The home is complete with a dinosaur herd in front.
The city has now filed a complaint saying no permits were filed to make modifications to the home, like landscaping and a “yabba dabba do” sign.
The city is now demanding everything be taken down, calling it an eyesore.
Source Article from https://abc13.com/community-events/homeowner-forced-to-take-down-flintstones-decor/5199166/
“First of all, this is insanity,” said Mike Loder, a contributor to Kiwi Gun Blog. “We know why he did it. He did it in revenge for a Muslim killing people with a truck. It wasn’t about guns.” Mr. Loder was referring to the shooter’s own widely reported account of his radicalization.
But compared with those in the United States, conversations about guns tend to be calmer and less ideological in New Zealand. Many New Zealanders seem eager to find some middle ground, with the latest round of arguments over the country’s gun laws inevitably being shaped by countervailing forces.
On the one hand, with its current gun laws, New Zealand had one of the lowest murder rates in the world, as of a week ago. But the horrific bloodshed at the two mosques has clearly shaken what had been the country’s prevailing sense of safety.
“We’ve lived in a utopia, but the world’s caught up with us,” said Chris Cahill, head of the Police Association, a union of police officers. “Our innocence is gone.”
A shift may already be rippling through the country.
On Sunday morning, Raymond Healey, 49, a member of the Christchurch Pistol Club, arrived at a local shooting range, hoping to get some time firing at targets. He was greeted with a white sign, painted in red capital letters: “range closed.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/world/asia/new-zealand-gun-laws.html
“First of all, this is insanity,” said Mike Loder, a contributor to Kiwi Gun Blog. “We know why he did it. He did it in revenge for a Muslim killing people with a truck. It wasn’t about guns.” Mr. Loder was referring to the shooter’s own widely reported account of his radicalization.
But compared with those in the United States, conversations about guns tend to be calmer and less ideological in New Zealand. Many New Zealanders seem eager to find some middle ground, with the latest round of arguments over the country’s gun laws inevitably being shaped by countervailing forces.
On the one hand, with its current gun laws, New Zealand had one of the lowest murder rates in the world, as of a week ago. But the horrific bloodshed at the two mosques has clearly shaken what had been the country’s prevailing sense of safety.
“We’ve lived in a utopia, but the world’s caught up with us,” said Chris Cahill, head of the Police Association, a union of police officers. “Our innocence is gone.”
A shift may already be rippling through the country.
On Sunday morning, Raymond Healey, 49, a member of the Christchurch Pistol Club, arrived at a local shooting range, hoping to get some time firing at targets. He was greeted with a white sign, painted in red capital letters: “range closed.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/world/asia/new-zealand-gun-laws.html
Image copyright
Reuters
Ethiopian Airlines has offered the relatives of 157 victims of last Sunday’s Boeing 737 Max plane crash bags of scorched earth to bury in place of their loved ones, reports say.
Earth from the crash site is being made available for a planned service in Addis Ababa on Sunday, Reuters reports.
Families have been told it could take up to six months to identify remains.
Countries across the world grounded the 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft after flight 302 crashed on 10 March.
Ethiopia’s transport minister said on Saturday it may take “considerable time” for investigators to find the cause of the crash involving the new aeroplane.
“An investigation of such magnitude requires a careful analysis and considerable time to come up with something concrete,” Dagmawit Moges told a press conference.
Relatives of the passengers killed in the incident are being encouraged to provide DNA samples either in Addis Ababa or at any overseas offices of Ethiopian Airlines.
Death certificates are expected to be issued in two weeks.
Image copyright
Reuters
Families mourning the victims are being offered a 1kg (2.2lbs) bag of charred soil to bury as part of Sunday’s service in the Ethiopian capital, AP news agency reports.
“The soil came as it became impossible to identify bodies and hand over remains to family members,” one family member reportedly said, adding: “We will not rest until we are given the real body or body parts of our loved ones.”
Passengers from more than 30 countries were on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The Ethiopian investigation into the crash is being assisted by teams from around the world, including the US and France.
The aircraft’s flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR), or black boxes as they are often called, have been recovered and investigators are hoping they will shed light on the tragedy.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47599654
Image copyright
Reuters
Ethiopian Airlines has offered the relatives of 157 victims of last Sunday’s Boeing 737 Max plane crash bags of scorched earth to bury in place of their loved ones, reports say.
Earth from the crash site is being made available for a planned service in Addis Ababa on Sunday, Reuters reports.
Families have been told it could take up to six months to identify remains.
