EC3 was shown sitting in the front row at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia tonight and has officially signed with WWE.
He appeared just before the video packages began for the Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Johnny Gargano main event. The graphic identified him as “EC 3,” and Mauro Ranallo called him one of NXT’s new arrivals.
EC3 finished up with Impact Wrestling at their most recent set of television tapings earlier this month, with him being written out by getting the “fired” briefcase in a Feast or Fired battle royal. In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter following the tapings, Dave Meltzer reported that he was told months ago that EC3 was going to be leaving Impact and at the time was looking at going back to WWE.
EC3 was known as Derrick Bateman in WWE until being released in 2013. He was in developmental and appeared on two seasons of NXT in its previous format. In Impact wrestling, he was Ethan Carter III and played Dixie Carter’s storyline nephew.
Earlier in the night, Ricochet and War Machine were also shown on camera sitting in the crowd. Candice LeRae was featured in a backstage segment with Gargano and his family, sat in the crowd for the main event, and got involved to help neutralize Zelina Vega.
The grim task of recovering and identifying the victims of California’s apocalyptic wildfires continued on Sunday as officials raised the death toll to 31 with more than 200 people unaccounted for.
With strong "devil winds" expected to continue throughout Monday, firefighters have been unable to contain the ferocious "Camp Fire" in Butte County, in the north of the state where 52,000 have fled their homes.
Most of the fatalities and missing come from the 200-year-old town of Paradise which was reduced to ash over the weekend. So far 29 are known to have perished with that figure expected to rise over the coming days.
Six more people were found dead on Sunday, in what was poised to become the deadliest wildfire in state history. Officials said the bodies of five people were found in burned-out homes and the sixth was found in a vehicle in northern California’s Camp Fire, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters on Sunday evening.
The Camp Fire has ripped through 164 square miles, destroying more than 6,700 buildings, most of them family homes.
Krystin Harvey, left, comforts her daughter Araya Cipollini at the remains of their home in Paradise, Calif. Credit:
AP
Some 228 people are still unaccounted for, Mr Honea said, while another 137 people have been located after friends or relatives reported being unable to contact them.
But on Sunday, officials were making arrangements to bring in a mobile DNA laboratory so that people with missing relatives could provide samples to help identify recovered remains.
Anthropologists are working alongside coroners to help examine body parts sifted from scorched rubble.
A deer looks on from a burned residence after the Camp fire tore through the area in Paradise, CaliforniaCredit:
AFP
At the ruined Holly Hills Mobile Estate, yellow police tape marked spots tagged "Doe C" and "Doe D," suggesting that bodies were found there.
Mr Honea said in many cases the only remains they were able to find were bones or bone fragments. “This weighs heavy on all of us,” he said. “Myself and especially those staff members who are out there doing what is important work but certainly difficult work.”
Yuba County Sheriff officers carry a body away from a burned residence in Paradise, CaliforniaCredit:
AFP
Paradise resident Jan MacGregor, 81, returned home to discover nothing left but a large metal safe and some pipework he recognised. "We knew Paradise was a prime target for forest fire over the years," he said. "We’ve had ’em come right up to the city limits – oh yeah – but nothing like this."
Meanwhile, weather conditions are not favourable for the thousands of firemen fighting the flames with severe hot and dry Santa Ana "devil winds" coming from Death Valley blasting the state for the next day or so.
"This is getting bad," said Marc Chenard, of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Centre. "We’ll get sustained winds of up to 40 mph and gusts between 60 mph and 70 mph. It’s nothing but bad news."
Molten aluminum has flowed from a car that burned in front of one of at least 20 homes destroyed just on Windermere Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif.Credit:
AP
Five hundred miles south, the celebrity enclave of Malibu and its surrounding areas remained under a mandatory evacuation as a separate blaze, named the "Woolsey Fire", threatened to spread, barely five per cent contained.
By Sunday morning, around 83,000 acres had been affected with at least 177 structures burnt to the ground.
