Police forensic experts investigate a crime scene where a man stabbed 19 people, including children in Kawasaki on May 28. Two people, including a child, are reportedly dead.
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Police forensic experts investigate a crime scene where a man stabbed 19 people, including children in Kawasaki on May 28. Two people, including a child, are reportedly dead.
Jiji Press /AFP/Getty Images
Updated at 6:00 a.m. ET
At least two victims are dead, including an 11-year-old girl, and about 17 others were injured in a mass stabbing attack near Tokyo, Tuesday morning.
A man who was killed was in his 30s and an official with Japan’s Foreign Ministry, NPR’s Anthony Kuhn reported.
Japanese broadcaster NHK quoted officials who said a knife-wielding man attacked a group of elementary school children as they were boarding a school bus at about 7:45 a.m. local time in the city of Kawasaki.
The suspect reportedly stabbed himself in the neck before he was detained. He has since died from his injuries, according to the broadcaster.
An eyewitness told police that the suspect, armed with two knives, approached the school bus and began stabbing children “one after another,” NHK said.
Most of the victims are students at Caritas Elementary School, a private Catholic school run by Canadian nuns. They suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the Associate Press reported.
“A man stabbed them,” Dai Nagase, spokesman for the Kawasaki Fire Department, told AFP. “We received an emergency call at 7:44 am, which said four elementary school children were stabbed.”
The motive for the attack is unknown.
Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, people left offerings of flowers and drinks on the sidewalk near the site of the incident where dried bloodstains were still visible.
The fatal incident took place during President Donald Trump’s visit celebrating the start of the Emperor Naruhito’s new reign. He expressed his condolences and support while visiting a Japanese warship at the port of Yokosuka.
This is a developing story. Some facts reported by the media may later turn out to be wrong. We will focus on reports from police officials and other authorities, credible news outlets and reporters who are at the scene. We will update as the situation develops.
“He can’t continue as if nothing’s happened,” Ms. Le Pen said on French television. “The French have chosen us as the alternative. He won’t pacify the country unless he draws the consequences.”
She called on Mr. Macron to dissolve the National Assembly — he has refused — and institute proportional representation, which she insisted would more accurately reflect her party’s hold on the electorate. It currently has only seven representatives.
Mr. Macron has promised to institute a “dose” of proportional representation, but not enough to satisfy Ms. Le Pen.
“We’ve always called for a peaceful revolution,” she said.
“The face-off between nationalists and globalists is now in place, in durable fashion,” Ms. Le Pen said in a speech to supporters. “And this will condition the future choice in elections.”
If one thing was clear from Sunday’s result, it was that Ms. Le Pen’s forces have come back, perhaps stronger than ever, and are in a competitive position for France’s next presidential election, in 2022.
“What one saw in these Europeans, we’re in the face of a party that could win,” said Dominique Reynié, a political scientist who directs the Foundation for Political Innovation.
“The hatred of him is irrational in its intensity,” he said of Mr. Macron. “The next period is not going to be a cakewalk. We could have a very weakened president, with no moderate opposition.”
“Contemporary democracy runs the same risk of ancient Greece democracy: turning into tyranny,” he said.
In Europe, upheavals in identity politics — migration, globalization and an economic inequality — had led to a serious questioning of the liberal market democracy, said Roberto Menotti, a senior adviser at the Aspen Institute Italia.
“Change in general create fears, and that’s probably one simple explanation of this shift” to the right, he said. “But at the same time, it seems to me, the other big trend has been volatility.”
Parties that have been at the heart of the European political life since World War II are falling apart, and the election results eroded them further. The Brexit Party, a veritable political pop-up which sprouted only weeks ago, won about 32 percent of the vote in Britain.
“Whether this is a sort of terminal illness or just a temporary big headache of course we don’t know,” said Mr. Menotti.
What is clear from recent European history, especially in Europe, is that things change very quickly. Only five years ago, former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, of Italy’s Democratic Party, became the toast of Europe’s left by winning more than 40 percent in European elections.
The Five Star Movement, the League’s coalition partner, became the leading party in Italy in national elections last year, but have now lost half of their support and trail the Democratic Party.
Big mountain climber Adrian Ballinger guides novice climbers to the tallest peaks in the world and has summited Everest eight times in eleven attempts. He says athletic ability alone won’t guarantee success. Time
Christopher Kulish, 62, a Boulder, Colorado, attorney, died Monday at a camp after summiting the mountain, his family said.
After he stood atop Everest, Kulish joined the elusive “Seven Summit Club,” earned after ascending the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents.
“He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth,” brother Mark Kulish said in a statement. “He passed away doing what he loved, after returning to the next camp below the peak.”
Most of the deaths have occurred after climbers spent extended time in the mountain’s “death zone.”
At 29,035 feet, the air atop Everest has such low oxygen levels that just being in the area near the summit, let alone climbing, proves lethal for those who cannot reach extra oxygen supplies fast enough.
Nearly 400 climbers and just as many sherpas were permitted to scale Everest this season from Nepal’s side of the mountain. Coupled with poor weather closing the window to summit the mountain to a few select days, Everest has seen massive queues just below its peak where climbers must wait in line to reach the top.
“Once you get above about 25,000 feet, your body just can’t metabolize the oxygen,” Grayson Schaffer, editor of Outside magazine, told NPR. “Your muscles start to break down. You start to have fluid that builds up around your lungs and your brain. Your brain starts to swell. You start to lose cognition. Your decision making starts to become slow. And you start to make bad decisions.”
Nepal’s tourism department has downplayed the effect the growing number of climbers has had on this year’s death toll.
While people die every year on the mountain, some say this year’s crowds have been particularly concerning.
Speaking with the Washington Post, Nirmal Purja, who has reached the top of Everest four times, said: “I’ve seen traffic, but not this crazy.”
Contributing: The Associated Press.
Follow USA TODAY’s Ryan Miller on Twitter: @RyanW_Miller
This image provided and posted by the Ohio Department of Transportation, early Tuesday, May 28, 2019, shows a view from one of the department’s trucks as crews on Interstate 75 north of Dayton, Ohio, work to clean debris from the highway after a suspected tornado hit the area. (Ohio Department of Transportation via AP)
BROOKVILLE, Ohio – A rapid-fire line of apparent tornadoes tore across Indiana and Ohio overnight, packed so closely together that one crossed the path carved by another.
