House Democrats are demanding answers from Kevin McAleenan, the newly appointed acting Homeland Security secretary, amid reports that the president offered to pardon him if he faced jail time for denying migrants entrance into the United States.
"We request that you promptly provide details concerning this reported directive to close the border and the related offer of a pardon," House Judiciary Democrats wrote in a letter sent to McAleenan on Tuesday. Warning that such a pardon offer would violate the Constitution, the Committee's Democrats demanded McAleenan identify DHS employees present during President Donald Trump's alleged comments.
Both Trump and a DHS spokesman denied the president engaged in any inappropriate conversations with McAleenan.
The letter linked to Friday's New York Times report, which cited three unnamed sources claiming that Trump directed McAleenan to close the border and offered to pardon him. Trump's alleged comments reportedly raised DHS officials' concerns, although one of the Times' sources said Trump could have intended his comments as a joke.
Fox News has not confirmed rumors of the reported pardon. The group of Democrats, led by Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., portrayed the rumored offer as part of a broader pattern of misconduct on the president's part.
"The reported discussion between you, President Trump, and other Department personnel follows a troubling pattern of conduct that has emerged over the past two years that appears to demonstrate that President Trump views the pardon power as a political tool, or even worse, as an expedient mechanism for circumventing the law or avoiding the consequences of his own conduct," the letter read.
Tuesday's letter came amid reported turmoil at DHS when former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen allegedly told the president his plans to close the border were illegal. Nielsen reportedly resigned after Trump told McAleenan, then commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, to ignore Nielsen's hesitation and close the border.
"I never offered Pardons to Homeland Security Officials, never ordered anyone to close our Southern Border (although I have the absolute right to do so, and may if Mexico does not apprehend the illegals coming to our Border), and am not 'frustrated,'" he tweeted on Friday. "It is all Fake & Corrupt News!"
According to the Times, DHS spokesman Tyler Q. Houlton similarly said “[a]t no time has the president indicated, asked, directed or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal.” “Nor would the acting secretary take actions that are not in accordance with our responsibility to enforce the law," he added.
Trump and congressional Democrats have struggled for months to come up with a solution to the complicated legal and political situation at the southern border. The president recently proposed sending the influx of migrants to sanctuary cities, a plan that House Democrats blasted as an "unlawful attempt to score political points."
BOSTON – Massachusetts education officials have decided on the unusual step of not scoring 10th grade students on a statewide exam question that some considered racially insensitive.
The Boston Globe reports that the essay question on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam was based on a passage from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Underground Railroad." Students were asked to write an essay from the perspective of a white woman who's conflicted about helping an escaped slave and uses derogatory language toward her.
Students complained that they were put in the uncomfortable position of either using racist language or sacrificing historical accuracy. The Massachusetts Teachers Association objected to the MCAS question. The organization says answering it could be especially traumatic for African American students.
State Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley says the question was intended to challenge students, but he fully understands the concerns.
Actor Felicity Huffman leaves the federal courthouse after facing charges in a nationwide college admissions cheating scheme in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 3, 2019. REUTERS/Gretchen Ertl
April 8, 2019
BOSTON (Reuters) – Actress Felicity Huffman and 13 other people have agreed to plead guilty to participating in what prosecutors call the largest college admissions scam uncovered in U.S. history, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
The 14 are among 50 people accused by federal prosecutors in Boston of engaging in schemes that involved cheating on college entrance exams and paying $25 million in bribes to secure their children admission at well-known universities.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Scott Malone and Bill Berkrot)
VALLETTA, Malta – Three teenage migrants have been charged in Malta with seizing control of a merchant ship and using force and intimidation, a crime considered a terrorist activity under Maltese law.
One of the accused was identified by the court during the arraignment Saturday as Abdalla Bari, a 19-year-old from Guinea. The other two are 15 and 16, and as minors could not be named. One is also from Guinea and the other from Ivory Coast.
They are suspects in the hijacking in the Mediterranean this week of the El Hiblu 1, an oil tanker. The captain has said that migrants that his crew had rescued began rioting and took control of his ship when they saw it was returning to Libya, forcing it to turn north toward Europe.
Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been banned from entering the country of Australia over his comments on social media about the New Zealand mosque shootings, ABC Australia reported.
