Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could bring disaster aid legislation to the floor even if lawmakers don’t reach a deal on the stalled aid package. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images
The bill doesn’t include the additional funds Trump sought for the border.
The Senate passed a long-awaited bipartisan disaster aid package on Thursday after reaching a last-minute deal with President Donald Trump.
In a 85-8 vote, the Senate approved a multi-billion dollar disaster aid bill, which will assist states devastated by wildfires, hurricanes and flooding, comes after months of roadblocks.
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The stalled aid package had faced several setbacks — including over Trump’s reluctance to provide more money to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. More recently, talks stalled over a White House request for more border funding. The bill does not include the additional border funds the president sought.
Among the Senators who voted against the bill — all Republicans — were Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Mike Crapo of Idaho, James Risch of Idaho, Mike Braun of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Mitt Romney of Utah, Martha McSally of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Following the bill, both Republicans and Democrats claimed victory.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the disaster aid bill gives enough money to Puerto Rico for disaster relief and that Senate Democrats are ready to support the bill.
“We Democrats said that Puerto Rico has to be treated fairly and they are,” Schumer said. “I suggested this morning that we just do disaster and no border and that’s what we’re doing and each time the President messes in things get messed up. It’s better off letting us just do our work.”
Although the House has left for a one-week recess, the legislation could theoretically be approved on a voice vote as soon as Friday, after the Senate passes it Thursday. But Republicans are expected to reject a unanimous consent request, forcing the House to wait until June to pass the Senate bill.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala) predicted Thursday prior to the deal’s announcement that the multi-billion dollar package had a good chance of passing the Senate if it was only about disaster relief.
The last-minute deal came hours after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed again Thursday that the Senate would not leave Washington before voting on a disaster aid bill.
“It’s past time, way past time to bring these negotiations to a close,” he said. “They need to do this today. Because one way or another, the Senate is not leaving without taking action.”
Failure to reach a deal would have been an embarrassment for Congress, which once viewed disaster aid negotiations as routine. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have already complained that Congress has not done enough legislatively, including Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) who lambasted both houses on Wednesday for doing “nada. Zero. Zilch.”
Sarah Ferris and Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/23/mcconnell-disaster-aid-bill-1340768
Facebook says it banned a staggering 2.2 billion fake accounts in the first three months of 2019 — almost as many as the number of real people it says use the social network.
On Thursday, the Silicon Valley tech giant released the third edition of its Community Standards Enforcement report, a public report that details the company’s efforts to keep its platform clear of fake accounts, abusive material, illegal activity, spam, and other nefarious content.
It details a striking jump in the number of fake accounts it took action against: 2.19 billion were banned in the first quarter of 2019, up from 1.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. “The amount of accounts we took action on increased due to automated attacks by bad actors who attempt to create large volumes of accounts at one time,” the company’s vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, wrote in a blog post.
The data illustrates the sheer volume of malicious activity still present on Facebook’s platform. The company reported 2.38 billion genuine monthly active users at the end of March.
The number of posts Facebook identified as hate speech also continued to climb — it removed 4 million such posts in the most recent quarter, up from 3.3 million in the previous three months and from 2.5 million in the first quarter of 2018. Facebook said its ability to proactively detect this content had also improved, with 65.4% of it detected by the company’s systems and processes, up from 58.8% the previous quarter.
Facebook is touting its improved detection capabilities as a success — allowing it to take action against problematic or illegal content more quickly, before it filters out into the network and causes issues.
“In six of the policy areas we include in this report, we proactively detected over 95% of the content we took action on before needing someone to report it,” Rosen wrote. “For hate speech, we now detect 65% of the content we remove, up from 24% just over a year ago when we first shared our efforts. In the first quarter of 2019, we took down 4 million hate speech posts and we continue to invest in technology to expand our abilities to detect this content across different languages and regions.”
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Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-bans-2-billion-fake-accounts-q1-2019-2019-5
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told her Democratic colleagues Thursday that President Donald Trump “wants to be impeached” so that he can be vindicated by the Senate.
Pelosi made the comments at a closed-door morning meeting, two Democratic aides told NBC News, who also said that Pelosi called Trump’s actions “villainous.”
The aide said that Pelosi was implying that she will stick to her current plan to keep investigating the president and his administration without jumping to impeachment, though she didn’t explicitly address strategy in her remarks.
“Let me be very clear: the president’s behavior, as far as his obstruction of justice, the things that he is doing, it’s in plain sight, it cannot be denied — ignoring subpoenas, obstruction of justice,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference Thursday following the closed-door meeting.
But she continued to stress a focus on process. “I do think that impeachment is a very divisive place to go in our country,” she said. “Get the facts to the American people in our investigation … it may take us to a place that is unavoidable in terms of impeachment, but we’re not at that place.”
Thirty-two members of the House Democratic caucus have so far voiced support for opening an impeachment inquiry against Trump, many of whom came out in support of such a strategy just this week.
The House speaker’s message comes a day after she and Trump tangled over her claim that he had engaged in a “cover-up,” as vocal support for impeachment surged in the Democratic caucus.
