Twenty-seven inmates have died in eruptions of violence in two northern Brazilian prisons, officials said Sunday as they quelled the latest in a string of prison disturbances across the country in which more than 100 people have died within two weeks.
State security officials said fighting between rival gangs broke out Saturday at the adjacent Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho lockups near the city of Natal in the Rio Grande do Norte state.
Officials waited until dawn Sunday before entering to try to re-impose control, said state security chief Caio Cesar Bezerra.
“This way we guaranteed a calm intervention … without resistance from the inmates,” Bezerra said.
President Michel Temer expressed concern over the rebellion Sunday through his official Twitter page, saying he had been following the situation closely.
Like many prisons across the country, Alcacuz is overcrowded, with more than 1,000 inmates crammed into a facility meant for 620.
The recent outbreak of prison violence began on Jan. 1-2, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. Authorities said the Family of the North gang targeted members of Brazil’s most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over control of drug-trafficking routes in northern states. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. Four others died at a smaller prison.
Then on Jan. 6, in the neighboring state of Roraima, 33 prisoners were killed, many with their hearts and intestines ripped out.
Experts say First Command is exploiting overcrowding and squalid conditions in the penitentiaries to expand its reach across the national prison system.
Meanwhile, the prison chief for the southern state of Parana, Luiz Alberto Cartaxo, told Brazil’s Globonews network that 21 inmates escaped from the Piraquara prison there on Sunday after using explosives to break through the prison wall. He said two other inmates died in a confrontation with police while trying to flee.
What values does Hollywood promote? A storm that hit Northern California toppled the Pioneer Cabin Tree. Who should discipline police officers? Michelle King has made no big waves in her first year running Los Angeles Unified. A state watchdog agency is investigating political donations connected to real estate developer Samuel Leung. The Chargers are moving to L. A. Obama’s legacy: part 1. California’s drought conditions have improved in the northern part of the state.
The Chargers are moving to L. A., Obama’s legacy: part 1, California’s drought conditions have improved in the northern part of the state, and Sean McVay, the new Los Angeles Rams coach , becomes the youngest NFL head coach in modern history.
Video by Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
The family of 16-year-old Jose Mendez, who was fatally shot by the LAPD last year, released surveillance video of the February 2016 shooting.
Donald Trump’s independent streak was on vivid display at Wednesday’s news conference. Is the great California drought finally calling it quits? Michelle King has made no big waves in her first year running Los Angeles Unified. A state watchdog agency is investigating political donations connected to real estate developer Samuel Leung.
This article was originally posted at 4 a.m.

Similarity rank: 5.7

Sentiment rank: -3.6

© Source: http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-brazil-prisons-20170115-story.html
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program „The Dean Obeidallah Show“ and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @TheDeansreport. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.
(CNN) On Saturday, President-elect Trump went after civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, a man millions of Americans rightly admire for his courage and principles. Lewis had commented Friday that he didn’t view Trump as a „legitimate“ president since in his view „the Russians participated in helping this man [Trump] get elected. “
Join us on Twitter and Facebook

Similarity rank: 6.5

Sentiment rank: -1.3

© Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/15/opinions/trump-attack-me-on-twitter-please-obeidallah/index.html
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

It’s good to be home. My fellow Americans, Michelle and I have been so touched by all the well-wishes we’ve received.
(iStock)
Multimedia · User Galleries · News in Pictures Send us your pictures · Send us your stories
Natal – The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials said on Sunday.
The bloodbath erupted on Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte.
Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January.
„Twenty-six deaths have been verified,“ the state’s public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said.
Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said.
Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison.
One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could — even after she warned the prison director.
„The (prison) director even said he could not do anything“ when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate.
„I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4,“ she added. „So why didn’t they do anything? “
President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide „all assistance necessary. “
Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police.
– Prisoners armed –
At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light Sunday to storm the site with armored vehicles, officials said.
Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms.
The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said.
The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil’s biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said.
Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world’s most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes.
Drug gang wars
Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead – many of them active gang members, the authorities said.
Many of the victims were beheaded, disemboweled or dismembered, officials said.
The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing.
A second bout of violence in Roraima state killed 33.
It was thought to be a backlash by the PCC’s rivals for its violent expansion.
The states of northern Brazil, which border top cocaine producers Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, are battle zones in the drug trade.
Prisons there – and throughout Brazil – are often under the de facto control of drug gangs, whose turf wars on the outside play out among inmates.
Overcrowding
Overcrowding exacerbates the problem, activists say.
Brazil’s inmate population has been swollen by efforts to crack down on the drug trade.
The country’s jails hold 622 000 inmates, mostly young black men, according to a 2014 justice ministry report. It found that 50 percent more capacity was needed.
Brazil has the world’s fourth-largest prison population after the United States, China and Russia, according to the report.
Temer is under pressure over the issue.
After the two riots earlier this month, he announced the federal government would spend $250 million to build new prisons.
But human rights activists and experts questioned whether more prisons are the answer.
Brazil needs „medium- and long-term policies to reduce the vulnerability of certain social groups, to prioritize prevention rather than repression,“ sociologist Camila Nunes of the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo told AFP after the previous prison massacres.
24.com encourages commentary submitted via MyNews24. Contributions of 200 words or more will be considered for publication.

