Bank of America Merrill Lynch has cut its outlook on Boeing, saying the airline manufacturer’s recent troubles with its 737 are worse than expected. Boeing shares tumbled 4% on the move.
Two crashes of the Boeing 737 Max 8 forced the company to cut its production. BofA now estimates delays with the 737 will last six to nine months, longer than the three- to six-month delay originally forecast.
BofA cut its rating on the Dow component from buy to neutral and lowered its price objective to $420 from $480.
The company’s issues stem from crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 over the past six months. Questions have been raised about the safety of the Max 8 and 9 jets as well as the general oversight being provided by the Federal Aviation Administration.
“The reputational loss from these events could erode long-term market share and pricing power of the 737 MAX,” BofA analyst Ronald Epstein said in a note to clients.
Though still up 21.5 percent year to date, Boeing’s shares have fallen nearly 9 percent in the past month.
In addition to the initial 737 Max delays, BofA estimates it will take Boeing through 2021 to catch up to delivery orders for its aircraft.
“A six month delay also means lower margins due to penalties owed to customers, weaker negotiating position with airlines as airlines consider cancellations, and operational inefficiencies from the production disruption,” Epstein wrote.
Boeing is reducing its production of the 737 Max to 42 per month, down 10 from its original target.
Correction: This story was revised to correct that BofA’s new rating of Boeing stock is neutral.
Tourists visiting Times Square on Monday expressed fears for their safety — and the city’s future — following the second shooting there in as many months.
“Worrying about getting killed in a crossfire was not on my itinerary when I booked this trip with my girlfriends — especially while touring the biggest attraction,” said Pat Flanagan of Cleveland.
“It’s actually more sad than scary because I want to see New York pick up again.”
Flanagan, 44, added: “Crime can be controlled if you control it. New York learned how to do it in the past, so why not now? It’s got the biggest police department in the country and it can’t stop people from firing guns in Times Square?”
“Right now, tourism is making a comeback after COVID,” she said.
“Don’t kill it by letting crime run rampant.”
Police at the scene of a shooting near 45th St. and 7th Avenue in Times Square.William C. Lopez/NYPOST
Retired teacher Arthur Escalera of Harrisburg, Penn., who was vacationing with his wife, said Sunday’s shooting made it seem like “you’re in a city that’s lost the power to police itself.”
“We remember Times Square the way it was in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and if we had tickets to a Broadway show we would consider it a sort of walk on the wild side to walk down 42nd Street at night,” he said.
“But we never feared for our lives. Getting mugged was a fear, but death by a stray bullet? Never.”
Police patrol in Times Square following another daytime shooting yesterday in the popular tourist destination on June 28, 2021.Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Meghan Nash, a dental hygienist from Charlotte, N.C. — who’s staying at a Hampton Inn just blocks from the scene of Sunday’s shooting — was unaware of the incident until learning about it from a reporter.
“That’s insane. That’s really terrible,” said Nash, 30.
The NYPD released additional footage of the suspect.DCPI
“I knew crime was up but I didn’t think things had gotten so bad that people were firing guns in Times Square.”
Nash added, “I probably would have picked a different destination. I really just wanted to have fun, not worry about getting randomly killed by a stray bullet.”
William Montanez is used to getting stopped by the police in Tampa, Florida, for small-time traffic and marijuana violations; it’s happened more than a dozen times. When they pulled him over last June, he didn’t try to hide his pot, telling officers, “Yeah, I smoke it, there’s a joint in the center console, you gonna arrest me for that?”
They did arrest him, not only for the marijuana but also for two small bottles they believed contained THC oil — a felony — and for having a firearm while committing that felony (they found a handgun in the glove box).
Then things got testy.
As they confiscated his two iPhones, a text message popped up on the locked screen of one of them: “OMG, did they find it?”
The officers demanded his passcodes, warning him they’d get warrants to search the cellphones. Montanez suspected that police were trying to fish for evidence of illegal activity. He also didn’t want them seeing more personal things, including intimate pictures of his girlfriend.
So he refused, and was locked up on the drug and firearms charges.
William MontanezCourtesy of William Montanez
Five days later, after Montanez was bailed out of jail, a deputy from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office tracked him down, handed him the warrants and demanded the phone passcodes. Again, Montanez refused. Prosecutors went to a judge, who ordered him locked up again for contempt of court.
“I felt like they were violating me. They can’t do that,” Montanez, 25, recalled recently. “F— y’all. I ain’t done nothing wrong. They wanted to get in the phone for what?”
He paid a steep price, spending 44 days behind bars before the THC and gun charges were dropped, the contempt order got tossed and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor pot charge. And yet he regrets nothing, because he now sees his defiance as taking a stand against the abuse of his rights.
“The world should know that what they’re doing out here is crazy,” Montanez said. The police never got into his phones.
While few would choose jail, Montanez’s decision reflects a growing resistance to law enforcement’s power to peer into Americans’ digital lives. The main portals into that activity are cellphones, which are protected from prying eyes by encryption, with passcodes the only way in.