The storms strew debris so thick that at one point, highway crews had to use snowplows to clear an interstate.
At least half a dozen communities from eastern Indiana through central Ohio suffered damage, according to the National Weather Service, though authorities working through the night had reported no fatalities as of early Tuesday. Some 5 million people were without power early Tuesday in Ohio alone.
Towns just outside Dayton, Ohio, took some of the heaviest hits. The National Weather Service tweeted Monday night that a “large and dangerous tornado” hit near Trotwood, Ohio, 8 miles (12 kilometers) northwest of Dayton.
Just before midnight, not 40 minutes after that tornado cut through, the weather service tweeted that another one was traversing its path, churning up debris densely enough to be seen on radar.
The aftermath left some lanes of Interstate 75 blocked north of Dayton. Trucks with plows were scraping tree branches and rubble to the side to get the major north-south route reopened, according to Matt Bruning, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Trying to clear the debris in the middle of the night is a difficult task, complicated by darkness and downed power lines, Bruning said.
“We’ll do a more thorough cleaning after we get lanes opened,” he told The Associated Press by text early Tuesday, noting that tow trucks would have to haul off damaged vehicles along the roadway, too.
Crews were also clearing debris in two other counties northwest of Dayton.
In Montgomery County, which includes Dayton, Sheriff Rob Streck said many roads were impassable. The Montgomery County sheriff’s office initially said the Northridge High School gymnasium would serve as an emergency shelter in Dayton but later said it wasn’t useable.
An Indiana town was also heavily damaged by storms late Monday, including reports of two tornadoes.
“We do not know at this time if this was a tornado, straight-line winds or what the cause was” of damage in Pendleton, 35 miles (56 kilometers) northeast of Indianapolis, said Todd Harmeson, a spokesman for the Madison County Emergency Management Agency.
Rescue workers operate at the site where multiple people were injured in a suspected stabbing by a man, in Kawasaki, Japan, on Tue., May 28, 2019, in this photo released by Kyodo.
Reuters
A man carrying a knife in each hand and screaming “I will kill you” attacked a group of schoolchildren waiting at a bus stop just outside Tokyo on Tuesday, wounding at least 19 people, including 13 children, Japanese authorities and media said.
The victims were lined up at a bus stop near Noborito Park in Kawasaki City when a man in his 40s or 50s attacked. NHK national television, quoting police, said that the suspect died after slashing himself in the neck. Police wouldn’t immediately confirm the report or provide or other specific details.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many others had died.
An official with the Kawasaki fire department told The Associated Press that one person had been killed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. Some Japanese media outlets were reporting at least three deaths, while some were saying two, including the attacker.
Kyodo news agency reported that all 13 children who were stabbed were girls at a nearby private school in Kawasaki City.
A witness told the Mainichi newspaper that he heard children shrieking after walking past a bus, and when he turned around, he saw a man wielding a knife in each hand, screaming “I will kill you” and that several children were on the ground.
NHK, citing police, said that a bus driver told officials that a man holding a knife in each hand walked toward the bus and started slashing children. NHK also interviewed a witness who said he saw the suspect trying to force his way onto a bus.
The attacker’s identity and motives weren’t immediately known.
Rescue workers and police officers operate at the site where several people were injured in a suspected stabbing by a man in Kawasaki, Japan, on Tue., May 28, 2019, in this photo released by Kyodo.
Reuters
Television footage showed emergency workers giving first aid to people inside an orange tent set up on the street, and police and other officials carrying the injured to ambulances.
A spokesman for the Kawasaki Fire Department told the AFP news agency that an emergency call was received at 7:44 a.m. local time Tuesday.
“I saw a man lying near a bus stop bleeding,” a male eyewitness told NHK, according to BBC News. “I also saw elementary schoolchildren lying on the ground… It’s a quiet neighborhood, it’s scary to see this kind of thing happen.”
Although Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, it has had a series of high-profile killings, including in 2016 when a former employee at a home for the disabled allegedly killed 19 and injured more than 20 others.
In 2008, seven people were killed by a man who slammed a truck into a crowd of people in central Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district and then stabbed passers-by.
Also in 2016, a man stabbed four people at a library in northeastern Japan, allegedly over their mishandling of his questions. No one was killed.
The source of a quote attributed to Donald Trump about “Sleepy Joe Biden” and Kim Jong Un that was widely promoted by media figures and Trump critics has acknowledged online that he fabricated the “objectively ludicrous quote.” Trump has since responded by pointing to the incident as another example of “what’s going on in the age of Fake News.”
“President Trump in Tokyo: ‘Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden,'” Time Magazine foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large Ian Bremmer tweeted Sunday.
As the Washington Examiner and The Daily Caller noted, the quote was left up for several hours, while various critics of Trump promoted it, among them Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu, Media Matters’ Andrew Lawrence, and CNN contributor Ana Navarro — the latter urging people not to “shrug” the quote off and declaring Trump’s supposed comment “praising a cruel dictator who violates human rights, threatens nuclear attacks, oppresses his people, and kills political opponents” as “NOT FREAKING NORMAL.”
As documented by the Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy, after the tweet went viral, Bremmer initially posted a defense of his fake quote, describing it as “plausible” and saying it was a comment on “the state of the media and the twitterverse today.” But amid mounting pressure, Bremmer ultimately chose to delete the “objectively ludicrous quote.”
“If this alleged quote from Trump is accurate, it’s a huge propaganda win for the disgusting murderous tyrant that is King Jong Un,” Dunleavy initially posted. “But if this quote is fabricated, it’s a truly deceitful piece of Fake News. And I’d like more than just Ian Bremmer’s say-so before I decide which.” Dunleavy added in an update that Bremmer “has now admitted that he fabricated this viral Trump quote. And yet it is being shared by journalists and congressmen as if it is real.”
President Trump has since responded to the “MADE UP” quote, framing the sequence of events as another example of how things operate in “the age of Fake News.”
“[Ian Bremmer] now admits that he MADE UP ‘a completely ludicrous quote,’ attributing it to me,” Trump tweeted early Monday. “This is what’s going on in the age of Fake News. People think they can say anything and get away with it. Really, the libel laws should be changed to hold Fake News Media accountable!”
Though Trump did not say that Kim Jong Un would make a better president than Biden, he did tweet over the weekend that he “smiled” when the dictator described Biden as “a low IQ individual,” as Trump has repeatedly.
