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Presidents used to vacation in seclusion — at a ranch in Texas or a beach house in Hawaii. Screening their visitors was relatively simple: The only people who came were friends and staff.

President Trump has added vast new complications by choosing to spend his weekends with his customers.

Trump stays at the Mar-a-Lago Club, a busy beachfront resort where his quarters are a short distance from the pool, the ballroom, and the “six star” seafood buffet. That decision — to use his Palm Beach, Fla., club as both a presidential retreat and a moneymaking resort — brings hundreds of members, overnight guests and partygoing strangers into the president’s “Winter White House” every weekend.

To protect the president, that requires the Secret Service to screen hundreds of would-be visitors against preapproved lists.

But to protect his business, it has also required the Secret Service to defer to Mar-a-Lago staffers and allow in some visitors who are not on the list.

Last weekend, that complex system of lists and exceptions broke down.

When a visitor approached the club, officers found she was not on the approved list — but let her in anyway after a Mar-a-Lago staffer suggested she might be the relative of a club member.

The woman, identified as Yujing Zhang, a Chinese national, was later arrested inside the club’s main building. Authorities said she was carrying four cellphones, a laptop and a thumb drive with malicious software.

“I’m surprised that she got in. But then again, I’m not surprised,” said Shannon Donnelly, the longtime society columnist for the Palm Beach Daily News who has covered Mar-a-Lago for years.

She described a situation in which the Secret Service is dealing with two missions, to keep the president safe and to keep his customers happy.

“It’s bound to happen” that people will slip through, Donnelly said. “There’s hundreds of people coming and going when there’s an event, and half of them are members — they’re not used to being stopped.”

On Wednesday, Trump said he had a brief meeting about the incident but said he was not concerned about potential espionage efforts aimed at Mar-a-Lago. He praised the Secret Service as well as the receptionist who first noticed something was amiss with Zhang.

“We have very good control,” he told reporters at the White House. “The person at the front desk did a very good job, to be honest with you.”

Zhang is in jail, charged with making a false statement to a federal officer and entering a restricted area. On Monday, a federal judge will decide whether she should remain in custody.

Counterintelligence agents at the FBI are also looking at Zhang to see whether they can find any information that would explain her behavior, according to people familiar with the matter.

On Wednesday, three top Senate Democrats asked FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to investigate whether foreign spies could exploit weaknesses at Mar-a-Lago to steal classified information. Zhang’s arrest “raises very serious questions regarding security vulnerabilities at Mar-a-Lago, which foreign intelligence services have reportedly targeted,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Bernd Lembcke, Mar-a-Lago’s longtime managing director, did not respond to questions about the club’s security procedures, including whether members are checked to see whether they might be foreign agents. Neither did Trump Organization executives in New York.

Mar-a-Lago stretches the full width of narrow Palm Beach island, off the coast of South Florida. It features a beach club, a main building with dining and living rooms, two ballrooms, six hotel suites and an attached house where Trump lives.

There is a cap of 500 members. As of last year, joining required sponsorship by an existing member and a payment of $200,000 — an initiation fee that doubled the year Trump took office. The annual dues are about $14,000, according to members.

Trump has been to the club 22 times since he became president, according to a Washington Post tally.

On busy Saturdays in the winter and spring — like this past Saturday, when Zhang got in — there are hundreds of people arriving. Some are members, coming to swim, eat or play tennis.

Others are attending luncheons and galas, holding tickets that cost them hundreds or thousands of dollars. At first, these galas largely drew guests from Palm Beach’s pastel-colored social scene. These days, after a decline in that traditional banquet business, the galas are more commonly aimed at Trump’s fervid political fan base, which extends beyond the clubby island.

That busy schedule is what Trump wanted for Mar-a-Lago, according to one former senior Trump administration official. Even after he became president, Trump did not want Mar-a-Lago to become a place where visitors became uncomfortable.

So he kept it as it was — and made his aides uncomfortable instead.

“The president has no idea who most of the people around him at the club are,” said another White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “You pay and you get in.”

When Trump is present, guests say, the first stop for visitors is a security screening in a parking lot across the street from the club.

There, past visitors said, guests give their names and identifications to Secret Service agents or police officers, who check them against a list supplied by the club. The checks are strict: One member said her 11-year-old grandson brings his passport with him when he comes to use the pool.

But visitors also described instances in which — if a name was not on the list — Mar-a-Lago security personnel would make exceptions if they knew the guest or found another staffer to vouch for them.

“Usually it’s the Mar-a-Lago people that are giving the go-ahead,” said one person familiar with the property who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering management. “If [the guest is] a familiar face, they would let them in.”

The Secret Service confirmed as much in its statement about Zhang’s arrest. “The Mar-a-Lago Club’s management determines which members and guests are granted access to the property,” the agency said.

The Secret Service has additional layers of protection around Trump. Agents stand outside the door to his residence, cordon off his table at dinner and surround him if he drops in to weddings or galas in the ballrooms. Guests cannot approach unless Trump waves them over.

“There’s no more access than they’d have than if he was in a restaurant,” said Ronald Kessler, an author who has known Trump for two decades. Kessler said his wife was yanked back by a Secret Service agent when they approached Trump’s table at Mar-a-Lago two years ago.

But, intelligence officials have said, a foreign spy might find Mar-a-Lago a gold mine — even if the spy never laid eyes on Trump. The club is full of Trump’s friends, aides and hangers-on; it could be bugged, or its computers hacked, if someone could get in the door.

In the case of Zhang, the Chinese woman arrested Saturday, she arrived at the first security checkpoint, in the parking lot across the street, and said she was headed to the club’s pool. She was not on the list. According to charging documents, a Mar-a-Lago staffer still allowed her in because the club “believed her to be the relative” of a club member whose name was also Zhang, prosecutors said.

Zhang was picked up by a club employee and driven in a golf cart to the main building. There, prosecutors said, a club receptionist stopped Zhang and asked her why she had come to the club.

Zhang said she had come from Shanghai to attend a “United Nations Friendship Event” at the club, at the invitation of a friend named “Charles.” But there was no such event scheduled, according to charging documents. The receptionist called over a Secret Service agent, the documents said, and Zhang then became “verbally aggressive” and was arrested.

Trump was in Palm Beach this past weekend, but at the time of Zhang’s entrance he was out of the club playing golf.

On Wednesday, authorities were still trying to understand her motivations.

One possibility: She really thought she had a ticket to an event at the club.

