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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


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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

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.”

“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.”

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

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

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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Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/tech/amazon-slams-aoc-claim-warehouse-workers-starvation-wages

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

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

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.

“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

Apple CEO Tim Cook: Technology companies need to take…

Although Cook did not mention companies by name, his commencement speech in Silicon Valley’s backyard mentioned data breaches, privacy violations, and even made reference to…

read more

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/iran-says-it-will-break-internationally-agreed-limit-on-uranium-levels-in-10-days.html


The inquiries that President Donald Trump faces include probes into his business, his charity, his campaign, his inaugural committee and his personal finances. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

White house

Unlike most other candidates who face allegations of wrongdoing, he hopes to use them as part of a strategy that he hopes will help win him re-election.

President Donald Trump is facing a hurdle no other president has — an unprecedented onslaught of investigations into almost every recent organization he has led.

In California, investigators are examining the more than $100 million donated to Trump’s inauguration. In New Jersey, they’re looking into the treatment of employees working at a Trump resort. And in New York, they’re scrutinizing Trump’s now defunct foundation.

Story Continued Below

In total, Trump faces at least 15 criminal or civil inquiries by nine federal, state and city agencies into his business, his charity, his campaign, his inaugural committee and his personal finances.

As he launches his campaign for a second term on Tuesday, Trump doesn’t plan to avoid talking about the investigations. Unlike most other candidates who face allegations of wrongdoing, he hopes to use them as part of a strategy that he hopes will help win him re-election.

Trump plans to characterize the investigations in these blue states — just like those by special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional investigations — as attacks by the same people: Democrats, the media and his critics. To his backers, it’s already been a winning strategy.

“He’s actually thriving off of these investigations because he’s turned it into a so-called witch hunt where he’s using these to his advantage to show that the establishment deep state, along with the media, is trying to derail his efforts to change the way things are done,” Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, who has advised the Trump White House. “That plays to his benefit.”

While congressional investigations have garnered most of the splashy headlines in recent months, it’s these outside investigations that are more dangerous politically in many ways, even as they plod along quietly behind closed doors. They may result in criminal indictments or civil penalties, leading to a burst of negative publicity that could drop unexpectedly in the months and weeks before the 2020 election.

“The risk is high,” said Andy Wright, who worked on responding to investigations in the Obama and Clinton White Houses and has worked for the House Oversight Committee. “They could yield very significant developments.”

While the individual state and federal investigations have been reported on, the full scope has not been previously tallied.

Trump’s inaugural committee is under the most scrutiny from investigators, facing five different probes.There are investigations going on in both the Southern and Eastern District of New York, as well as in the Central District of California. Additionally, the attorneys general in both New Jersey and Washington, D.C., are examining the inauguration. The investigations are mostly examining whether foreign donors illegally contributed money to the inaugural committee, and whether the organization misspent any money.

Four entities are investigating Trump’s family company, the Trump Organization. The company — which is comprised of more than 500 businesses — has been accused of federal labor violations, as well as bank and insurance fraud. Trump still owns his business but placed his holdings in a trust designed to hold his assets. He can receive money from the trust at any time.

Specifically, the New York attorney general is looking into allegations that undocumented workers were forced to work extra hours without pay at Trump’s golf club in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., while the New Jersey attorney general is reviewing accusations that undocumented workers were given fraudulent documents at Trump’s Bedminster, N.J., resort. In New York, the attorney general is also looking into large loans the company received, while the state’s Department Of Financial Services is scrutinizing the company’s insurance policies.

Trump’s charitable organization, the Trump Foundation, has not escaped scrutiny, either. Even though the foundation was forced to dissolve, it is still being investigated for potentially spending money on Trump’s company or campaign. The New York Department of Taxation and the New York attorney general are both on the case.

Even the Trump campaign, nearly three years after the 2016 election, is still grappling with government probes. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are examining whether the campaign illegally coordinated with Rebuilding America Now, a pro-Trump super PAC, as well as the much-publicized hush money payments Trump’s team made to two women over allegations of extramarital affairs with Trump.

Trump’s personal finances have also drawn the attention of investigators. New York state and New York City regulators are looking into potential financial fraud, as well as possible tax and housing violations.

“There’s never been anything like this before,” said Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel to President Barack Obama.

Recent presidents of both parties, including Obama and George W. Bush, faced their own investigations as they campaigned for re-election. But most of these probes began and ended on Capitol Hill. Even President Bill Clinton — who was impeached in his second term after an inquiry that started out about a failed real estate deal resulted in misstatements Clinton made under oath about an affair — didn’t face this many outside inquiries.

Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor who handled cases against public officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, said Trump’s situation stands out. Unlike prior administrations, he noted, these cases are all about the president and his personal businesses — not those of his staff.

“We’ve seen nothing on this scale,” he said.

The criminal and civil investigations into Trump’s organizations exist in addition to the many attention-grabbing cases involving his associates, including his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, the ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Most of the investigations stemmed from Mueller’s investigation, which did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries attempting to interfere with the election. Mueller also laid out evidence of Trump attempting to obstruct justice but declined to make a decision on whether his actions were criminal. The rest of the probes arose from news reports.

A Trump campaign official described Trump’s response as less of a campaign strategy and more of an “understandable reaction” to the allegations.

“Anyone knows anything about this president knows he fights back,” the official said.

But others close to the Trump campaign and White House said the president has developed a winning strategy over the last two years that has helped defuse the Mueller and House investigations.

“It’s an evolution of building one thing after another and seeing how people have reacted,” said one informal adviser. “I don’t think anyone has been able to thrive off being attacked like he has.”

In his public comments, Trump lumps all the investigations together into one attack line, regularly hitting the theme at his campaign rallies, often with ad-libbed lines. The subject is also a regular feature on his Twitter feed and in his exchanges with reporters.

“Even though we had artificial obstacles put in our path, even though we had phony Russian hoaxes and witch hunts and people that hate Trump and hate you — angry Democrats, all after us with all of it, and they still have it’s like little embers that are burning,” he told a crowd at a May 20 rally in Pennsylvania. “They’re going crazy.”

Trump’s campaign is also fundraising off of the investigation, blasting emails and texts to supporters and selling T-shirts printed with the words “collusion delusion” and “no collusion no obstruction.”

Bryan Lanza, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition and remains close to the White House, said Trump doesn’t plan to shy away from talking about the other inquiries, too.

“You have to lump these together, too. They’re all the same. They’re all witch hunts,” he said. “He’s comfortable telling the American public that these are partisan hit jobs.”

But Democrats — and even some Republicans — said Trump’s strategy only appeals to his conservative base and not the suburban and independent voters who helped Democrats win back the House in 2018.

Jason Miller, who served as senior campaign adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign, pushed back, arguing recent polls show more Americans — not just Trump supporters — oppose the plethora of investigations against Trump.

But recent polls have been mixed. A CBS News poll from May shows 53 percent of Americans have had enough of the Russia investigation but a CNN poll from June shows 54 percent of voters say Democrats are investigating Trump the right amount or too little. Most polls don’t ask about outside investigations, which have largely flown under the radar.

“Most people are sick and tired of it and don’t understand why Democrats continue to obsess in the past,” Miller said. “It’s all partisan politics.”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/17/donald-trump-investigations-1365910

Since her spinal surgery, Liv Cannon has been able to work in the garden and play with her energetic dogs without having to worry about pain.

Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News


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Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News

Since her spinal surgery, Liv Cannon has been able to work in the garden and play with her energetic dogs without having to worry about pain.

Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News

Spinal surgery made it possible for Liv Cannon to plant her first vegetable garden.

“It’s a lot of bending over and lifting the wheelbarrow and putting stakes in the ground,” the 26-year-old says as she surveys the tomatillos, cherry tomatoes and eggplants growing in raised beds behind her house in Austin, Texas. “And none of that I could ever do before.”

For the first 24 years of her life, Cannon’s activities were limited by chronic pain and muscle weakness.

“There was a lot of pain in my legs, which I can now recognize as nerve pain,” she says. “There was a lot of pain in my back, which I thought was, you know, just something everybody lived with.”

Cannon saw lots of doctors over the years. But they couldn’t explain what was going on. She’d pretty much given up on finding an answer for her pain until her fiancé, Cole Chiumento, pushed her to try one more time.

Liv Cannon and her fiancé, Cole Chiumento, considered calling off their wedding because of uncertainty over medical debt from her surgery. “I think about it every time I go to the mailbox,” Cannon says.

Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News


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Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News

Liv Cannon and her fiancé, Cole Chiumento, considered calling off their wedding because of uncertainty over medical debt from her surgery. “I think about it every time I go to the mailbox,” Cannon says.

Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News

“It never improved. It never got better,” Chiumento says. “That just didn’t sound right to me.”

