Yale University rescinded the admission of a student whose parents allegedly paid $1.2 million to gain a spot at the elite university through the nationwide college admissions scheme.
Yale officials said in a statement Monday that the student’s place at the university was rescinded following an investigation, but did not provide further information. The school previously said it would allow the student to “address the allegation” before determining if his/her admission would be rescinded.
Fox News’ request for a response from Yale was not immediately returned.
Several athletic coaches charged in the nationwide admissions scheme appeared in court Monday and pleaded not guilty to taking bribes from wealthy parents in exchange for helping their children get into elite universities. Federal authorities announced earlier this month 50 people, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged for their alleged involvement in the bribery scam run by William “Rick” Singer.
Among the people involved was Rudy Meredith, former Yale women’s head soccer coach. Meredith, who is expected to plead guilty to wire fraud charges Thursday, helped two students during the admissions process by faking athletic profiles for them, the university said in a “Frequently Asked Questions” page created after charges were announced.
“One was denied admission despite the endorsement, and the other was admitted. Federal privacy law and Yale policy prevents Yale from revealing the name of either individual to the public,” the university said.
Former Yale's women's Head Soccer Coach Rudy Meredith put a prospective student who didn’t play soccer on a school list of recruits, doctored her supporting portfolio to indicate she was a player, and later accepted $400,000 from the head of a college placement company, court documents stated. (AP)
Meredith created an athletic profile in November 2017 stating the student, identified as “Yale Applicant 1,” was the co-captain of a “prominent club soccer team in southern California” even though the individual never played the competitive sport, court documents stated.
The applicant got into Yale in January 2018 and Meredith received a $400,000 check for his work, authorities said. The parents of the “Yale Applicant 1” allegedly paid a total of $1.2 million to Singer and Meredith.
Yale was the first college among the universities involved in the scandal to rescind a student’s admission. University of Southern California said six applicants in the current admissions cycle would receive rejection letters.
Other colleges said they will be reviewing students who were allegedly accepted under false information.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler confirmed Sunday that Congress will continue to investigate President Donald Trump regardless of the conclusions reached by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“We know there was collusion,” Nadler insisted several times during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” with guest host Dana Bash. “Why there’s been no indictments, we don’t know.”
Nadler listed the Trump Tower meeting — which has been the subject of numerous false reports — and the way Trump “pressured the FBI to go easy, to stop investigating Flynn,” and Trump firing Comey as evidence of the alleged “collusion.”
Bash pointed out several times that none of that rose to the level of indictment from the Mueller team, but Nadler quickly shrugged it off.
“Well, there have been obstructions of justice, whether they are — clearly, whether they are criminal obstruction is another question,” Nadler explained.
“But we have — the special prosecutor is limited in scope. His job was limited in scope and limited to crimes. What Congress has to do is look at a broader picture. We are in charge — we have the responsibility of protecting the rule of law, of looking at obstructions of justice, abuses of power, at corruption, in order to protect the rule of law so that our democratic institutions are not greatly damaged by this president.”
Nadler’s response made it clear that Congressional Democrats are likely moving forward with any number of investigations — in spite of warnings from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell regarding the possible consequences of “presidential harassment.”
Rob Dew joins the War Room to discuss the Jussie Smollett hoax which has totally imploded. He is joined by UK broadcaster Jon Gaunt to talk about Brexit and the repatriation of ISIS fighters. Rob also exposes the slave owning racist family roots of Kamala Harris and finally, he is joined by Darrell Hamamoto to talk about the mental programming being done by Netflix.
This undated photo provided by the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office in Cincinnati shows Brian Rini. A day of false hope has given way to questions about why Rini would claim to be an Illinois boy who disappeared eight years ago. The FBI declared Rini's story a hoax Thursday, April 4, 2019, one day after he identified himself to authorities as Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared in 2011 at age 6. (Hamilton County Sheriff's Office via AP)
CINCINNATI – An Ohio man accused of claiming to be a missing child from Illinois is facing new charges.
A federal grand jury has indicted 23-year-old Brian Michael Rini (REE'-nee) of Medina (meh-DY'-nuh), Ohio, on two counts of lying to federal agents and one count of aggravated identity theft.
He had been arrested earlier on a single false statement count after DNA testing proved he wasn't Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared in 2011 at age 6.
Rini is being held without bond. Arraignment is scheduled Friday. A message seeking comment was left Thursday with his federal public defender.
Police picked up Rini the morning of April 3 on the streets of Newport, Kentucky.