Countries across the world grounded the 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft after flight 302 crashed on 10 March.
Ethiopia’s transport minister said on Saturday it may take “considerable time” for investigators to find the cause of the crash involving the new aeroplane.
“An investigation of such magnitude requires a careful analysis and considerable time to come up with something concrete,” Dagmawit Moges told a press conference.
Relatives of the passengers killed in the incident are being encouraged to provide DNA samples either in Addis Ababa or at any overseas offices of Ethiopian Airlines.
Death certificates are expected to be issued in two weeks.
Image copyright
Reuters
Families mourning the victims are being offered a 1kg (2.2lbs) bag of charred soil to bury as part of Sunday’s service in the Ethiopian capital, AP news agency reports.
“The soil came as it became impossible to identify bodies and hand over remains to family members,” one family member reportedly said, adding: “We will not rest until we are given the real body or body parts of our loved ones.”
Passengers from more than 30 countries were on board the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The Ethiopian investigation into the crash is being assisted by teams from around the world, including the US and France.
The aircraft’s flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR), or black boxes as they are often called, have been recovered and investigators are hoping they will shed light on the tragedy.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47599654
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(CNN)A 24-year-old man has been taken into custody in connection with the shooting death of reputed New York crime boss Francesco “Frank” Cali, the New York Police Department said Saturday.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/16/us/gambino-crime-family-killing-arrest/index.html
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(CNN)A 24-year-old man has been taken into custody in connection with the shooting death of reputed New York crime boss Francesco “Frank” Cali, the New York Police Department said Saturday.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/16/us/gambino-crime-family-killing-arrest/index.html
DOVER, Del. — Former vice president Joe Biden is expected to announce soon whether he will seek the White House in 2020. On Saturday night, he seemed — for a moment — to get ahead of himself.
“I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the United . . . anybody who would run,” Biden told Delaware Democrats at their party fundraising dinner.
The crowd at a ballroom at the Dover Downs casino complex began to cheer, as Biden laughed and crossed himself.
Biden, 76, has repeatedly pushed back possible announcement dates for what would be his third run for the presidency. He has tapped staffers who would be expected to lead a national campaign, leaving many of his political allies convinced he’ll run. But he has yet to make those plans official.
Saturday night’s state Democratic gala, which also celebrated a top-to-bottom Democratic sweep in the state’s midterm elections, repeatedly turned to Biden’s own plans.
Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) referred to him as “President Biden.” Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) told the crowd that he was “praying” for a president who “unites us and heals us,” referring to Biden. Sonia Schorr Sloan, an activist accepting an award at the dinner, said she had told Biden that she had “one campaign left” in her.
“Joe doesn’t just look like he’s back,” Delaware Gov. John Carney said. “He looks like he’s ready for a fight.”
The Delaware speech was Biden’s second political appearance of the week, after an address to the International Association of Fire Fighters that resembled a campaign rally, with “Run Joe Run” signs waving in the audience.
At both speeches, Biden described the Trump presidency as a dangerous sham.
“Trump turned his back on the very people he said he would help,” Biden said in Dover. He decried the president’s praise for Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, noting that some foreign dictators had borrowed the president’s “fake news” rhetoric to crack down on opposition in their countries.
“If you asked me a few years ago whether our democracy could ever crumble, I would have laughed at you,” said Biden.
The former vice president offered a few hints of what a 2020 campaign could focus on, telling the crowd it was “gonna hear a lot” from him about a “new corporate ethic” focused on workers’ prosperity, and attacking the health-care cuts in the Trump administration’s proposed budget, released this week.
But Biden also continued his running argument with the Democratic Party’s “new left,” returning several times to the idea that politics had been broken by people who refuse to seek consensus. He referred to Delaware’s election tradition of “returns day,” where victorious and defeated candidates literally bury a hatchet together and ride in a parade, as an example of the way politics should be.
“We don’t demonize our opponents,” he said. “We don’t belittle them. We don’t treat the opposition as the enemy. We might even say a nice word about a Republican if they do something good.”
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hes-running–almost-joe-biden-gets-ahead-of-himself-in-saturday-speech-to-cheers-from-the-crowd/2019/03/16/afdb83ee-4847-11e9-8aab-95b8d80a1e4f_story.html
“View” co-host Meghan McCain slammed the president Saturday following a presidential tweet about her late father, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz.
(ABC)
Meghan McCain had a sharp response for President Trump on Saturday after he posted an unflattering tweet about her late father, saying that late Sen. John McCain had “far worse ‘stains’” against him than reports that he’d helped share the infamous Russia dossier.
