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Taliban say latest talks end on US’s Afghanistan withdrawal

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The latest round of talks between the Taliban and the United States on a deal to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Afghanistan has ended and now both sides will consult with their leadership on the next steps, a Taliban spokesman said Monday.
The eighth round of talks in the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar concluded after midnight and was “long and useful,” Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.
He made no statements on the outcome of the talks.
Last week, another Taliban spokesman had said a deal was expected to follow this round as both sides seek an end to the nearly 18-year war, America’s longest conflict.
An agreement — if reached — is expected to include Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan would not be a base for other extremist groups in the future. However, both the Islamic State group’s affiliate and al-Qaida remain active in the country. The Taliban stage near-daily attacks across Afghanistan, mainly targeting Afghan forces and government officials but also killing many civilians.
The deal also could include a cease-fire and stipulate that the Taliban would negotiate with Afghan representatives, though the insurgent group has so far refused to negotiate with Kabul representatives, dismissing the Afghan government as a U.S. puppet.
There was no immediate comment on Monday from U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who on Sunday tweeted that “I hope this is the last Eid where #Afghanistan is at war.”
Sunday was the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha, which unfolded without any major violence reported in Afghanistan.
Khalilzad later added that “Many scholars believe that the deeper meaning of Eid al-Hadha is to sacrifice one’s ego. Leaders on all sides of the war in Afghanistan must take this to heart as we strive for peace.”
Some in Afghanistan saw it as a response to President Ashraf Ghani, who on Sunday declared that “Our future cannot be decided outside, whether in the capital cities of our friends, nemeses or neighbors. The fate of Afghanistan will be decided here in this homeland. ... We don’t want anyone to intervene in our affairs.”
While Ghani insists that the upcoming Sept. 28 presidential election is crucial for giving Afghanistan’s leader a powerful mandate to decide the country’s future after years of war, Khalilzad is seeking a peace deal by Sept. 1, weeks before the vote.
The Taliban control roughly half of Afghanistan and are at their strongest since the U.S.-led invasion toppled their five-year government in 2001 after the group had harbored al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. More than 2,400 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan since then.
The U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014. The some 20,000 American and allied troops that remain are carrying out airstrikes on the Taliban and IS militants, and are working to train and build the Afghan military.
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Gannon reported from New York.

Chuck Schumer wants FBI to sign off on body armor sales

Sen. Chuck Schumer on Sunday proposed new legislation to require the FBI to sign off on body armor sales to civilians.
The announcement comes one week after mass killer Connor Betts — clad in body armor — opened fire in a trendy Dayton, Ohio, neighborhood and killed nine people before he was gunned down by police.
Schumer said anyone can now buy a bulletproof vest for $185 and a tactical mask for $10 under current law, Schumer said at a press conference at his Midtown office.
“With the click of a mouse, scroll of a thumb, dialing of a phone, someone up to no good can get this,” he said. “What we have learned is that a good number of those intent on mass shootings buy body armor,” the Senate minority leader said. “They want to kill as many people as possible.”
The restrictions would not apply to law enforcement personnel.

Lance Armstrong says he 'blew the f-----' doors off Mike Pence' on bike path in Massachusetts

Disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong bragged online about passing Vice President Mike Pence on a bike path in Massachusetts on Saturday — quickly drawing criticism for what he described as a joke.
Armstrong, 47, tweeted about his supposed encounter with the vice president, who was in Nantucket for a fundraiser to benefit the Republican National Committee and President Trump's reelection campaign.
"I can’t drop many people on a bike these days but I just blew the f-----' doors off Mike Pence on a Nantucket bike path," Armstrong tweeted. "Day. Made."

Lance Armstrong tweeted he passed Vice President Mike Pence on a bike path in Nantucket, Mass., on Saturday. (Twitter/@lancearmstrong)

The tweet swiftly received negative attention.
"He's 13 years older than you and was never a professional cyclist," one person wrote, while another tweeted: "Wow, a pro athlete whooped an elderly man in the sport of his choice!! Such a bad-- you are!!
Pence's spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah, tweeted: "Couldn’t quite hang onto those Tour de France titles, but hey, at least you beat Karen & Mike Pence on a leisurely bike ride! Congrats?"

Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for Pence, responded to Armstrong's claim. (Twitter/@Alyssafarah)

Armstrong acknowledged the string of tweets he received, writing hours later that "some people can’t take a joke or even having a little fun on twitter. Lightin’ the f--- up people. But seriously, I did blow his doors off!!"

Lance Armstrong later said his tweet about Vice President Mike Pene was a joke and that people need to "lightin' the f--- up." (Getty Images)

Many social media users noted that Armstrong was caught cheating in his quest to be the fastest cyclist. The founder of the "Livestrong Foundation" — who won his first title after recovering from testicular cancer that spread to his brain — was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles by for International Cycling Union in 2012 for doping.
In May, Armstrong told NBC Sports he "wouldn't change a thing" about his cheating scandal.
"I wouldn’t change the way I acted. I mean I would, but this is a longer answer,” Armstrong said. “Primarily, I wouldn’t change the lessons that I’ve learned. I don’t learn all the lessons if I don’t act that way. I don’t get investigated and sanctioned if I don’t act the way I acted.”
He added: “If I just doped and didn’t say a thing, none of that would have happened. None of it. I was begging for, I was asking for them to come after me. It was an easy target.”
Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

Deroy Murdock: Don't ignore Trump's unifying, anti-racist rhetoric

Not even the "paper of record" could resist the left’s big lie: Donald J. Trump is America’s “racist-in-chief.”
After last weekend’s deadly mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Democrats and other Trump haters demanded that the president denounce white nationalism, which apparently propelled the alleged Texas gunman. President Trump did exactly that.
“The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate,” Trump said Monday. “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul.”
The Old Gray Lady’s page-one, online headline reflected these remarks: “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM”
But those accurate words enraged Democrats. They disproved the leftist lie that Trump is a divisive bigot.

Ilhan Omar Cartoons

Trump: Kim wants to meet again, apologized for missile tests

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that North Korea’s Kim Jong Un wants to meet once again to “start negotiations” after joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises end. He also said Kim apologized for the flurry of recent short-range missile tests that has rattled U.S. allies in the region.
Trump is tweeting more details from the “beautiful” three-page letter he told reporters on Friday that he’d received from Kim. Trump, who is on vacation at his golf club in New Jersey, said Kim spent much of his letter complaining about “the ridiculous and expensive exercises,” which North Korea sees as a threat.
He said Kim offered him “a small apology” for the recent tests and assured him “that this testing would stop when the exercises end.” North Korea on Saturday fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, according to South Korea’s military — the fifth round of launches in less than three weeks.
“I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un in the not too distant future!” Trump wrote.
The two leaders have met three times — in Singapore, Hanoi and at the Korean Demilitarized Zone — but critics say Trump has received few concessions in the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for the meetings.
At their second summit in Vietnam in February, Trump rejected Kim’s demand for widespread sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling the North’s main nuclear complex, a partial disarmament step.
The U.S. and South Korea have scaled down their major military exercises since Trump and Kim’s first summit in June 2018. But the North insists even the downsized drills violate agreements between Kim and Trump and compel it to “develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense.”
When they last met in June of this year, Trump and Kim agreed to resume working-level nuclear talks that have been stalled since February, but there have been no known meetings between the two sides since then.

