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Ethiopian Airlines crash: ‘Pitch up, pitch up!’ – BBC News
Ethiopian Airlines crash: ‘Pitch up, pitch up!’ – BBC News

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Jonathan Druion

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The Boeing 737 Max-8 aircraft that crashed on Sunday

Details have begun to emerge of the final moments of an Ethiopian Airlines flight which crashed three weeks ago.

An anti-stalling system on the plane, a Boeing 737 Max, has been blamed for the disaster which killed all 157 people on board.

Soon after take-off – and just 450ft (137m) above the ground – the aircraft’s nose began to pitch down.

One pilot, according to the Wall Street Journal, said to the other “pitch up, pitch up!” before their radio died.

The plane crashed only six minutes into its flight.

‘Catastrophic failure’

The Wall Street Journal – which says it’s spoken to people close to the ongoing investigation – says the information it has “paints a picture of a catastrophic failure that quickly overwhelmed the flight crew”.

Leaks this week from the crash investigation in Ethiopia and in the US suggest an automatic anti-stall system was activated at the time of the disaster.

The Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) flight-control feature was also implicated in a fatal crash involving a Lion Air flight in Indonesia last October.

The Boeing 737 Max went down shortly after take-off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.

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Getty Images

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All 157 passengers and crew on board were killed during the crash earlier this month

An investigation of the Lion Air flight suggested the anti-stall system malfunctioned, and forced the plane’s nose down more than 20 times before it crashed into the sea.

The Ethiopian authorities have already said there are “clear similarities” between the Lion Air incident and the Ethiopian Airlines crash.

The airline and authorities have refused to comment on leaks from the investigation.

Concerns about the Boeing 737 Max have led to a worldwide grounding of the plane.

System update

Boeing has redesigned the software so that it will disable MCAS if it receives conflicting data from its sensors.

As part of the upgrade, Boeing will install an extra warning system on all 737 Max aircraft, which was previously an optional safety feature.

Neither of the two planes that were involved in the fatal crashes carried the alert systems, which are designed to warn pilots when sensors produce contradictory readings.

The aircraft update is designed to ensure the MCAS will no longer repeatedly make corrections when a pilot tries to regain control.

Boeing is also revising pilot training to provide “enhanced understanding of the 737 MAX” flight system and crew procedures.

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Getty Images

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Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the accident, which took place just minutes after the plane took off from Bole Aiport in Ethiopia

Earlier this week, Boeing said that the upgrades were not an admission that the system had caused the crashes.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the accidents, but a preliminary report from Ethiopian authorities is expected within days.

Boeing has tried to restore its battered reputation, while continuing to insist the 737 Max is safe.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47759966

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State Department says US cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – CNN
State Department says US cutting off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – CNN

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By Greg Clary, CNN

Updated 1:48 PM ET, Sat March 30, 2019

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

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(CNN)The United States is cutting off aid to the Northern Triangle, otherwise known as the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the State Department told CNN Saturday, one day after President Donald Trump said they had “set up” migrant caravans for entry into the United States.

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Federal judge declares Trump’s push to open up Arctic and Atlantic oceans to oil and gas drilling illegal – The Washington Post
Federal judge declares Trump’s push to open up Arctic and Atlantic oceans to oil and gas drilling illegal – The Washington Post

A car passes a small boat harbor in King Cove, Alaska. (James Brooks/Kodiak Daily Mirror/AP)

Juliet Eilperin

March 30 at 1:24 PM

A federal judge in Alaska declared late Friday that President Trump’s order revoking a sweeping ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans is illegal, putting 128 million acres of federal waters off limits to energy exploration.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason is the third legal setback this week to Trump’s energy and environmental policies. The judge, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2012, also blocked on Friday a land swap the Interior Department arranged that would pave the way for constructing a road through wilderness in a major National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, ruled that Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service illegally approved two gas drilling plans in western Colorado. The judge said officials did not adequately analyze wildlife and climate impacts in their plans — which were challenged by a coalition of environmental groups — to drill 171 wells in North Fork Valley, which provides key habitat for elk and mule deer.

Trump’s rollbacks of Obama-era conservation policies have suffered nearly two dozen setbacks in federal court, largely on procedural grounds. While the administration is appealing many of these decisions and holds an advantage if the cases reach the Supreme Court, the rulings have slowed the president’s drive to expand fossil fuel production in the United States.

Earlier this month, for example, a federal judge halted drilling on more than 300,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Wyoming. Friday’s decision on offshore drilling could affect a five-year leasing plan the administration plans to issue in the summer, as well as block the six offshore lease sales it proposed to schedule in the Arctic Ocean starting as early as this year.

“President Trump’s lawlessness is catching up with him,” Erik Grafe, the lead attorney from the environmental law organization Earthjustice who argued to reinstate Obama’s leasing withdrawals in the Arctic and Atlantic, said in a statement Friday. “The judge’s ruling today shows that the president can not just trample on the constitution to do the bidding of his cronies in the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our oceans, wildlife, and climate.”

Industry officials, however, said the administration could forge ahead with its offshore drilling process as litigation continued. While Friday’s decision applies to 98 percent of the Arctic Ocean, it only covers undersea canyons in the Atlantic, stretching from the Chesapeake Bay to New England, as opposed to the entire Eastern Seaboard.

“While we disagree with the decision, our nation still has a significant opportunity before us in the development of the next offshore leasing plan to truly embrace our nation’s energy potential and ensure American consumers and businesses continue to benefit from U.S. energy leadership,” said Erik Milito, vice president of upstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute.

The Interior Department declined to comment Saturday.

In her Friday ruling, Gleason wrote that the law in which Congress gave the president authority over offshore drilling — the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act — expressly allows for leasing withdrawals but does not state that a subsequent president can revoke those withdrawals without congressional approval.

“As a result, the previous three withdrawals issued on January 27, 2015 and December 20, 2016 will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress,” she wrote.

In a separate decision earlier in the day, Gleason found that then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not provide sufficient justification for reversing the government’s stance on whether to allow a small, remote Alaska town to construct a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

Residents of King Cove have argued for years that they need to bisect the refuge, which has been protected for decades and provides a critical rest stop for migratory waterfowl, for medical evacuations under rough weather.

In a statement Friday, local leaders there vowed to continue their fight.

“The people of King Cove deserve to have access to a higher level of care, especially when the unforgiving weather prevents them from traveling from their isolated community by air or boat,” said Aleutians East Borough Mayor Alvin D. Osterback. “This land exchange would have accomplished that.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also promised to continue pushing for building the road, which otherwise would be prohibited in a wilderness area. “I will never stop until this road is a reality and the nearly 1,000 residents of this isolated community have a lifeline for emergency medical care,” she said.

Opponents counter that the federal government has provided millions in funding to give town residents alternative forms of transport and warn that a road would fragment critical habitat. They also cite expert testimony that any road through the refuge would be impassable during snowstorms.

“Here, the Secretary’s failure to acknowledge the change in agency policy and his failure to provide a reasoned explanation for that change in policy are serious errors,” Gleason wrote.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/30/federal-judge-declares-trumps-push-open-up-arctic-atlantic-ocean-oil-gas-drilling-illegal/

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Pope Francis Visits Morocco to Boost Christian-Muslim Relations and Support Migrant Communities – TIME
Pope Francis Visits Morocco to Boost Christian-Muslim Relations and Support Migrant Communities – TIME

(RABAT, Morocco) — Pope Francis praised Morocco as a model of religious moderation and migrant welcome as he kicked off a trip to the kingdom Saturday, warning that walls and fear-mongering won’t stop people from exercising their legitimate right to seek a better life elsewhere.

King Mohammed VI welcomed Francis as he arrived during an unusual rainstorm and began a 27-hour visit aimed at boosting Christian-Muslim ties and showing solidarity with Morocco’s ever-growing migrant community.

Morocco last year became the main destination for sub-Saharan African migrants seeking to reach Europe via Spain. The influx has strained the kingdom’s resources and fueled anti-migrant sentiment in Spain ahead of its April 28 general election.

After an airport greeting, the two leaders then took separate vehicles — Francis in his popemobile and the king in a convertible Mercedes — and paraded in tandem into town for a formal welcome ceremony at the complex where two of Morocco’s past monarchs are buried. Women ululated as Francis and the king walked along the promenade of the Hassan Tower complex under umbrellas.

