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Goldman Sachs raises chances of no-deal Brexit after UK PM’s late reprieve

The ticker symbol and logo for Goldman Sachs is displayed on a screen on the floor at the NYSE in New York
The ticker symbol and logo for Goldman Sachs is displayed on a screen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 18, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

March 22, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs on Friday lowered its expectations of UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal getting ratified, and hiked its estimate of the chances of a “no-deal” exit from the European Union.

The changes to the bank’s previous predictions came after the EU agreed to grant the UK a short reprieve, until April 12, before Britain could lurch out of the EU if May fails to persuade lawmakers to back her withdrawal treaty.

“By postponing Brexit day by at least a fortnight, the UK and the EU have kept all options in play, for now,” wrote Goldman Sachs analysts.

They cut the chances of May’s deal being ratified to 50 percent from 60 percent, and raised the chances of a “no-deal” Brexit to 15 percent from 5 percent.

Goldman Sachs’ estimate of the probability of Brexit not happening at all remained unchanged, at 35 percent.

(Reporting by Helen Reid, Editing by Josephine Mason)

Source: OANN

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Pentagon appoints officer to do new review of Niger attack

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has appointed a four-star officer to take another look at the military's investigation into the 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers, and review whether additional punishments should be meted out.

In a statement Thursday, the Pentagon said the investigating officer will do a "new, narrowly-scoped review" and give Shanahan recommendations on whether the reprimands already made were appropriate. The officer's name was not released.

Officials have said that nine individuals have been held accountable for lapses in training and other mission preparedness. The punishments have largely been letters of reprimand. But officials and members of Congress have questioned whether more senior officers should be disciplined. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel actions.

The initial investigation found multiple failures leading up to the October 2017 attack, but determined that none of those shortfalls directly caused the overwhelming enemy ambush and firefight, which also killed four Nigerien troops, wounded a number of forces from both countries, and sent troops running for their lives.

That investigation report came out last May, detailing a series of "individual, organizational, and institutional failures and deficiencies that contributed to the tragic events." But it concluded that "no single failure or deficiency was the sole reason" for what happened.

It said the U.S. forces didn't have time to train together before they deployed, and did not do preparatory battle drills with their Nigerien partners. And the report said lax communication and poor attention to details led to a "general lack of situational awareness and command oversight at every echelon."

Since then, administrative actions — mainly the letters of reprimand — were taken against nine individuals, including Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks, who was serving as the commander of special operations forces in Africa at the time. He was the most senior officer punished, leading some to question whether other more senior leaders had unfairly escaped unscathed.

In addition, a number of troops, including those killed, have been recommended for valor awards, mainly Silver Stars and Bronze Stars. But none of those have been announced either.

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., peppered Shanahan with questions about the lengthy delay in any announcements and when final decisions would be made.

Shanahan said he was aware that his predecessor, Jim Mattis, had received final recommendations and had been reviewing them. But, Shanahan said, "I did not find that sufficient. So, I convened my own review so I can insure from top to bottom as the appropriate accountability."

Gallego said he wanted to be sure the Pentagon review didn't simply place all the blame on junior officers and let senior officers "off the hook."

"These families and the American public deserve to know exactly what happened, and the junior officers that are being reprimanded right now should know that there's going to be equal reprimands, especially for general officers, should they have done anything wrong," said Gallego.

Shanahan responded that the fundamental reason he is doing his own review is to be certain there is a full accounting, from the troops on the ground to the most senior officer.

The U.S. military in Africa has taken a number steps to increase the security of troops on the ground, adding armed drones and armored vehicles and taking a harder look at when American forces go out with local troops. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command, has said that the U.S. has cut the response time needed for medical evacuations.

U.S. Special Operations Command has made changes in pre-deployment and readiness training, and addressed other staffing and decision-making shortfalls. The changes include insuring that forces conduct training together before they deploy and the exercises must be evaluated by a senior officer.

The review found that a large personnel turnover after training but before deployment led to some of the problems with the team in Niger.

Source: Fox News National

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Obama administration slow to answer early alarms about fentanyl: report

A failure by the Obama administration to react to numerous warnings by state officials and its own drug investigators about the rising peril of illicit fentanyl allowed the problem to fester over the years and claim tens of thousands of lives, according to The Washington Post.

