, he made his contribution to the ever-growing tabulation of gun-death statistics gun-dead, murdering Anolt Joseph "A.J." Laguerre, 19; Jerrald Gallion, 29; and Angela Michelle Carr, 52. Such a violent death — from machines with the sole purpose of killing so swiftly that their victims are rarely allowed time for the dignity of final breaths — is uniquely American. A victim of any age is of course traumatic for their bereaved, grieving families, but the death of a teenager qualifies as yet another Molochian offering. Jacksonville's mayor, Donna Deegan, took office in July; it took less than two months for her administration to be christened with the blood of gunned-down innocents. Responding to a mass shooting is a rite of passage for every elected executive of virtually every jurisdiction in America. Deegan now joins the club of elected officials whose membership increases daily. FULL STORY

Former President Trump’s legal obligations are becoming increasingly intertwined with his political aspirations, with court dates threatening to split his time and attention in the heart of the 2024 presidential race. Trump is set to go on trial in Washington and New York City next March, right in the middle of the GOP primary calendar, and his opponents have been happy to seize on the conflicts as evidence Trump will be too distracted to take on President Biden. But with Trump’s first trial scheduled for the day before Super Tuesday, there is also the question of whether the former president may have effectively clinched the Republican nomination by the time his court dates begin in earnest. “He can’t have it wrapped up, meaning he can’t be the presumptive nominee, per se, but I think if he were to win the first four contests by wide margins, he could be seen as the likely nominee,” said Sean Spicer, a former Trump White House press secretary and former Republican National Committee spokesperson. Spicer said a Trump romp through Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada could make it difficult for a rival candidate to secure the necessary funding from donors to continue in the race. “But I think there’s a lot of candidates that, depending on how they fare in the first four states, can say, ‘Screw it, I’m going to keep going for another week or two and see what happens,’” Spicer added. FULL STORY

WASHINGTON — Just before 8 p.m. Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video of herself at a town hall in her Georgia district declaring that she “will not vote to fund the government” unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. It took just 68 minutes for the White House to fire back with a blistering statement that such a vote would mean that House Republicans had “caved to the hard-core fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high-stakes needs Americans care about deeply” like drug enforcement and disaster relief. The White House, as it turns out, is not waiting for a formal inquiry to wage war against impeachment. With a team of two dozen lawyers, legislative liaisons, communications specialists and others, the president has begun moving to counter any effort to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors with a best-defense-is-a-good-offense campaign aimed at dividing Republicans and taking his case to the public. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times The president’s team has been mapping out messaging, legal and parliamentary strategies for different scenarios. Officials have been reading books about past impeachments, studying law journal articles and pulling up old court decisions. They have even dug out correspondence between previous presidential advisers and congressional investigators to determine what standards and precedents have been established. At the same time, recognizing that any impeachment fight would be a political showdown heading into an election season, outside allies have been going after Republicans like Greene and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A group called the Congressional Integrity Project has been collecting polling data, blitzing out statements, fact sheets and memos and producing ads targeting 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for Biden in 2020. FULL STORY

Russia has said that Moscow’s RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), nicknamed “Satan II” – capable of carrying ten or more nuclear warheads – has been rolled out on “combat duty”. The head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos said that the missiles had entered active duty, the state-run news agency RIA reported. In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Sarmat missiles would be deployed for combat duty "soon". Prior to that, defence committee deputy chairman Aleksey Zhuravlyov had used it as a threat when he was interviewed by state broadcaster TV Russia 1 in May regarding Sweden and Finland’s aspirations towards joining Nato in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland joined the alliance earlier this year, while Sweden is still waiting to be ratified. Mr Zhuravlyov claimed that Moscow could unleash Satan II to strike back at those nations and at the UK and US, which the Putin regime regards as the key organising forces behind Nato. FULL STORY

