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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | When President Trump meets Saturday with Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Japan, the U.S. president should bring up China’s assault on the sovereignty and autonomy of Hong Kong.
The Chinese Communist Party has pressured G20 participants to remain formally silent on the crisis in Hong Kong. President Trump should talk to Xi about it anyway. It is the right thing to do, and America has significant leverage in this context.
Earlier this month, 2 million protesters filled the streets of Hong Kong to oppose the latest assault by the Chinese Communist Party – this time in the form of a controversial extradition bill that would subject them and any foreigner in Hong Kong to China’s politicized and corrupt judicial system.
NADIA SCHADLOW: TRUMP PURSUES SMART CHINA STRATEGY HEADING INTO MEETING WITH XI JINPING
This was only the latest push in what has become a systematic campaign by the Communist Party and Xi to impose control on the city, which is a former British colony.
The Communist Party is succeeding. The people of Hong Kong are at risk of losing control over their city, and with it their freedom. Xi is slowly crushing Hong Kong under the weight of his Communist regime.
In 1992, five years before Britain transferred control of Hong Kong to China, Congress passed the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act. In that law, Congress laid out a number of favorable conditions for Hong Kong – including separate customs and export arrangements, provided the city maintained certain levels of autonomy from the Chinese government.
The people of Hong Kong are at risk of losing control over their city, and with it their freedom. Xi is slowly crushing Hong Kong under the weight of his Communist regime.
The Communist Party would like to keep the favorable conditions in place, if only because it exploits them to get around U.S. restrictions and sanctions on Chinese money laundering, technology transfers and trade.
However, Chinese leaders would also like to keep eroding Hong Kong’s sovereignty in broad and granular ways. Xi has gone so far as to arrest Hong Kong booksellers who sold materials criticizing his tyrannical rule.
The Chinese have been very careful to erode Hong Kong’s autonomy at a pace and in a manner that doesn’t trigger an American reassessment of our Hong Kong policy. President Trump can and should tell Xi that the Chinese haven’t been careful enough, and that both the executive branch and Congress will begin pushing back.
Earlier this month I introduced bipartisan legislation with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called the Hong Kong Policy Reevaluation Act of 2019. It amends the 1992 law by mandating a U.S. government-wide review led by the State Department that exposes China’s systematic exploitation of Hong Kong and identifies the individuals responsible for it.
The Chinese Communist Party knows it is vulnerable. Xi and his cutouts in Hong Kong eventually decided to indefinitely suspend consideration of the extradition bill in the face of the overwhelming protests that flooded the city. They will wait until the protests calm down and the international community is distracted to try again.
That will not be adequate for American policymakers. The Chinese extradition bill should be completely withdrawn from future consideration, and officials should take steps to restore and ensure Hong Kong’s autonomy.
The United States will continue to side with the men and women of Hong Kong.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Dictators fear light because it exposes the lies underpinning their regimes. The Chinese Communist Party targets Hong Kong for the same reason it threatens Taiwan and persecutes Uighurs, Tibetans, Christians, and dissidents – and for the same reason it treats Americans and other foreigners with racial contempt and ideological suppression.
China’s leaders are afraid of freedom. They should be. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 30 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Climate change, health insurance, and illegal immigration dominated the first two Democrat debates, but there were a few notable topics that moderators failed to bring up, despite their glaring presence in media.
Virtually every candidate had the chance to say a piece on their plans to combat climate change, but a few topics went largely ignored, with candidates tap dancing around numerous elephants in the room. Here are a few examples:
Biden’s China ties
Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) ended the debate with more speaking time than any other candidate – nearly 14 minutes. However, he wasn’t once asked about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings – specifically securing $1.5 billion in investment from China – which coincided with the elder Biden’s “diplomatic work.” It remains a concern, particularly due to Biden’s nonchalant remarks. He completely dismissed China’s threat at a May campaign event where he said:
China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. They can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the East. I mean in the West. They can’t figure out how they are going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what: They’re not competition for us.
Biden later shifted his tone and said, “You bet I’m worried about China,” in a prepared Iowa speech.
Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer laid out Biden’s dealings in his 2018 book, Secret Empires.
Schweizer told Breitbart News Tonight last year:
In December of 2013, Vice President Joe Biden flies to Asia for a trip, and the centerpiece for that trip is a visit to Beijing, China. … To put this into context, in 2013, the Chinese have just exerted air rights over the South Pacific, the South China Sea. They basically have said, ‘If you want to fly in this area, you have to get Chinese approval. We are claiming sovereignty over this territory.’ Highly controversial in Japan, in the Philippines, and in other countries. Joe Biden is supposed to be going there to confront the Chinese. Well, he gets widely criticized on that trip for going soft on China. So basically, no challenging them, and Japan and other countries are quite upset about this. … Well, I think the reason he goes soft on China is because with him on that trip, flying on Air Force Two, is his son Hunter Biden, and ten days after they return from China, Hunter Biden — who has this small firm, he has no background in private equity, he has no background in Chinese finance — gets a whopping $1.5 billion deal from the Chinese government. This is the Chinese government giving Joe Biden and a [John] Kerry confidante the management over this money, and they made huge fees off of this money, and it’s an example of this kind of corruption. That’s the first of three major deals that the Chinese government does with people who are either the children — that is the sons — or close aides to Vice President Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry.
It is no surprise that Biden was not questioned, as he has repeatedly dodged related questions on the campaign trail. His campaign sent ABC News a vague statement in June, noting that Biden would issue an executive order on his first day in office, aimed to “address conflicts of interest of any kind.”
Obama-era immigration
Illegal immigration remained a huge point of conversation during the Democrat debate. Candidates – both nights – railed against the Trump administration’s illegal immigration policies. More than one candidate referenced “kids in cages.”
Beto O’Rourke (D): “We would not build walls. We would not put kids in cages. In fact, we would spare no expense to reunite the families that have been separated already.”
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA): “I will also immediately put in place a meaningful process for reviewing the cases for asylum. I will release children from cages. I will get rid of the private detention centers.”
John Hickenlooper (D):
Well, certainly the images we have seen this week just compound the emotional impact that the world is judging us by. If you’d ever told me any time in my life that this country would sanction federal agents to take children from the arms of their parents, put them in cages, actually put them up for adoption — in Colorado, we call that kidnapping — I would have told you. I would have told you it was unbelievable. And the first thing we have to do is recognize the humanitarian crisis on the border for what it is. We make sure that there are the sufficient facilities in place so that women and children are not separated from their families, that
children are with their families.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D):
But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it. And for a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that it is OK to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.
Biden: “And lastly, the idea that he’s in court with his Justice Department saying children in cages do not need a bed, do not need a blanket, do not need a toothbrush, that is outrageous.”
What failed to come up was the Obama administration’s role in putting “kids in cages.” The so-called cages are the same structures used during the Obama administration when Biden served as vice president.
Breitbart News reported:
CBS News, Time Magazine, Business Insider, NBC News, and their counterparts in the Democratic Party have continuously claimed migrant children are being held in cages, specifically pointing to photos from a detention facility in McAllen, Texas. These same barriers, though, were used in that McAllen detention facility under President Obama when the establishment media was silent on the issue.
The child separation policy was, in fact, in action during Obama’s presidency.
In June 2018, President Trump “signed an executive order to end child separation at the border,” Breitbart News reported.
Antisemitism
Freshman Democrats in Congress – Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), specifically – have been stirring the pot over the last few months, making a range of antisemitic statements. Notably, Democrat leadership has been hesitant to adamantly condemn it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told the Economic Club in Washington, DC, in March that Omar was not an antisemite, chalking up her questionable remarks to a “different experience in the use of words.”
Additionally, Democrats struggled to pass a resolution condemning antisemitism alone, insisting on bringing white supremacy, Islamophobia, and a range of other groups into the mix.
Most recently, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) refused to close the door on having a meeting with raging antisemite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
2 nights 4 hours 20 candidates and still ZERO mentions of threats to Israel or the menace of anti-Semitism.#DemDebate https://t.co/IjIybYQNXQ — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 28, 2019
Evangelicals and abortion
Some Democrat candidates have been attempting to invoke faith to promote their radical policy ideas. Buttigieg did precisely that during Thursday’s debate, essentially calling evangelicals who support Border Patrol hypocrites.
“But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it,” Buttigieg said.
“And for a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that it is OK to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages has lost all claim to ever use religious language again,” he added.
Interestingly, not one candidate invoked God during their defenses of abortion. Candidates made glowing remarks about “abortion rights,” but failed to acknowledge the existing concerns of evangelicals.
Instead, they doubled down. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) actually used his platform to affirm that his “Medicare for All” plan would guarantee every woman a free abortion.
“It didn’t come up here, but let’s face this, Medicare for All guarantees every woman in this country the right to have an abortion if she wants it,” he said. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 55 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (CNN) Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned a Windy City restaurant worker who allegedly spat on Eric Trump at a cocktail lounge on Tuesday night.
The Democrat said during a press conference Thursday that the episode was "repugnant" and that "no one deserves that." She said it was "very gracious" of Eric Trump not to press charges for the incident that happened at The Aviary, a cocktail bar.
President Donald Trump's third child told conservative site Breitbart News that the incident was "purely a disgusting act by somebody who clearly has emotional problems."
Lightfoot has since spoken with Eric Trump and "checked in with him about what had happened," she said Thursday.
Lightfoot used the incident to call out partisan divides exacerbated by the Trump presidency. Pushing for respect across political differences during the press conference, she said that "civility matters."
Read More | null | 0 | -1 | null | 8 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Members of the Democratic National Committee expressed skepticism Friday morning about the Iowa state party's ambitious plan to introduce "virtual caucuses" at the first contest of the presidential primary calendar next February.
The discussion came during a meeting of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC), which sat down in Pittsburgh to go over and approve 22 states' plans for choosing delegates to the Democratic National Convention, including Iowa's.
An RBC member from Iowa, Scott Brennan, gave a presentation outlining the key changes to the Iowa caucus for the 2020 cycle, with the biggest change being the implementation of virtual caucuses, which would allow Iowans to support candidates without ever leaving home.
But the chief technology officer of the DNC, Nell Thomas, expressed concern that this new system might not work. "I hope you have a contingency plan," Thomas said.
Critics of the virtual caucuses proposal said they were worried about the capacity of the system, the security behind it, and how complex it will be for the Iowans who use it. "This is the future, but I don't know if we're there yet," committeewoman Donna Brazile, a former DNC chair, said. Another committee member, Frank Leone, said the process sounded like it made voting more complicated than it needed to be.
According to the presentation by Brennan, Iowans will have the opportunity to participate in one of six days worth of state-wide caucuses over the phone. During the call, they will have the option to support five candidates in order of preference through a ranked-choice system.
Here's how the proposal works. First, a virtual caucus-goer talks to a moderator, who reads off the name of every candidate and the number assigned to that candidate. The caucus-goer then enters the number of the candidate he or she wants to support. Then the process begins again, with the moderator listing the name and number of every candidate, and the caucus-goer entering their second preference.
This process will continue up to five times, although virtual caucus-goers can stop at three candidates if they like. If the candidate they want to support is at the top of the moderator's list, they can enter that candidate's number and move on to casting their vote for their next choice. If not, they will have to wait for the moderator to list every candidate again and again, setting up a situation where a caucus-goer has to potentially listen to the same list of over 20 candidates up to 5 times.
To receive delegates, a candidate must reach 15 percent of the total vote in the caucuses. The percentage candidates receive will be calculated on February 3rd, which is the last day of the virtual caucuses and the day of the in-person caucuses. If the virtual caucus-goers' first choice doesn't meet the 15 percent threshold, their vote will go to the next candidate on their list that reaches the threshold.
Voters will have the opportunity to participate in English or Spanish and can request a different language if necessary. The party will also accommodate participants who will need a transcription service.
If a voter participates in a virtual caucus, they cannot participate in an in-person caucus. Only ten percent of the state's delegates to the national convention will come from the virtual caucuses, but Brennan argued that the virtual caucuses will allow thousands more voters to have a say in the process.
Representatives from at least seven presidential campaigns were in the audience for the meeting. That includes RBC member Jeff Berman, who was President Obama's delegate director in 2008 and is manning Beto O'Rourke's delegate operation this cycle.
The Iowa section of the meeting lasted nearly two hours, and 16 members of the committee asked questions about the process. All of the questioners who expressed skepticism still commended Iowa for their effort.
The committee eventually approved Iowa's plan provided that the party move forward on suggestions from the committee. One item they're working on is creating a voting receipt. There will be an auditory confirmation of the vote over the phone, and Geiken said they're working on creating a secure email receipt.
The Iowa state party will also conduct an exercise in October to help ensure the process works. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 32 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Even former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, whose Texas House district adjoins Mexico, wasn’t willing to go along. When Castro challenged his fellow candidates during the first Democratic debate Wednesday to declare their support for repeal of Section 1325, as it is known, there was no stampede to join him. Sen. Cory Booker was notable for saying he had already endorsed it. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | One woman for northern Nigeria narrate di sad tori of wetin Boko Haram militant group take her eye see, wen dem rape and use force marry her.
'Night afta night dem enta my room and rape me one afta di oda and den later, dem come cari me marry to one of di Boko haram members' - dis na di sad tori of Aisha Tukur (no be her real name), wey be victim for Boko Haram hand.
She enta di militant group hand afta dem kidnap her comot her village for Borno state.
Aisha wey bin dey wit dem for fifteen months say one day wen dem select am to carri bomb for bodi, she comot di bomb come run away.
"I no know say I dey pregnant and by di time I come back to my village, I come go IDP camp and for dia, pipo bin dey laugh me and begin look me one kain, she explain.
Like Aisha, eighty thousand odas don suffer one type of sexual abuse for Boko Haram captivity or for camp by goment officials for Nigeria.
And as dem tell dia tori, many pipo wey dey hear am shock on top di pain and agony wey dem go don go through.
When you rape woman, you kill sometin inside her - Nobel Laureate
Image copyright Getty Images
Congolese doctor, Denis Mukwege afta e hear dia tori of dis women, say wen men rape women or sexually abuse dem, dem don kill dem for life.
Mukwege wey win di 2018 Nobel Peace Prize wey Swedish Nobel committee dey give, say di world must take decisive action to tackle di high rate of sexual violence against women and pikin dem for Africa.
Oga Mukwege wey tok dis one for Abuja, Nigeria capital on top conference wit di title 'Addressing sexual violence and gender based violence in conflict through transitional justice' say, plenti atrocities on top women don happun for DR Congo and di same tin di happun for Nigeria wey bad pipo dey rape and destroy women genital organs through rape and pregnancy.
"Gender-based violence na mata of human right and we must fight against gender-based violence for Africa. Silence na tool wey di perpetrators dey use to kontinu to abuse women and dis na why we need to support survivals of sexual and gender based violence to speak out instead of to stigmatise dem.
Di goment must ensure to find justice for dis women, im explain.
Victims dey traumatised
According to Prof. Auwal Biu wey don di work wit survival of gender-based violence, say many of di girls still dey traumatised and stigmatised for dia camps and by dia families.
E say for long, goment no di give di girls care and for three local goment alone, dem don discover more dan three hundred pipo.
"Most of dis girls na dia family send dem go IDP camps and dis na why di Nigerian goment and di international community gatz do everitin possible to give dis women dem and dia pikin, beta life. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CINCINNATI, Ohio – The Pike County sheriff who investigated the 2016 Rhoden murders was indicted Friday on more than a dozen charges stemming from allegations that he stole cash seized from cases handled by his office.
Charles Reader faces eight felonies and eight misdemeanors.
Reader was accused in November of stealing cash seized from drug cases handled by the sheriff's office to fund a gambling problem. An anonymous source made the allegation in a complaint that was forwarded to the Ohio Auditor’s Office.
Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk requested a special prosecutor in Reader's case, which was investigated by the Ohio Auditor of State’s Special Investigations Unit, Junk said last month amid a dispute with Reader on Facebook.
Reader lamented then past cuts to his staff and budget cuts to the sheriff's office.
He later removed the posts and issued a follow-up statement that read, in part:
"This is nothing more than a political witch hunt, where the prosecutor is attempting to do everything in his power to 'sink my boat,' " Reader wrote.
His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.
Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader gives an update on the Rhoden murders at an April 27 press conference at the makeshift command center in Waverly. (Photo: Enquirer file/Sam Greene)
A Pike County grand jury returned the 16-count indictment Friday morning. The indictment further details the allegations facing Reader, which include:
Two counts of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony
Four counts of theft in office, three are fourth-degree felonies and one is a fifth-degree felony
Seven counts of conflict of interest, a first-degree misdemeanor
One count of securing writing by deception, a fifth-degree felony
Two counts of theft — one is a fifth-degree felony and the other is a first-degree felony
Reader's criminal case could have a deleterious effect on the prosecution of four members of the Wagner family charged in the Rhoden family massacre, according to legal experts.
"It all comes down to how much he did in that investigation," said Mike Allen, a former top prosecutor of Hamilton County, Ohio. Allen earlier said he suspected Reader played more than an ancillary role, considering the relatively small size of the Pike County Sheriff's Office.
George “Billy” Wagner, 47; his wife, Angela Wagner, 48; and their two children, George Wagner IV, 27, and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, were arrested and charged last fall. The charges were the result of the largest homicide investigation in Ohio history.
The Wagners are accused of killing eight members of the Rhoden family. Officials have said they were motivated by custody of the child of Jake Wagner and one of the victims, 19-year-old Hanna Rhoden.
Pike County massacre: How the largest homicide investigation in Ohio history unfolded
"If he (Reader) was intimately involved in (the investigation of the massacre) – with respect to questioning witnesses, taking evidence – that’s a problem," Allen said.
But in a statement, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said Reader's indictment "will have no impact on the Wagner capital murder cases, as Sheriff Reader was not the primary witness for any issue of fact or law."
However, criminal justice experts agree that should Reader be convicted of wrongdoing, it could pose a serious obstacle to the prosecution of the Wagners.
If defense attorneys make a strong case that Reader's credibility is tainted by his potential conviction, "that could give jurors reason to pause and give reasonable doubt," said David Singleton, a law professor at Northern Kentucky University and the executive director of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center. "It's possible it could make a difference."
Singleton and other experts stressed that Reader's role in investigating the killings will influence how and whether his own criminal case comes up at the Wagners' trials.
They also stressed that many questions must be answered before the influence, if any, that Reader's alleged wrongdoing has on the Wagner prosecution becomes clear.
A defense attorney, Singleton said, could argue that Reader botched the investigation by rushing through it in order to "shift suspicion away from himself." The Rhoden killings were high-profile and garnered the attention of top law enforcement officials in the state as well as extensive media coverage.
If Reader's history does come up at trial, it won't necessarily be a death blow to the state's case against the Wagners.
"Officers are human beings like everybody else," Peters Baker said. "Sometimes juries can weigh it out and decide what kind of credence they want to give."
Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader, left, discusses the ongoing investigation into the unsolved killings of eight family members at a news conference Thursday, April 13, 2017, attended by Attorney General Mike DeWine, whose office is leading the investigation. (Photo: AP/Andrew Welsh-Huggins)
Pike County massacre: Charges against matriarch dismissed. 'Trust in the Lord,' she says.
Reader's indictment raises questions about the future of his role as a sheriff.
Ohio law outlines the process for suspending public officials charged with felony crimes "relating to official conduct."
A different section of the law outlines the removal of public officials accused more generally of misconduct. Removal is initiated by a complaint that must be signed by at least 15 percent of voters in the most recent governor's election within the jurisdiction in question, in Reader's case, Pike County. For sheriffs, a governor's signature on the complaint can bypass the need for citizen signatures, the law states.
Dan Tierney, spokesman for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, said the office has not yet reviewed the indictment to determine if the statute would be appropriate, though Tierney acknowledged it "could apply in this sort of case."
DeWine, as attorney general, assisted Reader in the investigation of the Rhoden family massacre.
Tierney said the statute regarding suspensions of public officials is more apt in this case.
Follow Max Londberg, Jona Ison, Jackie Borchardt, and Bob Strickley on Twitter: @MaxLondberg, @jonaison, @JMBorchardt, and @rjstrickleyjr. Contributing: Sarah Brookbank.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/28/pike-county-sheriff-rhoden-murders-indicted/1598904001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 44 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | So Harris got everybody’s attention. Now begins the serious vetting — of her record, her background, her temperament, her positions on the issues. She indicated during the debate that her Medicare-for-all health care plan involves eliminating private health insurance, but her campaign said Friday that she misunderstood the question. So which is it? Biden has vast experience in foreign affairs; Harris doesn’t. Is she the one to repair the damage Trump is doing to the nation’s standing in the world? She denounces and rejects Trump’s immigration policy. What’s hers? | null | 0 | -1 | null | 8 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A federal judge blocked an Indiana law that would ban a second-trimester abortion procedure on Friday, just days before the law was set to come into force.
The order putting the Indiana law on hold was released hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revive a similar law in Alabama that sought to ban dilation and evacuation abortions.
The law passed by Indiana's Republican-dominated Legislature this spring calls the procedure "dismemberment abortion." It was set to become effective on July 1.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued on behalf of two doctors who perform dilation and evacuation abortions. Under the law, a doctor who performs the procedure could face a felony charge, punishable by up to six years in prison.
Indiana's attorneys maintained the state had a valid role in limiting types of abortion procedures, citing a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal law banning the method.
ACLU attorneys argued that the ban would put a "substantial and unwarranted burden on women's ability to obtain second-trimester, pre-viability abortions."
In granting the preliminary injunction that blocked the law, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker wrote that it "prohibits physicians from utilizing the most common, safest, often most cost effective, and best understood method of second trimester abortion, requiring them instead to resort to alternatives that are medically riskier, more costly, less reliable, and in some instances simply unavailable, while accomplishing little more than expressing hostility towards the constitutionally fundamental right of women to control their own reproductive lives."
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill said in a statement he expected to appeal the ruling.
"I continue to believe that Indiana has a compelling interest in protecting the value and dignity of fetal life by banning a particularly brutal and inhumane procedure," Hill said.
The U.S. Supreme Court in May rejected Indiana's appeal of a lower court ruling that blocked the state's ban on abortion based on gender, race or disability. The court, however, upheld a portion of the 2016 law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence requiring burial or cremation of fetal remains after an abortion.
Four other anti-abortion laws adopted in Indiana since 2013 have been blocked by federal courts, according to the ACLU.
Chris Charbonneau, the CEO at Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, said the latest Indiana law wrongly waded into the details of medical decisions that should be left to doctors.
"I think the Legislature has not, until recently, been serious about passing something that will be upheld," Charbonneau said. "I think they're passing these things as red meat to the right-wing base to make it look like they are actually doing something."
The decision from Barker, who was nominated as a judge by President Ronald Reagan, comes just weeks after she allowed an abortion clinic to open in South Bend. The Indiana State Department of Health had denied the operator a clinic license, saying it had not provided requested safety documentation.
During a hearing this month, Barker questioned why the state would force women seeking a second-trimester abortion to undergo "highly risky" alternative procedures, such as prematurely inducing labor or injecting fatal drugs into the fetus.
Federal courts have blocked similar laws in several states, including Kentuckyand Ohio this spring, but Indiana abortion opponents were hopeful an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court could eventually uphold such bans.
The Indiana measure signed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb would make it illegal for doctors to use medical instruments such as clamps, forceps and scissors to remove a fetus from the womb except to save the pregnant woman's life or prevent serious health risk.
Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher said legislators wanted the ban "because they think the procedure is unethical."
The anti-abortion group Indiana Right to Life urged an appeal of Barker's ruling.
"It's disgusting that the abortion industry can simply overturn a law they dislike by filing a lawsuit," said Mike Fichter, the group's president and CEO. "Dismemberment abortions are painful and barbaric. No baby deserves this horrific death sentence."
Indiana lawmakers didn't go as far as those in Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio, where bills were enacted barring abortion once there's a detectable fetal heartbeat, as early as the sixth week of pregnancy. Missouri's governor signed a bill approving an eight-week ban on abortion, with exceptions only for medical emergencies. Alabama outlawed virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. Those bans haven't taken effect, and all are expected to face legal challenges.
The dilation and evacuation procedure accounted for 27, or 0.35 percent, of the 7,778 abortions performed in Indiana during 2017, according to an Indiana State Department of Health report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 34 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | On Thursday – in a 5-to-4 vote along ideological lines that might be the most nakedly partisan power grab since Bush v Gore – the US supreme court’s conservative majority ruled partisan gerrymandering a “non-justiciable” political issue. In other words, the court’s conservative justices are claiming that the federal judiciary lacks the tools to curb an intentional, largely Republican-led assault on American democracy.
The court should be more honest. They don’t lack the tools. They simply refuse to use them to defend voting rights. The five conservatives, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, insisted that the court would risk its integrity and independence if it began determining the constitutionality of congressional and state legislative maps. But it’s the other way around: by allowing this corrosive practice to stand, the court has exposed its own partisan intent.
“No one can accuse this court of having a crabbed view of its reach or competence,” Roberts wrote for the narrow majority. “But we have no commission to allocate political power and influence in the absence of a constitutional directive.”
Say what? Actually, the Roberts court has done nothing but reallocate political power through its own crabbed view of the US constitution. It has proven itself perfectly fine with that – whether it be through the cynical Citizen United decision that drowned our politics in a torrent of dark money; or last year’s Janus ruling, which gutted the ability of labor unions to respond in kind; tearing out the heart of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v Holder; enhancing corporate power by carving up the regulatory state. Fine, as long as the power flows rightward.
The supreme court is supposed to be a 'check' on the political process. Is it still? | Erwin Chemerinsky Read more
But when citizens ask the court to uphold their most fundamental rights? When they request the right to elect their own representative in a district where the outcome has not been preordained by the very partisans on the ballot? When they seek the right to participate meaningfully in our politics, and to restore the consent of the governed in congressional and state legislative districts warped by redistricting explicitly designed to sever the ability of the majority of voters to win a majority of seats? Then this court suddenly pretends it lacks the ability to act.
But the court does have that ability. The North Carolina and Maryland gerrymanders Roberts so ignobly accepted on Thursday, as well as the maps in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin that lower courts had declared unconstitutional, present a meticulous portrait of the constitutional threats posed by partisan gerrymandering.
These cases also poured sunlight on to the dark rooms where partisan operatives, mainly Republicans, work to entrench the power of a conservative white minority in a changing and multicultural America.
In Ohio, for example, Republican strategists barricaded themselves in a hotel suite they called “the Bunker”. Using terabytes of voter data, they formulated an algorithm for voter districts that assured that Republican legislative majorities would hold against even the bluest wave. Recently revealed emails have shown their careful coordination with national Republicans, the high-fives consultants exchanged when they enhanced the GOP’s partisan hold by hundredths of a percentage point, and even the last-minute changes they made to please an influential Republican donor.
Republicans have held 12 of the 16 congressional seats in this toss-up state ever since, and not a single one has changed hands in 64 elections covering four cycles and eight years.
It’s the same story of secrecy, precision data and high technology in Wisconsin, where Republicans set up a “Map Room” in a politically connected law firm across from the state capitol. The state assembly map these operatives constructed has also endured over four cycles. Last November, Wisconsin voters elected a Democratic governor, re-elected a Democratic US senator, handed Democrats victories for every statewide office outside the legislature, and cast 200,000 more votes for Democratic assembly candidates than Republicans. That flipped one seat, and left the Republican majority at 63-36.
This is a crisis of democratic legitimacy. So is Michigan’s state house, where Democrats have won more votes in every election since 2012, but never a majority of seats. Republicans there boasted privately of packing “Dem garbage” into as few districts as possible. In North Carolina, the state representative in charge of redistricting openly boasted that he sought to draw a congressional map that would elect 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because: “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.” What the voters think be damned; the tainted Republican map has reliably delivered its goal.
Five panels of federal judges, appointed by conservative and liberal presidents alike, conducted careful fact-finding investigations, angrily declared partisan gerrymandering “noxious”, “pernicious”, and “repugnant to representative democracy”. Most importantly, they all told the supreme court that clear and manageable judicial standards existed to remedy the very worst and most toxic gerrymanders, without pulling the courts into every mapmaking dispute or relying on fuzzy notions of electoral fairness. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 35 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Under the Radar Blog Archives Select Date… May, 2019 April, 2019 March, 2019 February, 2019 January, 2019 December, 2018 November, 2018 October, 2018 September, 2018 August, 2018 July, 2018 June, 2018
A win for Bijan Kian’s defense on the issue would knock out one of the two charges against him, leaving only a single felony conspiracy charge | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo Judge raises doubts on charge against Flynn partner
A federal judge raised repeated doubts Friday about the validity of a criminal charge the former business partner of Gen. Michael Flynn is facing in connection with a lobbying and public relations campaign Flynn has admitted was secretly mounted on behalf of the Turkish government.
