Parkland shooting survivor says Harvard rescinded his admission over racial slurs he made two years ago – CNN
Parkland shooting survivor says Harvard rescinded his admission over racial slurs he made two years ago – CNN

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/17/us/harvard-parkland-student-kashuv-trnd/index.html

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Gunman Shot Dead Outside Federal Courthouse – Newser
Gunman Shot Dead Outside Federal Courthouse – Newser

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Source Article from http://www.newser.com/story/276647/gunman-opens-fire-outside-federal-courthouse.html

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Supreme Court Justices Split Along Unexpected Lines In 3 Cases – NPR
Supreme Court Justices Split Along Unexpected Lines In 3 Cases – NPR

Visitors lined up at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Monday morning as the justices prepared to hand down decisions.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP


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J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Visitors lined up at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Monday morning as the justices prepared to hand down decisions.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

With less than two weeks left in the U.S. Supreme Court’s term, the justices handed down four decisions on Monday. Defying predictions, three were decided by shifting liberal-conservative coalitions.

Here, in a nutshell, are the results, as well as the fascinating shifting votes:

Dual sovereignty upheld, with Ginsburg, Gorsuch dissenting

In a 7-2 vote, the court reaffirmed its 100-year-old rule declaring that state governments and the federal government may each prosecute a person separately for the same crime, without violating the Constitution’s double jeopardy clause. Dissenting were the court’s leading liberal justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and one of its most conservative justices, Neil Gorsuch.

Racial gerrymandering case thrown out with a mix of liberals, conservatives

Spurning pleas from Virginia Republicans, the court let stand decisions by lower courts finding that 11 state House districts were racially gerrymandered in violation of the Constitution. The Supreme Court said the Republican-dominated Virginia House of Delegates had no legal standing to appeal to the Supreme Court on its own when the state Senate and the state’s attorney general had decided against appealing.

Ginsburg wrote the opinion for the 5-4 majority. She was joined by conservative justices Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas and liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Dissenting were conservative justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as liberal justice Stephen Breyer.

Uranium ban upheld again with an ideological mix

The court upheld Virginia’s ban on uranium mining. In a 6-3 vote, the justices said that the state law was not superseded by the federal Atomic Energy Act.

Writing for the court’s majority, Gorsuch said the Atomic Energy Act gives the federal government the authority to regulate nuclear safety but not the authority to regulate mining itself. Fellow conservatives Thomas and Kavanaugh joined the Gorsuch opinion in full, but liberal justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan agreed only with his bottom line. They refused to sign on to Gorsuch’s broad language about matters that they said, “sweep well beyond the confines of this case.”

Dissenting were Roberts, Breyer and Alito.

One traditional 5-4 split

The only classic conservative-liberal split on Monday came in a case testing whether a private corporation that runs a public access TV channel in New York City is a public forum that, like a public park, cannot discriminate against speakers.

The court, in a 5-4 vote, concluded that the public access channel was owned by Time Warner, not by the city. And because it was privately owned, the channel could not be sued for refusing to air a movie.

Kavanaugh wrote the decision for the five conservative justices, declaring that “[M]erely hosting speech by others is not a traditional, exclusive public function.”

Therefore, channel operators cannot be sued for violating the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. At first blush, at least, the decision would seem to preclude First Amendment lawsuits against private platform operators, like Twitter and Facebook, though Kavanaugh warned that the decision should not be read “too broadly.”

Dissenting were the court’s four liberal justices.

What’s still left?

On Thursday, the court is expected to hand down more of the 20 remaining decisions on its docket. Among those are the three blockbuster cases of the term:

  • The American Legion v. American Humanist Association: a case from Maryland that tests whether a giant World War I memorial in the shape of a Latin cross is, as the challengers maintain, a symbol of Christianity that violates the Constitution’s ban on establishment of religion. The objectors are seeking its removal to private property and an end to taxpayer funding of the cross.
  • Rucho v. Common Cause (North Carolina) and Lamone v. Benisek (Maryland): cases from North Carolina and Maryland that test whether there is any constitutional limit to extreme partisan gerrymandering that serves to entrench one-party domination of congressional seats in states that are more narrowly divided.
  • Department of Commerce v. New York: State and local governments are challenging the Trump administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The Census Bureau’s own experts have warned that adding the question will lead to a serious and uneven undercount of the population, with potentially profound political consequences.

These three decisions (and 17 others) remain in the wings.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/06/17/733408135/supreme-court-justices-split-along-unexpected-lines-in-three-cases

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Hong Kong mass protests are just the start of a wider human rights battle – NBC News
Hong Kong mass protests are just the start of a wider human rights battle – NBC News

The protesters may have won this round, but the fight is far from over.

The mass demonstration that flooded downtown Hong Kong on Sunday — the latest in a string of protests over a proposed new extradition law — are an omen for the coming years and even decades, experts say.

Organizers claim 2 million people took to the streets against a proposed law that would allow suspected criminals to be extradited from Hong Kong to mainland China. Police said 338,000 protesters followed the rally’s original route, but in any case the island’s citizens are pushing back in numbers against what they see as attempts to infringe on their rights.

And it worked: A day before the march, in an attempt to dampen the anger, Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, formally apologized and announced legislative debates surrounding the bill would be suspended, although not canceled.

Ultimately it marked a huge symbolic victory. But the protesters weren’t satisfied and are still calling for Lam’s resignation and the bill’s official withdrawal.

So what happens now for Hong Kongers fighting for greater democracy and human rights guarantees?

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hong-kong-mass-protests-are-just-start-wider-human-rights-n1018211

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Justice Thomas just admitted he wants to burn down the very idea that courts should obey precedent – ThinkProgress
Justice Thomas just admitted he wants to burn down the very idea that courts should obey precedent – ThinkProgress

Justice Clarence Thomas has long approached the law the same way that Heath Ledger’s Joker approaches urban peace. He’s suggested that federal child labor laws and the ban on whites-only lunch counters are unconstitutional, written opinions that would blow up multiple federal agencies, and argued that high school students lack First Amendment rights because 17th century self-help books told parents to be cruel to their children.

Yet, on Monday — after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court — Thomas finally articulated his approach to stare decisis, the principle that courts should generally follow the rules announced in past decisions.

And, oh boy, is Thomas’ opinion in Gamble v. United States a doozy.

Though Thomas dresses up his concurring opinion in Gamble with a few paragraphs that seem to soften his conclusion, the rule he ultimately articulates would give his court free reign to burn down any decision that five of its members do not like. It’s the kind of judicial arson one might expect from a justice who, after spending much of his career writing lone dissents that had little impact on his colleagues, now thinks he may have the votes to do things his way.

“When faced with a demonstrably erroneous precedent, my rule is simple,” Thomas writes. “We should not follow it.” That may seem like a workable rule — how bad does a decision have to be before it is “demonstrably erroneous?” — but bear in mind that this rule comes from a man who has serious doubts about child labor laws.

There are many reasons why courts typically adhere to stare decisis. Stability in the law is an important virtue, for one thing. Legislatures will pass laws, companies will make investments, and individuals will shape their actions based on their assessment of existing precedents. If those precedents can be wiped away on a whim, all of this planning will be for naught. And many crucial investments may never happen because investors cannot plan for an uncertain future.