“We do believe that it’s important to follow the facts. We believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States. And we believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up,” Pelosi told reporters in the morning, following a closed-door caucus meeting with Democratic lawmakers focused on impeachment.
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The president later cut short a previously scheduled White House visit with Democratic leaders including Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that had been planned to discuss infrastructure policy.
Pelosi said Thursday that the president pulled a “stunt” at the White House on Wednesday and “stormed out” of the room, throwing “another temper tantrum again.”
“I pray for the president of the United States,” she told reporters. “I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.”
Asked what she meant when she referenced a presidential “intervention,” Pelosi appeared to joke about the 25th Amendment, which allows for a process that could lead to the removal of the president through the vice president and Cabinet.
“Statutory intervention? That would be good. Article 25. That’s a good idea. I’ll take it up with my caucus, not that they haven’t been thinking about it.”
Following his brief White House meeting with Democratic leaders, Trump held an impromptu Rose Garden event blasting her statement, and the mounting congressional probes into his conduct and finances.
“I don’t do cover-ups,” he said, adding that legislative cooperation would be on hold until Hill investigations ended.
Pelosi said Thursday that the president was clearly unsettled by the string of legal setbacks, an apparent reference to court decisions this week that would require the release of previously withheld financial documents.
“What really got to him was these court cases and the fact that a House Democratic caucus is not on a path to impeachment, and that’s where he wants us to be,” she said. “When he saw that that was not happening that — again with the cover-up, which he understands is true — just really struck a chord.”
Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosi-trump-wants-be-impeached-n1009236
Updated 1:01 PM ET, Thu May 23, 2019
Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.
(CNN)Violent storms tore through the central US this week, devastating parts of Missouri and Oklahoma, which were hit by dozens of tornadoes and flooding.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/us/missouri-oklahoma-storms-pictures-wxc-trnd/index.html
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Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-india-48281432
Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russian President Vladimir Putin out-prepared President Trump during a key meeting in Germany, putting the U.S. leader at a disadvantage during their first series of tête-à-têtes.
The U.S. side anticipated a shorter meeting for exchanging courtesies, but it ballooned into a globe-spanning two-hour-plus session involving deliberations on a variety of geopolitical issues, said committee aides, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Tillerson’s seven-hour closed meeting with the committee.
“We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted,” a committee aide said. “There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.”
Tillerson, whose public remarks about the president have been sparse since his dramatic firing in March 2018, spoke to a bipartisan group of lawmakers and staffers Tuesday at the request of the chairman of the committee, Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.).
In response to Tillerson’s remarks, Trump countered his former Cabinet secretary, saying in a statement that he “was perfectly prepared for my meetings with Vladimir Putin. We did very well at those meetings.”
Committee aides peppered the former oilman with questions about the 2017 session in Hamburg. Unlike in Helsinki last summer, when Trump met with Putin without advisers present, Tillerson attended the Hamburg meeting, giving him rare insight into the two leaders’ interactions. Experts said the disparity in preparation was unsurprising but risky given Putin’s depth of experience and savvy.
“Putin is a very nimble adversary who’s been at this for 20 years now,” said Andrew Weiss, a Russia scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Hamburg meeting sounds like it was one of Putin’s wildest dreams: a freewheeling backroom-style conversation with a U.S. president.”
In the past, Trump has played down the importance of preparation, saying his gut instinct and ability to read a room are paramount for a successful summit.
“I don’t think I have to prepare very much,” Trump said ahead of his historic first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last year. “It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done. So this isn’t a question of preparation, it’s a question of whether or not people want it to happen, and we’ll know that very quickly.”
Tillerson told the committee that he believed there was more the United States needed to do to counter Russia on the global stage, said a person who was in the room.
When asked about the former secretary’s remarks, a Republican committee aide said that “we believe Tillerson’s testimony best speaks for itself, and are hopeful that our Democrat Chairman will release the full transcript of the meeting to the public soon.”
Committee aides said that Tillerson refrained from openly disparaging the president but that his inability to answer certain questions was revealing.
In one exchange, Tillerson said he and the president “shared a common goal: to secure and advance America’s place in the world and to promote and protect American values.”
“Those American values — freedom, democracy, individual liberty and human dignity — are the North Star that guided every action I took at the State Department,” Tillerson said, according to a person in the room.
Upon questioning, Tillerson clarified that although he and the president shared the same goal, they did not share the same “value system.”
When asked to describe Trump’s values, Tillerson said, “I cannot,” the person said.
“Just as matter of fact, he stated that he couldn’t or wouldn’t unpack the president’s values for us,” a committee aide said.
In another rebuttal to Tillerson, Trump noted that his replacement, Mike Pompeo, is “doing a great job” and “agrees with my values.”
“Such a positive difference!” Trump added.
When Tillerson refused to defend the president’s values on Tuesday, it was not the first time. In 2017, Fox News host Chris Wallace spoke to Tillerson about the deadly violence in Charlottesville, after Trump said “both sides” — white supremacists and the people protesting them — were responsible.