As police now routinely seek access to people’s cellphones, privacy advocates see a dangerous erosion of Americans’ rights, with courts scrambling to keep up.
“It’s becoming harder to escape the reach of police using technology that didn’t exist before,” said Riana Pfefferkorn, the associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. “And now we are in the position of trying to walk that back and stem the tide.”
While courts have determined that police need a warrant to search a cellphone, the question of whether police can force someone to share a passcode is far from settled, with no laws on the books and a confusing patchwork of differing judicial decisions. Last month, the Indiana Supreme Court heard arguments on the issue. The state supreme courts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are considering similar cases.
As this legal battle unfolds, police keep pursuing new ways of breaking into cellphones if the owners don’t cooperate — or are enlisting help from technology firms that can do it for them. This has put them at odds with cellphone makers, all of whom continually update their products to make them harder for hackers or anyone else to break into.
But the hacking techniques are imperfect and expensive, and not all law enforcement agencies have them. That is why officials say compelling suspects to unlock their cellphones is essential to police work. Making the tactic more difficult, they say, would tilt justice in favor of criminals.
“It would have an extreme chilling effect on our ability to thoroughly investigate and bring many, many cases, including violent offenses,” said Hillar Moore, the district attorney in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who got the FBI’s help in breaking into a cellphone belonging to a suspect in a deadly Louisiana State University fraternity hazing ritual. “It would basically shut the door.”
In the part of Florida where Montanez lives, authorities are guided by a case involving an upskirt photo.
A young mother shopping at a Target store in Sarasota in July 2014 noticed a man taking a picture of her with his phone while crouching on the floor. She confronted him. He fled. Two days later, police arrested Aaron Stahl and charged him with video voyeurism.
Authorities got a search warrant for Stahl’s iPhone, but he wouldn’t give them the passcode, citing his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. A trial judge ruled in his favor, but a state appellate court reversed the decision in December 2016, saying Stahl had to provide the code. Facing the possibility of getting convicted at trial and sentenced to prison, Stahl agreed to plead no contest in exchange for probation.
While Stahl did not provide the passcode in the end, prosecutors still rely on the precedent established by the appellate ruling to compel others to turn over their passcodes under the threat of jail.
“Up until that point you could be a pedophile or a child pornogropher and carry around the fruits of your crime in front of law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges and taunt them with fact that they couldn’t get the passcode,” said Cynthia Meiners, who prosecuted Stahl at the 12th Judicial Circuit State’s Attorney’s Office. “You could say, ‘I’m a child pornographer and it’s on my phone but I’m not giving you my passcode because I would be incriminating myself.’”
But that ruling only holds in a few counties of Florida. Elsewhere in the country, skirmishes remain unresolved.
In Indiana, police officials are trying to force a woman to share her passcode as they investigate her for harassment, saying she was making it impossible for them to obtain key evidence. The woman’s lawyer says authorities haven’t said what evidence they think is in the phone, raising concerns about a limitless search.
Her appeals reached the state Supreme Court, whose ruling could influence similar cases around the country. Attorneys general in eight other states filed a brief in support of the police, warning against a ruling that “drastically alters the balance of power between investigators and criminals.”
The stakes are similar in New Jersey, where a sheriff’s deputy accused of tipping off drug dealers to police activities has refused to hand over passcodes to his iPhones. The state Supreme Court agreed in May to hear the case.
These clashes aren’t limited to the use of passcodes. Police have also tried to force people to open phones through biometrics, such as thumbprints or facial recognition. Legal experts see the Fifth Amendment argument against self-incrimination as more of a stretch in those cases. The law has generally been interpreted as protecting data that someone possesses — including the contents of their mind, such as passcodes — but not necessarily their physical traits, such as thumbprints. Still, some judges have refused to sign warrants seeking permission to force someone to unlock their phone using their face or finger.
“Depending on where you are in the country, there is different case law on what police can do,” said Andrew Crocker, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties nonprofit.
In some states, there is no authoritative court ruling, leaving law enforcement authorities to decide for themselves. Virginia falls into that category. Bryan Porter, the prosecutor in the city of Alexandria, said he has told local police it’s OK to try to force someone under the threat of jail to open a cellphone by thumbprint or face. But demanding a password seems to go too far, he said.
Criminals shouldn’t be able to inoculate themselves from investigations, Porter said. “But it kind of rubs me the wrong way to present a piece of paper to someone and say, ‘Give us your passcode.’”
In Tampa, Florida, where Montanez was arrested last year, judges still rely on the 2016 ruling against Stahl by the Second District Court of Appeals. That is what prosecutors cited when they tried to force Montanez to give up his passcodes.
But Montanez’s lawyer, Patrick Leduc, argued that, unlike Stahl’s case, police had no reason to search the phone, because it had no connection to the offenses he was charged with. The “OMG, did they find it?” text message — which turned out to be from Montanez’s mother, who owned the car and the gun in the glove box — was meaningless, Leduc said. He warned of a police “fishing expedition” in which authorities could search for anything potentially incriminating on his phone.