Stare decisis also helps depoliticize the law. When the Supreme Court’s political center of gravity changes — as it has shifted to the right under President Donald Trump — it’s tempting for the new majority to declare themselves victors and start pillaging old precedents they do not like. If power shifts again, the new majority might be equally tempted to retaliate, burning their vanquished foe’s decisions to the ground. That’s not just a recipe for instability, it’s a recipe for the kind of politics that turns Supreme Court nominations into existential fights between the two major political parties. Moreover, it’s a recipe for a court that strips power from the elected branches and claims it for itself.

But, perhaps most significantly, stare decisis is about modesty. Consider, for one moment, the fact that many provisions of the Constitution live in a state of ambiguity.

What on earth are the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States?” What makes a search or seizure “unreasonable?” Which punishments are “cruel and unusual?” If the government wants to deny someone “liberty,” how much “process” is “due?” What is a “public use” of private property? How should the United States guarantee a “republican form of government?” What is the “general welfare of the United States?” Which laws are “necessary and proper” for carrying into effect Congress’ enumerated powers?

There is significant historical evidence, moreover, that many of these provisions were intentionally written to be ambiguous — either because the framers hoped that the courts would be able to transform vague principles into actionable rules, or because political compromises and the fear of a looming election prevented a supermajority of Congress from agreeing on clearer language.

As NYU law professor William Nelson wrote in a seminal book, “the debates on the Fourteenth Amendment were, in essence, debates about high politics and fundamental principles.” But they “did not reduce the vague, open-ended, and sometimes clashing principles used by the debaters to precise, carefully bounded legal doctrine.”

It is arrogant in the extreme, in other words, for a judge to assume that they alone have determined the one true meaning of a legal text as vague as the Constitution. The only way for the law to have any stability whatsoever is for judges to accept that the men and women who came before them typically acted in good faith to read difficult-to-interpret language. And the work of those men and women should not be idly cast aside simply because the current crop of justices think that they could do it better.

And yet, that’s more or less what Thomas says should happen in his Gamble opinion.

“By applying demonstrably erroneous precedent instead of the relevant law’s text—as the Court is particularly prone to do when expanding federal power or crafting new individual rights—the Court exercises ‘force’ and ‘will,’ two attributes the People did not give it,” Thomas writes. Instead, he would have his court, “restore our stare decisis jurisprudence to ensure that we exercise ‘mer[e] judgment,’ which can be achieved through adherence to the correct, original meaning of the laws we are charged with applying.”

Again, all of this rhetoric may seem reasonable in the abstract. But remember that it comes from a man who’s suggested that that decisions upholding a ban on whites-only lunch counters “drifted far from the original understanding of the” Constitution. Now, ask yourself if you want him to have an unchecked power to decide which decisions are “demonstrably erroneous?”

The Gamble case itself involves an unfortunate doctrine which the Supreme Court upholds as firmly grounded in precedent. The Fifth Amendment provides that no one shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Yet the court’s “separate sovereigns” doctrine creates a massive hole in the Double Jeopardy Clause. Though the federal government may not prosecute someone twice for the same crime, and neither may any state, a state may prosecute someone and then the feds may do so again.

“Even in constitutional cases, a departure from precedent ‘demands special justification,’” Justice Samuel Alito writes for a majority of the Supreme Court. And that “means that something more than ‘ambiguous historical evidence’ is required before we will ‘flatly overrule a number of major decisions of this Court.’” Alito then spends the bulk of his opinion picking apart citations to very treatises and even older British judicial decisions, to show that they offer no clear basis for dismantling the separate sovereigns doctrine.

Notably, while Thomas used this case as a vehicle to rail against stare decisis, he also joined Alito’s opinion. Apparently a case involving a man unjustly punished twice for the same crime isn’t the kind of case “expanding federal power or crafting new individual rights” that gets under Thomas’ skin.

There are a few lines in Alito’s opinion that should trouble court-watchers who are hoping that the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority doesn’t share Thomas’ desire to light a whole range of precedents on fire. At one point, for example, Alito writes that “the strength of the case for adhering to [past] decisions grows in proportion to their ‘antiquity’” — suggesting that Alito may be perfectly happy to overrule newer decisions. There’s also an unconvincing passage where Alito defends the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which invigorated the Second Amendment based on historical evidence that is at least as ambiguous as the evidence raised in Gamble.

But Alito’s opinion is, at its heart, a statement that precedents are powerful and they shouldn’t be disregarded lightly. That’s a statement liberals should welcome from this Supreme Court — and it is very different than what Thomas says in his concurring opinion.


Source Article from https://thinkprogress.org/clarence-thomas-stare-decisis-gamble-precedent-supreme-court-01db0676d84b/

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Exclusive: U.S. preparing to send more troops to Middle East – sources – Reuters
Exclusive: U.S. preparing to send more troops to Middle East – sources – Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is preparing to send additional troops to the Middle East in response to mounting concerns over Iran, which Washington blames for attacks on oil tankers last week, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The officials did not say how many troops would be deployed or detail the timing of the deployment, which has not been previously reported. If confirmed, it would be in addition to the 1,500 troop increase announced last month in response to tanker attacks in May that it also blamed on Iran.

The Pentagon declined comment. It was unclear when a new deployment might be announced.

U.S. concerns about the threat to U.S. forces and interests in the region have increased steadily in recent weeks, particularly after the attacks on two oil tankers at the entrance to the Gulf on Thursday.

The United States last week released a video it said showed Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were behind Thursday’s attacks near the Strait of Hormuz on the Norwegian-owned Front Altair, which was set ablaze, and the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous.

The U.S. military released additional imagery on Monday.

“Iran is responsible for the attack based on video evidence and the resources and proficiency needed to quickly remove the unexploded limpet mine,” Central Command said in a statement.

Iran strongly denies the accusations.

Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-attacks-usa-military-exclusiv/exclusive-us-preparing-to-send-more-troops-to-middle-east-sources-idUSKCN1TI2SX

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Mohamed Morsy, ousted Egyptian president, dies in court – CNN
Mohamed Morsy, ousted Egyptian president, dies in court – CNN

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/17/middleeast/mohamed-morsy-dies-egypt-intl/index.html

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Supreme Court rules in case watched for impact on Trump pardons – POLITICO
Supreme Court rules in case watched for impact on Trump pardons – POLITICO

Those bracing for potential pardons by President Donald Trump of individuals convicted in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were tracking the Terance Gamble v. U.S. case. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Legal

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in a closely watched “double jeopardy” case, issuing a decision that preserves states’ power to limit the impact of future pardons by President Donald Trump or his successors.

In a 7-2 ruling, the justices declined to disturb a longstanding legal principle known as dual sovereignty, which allows state governments to bring their own charges against defendants already tried or convicted in federal court, or vice versa.

Story Continued Below

Lawyers for an Alabama man facing a gun charge in federal court after pleading guilty to the same offense in state court — resulting in a nearly three-year extension of his prison sentence — failed in their effort to persuade the justices to hold that the Constitution’s prohibition on double jeopardy prevents such follow-on prosecutions.