“I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values,” Tillerson said.
“And the president’s values?” Wallace asked.
“The president speaks for himself,” Tillerson said, a response that reportedly infuriated Trump.
Tillerson, who tangled repeatedly with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, did not question the motives of the president’s familial adviser, but said Kushner should’ve consulted more often with State Department colleagues and that his lack of knowledge of history exposed him to being outmaneuvered, said a person who was in the room. He also said Kushner did not follow traditional diplomatic protocols, which made it difficult to understand what he was doing with world leaders.
A senior administration official contested that assertion, saying that “Jared, the White House, and the NSC [National Security Council] did coordinate with the State Department. The problem was Rex Tillerson couldn’t figure out how to coordinate with the State Department.”
Committee staffers were interested in how Middle East foreign policy was made, asking detailed questions about Kushner and Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser and ally of Trump whose office was raided by federal investigators last year in a search for records about his dealings with Trump administration associates. Broidy has ties with the United Arab Emirates, a Persian Gulf ally that has worked closely with Kushner and has aligned itself with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Trump and Tillerson sparred behind the scenes for months before Trump fired him in a tweet. But their public rapport took a dramatic turn in December when Tillerson told CBS that Trump did not read much and had issued directives that were against the law.
Trump responded in a tweet that Tillerson was “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell.”
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced on Thursday $16 billion in aid to help farmers hurt by the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute. Here, Perdue walks past the West Wing of the White House.
Andrew Harnik/AP
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Andrew Harnik/AP
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced on Thursday $16 billion in aid to help farmers hurt by the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute. Here, Perdue walks past the West Wing of the White House.
Andrew Harnik/AP
Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET
The Trump administration will provide $16 billion in aid to keep farmers afloat as they reel from the yearlong trade war between the U.S. and China, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters in a briefing on Thursday.
The bulk of the aid, or about $14.5 billion, is direct aid to farmers, which producers will start to see some time this summer, Perdue said.
“While farmers themselves will tell you they’d rather than trade than aid, without the trade that has been possible, they’re going to need some support,” he said.
Perdue placed the blame for farmers’ economic losses on China, rather than the Trump administration’s own hard-line trade tactics.
“Frankly,” he said, “all of this would have been moot if China would have acted appropriately and fairly in many of the areas regarding intellectual property theft and non-tariff barriers that they have put up for many years.”
While the aid comes from a fund known as the Commodity Credit Corporation, a federal entity founded during the Depression devoted to stabilizing farm income and prices, Trump administration officials including Perdue have said China will pay for the aid to the farm sector.
When asked to explain that assertion, Perdue explained the president’s logic.
“The president feels very strongly that the tariff revenue is going to be used to support this program, which will come back out and replenish the CCC, as it does every year,” Perdue said. “While legally you can’t direct tariff payments into agriculture, that’s what the president feels like China is paying for this program.”
The plan also includes efforts to sell American products in more markets outside of China. Officials said about $100 million will be put toward market diversification.
Agriculture has been among sectors hit hardest by the U.S. trade conflict with China. The announcement of new relief to farmers comes as fears are rising over an economic slump in the agricultural economy.
Trump’s hard-line moves on trade with China have reduced U.S. income at a rate of around $1.4 billion a month, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Analysis by the New York Fed estimates the new tariffs will cost the average U.S. household $831 annually.
Last year, the Trump administration provided $12 billion in aid to farmers to try to offset their losses from the trade war.
The economic troubles have had multiplier effects in recent months. Some farmers across the Midwest are struggling with debt, prompting bankruptcy filings among farmers to rise sharply. A further blow for the country’s agricultural sector has come in the form of natural disasters. Floods have killed livestock and drowned hundreds of millions of dollars in crops.
Trump is expected address the nation’s farmers Thursday afternoon from the White House.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/05/23/726117690/white-house-to-announce-16-billion-in-aid-to-farmers-hurt-by-trade-war-with-chin
An American who joined the Taliban in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks has been released from federal prison early. Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly calls the move ‘disgraceful’ on ‘Fox & Friends.’
John Walker Lindh, the captured Islamic militant who at age 20 journeyed to Afghanistan to join the Taliban and fought alongside the terrorists in the days after 9/11, was released from a U.S. federal prison in Indiana on Thursday, his lawyer confirmed to the Washington Post — despite lawmakers’ concerns about the “security and safety implications” of freeing an unrepentant terrorist who officials say continues to “openly call for extremist violence.”
Lindh, dubbed the “American Taliban,” had been serving his sentence at the Terre Haute, Indiana facility. He was discharged several years before completing the 20-year prison sentence he received for joining and supporting the Taliban, with officials citing “good behavior” for the early release. The former Islamist fighter and enemy combatant, named “Detainee 001 in the war on terror,” was captured alongside a group of Taliban fighters in 2001, just months after the Sept. 11 attacks and the start of the war in Afghanistan.