“The North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”
North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?
Asked by NBC News’ Chuck Todd about the president’s tweet on Sunday, Sanders stressed that Trump’s “not siding” with the North Korean dictator over the former Vice President of the United States; rather, the two simply “agree in their assessment of former Vice President Joe Biden,” The New York Times reports. “[T]he president’s focus in this process is the relationship he has and making sure we continue on the path towards denuclearization,” she added. “That’s what he wants to see and that’s certainly what the people in this region want to see.”
Real estate mogul Franklin Haney contributed $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee and all he’s got to show for the money is the glare of a federal investigation.
The contribution from Haney, a prolific political donor, came as he was seeking regulatory approval and financial support from the government for his long-shot bid to acquire the mothballed Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in northeastern Alabama. More than two years later, he still hasn’t closed the deal.
His tale is a familiar one in Washington, where lobbyists and wealthy donors use their checkbooks to try to sway politicians. It’s a world Haney is accustomed to operating in and one that Trump came into office pledging to upend. Yet Trump has left in place many of the familiar ways to wield influence.
Haney’s hefty donation to Trump’s inaugural committee is being scrutinized by federal prosecutors in New York who are investigating the committee’s finances. Their probe is focused in part on whether donors received benefits after making contributions.
TVA asks judge to dismiss lawsuit over Bellefonte sale
Nuclear Development filed a lawsuit against TVA when the sale of the nuclear plant collapsed in November.
Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has given prosecutors information regarding Haney, his son and business associate, Frank Haney Jr., and the nuclear plant project, according to a person familiar with what Cohen told the authorities. The person was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.
Haney had briefly hired Cohen to help obtain money for the Bellefonte project from potential investors, including the Middle Eastern country of Qatar. Cohen is now serving a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.
Haney and his attorney did not respond to interview requests.
Prosecutors also are examining whether foreigners unlawfully contributed to the committee. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan issued a subpoena last year seeking a wide range of financial records from the committee, including any “communications regarding or relating to the possibility of donations by foreign nationals.”
The inaugural committee has denied wrongdoing and said its funds were fully accounted for.
Will Justice Department junk Franklin Haney’s Bellefonte nuclear jalopy?
Federal investigation latest problem for nuclear developer.
Haney, 79, has previously faced accusations that his political gift giving is aimed at cultivating influence. An investigation by House Republicans in the late 1990s alleged that Haney’s money and his political pull with senior Clinton administration officials helped him to get the Federal Communications Commission to move into an office building that he had a major stake in. Haney denied any wrongdoing and the Justice Department declined to pursue the matter.
But he was charged in 1999 with funneling about $100,000 in illegal contributions to President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and other politicians, then acquitted. A federal prosecutor described Haney as a sophisticated fundraiser who hoped to impress potential business clients with his access to elected officials, like Clinton and Gore.
Haney’s family-owned real estate business donated thousands of dollars in 2013 and 2015 to political action committees that supported Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, who later recommended that the nuclear plant Haney wanted to buy be put up for sale. Haney also contributed to a nonprofit created to promote Bentley’s agenda. The Republican governor resigned in 2017 as he faced impeachment proceedings after an alleged affair with an aide.
In addition to the investigation into Haney’s contribution to the Trump inaugural committee, Haney is in an unrelated legal battle with the nuclear plant’s owner, the Tennessee Valley Authority. Another Haney company, Nuclear Development LLC, has filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the TVA, the nation’s largest public utility, of illegally blocking the plant’s sale to him at the last minute. The utility has argued it couldn’t complete the transaction because Haney failed to get the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval for transfer of the construction permits.
Nuclear Development sues TVA over Bellefonte deal
The company attempting to purchase the Alabama nuclear plant alleged breach of contract by TVA.
A tentative Bellefonte sale in November 2016 involved two partially constructed nuclear reactors and the supporting cooling towers, several other buildings and more than 1,000 acres of land on the Tennessee River. Haney put down $22 million and had until November 2018 to complete the $111-million sale.
On Nov. 29, the day before the sale was to be closed, the TVA scrapped the deal, declaring that Haney’s company had not yet secured regulatory approval as required by the Atomic Energy Act. Haney filed a breach of contract lawsuit.
In early April, about five months after Nuclear Development submitted its application for transfer of the construction permits, the regulatory commission’s staff told the company it needed to submit more technical details before it could proceed.
Edwin Lyman, a nuclear power expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the response reflected skepticism about whether Haney’s company “is serious about or capable of actually undertaking this project or just wants to put the license in its pocket for purposes unknown.”
But Lyman added the five-member nuclear regulatory board is dominated by Trump appointees and may not want to be seen by Congress and the Trump administration as throwing up roadblocks to a nuclear power expansion.
Haney’s Nuclear Development company also has applied to the U.S. Energy Department for financing assistance on the project. The department said it considers the loan application process to be “business sensitive” and declined to comment.
Stephen Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said Haney faces too many technical and financial hurdles to overcome.
For example, Bellefonte’s never-completed nuclear reactors are decades old and are of a unique design that has never received an operating license in the U.S. before. He compared Bellefonte to a Ford Pinto, a 1970s-era vehicle with serious engineering flaws. Smith said it’s “extraordinarily unlikely” Bellefonte will be allowed to operate.
A Colorado climber died shortly after getting to the top of Mount Everest and achieving his dream of scaling the highest peaks on each of the seven continents, his brother said Monday.
Christopher Kulish, a 62-year-old Boulder attorney, died Monday at a camp below the summit during his descent. The cause isn’t yet known, said his brother, Mark Kulish of Denver.
Christopher Kulish had just reached the top of Everest with a small group after crowds of hundreds of climbers congested the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) peak last week, his brother said.
“He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth. At that instant, he became a member of the ‘7 Summit Club,’ having scaled the highest peak on each continent,” Mark Kulish said in a statement.
He described his brother as an attorney in his “day job” who was “an inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over.”
“He passed away doing what he loved, after returning to the next camp below the peak,” Mark Kulish said.
About half a dozen climbers died on Everest last week, including Don Cash of Utah, who also had fulfilled his dream of climbing the highest mountains on each continent. Most of them died while descending from the summit during only a few windows of good weather each May.
Most are believed to have suffered from altitude sickness, which is caused by low amounts of oxygen at high elevation and can cause headaches, vomiting, shortness of breath and mental confusion.
