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Woman who won $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot can keep identity secret; will donate to charity

The woman who won October’s $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot can keep her identity a secret and said she plans on donating to causes that are important to her.

The winning ticket was sold at a KC Mart in Simpsonville, South Carolina. The winner allowed a fellow customer to cut the line in order to purchase a ticket, Fox News previously reported. But not much else is known about the woman who will receive a “one-time gross payment of $878 million – the largest jackpot payout to a single winner ever,” The Washington Post reported.

The state allows its lottery winners to remain anonymous and the woman wanted to keep her identity a secret for safety reasons. Her attorney, Jason Kurland, said people who win the lottery “become an easy target” for scams, con artists and sometimes even friends and family. The winner released a statement regarding her newfound luck.

LAWYER FOR WINNER OF $1.5B LOTTO STEPS FORWARD, WINNER ALLOWED CUSTOMER TO CUT LINE BEFORE PURCHASE

“Words can’t describe the feeling of such incredible luck,” the statement read. “I do realize that such good fortune carries a tremendous social responsibility, and it gives me a unique opportunity to assist, support and contribute to charities and causes that are close to my heart.”

Charities such as the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Columbia and the Red Cross Alabama’s Region’s tornado relief fund will receive donations from the lottery winner, the Washington Post reported.

South Carolina will collect $61 million in income taxes from the jackpot. The store that sold the ticket will get a $50,000 bonus.

WINNER OF RECORD $1.5B MEGA MILLIONS JACKPOT HASN'T STEPPED FORWARD AFTER 4 MONTHS, WITH CLOCK TICKING

Jee Patel, the manager of the store that sold the winning lotto ticket, told Fox News earlier that “lotto tourists” stop in daily to take pictures of the place. He estimated the store received between 10 to 15 visitors a day.

Fox News’ Edmund DeMarche contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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AP Investigation: Spa busts often result in light sentences

When Florida authorities shut down 10 massage spas last month and arrested hundreds of men for buying sex, they broke a longstanding pattern.

In the past, owners had mostly faced minor charges and punishment, patrons almost never were arrested, and signs of human trafficking often didn't lead to investigations.

An Associated Press review of state records shows that while law enforcement in Florida has investigated hundreds of individual massage parlors for illegal sexual activity, it was usually low-level massage therapists who were arrested.

Owners were often exempted or charged with misdemeanors resulting in fines and probation. Johns usually were not charged at all.

In stark contrast, the investigation announced last month focused heavily on the possibility of widespread human trafficking, and hundreds of johns were arrested.

Source: Fox News National

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Burundi authorities detain schoolgirls accused of scribbling over president’s picture

FILE PHOTO: Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza walks during a ceremony in tribute to the former late President Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza at the national congress palace in Bujumbura, Burundi
FILE PHOTO: Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza walks during a ceremony in tribute to the former late President Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza at the national congress palace in Bujumbura, Burundi May 16, 2016. REUTERS/Evrard Ngendakumana/File Photo

March 21, 2019

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Burundian authorities have charged three schoolgirls accused of defacing a picture of President Pierre Nkurunziza, spokeswoman for the country’s Supreme Court, Agnès Bangiricenge, said on Thursday.

The three girls were among seven school children arrested last week in Kirundo province, in Burundi’s northeast and some 200 kilometers from the commercial capital Bujumbura. Four others were subsequently released.

All were all accused of insulting Nkurunziza by scribbling over images of him printed in their school text books.

A regional court in Kirundo decided on Wednesday to detain the three further and proceed with a full trial, Bangiricenge said.

They will await trial in a nearby prison and could face up to five years in jail on conviction, a judge told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“It is true that scribbling (on the president’s picture) is a punishable offence under the Burundian law but since it was committed by teenagers, I believe  this is a mitigating circumstance,” David Ninganza, a children’s rights defender working for local group SOGEPAE, told Reuters.