The federal government had argued that overturning the dual-sovereignty doctrine would upend the country’s federalist system, and that the phenomenon of overcriminalization makes states’ ability to preserve their own sphere of influence and prevent federal encroachment on law enforcement more important.

Democrats and others bracing for potential pardons by Trump of individuals convicted in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were tracking the case, Terance Gamble v. U.S., because a decision overturning the dual sovereigns rule could have complicated efforts by state prosecutors to blunt the impact of any attempt Trump may make to grant clemency to those targeted by Mueller’s team.

Still, the high court case was not seen as make-or-break for state prosecutions because Mueller didn’t bring charges on every potential crime he uncovered. In addition, the federal prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort resulted in a combination of jury convictions, guilty pleas, mistried charges and dismissals as part of a plea deal.

The complex result in Manafort’s case left fertile ground for New York prosecutors, who jumped into the breach in March with a 16-count indictment charging the longtime lobbyist and political consultant with mortgage fraud, falsifying business records and other crimes. The offenses seemed to partially overlap with crimes Manafort was charged with in federal court in Virginia.

Manafort’s lawyers in the state case have indicated they plan to argue that the indictment obtained by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. violates a New York law that limits state prosecutions of crimes already prosecuted at the federal level.

New York’s Democrat-controlled Legislature has been trying to alter that law to limit its application in cases where a defendant receives a presidential pardon or commutation.

A bill aimed at doing that won formal approval last month from both chambers of the state legislature but has not yet been sent to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has signaled he plans to sign it. The measure includes language seeking to cover individuals already convicted, tried or who pleaded guilty, but it’s unclear whether applying the law that way is constitutional.

The bulk of the opinions the justices issued Monday were focused on historical evidence about whether the founders expected that dual prosecutions would be permitted or forbidden by the Constitution.

“Gamble’s historical arguments must overcome numerous ‘major decisions of this Court’ spanning 170 years,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote on behalf of the seven-justice majority. “In light of these factors, Gamble’s historical evidence must, at a minimum, be better than middling. And it is not.”

The decision drew separate dissents from justices at opposite ends of the court’s ideological spectrum: liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg and conservative Neil Gorsuch.

“It is the doctrine’s premise that each government has — and must be allowed to vindicate — a distinct interest in enforcing its own criminal laws,” Ginsburg wrote. “That is a peculiar way to look at the Double Jeopardy Clause, which by its terms safeguards the ‘person’ and restrains the government.” She argued that the legal precedent was weak, noting that “early American courts regarded with disfavor the prospect of successive prosecutions by the Federal and State Governments” and that, with regard to concerns about federal and state governments interfering with each other, “cooperation between authorities is the norm.”

Gorsuch, meanwhile, argued that “a free society does not allow its government to try the same individual for the same crime until it’s happy with the result. Unfortunately, the Court today endorses a colossal exception to this ancient rule against double jeopardy.”

He added that the separate sovereigns exception “finds no meaningful support in the text of the Constitution,” unlike the Constitution’s ban on double jeopardy.

Fordham University law professor Jed Shugerman told POLITICO that the Gamble decision will have “no real impact on Trump cases.” Manafort is still facing state prosecutions in New York and Virginia, which have their own jeopardy rules, he noted. And former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to one count of making false statements to the FBI was limited to federal law, Shugerman said. The same appears true of Roger Stone’s prosecution on false statement and witness tampering charges, he added.

“Trump and others aren’t getting prosecuted federally anyway before 2021, so they haven’t faced a single jeopardy yet,” Shugerman said. “A pardon wouldn’t create jeopardy, so they’d still face state prosecutions post-pardons.”

Some opponents of the proposed New York changes urged legislators to hold off passing them until the Supreme Court ruled in the case decided Monday. Experts said the decision might encourage more states to tinker with their double-jeopardy limits.

“The big question may be how states react to this ruling, and whether it will incentivize some states to ban trials by separate sovereigns of the same defendant for the same conduct, or, now that the Court has said the federal Constitution isn’t offended, whether states that already have such bans might relax them,” said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck.

Bill Mahoney contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/17/supreme-court-trump-pardons-1365952

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Supreme Court dismisses challenge to findings of racial gerrymandering in Virginia districts – The Washington Post
Supreme Court dismisses challenge to findings of racial gerrymandering in Virginia districts – The Washington Post

Robert Barnes

Laura Vozzella

June 17 at 2:20 PM

The Supreme Court dismissed the challenge to a lower court’s findings that some of Virginia’s legislative districts were racially gerrymandered, saying Monday that House Republicans did not have legal standing to challenge the decision.

The decision could give an advantage to the state’s Democrats. All 140 seats in the legislature are on the ballot this fall, and the GOP holds two-seat majorities in both the House (51 to 49) and the Senate (21 to 19).

Democrats have been hoping that a wave of successes in recent Virginia elections will propel them to control of the legislature for the first time since 1995.

The party that controls the General Assembly in 2021 will oversee the next statewide re­districting effort, following next year’s census — potentially cementing an advantage in future elections.

Primaries were held last week in the new districts.

[Supreme Court divided over Virginia redistricting case and question of racial discrimination]

The case split the court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 case, saying that House Republican leaders could not challenge the court ruling because they did not represent the commonwealth.

The state’s attorney general declined to continue the case, Ginsburg wrote.

“The State of Virginia would rather stop than fight on,” she wrote. “One House of its bicameral legislature cannot alone continue the litigation against the will of its partners in the legislative process.”

She was joined in an unusual alignment by Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil M. Gorsuch.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented, saying he saw no support “for the proposition that Virginia law bars the House from defending, in its own right, the constitutionality of a districting plan.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Because the state did not draw a new map after the decision by the panel of judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the judges had an outside expert draw a new map.

[Federal court approves Virginia redistricting plan]

It realigns a total of 26 House districts as it remedies the 11 under court order. Six Republican delegates would find themselves in districts with a majority of Democratic voters, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.

House Republicans pointed out that the political boundaries they drew in 2011 won support from most Democratic legislators, including Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring, who were then state senators. They noted that the plan was approved by the Justice Department under President Barack Obama.

Mark Herring, the state attorney general, has argued that only his office has standing to represent the state in such a case, and it has opted not to appeal. The Trump administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief that essentially agrees with that position, saying that the House of Delegates as an institution has no inherent interest in the shape of its districts or who gets elected to represent them.

Not surprisingly, Virginia Democrats and Republicans had opposite reactions.

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a victory for democracy and voting rights in our Commonwealth,” Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said in a written statement. “When we corrected racially gerrymandered districts earlier this year, we righted a wrong — as I have always said, voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. I am pleased that this fall, every Virginian, no matter who they are or where they live, will cast their ballots in fair and constitutional districts.”

[Court strikes down Virginia House districts as racial gerrymandering]

Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, said the decision will have effects beyond Virginia.