DAUGHTER OF AMERICAN KILLED AFTER SPEAKING WITH LINDH SLAMS UPCOMING EARLY RELEASE
As he reintegrates into American society, Lindh will have a set of heavy restrictions placed on him. Some lawmakers, however, question whether the safeguards are stringent enough.
“We must consider the security and safety implications for our citizens and communities who will receive individuals like John Walker Lindh, who continue to openly call for extremist violence,” Sens. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., wrote in a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons late last week and that was obtained by the Washington Post.
In the letter, the lawmakers reportedly sought details on how the agency is working to prevent prisoners such as Lindh from committing additional crimes after their release. They also asked which other “terrorist offenders” are next in line to be freed and how the Federal Bureau of Prisons determines whether or not someone is an “ongoing public threat.”
Lindh has been blamed for playing a role in the death of Johnny “Mike” Spann, a U.S Marine turned CIA paramilitary operative who became the first American to be killed in combat in Afghanistan. Spann’s daughter, Allison, told Fox News in March that Lindh’s early release “feels like such a slap in the face.”
LINDH IS SET TO BE RELEASED – SHOULD WE BE WORRIED?
In November 2001, U.S forces learned that an American – Lindh – was among the cluster of Taliban fighters left in limbo after their leader surrendered to the Northern Alliance in the northern Afghanistan province of Mazar-i-Sharif. Spann was the first to go into a compound there, serving as a prison, to interview Lindh, peppering him with questions about where he was from and what he was doing. But Lindh refused to respond.
“In those moments, when he chose to stay silent, he sealed his fate as a traitor to the United States,” Allison Spann said. “At any point, he could have warned him that something was being planned.”
Hours later, Lindh’s fellow detainees erupted in a violent revolt that left Mike Spann dead.
The initial charges leveled against the then 20-year-old Lindh in 2002 included one for murder conspiracy due to the role he played in the deadly prison rebellion.
However, nine of the ten counts in an indictment were then dropped and Lindh ended up pleading guilty to disobeying an executive order outlawing support to the Taliban and for possessing a weapon in Afghanistan.
Lindh at the time told a U.S. district judge he never intended to kill Americans.
“I did not go to fight against America, and I never did,” Lindh said, according to The Washington Post. “I have never supported terrorism in any form, and I never will … I made a mistake by joining the Taliban. Had I realized then what I know now, I would never have joined them.”
Sentencing reports have indicated that “good behavior” may serve as justification for Lindh’s early release.
A convert to Islam hailing from northern California’s Marin County, Lindh made the journey to Afghanistan after journeying through Yemen and Pakistan as a 19-year-old shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks. He underwent training in Kandahar and met with Al Qaeda chief Usama bin Laden on at least one occasion.
In 2017, the National Counterterrorism Center, according to documents obtained by Foreign Policy, underscored that Lindh continued to “advocate for global jihad and write and translate violent extremist texts.”
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Furthermore, he is alleged to have told a TV producer last March that he would “continue to spread violent extremism Islam upon his release.”
When he leaves lockup, Lindh, according to court records viewed by the Washington Post, will need permission to obtain Internet-connected devices, will not be allowed to talk online in any language but English and will be barred from having a passport, among other restrictions.
Fox News’ Greg Norman and Hollie McKay contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/us/american-taliban-militant-john-walker-lindh-released-from-prison
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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/donald-trump-democrats-fight-investigations/index.html
JEFFERSON CITY – North Jefferson City has been ordered to evacuate by 5 p.m. due to flooding.
An emergency meeting was called by Jefferson City officials to talk about what other measures will be taken in response to the Missouri River flooding.
The below map shows the affected area.
With the Memorial Day weekend approaching, the Missouri Department of Transportation sent out a news release urging travelers to plan their routes ahead of time and to pay attention to all road closure signs.
Jefferson City is already starting to close roads.
“As we continue evaluating the circumstances of the projected flooding, officers are currently in North Jefferson City at the Noren Access closing the roadway. Officers will also be closing access to the Missouri River Pedestrian Bridge on both sides of the river,” said spokesperson David Williams.
Williams said the city wants people travelling will stay off of flood roads and the motto “turn around, don’t drown.”
“People underestimate the force and power of water,” he said.
MoDOT agrees.
“Floodwaters can be deeper than they appear and can hide such hazards as sharp objects, electrical wires, sewage and chemicals,” its press release said.
Motorists can stay informed about Missouri road conditions by using MoDOT’s Traveler Information Map.
Jefferson City released projections of how much the river will flood.
The public should monitor the city website for the latest updates on flooding in Jefferson City, Williams said.
“We’re out filling in the low spots in the levee, trying to get everything up to the 30 foot level. We’ve had our storm/flood action plan in place since yesterday when we knew this was coming,” Danny Pointer with the Jefferson City Public Works Department said.
While the department says the Capital levee is the main concern going into the weekend, they are working to make sure all of the barriers are as strong as possible.
“Everything on the main levee is basically at the 30 foot level. We have a few places where it’s low, where what they call Turkey Creek crosses, we have been filling in the low places to try to make sure the levee can hold everything it can hold,” Pointer said.