Lawyers for Bijan Rafiekian, who is known as Bijan Kian, argued at a court hearing that the indictment filed against him last December and updated last month was legally faulty because it didn’t address whether the lobbying and op-ed writing Flynn International Group allegedly did for Turkey was a “legal commercial transaction.”
The argument is a technical one, but it could have major ramifications for the case against Kian, which is set to go to trial July 15.
Prosecutors say Kian is free to seek to defend himself by claiming the work was entirely legal, but Kian’s lawyers say making him prove that reverses the typical burden of proof where prosecutors must prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
“That is not the way this is supposed to work,” defense attorney James Tysse said during the nearly two-hour hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. ”It should be the government’s burden not ours. ... The defendant shouldn’t have to prove his innocence.”
But Justice Department attorney Evan Turgeon said precedents don’t require the government to rule out in advance of trial all “exceptions” that might be claimed by a defendant like Kian.
“It’s a defense, not an element” of the crime, Turgeon insisted.
Judge Anthony Trenga pressed Turgeon half a dozen times to explain what law the op-ed writing and lobbying violated. “That’s what I’m having trouble understanding here,” the judge said. “It’s a convoluted statute.”
The prosecutor struggled to come up with an answer that satisfied Trenga.
“I don’t think we need to,” Turgeon said.
“You may not need to, but tell me,” the judge countered.
Eventually, Turgeon said Kian’s activities violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act (also known as FARA). He also said that was why Kian and others were intent on covering up Turkey’s role and instead asserted the work was on behalf of a Netherlands company, Inovo BV.
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“If what they were doing is not a violation of the statute, it wouldn’t matter if they were concealing it,” replied Trenga. He noted that the “legal commercial transaction” exception seems intended to cover people like those repairing an embassy roof, but regulations on the issue suggest it covers all kinds of services.
Turgeon later noted that while op-ed writing and lobbying are legal, the government can still regulate them when they’re undertaken secretly for a particular, potentially troublesome purpose.
“Taking pictures is lawful activity, but conducting surveillance for a foreign government” is not, the prosecutor said. He also suggested that the fact Flynn and Kian were paid shouldn’t excuse their actions.
After coming under scrutiny as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to a single felony count of lying to investigators about his dealings with the Russian ambassador to Washington. In connection with the plea, Flynn also admitted that he lied to the Justice Department about the role Turkish officials played in directing the lobbying and PR work related to a Turkish dissident, Fethullah Gulen.
Flynn’s sentencing has been delayed while he cooperates with prosecutors. He’s expected to be the star witness at Kian’s trial and to face withering challenges from Kian’s defense team, which has signaled plans to paint the short-tenured Trump national security adviser as a serial liar.
Kian’s defense pointed out he wasn’t charged with violating FARA, but instead with running afoul of another statute often referred to as 951, which prohibits being an unregistered agent on behalf of a foreign government.
Tysse also speculated on why, saying that — under FARA — prosecutors have to prove a knowing and intentional violation of the law, something that might be hard to do given how Kian and Flynn consulted with lawyers at various stages of the effort.
A lawyer for another defendant who recently pleaded guilty to the FARA-like statute for infiltrating the NRA on behalf of Russia, graduate student Mariia Butina, recently made a similar claim.
Butina’s attorney Robert Driscoll said prosecutors insisted on filing a 951 charge, which carries a maximum prison sentence of up to ten years, because they lacked proof she knew what she was doing was illegal. Prosecution under 951, which is more akin to espionage, doesn’t require such proof.
A win for Kian’s defense on the issue would knock out one of the two charges against him, leaving only a single felony conspiracy charge against the Iranian-American businessman. That charge, too, could be reined in to focus solely on whether he conspired to make false statements to the Justice Department about the lobbying work.
Prosecutors would have to decide whether to seek another indictment, but that could delay the trial and adding the language might make it easier for Kian to argue that he’s not guilty because he was relying on advice from lawyers that what he was doing was legal. Proceeding with the conspiracy charge alone would reduce Kian’s possible prison sentence from 15 years to five. (Defendants typically get far less than the maximum.)
Trenga issued no immediate ruling on the defense motion Friday, but promised to get one out “shortly.” He has previously emphasized his intent to stick with the July 15 trial date, but it’s unclear whether that date will hold.
Proceedings are underway over the defense’s proposals to present classified evidence during the trial. Those issues typically require months or longer to work out, typically behind closed doors.
During the public portions of Friday’s hearing, the judge said nothing about whether it’s still realistic to start the trial two weeks from Monday, but he and the lawyers did have a private discussion that courtroom observers could see but not hear.
Kian was not on hand for Friday’s session. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 41 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | It has never been so hot in France — at least since humans have kept reliable records. On Friday, many cities near the Mediterranean exceeded 111 degrees Fahrenheit, shattering the former all-time year-round record of 111 degrees set back in 2003.
Météo-France, the equivalent of the U.S. National Weather Service, certified a high of 114.6 degrees in the southern city of Gallargues-le-Montueux in the Provence region.
#Canicule Des températures très élevées relevées cet après-midi sur une large partie du pays. Le record absolu (tous mois confondus) de température en métropole a été battu : 45,9°C relevés à 16h21 à Gallargues-le-Montueux pic.twitter.com/kaTp1gbOl4 — Météo-France (@meteofrance) June 28, 2019
This comes on the heels of all-time June records set in Poland, Czech Republic and Germany, where the thermometer climbed to 101.5 degrees on Wednesday.
One of the world's most famous climate scientists, Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University, told CBS News, "For all practical purposes, the heat wave is caused by human-made global warming."
This is an uncharacteristically strong statement for any climate scientist to make, but Hansen has done extensive research into this topic. It was his 1988 congressional testimony on climate change that first brought greater awareness of the dangers of human-caused environmental changes.
During his testimony more than 30 years ago, Hansen said he believed with 99 percent accuracy that humans were causing a worldwide increase in temperatures. The former NASA scientist told CBS News he believes extreme heat waves such as in France have become more common because of human activity.
"In dry subtropics such as the Mediterranean area, the [temperature distribution] shift in the summer is so large that events as extreme as those of 2003 and 2019 now have a probability of happening that is at least a couple of orders of magnitude (factor ~100 or more) greater than it was in the climate without human influence," Hansen said.
"In other words, the chance of those extreme events in the pre-industrialized world was not zero, but it was negligibly small compared to the chance today," Hansen continued. "So you can say with a very high degree of confidence that this extreme event is a consequence of human-made climate change."
For several days now, a strong storm system has been parked west of Portugal. It has been stuck in an atmospheric blocking pattern — kind of like a traffic jam — continually pumping hot air from Northern Africa into Europe.
#HEATWAVE2019 in #Europe caused by spinning low pressure west of Portugal pumping heat north from Africa. Storm's been 'stuck' because of Greenland/ neg. NAO block, which is a normal cycle BUT is likely being enhanced by Arctic Amplification due to human-forced #climate change. pic.twitter.com/vZZvutpuaA — Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) June 27, 2019
For the past two months, the Northern Hemisphere has been locked in what is called the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO is partly related to warm high pressure over Greenland. When this kind of pattern occurs, the jet stream across the Northern Atlantic Ocean is deflected and becomes more amplified, or intense fluctuations.
In this type of setup, systems tend to slow down or even break free from the jet stream and stall out. Meteorologists call this a "blocking pattern." This has led to a record-breaking upper-level high pressure (what's known as a "heat ridge") over Europe.
Europe is currently under historically strong upper ridge. Sounding from Payerne, Switzerland just recorded 500-hPa height of 5987 gpm, which is hands down the highest reading ever recorded in Switzerland (soundings began in 1943). pic.twitter.com/CjKSbaUCkR — Mika Rantanen (@mikarantane) June 26, 2019
While this kind of weather pattern and the fluctuations in atmospheric winds that contribute to them occur naturally, there's growing evidence that amplified steering patterns are becoming more common because of human-caused climate change.
Michael Mann is a Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Penn State University. He has studied and published cutting-edge research on the topic of climate change. Mann says that the current setup responsible for the record heat in Europe is indeed associated with something he calls "planetary wave resonance" — a widely meandering, slowed jet stream that favors stalled weather systems leading to "more frequent persistent weather extremes like we are seeing right now."
Mann says his research confirms the human fingerprint on these amplified patterns: "Extreme warmth in the Arctic and the loss of Arctic sea ice due to human-caused climate change, favors this jet stream pattern and indeed we are right now witnessing record Arctic warmth and record-low sea ice for so early in the season."
A group of scientists are meeting about extreme heat in the heart of the heat wave in Toulouse. The team led by Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a climate expert with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, has already initiated an on-the-fly "attribution study." This kind of study is designed to tease out the contribution from human-caused climate change.
In an interview with BBC, Oldenborgh said, "Heat waves are becoming more common in Europe for sure. We better get used to it because they will get worse in the future."
Since this attribution study is being done quickly, its scope will be limited to examining statistical properties of the temperatures. Scientists will not be looking into circulation changes as referred to by Michael Mann, but that is part of Oldenborgh's longer-term goal.
On Monday, Oldenborgh's team will run the numbers and reach a conclusion as to what extent climate change contributed to this particular heat wave. He said the group's forthcoming statement will show how much more likely this heat wave was to occur because of climate change.
Since climate change is not the sole cause of extreme weather events, expressing how much more likely an event was made by global warming is a common way to put its contribution into perspective.
For instance, in 2003 more than 70,000 people were killed in a disastrous European heat wave. In a landmark first attribution study, the 2003 heat wave was found to be at least twice as likely because of climate change.
Summers are indeed getting hotter in Europe. Climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam University in Germany said the five hottest summers since 1500 AD have all occurred since 2002, the hottest being 2018.
The hottest summers since 1500 AD in Europe were: 2018, 2010, 2003, 2016, 2002. Each summer gets one vertical line, the histogram (grey steps) shows how frequent summers were in each temperature interval. Updated from Barriopedro et al in Science: https://t.co/qDuGzTOSjN pic.twitter.com/HEFi91w5sg — Stefan Rahmstorf (@rahmstorf) June 24, 2019
On Monday, the world will officially find out to what extent climate change is playing a role in the current record-shattering heat wave in France. Considering the unprecedented temperatures, there is little doubt the team led by Oldenborgh will find a robust connection. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 49 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed off on a bill Friday requiring felons to pay off their financial obligations before regaining the right to vote, a tactic many critics argue amounts to voter suppression and a modern-day poll tax.
State Republicans introduced the bill after voters passed an amendment in November to give roughly 1.4 million people with felony convictions to right to cast ballots in elections. The measure allowed felons not convicted of murder or sexual offenses to vote once they “complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation.”
The language also said felons must complete their sentences, which Republicans interpreted to include paying off fines and fees imposed at sentencing.
FLORIDA: VOTING RIGHTS OF MORE THAN 1 MILLION FELONS RESTORED
"Senate Bill 7066 enumerates a uniform list of crimes that fall into the excluded categories and confirms that the amendment does not apply to a felon who has failed to complete all the terms of his sentence," DeSantis wrote in a memo to Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee.
Democrats argued the bill created unnecessary hurdles voters didn't foresee when they passed the amendment and that the original intent of preventing felons from voting was to repress the minority vote.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, the NAACP and other groups promptly filed a federal lawsuit over the new law Friday.
“Over a million Floridians were supposed to reclaim their place in the democratic process, but some politicians clearly feel threatened by greater voter participation,” Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement. "They cannot legally affix a price tag to someone's right to vote."
Experts said granting felons to right to vote could possibly tip the scales in a state where elections can be decided by a small percentage of votes.
Several groups and Democratic presidential hopefuls blasted new law over Twitter.
"Disgusting. My democracy plan would re-enfranchise those who have served their time and left prison—and prevent states like Florida from overriding their rights with Jim Crow-era nonsense," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted.
"The 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed to eliminate the poll tax. Today, FL Gov Ron DeSantis defied the will of people & signed a law depriving thousands of formerly incarcerated persons from voting unless they pay restitution, fines & fees. THIS is why we need to #RestoreTheVOTE," the NAACP posted.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
When the bill advanced through the Florida House in April, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker called it a "poll tax," a tool most notoriously used to disenfranchise black voters in the Jim Crow-era south.
Under the law, felons could petition a judge to forgive their outstanding fines and fees in favor of community service or have a victim forgo repayment of restitution. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 18 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has a new plan to end the bipartisan tradition of appointing big donors as ambassadors. The Democratic presidential candidate is also calling on all other candidates to do the same.
“I’m pledging to put America’s national interests ahead of campaign donations and end the corrupt practice of selling cushy diplomatic posts to wealthy donors,” Warren said in a Medium post published Friday.
The practice of doling out ambassadorships to political supporters is one of the few remnants of a spoils system where political parties reward their supporters and benefactors with plum government jobs. It’s a rarity among advanced democracies, but a bipartisan tradition in the United States. And it’s been getting worse in recent years.
Since the 1980s, political appointees have increasingly fewer professional qualifications, like regional knowledge or language proficiency, that would be expected for career diplomats, according to a study by Marquette University Law School associate professor Ryan Scoville. This trend dovetails with the rising level of campaign donations given by these political appointees to the presidents who nominate them.
Former President Barack Obama nominated dozens of his campaign bundlers ― those who raised $50,000 or more ― to ambassadorships in Europe, New Zealand, Singapore and Latin America. At the same time, Obama appointed one of the highest percentages of career foreign service officers to ambassadorships.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush similarly appointed big donors to key ambassadorships. Warren even criticized Bush back in 2005 for appointing then-Ameriquest CEO Roland Arnall, a major Bush donor, as ambassador to the Netherlands.
Cliff Hawkins via Getty Images Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will not nominate political donors to ambassadorships if elected president.
All presidents since Franklin Roosevelt gave out around 30 percent of their ambassador nominations to political appointees. Political appointees tend to be sent to safer, more stable countries with the biggest donors getting the cushiest postings in the states with the best weather and most popular with tourists. Presidents normally prefer professional diplomats for the world’s hot spots.
And while all presidents have rewarded their supporters and benefactors with ambassadorships, President Donald Trump has taken it to another level. Nearly half of his ambassador appointments have gone to political appointees. He’s nominated at least 14 donors to his inauguration to key positions and many more who contributed to his campaign or the Republican Party.
Some of Trump’s donor appointees have stalled in the Senate due to their clear lack of qualifications and knowledge. After being nominated as ambassador to the Bahamas, Doug Manchester, a billionaire real estate magnate and major Republican Party donor stumbled in a confirmation hearing by saying the Bahamas were a protectorate of the U.S. (The Bahamas are a sovereign nation.) Lynda Blanchard, Trump’s donor nominee to Slovenia, shared Facebook memes alleging that Hillary Clinton was a murderer. (She is not.) Neither nominee has been confirmed.
Warren’s call to end this practice would fulfill calls from the American Academy of Diplomacy and the American Foreign Service Association to either fully professionalize the United States diplomatic corps or at least appoint more career foreign service officers. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 27 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A House Ethics Committee probe into Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., stemming from a tweet about former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, exposes a double standard, according to the Republican lawmaker.
Gaetz told Martha MacCallum on Friday on "The Story" that he stands by comments made on a March 1 appearance on the Fox News program -- in which he apologized to Cohen and his family.
"I want to say publicly what I've said privately to Michael Cohen and to his family, that I'm sorry," he said at the time.
"It's entirely appropriate to test the truthfulness of a witness, but that could've been done in a way that didn't invoke someone's family, and I shouldn't have done it."
REP. MATT GAETZ APOLOGIZES FOR TWEET SUGGESTING MICHAEL COHEN HAS 'GIRLFRIENDS'
In comments to MacCallum Friday, the lawmaker claimed there has been "no finding that I've done anything wrong."
"I stand by the comments I made on your show. But it really highlights the double standard that exists with today's left."
Gaetz pointed to two Democratic lawmakers who he claimed made fiery remarks in the past that didn't lead to a congressional probe.
"We've got members of Congress -- Maxine Waters actually incited violence against Republicans and supporters of the president," he claimed.
"We had Rashida Tlaib ... using profanity to talk about how she was going to impeach the president.
REP. MATT GAETZ REGRETS 'INVOKING' MICHAEL COHEN'S FAMILY IN TWEET, SAYS HE'S 'SORRY'
"I guess when a Republican says something that might go a little over the line," he said, "it might be treated a little differently."
The Florida lawmaker added he believed there are better things for the Democrat-led House to focus on.
"I'm worried about the 5,500 people that show up at our border every day," he said. "I worry about the fact that we haven't changed our asylum laws," he added, calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold a vote on the USMCA trade deal.
MacCallum pressed Gaetz on the tweet, and whether he was "threatening a witness the night before he was about to testify."
She pointed to bipartisan criticism at the time from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
FLORIDA BAR OPENS INVESTIGATION INTO REP. GAETZ'S TWEET ABOUT MICHAEL COHEN
Gaetz responded, considering whether his support for President Trump played a factor in the committee's decision.
"There very well may be a coordinated effort to go after people like me, people like Kellyanne Conway, who are effective advocates for a transformational president," he said, referring to the White House counselor who's been accused of violating the Hatch Act.
Gaetz has since deleted the original tweet directed at Cohen, in which he wrote: “Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot...”
The tweet was sent on the eve of testimony from Cohen, Trump's former attorney, on Capitol Hill.
In a statement released Friday, House Ethics Committee Chairman Ted Deutch, R-Fla. and ranking member Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, said they'd established a subcommittee to review the incident.
CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
"On March 13, 2019, the committee received a member complaint against Rep. Matt Gaetz," the statement read. "The committee then began a review ... into allegations that Representative Gaetz sought to threaten, intimidate, harass or otherwise improperly influence the president’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, in connection with Mr. Cohen’s testimony before a congressional committee."
In May, Gaetz declined a request to appear for an in-person interview, according to the committee's statement.
The subcommittee will be chaired by Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Md., with Rep. Michael Guest, R-Texas, serving as ranking member.
"The committee notes that the mere fact of establishing an investigative subcommittee does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred," the statement read.
Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 28 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Footage captured the moment a car rammed into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville
A man who drove his car into a crowd of protesters in the US city of Charlottesville, killing a woman, has apologised as he was sentenced to life in prison.
James Alex Fields Jr, 22, was sentenced for numerous federal hate crimes committed in the August 2017 attack.
Heather Heyer, 32, died when Fields drove his car into people protesting against a white nationalist rally.
The avowed neo-Nazi has also been convicted of murder at the state level.
He is set to be sentenced in that case next month.
Speaking ahead of his sentencing on Friday, Fields apologised for the "hurt and loss" he had caused.
"Every day I think about how things could have gone differently and how I regret my actions. I'm sorry," he said.
Fields pleaded guilty to 29 of 30 federal hate crimes under a deal with prosecutors who agreed not to seek the death penalty.
His lawyers had asked for a more lenient sentence than life in prison, citing his age, a traumatic childhood and mental illness.
Ms Heyer's parents told the court of the pain of losing their daughter. Her father Mark Heyer told Fields: "I forgive you."
"I hope he can heal one day and help others too," her mother, Susan Bro, said.
What happened in Charlottesville?
Hundreds of neo-Nazis, white nationalists and Ku Klux Klan members gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, on 12 August, 2017 for one of the largest white supremacist rallies in the US in decades.
The "Unite the Right" march was organised to protest against plans to take down a statue of General Robert E Lee, who had fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the American Civil War.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Photojournalist Ryan M Kelly was covering the protest when the car ploughed into the crowd
Clashes broke out with counter-protesters, leaving dozens injured.
Graphic video footage shared widely on social media showed Fields driving his car into the counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old paralegal Ms Heyer and injuring others.
Who is James Alex Fields Jr?
Fields, a self-described neo-Nazi from Ohio, was 20 at the time of the attack.
Federal prosecutors said he thought about harming others while driving to the Charlottesville rally.
They noted that there was evidence on his social media profiles of him "expressing support of the social and racial policies of Adolf Hitler and Nazi-era Germany, including the Holocaust".
Less than a month before the attack, they said he posted an image on Instagram showing a car driving into a crowd of people. "You have the right to protest but I'm late for work," read the caption.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" clashed with counter-protesters in Charlottesville
Hours before the attack, he was photographed carrying a shield bearing the emblem of a far-right hate group.
Even afterwards, Fields remained unrepentant, prosecutors said.
In a phone call from prison in December 2017, he criticised Ms Heyer's mother.
"She is a communist. An anti-white liberal," Fields said. He went on to describe her as "the enemy".
Fields' lawyers have argued that he felt intimidated and acted to protect himself in the August 2017 attack. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 31 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran, 1200 kilometers south of Tehran, on Oct. 26, 2010. MAJID ASGARIPOUR/Getty Images
A little more than a week after Iran’s shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and President Donald Trump’s decision not to respond with force, it’s tough to judge whether America is closer to or further from taking military action against the Islamic republic. The situation is only becoming more anarchic and the actions of the players involved becoming more unpredictable.
Congressional opponents of such military action tried and failed on Friday to limit Trump’s authority to launch it. A proposed amendment to the just-passed National Defense Authorization Act would have required congressional approval for any use of military funds in Iran. It garnered 50 votes in favor, with support from every Democrat and four Republicans (Sens. Susan Collins, Mike Lee, Jerry Moran, and Rand Paul)—but fell short of the 60 votes needed to get past a filibuster. A similar measure is being debated in the House.
Under the interpretation of the president’s executive power developed over several administrations, there’s nothing legally stopping Trump from ordering strikes on Iran. The main thing stopping him at this point seems to be that by most accounts, he doesn’t really want to do it, despite the bellicose tweets. According to some reports, a divide has opened up between Trump’s civilian advisers—like national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and CIA Director Gina Haspel, who are urging military force—and more cautious military commanders. One administration official who spoke to the Wall Street Journal even accused the Pentagon of providing Trump with inaccurate casualty estimates to thwart last week’s planned strike. Meanwhile, everyone from Tucker Carlson to Vladimir Putin is sharing thoughts on Iran with the president.
Iran, for its part, is poised to violate one of the central restrictions of the 2015 nuclear deal within days, as the regime’s political factions squabble over whether to try salvaging what’s left of the deal or to scrap it altogether. If Iran really was behind the attack on Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman—carried out while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran for talks with the supreme leader—it suggests the diplomacy skeptics in the regime are ascendant. Thus far, Iran has avoided the most escalatory actions—namely, obviously attributable attacks that take American lives—but it’s come close, and as Washington continues to engage in “maximum pressure” tactics including more targeted sanctions and cyberattacks, Iran’s retaliation may get less cautious.
Iranian officials are meeting in Vienna on Friday with officials from the remaining parties to the nuclear deal for what have been described as “last chance” talks to save it. The Iranians are threatening to breach the agreement’s terms one by one unless European countries can shield the nation from U.S. sanctions. The Europeans are attempting to do this by setting up a new barter system known as INSTEX that will allow Iranian and European firms to trade goods without cash changing hands across borders. It’s not yet operational, and even when it is, it’s unlikely to bring Iran the economic benefits it wants. Still, it’s notable that ostensible U.S. allies are so openly working to evade U.S. sanctions.
Even some of the allies that are mostly on board with Trump’s Iran policies seem to be wavering. The United Arab Emirates has split with the U.S. by declining to blame Iran directly for the recent attacks on oil tankers off its coast. While the UAE maintains that a “state actor” was likely behind the attacks, the country’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said on Wednesday, “Honestly we can’t point the blame at any country because we don’t have evidence.” Another official recently said the UAE wants to avoided being “baited into crisis.” This is notable given that the UAE—a close ally of Saudi Arabia and regional rival of Iran—enthusiastically backed Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and has long been an influential force in Washington calling for a harder line against Tehran. Are the Emiratis experiencing some buyer’s remorse, with the prospect of a regional war looking more realistic? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, perhaps the leading global critic of the Iran deal, has also been awfully quiet lately, though to be fair, he has some other things on his plate.
So the situation right now is that there’s an unpredictable U.S. president with contradictory impulses, getting conflicting advice. The Iranians are getting increasingly desperate and aggressive, though they still often act either through proxies or in ways that preserve plausible deniability. The Europeans are more or less working on the Iranians’ behalf but appear unable to deliver. And America’s staunchest ally in the Gulf looks like it’s having second thoughts. Plus, Iran is becoming a starkly partisan issue in the U.S. heading into an election year, and Iran is looking ahead to elections of its own.
War is probably still not the most likely outcome, but further chaos certainly is. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 32 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The $100,000 drop in appropriations to the Street Department was due partially to the loss of one full time employee in the Public Works Department for this fiscal year, Skupien said. One full-time employee was moved to a different position this year and the vacancy in the Public Works Department has not yet been filled, said Skupien. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 113,892,046 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The acting secretary of Homeland Security said he expected 25% fewer migrants to cross the border this month, as officials in Yuma unveiled their latest outdoor facility meant to detain children and families.
The number of illegal crossings would still be too high, but it was a start, Kevin McAleenan said, crediting Mexico with a concentrated effort to stop Central Americans before they arrived even to Mexico — a push prompted by threats of tariffs by President Trump.
The president has seen numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border skyrocket under his term despite his hardline policies and tough-talk. More than 100,000 people, mostly families from Central America, have crossed the border each month over the past few months. Trump sees the monthly border numbers as a benchmark for success, and during previous months when he felt numbers were too high, he threatened to shut down the entire border.
McAleenan dismissed the idea that a projected decrease in June was due in part to hot summer months, traditionally a time fewer people crossed.
"These initiatives are making an impact," he said.
Meanwhile, facilities that house detained migrants are vastly overcrowded and advocates and attorneys have decried conditions inside. Border facilities are meant as temporary holding stations, built to hold a maximum of about 4,000, but have routinely held as many as 15,000.
Teens and children, detained days or weeks by U.S. border authorities, described frigid cells where flu-stricken youngsters in dirty clothes ran fevers, vomited and cried with no idea when they would be getting out, according to court documents in a case that governs how children are cared for in government custody.
On Thursday, Congress sent President Trump a $4.6 billion package that bolsters care for the tens of thousands of arrivals taken into custody. McAleenan praised the move, but also cautioned there was much more work to do.
McAleenan said that some of the funding would go immediately into the construction of additional temporary facilities.
"We've been building them for months, and we have significant additional contracts underway that are going to come online in mid-July," he said. "This funding can be applied directly to those contracts." DHS started building the facilities in anticipation of either securing the funding or reprogramming funds from other DHS areas. McAleenan said that "another thousand beds" were available by last Wednesday.
In Yuma, construction on the new 500-person tent facility began about two weeks ago. Journalists were expected to get a tour of the facility before migrants are placed there.
McAleenan also spoke of the tragic image of a father and his toddler, drowned on the banks of the Rio Grande.
"The situation should not be acceptable to any of us," he said of the deaths. "It should galvanize action and real debate ... And yet here in Washington we have collectively failed to end this crisis. This is not on the men and women of DHS. They deserve better and so do the families of children." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 24 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Kamala Harris walks back her hand-up moment on health insurance in Democratic debate
The California senator raised her hand when asked if she'd get rid of private health insurance, but said Friday she misunderstood the question. It wasn't the first time. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 131,730,144 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Migrants, mostly from Central America, wait to board a van that will take them to a processing center on May 16 in El Paso, Texas. Paul Ratje/AFP/Getty Images
The magazine Highlights for Children jumped into the news cycle this week with a viral tweet condemning the Trump administration’s treatment of migrant children in American detention centers. To most people on the left-ish side of things, the statements in the Highlights press release seem completely unobjectionable. Who wouldn’t agree with the proposition that “children are the world’s most important people,” or that all children have an “inalienable right to feel safe and to have the opportunity to become their best selves”? Highlights CEO Kent Johnson argued that this sentiment should be so universal as to be nonpartisan: “This is not a political statement about immigration policy.”