There are 41 teams with a total of 378 climbers permitted to scale Everest during the spring climbing season. An equal number of Nepalese guides are helping them get to the top.
Christopher Kulish also is survived by his mother, Betty Kulish, and a sister, Claudia.
Europe’s centrist parties took a beating in the European Union’s parliamentary elections over the weekend — losing ground to environmental and liberal groups as well as far-right and populist parties.
The upending of the traditional order was particularly noticeable in the UK, where Nigel Farage’s single-issue Brexit Party took a third of the votes — while outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party won just 9 percent, putting it in fifth place.
Farage said Monday the result makes the case that Britain should leave the EU, even if an agreement on that exit isn’t reached.
He added that he doubts the Conservatives will manage to extricate the country from the 28-member body by October’s deadline while they struggle to replace May — and said his party would “stun everybody” in the next British election if it doesn’t happen on time.
“The Conservative Party are bitterly divided and I consider it to be extremely unlikely that they will pick a leader who is able to take us out on the 31st October,” he said.
May, who is stepping down in June after she failed to cement a Brexit deal, called the loss “disappointing” and said it “shows the importance of finding a Brexit deal.”
The four-day election among the EU countries delivered the highest turnout in 20 years, with almost 51 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot.
Traditional center-left and center-right parties failed to keep their majority in the European Parliament’s 751-seat chamber for the first time since the first elections in 1979 — with the Social Democrats and the European People’s Party suffering significant loses.
“This is a profound change,” said Janis A. Emmanouilidis, director of studies at the European Policy Centre, a think tank in Brussels. “The two biggest parties have lost a significant number of seats.”
Although far-right and populist parties made gains, they were smaller than expected.
In Italy, the right-wing League Party headed by Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini won 33.64 percent of the vote.
He said he would try to establish an anti-EU bloc by recruiting other far-right leaders like France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
”Not only is the League the first party in Italy, but also Marine Le Pen is the first party in France, Nigel Farage is the first party in the UK,” Salvini crowed. ”It is the sign of a Europe that is changing.”
But right-wing groups in Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark failed to meet expectations.
Riding concerns about the disastrous effects of climate change, the European Greens made gains in Germany, France and Britain.
The 28 EU national leaders will meet in Brussels on Tuesday to work out the succession of Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other key jobs.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) is making another strategic move to aid in its shift towards electrification, this time proposing a 50-50 merger with Renault that would make the joint venture the 3rd largest car manufacturer in the world with around 8.7 million annual sales.
The primary motivation for the deal is to split capital expenditure as both companies carry out their commitments to powertrain transitions, and FCA has estimated a $5.6 billion dollar cost savings to result from the merger. This move comes on the heels of an emissions credit deal with Tesla estimated to cost the Italian automaker over $1 billion dollars, and it doesn’t appear this expense will be affected by the merger in the short term.
Strict European Union (EU) emissions regulations led Tesla and FCA to enter into a vehicle pooling deal in April. Under the agreement, FCA will be counting Tesla’s zero-emissions fleet in its figures, allowing the company to lower its average CO2 output per vehicle. Both parties significantly benefit from the deal as FCA avoids EU penalties and Tesla receives monetary compensation. It also gives FCA extra time to work at its 5-year plan to move away from diesel and produce only all-electric and hybrid car models.
Fiat-Chrysler’s CEO Mike Manley previously estimated that 80% of FCA’s CO2 compliance would come from purchasing credits from Tesla in 2020 before falling to around 15 per cent in 2021. It’s not completely clear how Tesla’s emissions deal with FCA will be affected by a merger; however, as time is of the essence, very little may change, if at all. “If this merger proceeds, the creation of a new company could require more than a year,” Manley commented about the deal with Renault. If that’s the case, FCA would still need to meet EU regulation requirements in the meantime.
Beginning in 2020, 95% of automotive fleet-wide emissions in the EU must average under 95g of CO2 per kilometer, i.e., have a fuel efficiency of about 57 mpg for internal combustion vehicles. A Fiat-Renault merger would go well past this deadline, according to Manley, meaning FCA would still have to bear the cost burden of its deal with Tesla alone and on the original terms.
In 2021, full EU auto fleets must be compliant, and the penalties could add up to financial ruin for companies unable to meet the strict standards. FCA has been slower than its industry peers to adopt an electrification plan and needed to buy more time to carry out its strategy. The company’s efforts towards lower emissions will likely not manifest into enough production vehicles to avoid the EU fines by the impending deadline, leading to the deal with Tesla and representing another factor motivating the merger with Renault.
The terms of FCA’s proposed merger with Renault would give both auto makers equal representation on the combined board of directors, and shareholders would split the stocks equally. FCA further stated that no plant closures would result from the deal, although layoffs are still a question. Tesla, of course, is quite familiar with these types of changes that are necessary to completely uproot a century-old, gasoline-dominated industry in favor of one that’s more environmentally sustainable.
SAN DIEGO — Rep. Duncan Hunter of California acknowledged taking a photo with a dead combatant during his time as a Marine as he defended a Navy SEAL charged with multiple war crimes, including killing a teenage fighter.
The Republican congressman, who was re-elected last November as he faces corruption charges, made the comments during a town hall Saturday in his San Diego-area district, the Union-Tribune reported.
Hunter has advocated for a pardon for Edward Gallagher, who’s charged with stabbing to death a teenage Islamic State fighter under his care in Iraq in 2017 and then holding his reenlistment ceremony with the body.
Prosecutors said the Navy SEAL chief texted a photograph of himself next to the dead fighter and wrote he “got him with my hunting knife.” He’s also accused of shooting two civilians in Iraq and opening fire on crowds.
Hunter said he also posed for a photo next to a dead combatant but said he did not text it or post it to social media. The congressman said “a lot of us have done the exact same thing,” referring to fellow service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hunter called the military justice system “corrupt,” saying it is run by lawyers and bureaucrats intent on pursuing “war fighters.” His offices didn’t return calls and emails seeking comment Monday.
Gallagher’s lawyers have said he did not murder anyone and that disgruntled SEALs made the accusations because they wanted to get rid of a demanding platoon leader.
Dozens of Republican congressmen say Gallagher an innocent war hero being unfairly prosecuted. President Donald Trump got him moved from the brig to better confinement in a military hospital with access to his lawyers and family.
Trump says he is considering pardons for several American military members accused of war crimes.
