Sunday, April 15, 2018

Two weeks before his death, Stephen Hawking predicted 'the end of the universe' - CNBC News

Two weeks before his death, Stephen Hawking predicted 'the end of the universe' The world-famous physicist, who died last Wednesday aged 76, was a co-author to a mathematical paper in which he sought to prove the so-called "multiverse" theory, according to a report by U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times. Hawking's final work — titled "A Smooth Exit From Eternal Inflation" — is being reviewed by a leading scientific journal. In it, he predicted how our universe would eventually fade to darkness as the stars run out of energy. Sam Meredith | @smeredith19 Published 9:55 AM ET Mon, 19 March 2018 Updated 12:23 PM ET Mon, 19 March 2018 CNBC.com Two weeks before his death, Stephen Hawking predicted 'the end of the universe' Two weeks before his death, Stephen Hawking predicted 'the end of the universe' 12:07 PM ET Mon, 19 March 2018 | 00:56 Stephen Hawking completed a theory outlining his prediction for the end of the world just two weeks before his death, it has emerged. The world-famous physicist, who died last Wednesday aged 76, was a co-author to a mathematical paper in which he sought to prove the so-called "multiverse" theory, according to a report by U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times. This theory imagines the existence of many separate universes other than our own. Hawking's final work — titled "A Smooth Exit From Eternal Inflation" — is being reviewed by a leading scientific journal. In it, he predicted how our universe would eventually fade to darkness as the stars run out of energy. Alongside Professor Thomas Hertog of Belgium's KU Leuven University, Hawking also proposed a way in which scientists might be able to find alternate universes by using probes on space ships. This would allow humans to attain a more accurate understanding of our own universe, decipher what else is out there and ultimately realize our place in the cosmos. "He has often been nominated for the Nobel and should have won it. Now he never can," Hertog told The Sunday Times in an interview published Sunday. 'Intelligent life may be watching' Hawking, who was perhaps best known for his work on black holes and the theory of relativity, had previously posited the idea that Earth would turn into a giant ball of fire by 2600. Therefore, humans would eventually need to colonize another planet or face extinction, he said. Stephen Hawking dies at age 76 Stephen Hawking dies at age 76 6:26 AM ET Wed, 14 March 2018 | 01:18 In 2015, Hawking joined Russian billionaire Yuri Milner to launch a project that aimed to use high-powered computers to listen for aliens. The project, known as Breakthrough Initiatives, supports SETI@home, a scientific experiment based at the University of California, Berkeley. It uses computers to scan the skies to look for life. "Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours aware of what they mean," Hawking said. "Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos, unseen beacons announcing that here on our rock, the universe discovered its existence?" — CNBC's Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

GOP commits $250 million to keep control of the House - Fox News ( source : Associated Press )

April 14, 2018

GOP commits $250 million to keep control of the House
Associated Press

How will Ryan's retirement impact the midterms?
Panel debates whether the political bombshell will help or hurt Republicans in the midterm elections.

The Republican National Committee has committed $250 million to a midterm election strategy that has one goal above all else: Preserve the party's House majority for the rest of President Donald Trump's first term.

Facing the prospect of a blue wave this fall, the White House's political arm is devoting unprecedented resources to building an army of paid staff and trained volunteers across more than two dozen states. The RNC is taking the fight to Senate Democrats in Republican-leaning states, but much of the national GOP's resources are focused on protecting Republican-held House seats in states including Florida, California and New York.

"Our No. 1 priority is keeping the House. We have to win the House," RNC political director Juston Johnson said. "That is the approach we took to put the budget together."


RNC officials shared details of their midterm spending plan with The Associated Press just as several hundred volunteers and staff held a day of action on Saturday in competitive regions across the country. The weekend show of force, which comes as Democrats have shown a significant enthusiasm advantage in the age of President Donald Trump, was designed to train 1,600 new volunteers in more than 200 events nationwide.

There were more than three dozen events in Florida alone, a state that features competitive races for the Senate, the governorship and a half dozen House races.

Seven months before Election Day, there are already 300 state-based staff on the RNC's payroll. The committee expects to have 900 total paid staff around the country — excluding its Washington headquarters — before November's election, Johnson said. The number of trained volunteers, he said, has already surpassed 10,000.

The strategy is expensive. And it carries risk.

The RNC's focus on a sophisticated field operation designed to identify and turn out key voters, an approach favored by former chairman Reince Priebus and expanded by Trump's hand-picked chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, leaves the RNC with no additional resources to run advertising on television or the internet. It also puts tremendous pressure on the president and senior party leaders to raise money to fund the massive operation.

And few believe that even the best field operation could wholly neutralize the surge of Democratic enthusiasm on display in recent special elections, which has some Republican strategists fearing that the House majority may be lost already.

Democrats need to pick up at least 24 seats to take control of the House for the last two years of Trump's first term. They need just two seats to claim the Senate majority, though the map makes a Democratic Senate takeover much less likely.

An optimistic McDaniel said strong Republican fundraising has allowed the aggressive strategy. During the first year of Trump's presidency, the GOP set a fundraising record by raising more than $132 million.

"Our sweeping infrastructure, combined with on-the-ground enthusiasm for President Trump and Republican policies, puts us in prime position to defend our majorities in 2018," McDaniel said.

The $250 million price tag for what she described as a "permanent data-driven field program" is the committee's largest ground-game investment in any election season. The resources are focused in some unfamiliar territory, including several House districts in Southern California, which Johnson described as "a huge focus."

At a minimum, each targeted state features an RNC state director, a data director and at least a few staff devoted to each competitive House district. They are aggressively recruiting and training local volunteers to expand the GOP's presence in key communities.

The teams are larger in some states than in others.