At Highlights, our core belief is that children are the world's most important people. In light of the reports of the living conditions of detained children & threats of further deportation & family separation, here is a statement from our CEO Kent Johnson. #KeepFamiliesTogether pic.twitter.com/CNF5LTv4az — Highlights (@Highlights) June 25, 2019
But Kent Johnson is wrong. We—by which I mean, people on the left who are horrified by these camps—have to grasp the reality that the debate over what children deserve, by simple virtue of their youth, potential, and vulnerability, is far from resolved in our country. The idea that children—all kids globally, or even just those who live here in the United States—deserve food, education, medical care, and physical safety, and that those rights should be guaranteed by the collective, has never been apolitical. In the long sweep of human history, these ideas are maybe a century and a half old, and they’ve always been contested. That’s why they haven’t even resulted in universal access to safe, supported childhood within our borders, and why we remain the only U.N. member state not to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In the long sweep of human history, these ideas are maybe a century and a half old, and they’ve always been contested.
“How can you be ‘pro-life’ and support child detention centers?” is the newest iteration of the classic liberal challenge: “How can you be ‘pro-life’ and fail to support universal health insurance/food stamps/housing assistance?” There’s a passage from Kristin Luker’s Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood, a 1984 book about the views of people on either side of the abortion rights issue, that finally answered this question to my satisfaction. In a paragraph about anti-abortion activists’ opposition to the provision of confidential contraception and abortion services for teenagers, Luker wrote, “Pro-life people see public policy in this realm as intruding the state into areas where it does not belong, namely, within the family. From their point of view, the family is both beleaguered and sacred.” Any outside force that treats a member of the family as a separate entity, “rather than as an organic whole,” is, from this perspective, problematic. (Implicit in this idea, I might add, is that the family is a patriarchal one, governed by a strong and benevolent father.)
In a footnote to this passage, Luker blew my mind: “This explains the frequent opposition of pro-life people to policies one would think they would support, as the intended beneficiaries are children.” Programs like those that provide state-supported day care, free school lunches, or nutrition assistance for pregnant women didn’t meet with support among the anti-abortion activists Luker interviewed, because “they resist the idea of letting the state into the sacrosanct territory of the home.”
This split over how much the state—“we”—should be doing for children when their families cannot, or will not, support them explains so much that’s frustrating about American failures around child-related policy. It explains why the idea that government-sponsored child care is Communist has had such staying power in our politics, why we still (despite advances in recent years) have a higher child poverty rate than other industrialized nations, why Child Protective Services departments around the country report that they are chronically understaffed.
When a part of the population fears government “interference” in the idealized nuclear family, it’s the most vulnerable who might benefit the most from that “interference” who suffer.
This schism—between those who believe that all children deserve to be protected by society at large and those who do not believe that other people’s children are everyone’s responsibility—partially accounts for the argument emerging on the right that these migrants’ deaths are sad, but they’re the fault of the parents who decided to bring the kids here. Trump’s acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, said this very thing during a CNN interview on Thursday night, when he was asked about the viral photo of drowned migrants Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter Valeria, lying on the banks of the Rio Grande: “The reason we have tragedies like that on the border is because that father didn’t wait to go through the asylum process in the legal fashion and decided to cross the river, and not only died but his daughter died tragically as well.”
This isn’t the first time the administration has blamed a parent for the death of a migrant child. The president himself accused the father of Jakelin Caal of contributing to the death of his 7-year-old, in March of this year: “The father gave the child no water for a long period of time—he actually admitted blame.” (Through attorneys, the family vehemently denied this account.) This approach has the advantage of sounding good to a base that prizes “individual responsibility.” By focusing on the actions of the parents, Trump and his administration can also neatly circumvent the intense sympathy many people might feel for a toddler lacking diapers and a caregiver in American custody and get back to what comes easiest: blaming a brown person.
I’ve been rereading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower this week. The 1993 novel is set in 2024 and follows the protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina, through her late teenage years. The United States, afflicted by climate change and economic crisis, has descended into partial lawlessness, and states with more resources have fortified their borders against refugees from worse-off places. Olamina lives in a walled community in Southern California, comprised of formerly middle-class people who must now provide themselves with food, security, and water. Partway through the book, the streams of homeless people outside the walls burn their community down, and Olamina joins the poorest on the road.
This book has obvious resonances for us, as Abby Aguirre pointed out for the New Yorker a few years ago. Among the forces affecting Olamina’s life are rampant privatization, rising oceans, water scarcity, and police who do more harm than good. But the point that’s most relevant to this heartbreaking week of news is that in this partial-apocalypse scenario, the imperfectly implemented 20th-century idea that all American kids deserve a protected childhood, regardless of their origins, has vanished. The kids of the homeless poor are in a bad way. The public schools are closed, so there’s no possibility of education or upward mobility; bartered, sold, and enslaved, the kids are starved and abused, or turn thief and murderer to survive. Olamina’s family finds the bodies of dead children all the time. Sometimes, Olamina writes in her diary, the homeless even throw their kids’ corpses over the walls that surround their little enclave: a “gift of envy and hate.”
I hope against hope that things don’t get as dark in the real-life United States as they did in Butler’s fictional California. It would help to have a real collective understanding of what those on the left think children, in the United States or around the world, deserve from the rest of us just for being children—and to see this issue as political, like all the rest. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 37 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Amy Klobuchar at Wednesday night’s debate. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
On Wednesday and Thursday, Democrats held their first debates of the primary season. The first debate came hours before and the second debate came hours after the Supreme Court upheld partisan gerrymandering in a way that is set to entrench incumbent power and harm the First Amendment rights of voters for years to come—unless action is taken promptly. Despite that, gerrymandering was mentioned twice by a total of two candidates over the course of the entire four hours of debating. Modern voting rights efforts in general were barely mentioned a handful of times over both nights.
Those who care about democracy and fairness need not despair, though, and the Democratic field need not stay silent. Voters and candidates should now refocus energy on an institution that might do something about it after the 2020 elections: Congress. Indeed, in his majority opinion in the partisan gerrymandering case, Chief Justice John Roberts indicated that it is within Congress’ purview to address the issues that were before the court.
Most Democrats who have spoken out on the issue have supported a congressional mandate for independent redistricting commissions in all 50 states. This is one of the key proposals in the revolutionary voting rights bill, H.R. 1, passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year but doomed in the Republican Senate. Where proponents of H.R. 1—and apparently every single candidate in the Democratic field—fall down, though, is on the question of drawing districts that don’t just remove roadblocks for minority voters but actively protect those voters who have been historically marginalized.
Democrats can do even better than H.R. 1’s requirement of nonpartisanship, and activists should demand they do so. If we want electoral maps that are fair for everyone, it’s not enough to demand neutrality. That leaves out the minority protections that are necessary given our nation’s ugly history of violently enforced voter intimidation and suppression. Remedying that historic voter exclusion is difficult. We cannot double count the ballot of a black voter whose vote was suppressed decades ago. We also cannot find a black candidate who was deterred from even running for office by a racially biased at-large electoral system and now say that he wins if he gets 45 percent of the votes. Yet, the ugly history is there, and its negative effects continue today. Again, though, there are fixes that take into account complex legal and legislative problems that have been building for years.
Minority racial groups will get extra attention but only equal opportunity.
When Congress amended the Voting Rights Act in 1982 it imposed a duty on states to ensure that minorities have the same “opportunity … to elect representatives of their choice” as do other voters. Yet in the context of redistricting, that promise is currently fulfilled only erratically and incompletely, in part due to the Supreme Court’s imposition of a different duty on states—the duty to avoid classifying on the basis of race. The court has forbidden the use of race as a “predominant” factor in redistricting decisions, even when done so to benefit racial minorities. Thus, a mapmaker wishing to comply with the law—to fulfill both Congress’ and the courts’ views of the Reconstruction Amendments—must thread the tiniest of needles. For instance, she must avoid drawing a map that too tightly packs nonwhite Hispanic voters in Texas into a single district, thereby denying them the opportunity to elect multiple candidates rather than just one. On the other hand, if she carefully ensures nonwhite Hispanics are divided evenly between two districts, she may have violated the court’s racial gerrymandering prohibition on treating race as a “predominant factor.”
Indeed, observers have become rightly concerned that the courts might make this even harder if they decide to strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the part that imposes a duty to ensure equal opportunity for minorities. The Supreme Court has promoted, for the past three decades at least, a view of the equal protection clause in which the elimination of formal racial advantages and disadvantages is the goal. But Congress, in Section 2, was promoting a view of the equal protection clause in which the elimination of structural, social, and historical racial disadvantage is the goal. Given this tension between Congress and the courts, it’s not enough to simply assert, without further instruction—as the current version of H.R. 1 does—that newly mandated redistricting commissions must do the nearly impossible: comply with the VRA and the court’s current view of the Constitution. In fact, if Congress fails to reconcile the duty to protect historically subordinated minorities with the court’s principles of neutrality, then there will be no meaningful “Voting Rights Act compliance” left for redistricting commissions to take into account.
There is a solution, though. Congress could, among other necessary fixes to H.R. 1, define what “equal opportunity” in voting means. Congress could clearly state that equal opportunity means equal competitiveness. What this means is ending harmful cracking and packing and replacing it with line-drawing that seeks to give historically marginalized minority voters, to the extent possible, the same political clout other groups get. Again, this means ending harmful cracking and packing. When voting groups are aggressively “cracked”—split into multiple districts—then those voters have a harder time electing a candidate of choice because their collective voting power in the new district is lessened. Similarly, when voting groups are aggressively “packed” into a single noncompetitive district, they do not get to elect as many candidates because their voting power is consolidated in one place. In order for a minority group to have an equal chance to elect candidates of choice, there should be “opportunity districts,” in which the level of competitiveness of the district is similar to the level of competitiveness nonminority voters would typically expect to experience, in a world without partisan gerrymandering. In other words, suppose that the typical district in a given state would end up with a vote breakdown of about 52 percent for one party and to 48 percent for the other. In such a state—under this proposed version of redistricting reform—map drawers would try to create districts that included enough black voters so that their candidates of choice would be expected to get somewhere between 48 and 52 percent of the vote—as opposed to an overly packed 65 percent of the vote or a severely cracked 25 percent of the vote.
This definition of equal opportunity would satisfy the Supreme Court’s view of equal protection because minority communities get no advantage under this definition: They get the same numerical level of competitiveness as majority communities. At the same time, conscious attention is paid, at the structural level, to minority opportunity in politics. In other words: Minority racial groups will get extra attention but only equal opportunity.
Ultimately, Congress—and the Democratic presidential field—must seize the moment and respond to voters’ deep frustration with unfairness in elections, not only by attacking partisan gerrymandering but also by doing something about the racial injustices that undermine Americans’ sense of belonging and inclusion in politics. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 49 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright Getty Images
Gay dating app Jack'd will pay $240,000 (£189,000) after exposing members' private intimate photos publicly on the internet.
Anyone with a web browser who knew where to look could access millions of private photos, even if they did not have a Jack'd account.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the app invaded users' privacy.
Online Buddies, which owns the app, failed to fix the problem for a year after being warned by a researcher.
Cyber-security researcher Oliver Hough reported the flaw to Jack'd in February 2018 but the company only implemented a fix in February 2019.
Ms James said: "The app put users' sensitive information and private photos at risk of exposure and the company didn't do anything about if for a full year just so that they could continue to make a profit."
The attorney general said she had reached a settlement with Online Buddies, which will pay the $240,000 to New York state.
It has also promised to implement a "comprehensive security programme" to protect its users.
Jack'd has been downloaded more than five million times on the Google Play app store.
It lets members add "private" photos to their profile, which should be visible to only specific people they have chosen to share them with.
However, researcher Oliver Hough found that all the photos shared in the app were uploaded to the same open web server, leaving them exposed.
In February, BBC News saw evidence that private photos were still available on the web.
"They acknowledged my report but then just went silent and did nothing," Mr Hough told BBC News.
"A journalist contacted them in November and they did the same."
The company has not responded to a BBC request for comment. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | How to make the most of your investments
How to make the most of your investments
Wall Street's partying like it's 1997, with Friday's session marking the best first half of the year for U.S. stocks since the dawn of the dotcom boom 22 years ago.
The S&P 500 stock index finished Friday up 17% year-to-date, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite gained 20.4%. The Dow was up 14%, around 3,250 points, to reach nearly 26,600 since Jan. 2, the start of the 2019 trading year.
Thanks to a June swoon that had Wall Street enthralled with stocks again, every major index closed out the month at least 6% higher. That's a sharp about-face from May, when traders fled to safer holdings because of increased anxiety over trade disputes and slowing global economic growth. The S&P 500 reached a record closing high on June 20 of 2,954, though it has retreated slightly from that mark.
Stocks also posted their second straight quarter of gains. The S&P 500 increased 3.4% in the second quarter but only after taking investors on a rollercoaster ride. It climbed steadily in April, dove in May and then climbed again in June. The index rose 13.1% in the first quarter.
Why investors are concerned about U.S.-China trade war
July could prove a different story. A wave of selling swept over the market for most of the final week of June as traders shifted money to less risky holdings like U.S. government bonds while remaining cautiously optimistic about this weekend's meeting in Japan between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China. It will be their first meeting since the trade war escalated following 11 rounds of negotiations.
Investors fear that a drawn-out trade war will crimp economic growth and corporate profits, and uncertainty over the impact of the conflict has thrown markets into a series of volatile swings. The dispute has prompted the Federal Reserve to say it is willing to cut interest rates if the dispute hurts the U.S. economy.
Trade-war induced volatility isn't going anywhere soon and investors are going to have to come to terms with that, said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco.
"Investors need to recognize that the trade situation is unlikely to improve," she said. "The best we can hope for is an agreement to continue talks."
Many investors are hoping the talks put the world's two biggest economies on track to resolve their trade dispute, which has already led to hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs imposed by both countries on each other's goods.
"You've been seeing markets lean in this sort of optimistic direction on trade," said Brian Nick, chief investment strategist at Nuveen, noting that the possibility of a trade deal and a Federal Reserve rate cut have been priced into the market. "It's hard to see how we're actually going to earn our way higher from here." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A few hours after Sen. Kamala Harris of California challenged former Vice President Joe Biden on his civil rights record, her presidential campaign seized the moment to sell "That Girl Was Me" T-shirts. Harris, Biden and eight other Democratic candidates running for president took part in the second night of debates in Miami on Thursday.
While discussing race relations in the U.S., Harris confronted Biden about his comments seemingly praising his working relationship with segregationist senators. She didn't think Biden himself was racist, but said his remarks were "hurtful."
Harris also noted Biden opposed federal measures to ensure that local jurisdictions used busing to desegregate public schools during the 1970s. She said that was personally painful for her.
"There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school everyday, and that little girl was me," she said.
Harris confronts Biden over race at Democratic debate
In his defense, Biden said Harris' portrayal of his record on race was a "mischaracterization" and touted his support for the civil rights movement.
Moments after the exchange, her campaign tweeted a photo of a young Harris and an accompanying caption that read: "There was a little girl in California who was bused to school. That little girl was me."
There was a little girl in California who was bussed to school. That little girl was me. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/XKm2xP1MDH — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 28, 2019
Hours later, the viral moment was turned into a T-shirt being sold for $29.99 by Kamala Harris For The People. The back of the tee listed Harris' campaign website.
Selling the shirts triggered a mixed reaction on the Instagram post promoting them. Many said they would buy it to support Harris, while others were turned off by how the Harris campaign was so quick to try profiting off the viral moment.
In an interview with "CBS This Morning," Harris said the issue of segregationists was a personal one for her.
"If segregationists had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate today, I would not be a top contender to be president of the United States," Harris said Friday. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 18 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE
Prosecutors may not pursue manslaughter charges after an Alabama woman was arrested for the death of her unborn child, who was shot and killed during a December 2018 fight.
Marshae Jones was arrested Wednesday after a local grand jury indicted her on manslaughter charges, igniting a firestorm across the country. But District Attorney Lynneice Washington's office urged caution in a late Thursday news release, saying the office has not yet decided whether to pursue the manslaughter charge, reduce it or drop the case altogether.
Marshae Jones, 27, was arrested and indicted on the count of manslaughter for failing to remove herself from harm's way in a shooting last year that caused her to lose her pregnancy. (Photo: Jefferson County Jail)
"Foremost, it should be stated that this is a truly tragic case, resulting in the death of an unborn child," the release stated. "We feel sympathy for the families involved, including Ms. Jones, who lost her unborn child. The fact that this tragedy was 100% avoidable makes this case even more disheartening."
Jones' case is odd and, some say, unprecedented. According to al.com, 23-year-old Ebony Jemison was initially charged in December 2018 after a shooting in Pleasant Grove led to the death of the unborn child.
But investigating authorities alleged the pregnant Jones, not Jemison, initiated and instigated the attack. Jemison told BuzzFeed News she fired a gun as a "warning shot" after Jones and a group of friends attacked her over a relationship issue.
The grand jury declined to bring charges against Jemison, the DA's office said, determining that she acted in self-defense.
The DA's office has not yet returned request for comment. Efforts to reach both Jones and Jemison on Friday were unsuccessful.
But Jones' charge appears to contradict a portion of Alabama's Criminal Code. Though the code does include "fetal homicide" language, which defines an "unborn child in utero" as a human being, regardless of viability, the code also states that the prosecution of "any woman with respect to her unborn child" should not be permitted under criminal homicide charges like manslaughter.
"It's the plain language of the statute," said Andrew Skier, a Montgomery-based criminal defense attorney.
Skier has no ties to Jones' case, but he said when he first saw the story he believed the manslaughter charge was "quite a stretch" under Alabama law. Manslaughter, recklessly engaging in conduct you know includes a risk, is a tough thing to prove from the outset.
But after reviewing the state code, Skier said he would file a motion to dismiss if he were involved in the case, "based on that statute" alone.
"That is 100% a bar to this prosecution," Skier said. "It seems to me that whoever indicted this case didn't read this statute."
Abortion and reproductive rights groups this week quickly raised Jones' case as a cause célèbre, marking it as an example of prosecutorial overreach on the heels of a near-total abortion ban in Alabama. The new law — which could go in effect in November but is expected to remain tied up in federal lawsuits — would criminalize anyone who performs an abortion in the state. Though the law does not criminalize women who receive abortion care, opponents of the legislation argued it would create a slippery slope for reproductive rights and pregnancy loss.
"The prosecution of Marshae Jones is absolutely reprehensible," said Staci Fox, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast, in a statement. "It is more proof that Alabama will do everything in its power to criminalize pregnancy — especially for Black women."
Jones' case, however, is not directly related to the abortion ban.
Alabama in the past has used new legislation to pursue prosecutions of pregnant women. In 2006, state lawmakers passed a chemical endangerment law intended to prosecute adults who expose children to volatile meth labs. It was later seized by some prosecutors to target women who take drugs while pregnant, according to an investigation by al.com and ProPublica.
Though the indictment of a woman for her own pregnancy loss is unusual in Alabama, it is not unusual for prosecutors to charge people with murder even if they never killed anyone. Felony murder doctrine allows for murder prosecutions if someone dies in the course of an felony c
In December, Montgomery police charged a high school student with felony murder in a convoluted hit-and-run that killed 15-year-old Keiauna Williams. Police allege Terrance Webster fired a gun while a large group of teenagers were gathering in a parking lot after a party. Williams, fleeing the gunfire, was struck and killed.
Last year, an Alabama teenager was sentenced to 65 years in prison under Alabama's accomplice liability law after a local police officer shot and killed one of his friends.
Prosecutors argued Lakeith Smith was one of five teenagers who burgled two homes in Millbrook in 2015. In an exchange of gunfire, 16-year-old A'Donte Washington was killed by an officer.
An Elmore County grand jury cleared the officer who fired the fatal shots. But because Smith was allegedly committing the criminal act of burglary at the time of his friend's death, he was held responsible.
Though some states such as California, Hawaii and Kentucky have moved to restrict or abolish felony murder doctrine laws in recent year, they are still active in the majority of the U.S. The New York Times in 2018 reported the U.S. is the last country to maintain felony murder doctrine.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/28/alabama-prosecute-marshae-jones-pregnant-woman-who-shot/1600459001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 43 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (CNN) Three men pleaded guilty Friday to criminal terrorism charges in connection with a foiled plot to attack an Islamic community in New York state.
Vincent Vetromile, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted criminal possession of a weapon in the first degree as a crime of terrorism, according to Monroe County District Attorney spokeswoman Calli Marianetti.
Andrew Crysel, 19, and Brian Colaneri, 20, both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in the second degree as a crime of terrorism. The three men will not face additional federal charges as a part of the plea deal, Marianetti told CNN.
Vetromile faces a prison sentence of at least seven years and Crysel and Colaneri face a prison sentence of four to 12 years, according to Marianetti. Sentencing for the three men is set for August 8.
CNN has reached out to their defense attorneys for comment but have not heard back.
Read More | null | 0 | -1 | null | 8 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The justice secretary, David Gauke, has survived a vote of no confidence by his local Conservative Association, defeating efforts by hard Brexit groups such as Leave.EU to potentially deselect the cabinet minister from his South West Hertfordshire constituency.
The motion accused Gauke of “wilful obstruction” towards implementing the 2016 EU referendum result by opposing a no-deal exit. Although Gauke supported remain in the referendum, he repeatedly voted for Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in parliament.
During the meeting – which ended with a vote of 123-61 in Gauke’s favour, with one abstention – the proposer of the motion admitted that he had only joined the Conservative party in February. He called the MP a “Brexit wrecker” with an “extremist anti-leave stance” in his speech.
Replying, the minister said that of the 50 people who pushed for the motion, “the majority have joined in the last 12 months”. He said that “there [was] an attempt to fundamentally change the nature of the Conservative party” taking place.
“Are we morphing into a new party, the Brexit party?” Gauke asked. “If so, I’m not the candidate for you. If I have to change my tune under the threat of deselection, then I’m not going to do that.”
Following the vote, Gauke tweeted: “Tonight, I argued that: We should not allow the Party to be taken over by entryists. We should be a broad church. No deal would be immensely damaging to the UK. I defeated a motion of no confidence 123 to 61. I am grateful to the members of my association for their support.”
The decision by the association is a defeat for the Leave.EU campaign group. On Thursday, it tweeted: “Tomorrow we claim our first Cabinet scalp as DavidGauke is up for deselection in South West Herts”. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The Senate fell short Friday, in a 50-40 vote, on an amendment to a sweeping defense bill that would require congressional support before Trump acts. It needed to reach the 60-vote threshold for passage. But lawmakers said the majority showing sent a strong message that Trump cannot continue relying on the nearly 2-decade-old war authorizations Congress approved in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The House is expected to take up the issue next month. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 4 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Silicon Valley tech giant Apple is reportedly moving the production of its new Mac Pro desktop computers from the United States to China.
CNBC reports that Silicon Valley tech giant Apple plans to assemble its new Mac Pro desktop computer in China, moving production out of the U.S. where previous models were assembled. The Mac Pro was unveiled by Apple earlier this month and is set to go on sale later in 2019.
Apple previously warned that tariffs on China could hurt the company’s contribution to the U.S. economy. Increased trade tensions between the U.S. and China have resulted in Apple considering moving some current production taking place in China to other parts of Asia. The move to assemble the Mac Pro in China is reportedly in efforts to reduce shipping costs as the Shanghai factory where the Mac Pro will be assembled is closer to Apple’s other Asian suppliers.
“Like all of our products, the new Mac Pro is designed and engineered in California and includes components from several countries including the United States,” Apple said in a statement. “We’re proud to support manufacturing facilities in 30 U.S. states and last year we spent $60 billion with over 9,000 suppliers across the US. Our investment and innovation supports 2 million American jobs. Final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process.”
Apple could still move its Mac Pro assembly productions out of China if trade issues between the U.S. and China continue to grow. According to sources, Ireland is being considered as a possible alternative.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at [email protected] | null | 0 | -1 | null | 13 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO(Reuters) - Facebook Inc (FB.O) will face unprecedented regulatory scrutiny over a new digital currency that the social media company hopes will become globally recognized legal tender within a year.
FILE PHOTO: Representations of virtual currency are displayed in front of the Libra logo in this illustration picture, June 21, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Since Facebook unveiled its cryptocurrency, called Libra, 10 days ago, Reuters has spoken with more than a dozen people with experience in financial regulation, financial technology, payments or cryptocurrency. Few expected government agencies to proceed lightly.
The company’s announcement was met with immediate backlash from U.S. lawmakers and regulators across the globe, who are concerned that Facebook is already too massive and careless with users’ privacy.
Randal Quarles, chair of the Financial Stability Board, which coordinates financial rules for G20 countries, warned this week that wider use of crypto-assets for retail payments needs close global scrutiny by regulators. Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin remain one of the least-regulated areas of finance.
“It’s a complete disaster from a regulatory perspective,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of antitrust advocacy group the Open Markets Institute. “This is a corporation that’s got fires all over the world with regulators. It’s only going to get worse.”
The plan for Libra involves taking customer deposits, investing them in government bonds, holding traditional currencies in reserves and offering cross-border services and transacting in the new coin will require engagement with central banks, financial regulators and enforcement authorities around the globe.
The Facebook subsidiary formed to handle Libra transactions, called Calibra, has applied for money-transfer licenses in the United States and registered with the U.S. Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a money services business, a spokesman said.
It has also applied for the license required to operate a cryptocurrency business in New York from the state’s Department of Financial Services, a person familiar with the matter said. Representatives of Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, the Bank of England, and Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA have also said Facebook has been in touch.
“The scrutiny that we’ve seen is something that we expected and welcome,” a Facebook spokesman said. “We announced this early by design in order to have this discourse in the open and gather feedback.”
Reserves would be subject to monetary policies of countries where funds are located, the spokesman said. Calibra does not plan to apply for local banking licenses, he added.
Facebook also formed a Geneva-based association to govern the new coin and hold the reserves, alongside several major partners.
They plan to launch the whole system in the first half of 2020, and intend to eventually offer a broad suite of financial services, including loans.
“They will not get a free pass anywhere,” said Sean Park, Founder and Chief Investment Officer, at Anthemis, a venture capital firm that backs digital financial services companies. “And, given their intention to be global, they will ultimately need literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of licenses from hundreds of different regulators across the globe.”
Besides central banks, markets regulators, consumer protection watchdogs, and agencies that tackle money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes, Facebook’s payment network might also have to adhere to the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures that are set by the Bank for International Settlements and the International Organization of Securities Commissions.
There are also the privacy and antitrust regulators around the globe with whom Facebook is already battling.
“Just in terms of new regulators, it’s a whole new ball game,” said Jeff Bandman, a former U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission official who now runs the fintech regulatory consultancy Bandman Advisors. “A year is enough time to meet with regulators, figure out where the real trouble spots are and potentially scale it back to something narrower.”
But its a challenge that Facebook appears willing to take, given the potential payoff with its 2.4 billion users, and the prospect of replicating the success of Chinese social networks such as WeChat, which has grown profits by offering financial services on its apps.
RBC analysts described Libra as a “potential watershed moment” for Facebook in terms of revenue and user engagement.
However, the costs could be substantial before income starts rolling in. It will need to set up an internal compliance framework with staffers who screen transactions for illicit activity and verify customer identities.
Money-transfer giant Western Union Co (WU.N) for instance has spent $1 billion in compliance over the past five years, a spokesman said.
Western Union is registered with FinCen and regulated under the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, with licenses in 49 states, plus Washington, D.C. and three U.S. territories. It has licenses in more than 30 countries, and reporting obligations in more than 54.
“I would say the risks are commensurate with the returns – potentially huge,” said Pascal Bouvier, managing partner at MiddleGame Ventures, a financial technology venture capital firm. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 30 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CBS News his department is trying to "take care" of the migrant children being held at the controversial detention center in Homestead, Florida, and reunite them with family members "as quickly as possible." CBS News got an exclusive look inside facility.
The for-profit detention center holds around 2,300 children, who have been placed in the care of HHS after being detained at the border. Immigration attorneys filed a brief in federal court last month with testimonials from children there. Some who speak indigenous languages said there aren't any staff members who can speak with them. Others described crying and missing their families.
Manuel Bojorquez with HHS Secretary Alex Azar CBS News
"One of the things they allege is prison-like rules where children, according to one attorney, expressed fear and anxiety around the enforcement of shelter rules and in some cases were told that if they stepped out of line it could affect their immigration case. Is that happening," Manuel Bojorquez asked.
"Well, let me be really clear. That would be completely improper. That would be completely improper. And the staff here have been instructed after that allegation was made that any such behaviors or statements would be wrong and subject to discipline," Azar said.
Several Democratic presidential candidates have visited the center, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Eric Swalwell, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She wasn't allowed inside but stood on a stepladder and looked over a gate. Warren said she saw children walking in single-file lines.
