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Pilots of the 737 Max that crashed in Ethiopia in March initially followed Boeing’s standard emergency procedures to try to get control of the plane, but ultimately failed, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Crew members turned off the flight-control system that automatically pushed down the plane’s nose after takeoff but could not get the plane to climb, the Journal reported, citing people briefed on the investigation’s preliminary findings. The Ethiopian Airlines crew ended up turning the control system back on before the plane crashed, killing all 157 people aboard.

It’s the latest report amid mounting pressure on Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration over their assertions that the crash may have been avoided had pilots simply followed established safety procedures. The new details of the crash are based on data from the aircraft’s black-box recorders.

The pilots turned the electrical power back on, which reengaged the stall-prevention feature, known as MCAS, and then used electrical switches to try to raise the nose, the Journal’s sources said.

It’s not clear why Ethiopian Flight 302 pilots turned the automated system back on rather than continuing to follow Boeing’s standard emergency steps. Government officials and investigators said it’s likely that manual controls to raise the nose of the plane didn’t work, and pilots tried to reengage the system to combat the nose-down angle of the jet and failed, the Journal reported.

The same Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System was also involved in the 737 Max crash in Indonesia in October that resulted in deaths of all 189 people on board.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation launched an investigation on Tuesday into whistleblower complaints accusing the FAA of improperly training its safety inspectors to review the Boeing jets. The FAA may have been notified about these deficiencies as early as August, the panel said. The Justice Department has also launched a criminal probe.

Ethiopian investigators are expected to release a preliminary report about the crash in coming days. Investigators looking to the Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia think similar system malfunctions were involved, including erroneous data from a single sensor that caused the MCAS system to misfire.

Boeing is still preparing software updates for the 737 Max plane’s flight-control system. The plane maker initially planned to submit the fixes to the FAA last week but said it needs more time. The revised software will have two sensors, rather than one, and will give pilots more control over the system, according to Boeing.

“We urge caution against speculating and drawing conclusions on the findings prior to the release of the flight data and the preliminary report,” Boeing said in a statement responding to the report.

Read the Journal report here.

WATCH:
Ethiopian Airline CEO says it will be difficult for Boeing to restore faith

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/pilots-followed-boeings-emergency-steps-before-737-max-crash-report.html

Addressing Congress on Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg skillfully articulated why NATO is a uniquely special alliance: it matches the sovereign authority of democratic governments to mutual efforts in common interest.

Stoltenberg explained that NATO isn’t about the submission of national authority to a global construct. Rather it is an alliance of “sovereign nations united by democracy.” Here we see the divergence of NATO from other organizations such as the European Union or the International Court of Justice. Where NATO respects its member populations, other international organizations tend to subordinate democratic sovereign power to their own bureaucratic interests. Explaining that “NATO lasts because it is in the national interest of each of our nations,” Stoltenberg offered a rationale for how positive nationalism and international alliances can co-exist. Preserving a mutually beneficial peace, NATO creates space for our mutually beneficial prosperity.

Stoltenberg noted that the defeat of Nazism, the Soviet Union, and ISIS required the application and deterrent resolution of military force. He was clear that allies must spend more for NATO’s common defense. And Stoltenberg’s words, which echo as a softer version of President Trump’s, are necessary.

Equally important was Stoltenberg’s rebuke to those who say NATO is defunct in the 21st century. The former Norwegian prime minister was clear that the alliance serves its 29 members by enabling each to be “stronger than any potential challenger.” In an era of rising Russian aggression and continuing terrorist threats, NATO continues to be an alliance of paramount importance. Evidencing as much, Stoltenberg paid homage to the more than 1,000 non-U.S. NATO service personnel who have died alongside our own in Afghanistan.

All this, Stoltenberg concluded, leads us to a shared understanding of NATO’s most important truth.

In the end, whatever our disagreements, “It is good to have friends.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/nato-works-because-it-harnesses-positive-nationalism

Media captionCorbyn: May meeting “useful but inconclusive”

Talks between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to break the Brexit deadlock have been called “constructive”.

The two leaders met on Wednesday afternoon and agreed a “programme of work” to try to find a way forward to put to MPs for a vote.

It is understood that each party has appointed a negotiating team, which are meeting tonight before a full day of discussions on Thursday.

A spokesman for No 10 said both sides were “showing flexibility”.

And he added that the two parties gave “a commitment to bring the current Brexit uncertainty to a close”.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Corbyn said there had not been “as much change as [he] had expected” in the PM’s position.

He said the meeting was “useful, but inconclusive”, and talks would continue.

Media captionAttorney General Geoffrey Cox: “Once we are out, we are out”

This evening, MPs have debated legislation which would require Mrs May to seek an extension to Article 50 and give the Commons the power to approve or amend whatever was agreed.

The bill passed its first parliamentary hurdle by 315 to 310 votes, and MPs are now voting on a raft of amendments.

Supporters of the bill, tabled by Labour’s Yvette Cooper, are trying to fast-track the bill through the Commons in the space of five hours, in a move which has angered Tory Brexiteers.

Mr Corbyn said he raised a number of issues with Mrs May, including future customs arrangements, trade agreements and the option of giving the public the final say over the deal in another referendum.

The Labour leader is coming under pressure from senior colleagues to make a referendum a condition of signing up to any agreement.