In Florida, there are already 60 permanent field staff on the ground, Johnson said, including some dedicated to building relationships with the influx of Puerto Ricans who recently migrated from the hurricane-ravaged island. Johnson expects close to 150 paid staff on the ground in the state by Election Day.

And there are roughly two dozen paid staff already on the ground in Ohio and Nevada, he said. Both states feature competitive races for the House and Senate.

Nevada state director Dan Coats has been on the ground in the state for a year. He said the Nevada team already features directors for voter registration, volunteer training and strategic initiatives, which include Hispanic outreach.

"We're building a volunteer army that will be a turnkey operation for every Republican campaign up and down the ballot," Coats said. "A strong field game like the one we have here can and will make a difference."

Wells Fargo Says It Faces a $1 Billion Fine Over Its Loan Scandals - TIME Business


Wells Fargo Says It Faces a $1 Billion Fine Over Its Loan Scandals

Posted: 13 Apr 2018 07:59 AM PDT


Wells Fargo & Co.’s better-than-expected results could be short-lived.

The firm warned Friday that it may take a charge of as much as $1 billion to settle a U.S. probe of its consumer business. That would reverse its relatively rosy first-quarter results, which included higher profit and a smaller drop in revenue than Wall Street expected, after the Federal Reserve prohibited the scandal-plagued bank from increasing assets until it fixes its missteps.

“We recognize that it will take time to put all of our challenges behind us,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan said Friday in a statement.

In February, the Fed curbed Wells Fargo’s progress toward recovering from a long-running scandal involving misleading sales practices at its consumer bank. Since then, the nation’s third-largest lender by assets has faced more scrutiny, with the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission examining the wealth-management unit, a person familiar with the probes had said.

Shares of Wells Fargo fell 1.6 percent to $51.86 at 9:32 a.m. in New York, the second-worst performance in the 24-company KBW Bank Index. The stock had dropped 13 percent this year through Thursday.

The bank said Friday that it’s in ongoing discussions with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over issues in its auto lending and mortgage units. Those regulators have offered to resolve the matter for $1 billion in penalties. If the bank agrees to pay, it would mark the second straight quarter that legal charges weighed on results. In the fourth quarter, Wells Fargo booked a record $3.25 billion charge related to regulatory investigations, sales practices and other matters.

First-quarter revenue fell 1.4 percent from a year earlier to $21.9 billion, beating the $21.7 billion average estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Profit also beat Wall Street expectations, climbing 5.7 percent.

Net interest income fell, even with the Fed raising interest rates. The firm blamed the decline on fewer days in the quarter and lower income from swaps. Average loans dropped to $951 billion, the lowest since the second quarter of 2016, before the fake-accounts scandal erupted.

The Fed’s order weighed on the bank’s balance sheet. Wells Fargo said it reduced assets by about $15 billion to comply with the sanction, and shrank further because of the loss of some clients’ deposits.

Expenses rose 3.3 percent despite Sloan’s plan to reduce expenses by $4 billion by the end of next year.

Wells Fargo’s better-than-expected results could be short-lived https://t.co/SOqnpbXljD pic.twitter.com/zqkd6V1jS1

— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) April 13, 2018

Market Volatility
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. also reported first-quarter results Friday, with both posting strong gains in equities trading as stock-market volatility exploded after several years of relative calm.

Here’s a summary of Wells Fargo’s results:

Net income applicable to common shareholders rose to $5.53 billion, or $1.12 a share, from $5.23 billion, or $1.03 a share, a year earlier. That beat the average Wall Street estimate of $1.06. Non-interest expense climbed to $14.2 billion from $13.8 billion a year earlier. Analysts expected a decline of about $50 million. Net interest income was $12.2 billion, compared with $12.3 billion in the first quarter of 2017. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was $12.5 billion. Net interest margin was 2.84 percent, worse than a year earlier and trailing the 2.88 percent estimate. The efficiency ratio, a key measure of profitability, improved to 64.9 percent compared with 76.2 percent at year-end. Sloan is targeting 60 percent to 61 percent, excluding litigation costs.

How Facebook 'likes' predict race, religion and sexual orientation - CNN

How Facebook 'likes' predict race, religion and sexual orientation

By Ben Tinker, CNN

Updated 1742 GMT (0142 HKT) April 11, 2018
psychology of facebook

What you 'like' says a lot about you 03:02
Story highlights
Facebook "likes" can be used to accurately predict your personality traits
After analyzing 300 likes, Big Data knows you better than your spouse does
(CNN)It's true: Actions really do speak louder than words, even when you don't want them to.

Last month, a former employee of data firm Cambridge Analytica went public with allegations that tens of millions of Facebook users' data were captured and (mis)used in an attempt to influence them during the 2016 US presidential election.
The whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, explained to CNN how an app the company developed could pull data not only from its users' profiles but from their entire friend networks.
"If we got one person to download the app, it would pull, you know, 200, 300 records, and that would scale really quickly," Wylie said.
Facebook will now clearly label political ads

