ISIS leader al-Baghdadi confirmed dead after apparent suicide during U.S. operation: sources

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, sources have confirmed to Fox News.
Al-Baghdadi, who took over ISIS after his predecessor Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was killed in 2010, detonated a suicide vest, killing himself when U.S. Special Operations forces entered a compound in northern Syria where he was located, according to a U.S. defense official. No U.S. Special Operations forces were hurt or killed in the raid.
“U.S. forces did a terrific job,” a U.S. military source told Fox News.“This just shows it may take time but terrorists will not find a sanctuary.” The same source told Fox News that biometric tests confirmed that it was indeed Baghdadi.
The compound was located near the Turkish border in northwest Syria’s Idlib Province, a known terrorist stronghold that has served as a home to groups linked to al-Qaeda. Al-Baghdadi had long been suspected to be hiding in the Idlib Province.
Mazloum Adbi, General Commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, touted a “historical operation” in a tweet Sunday morning, crediting “joint intelligence work with the United States of America.”
Regarding Mazloum’s claim of Kurdish assistance in the operation, a U.S. military source simply told Fox News, “the Kurds have always been good partners.”

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Bigger, longer blackouts could lie ahead in California (AP NEWS)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A wildfire in California wine country that may have been caused by a high-voltage transmission line called into question Pacific Gas & Electric’s strategy of selectively cutting off power in windy weather to prevent blazes and could force it to resort to even bigger blackouts affecting millions as early as this weekend.

The repeated shut-offs and the prospect of longer and more widespread ones brought anger down on the utility from the governor and ordinary customers.

“We will hold them to account,” warned Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has repeatedly blasted PG&E — the nation’s largest utility — for what he calls years of mismanagement and underinvestment that have left its grid less resilient.

Twice over the past two weeks, PG&E has cut power to large areas of northern and central California to reduce the risk of its equipment sparking fires. Nearly 2 million people lost electricity earlier this month, and then as many as a half-million this week.

But PG&E’s decision to shut down distribution lines but not long-distance transmission lines may have backfired this time when a blaze erupted near the Sonoma County wine country town of Geyserville.

The fire burned at least 49 buildings and 34 square miles (65 square kilometers) and prompted evacuation orders for some 2,000 people. No serious injuries were reported.

PG&E said a live, 230,000-volt transmission line near Geyserville had malfunctioned minutes before the fire erupted Wednesday night, and a broken “jumper” wire was found on a transmission tower.

PG&E Corp. CEO Bill Johnson said it was too soon to say whether the faulty equipment sparked the fire. He said the tower had been inspected four times in the past two years and appeared to have been in excellent condition.

But PG&E stock plummeted 31 percent on the news. And the blaze could mean wider blackouts ahead.

“It’s kind of a logical next step to say, ‘Well, if our high-voltage transmission lines are at risk, we’ve got to shut those down too,’” said Alan Scheller-Wolf, professor of operations management and an energy expert at Carnegie Mellon University.

PG&E, he said, “can’t win.”

The utility acknowledged that the discovery of the tower malfunction already had prompted a change in its strategy.

“We have revisited and adjusted some of our standards and protocols in determining when we will de-energize high-voltage transmission lines,” Andrew Vesey, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., said at a briefing Friday night.

With dangerously high winds in the forecast this weekend, the utility said it is planning another major shutdown that could hit more than 2 million people throughout the region starting Saturday afternoon and last up to two days.

The preparations came as firefighters simultaneously battled flames in both Northern and Southern California: the fire amid Sonoma County’s vineyards, and a wind-whipped blaze that destroyed at least six homes in the Santa Clarita area near Los Angeles and led to evacuation orders covering an estimated 50,000 people.

The possible link between the wine country fire and a PG&E transmission line contained grim parallels to the catastrophic fire last year that tore through the town of Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying thousands of homes in the deadliest U.S. fire in a century. State officials concluded that fire was sparked by a PG&E transmission line.

The line that failed this week is newer and should have been more robust, said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy program at Stanford University. Its failure will probably make PG&E more cautious, which means more widespread blackouts, he said.

“There’s going to be more collateral damage,” Wara said.

Turning off big transmission lines reduces the stability of the electrical grid, leading to bigger outages, Wara said. Transmissions lines also take longer to re-energize because everything connected to them must be inspected, he said.

PG&E’s CEO has said it will take about a decade before widespread outages aren’t necessary.

Minimizing blackouts will require PG&E to harden its grid with stronger poles and newer equipment less likely to fall or spark. Cameras, weather sensors and a more segmented grid would allow the company to target blackouts to areas in the most danger.

PG&E began resorting to large-scale shut-offs after its equipment was blamed for several blazes in recent years that killed scores of people, burned thousands of homes and ran up billions of dollars in claims that drove the utility into bankruptcy, where it is still trying to put its finances in order.

The repeated and sometimes lengthy blackouts have frustrated Californians contending with uncertainty, spoiled food and disrupted plans. Many have complained about poor communication from the power company.