While sitting in lockup for contempt, Montanez’s resolve not to give up his passcodes hardened. “What they were doing to me was illegal and I wasn’t going to give them their business like that,” he said.
“They told me I got the key to my freedom,” he added. “But I was like, ‘F— that.’”
But the experience shook him. “I ain’t the toughest guy in the world, but I can protect myself. But it was crazy,” he said. “Bad food, fights here and there, people trying to take your food.”
At the same time, the drugs and gun case against Montanez was crumbling. Laboratory tests on the suspected THC oil came back negative, voiding that felony charge and the gun charge related to it. That left prosecutors with only minor pot charges. But he remained in jail on the contempt charge while his lawyer and prosecutors negotiated a plea deal.
In August 2018, after Montanez had spent more than five weeks in jail for refusing to provide the passcode, an appellate court dismissed the contempt case on a technicality. The court invited prosecutors to try again, but by then the passcode’s value had diminished. Instead, prosecutors allowed Montanez to plead no contest to misdemeanor drug charges and he was freed.
When he was released, Montanez carried a notoriety that made him feel unwelcome in his own neighborhood. He noticed people looking at him differently. He was banned from his favorite bar.
The police keep pulling him over, and he now fears them, he said. He finally left Tampa and lives in Pasco County, about an hour away.
“Yeah, I took a stand against them,” he said. “But I lost all that time. I gotta deal with that, going to jail for no reason.”
U.S. Border Patrol agents stand in front of a secondary fence in San Diego, Calif., looking across the border wall toward Mexico. This area is one where the Pentagon will spend more resources shifted away from military construction projects.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
U.S. Border Patrol agents stand in front of a secondary fence in San Diego, Calif., looking across the border wall toward Mexico. This area is one where the Pentagon will spend more resources shifted away from military construction projects.
In all, he detailed 11 wall projects that would be completed as a result of the diversion of Pentagon funds. They include new pedestrian fencing and barriers in San Diego, Calif., replacement of vehicle barriers in El Paso, Texas, and new fencing at the border in Yuma, Ariz.
Congressional sources said the full list of cut military projects was slated to be released Wednesday after lawmakers were directly alerted of which ones were located in their districts.
Esper cites the national emergency that President Trump declared in February that required the use of armed forces for projects along the southwest border.
“Based on analysis and advice from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and input from the Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of the Interior and pursuant to the authority granted to me in Section 2808, I have determined that 11 military construction projects along the international border with Mexico, with an estimated total cost of $3.6 billion, are necessary to support the use of the armed forces in connection with the national emergency,” Esper states in a letter to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash.
Democrats on Capitol Hill decried the move and argued that moving money from planned projects to border construction efforts could put U.S. forces at risk.
In a closed door meeting with Boeing executives last November, which was secretly recorded, American Airlines’ pilots can be heard expressing concerns about the safety of MCAS.
Boeing vice-president Mike Sinnett told the pilots: “No one has yet to conclude that the sole cause of this was this function on the airplane.”
Later in the meeting, he added: “The worst thing that can ever happen is a tragedy like this, and the even worse thing would be another one.”
The pilots also complained they had not been told about MCAS, which was new to the 737 Max, until after the Lion Air crash off Indonesia, which killed 189.
“These guys didn’t even know the damn system was on the airplane, nor did anybody else,” said Mike Michaelis, head of safety for the pilots’ union.
Boeing declined to comment on the November meeting, saying: “We are focused on working with pilots, airlines and global regulators to certify the updates on the Max and provide additional training and education to safely return the planes to flight.”
American Airlines said it was “confident that the impending software updates, along with the new training elements Boeing is developing for the Max, will lead to recertification of the aircraft soon.”
Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing issued additional instructions to pilots in case they faced a malfunction of the MCAS.
But in a letter obtained by the AFP news agency, Mr Michaelis said the instructions weren’t sufficient to help pilots in the event of malfunction.
Mr Michaelis also reportedly asked Boeing executives at the meeting to consider a software upgrade for the 737 MAX 8 – which probably would have required the planes be grounded for some time.
The executives said they didn’t want to rush out a fix, and said they expected pilots to be able to handle problems, according to the New York Times.
Investigators believe in both deadly crashes a faulty sensor triggered the plane’s MCAS anti-stall system, which repeatedly pushed the nose of the plane down.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
The Ethiopian Airlines crash killed all 157 on board
The firm said it had inadvertently made an alarm feature optional instead of standard, but insisted that this did not jeopardise flight safety.
The feature – an Angle of Attack (AOA) Disagree alert – was designed to let pilots know when two different sensors were reporting conflicting data.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said the issue was “low risk”, but said Boeing could have helped to “eliminate possible confusion” by letting it know earlier.
Boeing has been working on a software fix for its flight system and is hoping for quick approval from regulators.