The levees are not the only concern when it comes to severe weather. The Salvation Army Center of Hope Shelter is also preparing to do what it can to take people in.
“We really feel that no one should be outside during dangerous conditions. I know I like going to my home with air conditioning and heat, and we want to make sure everyone has somewhere safe they can go during the summer and winter especially,” Christopher White, Salvation Army Lieutenant, said.
White said the shelter took people in during Wednesday’s severe storm as well, and will be prepared all weekend.
“Our shelter is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have the ability to open up at a split second. If we see severe weather coming, we can simply say we are admitting people with our cot program. We are here, we have the staff, we have the facilities,” White said.
George Carter, one resident in the evacuation area, said he hopes the flooding is not as bad as predicted.
“It’s devastating, you know, your home and everything. It’ll be alright, just depends on how much the water is. We’ll fix it back up.”
Source Article from https://www.komu.com/news/north-jefferson-city-ordered-to-evacuate-for-flood-risk
The returns — filed in New York, the president’s home state and site of his Trump Tower headquarters in Manhattan — are likely to contain much of the same information as his federal tax returns, which the Trump administration has refused to hand over to Congress.
The Legislature’s actions put the state in a bit of uncharted legal territory; Mr. Trump has said that he is ready to take the fight over his federal tax returns to the Supreme Court, and it seems likely that he would seek to contest New York’s maneuver.
Even so, among the Democrats who have long been frustrated over the president’s refusal to release his returns, the Legislature’s action was cast as a victory for states’ rights and the often-unsung power of their lawmakers.
“It’s a matter of New York’s prerogative,” said Senator Brad Hoylman, the Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the bill in his chamber. “We have a unique responsibility and role in this constitutional standoff.”
In Washington, two congressional committees issued subpoenas last month to Deutsche Bank, the president’s primary lender over the last two decades, and Capital One, where Mr. Trump keeps some of his money. The subpoenas sought decades of personal and corporate financial records, including any documents related to possible suspicious activities detected in Mr. Trump’s personal and business accounts.
Mr. Trump, his company and his three eldest children — Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka — filed a lawsuit on April 29 to block Deutsche Bank and Capital One from complying with the subpoenas.
Mr. Trump has a long history with Deutsche Bank, the only mainstream financial institution consistently willing to do business with him after a series of defaults left other lenders facing huge losses. Since 1998, the bank has lent him a total of more than $2 billion, and Mr. Trump owed Deutsche Bank more than $300 million at the time he was sworn in as president. The bank is by far his largest creditor, and it possesses a trove of financial records — including portions of his federal tax returns — that it is prepared to provide to congressional investigators.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/business/deutsche-bank-trump-subpoena.html
‘Extremely dangerous’ tornado reported in southwest MO as warnings go out across state
The National Weather Service has been issuing multiple tornado warnings across Missouri and parts of Kansas as another round of severe storms hit the Midwest Wednesday night.
After receiving several reports of tornadoes in southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri, Doug Cramer, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri, said crews would be sent out Thursday to survey the damage.
“We don’t know the number of tornadoes. We really don’t know the extent of the damage until we get out there,” Cramer said late Wednesday night. “Things are very preliminary, and we are still issuing tornado warnings, so right now it’s kind of our focus to get through the night with the flash flood and the tornado warnings.”
Cramer said crews plan to focus on Golden City to an area north of Joplin in Missouri as well as rural sections of Cherokee County, Kansas.
Earlier in the night, Joplin, which was hit by an EF-5 tornado that killed 161 people eight years ago, was included in a warning after a possible tornado hit parts of Jasper and Barton counties. The warning has since expired.
The weather service initially reported that a “confirmed large and extremely dangerous” tornado was located over Oronogo, Missouri, at 8:18 p.m. A tornado emergency was issued for cities nearby, including Oronogo, Webb City and Carterville, which are located in Jasper County.
By 9 p.m., the warning included part of Barton and Dade counties as the storm appeared to move northeast. Additional cities included in the warning were Golden City and Arcola.
“This is a life threatening situation,” the weather service posted in a tweet. “Seek shelter now!”
Warnings also went out in central Missouri where weather spotters observed a possible tornado north of Columbia. The weather service said “a confirmed tornado” was seen seven miles west of Hallsville, moving east at 50 mph around 9:34 p.m.
Elsewhere in the state, around 8:15 p.m., the weather service said a severe thunderstorm “capable of producing a tornado” was observed near Armstrong. It said Howard County 911 had reported a funnel cloud.
In parts of Vernon and St. Clair counties, a tornado warning was issued briefly after it appeared the storm could produce a tornado. The warning expired as the storm weakened, according to the weather service.
A tornado watch remains in effect now until 11 p.m. Wednesday. It includes counties in central and southwestern Missouri and southeastern Kansas.