There is a Chinese entrepreneur named Charles Li, with a group called the United Nations Chinese Friendship Association, who has sold package tours in China that included tickets to galas at Mar-a-Lago, according to reporting by the Miami Herald.

The Washington Post sought to reach Li at the Beijing address listed for the association, but the building’s management said it had no such tenant.

The Post also sent messages through the Chinese social media network WeChat to a number listed for Li. When The Post asked whether this number belonged to Charles Li, the user sent back a photo of Trump doing a thumbs-up.

But then, when The Post asked about Zhang, the account did not respond, and then it blocked The Post from further contact.

Could Zhang have been at Mar-a-Lago as part of a foreign intelligence operation? Former U.S. counterintelligence officials said that was possible — but noted that it appeared to be an unsophisticated effort, lame enough to be foiled by a receptionist.

“I don’t know if it’s a sanctioned activity by the Chinese government, but there’s no doubt it’s some type of potential intelligence operation,” said Robert Anderson, a former senior FBI counterintelligence official. He is now chief executive of Cyber Defense Labs in Dallas.

He also called it “very disturbing” for someone “with that shoddy of a story to get by two or three levels of security” at a facility where the president could be in attendance. “How in the heck does that happen?”

Anna Fifield, Wang Yuan, Lyric Li and Liu Yang in Beijing; Colby Itkowitz, Karoun Demirjian and Rachael M. Bade in Washington; and Lori Rozsa in West Palm Beach, Fla., contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/you-pay-and-you-get-in-at-trumps-beach-retreat-hundreds-of-customers–and-growing-security-concerns/2019/04/03/7205bf28-5646-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html

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In another nail-biting vote in the U.K.’s Parliament, lawmakers voted by a majority of just one to force Prime Minister Theresa May to seek an extension to the Brexit process and avoid a no-deal departure.

Members of Parliament (MPs) voted for the draft legislation on Wednesday evening to prevent a shock no-deal exit on April 12 (the date of a new deadline granted by the EU) by 313 votes to 312. The bill will need to be approved by the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, to become law.

Despite last night’s vote in favor of a delay to Brexit, it’s far from certain that the EU will grant the U.K. an extension when European leaders meet next Wednesday, April 10, at an emergency summit dedicated to Brexit.

The U.K. was originally meant to leave the EU on March 29 but granted more time by the EU. Ahead of the U.K. Parliament’s vote last night, the European Commission President Jean-Claude reiterated that April 12 was the final date for the approval of the Brexit deal and that no short extension would be possible.

MPs have rejected May’s Brexit deal three times now, and a selection of alternative Brexit options have also failed to win a majority of support.

May’s talks with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn Wednesday also failed to reach any compromise or consensus. Whatever happens next, experts expect a longer delay to Brexit and more political and economic uncertainty.

“As an American watching this from afar, we thought this would be done by now and I think what we’re increasingly coming to terms with is that no matter what agreement is agreed right now, this is going to be a long-term process because Britain is divided,” Christopher Smart, head of macroeconomic and geopolitical research at Barings, told CNBC Thursday.

Prolonging the agony

A decision over an extension won’t be taken lightly; the EU does not want to be blamed for scuppering a Brexit deal and a disorderly Brexit could harm its own interests — but so too could an extension in which the uncertainty surrounding future relations is prolonged.

May continues talks with Corbyn on Thursday but if they cannot agree a compromise deal there are expected to be more parliamentary votes on what course Brexit should take. The ball is in Europe’s court over whether it will afford the U.K. more time if needed (and as expected) especially as it would mean that the U.K. will have to participate in European Parliament elections between May 23-26.

That could be an unappealing prospect for many politicians in Europe already wary of the rise of populist party politics — the same forces that fomented euroskeptic sentiment in the U.K. ahead of the 2016 referendum on EU membership.

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled Wednesday that she was willing to grant an open extension to allow for an orderly Brexit. Her counterpart in France, President Emmanuel Macron, is not so keen on a delay and the potential disruption that could cause, however.

“It is far from clear whether an extension will be forthcoming,” Stefan Auer, associate professor in European Studies at the University of Hong Kong, told CNBC Thursday.

“Merkel seems to be willing to grant it but she’ll need to persuade Macron in France that that is in the EU’s interests and I remain skeptical of that strategy, it will cause so much mess for the EU and the U.K. it will prolong the agony,” he told CNBC’s “Capital Connection.”

Auer said it would be a “nightmare” for the EU if the U.K. took part in EU parliamentary elections in May as it would boost euroskeptics in the region. “The EU, at its heart, is a voluntary association of nation states and the credibility of that claim would be greatly diminished if the perception is created that the U.K. is somehow not allowed to leave.”

“It would not only create a political mess in the U.K. … It would also have massive political repercussions in continental Europe so I think EU leaders will be wary of that prospect — but they’re equally wary of a no-deal Brexit,” he said.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/uk-votes-to-delay-brexit-again-but-the-eu-could-refuse.html

As mourners at a New Jersey funeral on Wednesday paid their respects to the college student who was killed after she mistook a car for her Uber ride, lawmakers in South Carolina, where she died, are pushing to require ride-share vehicles to be clearly marked with illuminated signs.

Samantha Josephson, a 21-year-old University of South Carolina student from New Jersey, was killed last week. Investigators think she got into the wrong car early Friday while waiting for an Uber outside a bar in Columbia. A suspect has been arrested, and police say she apparently mistook his car for the Uber she ordered.

Nathaniel D. Rowland, 24, has been charged with murder and kidnapping. The student’s body was found in a wooded area in Clarendon County on Friday afternoon. Rowland was arrested after he was pulled over in Columbia early Saturday, police have said.

Seth Josephson told mourners Wednesday that the family’s “sadness will never end,” NBC New York reported.

“It may wane in the future, but it will always leave a hole in the heart,” he said, while reading a statement on behalf of Josephson’s family. Seth Josephson is a cousin of Samantha Josephson’s father.

Josephson’s father, Seymour Josephson, has said he would dedicate his life to improving the safety of ride-share services.

“Samantha was by herself. She had absolutely no chance. None. The door was locked, the child safety locks were on. She had absolutely no chance,” he said at a vigil in Columbia on Sunday.

In response to Josephson’s death, South Carolina lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require all ride-share drivers to display an illuminated sign to clearly mark their vehicles.

“We can’t stop a psychopath from doing something hideous, but as lawmakers, policymakers, we need to take precautions to make the likelihood that something like this happen less,” said state Rep. Seth Rose, a Democrat, according to NBC affiliate WIS of Columbia.