“Those school children are not engaged in any political fights and need no political posts. That’s why judges have to consider all those issues in their investigations.”

School children have in the past been kicked out of school for similar offences, with some jailed and released. 

In 2016, 11 children were jailed on accusations of defacing a photograph of Nkurunziza in a school text book.

In another incident in the same year, more than 300 students of a school in the capital’s Ruziba neighborhood were sent home after being accused of defacing Nkurunziza’s image.

Hundreds of Burundians have been killed in clashes with security forces and half a million have fled abroad since Nkurunziza announced in 2015 he would run for a third term in what his opponents saw as a breach of the constitution. He won re-election.

Early this month, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Burundi had forced the United Nations to shut its local human rights office after 23 years.

In 2016 Burundi suspended all cooperation with the U.N. human rights office in Burundi after a U.N.-commissioned report accused the Bujumbura government and its supporters of being responsible for crimes against humanity.

Bachelet said there were still credible reports of serious human rights violations in Burundi, including arbitrary killings, forced disappearances, ill-treatment, arrests and detention, and curbs on freedom of association, expression and movement.

(Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Elias Biryabarema and Peter Graff)

Source: OANN

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Venezuela’s Guaido to seek to annul $8.7 billion Conoco award

FILE PHOTO: Logos of ConocoPhillips are seen in its booth at Gastech, the world's biggest expo for the gas industry, in Chiba
FILE PHOTO: Logos of ConocoPhillips are seen in its booth at Gastech, the world's biggest expo for the gas industry, in Chiba, Japan, April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo

April 16, 2019

By Luc Cohen and Mayela Armas

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido will seek to annul an $8.7 billion arbitration award to U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips as he moves to preserve foreign assets, Guaido’s chief legal representative said on Tuesday.

If accepted, the annulment request would halt enforcement of the award over the 2007 loss of Conoco’s projects in the South American country. It would follow a March decision by the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) to impose the largest arbitration award against Venezuela.

Jose Ignacio Hernandez, who Guaido has tapped as a special prosecutor, told Reuters his team separately has challenged the amount of the ICSID award, claiming “the methodology to determine the compensation was errant.”

Conoco would see no merit in a request for “annulment or rectification” and would “strongly defend” against such requests, company spokesman Daren Beaudo said.

George Kahale, a U.S. attorney who represented the Venezuelan government before the World Bank tribunal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Venezuela’s information ministry also had no immediate response to a request for comment.

An annulment would be a boost to Guaido, who in January invoked a constitutional provision to assume an interim presidency. Backed by the United States and dozens of other countries, Guaido argues President Nicolas Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate. Hernandez has been assigned to protect Venezuela’s assets abroad from possible seizure by creditors.

Cash-strapped Venezuela has balked at paying in other arbitration cases. Conoco has used legal seizures of Venezuelan oil assets to enforce earlier claims. Other creditors are attempting to seize shares in U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum, Venezuela’s prize overseas asset, to collect on debts.

It was unclear if Guaido’s representatives have standing to challenge the award since the World Bank has not recognized Guaido. The World Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

David Malpass, the newly named president of the World Bank, said last week that recognition would be up to its shareholders.

Hernandez said Guaido’s legal representation “cannot be questioned.”

Last month, a U.S. judge ruled that Guaido’s representatives could present arguments in a court battle with Canadian mining company Crystallex, which is pursuing Citgo to collect on an arbitration award in compensation for Venezuela’s expropriation of a gold mining project.

Venezuela’s nationalization wave, led by late President Hugo Chavez as part of his Socialist project, led to more than 20 international arbitration claims, which remain mostly unpaid.

(Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; editing by Gary McWilliams and Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

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U.S. to face Canada, Cuba in CONCACAF Nations League

Soccer: She Believes Cup Women's Soccer-Brazil at USA
FILE PHOTO - Mar 5, 2019; Tampa, FL, USA; Team United States pose for a photo before a game against Brazil in a She Believes Cup women's soccer match at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports

March 28, 2019

(Reuters) – The United States have been grouped with Canada and Cuba in Wednesday’s draw for the inaugural Nations League organized by the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF).