But it is unclear if the planes will be back in the air before the end of the critical summer travel season.
In one of the key moments of his March 20 press conference about the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, President Trump touted hydroxychloroquine, a common anti-malaria drug, as a potential treatment for the illness, even while the top health official beside him urged caution about it.
“This is prescribed for many years for people to combat malaria, which was a big problem and it’s very effective,” Trump said. “It was a strong drug.” He later added, “I sure as hell think we ought to give it a try.”
Dr. Tony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a beacon of evidence-based policy in the administration’s botched pandemic response, had been asked by a reporter whether hydroxychloroquine could be used against Covid-19 after reports surfaced this week of doctors using it in other countries to treat patients. Fauci was clear: The evidence was thin and anecdotal. (Their extended exchange was bizarre and revealing, as my colleague German Lopez reported.)
But what is the deal with hydroxychloroquine, you ask? With the spread of the coronavirus across the world and increasing numbers of infected people, there’s now an international race to develop effective treatments for Covid-19. And hydroxychloroquine, a less-toxic derivative of chloroquine, another malaria drug, has emerged as one of the frontrunners. (Chloroquine itself is related to quinine, an ingredient in tonic water.)
Hydroxychloroquine, the less toxic version, is an appealing option mainly because it’s an off-the-shelf drug. Companies know how to make it, there are low-cost generic versions available, and the drug has already been tested and approved for use against malaria and to treat inflammation in conditions like arthritis.
But as Fauci noted, it has not been approved as a treatment for Covid-19, and right now, the evidence for its effectiveness is sparse.
Chinese researchers showed in lab cell culture tests that hydroxychloroquine can slow infections from the virus behind Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, blocking it from entering cells. Some doctors in China and South Korea have also used it to treat patients. And a recent study by researchers in France found that the drug was “efficient” in clearing upper airways from the virus in three to six days in most patients. That timing is important because an untreated infected person can transmit the virus for 20 days or more, even without showing symptoms. So it’s important to shrink the amount of time a person carries the virus in order to limit its spread.
“Such results are promising and open the possibility of an international strategy to decisionmakers to fight this emerging viral infection in real-time even if other strategies and research including vaccine development could be also effective, but only in the future,” the French researchers wrote. “We therefore recommend that COVID-19 patients be treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people in order to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the world.”
But the researchers only looked at 36 patients and only 26 actually received hydroxychloroquine in the study — a tiny sample size. Hydroxychloroquine can also have side effects like headaches, dizziness, and diarrhea, so it’s not something that doctors can blanketly prescribe. And the study wasn’t blinded, meaning the patients knew what they were getting, nor was it randomized. That limits the scientific merit of the study.
That said, there are plans for wider testing. At least six clinical trials for hydroxychloroquine are recruiting patients or in planning stages around the world. In the meantime, health officials are scrambling to get enough Covid-19 tests and to build up the capacity to care for a looming surge in patients.
Right now, the most effective way to fight the virus remains not getting infected in the first place, which means using good personal hygiene like handwashing and social distancing measures.
“But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial,” he continued. “That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine.”
I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests.
But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial. That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine.
On Wednesday, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn in alongside President-elect Joe Biden at the inauguration.
Surrounding the 2020 election, some of Harris’ family members, like her niece Meena and sister Maya, have been incredibly active and vocal in the vice president–elect’s run.
Here’s a quick rundown of the Harris family tree:
Sister
Maya Harris
Harris’ 53-year-old younger sister is no stranger to politics. During Harris’ presidential run, her sister was the campaign chairwoman. She also served as an adviser to former first lady and Senator Hilary Clinton during her 2016 presidential run, according to The Washington Post. Previously, Maya Harris was the executive director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and a vice president at the Ford Foundation, whose mission is “to reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement,” according to its website.
Maya Harris was one of the family members that the vice president–elect thanked in her acceptance speech in November, along with her husband and stepchildren.
Vice President–elect Kamala Harris, her husband Douglas Emhoff and her sister Maya Harris prior to her delivering a campaign speech at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair on August 10, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa. Alex Wong/Getty
Niece
Meena Harris
Harris’ niece has been particularly outspoken during her aunt’s vice presidential campaign and leading up to her inauguration, whether she was celebrating a rainy rally or coming to Sasha Obama’s defense. Meena Harris is also a lawyer and the CEO of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, which “brings awareness to social and cultural causes” according to its website, by creating and supporting content from various organizations including the Essie Justice Group and Black Futures Lab.
Harris has also authored two children’s books Ambitious Girl and Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, inspired by her mother and aunt.
Stepchildren
Harris has two stepchildren with her husband, lawyer Doug Emhoff. Both Cole and Ella Emhoff were from Emhoff’s first marriage to producer Kerstin Emhoff (née Mackin). Both the Emhoff children refer to Harris as “Momala.” The siblings were recently interviewed by The New York Times to discuss their family dynamic. Ella described the parenting style between the three as positive. “They have good communication between the three of them. They are really a unit, like a three-person parenting squad. It’s really cool,” she said.