“The broader implications of this holding will reverberate across the states, touching virtually every area of politically charged law,” he said in a statement. “The Court has sown to the winds of expediency and will reap a whirlwind of partisan mischief as state attorneys general pick and choose which laws they will defend and which they will disregard on behalf of those plaintiffs with which they are politically or ideologically aligned.”

House Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) said he was “disappointed” with the ruling and noted that it hinged on the question of the chamber’s standing rather than the merits of what he described in a written statement as a “constitutionally enacted redistricting plan.”

He blamed the state’s attorney general for declining to defend the maps, which, he noted, had been passed in 2011 “with an overwhelming majority.”

The Supreme Court has already considered the 2011 legislative map once. It told a lower court to consider whether some of the districts for the Virginia House of Delegates were racially gerrymandered, by grouping black voters together in a way that left white candidates able to prevail elsewhere. As a practical matter, such a result would benefit Republicans.

The case is Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-dismisses-challenge-to-findings-of-racial-gerrymandering-in-virginia-districts/2019/06/17/aa1f02d2-8618-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html

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Iran Says It Will Exceed Nuclear Deal’s Limit On Uranium ‘In 10 Days’ – NPR
Iran Says It Will Exceed Nuclear Deal’s Limit On Uranium ‘In 10 Days’ – NPR

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, pictured at a July 2018 news conference in Tehran, said Monday: “We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently.”

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, pictured at a July 2018 news conference in Tehran, said Monday: “We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently.”

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Updated at 11:50 a.m. ET

Within days Iran will exceed the limit on its stockpile of uranium under a 2015 nuclear deal, according to a spokesman for the country’s atomic energy agency, who also said Tehran would increase uranium enrichment levels in violation of the agreement, “based on the country’s needs.”

The remarks come amid increased tension between the U.S. and Iran, particularly after last week’s attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman that Washington has blamed on Tehran. Iran has denied any involvement.

Under the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that the U.S. withdrew from a year ago, Iran can keep no more than 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of uranium enriched no higher than 3.67% — far below the 90% level considered suitable for building nuclear weapons.

At a news conference at the Arak Nuclear Complex that was carried live Monday on Iranian television, Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that stockpile limit could be exceeded within 10 days.

“We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently, so that in 10 days it will bypass the 300 kg limit,” Kamalvandi said.

He added that his country needs uranium enriched to 5% for its Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, built in the 1990s with Russian help, and uranium of 20% purity to be used as fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, which the U.S. supplied to Iran in 1967.

Although not weapons-grade, 20% purity is generally considered “highly enriched” uranium, and as The Associated Press notes, “going from 20% to 90% is a relatively quicker process, something that worries nuclear nonproliferation experts.”

Even so, Kamalvandi held out the possibility that “there is still time … if European countries act.”

“Iran’s reserves are every day increasing at a more rapid rate. And if it is important for them (Europe) to safeguard the accord, they should make their best efforts. … As soon as they carry out their commitments, things will naturally go back to their original state,” he said, according to AP.

That sentiment was echoed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday. “It’s a crucial moment, and France can still work with other signatories of the deal and play an historic role to save the deal in this very short time,” he was quoted by the Fars News Agency as saying during a meeting with France’s new ambassador in Iran.

Reuters reports that Rouhani said the collapse of the nuclear deal would not be in the interests of the region and the world.

In response to Iran’s announcement on uranium enrichment levels, National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said in a statement: “Iran’s enrichment plans are only possible because the horrible nuclear deal left the their capabilities intact. President Trump has made it clear that he will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The regime’s nuclear blackmail must be met with increased international pressure.”

Following last week’s reported attack on the tankers Front Altair and Kokuka Courageous near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “there’s no doubt” that Iran was responsible for disabling the vessels.

“The intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence,” Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday. “The world will come to see much of it, but the American people should rest assured we have high confidence with respect to who conducted these attacks as well as half a dozen other attacks throughout the world.”

On CBS’ Face the Nation, Pompeo said the U.S. was “considering a full range of options.”

“We are confident that we can take a set of actions that can restore deterrence, which is our mission set,” he said.

On Monday, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff again denied the country’s involvement in the attacks.

“Regarding the new incidents in the Persian Gulf … if the Islamic Republic of Iran decides to block exports of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, it is militarily strong enough to do that fully and publicly,” Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri said, according to Fars News Agency.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/06/17/733327050/iran-says-it-will-exceed-nuclear-deals-limit-on-uranium-in-10-days

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Harvard rescinds offer to Kyle Kashuv, pro-Second Amendment Parkland survivor, due to past remarks, he says – Fox News
Harvard rescinds offer to Kyle Kashuv, pro-Second Amendment Parkland survivor, due to past remarks, he says – Fox News
Video

Kyle Kashuv Talks Going to Gun Range, School Interrogation

Kyle Kashuv Talks Going to Gun Range, School Interrogation

Kyle Kashuv, the conservative Parkland shooting survivor and pro-Second Amendment activist, says Harvard rescinded his admission after the recent resurfacing of years old remarks he called “offensive,” “idiotic” and “inflammatory” but composed before the mass shooting — which he says made him a different person.

The 18-year-old revealed the rescindment on Twitter Monday — along with screenshots of letters that appeared to be written on Harvard letterhead. He also detailed the steps he says he took to “right this wrong” with the Ivy League school, which he said he’d planned to attend in 2020 after taking a gap year.

PARKLAND SHOOTING SURVIVOR KYLE KASHUV EMERGES AS CONSERVATIVE ROLE MODEL, SECOND AMENDMENT CHAMPION

Harvard officials told Fox News they don’t publicly comment on the individual admission status of applications, but Kashuv posted what he said was the letter Harvard sent him, dated June 3.

“The Admissions Committee has discussed at length your account of the communications about which we asked, and we appreciated your candor and your expressions or regret for sending them,” the letter read. “As you know the Committee takes seriously the qualities of maturity and moral character. After careful consideration the Committee voted to rescind your admission to Harvard College.”

Kashuv apologized both publicly and to Harvard last month after it was reported he made racist remarks and used slurs while a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., before becoming a prominent media figure.

10 STUNNING DISPUTES OVER FREE SPEECH BETWEEN STUDENTS, FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATORS

He said the comments were made “long before the shooting” at the school that left 17 people dead in February 2017, and said he and his friends at the time were “16-year-olds making idiotic comments, using callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible.” The comments were reportedly made in a Google document shared among several friends.

Per a letter Kashuv posted to Twitter, Harvard reached out to him on May 24 noting they have the right to rescind admission offers and asked for “a full accounting of any such statements you have authored” and a written explanation of his actions.

Kashuv responded with a letter apologizing for his comments, and said he took responsibility for the “hurtful things I wrote two years ago.”

Video

“My intent was never to hurt anyone, and to do so would have magnified the harm immediately,” he wrote. “I also feel I am no longer the same person, especially in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting and all that has transpired since.”

FLORIDA RESOURCE OFFICER WHO DIDN’T ENTER SCHOOL DURING SHOOTING MASSACRE IS ARRESTED

Once he received his rescindment, Kashuv said he asked for an in-person meeting to discuss what had happened, which he said Harvard declined.