So Cannon went to a specialist who ordered a scan of her spine. A few days later, her phone rang.

“We found something on your MRI,” a voice said.

The images showed that Cannon had been born with diastematomyelia, a rare disorder related to spina bifida. It causes the spinal cord to split in two.

In Cannon’s case, the disorder also led to a tumor that trapped her spinal cord, causing it to stretch as she grew.

In December 2017, a neurosurgeon opened up her spinal column and operated for several hours, freeing the cord.

“I think it was Day 3 after my surgery I could feel the difference,” Cannon says. “There was just a pain that wasn’t there anymore.”

As she recovered, Cannon saw lots of huge medical bills go by. They were all covered by her insurance plan. Almost a year went by after the operation.

Then a new bill came.

Patient: Liv Cannon, 26, of Austin, Texas. At the time of her surgery, she was a graduate student insured with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas through her job at the University of Texas.

Total bill: $94,031 for neuromonitoring services. The bill was submitted to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, which covered $815.69 of the amount and informed her she was responsible for the balance. The insurer covered all of Cannon’s other medical bills, which came to more than $100,000, including those from the hospital, surgeon and anesthesiologist.

Service provider: Traxx Medical Holdings LLC, an Austin company that provides neuromonitoring during spinal surgery. Neuromonitoring uses electrical signals to detect when a surgeon is causing damage to nerves.

Medical service: Cannon was born with a rare spinal condition that had caused chronic pain and muscle weakness since she was a child. In December 2017, she had successful spinal surgery to correct the problem. Her surgeon requested neuromonitoring during the operation.

What gives: Neuromonitoring made sense for the type of surgery Cannon had. The bill did not. Cannon should have been warned long before her surgery that the neuromonitoring company would be an out-of-network provider whose fees might not be covered by her insurer.

Liv Cannon was diagnosed with diastematomyelia, a rare disorder related to spina bifida, and had surgery in December 2017 to correct the problem. Most of the cost of the surgery was covered by her insurance, but more than $93,000 for out-of-network neuromonitoring services was not.

Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News


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Julia Robinson for Kaiser Health News

At first, she was baffled by the billing information that Blue Cross sent her. “It was one of those things from the insurance company that says this is the amount we cover and this is the amount you might owe your provider,” she says.

The statement listed four separate charges from the day of her surgery. Each was described as a “diagnostic medical exam.” Together, they came to $94,031.

Blue Cross said the covered amount was $815.69 — minus a $750 deductible and $26.27 for coinsurance — and informed Cannon she might have to pay the balance — $93,991.58

“I was shocked,” she says. Chiumento was outraged.

“As soon as I saw that, I thought it was a scam,” he says.

Share Your Story And Bill With Us

If you’ve had a medical-billing experience that you think we should investigate, you can share the bill and describe what happened here.

The bill had come from an Austin company called Traxx Medical Holdings LLC. Traxx did not respond to emails, phone calls and a fax seeking comment on the charge.

The company’s website shows that Traxx provides a service called intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring, which evaluates the function of nerves during surgery. The goal is to help a surgeon avoid causing permanent damage to the nervous system.

There is an ongoing debate about whether neuromonitoring is needed for all spinal surgery. But it is standard for a complicated operation like the one Cannon had, says Richard Vogel, president of the American Society of Neurophysiological Monitoring.

On the other hand, a $94,000 charge for the service can’t be justified, Vogel says.

“You’re not going to meet anybody who believes that a hundred thousand dollars or more is reasonable for neuromonitoring,” Vogel says.

Most neuromonitoring companies charge reasonable fees for a valuable service and are upfront about their ownership and financial arrangements, he says. But some companies are greedy and submit huge bills to an insurance company, hoping they won’t be challenged, he adds.

Even worse, “some neuromonitoring groups charge excessive fees in order to gain business by paying the money back to surgeons,” Vogel says.

Last year, Vogel’s group published a position statement condemning these “kickback arrangements” and other unethical business practices.

It is unclear whether Traxx, the company that provided neuromonitoring for Cannon, has any financial arrangements with surgeons. Cannon’s surgeon did not respond to requests for comment.

The size of the fee for Cannon’s neuromonitoring was only part of the problem. The other part was that Traxx — unlike her hospital, surgeon and anesthesiologist — had no contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas.