People on Twitter have been sharing images from the severe storms that have hit parts of Missouri and Kansas:
Source Article from https://www.kansascity.com/news/weather-news/article230728574.html
Earlier this year, BJP’s efforts to return to power looked to be on shaky grounds, especially after the party lost three key state elections in December. People across India have had mixed reactions to some of Modi’s landmark economic reforms and policies. They include the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax and demonetization — where the government unexpectedly withdrew all its 500 and 1,000-rupee notes, and replaced them with 500 and 2,000-rupee denomination currencies.
Then, a terrorist attack in Kashmir, and India’s subsequent response to it, shifted the momentum in Modi’s favor.
“That reinvigorated the campaign and took the attention away from, quite frankly, the not-so-great economic record,” Bery told CNBC’s “Squawk Box ” on Thursday.
“You had a slowing economy and also the leaked jobs report, which showed that India’s unemployment rate was at a 45-year high. By shifting to national security, Prime Minister Modi was able to take attention away from those negative stories, ” he added.
Still, Modi’s government will likely have its work cut out: India’s economy is slowing down, its shadow banking sector is in crisis, credit lending from banks is still relatively weak. More needs to be done to spur private investments so that the country doesn’t only rely on consumption to grow, according to analysts.
“Modi 2.0 will inhabit the roles of both economic moderniser and economic populist, contrary to his supporters and critics who have often sought to characterise him as either one or the other,” Control Risks’ Rao wrote.
He added that Modi will likely continue with his efforts to streamline the GST while continuing to empower India’s insolvency and bankruptcy code to tame the massive amounts of debts sitting in the banking sector — but he would not carry out a wholesale privatization of state-owned banks or loosen political control over lending decisions.
“At the same time, increased pressure over rural distress and unemployment will stoke Modi’s economic populist instincts, which will likely see an increased focus on rural spending and handouts aimed at supporting small and medium-sized enterprises,” Rao said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/23/india-lok-sabha-elections-results.html
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — John Walker Lindh, the young Californian who became known as the American Taliban after he was captured by U.S. forces in the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, is set to go free after nearly two decades in prison.
But conditions imposed recently on Lindh’s release, slated for Thursday, make clear that authorities remain concerned about the threat he could pose once free.
Lindh, now 38, converted to Islam as a teenager after seeing the film “Malcolm X” and went overseas to study Arabic and the Quran. In November 2000, he went to Pakistan and from there made his way to Afghanistan. He joined the Taliban and was with them on Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The U.S. attacked Afghanistan after the country failed to turn over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Lindh was captured in a battle with Northern Alliance fighters in late 2001. He was present when a group of Taliban prisoners launched an attack that killed Johnny Micheal “Mike” Spann, a CIA officer who had been interrogating Lindh and other Taliban prisoners.
Television footage of a bearded, wounded Lindh captured among Taliban fighters created an international sensation, and he was brought to the U.S. to face charges of conspiring to kill Spann and providing support to terrorists. Eventually, he struck a plea bargain in which he admitted illegally providing support to the Taliban but denied a role in Spann’s death.
Lindh received a 20-year prison sentence. He served roughly 17 years and five months, including two months when he was in military detention. Federal inmates who exhibit good behavior typically serve 85 percent of their sentence.
His probation officer asked the court to impose additional restrictions on Lindh while he remains on supervised release for the next three years. Lindh initially opposed but eventually acquiesced to the restrictions, which include monitoring software on his internet devices; requiring that his online communications be conducted in English and that he undergo mental health counseling; and forbidding him from possessing or viewing extremist material, holding a passport of any kind or leaving the U.S.
Authorities never specified their rationale for seeking such restrictions. A hearing on the issue was canceled after Lindh agreed to them.
The Bureau of Prisons said Lindh rejected an interview request submitted by The Associated Press, and his lawyer declined to comment. But there have been reports that Lindh’s behavior in prison has created cause for concern. Foreign Policy magazine reported in 2017 that an investigation by the National Counterterrorism Center found that Lindh “continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts.”
A former inmate who knew Lindh from the time they spent at the same federal prison said he never heard Lindh espouse support for al-Qaida or indicate a risk for violence, but he found Lindh to be anti-social and awkward around others, with an unyielding, black-and-white view of religion. The inmate spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wanted to avoid further stigmatization from his time in Lindh’s prison unit.
Michael Jensen, a terrorism researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said it’s clear the government has concerns about Lindh’s mindset.
“For three years he’s going to be watched like a hawk,” Jensen said.
He said Lindh represents an interesting test case, as he is on the leading edge of dozens of inmates who were convicted on terror-related offenses in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and are eligible for release in the next five years. He said there’s little research to indicate the efficacy of de-radicalizing inmates with connections to radical Islam, but he said the research shows that recidivism rates for those connected to white supremacy and other forms of extremism are high.
Lindh has been housed in Terre Haute, Indiana, with other Muslim inmates convicted on terror-related charges. The rationale was to keep those inmates from radicalizing others in the general prison population, Jensen said. Those inside the unit were supposed to be limited in their ability to communicate with each other.
“But the reality is these guys still talk to each other,” he said.