Gallagher’s court-martial is set to begin this week at Naval Base San Diego. Gallagher has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
At the town hall, Hunter declined to comment on his own pending court case.
Hunter and his wife, Margaret, were indicted in 2017 on federal charges of illegally converting more than $250,000 in campaign contributions for personal living expenses. Both have pleaded not guilty and have their next court hearing scheduled for July 29. Trial is set for later this year.
President Trump on Monday denied that the United States is seeking regime change in Iran, dialing back hawkish rhetoric days after ordering 1,500 additional U.S. troops to the region.
Actions by the Trump administration had heightened questions about whether the president was seeking a military confrontation with Iran, starting with his decision to back out of a nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration and continuing with his recent orders for a military buildup, also including the deployment of a carrier strike group and B-52 bombers.
“We’re not looking for regime change. I want to make that clear,” Trump said at a joint news conference Monday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “We’re looking for no nuclear weapons.”
A number of Democrats have expressed alarm about whether Trump’s actions would lead to war, and they also had questioned the administration’s interpretation of intelligence to argue that Iran was preparing for offensive action and therefore had to be countered.
Former congressman Beto O’Rourke (Tex.), a Democratic presidential candidate, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Trump was “provoking yet another war in the Middle East.”
Trump’s meeting with Abe on Monday focused partly on the possibility that relations between the United States and Iran could improve. Trump told reporters that Abe has a “very good relationship with Iran.”
President Trump speaks as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe listens during a news conference in Tokyo on Monday. (Kiyoshi Ota/AP)
That could set the stage for U.S. talks with Iran, Trump suggested, saying that “I do believe Iran would like to talk and if they’d like to talk, we’ll talk also. . . . Nobody wants to see terrible things happen, especially me.”
Trump’s relatively conciliatory words marked a contrast with some of his recent statements and those of some top aides.
Under a 2015 deal backed by President Barack Obama, Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for the dropping of sanctions. Trump had vowed during the 2016 campaign to pull out of the deal, arguing that it did not do enough to ensure that Iran would never be in a position to develop a nuclear weapon.
But he initially followed the advice of advisers who urged him not to scuttle the deal, which was struck between Iran and six global powers: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China, as well as the United States.
That position changed when Trump brought into his administration more hawkish aides, including national security adviser John Bolton. He had called for regime change before joining the administration in March 2018, saying in July 2017 that “the declared policy of the United States should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran.”
Earlier this month, Iran said it will withdraw from part of the deal in July unless sanctions are eased. Tensions between the United States and Iran escalated further, as the Trump administration and some of its allies in the Persian Gulf region accused Iran or its proxies of attacking oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
On May 19, Trump tweeted: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who represented his country in the nuclear talks with the United States, said on CNN on May 21, “Extreme prudence is required and the United States is playing a very, very dangerous game.” U.S. sanctions, he said, “amounts to terrorism” against his country.
Last Friday, Trump said he was sending “a small number of troops” — about 1,500 — as well as a squadron of fighter jets and other equipment in what he called a “mostly protective” measure. He also authorized the multibillion-dollar sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, a traditional foe of Iran, invoking an emergency authorization to sidestep a congressional review of the sale.
Despite those actions, Trump said Friday that “I don’t think Iran wants to fight and I certainly don’t think they want to fight with us.”
Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said via email Monday: “What Trump articulated in Japan was another reminder that his main problem with the Iran nuclear deal was that it was signed by Obama. Given Trump’s eagerness for a public summit and deal with Tehran, it’s conceivable Iran’s leaders could sign a more favorable deal with Trump than they did with Obama. But the pride and mistrust of Iran’s Supreme Leader makes him more inclined to subject his population to another year of sanctions and economic malaise rather than do a deal with Trump.”
Trump has often delivered conflicting messages on foreign policy, veering from sharp criticism to diplomacy, frequently leaving the allies and adversaries alike unsure about where he stands.
In his statements Monday, Trump gave criticism along with praise. He said that Iran was “behind every single major attack” in the Middle East, but that the nation is “pulling back” because of economic problems caused by U.S. sanctions. At the same time, Trump said the Iranians are “great people” and that the Islamic Republic “has a chance to be a great country with the same leadership.”
A loaded combine during a late corn harvest in Hamilton, Ohio.
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A loaded combine during a late corn harvest in Hamilton, Ohio.
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American soil.
Those are two words that are commonly used to stir up patriotic feelings. They are also words that can’t be be taken for granted, because today nearly 30 million acres of U.S. farmland are held by foreign investors. That number has doubled in the past two decades, which is raising alarm bells in farming communities.
When the stock market tanked during the last recession, foreign investors began buying up big swaths of U.S. farmland. And because there are no federal restrictions on the amount of land that can be foreign-owned, it’s been left up to individual states to decide on any limitations.
It’s likely that even more American land will end up in foreign hands, especially in states with no restrictions on ownership. With the median age of U.S. farmers at 55, many face retirement with no prospect of family members willing to take over. The National Young Farmers Coalition anticipates that two-thirds of the nation’s farmland will change hands in the next few decades.
“Texas is kind of a free-for-all, so they don’t have a limit on how much land can be owned,” say’s Ohio Farm Bureau’s Ty Higgins, “You look at Iowa and they restrict it — no land in Iowa is owned by a foreign entity.”
Ohio, like Texas, also has no restrictions, and nearly half a million acres of prime farmland are held by foreign-owned entities. In the northwestern corner of the state, below Toledo, companies from the Netherlands alone have purchased 64,000 acres for wind farms.
There are two counties in this region with the highest concentration of foreign-owned farmland — more than 41,000 acres each. One of those is Paulding County, where three wind farms straddle the Ohio-Indiana line.
Higgins says that this kind of consumption of farmland by foreign entities is starting to cause concern. “One of the main reasons that we’re watching this … is because once a foreign entity buys up however many acres they want, Americans might never be able to secure that land again. So, once we lose it, we may lose it for good.”
His other concern is that every acre of productive farmland that is converted over to something other than agriculture, is an acre of land that no longer produces food. That loss is felt from the state level all the way down to rural communities, where one in six Ohioans has ties to agriculture.
Angela Huffman is a 6th generation farmer in Wyandot County, which, along with Paulding County, has over 41,000 acres of foreign-owned farmland. Her modest, two-story white farmhouse has been in her family for almost 200 years. Her grandfather was the last person to actively farm the land here. When he got out of of farming due to declining markets, none of his five children wanted to take over, and the cropland is now leased.