The region’s top-ranked side Mexico will play Panama and Bermuda, Costa Rica face Haiti and Curacao, and Honduras were drawn alongside Trinidad and Tobago and Martinique in the other League A groups.

The competition, similar to that started by UEFA in 2018 and aimed at cutting down on meaningless friendlies, is part of a broad makeover by a confederation seeking to win back confidence of fans after it was ravaged by the FIFA corruption scandal.

At a gala ceremony in Las Vegas on Wednesday, CONCACAF’s 41 teams were drawn into three leagues, with the winners of the four League A groups competing for the Nations League title.

The top four sides in Leagues B and C will be promoted and the bottom four in A and B relegated for the next edition.

The group matches will be played in September, October and November 2019, with the finals taking place the following year.

(Reporting by Andrew Downie; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Source: OANN

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Blackouts threaten death blow to Venezuela’s industrial survivors

A worker walks next to halted machines at a cans' factory during a power cut in Valencia
A worker walks next to halted machines at a cans' factory during a power cut in Valencia, Venezuela, April 8, 2019. Picture taken April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

April 12, 2019

By Corina Pons and Mayela Armas

VALENCIA, Venezuela (Reuters) – The latest power outage started another tough week for factory owner Antonello Lorusso in the city of Valencia, once Venezuela’s industrial powerhouse.

For the past month, unprecedented nationwide blackouts paralyzed the factory and the rest of the country, cutting off power, water and cell service to millions of Venezuelans.

Lorusso’s packaging plant, Distribuidora Marina, had already struggled through years of hyperinflation, vanishing client orders, and a flight of employees. Now the situation was worse.

For the whole month of March, Lorusso said, his company produced only its single daily capacity: 100 tonnes of packaged sugar and grains. When Reuters visited on April 8, he was using a generator to keep one of his dozen packaging machines working to fulfill the single order he had received. Power had been on for a few hours, but was too weak to run the machines.

“There is no information, we don’t know if the blackouts will continue or not,” said Lorusso, who has owned the factory for over 30 years. He said the plant had just a day’s worth of power over the previous week.

Power has been intermittent since early March, when the first major blackout plunged Venezuela into a week of darkness. Electricity experts and the opposition have called the government incompetent at maintaining the national grid. President Nicolas Maduro has accused the opposition and the U.S. government of sabotage.

Venezuela’s industry has collapsed during six years of recession that have halved the size of the economy. What is left is largely outside of the capital Caracas, the only big city that Maduro’s government has excluded from a power rationing plan intended to restrict the load on the system.

In Valencia, a few multinational companies like Nestle and Ford Motor Co cling on. But the number of companies based there has fallen to a tenth of the 5,000 there were two decades ago, when Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez became president, according to the regional business association.

“THE GAME IS OVER”

The government said on April 4 that the power rationing plan meant Valencia would spend at most 3 hours a day without electricity, but a dozen executives and workers there said outages were still lasting over 10 hours. Generators are costly and can only power a fraction of a business’s operations, they said. Many factories have shut down.

“The game is over. Companies are entering a state of despair due to their inviability,” said an executive of a food company with factories in Valencia, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Industrial companies this year are operating below 25 percent of capacity, according to industry group Conindustria. It estimated companies lost about $220 million during the days in March without power, and would lose $100 million more in April.

Nestle’s factory, which produces baby food, halted during the first blackout in early March and operations again froze two weeks later, with employees sent home until May, according to Rafael Garcia, a union leader at the plant. He blamed the most recent stoppage on very low sales of baby food which cost almost a dollar per package, or about what a person on minimum wage earns in a week.