Facebook will now clearly label political ads 00:55
All of the data, we now know, were harvested without Facebook users' knowledge. For its part, Facebook Inc. admits that it knew about the company's access to the data but alleges that it was misused.
"Facebook granted permission for the app," Wylie said. "They knew what the app was doing. They just didn't necessarily know what it was for."
But it wasn't just the information people willingly volunteered in their profiles that Cambridge Analytica was after. It was also what they "liked" -- such things as music, movies, foods and books. Turns out, it speaks volumes.
Just 'like' that
"Facebook is a really amazing place to give data and not really think about the data you're giving, because you're just sharing it with family and friends, right? But you're actually sharing it with every company that utilizes Facebook," said Timothy Summers, director of innovation, entrepreneurship and engagement at the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies.
These companies, according to a 2013 study by computational psychologist and big data scientist Michal Kosinski and others, found that Facebook likes "can be used to automatically and accurately predict a range of highly sensitive personal attributes."
Kosinski's algorithm was able to predict whether a person was black or white with 95% accuracy, male or female with 93% accuracy, gay or straight with 88% accuracy and Democrat or Republican with 85% accuracy.
facebook predictive likes extroversion
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

facebook predictive likes openess
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

facebook predictive likes stability

A 2013 study found that certain personality traits can be predicted by what you "like" on Facebook. Click through the gallery to see what these selected "most predictive likes" might say about you.
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes
A 2013 study found that certain personality traits can be predicted by what you "like" on Facebook. Click through the gallery to see what these selected "most predictive likes" might say about you.

facebook predictive likes conscientiousness
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

facebook predictive likes extroversion
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

facebook predictive likes openess
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

facebook predictive likes stability
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

A 2013 study found that certain personality traits can be predicted by what you "like" on Facebook. Click through the gallery to see what these selected "most predictive likes" might say about you.
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes
A 2013 study found that certain personality traits can be predicted by what you "like" on Facebook. Click through the gallery to see what these selected "most predictive likes" might say about you.

facebook predictive likes conscientiousness
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

facebook predictive likes extroversion
Photos: What you 'like' can speak volumes

facebook predictive likes agreeablenessfacebook predictive likes conscientiousnessfacebook predictive likes extroversionfacebook predictive likes openessfacebook predictive likes stability
With just 10 likes, a computer model fundamentally knows you better than a colleague, according to additional research published by Kosinski in 2015. With 70 likes, it knows you better than a friend or roommate; with 150 likes, better than a family member. And with 300 likes, Big Data knows you better than your spouse.
Similar to the quizzes used on Facebook to psychographically profile users, developers at the InnovationWorks Lab in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland College Park created a personality quiz that gives the user insights into what drives them to make decisions, including online behavior.
What I 'like' about you
All of the data scraped from your Facebook profile are useful for understanding who you are "at a micro level," said Summers, who was not involved with Kosinski's research. "I want to understand who John Smith is and what are the decisions that John Smith will make, given the right stimulus and imagery."
13 simple ways to protect your family's data
13 simple ways to protect your family's data
Summers said to think of the old way people were targeted as a sort of "town square." Someone would yell a message as loud as they could, hoping as many people as possible would hear him or her. Everyone was receiving the same message.
In this new age of micro-targeting, people are subjected to "whisper campaigns," Summers said. The message everyone sees or hears can be tailored to the precise trigger that will make them click a certain page, buy a particular product or even vote for a political candidate.
Are there some people who are more persuadable than others?
"Absolutely," Summers said, "and that's where psychographics comes in."
Psychographics is defined as "market research or statistics classifying population groups according to psychological variables (such as attitudes, values or fears)."
The way most psychologists profile someone is to figure out how they score on the "Big Five" personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, known as OCEAN.
"With the right imagery and the right content, context and nuance, and with the right social media campaign ... you can get just about anyone to click on just about anything," Summers said.
Examples of ads from a 2017 study on psychological targeting.
Examples of ads from a 2017 study on psychological targeting.
A subsequent study co-authored by Kosinski, published in 2017, offered examples of ads aimed at different audiences, based on their personalities. Extroverts saw an ad that read "Dance like no one's watching (but they totally are)," while introverts saw an ad that read "Beauty doesn't have to shout."
'Like' it never even happened
Follow CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter
See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

"If you're leaving digital breadcrumbs online and living a digital life, as all of us are, you're constantly giving data points," Summers said. "Our smartphones, our computers, our email, the big companies -- Amazon, Google, Facebook -- they're collecting data on us every single step of the way."
Summers encourages everyone to download their Facebook data, which you can easily do by logging in and clicking on Settings, then on General Account Settings. There, you'll be able to gain access to a staggering 70 categories of data.
"Find out who's looking at you, who's psychographically profiling you," Summers said. "Who's trying to figure out and predict your behaviors?"
Only then can you truly understand the cognitive strategies being used to target you -- and how you can outsmart them.

Apple Warns Employees to Stop Leaking Information to Media - Fortune ( source : Bloomberg )

Apple Warns Employees to Stop Leaking Information to Media

By BLOOMBERG April 14, 2018
Apple Inc. warned employees to stop leaking internal information on future plans and raised the specter of potential legal action and criminal charges, one of the most-aggressive moves by the world’s largest technology company to control information about its activities.

The Cupertino, California-based company said in a lengthy memo posted to its internal blog that it “caught 29 leakers,” last year and noted that 12 of those were arrested. “These people not only lose their jobs, they can face extreme difficulty finding employment elsewhere,” Apple added. The company declined to comment on Friday.

Apple outlined situations in which information was leaked to the media, including a meeting earlier this year where Apple’s software engineering head Craig Federighi told employees that some planned iPhone software features would be delayed. Apple also cited a yet-to-be-released software package that revealed details about the unreleased iPhone X and new Apple Watch.

Leaked information about a new product can negatively impact sales of current models, give rivals more time to begin on a competitive response, and lead to fewer sales when the new product launches, according to the memo. “We want the chance to tell our customers why the product is great, and not have that done poorly by someone else,” Greg Joswiak, an Apple product marketing executive, said in the memo.

The crackdown is part of broader and long-running attempts by Silicon Valley technology companies to track and limit what information their employees share publicly. Firms like Google and Facebook Inc. are pretty open with staff about their plans, but keep close tabs on their outside communications and sometime fire people when they find leaks.

Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg last week talked about her disappointment with leakers. In 2016, Google fired an employee after the person shared internal posts criticizing an executive. The employee filed a lawsuit claiming their speech was protected under California law.

In messages to staff, tech companies sometimes conflate conversations employees are allowed to have, such as complaining about working conditions, with sharing trade secrets, said Chris Baker, an attorney with Baker Curtis and Schwartz, PC, who represents the fired Googler. “The overall broad definition of confidential information makes it so employees don’t say anything, even about issues they’re allowed to talk about,” he said. “That’s problematic.”

Apple is notoriously secretive about its product development. In 2012, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook pledged to double down on keeping the company’s work under wraps. Despite that, the media has continued to report news on the firm to satisfy demand for information on a company that’s become a crucial part of investment portfolios, many of which support public retirement funds for teachers and other essential workers.


In 2017, Apple held a confidential meeting with employees in another bid to stop leaks. Since then, publications, including Bloomberg News, published details about the iPhone X, a new Apple TV video-streaming box, a new Apple Watch with LTE, the company’s upcoming augmented-reality headset, new iPad models, software enhancements, and details about the upcoming iPhones and AirPods headphones.

Here’s the memo:
Last month, Apple caught and fired the employee responsible for leaking details from an internal, confidential meeting about Apple’s software roadmap. Hundreds of software engineers were in attendance, and thousands more within the organization received details of its proceedings. One person betrayed their trust.

The employee who leaked the meeting to a reporter later told Apple investigators that he did it because he thought he wouldn’t be discovered. But people who leak — whether they’re Apple employees, contractors or suppliers — do get caught and they’re getting caught faster than ever.

In many cases, leakers don’t set out to leak. Instead, people who work for Apple are often targeted by press, analysts and bloggers who befriend them on professional and social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and begin to pry for information. While it may seem flattering to be approached, it’s important to remember that you’re getting played. The success of these outsiders is measured by obtaining Apple’s secrets from you and making them public. A scoop about an unreleased Apple product can generate massive traffic for a publication and financially benefit the blogger or reporter who broke it. But the Apple employee who leaks has everything to lose.

The impact of a leak goes far beyond the people who work on a project.

Leaking Apple’s work undermines everyone at Apple and the years they’ve invested in creating Apple products. “Thousands of people work tirelessly for months to deliver each major software release,” says UIKit lead Josh Shaffer, whose team’s work was part of the iOS 11 leak last fall. “Seeing it leak is devastating for all of us.”

The impact of a leak goes beyond the people who work on a particular project — it’s felt throughout the company. Leaked information about a new product can negatively impact sales of the current model; give rival companies more time to begin on a competitive response; and lead to fewer sales of that new product when it arrives. “We want the chance to tell our customers why the product is great, and not have that done poorly by someone else,” says Greg Joswiak of Product Marketing.

Investments by Apple have had an enormous impact on the company’s ability to identify and catch leakers. Just before last September’s special event, an employee leaked a link to the gold master of iOS 11 to the press, again believing he wouldn’t be caught. The unreleased OS detailed soon-to-be-announced software and hardware including iPhone X. Within days, the leaker was identified through an internal investigation and fired. Global Security’s digital forensics also helped catch several employees who were feeding confidential details about new products including iPhone X, iPad Pro and AirPods to a blogger at 9to5Mac.

Leakers in the supply chain are getting caught, too. Global Security has worked hand-in-hand with suppliers to prevent theft of Apple’s intellectual property as well as to identify individuals who try to exceed their access. They’ve also partnered with suppliers to identify vulnerabilities — both physical and technological — and ensure their security levels meet or exceed Apple’s expectations. These programs have nearly eliminated the theft of prototypes and products from factories, caught leakers and prevented many others from leaking in the first place.

Leakers do not simply lose their jobs at Apple. In some cases, they face jail time and massive fines for network intrusion and theft of trade secrets both classified as federal crimes. In 2017, Apple caught 29 leakers. 12 of those were arrested. Among those were Apple employees, contractors and some partners in Apple’s supply chain. These people not only lose their jobs, they can face extreme difficulty finding employment elsewhere. “The potential criminal consequences of leaking are real,” says Tom Moyer of Global Security, “and that can become part of your personal and professional identity forever.”

While they carry serious consequences, leaks are completely avoidable. They are the result of a decision by someone who may not have considered the impact of their actions. “Everyone comes to Apple to do the best work of their lives — work that matters and contributes to what all 135,000 people in this company are doing together,” says Joswiak. “The best way to honor those contributions is by not leaking.”

Here's where the super rich keep their money - CNBC News

Here's where the super rich keep their money
Emmie Martin | @emmiemartin  9:52 AM ET Wed, 7 Feb 2018
 Investing in these stocks would have made you rich by now — here's other ways to invest your money Investing in these stocks would have made you rich by now — here's other ways to invest your money 
Once you join the three comma club, where does all of that money actually live? It's not as though most billionaires have the bulk of their fortunes sitting in a savings account.

To break down where the super rich keep their money, Jeff Desjardins at Visual Capitalist used data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances from 2016 to show how wealth distribution varies for those with a net worth of $10,000 or $100,000 versus those who are worth $1 billion.

Check out the infographic below and click to enlarge.

The infographic reveals some key truths about the difference between a five-figure net worth and a much larger one. For example, for every net worth up to $1 million, the most important asset is the primary residence. And the larger the net worth, the larger the percentage that's tied up in non-liquid assets, such as business interests.

Those who are worth less tend to have their wealth concentrated in more tangible assets such as a car.

No matter where you keep your money, the amount you have of it doesn't define if you're rich or not. That really comes down to one simple question: If you lost your job tomorrow, how long could you survive?