Francis told the king that he hoped Morocco would continue to be a model of humanity, welcome and protection for migrants.

“The issue of migration will never be resolved by raising barriers, fomenting fear of others or denying assistance to those who legitimately aspire to a better life for themselves and their families,” Francis said.

Rather, he called for a change of attitude toward migrants that respects them as people, worthy of dignity and rights, and not just statistics. He said world leaders must address the economic imbalances and unrest on Earth that fuel conflicts and migration flows.

“Today’s grave migration crisis represents an urgent summons for concrete actions aimed at eliminating the causes that force many people to leave country and family behind, often only to find themselves marginalized and rejected,” he said.

It’s a message that Francis is expected to repeat later in the day when he meets migrants at a center run by the Catholic Church’s Caritas charity. Francis has made the plight of refugees a hallmark of his papacy, and has used many of his foreign visits to insist on the need to welcome them, protect them and integrate them into society.

Spain became the leading migrant entry route into Europe last year with over 57,000 unauthorized arrivals, according to the European Union. Morocco became the main departure point for migrants in smugglers’ unseaworthy boats after Italy essentially closed its borders to migrants leaving Libya.

Around 2,300 people died crossing the Mediterranean Sea last year and over 300 have already died this year on the dangerous journey, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Francis opened his remarks to the king by praising Morocco’s tradition of interfaith coexistence and its efforts to promote a moderate form of Islam.

Morocco, a Sunni Muslim kingdom of 36 million, reformed its religious policies and education to limit the spread of fundamentalism in 2004, following terrorist bombings in Casablanca in 2003 that killed 43 people.

Key to that effort has been the Mohammed VI Institute, a school of learning for imams that teaches a moderate Islam and exports it via preachers to Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Francis was visiting the institute later Saturday.

Francis praised the school, saying it “seeks to provide effective and sound training to combat all forms of extremism, which so often lead to violence and terrorism, and which in any event, constitute an offense against religion and against God himself.”

The king said education was the key to fighting radicalism — not military crackdowns.

“What all terrorists have in common is not religion, but rather ignorance of religion,” he said.

The trip follows Francis’ February visit to the United Arab Emirates, where the pope and the imam of Cairo’s Al Azhar, the seat of Sunni learning, signed a landmark joint statement establishing the relationship between Catholics and Muslims as brothers, with a common mission to promote peace.

The “Human Fraternity” document outlines a shared set of values and principles common to Christians and Muslims, focusing on the dignity of every person and a rejection of violence committed in God’s name.

Muslims, Christians and Jews have long lived peacefully in Morocco, even though Catholics are a tiny minority of about 23,000.

Francis will minister to them on Sunday when he celebrates Mass in Rabat’s sports stadium, before returning to Rome.

Contact us at editors@time.com.

Source Article from http://time.com/5561635/pope-francis-visits-morocco/

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Brexit Goes Back to Square One as Parliament Rejects May’s Plan a Third Time – The New York Times
Brexit Goes Back to Square One as Parliament Rejects May’s Plan a Third Time – The New York Times

If Parliament remains deadlocked next week, Britain will face a stark choice: either run headlong into a no-deal Brexit on the new deadline of April 12, or return to Brussels to request another extension from the bloc’s leaders.

But as European leaders made clear two weeks ago, the government will have to put forth a strong reason for the delay — presumably time to hold either a general election or, less likely, a second public vote on Brexit, as the process of leaving the European Union is known.

In something of a last-ditch effort, the prime minister this week had promised lawmakers that she would step down if her plan were approved, giving Conservatives a chance to choose a leader more to their liking to oversee the next round of negotiations.

But with her deal thwarted again, there was no sign she intended to go anywhere.

[Interested in our Brexit coverage? Join the conversation on April 1, and hear how our reporters in London are tracking these updates.]

In a statement, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, warned that “a ‘no deal’ scenario is now a likely scenario.” Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, the group of the bloc’s leaders, called a council meeting on April 10, two days before the next Brexit deadline.

The opposition Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, called on lawmakers to take over the process.

“On Monday, this House has the chance, and I say to all members, the responsibility, to find a majority for a better deal for all the people of this country,” he said.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/world/europe/brexit-britain-theresa-may.html

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Trump cuts foreign aid, threatens to close Mexico border – ABC News
Trump cuts foreign aid, threatens to close Mexico border – ABC News

Threatening drastic action against Mexico, President Donald Trump declared he is likely to shut down America’s southern border next week unless Mexican authorities immediately halt all illegal immigration. The president, who also cut U.S. aid to three Central American nations whose citizens are fleeing north, emphasized “I am not kidding around” about closing the border, even though such a severe move could hit the economies of both countries.

“It could mean all trade” with Mexico, Trump said when questioned on Friday by reporters in Florida. “We will close it for a long time.”

Though Trump has previously threatened to close the border and has not followed through, his administration moved to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The State Department said in a statement that it will suspend 2017 and 2018 payments to the trio of nations that have been home to some of the migrant caravans that have marched through Mexico to the U.S. border.

Trump has been promising for more than two years to build a long, impenetrable wall along the border to stop illegal immigration, though Congress has been reluctant to provide the money he needs. In the meantime, he has repeatedly threatened to close the border, but this time, with a new surge of migrants heading north , he gave a definite timetable.

A substantial closure could have an especially heavy impact on cross-border communities from San Diego to South Texas, as well as supermarkets that sell Mexican produce, factories that rely on imported parts, and other businesses across the U.S.

The U.S. and Mexico trade about $1.7 billion in goods daily, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which said closing the border would be “an unmitigated economic debacle” that would threaten 5 million American jobs.

Trump tweeted Friday morning, “If Mexico doesn’t immediately stop ALL illegal immigration coming into the United States through our Southern Border, I will be CLOSING the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week.”

He didn’t qualify his threat with “or large sections,” stating: “There is a very good likelihood I’ll be closing the border next week, and that is just fine with me.”

He said several times that it would be “so easy” for Mexican authorities to stop immigrants passing through their country and trying to enter the U.S. illegally, “but they just take our money and ‘talk.'” The president, with support from conservative media, has made the large caravans symbols of the United States’ immigration problem.

A group of House Democrats visiting El Salvador denounced the administration’s decision to cut aid to the region.

“As we visit El Salvador evaluating the importance of U.S. assistance to Central America to address the root causes of family and child migration, we are extremely disappointed to learn that President Trump intends to cut off aid to the region,” said the statement from five lawmakers, including Rep. Eliot L. Engel of New York, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.. “The President’s approach is entirely counterproductive.”

Short of a widespread shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the U.S. might close designated ports of entry to re-deploy staff to help process parents and children. Ports of entry are official crossing points that are used by residents and commercial vehicles. Many people who cross the border illegally ultimately request asylum under U.S. law, which does not require asylum seekers to enter at an official crossing.

“If we have to close ports to take care of all of the numbers who are coming, we will do that,” Nielsen said. “So it’s on the table, but what we’re doing is a very structured process based on operational needs.”

Trump’s latest declaration came after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his country was doing its part to fight migrant smuggling. Criminal networks charge thousands of dollars a person to move migrants through Mexico, increasingly in large groups toward remote sections of the border.

“We want to have a good relationship with the government of the United States,” Lopez Obrador said Friday. He added: “We are going to continue helping so that the migratory flow, those who pass through our country, do so according to the law, in an orderly way.”

Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, tweeted that his country “doesn’t act based on threats” and is “the best neighbor” the U.S. could have.

Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan said Wednesday that 750 border inspectors would be reassigned to deal with the growing number of migrant families.

In Florida, Trump was also asked about the two migrant children who died in U.S. custody in December. Is the administration equipped to handle sick children who are detained?

“I think that it has been very well stated that we have done a fantastic job,” he said, defending Border Patrol efforts to help the children.

Trump said that in one of the cases “the father gave the child no water for a long period of time,” although an autopsy released Friday made no mention of dehydration.

“It was a very tough situation and that trek up, that’s a long hard trek,” he said. “It’s a horrible situation. But Mexico could stop it.”

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have fought over Trump’s contention that there is a “crisis” at the border, particularly amid his push for a border wall. He claims a wall would solve immigration problems, though it wouldn’t keep out families who cross at official points so they can surrender and be detained.