The bill, the “Samantha L. Josephson Ridesharing Safety Act,” was introduced Tuesday.

It would require that “transportation network company” vehicles display an illuminated sign that can be seen in darkness. The current law requires a sign or emblem that is reflective.

Uber and Lyft did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about the proposed changes to the law or about regulations they have regarding lighted signs.

It appears from Lyft’s website that its lighted sign, called “amp” is available to higher-tier drivers in some areas. Uber also has a lighted sign called “beacon” that is described as an option, according to that company’s website.

The University of South Carolina on Monday announced a “What’s My Name” campaign to help students stay safe when requesting ride-share vehicles.

Uber announced it would partner with the university to raise awareness about safety.

“Since 2017, we’ve been working with local law enforcement to educate the public about how to avoid fake rideshare drivers,” Uber said in the statement. “Everyone at Uber is devastated to hear about this unspeakable crime, and our hearts are with Samantha Josephson’s family and loved ones.”

Uber encourages users to check the car, license plate and driver against information delivered through the app before getting in. If the information does not match, do not get in the vehicle, the company says.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-carolina-lawmakers-push-lighted-signs-ride-share-vehicles-after-n990746

President Trump responded with a dismissive taunt on Wednesday after a House committee chairman formally requested the IRS provide several years of his personal and business tax returns, in a move that prompted congressional Republicans to warn that Democrats had “weaponized” tax law.

Told by a reporter at the White House that Democrats wanted six years of his tax returns, Trump replied: “Is that all? Usually it’s 10. So I guess they’re giving up. We’re under audit, despite what people said, and we’re working that out — I’m always under audit, it seems, but I’ve been under audit for many years, because the numbers are big, and I guess when you have a name, you’re audited. But until such time as I’m not under audit, I would not be inclined to do that.”

The request Wednesday by Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal, who heads the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, is the first such demand for a sitting president’s tax information in 45 years. The move sets up a virtually certain legal showdown with the White House.

Neal made the request in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, asking for Trump’s personal and business returns for 2013 through 2018. Neal told Rettig that Democrats have a duty “to ensure that the Internal Revenue Service is enforcing the laws in a fair and impartial manner.”

“It is critical to ensure the accountability of our government and elected officials,” Neal said in a statement. “To maintain trust in our democracy, the American people must be assured that their government is operating properly, as laws intend.”

The president’s congressional allies registered immediate and fierce disapproval. The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady, R-Texas, wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to decry what he called Democrats’ “abuse” of their authority.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., arrives for a Democratic Caucus meeting at the Capitol in Washington, on April 2, 2019. Rep. Neal, whose committee has jurisdiction over all tax issues, has formally requested President Donald Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service for the past 6 years. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

“Weaponizing our nation’s tax code by targeting political foes sets a dangerous precedent and weakens Americans’ privacy rights, As you know, by law all Americans have a fundamental right to the privacy of the personal information found in their tax returns,” Brady said in the letter. “This particular request is an abuse of the tax-writing committees’ statutory authority, and violates the intent and safeguards of Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code as Congress intended.”

That provision of tax law generally prohibits the disclosure of personal tax information.

Brady added that while “transparency in our government is enormously important,” the “privacy and freedom” of all taxpayers is paramount — and that Congress should pass new disclosure laws if it sees a problem. Violating the privacy rights of one taxpayer, Brady asserted, “begins the process of eroding and threatening the privacy rights of all taxpayers.”

A spokesperson for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News that the “ability of the chairman to request such information is intended to inform the legislative process, which is how it’s been used in the past, not to engage in a politically-motivated fishing expedition.”

Congress “passed section 6103 of the tax code to prevent that kind of abuse of power and to protect every taxpayer’s privacy,” the spokesperson continued. “Those seeking an individual’s personal tax returns to exact political damage would be opening the door to future abuses of power and would poison the public trust in the ability of the IRS to keep personal information private. That’s an outcome every taxpayer and their elected representatives should want to avoid.”

Neal specifically demanded the federal income tax returns from eight entities, including Trump National Golf Club-Bedminster, as well as statements specifying whether the returns were ever under audit. Neal also demanded all administrative files, including affidavits, related to each return.

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Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., followed up with a statement backing up his counterpart in the House.

“The law is crystal clear—the Treasury Department must provide tax returns to the Ways & Means and Finance Committees when the chairman requests them. I expect the Treasury Department to comply in a timely manner,” Wyden said. “Chairman Grassley should make the same request so Senate Finance Committee members are also able to access them.”

Fox News’ Mike Emanuel, Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-dem-asks-irs-for-6-years-of-trumps-tax-returns

Mr. Trump encouraged one organizer to pack the ballroom for a February event beyond the 700-person limit, advising that person to tell his staff at Mar-a-Lago that he said he would allow the increase. That organizer was told that the Mar-a-Lago security team had no final say over crowd numbers, but the event still grew to around 730 guests.

In the end, Mr. Trump did not attend, and it was screened by Mar-a-Lago officials and a private security company hired by the event’s organizers.

When the president is not at his club, the security bubble becomes easier to break.

Members and guests must still present identification and check in with the club’s security team, but several layers of Secret Service protection are not in place. Laurence Leamer, a Palm Beach resident who wrote a book about Mar-a-Lago, said in an interview that the scene could be freewheeling, “like having dinner at the Outback Steakhouse,” adding that the security “seems to me to be incredibly lax.”

Mr. Trump was at his nearby golf club four miles away when Ms. Zhang showed up at the resort on Saturday, and the process that the Secret Service uses to check visitors when he is in town was in place, officials said. Ms. Zhang was screened by agents before reaching the club’s reception area, but confusion over her name and a potential communication barrier led to her entering.

On Wednesday, the Secret Service was reviewing the Saturday incident with security at Mar-a-Lago. John Cohen, a former acting under secretary at the Department of Homeland Security who worked closely with the Secret Service on protection details, said the president’s “predictable” travel to the resort had made the location vulnerable.

“That’s a nightmare for the Secret Service,” he said. “A privately owned ranch where the president and his people use the location is much easier than protecting the president when he chooses to go to a private club that’s open to members that provides services to those people in exchange for a fee.”

When people approach a checkpoint at Mar-a-Lago, the Secret Service is focused on screening them for weapons or explosives, Mr. Mihalek said.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/mar-a-lago-chinese-malware.html

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday exceeded its bounds in issuing a subpoena for the full report from special counsel Robert Mueller on Russian skullduggery concerning the 2016 elections.