Cyberattacks by the UK’s enemies are becoming “relentless” as we enter a “new era” of global conflict, an expert has warned. It comes after Russian hackers allegedly acquired top-secret security information on some of the country’s most sensitive military sites, including the HMNB Clyde nuclear submarine base on the west coast of Scotland and the Porton Down chemical weapon lab. The “potentially very damaging” attack last month by hacking group LockBit, which has known links to Russian nationals, saw thousands of pages of data leaked onto the dark web after private security firm Zaun was targeted, the Sunday Mirror newspaper reported. The company, which provides security fencing for sites related to the Ministry of Defence, said it had been the victim of a “sophisticated cyber attack”. Responding to the news, Kevin Curran, professor of cyber security at Ulster University, told the PA news agency that LockBit’s attack was “serious” as we approach a potential “World War Three” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said the raid was “likely” sponsored by the Russian state given the nature of its target and that cyber attacks by Britain’s enemies had become “relentless”. Professor Curran warned that we were unprepared for this new era as third-party companies, which hold data on our military infrastructure were not being properly regulated. He said: “You can’t just expect third-party suppliers to adhere to your rules. “There is always a risk when you have third-party suppliers and you do wonder if they adhere to industry best practice. FULL STORY

Japan’s summer this year has its recorded highest average temperature since records began 125 years ago, the country's weather agency said on Friday. “In the summer of 2023, the average summer temperature in Japan was considerably higher in northern, eastern and western Japan. Average temperatures in Japan are the highest for summer since 1898,” the Japan Meteorological Agency said. Based on measurements at 15 locations around the country from June through August, the average temperature deviation was +1.76C, the agency said. That exceeded the previous record of +1.08C in 2010. Between 16 July and 23 August, the maximum temperature records were broken at 106 of 915 monitoring locations across Japan, it said. High temperatures have continued even into the beginning of autumn, with “extremely hot days” being recorded in the city of Sapporo. FULL STORY

Russian forces attacked Ukrainian port facilities on the Danube River used for food exports on Sunday, a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to discuss reviving a grain export deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At least two people were injured in the strikes, a regional military spokesman said. Port infrastructure was hit, causing a fire that was quickly extinguished. Ukraine’s Air Force said 25 drones were used in overnight attacks on the Odesa region, 22 of which were shot down. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that it was targeting fuel storage facilities in the Ukrainian port of Reni used to supply Ukraine’s military. The Russian statement added that the attack was successful, with “all assigned targets neutralized.” The salvo hit just across the border from NATO member Romania, drawing a swift rebuke from the country. Romania’s Ministry of Defense condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms,” calling it “unjustified and in deep contradiction with the rules of international humanitarian law.” The ministry said that there was no direct threat to Romania territory or its territorial waters. FULL STORY

North Korea said Sunday it had simulated a nuclear missile attack to warn the United States of “nuclear war danger.” The country launched several cruise missiles, some of them equipped with mock nuclear warheads, state media outlet KCNA said, describing the exercise as a simulation of a “tactical nuclear attack.” The exercises were meant to “warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger,” KCNA reported the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea as saying. It said the exercises were conducted at dawn on Saturday and involved “two long-range strategic cruise missiles with mock nuclear warheads.” The staged nuclear attack was in response to joint military exercises conducted by the United States and South Korea, earlier in the week, KCNA added. “The recklessness and dangerous nature of the confrontation hysteria recently betrayed by the US and gangsters of the ‘Republic of Korea’ are unprecedented in history,” KCNA said, in a reference to South Korea. FULL STORY

Water levels at Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world and South America’s largest – are dropping precipitously after an unprecedented winter heat wave. The shocking decline is affecting tourism, fishing and agriculture, which locals rely on to make a living. “We don’t know what we will do from now until December because the water will keep getting lower,” said 63-year-old Nazario Charca, who lives on the lake and makes a living ferrying tourists around its waters. Visitors have long been attracted to the blue waters and open skies of South America’s largest lake, which straddles more than 3,200 square miles across the border of Peru and Bolivia. Sometimes described as an “inland sea,” it is home to Aymara, Quechua and Uros indigenous communities and sits at an altitude of around 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) in the central Andes mountain range, making it the highest navigable lake in the world. The extreme altitude also exposes the lake to high levels of solar radiation, which enhances evaporation and constitutes most of its water losses. FULL STORY