The Department of Homeland Security wants the authority to detain families for longer and more quickly deport children from Central America who arrive at the border on their own. The department argues those policy changes would stop families from trying to enter the U.S.

Alejandra Mier y Teran, executive director of the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce in San Diego, said the mere threat of border closures sends the wrong message to businesses in Mexico and may eventually scare companies into turning to Asia for their supply chains.

“I think the impact would be absolutely devastating on so many fronts,” said Mier y Teran, whose members rely on the Otay Mesa crossing to bring televisions, medical devices and a wide range of products to the U.S. “In terms of a long-term effect, it’s basically shooting yourself in your foot. It’s sending out a message to other countries that, ‘Don’t come because our borders may not work at any time.’ That is extremely scary and dangerous.”

———

Merchant reported from Houston, Lucey from Washington. Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Mexico City, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-threatens-shut-mexico-border-62053098

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Alex Jones claims psychosis is behind his conspiracy theories – Washington Examiner
Alex Jones claims psychosis is behind his conspiracy theories – Washington Examiner

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is blaming “psychosis” for falsehoods he peddled in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.

Jones, 45, who was sued by a parent of a Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting victim, said in a three-hour-long deposition with the plaintiff’s lawyer, Mark Bankston, that mental illness had an impact on his judgment. The radio show host claims psychosis was triggered by demanding job pressures and that he has been finding ways to work around his mental illness. The deposition is the first in a series of multiple lawsuits against Jones filed in various states, including Connecticut, Virginia, and Texas.

The host used his platforms, both “The Alex Jones Show” and his website Infowars to peddle theories about the Sandy Hook shooting. His claims include a conspiracy that the government was behind the shooting, that victims were child actors used for propaganda, and that no one had actually died in the shooting.

About 50 minutes into the deposition, Jones began telling Bankston about the psychosis.

Jones said: “The trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much, then everything begins — you don’t trust anything anymore, kind of like a child whose parents lie to them over and over again, well, pretty soon they don’t know what reality is.”

He denied allegations from the parents of the shooting victims that his conspiracy theories caused any harm or damage.

“And I, myself, have almost had like a form of psychosis back in the past where I basically thought everything was staged, even though I’m now learning a lot of times things aren’t staged. So I think, as a pundit, someone giving an opinion, that, you know, my opinions have been wrong, but they were never wrong consciously to hurt people,” Jones said.

Jones, however, has not submitted any documentation that he had ever been medically diagnosed with psychosis or any kind of mental illness.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alex-jones-claims-psychosis-is-behind-his-conspiracy-theories

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Academia bolsters the Green New Deal’s policymaking by make-believe – Washington Examiner
Academia bolsters the Green New Deal’s policymaking by make-believe – Washington Examiner

The Senate soundly rejected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal 0-57 on Tuesday after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., allowed the resolution, co-sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., to come to the floor. In protest of the political move, Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., encouraged Senate Democrats to vote “present” on the resolution instead of “yes,” which all but three of them did.

This week’s vote is the latest defeat for what has been a tumultuous rollout of the Green New Deal. In February, the plan was widely mocked in the media after the publication of a FAQ demanding policymakers “fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes” and “upgrade or replace every building in U.S.,” among other gems. The FAQ was quickly taken down from Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional website after the public embarrassment, but the Internet is forever.

Conservatives may be tempted to laugh off the Green New Deal’s outlandish proposals. However, history suggests this would be unwise. As I warned last month, the Overton window of political possibilities teaches us that today’s punchline could be tomorrow’s policy.

My personal experience as a recent master’s in public policy graduate of George Washington University underlies this point. The Green New Deal is not the singular brainchild of a millennial socialist. Rather, respected academics have taken seriously some of the zaniest ideas of the plan.

To give one example, a sociology class I attended assigned a 2012 article by Stephen M. Wheeler, a landscape architecture and environmental design professor at University of California, Davis, that imagines a future society where many of the Green New Deal’s proposals are a reality.

First, on reducing the use of airplanes, Wheeler’s green utopia has a universal cap on how much citizens can travel by plane, as other transportation options such as high-speed rail have supplanted the “wasteful” 20th-century mode of transportation:

As for upgrading or replacing every building in the U.S., the green utopia of the future has not only done that, but gone further by demolishing almost all of them:

What’s most telling from my experience was not the reading itself, but rather how my graduate classmates reacted to this vision of a world where world travel, thriving cities, and free trade were drastically curtailed: not with horror, but wonder.

Ocasio-Cortez may seem like an anomaly today, but she is part of a generation of college graduates like myself who have been regularly fed such environmental fantasies where human civilization has sacrificed technology to become an inconsequential element of the earth. And unless America’s thought leaders stand up for human ingenuity, outlandish ideas such as the Green New Deal will be more likely to become a reality as young voters potentially embrace policymaking by make-believe.

Casey Given (@CaseyJGiven) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner ‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the executive director of Young Voices.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/academia-bolsters-the-green-new-deals-policymaking-by-make-believe

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William Barr better be ready to explain all redactions in Robert Mueller report – Washington Examiner
William Barr better be ready to explain all redactions in Robert Mueller report – Washington Examiner

Attorney General William Barr has said that by mid-April he would release the highly anticipated report of Robert Mueller. He should have a good explanation prepared for any redactions made when the report gets released.

Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s principal conclusions in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election has President Trump and his supporters claiming vindication, but it also prompted demands to see the full report.

Releasing the full report is something that I called for last month, that my colleague Byron York has called for, and that the Washington Examiner has demanded institutionally.

Now, in a letter to the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Barr said he would release the nearly 400-page report within weeks but that there are four different considerations that would lead to the redaction of certain material.

Those considerations were: 1.) grand jury material, 2.) material that could compromise “sources and methods” of the intelligence community, 3.) material that could affect other ongoing legal matters, and 4.) material that could cause privacy or reputational concerns to “peripheral third parties.”

In assessing whether to withhold such material to Congress and the American people, Barr should define all of these areas in the most narrow terms so as to ensure that lawmakers and the public can see as close to the full report as possible. Any omissions are going to raise questions, and a large number of them are going to feed suspicions.

Barr notes in his letter that he wants to testify before Congress after the release of the report. In such an appearance, Democrats will be no doubt grilling him on the omitted material, and he better be armed with a reasonable explanation.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/william-barr-better-be-ready-to-explain-all-redactions-in-robert-mueller-report

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Trump’s border comments illustrate he doesn’t get how trade works – Vox.com
Trump’s border comments illustrate he doesn’t get how trade works – Vox.com

During a brief news conference he held at Mar-a-Lago on Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump claimed that closing the border with Mexico would be a “profit-making operation” because of the United States’ trade deficit with its southern neighbor.

“I’ll just close the border, and with a deficit like we have with Mexico and have had for many years, closing the border will be a profit-making operation,” Trump said, after he announced the departure of Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon, which was the press conference’s main purpose.

But that is not at all how trade works.

As Vox’s Dara Lind explained in a piece about the threats Trump made on Twitter earlier Friday to close the border “[i]f Mexico doesn’t immediately stop ALL immigration coming into the United States through our southern border,” closing the border would disrupt supply chains and import/export flows, causing an economic catastrophe:

Shutting down ports of entry would be an economic disaster. It would also disrupt the lives of border communities that rely on the flow of people between the US and Mexico — including the major cities of San Diego (and Tijuana) and El Paso (and Ciudad Juarez).

Approximately $1.5 billion worth of commerce happens along the US-Mexico border every day. Nearly half a million people cross the border legally every day through Texas ports alone.

Even reductions in port capacity or temporary shutdowns tend to lead to panic among the business community and local residents. El Paso is currently concerned that already-long waits at the ports could get longer as agents are reassigned to care for unauthorized migrants. When the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego shut down for a few hours in November, as agents responded with force (including tear gas) to an organized march of asylum seekers, the temporary closure cost about $5.3 million in lost business revenue.

According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, Mexico is the US’s third-largest trading partner, with the total goods and services trade amounting to over $615 billion in 2017. While the US’s overall deficit with Mexico was $63.6 billion that year, an estimated 1.2 million American jobs are based on US-Mexico trade.

Even short border closures have significant negative consequences. When the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego was closed for five hours last November following an ill-fated march on the Mexican side, the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce estimated it cost American businesses about $5.3 million.