Quoting former Independent Counsel Ken Starr, the president got the ball rolling when he tweeted about new reports involving Senator McCain. Those reports said that the senator and an associate had shared with the FBI and various media outlets the unverified dossier alleging that Moscow held compromising information on Trump.
COURT FILES REVEAL ROLE OF MCCAIN, ASSOCIATE IN SPREADING ANTI-TRUMP DOSSIER
“Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier ‘is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain.’ Ken Starr, Former Independent Counsel,” Trump wrote.
“He had far worse ‘stains’ than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace [of the Obama-era Affordable Care Act] after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!”
Meghan McCain, bristling at the remark, fired back with her own Twitter post, in which she said that “no one will ever love you the way they loved my father.”
MEGHAN MCCAIN DECRIES TRUMP’S INFLUENCE ON REPUBLICAN PARTY, PREFERS TO CALL HERSELF A CONSERVATIVE
She continued: “I wish I had been given more Saturday’s with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead of on twitter obsessing over mine?”
In a newly unsealed declaration from September, former senior counterintelligence FBI agent Bill Priestap confirmed that the FBI received a copy of the first 33 pages of the dossier in December 2016 from Senator McCain.
McCain had denied being the source for BuzzFeed after it published the dossier, but acknowledged giving it to the FBI.
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The filings were unsealed as part of an ongoing libel case against BuzzFeed by a Russian businessman.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mccain-has-sharp-response-to-trumps-john-mccain-dossier-tweet
Judge Jeanine will have to find justice at a later date.
Jeanine Pirro’s weekly Fox News Channel program Justice with Judge Jeanine is being replaced tonight at 9 p.m. with a repeat the documentary Scandalous: The Trial of William Kennedy Smith, according to a programming guide on the network’s website.
“We’re not commenting on internal scheduling matters,” a Fox News spokesperson told Deadline Saturday, but would not comment further.
The development comes after FNC condemned remarks Pirro made last Saturday that seemed to question the national loyalty of Minnesota’s Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and other Muslim women who wear hijabs.
Referring to Omar, who is a practicing Muslim, Pirro said: “Think about it — Omar wears a hijab. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?”
As Deadline previously reported, Fox immediately distanced itself from Pirro’s comments.
“We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro’s comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar,” the netowkr said in a statement last weekend. “They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly.”
Source Article from https://deadline.com/2019/03/judge-jeanine-wont-air-on-fox-amid-controversy-over-comments-about-rep-ilhan-omar-1202577000/
Chicago mayoral hopefuls Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot are a little more than two weeks away from a historic election, but there was little evidence of the political showdown at Saturday’s downtown St. Patrick’s Day parade.
There were few political signs or buttons. Ropes and police officers around the dignitaries kept either candidate from working the crowd. And if there were any shouts from the masses for Lightfoot or Preckwinkle, they were drowned out by the frenzy that greeted famous Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor.
The 15-minute march down Columbus Drive also marked Rahm Emanuel’s eighth and final as mayor, but he wasn’t feeling wistful.
“I’m going to kick his ass,” Emanuel joked as he pointed to McGregor next to him, moments before the parade stepped off. McGregor, who sported a pair of green suede shoes, reacted with just a smirk.
Source Article from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/elections/ct-met-chicago-mayors-race-st-patricks-parade-20190315-story.html
The death toll in the mass shooting at two New Zealand mosques has risen to 50, New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said during a press conference on Saturday.
The 50th victim was located inside one of the two mosques involved in the attacks, Bush said.
“As of last night we were able to take all of the victims from both of those scenes and in doing so we have located a further victim,” Bush said.
Bush added that the number of those injured was also 50, with 36 people hospitalized, which included one child.
A 28-year-old man had been arrested and charged with murder in the shooting, Bush said, adding that the man would appear in court on April 5.
Three other people were also arrested after the shooting. One woman was released without charges, and a man, who was in possession of a gun, has been charged with firearm offenses, according to Bush. They are not believed to have been involved in the attack, Bush said.
Another 18-year-old man was arrested and will appear in court, Bush said, but added that the arrest was “tangentially related” and that the man was not believed to have been involved with the shooting.
Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-zealand-shooting-death-toll-rises-50-attack-mosque-n984066
The mafia didn’t kill Gambino boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali — a twentysomething Staten Island hothead with a personal beef did, police and sources said Saturday.