Lindh, for his part, admitted his role and his wrongdoing in supporting the Taliban, but he and his family have bristled at any notion that he should be considered a terrorist. When he was sentenced, Lindh said he never would have joined the Taliban if he fully understood what they were about. He also issued a short essay condemning acts of violence in the name of Islam that kill or harm innocent civilians.
Lindh’s time in prison has provided only a few clues about his current outlook. He filed multiple lawsuits, which were largely successful, challenging prison rules he found discriminatory against Muslims. In the more recent lawsuits, he used the name Yahya Lindh. One lawsuit won the right to pray in groups at the prison in Terre Haute. A second lawsuit reversed a policy requiring strip searches for inmates receiving visitors, and a third won the right to wear prison pants above the ankle, which Lindh said is in accordance with Islamic principles.
In the strip-search lawsuit, Lindh offered a discussion of Islamic rules prohibiting exposure of the body. If he’s compelled to reveal himself, he said, he’s also compelled under his religion to fight the rules requiring him to sin.
Some have criticized Lindh’s pending release. In March, the legislature in Alabama, where Spann grew up, adopted a resolution calling it “an insult” to Spann’s “heroic legacy and his remaining family members.”
In addition, Republican Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby and Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan wrote a letter last week to the Bureau of Prisons expressing concern.
“We must consider the security and safety implications for our citizens and communities who will receive individuals like John Walker Lindh who continue to openly call for extremist violence,” they wrote.
On Monday, Spann’s father, Johnny Spann, wrote a letter requesting that Lindh be investigated before he’s released, citing the National Counterterrorism Center’s investigation as his rationale for concern.
Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/05/22/american-taliban-john-walker-lindh-set-to-be-released/23733225/
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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/politics/2020-blue-red-state-abortion-politics/index.html
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins reacts to the latest impeachment talks coming from Democrats.
Is the president to blame for being unable to work with Democratic leaders?
Not according to Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., who said Wednesday the only thing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is concerned with is keeping her job.
“Why would the blame be thrown at the president when you have the speaker of the House accusing him, basically, of a crime today before she ever gets there? The president is like anyone — he wants to do business, he wants to try, but when you have people kicking sand in his face or accusing him of a crime he is going to react,” Collins said on “The Story with Marth MacCallum.”
ANGRY DEM SAYS TRUMP ‘RAPING THE COUNTRY,’ AS IMPEACHMENT PUSH NEARS CRITICAL MASS
Trump on Wednesday demanded Democrats end what he called their “phony investigations” before he’ll negotiate with them on issues like infrastructure, after cutting a meeting short with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.
Moments before that sit-down, Pelosi accused Trump of having “engaged in a cover-up” regarding the Russia probe.
Collins noted the president’s passion for his job and took a shot at Democrats for not wanting to work with those across the aisle and only being concerned with the 2020 elections.
“This president is passionate about the American people, he’s passionate about putting Americans back to work, he’s passionate about doing infrastructure, and what we’ve seen so far, the Democrats, especially the speaker, is passionate about keeping her job and telling everyone else what they’ve done wrong and that is just the wrong idea. They want to see him defeated in 2020, instead of actually having an agenda here in the House,” Collins said.
The congressman also noted a split within the Democratic Party saying that some Democrats just want to move on from anti-Trump actions.
“They have to feed two different bases. One says impeach. One says, go after Trump, do everything they can to destroy the president. While the others in their caucus are saying we don’t want this, our voters don’t want this and they want to move slowly,” Collins said.
“They lose on the politics, they lose on the facts and so now the American people are the ones losing in the end because they are not doing anything with the majority they have in the house.”
Fox News’ Alex Pappas contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rep-collins-pelosi-dems-trump-impeachment-jobs
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Source Article from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-subpoena-deutsche-bank-house-democrats.html
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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/politics/donald-trump-ben-carson-oreo-hud/index.html
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — John Walker Lindh, the young Californian who became known as the American Taliban after he was captured by U.S. forces in the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, is set to go free after nearly two decades in prison.
But conditions imposed recently on Lindh’s release, slated for Thursday, make clear that authorities remain concerned about the threat he could pose once free.
Lindh, now 38, converted to Islam as a teenager after seeing the film “Malcolm X” and went overseas to study Arabic and the Quran. In November 2000, he went to Pakistan and from there made his way to Afghanistan. He joined the Taliban and was with them on Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The U.S. attacked Afghanistan after the country failed to turn over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Lindh was captured in a battle with Northern Alliance fighters in late 2001. He was present when a group of Taliban prisoners launched an attack that killed Johnny Micheal “Mike” Spann, a CIA officer who had been interrogating Lindh and other Taliban prisoners.
Television footage of a bearded, wounded Lindh captured among Taliban fighters created an international sensation, and he was brought to the U.S. to face charges of conspiring to kill Spann and providing support to terrorists. Eventually, he struck a plea bargain in which he admitted illegally providing support to the Taliban but denied a role in Spann’s death.
Lindh received a 20-year prison sentence. He served roughly 17 years and five months, including two months when he was in military detention. Federal inmates who exhibit good behavior typically serve 85 percent of their sentence.