Attorney General William Barr should release as much of the Mueller report as possible, as soon as possible, because the public has a right to see what all the fuss was about. Yet if he determines that some information within it is either classified or subject to grand jury secrecy rules, he is duty-bound to redact it. Unless Congress passes, and President Trump signs, a new law waiving grand jury secrecy rules, then existing laws protecting that secrecy should take legal precedence over Congress’ subpoena authority.

This is decidedly not a similar situation to the 1998 investigation of, and eventual impeachment of, then-President Bill Clinton. That investigation was led not by a special counsel, which is what Robert Mueller was, but by an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. The difference is significant.

Under the independent counsel statute, which has since lapsed (and always was of dubious constitutionality anyway), such counsels were creatures of, and reported to, Congress. They existed independent of, and separate from, the ordinary lines of authority within the Justice Department and the executive branch. When House Speaker Newt Gingrich and company made the foolish decision to post the full Starr report immediately on the Internet, they had full power to do so because Starr’s report was specifically theirs to use as they saw fit.

Special counsels are different. Special counsels, while enjoying a modicum of separation from ordinary lines of authority in the Justice Department, are nonetheless still ultimately part of the department and the executive branch as a whole. They report to the attorney general (or his designee), and they must follow all ordinary rules of civil and criminal procedure.

Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), neither the attorney for the government nor anyone else may “disclose a matter occurring before the grand jury.” The exceptions involve disclosure to another federal grand jury or to an attorney for the government pursuing another criminal matter in certain circumstances, or to certain national security officials if the information involves foreign intelligence, terrorism, or threat of attack. If petitioned by the government or a defendant in another judicial proceeding, the court can also permit release in the other proceeding. Absent such very limited circumstances, Barr would run afoul of this almost blanket prohibition, and could be sanctioned by contempt of court if he disclosed to Congress any grand jury information in the Mueller report under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(7).

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and the Democrats surely know this, but seem not to care about the rule of law, the sanctity of the grand jury process, or the lack of any impeachment authorization in the House that could be considered a “judicial proceeding” to support their subpoena.

The Democrats are not seeking the grand jury information “to avoid a possible injustice in another judicial proceeding,” Douglas Oil Co. v. Petrol Stops Nw., 441 U.S. 211, 222 (1979). Nor are they seeking grand jury information to support articles of impeachment, as the House has not authorized such inquiry, unlike 1974 when grand jury information was produced to the Judiciary Committee related to its impeachment inquiry of President Richard M. Nixon. (Haldeman v. Sirica, 501 F.2d 714 — D.C. Cir. 1974). Likewise, the impeachment proceedings of federal district Judge Alcee Hastings provided the basis for the 11th Circuit to consider such congressional efforts a “judicial proceeding” and thus the House Judiciary Committee could subpoena grand jury documents related to Hastings’ indictment. (In re Request for Access to Grand Jury Materials Grand Jury 81-1, Miami, 833 F.2d 1438 — 11th Cir. 1987).

If Nadler wants to subpoena any grand jury information contained in the Mueller report, he first needs a majority of the House to authorize the Judiciary Committee to investigate impeachment of President Trump.

Somehow, it doesn’t seem as if Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to open that can of worms, at least not yet.

Quin Hillyer is a senior commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. James Robertson is a lawyer in Mobile, Ala.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/jerry-nadlers-mueller-report-subpoena-isnt-legit-without-impeachment-inquiry

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Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-03/mueller-testimony-before-congress-inevitable-schiff-says

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Updated 5:00 PM ET, Wed April 3, 2019

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New York (CNN Business)Two years ago, Boeing was on top. Its stock was up 40% over the previous year. It was one of the hottest stocks around. The outlook for sales and profit was bright. And the company was about to start delivering its new 737 Max jet.

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/business/boeing-737-max-crisis/index.html

    Federal immigration authorities arrested more than 280 employees of a Texas company in what officials said was the biggest single workplace raid in a decade.

    The homeland security investigations unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the employees of CVE Technology Group Inc. in the city of Allen, north of Dallas, were arrested on administrative immigration violations and that they were working in the United States unlawfully.

    The raid was part of an ongoing investigation into complaints that the company may have knowingly hired people who are in the U.S. without authorization and that many of those workers were using fraudulent identification documents, the agency said.

    CVE Group Inc. is a New Jersey-based company that refurbishes and repairs consumer tech products and has a national receiving center in North Texas, according to the company’s website.

    The company could not immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday.

    “Our focus is the criminal investigation,” said Katrina W. Berger, a special agent in charge for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas.

    “As far as immigration-related arrests, this is the largest ICE worksite operation at one site in the last 10 years,” she said.

    Relatives of workers came to the facility after word of the operation spread, some emotional and wondering about their loved ones, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported.

    Anel Perez, the daughter of a worker who was been detained, told the station, “It’s not fair. It’s really sad and it makes a lot of people really angry and frustrated,”

    Berger said she could not discuss many details of that ongoing probe but that “the numbers of the administrative arrests we made today hint at the significant scope of this investigation.”

    ICE said that all those arrested would be interviewed “to record any medical, sole-caregiver or other humanitarian situations,” and that the federal agency would then determine whether any would be considered for humanitarian release.

    But the agency also said in the statement, “In all cases, all illegal aliens encountered will be fingerprinted and processed for removal from the United States.”

    Berger said that authorities were still vetting information and she did not have the nationalities, ages or any criminal backgrounds of those taken into custody.

    ICE said that search warrants were executed at CVE Technology Group Inc. and four of CVE’s staffing companies.

    Berger said that federal law requires all employers verify that workers are in the country legally with an I-9 form. ICE said an audit of those forms that began in January “confirmed numerous hiring irregularities.”

    “In this case with CVE, we received many tips that they were hiring illegal aliens who were using fraudulent documents,” she said.

    Berger, speaking generally and not about this case, said that immigration laws aim to ensure U.S. citizens and legal residents have a fair chance at getting jobs and that companies compete on the same playing field.

    In addition, workers hired illegally can be abused and exploited such as by being paid less or subjected to unsafe working conditions, she said.

    Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-arrests-more-280-texas-business-biggest-workplace-immigration-raid-n990766

    WEST WINDSOR, N.J. (AP) — Hundreds of mourners packed a temple in New Jersey for the funeral of a college student who authorities say mistakenly got into the wrong car and was kidnapped and killed in South Carolina.