“My greatest worry is the closure of the factory,” said Garcia, as he sat at a bus stop on Valencia’s Henry Ford avenue, in the city’s industrial outskirts where warehouses sit empty and streets are covered in weeds.

Nestle did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Ford’s plant along the avenue was working at a bare minimum for several months, union leaders said. In December, the carmaker began offering buyouts to staff after it received no orders for 2019, they said. Ford, in December, said it had “no plans to leave the country.”

The outages have idled more than just factories. In the countryside, lack of power has prevented farmers from pumping water to irrigate fields.

Since January, farmers have sown 17,500 hectares of crops, a third of the area seeded last year, and they fear losing the harvest due to the lack of water, according to agricultural associations. In the central state of Cojedes, several rice growers have already lost their crops, farmers said.

“In the rural areas, the blackouts last longer,” said Jose Luis Perez, spokesman for a rice producers federation.

Producers of cheese, beef, cured meats and lettuce told Reuters orders had dropped by half in March as buyers worried the food would perish once their freezers lost power in the next blackout.

Back in Valencia, Lorusso was preparing his factory for the new era of scarce power. He has converted one unused truck in his parking lot into a water tank. He plans to sell another to buy a second generator.

“We’ve spent years getting used to things. Then we were dealt this hard blow, and now we’re trying to find ways to cope,” he said.

(Writing by Angus Berwick; Editing by David Gregorio)

Source: OANN

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Top Dem dismisses possibility of collusion fatigue: ‘The Russians aren’t getting tired’

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee warned ominously on Sunday that "the Russians aren't getting tired" and are "attacking our electoral system every single day, if not every hour."

The stark comments from Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., signaled that Democrats are not yet concerned about the possibility of "Russia fatigue" -- the notion that after years of nonstop and largely discredited coverage concerning alleged collusion by President Trump associates with foreign nationals, Americans want to focus on other issues.

"You know, I hear a lot of people say that they're tired of hearing about the Mueller Report," Cummings acknowledged in an interview with "Face the Nation" on CBS News. "Well, we don't have time to get tired because the Russians aren't getting tired. They are attacking our electoral system every single day, if not every hour."

It was unclear exactly what Cummings was referencing. But in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian election interference, which cleared the Trump team of any criminal collusion with Russian hacking and social media disinformation campaigns but did not "exonerate" the president on obstruction, Cummings was more circumspect on the possibility of impeaching the president.

WATCH: SCHIFF, OTHER DEMS HESITATE ON IMPEACHMENT AS GIULIANI, TRUMP TAKE VICTORY LAP

"I'm not there yet, but I can foresee that possibly coming," Cummings said when asked whether he would join other prominent Democrats, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and presidential contender Elizabeth Warren, in calling for impeachment. "I think that we need to make sure the Congress has all the information."

He added: "And, you know, history, I think even if we did not win possibly [in the Senate and secure Trump's removal], if there were not impeachment, I think history would smile upon us for standing up for the Constitution."

Other Democrats, including Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, Maryland House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have also said impeachment proceedings would be premature.

In the meantime, Cummings previewed new lines of investigation against Trump and said it might be necessary to hear testimony from former White House Counsel Don McGahn and Mueller himself.

A section of the Mueller report outlined how Trump allegedly told McGahn to inform the acting attorney general that Mueller should be removed in June 2017 -- a demand that McGahn ignored. Trump has strongly suggested that claim was 'bulls---.,' and on "Fox News Sunday," Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani suggested there had been a misunderstanding.

"Oh my God, I think we need to look at the finances of this president," Cummings said. "And we also need to know something else. We need to know from Mr. Mueller, exactly what his intentions were. Did he intend for us, as a Congress, to look at this and take some type of action or did he feel as if there was truly no collusion or conspiracy?"

Speaking separately to "Face the Nation," Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee had a less-than-flattering take on the Mueller report's assessment of the obstruction issue.