Demanding the shadow cabinet hold a vote on the issue, Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said not backing a confirmatory vote would be a “breach” of the policy agreed by party members at its last conference.

The UK has until 12 April to propose a plan to the EU – which must be accepted by the bloc – or it will leave without a deal on that date.

The PM proposed the talks in a statement on Tuesday night. She wants to agree a policy with the Labour leader for MPs to vote on before 10 April – when the EU will hold an emergency summit on Brexit.

If there is no agreement between the two leaders, Mrs May said a number of options would be put to MPs “to determine which course to pursue”.

In either event, Mrs May said she would ask the EU for a further short extension to hopefully get an agreement passed by Parliament before 22 May, so the UK does not have to take part in European elections.

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The two leaders also met Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

The SNP leader said she had “good” and “open” conversations with both, and while she believed Mr Corbyn would “drive a hard bargain”, she was “still not entirely clear” where the prime minister was willing to compromise.

The SNP leader, who backs a further referendum and wants to remain in the EU, told reporters: “My concern is that in the rush to reach some compromise with the clock ticking, what will happen over the next few days… is a bad compromise will be reached.”

The SNP, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, Plaid Cymru and the Independent Group have also held a joint press conference, calling for any decision made by the leaders to be put to a public vote.

But some Tory Brexiteers have condemned the talks, with two ministers resigning over the issue.

Chris Heaton-Harris quit on Wednesday afternoon, claiming his job at the Department for Exiting the European Union had become “irrelevant” if the government is not prepared to leave without a deal.

Wales Minister Nigel Adams also resigned earlier, saying the government was at risk of failing to deliver “the Brexit people voted for”.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47807622

Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot celebrates Tuesday during her election night party in Chicago.

Kamil Krzaczynski /AFP/Getty Images


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Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot celebrates Tuesday during her election night party in Chicago.

Kamil Krzaczynski /AFP/Getty Images

A day after a historic election, Chicago Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot laid out what she sees as some of the city’s most pernicious problems: entrenched segregation, gun violence and economic inequality.

But Lightfoot, the first black woman chosen to hold the position, emphasized the “fractured relationship” between the Chicago Police Department and the public as a critically important safety issue.

The nature of policing by the department “has not adequately taken into account the segregation in our city and that race does matter,” she said in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition. That disconnect “has left many people feeling like the police are an illegitimate occupying force and we’ve got to change that around because literally lives depend on it.”

Lightfoot, a 56-year-old former federal prosecutor who has worked in police oversight but never held elected office, said tensions in Chicago were exacerbated because the mayoral race unfolded as three police officers went on trial over accusations that they helped cover up what happened in the fatal shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald by a white officer in 2015.

The officer who fired the fatal shots, Jason Van Dyke, had already been convicted, but the three other officers were cleared of any wrongdoing in January — a stunning blow to McDonald’s family and civil rights advocates across the country.

Lightfoot told NPR that prosecutors should to re-examine the not-guilty verdicts.

“I’ve urged the U.S. Attorney’s Office, my former colleagues, to reopen their grand jury investigation and if they determine that there are no civil rights violations they can bring, they need to have a fulsome grand jury report,” she said.

“We’ve got to have transparency and healing so that people are able to move on,” the mayor-elect added.

Lightfoot also touched on the issue of economic disparity in Chicago that has led to a lack of opportunity for lower-income people.

“We need to make sure that we are bringing real hope and economic opportunity to so many neighborhoods that have been disinvested in for decades,” she said. “Building channels for people to believe that the city sees them and hears them and is willing to invest, is going to be critically important, and we have to start that right away.”

Lightfoot, who also will be Chicago’s first openly gay mayor, won Tuesday’s runoff election against Cook County Board President and county Democratic Party leader Toni Preckwinkle. Both African-American women ran as progressives outside the sphere of Chicago’s well-moneyed political machine.

As member station WBEZ reported, “The free-for-all campaign represented a sharp contrast to almost every past election in a city that has been synonymous with Democratic machine politics and bossism for nearly a century.”

Lightfoot replaces Rahm Emanuel, a nationally prominent Democrat who withdrew from running for a third mayoral term.

As she prepares to step into her new role, Lightfoot said she is struck by the magnitude of the moment.

“I think that the people who come from communities like me as an African-American woman, as a member of the LGBT community, we haven’t sat in the corners of power,” she said.

“It’s quite the opposite. We’ve been discriminated against. We’ve been locked out, and we’ve been excluded. And to have someone like me representing these multifaceted communities now be on the cusp of being the mayor and what I think is the greatest city in the world, I think gives a lot of people a lot of hope –and it is a milestone in a long journey that will continue to demonstrate though that we’re making progress.”

Lightfoot added, “Breaking the back of the Chicago machine, it’s quite monumental.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/04/03/709420282/chicago-mayor-elect-lori-lightfoot-says-city-has-fractured-relationship-with-pol

They included Donald F. McGahn II, a former White House counsel; Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist; Hope Hicks, a former White House communications director; Reince Priebus, the president’s first chief of staff; and Annie Donaldson, a deputy of Mr. McGahn.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the committee’s action.

Mr. Barr wrote in a letter to Mr. Nadler and other congressional leaders last week that he intended to give Congress a redacted version of the report by mid-April and would not share it with the White House before then.