Watch more of the interview with Secretary Azar on "CBS Evening News," Friday, June 28, 6:30 p.m. ET. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
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Marshae Jones, 27, was arrested and indicted on the count of manslaughter for failing to remove herself from harm's way in a shooting last year that caused her to lose her pregnancy. (Photo: Jefferson County Jail)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Prosecutors may not pursue manslaughter charges after an Alabama woman was arrested in the death of her unborn child, who was shot and killed during a fight.
Marshae Jones was arrested Wednesday after a Jefferson County grand jury indicted her on manslaughter charges, igniting a firestorm across the country. But District Attorney Lynneice Washington's office urged caution in a late Thursday news release, saying the office has not yet decided whether to pursue the manslaughter charge, reduce it or drop the case altogether.
"Foremost, it should be stated that this is a truly tragic case, resulting the death of an unborn child," the release stated. "We feel sympathy for the families involved, including Ms. Jones, who lost her unborn child. The fact that this tragedy was 100% avoidable makes this case even more disheartening."
Jones' case is odd and, some say, unprecedented. According to al.com, 23-year-old Ebony Jemison was initially charged in December after a shooting in Pleasant Grove led to the death of the unborn child.
Alabama case: Woman charged in fetus' death after she was shot and lost her pregnancy
Previously: Alabama abortion ban signed into law
But investigating authorities alleged the pregnant Jones, not Jemison, initiated and instigated the attack. Jemison told BuzzFeed News she fired a gun as a "warning shot" after Jones and a group of friends attacked her over a relationship issue.
The grand jury declined to bring charges against Jemison, the DA's office said, determining that she acted in self-defense.
The DA's office has not yet returned a request for comment. Efforts to reach Jones and Jemison on Friday were unsuccessful.
But Jones' charge appears to contradict a portion of Alabama's Criminal Code. Though the code does include "fetal homicide" language, which defines an "unborn child in utero" as a human being, regardless of viability, the code also states that the prosecution of "any woman with respect to her unborn child" should not be permitted under criminal homicide charges like manslaughter.
"It's the plain language of the statute," said Andrew Skier, a Montgomery-based criminal defense attorney.
Skier has no ties to Jones' case, He said that when he first saw the story he believed the manslaughter charge was "quite a stretch" under Alabama law. Manslaughter, recklessly engaging in conduct you know includes a risk, is a tough thing to prove from the outset.
But after reviewing the state code, Skier said he would file a motion to dismiss if he were involved in the case, "based on that statute" alone.
"That is 100% a bar to this prosecution," Skier said. "It seems to me that whoever indicted this case didn't read this statute."
Abortion and reproductive rights groups this week quickly raised Jones' case as a cause célèbre, marking it as an example of prosecutorial overreach on the heels of a near-total abortion ban in Alabama. The new law, which could go into effect in November but is expected to remain tied up in federal lawsuits, would criminalize anyone who performs an abortion in the state. Though the law does not criminalize women who receive abortion care, opponents of the legislation argued it would create a slippery slope for reproductive rights and pregnancy loss.
"The prosecution of Marshae Jones is absolutely reprehensible," said Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast, in a statement. "It is more proof that Alabama will do everything in its power to criminalize pregnancy – especially for Black women."
Jones' case, however, is not directly related to the abortion ban.
Alabama in the past has used new legislation to pursue prosecutions of pregnant women. In 2006, state lawmakers passed a chemical endangerment law intended to prosecute adults who expose children to volatile meth labs. It was later seized by some prosecutors to target women who take drugs while pregnant, according to an investigation by al.com and ProPublica.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/28/marshae-jone-alabama-prosecute-pregnant-woman-who-shot/1600380001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 32 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright Boston Globe/Getty Images
Senator Kamala Harris took on 2020 frontrunner Joe Biden during Thursday night's debate by highlighting his controversial history on the practice of desegregation bussing. So what is it?
Desegregation bussing (also known as forced bussing) is the practice of transporting students to schools in different neighbourhoods in an effort to address racial segregation.
Bussing in general had been around for a long time, used to shuttle students from rural areas to larger, more consolidated schools, but it became controversial when race came into play.
In 1954, the Supreme Court found racially segregated schools to be unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v Board of Education ruling. Before Brown, schools for black children were typically inferior to white schools and received far less funding from states.
Image copyright Boston Globe/Getty Images
Desegregation bussing began several years after. Initially, it only involved moving black and Latino students into white schools.
By the 1970s, the method had evolved in some districts into two-way bussing, where white students were bussed to minority schools and black and Latino students were transported to white-majority schools.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Harris and Biden clash over his race record
Was it successful?
Bussing and, later, two-way bussing, elicited pushback from white parents and politicians from the late 1950s through the 1980s.
"Both were controversial," says Dartmouth College Prof Matthew Delmont, a historian and author of the book Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation.
"Anti-bussing protesters didn't always distinguish between the two, but districts where they were trying to do two-way bussing programmes saw even more protests."
Image copyright Boston Globe/Getty Images Image caption An initiative to desegregate Boston Public Schools in the fall of 1974 was met with strong resistance from many white residents
The very first anti-bussing protest, he says, was in New York City in 1957, where white parents opposed a plan to send a few hundred black and Puerto Rican students from their overcrowded school into a predominantly white school.
As the practice of bussing expanded, with court orders for cities to desegregate schools, more massive protests took place across the country, with notably violent ones in Boston, Massachusetts, Pontiac, Michigan, and Louisville, Kentucky.
Students were attacked with bricks, buses required police protection, and lawmakers came under increasing pressure from white voters to end the policy.
But even so, for students, the practice was successful when it was properly implemented.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, Berkley, California, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, were all examples of cities that found a way to work through the initial upset and integrate, Prof Delmont explains.
Image copyright Boston Globe/Getty Images
"The actual experience of students tended to be quite positive once these plans go past the controversies," Prof Delmont says, noting that studies following up on these students found they were beneficial in particular for students of colour.
"That's what Kamala Harris was talking about."
A 2016 report on Boston's still-ongoing voluntary city-to-suburb bussing programme, Metco, found that 98% of participating minority students graduate on time, and most score higher on state tests than their city school peers.
However, many Americans saw the 1970s as proof that desegregation bussing was "a failed endeavour", he says.
"There's a disconnect between how it played out for students, which was positive, and the way it was talked about in media and political circles, which was a story of failure."
Is it still happening?
The practice of forced bussing declined in the 1980s, though some schools are still under court order to continue bussing, according to Prof Delmont.
But it is not as widespread, and schools are becoming segregated again.
A 2014 study by the Pew Research Center found that close to two-thirds of all US public school students attend schools where most students are the same ethnicity. The percentage is highest for white students at 80%.
Percentage of public school students attending a school where at least 50% of students are the same race as them
Despite successes with voluntary bussing, a 2018 Boston Globe analysis found 60% of Boston schools to be "intensely segregated".
Other options for desegregating schools have come up in recent years, but they have met with limited implementation and success.
Magnet schools - public schools that are given additional resources to attract diverse students - are one solution. As most public schools are organised by district geography, changing zoning policies is another way to reconfigure the demographics of a school system.
"Today, the schools that are doing the best are the ones where school officials, parents and politicians have shown leadership in terms of making the case that this is a civic good," Prof Delmont says.
But it takes time to see improvements, and for Prof Delmont, the impact of the backlash against bussing is still readily apparent in the way US schools look today.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption African Americans in New Orleans on the state of race relations
If bussing had received more support from school officials and politicians, they could have resulted in "more meaningful integration", he says.
"If there had been a larger effort to integrate in the 70s and 80s it would have led to better career opportunities for more people of colour and one small step towards lowering the racial wealth gap we see."
So what did Biden do?
Ms Harris accused the former vice-president of supporting segregationist senators and opposing bussing - an issue close to her heart as she herself was bussed to school every day, a part of the second class to integrate public schools in California.
Mr Biden has since denied opposing bussing overall, saying he was only against it being ordered by the Department of Education, and insisting he supported federal actions to fix segregation and had fought for civil rights throughout his political career.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Joe Biden defends his civil rights record
In 1975, Mr Biden did sponsor a bill to ban the use of federal funds for bussing, though his campaign has also argued that Mr Biden's senate proposal would not have affected Ms Harris' school district.
"It was a microcosm of how the bussing issue played out over the last several decades," Prof Delmont said of the Harris-Biden discussion.
"What I mean by that is, the people whose voices were heard most tended to be white parents and politicians. We didn't often hear much from students and particularly not much from students of colour.
"That generational gap between Harris, as someone who lived through it as a student, and Biden, who lived through it as a politician - that was revealing." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 44 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE LGBTQ rights have come a long way in the U.S. But the community still faces threats in the form of legalization, discrimination and even violence. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
NEW YORK – In the early hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raided by New York City police, sparking five nights of violent protest and 50 years of LGBTQ civil rights advocacy in the U.S.
Today, the gay club located in Greenwich Village still stands as a monument for LGBTQ advocacy, and the "revolution," as many of the veterans call it, continues.
Five veterans of the Stonewall Uprising gathered for a conversation about the future of LGBTQ community activism as part of a partnership between Airbnb's "We Belong Together" campaign and SAGE, the world's oldest organization supporting LGBTQ elders.
For some, this is their first time returning to the city since 1969. Much of the Airbnb conversation centered on what each remembered from the five nights of Stonewall.
Stonewall and gay rights at 50: Cultural transformation but a tough political road
Charles Valentino had just turned 17 years old, and remembers that the night smelled like "a mixture of the Hudson river, smoke and booze". He ran towards the Stonewall Inn after hearing about the police raid, passing drag queens kicking their heels as they were thrown into the patty wagon.
After that night, he went home.
"I didn't know that it continued. Little did I know that it was ground zero, and I witnessed that."
Now 67 years old, Valentino is remembered as the original singer of "I was born this way," a seminal anthem for the gay rights six years after the Stonewall riots. The song was most recently popularized by Lady Gaga in 2011.
CLOSE Martin Boyce was at the Stonewall Inn in New York when riots broke out in June 1969, a moment seen as the birth of the LGBTQ rights movement. Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
Others from that night also went on to be LGBTQ activists, including Mark Segal, Reverend Magora Kennedy, Joel Snyder and Soraya Santiago, the first trans woman to have gender-reassignment surgery in Puerto Rico. All of them are back to march in the WorldPride parade on June 30.
"Gay people were invisible," Mark Segal, the publisher of the Philidelphia Gay News said of the time before Stonewall. "We weren't in the newspapers, we weren't in the magazines...the reason that you ended up at Stonewall, is because it was the only place you could be yourself."
Gay rights activist Jim Fouratt on June 3, 2019, at The Stonewall Inn in New York, where he witnessed an arrest 50 years ago. (Photo: Bebeto Matthews, AP)
In 2016, President Barack Obama designated 7.7 acres along Christopher Street in Greenwich Village the Stonewall National Monument, the first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights. Stonewall Forever, an interactive monument sponsored by Google, was created earlier this month as its digital extension so veterans and LGBTQ activists can share their stories online.
Today, Valentino says the best way to continue the movement is to love everyone, whether they be "straight, gay, white, black or yellow" to make sure that the change sparked by Stonewall continues.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/LGBT-issues/2019/06/28/stonewall-veterans-talk-lgbtq-rights-50-anniversary/1593477001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 23 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE In an interview, Democratic Candidate, Pete Buttigieg, said that if he wins in 2020, he doesn’t think he’ll be the first gay President of the United States. Buzz60
The LGBTQ Victory Fund, a group dedicated to electing LGBTQ candidates, will become the first national organization to endorse Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign Friday.
But the announcement, made on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riot that gave rise to the gay-rights movement, came because the Indiana Democrat has shown he’s more than just the openly-gay candidate, said Victory Fund president Annise Parker.
After Buttigieg’s status as the first person in a same-sex marriage to run for president initially helped draw media attention to the unknown mayor of a small city, he used that opportunity to show he’s a multi-faceted candidate who delivers thoughtful answers and has nuanced public policy views, Parker said.
“It opened the door,” she said. “But he walked through the door.”
Former Vice President Joseph Biden, right, and Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg talk before the second Democratic primary debate in Miami on June 27, 2019. (Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)
Despite the early buzz, the Victory Fund waited to officially get behind Buttigieg until he showed he deserved to be on Thursday’s Democratic debate stage. (The group, for example, did not back the 2012 candidacy of Republican Fred Karger, the first openly gay presidential hopeful from a major party.)
At the debate: Pete Buttigieg responds to diminishing diversity in South Bend police force
Back home: As South Bend grieves, Buttigieg criticized for leaving for the campaign trail
Buttigieg ranks among the better polling candidates in a field of about two dozen Democrats, though behind poll leaders Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
The Victory Fund's board unanimously voted several weeks ago to endorse his candidacy but planned to make the announcement Friday at a World Pride campaign event in New York.
Even before that point, however, the group helped Buttigieg raise his profile and introduce him to donors.
His April speech to a Victory Fund event was broadcast live and generated national headlines for his personal remarks about how he struggled to come to terms with his sexuality as a youth and how his same-sex marriage has brought him closer to God.
A rally for Pete Buttigieg, the Mayor of South Bend, who is standing with his husband Chasten (right) after he announced that he is running for U.S. President, South Bend, Sunday, April 14, 2019. (Photo: Robert Scheer/IndyStar)
The LGBTQ community has already provided a significant fundraising boost to Buttigieg, even if some donors are also giving to other candidates.
"It takes a little pressure off potential backers," Buttigieg told USA TODAY earlier this year, when the pitch is "we recognize that it will take a little time to close the deal on who your preferred nominee is going to be. But can we all agree that you want to see somebody like me on that debate stage?"
Parker estimated that Victory Fund supporters have already contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Buttigieg.
“But we’re just a small fraction of the support that he has across the country,” she said.
Now that Victory Fund will officially backed Buttigieg, the group will formally activate its donor network and help with voter engagement.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights organization which evaluates candidates based on their policy positions, has praised several of the Democratic hopefuls. The group’s educational arm will co-host a forum of the candidates this fall.
Parker said that all the Democratic candidates are “good to excellent” on issues important to the LGBTQ community. But Buttigieg’s presence in the campaign, “keeps those issues relevant.” She noted that only 11 years ago, all the leading presidential candidates form both parties opposed same-sex marriage.
When Buttigieg spoke at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in May, however, he warned about the dangers of “identity politics.”
Buttigieg, who has struggled to draw support from voters of color, said that what every gay person has in common with “every excluded person of any kind” is knowing what it’s like to be on the outside looking in.
“We're told we need to choose between supporting an auto worker and supporting a trans women of color,” he said, “without stopping to think about the fact that sometimes the auto worker is a trans woman of color and she definitely needs all the support that she can get."
Buttigieg to Pence: If you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is with my creator
Will it be enough?: Pete Buttigieg lays out his agenda for black America.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/06/28/pete-buttigieg-endorsed-president-lgbtq-victory-fund-historic-first/1596463001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 28 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A new lawsuit alleges that information on shared medical records could be combined with Google’s location data to reveal identifying information about patients.
CNET reports that a lawsuit has been filed against the University of Chicago Medical Center and tech giant Google over a partnership between the two groups. The lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, alleges that too much personal information of patients was revealed as a result of the alliance between the university and the Masters of the Universe.
The lawsuit claims that “the personal medical information obtained by Google is the most sensitive and intimate information in an individual’s life, and its unauthorized disclosure is far more damaging to an individual’s privacy” than leaked credit card or social security numbers that are often targeted in hacking attempts.
The project developed by Google and the University used A.I. to predict medical events including how long a patient could be hospitalized for and whether or not their health is deteriorating. The lawsuit alleges that the inclusion of certain dates violates HIPAA which requires that hospitals hide personal information of patients. The lawsuit claims that the dates, when combined with geolocation that Google collects from apps such as Waze and Maps, could be used to identify when individuals entered or exited the university’s hospital.
Google and the University of Chicago defended the project, with a Google spokesperson stating: “We believe our health care research could help save lives in the future, which is why we take privacy seriously and follow all relevant rules and regulations in our handling of health data.”
A spokesperson for the University of Chicago stated: “The University of Chicago Medical Center has complied with the laws and regulations applicable to patient privacy. The Medical Center is committed to providing excellent patient care and to protecting patient privacy.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at [email protected] | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is under fire for praising segregationists, lied about his stance on busing to desegregate public schools again on Thursday.
“I never, never, never opposed voluntary busing,” Biden told an audience gathered in Chicago, Illinois.
The statement, however, is in direct contradiction to Biden’s more than 40-year career in public office.
“I oppose busing,” Biden told a local Delaware newspaper in 1975. “It’s an asinine concept, the utility of which has never been proven to me… I’ve gotten to the point where I think our only recourse to eliminate busing may be a constitutional amendment.”
At the time, Biden recognized that his views effectively put him in the same camp as avowed racists and segregationists.
“The unsavory part about this is when I come out against busing, as I have all along, I don’t want to be mixed up with a George Wallace,” he said.
Biden proceeded to explain that if busing were allowed to go forward, there would be profoundly negative impacts on society.
“The real problem with busing,” he said, is that “you take people who aren’t racist, people who are good citizens, who believe in equal education and opportunity, and you stunt their children’s intellectual growth by busing them to an inferior school . . . and you’re going to fill them with hatred.”
During the first Democrat presidential debate on Thursday, Biden was confronted about that position on busing by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me,” Harris said. “So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously.”
Biden claimed Harris had mischaracterized his position by conflating busing mandated by federal agencies and “voluntary busing” initiated by local governments.
“The fact is that in terms of busing, the busing, you would have been able to go to school the same way because it was a local decision made by your city council,” he said. “That’s fine. That’s one of the things I argued for that we should be breaking down the lines.”
Biden has sought to qualify his prior stance on the issue by invoking the notion of “voluntary busing.” The argument is not equitable because after Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregation in public education, only some school districts opted to integrate through voluntary busing. Others, especially in the South and urban areas of the North and Midwest, opted to not take such an approach—thereby forcing federal agencies to step in and mandate busing.
Furthermore as Politico recently reported, Biden was a stringent opponent of busing in both a narrow and broad sense.
“Biden supported a measure sponsored by Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), a former Klansman who had held the floor for more than 14 hours in a filibuster against the 1964 civil rights bill, that prohibited the use of federal funds to transport students beyond the school closest to their homes and that passed into law in 1976,” the outlet reported.
After the passage of that law, Biden introduced legislation in 1977 to further prohibit the federal government from desegregating schools by redistricting and school “clustering.”
This month, Biden praised the civility of two of allies in the fight against busing, the late-Sens. James Eastland (D-MS) and Herman Talmadge (D-GA), at a fundraiser in New York City. He invoked the two men while touting his ability to form “consensus” but did not elaborate on what they were able to accomplish together.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden told donors, attempting a Southern drawl. “He never called me boy, he always called me son.”
“Well guess what?” he continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”
Biden’s praise for the two men was widely rebuked, as both were ardent segregationists that spent their careers opposing civil rights and integration.
Eastland, whom Biden has praised as a mentor, was known as the “voice of the white South” for his support of Jim Crow and propensity for referring to African Americans as “an inferior race.” Talmadge, as governor of Georgia, promised in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education to do everything in his power to protect “separation of the races.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 33 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE Years after Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election prompted investigations, President Trump asked Vladimir Putin not to do it again in 2020. USA TODAY
OSAKA, Japan – President Donald Trump expressed exasperation with the media in a conversation with Vladimir Putin on Friday and spoke approvingly of the fact that the Russian president does not have the same problems with the media that he has.
The president's remarks drew blowback on social media from critics who noted that journalists in Russia have been killed.
"Fake news," Trump said during a meeting with Putin at the G-20 summit in Japan as journalists filled into the room to cover the leaders' remarks. "You don't have this problem with Russia, We have. You don’t have it."
Putin responded in English, according to a raw video feed of the exchange.
"Yes, yes," he said. "We have, too. The same."
Trump has for years blasted U.S. media as "the enemy of the people." Still, the praise for the Russian president on the point was a remarkable comment for a U.S. president. More than three dozen journalists have been murdered in Russia since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
No meddling: At G20, Trump tells Putin playfully: 'Don't meddle in the election.'
Trump made the comments on the one-year anniversary of a shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, in which five were killed.
Minutes after the exchange, Trump and Putin joked about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. When a reporter asked if the president would raise that issue during their meeting, Trump turned to Putin and wagged a finger while smiling.
"Don't meddle in the election, president," Trump said in a joking manner.
When an interpreter translated Trump's "request," Putin laughed.
President Donald Trump attends a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019. (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, AFP/Getty Images)
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/28/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-joke-reporters-fake-news-g-20/1598685001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Despite escalating trade tensions and slowing growth around the globe, the U.S. stock market just had its best first half of the year since 1997.
The S&P 500 has risen 17 percent since the start of the year, the biggest gain for the first six months of the year in over two decades. The broad index of stocks saw its best June since 1955.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 7.2 percent in June, its best June since 1938, when it rose 24.3 percent.
Stocks have been boosted by the continued strength of the U.S. consumer, itself bolstered by a very strong labor market. As well, the Federal Reserve has signaled that it will likely cut rates later this year to stave off economic sluggishness around the globe and any drag coming from trade disputes.
President Trump tweeted about the strength of the stock market on Friday. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 7 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Many of the candidates seemed tough enough to go toe to toe with Trump in what ultimately will be a nasty battle. Undoubtedly, any one of them could outsmart Trump at his hateful political game. But can voters trust each of these Democrats to do what he or she says they will do once in the White House? | null | 0 | -1 | null | 3 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE In night two of the Democratic debate, candidates bore down into issues, and each other. Kamala Harris went after Joe Biden for his past on busing. USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Sen. Kamala Harris sparring with former Vice President Joe Biden apparently made good TV — so much so that Thursday's Democratic debate was the most-watched in history, according to preliminary ratings from Nielsen released by NBC.
The debate, which featured 10 of the 24 candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president -- including some of the most popular thus far in the race, averaged 18.1 million viewers across NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo, the three networks that aired the two-hour broadcast. It surpassed night one of the debate on Wednesday, which saw 15.3 million viewers.
Thursday's viewership surpassed the previous highest-rated Democratic primary debate in 2015 by 2.6 million viewers, according to NBC.
More: Second Democratic debate sets record with 18 million viewers (thanks, Kamala Harris)
2 nights, 20 candidates: 5 things we learned from two nights of Democratic debatesMore: Thursday Democratic debate: Who were the winners and losers
But, none of the debates came close to the Republican primary debates. President Donald Trump's appearance on the debate stage on Fox News in 2015 averaged a whopping 24 million viewers. One month later, 23 million tuned in to a Republican debate on CNN.
Thursday's debate saw some of the most talked-about moments in the 2020 race thus far.
Top moments from Night 2: 'That little girl is me': Harris challenges Biden in key debate moment. Here are 4 other takeaways
Top moments Night 1: Beto O'Rourke's Spanish, Cory Booker's stare: Top 7 takeaways from Wednesday's Democratic debate
Harris challenged Biden over his remarks last week about working with segregationist senators James Eastland and Herman Talmadge. Turning to Biden on Thursday, Harris said she doesn’t think he’s racist, but she said it’s “hurtful” to hear him talk about finding common ground with who two senators who built their reputation and career on segregation.
Harris cited Biden’s fight against school busing and told the story of a young California girl who was part of the second class to integrate her school.
“That little girl is me,” she said.
Biden watched stone-faced as Harris attacked him. When he got his chance to speak, he fired back at Harris, calling her criticism a “mischaracterization.”
Speaking Friday at Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition's annual convention, Biden addressed the issue again. "We all know that 30 to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange can't do justice to a lifetime committed to civil rights," Biden said. "I want to be absolutely clear on my record and history on racial justice, including busing. I never, never, never ever opposed voluntary busing."
More: After clash with Harris, Biden pushes back on race criticism
Thursday's debate was filled with candidates talking over one another, ideas on how to change the country and attacks aimed at the current occupant of the White House.
Along with Biden and Harris, the debate featured Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Michael Bennet, author Marianne Williamson, Rep. Eric Swalwell, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Contributing: Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY; Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/06/28/democratic-debate-biden-vs-harris-showdown-most-watched-history/1598937001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 25 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Rider University is selling one of its satellite campuses to a Chinese company on Monday, according to a Purchase and Sale Agreement signed last year by the school’s Board of Trustees.
Beijing Kaiwen Education Technology Co. Ltd will buy Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, next week. The Chinese education company is expected to spend $40 million on the Rider University satellite campus.
The Rider University Board of Trustees first announced last year that it had signed a Purchase and Sale Agreement for the transfer of Westminster Choir College, which also includes the Westminster Conservatory and Westminster Continuing Education.
“Kaiwen Education’s mission is to sustain and grow Westminster Choir College’s reputation as a world-class institution while maintaining it as an artistically pre-eminent, academically rigorous and fiscally sound institution,” said Rider University president Gregory Dell’Omo.
“It is our hope that the entire Westminster community can come together to help bring this process to a successful conclusion so the legacy of Westminster can carry on far into the future,” added the university president.
In addition to the $40 million purchase, the company is also pledging to spend $16 million for capital and working capital expenditures in Westminster over a five year period, according to Rider University.
Not everyone, however, is pleased about the acquisition.
The university’s administration is facing two lawsuits challenging the legality of selling the satellite campus to the Chinese company, which includes an investigation by New Jersey’s Office of the Attorney General.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has also proposed legislation seeking to lessen China’s power over U.S. universities, expressing his concerns over Chinese influence and espionage operations targeting American higher education.
“Last year, I authored and passed an amendment in the National Defense Authorization act to prohibit DOD from funding Confucius Institutes, which are one of the tools the Chinese use to penetrate American higher education,” noted Cruz at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last March.
“I’ve also introduced the ‘Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft Act’ to require the FBI to designate foreign actors conducting espionage in our colleges and universities,” added the senator.
Last week, the Chinese government ordered the suspension of Advanced Placement (AP) exams on U.S. history in an effort to crack down on educational material that the Communist Party deems “unfriendly.”
The order arrived less than a year after China’s education ministry launched an inspection of school textbooks in an effort to root out any material that would displease the Communist regime.
According to a report by Campus Reform, Rider University spokesperson Kristine Brown insists that the Chinese company is obligated to “act in full accordance with U.S. laws and regulations,” as outlined in the Purchase and Sale Agreement.
“Furthermore,” added Brown, “Rider would not have moved forward if we didn’t believe in Kaiwen’s commitment to and strategic plan for Westminster.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge blocked an Indiana law that would ban a second-trimester abortion procedure on Friday, just days before the law was set to come into force.
The order putting the Indiana law on hold was released hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revive a similar law in Alabama that sought to ban dilation and evacuation abortions.
The law passed by Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature this spring calls the procedure “dismemberment abortion.” It was set to become effective on July 1.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued on behalf of two doctors who perform dilation and evacuation abortions. Under the law, a doctor who performs the procedure could face a felony charge, punishable by up to six years in prison.
Indiana’s attorneys called the procedure “brutal and inhumane,” and maintained the state had a valid role in limiting types of abortion procedures, citing the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal law banning the method its opponents call partial-birth abortion.
ACLU attorneys argued that the ban would put a “substantial and unwarranted burden on women’s ability to obtain second-trimester, pre-viability abortions.”
U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, who was nominated as a judge by President Ronald Reagan, granted the preliminary injunction blocking the law. Her decision comes just weeks after she allowed an abortion clinic to open in South Bend. The Indiana State Department of Health had denied the operator a clinic license, saying it had not provided requested safety documentation.
During a hearing this month, Barker questioned why the state would force women seeking a second-trimester abortion to undergo “highly risky” alternative procedures, such as prematurely inducing labor or injecting fatal drugs into the fetus.
Federal courts have blocked similar laws in several states, including Kentucky and Ohio this spring, but Indiana abortion opponents were hopeful an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court could eventually uphold such bans.
The Indiana measure signed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb would make it illegal for doctors to use medical instruments such as clamps, forceps and scissors to remove a fetus from the womb except to save the pregnant woman’s life or prevent serious health risk.
Indiana Solicitor General Thomas said legislators wanted the ban “because they think the procedure is unethical.”
Indiana lawmakers didn’t go as far as those in Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio, where bills were enacted barring abortion once there’s a detectable fetal heartbeat, as early as the sixth week of pregnancy. Missouri’s governor signed a bill approving an eight-week ban on abortion, with exceptions only for medical emergencies. Alabama outlawed virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. Those bans haven’t taken effect, and all are expected to face legal challenges.