Similarity rank: 6.6

Sentiment rank: -9.5

© Source: http://www.news24.com/World/News/prisoners-beheaded-in-latest-brazil-jail-bloodbath-20170116
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

GOP President-elect Donald Trump ratcheted up his war with the intelligence community Sunday by asking if CIA Director John Brennan himself was responsible for leaking a dossier of unverified information to the press about Trump’s alleged escapades in Russia.
After Brennan appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to call Trump’s comparison of the intelligence community to Nazi Germany “outrageous,” Trump fired of a series of tweets, in which he questioned whether Brennan was personally behind BuzzFeed’s recent publication of a 35-page dossier of totally unverified information on Trump.
“What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany,” Brennan said earlier on Sunday. “I do take great umbrage with that and there is no basis for Mr. Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly.”
Brennan said during that same interview that “there is no interest in undermining the president-elect.”
But Trump doesn’t appear convinced, despite statements from Brennan and also from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper earlier this week that the intelligence community had nothing to do with the leak of the dossier , which BuzzFeed published last Tuesday. BuzzFeed has since been widely castigated for publishing the completely unverified dossier full of bizarre information about Trump’s alleged, scandalous activities in Russia.
Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter
Send tips to [email protected] .
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

Similarity rank: 6.8

Sentiment rank: -2.1

© Source: http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/15/trump-snaps-back-at-cias-brennan-asks-if-he-was-leaker-of-fake-news/
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

By John Blake and Chandrika Narayan
(CNN) — Bishop Eddie Long, the controversial leader of one of the nation’s largest megachurches, has died, according to the suburban Atlanta church he presided over. He was 63.
Long died after a battle with an aggressive form of cancer, according to a statement by the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
Long was a national figure and one of the most innovative and polarizing pastors in the contemporary church. He was also a paradox.
He was a preacher who led an infamous march against same-sex marriage and denounced homosexuality, but he also settled a lawsuit by four young men who said he pressured them into sexual relationships.
He was a man who wore tight muscle shirts and radiated self-confidence but used to throw up before sermons because he was so nervous.
He was a man who gave away cars and paid the college tuition of needy people, but he also was investigated by Congress after a charity he created had provided him with a million-dollar home and a Bentley luxury car.
“When he spoke, black people all over the country listened to him,” said Shayne Lee, a sociologist who studies the black Pentecostal church. “He was part of the repackaging of Christianity for post-civil rights African-Americans.”
Long’s wife, who stood by him through his rise and fall from national fame, released a statement.
“Although his transition leaves a void for those of us who loved him dearly, we can celebrate and be happy for him, knowing he’s at peace,” Vanessa Long said.
Rise and fall
At its peak New Birth Missionary Baptist Church had about 25,000 members. The church was such a glamorous Sunday stop it became dubbed “Club New Birth.”
But to limit Long’s impact to the black church understates his influence.
He spoke before Congress, visited President Clinton in the White House and became a popular figure in white Pentecostal circles. His church hosted Coretta Scott King’s funeral service in 2006.
Though Long dressed like a middle-aged hip-hop star, he once said the figure who led him to his greatest religious awakening was Jimmy Swaggart, the charismatic white pastor.
But it was Long’s ministry to young men that first marked his rise. At a time when the traditional church had trouble attracting young men, Long called himself a “spiritual daddy” to wayward teenagers. He played basketball and lifted weights with his male ministers.
Long’s relationship with his own father, though, was far from ideal. His father, Floyd Long, was a stern Baptist minister who was known as “the cussing preacher” because of his pugnaciousness. Long said in one interview that his father was distant and didn’t attend his football games or even his high school and seminary graduation.
“My daddy pulled back when it came to touching you and saying, ‘I love you,’ ” Long said. “I needed that so badly.”
It was Long’s relationship to men, though, that virtually destroyed his ministry. In 2010, he and his church reached an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit filed by four young men who accused him of pressuring them into sexual relationships while they were members of his congregation. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Long, who preached passionately against homosexuality for years, denied the allegations.
In 2011, Vanessa Long filed for divorce. Shortly afterward, Long told his followers he was taking some time off to work on his marriage.
“I do want you to know that this is, for me and my family, especially with me, one of the most difficult times and things I’ve had to face, and only because my strength, other than God, is in Miss Vanessa,” he said at the time.
“And I want you to rest assured that I love her and she loves me. … In all the things that I’ve ever had to deal with and being pastor, my rock has been to be able to come home to a virtuous woman who always had peace in my house… We’re going (to) work it out.” he said.
More controversy
The couple later reconciled, but Long’s ministry never recovered from the accusations. Membership at New Birth plummeted.
“It was a fall from grace,” Lee, the sociologist, told CNN. “He had a national reach. He lost that reach with that scandal.”
The lawsuit was not the first time that public controversy swirled around Long. In 2005, the Atlanta Journal Constitution revealed that a charity Long had created to help the needy had made him its biggest beneficiary.
The charity’s compensation to Long included a $1.4 million, six-bedroom, nine-bath home on 20 acres and more than $1 million in salary. Long defended the charity at the time.
“We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation,” Long said at the time. “We’re not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation.
“You’ve got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering.”
Despite his public setbacks, Long retained a loyal following to the end.
In recent months, rumors swirled about Long’s health after he lost a dramatic amount of weight and appeared frail in public. But even as his once-stocky frame withered, he continued to go before his church to ask for prayers and to claim victory.
On New Year’s Eve at his church, an emaciated Long addressed his congregation, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“God ain’t through with me and sometimes you need to see the skinny Eddie and the big Eddie and all that,” he said, his once-powerful voice reduced to a raspy whisper. “It ain’t got nothing to do with physical appearance, it’s what in your heart … You are a Scripture … I want to see you struggle, I want to see you fight the devil and get victory.”
Long is survived by his wife, four children and three grandchildren, the church said.
CNN’s Alex Medeiros also contributed to this story.