A biographer of President Biden said that while it would be a surprise, it “wouldn’t be a total shock” if the president drops out of the 2024 race by the end of the calendar year. NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” asked biographer Franklin Foer, whose book about Biden’s first two years in office will be released this week, how surprised he would be if Biden decided to not pursue a second term in office. “I would say it would, it would be a surprise to me. But it wouldn’t be a total surprise,” Foer said, adding that “it wouldn’t be a total shock.” “When he talks about his life, he uses this word, fate, constantly,” he said. “Joe Biden is a very religious guy, and fate is a word loaded with religious meaning. And he always talks about, ‘He can’t say where fate goes.’ And so I always, when I hear that, to me, it’s the ellipses in the sentence when he’s talking about his own future.” Biden announced his reelection campaign earlier this year and has not signaled that he was considering dropping out of the race. The 80-year-old has faced questions from inside and outside his party about concerns regarding his age as the 2024 election approaches. Foer said his book, titled “The Last Politician,” describes how Biden was “underestimated” and how he used that to his advantage. He also said it delves into Biden’s career in policymaking and what techniques he uses to get things done. “It doesn’t take Bob Woodward to understand that Joe Biden is old, and I’m not a gerontologist and I can’t predict how the next couple of years will age Joe Biden,” he said. “I think what my book does is shows that he is somebody who, for whom — he’s buried in details. He’s somebody who is very technocratic, really obsessed with the intricacies of policy. He’s a very activist president in that he micromanages a lot of the dealings in the White House” FULL STORY

Better to ask in Pattaya Forum...MOVED

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Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a probable assassination last week on board his Embraer private jet, held a similar belief. One of his fighters’ tactics to punish deserters was to tape their heads to a block of concrete and then bludgeon them to death with a sledgehammer. The hammer became their symbol. For years, Prigozhin did the Kremlin’s dirty work and sought to spread Russian influence and sow discord among its enemies around the globe. Putin offered Prigozhin some praise after his death, calling him a “talented businessman” who had made a “significant contribution” to the war against Ukraine. But, Andrew Roth wrote this week, Prigozhin’s legacy inside Russia will come down to whether the former Putin ally will bear the mark of a traitor, a word that Putin used during the Wagner uprising in June and others hinted at last week as the early eulogies poured in. On Tuesday, Pjotr Sauer covered Prigozhin’s ‘closed format’ funeral in St Petersburg, where the secrecy appeared to demonstrate the Kremlin’s unease over Prigozhin’s legacy. Ukrainian drones attack planes and six Russian regions Ukrainian drones have attacked at least six regions deep within Russia, including an airfield where they destroyed military transport planes, in one of the largest-scale attacks on Russia in months, Pjotr Sauer reported. A drone assault on the city of Pskov in north-western Russia damaged four IL-76 military cargo aircraft, Russian authorities said early on Wednesday, engulfing two of the planes in flames. Andriy Yusov, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, confirmed the strike on the city on Wednesday, saying all four IL-76 military cargo planes had been destroyed and adding that “several more planes were damaged”. FULL ROUND-UP

Mohamed Al Fayed, the Egyptian-born businessman who owned the department store Harrods, has died aged 94. His death comes almost 26 years to the day after the car crash in Paris that killed his eldest son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales, on 31 August 1997. In a statement released by Fulham FC, his family said: “Mrs Mohamed Al Fayed, her children and grandchildren wish to confirm that her beloved husband, their father and their grandfather, Mohamed, has passed away peacefully of old age on Wednesday 30 August 2023. “He enjoyed a long and fulfilled retirement surrounded by his loved ones. The family have asked for their privacy to be respected at this time.” Fayed was born in Alexandria and was the son of a schoolteacher. His break in business came after he met his first wife, Samira Khashoggi, the sister of Saudi millionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who employed him in his Saudi Arabian import business. The role helped him forge new connections in Egypt and he went on to launch his own shipping business, before becoming an adviser to one of the world’s richest men, the Sultan of Brunei, in 1966. He moved to Britain in the 1970s and in 1979, with his brother Ali, he bought the Paris Ritz Hotel. FULL STORY