Mr. Barr said that officials from the department and the special counsel’s office were scrubbing the document of four categories of information: classified material, secret grand jury testimony, details pertinent to law enforcement investigations and statements “that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”

That final category is so broad that House Democrats, who initially set an April 2 deadline for Mr. Barr’s delivery, have repeatedly said they will view as suspect anything short of an unredacted report and the evidence collected. During Wednesday’s hearing, Mr. Nadler argued that Republicans set the precedent for the subpoena during the last Congress, and they supported Democrats’ requests for documents and information during the investigations of Bill Clinton and Richard M. Nixon.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/mueller-report-subpoena-house.html

April 3 at 12:48 PM

A House panel voted Wednesday to authorize subpoenas to obtain special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s full report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, laying down a marker in a constitutional power struggle that could end up in the courts.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 24 to 17 along party lines to authorize its chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), to subpoena the report and underlying documents of Mueller’s probe from Attorney General William P. Barr.

The panel, which has jurisdiction over impeachment, also voted to subpoena five former White House officials it believes may have received documents relevant to the special counsel’s probe.

“This committee has a job to do,” Nadler said. “The Constitution charges Congress with holding the president accountable for alleged official misconduct. That job requires us to evaluate the evidence for ourselves — not the attorney general’s summary, not a substantially redacted synopsis, but the full report and the underlying evidence.”

The much-anticipated move to compel the Justice Department to release the report comes one day after Barr missed a House-imposed deadline to turn over the nearly 400-page document. Barr told lawmakers last week that although he could not meet their Tuesday deadline, he promised to deliver a redacted version of Mueller’s findings by mid-April, if not sooner.

But Democrats, who are leaving for a two-week congressional recess next week, have made clear that redactions are unacceptable and have sought to give Nadler the tools needed to respond at any moment.

Nadler told reporters after Wednesday’s vote that he will hold off on serving Barr with a subpoena, seeking to first negotiate with him for the full range of Mueller’s documents. The Democrat would not specify, however, how long he would wait.

“We’re going to work with the attorney general for a short period of time in a hope that he will reveal to us the entire Mueller report and will go to court to get permission to get the [grand jury] material,” Nadler said, referring to interviews and documents presented during the proceedings throughout the investigation. “But if that doesn’t work out, in a very short order we will issue subpoenas.”

After reviewing the report, Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress on March 24, saying Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

Mueller also made no determination about whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice during the inquiry, arguing that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” according to Barr’s summary.

That has not stopped Trump and his GOP allies from claiming it does — even as Democrats counter that Barr, a Trump appointee, is hardly a neutral observer and is protecting the president.

On Monday, Trump asserted on Twitter that “no matter what information is given to the crazed Democrats from the No Collusion Mueller Report, it will never be good enough.” Republicans argued during Wednesday’s hearing that Democrats simply want to embarrass or impeach Trump.

“My friends across the dais are eager for headlines, so they’re issuing subpoenas . . . despite the fact the special counsel spent nearly two years examining exactly what House Democrats are fishing for here,” said Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the committee.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an outspoken Trump ally, asked: “Why are we here? Seems to me we’re here because the Mueller report isn’t what the Democrats wanted it to be . . . just the opposite.” 

Democrats objected, reminding Jordan that neither they nor the GOP has seen a single page of the Mueller report.

However, House Democrats in recent days have sought to shift the focus away from their investigations of the president, especially talk of impeachment. Some Democrats worry the nationwide focus on their efforts probing Trump is drowning out their legislative message, which they deem vital to maintaining their majority in 2020 and defeating Trump.

Still, party leaders have argued that Barr — who personally determined there was not sufficient evidence to establish obstruction, absent a Mueller recommendation on the matter — could have misrepresented Mueller’s findings and that Democrats need to review the report themselves.

“We do not need your interpretation. Show us the report,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week, calling Barr’s handling of the matter “condescending” and “arrogant.”

Nadler echoed that sentiment Wednesday: “We are not willing to let the attorney general . . . substitute his judgment for ours.”

The Judiciary Committee on Wednesday also approved subpoenas for five former White House aides: former White House counsel Donald McGahn; former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon; former communications director Hope Hicks; former chief of staff Reince Priebus; and Ann Donaldson, McGahn’s former chief of staff.

The five were among 81 individuals and entities Nadler sent document requests to last month as part of his investigation into whether Trump abused power, obstructed justice or engaged in public corruption.

The fight over the Mueller report is expected to land in the courts. Senior Justice Department officials have expressed opposition to releasing information that could damage an individual who is not charged with a crime. But when it comes to the president, Democrats argue, Barr has an obligation to make the report public, and they have said they will sue for the entire document if Barr does not comply.

The House voted 420 to 0 last month to urge Barr to release the report. But since then, House Republicans — particularly on the Judiciary Committee — have deferred to Barr, arguing that he would make the best legal decision about what to make public.

Barr and Justice Department officials are working behind the scenes to redact grand-jury information, classified material, details related to ongoing prosecutions and “information that may unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties,” according to Nadler.

But Democrats have argued that Congress deserves to see all the information, citing as precedent former independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s delivery to Congress of his full, unredacted report on President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. The Starr report in 1998 was complete with grand-jury testimony.

Nadler at one point during the committee session held up two massive books from Starr’s investigation, noting he gave Congress “boxes and boxes” of such information.

“The department is wrong to try to withhold that information from this committee,” Nadler said. “Congress is entitled to all of the evidence.”