Trump may believe American jobs are better guarded through protectionist trade policies —trade protectionism is one of Trump’s signature issues — but he has a long history of either misunderstanding how those policies actually impact the US economy or of making wildly false statements about trade deficits. He’s repeatedly spread inaccurate figures about US deficits and demonstrated ignorance about the fact that deficits are calculated based on both goods and services, not just goods.

Trump has tried to bring down deficits by imposing tariffs on imported goods, but he doesn’t seem to understand that tariffs are really taxes on US importers, not foreign governments. And the latest figures indicate that not only are Trump’s trade wars not shrinking deficits, but they’re actually doing the opposite: The US trade deficit of $891.3 billion in 2018 was the highest in history.

The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.

Source Article from https://www.vox.com/2019/3/29/18287491/trump-closing-border-mexico-trade-not-how-it-works

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Linda McMahon To Quit Top Post At Small Business Administration – NPR
Linda McMahon To Quit Top Post At Small Business Administration – NPR

Linda McMahon had contributed heavily to Donald Trump’s 2016 election effort. At America First Action, she could play a similar role in his 2020 bid for re-election.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Linda McMahon had contributed heavily to Donald Trump’s 2016 election effort. At America First Action, she could play a similar role in his 2020 bid for re-election.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Updated at 4:44 p.m. ET

Linda McMahon, the famous pro wrestling promoter who stayed largely out of the limelight as small business administrator, is quitting President Trump’s Cabinet after more than two years on the job.

McMahon plans to join the pro-Trump superPAC America First Action, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.

“Linda McMahon has done an incredible job,” Trump told reporters Friday at his Florida vacation home. “She has been a superstar.”

A multimillionaire, McMahon contributed heavily to Trump’s 2016 election effort. At America First Action, she could play a significant role in the president’s 2020 bid for re-election.

“We’re staying together,” Trump said.

Along with her husband Vince, McMahon ran the hugely successful World Wrestling Entertainment company, negotiating television rights and merchandising contracts. She twice ran unsuccessfully for the Senate from her home state of Connecticut.

At the SBA, McMahon has proven to be a workhorse, traveling the country to promote small business and the president’s economic agenda while avoiding the scandals that have plagued several of her Cabinet colleagues.

“The opportunity to lead the agency in supporting America’s small businesses has been immensely rewarding,” McMahon said in a statement. She pointed to surveys showing high levels of optimism among the country’s small business owners.

“They are investing in their companies and their employees — raising wages, providing bonuses and benefits, and creating more jobs,” McMahon said.

Her resignation will take effect on April 12. Trump said he would announce a nominee to replace McMahon in the near future.

“I wish to thank the President and I will continue to be a strong advocate for him and his policies,” McMahon said.

Trump has proposed cutting the SBA’s budget next year by 5 percent.

White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/03/29/708088994/linda-mcmahon-to-quit-small-business-administration-joins-pro-trump-superpac

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#MeToo: Woman claims Joe Biden kissed her without consent in 2014 – Washington Examiner
#MeToo: Woman claims Joe Biden kissed her without consent in 2014 – Washington Examiner

A former Nevada politician has accused former Vice President Joe Biden of kissing her against her consent backstage at a campaign rally in 2014.

Former Nevada state Assemblywoman Lucy Flores.

Lucy Flores, 39, a former assemblywoman in Nevada, write in The Cut that the incident took place when she was running for lieutenant governor and she “felt two hands on my shoulders.”

Flores recounts: “I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair,” Flores writes. “I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head.”

Flores writes that she felt embarrassment and shock after the encounter with Biden, and also that it mirrored similar behavior from the former vice president.

“Time passed and pictures started to surface of Vice-President Biden getting uncomfortably close with women and young girls. Biden nuzzling the neck of the Defense secretary’s wife; Biden kissing a senator’s wife on the lips; Biden whispering in women’s ears; Biden snuggling female constituents,” Flores writes.

Biden’s over-familiar style with women has long been the subject of commentary, but he has previously not been accused by women of misbehavior.

Although he has not yet announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, outlets have reported that Biden does intend to run and is simply waiting for the most opportune moment to announce.

A number of polls how Biden with a lead over the rest of the Democratic field. A Harvard CAPS/Harris survey released Thursday found that 35 percent of Democratic voters are most likely to support Biden should he enter the race.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/woman-claims-joe-biden-kissed-her-without-permission-in-new-essay

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Border Officer’s Secret in Arizona: He Was Undocumented – The New York Times
Border Officer’s Secret in Arizona: He Was Undocumented – The New York Times

Federal authorities also must field a work force that by design reflects the heavily Hispanic communities across the Southwest they are expected to police. Agents sometimes have relatives, friends and neighbors whom they know or suspect are undocumented. In South Texas, one of the most heavily traveled migrant corridors in the country, Border Patrol agents or their spouses have sometimes hired undocumented housekeepers, as do many of their neighbors.

Mr. De La Garza’s deception was unusual for Customs and Border Protection, the largest law enforcement agency in the country, with nearly twice the staff of the F.B.I. Yet it was not unprecedented. There have been at least three other cases of undocumented people working as Customs officers or Border Patrol agents who were prosecuted in federal court in recent years.

One of those cases involved Oscar Antonio Ortiz, a Border Patrol agent in the San Diego area, who first applied for work in the weeks after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Like Mr. De La Garza, Mr. Ortiz was a Mexican citizen with a fraudulent birth certificate who had also served in the Navy. But once he was hired by Border Patrol, Mr. Ortiz got involved, along with another agent, in human smuggling: transporting migrants for money into the United States, sometimes in their Border Patrol vehicles, according to court documents. Mr. Ortiz, who had been assigned to the Border Patrol station in El Cajon, Calif., was sentenced in 2006 to five years in prison.

Mr. Ortiz was later deported and now lives in Mexico. His lawyer, Stephen P. White, said his client had believed, like Mr. De La Garza, that he was born in the United States, based on what his parents told him and the fraudulent birth certificate they had provided him.

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A photo of Marco De La Garza submitted as part of a court filing.

“He got security clearances, background checks multiple times and was as surprised as anybody else to find out that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen when he got arrested on the alien smuggling charge,” Mr. White said.

Mr. De La Garza worked at the port of entry in Douglas, Ariz., about 120 miles southeast of Tucson. He lived with his wife and children about 40 miles west of Douglas in the town of Hereford, and appeared to relish his job, filling his home with mugs, clocks and other trinkets bearing Customs or Navy logos.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/border-patrol-agent-undocumented-immigrant.html

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Europe watches Brexit events with frustrated disbelief – Fox News
Europe watches Brexit events with frustrated disbelief – Fox News

  • Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage speaks at a rally in Parliament Square after the final leg of the “March to Leave” in London, Friday, March 29, 2019. The protest march which started on March 16 in Sunderland, north east England, finishes on Friday March 29 in Parliament Square, London, on what was the original date for Brexit to happen before the recent extension. (AP Photo/Tim Ireland)

  • Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, center, joins Pro-Brexit leave the European Union supporter taking part in the final leg of the “March to Leave” along the embankment in London, Friday, March 29, 2019. The protest march which started on March 16 in Sunderland, north east England, finishes on Friday March 29 in Parliament Square, London, on what was the original date for Brexit to happen before the recent extension. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

BRUSSELS – The date for the U.K.’s departure from the European Union was seemingly chiseled in stone — March 29, 2019. When it finally arrived with no Brexit, Europeans could only shake their heads in frustrated disbelief.

They saw three years of bluster on how Britain would leave the EU on its own terms dissolve Friday with the last of three votes in Parliament that failed to approve Prime Minister Theresa May’s divorce deal, leaving an uncertain course.

“There was no game plan. Well, no strategy,” Philippe Lamberts, a key member of the European Parliament’s Brexit steering group, said of the British approach in an interview with The Associated Press.

Few in Britain would disagree.

For decades, the bloc was the target of ridicule in Britain for what was perceived as European hubris and an inefficient bureaucracy. But on Friday, there was very little gloating on the continent as May failed to get the deal through the U.K. Parliament, sending London deeper into the Brexit morass.

“We have resisted the temptation to position the (EU) Commission in terms of sentiments,” said EU spokesman Margaritis Schinas. “We don’t do that.”