They said that he told them he was Timmothy and that he had escaped two kidnappers after years of sexual abuse.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A Dutch court has extended the detention of the 37-year-old man suspected of opening fire in a tram in the central city of Utrecht, in an attack that killed four passengers.
The suspect, 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, appeared at a behind-closed-doors hearing Thursday where his detention was extended by 90 days.
Tanis has been charged with murder with terrorist intent and other offenses after he allegedly opened fire in a tram in Utrecht on March 18. Prosecutors have said that Tanis confessed to the shooting and said he acted alone, but they are still investigating his motive.
Prosecutors say he must make his first appearance in open court within three months, when progress in the investigation will be discussed.
Former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig's indictment this week represented a stunning fall for the high-powered Washington lawyer — who aside from his work in the Obama administration represented everyone from Bill Clinton to Ronald Reagan's would-be assassin John Hinckley, Jr.
Now, he's on the other side of the attorney-client coin, defending himself against an indictment alleging he made false statements and concealed information in a federal foreign lobbying investigation spun off from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Craig, the first prominent Democrat to be named in the probe, is accused of concealing material facts from the Justice Department about work he performed for the Ukrainian government.
"I did not participate in a scheme to mislead the government or conceal material facts," Craig, 74, said this week, denying the charges as his lawyers called the case "a misguided abuse of prosecutorial discretion."
In private practice, Craig's list of clients included former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was charged in a leak investigation.
Craig also made headlines in 2008 as one of Obama's biggest backers. The endorsement came as a surprise to then-Democratic presidential primary candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband, both of whom knew Craig while attending Yale Law School in the early 1970s. The attorney was also tapped as special counsel to then-President Clinton during his 1998 impeachment proceedings, convincing the Senate during a trial that Clinton's offenses weren't cause to unseat him.
“To Greg. We struck the right pose—and you struck the right chords! Thanks -- Bill Clinton, 2/99," the former president wrote on a photo of the pair — along with the rest of the legal team — that he gifted to Craig after his acquittal, according to The New Yorker.
In November 2008, Obama announced Craig would be his White House counsel, a move that drew scrutiny given other elements of the lawyer's history.
In the early 1980s, Craig sparked outrage for helping win then-25-year-old Hinckley, who shot former President Reagan and three others outside of a Washington, D.C., hotel, a not guilty verdict for reason of insanity, landing him in a psychiatric facility instead of a maximum-security prison. In 2016, the notorious gunman was released from the hospital to live with his elderly mother in Virginia, telling mental health professionals he's "happy as a clam" with his new life.
John Hinckley Jr. arrives at U.S. District Court in Washington in this file photo. (AP)
Craig also became a pariah in the Cuban-American community in 2000 after helping Cuban Juan Miguel Gonzáles gain custody of his 6-year-old son Elián after his mother and others drowned in a boat trying to reach Florida. Elián had been living in the Little Havana neighborhood in Miami with his uncle at the time, but the court forced the boy to leave his extended family and return to Cuba after Craig's victory.
Despite his controversial background, Obama defended his decision and touted Craig's various roles in the federal government including serving as Sen. Edward Kennedy's senior adviser on defense, foreign policy and national security issues and as senior adviser to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Before the election, Craig volunteered to portray the late Sen. John McCain in mock debates with Obama — a role he was easily able to emulate, as his father William was a Republican who lost Vermont's gubernatorial race in 1976.
But his time in the Obama administration was short-lived. He resigned after one year on the job following criticism over his handling of Obama's plan to close Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Craig's work drew the Justice Department's attention in 2012, when Craig and his law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP were hired by the Ukrainian government to write a report on the prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister. Tymoshenko was a political opponent of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a longtime patron of disgraced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort who's slated to spend a total of 81 months in prison.
In 2013, the DOJ told Craig and his firm in a letter that he was required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) while representing Yanukovych — but the lawyer allegedly refused.
In its settlement earlier this year, Skadden acknowledged it should have registered under FARA and also confirmed it received a $4.6 million payment for the report instead of the $12,000 the Ukrainian government previously claimed.
The Thursday indictment says Craig did not want to register under FARA because doing so could keep him or others at his law firm from getting government positions and because the filing would require him to disclose the millions paid from a "private, wealthy Ukrainian." To help hide the private funding, Craig is accused of backdating and falsifying invoices at Manafort's request to make it appear the Ukrainian government was the sole funder of the report.
Craig is being charged with two counts of making false and misleading statements to investigators — including Mueller's team, which uncovered his purported wrongdoings while investigating Manafort as part of the Russia probe — in connection with his work on behalf of Yanukovych.