Australian Immigration Minister David Coleman said in a statement that Yiannopoulos’s comments regarding the massacre are “appalling and foment hatred and division.”
“The terrorist attack in Christchurch was carried out on Muslims peacefully practicing their religion,” Coleman said, according to the outlet. “Australia stands with New Zealand and with Muslim communities the world over in condemning this inhuman act.”
The ban comes after 49 people were killed and dozens more injured in attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by an alleged white supremacist.
Shortly after the shooting, Yiannopoulos took to Facebook to describe Islam as a “barbaric, alien” religious culture.
“I’m banned from Australia, again, after a statement in which I said I abhor political violence,” Yiannopoulos said on social media.
Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart editor, was barred from entering Australia earlier this month after his visa application was rejected on character grounds.
The mass shooting in New Zealand appears to line up with the narrative that conservatives are violent and hateful and therefore deserve to be censored. Matt Bracken joins Alex to reveal how actually Facebook is responsible for the attention this murderer received.
FILE PHOTO: Workers unload a Sainsbury's home delivery van in central London, Britain, April 30, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
February 20, 2019
By Paul Sandle and James Davey
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s competition regulator said on Wednesday Sainsbury’s planned $9.5 billion takeover of Walmart-owned Asda should either be blocked or require the sale of a significant number of stores, or even one of the brands.
In a major blow to the companies’ plans to create Britain’s biggest supermarket group, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its current view was that it was “likely to be difficult for the companies to address the concerns it has identified”.
In its provisional findings, the CMA said the deal could lead to a worse experience for in-store and online shoppers through higher prices, a poorer shopping experience and reductions in the range and quality of products offered.
It also had concerns that prices could rise at a large number of Sainsbury’s and Asda petrol stations.
Sainsbury’s, Britain’s second biggest supermarket behind Tesco, said it fundamentally disagreed with the findings.
“The CMA has moved the goalposts and its analysis is inconsistent with comparable cases,” it said in a statement.
“We will be working to understand the rationale behind these findings and will continue to make our case in the coming weeks.”
Sainsbury’s Chief Executive Mike Coupe told BBC radio that the early ruling from the regulator could deter major companies from investing in Britain.
Asked if he would consider a judicial challenge against the CMA’s findings, he said: “We will fight right the way through the process.”
The CMA will now seek responses and submissions from all interested parties ahead of a final report due by April 30.
The deal, agreed in April last year, could see a combined Sainsbury’s-Asda leapfrog Tesco as Britain’s largest retailer, with revenue of about 51 billion pounds ($66 billion), over 2,800 stores and a grocery market share of 31.2 percent, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel.
Walmart would receive 3 billion pounds and take a 42 percent stake in the combined business. Walmart has the option of selling down to 29.9 percent after two years and exiting completely after four.
Sainsbury’s and Asda want the deal to generate buying power and savings to better compete with fast-growing discounters Aldi and Lidl, a bigger Tesco after its 2018 purchase of wholesaler Booker, and the rise of online retailers like Amazon.
Sainsbury’s and Asda have said they will lower prices on “everyday items” by around 10 percent, financed by cost savings from big suppliers.
Both companies have declined to say how many forced store disposals would make the deal unattractive, but a source with knowledge of the two firms’ thinking has told Reuters a figure “into the hundreds” could scupper it.
UBS, Sainsbury’s house broker, has said the deal’s economics can absorb at least 132 store disposals and potentially dozens more.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle and James Davey; Editing by Kate Holton and Mark Potter)
KHARTOUM, Sudan – A Sudanese activist says leaders of the protest movement are holding talks with the military council.
Ahmed Rabie, a leader at the Sudanese Professionals Association which is behind the protests, tells The Associated Press that Saturday's meeting is the third that they have with the new rulers since the military ousted President Omar al-Bashir earlier this month.
Rabie says they want to speed up the transition of power to a civilian government that would rule for four years.
Sudan's military ousted al-Bashir following four months of street protests against his rule, then appointed a military council it says will rule for no more than two years while elections are organized.
Protesters fear the army, dominated by al-Bashir appointees, will cling to power or select one of its own to succeed him.
Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte
April 26, 2019
By Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.
Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war.
More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.
Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.
“Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
Gotabaya said he would be a candidate “100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.
He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.
“Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organization did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.
On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.
Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.
Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.
The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.
In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorizing the extrajudicial killing of her father.
Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a “little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.
‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’
He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.
“It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.
Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.
“They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.
President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.
Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.
Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist.
(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry)
FILE PHOTO: The Federal Reserve Board building on Constitution Avenue is pictured in Washington, U.S., March 27, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
April 26, 2019
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve may lower the interest it pays on excess reserves banks leave with it by 5 basis points at its April 30-May 1 policy meeting in a bid to prevent the federal funds rate from drifting higher, Morgan Stanley analysts said on Friday.
This would mark the third such “technical” adjustment on the interest on excess reserves (IOER) following cuts last June and December.
(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Calling the advance in gross domestic product a “blow-out number,” Kudlow told “America’s Newsroom” Friday that it serves as concrete proof Trump’s measures to grow the economy have been successful.
“I’ll just say, Trump’s policies to rebuild the economy, lower taxes, regulations, opening energy, trade reform. Look, this stuff is working,” he said.
“It tells me, among other things, that the prosperity cycle we have entered into is continuing, it is strong. It has legs and momentum and frankly it is going to go on for quite some time,” he continued. “This is the new Trump economy. Some people don’t like that or they don’t agree with that. I respect the differences but I’ll tell you it’s working.”
Kudlow added that Trump has “ended the war” on business and success, and is rallying for the small business owners of America.
“The president is rebuilding incentives, he is rebuilding confidence, he the rebuilding optimism,” he said. “He is basically saying you should keep more of what you earn. He is basically saying to small businesses we’ll cut the paperwork back and make it easier for you to start a business and prosper.”
Kudlow said the Trump administration is also working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders to implement bipartisan deals to ensure the continuation of the GDP’s success.
“If the policies and the principles remain in place — and I believe they will — then I believe this new prosperity expansion cycle is going to go on for a whole bunch of more years,” he said.
FILE PHOTO: Tennis – Australian Open – Women’s Singles Final – Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia, January 26, 2019. Japan’s Naomi Osaka attends a news conference after winning her match against Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – World number one Naomi Osaka came from behind in the final set to beat Croatian Donna Vekic 6-3 4-6 7-6(4) on Friday and move into the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix semi-finals.
Osaka comfortably won the opening set but was tested by the Croatian, who pushed her to the limit in the second and third. The Japanese made 45 unforced errors as she struggles to get to grips with swapping hard courts for clay.
Osaka was visibly frustrated and trailed 5-1 in the final set but she refused to give up and found her rhythm to break Vekic twice and prevent her from serving for the match.
In the tiebreaker, a confident Osaka upped her baseline game and had two early mini breaks before wrapping up the match in two hours and 18 minutes. An infuriated Vekic even smashed her racket after losing the match.
“I told myself I didn’t want to have any regrets here,” Osaka said. “I was stressed out when I went down 1-5… but this (comeback) was pretty good because I don’t play really well on clay.”
Earlier, world number three Petra Kvitova came back from a set down to beat Anastasija Sevastova 2-6 6-2 6-3 and move into the tournament’s semi-finals for the third time in her career.
Sevastova had a dream start, breaking Kvitova twice to take a 3-0 lead as the Czech struggled with her first serve. Kvitova also made a slew of unforced errors, with many of her returns going long.
Sevastova used the full width of the court to get the better of Kvitova, who played on the back foot for much of the first set as the Latvian gave her little time to catch her breath.
However, Kvitova recovered in the second set and she broke Sevastova’s serve when she was 3-2 up, winning 10 straight points to take a 5-2 lead. Sevastova looked shaken and was broken again to give Kvitova the second set.
Kvitova took command in the final set and broke a visibly upset Sevastova to take a 3-1 lead before easing into the semis.
“In the first set I missed almost everything. I was pretty slow and she just couldn’t miss,” Kvitova said. “In the second set it was very important for me to stay on my serve and the chance to break her came.”
Kiki Bertens plays Angelique Kerber later on Friday and Victoria Azarenka faces Anett Kontaveit in the last quarter-final.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
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