The EU called another emergency summit for April 10, two days ahead of a new withdrawal date. A chaotic “no-deal” departure scenario is expected to be costly to U.K. businesses and inconvenient at its border. May said there would be “grave” implications.

The EU doesn’t want to inflame passions even more, because it also stands to suffer, with hundreds of billions of euros and tens of thousands of jobs at stake for a U.K. exit without transitional measures in place.

“In Brexit, everybody loses,” said Ewa Osniecka-Tamecka, a vice rector of the College of Europe, speaking at a branch in Natolin, Poland. “Brexit diminishes both the EU and the U.K.”

There was frustration among EU officials who felt that they and their star negotiator Michel Barnier did their part and Britain didn’t.

Even Nigel Farage, a British driving force behind Brexit and staunch EU opponent, has nothing but admiration for Barnier who kept 27 nations aligned as one while Britain, as one, crumbled into chaos.

“Oh, in terms of doing his job. Goodness gracious me. Look, you know, I wish he was on my team and not their team,” Farage, a member of the European Parliament, told the AP.

Almost three years after the June 23, 2016, Brexit referendum, the British government and Parliament seem to be still at a loss over what they really wants from the EU.

“Britain is at a dead end,” said Nathalie Loiseau, who was France’s Europe Minister until she resigned this week to run in the May 23-26 EU elections. “Europeans have other priorities than having to wait until the U.K. takes a decision.”

What also is in tatters is a European admiration of Britain as a symbol of a well-run parliamentary democracy, with its sometimes brilliant discourse and vigorous debate.

Lamberts said he was stunned at how May’s Conservative Party as well as those in the Labour Party seemed to act in their own interests, rather than the needs of the country.

“It’s the inability to build compromise,” Lamberts said. “That’s it. Party above country, in the most brutal sense of the word.”

Manfred Weber, a European lawmaker from Germany and center-right candidate to head the European Commission, said the repeated rejection of the deal highlighted “a failure of the political class in Great Britain — there’s no other way to describe it.”

Some saw Friday’s events as another blow to Britain’s international standing.

“The British have given the world a great deal, from modern parliamentarism to the world title in the discipline of ‘muddling through,'” historian Michael Stuermer wrote in a front-page commentary in German daily Die Welt.

Now, however, “the damage to the country’s reputation is unmistakable.”

___

Associated Press writer Geir Moulson in Berlin and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/world/europe-watches-brexit-events-with-frustrated-disbelief

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Ocasio-Cortez: Republicans made ‘total fools of themselves’ attacking the Green New Deal – NBC News
Ocasio-Cortez: Republicans made ‘total fools of themselves’ attacking the Green New Deal – NBC News

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., gave a vigorous defense of her signature Green New Deal initiative on Friday, rejecting Republican criticism that it’s socialist.

The freshman Democrat said she expected the pushback from the GOP to her plan, which calls for a complete transition to renewable energy by 2030.

“But I didn’t expect them to make total fools of themselves,” she told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes during an “All In” town hall at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx. “I expected a little more nuance, and I expected a little more ‘concern trolling,'” meaning disingenuously expressing concern.

Watch the exclusive interview during the special “All-In Green New Deal” tonight on MSNBC with Chris Hayes at 8 p.m. ET.

Ocasio-Cortez argued that the plan is economically and politically feasible and called for Congress to allow hearings on the issue.

“We don’t have time for five years of a half-baked, watered-down position,” she said. “This is urgent, and to think that we have time is such a privileged and removed-from-reality attitude that we cannot tolerate.”

She told the audience that her mission is to use the initiative to spark a conversation beyond Washington about how to address climate change and harness the American economy to drastically reduce the effects of global warming through a national effort akin to what the country did during the Great Depression and World War II.

“The entire United States government knew that climate change was real and human-caused in 1989 — the year I was born. So, the initial response was to let markets handle it, they will do it,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Forty years of free-market solutions have not changed our position. So this does not mean that we change our entire structure of government, but what it means is we need to do something. Something!”

She said she was not concerned with convincing her fellow lawmakers or even her own party, but rather wanted to focus on going directly to voters to galvanize support.

“This is not a partisan issue, because there are Democrats who will get in the way of us saving ourselves,” she said. “We encourage everyone here to look it up. I’m here not to convince my colleagues, but the electorate. … If the electorate prioritizes it and overwhelmingly supports it, then we create the political room to pass it.”

She also rejected the idea that the Green New Deal is socialist, or even radical, which has been a steady criticism of right-wing media, Republican members of Congress and President Donald Trump.

“This is not a Tea Party of the left, this is a return to representative democracy,” she said. “And here’s a really big difference, the Koch brothers funded the Tea Party and everyday people funded my campaign.”

She added, “What I’m tired of is us worrying about the future of fossil fuels and not the future of fossil fuel workers. They wave this wand and they say it’s going to cost a gazillion dollars and they sound like Dr. Evil. How about we fully fund the pensions of coal miners in West Virginia? How about we start by re-building Flint?”

Dartunorro Clark

Dartunorro Clark is a political reporter for NBC News.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/aoc-dismisses-green-new-deal-s-hill-critics-i-m-n989006

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Border news: Donald Trump tweets threat to close US/Mexico border “next week” – Vox.com
Border news: Donald Trump tweets threat to close US/Mexico border “next week” – Vox.com

President Donald Trump has occasionally threatened to “shut down” the US-Mexico border for months. Nothing has happened.

But now, the president is putting an actual timeline on the threat — insisting that he will shut down all or “large portions” of the US-Mexico border “next week” unless Mexico stops all Central American migration into the US.

Mexico is already working to stop Central American immigrants — on Wednesday, officials announced they were deploying the military to an isthmus in southern Mexico to “contain” migrants heading north. But it’s impossible for them to stop all unauthorized migrants from setting foot on US soil. So if the president is to be believed, border “closure” is imminent.

The president should not be believed. Trump can’t physically stop anyone from crossing into the US illegally.

What he can do is shut down ports of entry — preventing people and goods from legally entering the country.

And while no one but Trump likes that idea, it’s possible that it might begin to happen — though it certainly wouldn’t be next week.

On a press call Friday, a senior administration official acknowledged that the Trump administration is currently moving border agents from ports of entry to care for people (especially children and families) apprehended between ports of entry. That reduces capacity at the ports.

And if the number of people coming into the US continues to increase without DHS getting additional resources, the official said, closure of some ports would be “on the table.”

But the official, like everyone else in the Trump administration except Trump, sees port closure as a last resort. Trump’s enthusiasm for closing the border — and claims that the US would somehow save money — still don’t reflect administration willingness to actually do it.

Trump can’t stop people from coming into the US without papers

What Trump is freaking out about is a substantial increase in the number of people being apprehended by US Border Patrol officials at the US-Mexico border. Most of these people are from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and (to a lesser degree) El Salvador; unprecedented numbers of them are families traveling together.

The border isn’t “open” to them — it is illegal to cross into the US without papers between ports of entry, which is why they are arrested. But they’re not trying to evade capture. They often seek out Border Patrol agents to turn themselves in.

These people can’t be physically prevented from entering the US. Many of them are coming by bus to remote parts of the border. Others are crossing through fences, despite the addition of concertina wire along much of the border last fall by deployed US military. Even where there is a physical wall, that wall isn’t literally on the US-Mexico line — it’s a little bit inland. So there’s US soil on both sides of the wall, and migrants walk along the wall — on the “far” side of the wall, but still within the US — until they find someone to turn themselves into.

The problem is that children, families, and asylum seekers can’t be deported quickly. They can’t be deported immediately if they claim a fear of return to their home country, and many of them pass the initial screening to be allowed to present an asylum application. All Central American children traveling without parents are sent to HHS and placed with sponsors while their cases are heard. And families can’t easily be detained while their cases are pending, either.

The Trump administration is pushing Congress to change the treatment of children and families under US law. But administration officials can’t stop people from claiming asylum once on US soil — they tried to do that last fall, by banning illegal entrants from making asylum claims, and were struck down in court.

A refusal to allow people to seek asylum based on some assertion that the border is “closed” would similarly violate the statutory right. And Trump can’t stop people from coming simply by making such a declaration.

What officials can do: slow down or stop legal border crossings to redirect staff to care for unauthorized migrants

What the government does control is legal traffic into the US, via official border crossings: ports of entry. So the only thing Trump could do to “shut down” the border would be to shut down the ports, stopping people and goods from legally entering the US.