Cole Emhoff
The elder Emhoff sibling is a graduate of Colorado College. He appears to have followed in his mother’s footsteps and pursued a career in the entertainment industry. According to his LinkedIn, he’s an executive assistant for the production company Plan B, which has recently produced the Jon Stewart–directed Irresistible.
Ella Emhoff
The younger Emhoff is a student at Parsons in Brooklyn, New York. She regularly posts different art and knitting projects on Instagram. In the New York Times interview, she said that she hoped her father would take up knitting as part of his new role as second-gentleman.
“All around the country, Americans of every political stripe will rally behind an initiative to make sure that they, their children, their parents, their husbands, wives, sons, uncles, nephews, cousins can be the first to get a job when it opens up, to get her old job back when they rehire or to keep their job if they already have one,” he said.
Tras nueve años de funcionamiento, Airbnb está demostrando que las plataformas de economía colaborativa son un negocio más que rentable. Es así como la compañía, fundada por Brian Chesky, proyecta que para 2020 ganará US$ 3.500 millones al año. La cifra supera las ganancias del 85% de las compañías del índice Fortune 500 y supera en 3.400% las ganancias de la compañía en 2016.
Según los expertos, la fortaleza económica que está demostrando el portal de arriendo de viviendas privadas la convertirá en la primera compañía de economía colaborativa en convertirse en un éxito financiero, superando incluso a Uber, otra de las más populares del mundo.
A pesar de las proyecciones de crecimiento, la compañía todavía enfrenta varios inconvenientes, especialmente en lo que se refiera a regulación en los diferentes mercados en los que opera. (El Mercurio / GDA)
Soon after speaking to President Trump about the firing of his boss James Comey, Andrew McCabe, who became the bureau’s acting director, began obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations involving the president and his ties to Russia. In his first television interview since his own firing, McCabe tells 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley he wanted those inquiries to be documented and underway so they would be difficult to quash without raising scrutiny.
“I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground, in an indelible fashion,” McCabe tells Pelley in the interview. “That were I removed quickly, or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace.”
The interview with the veteran FBI agent who rose to acting director of the bureau will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, February 17 at 7:00 p.m., ET/PT on CBS.
“I wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground and if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they made that decision,” McCabe said.
The White House responded to the opening of that investigation, calling it a “completely baseless investigation.”
The first excerpt from the interview was broadcast on “CBS This Morning” Thursday as Pelley appeared on the program to talk about his report on McCabe.
Andrew McCabe tells “60 Minutes” why he opened investigations involving Trump
“The most illuminating and surprising thing in the interview to me were these eight days in May when all of these things were happening behind the scenes that the American people really didn’t know about,” Pelley said on the show.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Pelley said. “These were the eight days from Comey’s firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what do with the president.”
Pelley said McCabe confirms in their interview that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein considered wearing a wire in meetings with President Trump. Previously, a Justice Department statement claimed that Rosenstein made the offer sarcastically, but McCabe said it was taken seriously.
“McCabe in [the 60 Minutes] interview says no, it came up more than once and it was so serious that he took it to the lawyers at the FBI to discuss it,” Pelley told “CBS This Morning.”
McCabe has written a book, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” in which he describes his career, and the FBI investigative process. It’s an insider’s account that details FBI decisions in the 2016 election and what took place at the bureau in the days between the firing of Comey and the appointment of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller to probe Russian influence in the election.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference at the end of the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, on June 30. (Bernat Armangue/AP)
NATO military officials are walking back the secretary general’s announcement earlier this week that 300,000 troops “will” be placed on high alert across the alliance, now saying the high number is a “concept” the bloc aims to enact by mid-2023.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday that NATO “will increase the number of our high readiness forces to well over 300,000.”
But it now appears that number is more aspirational, and is based on a new model NATO believes will take at least another year to accomplish.
The initial announcement appeared to be a seven-fold increase from the 40,000 troops NATO currently has on high alert, and two NATO officials told CNN that number caught many NATO countries’ defense chiefs off guard.
It was not clear to them, for example, which troops from each member state would need to contribute to that new high-readiness force, or whether enough countries had even been asked or agreed to provide the sufficient forces for it. It was a point of apparent confusion and disjointedness in an otherwise highly choreographed show of unity among the allies.
Two senior NATO officials told reporters in a briefing on Thursday that the new high-readiness model will eventually replace the NATO Response Force model, but that it is “still a work in progress.”
The officials indicated that under the new model, many of the troops would remain in their home countries rather than move under the command of NATO’s Allied Command Operations. But they would be quickly available to NATO should a security crisis arise, such as if Russia were to attack a member country.
Asked what the trigger would be to move those forces to high alert under NATO command, one of the officials would only say it will involve “indications and warnings” of a potential attack.