How the wildfire in Paradise developed
Gerard Butler, the Scottish actor, had lost his home to the Woolsey Fire, he revealed on Sunday. The 48-year-old returned to check on the Malibu property to discover it had burned to the ground. He posted a photo of the remains on Twitter which also shows a destroyed vehicle.
Returned to my house in Malibu after evacuating. Heartbreaking time across California. Inspired as ever by the courage, spirit and sacrifice of firefighters. Thank you @LAFD. If you can, support these brave men and women at https://t.co/ei7c7F7cZx. pic.twitter.com/AcBcLtKmDU
— Gerard Butler (@GerardButler) November 11, 2018
Evacuation orders had been issued for some 88,000 homes in Ventura County and neighbouring Los Angeles County. Two people were found dead in a burnt out car in a driveway on Mulholland Highway.
Donald Trump, the US president, has repeatedly blamed the fires on human mismanagement of forests and infuriated Californians by threatening to stop federal aid.
"With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart," he said on Sunday morning.
Firefighters water down trees and bushes near homes in West Hills, near MalibuCredit:
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
The president of the California firefighters union excoriated Mr Trump.
"The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is Ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines," said Brian Rice, president of the California firefighters union.
Playboy magazine’s German edition has become embroiled in an unlikely spat with Ennio Morricone, the veteran film composer, over an interview in which it claimed he described the director Quentin Tarantino as a “cretin”, and said his films are “trash”.
Morricone denied giving an audience to the magazine and accused it of fabricating the comments about Tarantino.
Playboy initially stood by its story, saying the 90-year-old Italian composer made the comments in an interview at the end of June.
But the magazine then distanced itself, saying it had previously trusted the freelancer who had conducted the interview but "based on the information now at our disposal, we must unfortunately assume that the words spoken in the interview have, in part, been reproduced incorrectly", accor ding to a statement from the magazine’s editor in chief, Florian Boitin.
"We would like to express our regret should Mr Morricone have been portrayed in a false light," he added. "We are working to clarify this matter and are exploring legal measures."
Morricone said at the weekend that he had never given the interview, and that he had instructed his lawyers to take legal action against the magazine. The alleged interview appears in the publication’s December edition.
“The man is a cretin. He only steals from others and puts it together in a new way. None of that is original,” the magazine quoted Morricone as saying in online excerpts.
The Playboy interview suggests that Mr Morricone said Mr Tarantino's movies were 'trash' Credit:
Chris Pizzello/Invision
“This is completely false,” Mr Morricone said in a statement at the weekend. “I have not given an interview to Playboy Germany and what is more, I have never called Tarantino a cretin and I do not consider his films trash.”
“I consider Tarantino a great director,” he said in a second statement. “I am very proud of my work with him and the relationship we developed.”
A legendary figure in Hollywood for his scores for Westerns such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West, Mr Morricone worked with Mr Tarantino on his 2015 film The Hateful Eight.
The heated rivalry between Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa will come to a head at NXT TakeOver: New Orleans.
It was announced at the start of tonight’s episode of NXT that Ciampa will face Gargano at TakeOver in an unsanctioned match. Ciampa had been heckled by the crowd upon entering Full Sail University and asked NXT General Manager William Regal how he could finally get Gargano out of his life. Regal said that he would make the unsanctioned match at TakeOver with the following stipulations: if Ciampa wins, Gargano will be out of NXT forever. But if Gargano wins, he will get his job back.
Gargano was forced out of NXT in storyline after he lost a title vs. career match on NXT last month to Andrade “Cien” Almas. Ciampa had interfered in the match, attacking Gargano with his crutch, which led to Almas getting the win with the hammerlock DDT. On last week’s NXT, Gargano came out of the crowd to attack Ciampa, leading to a pull-apart brawl.
Russian authorities have reportedly arrested, tried and repatriated a North Korean worker who was preparing to defect from a labour camp in the Russian Far East, with human rights activists suggesting Moscow has started to cooperate with Pyongyang in its crackdown on defectors.