But Huffman, a young millennial who lives here with her mother, wants to try and keep the farm going and revive her family heritage.
Walking out to the barn, a huge white Great Pyrenees dog watches over a small flock of sheep. Huffman says she’s worried about the effects of foreign land ownership on her rural community — which she describes as similar to Walmart pushing local businesses out of the market.
“Right out my back door here, Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the world, has recently bought out a couple grain elevators,” Angela says pointing across the field behind her house, “basically extracting the wealth out of the community.”
To be fair, U.S. farmers and corporations also invest in overseas agriculture, owning billions of dollars of farmland from Australia to Brazil, but the Smithfield Food buyout has really raised concerns with American farmers. As part of that 2013 sale, a Chinese company now owns 146,000 acres of prime U.S. farmland.
Back in the Huffman farmhouse, Joe Maxwell is typing on a laptop at the kitchen table. Maxwell is a fourth generation farmer from Missouri. He and Huffman are part of the Organization for Competitive Markets, an advocacy group of farmers and ranchers across the nation.
Maxwell points to the Smithfield Foods elevators across the field: “The money that those elevators used to make stayed within the community. Today the money those elevators make, will go into the pocket of someone thousands of thousands of miles away. This is going on across America.”
Maxwell is concerned that, as other states put restrictions on foreign purchases in place, Ohio in particular is being targeted. “So when they’re looking for investments in the U.S. and agriculture,” he says, “Ohio’s a great ag state and you don’t have any restrictions like other states.”
Nationwide, Canadian investors own the most farmland. In Ohio, it’s Germany, with 71,000 acres.
On the southern central part of the state, John Trimmer manages 30,000 acres of corn and soybeans for German investors. He’s been working with German families that have wanted to get into U.S. agriculture since the 1980s. “They started to buy land in Iowa and Minnesota,” Trimmer explains, “but right when they started then [Iowa and Minnesota] passed state laws which restricted foreign ownership.”
‘None of them have an interest in the farm’
Instead, the Germans turned to Ohio.
But, Trimmer says, there is a misconception about about foreign owners — that they aren’t good neighbors or good stewards of the land. What he sees is a growing divide between older family members who still live on the farm, and their children who have no interest in the family business and want to cash out the land.
“The last two farms we bought here, through an owner, her and her brothers and sisters inherited it from their mother, and none of them wanted to farm. None of them have an interest in the farm.” Trimmer explains that his German clients have established a reputation in the community for letting the tenants — often aging parents or grown children — continue to live in the houses on the farms they buy.
Sellers work directly with his German clients — instead of putting the property up on the market, the sale ensures that family members can live out their lives in the family homestead, while still getting cash value for the farmland.
A woman exits a voting booth with curtains depicting the European Union flag in Baleni, Romania, on Sunday.
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A woman exits a voting booth with curtains depicting the European Union flag in Baleni, Romania, on Sunday.
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Europe’s traditional centrist coalition lost its majority in the European Union’s parliamentary elections Sunday, with far-right populist parties and liberal, pro-European Union parties both gaining ground. The results suggest a complicated future for the EU, as voters look for new ways forward.
More than 50 percent of European voters turned out last week to vote in the parliamentary elections, the highest turnout in two decades and a sharp increase from the last election in 2014.
Here’s what you need to know from the results.
The center-left, center-right coalition lost its majority
The center-right group known as the European People’s Party (EPP) and the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) held 54 percent of the seats before the vote. Now they’re down to 43 percent, according to Sunday’s results. The two blocs together lost more than 70 seats, along with the majority they held for decades, according to NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli.
The results suggest that European centrists will have to reach out to and unite more broadly with liberal coalitions in order to affect change — and maintain authority — in the EU.
The far-right gained ground — but not as much as expected
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the right-wing League party, speaks at a news conference following the European Parliament election results on Monday in Milan.
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Matteo Salvini, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the right-wing League party, speaks at a news conference following the European Parliament election results on Monday in Milan.
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Populist, euroskeptic parties across Europe saw gains, but less than what some pre-election polls had predicted — and what pro-EU forces had feared. And the various nationalist parties’ differences over issues like migration and attitudes toward Russia could cloud prospects for a united right.
“What happened was not really what a lot of people were fearing, that there would be a surge of the far-right populists,” former Swedish Prime Minister and now co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations Carl Bildt told NPR on Monday. “There was an increase by the far-right, but fairly marginal and far less than what people had predicted.”
Because the gains were smaller than expected, the far-right likely won’t be able to reshape the future of Europe by itself, says NPR’s Poggioli, but it may be able to obstruct the legislative process. Many attribute the victories on the far-right to high unemployment rates, security concerns after several terrorist attacks and tensions over migration.
In France, the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen narrowly beat French President Emmanuel Macron’s party coalition. Though Le Pen’s party won by less than 1 percent, with 23 percent of the vote, she dubbed it a “victory for the people” on Twitter.
The League, Italy’s far-right populist party led by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, saw a sweeping victory, garnering more than 34 percent of the country’s vote.
“Not only is the League the top party in Italy, Marine Le Pen is the top party in France, Nigel Farage is the top party in the U.K. So Italy, France, the U.K., it’s a sign of a Europe that’s changing,” Salvini said at a press conference after the victory.
In Hungary, the nationalist Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took more than 52 percent of the vote.
In Austria, conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party won the election Sunday, but Kurz was ousted Monday when he lost a no-confidence vote stemming from a scandal that erupted last week over its coalition partner, the far-right Freedom Party. That party fared worse than it had in the previous European election.
Though many of the far-right parties of Europe share the goal of weakening the European Union, they clash on other pressing issues. In Italy, for instance, Salvini, though anti-immigration, has advocated for the relocation of asylum seekers across the EU. Hungary’s Orbán has pushed to close borders.
“We reject migration; and we would like to see leaders in position in the European Union who reject migration, who would like to stop it and not manage it,” Orbán wrote in a statement after casting his vote Sunday.
Europeans are concerned about the environment
The Greens, a party coalition focusing on environmental issues, went from 52 seats in the European Parliament in 2014 to 69 in 2019, making them the fourth largest voting bloc in the EU.
Members and supporters of the Greens coalition celebrate in Berlin after the announcement of the first forecast for the European elections.