Anthony Comello, 24, a non-mobster who works odd construction jobs, was in custody in a New Jersey jail and expected to face murder charges in connection to the killing of Cali, 53, who was blasted at least 10 times outside his Todt Hill mansion on Wednesday, police said at a news conference at NYPD headquarters.
“Everything is on the table at this point,” said Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea. “The investigation continues.”
Comello will be extradited to Staten Island in the next few days to face murder charges, Shea said.
Shea said police recovered the blue pickup truck that witnesses said slammed into Cali’s parked car, luring him outside to his demise.
The stunning hit was the first assassination of a New York City mob boss since an upstart John Gotti had Gambino boss Paul Castellano whacked outside Sparks Steak House in 1985.
Investigators quickly feared a mob war in the making.
But they now believe a personal dispute was to blame — over a woman in Cali’s family, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
The nature of the dispute was not immediately clear.
But sources said Cali — who helmed a family notorious for gambling, loan sharking, and its deadly trade in heroin and oxycodone — thought Comello was trouble, sources said.
Cali didn’t think Comello was worthy of associating with a woman in his family, the sources added.
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano
Source Article from https://nypost.com/2019/03/16/nypd-identifies-suspect-in-slaying-of-gambino-crime-boss-frank-cali/
When the gunman advanced toward the mosque, killing those in his path, Abdul Aziz didn’t hide. Instead, he picked up the first thing he could find, a credit card machine, and ran outside screaming “Come here!”
Source Article from https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/live-come-here-one-man-hailed-hero-after-chasing-gunman-following-christchurch-mosque-attack
Kim Kardashian applauded New Zealand’s lawmakers for proposing to change the country’s gun laws following the mosque shootings that left at least 49 people dead.
(AP)
Reality television star Kim Kardashian applauded New Zealand after the country’s leaders announced gun laws would change in wake of Friday’s mosque shootings that left at least 49 people dead.
Kardashian tweeted Saturday, “Just 24 hours after the Christchurch shooting New Zealand bans semiautomatic guns! America take note! Why can’t our elected officials put public safety over gun manufacturers’ profits?!?!”
Following Friday’s shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern vowed to change the country’s gun laws, though she didn’t immediately specify how.
KIM KARDASHIAN SHOWS OFF EXPENSIVE BIRKIN BAG COLLECTION IN BIKINI SELFIE
“I can tell you right now, our gun laws will change,” Ardern said. “Now is the time for change.”
David Parker, the country’s attorney general, said New Zealand would ban semiautomatic weapons at a vigil Saturday but backtracked his comments later, The New York Times reported.
“Those decisions have yet to be taken, but the Prime Minister has signaled that we are going to look at that issue,” Parker told Radio New Zealand.
New Zealand citizens as young as 16, provided they pass a background check to get a firearms license, can possess a long gun. They can get one for hunting, pest control or sports shooting, but self-defense is not considered a valid reason to own a firearm.
KIM KARDASHIAN ADVOCATES FOR ALICE JOHNSON, CYNTOIA BROWN, OTHERS WHO ARE JAILED
This is not the first time Kardashian has called for gun control in the U.S.
Following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, the social media personality called on Congress to do their job.
“We owe it to our children and our teachers to keep them safe while at school,” she tweeted. “Prayers won’t do this: action will. Congress, please do your job and protect Americans from senseless gun violence.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kim-kardashian-applauds-new-zealand-for-proposing-to-change-gun-laws-after-shooting-america-take-note
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Shares of aircraft-manufacturing company Boeing took a hit early this week, losing $26.6 billion in market value Monday and Tuesday, following a deadly crash of one of its 737 Max 8 airplanes in Ethiopia.
That model has since been grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration, as well as by aviation regulators around the world.
Still, if you invested in Boeing 10 years ago, that decision would have paid off: According to CNBC calculations, a $1,000 investment in 2009 would be worth more than $14,000 as of March 15, 2019, a total return over 1,000 percent. In the same time frame, the S&P 500 was up 270 percent. So, your $1,000 would be worth just over $3,700, by comparison.
Any individual stock can over- or under-perform, however, and past returns do not predict future results. Boeing paused delivery of 737 Max planes after the Ethiopia crash, which came less than five months after another deadly crash in Indonesia involving the same model.
This left several major airlines, including United, American and Southwest scrambling to rebook passengers and reassign planes. Those companies said they would waive ticket-change fees and fare differences for those affected by the FAA’s grounding order.
Flight-booking site Kayak even introduced a new search feature that allows users to exclude specific plane models, according to co-founder and chief executive officer Steve Hafner.