The senior administration official on Friday claimed that that was what Trump meant by shutting down the border — and that the tweet wasn’t actually a commitment to shut down the border next week, but a warning that if the current flows of unauthorized families and children continued, the administration would close ports as a last resort.

They’re already pulling staff from the El Paso ports of entry to care for people who entered between ports. “At some point, if the flow continues to increase and we do not get support, we will have to degrade some of the operations at the port,” the senior administration official said. “I think what the president is making clear is that if we have to close ports to take care of all the migrants who are coming, we will do that.”

But “if we have to” is very different from Trump’s barely concealed glee about the prospect. That’s because closing legal border crossings would be a terrible idea.

Literally no one but Trump actually wants to close border crossings

Shutting down ports of entry would be an economic disaster. It would also disrupt the lives of border communities that rely on the flow of people between the US and Mexico — including the major cities of San Diego (and Tijuana) and El Paso (and Ciudad Juarez).

Approximately $1.5 billion worth of commerce happens along the US-Mexico border every day. Nearly half a million people cross the border legally every day through Texas ports alone.

Even reductions in port capacity or temporary shutdowns tend to lead to panic among the business community and local residents. El Paso is currently concerned that already-long waits at the ports could get longer as agents are reassigned to care for unauthorized migrants. When the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego shut down for a few hours in November, as agents responded with force (including tear gas) to an organized march of asylum seekers, the temporary closure cost about $5.3 million in lost business revenue.

Of course, making it harder for people to cross legally generally only encourages people to cross illegally — something that’s already been seen as the US has limited the number of asylum-seekers it allows to present themselves at ports.

Trump’s Friday tweets actually tacitly acknowledge that drug smuggling is more likely to happen at ports than between them — something he generally explicitly lies about. But drug smugglers are less likely than, say, banana exporters to just throw up their hands if a port is shut down, rather than finding other illegal ways to get drugs into the US.

Every time Trump tweets something like this, border-state legislators and business associations react with alarm. Generally, DHS officials stress that they understand the importance of keeping the ports open. But Trump by all appearances does not.

It’s not that “shutting down the border” is the administration’s only proposed solution — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen wrote a letter to Congress on Thursday asking for changes to the law regarding family detention and child deportation, and predicting that they would need more funding. But it’s an idea Trump himself can’t let go of. And now, for the first time — if for completely different reasons — there is an actual prospect that the administration will do something that looks vaguely similar to Trump’s threats.

Source Article from https://www.vox.com/2019/3/29/18287101/trump-close-border-us-mexico-tweets

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What Next: Defeat of May’s deal means new Brexit precipice – Fox News
What Next: Defeat of May’s deal means new Brexit precipice – Fox News

  • A Brexit supporter holds an England flag at Parliament Square in Westminster, London, Friday, March 29, 2019. Pro-Brexit demonstrators were gathering in central London on the day that Britain was originally scheduled to leave the European Union. British lawmakers will vote Friday on what Prime Minister Theresa May’s government described as the “last chance to vote for Brexit.” (AP Photo/ Frank Augstein)

  • A Brexit supporter wears the Union Jack colors on his face at Parliament Square in Westminster, London, Friday, March 29, 2019. Pro-Brexit demonstrators were gathering in central London on the day that Britain was originally scheduled to leave the European Union. British lawmakers will vote Friday on what Prime Minister Theresa May’s government described as the “last chance to vote for Brexit.” (AP Photo/ Frank Augstein)

LONDON – Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal is all but dead, after lawmakers voted to reject it for a third time Friday — the day Britain had long been scheduled to leave the European Union.

The U.K. now faces a deadline of April 12 to present the EU with a new plan, or crash out of the bloc without an agreement.

Here’s a look at what could happen next:

___

NO DEAL

The EU has given Britain until April 12 — two weeks away — to decide whether it wants to ask for another postponement to Brexit. The bloc has called an emergency Brexit summit for April 10 to deal with a British request, or prepare for a no-deal Brexit.

Without a delay, Britain will leave the bloc at 11 p.m. U.K. time (6 p.m. EDT) on April 12 without a divorce agreement to smooth the way. Most politicians, economists and business groups think such a no-deal scenario would be disastrous, erecting customs checks, tariffs and other barriers between Britain and its biggest trading partner.

Parliament has voted repeatedly to rule out a no-deal Brexit — but it remains the default position unless a deal is approved, Brexit is canceled or the EU grants Britain another extension.

___

DELAY AND SOFTEN

The alternative to “no-deal” is to delay Brexit for at least several months while Britain tries to sort out the mess.

The bloc is reluctant to have a departing Britain participate in European Parliament elections in late May, as it would have to do if Brexit is delayed. But EU Council President Donald Tusk has urged the bloc to give Britain the extension if it plans to change course and seek a softer Brexit that keeps close economic ties between Britain and the bloc.

This week lawmakers held a series of “indicative votes” on alternatives to May’s deal. The exercise did not provide clarity — all eight options on offer were defeated. But it did hint at a potential compromise. The measure that came closest to a majority called for Britain to remain in a customs union with the EU after it leaves.

May has always ruled that out, because sticking to EU trade rules would limit Britain’s ability to forge new trade deals around the world.

But a customs union would ensure U.K. businesses can continue to trade with the EU, and would solve many of the problems that bedevil May’s deal. In particular it would remove the need for customs posts and border checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

There’s a good chance a withdrawal agreement that included a customs union pledge would be approved by Parliament, and welcomed by the EU.

___

ELECTION GAMBLE

Britain is not scheduled to hold a national election until 2022, but the gridlock in Parliament makes a snap vote more likely.

Opposition politicians think the only way forward is an early election that could rearrange Parliament and break the political deadlock. They could try to bring down the government in a no-confidence vote, triggering a general election.

Or the government could pull the trigger itself if it thinks it has nothing to lose.

May promised to quit if her Brexit deal was approved and Britain left the EU in May. Even though it was defeated she will still face huge pressure to resign, paving the way for a Conservative Party leadership contest.

___

NEW REFERENDUM

Another option considered by lawmakers this week called for any deal to be put to public vote in a “confirmatory referendum.” The idea has significant support from opposition parties, plus some members of the Conservatives.

The government has ruled out holding another referendum on Britain’s EU membership, but could change its mind if there appeared no other way to pass a Brexit deal.

Britain voted by 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the EU in 2016. Since then, polls suggest the “remain” side has gained in strength, but it’s far from clear who would win a new referendum. It could leave Britain just as divided over Europe as it is now.

___

Follow AP’s full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/world/what-next-defeat-of-mays-deal-means-new-brexit-precipice

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Trump, in fiery first rally since Mueller vindication, calls on Dems to stop ‘ridiculous bullsh–‘ – Fox News
Trump, in fiery first rally since Mueller vindication, calls on Dems to stop ‘ridiculous bullsh–‘ – Fox News
Video

Trump: They spied on me, they spied on my campaign

President Trump speaks at a Make America Great Again rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In his first major rally since Special Counsel Robert Mueller cleared him of any collusion with Russia, President Trump took the stage before a boisterous full house at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Thursday night — and proceeded to tear into Democrats and the FBI as unintelligent “frauds” who tried desperately to undermine the results of the 2016 election.

“The Democrats have to now decide whether they will continue defrauding the public with ridiculous bullsh–,” Trump said to thunderous applause, “– partisan investigations, or whether they will apologize to the American people.”

Trump continued to unload on his opponents: “I have a better education than them, I’m smarter than them, I went to the best schools; they didn’t. Much more beautiful house, much more beautiful apartment. Much more beautiful everything. And I’m president and they’re not.”

Addressing counterprotesters outside the arena and progressives in general, Trump asked: “What do you think of their signs, ‘Resist?’ What the hell? Let’s get something done.”

EXCLUSIVE: FBI TEXTS OBTAINED BY FOX NEWS SHOW DOJ WARNED OF ‘BIAS’ IN KEY SOURCE USED TO SPY ON TRUMP AIDE

Later, Trump vowed to “close the damn border” unless Mexico halts two new caravans he said have been approaching the United States rapidly. Trump also hit at fraudulent asylum applicants, saying liberal lawyers often have coached them in a “big fat con job” to claim they’ve feared for their lives when they make it to the border.