Muslims clash with Israeli police at Jerusalem holy site

JERUSALEM (AP) — Muslim worshippers and Israeli police clashed Sunday at a major Jerusalem holy site during prayers marking the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Palestinian medics said at least 14 people were wounded, one seriously, in the skirmishes with police at the site, which Muslims refer to as the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and Jews refer to as the Temple Mount. Police said at least four officers were wounded. Witnesses said at least two people were arrested.
Tens of thousands of Muslims had flocked to the site in Jerusalem’s Old City early Sunday for holiday prayers, police said. Jews are also observing on Sunday the Ninth of Av, a day of fasting and mourning for the destruction of the two Biblical temples which stood at the site in antiquity.
The site is the holiest for Jews and the third holiest for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and has long been a flashpoint at the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Large numbers of Palestinians had gathered at the gates of the compound early Sunday after rumors circulated that police would allow Jewish visitors to enter the site. The protesters chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) and threw stones at police, who then charged into the compound while firing stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets.
Israeli police had initially barred entry to Jewish visitors, but reversed their decision after the clashes broke out and allowed them to enter. Several dozen entered the site under close police escort and Muslim worshippers began throwing chairs and other objects at the group. The Jewish visitors left the compound shortly thereafter.
The reversal came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religious nationalist allies called for the site to be opened to Jewish visitors. Israelis are headed to unprecedented repeat elections next month after Netanyahu failed to form a government following April’s elections.
Jews are barred from praying at the compound under a longstanding arrangement between Israel and Muslim authorities. Jewish tradition also maintains that Jews should avoid entering the holy site.
But in recent years Israeli religious nationalists have stepped up visits to the site to challenge the arrangement. Jewish extremists have called for destroying the mosque and rebuilding the Biblical temple.
The Palestinians view such visits as provocations, and have long feared that Israel intends to take over the site or partition it. The Israeli government has repeatedly said it has no intention of changing the status quo.
The compound is in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinians seek as part of a future state. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its unified capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have spiked following President Donald Trump’s decision in 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. Embassy there. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been moribund for at least a decade, and the Palestinians have cut ties with the Trump administration over what they see as its unfair bias toward Israel.
In a separate incident on Sunday, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian gunman after he opened fire on them from across the perimeter fence around the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said an “armed terrorist” approached the frontier early Sunday and opened fire toward troops on the other side, who responded by shooting at the attacker. The army said a tank also targeted a nearby military post operated by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza identified the deceased as 26-year-old Marwan Nasser. It was not clear if he was a member of an armed group, and no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
On Saturday, Israeli troops killed four Palestinian militants who the army said had tried to carry out a cross-border attack. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, said the attack was an “individual act” carried out by youths frustrated at the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza and was not planned by the group.
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Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip contributed.

North Korea slams Seoul over military drills with US, says Kim oversaw latest weapons tests

North Korea said Saturday that dictator Kim Jong Un supervised the test-firing of a new weapons system, the latest in a series of launches widely seen as an effort to drive a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea amid ongoing joint military exercises between the two countries.
The Korean Central News Agency, Pyongyang's official propaganda organ, said Kim expressed "great satisfaction" over the launches. The agency didn't specify whether the weapons were ballistic missiles or rocket artillery but said they were developed to suit the North's "terrain condition" and provide "advantageous tactical character different to existing weapons systems."
The KCNA statement came hours after President Trump said Kim has expressed a desire to meet again to start nuclear negotiations after the end of ongoing joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, and had apologized for the flurry of recent short-range ballistic launches that rattled U.S. allies in the region.
In a separate statement, North Korea's Foreign Ministry blasted South Korea for continuing to host military drills with the United States and said that its future dialogue will be held strictly between Pyongyang and Washington.
South Korea's military said Friday that the North had launched two short-range ballistic missiles Saturday, the fifth such launch within the past two weeks. The country's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles flew around 250 miles and landed in the Sea of Japan.
By launching a slew of weapons that directly threaten South Korea but not the U.S. mainland or its Pacific territories, North Korea also appears to be dialing up pressure on Seoul to make stronger efforts to coax major concessions from the United States on Pyongyang's behalf.
South Korea has said North Korea's recent launches could hurt efforts to stabilize peace on the Korean Peninsula and called for the North to uphold an agreement to form a joint military committee to discuss reducing tensions, which was part of the inter-Korean military agreement reached last year. North Korea in recent months has ignored the South's calls for dialogue while demanding that Seoul turn away from Washington and resume inter-Korean economic cooperation held back by U.S.-led sanctions against the North.
The rash of weapons firings come as American and South Korean forces conduct a 10-day military exercise which the North has denounced. North Korean officials have called the large-scale annual drills a "rehearsal for war" while the South called the test-firings a show of force.
Pyongyang has claimed that the U.S.-South Korea exercises force it to "develop, test and deploy the powerful physical means essential for national defense."
“Given that the military exercise clearly puts us as an enemy in its concept,” said Kwon Jong Gun, director of the U.S. affairs department at Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry. "They [South Korea] should think that an inter-Korean contact itself will be difficult to be made unless they put an end to such a military exercise or before they make a plausible excuse or an explanation in a sincere manner for conducting the military exercise."
"Though we are to enter into a dialogue in future as the currents flow in favor of dialogue, [the South] had better keep in mind that this dialogue would be held strictly between the D.P.R.K and the U.S., not between the North and the South," Kwon said, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Kwon's remarks come a day after the North blasted the South's acquisition of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets as it tries to expand its military capabilities, warning that Seoul would gain "nothing but destruction" if it pursues a contest of strength with the North.
Hours after the North's latest launches, Trump tweeted that Kim spent much of his letter complaining about "the ridiculous and expensive" U.S.-South Korea military exercises. He said that Kim offered him "a small apology" for the flurry of missile tests, and that he assured him they would stop when the exercises end.
Trump said the tests do violate Kim's pledge to give up nuclear and long-range tests. He said on Friday he received a "beautiful" three-page letter from Kim in which the leader complained of "the ridiculous and expensive exercises."
Trump and Kim met twice for summits in Singapore and Hanoi. In June the leaders briefly at the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea.
Fox News reporter Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