CNBC: Boeing stock as of Mar. 15, 2019
Fortunately for Boeing, while shares plunged more than 10 percent early this week, they ticked back up by as much as 3 percent Friday. And the company announced plans to roll out a software fix in the next few weeks.
Though, Bank of America analyst Ronald Epstein said Thursday that the fix could take a lot longer: “Once Boeing identifies the issue … the most likely scenario is the company will take about 3-6 months to come up with and certify the fix,” he said in a note.
Hafner says he expects the 737 models to be grounded only a few months and that travelers will likely be booking flights on them again soon: “They’re out of service on a temporary basis,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.” “In reality, airlines are still planning on flying those planes in the summer. People want security and comfort when they fly.”
In the meantime, Boeing said in a statement it will “continue to build 737 Max airplanes, while assessing how the situation, including potential capacity constraints, will impact our production system.”
If you’re looking to get into investing, expert investors like Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban suggest you start with index funds, which hold every stock in an index, offer low turnover rates, attendant fees and tax bills. They also fluctuate with the market to eliminate the risk of picking individual stocks.
Here’s a snapshot of how the markets look now.
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If you invested $1,000 in IBM 10 years ago, here’s how much you’d have now
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/if-you-put-1000-in-boeing-10-years-ago-heres-what-youd-have-now.html
A witness describes New Zealand mosque attack. “I never thought in my life I’d live to see something like this.”
USA TODAY
After blaming Muslim immigrants for the deadly shooting by a white supremacist at two New Zealand mosques, an Australian senator had an egg cracked over his head by a teenager and is now facing censure.
Fraser Anning, an independent and former member of the far-right, anti-immigration One Nation party, drew widespread outrage for his comments made in tweets and an official statement.
“The real cause of the bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place,” Anning said in a statement.
“Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?” he also tweeted.
Anning was speaking to reporters Saturday in Melbourne when cameras caught a 17-year-old standing behind the politician. The teen held up his phone — appearing to record the event — and then cracked a raw egg on Anning’s head.
The lawmaker punched the teen before a scuffle broke out, and Anning’s supporters held the boy in a choke hold while calling for police, video of the incident shows.
Australia’s ABC News reported the teen was arrested and released by Victoria police. Police are investigating the incident, including Anning’s actions, the news outlet said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison denounced Anning’s comments and said lawmakers would pass a censure motion against Anning once they return to session next month.
“I would normally not want to give this any oxygen, but I want to absolutely and completely denounce the statements made by Senator Anning,” Morrison told reporters. “In his conflation of this horrendous terrorist attack with issues of immigration, in his attack on Islamic faith specifically — these comments are appalling and they’re ugly and they have no place in Australia, in the Australian Parliament”
More: Australia bans tour by alt-right star Milo Yiannopoulos over New Zealand massacre remarks
On Friday, 49 people in two mosques in the city of Christchurch were gunned down in an alleged targeted attack by an anti-immigration, racist gunman. The attack, which occurred as people were attending Friday prayers, was the deadliest in New Zealand’s history since 1990.
Contributing: Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY, and The Associated Press. Follow USA TODAY’s Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/03/16/teen-eggs-fraser-anning-after-new-zealand-mosque-shooting-remark/3184851002/
Two Stanford University students on Wednesday filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Stanford, USC, UCLA, the University of San Diego, the University of Texas at Austin, Wake Forest University, Yale University and Georgetown University.
Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-college-cheating-parents-fallout20190316-story.html
SUNDERLAND, England (Reuters) – Nigel Farage, the politician who probably did more than anyone else to force Britain’s referendum on membership of the European Union, joined protesters at the start of a 270-mile march over what they call a betrayal of the Brexit vote.
The march comes after another tumultuous week for Prime Minister Theresa May in which parliament overwhelmingly rejected her divorce deal for a second time and lawmakers voted to seek a delay in Britain’s exit from the EU.
In the pouring rain in Sunderland, northeast England, which was the first place in Britain to declare a vote to leave the EU, Farage, wearing a flat cap and carrying an umbrella, said Brexit was now in danger of being scuttled by the establishment.
“We are here in the very week when parliament is doing its utmost to betray the Brexit result,” Farage said. “It is beginning to look like it doesn’t want to leave and the message from this march is if you think you can walk all over us we will march straight back to you.”
The march, which began with about 100 people, is due to end at parliament on March 29, the day the United Kingdom was supposed to leave the EU.
Britain’s crisis over EU membership is approaching its finale as May continues to fight to build support for her divorce deal, which is expected to be put before lawmakers for a third time next week. Many Brexit supporters in her own party oppose the deal, saying it ties Britain too closely to the EU.