“It's kind of strange to spend two years on [obstruction] and then speak with the sort of tone that is reminiscent of Pinocchio in the movie 'Shrek 3,'" Lee said, in an apparent reference to the 2007 film 'Shrek the Third.' "It's full of double negatives. It's kind of confusing.”

Lee added: “There was no collusion. It isn't there. Not a scintilla of evidence supports that. So it's time to move on.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of
Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of “Avengers: Endgame” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Marvel Studios superhero spectacle “Avengers: Endgame” hauled in a record $60 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices during its Thursday night debut, distributor Walt Disney Co said.

Global ticket sales for the film about Iron Man, Hulk and other popular characters reached $305 million for the first two days, Disney said.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland April 24, 2019. Brian Lawless/Pool via REUTERS

April 26, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain in June.

“Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric,” Corbyn said in a statement.

He said maintaining the relationship with the United States did not require “the pomp and ceremony of a state visit” and he said he would welcome a meeting with Trump “to discuss all matters of interest.”

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Writing by William Schomberg)

Source: OANN

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Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Abdulaziz Issawi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tripoli
Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Abdulaziz Issawi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tripoli, Libya April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Hani Amara

April 26, 2019

By Ulf Laessing

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya’s U.N.-recognized government has budgeted up to 2 billion dinars ($1.43 billion) to cover costs of a three-week-old war for control of the capital, such as treatment for the wounded, to be funded without new borrowing, the economy minister said.

Ali Abdulaziz Issawi suggested the government hoped for business to continue more or less as usual despite the assault on Tripoli, in the country’s northwest, by forces tied to a parallel administration based in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Once Africa’s third largest producer of oil, Libya has been riven by factional conflict since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with the country now broadly split between eastern-based forces under Khalifa Haftar and the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, in the west, under Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.

Still, with Haftar’s Libyan National Army forces unable so far to pierce defenses in Tripoli’s southern suburbs, normal life and business activities continue in much of the capital and western coastal towns.

Issawi, in an interview with Reuters in his Tripoli office, also said Libya’s commercial ports and wheat imports were still functioning normally, although some roads have been blocked.

He said the Serraj government estimates it will spend up to 2 billion dinars extra on medical treatment for wounded, aid for displaced people and other “emergency” war costs.

He said this was not military spending but analysts believe that the sum will also cover expenditures such as pay for allied armed groups or food for fighters.

“We could actually spend less,” he added, in comments that gave the first insight into the economic impact of the fighting.

Issawi said the Tripoli government, which controls little territory beyond the greater capital region, would not incur new debt to fund the war costs, sticking to a plan to post a 2019 budget without a deficit.

Tripoli derives revenue largely from oil and natural gas production, interest-free loans from local banks to the central bank, and a 183 percent surcharge on foreign exchange transactions conducted at official rates.

But with centralized tax collection greatly diminished, public debt has piled up – to 68 billion dinars in the west, including unpaid state obligations such as social insurance.

Some analysts expect Serraj’s government will be forced to raise new debt if the war for control of Tripoli drags on.

With much of Libya dominated by armed factions that also act as security forces, the public wage bill for both the western and eastern administrations has soared as fighters have been made public employees in efforts to buy their loyalty.

The east has sold bonds worth 35 billion dinars outside the official financial system as the Tripoli central bank does not fund the parallel government apart from some wages.

Despite its limited reach, the Tripoli government still runs an annual budget of around 46.8 billion dinars, mainly for public salaries and fuel subsidies.

“This year we cannot finance via debt…we will not borrow (by agreement with the central bank),” Issawi said.

According to International Monetary Fund data, Libya’s central government debt-to-GDP ratio is 143 percent, making it one of the most heavily indebted in the world on that measure.

Issawi declined to say what parts of the budget would be trimmed to support the extra outlay for war costs.

However, with some 70 percent of the budget allocated to public wages, fuel subsidies and other welfare benefits, a portion devoted to infrastructure is most likely to be axed.