    Services for Samantha Josephson were held Wednesday at Congregation Beth Chaim in West Windsor. Josephson, 21, was from nearby Robbinsville and attended the University of South Carolina.

    Josephson ordered an Uber ride early Friday but mistakenly got into a similar car driven by Nathaniel David Rowland , 24, authorities said. They allege that he killed Josephson and dumped her body.

    Josephson had spent the night with friends at Columbia’s Five Points bar district, authorities said. She got separated from the group, so she called an Uber to take her home around 1:30 a.m. Friday.

    The first dark car Josephson went up to was not her ride, her father, Seymour Josephson said. So she jumped into a second similar looking car, he said, adding that the vehicle’s child safety locks were on.

    After Josephson got into Rowland’s car, he attacked her, causing numerous wounds to her head, neck, face, upper body, leg and foot with a sharp object, according to arrest warrants and the coroner’s report. The documents didn’t say what was used to attack her.

    Josephson’s blood and cellphone were found in his car the next night when he was arrested two blocks from Five Points, authorities said.

    Josephson’s body was found in Clarendon County, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) from Columbia, police said.

    Rowland skipped a first court appearance, and records don’t show if he has a lawyer. He’s charged with kidnapping and murder.

    In the wake of Josephson’s death, a bill has been introduced in the South Carolina Legislature to require Uber and Lyft drivers to have illuminated signs.

    Source Article from https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/04/03/funeral-held-for-student-killed-after-ride-share-mistake/

    As the press gives more attention to the mounting accusations against former Vice President Joe Biden for inappropriate touching, it is only doing more to confirm all of the suspicions that conservatives have about liberal media bias.

    The New York Times quoted two more women as saying they felt uncomfortable by the way Biden touched them, which follows two other accusations of a similar nature.

    However, there is nothing particularly new about the idea that Biden is handsy. The fact was well known for years and demonstrated in many photos and videos. A number of conservatives tried to argue that his creepy behavior shouldn’t simply be dismissed as just a cuddly Biden being Biden. At the time, though, the matter was largely ignored by the media, treated as a joke, or waved off as “faux outrage.”

    It’s hard to argue that the issue was irrelevant at the time, and that it’s only emerging now because Biden is considering a run for president. It’s not as if he were an obscure figure at the time these incidents occurred. He was the vice president of the United States.

    The only thing that’s changed is Biden’s opponents. Had the media scrutinized Biden’s behavior back then, it would have benefited Republicans and caused headaches for the Obama administration. Now, however, Biden’s opponents are a dozen or more Democrats. Given that he’s been consistently on top of polls for the 2020 Democratic nomination, all of the rival camps are gunning for him, and hoping to destroy his candidacy before it even gets off the launch pad.

    So, it’s entirely predictable that the media are suddenly focusing on Biden’s touching problem now, even while acknowledging that it was an open secret for years.

    Should Biden go on to win the Democratic nomination, expect the media to go back to suddenly not caring about this issue. And any attempt by conservatives to raise it will just be shut down by pointing to President Trump’s record of boasting about grabbing women.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/that-joe-bidens-touching-is-only-becoming-an-issue-now-confirms-liberal-media-bias

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal has asked the Internal Revenue Service to provide six years of President Donald Trump’s personal and business tax returns.

    “We have completed the necessary groundwork for a request of this magnitude and I am certain we are within our legitimate legislative, legal, and oversight rights,” Neal said in a statement on Wednesday announcing the request.

    Neal, who is the only House of Representatives member authorized by law to request Trump’s returns, has been under pressure to act from some Democratic lawmakers and outside groups.

    U.S. Treasury officials were not immediately available for comment.

    Trump defied decades of precedent as a presidential candidate by refusing to release the tax documents and has continued to keep them under wraps as president, saying his returns were under audit by the IRS.

    Democrats hope that obtaining the returns will allow them to identify any conflicts of interest posed by Trump’s global business empire.

    Republicans oppose the effort, saying such a move would set a dangerous precedent by turning the confidential tax documents of a U.S. citizen into a political weapon.

    (Reporting by David Morgan and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Peter Cooney)




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    Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2019/04/03/us-house-committee-seeks-trump-tax-returns-from-irs/23705919/

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued a rules change was needed because Democrats were holding up President Trump’s judicial and agency nominees.

    Patrick Semansky/AP


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    Patrick Semansky/AP

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued a rules change was needed because Democrats were holding up President Trump’s judicial and agency nominees.

    Patrick Semansky/AP

    The Senate voted largely along party lines to change its debate rules — a move that will speed up the confirmation process for some lower-level judicial and agency nominees.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., used a complex procedural maneuver, known as the nuclear option, to cut debate for lower-level nominees from 30 hours to two hours. The change does not apply to Cabinet-level nominees, federal appeals judges, members of some boards and commissions or the Supreme Court. It also does not change the 60-vote requirement to advance legislation.

    All Senate Democrats opposed the move, and they were joined by two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Mike Lee of Utah.

    McConnell said the change is necessary to prevent obstruction from Democrats who have demanded lengthy debate on a number of nominees. He blamed Democrats for dragging their feet on a variety of noncontroversial candidates simply because they were nominated by President Trump.

    “It is time for this sorry chapter to end,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “It is time to return this body to a more normal and reasonable process for fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities no matter which party controls the White House.”

    But Democrats insist changing the rules brings the Senate one step closer to eliminating the filibuster, a key tool for protecting the rights of the minority party in the Senate. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the longest-serving Democrat in the Senate, said Republicans are stripping rank-and-file members of both parties of a much needed opportunity to vet nominees before they come to the floor for a vote.

    “It is an erosion of the Senate’s responsibility,” Leahy said. “It is a removal of one of the last guardrails for quality and bipartisanship in the nominations process. It is a shortsighted partisan power grab.”

    Democrats and outside analysts like Elliot Mincberg, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, point out that senators have changed their mind on nominees during the 30-hour debate time that Republicans voted to eliminate.

    “It’s very important to point out that these 30 hours that are provided for under long-standing Senate rules are critical in taking a good hard look at some of these Trump nominees,” Mincberg said.

    The two high-profile examples cited most often are Thomas Farr and Ryan Bounds, two Trump judicial nominees who were not confirmed despite overcoming a first procedural vote. Farr lost a vote in November after three GOP senators, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, changed their minds.

    Trump withdrew the Bounds nomination after it became clear that he would meet a similar fate.