Collins challenged Nadler’s logic, mocking his use of props by holding up his own makeshift display — two water bottles, one empty, one full — to argue Nadler is comparing apples and oranges.

Starr, Collins argued, was appointed under a different law and made recommendations on impeachment.

“I’m glad we’re using props today, because the chairman is wanting you to look at one thing when the reality is another thing,” Collins said. “It doesn’t work! They’re not the same!”

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) argued that previous special counsels and prosecutors who handed over grand-jury information to Congress received permission from the courts to release such sensitive material.

Sensenbrenner, who said he would be “happy to be a co-plaintiff” in a court motion to release the full report, encouraged Nadler to hold off on his subpoena and go to a judge. “We ought to do what we need to do first,” he said, “. . . and that’s go to court.”

Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.) countered that in those circumstances, the special counsel or special prosecutor went to the courts “on their own” without Congress to get permission. 

Barr “has attempted to keep the information,” Cicilline said, “so for us to wait and pray and hope that Mr. Barr will find his way to the courthouse is foolish.”

Since Barr’s four-page summary of the findings were released, support for House Democratic investigations of the president has hardened along party lines, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll. The division offers a stark contrast to the start of the year, when an overall majority backed the lower chamber’s effort to probe whether the president or his allies conspired with Russia.

Still, 83 percent of respondents said the Mueller report should be made public in its entirety, public sentiment Democrats can use to their advantage when pressing for its release.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-panel-votes-to-authorize-subpoenas-to-obtain-full-mueller-report/2019/04/03/e0577b34-560e-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html

New information on a deadly plane crash in Ethiopia may undermine Boeing’s claims about a suspect piece of software on its new 737 Max jets. Reports Wednesday morning say the Ethiopian Airlines pilots turned off the system designed to prevent the plane from stalling – but somehow it then started again.

The Boeing 737 Max remains grounded over software problems linked to two crashes that killed more than 300 people. New reports indicate the crew of the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed shortly after takeoff reportedly did follow Boeing emergency procedures to turn off an anti-stall system, but may have turned it back on in an effort to regain control of the plane.

Reporting by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal broke overnight and indicates that system may have activated as many as four times, leaving the pilots unable to regain altitude.

On Tuesday the Senate Commerce Committee announced it was investigating the FAA’s approval of the Max, citing whistleblower reports questioning the training of FAA inspectors. These reports bring into question what Boeing and the FAA have been saying about the ease of turning off the stall-prevention feature.

After the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 that killed 189 back in October, an alert was sent to pilots explaining the existing procedures to use. The 737 Max series was grounded in March until there is a fix to the software.

On Monday, Boeing announced that the fix could take a few weeks longer than originally believed.

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-737-max-ethiopian-airlines-pilots-reportedly-followed-emergency-procedures-before-crash/

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, who has faced numerous allegations of inappropriate conduct with women, tweaked former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential 2020 rival, Tuesday night over allegations that the longtime Delaware senator made women uncomfortable with his touching.

“Our former vice president. I don’t know him well,” Trump said at a fundraising dinner for the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington. “Was gonna say, welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe? Are you having a good time?”

Trump also said he considers most of the Democrats running for president to be socialists, but not Biden, and appeared intent on exploiting suggestions this week that supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic nomination, might be behind the recent allegations against Biden.

“The socialists are really taking care of him,” Trump said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, center, is introduced by Connecticut candidate for governor Ned Lamont, left, as U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, right, and candidate for congress Jahana Hayes, back, look on at a rally for Democrats in Hartford, Conn., Friday, Oct. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

FULLERTON, CA – OCTOBER 04: Former Vice President Joe Biden, center, shares a laugh with congressional candidates, Katie Porter, left, and TJ Cox, right, at the conclusion of Biden’s speech at a rally for California Democratic House candidates competing for GOP-held seats at the Titan Student Union on the campus of Cal State Fullerton in Fullerton on Thursday, October 4, 2018 . (Photo by Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)




Biden and his camp have adamantly denied that he did anything inappropriate following allegations by Nevada politician Lucy Flores, who wrote last week that he had put his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair and kissed the back of her head during a campaign event five years ago and Amy Lappos, a former aide to Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., who said Monday that Biden had touched her face and rubbed noses with her a decade ago.

“In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort,” Biden said in a statement released Sunday. “And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention. I may not recall these moments the same way, and I may be surprised at what I hear.”

In October 2016, an outtake video surfaced of Trump — who has been accused by multiple women of various forms of sexual misconduct — bragging about aggressive behavior with women.

“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump said in the video from between takes during filming of an “Access Hollywood” episode.

The video jolted his campaign just weeks before the November election that year, but it did not end up costing him the presidency.

Biden, who served as vice president for eight years under President Barack Obama and as a senator from Delaware for 36 years before that, is considering a run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said Tuesday that his team had not pressured women to come forward.

“Neither the Bernie Sanders campaign, nor anyone involved in it, planted, planned, persuaded, cajoled or otherwise urged Lucy Flores or anyone else to tell their story,” Shakir told The Daily Beast. “Full stop, period, end of sentence. I don’t want to hear it. We didn’t play a role.”

Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/04/03/trump-needles-biden-over-claims-are-you-having-a-good-time-joe/23705334/

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(CNN)On Tuesday, during a sit-down with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President Donald Trump said something that wasn’t true. About his own father.