The worker – identified as 29-year-old Jun Kyung-chul – had served as a private in the North Korean People’s Army before being sent to work in Russia about one year ago, the Daily NK, a Seoul-based dissident news site, reported. Unhappy at the gruelling work conditions, he had made plans to defect to South Korea before being caught.
The reports claim he had been receiving assistance in his bid for freedom, but disappeared in early November.
An unnamed source told the Daily NK that North Korean authorities requested the assistance of Russia in detaining Mr Jun, who was put on trial in the city of Vladivostok on November 7, although the charges he faced have not been verified. Russia and North Korea have agreed in the past to extradite anyone found guilty of a crime in each other’s territory.
Mr Jun was convicted, handed over to the custody of representatives of the Pyongyang government and transferred over the border to North Korea the same day.
In numbers | North Korean defectors
Human rights activists say the speed with which the investigators acted and the Russian authorities’ apparent disregard for Mr Jun’s likely fate should be cause for concern.
“If other defectors’ cases are anything to go by, it is very likely that he and all his extended family will have been sent to a political prison camp”, said Ken Kato, director of the Japan branch of Human Rights in Asia.
“This is a humiliation for North Korea so they will treat him harshly”, he said. “The few people who have survived the North’s political prison system say that 30 per cent die within the first three months of their incarceration. The remainder are worked to death."
Mr Kato also expressed concern at Moscow’s apparent collusion with the North as other defectors have in the past been able to transit Russia and reach safety in a third country.
In 2014, it was reported that the North Korean banker charged with handling Kim Jong-un’s personal slush fund had defected to South Korea via Russia with around $5 million of the dictator’s cash.
There are reports that as many as 50,000 North Koreans are working in slave-like conditions in mines, factories and logging camps in Siberia, with their wages paid directly to the government in Pyongyang.
“Russia is supporting North Korea in order to cause problems for the United States, with these workers’ wages going directly to Pyongyang where they are used for their weapons programmes or to prop up the regime”, said Kato. “It’s appalling that a country that not too long ago described itself as the motherland of all workers is now treating people like slaves and condemning them to death by sending them back to North Korea for geo-political gain."
A Philippine court found three police officers guilty on Thursday of killing a student they alleged was a drug dealer, in the first known such conviction under the president’s deadly crackdown on drugs.
Regional Trial Court Presiding Judge Rodolfo Azucena Jr. ruled the officers murdered Kian Loyd Delos Santos during a raid in Caloocan city’s slums in the Manila metropolis last year. It rejected the policemen’s claim that the 17-year-old fired back while resisting arrest.
The court sentenced the officers, Arnel Oares, Jeremias Pereda and Jerwin Cruz, to be imprisoned for up to 40 years without parole, although they can appeal.
Activists light candles in front of the picture of 17-year-old student Kian Loyd delos Santos in ManilaCredit:
AP Photo/Aaron Favila
Aside from the prison term, the policemen, who appeared in court in handcuffs and yellow detainee shirts, were ordered to pay damages to Santos’s impoverished family.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown, which has left thousands of suspects dead, reportedly in clashes with the police, has alarmed Western governments and UN rights experts and horrified human rights watchdogs.
The volatile president has stressed he does not condone extrajudicial killings, although he has repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death and has assured police he would back them up in ways that human rights watchdogs say have encouraged law enforcers to act with impunity.
Mr Duterte’s government called the ruling "a triumph of justice" which disproved critics’ assertion that the judiciary was a rubberstamp.
"As we have always stressed, the conduct of the government’s anti-illegal drug campaign is based on accountability. Therefore, we do not – and we will never – tolerate unjustified police violence, brutality or killing," presidential spokesman and chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo told a news conference.
Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros, who has railed against the drug killings, said the court decision proved that extrajudicial killings under Duterte’s crackdown were being committed by rogue members of the national police force.
"This is a light in the darkness," Ms Hontiveros said in a statement. "Despite the gruesome climate of killing and impunity in the country, this verdict sends the message that there is hope and justice. And we will fight for more light and truth until the darkness cannot overcome them."
Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to pardon authorities involved in his bloody crackdown, but even he refused to defend the 2017 killing of Kian Delos SantosCredit:
NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images
Ms Hontiveros said the numbers of drug killings, which started to rise when Mr Duterte took office in mid-2016 and launched his war against drugs, could not have reached "catastrophic levels if these killings did not have a sinister principle and policy behind them."
Mr Duterte and police officials have repeatedly stated there was no state policy to kill drug suspects illegally. Mr Duterte faces at least two mass murder complaints before the International Criminal Court, which he said would never acquire jurisdiction over him.
Delos Santos’s killing on Aug 16, 2017, sparked an outcry and a televised Senate inquiry, and prompted Mr Duterte to temporarily order a small anti-drug agency with only about 1,000 men to oversee the campaign against illegal drugs. The crackdown had been previously led by the national police, which Mr Duterte once described as "corrupt to the core."
The policemen claimed Delos Santos was a drug dealer who fired at officers during the raid, but his family and witnesses testified in official investigations that he was shot in a dark alley near a creek as he pleaded for his life.
Donald Trump announced the departure of another member of his Cabinet, Ryan Zinke, the latest in a series of high profile departures from his administration.
As interior secretary Mr Zinke, 51, a former Navy SEAL from Montana, wore cowboy boots to the office.
He spearheaded a rolling back of environmental regulations, and an expansion of oil and gas drilling, but was facing a host of ethics investigations relating to business dealings.
Mr Zinke said he would be leaving his post at the end of the year.
Mr Trump, writing on Twitter, said: "Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years.
"Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation."
Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years. Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2018
The interior secretary oversees public land in America, which covers an area larger than the whole of Mexico.
Mr Zinke had become a lightning rod for complaints from Democrats, and was expected to be the target of investigations when Democrats take over control of the House of Representatives in January.
Ryan Zinke with Donald and Melania Trump last monthCredit:
Gettty
Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leader in the US Senate, said: "Ryan Zinke was one of the most toxic members of the cabinet in the way he treated our environment, our precious public lands, and the way he treated the government like it was his personal honey pot. The swamp cabinet will be a little less foul without him."
Mr Zinke, a former Montana congressman, already faced investigations linked to property holdings in his home state.
He had also come under fire over expenditure in office, including reports that his department was spending nearly $139,000 to upgrade three sets of double doors in his office. Mr Zinke later said he negotiated the cost down to $75,000.
He was also reportedly the subject of investigations over allegations he allowed his wife to ride in government vehicles, that he took a security detail with him on holiday to Turkey, and costly flights on US Park Police helicopters.
The US government partial shutdown was set to stretch deep into next week after legislators failed Thursday to make a breakthrough in the row over President Donald Trump’s demand for a US-Mexico border wall.
After convening for just a few minutes following the official Christmas break, a still nearly empty Senate adjourned, deciding to renew budget deliberations only next Wednesday, the last day of the current Republican-controlled Congress.
That would take the government shutdown, already on its sixth day, into 12.
Both sides have dug in, with Democrats refusing to provide $5 billion for Trump’s border wall project and the president insisting he will not fully fund the government unless he gets the money.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders accused Democrats of "openly choosing to keep our government closed to protect illegal immigrants rather than the American people."
Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas speaks briefly to reporters after he opened and closed a brief session of the Senate on ThursdayCredit:
Scott Applewhite/ AP
She said Trump "will not sign a proposal that does not first prioritize our country’s safety and security."
As long as the wall debate holds up approval of a wider spending bill, about 800,000 federal employees are not getting salaries and non-essential parts of the government are unable to function.
Trump made clear he does not intend to give way first.
In a tweet Thursday, he once more accused Democrats of wanting to encourage illegal immigrants, "an Open Southern Border and the large scale crime that comes with such stupidity!"
"Need to stop Drugs, Human Trafficking, Gang Members & Criminals from coming into our Country," he said in another tweet, also lambasting "Democrat obstruction of the needed Wall."