May has given those critics an ultimatum – ratify her deal by Wednesday or face a delay to Brexit way beyond June 30 that would open up the possibility that the entire departure from the EU could ultimately be thwarted.
As leader of the euroskeptic United Kingdom Independence Party, Farage pressured former prime minister David Cameron to call the Brexit referendum and then helped lead the campaign to leave the EU. But he quit as the party’s leader in the days after the referendum.
In what pro-EU supporters said was a metaphor for his decision to walk away from the fallout of Brexit, Farage said he wouldn’t be completing the full two-week walk to London but would instead join campaigners for about a third of it.
Farage defended that decision and said as a member of the European Parliament he may have to take part in a vote on whether to approve the Brexit deal.
“I am quite a busy chap. I have a role in the European Parliament,” Farage said. “Don’t forgot the final vote is in the European Parliament. I think I ought to be there for that one.”
Writing by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Mark Potter
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-leave-march/arch-euroskeptic-farage-leads-march-over-brexit-betrayal-idUSKCN1QX0CA
Special counsel Robert Mueller and his Justice Department supervisors are not saying anything official about the conclusion of their work, but Congress is getting ready. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
After many false alarms that the special counsel’s work is winding down, the clues are mounting that it finally is.
The Mueller probe appears to be in the home stretch.
Some Trump aides and advisers have been making that claim for more than a year, with little basis. But the signs are mounting that it’s finally happening.
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Several came in what was an unusually busy week for Robert Mueller’s investigation into 2016 Russian election interference, with multiple clues that the special counsel’s work is finishing with a final report to the Justice Department.
On Wednesday, a federal judge handed a second prison sentence to Paul Manafort. That closed the door on Mueller’s prosecution of the former Trump campaign chairman, which will put Manafort in jail through the end of 2024 if President Donald Trump doesn’t pardon him or commute the sentence.
Meanwhile other clues emerged this week suggesting that Mueller’s probe is coming to an end. On Tuesday, the special counsel’s lawyers told a federal judge that they have all the information they need from former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has been cooperating with Mueller’s team since he pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI.
Two key members of Mueller’s team are also moving on. The FBI confirmed a week ago Friday that its lead agent tasked to the special counsel’s team has been reassigned to lead the bureau’s Richmond field office. And a Mueller spokesman on Thursday issued a rare public statement confirming that one the office’s prosecutors, Andrew Weissmann, planned to finish his assignment “in the near future.”
“The signs I see are all pointing towards an investigation that is wrapping up,” said Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who has worked with Weissmann on organized crime cases. “[We are] probably a few weeks or even a month or more away from the issuing of a final report, but certainly a fairly complete draft is already being circulated inside the Mueller team.”
Cotter said he’d be surprised if Weissmann were to leave before reviewing Mueller’s complete findings, making his departure a sign that the report — which Mueller must transmit to his Justice Department superiors — is nearly complete. “His knowledge, experience and skills are too great for Mueller not to use him as a leading author of such a report. And I do not believe he would leave if he thought major new veins of information and significant charges were still to come,” he added.
While Mueller and his Justice Department supervisors aren’t saying anything official about the conclusion of the special counsel’s work, Congress is getting ready for the big moment. The House this week in a unanimous 420-0 vote called on Attorney General William Barr to release in full the special counsel’s final report.
Even if Mueller’s investigation is all but complete, however, his prosecutions will continue for months. On Thursday, a judge set Nov. 5 as the opening date in the trial of former Trump political adviser Roger Stone on charges that he lied to Congress about efforts to contact Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign.
Here’s a recap of all the week’s major events in the Mueller probe:
Paul Manafort: The former Trump campaign chairman finally learned how long he’ll spend in federal prison — nearly 7.5 years — after U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Wednesday meted out the final portion of his sentence for a series of lobbying and obstruction crimes that were folded into Manafort’s guilty plea last fall.
Jackson agreed with U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, who sentenced Manafort earlier this month separately for his conviction in Virginia on financial fraud, that the longtime GOP operative can get credit for the nine months he’s already served at a pair of interim detention facilities since being jailed last June for witness tampering.
Manafort’s lawyers have asked that the rest of his sentence be served in Cumberland, Maryland, though that decision rests with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Federal prosecutors also have moved to begin seeking restitution from Manafort for about $24 million tied to his crimes, which involves forfeiting several of his New York properties, plus bank accounts and a life insurance policy. He also must pay a $50,000 fine.