Rudy Giuliani on Friday pleaded not guilty to Georgia charges that accuse him of trying, along with former president Donald Trump and others, to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state. In filing his not guilty plea with the court, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney also waived his right to appear at an arraignment hearing set for 6 September. He joins the former president and at least 10 others in forgoing a trip to Atlanta to appear before a judge in a packed courtroom with a news camera rolling. Trump and Giuliani are among 19 people charged in a sprawling, 41-count indictment that details a wide-ranging conspiracy to thwart the will of Georgia’s voters who had selected Democratic nominee Joe Biden over the Republican incumbent. The charges against Giuliani, along with other legal woes, signal a remarkable fall for a man who was celebrated as “America’s mayor” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack. He now faces 13 charges, including violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, the federal version of which was one of his favorite tools as a prosecutor in the 1980s. Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, has said she wants to try all 19 defendants together. But the legal wrangling has already begun in a slew of court filings since the indictment was filed on 14 August. Several of those charged have filed motions to be tried alone or with a small group of other defendants, while others are trying to move their proceedings to federal court. Some are seeking to be tried quickly under a Georgia court rule that would have their trials start by early November, while others are already asking the court to extend deadlines. Due to “the complexity, breadth, and volume of the 98-page indictment”, Giuliani asked the judge in Friday’s filing to give him at least 30 days after he receives information about witnesses and evidence from prosecutors to file motions. Normally, pretrial motions are to be filed within 10 days after arraignment. FULL STORY

There are many jokes that center around older adults waking up before the sun, and even more about teenagers’ late-sleeping habits. Turns out there’s truth to them: The time our body naturally goes to sleep and wakes up is not only part of our genetics, but part of the natural aging process, too. As we age, our bodies change both internally and externally, which is a major factor behind the sleep changes that come later in life. “Like most of the things that change with age, there’s not just one reason, and they are all interconnected,” said Cindy Lustig, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. We asked Lustig and other experts to break down the main reasons why this occurs, and what you can do to push back if you just want those few extra hours of Zzzs. Earlier wake times are part of the natural aging process. Like other aspects of our physical and mental health, the brain becomes less responsive as we age. “The wiring of the brain is likely not sensing...and responding to the inputs as well as it should because it’s an aging brain,” said Dr. Sairam Parthasarathy, the director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences at the University of Arizona Health Sciences. These inputs include sunset, sunlight, meals, social cues, and physical activity that help mark where we are in a day. “These are all what we call time givers, or they give time to the brain,” he said. In other words, they help the brain sense where it is in the 24-hour circadian cycle. So, for a younger person, dinner time may help the brain understand that bedtime is in a few hours; for someone older, this connection may not happen. The nerves that are supposed to give the brain time cues have undergone the same amount of degeneration as the brain, Parthasarathy said. This inability to sense time cues is part of the reason why older people tend to get tired before their children or grandchildren. And, as a result, wake up fully rested and earlier than the rest of the world. FULL ARTICLE

Efforts to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment are gaining momentum as election officials in key states are preparing for or starting to respond to legal challenges to Trump's candidacy. The argument to disqualify Trump from appearing on primary or general election ballots in 2024 boils down to Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which states that an elected official is not eligible to assume public office if that person "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the United States, or had "given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof," unless they are granted amnesty by a two-thirds vote of Congress. Several advocacy groups have said that Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, fit that criteria -- that he directly engaged in an insurrection. The legal theory has been pursued, unsuccessfully, against a few other elected Republicans; arguing their actions around Jan. 6 and support for overturning the 2020 election results amounted to the disqualifying behavior. Trump has denied any involvement in the attack on the Capitol. "Joe Biden, Democrats, and Never Trumpers are scared to death because they see polls showing President Trump winning in the general election," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Chung told ABC News in a statement. "The people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump are stretching the law beyond recognition much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and DC. There is no legal basis for this effort ... " The push to disqualify Trump under this constitutional clause gained more traction when two members of the conservative Federalist Society, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, recently supported the idea in the pages of the Pennsylvania Law Review. Following the Baude and Paulsen article, retired conservative federal appeals judge J. Michael Luttig and Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe made the same argument in The Atlantic. FULL STORY