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Members and supporters of the Greens coalition celebrate in Berlin after the announcement of the first forecast for the European elections.
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The results, the strongest ever for the Greens, indicate that many Europeans are growing increasingly concerned about climate change and the environment. Recently, across northern Europe, young people have been protesting what they see as governmental inaction on combating climate change.
In Germany, the Greens took 21 percent of the vote, second only to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, part of the center-right EPP European parliamentary bloc. Since the last election in 2014, Merkel’s party lost 6 percentage points, while the Greens gained nearly 10 points.
The Greens also saw gains in France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, Denmark and Belgium, among others.
“The Greens and the Liberals were the winners of the day,” Sweden’s Carl Bildt told NPR.
The U.K. doubles down on Brexit
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage arrives at a Brexit party on Monday in London.
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Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage arrives at a Brexit party on Monday in London.
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Voters in the United Kingdom weren’t initially even supposed to participate in this election; they were supposed to have left the EU by the end of March. But with several delays — and plans for leaving now set for October — U.K. voters had to take part, and gave the new Brexit Party, led by populist Nigel Farage, more than 30 percent of the vote.
In contrast, Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party ended up in fifth place, with 8.7 percent of the vote. “This is the worst showing by the Conservative Party since the 1830s,” says NPR’s Frank Langfitt.
The Labour Party also fared poorly, down 10 percentage points since 2014. Both the Labour and Conservative parties wavered on finding a clear position on Brexit, and the vote seems to indicate, Langfitt says, that voters rewarded clarity on the issue of leaving the EU. Liberal Democrats and other pro-EU parties did well.
“Never before in British politics has a new party, launched just six weeks ago, topped the polls in a national election,” Farage said after his election as a member of the European Parliament. “There’s a huge message here, a massive message here.”
Former Conservative party MP and Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe gestures at a post-European Parliament election press call in London on Monday. (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images)
LONDON — Britain’s two main parties were punished in the European elections, with results coming in on Monday showing that voters had rejected their handling of Brexit and turned to parties that were unequivocally pro-Brexit or pro-European Union.
Nigel Farage’s single-issue Brexit Party was the clear winner of the elections, with the potential to impact the race over who becomes the next British prime minister.
The pro-E.U. Liberal Democrats and the Greens — who also have a simple message on Brexit: Stop it — made significant gains as well. Overall, support for all the parties that are unabashedly pro-European was slightly higher than those that are pushing for a hard Brexit.
In other words, Britain is as divided as ever.
Analysts said the impact of the elections could see Britain’s two main political parties face growing pressure to move away from the middle ground to support even more extreme positions on Brexit.
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage offers a thumbs up as he arrives at a news conference following his win in the European Union elections in London on Monday. (Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
In the race to replace Theresa May, who on Friday announced that she would step down as British prime minister, the issue of whether to back a once unthinkable “no-deal” Brexit — like Farage does — is now dominant. Nine Conservative members of Parliament have publicly declared they will compete for the top job.
Boris Johnson, a Conservative Party lawmaker and the front-runner to become the next prime minister, called the European elections a “crushing rebuke.” Writing in his weekly column in the Daily Telegraph, he said: “The message from these results is clear. If we go on like this, we will be fired: dismissed from the job of running the country.”
The Conservative Party came in fifth place, winning a paltry 9 percent of the vote. Their dismal showing could see the party shying away from pushing for an early general election, over fears that they could see a similar wipeout.
May tweeted that “very disappointing” results showed the “importance of finding a Brexit deal, and I sincerely hope these results focus minds in Parliament.”
If Farage’s triumph in these elections pushes the Conservative Party onto his turf, it wouldn’t be the first time. The poll-topping performance in the 2014 European elections of the right wing, anti-Europe UKIP — then led by Farage — is thought to be one of the reasons then Prime Minister David Cameron called for the referendum that sent Britain down the whole rocky road of Brexit to begin with.
On Monday, Farage said that if Britain doesn’t leave on Oct. 31, the current deadline, then his party would repeat its success in a general election.
“We will contest all 650 seats across the country at the next general election. I will not stop until the job is done,” he tweeted.
The opposition Labour Party faced renewed calls to unambiguously back a second Brexit referendum following their poor showing in the elections. They came in third place behind the Liberal Democrats, who saw a surge in support especially in areas that backed “remain” in the 2016 referendum. It did not go unnoticed that the Liberal Democrats topped the poll in Islington, the London constituency of the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Emily Thornberry, a senior Labour Party politician, told BBC that Labour wasn’t clear enough on its position on Brexit and that it needed to learn lessons. Voters, she said, backed parties whose policy “could be summed up in one word or three words.”
Jo Swinson, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, whose slogan was “Bollocks to Brexit,” said that the results showed that the “growing liberal movement that can stand up to the forces of nationalism and populism” is winning.
It was a bad election for Tommy Robinson, an anti-Islam campaigner who stood as an independent. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, received only 2.2 percent of the vote. He reportedly slipped out of the election count early.
ChangeUK, a newly-formed pro-E.U. party whose candidates included Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris Johnson, performed badly, as did the nationalist UKIP.
Until recently, Britain was not scheduled to take part in the European elections, the second-largest exercise in democracy in the world. But Britain was forced to field candidates after it failed to leave the bloc on March 29 as scheduled.
Bill Buckner, the longtime major leaguer whose error in the 1986 World Series for years lived in Red Sox infamy, died Monday. He was 69.
“After battling the disease of Lewy Body Dementia, Bill Buckner passed away early the morning of May 27th surrounded by his family,” his family said in a statement. “Bill fought with courage and grit as he did all things in life. Our hearts are broken but we are at peace knowing he is in the arms of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Buckner played 22 seasons in the majors, was an All-Star once and won a batting title in 1980. But it was a ball that went through his legs at Shea Stadium on a cool Oct. 25 night in 1986 that made for one of baseball’s most shocking moments.
Boston, looking for its first World Series title since 1918, carried a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6 against the Mets. New York tied it with two runs, then brought Mookie Wilson to the plate.
Wilson worked a 3-2 count off reliever Bob Stanley, and then, with a runner on second base, bounced a slow roller up the first-base line on the 10th pitch of the at-bat. Buckner ranged to his left, went down to snag the ball behind the bag and watched it roll through his legs and into right field. Ray Knight scored to give the Mets a 6-5 can-you-believe-it win. They took Game 7, too, a gut punch to a Red Sox team a strike away from a long-awaited title just 48 hours earlier.