Image caption
Rodeado de una multitud que lo aclamaba, Erdogan dijo: “El gobierno está en control”.
El presidente de Turquía, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, regresó en la mañana de este sábado a Estambul horas después de que iniciara un intento de golpe de Estado en su contra por parte de un grupo de militares.
Y frente a una multitud que lo aclamaba en el aeropuerto de Estambul, dijo: “El gobierno está en control”.
Por su parte, el nuevo jefe interino del estado mayor del ejército, Ümit Dündar— quien fue nombrado en sustitución a Hulusi Akar, capturado por los golpistas y cuyo paradero se desconoce— , también informó que el intento de golpe ya fue “frustrado”.
Y el primer ministro Binali Yildim describió el levantamiento como “una mancha negra en el historial democrático de Turquía”.
Según las autoridades, el levantamiento y la respuesta para controlarlo dejaron como consecuencia 265 muertos, “la mayoría de ellos civiles”, más de 1.000 heridos y más de 2.800 militares vinculados al golpe arrestados.
La televisión turca mostró a decenas de soldados presuntamente involucrados en el intento de golpe rindiéndose, abandonando los tanques con las manos en alto.
El gobierno turco también informó que 29 coroneles y 5 generales fueron apartados de sus cargos, así como unos 3.000 jueces.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
Decenas de personas se manifestaron en Ankara contra el levantamiento.
Ya lo advirtió Erdogan en el aeropuerto, a donde llegó tras disfrutar de unas vacaciones en el sur del país: “Este levantamiento, este movimiento es un gran regalo de Dios para nosotros. Porque el ejército será limpiado“.
Y en su desafiante discurso agregó que los golpistas “pagarán caro este acto de traición”.
Así se ha vivido el intento de golpe en Turquía.
Asimismo, el presidente turco señaló como culpables del intento de derrocamiento a los seguidores del clérigo musulmán turco Fethullah Gulen.
Aunque el clérigo, quien vive autoexiliado en Estados Unidos, negó categóricamente cualquier vínculo con los acontecimientos de Turquía.
Este sábado el presidente Erdogan pidió a EE.UU. que extradite al clérigo Gulen durante un discurso ante una multitud de seguidores en Estambul.
Image caption
Un grupo de partidarios de Erdogan festeja sobre uno de los tanques militares que bloquearon los puentes en el Bósforo.
Image caption
Las autoridades turcas informaron de que decenas de militares fueron apartados de sus cargos y la televisión turca mostró estas imágenes de soldados golpistas rindiéndose.
Grecia informó del arresto de ocho hombres que llegaron al país en un helicóptero militar turco.
El aparato aterrizó en la ciudad norteña de Alexandroupolis y los hombres solicitaron asilo político, según las autoridades griegas.
Pero Turquía ya adelantó que pedirá su extradición.
Cómo ocurrió
En la noche de este viernes, un grupo de militares de los cuales no se sabe aún quién los dirigía, aseguró tener el control de Turquía tras posicionar escuadrones de soldados en puntos estratégicos de Estambul y Ankara, las dos principales ciudades del país.
Decretaron el toque de queda y la ley marcial, y en un comunicado leído en la televisión estatal aseguraron haber instalado en el gobierno a un “consejo para la paz de la patria”.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
Un hombre se enfrentó solo a un tanque de guerra que intentaba entrar en el aeropuerto de Ataturk en Estambul.
Miles de personas ignoraron el toque de queda y salieron a protestar en apoyo a Erdogan, algunos incluso saltando sobre los tanques en actitud desafiante.
Durante toda la noche, las imágenes y reportes de medios locales mostraron enfrentamientos entre militares y civiles, y explosiones en edificios gubernamentales.
Image copyright EPA
Image caption
Erdogan dijo que “el ejército será limpiado” y que los golpistas pagarán por su “traición”.
En la plaza Taksim, en Estambul, por ejemplo, se escucharon dos explosiones grandes. Las mismas fueron acompañadas por el sonido de aviones de combate.
Los medios estatales informaron que una bomba impactó el edificio del Parlamento en Ankara.
Por otra parte, un avión de combate del gobierno derribó un helicóptero militar que era tripulado por fuerzas golpistas.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Hay reportes de 17 policías muertos en el cuartel de las fuerzas especiales de la capital.
El primer ministro de Turquía, Binali Yildirim, había dado la orden de derribar cualquier aeronave secuestrada por los golpistas. Según informó, jets militares habían despegado de la base militar ubicada en Eskisehir, al este de Ankara.
También se reportaron tiroteos y una explosión cerca del complejo presidencial en Ankara, y que sólo en el cuartel de las fuerzas especiales de la capital 17 policías habían muerto, aunque no se tiene claro si estas víctimas están incluidas en la cifra de fallecidos general.
“Orden democrático”
Horas antes, los uniformados emitieron en la televisión estatal un comunicado en el que aseguran haber tomado el poder para “preservar el orden democrático”.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Tras el levantamiento militar, el presidente Erdogan habló con CNN Turk y aseguró que seguía en ejercicio de su cargo.