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    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics/donald-trump-lies-reasons/index.html

    Lori Lightfoot overwhelmingly defeated Toni Preckwinkle for mayor of Chicago on Tuesday, winning by nearly a three to one margin. Precinct-level data shows that Preckwinkle only won precincts in Hyde Park, her home base, but everywhere else Lightfoot dominated.

    This page will continue to be updated.

    » Check out the full election results, including city treasurer, alderman and suburban races.

    Where the candidates won

    NOTE: Results are unofficial, and not all precincts may have all results accounted for. Empty map areas are precincts that have not reported results. Data is as of 7 a.m. Wednesday. Vote totals include all Election Day ballots (except for provisional ballots), all early voting ballots and vote-by-mail ballots that were received and able to be processed in time.

    Choose a map type

    Lori Lightfoot

    Toni Preckwinkle

    Darker shade indicates larger combined votes

    Copyright © 2019, Chicago Tribune

    Source Article from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/elections/ct-chicago-viz-mayor-runoff-election-precinct-map-2019-htmlstory.html

    President Trump has indicated that he wants to make replacing Obamacare a key issue in the 2020 campaign, with a vote on a new plan to be held following the election, assuming Republicans take back full control of Washington. The problem: Republicans have already fooled voters with that message too many times.

    Whatever your preferred adage, Abraham Lincoln‘s about not being able to fool all the people all the time or the “fool me twice” warning, recent political history will provide a significant obstacle to any attempt by Trump or Republicans to run on replacing Obamacare.

    Republicans ran on repealing and replacing Obamacare in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. Yet, they kept moving the goalposts as they accumulated power. When Republicans took over the House in 2010, they said nothing could be done without also controlling the Senate. When they gained control of the Senate in 2014, they said they couldn’t do anything until they also had the White House. Yet, even when they entered 2017 with unified control of Washington, they failed to deliver.

    At the time, I called it the biggest broken promise in political history. Try to think of another example of a pledge to voters made in four consecutive election cycles, and not just by a few candidates — by an entire party, including those seeking office at the federal, state, and local level.

    The reason why Republicans failed is, at its core, the same reason I have been shouting about since 2008: They don’t care about the details of healthcare policy enough to resolve their differences and unify around any given plan. The only times Republicans can unify is in opposition to Democratic proposals to expand the role of government when they are out of power. This was the case in 1993 and 1994 when they fought the Clinton administration’s push for national healthcare, and then again with Obamacare.

    Republicans will be able to score points in 2020 by running against efforts to impose a socialist health insurance scheme on the United States, which is currently being branded as “Medicare for all.” They might also be able to make some headway if they have specific plans to address specific concerns about Obamacare. For instance, they can explain in real terms how Obamacare’s regulations drive up premiums and restrict choice, and how they could address those concerns with specific policy changes.

    But if Trump and Republicans insist again of speaking vaguely about getting rid of Obamacare and replacing it with some mythical great plan, they will face a skeptical public that isn’t likely to be fooled again.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/trumps-obamacare-problem-republicans-have-already-fooled-the-people-too-many-times

    At the time, Ms. Lightfoot was one of only a handful of figures willing to run against Mr. Emanuel, who was widely expected to appear on the ballot until announcing in September that he would not. As the field of candidates grew more vast, including the entrance of Ms. Preckwinkle, Ms. Lightfoot forged ahead with her campaign.

    There were reasons for skepticism: Ms. Lightfoot was relatively unknown in the city’s political realm, and her ballot petition signatures were briefly challenged last year. But she surged in at least one poll in the final days before the February election, and was endorsed by The Chicago Sun-Times.

    “She has the vision, values, qualifications and policies to be an effective leader for the whole city, from the hedge fund managers to the fast food workers,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “She is calm, focused, principled and independent.”

    In the weeks since, as the race took on a venomous tone, Ms. Lightfoot tallied up endorsements across the city, including from several of her former opponents.

    Ms. Lightfoot repeatedly portrayed Ms. Preckwinkle, with whom she agrees on most major policy issues, as a part of the Democratic machine that long dominated Chicago government.

    Ms. Preckwinkle was fond of noting Ms. Lightfoot’s work as a “corporate lawyer” and her service in city government under the previous two mayors. And Bridget Gainer, a county commissioner who supported Ms. Preckwinkle, said her candidate’s political experience was in fact an asset.

    “We need results, not just rhetoric,” Ms. Gainer said in February. “Chicago is not a training wheels job.”

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot.html

    <!– –>

    Pilots of the 737 Max jet that crashed in Ethiopia in March initially followed Boeing’s standard emergency procedures to try to get control of the plane, but ultimately failed, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

    Crew members turned off the flight-control system that automatically pushed down the plane’s nose after take off, but could not get the plane to climb, the Journal reported, citing people briefed on the investigation’s preliminary findings. They ended up turning the control system back on before the plane crashed, killing all 157 people on board.

    It’s the latest report in the midst of mounting pressure on Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration over their assertions that had pilots simply followed established safety procedures, the crash may have been avoided. The new details of the crash are based on data from the aircraft’s black-box recorders.

    The pilots turned the electrical power back on, which re-engaged the stall-prevention feature, known as MCAS, and then used electrical switches to try to raise the nose, the people told the Journal.