“We had developed a friendship that lasted well over 30 years. I felt badly for some of the things he went through. Bill was a great, great baseball player whose legacy should not be defined by one play,” Wilson said Monday in a statement released by the Mets.
Buckner’s Red Sox teammates said he wasn’t to blame, noting Boston wouldn’t even have been in the World Series without his efforts that season.
“No one played harder than Bill. No one prepared themselves as well as Bill Buckner did, and no one wanted to win as much as Bill Buckner,” right fielder Dwight Evans later said.
But many in Red Sox Nation didn’t see it that way.
“When that ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs, hundreds of thousands of people did not just view that as an error, they viewed that as something he had done to them personally,” longtime Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan once said.
That single moment ended up defining Buckner’s career, and even followed him after it.
When he retired in 1990, he and his family remained in Massachusetts. But the taunts and criticism from fans and media remained, forcing them to move to Idaho, where Buckner, an avid outdoorsman, bought a ranch.
When the Red Sox invited him to take part in a ceremony at Fenway Park honoring the 20-year anniversary of the 1986 team, Buckner declined.
But time heals most wounds, and though it took years, the relationship between Buckner and Boston fans eventually warmed.
The first step came in 2004, when the Red Sox finally ended the “Curse of the Bambino” by sweeping the Cardinals in the World Series. For fans, it was a chance to forget about the past and celebrate the present.
The next step came four years later in the Red Sox’s 2008 home opener. That previous October, the team had won its second World Series title in four years, and on that April day, they were celebrating it with past and present Boston sports greats. One of them there: Bill Buckner.
From out under a massive American flag draped over the Green Monster, Buckner was introduced to the crowd and walked slowly to the mound amid a standing ovation that lasted nearly two minutes. With tears in his eyes, the left-hander delivered the ceremonial first pitch, a strike to former teammate Evans as the Fenway faithful roared.
“I really had to forgive, not the fans of Boston, per se, but I would have to say in my heart I had to forgive the media,” Buckner said of why he decided to return to Fenway. “For what they put me and my family through. So, you know, I’ve done that and I’m over that.”
Buckner, a baseball and football star growing up in Napa, California, was a second-round draft pick of the Dodgers in 1968, going one round after Los Angeles took Bobby Valentine. Buckner made his major league debut as a 19-year-old in 1969, beginning the first of what turned out to be eight seasons with the Dodgers.
Valentine tweeted that he will miss his former teammate.
As I clear my head and hold back the tears I know I will always remember Billy Buck as a great hitter and a better friend. He deserved better. Thank god for his family. I ll miss u Buck!
The Dodgers tweeted “our thoughts and prayers are with the Buckner family.”
Buckner was traded to the Cubs in 1977 and enjoyed some of his best seasons in Chicago. He won the NL batting title in 1980, hitting .324. A year later, he was named to his only All-Star team and finished 10th in NL MVP voting. The Cubs dealt Buckner to the Red Sox in May 1984.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Bill Buckner, a great ballplayer and beloved member of the Cubs family,” Cubs executive chairman Tom Ricketts said in a statement, adding that “after his playing days, Bill served as a valued member of our player development staff and was a fan favorite during his appearances at our Cubs conventions.”
In all, Buckner spent 22 seasons in the big leagues, playing first base or the outfield for five teams, including the Red Sox twice; they signed him as a free agent in 1990, but he struggled at the plate in his second stint there and was released before officially retiring. He finished his career with 2,715 hits, 1,208 RBIs, 1,077 runs scored and 174 home runs.
After his playing career, Buckner remained in baseball as a coach, including a stint as the White Sox hitting coach in 1996 and ’97, and a return to Massachusetts in 2011 as manager of the independent league Brockton Rox.
He is survived by his wife, Jody, and three children, Brittany, Christen and Bobby, who played baseball collegiately.
A private group called “We Build the Wall” says they’ve finished construction on a segment of border wall in New Mexico, closing a gap in the existing border wall themselves rather than waiting for Congress and the President to come to an agreement over how to fund the massive construction project along the United States’ southern border.
“The 18-foot steel bollard wall is similar to the designs used by the Border Patrol, sealing off a part of the border that had been a striking gap in existing fencing,” the Times says. The gap runs from the Texas border, where it ends at the Rio Grand, up, through southern New Mexico, along the “lower elevations” or Mount Cristo Rey.
We Build the Wall claims the half-mile section of steel wall is the first privately constructed part of the border wall, and that their project moved faster and, at $8 million, required less funding than a similar project headed up by the federal government. The group, led by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, also says they’ve got the blessing of President Donald Trump and United States Border Customs and Protection, who were grateful for the help.
“We’re closing a gap that’s been a big headache for them,” Kobach told reporters.
The half-mile segment of border wall, the group says, closes a gap frequently used to smuggle both people and drugs. Kobach added that on a “typical night” around 100 migrants and $100,000 worth of illegal narcotics passed through the half-mile hole.
The Trump Administration was working on a plan to construct around 234 miles of steel fencing, effectively sealing off the southern border with a “border wall,” but attempts to secure funding for the project have stalled. Congress refused to agree to any funding for the border wall beyond the $1.6 billion promised in the 2018 budget, and President Donald Trump’s “national emergency” declaration — which would have detoured funding to the border wall from other Army Corps of Engineers projects — was halted by a judge pending ongoing litigation.
Funding for the border wall has also taken a backseat to a more urgent need: funding for border processing. More than 100,000 migrants are presenting themselves at the United States’ southern border per month now, and, forced by law to process anyone who requests asylum, the CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are now overwhelmed with detained immigrants.
Although the Trump Administration officially ended the “catch and release” policies of the Obama Administration, the federal government has reportedly — according to Politico — been shipping migrants who declare asylum to cities in Texas and California, far from the southern border, in order to relieve the stress on border patrol facilities.
“The Trump administration is flying migrants to San Diego and Del Rio, Texas, and busing them to El Centro, Calif., and Laredo, Texas, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official familiar with the plan,” Politico says. “There, they are being processed — which includes photographs, health screenings, fingerprints and background checks — before they are often released and told to return for a court hearing at a later date.”
The administration is also reportedly considering sending migrants to less populated areas in Florida and in the American southwest, in the hopes that, by personally relocating them, they’re better able to track asylum seekers while they await their day in court.
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