Business Insider

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Tujia, a Chinese vacation rental company similar to home rental firm Airbnb Inc, said on Monday it had raised $300 million from a group of investors to expand its business overseas, increase marketing and offer new products.

The deal values Tujia at more than $1 billion, the Chinese company added without disclosing the size of the stake the investors bought. By comparison, Airbnb, which operates around the world, is valued at $20 billion.   Continue reading “China’s Airbnb-like Tujia raised $300 million to expand overseas”

ABC News

A manhunt continued Sunday following the fatal shooting of a Memphis police officer who was killed the previous night during a traffic stop,Tennessee police officials said.

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said during a news conference that police were alerted about 9:18 p.m. Saturday that an officer had been shot multiple times. Armstrong said the officer was transported in critical condition to a hospital, where he died.   Continue reading “Manhunt in Memphis Continues After Officer, 33, Fatally Shot”

USA Today – by Kate Seamons

(NEWSER) – On Tuesday night, a 62-year-old Ohio woman started mowing her lawn. She never finished the task. Police says Linda Ciotto was shot in the head while mowing the grass at her Willard home around 9pm, and her neighbor stands accused of the crime.

James Blair, 50, was allegedly angered by the late-night mowing; he and his mother live next door to Ciotto, and his mother told sheriff’s deputies that her son had told her that his agitation with Ciotto had been building as she mowed, report WKYC. A neighbor tells WOIO he heard one shot, and the Huron County Coroner tells the AP that the gunshot occurred at a close distance. Coroner Jeffrey Harwood also observed a severe left arm wound that he says could have been caused by a mower blade. That jibes with reports that Blair allegedly mowed over Ciotto after shooting her.   Continue reading “Man allegedly kills neighbor over late-night mowing”

NBC News – by Elizabeth Chuck

Two Oklahoma teenagers have been formally charged with murdering five family members following a horrific attack in their home in an upscale suburb of Tulsa.

Robert Bever, 18, and his 16-year-old brother were arrested after their parents and three of their siblings were found stabbed to death in Broken Arrow on July 22. The teens were officially charged on Friday as adults, reported NBC affiliate KFOR.    Continue reading “Oklahoma Teens Formally Charged With Murdering Family”

Reuters

Three members of former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s family were killed when a private jet crashed in southern England on Friday, British police said on Saturday.

The Embraer Phenom 300 jet with four people on board was flying from Milan’s Malpensa airport to Blackbushe airport in southern England when it crashed at a nearby car auction site. All died in the crash.   Continue reading “Three members of bin Laden family killed in UK jet crash: police”

Investopedia

The Pentagon awarded $4.83 billion in new defense contracts Wednesday — all but $495 million of which was contained in one single award. The lucky winner of this award — all $4.34 billion of it — is the Reston, VA “applied technology” contractor Leidos (NYSE: LDOS). The company has been hired by the U.S. Navy to modernize its Defense Healthcare Management System, providing the Navy with an off-the-shelf electronic health records “solution” and to integrate and deploy said solution “across the Military Health System.”   Continue reading “Guess Who Just Won a $4.3 Billion Defense Contract”

Reuters – by Ami Miyazaki and Krista Hughes

Pacific Rim trade ministers failed to clinch a deal on Friday to free up trade between a dozen nations after a dispute flared up over auto trade between Japan and North America, New Zealand dug in over dairy trade and no agreement was reached on monopoly periods for next-generation drugs.

Trade ministers from the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would stretch from Japan to Chile and cover 40 percent of the world economy, fell just short of a deal at talks on the Hawaiian island of Maui but were confident an agreement was within reach.   Continue reading “Pacific Rim free trade talks fall short of deal”

Chron – by Jeff Chiu and Haven Daley, Associated Press

LOWER LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as an army of firefighters continue to battle them from the air and the ground.

Twenty-three large fires, many sparked by lightning strikes, were burning across Northern California on Saturday, said state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant. Some 8,000 firefighters were attempting to subdue them, something made incredibly difficult by several years of drought that have dried out California.   Continue reading “Firefighter killed, hundreds flee as California blazes burn”

Reuters – by TIMOTHY GARDNER AND VALERIE VOLCOVICI

The U.S. Senate Energy Committee on Thursday narrowly passed a bill to lift a 40-year-old ban on the export of crude oil, but the measure faces an uphill battle in getting passed by the full Senate.