And while states were seeing a growing number of fentanyl-related overdoses, Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder announced a new policy to ease prosecutions of low-level nonviolent drug offenses, which he said would address overly harsh mandatory-minimum sentences for first-time offenders. The move, law enforcement officials told The Post, led to fewer arrests and affected investigators' ability to reach criminals high up in the drug-trafficking chain through deals offered to lower-level offenders.

That, the newspaper said in its report on Wednesday, slowed law enforcement efforts to get to the sources and understand the networks behind the flourishing fentanyl trade.

From 2013 to 2017, nearly 70,000 people died of synthetic opioid-related overdoses, most tied to fentanyl, which is commonly obtained through the black market. In 2017, The Post noted, fentanyl became the leading causes of fatal overdoses.

“Everybody was slow to recognize the severity of the problem, even though a lot of the warning signs were there,” The Post quoted New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, as saying.

The appeals to the Obama administration were numerous and came from myriad sources.

Federal authorities on Monday seized 110 pounds of fentanyl in a shipment of iron oxide from Area Port of Philadelphia.

Federal authorities on Monday seized 110 pounds of fentanyl in a shipment of iron oxide from Area Port of Philadelphia. (cbp.gov)

A group of national public health experts sent a letter to senior Obama administration officials in 2016 begging for immediate action because, they stressed, thousands of people had been dying from fentanyl overdoses since at least 2013.

“The fentanyl crisis represents an extraordinary public health challenge —and requires an extraordinary public health response,” the group said in the letter, which was sent to officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and to the drug czar.

The administration, it said, acknowledged the letter but took no action.

AS DOCTORS TAPER OR END OPIOID PRESCRIPTIONS, MANY PATIENTS DRIVEN TO DESPAIR, SUICIDE 

One significant move that the CDC took in response to increasing public attention on overdoses due to opioids – which included largely illicit opioids such as heroin and illicit fentanyl – was to issue guidelines for general practitioners on prescribing opioids to people with chronic pain.

But many pain specialists and public health experts say those guidelines, while well-intentioned, made sweeping dose recommendations that remain debatable among medical professionals and have since been used to deny pain patients the doses they need. The guidelines also unleashed a wave of policies and laws around the country restricting doses and in some cases discouraging the prescribing of opioids, even to patients who long have relied on them and use them responsibly.

Meanwhile, painkiller prescription rates have declined, and many doctors are either forcing patients to taper off – against the recommendation of the CDC guidelines – or abandoning those pain patients altogether.

A Fox News series in December reported that while many pain patients in the United States have been left undertreated, creating a new public health crisis, overdose deaths due to illicit fentanyl continued to climb.

In June, Robert Mansfield, age 61, of Ladson, S.C., was sentenced to 20 years in prison for distribution of fentanyl resulting in the death of a man in December 2016, federal prosecutors said

In June, Robert Mansfield, age 61, of Ladson, S.C., was sentenced to 20 years in prison for distribution of fentanyl resulting in the death of a man in December 2016, federal prosecutors said (Charleston County Sheriff's Office)

Political leaders and police from areas hard hit by fentanyl overdoses told The Post that when the  Obama administration did address the overdose crisis, it focused on prescription painkillers and heroin, not the greater threat of fentanyl.

“Fentanyl was killing people like we’d never seen before,” said Derek Maltz, the former agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Operations Division in Washington. “A red light was going off, ding, ding, ding. ... We needed a serious sense of urgency.”

TOUGH NEW OPIOID POLICIES LEAVE SOME CANCER AND POST-SURGERY PATIENTS WITHOUT PAINKILLERS

But with no loud alarm coming from President Barack Obama or his senior officials, Congress did not move to provide the funding needed, U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not have the manpower or the equipment to detect fentanyl shipments entering from Mexico and China, and the U.S. Postal Service did not use electronic tools that would allow for detecting packages containing fentanyl that had been ordered through the Internet, The Post said.

Manchester [New Hampshire] Fire Chief Dan Goonan said he got tired of going to the numerous roundtable discussions that first responders, politicians and policymakers were having about fentanyl because nothing ever got done.

In 2014, the DEA started to alert local law enforcement agencies around the country about fentanyl, but it got little to no attention at the national level, the Post said.