“Harvard deciding that someone can’t grow, especially after a life-altering event like the shooting, is deeply concerning,” Kashuv tweeted. “If any institution should understand growth, it’s Harvard, which is looked to as the pinnacle of higher education despite its checkered past.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Kashuv said he had passed on “huge scholarships in order to go to Harvard” and is unsure what he’s going to do in the future, as “the deadline for accepting other college offers has ended.”

“I truly don’t know what’s going to happen,” he told Fox News on Monday. “But I’m keeping all my options open.”

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/us/kyle-kashuv-harvard-pro-second-amendment-parkland

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Pompeo to meet with U.S. commanders amid growing crisis with Iran – NBC News
Pompeo to meet with U.S. commanders amid growing crisis with Iran – NBC News

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday plans to meet with U.S. military commanders overseeing American forces in the Middle East after promising to provide more proof that Iran was behind attacks on two tankers last week, three U.S. officials told NBC News.

Pompeo was due to fly to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, according to the officials, amid mounting tensions with Iran following the attacks on the two commercial ships last week in the Gulf of Oman, which the Trump administration has blamed on Iran.

A defense official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told NBC News that Pompeo’s visit to Central Command was previously scheduled and not arranged as a result of the attacks last week on the two tankers.

The State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

The secretary of state said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the administration was considering a “full range of options” to deter Iran. Asked if military action was among those options, Pompeo said: “Of course.”

Former U.S. officials and regional experts say the Trump administration will likely weigh deploying more aircraft and other resources to expand surveillance and intelligence gathering over shipping routes in and around the strategic Strait of Hormuz. About 30 percent of the world’s seaborne crude oil passes through the narrow strait, a choke point that lies along Iran’s coast.

Pompeo met with acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Thursday after publicly accusing Iran of carrying out the attacks on the two ships in the Gulf of Oman.

Iran has vehemently denied any role in the attacks on the tankers.

Officials in Japan, Germany and the European Union have indicated more information is required before concluding that Iran orchestrated the explosions that crippled the two tankers, forcing their crews to evacuate. One ship was Norwegian-owned and the other was Japanese-owned.

The Pentagon released a grainy video last week that it says shows an Iranian patrol boat crew removing an item from one of the commercial ships that the administration says is an unexploded mine.

Following the release of the clip, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas appealed for more information on the incident, saying the video was “not enough.”

But Pompeo rejected suggestions that the U.S. assessment was in doubt. “The German foreign minister has seen a great deal more than just that video,” Pompeo said on CBS. “He will continue to see more.”

Iran is under growing economic pressure after the Trump administration imposed a global embargo on Tehran’s oil exports. The country faces rampant inflation and political leaders are threatening to abandon a 2015 nuclear agreement signed with world powers if it does not see some economic relief from European governments soon.

On Monday, Iran said it would violate limits on its stock of low-enriched uranium in 10 days, breaching a provision of the nuclear deal.

“We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently, so that in 10 days it will bypass the 300 kg (661 pounds) limit,” Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said on state TV.

But he also said there was still time for European states to rescue the nuclear accord by delivering some economic benefits to Iran.

The nuclear accord imposed limits on Iran’s atomic program designed to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons in return for lifting international and some U.S. sanctions. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement last year but European governments have urged Iran to abide by the deal.

The sanctions imposed by Trump on Iran have put the country under intense pressure, and the regime is looking for ways to relieve the economic pain, including by pressing other countries to push back against Washington’s tough approach, Michael Knights of the Washington Institute think tank, said.

“This is a nasty chokehold. And the Iranians are going to do anything to get out of it,” Knights said.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pompeo-meet-u-s-commanders-amid-growing-crisis-iran-n1018356

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4 Years In, Trump Fondly Recalls Trump Tower Campaign Launch – RealClearPolitics
4 Years In, Trump Fondly Recalls Trump Tower Campaign Launch – RealClearPolitics

NEW YORK (AP) — It was the escalator ride that would change history.

Four years ago on Sunday, Donald Trump descended through the pink marble and brass atrium of Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for president , the first step on a journey few believed would take him all the way to the White House.

It turns out the 2015 event might not have happened, at least not on June 16. And the over-the-top staging that featured a crowd including paid actors could have been even more theatrical if one early idea hadn’t been scrapped.

(Trump nixed suggestions to feature a live elephant. “Too political,” he decided.)

Now, the president who loves to reminisce about that “famous” Trump Tower moment is trying to recreate the magic as he formally launches his re-election bid Tuesday in Florida. Four years in, Trump still is echoing much of the same divisive rhetoric he let fly when he ditched the speech prepared for that original campaign kickoff.

His 2015 announcement, according to those involved in the effort, was a classic Trump production aimed at highlighting all the things that made Trump, well, Trump: his brashness, his wealth and his skill for lighting rhetorical fires and watching the press scramble to respond.

Trump had been in Europe playing golf the week before his scheduled announcement, with plans to return in time to go over remarks written by his ragtag team of early staffers.

“I get a call while he is in Europe and he asked, ‘What do you think about postponing this a little?’” recalled Sam Nunberg, an early campaign adviser. But the press already had been invited, trips to early-voting states planned and the timing — a day after assumed front-runner Jeb Bush’s announcement — seemed ideal.

And there was fear among advisers that any delay would trigger talk of cold feet about a campaign some observers doubted would ever happen because Trump had already flirted with, but then bailed on, previous bids.

“I tell him, ‘We can’t do that. We have set this date. If we postpone it, it would be covered that you got cold feet and you would not be taken seriously,’” said Nunberg. “I told him that postponing would be like Madonna not performing at MSG on a show day,” referring to New York’s Madison Square Garden.

So the show went on. Trump and his wife, Melania, emerged from an upper level of Trump Tower and descended the “famous” escalator, with the future president offering thumbs-ups and waves. It was a scene Trump had carefully crafted, paying frequent visits to the lobby as crews worked through the night to erect press risers, build the stage he would stand on and polish every inch of marble and brass.

A speech had been written. But Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, wrote in his book, “Let Trump Be Trump,” that the candidate “gave a quick look at the sheet of paper Corey handed him, folded it up, and put it in his breast pocket, never to look at it again.”

Four years later Trump remembers it fondly.

“I never forget standing on the famous escalator, you know the escalator, right?” he likes to tell crowds. “Remember the scene with Melania in front of me waving very elegantly and Trump coming down, waving less elegantly? But I just took a deep breath and I said, ‘Let’s go do it. Let’s make this country great,’ because it takes guts. It takes guts. And I’m so glad I did it.”

And four years later, the speech Trump delivered, following an introduction from his eldest daughter, Ivanka, sounds just like one he would deliver today.

“Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore,” Trump told the crowd, railing against China for “killing us on trade” and promising to build a “great, great wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border that the American ally would pay for, “Mark my words.”

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said in one infamous line. He panned Obama-era unemployment statistics as “full of nonsense” and described himself as “really rich.”

“He’s doing exactly what he said he was going to do, and as a result of what he said he was going to do, he got elected,” said George Gigicos, who was hired to produce the 2015 event and went on to serve as advance director for both the campaign and at the White House.