 Stephen Schwarzman's way to defend populism's next target Why Wall Street billionaire Steve Schwarzman spent $100M defending China 
That's according to Derek Sall, a personal finance blogger and financial analyst who paid off $116,000 in seven years. He says being rich is not about how much money you bring in each month but how much you're able to save.

It's easy to judge wealth as a function of what you own, but Sall argues that material possessions say nothing about the real state of your finances. "Heck, you could drive a $40,000 BMW and live in a $500,000 home, but if you're $600,000 in debt, then you're actually worth less than a seven-year-old child," he writes in a blog post.

Donald Trump Reportedly Placed the ‘Best Sex I’ve Ever Had’ Story Himself - New York Magazine

APRIL 12, 2018
5:20 PM
Donald Trump Reportedly Placed the ‘Best Sex I’ve Ever Had’ Story Himself
By
Gabriella Paiella
@GMPaiella

 Donald Trump and Marla Maples.
Donald Trump and Marla Maples. Photo: Time Life Pictures/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
While we’ve now heard many highly personal stories about the current president of the United States (reportedly spanked by a copy of Forbes, hates sharks, loves to stress eat, etc.), one of the original TMI moments came via a New York Post cover from 1990. It features a quote about Donald Trump that supposedly came from paramour and eventual second wife Marla Maples — five simple, yet haunting, words: “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had.”

A New York Post cover from 1990 with a photo of Trump and the quote "Best Sex I've Ever Had."
Photo: NY Post
Maples has personally disputed the quote, telling reporters in February, “I never said that, someone else said that.” And now, a former Post reporter who worked at the paper at the time of the story’s publication has revealed her version of how the cover even came to be in the first place

In The Hollywood Reporter, Jill Brooke writes that Trump was having a meltdown on the phone to editor Jerry Nachman. He was in the midst of his divorce with first wife Ivana and was reportedly angry that she managed to place a sympathetic story on the front page of the New York Daily News. Brooke says that Trump then demanded a front-page story “tomorrow” and was told it would need to include “murder, money or sex.”

Donald fired back: “Marla says with me it’s the best sex she’s ever had.” Nachman’s face lit up like a firecracker. “That’s great!” he said. “But you know I need corroboration.”

Here’s where Brooke says it gets fishy:

“Marla,” Trump yelled into the background. “Didn’t you say it’s the best sex you ever had with me?” From a distance, we heard a faint voice: “Yes, Donald.” Only years later did we learn that Trump sometimes impersonated voices to reporters. I still can’t be sure whether the voice in the room was really hers.

As she mentioned, Trump has been known to pretend to be a publicist to brag about himself to reporters in full phone conversations. So, in retrospect, a “Yes, Donald” — not to mention some other related things in this scenario — probably wouldn’t be too difficult to fake.

U.S., Mexico and Canada hasten NAFTA talks as elections loom: Pena Nieto - Reuters

APRIL 15, 2018 / 2:53 PM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
U.S., Mexico and Canada hasten NAFTA talks as elections loom: Pena Nieto
Roberta Rampton, Daina Beth Solomon

LIMA/MEXICO (Reuters) - The United States, Mexico and Canada will expedite NAFTA talks in a push to reach a deal in coming weeks, Mexico’s president said on Saturday after a meeting with the U.S. vice president and Canadian prime minister.

The flags of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are seen on a lectern before a joint news conference on the closing of the seventh round of NAFTA talks in Mexico City, Mexico March 5, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido
On the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they thought an agreement could be reached before Mexican elections on July 1, although they also said no deadlines had been set.

“We agreed to keep up work towards reaching a deal and to summon our special negotiating teams to accelerate their efforts,” Pena Nieto told reporters after meeting Pence.

“It was the same thing I agreed to with Prime Minister Trudeau,” Pena Nieto added. “We hope in coming weeks we can reach an agreement.”

The three countries, which created the world’s largest free trade region by forming the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1990s, are under pressure to renegotiate the deal before Mexicans elect a new president in July.

There are concerns U.S.-Mexico relations could get rockier with Pena Nieto, a centrist, unable to seek a second six-year term due to Mexico’s term limits.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to kill NAFTA if it is not changed to secure better terms for U.S. workers and companies. In Mexico, leftist presidential frontrunner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to cut the country’s economic dependence on foreign powers and to put Trump “in his place.”

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence talks during a meeting at the VIII Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru in this handout photograph released to Reuters by the Mexico Presidency, April 14, 2018. Mexico Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
With U.S. mid-term congressional elections also pending in November, Trudeau said Canada would defer to Mexico and the United States on a timeline.

“Of course, we’d like to see a re-negotiated deal land sooner than later,” Trudeau said in a press conference, citing Mexican and U.S. elections as a factor in timing. “We have a certain amount of pressure to try to move forward successfully in the coming weeks.”

On Friday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said provincial elections in Canada in June were also a factor, and that a deal in May was possible.

Trudeau told reporters there has been “potential progress” regarding car manufacturing and “a broad range of things”, however, no new details have emerged from the Lima conference on any specific agreements.

On Friday, auto industry executives said U.S. trade negotiators significantly softened their demands to increase regional automotive content under a reworked NAFTA trade pact in an effort to seal a deal in the next few weeks.

After meeting Pena Nieto and Trudeau separately, Pence said he was leaving the summit “very hopeful that we are very close to a renegotiated NAFTA.”

“There is a real possibility that we could arrive at an agreement within the next several weeks,” Pence said.