Similarity rank: 8.8

Sentiment rank: -3

© Source: http://fox13now.com/2017/01/15/controversial-megachurch-pastor-eddie-long-dies-at-63/
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obama’s signature health-care law with the goal of “insurance for everybody,” while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid.
Trump declined to reveal specifics in the telephone interview late Saturday with The Washington Post, but any proposals from the incoming president would almost certainly dominate the Republican effort to overhaul federal health policy as he prepares to work with his party’s congressional majorities.
Trump’s plan is likely to face questions from the right, after years of GOP opposition to further expansion of government involvement in the health-care system, and from those on the left, who see his ideas as disruptive to changes brought by the Affordable Care Act that have extended coverage to tens of millions of Americans.
In addition to his replacement plan for the ACA, also known as Obamacare, Trump said he will target pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.
“They’re politically protected, but not anymore,” he said of pharmaceutical companies.
The objectives of broadening access to insurance and lowering health-care costs have always been in conflict, and it remains unclear how the plan that the incoming administration is designing — or ones that will emerge on Capitol Hill — would address that tension.
In general, congressional GOP plans to replace Obamacare have tended to try to constrain costs by reducing government requirements, such as the medical services that must be provided under health plans sold through the law’s marketplaces and through states’ Medicaid programs. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and other Republicans have been talking lately about providing “universal access” to health insurance, instead of universal insurance coverage.
Trump said he expects Republicans in Congress to move quickly and in unison in the coming weeks on other priorities as well, including enacting sweeping tax cuts and beginning the building of a wall along the Mexican border.
Trump warned Republicans that if the party splinters or slows his agenda, he is ready to use the power of the presidency — and Twitter — to usher his legislation to passage.
“The Congress can’t get cold feet because the people will not let that happen,” Trump said during the interview with The Post.
Trump said his plan for replacing most aspects of Obama’s health-care law is all but finished. Although he was coy about its details — “lower numbers, much lower deductibles” — he said he is ready to unveil it alongside Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“It’s very much formulated down to the final strokes. We haven’t put it in quite yet but we’re going to be doing it soon,” Trump said. He noted that he is waiting for his nominee for secretary of health and human services, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), to be confirmed. That decision rests with the Senate Finance Committee, which hasn’t scheduled a hearing.
Trump’s declaration that his replacement plan is ready comes after many Republicans — moderates and conservatives — expressed anxiety last week about the party’s lack of a formal proposal as they held votes on repealing the law. Once his plan is made public, Trump said, he is confident that it could get enough votes to pass in both chambers. He declined to discuss how he would court wary Democrats.
So far, Republicans have taken the first steps toward repealing the law through budget reconciliation, a process by which only a simple majority is needed in the Senate. The process would enable them to dismantle aspects of the law that involve federal spending.
The plan that Trump is preparing will come after the House has taken more than 60 votes in recent years to kill all or parts of the ACA to kill to adopt more conservative health-care policies, which tend to rely more heavily on the private sector.
“I think we will get approval. I won’t tell you how, but we will get approval. You see what’s happened in the House in recent weeks,” Trump said, referencing his tweet during a House Republican move to gut their independent ethics office, which along with widespread constituent outrage was cited by some members as a reason the gambit failed.
As he has developed a replacement package, Trump said he has paid attention to critics who say that repealing Obamacare would put coverage at risk for more than 20 million Americans covered under the law’s insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion.