    Democrats and activists also worry that the move will further ease Republicans’ quest to remake the federal court system by installing conservative judges at all levels of the judiciary.

    “What Leader McConnell, President Trump and Republicans in the Senate are trying to do is use the courts to adopt a far-right agenda that Republicans know they cannot enact through the legislative process,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said shortly before the rules change. “They decided there was another route to achieving their policy goals. One that requires neither public support nor legislation: the court.”

    Progressive activists have been organizing against the rules change and hope to make the courts a larger issue for Democrats in the 2020 election.

    Daniel Goldberg, legal director at the left-leaning Alliance for Justice, said, “This is just another example of the outrageous actions by Sen. McConnell and the Senate majority to do everything they can to enable the confirmation of ideologically extreme judges without careful vetting and without scrutiny by fellow senators and by the American people.”

    NPR’s Carrie Johnson contributed to this story.

    Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/04/03/709489797/senate-rewrites-rules-to-speed-confirmations-for-some-trump-nominees

    Investigators claim that a 14-year-old boy in Ohio identified himself on Wednesday as Timmothy Pitzen, a 6-year-old boy who vanished in 2011, and said he had just escaped the grasp of two kidnappers who allegedly held him for seven years.

    The boy told police that on Wednesday morning, he had “just escaped from two kidnappers” whom he described as white men with body builder physiques, according to an incident report from the Sharonville Police Department obtained by The Associated Press.

    TEXAS BOY, 9, MISSING SINCE 2017 FOUND IN FLORIDA

    “One had black curly hair, Mt. Dew shirt and jeans, & has a spider web tattoo on his neck,” the report stated. “The other was short in stature and had a snake tattoo on his arms.”

    The self-identified Pitzen said the men were driving a newer model of a Ford SUV with Wisconsin license plates. The boy said that after he escaped, he “kept running across a bridge into Kentucky.”

    Sharonville Police wrote on Facebook that they had no contact with Pitzen, and the aforementioned report included information from a dispatch log.

    Investigators have said that Pitzen disappeared after his mother, 43-year-old Amy Fry-Pitzen, picked him up from school in May 2011. It’s believed she took the boy to the zoo and a water park in Wisconsin before apparently killing herself in a hotel room in Illinois.

    Fry-Pitzen left a note saying her son was fine. Police investigating her death said she took steps that suggested she might have, as she said in her note, dropped her son off with a friend.

    The FBI Louisville field office confirmed on Twitter Wednesday that they were working with several law enforcement agencies — including the Cincinnati field office, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio and police in Aurora, Illinois, Newport, Kentucky and Cincinatti, Ohio — on a missing child investigation.

    Aurora Police Sgt. Bill Rowley told the AP Wednesday afternoon that the boy “disappeared ten years ago and we’ve probably had thousands of tips of him popping up in different areas.”

    “We have no idea what we’re driving down there for,” he said. “It could be Pitzen. It could be a hoax.”

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    The department said they know there’s a boy involved but don’t know who he is, or if he has any connection to Pitzen, Rowley said, adding the force is sending two detectives to Cincinnati to investigate.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/us/illinois-boy-who-vanished-in-2011-may-have-been-found-in-cincinnati-area-officials-say

    The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX, which crashed in March and killed 157 people, suffered a damaged angle-of-attack sensor upon takeoff from a bird or foreign object, triggering erroneous data and the activation an anti-stall system — called MCAS — sending the pitch of the plane downward and ultimately crashing into the ground, two aviation sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

    As the jet was nose diving, the Boeing 737 MAX pilots did not try to electronically pull the nose of the plane up before following Boeing’s emergency procedures of disengaging power to the horizontal stabilizer on the rear of the aircraft, according to the sources.

    One source told ABC News that they manually attempted to bring the nose of the plane back up by using the trim wheel. Soon after, the pilots restored power to the horizontal stabilizer.

    With power restored, the MCAS was re-engaged, the sources said, and the pilots were unable to regain control and the plane crashed.

    The preliminary findings in the crash investigation are expected to be released by transportation officials in Ethiopia on Thursday morning.

    Earlier Wednesday, Boeing released a statement that said, “we urge caution against speculating and drawing conclusions on the findings prior to the release of the flight data and the preliminary report.”

    French and American investigators are assisting in the Ethiopian probe and at the center of it is an automated anti-stall safety system on the MAX and its possible link to issues in the Ethiopian flight and a Lion Air crash in 2018.

    In both crashes, the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft struggled to maintain a steady flight path. The planes repeatedly lost and gained altitude before entering a dive to the earth’s surface. In the two incidents, a new anti-stall safety system on the MAX that controls trim — MCAS — was activated, sources have told ABC News.

    Commercial airline pilots are trained to disengage the system in the event of runaway trim, when the airplane is making unexpected pitch movements. It is unknown what would have kept the pilots of the Lion Air flight from disengaging the system and trimming the aircraft. Lion Air has defended the training of its pilots.

    In the days following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, airlines and aviation authorities around the world grounded the MAX. The United States was the last to do so on March 13, after the Federal Aviation Administration concluded the refined satellite data that became available to the agency that day warranted a temporary grounding of the MAX.

    Last week, the acting FAA administrator went to Capitol Hill to defend the government’s response to the two crashes. Daniel Elwell told senators on Wednesday that while the FAA may have been among the last aviation regulators in the world to ground the MAX, it and Canada were the first to make a decision based on robust data from the aircraft.

    Boeing says it is working a software update for the automated safety system and it is expected to be approved by the FAA and offered to airline in a few weeks.

    Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/damaged-sensor-ethiopian-airlines-737-max-triggered-fatal/story?id=62139860

    The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday exceeded its bounds in issuing a subpoena for the full report from special counsel Robert Mueller on Russian skullduggery concerning the 2016 elections.

    Attorney General William Barr should release as much of the Mueller report as possible, as soon as possible, because the public has a right to see what all the fuss was about. Yet if he determines that some information within it is either classified or subject to grand jury secrecy rules, he is duty-bound to redact it. Unless Congress passes, and President Trump signs, a new law waiving grand jury secrecy rules, then existing laws protecting that secrecy should take legal precedence over Congress’ subpoena authority.

    This is decidedly not a similar situation to the 1998 investigation of, and eventual impeachment of, then-President Bill Clinton. That investigation was led not by a special counsel, which is what Robert Mueller was, but by an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. The difference is significant.