The bill to allow the United States to export oil and boost state revenue-sharing for offshore oil and gas drilling passed along party lines by a vote of 12-10.   Continue reading “Senate energy panel votes to lift oil export ban”

Defense One – by Marcus Weisgerber

Just two weeks after Western nations and Tehran struck a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program, the Pentagon says Saudi Arabia wants to buy 600 new Patriot missile interceptors.

The $5 billion-plus purchase is likely just the first of many more as America’s Middle Eastern allies arm themselves in response to the nuclear deal, which would lift Iran’s conventional-arms embargo sanctions in five years and sanctions on long-range missile projects in eight.   Continue reading “Saudi Arabia Responds to Iran Deal: Give Us 600 Patriot Missiles”

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Heavy – by Paul Farrell

An 18-year-old man from Wyoming is the only suspect in the seemingly unprovoked killings of two Montana residents. The alleged perp is Jesus Deniz. He’s accused of slaying Jason, 52, and Tana Shane, 50, of Pryor, Montana, and leaving their 24-year-old daughter, Jora, for dead after shooting her in the head and back. The heinous attack happened close to the Crow Nation reservation in Pryor after the Shane’s tried to help Deniz as he had run out of gas. They went to a store to get gasoline from him, but it was closed, upon returning, Deniz opened fire on the family killing Jason and Tana while wounding Jora, that’s according to family spokesman Bryce Hugs. Hugs added that Deniz then absconded in the Shane’s car.   Continue reading “Jesus Deniz: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know”

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Yahoo News – by JOAN LOWY and LORI HINNANT, AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — Air safety investigators have a “high degree of confidence” that a photo of aircraft debris found in the Indian Ocean is of a wing component unique to the Boeing 777, the same model as the Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared last year, a U.S. official said Wednesday.   Continue reading “US official: Debris in photo belongs to Boeing 777”

Fox News

CLEVELAND –  U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents told Ohio sheriff’s deputies weeks ago not to detain a man who is in the U.S. illegally and now suspected of killing a woman and wounding another during a crime spree, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

Lake County sheriff’s deputies questioned 35-year-old Juan Emmanuel Razo on July 7 after finding him alone in a car in Painesville, about 30 miles east of Cleveland. Unsure of Razo’s status, the deputies contacted Border Protection officials and were told he is from Mexico and in the U.S. illegally but they didn’t want him detained.   Continue reading “Ohio murder suspect in country illegally; ordered not to be detained in earlier traffic stop”

Fox News

A Florida man has uncovered gold artifacts worth over $1 million from the wreckage of a Spanish fleet that sank in a storm off the Florida coast three centuries ago.

The find by Eric Schmitt was announced late Monday by a salvage company that owns the rights to the site where the coins and jewels were found.   Continue reading “Florida family unearths gold coins worth over $1M from 1715 shipwreck”

Business Insider – by Michael B. Kelley

Convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard will be released in November after have been granted parole, according to his lawyers and an Israeli official.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the decision by the federal parole board was unanimous and the US government didn’t oppose his release.

Pollard, 60, was serving a life term in a North Carolina prison after pleading guilty to spying for Israel from June 1984 until his arrest in November 1985.   Continue reading “Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard granted parole, will be released in November”

Fox News

A federal judge in California has ruled that hundreds of illegal immigrant women and children in U.S. holding facilities should be released, another apparent setback for President Obama’s immigration policy, according to The Los Angeles Times.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee said Friday that the conditions in which the detainees are being held are “deplorable” and violate parts of an 18-year-old court settlement that put restrictions on the detention of migrant children.    Continue reading “Judge orders Obama administration to release illegal immigrants from ‘deplorable’ facilities”

CNBC – by Kate Rogers

After the Senate voted to revive the federal Export-Import Bank, a key source of loans for smaller U.S. companies that do business abroad, the fate of the agency now moves to a potential House showdown.

The bank’s authorization expired June 30, halting all new loan guarantees and other assistance to foreign customers seeking to purchase goods from American companies. The agency continues to service existing loans.   Continue reading “Battle lines drawn over Export-Import Bank renewal”