The economy, Trump said to sustained cheers, “is roaring, the ISIS caliphate is defeated 100 percent, and after three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead. The collusion delusion is over. … The single greatest political hoax in the history of our country. And guess what? We won.”

“I love campaigning against the Green New Deal,” Trump remarked at one point. “One car per family — you’re going to love that in Michigan.”

Trump predicted that the former DOJ and FBI officials who pushed the collusion theory and authorized secret surveillance warrants against members of his campaign — whom he incidentally called “major losers” — would soon have “big problems.”

Trump also characterized the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee as “little pencil-neck Adam Schiff, who has the smallest, thinnest neck I’ve ever seen,” and someone who is “not a long-ball hitter.”

Schiff, D-Calif., who fiercely pushed collusion claims, has vowed to continue investigating Trump despite Mueller’s findings — even as Republicans have called for his resignation.

Trump’s rally prompted thousands of supporters to line the streets hours beforehand in a festive atmosphere that included vendors selling “Make America Great Again” hats and holding supportive signs.

People waiting for President Donald Trump to speak at the rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Thursday. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The evening was something of a homecoming: Trump became the first Republican in over two decades to win Michigan in the 2016 presidential election, edging out Hillary Clinton thanks, in part, to his decision to cap off his campaign with a final rally in Grand Rapids shortly after midnight on Election Day. “This is our Independence Day,” Trump told roaring attendees then.

FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE: TRUMP VOWS TO RELEASE FISA DOCS THAT KICKSTARTED RUSSIA PROBE

Thursday night’s event, though, was a mixture of homecoming and all-out victory parade, in the wake of Mueller’s conclusions. Enthusiastic fans — including many who stood by Trump amid a torrent of unproven allegations that he conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 election — began to encircle the Van Andel Arena as early as 3:30 a.m.

Trump relived the Election Day rally on Thursday, telling the crowd that he got home at 4 a.m. in the morning and told Melania Trump that he had an “incredible crowd” late into the evening and thought, “How the hell can I lose Michigan? And guess what: We didn’t lose Michigan.”

President Donald Trump speaking at the rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Trump also dropped what he called “breaking news” for locals, promising, “I’m going to get full funding of $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which you’ve been trying to get for over 30 years. It’s time.”

Trump noted that MSNBC and CNN’s ratings “dropped through the floor last night,” while Fox News’ ratings were “through the roof.”

Retired cabinet maker Ron Smith, 51, was one of the supporters who arrived to Thursday’s rally early. He told the Detroit News outside the arena that although “Republicans in Congress are trying to put stumbling blocks in his path,” nevertheless, “Donald Trump comes in here and gets stuff done.”

FOX NEWS DOMINATES CNN, MSNBC IN RATINGS AFTER FALSE RUSSIA COLLUSION NARRATIVE IS TOTALLY DISCREDITED

Separately, Trump called the Jussie Smollet case an “embarrassment” both to Chicago and to the U.S. and vowed to continue border wall construction.

Trump also decried Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat who seemingly endorsed the practice of killing some infants after birth earlier this year.

“In recent months, the Democrat Party has also been aggressively pushing extreme late-term abortion, allowing children to be ripped from their mother’s womb up until the moment of birth,” Trump said. “In Virginia, the governor stated he would even allow a newborn baby to be executed.”

Senate Democrats blocked a GOP-led effort after Northam’s remarks that would have established the standard of care owed to infants who survive failed abortions.

In remarks to reporters before he left the White House earlier in the day, Trump previewed a wide-ranging rally on everything from the economy to health care and border security. But there was little doubt the president would devote a good deal of time to a victory lap on Russia.

Trump also promised to save the Special Olympics, after the Education Department proposed cuts to the program in its latest budget.

“The Special Olympics will be funded. I just told my people, I want to fund the Special Olympics and I just authorized a funding of the Special Olympics,” Trump said. “I’ve been to the Special Olympics. I think it’s incredible and I just authorized a funding. I heard about it this morning. I have overridden my people. We’re funding the Special Olympics.”

In a fiery, exclusive interview with Fox News’ “Hannity” Wednesday night, Trump vowed to release classified documents that could shed light on the Russia probe’s origins. He also accused FBI officials of committing “treason” — slamming former FBI Director James Comey as a “terrible guy,” former CIA Director John Brennan as potentially mentally ill, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as a criminal.

President Donald Trump arriving at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Mich., for his rally. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Redacted versions of FISA documents already released have revealed that the FBI extensively relied on documents produced by Christopher Steele, an anti-Trump British ex-spy working for a firm funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, to surveil Trump aide Carter Page. At least one senior DOJ official had apparent concerns Steele was unreliable, according to text messages exclusively obtained last week by Fox News.

The leaked dossier, and related FBI surveillance, kickstarted a media frenzy on alleged Russia-Trump collusion that ended with a whimper on Sunday. Trump, on Thursday, told the crowd in Michigan that the dossier was “dirty.”

Michigan Democrats, meanwhile, organized a counter-rally nearby, with the party saying it wanted to issue a “call for action and solutions on the fundamental issues facing us all, like health care, education, clean water, equality, immigrant rights, support for our military veterans, jobs, the economy and more.”

A handful of protesters separately waved “socialist alternative” flags and yelled, “No Trump, no KKK, no fascists, USA,” according to local reports.

Republicans have maintained that Trump has a good chance to win Michigan again in 2020, although changing demographics could present some headwinds. In November, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer defeated a Trump-backed candidate to claim the state’s governorship.

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“Democrats are in a pickle and they put themselves here” by trumpeting the investigation, said Brian “Boomer” Patrick, communications director for GOP Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga. “All the eggs were in one basket on the Mueller report.”

At the end of the rally, Trump remarked, “the Democrats took the people of Michigan for granted. With us, you will never be forgotten again.”

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-in-first-rally-since-mueller-vindication-draws-huge-crowds-on-streets-of-grand-rapids

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Boeing Ethiopia crash probe ‘finds anti-stall device activated’ – BBC News
Boeing Ethiopia crash probe ‘finds anti-stall device activated’ – BBC News

Image copyright
Getty Images

Image caption

Debris from Ethiopian Airlines flight 302

Officials probing the crash in Ethiopia of a Boeing 737 Max have preliminarily concluded that a flight-control feature automatically activated before it crashed, the Wall Street Journal says.

The newspaper, citing unnamed sources, says the findings were relayed on Thursday at a briefing at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The flight-control feature is meant to help prevent the plane from stalling.

Boeing said it could not comment as the investigation was still under way.

It said all inquiries should be referred to the investigating authorities. The BBC has approached the FAA for a response.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Transport said: “We have seen the WSJ report. We’ll comment shortly.”

Thursday also saw what is thought to be the first lawsuit filed on the crash.

Black box findings

The Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) flight-control feature was also implicated in a fatal crash by Lion Air flight in Indonesia last year.

Together, the two crashes have claimed 346 lives.

MCAS is software designed to help prevent the 737 Max 8 from stalling.

It reacts when sensors in the nose of the aircraft show the jet is climbing at too steep an angle, which can cause planes to stall.

But an investigation of the Lion Air flight last year suggested the system malfunctioned, and forced the plane’s nose down more than 20 times before it crashed into the sea, killing all 189 passengers and crew.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says there are similarities between that crash and the Ethiopian accident on 10 March.

Boeing has redesigned the software so that it will disable MCAS if it receives conflicting data from its sensors.

As part of the upgrade, Boeing will install an extra warning system on all 737 Max aircraft, which was previously an optional safety feature.

Neither of the planes, operated by Lion Air in Indonesia and Ethiopian Airlines, that were involved in the fatal crashes carried the alert systems, which are designed to warn pilots when sensors produce contradictory readings.

Earlier this week, Boeing said that the upgrades were not an admission that the system had caused the crashes.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the accidents.

A preliminary report from Ethiopian authorities is expected within days.

Lawsuit looms

The report comes a day after a lawsuit was filed in a Chicago federal court by the family of one of the victims of the Ethiopian crash, Jackson Musoni, a citizen of Rwanda.