State Dept. updates ‘anti-Semitism’ definition following Omar’s anti-Israel resolution

The U.S. State Department recently revised its definition of anti-Semitism, in an apparent response to recent comments and actions by U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
The previous definition of anti-Semitism, issued in May, listed 10 examples. The revised definition now lists 11 examples, adding that anti-Semitism now includes “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
The leader of a U.S.-based pro-Israel organization praised the move last week.
“Kudos to @SecPompeo and Special Envoy Elan Carr,” Adam Milstein, a philanthropist and co-founder of the Adam and Gila Milstein Foundation, wrote on Twitter. “It’s more clear now, the BDS Movement is disgustingly Antisemitic.”
BDS refers to the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, whose supporters call for the withdrawal of financial support for the Israeli government in protest of the treatment of Palestinian people.
The State Department revision followes last month's overwhelming bipartisan 398-17 vote by the U.S. House of representatives to oppose an international effort to boycott Israel.

Omar's intention

Omar, who cast one of the 17 dissenting votes, countered with a resolution of her own, supporting the right to boycott foreign governments “to advocate for human rights abroad,” and likening the action to boycotts of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Her resolution did not mention Israel or the Palestinians. But she made her intention clear when she spoke with reporters.
“We are introducing a resolution … to really speak about the American values that support and believe in our ability to exercise our First Amendment rights in regard to boycotting,” Omar told Al-Monitor. “And it is an opportunity for us to explain why it is we support a nonviolent movement, which is the BDS movement.”
But several House Democrats gave Omar’s resolution little chance of passage.
“I can’t imagine that any committee is going to mark up or take seriously any pro-BDS resolution,” U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said last month.
“Am I worried about the overall BDS movement worldwide as an economic matter? No. As an effort to delegitimize Israel, of course. The comments here today are a tiny part of that delegitimizing effort.”

Petition to censure Omar, Tlaib

Meanwhile, the Washington-based American Center for Law and Justice recently launched an online petition, calling for Congress to censure Omar as well as her Democratic colleague, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, over rhetoric that the ACLJ describes as anti-Semitic.
“Rep. Omar said that support for Israel is ‘all about the Benjamins’ – a bigoted accusation that Jews control all the money,” the petition states. “She’s attacked Jews and anyone who supports Israel as having a dual allegiance – another anti-Semitic trope.
“Rep. Tlaib said she has a ‘calming feeling’ about the Holocaust,” the petition continues. “Someone espousing these bigoted views should not have access to classified information or sit on congressional committees such as the Foreign Affairs Committee.”
It states later: “Take action with us. Fight back against anti-Semitism. Demand Reps. Omar and Tlaib be removed from the committees and censured.”
Fox News' Lukas Mikelionis contributed to this story.