The U.S. Supreme Court in May rejected Indiana’s appeal of a lower court ruling that blocked the state’s ban on abortion based on gender, race or disability. The court, however, upheld a portion of the 2016 law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence requiring burial or cremation of fetal remains after an abortion.
The dilation and evacuation procedure accounted for 27, or 0.35 percent, of the 7,778 abortions performed in Indiana during 2017, according to an Indiana State Department of Health report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Couples in England and Wales could marry where they like as PM attempts to cement legacy
Couples in England and Wales may be given the option of tying the knot at sea, in the woods or even at home after a review of outdated marriage laws was kicked off by the prime minister.
Theresa May announced that the Law Commission would carry out a two-year review of marriage rules, which at present require weddings to be held in a place of worship or another licensed building.
“The vital institution of marriage is a strong symbol of wider society’s desire to celebrate commitment between partners. But we can do more to bring the laws on marriage ceremonies up to date and to support couples in celebrating their commitment,” she said.
The Law Commission published a report in December 2015 that raised concerns about the inconsistency of marriage laws, which have not faced wholesale reform since 1836.
The justice secretary, David Gauke, said: “Whilst we will always preserve the dignity of marriage, people from all walks of life should be able to express their vows in a way that is meaningful to them.
“This review will look at the red tape and outdated rules around weddings – making sure our laws are fit for modern life.”
The Law Commission will consult with faith groups and other stakeholders, and produce recommendations in 2021.
The announcement was first mooted by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, at the budget last autumn, but Downing Street has highlighted a series of policy reforms in recent days, as May tries to show she has a legacy beyond her Brexit travails.
The initial Law Commission scoping review of wedding venues was commissioned by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, five years ago, and found that a wider choice could make marriage “both cheap and personal”.
But the government’s response then was to warn that a review would throw up complex wider issues. In particular, there were concerns about providing equal treatment for religious and secular ceremonies.
And the issue continued to be left on one side as the government was consumed with Brexit. The then justice secretary, Dominic Raab, said in September 2017: “Now is not the right time to develop options for reform to marriage law.”
May has only now chosen to commission the next part of the reform process, as her three-year premiership draws to a close. “This review will look at how we can ensure marriage keeps pace with modern Britain,” she said.
A wider range of venues is already available in Scotland. In England and Wales, the choice is governed by the Marriage Act 1949, which says the ceremony must take place in a narrow range of premises including a church or register office or an approved venue such as a hotel.
The law could be changed to allow weddings to take place outdoors, or in temporary structures such as marquees – but a final decision to press ahead will be left to May’s successor. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Theresa May is to pledge that Britain’s aid budget will in future be spent in a more environmentally sustainable way and tell her G20 counterparts: “We are the last generation of leaders with the power to limit global warming.”
The prime minister has been keen to burnish her green credentials as she enters in her final days in office. Fresh from announcing a new target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 – in the face of scepticism from the chancellor, Philip Hammond – May will lead a session on the climate emergency at the summit in Japan.
She will promise that in future, the £14bn overseas aid budget will be spent in a way that contributes to the transition to a low-carbon global economy, and will urge other countries to adopt more ambitious emissions targets.
“The facts, which are clear, should guide us,” she will tell her fellow world leaders, including Donald Trump, who has denied many climate science findings. “We are running out of time to act. We need a fivefold increase on existing 2030 commitments to remain below 1.5 degrees of warming.
“In addition to stronger national commitments, we need determined implementation, and a change in how we invest. And we need to build resilience, both in our own societies and economies, and in the most vulnerable countries. I urge everyone here to push for ambition and consider setting their own net zero targets.”
Theresa May: Swiss holidays brought home impact of climate crisis Read more
En route to Osaka, May said she had been inspired to take more action to tackle the climate crisis in part by noticing the changes in the environment on her Swiss walking holidays with her husband, Philip.
“Philip and I go walking, not just in Wales but also in Switzerland, and there’s a particular place we go to where over the last decade you can see the glacier retreating quickly – and this has brought home to me the importance of climate change,” she said.
On Saturday, May will also reiterate the government’s offer to host COP26, the next UN climate summit. The talks are due to be held in November 2020, but no venue has been confirmed, with the UK making a joint bid with the Italian government. The summit is expected to be attended by about 30,000 delegates, including up to 150 world leaders. Turkey is also bidding to host it.
In reshaping its aid spending, Britain will be following the lead of multilateral donors in placing more emphasis on tackling the climate emergency. The World Bank recently announced it would spend $50bn (£39bn) over the next five years on helping developing countries to adapt to the climate crisis.
Tim Wainwright, the chief executive of the charity WaterAid, said: “It is encouraging to see the UK government recognise that all investment must be resilient against the growing number of severe droughts, flooding and storms that threaten health and livelihoods.
“The poorest communities are being hit hardest by climate change and they are paying for it increasingly through negative impacts on clean and safe water supplies. These communities are the least resilient to climate events and must be prioritised. Without this, the significant development gains made over the last few decades will be rolled back, leaving hundreds of millions more people without the basic services of clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene.”
Rachel Kennerley, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “These commitments are good in the abstract sense, but the test is always in the delivery. When talk turns to infrastructure you have to question the government further, when they start saying ‘green this and green that’ they usually mean gas. There is just no room for further fossil fuel extraction anywhere in the world in a strategy compatible with stopping climate breakdown.”
May’s most likely successor, Boris Johnson, has previously questioned the existence of the climate crisis. As recently as 2015, he said: “Global leaders were driven by a primitive fear that the present ambient warm weather is somehow caused by humanity; and that fear – as far as I understand the science – is equally without foundation.”
In another last-minute commitment before she leaves Downing Street, after promises on mental health and housing, May will announce that the UK will allocate £1.4bn of Britain’s aid budget over the next three years to the Global Fund to fight HIV/Aids, TB and malaria.
The Global Fund is a collaboration between governments, charities and the private sector that invests in projects in more than 100 countries.
“We need urgent international action and a truly collective response if we are to tackle threats to global health security, prevent infections spreading across borders, and halt the continued spread of deadly diseases,” May is expected to say.
Bill Gates, the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said: “Infections and deaths from diseases like Aids, tuberculosis, malaria, rotavirus and pneumonia have declined more than anyone thought possible 20 years ago. Much of this progress is owed to the funding and health products provided by organisations like the Global Fund, which the UK helped create, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
“But the job is not yet finished, and continued progress is not guaranteed. Today’s commitment by the people of the UK via the Global Fund is a positive step forward in the global fight against these diseases, and will help to save millions of lives.”
Johnson has backed the government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of national income each year on overseas aid but he has called for it to be spent in a way that helps British businesses abroad. During a Conservative party leadership hustings event in Exeter on Friday, he again backed the aid budget.
“I know that people say we shouldn’t be spending so much on overseas aid,” he said. “I think some of it probably could be much, much better spent, spent delivering British commercial and political objectives, but it delivers massive results around the world, and we should be very, very proud of the good the UK does.
“I think it would be a very sad day if we were being seen to retreat from our global engagement. That is not what Brexit is about, is it?” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 34 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is shifting manufacturing of its new Mac Pro desktop computer to China from the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Apple is seen at a store in Zurich, Switzerland January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
The move comes at a time when the Trump administration has threatened to impose new levies to cover nearly all imports from China and pressured Apple and other manufacturers to make their products in the United States if they want to avoid tariffs.
Last week, Apple asked its major suppliers to assess the cost implications of moving 15% to 30% of their production capacity from China to Southeast Asia, according to a Nikkei report.
“If true, suggests to me that Apple has tremendous confidence that the U.S. and China will be able to solve their trade dispute and do so in the near-future,” D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte said in an email.
China is a key market for Apple as well as a major production center for its devices. The company got nearly 18% of its total revenue from Greater China in the quarter ended March.
Apple's Mac Pro, a $6,000 machine used by creative professionals, has been facing waning demand, the Journal said here
The company does not break out sales numbers for its Mac Pro machines. The desktop is part of the company’s Mac line of products, which accounted for less than 10% of Apple’s total sales in 2018. In 2018, Apple sold about 18 million Mac products, compared with about 218 million iPhones.
“Like all of our products, the new Mac Pro is designed and engineered in California and includes components from several countries including the United States,” an Apple spokesman said. “Final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process.”
Apple’s decision coincides with the end of tax subsidies that it got for making the desktop in a plant in Texas run by contract manufacturer Flex Ltd, according to the Journal.
“(This) serves as a reminder that, relative to the U.S., manufacturing in China remains a lower-cost alternative and benefits from an existing infrastructure, versus having to, potentially, rebuild one in the U.S”, Forte said.
The tech giant has tapped contractor Quanta Computer Inc (2382.TW) to manufacture the computer and is ramping up production at a factory near Shanghai, the report said here
Quanta did not respond to a request for comment.
Apple’s shares were down marginally at $198.69. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Even though Slow Joe Biden got off easy Thursday night, he still managed to step on a bunch of rakes, to gaffe-gaffe-gaffe his way through his first debate appearance of the 2020 campaign season.
Frontrunner Biden was not asked even a single question about his serial young-girl-touching. Although there is photo after photo after video after video of Biden touching young women and girls inappropriately, the matter never came up.
Nor did the scandal swirling around Biden’s son Hunter and his shady business dealings with China and Ukraine.
But when you have the far-left NBC News hosting the debate, you know Democrats are going to have an easy time of it.
The beauty of Biden, though, is that you don’t have to ask him tough questions; the man is a walking unforced error, and here, in no particular order, are eight of the ones he made Thursday night.
To which the world replied: No shit.
Regardless of the context, when you are 985-years-old, the last thing you want to do is say something like “my time is up,” especially when you are trying to put a stop to the beating being handed down to you by Kamala Harris.
Can we see the rabbits, George? Take me to see the rabbits, George. I want to pet the rabbits.
Biden actually told the world that after he is elected president his first priority will be to defeat Trump.
No one is taking him out of context, either. This was a genuine Matlock moment.
Here is moderator Chuck Todd’s question: “You get one shot that it may be the only thing you get passed, what is that first issue for your presidency?”
To which Biden replied, “The first thing I would do is make sure that we defeat Donald Trump, period.”
Another direct quote, y’all…
“No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger. It’s within our right to do that.”
So, unless the gun has the technology to read the owner’s handprint, Joe is going to ban them, which means he’s going to ban all guns.
Biden was so rattled by Kamala’s beatdown, he went the full-unicorn….
“I did not oppose busing in America,” Biden said. “What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That’s what I opposed.”
Great answer, except…
Biden opposed busing years before the Department of Education was created in 1979.
I can think of a number of times Biden could have helped himself Thursday night by not going along to get along.
Perhaps, he should not have agreed to give illegal aliens free health care…?
Perhaps, he should not have said we should not deport illegal immigrants…?
But for Biden to say in a heated Democrat primary that “The NRA Is not our enemy” — holy moly.
“No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger,” he said, just before pulling off two gaffes in one statement: “Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers.”
Direct quote: “The other thing is we can deal with these insurance companies by, number one, putting insurance executives in jail for misleading advertising.”
If we’re going to put people in prison for false health care advertising, can we start with “You can keep your insurance if you like your insurance. You can keep your doctor if you like your doctor.”
Just a thought.
It was petty and childish, and it went like this…
“I was six years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said, ‘It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.’ That candidate was then senator Joe Biden,” said Rep. Swalwell, “Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago. He’s still right today.” “If we’re going to solve the issues of our nation, pass the torch,” added Swalwell, who said that Biden should pass the torch specifically, in the name of climate change, student loan debt, and ending gun violence. “I’m still holding onto that torch,” affirmed Biden.
And then Kamala turned Slow Joe into a beta for the second time:
“You guys, you know what, America does not want to witness a food fight, they want to know how we’re going to put food on the table,” she said to applause.
Another direct quote, this time about “assault weapons:”
“Folks, look, and I would buy back those weapons. We already started talking about that. We tried to get it done. I think it can be done. And it should be demanded that we do it. And that’s a good expenditure of money.”
Key word there is “demand,” as in “It should be demanded that we do it, ” as in you will be forced to give up whatever semi-automatic of yours we classify as an “assault weapon,” as in CONFISCATION.
Biden can try to hide behind a mandatory buyback program, but a mandatory buyback program is still confiscation.
If Biden makes it to the general election, Trump is going to make him pay a price for this nonsense in ways no one has ever paid a price in the history of price paying.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 40 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | “The negotiation, if any, will be held face to face between the DPRK and the U.S.,” his statement said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “Therefore, there will be no such a happening where anything will go through the South Korean authorities.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright Press Association Image caption Uttlesford District Council has refused Stansted Airport expansion plans
Plans to expand Stansted Airport have been refused by a local council, despite approval last year.
Uttlesford District Council said the airport's plans to increase its passenger numbers must be reviewed again by its planning committee.
Brian Ross from campaign group Stop Stansted Expansion said it was "the right thing to do".
Stansted said it was "concerned" by the decision and there was "no legitimate reason" for the refusal.
The airport handled 28 million passengers in 2018, with the capacity for 35 million per year.
It wants to expand to 43 million passengers, which would take it three million behind Gatwick.
This could be done by making better use of the airport's single runway, without breaking caps on flight numbers or aircraft noise, it said.
It is also planning to build a new arrivals terminal and more car parks as part of a £600m investment in its facilities.
Last year, Uttlesford District Council provisionally approved the plans but following a change in ruling party and a 1,600-strong petition an extraordinary meeting was called.
In the local elections in May, the independent group Residents for Uttlesford took control of the council from the Conservatives.
'Victory'
Council leader John Lodge said the government's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions to almost zero by 2050 influenced the decision.
He said that had not be considered when plans were submitted and they now needed to look at "the bigger picture".
"The council has a responsibility to make sure it gets that consideration", he added.
Image caption Only two councillors on Uttlesford District Council voted in favour of the expansion
Stansted said it was "frustrated" and local businesses and residents had backed its plans.
It added that the increase in passenger numbers would not see flights or noise pollution increase. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | BERLIN (Reuters) - European Union leaders have agreed that conservative German candidate Manfred Weber will not become president of the bloc’s executive Commission, Germany’s Die Welt daily reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the decision.
FILE PHOTO: Manfred Weber, member of the Bavarian Christian Democrats (CSU) and lead candidate of the European Peoples' Party (EPP) in European parliamentary elections, speaks at a news conference in Munich, Germany, May 27, 2019. REUTERS/Andreas Gebert/File Photo
The decision was reached during talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Die Welt said.
If confirmed, the compromise would be a blow to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had backed Weber’s bid to replace Jean-Claude Juncker.
French President Emmanuel Macron had opposed Weber’s candidacy, partly because of his lack of experience in high office.
EU leaders failed at a summit earlier this month to agree on who should hold the bloc’s top jobs after European Parliament elections last month, including on the Commission, which has broad powers on matters from trade to competition and climate policy.
Weber is the leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), the conservative bloc that won most seats in the election and which includes Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).
A senior European diplomat told Reuters that socialist Dutchman Frans Timmermans, a deputy head at the Commission, was the front-runner to succeed Juncker.
“Timmermans is the best placed,” the diplomat said.
The EU’s 28 national leaders will meet on June 30 to decide who fills the five prominent positions that would help the bloc navigate through internal and external challenges.
‘TOO EARLY’
The jobs include the presidency of the European Central Bank, which has helped the bloc’s economy return to growth after the financial crisis thanks to an extraordinary monetary stimulus programme.
Asked whether there had been an agreement on other top jobs, the European diplomat, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said: “It was a bit too early to say, especially for the ECB.”
The bloc’s economies are struggling again and its leaders are grappling with emboldened eurosceptic parties, security challenges from Russia, economic competition from China and trade frictions with the United States.
Weber’s critics see his lack of experience leading a government as an issue and highlight his lack of charisma needed to unify a bloc facing strains over issues such as whether to be more closely integrated, and how to tackle migration and Brexit.
Political groups in the European Parliament have been discussing a coalition agreement and a pro-EU majority is in the works between the centre-right EPP, the socialists, the liberals and the greens.
The EPP, the parliament’s largest multi-country faction, has so far stuck with Weber.
Timmermans would be unpalatable to eastern EU states such as Hungary and Poland because of his role in the bloc’s rule of law probes against their nationalist governments.
EU sources told Reuters earlier this month that Merkel’s condition for eventually dropping Weber could be that no other candidate proposed by the European Parliament, or no other French person, gets to lead the Commission either.
That would rule out the bloc’s Brexit negotiator and centre-right Frenchman Michel Barnier, who has long run an unofficial campaign.
Other names in the game include Belgium’s liberal caretaker prime minister, Charles Michel, Bulgaria’s World Bank head Kristalina Georgieva or Lithuania’s outgoing President Dalia Grybauskaite. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 19 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE In night two of the Democratic debate, candidates bore down into issues, and each other. Kamala Harris went after Joe Biden for his past on busing. USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump seldom passes up an opportunity to trash-talk Democratic presidential hopefuls Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, or, as he calls them, "Sleepy Joe” and “Crazy Bernie.”
But Kamala Harris has so far been spared the same level of presidential scorn, vitriol and name-calling.
That will probably change following Harris’ solid performance in Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.
In just two hours, Harris not only managed to cast doubt on Biden’s front-runner status, but the California senator also dominated much of the debate and established herself as a formidable contender for the party’s nomination for the presidency.
In doing so, she likely made herself a prime target for a presidential attack.
“Trump has not gone after Harris so far because she has not been polling as well as Biden, Sanders and (Elizabeth) Warren,” said Lauren Wright, who teaches courses on the American presidency and women and politics at Princeton University.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., greets the audience from the debate stage in Miami on June 27, 2019. (Photo: Leah Voss, Treasure Coast News via USA TODAY Network)
While he has shown no qualms about going on the attack against some women – Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Warren are all favorite targets – Harris hasn't been on his list.
Criticizing a woman could be dangerous ground for Trump, given his past treatment of women and his past comments that are widely regarded as sexist, Wright said.
“I would not be surprised if he started criticizing (Harris) now that she is inching forward,” she said.
Steering clear of Harris
At this stage in the 2020 campaign, Trump has steered a wide path around Harris even as he has relentlessly attacked candidates polling better than her – and some who are not polling as well.
President Trump speaks to the press as he departs the White House in Washington, DC on June 26, 2019. - Trump is traveling to Osaka, Japan, for the G20 Summit. (Photo: ANNA-ROSE GASSOT, AFP/Getty Images)
He dubbed South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg “Alfred E. Neuman” after the Mad magazine character.
The president has tweeted about Biden nearly two dozen times since last year’s midterm election but has not posted anything about Harris from his main Twitter account.
When the White House slammed Harris on immigration last summer, aides did so from the official @WhiteHouse account rather than the @realDonaldTrump account the president uses most often.
Trump regularly calls out Sanders at his rallies and has gone after former congressman Beto O’Rourke for losing his Texas Senate election last year. But a review of his rally transcripts shows the president has not mentioned Harris once as he speaks to supporters across the country.
In an April interview, Trump told Fox News that Harris has “a little bit of a nasty wit,” but that’s about as far as he’s been willing to go in his criticism. Months earlier, he told the New York Times that Harris might be the “the toughest” candidate in the Democratic field.
“I just think she seemed to have a little better opening act than others,” Trump said.
Following Thursday’s debate, Trump went after Biden and Sanders, tweeting from Japan, where he is attending the G-20 summit, that neither had a good day and that “one is exhausted, the other is nuts.” He never mentioned Harris.
I am in Japan at the G-20, representing our Country well, but I heard it was not a good day for Sleepy Joe or Crazy Bernie. One is exhausted, the other is nuts - so what’s the big deal? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2019
Trump’s campaign, which posted several tweets critical of Harris on Thursday night, did not respond to questions about the president’s strategy on Harris.
Harris was leading Trump 49% to 41% in a Quinnipiac University nationwide poll this month before the debate. Biden and Sanders had only slightly smaller leads over the president.
Commanding the debate stage
In Thursday’s debate in Miami, Harris commanded the stage for much of the night as she and nine other Democratic hopefuls sparred and talked policy for two hours. The event was the second round of a two-part debate.
In one of the debate’s defining moments, Harris ripped into Biden, calling out the former vice president for his nostalgic remarks about working with segregationist senators and for his opposition to school busing in the 1970s.
More: Biden's image as the inevitable nominee, the one to beat Trump, was dinged Thursday
VPC Debate thumb 2 (Photo: VPC)
Earlier, when the debate devolved into a shouting match, Harris tried to restore order, telling her fellow candidates: “America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we're going to put food on their table.”
Harris “took charge and looked like the leader in several key instances,” Wright said. “Launching an attack on a competitor in the midst of the debate and pulling it off is very difficult. It takes practice, timing, and a degree of confidence and comfort in a high-pressure situation.”
But there also may be a downside.
More: After clash with Kamala Harris, Joe Biden pushes back on race criticism
Harris’ debate performance not only put the spotlight on her but also will focus greater attention on some of the positions that she and other Democrats have taken. While some of those positions on issues such as health care, immigration and abortion appeal to the Democrats’ left flank, they could be a tougher sell in a general election and could cause problems for Harris in a race against Trump.
Harris’ vulnerabilities “are the same as the rest of the top contenders,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and political commentator.
Harris and the other Democratic presidential hopefuls have “all endorsed taxpayer-funded health care for illegal immigrants, policies that are effectively open borders, taxpayer-funded abortions (even for transgendered females) and tax increases on working Americans to pay for all of it,” said Jennings, who worked in the White House under President George W. Bush.
More: 5 things we learned from two nights of Democratic debates
More: Thursday Democratic debate: Who were the winners and losers
Fodder for a Trump attack line
For Trump, Jennings said, the attack line will be simple: “Harris would raise your taxes to pay for illegal immigrants to have a better health care plan than you.”
President Donald Trump (Photo: MANDEL NGAN, AFP/Getty Images)
Whether the Democratic nominee is Harris or someone else, Trump will probably end up treating them “virtually the same as they’ve all signed on to the same basic agenda,” Jennings said.
“I’m stunned at how unaware these Democrats are in understanding how these positions will play in the Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin suburbs,” he said. “There’s no walking any of this back now. It’s all out there for the world to see.”
More: Fact checking Thursday's Democratic debate on climate change, guns and immigration
More: Republicans want Donald Trump to ignore the Democratic debate fray. He’s making no promises.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/06/28/2020-presidential-race-trump-talk-kamala-harris-democrat-debate/1597116001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 45 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Hot air: Did you watch the second round of Democratic debates last night? Don’t worry if not, because we did, and we chronicled our myriad thoughts. We examined the nature of Joe Biden’s meandering performance and his viral faceoff with Kamala Harris, found ourselves bizarrely charmed by Marianne Williamson, and took a sweeping look at the overlarge field and ranked the candidates per their current nomination chances. And check out the latest issue of our campaign newsletter, the Surge, to see which candidates are, well, Surging this week.
Cops and Roberts: The current term of the Supreme Court just finished, with Chief Justice John Roberts assuming the swing-vote position that Anthony Kennedy originally held. How did that go? Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern analyze the chief’s opinions and dissents and figure out just what exactly causes him to flip. And in other justice opinions, Eric Segall argues that Clarence Thomas is correct in saying that SCOTUS routinely overturns precedent.
Kids: After hearing stories of migrant children being forcibly separated from their parents at the border, activists have asked how the right-wingers of the Trump administration can claim to be “pro-life” and yet let these children die under their watch. Rebecca Onion looks at the history of how children have been perceived in this country and finds a surprising reason for why the United States has been crueler to its young ones than many other countries have been.
For fun: The weirdest three minutes of the second Democratic debate.
Go to hell, Chuck Todd,
Nitish | null | 0 | -1 | null | 12 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | March storms in the Midwest caused significant damage to the levee system of the Missouri River and now any strong or frequent rainfall this summer could trigger flooding along the lower Missouri River, experts say.
Kevin Low, service coordination hydrologist at the Missouri Basin River Forecast Center, a National Weather Service office, told CNN Friday that "it's been a very wet spring and it all started in March." During that month, more than 7 million people were under flood warnings because of the convergence of snowmelt, a " bomb cyclone " snowstorm and heavy rain in the heartland.
Since March, Low said, "it really hasn't stopped raining. We've kind of moved on from snowmelt to rain events one after the other."
Damage to the levees
Meanwhile, the March storm sent so much water into some of the Missouri River tributaries in such a short time that the water severely damaged the levee system, according to Eileen Williamson, deputy director of public affairs for the US Army Corps of Engineers. Some of the levees were "severely compromised, others breached," she said -- and now Missouri is probably most vulnerable to flooding because river waters remain higher there.
A crew works to repair a levee near Jefferson City, Missouri.
Dan Armstrong, a supervisory hydrologic technician with the US Geological Survey's Central Midwest Water Science Center, said the current situation is unusual if similar in some ways to the 2011 Midwestern floods, "but in some locations the river levels are even higher" because of significant and frequent rainfall this past spring.
He said he believes the lower Missouri River region, which "covers the area from downstream of Yankton, South Dakota, on down to St. Charles, Missouri, and on to the Mississippi River, is most vulnerable to flooding this summer.
"At least thousands of residents could be affected," he said, adding that people in that vicinity should "pay close attention to weather forecasts and National Weather Service flood warning through the end of the summer."
Low said no one knows when or where there will be flooding because it all depends on where the thunderstorms "set up." Still, the climate prediction center of the National Weather Service for the Missouri River Basin said chances are there will be "above normal" precipitation for the next three months, explained Low:
"It looks to be a very active season for the entire Missouri River basin," he said. "That doesn't bode well."
Longest river in North America
Nicknamed "Big Muddy," the Missouri River is the longest river in North America. It begins in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana and flows east and south for more than 2,300 miles before it enters the Mississippi River north of St. Louis. Its basin is in 10 states -- Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
The river's "basin" is all of the land surface that is dissected and drained by a river as well as all the streams and creeks feeding it.
A total of 218 flood or flash flood events happened in Missouri between March 1, 2018, and March 31, 2019, the most recent statistical date, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. One recent flash flood in Jefferson City , Missouri, submerged US Highways 61/67 following several rounds of heavy rain fall in September, according to the federal agency.
Water rushes down the Missouri River. If it rushes too quickly, it could knock out levees, said Eileen Williamson of the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Today, Army Engineers are "everywhere" working to evaluate, assess and begin the repair process to the levees, Williamson said.
Repairing the levees involves "not just piling up dirt. It is an engineered and designed earthen embankment" that is built to keep a river from overflowing its banks, she said. If water rushes into a river too quickly, "it can knock the levee out -- and then it starts eroding the riverbank," she said. That poses a danger to the people who live near the river.
Low said people need to be "weather-aware" this summer by paying attention to local weather reports and getting information from his office at water.weather.gov . Any rainfall should be taken seriously by those who live in the Missouri River basin, he said.
"If you live or recreate near a body of water, you should look for information over the next couple of days before you enter the area," he said. "If you encounter a flooded roadway, don't try to cross it -- it's not worth the risk."
"Turn around, don't drown." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 32 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | You have to admire Google’s sheer brazenness before the Senate.
Just a day after more leaked documents — as well as undercover footage of a top company executive — exposed Google’s determination to never let an election result like 2016 happen again, Google’s representatives told a Senate hearing that the company considers itself a “neutral public forum.”
The company has said similar things before — one of its favorite lines is that it doesn’t let political bias affect its products.
Note that Google never claims that its company culture isn’t politically biased. How could it, when its executives all expressed uniform dismay at the results of the 2016 election? Or when it fires talented software engineers for expressing mainstream political opinions about gender, while distributing U.C Berkeley-esque guidelines to its managers warning them about the dangers of “white dominant culture”? Or its lax attitude to support for the violent ‘Antifa’ movement within its workforce?
The bias is widespread. That’s clear, and even Google isn’t mad enough to deny it.
Their claim that the political bias doesn’t affect their products, though? Do they think we’re idiots?
Yes, they do think we’re idiots — and bigots, sexists, racists, etc etc. And they’re determined to make sure that stupid, bigoted voters are manipulated to make fewer stupid, bigoted decisions.
That’s why the company created its YouTube blacklist, first exposed by Breitbart News earlier this year. By adding “controversial” terms (like “abortion” and “abortions”) to the list, they rearrange search results so that content from the likes of CNN, BuzzFeed and Vice rises to the top, where more people will see it. They hope that by doing so, users won’t be as likely to encounter dangerous, conservative opinions.