Trump, said Roger Stone, another longtime adviser, “orchestrated every minute detail of his announcement,” including vetoing a suggestion from his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to decorate the lobby with red, white and blue bunting and feature a live elephant to add to the circus.

Trump “decided to come down the escalator and worked from his own handwritten notes rather than a prepared text,” said Stone, insisting that, “then, as now, Donald Trump does not have handlers or managers or chief strategists.”

That included scrapping aides’ ideas on what he should wear.

“He asked me about a black suit. I said, ‘Yes, that’s iconic, that’s ‘The Apprentice,’” recalled Nunberg. Trump disagreed. “He said, ‘You’re a moron. Blue is better. It works better with the flags.’ He was right.”

Trump was thrilled with the speech’s reception and later remarked on how successful the day had been for his brand. “How great is this for Trump?” Nunberg recalled the candidate saying at one point.

It helped, of course, that some in the crowd had been paid to be there. Extras were offered $50 to “wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer” in support of Trump’s announcement, according to a casting call email obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

The ploy was first discovered by Angelo Carusone, now president of the progressive Media Matters group. Carusone said after the event, he was struck that, at a time of selfie obsession, he couldn’t find anyone who had posted photos of themselves attending the event.

“That was weird,” he remembered thinking. “People who care about a presidential press announcement are going to post selfies,” he said. He finally came across a single photo posted by a man who worked as an extra and taken with a woman who appeared to do the same.

Trump’s campaign has never acknowledged knowingly hiring actors, but did acknowledge paying $12,000 to Gotham Government Relations, a firm that was said to have hired the Extra Mile Inc. casting company, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Neither Gotham nor GMLV Casting, which took over Extra Mile, responded to requests for comment in recent days.

While some in Trump’s orbit suggested a return to Trump Tower for his re-election announcement, the president will head to Orlando — in a state he must win to secure a second term.

This time, there will be no need to hire actors. Trump and his campaign say 100,000 tickets have been requested for Tuesday’s event at the 20,000-seat Amway Center. The event will feature a pregame show with food trucks, live music and jumbo screens to pump up the crowd.

Colvin reported from Washington.

(c) Associated Press

Source Article from https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/17/4_years_in_trump_fondly_recalls_trump_tower_campaign_launch_140578.html

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Iran Says It Will Exceed Nuclear Deal’s Limit On Uranium ‘In 10 Days’ – NPR
Iran Says It Will Exceed Nuclear Deal’s Limit On Uranium ‘In 10 Days’ – NPR

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, pictured at a July 2018 news conference in Tehran, said Monday: “We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently.”

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, pictured at a July 2018 news conference in Tehran, said Monday: “We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently.”

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Within days Iran will exceed the limit on its stockpile of uranium under a 2015 nuclear deal, according to a spokesman for the country’s atomic energy agency, who also said Tehran would increase uranium enrichment levels in violation of the agreement, “based on the country’s needs.”

The remarks come amid increased tension between the U.S. and Iran, particularly after last week’s attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman that Washington has blamed on Tehran. Iran has denied any involvement.

Under the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that the U.S. withdrew from a year ago, Iran can keep no more than 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of uranium enriched no higher than 3.67% — far below the 90% level considered suitable for building nuclear weapons.

At a news conference at the Arak Nuclear Complex that was carried live Monday on Iranian television, Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that stockpile limit could be exceeded within 10 days.

“We have quadrupled the rate of enrichment and even increased it more recently, so that in 10 days it will bypass the 300 kg limit,” Kamalvandi said.

He added that his country needs uranium enriched to 5% for its Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, built in the 1990s with Russian help and uranium of 20% purity to be used as fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, which the U.S. supplied to Iran in 1967.

Although not weapons-grade, 20% purity is generally considered “highly enriched” uranium, and as The Associated Press notes, “going from 20% to 90% is a relatively quicker process, something that worries nuclear nonproliferation experts.”

Even so, Kamalvandi held out the possibility that “there is still time … if European countries act.”

“Iran’s reserves are every day increasing at a more rapid rate. And if it is important for them (Europe) to safeguard the accord, they should make their best efforts. … As soon as they carry out their commitments, things will naturally go back to their original state,” he said, according to AP.

That sentiment was echoed by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday. “It’s a crucial moment, and France can still work with other signatories of the deal and play an historic role to save the deal in this very short time,” he was quoted by the Fars News Agency as saying during a meeting with France’s new ambassador in Iran.

Reuters reports that Rouhani said the collapse of the nuclear deal would not be in the interests of the region and the world.

Following last week’s reported attack on the tankers Front Altair and Kokuka Courageous near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “there’s no doubt” that Iran was responsible for disabling the vessels.

“The intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence,” Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday. “The world will come to see much of it, but the American people should rest assured we have high confidence with respect to who conducted these attacks as well as half a dozen other attacks throughout the world.”

On CBS’ Face the Nation, Pompeo said the U.S. was “considering a full range of options.”

“We are confident that we can take a set of actions that can restore deterrence, which is our mission set,” he said.

On Monday, Iran’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff again denied the country’s involvement in the attacks.

“Regarding the new incidents in the Persian Gulf … if the Islamic Republic of Iran decides to block exports of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, it is militarily strong enough to do that fully and publicly,” Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri said, according to Fars News Agency.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/06/17/733327050/iran-says-it-will-exceed-nuclear-deals-limit-on-uranium-in-10-days

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Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong calls on Carrie Lam to step down – BBC News
Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong calls on Carrie Lam to step down – BBC News

Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong has been released early from jail. In 2014, he was one of the leaders of the pro-democracy protests.

Now, he wants to join the current demonstrations against the city’s plans to allow extradition to China.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-48660563/hong-kong-activist-joshua-wong-calls-on-carrie-lam-to-step-down

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China’s President Xi Jinping to Make First Visit to North Korea – The Wall Street Journal
China’s President Xi Jinping to Make First Visit to North Korea – The Wall Street Journal

BEIJING—China’s President Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea on Thursday for a two-day state visit, state media said, in what would be the first such visit by a Chinese leader in more than a decade.

Mr. Xi will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss bilateral relations, as well as efforts to resolve tensions on the Korean Peninsula, state broadcaster China Central Television said in its Monday evening newscast.

The…

Source Article from https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-president-xi-jinping-to-make-first-visit-to-north-korea-11560772344

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Man killed by officer in Costco was nonverbal, had intellectual disabilities, relative says – USA TODAY
Man killed by officer in Costco was nonverbal, had intellectual disabilities, relative says – USA TODAY
CLOSE

A man was shot after he attacked an off-duty Corona police officer who was holding his child, according to the Corona Police Department.
USA TODAY

A man fatally shot by an off-duty Los Angeles police officer in a Southern California Costco was a nonverbal “gentle giant” with an intellectual disability, a relative says.

Corona police said the officer was holding his child while shopping Friday when he was assaulted “without provocation” by Kenneth French, 32. The officer, whose name was not released, opened fire, killing French and wounding French’s parents, Russell and Paola.

The off-duty officer’s gun was the only firearm involved in the incident, police said.