His probation officer asked the court to impose additional restrictions on Lindh while he remains on supervised release for the next three years. Lindh initially opposed but eventually acquiesced to the restrictions, which include monitoring software on his internet devices; requiring that his online communications be conducted in English and that he undergo mental health counseling; and forbidding him from possessing or viewing extremist material, holding a passport of any kind or leaving the U.S.
Authorities never specified their rationale for seeking such restrictions. A hearing on the issue was canceled after Lindh agreed to them.
The Bureau of Prisons said Lindh rejected an interview request submitted by The Associated Press, and his lawyer declined to comment. But there have been reports that Lindh’s behavior in prison has created cause for concern. Foreign Policy magazine reported in 2017 that an investigation by the National Counterterrorism Center found that Lindh “continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts.”
A former inmate who knew Lindh from the time they spent at the same federal prison said he never heard Lindh espouse support for al-Qaida or indicate a risk for violence, but he found Lindh to be anti-social and awkward around others, with an unyielding, black-and-white view of religion. The inmate spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wanted to avoid further stigmatization from his time in Lindh’s prison unit.
Michael Jensen, a terrorism researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said it’s clear the government has concerns about Lindh’s mindset.
“For three years he’s going to be watched like a hawk,” Jensen said.
He said Lindh represents an interesting test case, as he is on the leading edge of dozens of inmates who were convicted on terror-related offenses in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and are eligible for release in the next five years. He said there’s little research to indicate the efficacy of de-radicalizing inmates with connections to radical Islam, but he said the research shows that recidivism rates for those connected to white supremacy and other forms of extremism are high.
Lindh has been housed in Terre Haute, Indiana, with other Muslim inmates convicted on terror-related charges. The rationale was to keep those inmates from radicalizing others in the general prison population, Jensen said. Those inside the unit were supposed to be limited in their ability to communicate with each other.
“But the reality is these guys still talk to each other,” he said.
Lindh, for his part, admitted his role and his wrongdoing in supporting the Taliban, but he and his family have bristled at any notion that he should be considered a terrorist. When he was sentenced, Lindh said he never would have joined the Taliban if he fully understood what they were about. He also issued a short essay condemning acts of violence in the name of Islam that kill or harm innocent civilians.
Lindh’s time in prison has provided only a few clues about his current outlook. He filed multiple lawsuits, which were largely successful, challenging prison rules he found discriminatory against Muslims. In the more recent lawsuits, he used the name Yahya Lindh. One lawsuit won the right to pray in groups at the prison in Terre Haute. A second lawsuit reversed a policy requiring strip searches for inmates receiving visitors, and a third won the right to wear prison pants above the ankle, which Lindh said is in accordance with Islamic principles.
In the strip-search lawsuit, Lindh offered a discussion of Islamic rules prohibiting exposure of the body. If he’s compelled to reveal himself, he said, he’s also compelled under his religion to fight the rules requiring him to sin.
Some have criticized Lindh’s pending release. In March, the legislature in Alabama, where Spann grew up, adopted a resolution calling it “an insult” to Spann’s “heroic legacy and his remaining family members.”
In addition, Republican Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby and Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan wrote a letter last week to the Bureau of Prisons expressing concern.
“We must consider the security and safety implications for our citizens and communities who will receive individuals like John Walker Lindh who continue to openly call for extremist violence,” they wrote.
On Monday, Spann’s father, Johnny Spann, wrote a letter requesting that Lindh be investigated before he’s released, citing the National Counterterrorism Center’s investigation as his rationale for concern.
Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/05/22/american-taliban-john-walker-lindh-set-to-be-released/23733225/
Ayatollah Khamenei has compared negotiating with the United States to “drinking poison.”
“The parts of the government that wanted to engage with America have been proven wrong, and are not going to have an opportunity to engage anytime soon,” said Narges Bajoghli, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who frequently speaks with people in hard-line Iranian circles.
Iranian officials have tried to drive a wedge between President Trump, who has frequently expressed the desire to disentangle the United States from the Middle East, and his foreign policy team, which takes a harder line. National Security Adviser John Bolton has long advocated regime change, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also appeared to endorse it.
Iranian leaders have singled out Mr. Bolton as a warmonger who is getting ahead of his boss.
“Bolton May Be Sacked,” read a recent headline in Javan, a hard-line newspaper, referring to American reports that Mr. Trump was not pleased with Mr. Bolton. “Infighting in Washington,” echoed Arman-e Emrooz, a more moderate paper.
Analysts said the Iranians may have been hoping to lay low until the 2020 American presidential election when a friendlier administration might come to power. They were thinking, “maybe we can wait this guy out,” said Dina Esfandiary, a Century Foundation fellow who focuses on Iran. Most of the Democratic presidential candidates support rejoining the nuclear deal.
But there are no guarantees that a Democrat will win, or that a new president would automatically embrace the deal without new demands.
While Iranian officials may be able to rely on rainy-day funds, oil smuggling and trade with friendly countries until the end of 2020, they are not likely to carry it through 2024, analysts said.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/middleeast/us-iran-trump-administration.html