As Project Veritas recently revealed, this search-result meddling went as far as election interference. Before the Irish referendum to decriminalize abortion last year, the tech giant made over 120 additions of search terms to the blacklist. Almost all the terms, like “repeal the 8th”, were related to the referendum.
Google’s own researchers have admitted, in a document called “The Good Censor”, that it has “shifted towards censorship” since 2015-16. What happened in those years that caused such a dramatic change in policy? Could it have been the rise of populism, which Google executive Kent Walker says he wants to relegate to a “blip” in history?
There have been so many leaks from Google revealing its manipulation of its own products to undermine conservatives that it’s difficult to keep track. From labeling Breitbart News a “fringe domain” to kicking the Gateway Pundit and Conservative Tribune out of news results, the company’s bias against conservatives and conservative media is clear.
For Republican senators, the time for asking questions is over. Google isn’t planning on giving you any straight answers, and one of their top employees is on record stating they’ll ignore your demands anyway. Sen. Josh Hawley has the right idea — don’t come up with questions, come up with legislation.
Are you a source at YouTube or any other corporation who wants to confidentially blow the whistle on wrongdoing or political bias at your company? Reach out to Allum Bokhari securely at [email protected].
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 29 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The sole clinic that provides abortions in Missouri can continue to offer the procedure until at least Aug. 1, thanks to a state commission’s decision on Friday.
The St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic nearly lost its license earlier this month, which would have left the state without a single facility that offered abortions. The state had five abortion clinics in 2008, but now is down to one. If the clinic closed, it would make Missouri the only state in the nation to not provide abortion access since 1973, when the Supreme Court codified abortion as a right with its ruling in Roe v. Wade.
“We are relieved to have this last-minute reprieve, which means patients can continue accessing safe, legal abortion at Planned Parenthood in St. Louis for the time being,” Dr. Colleen McNicholas, an OB-GYN at the clinic, said in a statement about the decision on Friday.
In anticipation of its license expiring and not being renewed at the end of May, Planned Parenthood of St. Louis sued Missouri. A district judge allowed it to remain open temporarily, though the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services decided on June 1 it would not renew the clinic’s license, citing deficiencies at the clinic.
A district judge sided with the clinic on June 10, allowing it to continue providing abortions until June 21 under a preliminary injunction.
Then, on June 21, the Department of Health and Senior Services made its final ruling to not renew the clinic’s license. In response, Planned Parenthood said the department had “weaponized a regulatory process”
The Missouri Circuit Court in St. Louis stepped in, extending the license until Friday. And on Friday, the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission, in the executive branch of the state’s government, joined the courts’ inclination and allowed Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region to continue providing abortions ― at least until later in the summer.
The Aug. 1 hearing will review the state’s decision to refuse to renew Planned Parenthood’s license.
Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP The Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri is temporarily allowed to continue providing abortions.
The Department of Health and Senior Services argued in the order that the clinic had to provide interviews with physicians to help them investigate “stated failures.” The commission found this position “unpersuasive.”
McNicholas said in a statement that patients will continue to face uncertainty and called Gov. Michael Parson’s (R) agenda to ban abortion “unjust and cruel” as well as, following court and Administrative Commission Hearing rulings, “unlawful.”
“Patients should never have to worry that they may lose access to health care tomorrow because of a politically driven campaign to end abortion access,” McNicholas said. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) chided Democrat presidential candidates who missed votes in the Senate and put attending protests about the chaos on the border ahead of making laws that could solve the illegal immigration crisis.
“A few of us ran for president four years ago — Rand did, myself, Ted — they never once changed the schedule because we were running for president,” Rubio said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
“They didn’t care about a debate — they didn’t care about any of that,” Rubio said. “We have to delay a vote until tomorrow so their candidates — all 52 of them —can get back from Miami after … by the way including the ones that were there last night — they’re still not back.”
Rubio acknowledged the human toll at the border, including the photo that surfaced of a man and his daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande, calling it “heartbreaking.”
“It is my view that the answer to their problems is not a dangerous three-country journey at the hands of the most dangerous trafficking networks on the planet and that we not have any public policy that encourages that,” Rubio said.
And he said that the Democrats had been blocking efforts to pass meaningful legislation that could fund border operations, including helping minor children who are in federal custody.
“We need money to improve the conditions,” Rubio said. “Well you can’t have money to improve the conditions but we want you to improve the conditions.”
“And on top of that we’re voting on a bill to improve conditions, they’re out there, out to do a protest and all these sorts of things,” Rubio said.
“It’s my view that if you’re a member of the Senate you don’t need to be at a protest. You need to be voting, and working and making things happen,” Rubio said.
The Washington Post reported:
The 11 Democratic lawmakers vying for their party’s presidential nomination missed several crucial votes this week on border security and the military budget to participate in debates. They had already missed more than a dozen votes since announcing their candidacies. It’s an almost impossible balance between running an aggressive presidential campaign, with town halls and fundraisers, and fulfilling their duties as lawmakers — and it happens every four years to members of Congress.
“I’m sorry our Democratic friends feel compelled to skip out so they can compete for the favor of ‘the Resistance,’” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on Tuesday on the Senate floor, the Post reported. “The rest of us, the Republican majority, we’re going to be right here. We’re going to be right here working and voting to make America stronger and safer.”
Rubio said in his remarks at the conference that none of the Democrat candidates in the first debate offered a solution to end the illegal immigration crisis — even when they were speaking in Spanish to impress Latino voters.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CHICAGO, June 28 (Reuters) - Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) lean hog futures were mixed on Friday, with nearby contracts pressured by plentiful supplies of hogs and pork and deferred months buoyed by signs of a slowing multi-year U.S. hog herd expansion, traders said.
Actively traded nearby contracts posted steep declines after the U.S. Department of Agriculture late on Thursday said the U.S. hog herd on June 1 was up 3.6% from a year earlier, above estimates for a 3.0% rise.
The agency’s quarterly hog supply report added to concerns about stiff competition in the pork market.
China, the world’s top pork consumer, has seen its domestic herd decimated by African swine fever, but the country’s imports of U.S. pork have thus far been smaller than anticipated.
Meanwhile, a Chinese ban on Canadian meat shipments stoked fears of increased competition from Canadian pork in other markets, including in the U.S. domestic market.
“We’re still wading through this glut of hogs,” said Dennis Smith, commodity broker with Archer Financial Services in Chicago.
“The other thing that’s weighing on the front end of the market is this concern about Canadian pork coming south with China banning all Canadian pork.”
CME July lean hogs were down 1.725 cents at 72.100 cents per pound while actively traded August fell 1.175 cents to 76.000 cents per pound.
October and December 2019 contracts were also lower, but most 2020 contracts posted gains on the day as the USDA’s quarterly report also indicated that the multi-year U.S. herd expansion may be slowing.
The number of hogs kept for breeding increased just 1.4%, below estimates for a 2.1% rise.
Live cattle futures also ended mixed on Friday on end-of-month and end-of-quarter positioning, while feeder cattle firmed in response to sharply lower corn prices.
Actively traded CME August live cattle ended 1.000 cent lower at 104.350 cents per pound. Spot June futures expired on Friday at 110.500 cents, down 0.075 cent, reflecting steady to higher cash cattle prices.
Feedlot cattle at U.S. Plains markets traded from $109 to $111 per cwt on Friday. Prices in southern areas were mostly steady with last week, while areas further north notched modest week-on-week gains, traders said.
CME August feeder cattle jumped 1.050 cents to 136.850 cents per pound after Chicago Board of Trade corn futures posted their steepest single-day drop in nearly three years. (Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago Editing by James Dalgleish) | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE Education Secretary Betsy DeVos defends deep budget cuts to programs including Special Olympics while urging Congress to spend more on charter schools USA Today
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Education Department is rescinding an Obama-era rule that aimed to police ineffective for-profit colleges.
Department officials said Friday that the 2014 gainful employment rule will be removed entirely effective July 1, 2020. The rule sought to cut federal funding for programs that consistently left graduates with high debt compared to their incomes.
The department's announcement says the rule focused too much on student earnings and unfairly targeted for-profit colleges.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said that removing the rule rather than revising it "will prop up low-quality for-profit colleges at the expense of students and taxpayers."
A worthless degree?: Betsy DeVos wants to change rules for colleges
College closed, leaving graduates no degree: How to keep it from happening to you
The rule has never been enforced by the Education Department, which says it no longer has access to earnings data from the Social Security Administration.
A trade group of for-profit colleges is praising the rule change.
“The U.S. Department of Education’s final decision commits our nation’s entire higher education system to full transparency. The Department has implemented the most significant consumer protection for all students, in all programs, at all schools in years," Steve Gunderson, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities, said in a statement. "This standard is universally fair and applies to all students, in all programs, at all schools, regardless of sector – something that previous Administrations did not do.”
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/28/trump-department-education-devos-remove-gainful-employment-rule/1601251001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Outspoken Trump critic Jeff Flake offered a rare defense of President Trump in response to former President Jimmy Carter's remarks suggesting the current president isn't a legitimate one.
Speaking at a Democratic forum on Friday, Carter weighed in on Russia's interference in the 2016 election and expressed his belief that it played a much bigger role in the election of Trump than Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded.
"I think a full investigation would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016," the 94-year-old former president said. "He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf."
When asked if he thought if Trump was an "illegitimate president," Carter responded, "Basically, what I just said, which I can’t retract," sparking laughter among the panel and the audience.
The former Arizona senator took to Twitter late on Friday in defense of the president, calling it an "awful thing" for Carter to say.
"This is an awful thing for one American president to say about another," Flake tweeted. "Argue that he shouldn't be reelected, sure, but don't say that he wasn't legitimately elected."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Flake's tweet was ratio'd, meaning it received more replies than likes and retweets, from the Resistance. Others expressed concerned that his Twitter account was hacked because of his defense of Trump.
The retired Republican went back to criticizing Trump shortly after, this time for joking about "getting rid" of journalists with Russian President Vladimir Putin. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A federal judge on Friday blocked an Indiana law that would have made it a felony for doctors to second-trimester abortions. The law was set to go into effect on July 1. Judge Sarah Evans Baker, who was nominated by former President Ronald Reagan, granted the preliminary injunction temporarily preventing the law from being enacted.
Her decision came just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case defending a similar law in Alabama.
The GOP-led Indiana legislature passed the law in April. Under the law, doctors who perform dilation and evacuation abortions could face felony charges with penalties of up to six years in prison. The law referred to the procedure as "dismemberment abortion."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana sued the state on behalf of two doctors. ACLU attorneys argued that the ban would put a "substantial and unwarranted burden on women's ability to obtain second-trimester, pre-viability abortions."
Indiana's attorneys called the procedure "brutal and inhumane" and maintained the state had a valid role in limiting types of abortion procedures, citing a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal law banning the method anti-abortion activists refer to as partial-birth abortion.
During a hearing this month, Barker questioned why the state would force women seeking a second-trimester abortion to undergo "highly risky" alternative procedures, such as prematurely inducing labor or injecting fatal drugs into the fetus.
Earlier this month, the judge allowed an abortion clinic to open in South Bend after the Indiana State Department of Health had denied the operator a clinic license, saying it had not provided requested safety documentation.
Federal courts have blocked similar laws in several states, including in Kentucky and Ohio this spring, but Indiana abortion opponents were hopeful an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court could eventually uphold such bans.
The Indiana measure, signed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, would make it illegal for doctors to use medical instruments such as clamps, forceps and scissors to remove a fetus from the womb except to save the pregnant woman's life or prevent serious health risk.
Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher said legislators wanted the ban "because they think the procedure is unethical."
Indiana lawmakers didn't go as far as those in Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio, where bills were enacted barring abortion once there's a detectable fetal heartbeat, as early as the sixth week of pregnancy. Missouri's governor signed a bill approving an eight-week ban on abortion, with exceptions only for medical emergencies. Alabama outlawed virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. Those bans haven't taken effect and all are expected to face legal challenges.
The U.S. Supreme Court in May rejected Indiana's appeal of a lower court ruling that blocked the state's ban on abortion based on gender, race or disability. The court, however, upheld a portion of the 2016 law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence requiring burial or cremation of fetal remains after an abortion.
The dilation and evacuation procedure accounted for 27 of the 7,778 abortions performed in Indiana during 2017, amounting to 0.35 percent, according to an Indiana State Department of Health report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 24 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Co-author of Australia’s ministerial standards says current cooling-off period is too low and should also be made statutory
One of the chief authors of Australia’s ministerial standards has called for a legally enforceable five-year ban on ministers accepting jobs in related industries, warning that the current cooling-off period is “ridiculously low”.
Howard Whitton, an ethicist and public sector integrity expert, had co-authored a set of ethical standards for the then Labor senator John Faulkner, which were later introduced by the Rudd government to govern ministerial behaviour in 2007.
Christopher Pyne and the revolving door of MPs turned lobbyists Read more
The current standards require that ministers do not lobby, advocate for or have business meetings with government, parliamentarians, or the defence force on “any matters on which they have had official dealings” in the past 18 months. The standards also say that ministers should not use information they have obtained in office for private gain.
The standards are not legally enforceable, and ministers are punished for breaches largely at the discretion of the prime minister of the day, usually by public reprimand or demotion. Once a minister leaves parliament, it is often impractical to mete out punishments for breaches.
Whitton said Australia must move to a statutory ban that is legally binding and has a cooling-off period of far longer than 18 months.
“I think that’s ridiculously low, it should be five years,” Whitton told Guardian Australia. “And of course, it should be statutory like the American one is, where American members of Congress have gone to jail for breaching it. We need that.”
The former defence minister, Christopher Pyne, announced this week that he had taken up a job with EY to help the consulting group expand its defence business.
Labor has described the appointment as a breach of the ministerial standards, and the Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick has called on Scott Morrison to show leadership and either bar EY from government contracts or tell Pyne to step down. The appointment has also frustrated the Australia Defence Association, which said ministers should be subject to the same requirements as high ranking military officers and senior defence public servants, who are typically required to avoid private work related to their previous dealings in government for 12 months.
Australia Defence Association (@austdef) Ministers, MPs, senators, govt officials & ADF personnel shld all be subject to same quarantine period before taking up employment with anyone having a commercial relationship with their previous portfolio/departmental responsibilities. #ausdef #auspol https://t.co/bToRtU4ehJ
On Friday, the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, raised the prospect of a referral to parliament’s powerful privileges committee.
“Christopher will answer those questions,” Dutton told Channel Nine.
“There is a process in the parliament where matters can be referred to a privileges committee. I am sure that Christopher would say that there is no conflict.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | “We need fresh eyes and diverse perspectives that can help us question and change our current ways of thinking,” former President Barack Obama wrote in the introduction to the report. “That’s why the Obama Foundation is supporting emerging leaders throughout the world — because we believe that the community leaders of today will become the global leaders of tomorrow.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on Friday.
The two discussed trade issues, defense, the threat posed by Iran, and the most important tech issue of the day, the advance to 5G wireless networking.
Modi thanked Trump for expressing his “love towards India” in a letter, while Trump offered hearty congratulations to Modi for his recent election victory.
“I remember when you first took over, there were many factions and they were fighting with each other and now they get along. It’s a fantastic tribute to you and your abilities,” Trump told the Indian prime minister.
Trump was perhaps underselling the current level of animosity between Indian political factions, although the gains for Modi and his BJP party in the recent election were indeed impressive.
Trump seems to get along very well with Modi, who attended a trilateral meeting with the U.S. president and one of his other best friends on the international stage, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. There are nevertheless some significant issues between the U.S. and India, prominently including India’s concerns about securing its energy supply with Iranian oil forced off the market by U.S. sanctions.
India has complied with Iran sanctions, ending its oil imports after a waiver granted in November expired in May, but has a different set of trade disputes with the United States, as summarized by the Economic Times of India:
India has raised tariffs on 28 items, including almond, pulses, and walnut, exported from the US in retaliation to America’s withdrawal of preferential access for Indian products. The Trump administration wants Prime Minister Modi to lower the trade barriers and embrace “fair and reciprocal” trade. Trump has also criticized India’s high import tariff on the iconic Harley Davidson motorcycles as “unacceptable” though acknowledging that his “good friend” Prime Minister Modi has reduced it from 100 percent to 50 percent. […] America, in March last year, imposed 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent import duty on aluminum products.
Observers at the G20 summit thought Trump was pleased with the outcome of his meeting with Modi and Abe, which Modi described as “productive.” Modi’s administration highlighted an agreement between the U.S., India, and Japan on the importance of an “open, stable, and rule-based Indo-Pacific region.”
Indian sources said Trump and Modi did not dig into the particulars of trade during their meeting but instead sought to “clear the air” so officials such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who were both present at the meeting, could hammer out the particulars with their Indian counterparts.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale added that Modi told Trump he does not intend to withdraw tariff hikes that “already happened,” but wanted to “look forward and see how we can resolve these issues.”
On the topic of Iran, Gokhale said Modi reminded Trump that India was getting about 11 percent of its oil from Iran before U.S. sanctions went into effect, but was honoring the sanctions despite the considerable cost to India’s economy. Modi also said India is sending warships to protect its shipping in the Strait of Hormuz against Iranian sabotage, as Trump has asked other nations to do.
Modi’s position on the evolution to 5G wireless was one of the most interesting results of his meeting with Trump. Gokhale said Modi stressed the influence India will have on the 5G world, thanks to its immense market of smartphone users, and told Trump that India is ready to work with American companies.
“India and US will have to see how to leverage this, the billion Indian users, India’s capacity in technology development in start-up and design and Silicon Valley and its role in developing 5G technology,” Gokhale told the press.
“President Trump, in turn, welcomed this and his main idea was to say that the US has the capacity, it has the capability, it has the human resources, Silicon Valley is working on it, let me see how India and the US can work together in terms of business, not in terms of government, in terms of how business and industry can be put together,” the Indian foreign secretary added.
India Today noted that Modi has not committed to a boycott of technology from China’s Huawei corporation the way other close U.S. allies Japan and Australia have. The United States has warned allies that Huawei technology could be compromised by Chinese intelligence, making it difficult for the U.S. to participate in full intelligence-sharing with countries that install Huawei 5G networking equipment. A close partnership between Indian and American industry has the potential to produce a formidable competitor to Chinese technology on a brisk timeline. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 22 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Video
The former vice-president said he had committed a lifetime to civil rights and he had never opposed voluntary "bussing" to break down segregation.
Mr Biden was responding to an attack on his record in the Democratic debate. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Eastern Libyan forces loyal to commander Khalifa Haftar will ban any commercial flights from Libya to Turkey and Turkish ships from docking in the country, its spokesman Ahmed Mismari said on Friday.
Turkey supports Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli which on Wednesday dealt a blow to eastern forces trying to seize the capital in a three-month campaign.
Any aircraft arriving from Turkey attempting to land in the capital Tripoli would be treated as hostile, said Mismari. The same would apply to Turkish ships docking at Libyan ports.
He also said his Libyan National Army (LNA) force would attack any Turkish military presence, without elaborating.
Turkey has supplied drones and trucks to forces allied to Tripoli Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, while the LNA has received support from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, according to diplomats.
The LNA, which is allied to a parallel government in the east, has failed to take Tripoli but it commands air superiority. It has several times attacked Tripoli’s functioning airport.
Mismari also said his forces had lost 43 soldiers in the battle over the town of Gharyan which the Tripoli forces took on Wednesday.
Gharyan was the main forward base for the LNA where troops, weapons and ammunition arrived. The LNA began its Tripoli campaign there.
The LNA still holds the town of Tarhouna southeast of Tripoli, its second main position in the campaign.
Haftar and his backers say they are trying to free the capital from militias which they blame for destabilizing Libya since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Haftar’s critics accuse him of trying to seize power through force and deepening a conflict between factions based in the east and west of the sprawling North African country.
Haftar’s offensive has upended United Nations-led plans to stabilize Libya after years of conflict that have left the oil-rich nation divided and caused living standards to plummet.
The conflict risks disrupting oil production, creating a vacuum to be exploited by militants and prompting more migrants to leave for Italy by boat. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 16 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | So these deaths are meaningful for organizations, like Reporters Without Borders, that look around the world and see a growing threat to a free press. Certainly, having the survivors of our staff appear on the cover of Time magazine alongside the stories of Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa, Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone made it clear to us just how much we have in common with journalists whose lives are far different from ours. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 59,544,965 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Stephens said he also plans to seek a full term in 2020, but Democrats will likely have their eyes on the seat as well. Though McAuliffe ran unopposed last year, his reelection race against Democrat Merry Marwig in 2016 was one of the most expensive state legislative campaigns in the country. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 2 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Donald Trump’s policies helped slashed the cross-border flow of Central American migrants by 25 percent in June, according to the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security.
In May, 144,000 migrants crossed the border. If there is a 25 percent drop in June, the June migration will be roughly 110,000 — which is still a huge number.
The “25 percent decrease in June is more than we’ve seen in past years,” said Kevin McAleenan, the embattled head of the agency.
Breitbart News revealed the new trend June 26, reporting that:
From June 18 to June 25, DHS released about 3,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into various American communities. The federal data indicates that DHS is releasing about 375 border crossers and illegal aliens every day — a 65 percent drop in catch and release since the first week of the month when more than 1,000 border crossers and illegal aliens were being released into the U.S.
The formal count will be posted next week.
McAleenen’s public announcement of good news for Trump and for Americans reflects Mexico’s new effort to guard its southern and north borders, and to suppress the labor-trafficking cartels’ bus routes through the nation.
Under Trump’s promise of tariffs on Mexican trade, the Mexican government is also preventing migrants from getting U.S. jobs by accepting the return of at least 11,000 migrants via Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program. This return policy allows the U.S. border agency to reduce the catch and release of migrants into Americans’ blue-collar labor markets, schools, and neighborhoods.
Mexico is also cooperating by “metering” or regulating the number of migrants who can ask for asylum at the official “Ports of Entry” along the border — and the new anti-migration policies are gaining lopsided support among the Mexican public.
“It’s become clear that over the past three weeks since the administration reached a new agreement with Mexico that we’ve seen a substantial increase in the number of interdictions on the Mexican southern border, and a sincere effort to address the transportation networks coming through Mexico,” McAleenan told a June 28 press conference. He added:
In terms of when we’re going to know if these efforts in Mexico are making an impact, I think these three weeks have demonstrated that they are already. That 25 percent decrease in June is more than we’ve seen in past years.
Trump is also pushing additional measures, including an anti-migration deal with Guatemala, and a regulatory replacement for the Flores court decision, which bars the detention of migrants with children for more than 20 days.
The migration numbers are good evidence that Trump’s policy of going around Congress’s opposition to reforms is working. His use of tariffs, diplomacy, foreign aid, and regulations is allowing him to stem the tide amid the Democrats’ increasingly pro-migrant policies.
Progressive Democrats in the House tried June 27 to void all those Trump programs by adding various conditions to a $4.6 billion funding bill which was drafted to streamline the orderly migration of Central Americans across the border. Most, but not all, of the pro-migration riders were excluded from the Senate’s version of the funding bill, which was approved by the House on June 28.
Democrats pass $4.5B bill for orderly illegal-migration via GOP's Senate -w/o any anti-migration steps. But Senate's bad bill killed off the House's worse bill which would have gutted Trump's migration-control policies. Overall, a not-big-win for the Dems https://t.co/1IITdyUF3x — Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) June 27, 2019
In September, House and Senate Democrats will ally to push many of the same curbs into the 2020 DHS funding bill.
Also, pro-migration advocates say some of the 25 percent drop is due to the dangerously hot weather along the border as the region shifts from springtime to summer. But multiple pro-migration advocates agreed that the 25 percent drop is higher than in prior years: | null | 0 | -1 | null | 24 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | CLOSE It's Pride Month! Here are 20 retailers giving back to the LGBTQ+ community this month. Melissa Rorech, Reviewed.com
During his childhood, Brent Miller, 42, rarely saw positive media representation of the LGBTQ community.
“Everything that I saw was basically media coverage about gay men dying,” said Miller, who is gay. “Everything that I saw was negative reinforcement of what it meant to be gay.”
Fast forward to this June. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the police raid of New York's Stonewall Inn, which ignited the LGBTQ rights movement. Miller, associate director of global beauty communications at Procter & Gamble, is leading Pantene’s "Don't Hate Me Because I'm BeautifuLGBTQ" ad campaign which hearkens back to its famous 1986 slogan. Pantene says the campaign redefines what "'beautiful' looks like in today’s world by featuring a range of people within the LGBTQ+ community and their own unique stories of transformation."
The Procter & Gamble hair care brand was in good company in June as a long list of companies packaged and promoted Pride Month, which has grown into an annual celebration of LGBTQ contributions to society. Apparel brands including Adidas, Levi's and Michael Kors; restaurant chains like Chipotle, Just Salads and Fresh & Co.; and tech companies such as Apple and Microsoft — have either launched Pride-themed products, run LGBTQ-themed ads, or donated to nonprofit organizations that support the community.
The outreach appears to be big business. While none of the companies USA TODAY asked provided sales or other measurements of the success of their Pride marketing, the outreach likely has benefits. LGBTQ community’s combined buying power was about $917 billion according to the most recent data from Witeck Communications. According to LGBTQ research firm Community Marketing & Insights, 78% of people surveyed said they tend to support companies that market and support the LGBTQ community.
The messaging also attracts non-LGBTQ customers who strongly back values such as inclusivity, according to Americus Reed, who teaches courses on consumer behavior at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Rainbow sales:18 fun and affordable ways to wear your Pride this weekend
LGBTQ marketing:How retailers have turned Pride month into a sales bonanza
But some members of the LGBTQ community aren't completely sold on Pride marketing.
Logan Bean, 22, who lives in Washington state and identifies himself as a member of the LGBTQ community, said he is frustrated with big corporations exploiting the community and Pride month and that he views some of the marketing as opportunistic.
“Many of them aren’t inclusive year round and just put rainbow products in their line and call it pride without donating a single cent to LGBTQ+ charities,” he said.
And though they showed up in Calvin Klein’s pride ad, transgender actor and model Indya Moore posted several tweets asking for more lasting support.
“Celebrating Pride month is giving to queer not selling to queer. Creating products with rainbows on it for queer and trans people to buy isn't celebrating pride month,” they tweeted.
“Representation shouldn't be an annual event, holiday or a marketing strategy. It Should be a normalized & regular protocol whenever it's time to hire,” they said in another tweet.
Celebrating Pride month is giving to queer not selling to queer.
Creating products with rainbows on it for queer and trans people to buy isn't celebrating pride month. — IAM (@IndyaMoore) June 1, 2019
This pride month, I want brands to acknowledge & hire LGBTQ people not just on pride month but after this pride month. Representation shouldn't be an annual even, holiday or a marketing strategy. It Should be a normalized & regular protocol whenever it's time to hire. — IAM (@IndyaMoore) June 1, 2019
Moore's point is something that brands need to consider, according to Wharton's Reed.
“If you don't have the authenticity of the company, you just suddenly showing up like I'm LGBTQ-supportive, consumers might infer or draw the conclusion that you are using a marketing gimmick to try to get more sales,” said Reed.
CLOSE Taylor Swift dropped a new song, "You Need To Calm Down," celebrating Pride. This is the second song from her upcoming album "Lover." USA TODAY
Still, the broader support and increased number of images that celebrate the LGBTQ community are having positive results, some argue. Some organizations that support the community have received a surge in the financial donations. The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ young people, got donations of more than $4 million from its corporate partners this Pride month, almost double last year, according to Muneer Panjwani, head of corporate development.
Wearing Pride products conveys visible support and connection to the community, said Rich Ferraro, chief communications officer of GLAAD, an organization that monitors media representation of LGBTQ community. It signals to “people who might not feel safe or comfortable to come out that they're not alone” he said.
More trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people are featured this year in ads, compared to previous years, Ferraro said. He pointed to the commercials of clothing retailers Express, Gap, and Calvin Klein, and department store chain Macy’s.
Swedish Vodka brand Absolut, which began marketing to the community as early as 1981 running advertisements in two American magazines read by gay men, this year featured a transgender child and her father in an ad.
“Trans people who are rejected by families are more likely to face risks in being homelessness and having suicide attempts,” Simon de Beauregard, director of engagement at Absolut said. “We want to show unconditional love in the ad.”
Showing black transgender women in commercials may be particularly helpful given the danger many are currently facing. So far this year, at least 11 black transgender women have been killed, according to Human Rights Campaign.
When a transgender black woman shows up in the commercials, it sends positive messages to a LGBTQ youth, GLAAD's Ferraro said, "that you can grow up and be a successful model, you can grow up and be a face of a brand and that there are brands that stand with you.”