As an out-of-network provider, the company could set its own fees and try to collect from Cannon any amount it didn’t get from her insurer.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas said it doesn’t comment on problems affecting individual members. But the insurer did offer a general statement by email about the problem:

“Unfortunately, non-contracted providers can expose our members to significantly greater out-of-pocket costs. These charges often have no connection to underlying market prices, costs or quality. If given the opportunity, we will try to negotiate with the provider to reduce the cost.”

One thing working against Cannon is that she is pretty sure that just before surgery, she signed a paper that authorized the out-of-network neuromonitoring.

“It was 4:30 in the morning and you’re like, ‘OK, let’s get this over with,’ ” she recalls.

Getting consent in the hospital may be legal, but it’s not reasonable, says Dr. Arthur Garson Jr., who directs the Health Policy Institute at the Texas Medical Center in Houston.

For example, a patient might be having a heart attack, Garson says. “You got chest pain, you’re sweating, sick as you can be, and they hand you a piece of paper and they say, ‘Sign here.’ “

The Texas Legislature passed a bill in May to protect patients from the sky-high bills this practice can produce. And Congress is considering similar legislation.

These are small steps in the right direction, Garson says.

“Asking the individual patient to make that decision even when they’re not sick, I think, is difficult,” he says, “and maybe we ought to think of some better way to do it.”

The Texas legislation is expected to take effect later this year but affects only bills that occur after it becomes law. So that $94,000 figure is never far from Cannon’s mind, even as she and Chiumento plan their wedding.

“Every time I go out and I collect the mail, I’m wondering, ‘Is this the day it’s going to show up and we’re going to have to deal with this?’ ” she says.

The takeaway: Neuromonitoring during complex surgery involving the spine can help prevent inadvertent damage. But monitoring may be unnecessary for lower-risk back operations, like spinal fusion.

It is strange that neuromonitoring is charged as a separate service, rather than part of the spine surgery. Cardiac monitoring is not charged separately during bypass surgery, for example.

When considering spine surgery, ask your doctor whether neuromonitoring will be part of the procedure. If so, will it be billed separately? Try to find out the name of the provider and get an estimate of the cost beforehand.

Check with your insurer to determine if the neuromonitoring provider is within your network and to make sure the estimated charge will be covered.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/17/732497053/a-year-after-spinal-surgery-a-94-000-bill-feels-like-a-backbreaker

When they were in the majority, House Republicans voted dozens of times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, only to see their legislation die in the Senate. On one occasion, Mr. Trump summoned House Republicans to the White House for a grand ceremony only to see that momentum quickly fade away.

Mr. Trump often laments the failure by blaming Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who voted against one repeal effort in the summer of 2017. Even if Mr. McCain had voted for the bill, however, full repeal of the Affordable Care Act would not have been assured.

That version would have eliminated the individual and employers’ mandate, but left intact the health care law’s Medicaid expansion and insurance regulations. And it would still have required passage in the House or forced lawmakers from both chambers to negotiate their differences.

When Mr. Trump pushed the idea of voting to repeal the law again recently, he was quickly dissuaded by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, who argued that comprehensive health care legislation would go nowhere in Congress. The president then insisted it was never his intention to vote on a bill before the 2020 election.

Even as Mr. Trump has delayed producing a plan, he has continued to criticize the existing health care law, repeatedly claiming that it had become unaffordable because of average deductibles exceeding $7,000 or $8,000. This was an exaggeration.

Deductibles vary greatly by the type of plan and the enrollee. While deductibles for some plans can top $7,000, they average $4,375 for silver-tier plans, the most common choice for consumers. And those who receive cost-sharing reductions have lower deductibles still. Also left unsaid was his own administration’s role in causing higher deductibles, as the federal government sets caps on out-of-pocket costs and has increased the limit this year.

Midway through his third year in office, many remain skeptical that Mr. Trump will produce the plan he is now promising to unveil in a month or two.

“He can’t deliver the impossible,” said Len M. Nichols, the director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics at George Mason University, “so he avoids specifics and postpones actually reckoning with a serious legislative proposal of his own.”

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/politics/trump-health-care-democrats-2020.html

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

President Trump was apparently so perturbed by his chief of staff coughing during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in the Oval Office last week, that he asked his staffer to leave the room, according to a transcript from the station.

Trump had been asked a question about his tax returns when someone off camera – identified as Mulvaney – reportedly begins coughing.

“I hope they get it, because it’s a fantastic financial statement,” Trump said Stephanopoulos amid apparent coughing before saying: “And let’s do that over, he’s coughing in the middle of my answer.”