Reporting By Roberta Rampton in Lima and Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City, Additional Reporting and Writing By Mitra Taj; Editing by Sam Holmes

Watch Out, Airlines. High Speed Rail Now Rivals Flying on Key Routes - Bloomberg

Watch Out, Airlines. High Speed Rail Now Rivals Flying on Key Routes
In Asia and Europe, super-fast locomotives are comparable to air travel in price and door-to-door speed.
By , , and
January 10, 2018, 10:00 AM GMT+11

Illustration: Joe Melhuish
Across Asia and Europe, high-speed rail is providing a competitive alternative to air travel on the same routes, in terms of price and the all-important barometer of time. Put that together with the environmental benefits that flow from not burning jet fuel, and staying on the ground begins to make more sense for travelers who would otherwise trudge to the airport.

Speedy trains and planes are generally competitive until your travel plans extend beyond 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), at which point travelers consider flying superior for time savings, according to an overview of academic research by the Journal of Advanced Transportation. But new technologies may push that boundary in the years and decades to come. The chart below gives examples of key global routes where the two are currently comparable. 1

“Travel time is critical for the competitiveness of different transport modes,” researchers from Beijing’s Beihang University and the University of South Florida in Tampa wrote last year, buttressing a 2014 European study (PDF) that found more air service on routes for which trains take longer. While this supports the theory that trains can supplant air travel if door-to-door time and price are equal or better, that doesn’t turn out to be the case in reality. It’s not a zero-sum game after all.In general, the advent of fast, affordable train service in China, Japan, South Korea and western Europe has eroded such preconceptions as to how airlines and railroads compete. The entry of high-speed rail in markets dominated by airlines doesn’t always lead to fewer available flights—there’s evidence that, in many places, affordably priced train tickets actually spur new travel demand, much the way ultra-low-cost airlines in Asia, Europe and the Americas have affected bargain fares. That helps both trains and planes.

A West Japan Railway Co. bullet train travels through the Shin-Kobe station.Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
The new rail industry is seeing its most vibrant growth in China, which also has the world’s largest high-speed network, the fastest trains and the greatest ambitions for future expansion. One of the world’s busiest routes, Beijing to Shanghai, features the new domestically built Fuxing high-speed train, now with a top allowed speed of 218 miles per hour (351 kilometers per hour). That speed increase cut the 775-mile (1,247 kilometer) trip to 4 hours, 28 minutes on a route that has about 100 million rail passengers annually, according to Chinese news service Xinhua.

Japan’s high-speed shinkansen, or bullet trains, date to the 1960s and have become a staple of domestic travel, with speeds of about 199 mph (320 km), making for a 2 1/2 hour trip between Tokyo and Osaka, one of the most heavily trafficked routes. That same city pairing, however, has hourly airline service by both of Japan’s largest carriers—with each using a mix of wide-body Boeing Co. 767s, 777s and 787s for the 70-minute flight. While adding station/airport dwell time and the time spent getting from city center to the platform/gate doesn’t change the result in this case, such calculations sometimes make the difference when it comes to travel time.

In 2015, 910 million Chinese traveled by all forms of rail—more than twice the 415.4 million who flew, according to the journal article. Unsurprisingly, the future of train technology resides in China. The first magnetic-levitation, or maglev train, which can travel as fast as 267 mph (430 kph), operates in Shanghai; engineers are researching future maglev trains that could travel at a stunning 373 mph (600 kph), an achievement that could thoroughly upend the current dynamic between air and ground travel.

Over time, Chinese airlines and high-speed trains have generally evolved so that fares and service classes are comparable, said Yu Zhang, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of South Florida and one of the journal report’s authors. In their early days, Chinese high-speed rail operators sought to emulate airlines in terms of attendant training, with fares that were generally too high to spur much demand, she said. Since then, train fares have dropped.

“Air service is impacted, but we do not see a significant reduction of passengers, either,” Yu said of the Chinese market. “It’s really dependent on the particular route.”


Eurostar trains at the St. Pancras rail station in London.Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
In Europe, the Eurostar high-speed rail from London to Paris and Brussels served 10 million riders last year, the fourth since it first topped that mark. The service began in November 1994 and drew 2.9 million passengers the following year. Current Eurostar fares begin at 29 pounds ($39), down from initial fares of 79 pounds in the system’s early days.

Again, the different modes of transport that might seem to be rivals for the same passengers are in many way complementary. Low-cost airlines focused on short-haul routes and European high-speed rail options that would seem to compete are generally not rivals, given their vast differences on other counts. The trains generally serve city centers, while the air carriers tend to use secondary airports further afield as a way to lower their costs.

On the Paris-Bordeaux line, high speed rail is “by far the most competitive travel offer with a real traffic growth of 70 percent since its launch in July,” the French railway SNCF said in an emailed statement. “In November, we reached 82 percent of the Paris-Bordeaux travel market share,” SNCF official Rachel Picard said. “This high speed benefits all customers, including professional travelers whose number has doubled compared to 2016.”

And what happened to the big airlines on the continent such as Air France-KLM? They have ceded traffic on the shorter routes to low-cost rivals, including Ryanair Holdings Plc and EasyJet Plc. Many major U.S. airlines are following suit, abandoning smaller regional jets and reducing service to less-populated cities.

“The way airlines think of trips that are short-haul has changed,” said Holly Reed, an executive with Texas Central Partners LLC, which is raising money to build a bullet train between Dallas and Houston.

​​​​​Amtrak’s Acela.
By now, you may have noticed the absence of one large country from this discussion. After a century of neglect, U.S. transit infrastructure has more in common with the developing world than with China or Western Europe. While Asia rail systems measure their passengers in the hundreds of millions, in the U.S., Amtrak had 31.3 million riders in its 2016 fiscal year.

America’s fastest train, the Acela, travels on the Boston-New York-Washington corridor with a speed capability of only 150 mph (241 kph)—but the trains rarely exceed 100 mph (161 kph) due to congestion—and then only for short periods on aging tracks. With the rails often running parallel with the busy Interstate 95, it’s not uncommon to see cars outpacing locomotives.