    Under the independent counsel statute, which has since lapsed (and always was of dubious constitutionality anyway), such counsels were creatures of, and reported to, Congress. They existed independent of, and separate from, the ordinary lines of authority within the Justice Department and the executive branch. When House Speaker Newt Gingrich and company made the foolish decision to post the full Starr report immediately on the Internet, they had full power to do so because Starr’s report was specifically theirs to use as they saw fit.

    Special counsels are different. Special counsels, while enjoying a modicum of separation from ordinary lines of authority in the Justice Department, are nonetheless still ultimately part of the department and the executive branch as a whole. They report to the attorney general (or his designee), and they must follow all ordinary rules of civil and criminal procedure.

    Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), neither the attorney for the government nor anyone else may “disclose a matter occurring before the grand jury.” The exceptions involve disclosure to another federal grand jury or to an attorney for the government pursuing another criminal matter in certain circumstances, or to certain national security officials if the information involves foreign intelligence, terrorism, or threat of attack. If petitioned by the government or a defendant in another judicial proceeding, the court can also permit release in the other proceeding. Absent such very limited circumstances, Barr would run afoul of this almost blanket prohibition, and could be sanctioned by contempt of court if he disclosed to Congress any grand jury information in the Mueller report under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(7).

    Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and the Democrats surely know this, but seem not to care about the rule of law, the sanctity of the grand jury process, or the lack of any impeachment authorization in the House that could be considered a “judicial proceeding” to support their subpoena.

    The Democrats are not seeking the grand jury information “to avoid a possible injustice in another judicial proceeding,” Douglas Oil Co. v. Petrol Stops Nw., 441 U.S. 211, 222 (1979). Nor are they seeking grand jury information to support articles of impeachment, as the House has not authorized such inquiry, unlike 1974 when grand jury information was produced to the Judiciary Committee related to its impeachment inquiry of President Richard M. Nixon. (Haldeman v. Sirica, 501 F.2d 714 — D.C. Cir. 1974). Likewise, the impeachment proceedings of federal district Judge Alcee Hastings provided the basis for the 11th Circuit to consider such congressional efforts a “judicial proceeding” and thus the House Judiciary Committee could subpoena grand jury documents related to Hastings’ indictment. (In re Request for Access to Grand Jury Materials Grand Jury 81-1, Miami, 833 F.2d 1438 — 11th Cir. 1987).

    If Nadler wants to subpoena any grand jury information contained in the Mueller report, he first needs a majority of the House to authorize the Judiciary Committee to investigate impeachment of President Trump.

    Somehow, it doesn’t seem as if Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to open that can of worms, at least not yet.

    Quin Hillyer is a senior commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. James Robertson is a lawyer in Mobile, Ala.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/jerry-nadlers-mueller-report-subpoena-isnt-legit-without-impeachment-inquiry

    The greatest teacher I ever had gave me some good advice before I went to college.

    “When you start college, all of your peers are roughly worth nine dollars per hour,” he told my class. “Do everything you can to increase that value in those four years, and don’t hate your classmates who increased their economic value more than you did.”

    He made clear to remind us that our economic value had zero correlation with our human value. To judge people with fewer marketable skills, he said, would be to go down “jerk road.” This was my rough introduction to understanding the evils of utilitarian ethics.

    Somewhere along the line, the Democratic Party has had a divorce between Kantian liberals, who understand that a social safety net ought to exist for those lacking the skills or opportunities to finance themselves, and utilitarian leftists, who view market forces themselves as fundamentally evil. No one exemplifies this break more than socialist superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

    I discussed the economic forces (mis)guiding this tweet earlier this week, but it’s worth considering the ethical fallacy here. Ocasio-Cortez insinuates here that the economic value of human labor ought to be tied not to market equilibrium but human value. A suboptimal airport croissant may be $7. An hour of unskilled labor may be worth $11.80 in New York, though LaGuardia is increasing its own minimum wage to $19. But the value of the human life itself has nothing to do with its economic potential or its earning power. It’s priceless.

    I’ve been struggling to ascertain why Andrew Yang is so interesting. The self-described “Asian guy who likes math” provides plenty of policy wonkishness of which the 2020 race is sorely in need, but “candidate who provides actual details” or “caring about funding as much as costs” isn’t revolutionary. It took Yang’s latest interview with Wired for me to understand what fundamental truth Yang has highlighted.

    When asked about the common platitude that people losing manufacturing jobs can simply learn to code, Yang responded:

    To be clear, this is a liberal argument, not a conservative one. Yang’s specifically setting up the case for a $1,000 opt-in universal basic income which he dubs the “freedom dividend.” He argues that it will help those financially struggling to overcome the cognitive biases of fiscal instability and provide a baseline social safety net so that people have more flexibility in pursuing various careers.

    But this is also a liberal argument, not a utilitarian one, that inadvertently diagnoses an ill that’s overtaken the insurgent wing of the Democratic Party. Two things can be true at once: People should feel obligated to increase their economic value insofar as they can sustain their own lives, and people also have an intrinsic human value that cannot be measured in dollars. Yang is effectively paving a potential neoliberal future for the Democratic Party — one which can call for increased government spending without engaging in goofy AOC economics that vilifies the free market, which has lifted more than a billion people out of poverty worldwide so far just this century, and billions more in the 20th Century, and which is the single most efficient form of allocating goods and services.

    American socialists like to point to Scandinavian countries to justify increasing central planning. But Scandinavian countries rely on the free market to fund their welfare safety nets. They do not employ fundamentally centralized socialist systems with market forces on the fringes. As Veronique de Rugy pointed out late last March, the future that Ocasio-Cortez looks little like the increasingly deregulated Denmark and Sweden, and it bears little resemblance to the Norwegian petro-state either.

    Ocasio-Cortez ought to listen to Yang. Yes, liberals believe in economic safety nets, but a UBI can provide it without harming the entire economy the way a $15 federal minimum wage would, especially in those states and regions with lower costs of living.

    In other words, it’s a mistake for Democrats to go down “the jerk road,” and instead understand that economic value has a cap, but human value is infinite.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/aoc-should-learn-from-andrew-yang-about-human-value

    As the press gives more attention to the mounting accusations against former Vice President Joe Biden for inappropriate touching, it is only doing more to confirm all of the suspicions that conservatives have about liberal media bias.

    The New York Times quoted two more women as saying they felt uncomfortable by the way Biden touched them, which follows two other accusations of a similar nature.