Opponents, including some in his Republican party, accuse the president of exaggerating the danger from illegal immigration for his own political gain.
"No end in sight to the President’s government shutdown," Dick Durbin, a senior Democratic senator, tweeted.
"He’s taken our government hostage over his outrageous demand for a $5 billion border wall that would be both wasteful and ineffective."
Partial government shutdowns are not an unusual weapon in Washington budget negotiations, where party divides make cooperation a rarity.
But the rancor has spiraled under Trump’s abrasive administration and is set to go even higher after January 3 when the Democrats take over the House of Representatives, following their midterm election victory.
The mess has contributed to worries over the outlook for the US economy in 2019, following a surging 2018 performance.
The stock market has plummeted in recent days, before a record recovery on Wednesday, under a variety of factors including Trump’s barrage of criticism against the independent Federal Reserve.
Continuing the see-saw performance, Wall Street opened sharply lower Thursday but ended solidly higher on bargain hunting.
Large sections of the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200 kilometer) border with Mexico are already divided by fences and other barriers.
But immigrants – some fleeing danger and others just looking for jobs – continue to cross illegally.
Face à un rebond des contaminations par le coronavirus, les autorités ont décidé dans plusieurs pays de réintroduire des mesures de confinement, le plus souvent localisées comme en Catalogne dimanche.
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Tour d’horizon, non exhaustif, des reconfinements et durcissement des restrictions en cours:EuropeESPAGNE: Les autorités de la région de Catalogne, dans le nord-est de l’Espagne, ont ordonné dimanche le reconfinement à leur domicile des habitants de la zone située autour de la ville de Lérida. Cette zone, comptant plus de 200.000 habitants, avait déjà été isolée du reste de la Catalogne samedi dernier.PORTUGAL: Dans la région de Lisbonne, nouveau confinement à domicile depuis le 1er juillet pour 700.000 habitants d’une vingtaine de quartiers, pour au moins deux semaines.GRANDE-BRETAGNE: Le 29 juin, le gouvernement a annoncé un durcissement du confinement à Leicester. Toujours en cours, il prévoit notamment la fermeture des magasins non essentiels.Asie- AZERBAIDJAN: Reconfinement strict à partir du 22 juin jusqu’au 1er août.- OUZBEKISTAN: Nouveau confinement depuis le 10 juillet. Les restaurants, salles de sports, piscines et commerces non alimentaires sont fermés jusqu’au 1er août.Amériques- ETATS-UNIS: Plusieurs Etats ont fait marche arrière après des assouplissements ou fait une pause dans leur déconfinement, avec notamment une fermeture des bars en Californie, au Texas et en Floride, ainsi que des fermetures de plages en Californie et en Floride.- ARGENTINE: Mesures de confinement durcies à Buenos Aires et sa périphérie du 1er au 17 juillet.- COLOMBIE: Bogota, principal foyer de la pandémie en Colombie, va renforcer à partir de lundi le confinement de la population, avec des “quarantaines strictes” par zones.Il s’agit d’instaurer une circulation alternée de la population de la capitale par périodes de 14 jours jusqu’au 23 août. Quelque 2,5 millions de personnes resteront chez elles à tour de rôle.- GUYANE: Dans ce territoire français de 300.000 habitants en Amérique du Sud, où l’épidémie est en pleine phase ascendante, des mesures de reconfinement ciblé de certains quartiers ou de certaines communes ont été mises en place depuis juin et un couvre-feu est en vigueur.Afrique- ALGERIE: Les autorités ont ordonné le 9 juillet le reconfinement de deux communes de la préfecture d’El Kala, frontalière de la Tunisie, de 10 communes de celle de Tipasa (nord) et le confinement de toutes les communes de la wilaya de Ouargla. Ces mesures surviennent deux jours après une décision similaire concernant 18 communes de la wilaya de Sétif.- MADAGASCAR : Deux mois après son déconfinement, Antananarivo, la capitale de Madagascar, a de nouveau été placée en confinement. La région d’Analamanga (dont fait partie la capitale) est fermée à toute circulation, l’entrée comme la sortie, depuis le 6 juillet et jusqu’au 20 juillet. Seule une personne par foyer a le droit de sortir dans la rue de 06H00 du matin à 12H00, contre 17H00 auparavant.Moyen-Orient- CISJORDANIE: L’Autorité palestinienne a prolongé dimanche le bouclage de la Cisjordanie occupée décidé le 3 juillet, ajoutant la mise en place d’un couvre-feu.- ISRAEL: De nouvelles restrictions sont entrées en vigueur le 7 juillet, telles la fermeture des bars et des salles de sport ou la limitation du nombre de personnes dans les lieux publics. Certaines villes et quartiers à travers le pays considérés comme des foyers d’infection font l’objet de mesures de restrictions plus strictes.Océanie- AUSTRALIE: Cinq millions de personnes sont à nouveau confinées chez elle depuis jeudi et pour six semaines à Melbourne, la deuxième plus grande ville d’Australie. L’Etat de Victoria, où se trouve Melbourne, a fermé mercredi toutes ses frontières afin de préserver le reste de l’Australie, qui jusqu’à présent a réussi à maîtriser l’épidémie de Covid-19.