TRUMP SAYS HE WOULD ‘WANT TO HEAR’ DIRT ON 2020 RIVALS FROM FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS, SUGGESTS HE WOULDN’T CONTACT FBI

“I don’t like that, you know, I don’t like that,” Trump reportedly said of Mulvaney’s coughing. “If you’re going to couch, please leave the room. You just can’t, you just can’t cough. Boy oh boy.”

“Your chief of staff,” Stephanopoulos reportedly clarified.

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The interview, which was broadcast Sunday, proceeded with Trump saying although he wanted people to see his “phenomenal” financial statement, it’s “not up to me, it’s up to my lawyers.”

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-asks-mulvaney-to-leave-oval-office-for-coughing-during-abc-interview-report

President Trump’s re-election campaign is dumping some of its pollsters after leaked internal surveys showed former Vice President Biden leading the president in several battleground states, according to reports on Sunday.

The revelation comes as Trump is scheduled to officially kick-off his reelection campaign on Tuesday with a rally in Orlando, NBC News reported.

The dire polling numbers from March, which were reported by the New York Times, NBC News and ABC News last week, showed Trump trailing Biden, the Democratic front-runner, by double-digits in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan.

It also found Trump behind Biden in Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota and Ohio.

In deep red Texas where a Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won since Jimmy Carter in 1976, Trump is ahead of Biden by 2 percentage points.

The president last week called the polls in the news reports “phony” and said the campaign’s internal polling is “unbelievably strong.”

His campaign manager ​Brad Parscale ​confirmed the numbers but dismissed them at the same time.

“These leaked numbers are ancient, in campaign terms, from months-old polling that began in March before two major events had occurred: the release of the summary of the Mueller report exonerating the President, and the beginning of the Democrat candidates defining themselves with their far-left policy message,” ​he said in a statement to ABC News.

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2019/06/16/trump-campaign-ditches-pollsters-after-biden-leading-surveys-leak/

President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump defends Stephanopolous interview Trump defends Stephanopolous interview Buttigieg on offers of foreign intel: ‘Just call the FBI’ MORE‘s reelection campaign has reportedly severed ties with some of its pollsters after leaked internal polling showed him trailing former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenButtigieg on Biden’s Iraq War vote: ‘that vote was a mistake’ Buttigieg on Biden’s Iraq War vote: ‘that vote was a mistake’ Ocasio-Cortez starts petition to repeal Hyde Amendment MORE in hypothetical match-ups. 

NBC News, citing an unidentified source close to the campaign, reported on the development Sunday, noting that the move came after it obtained details about a March internal poll that indicated Biden was leading Trump in several key states. The source did not provide details on which pollsters were let go. 

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

News about the Trump campaign’s internal polling surfaced in news reports last week, leading the president to push back against the findings in a series of tweets.  

“The Fake (Corrupt) News Media said they had a leak into polling done by my campaign which, by the way and despite the phony and never ending Witch Hunt, are the best numbers WE have ever had,” he tweeted. “They reported Fake numbers that they made up & don’t even exist. WE WILL WIN AGAIN!” 

But NBC News noted that a separate source familiar with the inner workings of the Trump reelection campaign shared more details regarding its polling. The data reportedly showed that Trump is underperforming in reliably red states. In addition, the polls showed that Trump is trailing in swing states that are viewed as crucial to him winning reelection. 

That source told the news network that the campaign tested multiple Democratic candidates against Trump and that Biden polled the best out of the group. Trump reportedly trails Biden by double digits in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. 

Biden’s lead in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida sits outside the margin of error, according to NBC News. The news network added that Trump leads Biden by just 2 points in Texas, a state where a Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won since 1976. 

The New York Times and ABC News first reported details about the Trump campaign’s internal polling earlier this month. Trump dismissed the reports while speaking in the Oval Office last week, saying that he’s had “great internal polling,” NBC News noted. 

The internal polling NBC News obtained details about was conducted between March 13 and March 28. 

Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s campaign pollster, told the news network that the survey was “incomplete and misleading.” 

“These leaked numbers are ancient, in campaign terms, from months-old polling that began in March before two major events had occurred: the release of the summary of the Mueller report exonerating the President, and the beginning of the Democrat candidates defining themselves with their far-left policy message,” Trump campaign manager Brad ParscaleBradley (Brad) James ParscaleMORE told NBC News before noting that Trump has seen huge swings in his favor “based on the policies espoused by the Democrats.”

Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/448790-trump-campaign-cutting-ties-with-pollsters-after-leak-report