Rick Shureih told the The Press-Enterprise in Riverside that Kenneth French, his cousin, “has to be pretty much monitored” and was always with his parents. Shureih said his cousin has struggled with mental issues for years but had never been violent.

Shureih expressed outrage in a post on Facebook that included a picture of Kenneth French and his parents.

“I’m not keeping quiet about this! People need to know!” Shureih wrote. “This is my family! These are the victims of the Costco shooting the other night.”

Shureih complained that the public narrative has described his family members as suspects and the officer as the victim. He said he was “sure this (shooting) was a misunderstanding” that needlessly escalated.

“Do they look intimidating to you? Did he really have to shoot them all?” Shureih wrote. “This is a family that was unarmed and was just grocery shopping. Truth will come out!”

‘Is this another mass shooting?’: Panic at Costco as off-duty cop kills man

Corona is a city of about 160,000 people, 50 miles east of Los Angeles in Riverside County. Corona police said they were working with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, which would be “evaluating the facts and circumstances” of the shooting. LAPD said it was launching its own investigation. 

Witnesses describe chaos in the store when several shots rang out, sending shoppers surging toward the exits amid fears of a mass shooting. Corona police said purses, backpacks and shopping bags abandoned by store patrons fleeing the scene could be claimed with proper identification. 

Marlon Calimlim told the Press-Enterprise he has been a neighbor of the French family for four or five years. He described the couple as nice and said he could not recall Kenneth French ever being aggressive.

“That’s not the monster that they were portraying him as,” Shureih said. “I’m not anti-police. We’re a pro-police family.”

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Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/17/costco-shooting-man-killed-officer-nonverbal-cousin-says/1475170001/

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Amazon slams AOC claim for saying it pays warehouse workers ‘starvation wages’ – Fox News
Amazon slams AOC claim for saying it pays warehouse workers ‘starvation wages’ – Fox News
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Fox News Flash top headlines for June 17

Fox News Flash top headlines for June 17 are here. Check out what’s clicking on Foxnews.com

Amazon on Monday fired back at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. after she claimed that the tech giant pays its warehouse workers “starvation wages.”

“.@AOC is just wrong,” the company wrote in a tweet. “Amazon is a leader on pay at $15 min wage + full benefits from day one. We also lobby to raise federal min[imum] wage.”

In a statement provided to Fox Business, an Amazon spokesperson went even further, calling the allegations “absurd.”

AMAZON BLASTS OCASIO-CORTEZ, SAYS ‘WE DON’T WANT TO WORK IN THIS ENVIRONMENT IN THE LONG TERM’

“These allegations are absurd. Amazon associates receive industry-leading pay starting at $15 an hour – in fact, hourly associates at our Staten Island facility earn between $17.30 and $23 an hour, plus benefits which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance,” the spokesperson told Fox Business. “On top of these benefits, Amazon pre-pays 95% of continuing education tuition costs through its Career Choice program for associates who want to pursue in-demand careers. For anyone who wants to know what it’s like to work in an Amazon fulfillment center, sign up for a tour today.”

The self-described “Democratic socialist” lawmaker said that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos became a billionaire due to “paying people starvation wages and stripping them of their ability to access healthcare, and also if his ability to be a billionaire is predicated on the fact that his workers are taking food stamps.”

Bezos has an estimated net worth of $155.1 billion, making him the richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

Ocasio-Cortez has been at odds with Amazon for months after she helped to thwart Amazon’s plans to build part of its HQ2 in Long Island City. Most recently, Ocasio-Cortez and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called out the company’s recently introduced Amazon Prime credit card.

“Can you believe it? Amazon is issuing credit cards with 28% interest rates to ‘help’ people with bad credit,” Sanders tweeted last week. “This kind of greed makes the poor even poorer and @AOC and I intend to outlaw it. Corporations will have to survive on a 15% cap on interest rates.”

In 2018, Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour. In April, writing his annual letter to shareholders, Bezos challenged the retail industry to match and surpass Amazon.

Fox Business’ Matthew Kazin contributed to this report.

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With re-election on the line, Trump’s poll numbers are full of warning signs – NBC News
With re-election on the line, Trump’s poll numbers are full of warning signs – NBC News

WASHINGTON — As he formally kicks off his re-election bid Tuesday in Florida, President Trump faces some grim numbers.

His approval rating in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll stands at 44 percent among all Americans — well below the safe zone for any president.

Fifty-two percent of all voters say they are “very uncomfortable” about voting for him in 2020, according to the same poll.

And Trump’s own internal polls have him trailing Joe Biden in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin — and even Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio.

The good news for Trump is that a lot can change with more than 500 days (!!!) until Election Day 2020.

In the April 2011 NBC/WSJ poll, just 43 percent of voters said they would “probably” vote for Barack Obama.

And at this same point in the 1992 presidential cycle, George H.W. Bush’s approval rating was at 71 percent, per Gallup.

Bush, of course, lost re-election, while Obama won.

But here’s the bad news for Trump: His numbers have essentially been flat his entire presidency.

His first approval rating in the NBC/WSJ poll after his inauguration was 44 percent — exactly where he is today.

Indeed, with just a handful of exceptions, Trumps’ range in approval has hovered between 40 percent and 46 percent.

So the more the stories have changed in Washington, the more things have stayed the same.

And that’s a dangerous situation for any president looking for a rebound with his re-election on the line.

All grown up

The other story from our new NBC/WSJ poll is how Democrats’ support for impeachment has grown in the last month.

Overall, 27 percent of Americans say there’s enough evidence to begin impeachment hearings now — up 10 points from last month.

Another 24 percent think Congress should continue investigating to see if there’s enough evidence to hold impeachment hearings in the future, which is down eight points.

And 48 percent believe that Congress should not hold impeachment hearings and that Trump should finish out his term as president — unchanged from a month ago.

Almost all the growth in support for impeachment has come from Democrats, with 48 percent of them wanting impeachment hearings now, versus 30 percent who said this a month ago.

Just 6 percent of Republicans support beginning impeachment hearings now, while a whopping 86 percent say Trump should finish his term as president.

Among independents, 22 percent support impeachment hearings now; 34 percent want to continue investigating; and 44 percent oppose impeachment hearings.

Tweet of the day

Again, the numbers from our new poll he was apparently referring to:

  • Begin impeachment hearings now: 27 percent
  • Continue investigating to see if there’s enough evidence to hold impeachment hearings in the future: 24 percent.
  • Congress should not hold impeachment hearings and Trump should finish his term as president: 48 percent.

Iran poised to break uranium stockpile limit

Amid all the domestic political news about Trump and the Democratic primary, don’t miss what’s happening in Iran.

Per the AP: “Iran will break the uranium stockpile limit set by Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in the next 10 days, the spokesman for the country’s atomic agency said Monday while also warning that Iran could enrich uranium up to 20% — just a step away from weapons-grade levels.”

More: “The announcement by Behrouz Kamalvandi, timed for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, puts more pressure on Europe to come up with new terms for Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal. The deal steadily has unraveled since the Trump administration pulled America out of the accord last year and re-imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, deeply cutting into its sale of crude oil abroad and sending its economy into freefall. Europe so far has been unable to offer Iran a way around the U.S. sanctions.”