El comunicado del grupo militar, leído por un presentador del canal nacional de televisión TRT— según él, obligado a punta de pistola—, aseguraba que el imperio de la ley democrática y secular se había visto erosionado por el actual gobierno, y que entraría en vigencia una nueva Constitución.
Sin embargo, Erdogan habló por medio de una videollamada desde un celular al canal de televisión CNN Turk para asegurar que seguía en ejercicio de su cargo e instó a sus partidarios a salir a las plazas y calles del país en favor de la democracia.
El mandatario se refirió al intento de golpe como “el levantamiento de una minoría”.
El inicio
Image copyright AP
Image caption
La plaza Taksim en Estambul fue uno de los lugares donde los partidarios de Erdogan se reunieron de a cientos para oponerse al golpe de Estado.
Los primeros reportes de una situación irregular en Turquía habían llegado cuando medios locales empezaron a hablar de sobrevuelo de aviones caza-bombarderos y helicópteros militares, así como disparos en Ankara.
Además, tanques bloqueaban dos puentes sobre el río Bósforo, en la ciudad de Estambul, la más grande del país. También impedían el acceso a los aeropuertos de esta ciudad y de la capital, Ankara.
Grupos de monitoreo de internet dijeron que el acceso a redes sociales como Facebook y Twitter estaba siendo restringido en Turquía, aunque no estaba claro quién bloqueaba el acceso.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Militares bloquearon este viernes el puente sobre el río Bósforo en Estambul.
La televisión turca anunció que altos mandos militares fueron tomados rehenes en Ankara. Según informes, uno de ellos era el jefe del estado mayor de las fuerzas militares, general Hulusi Akar, cuyo paradero sigue siendo desconocido.
Entre tanto el secretario de Estado de EE.UU., John Kerry, dio una declaración desde Moscú diciendo que esperaba que hubiera paz y continuidad en Turquía.
Junto a Kerry, el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Rusia, Sergei Lavrov, dijo que “es necesario evitar cualquier enfrentamiento cruento y resolver los problemas por conductos constitucionales”.
Y un portavoz del Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, pidió que se volviera al “camino de la estabilidad y el orden” en Turquía.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
El primer ministro Binali Yildirim, dijo que las fuerzas de seguridad habían sido llamadas para manejar la situación.
El secretario general de Naciones Unidas, Ban Ki-moon, llamó a la calma.
“El secretario general está siguiendo de cerca los acontecimientos de Turquía”, informó un portavoz de la ONU, Farhan Haq.
“Naciones Unidas busca aclarar la situación en el terreno y llama a la calma”, añadió.
Además de hacer unas declaraciones similares y pedir “un respeto total para las instituciones democráticas de Turquía”, el secretario general de la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN), Jens Stoltenberg, recordó que Ankara es “un valioso aliado”.
Lo es sobre todo contra el gobierno del presidente Bashar al Asad en Siria y en el combate al grupo autodenominado Estado Islámico, ya que permite a la coalición internacional liderada por Estados Unidos su base de Incirlik para sus incursiones contra los yihadistas en Irak y Siria.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
Decenas de personas salieron a la calle en Estambul para rechazar lo que el presidente Erdogan denunció como un “intento de golpe” de Estado.
Por su parte, el presidente del Consejo Europeo, Donald Tusk, dijo que las tensiones en Turquía no se pueden resolver con armas.
Y agregó que la Unión Europea apoya totalmente al gobierno democráticamente electo del país, algo en lo que también insistió la canciller alemana Angela Merkel.
En unas palabras similares a las utilizadas por Erdogan, Qatar, la monarquía absoluta bañada por las aguas del Golfo Pérsico y aliado de Turquía, también denunció el “intento de golpe de Estado”.
“Pagarán el precio más alto”
El primer ministro turco dijo que las fuerzas de seguridad habían sido llamadas para manejar la situación y que “nada podrá perjudicar la democracia turca”.
“Estamos analizando la posibilidad de una intentona. No permitiremos esto”, dijo Yildirim, sin ofrecer más detalles.
“Aquellos que participen de este acto ilegal pagarán el precio más alto“, añadió.
Image caption
El reactor había sido clausurado en 2007.
Corea del Norte indicó que su principal instalación nuclear, el complejo de Yongbyon, reanudó sus operaciones normales.
Según informó la agencia de noticias estatal KCNA el país está mejorando sus armas nucleares “en calidad y cantidad”.
El reactor de Yongbyon fue clausurado en 2007 pero Pyongyang prometió reiniciarlo en 2013 después de su tercera prueba nuclear y en medio de crecientes tensiones regionales.
El reactor ha sido la fuente de plutonio para el programa de armas nucleares de Corea del Norte.
Expertos creen que una vez reiniciado, el reactor podría potencialmente fabricar plutonio para una bomba cada año.
El anuncio es la primera confirmación oficial de Corea del Norte de que ya reinició sus operaciones en Yongbyon.