“We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump said. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.” People covered under the law “can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.”
Republican leaders have said that they will not strand people who gained insurance under the ACA without coverage. But it remains unclear from either Trump’s comments in the interview or recent remarks by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill how they intend to accomplish that.
For conservative Republicans dubious about his pledge to ensure coverage for millions, Trump pointed to several interviews he gave during the campaign in which he promised to “not have people dying on the street.”
“It’s not going to be their plan,” he said of people covered under the current law. “It’ll be another plan. But they’ll be beautifully covered. I don’t want single-payer. What I do want is to be able to take care of people,” he said Saturday.
Trump did not say how his program overlaps with the comprehensive plan authored by House Republicans. Earlier this year, Price suggested that a Trump presidency would advance the House GOP’s health-care agenda.
When asked in the interview whether he intends to cut benefits for Medicare as part of his plan, Trump said “no,” a position that was reiterated Sunday on ABC by Reince Priebus, Trump’s incoming chief of staff. He did not elaborate on that view or how it would affect his proposal. He expressed that view throughout the campaign.
Timing could be difficult as Trump puts an emphasis on speed. Obama’s law took more than 14 months of debate and hundreds of hearings. To urge lawmakers on, Trump plans to attend a congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia this month.
Moving ahead, Trump said that lowering drug prices is central to reducing health-care costs nationally — and that he will make it a priority as he uses his bully pulpit to shape policy. When asked how exactly he would force drug manufacturers to comply, Trump said that part of his approach would be public pressure “just like on the airplane,” a nod to his tweets about Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet, which Trump said was too costly.
Trump waved away the suggestion that such activity could lead to market volatility on Wall Street. “Stock drops and America goes up,” he said. “I don’t care. I want to do it right or not at all.” He added that drug companies “should produce” more products in the United States.
The question of whether the government should start negotiating how much it pays drugmakers for older Americans on Medicare has long been a partisan dispute, ever since the 2003 law that created Medicare drug benefits prohibited such negotiations.
Trump’s goal is uncertain, however, with respect to Medicaid, the insurance for low-income Americans run jointly by the federal government and states. Under what is known as a Medicaid “best price” rule, pharmaceutical companies already are required to sell drugs to Medicaid as the lowest price they negotiate with any other buyer.
On his plan for tax cuts, Trump said that “we’re getting very close” to putting together legislation. His advisers and Ryan met last week and have been working from his campaign’s plan and from congressional proposals to slash current rates. “It’ll probably be 15 to 20 percent for corporations. For individuals, probably lower. Great ­middle-class tax cuts,” Trump said.
On corporate tax rates, “We may negotiate a little, but we want to bring them down and get as close to 15 percent as we can so we can see a mushrooming of jobs moving back.”
Trump said he would not relent on his push for increasing taxes on U. S. companies that manufacture abroad — and insisted that the upcoming tax cuts should be enough reason for companies to produce within the United States.
“If companies think they’re going to make their cars or other products overseas and sell them back into the United States, they’re going to pay a 35 percent tax,” he said.
Briefly touching on immigration, Trump said that building a border wall and curbing illegal immigration remain at the top of his to-do list and that he is spending significant time looking at ways to begin projects, both with Congress and through executive action. He did not disclose what was to come on those fronts.

Similarity rank: 9.7

Sentiment rank: 0

© Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-vows-insurance-for-everybody-in-obamacare-replacement-plan/2017/01/15/5f2b1e18-db5d-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.