Manafort still appears to be playing for a Trump pardon or commutation of his sentence. Outside the D.C. courthouse this week, Manafort lawyer Kevin Downing invoked a favorite presidential talking point: that Mueller had revealed no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, even though his client’s case never was about the topic. Mueller tried Manafort on charges related to his lucrative political work in Ukraine, which ended prior to the 2016 election.
But any help from Trump can’t protect Manafort from new charges he faces in New York, where the Manhattan district attorney obtained a 16-count grand jury indictment this week for residential mortgage fraud and other alleged state crimes. A presidential pardon cannot absolve a person convicted at the state level.
Roger Stone: The longtime Trump associate got an early November trial date for allegedly misleading lawmakers about his 2016 contacts with WikiLeaks, which released thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign aides. That means D.C. jurors will begin to hear his case just as the one-year countdown begins to the next presidential election.
Stone’s lawyers during a court hearing Thursday acknowledged receiving nine terabytes of material from the government in discovery, which they said stacks up “as high as the Washington Monument twice.” His lawyers also got an April 12 deadline to file any motions seeking to toss out the case, something they signaled plans to do in earlier filings which cited “selective or vindictive prosecution” and an “error in the grand jury proceeding.”
Mueller’s plans for trying Stone are unclear. Special counsel deputy Jeannie Rhee took the lead participating in Thursday’s hearing for the prosecution while the soon-to-depart Weissmann made an appearance in the courtroom, seated just inside the courtroom bar with other support staff. The government also has two assistant U.S. attorneys from D.C. who are widely seen as being ready for a hand off should the special counsel close up shop before November.
For his part, Stone blasted out a fundraising plea Thursday night featuring a picture of him, his wife and Trump. Stone said he needs money to defeat the special counsel’s charges and “be free to help the President’s re-election in 2020.”
Michael Flynn: The former Trump national security adviser continues to heed the advice of U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, who in December urged Flynn to wait until he’d exhausted all cooperation demands before agreeing to be sentenced.
On Wednesday, Mueller’s prosecutors in a joint status report acknowledged Flynn could still be called to testify in the government’s upcoming trial against his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, on charges of failing to disclose foreign lobbying on behalf of Turkey. But the special counsel’s office also noted they view Flynn’s cooperation as “otherwise complete.”
In a separate court filing related to the Rafiekian case, defense attorneys revealed this week they’d seen FBI interview notes that suggest Flynn had helped prosecutors in several “ongoing investigations.” Government lawyers during a Friday hearing indicated some of those investigations involve Mueller’s office and some involve other prosecutors, though they didn’t delve into specifics.
Rick Gates: The former Trump campaign deputy is still cooperating with federal prosecutors in “several ongoing investigations” and isn’t ready to be sentenced yet.
That was the takeaway from a one-page joint status report filed in federal court in D.C., the fifth one of its kind since Gates pleaded guilty last February to financial fraud and lying to investigators.
It’s unclear whether Gates’s ongoing cooperation still involves the Mueller probe. But Friday’s filing suggests Gates may be helping federal prosecutors in New York who are investigating Trump’s inauguration committee, which he helped run alongside real estate developer and longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack. The committee is facing questions about the source of its donations and how it spent its record-level $107 million haul.
Another joint status report for Gates is due in court by May 14.
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/16/mueller-probe-report-1223959
President Donald Trump has branded as “disgraceful” the resolution passed after Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s comments suggesting House supporters of Israel have dual allegiances. (March 8)
AP
WASHINGTON – When Democrats argued about a House member’s comments on Israel and U.S. lawmakers, many saw it as an emerging dispute between the party’s old guard and some of its younger members.
President Donald Trump saw it as a political opportunity with Jewish voters.
In tweets, public statements and speeches to supporters, Trump and his aides are trying to use claims of anti-Semitism to pry Jewish voters away from their longtime allegiance to the Democratic Party.
In his latest effort, a Friday morning tweet, Trump said Jewish people were leaving the Democratic Party in what he called a “Jexodus,” though he did not cite evidence for such a shift. He said Republicans were “waiting with open arms” for Jewish voters. “Remember Jerusalem (U.S. Embassy) and the horrible Iran Nuclear Deal!” he tweeted.
The phrase “Jexodus” stirred controversy on Twitter with some users calling it offensive to Jewish people.
Democrats increased their share of the Jewish vote between the 2016 and 2018 elections, from 71 percent to 79 percent. A new Gallup report, based on tracking poll data from 2018, said that “one in six U.S. Jews identify as Republican.” About half described themselves as Democrats.