Sin embargo, un centro de investigaciones estadounidense indicó a principios de este año que imágenes de satélite sugerían que ya se había iniciado el trabajo en la planta.
KCNA también informó el martes que Pyongyang estaba dispuesto a enfrentar la hostilidad de Estados Unidos con “armas nucleares en cualquier momento”.
Sin embargo, no es claro cuál es la capacidad nuclear total del país.
Corea del Norte afirma que fabricó un dispositivo suficientemente pequeño para poderlo colocar en una ojiva nuclear en un misil, el cual podría lanzar contra sus enemigos.
Pero funcionarios estadounidenses dudan de esta afirmación y expertos aseguran que es difícil analizar el progreso que ha hecho el país en el proceso de miniaturización.
Image caption
Corea del Norte conmemora próximamente el 70 aniversario del Partido de los Trabajadores.
Es la principal instalación nuclear de Corea del Norte, Se cree que aquí se fabricó material para pruebas nucleares previas.
El reactor fue clausurado en julio de 2007 como parte de un acuerdo de desarme a cambio de ayuda.
En abril de 2009 se prohibió la entrada a inspectores internacionales cuando Corea del Norte se retiró de las conversaciones para desarme.
En 2010 se reveló una planta de enriquecimiento de uranio. Un científico nuclear estadounidense indicó que los centrifugadores parecían ser principalmente para energía nuclear para uso civil, pero que podrían convertirse para producir combustible para una bomba de uranio altamente enriquecido.
El reactor se reinició en 2013, el mismo año que Corea del Norte condujo una prueba nuclear. Quedó inactivo en agosto de 2014.
Los expertos creen que el reactor podría producir suficiente plutonio para una bomba al año.
Una prueba nuclear basada en un dispositivo de uranio sería más difícil de monitorear que uno de plutonio.
Image caption
La central de Yongbyong es la principal instalación nuclear de Corea del Norte.
La noticia surge antes del 70 aniversario del dirigente Partido de los Trabajadores el 10 de octubre, que Corea del Norte planea conmemorar con un desfile.
Pyongyang también anunció planes para lanzar un cohete de largo alcance que transporta un satélite, algo que los extranjeros han descrito como una prueba de cohete militar.
Corresponsales afirman que el reciente anuncio no significa que Corea del Norte tenga capacidad para lanzar misiles de largo alcance, pero sí muestra que el país tiene ambiciones de lograrlo.
GUADALAJARA, JALISCO (10/FEB/2015).- Revisa lo más importante del 10 de febrero en México a través de este resumen de noticias publicadas a través de los sitios web de los medios que conforman los Periódicos Asociados en Red.
Rubén Núñez, secretario general de la Sección 22 de la Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), informó que tras la mesa de negociación de este martes en la Secretaría de Gobernación, se acordó reconocer y pagar a todos los maestros que no habían cobrado sus quincenas de enero por no ser regulares.
La Ronda Uno de licitaciones de contratos para la extracción de hidrocarburos significará para Coahuila la explotación de al menos 62 mil 034.8 hectáreas que afectarán a cuatro municipios.
La presencia de nieve continúa en la zona serrana del municipio de Canelas, informó el presidente municipal del lugar, Santiago Cháirez Beltrán, al dar a conocer que las lluvias que se registraron a inicio de mes provocaron que esta demarcación se mantuviera incomunicada por espacio de 24 horas.
La PGR detuvo a Carlos Mateo Aguirre, hermano del exgobernador de Guerrero, Ángel Aguirre, luego de un cateo realizado en una propiedad ubicada en el fraccionamiento Costa Azul, en Acapulco, Guerrero.
Mateo Aguirre es señalado por varios empresarios y políticos porque pedía comisiones para la autorización de contratos en el gobierno del estado.
El Presidente de México, Enrique Peña Nieto acudió a Jalisco con la finalidad de conmemorar el primer Centenario de la creación de la Fuerza Aérea de México.
En su visita a la Base Aérea Militar Número 5 en Zapopan, el mandatario inauguró las instalaciones del Colegio de Aire en esta entidad.
El presidente de la Junta de Coordinación Política del Congreso local, Félix Serrano Toledo, suspendió las comparecencias al considerar que no existen condiciones de seguridad, luego de que el diputado por el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Fredy Gil Pineda Gopar, agredió al secretario de Turismo y Desarrollo Económico (STyDE), José Zorrilla de San Martín Diego.
La Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), a través de la Subprocuraduría de Control Regional, Procedimientos Penales y Amparo (SCRPPA), por conducto de su Delegación en el estado de Sonora, incineró seis toneladas 299 kilos de marihuana en Sonoyta.
La sociedad organizada no debe verse sólo como un objeto de los programas públicos, debe ser sujeto de ellos con una compartición responsable” expresó el gobernador Arturo Núñez Jiménez durante el anuncio del acuerdo en el marco del Programa de Conversión Social 2015.
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