President Barack Obama meets with Attorney General Eric Holder (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama meets with Attorney General Eric Holder (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

After actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a heroin overdose, attracting broad media attention to the problem, Holder appeared in a video calling heroin an “urgent and growing public health crisis.” But, just like others in the administration who saw the overdose crisis only in terms of heroin and prescription pills, Holder did not mention the bigger threat – fentanyl.

Holder’s former spokesman, Matthew Miller, defended him in an interview with The Post. “It says something that the people pointing fingers at the attorney general can’t point to a single action they recommended that he declined to take,” Miller said. “Eric Holder made fighting the opioid crisis a major focus, he strongly supported the DEA’s work in this area, and if the officials trying to now lay the blame at someone else’s feet had asked for more assistance, he would have given it.”

By the time Holder left his job, federal drug prosecutions had dropped, while fentanyl overdoses were spreading around the country.

Later, Congress asked for the creation of a National Heroin Task Force to look at the overdose epidemic. But again, the focus was heroin and prescription painkillers, which account for a minority of overdoses.

The Post noted that the task force produced a 23-page report on the OD crisis for Congress – within those pages, though, a mere five sentences mentioned fentanyl.

Michael Botticelli, the White House drug czar in the Obama administration, said, “In retrospect, it should have been a focus of the report.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Tom Frieden, who was the CDC head during the Obama administration, said he tried to impress upon officials the dangers of fentanyl and how it was becoming a major killer in many communities.

“I felt like I was a bit of a voice in the wilderness,” Frieden said. “I didn’t have the sense that people got this as a really serious problem.”

In an interview with CNN after the new report was published, one of the Post reporters, Sari Horwitz, said: “The Trump administration has done some things. They've talked about it more than the Obama administration. They've ramped up prosecutions. The Justice Department is going after fentanyl and drug trafficking.”

“But," she added, "people are telling us you cannot arrest your way out of this problem. There needs to be a three-pronged approach that involves prevention which is, as I said, a public service campaign to let people know how incredibly dangerous fentanyl is.”

Source: Fox News National

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Military Vet Seth Moulton Joins 2020 Democrat Presidential Race

U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton is the latest Democrat to jump in the race for the White House.

The Massachusetts lawmaker and Iraq War veteran made the announcement on his website Monday.

Moulton first came to prominence in 2014 when he unseated long-term incumbent Rep. John Tierney in a Democrat primary and went on to represent the state's 6th Congressional District, a swath of communities north of Boston including Salem, home of the infamous colonial-era witch trials.

Speculation about a possible Moulton run has been simmering as far back as 2017 when he spoke at a Democrat political rally in Iowa, home of the first-the-the-nation presidential caucuses. At the time he brushed aside talk of a presidential run.

Talk of possible run ramped up during last year's election when the former U.S. Marine helped lead an effort to get other Democrat military veterans to run for Congress — a cause he continues to push.

"16 years ago today, leaders in Washington sent me and my friends to fight in a war based on lies. It's still going on today," Moulton said in a recent tweet. "It's time for the generation that fought in Iraq to take over for the generation that sent us there."

The 40-year-old Moulton also gained national attention for helping lead an effort within the party to reject Nancy Pelosi as House speaker after Democrats regained control of the chamber. Moulton said it was time for new leadership.

Moulton has also been a frequent critic of President Donald Trump — from foreign policy, including Trump's recent veto of a resolution to end U.S. military assistance in Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, to his push for a wall at the southern border.

And when Trump claimed to be the target of the "single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history," Moulton responded that "as the Representative of Salem, MA, I can confirm that this is false."

Despite occasionally differing with some on the most liberal wing of the party, Moulton has staked out familiar policy positions for those seeking the Democrat presidential nomination.

He's called health care "a right every American must be guaranteed," pushed to toughen gun laws, was a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, has championed a federal "Green Corps" modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s, and has called for an end to the Electoral College.

Money could prove a challenge to Moulton, who has raised $255,000 so far this year and had about $723,000 in his campaign account as of the end of March.