It alleges that Boeing had defectively designed the automated flight control system

All Boeing 737 Max are currently grounded. It is still not certain when the planes will be allowed to fly.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47745191

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FACT CHECK: Did the Trump Administration House Undocumented Immigrants Under a Bridge in El Paso? – Snopes.com
FACT CHECK: Did the Trump Administration House Undocumented Immigrants Under a Bridge in El Paso? – Snopes.com

U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies came under renewed scrutiny in March 2019, when photographs emerged that appeared to show relatively large numbers of undocumented immigrants being housed behind wire fencing under a bridge in El Paso, Texas.

On 27 March, the website Grit Post published an article with the headline “Trump Administration Cages Immigrants Under Bridge Because Detention Center Is Full,” which went on to report that:

Several photos that have emerged show what appear to be hundreds of immigrant families caged under the Paso Del Norte Bridge in El Paso, Texas.

The photos were initially tweeted by Washington Post immigration reporters Nick Miroff and Bob Moore, who said the immigrants are being held there because the border patrol station in El Paso — just beyond Ciudad Juarez in Mexico — is full.

That report prompted multiple inquiries from Snopes readers about the authenticity of the photographs in question and the facts surrounding them.

On 27 March, Miroff and Moore did indeed post photographs showing the scene under the bridge. Miroff gave the following description of one of the photographs: “This is El Paso right now, where hundreds of migrant families are being held in the parking lot of a Border Patrol station because there is no room for them inside, or anywhere else.”

 

For his part, Moore tweeted: “Hundreds of migrants are being held under the Paso Del Norte Bridge in El Paso, near the site of [Customs and Border Protection agency] Commissioner [Kevin] McAleenan’s press conference.”

 

Setting aside the somewhat colored language used by Grit Post, which stated that the Trump administration had “caged” the immigrants, we find the substantive claim — that crowds of undocumented immigrants had been detained under a bridge in El Paso in March 2019 due to a backlog at the nearest official immigration center — was true.

On 27 March, U.S. Border Patrol spokesperson Ramiro Cordero largely confirmed the facts as presented by the Post‘s Nick Miroff and Bob Moore, as well as in the Grit Post article, in an interview with the Texas Tribune. But Cordero indicated that the typical time spent by immigrants at the improvised facility was relatively short.

The following are excerpts from the edited interview with Cordero that the Texas Tribune published on 27 March:

Cordero: When illegal immigrants are apprehended, they are [usually] taken to the [processing center]. As people are being processed inside the facility and sent out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or wherever else they go, then more people are being brought in [from the camp] It’s just a transitional facility. Weeks ago, the community had issues that the [undocumented immigrants] were camping out outside on the levee road [south of the border fence]. They said we were leaving them there overnight. So we built the tent to keep people from the elements.

Texas Tribune [TT]: How long are the people there?

Cordero: It could be a couple of hours, it could be 12 hours. During that time, they get blankets, food, bathroom facilities, water, snacks — they have it all there …

TT: There were some tweets and reports that said some people under the bridge said they have been there for two or three days. Is that possible because you said 12 hours or longer? What’s the maximum?

Cordero: So for example, let’s say you get picked up at 6 p.m. and you end up at the river’s edge waiting to be transported for a few hours. Then you end up at that [camp] the next morning maybe at 9 a.m. Then you don’t get processed because there is a bottleneck until the following day. Did you stay there overnight? Yes, you sure did. So a lot is just perspective. The sun went down, it came back up. So for them that’s two days.

TT: You said that as of 6 a.m. Wednesday that about 3,500 people were in Border Patrol custody in the El Paso Sector. Has that figure remained steady?

Cordero: This morning in custody, we had 3,369. The vast majority were at the El Paso station.

On 28 March, the Associated Press published the following footage of the makeshift facility under the bridge:

At a press conference held close to the Paso Del Norte bridge on 27 March, Border Commissioner McAleenan said the U.S. immigration system’s “breaking point has arrived,” adding that the agency was facing “an unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis” along the southwestern border, especially at El Paso.

Source Article from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/el-paso-bridge-immigrants/

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U.S., China hold ‘candid and constructive’ trade talks in Beijing – Reuters
U.S., China hold ‘candid and constructive’ trade talks in Beijing – Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States and China said they made progress in trade talks that concluded on Friday in Beijing that Washington called “candid and constructive” as the world’s two largest economies try to resolve a bitter, nearly nine-month trade war.

“The two parties continued to make progress during candid and constructive discussions on the negotiations and important next steps,” the White House said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to the visit to Washington next week by a Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier Liu He.

The statement gave no other details on the nature of the progress.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer were in the Chinese capital for the first face-to-face meetings between the two sides since President Donald Trump delayed a scheduled March 2 hike in tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, citing progress in negotiations.

China’s state news agency Xinhua said the two sides discussed “relevant agreement documents” and made new progress in their talks, but did not elaborate in a brief report.

“@USTradeRep and I concluded constructive trade talks in Beijing,” Mnuchin said on social media network Twitter.

Earlier, Mnuchin told reporters that U.S. officials had a “very productive working dinner” on Thursday. He did not elaborate and it was not immediately clear with whom he had dined.

Trump imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports beginning last July in a move to force China to change the way it does business with the rest of the world and to pry open more of its economy to U.S. companies.

Though his blunt-force use of tariffs has angered many, his push to change what are widely viewed as China’s market-distorting trade and subsidy practices has drawn broad support.

Lobbyists, company executives and U.S. lawmakers from both parties have urged Trump not to settle simply for Beijing’s offers to make big-ticket purchases from the United States to help reduce a record trade gap.

LOST IN TRANSLATION?

Details of where the two sides made progress were not immediately clear. Going into the talks, people familiar with the negotiations had said there were still significant differences on an enforcement mechanism and the sequence of when and how U.S. tariffs on Chinese products would be lifted.

Mnuchin and Lighthizer greeted a waiting Liu at the Diaoyutai State Guest House just before 9 a.m. (0100 GMT), and in two brief appearances before journalists, the three mingled and joked with members of the opposite teams.

Observers had anticipated the scope of this round of talks, which wrapped up about 24 hours after the U.S. delegation arrived, to be quite narrow, but that both countries hoped to signal they were working hard toward a resolution.

Reuters reported previously that the two sides were negotiating written pacts in six areas: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade.

A U.S. administration official told Reuters earlier this week that Lighthizer and Mnuchin were “literally sitting there going through the texts”, a task typically delegated to lower-level deputies.

One person with knowledge of the talks said “translation is definitely an issue”, referring to discrepancies between the Chinese and English-language versions.

On Thursday, Premier Li Keqiang said Beijing would sharply expand market access for foreign banks and securities and insurance companies, fuelling speculation that China may soon announce new rules allowing foreign financial firms to increase their presence.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the United States may drop some tariffs if a trade deal is reached, while keeping others in place to ensure Beijing’s compliance.

“We’re not going to give up our leverage,” he told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

‘THERE ARE GOING TO BE PROBLEMS’

Many have expressed scepticism that any deal can permanently resolve U.S.-China trade tensions.

“Whatever implementation mechanism China agrees to, whether it is monthly or quarterly meetings or other check-ins, there are going to be problems,” James Green, a senior advisor at McLarty Associates who until August was the top USTR official at the embassy in Beijing, told Reuters.

“Either the purchases are going to be off, or the market access is not going to be there. And then the question is, ‘When do you consider putting tariffs back on?’” he added. “The trade issue is not going to be put to bed.”

Trump’s demands include an end to Beijing’s practices that Washington says result in the systematic theft of U.S. intellectual property and the forced transfer of American technology to Chinese companies.

U.S. companies say they are often pressured into handing over technological know-how to Chinese joint venture partners, local officials or regulators as a condition for doing business in China.

Slideshow (4 Images)

The U.S. government says technology is often subsequently transferred to, and used by, Chinese competitors.

The issue has proved tough for negotiators as U.S. officials say China has previously refused to acknowledge the problem exists to the extent alleged by the United States, making it hard to discuss resolution.

China says its laws enshrine no requirements on technology transfers that are a result of legitimate transactions.

Reporting by Michael Martina and Philip Wen in Beijing; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Tim Ahmann and David Lawder in Washington; Writing by Ben Blanchard, Tony Munroe and David Lawder; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Clarence Fernandez and Dan Grebler

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/us-china-hold-candid-and-constructive-trade-talks-in-beijing-idUSKCN1RA02V

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