    However, there is nothing particularly new about the idea that Biden is handsy. The fact was well known for years and demonstrated in many photos and videos. A number of conservatives tried to argue that his creepy behavior shouldn’t simply be dismissed as just a cuddly Biden being Biden. At the time, though, the matter was largely ignored by the media, treated as a joke, or waved off as “faux outrage.”

    It’s hard to argue that the issue was irrelevant at the time, and that it’s only emerging now because Biden is considering a run for president. It’s not as if he were an obscure figure at the time these incidents occurred. He was the vice president of the United States.

    The only thing that’s changed is Biden’s opponents. Had the media scrutinized Biden’s behavior back then, it would have benefited Republicans and caused headaches for the Obama administration. Now, however, Biden’s opponents are a dozen or more Democrats. Given that he’s been consistently on top of polls for the 2020 Democratic nomination, all of the rival camps are gunning for him, and hoping to destroy his candidacy before it even gets off the launch pad.

    So, it’s entirely predictable that the media are suddenly focusing on Biden’s touching problem now, even while acknowledging that it was an open secret for years.

    Should Biden go on to win the Democratic nomination, expect the media to go back to suddenly not caring about this issue. And any attempt by conservatives to raise it will just be shut down by pointing to President Trump’s record of boasting about grabbing women.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/that-joe-bidens-touching-is-only-becoming-an-issue-now-confirms-liberal-media-bias

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CNN.MobileWebFloatingPlayer.transition,onPin: function () {playerInstance.hideUI();},onUnpin: function () {playerInstance.showUI();},onPlayerClick: function () {if (mobilePinnedView) {playerInstance.enterFullscreen();playerInstance.showUI();}},onDismiss: function() {CNN.Videx.mobile.pinnedPlayer.disable();playerInstance.pause();}});/* Storing pinned view on CNN.Videx.mobile.pinnedPlayer So that all players can see the single pinned player */CNN.Videx = CNN.Videx || {};CNN.Videx.mobile = CNN.Videx.mobile || {};CNN.Videx.mobile.pinnedPlayer = mobilePinnedView;}if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (jQuery(containerClassId).parents(‘.js-pg-rail-tall__head’).length) {videoPinner = new CNN.VideoPinner(containerClassId);videoPinner.init();} else {CNN.VideoPlayer.hideThumbnail(containerId);}}},onContentEntryLoad: function(containerId, playerId, contentid, isQueue) {CNN.VideoPlayer.showSpinner(containerId);},onContentPause: function (containerId, playerId, videoId, paused) {if (mobilePinnedView) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleMobilePinnedPlayerStates(containerId, paused);}},onContentMetadata: function (containerId, playerId, metadata, contentId, duration, width, height) {var endSlateLen = jQuery(document.getElementById(containerId)).parent().find(‘.js-video__end-slate’).eq(0).length;CNN.VideoSourceUtils.updateSource(containerId, metadata);if (endSlateLen > 0) {videoEndSlateImpl.fetchAndShowRecommendedVideos(metadata);}},onAdPlay: function (containerId, cvpId, token, mode, id, duration, blockId, adType) {/* Dismissing the pinnedPlayer if another video players plays an Ad */CNN.VideoPlayer.dismissMobilePinnedPlayer(containerId);clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);videoPinner.animateDown();}}},onAdPause: function (containerId, playerId, token, mode, id, duration, blockId, adType, instance, isAdPause) {if (mobilePinnedView) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleMobilePinnedPlayerStates(containerId, isAdPause);}},onTrackingFullscreen: function (containerId, PlayerId, dataObj) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleFullscreenChange(containerId, dataObj);if (mobilePinnedView &&typeof dataObj === ‘object’ &&FAVE.Utils.os === ‘iOS’ && !dataObj.fullscreen) {jQuery(document).scrollTop(mobilePinnedView.getScrollPosition());playerInstance.hideUI();}},onContentPlay: function (containerId, cvpId, event) {var playerInstance,prevVideoId;if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘restoreEpicAds’);}clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);videoPinner.animateDown();}}},onContentReplayRequest: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);var $endSlate = jQuery(document.getElementById(containerId)).parent().find(‘.js-video__end-slate’).eq(0);if ($endSlate.length > 0) {$endSlate.removeClass(‘video__end-slate–active’).addClass(‘video__end-slate–inactive’);}}}},onContentBegin: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (mobilePinnedView) {mobilePinnedView.enable();}/* Dismissing the pinnedPlayer if another video players plays a video. */CNN.VideoPlayer.dismissMobilePinnedPlayer(containerId);CNN.VideoPlayer.mutePlayer(containerId);if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘removeEpicAds’);}CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);CNN.VideoSourceUtils.clearSource(containerId);jQuery(document).triggerVideoContentStarted();},onContentComplete: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘restoreFreewheel’);}navigateToNextVideo(contentId, containerId);},onContentEnd: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(false);}}},onCVPVisibilityChange: function (containerId, cvpId, visible) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleAdOnCVPVisibilityChange(containerId, visible);}};if (typeof configObj.context !== ‘string’ || configObj.context.length 0) {configObj.adsection = window.ssid;}CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === true) ? true : false;CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibrary(configObj, callbackObj, isLivePlayer);});CNN.INJECTOR.scriptComplete(‘videodemanddust’);

    Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump is blasting Democrats for trying to obtain special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, despite previously endorsing their goal of releasing it to the public.

    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics/trump-mueller-report-release-statements/index.html

    Senate Republicans on Wednesday used a controversial procedural tactic called the “nuclear option” to change the chamber’s rules to make it easier to confirm lower-level Trump nominees.

    The effort, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, comes after Republicans failed to adopt a resolution to change the chamber’s rules so that non-Cabinet level executive and district court nominations would face only two hours of floor debate rather than 30 before a confirmation vote. That resolution received only 51 of the 60 votes required for adoption, along party lines.

    The Senate’s action on Wednesday was expected to last well into the afternoon; the chamber first voted 51-48 largely along party lines to change its rules to slash debate time for sub-Cabinet level executive branch nominees, and GOP leadership planned to take the same action again later in the day for district court judges.

    “This systematic obstruction is unfair to our duly elected president and, more importantly, it is disrespectful to the American people who deserve the government they elected,” McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor Wednesday before the first vote. “We cannot set this new precedent that the Senate minorities will systematically keep an administration understaffed down to the least controversial nominees anytime they wish somebody else had won the election.”

    Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mcconnell-invokes-nuclear-option-clear-way-lower-level-trump-nominees-n990551

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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