    It’s not clear why Ethiopian Flight 302 pilots turned the automated system back on rather than continuing to follow Boeing’s standard emergency steps. Government officials and investigators said it’s likely that manual controls to raise the nose of the plane didn’t work, and pilots tried to re-engage the system to combat the nose-down angle of the jet and failed, the Journal reported.

    The same control system was also used in the 737 Max crash in Indonesia in October that resulted in deaths of all 189 people on board.

    The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation launched an investigation yesterday into whistleblower complaints accusing the FAA of improperly training its safety inspectors to review the Boeing jets. The FAA may have been notified about these deficiencies as early as August 2018, the panel said. The Justice Department has also launched a criminal probe.

    Ethiopian investigators are expected to release a preliminary report about the crash in the upcoming days. Investigators looking to the Lion Air Flight 610 crash think that similar system malfunctions were involved, including erroneous data from a single sensor that caused the MCAS system to misfire.

    Boeing is still preparing software updates for the 737 Max plane’s flight-control system. The plane maker initially planned to submit the fixes to the FAA last week, but said it needs more time. The revised software will have two sensors, rather than one, and will give pilots more control over the system, according to Boeing.

    Read the Journal report here.

    Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/pilots-followed-boeings-emergency-steps-before-737-max-crash-report.html

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    (CNN)Department of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen convened an emergency conference call with members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet Tuesday evening to discuss migration at the southern border, according to a participant on the call.

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics/kirstjen-nielsen-southern-border-cabinet-call/index.html

    The “hard Brexit” cadre of the Conservative Party has massively overplayed its hand. Refusing to support Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit withdrawal deal with the European Union, they have enabled a “soft Brexit” alternative.

    That’s my takeaway from May’s comment on Tuesday that she will work with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to forge a way forward on Brexit. May also said that she will seek an extension to Britain’s new Brexit date of April 12.

    But it’s clear that the soft Brexiteers are the winners here. After all, the Labour Party is largely supportive of a Brexit along terms of a continued formal customs union with the EU.

    This, unsurprisingly, has the hard-liners very upset. They feel betrayed and are saying as much. But they’re delusional. It was always clear that ignoring May’s halfway soft-hard Brexit deal was risky. It opened the political space to those who either oppose Brexit entirely or oppose anything but a softer Brexit. And now the hard-liners are reaping the whirlwind of their obstinacy.

    May is likely to get her Brexit withdrawal extension, and when Brexit comes, it is likely to be on soft terms. Which, thanks to EU regulations, means we can forget a near-term U.S. trade deal.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-soft-brexit-just-got-a-lot-more-likely

    President Trump arrives for a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., last week.

    Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images


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    President Trump arrives for a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., last week.

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    The headline findings by special counsel Robert Mueller delivered a political shot in the arm for President Trump and Republicans, they say — how long it lasts may depend on the full document.

    Attorney General William Barr told Congress that Mueller’s office didn’t establish a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election, nor did it establish — per Barr — that Trump obstructed justice.

    That’s based on Barr’s four-page letter about the report to Congress. The full document is nearly 400 pages, he wrote, and likely contains a great deal more detail about the findings and assessments made by Mueller and his office.

    Barr’s office is working now to redact grand jury testimony, foreign intelligence and other material from the full Mueller report before releasing it sometime this month.

    Here are some of the big questions it may answer.

    What did Trump know?

    Trump’s campaign and business had many contacts with Russians from 2015 through the 2016 election — these are not in dispute and they were among the reasons for the investigation in the first place.

    Mueller, in fact — according to Barr — confirmed that “Russian-affiliated individuals” made “multiple offers” to “assist the Trump campaign,” which comports with the versions of events given in court documents and according to other official sources that already are public.

    Did the substance of any of these offers ever reach Trump or other members of his brain trust? If so, what did they do?

    Micromanagement

    People who worked for Trump have said nothing happened in his business or campaign without his involvement.

    Donald Trump Jr. attends a fashion show during New York Fashion Week in February in New York City.

    Theo Wargo/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows


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    Theo Wargo/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows

    Donald Trump Jr. attends a fashion show during New York Fashion Week in February in New York City.

    Theo Wargo/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows

    That’s why, for example, former Trump aides have said they thought it likely he was at least aware that Donald Trump Jr. convened a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 at which a Russian delegation delivered a tip on Democrats.

    Trump Jr. said it wasn’t what he expected and he didn’t pursue it any further, and authorities evidently did not conclude it broke the law.

    No one faced criminal charges in connection with that meeting and the Justice Department says Mueller hasn’t recommended any more indictments beyond the ones that already have been unsealed.

    And Trump has denied he was aware in 2016 of the Russian interference in the election and of the Trump Tower meeting specifically. Democratic opponents said they thought phone records might undermine that denial, but they didn’t.

    If Mueller’s full report further bolsters the Trumps’ defenses, that will mean more good political news for the president and his family.

    If Mueller’s report established that Trump did know what was happening and, while he didn’t conspire with Russia’s efforts, he also didn’t report them to authorities, that may take away some of the political momentum Trump and the GOP have built up so far from the Barr account of Mueller’s findings.

    What did the feds establish about the dossier?

    The unverified Russia dossier was not the origin of the Russia investigation, but it may be the most infamous piece of information about it. NPR has not detailed its claims because they are unverified.

    The degree to which Mueller’s full report specifically addresses the material in the dossier could be one of its most important developments for the politics of the post-Mueller era.