Moulton is now the third political figure from Massachusetts to take a stab at a White House run. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren — a Democrat — and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld — a Republican — are also running.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Texas Tech forward Owens uncertain for title game

NCAA Basketball: Final Four-Semifinals-Michigan State vs Texas Tech
Apr 6, 2019; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Texas Tech Red Raiders forward Tariq Owens (11) reacts after an injury during the second half against the Michigan State Spartans in the semifinals of the 2019 men's Final Four at US Bank Stadium. Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

April 7, 2019

Texas Tech forward Tariq Owens was sporting a walking boot on Sunday, but coach Chris Beard told ESPN he expects the senior to play in Monday’s national championship game against Virginia.

Owens sprained his right ankle during the second half of Saturday’s 61-51 victory against Michigan State. He was injured with 14:43 remaining after an awkward fall.

He briefly returned to action but left 74 seconds later with 5:38 remaining.

Owens didn’t practice on Sunday. He also wasn’t made available to the media.

Beard said he would have a better feel for Owens’ availability on Monday.

Owens had seven points, four rebounds and three blocked shots against Michigan State. His season averages are 8.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.5 blocks.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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2020 Democrats demand Mueller report go public in its entirety after key findings released

Many of the Democrats running for president in 2020 responded to the release of key findings in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation Sunday by saying his report should go public in its entirety.

The findings, detailed in a letter from Attorney General William Barr, indicated that Mueller did not establish evidence President Trump's team or any associates of the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 election, and did not establish a conclusion on whether the president had obstructed justice.

READ THE FULL LETTER

Democrats who reacted after the release of the Mueller report's summary included Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Warren tweeted: “Congress voted 420-0 to release the full Mueller report. Not a "summary" from his handpicked Attorney General. AG Barr, make the full report public. Immediately.”

Booker tweeted: “The American public deserves the full report and findings from the Mueller investigation immediately—not just the in-house summary from a Trump Administration official.”

Gillibrand tweeted: “The Mueller report must be made public. Not just a letter from someone appointed by Trump to protect himself—all of it. The President works for the people, and he is not above the law.”

Harris tweeted: “The Mueller report needs to be made public, the underlying investigative materials should be handed over to Congress, and Barr must testify. That is what transparency looks like. A short letter from Trump's hand-picked Attorney General is not sufficient.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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Air conditioning unit at the origin of Brazil museum fire

Federal police say an air conditioning unit is the "primary cause" of the fire that destroyed Brazil's National Museum in Rio de Janeiro.

Fire experts on Thursday presented the conclusions of a seven-month investigation into the Sept. 2 fire, which began in the museum's auditorium and quickly spread to the rest of the building, destroying most of its 20 million artifacts.

Investigators say they don't know what ignited the fire inside the unit, but stressed that aside from fire extinguishers, the museum lacked most recommended fire protection devices, such as hoses, sufficient water sprinklers and fire doors.

According to the Open Accounts nonprofit that tracks spending, the museum had spent only $4,000 on safety equipment from 2015 to 2017.

Source: Fox News World

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during the inauguration of the newly-elected parliament in Kabul, Afghanistan April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

April 26, 2019

By Rupam Jain and Hameed Farzad

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani encouraged newly-elected lawmakers to participate in the peace process with the Taliban as he opened on Friday the first session of parliament since a controversial election.

Ghani has invited thousands of politicians, religious scholars and rights activists to an assembly known as a loya jirga next week to discuss ways to end the 17-year war.

Several opposition leaders have said they will boycott the four-day assembly in Kabul, saying it was pulled together without their input and is being used by Ghani as he seeks a second term in a September presidential election.

“We have presented the peace plan on a regular basis and we are committed to it,” Ghani said in the first session since parliamentary elections marred by technical problems, militant attacks and accusations of voting fraud last year.

“Based on this plan, there will be no peace deal and negotiation that does not have the green card of the parliament,” he added.

Officials from the United States and the Taliban have held several rounds of talks to end the Afghan war.

U.S. negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, has reported some progress toward an accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal and on how the Taliban would prevent extremists from using Afghanistan to launch attacks as al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001.

The insurgents have so far rejected U.S. demands for a ceasefire and talks on the country’s political future that would include Afghan government officials.

The loya jirga, a centuries-old institution used to build consensus among competing tribes, factions and ethnic groups, is an attempt by Ghani to influence the peace talks and cement his position for a second term, Afghan politicians and Western diplomats say.