Widespread lawlessness has meant there have been no major infrastructural projects since 2011, when a NATO-backed uprising overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi, leaving schools, hospitals and roads in acute need of restoration.

FOREX SURCHARGE

Issawi said the government planned to raise as much as 30 billion dinars by the end of 2019 from hard currency deals after imposing in September a 183 percent surcharge on commercial and private transactions done on the official rate of 1.4 to the U.S. dollar. That fee has effectively devalued the official rate to 3.9, much closer to the black market equivalent.

Some 17 billion dinars have been raised since then, with hard currency allocated for import credit letters now issued without delays, Issawi said. The forex fee has helped the government forecast a budget in the black for 2019.

Despite the narrowing spread between the two rates, the black market continues to thrive. Dozens of traders remained at their favorite spot behind the central bank headquarters in Tripoli when Reuters reporters visited it last week.

But traders said it could take time for the Serraj government to register the extra forex receipts as official banking channels were taking up to six months to approve import financing, keeping the black market in play for dealers.

Issawi said authorities planned to lower the forex fee from 183 percent, without saying when. The black market rate has dropped from 6 to around 4.1 since September but it has hardly moved of late as demand for black market cash remains high.

The Tripoli government has stopped subsidizing food and bread, which used to be cheaper than drinking water in Libya. Wheat imports are now being arranged by private traders and there are surplus stocks of flour at the moment, Issawi said.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing in Tripoli with additional reporting by Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., threatened possible jail time for White House officials refusing to comply with subpoenas to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

Connolly, a member of the House panel, made his comments during an interview on CNN on Thursday. He said that “if a subpoena is issued and you’re told you must testify, we will back that up.”

He added: “And we will use any and all power in our command to make sure it’s backed up — whether that’s a contempt citation, whether that’s going to court and getting that citation enforced, whether it’s fines, whether it’s possible incarceration.”

“We will go to the max to enforce the constitutional role of the legislative branch of government.”

His comments came after three officials have refused to comply with congressional requests to testify, CNN noted.

Trump told The Washington Post that his staff should not testify on Capitol Hill, explaining that the White House cooperated fully with special counsel Robert Mueller and “there is no reason to go any further, especially in Congress where it’s very partisan.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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“Outdated laws” need fixing to deal with the surge in illegal immigrant families crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, a top Border Patrol official said Friday.

Migrant families face no consequences if apprehended trying to cross the border illegally under present law, Border Patrol chief of Operations Brian Hastings claimed during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“We need a change in the current outdated laws that we’re dealing with for this current demographic and this crisis that we have,” he said.

Hastings said as of Thursday there have been 440,000 apprehensions along the southwest border. There were 396,000 apprehensions all of last year.

SOUTHERN BORDER AT ‘BREAKING POINT’ AFTER MORE THAN 76,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TRIED CROSSING IN FEBRUARY, OFFICIALS SAY

And those numbers continue to rise, he said.

Historically 70 to 90 percent of apprehensions at the border were quickly returned to Mexico, Hastings said.

Now, 83 percent of those apprehended have come from the Central American northern triangle which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and of those 63 percent are “family units” and children who cannot be returned, he said.

“There are no consequences that we can apply to this group currently,” Hastings said. “We’re overwhelmed. If you look at agents there doing a tremendous job trying to deal with the flow.”

The law dictates children have to be released after 20 days of detention.

FLORIDA SHERIFF ON BORDER CRISIS AFTER MAJOR DRUG BUST: ‘IT MAKES ME ABSOLUTELY CRAZY’

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says that has forced immigration officials to release entire families because “you don’t want to separate families.”

Recently, he said he is drafting legislation that would allow children to be detained for more than 20 days.

Hastings said agents are frustrated with the situation but are doing the best they can with the resources they have.

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“Up to 40 percent of our agents are processing at any given time,” he said. “That should say that in and of itself is pulling from those border security resources.”

Source: Fox News National

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