2020 Vision: Pete does “Meet”

In an interview with one of us(!) over the weekend, Pete Buttigieg addressed concerns that more socially conservative African-American voters may be reluctant to support him.

Chuck Todd: “I’ve talked to African American congressmen who really like you and want to support you, where … some of their more conservative, religious-minded constituents, who vote straight ticket Democrat most of the time, would have trouble voting for you. What do you say to those politicians in Washington who want to get behind your candidacy but are nervous about this?”

Buttigieg: I”‘d invite them to look at what happened in South Bend. I’m from a socially conservative community. When I came out, we didn’t know what the effects would be. It was actually during an election year. Mike Pence was the governor of our state. He was popular at the time. And what happened was I won with 80% of the vote. What that tells you, I think, is that people, if you give them the chance, will evaluate you based on what you aim to do, what the results are, what the policies are. And I have every confidence that American voters, especially Democratic voters, will not discriminate when the opportunity comes up to choose the right leader for the future.”

But speaking of South Bend and racial politics, Buttigieg will miss a planned appearance at a DNC LGBTQ gala in New York today, instead staying in South Bend to respond to an officer-involved shooting there early yesterday, per NBC’s Josh Lederman.

NBC affiliate WNDU reports that officers were responding to reports of a suspicious person going through cars when a 53 year-old suspect allegedly approached an officer with a knife raised. The officer shot the suspect, who was transported to the hospital in critical condition and later pronounced dead.

On the campaign trail today: In DC today beginning at noon, Joe Biden, Julian Castro, Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet, Elizabeth Warren, Eric Swalwell, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris address the Poor People’s Moral Action Congress… Swalwell, in Virginia, unveils his comprehensive framework for ending gun violence… And Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar speak at a DNC LGBTQ gala in New York.

Data Download: The number of the day is … 64 percent

Sixty-four percent.

That’s the share of Democratic primary voters in our latest NBC/WSJ poll who say they are enthusiastic or comfortable with Elizabeth Warren, up from 57 percent in March.

A combined 27 percent say they have reservations about her candidacy or are very uncomfortable.

Compare that with voters’ comfort levels with Warren’s chief competitor on the left, Bernie Sanders.

A combined 56 percent are either enthusiastic or comfortable with Sanders, down from 62 percent in March. And 41 percent have reservations or are uncomfortable.

The Lid: All the world’s a stage

Don’t miss the pod from Friday, when we broke down who’ll be on stage for the first and second nights of the Democratic primary debates later this month.

ICYMI: News clips you shouldn’t miss

NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald looks at how old-fashioned retail politics in Iowa and New Hampshire have lost some of their oomph in a nationalized race.

POLITICO reports that Pete Buttigieg raised $7 million in April alone.

Monica Alba offers a good look at the infrastructure of Trump’s 2020 campaign staff.

Trump’s campaign is cutting ties with some of its own pollsters after some unflattering poll numbers leaked.

Trump says he wants to replace the ACA with “something terrific,” but fellow Republicans are worried about the optics of putting out a plan.

Trump agenda: Can I get a witness?

House Democrats are eyeing a strategy to call witnesses who never worked in the White House, like Corey Lewandowski and Chris Christie.

Senate Republicans aren’t pleased with the administration’s side-stepping of their role in confirming top officials.

With China tariffs looming, some U.S. companies say it’s not viable to buy American instead, the Wall Street Journal writes.

Don’t forget: The White House and congressional leaders still need to figure out a spending deal.

2020: Biden, party of one

Trump and his campaign are signaling that they’re ready for a scorched-earth re-election drive, with little regard for norms.

Democrats are getting ready to launch a huge anti-Trump ad campaign.

Here’s a challenge for progressives: Attack Biden without attacking Obama.

Joe Biden is campaigning like it’s a primary of one.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/re-election-line-trump-s-poll-numbers-are-full-warning-n1018156

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Hong Kong protest sees hundreds of thousands call for city’s leader to step down – CNN
Hong Kong protest sees hundreds of thousands call for city’s leader to step down – CNN

Close to 2 million people descended on Hong Kong’s streets on Sunday, Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), the organizers of the protests, estimate.

According to CHRF, those numbers are unprecedented. Police estimated that the 338,000 people followed the protest’s original route.

In a statement released by the group Sunday night, CHRF said demonstrations will continue until the government withdraws the extradition bill in its entirety, releases arrested protesters and withdraws all charges, retracts the characterization of the protests as a “riot” and forces Chief Executive Carrie Lam to resign.

“Should the government refuse to respond, only more Hong Kongers will strike tomorrow,” CHRF said.

A slow shutter image shows thousands of people taking part in protests in Hong Kong on Sunday.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/hong-kong-protests-june-16-intl-hnk/index.html

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Pelosi flexes muscle over party in impeachment debate, but ‘dam’ could collapse – Fox News
Pelosi flexes muscle over party in impeachment debate, but ‘dam’ could collapse – Fox News
Video

Fox News Flash top headlines for June 17

Fox News Flash top headlines for June 17 are here. Check out what’s clicking on Foxnews.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has wielded her power to quash a faction of Democrats rallying for President Trump’s impeachment, but frustrated members within the party say the president is one misstep away from “that dam collapsing,” according to a Sunday report.

Since reassuming leadership over the house, Pelosi has thwarted her party’s liberal wing from going forward with impeachment proceedings, encouraging them to instead focus on other issues like health care.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reflects on President Donald Trump’s statement that he would accept assistance from a foreign power. 
(AP)

“I don’t think there’s anything more divisive we can do than to impeach a president of the United States, and so you have to handle it with great care,” Pelosi told CNN on Sunday. “It has to be about the truth and the facts to take you to whatever decision has to be there.”

Some lawmakers say their deference to Pelosi is out of respect for the speaker’s political expertise, and agree that impeachment would do more harm than good.

NANCY PELOSI TOLD DEMS SHE WANTS TO SEE TRUMP ‘IN PRISON’: REPORT

“She is the single smartest strategist that we’ve ever had…People are not wanting to second guess her because she’s been right on so many fronts,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., told the Washington Post.

But other Democratic lawmakers, like Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., admit they toe the party line out of fear.

Video

“One, you want to be a team player and support the leader’s position, but secondly you’re worried about your own self and…what can happen if you don’t follow along,” Schrader told the paper.

Some argue that President Trump’s defiance of congressional investigators will eventually break the divide between moderate Democrats and its liberal wing.

TRUMP APPEARS TO HAVE INADVERTENTLY INFUSED DEMOCRATIC INVESTIGATIONS AFTER ABC INTERVIEW

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va., described Pelosi’s hold over Democrats as “fragile” because “we’re kind of one event, one piece of explosive testimony, one action by Trump away from that dam collapsing.”

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The Democrats’ pro-impeachment camp howled this week after Trump said in an interview with ABC that he’d be willing to listen if a foreign government had dirt on an opponent. Yet despite the familiar refrain of impeachment, Pelosi didn’t budge an inch on impeachment after Trump’s comments.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nancy-pelosis-power-over-democrats-quells-demands-for-impeachmentfor-now

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