Amid growing political divisions in Kabul, opposition politicians have demanded that Ghani step down when his mandate ends next month, and give way to an interim government to oversee peace talks with the Taliban. Ghani has ruled that out.

The country’s top court said last week Ghani can stay in office until the presidential election in September.

(Reporting by Hameed Farzad, Rupam Jain, Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Thursday defended special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation while slamming former President Barack Obama’s administration for being slow to take action on Russian interference in U.S. elections and ex-FBI Director James Comey for telling Congress the agency was investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Our nation is safer, elections are more secure, and citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence schemes,” Rosenstein said in a speech to the Armenian Bar Association, marking his first public remarks after the Mueller report was released, reports CBS News.

He also pointed out that the investigation revealed a pattern of computer hacking and the use of social media to undermine elections as “only the tip of the iceberg of a comprehensive Russian strategy to influence elections, promote social discord, and undermine America, just like they do in many other countries,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration also made “critical decisions,” including choosing not to publicize the full story about Russian hackers and social media trolling, “and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America,” said Rosenstein.

He noted that the Mueller probe began after Comey disclosed during a hearing before Congress that President Donald Trump “pressured him to close the investigation and the president denied that the conversation occurred.”

Rosenstein said two years ago, when he was confirmed, he was told by a Republican senator that he would be in charge of the probe and that he’d report the results to the American people.

However, he said he didn’t promise to do that, because it is “not our job to render conclusive factual findings. We just decide whether it is appropriate to file criminal charges.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.

The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.

“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.

“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.

Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.

“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”

Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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President Trump on Friday said “no money” was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, after reports that the U.S. received a $2 million hospital bill from Pyongyang for the late American prisoner’s care.

“No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else. This is not the Obama Administration that paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages, or gave five terroist[sic] hostages plus, who soon went back to battle, for traitor Sgt. Bergdahl!” Trump tweeted Friday.

NORTH KOREA GAVE US $2M HOSPITAL BILL OVER CARE OF AMERICAN OTTO WARMBIER, SOURCES SAY

The Washington Post first reported that North Korean authorities insisted the U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier, 21, who was a student of the University of Virginia, sign a pledge to pay the bill before allowing Warmbier’s comatose body to return to the United States. Sources confirmed the bill and the amount to Fox News on Thursday.

Sources told the post that the envoy signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions from the president, but a source told Fox News that the U.S. did not ever pay money to North Korea.

The White House declined to comment when asked on the bill, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders saying in a statement that: “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration.”

Meanwhile, the president added: “’President[sic] Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. 20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in last two years. No money was paid.’ Cheif[sic] Hostage Negotiator, USA!”

Warmbier was on tour in North Korea when he allegedly stole a propaganda sign from a hotel. He was arrested in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor in March 2016. Warmbier, for unknown reasons, fell into a coma while in custody and was held in that condition for an additional 17 months.

North Korean officials did not tell American officials until June 2017 that Warmbier had been unconscious the entire time. He died less than a week after he returned to the U.S. North Korean officials, though, have repeatedly denied accusations that Warmbier was tortured, instead claiming that he had suffered from botulism and then slipped into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.

AMERICAN PRISONERS HELD IN NORTH KOREA ON THEIR WAY HOME AFTER POMPEO VISIT, TRUMP SAYS

Fred and Cindy Warmbier sued North Korea over their son’s death and in December were awarded $501 million in damages – money that the Hermit Kingdom will probably never pay.

While the Warmbiers blamed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump has said he believes Kim’s claims that he did not know about the student’s treatment.

Trump and Kim have met in two separate summits. The most recent, held in February, ended without an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told Fox News: “Otto Warmbier was mistreated by North Korea in so many ways, including his wrongful conviction and harsh sentence, and the fact that for 16 months they refused to tell his family or our country about his dire condition they caused.  No, the United States owes them nothing. They owe the Warmbier family everything.”

Last year, the Trump administration was also able to save three American prisoners held by North Korea. Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song were all detained in North Korea. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the three Americans home last May, and said they were all in “good health.”

Fox News’ John Roberts, Rich Edson, Nicholas Kalman, and Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 26, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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