    If the full report torpedoes the dossier altogether, that will strengthen efforts like those by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who wants an investigation into how the FBI and Justice Department used it in the Russia investigation.

    If Mueller substantiates some of the dossier’s contents, that could create problems for the White House short of the worst-case “collusion” allegation that evidently now is off the table.

    Kompromat

    Russian President Vladimir Putin offers a World Cup football to President Trump during a joint news conference after their summit on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki.

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin offers a World Cup football to President Trump during a joint news conference after their summit on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki.

    Chris McGrath/Getty Images

    For example, one claim of the dossier was that powerful Russians may possess compromising material — or so-called kompromat — about Trump and that may have been why he took such sympathetic tone toward Moscow — for fear of it being revealed.

    Trump himself has dismissed that idea and said — for example, at his summit in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin — that if any such material about him existed, it would have become public by now.

    Democrats on the House intelligence committee wrote last year that certain aspects of the dossier have been corroborated — although the details about which aspects were redacted.

    Democrats also continue to ask whether Trump may be beholden to Russia or compromised by people in it — and whether that might be true even if, per Barr’s letter, Trump’s 2016 campaign didn’t collude with the election interference.

    Mueller’s findings about this could change the understanding of the Russia imbroglio yet again.

    What did Trump ask, and of whom, involving the various investigations?

    Alleged obstruction of justice was a potent threat to Trump because frustrating an investigation is illegal even when there was no underlying crime.

    That was another reason why Trump and Republicans welcomed Barr’s letter about Mueller’s findings so warmly.

    And it’s one reason why Democrats reacted so strongly to Barr’s characterization of Mueller’s findings, of which the attorney general wrote: “‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’ “

    In short, Barr made it sound as though this came down to a judgment call. Barr and Rod Rosenstein, according to the attorney general, were the ones who concluded that Mueller’s findings were insufficient to establish that Trump had committed a crime.

    So what were those findings?

    A number of press reports suggested Trump asked people — intelligence agency leaders, Justice Department or law enforcement officials and White House officials — to take actions that critics called obstruction of justice.

    Trump’s alleged actions included requests for investigators to ease up on him or friends, for people to be fired or removed — or for safe loyalists to be placed onto cases — and for people to give inaccurate information to Congress.

    The code

    Former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in before testifying before the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

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    Former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in before testifying before the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

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    Were those reports accurate? And if so, how much of the assessment depends on the president’s exact words?

    Former FBI Director James Comey, for example, told the Senate intelligence committee that Trump said “I hope you can let this go,” when alluding to the case of former national security adviser Mike Flynn. Trump, in this telling, did not say: I hereby order you to discontinue your investigation of Flynn.

    Trump, as his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told the House oversight committee, often speaks in a “code.” Mueller’s report may reveal how much the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute on obstruction depended on the substance of his actions and how much on his use of that “code.”

    What were the extent of the active measures?

    Two of the ways Russia interfered in the 2016 election have gotten most of the attention:

    First, the social media agitation wrought by an office of trolls who sought to amplify divisions among Americans. Second, the use of cyberattacks to steal and release information embarrassing to political targets within the United States.

    But there was more to the Russian attack on the 2016 election. Intelligence officers, for example, also launched cyberattacks against state election systems that sought to study them and, in at least one case, extracted information about voters.

    People walk under a heavy snowfall in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin in Moscow in January.

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    People walk under a heavy snowfall in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin in Moscow in January.

    Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images

    How many other types of “active measures” did the Russians wield in service of their aim to sow chaos and, eventually, help support Trump? Are there any types of interference that haven’t been made public?

    Mueller’s answers about the tools Russia used to interfere in the last presidential election will help Americans prepare to safeguard future elections.

    What were the origins of the active measures?

    The U.S. intelligence community assessed early on that Putin had ordered the influence campaign “to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”

    “Active measures” are as old as statecraft, but the 2016 campaign represented an unusual spike, one that caught American officials off guard.

    What more is known about when, precisely, Putin decided to launch it — and why? Who involved chose the techniques — and why?

    Americans have learned a great deal from Mueller’s prosecutions about the operational workings of the Kremlin’s active measures effort — the movement of the troops in what amounted to a war of information.

    What’s less clear, for now, were the actions of their generals.

    Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/04/03/708793177/what-else-could-robert-muellers-report-reveal-about-trump-and-russia

    President Donald Trump urged House Republicans on Tuesday night to be “more paranoid than they are” about vote counting, suggesting in a speech during the National Republican Congressional Committee’s spring dinner that some closely contested elections may have been rigged in Democrats’ favor.

    Trump, who has made repeated false claims about voter fraud and “electoral corruption,” told the audience at the dinner that Republicans have “got to watch those tallies.”

    “There were a lot of close elections … they seemed to, every single one of them went Democrat,” Trump said, without providing any specific examples. “There’s something going on fella, hey, you gotta be a little bit more paranoid than you are.”

    The president, who suggested — without evidence — during November’s midterm elections that ballots had been “massively infected” in Florida and “electoral corruption” had taken place in Arizona, said on Tuesday that he doesn’t “like the way the votes are being tallied.”

    “I don’t like it, and you don’t like it either. You just don’t want to say it because you’re afraid of the press,” Trump said, prompting some laughter from the crowd.




    During the NRCC speech, Trump said he was “totally confident” that Republicans would soon “take the House back,” CBS News reported.