“I feel like we’re being held hostage for their failings and their incompetence,” said Logan Martin, 55, of Santa Rosa.

This year’s fire season in California has so far been mild, with fewer deaths and fewer acres burned following two years of deadly conflagrations.

Experts say it is impossible to know how much the blackouts contributed to that, but PG&E has cited numerous instances of wind damage to its equipment that it said could have caused fires if the lines had been electrified.

Losing power doesn’t put a huge burden on firefighters, but they need to know outages are coming so they can install generators where needed, such as pumps for retardant, said Thom Porter, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Firefighters sometimes draw water from rural water systems that use electrical pumps, but there have been no reports of problems getting water to fight either of the major blazes burning in California now.

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This story has been corrected to show that nearly 2 million people lost electricity earlier this month, not 2.5 million.

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Cooper reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker and Juliet Williams in San Francisco and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed.

Esper: US troops, armored vehicles going to Syria oil fields

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States will send armored vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to keep oil fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said.

It was the latest sign that extracting the military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump is making it out to be. Though Trump repeatedly says he is pulling out of Syria, the reality on the ground is different.

Adding armored reinforcements in the oil-producing area of Syria could mean sending several hundred U.S. troops -- even as a similar number are being withdrawn from a separate mission closer to the border with Turkey where Russian forces have been filling the vacuum.

On Friday, Esper described the added force as “mechanized,” which means it likely will include armored vehicles such as Bradley armored infantry carriers and possibly tanks, although details were still be worked out. This reinforcement would introduce a new dimension to the U.S. military presence , which largely has been comprised of special operations forces not equipped with tanks or other armored vehicles.

Esper spoke at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he consulted with American allies.

Sending an armored force to eastern Syria would partially reverse the ongoing shrinkage of the U.S. troop presence in Syria. Trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all 1,000 U.S. troops who had been partnering with a Syrian Kurdish-led militia against the Islamic State group. That withdrawal is proceeding even as Esper announced the plan to put reinforcements in the oil-producing area.

Speaking to reporters Friday at the White House, Trump said the U.S.-brokered agreement with Turkey to halt its offensive against U.S.-supporting Syrian Kurdish fighters was a win for his administration. That offensive began after Trump announced U.S. troops would not stand in the way, though he also said the U.S. would punish Turkey’s economy if the country acted inhumanely.

He also said anew on Friday that “we’re getting our troops out” of Syria, without mentioning Esper’s announcement.

“We are doing well in Syria, with Turkey and everybody else that we’re dealing with,” Trump said. “We have secured the oil. ... We have a couple of people that came knocking, we said don’t knock. And I think I would say that things are going very well.”

White House officials would not clarify whom he was referring to as “knocking.”

The U.S. special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said in Geneva on Friday he had talked to a Russian official about an unspecified issue in Syria’s oil region.

“We are currently very concerned about certain developments in the south, in the Deir el-Zour area,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve talked to my Russian colleague about that and we’re having other contacts with the Russians concerning that situation. We think it is under control now.”

Although Esper did not mention the size of the U.S. reinforcements, it could total several hundred troops because fuel-guzzling tanks and other armored vehicles depend on a large supply and logistical support group. One official, who discussed the planning on condition of anonymity because some details remained to be agreed, cautioned that tanks might eventually be eliminated from the mix because of logistical challenges, including air transport.

Russian and Turkish leaders have now divided up security roles in northeast Syria following Trump’s abrupt troop withdrawal from the Turkey-Syrian border region. The American move triggered widespread criticism that the U.S. administration had abandoned the Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought alongside the U.S. against IS for several years.

Esper’s announcement came even as Trump again indicated in tweets that the U.S. military mission in Syria is complete. He previously has acknowledged a willingness to help protect the oil fields in eastern Syria, suggesting they could benefit the Kurds as well as the United States, although those resources belong to the Syrian government.

“Oil is secured,” Trump tweeted Friday. “Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then.... COMING HOME! ... When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!”

Asked about America’s shifting Syria strategy, Esper said the U.S. mission has always been to prevent the resurgence of IS. “That mission remains unchanged,” he said.

But Esper said at NATO that the U.S. is “considering how we might reposition forces in the area in order to ensure we secure the oil field.” He added: “We are reinforcing that position. It will include some mechanized forces.”

He made clear the main purpose is to prevent IS from regaining access to Syrian oil, which prior to 2017 was a major source of its revenue.

Starting in late 2015 and continuing for many months, the U.S. conducted airstrikes against a range of oil resources in the Deir el-Zour province that had been taken over by IS. The attacks damaged or knocked out oil tanker convoys, oil processing plants, storage facilities, pumping stations, pipelines and refineries. It was called Operation Tidal Wave II, after a World War II air campaign to hit Romania’s oil industry.

Esper said IS must not be allowed to again threaten the oil.

“If ISIS has access to the resources, and therefore the means to procure arms or to buy fighters or whatever else they do, then it means it makes it more difficult to defeat ISIS,” he said.