Travel:The most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the US
Sarah Moeller, director of development of GLSEN, an organization working to create LGBTQ-inclusive K-12 schools, also stressed the importance of representation. The organization this year has partnered with brands like Disney and Hollister, which are “family-friendly” targeting children and teenagers.
“We hear from young people that seeing themselves represented in that way makes a difference,” Moeller said.
Follow Frances Yue on Twitter: @FrancesYue_.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/28/pride-marketing-benefits-lgbtq-community-corporate-america/1511433001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 48 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Another day, another bill inked by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. But the new $45 billion capital plan he signed into law this morning in Springfield will, no question, give Democratic-supporting labor unions jobs to fix the state’s crumbling roads and bridges. Hikes in the state’s gas and cigarette taxes will help fund the capital plan — increases that kick in Monday. If my neighbors, who are working-class folks reliant on vehicles to get around, are any bellwether the governor and lawmakers are going to have to prove it was worth it before the next election cycle comes around. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 5 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The Democratic presidential candidates praised left-wing policies to the extent they sounded like the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, according to Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.
Many contenders seem to have no regard for the nation's increasing debt, nor for effective border security measures, Kennedy claimed Friday on "Hannity."
"I listened to part of the debates," Kennedy said. "I just found it bizarre. ... I know many of the candidates running, but I felt like I was listening to folks who were Castro without the beard, or Cuba without the sun."
MARK PENN: KAMALA HARRIS, JOE BIDEN, BERNIE SANDERS -- SECOND DEM DEBATE'S BIGGEST WINNERS AND LOSERS
"Number one, it's clear to me that most of the candidates for president on the Democratic side had decided illegal immigration is a moral good -- that the border is just a nuisance. I don't know a country in the world that doesn't have borders and doesn't want to know who is coming into their country."
Regarding illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, Kennedy said Democratic candidates want to see billions of dollars spent on health care for the undocumented.
"In terms of the free health care for illegal immigrants, we've got at least 11 million folks in our country illegally," he said. "We have 5,000 a day coming in right now as a result of our asylum laws. I don't know how we would pay for that."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Kennedy said he believes Democrats will offer voters nearly anything at taxpayers' expense.
"The Democratic position seems to be everything is going to be free," he said."Free education. Free health care. Free housing. Free love. Free kittens, I don't know. I just found it bizarre. I don't know how they think we will pay for it." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Justice Clarence Thomas. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais - Pool/Getty Images.
Justice Clarence Thomas closed out the Supreme Court term doing what he loves most: ranting about abortion. On Friday, as the justices teed up more cases for next term, Thomas issued a screed about Alabama’s “dismemberment abortion” statute. A lower court blocked the law because it banned the safest, most common second-trimester abortion procedure, but did so begrudgingly, urging SCOTUS to overrule Roe v. Wade in the process. Thomas seized on Alabama’s appeal to decry “abortion via live dismemberment.” The court’s “abortion jurisprudence,” he wrote, “has spiraled out of control.” In fact, the right to choose has no basis in “the text of the Constitution.” (For ambiguous reasons, he still concurred in the decision not to take the appeal.)
Thomas penned many such missives throughout this term, calling on his colleagues to overrule decades of progressive precedent that he happens to dislike. But he didn’t stop there. Thomas seems to feel increasingly unrestrained by any notions of judicial propriety; his recent opinions bashed, among other targets, the media, a lower court judge, and (naturally) women who get abortions. He has embraced a freewheeling, aggrieved style reminiscent of a late-career Antonin Scalia. And he seems to be having the time of his life.
A day before Thomas’ “dismemberment” diatribe, he authored a partial dissent from the court’s decision blocking the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Ignoring the mountain of evidence that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross lied about his reason for inserting the question, Thomas lashed out at U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for challenging Ross’ falsehoods. Furman, an Obama appointee, was clearly “a judge predisposed to distrust the Secretary or the administration,” Thomas wrote. And what he had done amounted to arranging facts “on a corkboard and—with a jar of pins and a spool of string—create an eye-catching conspiracy web.”
Here is a sitting Supreme Court justice attacking a district court judge as both a Democratic hack (“predisposed to distrust”) and a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. Why not take the next step and call Furman an “Obama judge”? By the way, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh signed onto this rhetoric without any apparent reservations. Looks like not every justice agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts that the federal judiciary doesn’t break down along partisan lines.
Thomas went similarly berserk, this time on the press, in his dissent from the court’s decision in Flowers v. Mississippi. That case involved a white prosecutor who tried a black man six times for the same crime, consistently striking as many black people from the jury as he could. The court ruled the prosecutor had (obviously) violated the Constitution. Thomas argued otherwise: He wanted to overturn the landmark case that prohibits prosecutors from striking minorities from the jury on the basis of race. While he was at it, Thomas made a point to add that SCOTUS probably only took the case because it “has received a fair amount of media attention” (namely, a popular podcast). The media, he warned, frequently seeks “to titillate rather than to educate and inform.” Basically, Thomas dismissed the podcast about Curtis Flowers and his case as fake news that unduly influenced the court. And Gorsuch joined him!
Like Trump on a comic-insult tear, Thomas appears to be having a blast.
While Thomas was assailing the press as a bunch of biased titillators, he was also trying to reverse the constitutional protections that shield journalism from crippling lawsuits. In February, the justice declared that he wants to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark 1964 ruling that sharply restricts the ability of public figures, including government officials, to sue for defamation. Thomas decried Sullivan as “policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law” and argued that lawmakers are “perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm.” In reality, they are definitely not—that’s a key reason why the First Amendment exists, to limit the government’s ability to “balance” competing interests by permitting the suppression of speech. But it seems Thomas agrees with Trump that courts should “open up our libel laws” anyway, allowing state officials to resume arresting their critics or suing them into silence.
That same month, Thomas tore into another venerated precedent: Gideon v. Wainwright, which requires states to provide public defenders to indigent defendants under the Sixth Amendment. “History proves,” the justice wrote, “that the States and the Federal Government are capable of making the policy determinations necessary to assign public resources for appointed counsel.” This claim is also demonstrably, outrageously false. Today, public defenders across the country are overworked and underpaid. States are continually slashing their budget for indigent defense, creating major backlogs that leave defendants without counsel for long stretches. To which Thomas says: Who cares? “It is beyond our constitutionally prescribed role to make these policy choices ourselves.” Gorsuch joined the assault on Gideon, too—demoting the Sixth Amendment from a constitutional guarantee to a policy choice.
Return, finally, to abortion, Thomas’ favorite bugaboo. In May, the court declined to hear a challenge to an Indiana law that barred abortions on the basis of fetal sex, race, or disability. Its decision let stand a lower court ruling that permanently blocked the Indiana ban. Thomas joined his colleagues in turning away the case but used the opportunity to pen a 20-page polemic condemning women who get abortions as eugenicist child killers. Abortion, he wrote, “is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation,” and states should be empowered to stop callous women from terminating a fetus due to “unwanted characteristics.”
Thomas also provided a history lesson about the 20th-century eugenics crusade, asserting that it laid the groundwork for today’s pro-choice movement. There was one major problem with Thomas’ lesson: It wasn’t true. The justice cited Adam Cohen’s superb book Imbeciles repeatedly—prompting Cohen to write a rejoinder to Thomas explaining why his claims were false. Thomas had “misleadingly” suggested the push to legalize abortion grew out of the eugenics movement. That, Cohen wrote, just isn’t true. Eugenicists did not support abortion; they favored birth control, and Thomas’ effort to conflate the two creates “a kind of historical guilt-by-association.” Thomas’s opinion, Cohen concluded, “is an example of a common form of argumentation: the false analogy to a universally acknowledged historical atrocity.” Put differently, Thomas tried to smear pro-choice advocates by tying them to eugenicists, but that link simply does not exist.
Thomas surely does not care about Cohen’s rebuttal. His jurisprudence, his entire life philosophy, rests on the premise that he knows best—that’s why he does not believe in following precedent unless he is personally convinced that it is correct. He is convinced that he understands the Constitution better than every justice who came before him and disagreed with his interpretations. In that sense, his worldview is strikingly Trumpian: It rests on “believe me,” and “I have the best words,” and “nobody’s ever done a better job than I’m doing,” an absolute certainty that he is a very stable genius.
Like Trump on a comic-insult tear, Thomas appears to be having a blast. His opinions exude self-righteous energy; they are lively and, at times, kind of funny. (That crazy wall jab in the census case read like a higher-brow Trump insult.) Thomas is plainly emboldened by Trump’s presidency and eager to bring the president’s Fox News energy to the court. He might repel the chief justice in the process, but he’s done caring what squishes like John Roberts think. Of course, Thomas has also spent the term scoffing at retirement rumors. Why would he step down now? The real fun is just beginning. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 59 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Trump’s meeting Saturday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and surprise tweet raising the prospect of a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offer the perfect opportunity to jumpstart efforts to persuade Kim to abandon his growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Trump, who is wrapping up meetings at the G20 summit in Japan, tweeted Saturday (Friday night in the U.S.): “After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!”
A deal on North Korean denuclearization – or more realistically progress toward denuclearization – could help bring peace to a Korean Peninsula that has technically been at war for 69 years. The Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953, but no peace treaty has ever been signed.
TRUMP OFFERS TO MEET KIM JONG UN AT NORTH KOREA BORDER
There has been little movement over the past few months towards a diplomatic solution over the dispute surrounding North Korea’s nuclear weapons, which Kim views as an insurance policy to deter a possible U.S. attack that could lead to the overthrow his communist dictatorship.
Talks between Trump and Kim in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi in February failed to reach any agreement on denuclearization.
But we have a problem right from the outset. Most summits are strong on photo-ops and spectacle, light on substance.
How will Trump and Moon inject a sense of urgency into their discussions, ensuring that North Korea understands that Washington and Seoul are serious about a denuclearization agreement that works for all sides?
And if Trump and Kim meet for a quick and – as far as we know – unplanned meeting at the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas there seems virtually no chance their talks could bring about a major advance right away.
While Trump is eager to get the North to give up its nukes – an action that would be hailed as a diplomatic triumph for the American president – Kim is eager to get Trump to ease crippling international economic sanctions on the North.
While Trump is eager to get the North to give up its nukes – an action that would be hailed as a diplomatic triumph for the American president – Kim is eager to get Trump to ease crippling international economic sanctions on the North.
It’s critical that Trump convince Kim that America and South Korea are ready to deal, giving Kim substantial sanctions relief in return for major progress on denuclearization.
Considering the mixed signal coming out of Pyongyang these days – a flattering letter from Kim one day, multiple angry denunciations of the U.S. days later – it is not a stretch to say that North Korea’s leadership is unsure about its approach to the outside world in the weeks and months to come.
Will Kim now meet with Trump and order diplomats to prepare for a third U.S.-North Korea summit for more substantive talks as widely reported?
Or will Pyongyang continue to court great power patrons like Russia and China and eventually begin testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons again, putting Northeast Asia back on a war footing like the dark days of 2017?
Enter the Demilitarized Zone along the border between North and South Korea.
Trump’s planned visit to this historic setting – used by many U.S. leaders to convey resolve while standing shoulder to shoulder with the leader of South Korea during dangerous times – presents a golden opportunity to make a big splash during Trump’s summit with Moon.
If the visit to the DMZ turns into even a short “just here to say hello” meeting between Trump and Kim, it would give Trump a chance to make sure North Korea understands loud and clear that the U.S. president is serious about finding a diplomatic solution to decades of tensions.
But what should Trump say to Kim if they meet, or say in his remarks to the media covering his visit to the DMZ even if he doesn’t meet with the North Korean leader?
I have several suggestions on the message Trump should convey to Moon and – if he has the opportunity – to Kim.
These suggestions spell out what a new U.S. approach towards North Korea could look like and would not only ease tensions but would most likely get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table for serious talks.
First, Trump should make clear that the elements of the denuclearization deal that were on the table in Hanoi should be the starting point of future negotiations with North Korea.
This could mean: focusing talks on the possibility of the U.S. and the North opening liaison offices in each other’s capitals; starting something akin to joint task force to conduct searches in North Korea for the remains of U.S. military members killed in the Korean War; and a political declaration signed by Trump and Kim ending the state of war that exists in Korea to this day.
All of that would be historic – and that’s just for starters. Trump would then need to get to the heart of the issue – why the summit in Hanoi fell apart back in February: the terms of what amounts to a first step toward North Korea’s denuclearization.
Trump should make clear he is open to many different starting points, but that North Korea must begin soon what will be a multi-year effort to wind down what is now a vast nuclear weapons development program that is spread across the entire country.
Again, Trump could use what was negotiated in Hanoi as a starting point. Trump could take North Korea up on its previous offer to fully shut down all its nuclear facilities at the Yongbyon complex, one of the Kim regime’s biggest nuclear weapons production areas. International inspectors would need to closely monitor all aspects of dismantlement, with their work not tampered with or interrupted.
What Trump could offer in return would certainly get North Korea’s attention: a promise to suspend all U.N. Security Council resolutions involving trade in coal and textiles with North Korea. This suspension would be granted for one year, allowing Washington to test North Korea’s intentions, to see if it is finally prepared to give up its nuclear program.
If Kim makes substantial progress in dismantling Yongbyon, America would then not only end sanctions on coal and textiles permanently, but could offer additional incentive-based agreements enabling North Korea to get the benefit of large amounts of sanctions being suspended.
And if the North complies with agreements on denuclearization, it could get economic sanctions ended permanently.
There is no reason Kim should reject such an approach. In fact, this action-for-action model is one that the Kim regime has been asking for.
There is, however, an important catch that is essential: a snapback provision would be included in any deal, ensuring Pyongyang would feel economic pain for cheating on any agreement.
This simple approach could serve as the foundation of a new relationship between America and North Korea, allowing both sides to build sorely needed trust, forging a new path free of nuclear threats and brinksmanship.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
If North Korea is truly serious about giving up its nuclear weapons and becoming what would amount to the last Asian economic tiger, then it is time to make history and follow President Trump’s lead.
Will all this be settled in the next few days if Trump and Kim meet at the Demilitarized Zone? Certainly not. But important progress could be made, laying the groundwork for a formal Trump-Kim summit in coming months that could produce results benefitting both sides.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY HARRY KAZIANIS | null | 0 | -1 | null | 44 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Former President Barack Obama has yet to endorse his former Vice President, Joe Biden, for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, but Biden repeatedly praised Obama during his first debate appearance on Thursday in Miami.
He also praised Obama’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare.
NBC moderator Jose Diaz-Balart asked Biden about the three million people who were deported during the Obama-Biden administration and whether someone should be deported if his only offense was not being in the country legally.
“Depending if they committed a major crime, they should be deported,” Biden said. “And the president was left in a — President Obama I think did a heck of a job.”
Biden balked at the idea that Obama was anything like President Donald Trump.
“To compare him to what this guy is doing is absolutely, I find, immoral,” Biden said.
And when Chuck Todd said that Obama had not achieved what he wanted to do regarding climate change, Biden defended Obama before answering a question about what would be his first priority if elected.
“I think you’re so underestimating what Barack Obama did,” Biden said. “He’s the first man to bring together the entire world, 196 nations, to commit to deal with climate change, immediately.”
“So I don’t buy that. But the first thing I would do is make sure that we defeat Donald Trump, period.
“Vice President Biden, I want to put the question to you,” NBC’s Lester Holt said. “You were an architect — one of the architects of Obamacare. So where do we go from here?”
Biden offered an emotional answer, citing the death of his wife and young daughter in a car accident and his son Beau’s unsuccessful cancer battle and his gratitude for access to medical care.
“The fact of the matter is that the quickest, fastest way to do it is to build on Obamacare, to build on what we did,” Biden said.
“And, secondly — secondly, to make sure that everyone does have an option. Everyone, whether they have private insurance or employer insurance and no insurance, they, in fact, can buy in, in the exchange to a Medicare-like plan,” Biden said. “And the way to do that — we can do it quickly.”
“Look, urgency matters,” Biden said. There’s people right now facing what I faced, and what we faced, without any of the help I had. We must move now. I’m against any Democrat who opposes and takes down Obamacare and any Republican who wants to get rid of Obamacare.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter | null | 0 | -1 | null | 21 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | In granting the preliminary injunction that blocked the law, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker wrote that it "prohibits physicians from utilizing the most common, safest, often most cost effective, and best understood method of second trimester abortion, requiring them instead to resort to alternatives that are medically riskier, more costly, less reliable, and in some instances simply unavailable, while accomplishing little more than expressing hostility towards the constitutionally fundamental right of women to control their own reproductive lives." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Homestead, Florida — CBS News captured exclusive video from inside a controversial shelter in Homestead, Florida, where migrant children are being held. It's the first time news cameras have been allowed inside the center, which currently houses 2,600 unaccompanied minors.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar gave CBS News' Manuel Bojorquez a brief, guided tour. CBS News saw orderly lunch lines, packed and boisterous classrooms and children moving about the sprawling campus single-file.
Azar is pushing back against criticism after disturbing reports about conditions at Border Patrol facilities, which are not part of his department.
"There's been a lot of factual misrepresentations or just ignorant statements made about Homestead and frankly, the broader program that we run at HHS," he said.
Manuel Bojorquez with HHS Secretary Alex Azar CBS News
But attorneys who previously inspected Homestead and spoke to children said many complained about the treatment here, too.
"One of the things they allege is prison-like rules where children, according to one attorney, expressed fear and anxiety around the enforcement of shelter rules and in some cases were told that if they stepped out of line it could affect their immigration case. Is that happening," Bojorquez asked.
"Well, let me be really clear. That would be completely improper. And the staff here have been instructed after that allegation was made that any such behaviors or statements would be wrong and subject to discipline," Azar said.
There are currently 13,500 minors in HHS care. CBS News was not allowed to interview minors in Homestead, but were shown some of the smaller, stark dormitories, though the facility does have much larger halls that can accommodate more than 140 beds.
"We ask our kids what they prefer and the kids actually prefer the larger more bunk bed dormitory, larger setting that you're referring to," Azar said.
"That's not what the attorneys are saying clearly in this filing," Bojorquez said.
"I'll go with the children," Azar responded. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Nicolas Ernesto Maduro Guerra (left) alongside his father and First Lady Cilia Flores
The United States has announced new sanctions against the son of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, 29, known as Nicolasito, is a member of the pro-government Constituent Assembly.
Juan Guaidó, who is seen by the US as the country's legitimate leader, heads up a rival parliament that has been side-lined by the government.
The sanctions will freeze any US assets Nicolasito has and bars US firms and individuals from working with him.
Announcing the move on Friday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said they were punishing him for serving his father's "illegitimate regime".
"Maduro's regime was built on fraudulent elections, and his inner circle lives in luxury off the proceeds of corruption while the Venezuelan people suffer," Mr Mnuchin said in a statement.
"Maduro relies on his son Nicolasito and others close to his authoritarian regime to maintain a stranglehold on the economy and suppress the people of Venezuela."
The statement also accused the president's son of engaging in propaganda and censorship on behalf of the government.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Juan Guaidó on how the political crisis may develop
He joins dozens of other Venezuelans already under economic sanctions.
The US has been ramping up pressure since it recognised Juan Guaidó as the country's legitimate leader.
Since he declared himself interim president in January, Mr Guaidó has won the backing of more than 50 countries, but has struggled to take power.
Mr Maduro has largely retained the support of his military and key allies including Russia and China.
Earlier this week, the Venezuelan government claimed it had foiled an international-backed "fascist" plot to assassinate Mr Maduro - a claim Mr Guaidó dismissed.
Venezuela has been in severe economic crisis for several years - struggling with hyperinflation, high unemployment and chronic shortages of food and medicine.
Some four million people have fled the country since 2015, according to the UN. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Government maintains purpose of contentious trial is to steer drug-takers towards medical treatment
Internal documents suggest the government’s hugely controversial bid to drug-test welfare recipients is no longer a key priority, but the Coalition insists it remains government policy.
The incoming brief for the new social services minister, Anne Ruston, does not appear to list the drug-testing trial as either a key matter for attention in the government’s first 100 days or a “key milestone” for the coming 12 months.
The brief, obtained by Guardian Australia through freedom of information laws, shows other controversial policies, such as the cashless welfare card expansion, required more urgent attention.
A bill to trial drug-testing of welfare recipients in three locations across two years remains before the Senate. Earlier attempts to pass the legislation failed to win requisite crossbench support.
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Instead of locking in future tax cuts, we should increase Newstart and boost social housing | Cassandra Goldie Read more
The internal brief lists the trial’s cost at $5.6m. The department of social services flags the need to give the minister “advice” about progressing the trial, but the advice does not appear anywhere in the heavily redacted document.
Ruston told Guardian Australia the drug-testing trial remains government policy, but did not say whether the government would attempt to push the bill through the Senate this term. She said only that the trial was “subject to the passage of legislation”, offering no time-frame.
Living on Newstart: 'I don't eat every day. That saves some money I guess' Read more
“Substance abuse can be a barrier to employment with consequences for individuals and their families, our communities and our entire welfare system,” Ruston said.
“The trial is about testing new ways of identifying job seekers with substance abuse issues, helping them to overcome these issues and increasing their chances of gaining employment.”
The drug-testing trial provoked controversy when proposed in 2017. The trial aimed to test 5,000 new recipients of Newstart and some Youth Allowance payments in Canterbury-Bankstown in Sydney, Logan in Queensland and Mandurah in West Australia. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 13 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | As new members take their place in parliament, they are being schooled on how to survive the corrosive culture of Canberra
When the 2019 class of new MPs came to Canberra this week, one of the people who spoke to them about their impending political life was a doctor.
Mike Freelander, a paediatrician and MP for the suburban Sydney seat of Macarthur, had a clear message to the 27 new MPs who will take their seats in parliament’s bear pit for the first time on Monday: “Don’t lose track of your family.”
The pointed message comes amid an ongoing discussion about the strains of a federal political career – the human toll of the often toxic work culture in Parliament House.
Don't lose track of your family Mike Freelander, MP
While the clerk of the house, David Elder, and speaker, Tony Smith, put the MPs through their paces on procedural matters, Freelander spoke to the new members about how to juggle family life with the enormous public demands of a political career.
In the short time since he was elected in 2016, Freelander said he had witnessed many relationship breakdowns – too many – saying it was a common casualty of an unnatural political life that required many sacrifices.
“In the short time I have been here, I have seen a lot of it, it is a bit disappointing.
“It is an enormous price to pay for everyone – the spouse, the kids, the MP themselves – it is an enormous price to pay.”
The revolving leadership door of the past decade in Canberra has shone a spotlight on the brutal work culture of Parliament House, which would be intolerable, if not illegal, in most other modern workplaces. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 6 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Image caption Mandy Quinn says more thorough affordability checks are needed
"Some nights are sleepless nights. I'm totally stressed out about it, I can't stop thinking about it."
Attempting to keep up with car finance payments is having a huge impact on Mandy Quinn's family.
"It's changed our lives, it's ruining our lives and that's the honest truth of it."
Complaints about car finance have increased sharply in the past year, according to figures seen by Money Box, and Mandy feels that her family should never have been put in the position they now find themselves in. Her 23-year-old daughter, Victoria, was sold a second hand Audi A1 on a five-year hire purchase deal in early 2017.
Victoria put down £300 as a deposit and has to pay £329 a month for five years.
As a first year university student with a part-time job she'd originally gone out looking for a much smaller - and less expensive - car to help her get to and from lectures. But she was persuaded to buy the Audi, which will end up costing her more than £20,000. Mandy says her other daughter, Natasha, also took out car finance and was told to bring in three pay slips to prove she could afford the repayments.
But Mandy says there was nothing like that, what's known as an affordability assessment, for Victoria.
Two main types of car finance
Image copyright Getty Images
Hire Purchase (HP): The total cost of the car is spread equally over each month of the deal, with the vehicle owned outright afterwards
Personal Contract Purchase (PCP): Typically customers pay slightly less each month, but they have to hand the car back or pay a "balloon" payment of thousands of pounds at the end of an agreed period if they want to buy it outright
With Victoria having recently lost her job, Mandy and her husband have been stepping in to help meet the payments. But they say they simply can't afford to anymore. In just a few short sentences Mandy Quinn has summed up the impact that trying to meet car finance repayments is having on her family.
Victoria's now missed two payments in a row and has been told she now owes the car finance company, with other charges, more than £700. Mandy says Victoria's now being chased for the debt with multiple text messages and letters every week.
"Victoria is really embarrassed. She can see it's impacting on us," Mandy says. "I think she was just silly, but I would have hoped that some kind of safeguarding procedures would have been in place to stop this happening to families [and] causing so much distress.
"I would have hoped she would have had to produced some kind of payslip, or a bank statement or something but there was nothing. It just seemed [wrong] to me she could go there and she could walk out of there with a £21,000 car - because my daughter's got nothing to prove she could afford those repayments."
Image copyright Getty Images
The Financial Ombudsman Service has given figures to Money Box which show the number of complaints it has had about hire purchase products, the majority of which it says relate to car finance, has increased sharply in the past year.
In 2017-18 there were 5,805, but last year that figure jumped by more than half to 8,943. The type of things people were complaining about were the quality of the car, not even knowing what type of finance they're on, and being sold cars on finance plans they can't afford.
Car finance: The figures
£45.9bn was borrowed in 2018 for car finance
91.2% of all new cars were bought using finance
2.9 million cars were financed by members of the Finance and Leasing Association
Source: Finance and Leasing Association, 2018 annual report
Stuart Masson, editor of thecarexpert.co.uk, says those numbers are the tip of the iceberg.
"The complaints that make it all the way to the Financial Ombudsman Service are a small number. But that's because most people don't get that far if they have a problem. Generally the first step is to call the finance company to be told 'bad luck, you still owe us the money'."
New guidelines
The Financial Conduct Authority, the watchdog responsible for regulating the car finance industry, introduced new guidelines in November 2018 after expressing concern some lenders weren't "complying with FCA rules on assessing creditworthiness, including affordability".
That's an issue that is key to Mandy's question about how her daughter was able to sign up to a car finance plan for more than £20,000 without being asked to provide any evidence she could actually afford the repayments.
"She [Victoria] should never ever have been sold that, or offered a car like that. She should have been given [an affordability] test to prove she could afford it, but the company didn't do it.
"I think it's criminal, the impact it's had on the family, my daughter, it's outrageous."
Adrian Dally, head of motor finance for industry body the Finance and Leasing Association, says the overall numbers [of complaints] are "very small compared with size of motor finance market".
"Even if you assumed that most of the complaints were attributable to motor finance and all were upheld, it would equate to no more than one in every thousand agreements. But we are not complacent, hence all the new guidance produced for members and the development of a motor finance apprenticeship standard that was designed to ensure that training is embedded at every entry point to the industry."
If you have, or have ever taken out car finance we'd love to hear your story. Email us '[email protected]'.
You can listen to Money Box's report on car finance here and follow Money Box or Dan on twitter. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 39 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed legislation that will require people with felony convictions to pay all of their outstanding fines and fees before they can vote again, a move that critics say significantly undermines a constitutional amendment to expand voting rights in the state.
The amendment, which voters approved overwhelmingly in November, repealed Florida’s lifetime voting ban for people with felony convictions. The measure allows those convicted of a felony, except for murder or sexual offenses, to vote once they “complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation.” The change was estimated to affect up to 1.4 million people. It got rid of a policy rooted in the racism of the Jim Crow South.
In January, the amendment officially went into effect and Floridians with felony convictions have been registering to vote ever since.
But Republican lawmakers, who control both chambers of the state legislature, argued that completing a criminal sentence should include repaying all financial obligations ordered as part of that sentence. The legislature approved the new requirement in May.
The law that DeSantis signed does allow people to petition a judge to waive their outstanding fines and fees. But state legislators eliminated a different provision that would have allowed someone to vote if a judge converted that debt to a civil lien ― something frequently done when someone finishes a sentence but can’t pay the related debt.
The American Civil Liberties Union has already hinted that it may sue over the measure, which critics say is akin to a poll tax. Republicans passed the bill over strong objections from supporters of the amendment, who argued that requiring repayment would drastically weaken the impact of the constitutional change. They say many people convicted of felonies accumulate debts they can never afford to repay and therefore will never be able to vote in the state. One estimate, which relied on 2007 data, found that requiring repayment of fines and fees could lower the number of people effectively eligible for restored voting rights from 1.4 million to 840,000. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 14 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Putin takes centre stage at G20 summit
Confrontations over Russia's actions didn't appear to get in the way of jokes, photo ops and dinner with the host. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan’s ruling military council said on Friday a proposal submitted by the African Union (AU) and Ethiopia received on June 27 is suitable for the resumption of talks with the opposition on a transition to democracy.