"This indictment accuses Mr. Craig of misleading the FARA Unit of the Department of Justice in order to avoid registration. It is itself unfair and misleading. It ignores uncontroverted evidence to the contrary. Mr. Craig had no interest in misleading the FARA Unit because he had not done anything that required his registration," Craig's attorneys, William Taylor and William Murphy, said in response.
Fox News' Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Latest on criminal charges against a West Virginia mom accused of falsely reporting that an Egyptian man tried to kidnap her daughter (all times local):
4:20 p.m.
A West Virginia mother whose story about foiling a brazen kidnapping attempt unraveled under questioning has been criminally charged and jailed.
Barboursville Police Detective Greg Lucas tells The Associated Press on Friday that Santana Renee Adams has been charged with falsely reporting an emergency incident, a misdemeanor.
He says Adams turned herself in about 2 p.m. and was jailed after a magistrate judge set bail at $20,000. Lucas said she didn't have an attorney yet.
The charge caps a sensational tale that had Adams using a gun to stop an Egyptian man from kidnapping her daughter in a West Virginia shopping mall. But the story fell apart amid inconsistencies in her story and led to police dropping all charges against the man, Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan.
Authorities say Zayan may have simply been patting the girl on the head.
___
11:15 a.m.
A detective in West Virginia says criminal charges will be brought against a woman for falsely reporting that an Egyptian man tried to kidnap her daughter from a shopping mall.
Barboursville Police Detective Greg Lucas tells The Associated Press on Friday that they're going to charge Santana Renee Adams with falsely reporting an emergency incident.
The charge would be the latest turn in a sensational tale of a mother who used a gun to thwart an abduction but quickly unraveled amid inconsistencies in her story.
Authorities on Thursday announced they were dropping charges against the man, Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan. Police say he may have simply been patting the girl on the head.
Adams couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Joe Biden’s brain surgeon said his former patient is “totally in the clear” as speculation over the candidate’s health — with Biden possibly becoming the oldest president in U.S. history — is likely to become a campaign issue.
The former vice president, who had been perceived by many as the strongest potential contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, formally announced his candidacy Thursday.
But Biden’s age – 76 – is expected to become a source of attacks from a younger generation of Democrats not because of obvious generational differences, but possibly for actual health concerns if Biden gets into office.
Biden himself agreed last year that “it’s totally legitimate” for people to ask questions about his health if he decides to run for president, given his medical history — which has included brain surgery in 1988.
“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality,” Biden told “CBS This Morning.” “Can I still run up the steps of Air Force Two? Am I still in good shape? Am I – do I have all my faculties? Am I energetic? I think it’s totally legitimate people ask those questions.”
“I think they’re gonna judge me on my vitality. … I think it’s totally legitimate [that] people ask those questions.”
— Joe Biden
But Dr. Neal Kassell, the neurosurgeon who operated on Biden for an aneurysm three decades ago, told the Washington Examiner that Biden appears to be “totally in the clear” — and even joked that the operation made Biden “better than how he was.”
“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”
“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it.”
At the same time, however, Biden hasn’t been forthcoming about his health at least since 2008 when he released his medical records as a vice presidential candidate. The disclosure that time revealed some fairly minor issues such as an irregular heartbeat in addition to detailing previous operations, including removing a benign polyp during a colonoscopy in 1996, the outlet reported.
It remains unclear if Biden had more aneurysms. Some medical experts say that people who have had an aneurysm can have another one.
An aneurysm, or a weakening of an artery wall, can lead to a rupture and internal bleeding, potentially placing a patient’s life in jeopardy.
Biden won’t be the only Democrat grappling with old age. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another 2020 frontrunner, is currently 77 years old and agreed with Biden last year that their ages will be an issue in the race.
“It’s part of a discussion, but it has to be part of an overall view of what somebody is and what somebody has accomplished,” Sanders told Politico.
“Look, you’ve got people who are 50 years of age who are not well, right? You’ve got people who are 90 years of age who are going to work every day, doing excellent work. And obviously, age is a factor. But it depends on the overall health and wellbeing of the individual.”
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.
Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.
Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.
School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.
The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.
School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.
LONDON – Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.
South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.
Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.
Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.
He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
By Ryan Woo
LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.
But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.
The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.
LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.
Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.
“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.
In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.
A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.
No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.
The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.
“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.
Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.
That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.
(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)
NEED FOR CASH
LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.
The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.
After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.
Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.
That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.
“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.
FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.
Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.
Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.
But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.
“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.
Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.
Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.
In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.
STATE COMPETITION
China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.
In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.
The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.
In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.
The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.
At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.
Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.
The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.
“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
JOHANNESBURG – At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”
Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.
Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.
Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.
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