Just last week, Trump insisted that all American forces in Syria would come home. Then he said the 1,000 in the north would return home and that American troops in the south, numbering about 200 at the Al-Tanf garrison in the south, would stay.

Trump in the past days has turned a greater focus on the Syrian oil facilities in the eastern part of the country, saying U.S. will stay in Syria to protect them.

According to officials, top military leaders have pushed for the U.S. to leave forces in Syria to guard against an IS resurgence. While the group’s physical zone of control was largely destroyed by U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces, insurgents remain in small pockets throughout the country and in Iraq.

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AP National Security Writer Robert Burns reported from Washington. AP writer Aamer Madhani contributed.

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This story has been corrected to say Trump threatened Turkey’s economy, not Syria’s.

Hunter Biden under fire for ties to overseas business dealings in Romania

FILE – In this Oct. 11, 2012, file photo, Hunter Biden waits for the start of the his father’s, Vice President Joe Biden’s, debate at Centre College in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

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UPDATED 7:30 PM PT — Friday, October 25, 2019

Hunter Biden can’t seem to shake off bad press over his foreign business dealings. The crosshairs are now hovering over the former vice president’s son for his consultation of a Romanian businessman who was charged with fraud.
A Thursday NBC report drew attention to a 2016 trip Biden took to advise Gabriel Popoviciu. Popoviciu was caught up in a legal battle over a questionable land deal he made with the rector of a local Romanian university back in 2006. The school official allegedly sold off government land to the businessman for significantly less money than it was worth. The official further claimed the land belonged to the school.
The rector was arrested years later following a government investigation and Popoviciu was charged as an accessory to that deal. He appealed the decision and eventually hired Hunter Biden as a counselor for his legal team.
Sources said it’s unclear how much Hunter Biden actually contributed, but experts believe the businessman may have hired him for his relationship to Joe Biden, the acting vice president at the time. Popoviciu allegedly wanted to use Hunter’s status as the vice president’s son as leverage to win his case.
It is unknown what Hunter discussed with the official or how much he was paid, but pundits have said the optics are not good — considering his shady business deals in Ukraine and China. This comes after Hunter Biden stepped down from his position on the board of a Chinese investment company to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

President Trump will not throw out first pitch at World Series game (OAN Newsroom)

President Donald Trump walks from Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., following a trip to South Carolina on Friday, Oct. 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

President Trump just struck out on the chance to throw the first pitch at Sunday night’s World Series game. The Washington National’s baseball team announced Friday that the honor will go to celebrity Chef José Andrés.
“If a Game 5 is necessary, the Nationals will welcome chef and humanitarian José Andrés to throw a ceremonial first pitch,” read a statement from the Major League Baseball team.
The chef’s work with the World Central Kitchen played a key role in feeding those affected by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
The announcement comes after President Trump was asked at the White House if he would be willing to throw out the first pitch if the series goes to Game 5. The president said he would definitely attend the game, but that he wasn’t sure about pitching.
“I don’t know,” said President Trump. “They got to dress me up in a lot of heavy armor — I’ll look too heavy.”
He has received support from Nationals pitcher Aníbal Sánchez, who said people should respect the president’s decision if he wants to attend the game.

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Minnesota Trump rally punch suspect facing felony assault charge: reports

A Minnesota man — who allegedly punched a Trump supporter in the contentious scene outside the president’s Keep America Great rally in Minneapolis two weeks ago — was charged with assault Wednesday after investigators used videos of the alleged attack to identify him, federal prosecutors said.
Dwight Pierre Lewis, 31, of Richfield, Minn., was charged with one count of third-degree felony assault in Minnesota’s Hennepin County District Court. He surrendered to police Monday and was being held on a $40,000 bond ahead of his court appearance Thursday, FOX 9 Minneapolis reported.

Dwight Pierre Lewis, 31, of Richfield, Minn., is accused of punching a Trump supporter outside a Minneapolis rally, resulting in stitches for the victim, authorities say. (Hennepin County District Attorney)

Authorities said Lewis admitted to punching another man outside President Trump’s campaign stop in Minneapolis on Oct. 10. The 22-year-old victim told police the next day that he received several stitches after a shirtless man attacked him as he was trying to leave the rally, The Epoch Times reported.
Investigators said they used several videos taken by news organizations and posted to social media to identify Lewis as the suspect. Lewis' criminal record includes four previous convictions for disorderly conduct, two for assault and one each for property damage and making terroristic threats, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Riot police — both on bicycles and horseback — formed a barrier between Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters outside the rally as tensions rose. Hundreds of anti-Trump protesters set fire to Make America Great Again hats and other memorabilia, as some threw objects at police, Fox News’ Matt Finn, who was at the scene, reported.
Other video posted to social media captured a scene where anti-Trump protesters shouted profanity at, as well as shoved and punched, those who left the rally. The Star Tribune reported that police deployed pepper spray.
Trump — who fell just 40,000 votes short of defeating Hillary Clinton in Minnesota in 2016 --- addressed more than 20,000 supporters at the rally. Minnesota is expected to be battleground territory going into 2020, the president’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, told the Times.