“‘Jexodus’ is a Republican fantasy that will fail,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. Soifer was among many who said they were offended by Trump’s term.
Divide and attract – it’s a familiar tactic for the politically aggressive president who has also tried to woo members of other familiar Democratic constituencies, including women and African-Americans.
“He’s always stirring the pot,” said Stuart Rothenberg, senior editor at the Inside Elections newsletter.
Trump’s efforts to paint the Democratic party as anti-Jewish came after tweets and comments by freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who suggested that pro-Israel lobbying groups controlled U.S. lawmakers through political money.
While some Democrats said the remarks played into anti-Semitic slurs about how Jewish money controls American politics, Omar said they were “not intended to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole.” Several Democrats said Omar was being attacked unfairly.
Trump, meanwhile, went on offense.
Seeking to foment Democratic discord, Trump issued a March 5 tweet that described Omar’s “terrible comments” as “a dark day for Israel!”
Three days later, after a fractious House debate over a resolution condemning hate, Trump raised the stakes while speaking with reporters as he left the White House on a weekend trip to Florida, describing the Democrats as an “anti-Israel party.”
“They’ve become an anti-Jewish party and that’s too bad,” he said while en route to Alabama to review tornado damage.
During his weekend in Florida, Trump reportedly went even further: The website Axios reported the president told donors during a fundraiser at this Mar-a-Lago estate that “the Democrats hate Jewish people.”
Jesse Lehrich, a foreign policy spokesman for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, said Trump’s attacks ring hollow from a man who spoke sympathetically of some of the white supremacists who held a 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and a brazen attempt to weaponize anti-Semitism by a man who has mainstreamed bigotry seems like a bad way to win them over,” Lehrich said.
Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said “there’s a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of support” among Jewish voters for what Trump is doing, though he has not seen any new polling on the question.
“Everything at this point is anecdotal,” he said.
Brooks also said Trump is appealing to Jewish donors and was “smart to do so.”
In terms of elections, Jewish voters have remained overwhelmingly Democratic during the Trump political era.
According to exit polling conducted for a consortium of news organizations for the 2016 election, Clinton defeated Trump 71 percent to 24 percent among Jewish voters. In last year’s congressional elections, according to those exit polls, Jews broke for Democratic candidates over Republican ones by 79 percent to 17 percent.
While Jewish voters are a small part of the electorate – 3 percent in 2016; 2 percent in 2018 – they are a significant segment in key swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania. That’s why the the Trump campaign, and the Democrats, are making a concerted effort to attract them.
Soifer, the executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, cited the drop-off of Jewish support for Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections to say that Trump and the GOP are losing traction with these voters.
Many voters know that Trump has appeared to welcome support from white supremacists who have also engaged in anti-Semitism, she said: “There is what he tweets and then there is reality.”
A Gallup report released Thursday said that, according to 2018 data, 52 percent of Jewish-Americans described themselves as Democrats, while only 16 percent identified themselves as Republicans. Among Jewish respondents, 26 percent approved of Trump’s performance as president; 71 percent disapproved.
Gallup added: “With Jewish Americans representing about 2% of the U.S. population, most opinion polls do not have enough Jewish respondents in a single poll to report reliable estimates for the group.”
Aides said Trump will continue pursuing Jewish votes as he seeks re-election in 2020. “The long history of anti-Semitism from Ilhan Omar and the failure of House Democrats to take appropriate action in response has shown all Americans that Democrats stand squarely with their radical left base,” said Michael Glassner, the campaign’s chief operating officer.
Trump’s basic argument, a claim that Democrats have failed a longtime constituency, is one he has used with other groups of voters, particularly African-Americans – and there is evidence he is having success.
According to a YouGov daily tracking poll released Monday, 15 percent of African-Americans somewhat or strongly approved of the president’s job performance – still low but better than his election numbers. Trump carried only 8 percent the African-American vote in 2016, according to exit polls.
Rothenberg, the senior editor at Inside Elections, said there is no doubt some Democrats are uncomfortable with some of the new voices in the Democratic Party, but there are also some uncomfortable with Trump and how he
“goes overboard” with his “stream-of-consciousness aggression.”
“Could it move a handful of Jewish votes? Yeah, I guess it could,” Rothenberg said. “But, on the other hand, Trump is very simplistic … He is a very polarizing figure.”
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/16/donald-trump-predicts-jexodus-jewish-voters-democrats-say-fantasy/3131536002/