RZESZÓW, Poland — Incumbent Andrzej Duda has been reelected for a second term as Polish president, according to unofficial results released Monday morning by the country’s National Electoral Commission, paving the way for continued conflict between Warsaw and Brussels.
Duda’s win is a victory for the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party that backed him, which now has a clear path to continue controversial reforms of the rule of law, media freedom and abortion in Poland.
After a tight race and indecisive exit polls, Duda won 51.21 percent of the vote, while his opponent, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski of the Civic Platform party, took 48.79 percent, with 99.97 percent of polling stations reporting. The electoral commission said the votes that are yet to be counted will not affect the final result.
In his first address after securing victory, Duda called on voters to calm down after an emotional campaign. “I’m asking you to help me to glue Polish society together,” he told supporters in the village of Odrzywół in central Poland. “It was a very brutal campaign, sometimes probably too brutal. If someone felt offended by my words, please forgive me. And please, give me a chance in the next five years to improve.”
“We have three years until the next election. I hope it will be calm years, full of work,” he added.
In a speech on Monday afternoon, Trzaskowski congratulated Duda and said that he hoped his second term would be different than the first one. “It’s an enormous opportunity for the president to liberate from his own party, to listen not to the voice of one person all the time but to the citizens and veto those bills that are simply bad.”
“We will keep fighting,” he added. “It’s just another stage in our fight, because we need to get the state from the hands of one party.”
The turnout in the runoff vote was 68.12 percent, according to the commission. The final result of the vote will be announced later Monday or on Tuesday.
Duda, 48, first won the Polish presidency five years ago as a relatively unknown member of the European Parliament, after promising social programs for the country’s poorest and oldest voters. This year, he built his campaign on a mix of continued generous social welfare programs leavened with a dose of protecting Poland’s national and Christian values by unleashing attacks on what he called “LGBT ideology,” as well as on Jews and Germans.
With Duda as head of state, PiS remains Poland’s dominant political power. Only the relatively powerless Senate is narrowly in the grips of the opposition, which isn’t enough to stop the party’s radical reform agenda.
During the campaign, high-level PiS officials including Duda and the party’s Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, widely considered Poland’s de-facto leader, hinted at their upcoming agenda.
It’s likely that efforts to rein in the independent media will be high on their list. State-owned television is already a mouthpiece for the ruling party, and during the campaign Duda and other politicians complained of foreign interference when media owned by foreign companies reported critical stories.
It’s also likely that the government’s five-year efforts to bring Poland’s courts under tighter political control will continue with renewed vigor — moves that have caused growing tensions with the European Commission and the European Parliament.
To mobilize his conservative electorate, Duda built an anti-LGBTQ campaign and proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar single-sex couples from adopting children. Kaczyński said he hopes the country’s Constitutional Court, controlled by PiS, will ban abortion if a fetus is irreparably damaged.