— With assistance by Alex Millson, Alyssa McDonald, Ania Nussbaum, and Jennifer Prince

Flight and train ticket prices are the lowest average prices including taxes for travel dates 2/2/18-2/4/18. Prices that appeared at least twice per day were included. Flight ticket prices were obtained from Skyscanner in USD. Budget airlines were not considered. Train ticket prices were obtained from operator booking sites, except for train tickets in China which were from ctrip.com. Transit time is the fastest metro or commuter transportation to the airport, excluding airport express unless necessary. The cost of transit is the sum of all one-way tickets on the transit route. Transit times and costs were obtained from official transportation and operator websites, Google Maps and Baidu Maps. All prices not obtained in USD were converted. Ticket price research and conversion were performed on 1/2/18.

National outrage and call for Starbucks boycott after two black men are arrested for trying to use restroom without buying anything - Daily Mail

'It's racism at its ugliest level': National outrage and call for Starbucks boycott after two black men are arrested for trying to use restroom without buying anything
Two black men in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were arrested Thursday
They were sitting in Starbucks waiting for their friend when the cops were called
The hashtag #BoycottStarbucks was trending Saturday after the incident
People called the moment 'racism at its ugliest level' in America
Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson plans to fly to Philadelphia to apologize face-to-face with the two men who were arrested 
By Marlene Lenthang and Danielle Zoellner For Dailymail.com

PUBLISHED: 10:19 AEST, 15 April 2018 | UPDATED: 16:44 AEST, 15 April 2018

Outraged social media users are encouraging people to boycott Starbucks because of a 'racist incident' where one store in Philadelphia called the cops on two black men.

The hashtag #BoycottStarbucks was trending on Twitter Saturday after a viral video was posted showing six officers arresting two black men who were waiting for their friend in the downtown shop on Thursday.

One user posted a photo of the milk in her coffee and said: 'At Starbucks you must be THIS white to sit at their tables'.

Other users called the altercation 'racism at its ugliest level' in America.

But Philadelphia's Police Commissioner Richard Ross said his officers 'did absolutely nothing wrong' and asked the men to leave three times before they were arrested.

Social media users are calling for a boycott of Starbucks after a store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, called the cops on two black men who were waiting for their friend +7
Social media users are calling for a boycott of Starbucks after a store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, called the cops on two black men who were waiting for their friend

One user claimed that people have to be 'this white' in order to sit at a table in Starbucks. The men were reportedly asked to leave but refused +7
One user claimed that people have to be 'this white' in order to sit at a table in Starbucks. The men were reportedly asked to leave but refused

Video playing bottom right...
Commissioner Richard Ross released his statement on the incident on Facebook live.

'At about 4:40 police received a 911 call for a disturbance and trespass. When the police arrived they were met by Starbucks employees who said that two males were trespassing and had refused to leave the establishment,' he said.

'According to employees they had seen the two males come in, they sat down, and after being seated they decided they needed to use the restroom.

Starbucks said that according to the company policy they do not allow nonpaying members or nonpaying people to come in and use the restroom. And so they then asked these two males to leave. These two males refused to leave and the police were called,' he added.

Shocking moment six cops ARREST two black men in a Starbucks...

He revealed that the officers on the scene called the Starbucks supervisor first to 'avoid the situation from getting out of hand'.

The officers then asked the males on three different occasions 'politely to leave the location because they were asked to leave by employees because they were trespassing'.

The men refused to budge.

He stressed that the males were not harmed in the arrest and were taken to the police district.

Six police officers arrived at the Starbucks and arrested the two men
The incident was recorded by another person in the coffee shop. The video has since been viewed more than 3.2million times on social media
Six police officers arrived at the Starbucks and arrested the two men. The incident was recorded by another person in the coffee shop. The video has has since been viewed more than 3.2million times on social media

One user said they wanted to hear the 911 call from the employee who asked for cops to come in and assist the matter

The two men were placed into handcuffs and escorted out of the video, which is shown in a viral video that has since garnered more than 3.2million views. 

At first Starbucks released a statement on Friday saying: 'We're aware of the incident on Thursday in a Philadelphia store with 2 guests and law enforcement, resulting in their removal. We're reviewing the incident with our partners, law enforcement and customers to determine what took place and led to this unfortunate result.'

They issued a second statement Saturday. 

'We apologize to the two individuals and our customers and are disappointed this led to an arrest. We take these matters seriously and clearly have more work to do when it comes to how we handle incidents in our stores. We are reviewing out policies and will continue to engage with the community and the police department to try to ensure these types of situations never happen in any of our stores,' the statement said.

Starbucks released a statement Saturday where it apologized to the two men. But one user thought the apology wasn't sufficient and decided to edit it themselves
Starbucks released a statement Saturday where it apologized to the two men. But one user thought the apology wasn't sufficient and decided to edit it themselves

Another user compared this incident to others that have occurred recently across the US. He mentioned the people who were mad about the teen who got into 20 colleges and the ex-firefighter who shot at a black teenager on his doorstep
Another user compared this incident to others that have occurred recently across the US. He mentioned the people who were mad about the teen who got into 20 colleges and the ex-firefighter who shot at a black teenager on his doorstep

But one Twitter user edited the statement to include that the moment was 'racial profiling' and 'racially motivated harassment'.

Starbucks' CEO Kevin Johnson expressed his 'deepest apologies' about the incident and plans to fly to Philadelphia to help correct the situation.

'I hope to meet personally with the two men who were arrested to offer a face-to-face apology,' Johnson said Saturday. 

At the end of Ross' statement, he acknowledged the racial tension that is surrounding the incident.