Sudanese protesters chant slogans as they demonstrate against the ruling military council, in Khartoum, Sudan June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
The generals and the opposition coalition have been wrangling for weeks over what form Sudan’s transitional government should take after the military deposed long-time president Omar al-Bashir on April 11.
Mediators led by the AU and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have since been trying to broker a return to direct talks between the two sides.
On Thursday they presented a joint proposal to the two sides, after the military council rejected a previous Ethiopian proposal and called for mediation efforts to be unified.
A draft of the joint proposal seen by Reuters suggested few changes from a previous Ethiopian proposal that a coalition of protesters has endorsed.
“A number of points have emerged around it, but in general it is a suitable proposal for negotiations to reach a final agreement leading to the establishment of the institutions of a transitional rule ...,” council spokesman Lieutenant General Shams El Din Kabbashi said.
The joint proposal provides for a sovereign council that would oversee the transition, made up of seven civilians and seven members of the military with one additional seat reserved for an independent member. The balance of membership of the council had been the sticking point during weeks of talks after Bashir’s ousting.
However, the make-up of a legislative council would only be decided after the agreement was signed. In previous drafts, the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) opposition coalition was to make up two-thirds of the council.
Activists who led months of protests against Bashir have called for a million-strong march on Sunday to try to revive street pressure on the military council and call for it to cede power to civilians.
Bashir ruled Sudan for nearly 30 years before he was unseated following a deepening economic crisis and 16 weeks of street protests.
Sudan’s stability is seen as crucial to a volatile region straddling the Middle East and Africa. Various outside powers including wealthy Gulf states are trying to influence its course. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 4,329,574 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | With all aspects of reparation considered, the estimated total cost could be anywhere between $9 and $17 trillion.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held the first hearing in a decade on H.R. 40, or the “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.” One vital element of these decisions is a proposed source for the immense sum required to fulfill the full definition of those reparations.
Economist James Marketti estimated in 1983 that the cost of unpaid wages to slaves totaled between $3 and $5 trillion. Thirty-six years of inflation later, that is closer to $13 trillion.
Still, that number does not, according to “The Economics of Reparations” by professors William Darity and Dania Francis, consider the “lingering economic impact of Jim Crow and current discrimination that black people face in the labor market, health care system, or education and criminal justice systems.” That can easily bring the estimate up to the aforementioned sum.
“Suffice it to say,” Darity and Francis wrote, “the damages to the collective well-being of black people have been enormous and, correspondingly, so is the appropriate bill.”
The United States has paid reparations to Japanese families kept in internment camps and to decimated and displaced Native American tribes. But “almost 250 years of domestic enslavement of African people and their descendants have not elicited a similar response from the U.S. government.”
But who will foot the bill? The research points to issuing bonds, creating trust funds, or collecting it in taxes, though that last measure could prove self-sabotaging. In the end, Darity and Francis wrote, “African-Americans should not bear the tax burden of financing their own reparations payments.”
The matter of reparations is deeply unpopular nationally. Only an estimated 26 percent of Americans support the idea of slavery reparations. Those opposed include roughly 80 percent of white and 40 percent of black Americans. Regardless, despite the attention it is now receiving, it is not an issue close to resolution. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 13 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told Breitbart News Friday that, as America approaches Independence Day, she is calling for English, as the language of freedom, to be America’s official language.
On Thursday, Sen. Blackburn became the latest sponsor for S. 678, the English Language Unity Act, written by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). The bill would establish English as the national language and would establish a uniform language requirement for the citizen naturalization process.
Blackburn’s backing of the English Language Unity Act arises as former Rep. Beto O’ Rourke (D-TX), former Obama official Julian Castro, and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) spoke Spanish during the 2020 Democrat national debate on Wednesday night. A poll found that a majority of independent swing voters found that speaking Spanish during the debate was “pandering.”
Inhofe’s legislation garnered seven Senate cosponsors in the last congressional term, and with Blackburn’s backing, the bill has three cosponsors this term.
Sen. Blackburn said that as Americans prepare to celebrate America’s Independence Day, English should become the national language and that proficiency in English should become an integral part of the country’s naturalization process.
“As we near Independence Day, it’s important to recognize that English represents the language of freedom and should be our country’s official language. After all, our Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution in English,” Blackburn told Breitbart News. “Learning English is a rite of passage for all new American citizens. One part of that process should be learning and understanding these founding documents in the language it was written.”
Americans overwhelmingly favor legislation to make English the national language.
A 2018 Rasmussen poll found that 81 percent of Americans believe that English should become the official language of the United States, while only 12 percent said disagreed that English should be the national language, and six percent said they were not sure. Ninety-five percent of Republicans agreed that English should be the national language, and 75 percent of Democrats agreed that the country should adopt English as its language.
Fifty percent of Americans also said that election ballots and other official government documents should be printed in English, while 44 percent said they should also be written in other languages.
Congressman Steve King (R-IA) sponsored the House companion legislation to the bill, and the bill has 23 cosponsors, including Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and Mo Brooks (R-AL).
ProEnglish, one of the nation’s leading advocates for the English language, contended that the legislation will save Americans billions of dollars in government-mandated translation and interpretation costs and will encourage cultural and linguistic assimilation by new immigrants to the country.
Inhofe and King’s legislation arises as a Pew Research study found that many illegal and legal immigrants lacked proficiency with the English language. The study found that only 34 percent of illegal immigrants said they were proficient in English, and only 57 percent of legal immigrants said that they were skilled with the English language.
A 2018 Center for Immigration Studies poll found that 67 million people in the United States do not speak English at home, nor do nearly half the residents speak English in America’s five largest cities.
Proficiency in English will serve as a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s proposed immigration reforms.
President Trump said in May that “to promote integration, assimilation, and national unity, future immigrants will be required to learn English and to pass a civics exam prior to admission.”
Trump added, “Through these steps, we will deliver an immigration system that respects, and even strengthens, our culture, our traditions, and our values.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 20 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The decision by Sen. Kamala Harris to attack former Vice President Joe Biden over school busing during Thursday's Democratic Party debate could hurt the party heading into 2020, according to Dennis Kucinich.
"Joe Biden's record is fair game," the two-time Democratic presidential candidate said Friday on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle." "But if you divide Democrats on race, you lose."
"You divide and Trump conquers," added Kucinich, 72, a former mayor of Cleveland who later served in the U.S. House from 1997 to 2013.
"If you want African-Americans to vote, have a plan -- address racial disparity, wealth, wages, health. Talk about working-poor families. Look at the crime and the murder rate in black communities and how people are treated by the police. These are issues that will motivate people.
'MY TIME'S UP, I'M SORRY': BIDEN ABRUPTLY ENDS ANSWER ON CIVIL RIGHTS AFTER HARRIS PUMMELING
"But if you just use it on race in kind of a personal attack, Democrats are going to lose."
Kucinich said he believed, however, that Biden remained a formidable candidate.
"He seems to have strong support in the black community," he said. "I don't think that will disintegrate."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
During the debate, Harris appeared to inflict serious damage on Biden after she pointed out that Biden’s work with segregationist senators had a human cost – including to her.
“I also believe — and it is personal — and it was actually very hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country,” she said.
“You worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris added, referring to efforts to limit orders for school desegregation by busing.
In an emotional moment, she told her own story of being bused as a young girl in California.
Fox News' Lukas Mikelionis contributed to this report. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 17 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 55,179,572 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | “You and I paid for this place. What is being done in that building is being done in our name and with our money,” Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., said Friday, one of five candidates who visited the protest site that day. “It is wrong. It is wrong, but if it is our tax money, if it’s our country, then it's our obligation to bring about something different — and that's what we're here to do.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 4 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 4,412,358 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived for a face-to-face meeting in Osaka, Japan, on Saturday amid trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
The meeting between the two leaders at the G-20 summit is their first in seven months, although the two reportedly saw each other at a dinner for the Group of 20 leaders, where Trump said much was accomplished.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Trump and Xi were expected to focus on issues including trade and a dispute over Huawei Technologies, according to Reuters
This is a developing story. Check back for updates. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 4 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | The city earlier this month transferred day to day control of the system to a private company after a review conducted by an outside auditing firm found that the program did not operate according to industry best practices, staff members were inadequately trained, and it lacked "comprehensive policies and procedures governing claim handling, which can lead to inconsistent claim outcomes for workers.” | null | 0 | -1 | null | 1 |
polusa | 2019_1_test.csv | 2,142,583 | 0 | 2019_1_test.csv0 53010215
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | MIAMI (Reuters) - In an effort to steady his presidential campaign, former Vice President Joe Biden engaged in some furious damage control on Friday, a day after rival candidate Kamala Harris hurt him in the most dramatic clash so far of the 2020 election campaign.
Addressing an African-American advocacy group in Chicago, Biden defended his record, saying he had a “lifetime commitment to civil rights”.
At the Democratic debate in Miami on Thursday, Harris, a black U.S. senator from California, tore into Biden for opposing mandatory school busing in the 1970s and for his cooperation with segregationists while he was a young senator.
Biden’s defensive and sometimes faltering response was viewed as a blow to his status as the Democratic race’s front-runner. He has consistently held a significant lead in public opinion polls since he entered the race in April.
The contentious back-and-forth also appeared to give Harris a boost when her campaign badly needed it, resulting in a crush of media attention, a fundraising surge, and a bevy of new endorsements.
On Friday, Biden spoke to the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the African-American advocacy group founded by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, in Chicago.
Before reading his prepared remarks, Biden told the crowd the debate format was insufficient for him to detail his decades-long work to promote racial equality, first as a U.S. senator and then as vice president to Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president.
“We all know that 30 seconds to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange can’t do justice to a lifetime commitment to civil rights,” Biden said.
Biden was introduced by Jackson, the longtime civil-rights leader and former presidential candidate, who said Biden has “the stuff it takes to make America better.”
During his remarks, Biden turned to Jackson and said, “I know and you know I fought my heart out to ensure that civil rights, and voting rights, equal rights are enforced everywhere.”
Biden disputed Harris’ contention that he opposed busing, the controversial practice of transporting students to schools within or outside their school districts as a remedy for discrimination, in the 1970s, saying that he supported voluntary efforts for school districts to desegregate.
He reaffirmed his support for the federal government’s power to address civil-rights abuses, and talked up Obama’s accomplishments on criminal-justice reform, arguing that many of them have been overlooked.
“I’m tired of hearing about what he didn’t do,” Biden told the crowd. “This man had a backbone like a ramrod.”
Harris’ campaign on Friday rolled out new endorsements in key early voting states such as Iowa, South Carolina and California and said it had enjoyed one of its best fundraising days of her candidacy.
Former Vice President Joe Biden shoots a selfie at the conclusion of the second night of the first Democratic presidential candidates debate in Miami, Florida, U.S. June 27, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Segar
Speaking to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Friday, Harris said, “I think we covered a lot of issues, and I’m looking forward to the next (debate).”
Asked if she thought Biden had responded adequately to her discussion of his comments on his work with segregationists, Harris said, “He said what he felt.”
ONE STEP BACK
But Harris, too, was doing some cleanup. Early on Friday, she backtracked from her apparent support at the debate for eliminating private health insurance in favor of a government-sponsored Medicare-for-All plan.
Harris told MSNBC she had misunderstood the question and said her plan would allow for private insurance as supplemental coverage to Medicare.
The clarification amplified concerns by some progressives that Harris is overly opportunistic.
“I’m glad she called out Biden, but it doesn’t allay my concerns about her authenticity,” said a top California Democratic official, who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly.
“You never really know what she really believes or what she is about,” the official said.
Biden campaign officials publicly and privately downplayed the flap with Harris as an example of a trailing candidate trying to draw attention.
“People were going to take swings at him, trying to create a moment, trying to score their points,” said Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s communications director.
They also noted that Biden has appeared to be in trouble before, specifically about the controversy over unwanted touching of women and his remarks about working with segregationist senators, and each time, the depth of his support remained intact.
As Biden himself has said, he does not expect to simply waltz to the nomination, and his campaign has stressed there are several more debates to come before the nominating contests.
The polling gap between Biden and Harris was immense going into the debate. According to Real Clear Politics, Biden held a 25-percentage-point lead over Harris nationally. And he has led in every early voting state.
Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic consultant and once a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said Biden is fortunate his debate struggles occurred early in the nominating process.
Slideshow (4 Images)
“There’s time for any candidate to course-correct,” he said. However, Mollineau said, Biden’s campaign must view Harris’ attack as “more than a warning shot.”
“It does not get any easier from here, so he has to be prepared,” he said. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 30 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Court expected to hear arguments late this year, with a decision on Dreamers likely to come before 2020 election
The supreme court will review the constitutionality of an Obama-era program allowing undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children to get temporary deportation relief and work permits.
Trump ended the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), but the decision was challenged in several lawsuits. The program protected about 700,000 people known as Dreamers.
The justices’ order sets up legal arguments for late fall or early winter, with a decision likely by June 2020 as Trump campaigns for re-election.
Federal courts in California, New York, Virginia and Washington DC have blocked Trump from ending the program immediately. A federal judge in Texas has declared the program is illegal, but refused to order it halted.
Its protections seem certain to remain in effect at least until the high court issues its decision.
The administration had asked the court to take up and decide the appeals by the end of this month. The justices declined to do so and held on to the appeals for nearly five months with no action and no explanation. The court did nothing Friday to clear up the reasons for the long delay, although immigration experts have speculated that the court could have been waiting for other appellate rulings, legislation in Congress that would have put the program on a surer footing or additional administration action.
I won a Pulitzer. Yet Trump wants to deport me because I'm undocumented | Erika Espinoza Read more
Since entering the White House, Trump has intermittently expressed a willingness to create a pathway to citizenship for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been protected by Daca. But he has coupled it with demands to tighten legal immigration and to build his wall along the Mexican border – conditions that Democrats have largely rejected.
With the 2020 presidential and congressional election seasons under way or rapidly approaching, it seems unlikely that either party would be willing to compromise on immigration, a touchstone for both parties’ base voters. Three decades of Washington gridlock over the issue underscore how fraught it has been for lawmakers, and there’s little reason to think a deal is at hand.
On the campaign trail, nearly all of the two dozen Democratic presidential candidates have pledged to work with Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally — beginning with the Dreamers. On the other hand, Trump sees his hardline immigration policies as a winning campaign issue that can energize his supporters.
“We are pleased the supreme court agreed that this issue needs resolution. We look forward to presenting our case before the court,” Justice Department spokesman Alexei Woltornist said.
California attorney general Xavier Becerra said in a conference call with reporters that the high court’s ruling Thursday barring, for now, a citizenship question on the 2020 census “demonstrates that the court’s not going to be fooled by the Trump administration’s clearly disingenuous efforts when it comes to trying to undo and backslide on a lot of the laws and regulations that are there to protect our health and our welfare.”
| null | 0 | -1 | null | 20 |
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President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un (Photo: Susan Walsh, AP)
OSAKA, Japan – Wrapping up events at the G-20 summit, President Donald Trump invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to meet him at his next stop in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.
"If Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!" Trump tweeted Saturday morning Japan time.
There was no immediate response from Kim, whose government has been critical of the United States in recent days amid calls for a third Trump-Kim summit to discuss eliminating Kim's nuclear weapons programs.
Before heading to South Korea late Saturday, Trump has G-20 meetings that include a session with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss North Korea. Xi has met with Kim in recent days, and is encouraging renewed talks between the U.S. and North Korea.
After flying to Seoul later Saturday, Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has been pushing the United States and North Korea to set up another Trump-Kim summit.
After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2019
Relations between the United States and North Korea have been at a standstill since the collapse of the second Trump-Kim summit in February in Vietnam.
The talks broke up as Kim refused to provide what U.S. officials called a detailed plan for dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons programs; Trump, meanwhile, has refused North Korea's demands that the U.S. remove economic sanctions on Kim's government before it provides a denuclearization plan.
While Trump has spoken warmly of Kim recently – he said he and his North Korean counterpart exchanged "beautiful" letters in recent weeks – Kim's government has been more critical.
The U.S. "repeatedly talks about resumption of dialogue like a parrot without considering any realistic proposal that would fully conform with the interests of both sides," said a statement this week from North Korea's foreign ministry.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/28/donald-trump-invites-kim-jong-un-meet-him-korea-dmz/1602172001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 15 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Ahead of his 84th birthday, the Dalai Lama is once again insisting that, if his successor is a woman, she must be physically attractive. The Nobel Peace Prize winner doubled down on the idea during an interview with BBC News Thursday.
"If a female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive," the 14th Dalai Lama told reporter Rajini Vaidyanathan. If not, "people, I think prefer, not see her, that face."
This was perhaps the most surprising moment in the interview. I asked the Dalai Lama if he stood by his earlier comment that if his successor was female, she should be attractive. He said he did. Watch here:#DalaiLama #BBCDalaiLama. pic.twitter.com/QAy0EFDZTT — Rajini Vaidyanathan (@BBCRajiniV) June 27, 2019
Vaidyanathan tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. "It's about who you are inside, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think both," he said. "Real beauty is inner beauty, that's true. But we're human beings. I think the appearance is also important."
This isn't the first time the Tibetan religious leader has brought up the physical beauty of a potential successor. In a 2015 BBC interview, he made similar comments, noting that a female Dalai Lama should be attractive, otherwise she would be of "not much use."
His comments immediately sparked outrage online.
The Dalai Lama said a female successor would have to be hot. We are so far past seven in the seals of the apocalypse department https://t.co/h3EL5CXtwk — Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) June 28, 2019
Having to cancel the Dalai Lama is about as 2019 as it gets https://t.co/VHUPNRJSdF — Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) June 28, 2019
Nothing is more 2019 than finding out the Dalai Lama is an incel. — Bridget Phetasy (@BridgetPhetasy) June 28, 2019
When even the Dalai Lama disappoints you is peak 2019. https://t.co/GnMI7jimAt — Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) June 28, 2019
The Dalai Lama also discussed his views on President Donald Trump during the interview. The two have never met, despite his close relationships with some former presidents. He specifically criticized Mr. Trump for what he believes is his "lack of moral principle."
"When I saw pictures of some of those young children, I was sad," he also said of the situation at the border. "America should take a global responsibility." | null | 0 | -1 | null | 24 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | A top fundraiser has abandoned Joe Biden’s presidential campaign over the former vice president’s praise of segregationists.
Tom McInerney, a San Francisco lawyer and top Democrat financier, told CNBC he cut ties with Biden’s campaign on June 20—two days after the candidate praised the “civility” of segregationists.
“I had actually let the campaign know I’d pulled back my support of Biden for now,” McInerney said. He added that Biden’s performance at the first Democrat presidential debate on Thursday did nothing to alleviate his concerns.
“I don’t think he did well last night,” he said.
McInerney, who raised more than $200,000 for Barack Obama’s successful 2008 campaign, is the first bundler to abandon Biden in the wake of his praise for the late-Sens. James Eastland (D-MS) and Herman Talmdage (D-GA) at a fundraiser this month.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden told donors with an exaggerated Southern drawl. “He never called me boy, he always called me son.”
“Well guess what?” the former vice president continued. “At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”
Biden’s remarks quickly sparked backlash because both men were avowed segregationists who dedicated their careers to fighting civil rights and integration. Eastland, in particular, was known as the “voice of the white South” for his support of Jim Crow and propensity for referring to African Americans as “an inferior race.” At the debate on Thursday, Biden faced renewed criticism for the “hurtful” nature of those remarks by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).
“I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris said, “but I also believe, and it’s personal, and it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senator who is built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”
Biden responded by saying Harris was mischaracterizing his remarks and that he did “not praise racists”–a point widely debunked by fact checkers.
After the debate, Biden’s campaign was reportedly “freaking out” about his poor performance.
McInerney is not the first person to depart Biden’s campaign amid the controversy over segregationists. A top ad maker left only days after Biden’s praise for Eastland and Talmadge.
On Thursday, McInerney expressed doubt he would bethe last fundraiser to abandon Biden.
“I would imagine I’m not alone,” he said. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 24 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | Listen to Slate’s The Gist:
Get More of The Gist Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcasts—and much more. Sign up today and try it free for two weeks. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to The Gist Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page.
Listen to The Gist via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.
On The Gist, Joe Biden had no good answers at Thursday’s Democratic debate.
In the interview, the Washington Post’s Anna Fifield is out with a new book on Kim Jong-un. She interviewed as many people who have had even a fleeting interaction with the man as possible, in an effort to get the clearest picture yet of what the head of the Kim dynasty is really like. Fifield’s book is The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un.
In the Spiel, Kamala Harris has charisma, but is she a flip-flopper too?
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Join the discussion of this episode on Facebook.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @slategist
Podcast production by Pierre Bienaimé and Daniel Schroeder. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 18 |
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Democratic presidential primary candidate Marianne Williamson enters the debate stage Thursday, June 27, 2019, at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. Leah Voss/Treasure Coast Newspapers via USA TODAY NETWORK (Via OlyDrop) (Photo: Leah Voss, Treasure Coast Newspapers-USA TO)
WASHINGTON -- Author Marianne Williamson's quirky, love-conquers-all approach on the Democratic debate stage Thursday drew applause, ridicule and confusion.
On Friday, she was attracting donations. From Republicans.
GOP strategist Jeff Roe, who ran Texas Sen. Ted Cruz' 2016 presidential campaign, tweeted out to his 16,000 followers asking fellow Republicans "to donate $1 to keep this vibrant democrat on the debate stage. One debate performance is not enough."
Please, calling on all republicans to go to https://t.co/fFZ5mdLRRq and donate $1 to keep this vibrant democrat on the debate stage. One debate performance is not enough. #DemDebate2020https://t.co/MFHWVfHXey — Jeff Roe (@jeffroe) June 28, 2019
At least several people appear to have taken up the challenge based on responses to Roe, accompanied by copies of receipts of their campaign donations.
Because qualifying for future debates requires a certain level of fundraising and support, Republicans say they want to keep her offbeat presence on stage.
This woman is ridiculous. I want her to stay. #DemDebatepic.twitter.com/b6E9Hyck2d — Chris Stigall (@ChrisStigall) June 28, 2019
Did my part. I just gave Marianne a dollar. — Tony McDonald (@TweetTonyMac) June 28, 2019
Williamson, a motivational speaker who officiated Elizabeth Taylor’s 1991 wedding to construction worker Larry Fortensky at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, was the most unconventional candidate of the 20 Democrats who qualified for the debate stage in Miami this week.
She suggested one of her first acts as president would be to call New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to find out how to make the United States "the best place in the world for a child to grow up."
She scolded her rivals for thinking that proposing lots of plans will defeat President Donald Trump in 2020.
Debate scorecard: The winners and losers from 2 nights of sparring at the Democratic debates in Miami
Political angst: Don’t get divorced because of Trump. The tough work of settling America’s political differences
In her closing remarks, Williamson said she can beat Trump. With kindness.
"I’m going to harness love for political purposes, I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win," she wrote on Twitter soon after Thursday's debate.
So I, sir, I have a feeling you know what you’re doing. I’m going to harness love for political purposes, I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win. #DemDebate#BigTruth — Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) June 28, 2019
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/06/28/democratic-debate-2019-republicans-urge-giving-marianne-williamson/1598726001/ | null | 0 | -1 | null | 24 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | World leaders are gathering in Osaka, Japan this weekend for the annual Group of 20 – or G20 – summit, where President Trump is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday in an attempt to negotiate a truce in the ongoing trade war.
Hanging over the meeting is President Trump's threat to impose a new round of tariffs on another $300 billion worth of Chinese products-- in addition to the 25 percent tax the president imposed after talks collapsed in May.
"I think we have a very good chance, we'll see what happens, ultimately something will happen and it will only be good, good things happen," the president told reporters on Friday.
Asked if he had pledged not to impose additional tariffs on China for six months, Trump replied: "No I haven't promised, no."
Larry Kudlow, Mr. Trump's top economic adviser, told reporters on Thursday that if talks ultimately fail, the administration will "go to plan B, which is another round of tariffs. If the talks do better than that, then perhaps--perhaps we might avoid that."
"He wouldn't have this meeting with President Xi if he wasn't interested in a deal," Kudlow added.
North Korea is another topic to be addressed at the G20. President Xi has signaled he will present President Trump with a plan from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to revive nuclear disarmament talks.
Despite the breakdown of February's summit in Hanoi, U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, reaffirmed on Friday that Washington is ready to hold "constructive" talks with North Korea to implement the commitments made during 2018's Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.
"If Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!" the president tweeted on Friday.
After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2019
And at the outset of the G20, President Trump jokingly told Russian President Vladimir Putin, "don't meddle in the election" – the first encounter between Trump and Putin since special counsel Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in a "sweeping and systematic" way.
The president's apparent joke didn't go over well. Former President Jimmy Carter blasted Mr. Trump with saying, "He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf."
And twenty Democratic candidates running for president in 2020 participated in the first primary debates this week-- with immigration, healthcare, and race dominating the topics both nights.
With the latest news and analysis from Washington, don't miss Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) this Sunday on "Face the Nation" (@FaceTheNation).
Larry Kudlow, National Economic Council Director, will join us to discuss the administration's trade talks with China.
We'll talk to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina (@LindseyGrahamSC), about the G20 summit, China, and more.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, will join us to discuss this week's first Democratic primary debates.
We'll also hear from 2020 hopeful Beto O'Rourke(@BetoORourke).
And as always, we'll turn to our panel for some perspective on the week that was:
Shannon Pettypiece (@spettypi) of Bloomberg News
(@spettypi) of Bloomberg News Ramesh Ponnuru (@RameshPonnuru) of the National Review, Bloomberg Opinion
(@RameshPonnuru) of the National Review, Bloomberg Opinion Antjuan Seawright (@antjuansea), Political Strategist
(@antjuansea), Political Strategist Edward Wong (@ewong) of the New York Times
On TV, the radio, and streaming online, don't miss "Face the Nation" this Sunday! Click here for your local listings.
And for the latest from America's premier public affairs program, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 26 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | (CNN) After more than 20 years of negotiations, Mercosur and the European Union reached a comprehensive trade agreement in Brussels on Friday.
"The new trade framework -- part of a wider Association Agreement between the two regions -- will consolidate a strategic political and economic partnership and create significant opportunities for sustainable growth on both sides," a European Union news release said.
#Mercosur #trade deal done! A historical moment. In the midst of international trade tensions, we are sending a strong signal that we stand for rules-based trade. Largest trade agreement 🇪🇺 has ever concluded. Positive outcome for environment & consumers.https://t.co/AE5z78c81J — Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) June 28, 2019
According to the EU statement, the deal will remove the majority of tariffs on EU exports to Mercosur, a bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The Mercosur countries have agreed to open their markets to the European Union, saving them more than $4.5 billion worth of duties per year. This makes it the largest trade agreement the European Union has ever concluded.
The trade pact will cover a population of more than 780 million and will consolidate the political and economic partnerships between the countries.
"I measure my words carefully when I say that this is a historical moment. In the midst of international trade tensions, we are sending today a strong signal with our Mercosur partners that we stand for rules-based trade," the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said.
Read More | null | 0 | -1 | null | 13 |
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Name: id, Length: 162994, dtype: int64 | U.S. President Donald Trump gesture with a thumbs-up as he arrives at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
OSAKA (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would like to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this weekend at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the border of North and South Korea.
Trump, who is in Osaka, Japan, for the Group of 20 Summit, is due to arrive in South Korea later on Saturday. He is scheduled to leave the country on Sunday and return to Washington.
“While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!” Trump said on Twitter.
The White House on Friday declined to comment on whether Trump was scheduled to go the DMZ.
U.S. special envoy Stephen Biegun said on Friday the United States was ready to hold constructive talks with North Korea to follow through on a denuclearization agreement reached by the two countries last year, South Korea’s foreign ministry said.
Biegun told his South Korean counterpart, Lee Do-hoon, that Washington wanted to make “simultaneous, parallel” progress on the agreement reached at a summit between Trump and Kim in Singapore last year, the ministry said in a statement.
Both sides agreed to establish new relations and work towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
But negotiations have stalled since a second summit in Vietnam in February collapsed as the two sides failed to narrow differences between U.S. calls for denuclearization and North Korean demands for sanctions relief. | null | 0 | -1 | null | 11 |
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