    He also took a swipe at former Vice President Joe Biden, who has been accused of unwelcome touching by several women. 

    “I was going to call him … I was going to say, ‘Welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe?’” quipped Trump, who has been accused by at least 20 women of sexual assault and harassment.

    • This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

    Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/04/03/trump-urges-house-republicans-to-be-more-paranoid-about-vote-counting/23705309/

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    (CNN)Officials have dubbed Monday’s bridge collapse in Tennessee a freak accident, but that might be turning a blind eye to a larger issue.

      Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/us/deficient-bridge-report-2019-trnd/index.html

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      (CNN)Pilots flying Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 initially followed emergency procedures that were laid out by Boeing before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to preliminary findings reported in the Wall Street Journal.

        Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/africa/ethiopian-airlines-emergency-procedures-intl/index.html


        In a letter to lawmakers last week, Attorney General William Barr referred to President Donald Trump’s public statements about his desire for the report to be released, insisting that he would not share the report with the White House in advance to allow Trump to claim executive privilege. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

        white house

        President Donald Trump appeared to backpedal on Tuesday from his initial desire for special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to be released to Congress and the public, a sharp diversion from his enthusiastic calls for the release of the highly anticipated report.

        In a series of tweets, Trump disparaged congressional Democrats for their efforts to obtain the full report; noted that one of them had opposed the public release of grand jury information from independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s report on Bill Clinton; and tweeted a Fox News clip of lawyer Alan Dershowitz emphasizing that the Justice Department could keep the entire Mueller report confidential.

        Story Continued Below

        Multiple White House officials said Trump’s posture on releasing the report hasn’t changed, and Trump himself said Tuesday afternoon that he intends to defer entirely to his attorney general, William Barr. But Trump has unmistakably reined in his previous zeal for releasing the report publicly, which he first telegraphed last week while claiming that Mueller had “totally exonerated” him.

        Though Mueller’s 400-page report is expected to conclude that no Americans criminally conspired with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf, there are indications that it will include damaging information about Trump and his associates — including evidence suggesting Trump may have attempted to interfere with the investigation.

        Democrats — who are gearing up to issue a subpoena for the full report on Wednesday — said Trump’s sudden hostility toward their efforts to obtain the report suggests he’s nervous about what Mueller found.

        “It looks like the president … is concerned about that. He ought to live up to what he said earlier,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) “He ought to support the full release. None of that should be redacted. But clearly he’s concerned about that coming out. If he is feeling so confident about what [the report] says, then you would think he would urge its full release. But clearly he’s not. And you’d have to ask him why.”

        “The president said he wanted it to be public, too,” added Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a member of the Intelligence Committee. “So it’s not us being desperate, it’s him apparently thinking about re-trading a deal. Donald Trump re-trading a deal? Shocker.”

        Trump initially celebrated the report’s conclusions, as summarized by Barr last week. But as Democrats in Congress have escalated their efforts to obtain Mueller’s report and evidence, the president is now indicating he has reservations about allowing his Justice Department to fork over the full report to lawmakers.

        “There is no amount of testimony or document production that can satisfy Jerry Nadler or Shifty Adam Schiff,” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, naming two top House Democrats seeking the report. “It is now time to focus exclusively on properly running our great Country!”

        In a letter to lawmakers last week, Barr referred to Trump’s public statements about his desire for the report to be released, insisting that he would not share the report with the White House in advance to allow Trump to claim executive privilege.

        But Trump’s posture on Tuesday made Democrats even more skeptical that the president will not invoke executive privilege to block the release of certain parts of the Mueller report that might make him look bad.

        “Remember — there was no vow not to assert executive privilege. The attorney general said he had no intention of saying it because he was relying on the president’s public statements that he didn’t need it,” Himes said. “But no, I’ve always been skeptical that the White House was not going to make an effort to redact embarrassing information.”

        Trump separately singled out Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, for his opposition in the late 1990s to releasing grand jury information from Starr’s report on Clinton. Nadler has urged Barr to seek a court order to release grand jury information from the Mueller report.

        “In 1998, Rep. Jerry Nadler strongly opposed the release of the Starr Report on Bill Clinton,” Trump tweeted. “No information whatsoever would or could be legally released. But with the NO COLLUSION Mueller Report, which the Dems hate, he wants it all. NOTHING WILL EVER SATISFY THEM!”

        Nadler declined to comment on Trump’s attacks, but Daniel Schwarz, a spokesman for the Judiciary Committee, noted that Congress had already received Starr’s underlying evidence, and that Nadler was opposed to making such evidence public.

        “Our expectation is that Attorney General Barr will be as forthcoming now as Mr. Starr was in 1998,” Schwarz said. “The attorney general should provide the full Mueller report to Congress, with the underlying materials, at which point we will be in a better position to understand what Special Counsel Mueller uncovered during his investigation.”

        White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders echoed Trump and said Democrats “will never be satisfied.”

        “They’re sore losers,” she said of the Democrats, five months after they won back the House of Representatives from Republicans. “They lost in 2016. They lost because they tried to convince all of America of something we all knew was untrue — that the president had colluded with Russia.”

        Anita Kumar contributed to this story.

        Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/02/trump-mueller-report-1249947

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        (CNN)While celebrating her victory in becoming the first African-American woman picked to lead Chicago, Lori Lightfoot thanked the city and those who blazed the trail for her victory.

          Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/us/chicago-mayoral-election-results/index.html