'I will say that as an African American male I am very aware of implicit bias. We are committed to fair and unbiased policing and anything less than that will not be tolerated in this department,' he said.

The two black men who were arrested in the coffee shop have since been released and remain unidentified.

A spokesman for the district attorney's office said the men were released 'because of lack of evidence' that a crime had been committed, the Associated Press reported.

Syria air strikes: US still 'locked and loaded' for new chemical attacks - BBC News

April 15, 2018

Syria air strikes: US still 'locked and loaded' for new chemical attacks

Watch the key moments over 12 hours - in two minutes
President Donald Trump has warned Syria's government the US is "locked and loaded" to strike again if it carries out chemical attacks.

The warning came after the US, UK and France struck three Syrian sites in response to a suspected deadly chemical attack in the town of Douma a week ago.

Syria denies any chemical use and says that attack was fabricated by rebels.

A UN Security Council vote brought by Syria's ally, Russia, to condemn the US-led strikes was rejected.

The wave of strikes represents the most significant attack against President Bashar al-Assad's government by Western powers in seven years of Syria's civil war.

While Western powers have supported rebels from early on in the war, they have not intervened against Syria directly.

After the failure of the Russian motion, the US, UK and France circulated a new draft resolution to UN Security Council members, calling for an independent investigation into Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons, AFP news agency reported.

A similar previous plan had been vetoed by Russia.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has blamed Russian obstruction for the need to launch military strikes, saying they left "no practicable alternative".

Syria air strikes: Will they work?
Isn't an investigation already under way?
Inspectors from the independent Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had already been dispatched to Damascus and they are expected to visit Douma this weekend.

But the OPCW will not seek to establish - and publicly announce - who was responsible for the attack, which is what the UK, US and France want to see.

The new, Western-drafted resolution calls for the OPCW to release their report within 30 days.

Syria 'chemical attack' on Douma: What we know
Fall of Eastern Ghouta pivotal moment for Assad
What happened at the UN?
An emergency meeting was held by the UN Security Council on Saturday, leading to some bitter exchanges.

Russia sought to secure a collective condemnation of the early morning air strikes.

However, out of the 15-member council, only China and Bolivia voted in favour of the Russian resolution.

Russia's UN envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, read out a quote from President Vladimir Putin accusing the US, UK and France of "cynical disdain" in acting without waiting for the OPCW's findings.

US envoy Nikki Haley said the strikes were "justified, legitimate and proportionate".

She said: "I spoke to the president [Trump] this morning and he said, 'if the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United States is locked and loaded'."

She added: "We cannot stand by and let Russia trash every international norm and allow use of chemical weapons to go unanswered."

Can Trump walk away after air strikes?
World won't ignore toxic warfare - Boris Johnson
What does Syria say?
Syria's envoy to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, said the US, UK and France were "liars, spoilers and hypocrites" who exploited the UN "to pursue... [their] policy of interference and colonialism".

Elsewhere, the Syrian army announced on Saturday that the Eastern Ghouta region, where Douma is situated, had been cleared of the last rebel fighters and was fully retaken.

What was targeted in Syria?
Will West's attack sway Syria's Assad?
UK publishes legal case for Syria strikes

Media captionAmateur footage shows strikes on a military research facility in Damascus, while state TV shows the damage
What is Donald Trump's reaction?
He tweeted early on Saturday, hailing the strikes as "perfectly executed". He also thanked the UK and France.

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump
 A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!

10:21 PM - Apr 14, 2018

His use of the phrase "Mission Accomplished" drew a warning from President George W Bush's ex-press secretary Ari Fleischer:

Skip Twitter post by @AriFleischer

Ari Fleischer

@AriFleischer
 Um...I would have recommended ending this tweet with not those two words. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/985130802668294144 …

10:42 PM - Apr 14, 2018 · New York, USA

The phrase had been on a banner as Mr Bush declared the end of "major combat operations" in Iraq in May 2003, six weeks after the US-led invasion of the country. The following Iraqi insurgency questioned the validity of the statement.

UK's May faces almighty row over air strikes
What can Western military intervention achieve?
Were the Syria air strikes legal?
Mr Trump announced the strikes on TV on Friday night, saying the three allies had "marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality".

He spoke to Mrs May and French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone on Saturday, agreeing the operation had been a success.

Where was hit?
At a Pentagon briefing on Saturday, Lt Gen Kenneth McKenzie listed the three targets that had been struck, saying the attacks had "set the Syrian chemical weapons programme back years":

The Barzah chemical weapons research and development centre near Damascus was hit by 76 missiles, 57 of them Tomahawk cruise missiles, and "destroyed"
The Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage facility near Homs was hit by 22 missiles - nine US Tomahawks, eight British Storm Shadows and five naval cruise missiles and two Scalp cruise missiles launched by France
The Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker facility near Homs was targeted with seven Scalp missiles and was "successfully hit"
Gen McKenzie said the "initial indications are that we accomplished the military objectives without interference from Syria".


Media captionGen Kenneth McKenzie: "We deployed 105 weapons"
He said "none of the aircraft or missiles were successfully engaged" by defence systems and all aircraft had returned.

Gen McKenzie said about 40 Syrian defence missiles were fired, mostly after the targets were hit.

The Pentagon briefing conflicted with information given at a Russian defence ministry briefing, which said 103 cruise missiles had been launched and 71 were shot down by Syrian systems.

Both the Russians and the US said there were no reported casualties. Syria says three people were hurt near Homs.

"Rumbling like thunder": A CBS reporter in Damascus witnessed the start of the strikes
The US said it had communicated with Russia ahead of the strikes through the normal procedures of their "deconfliction" hotline but no details of the attacks were given.

Theresa May statement in full
President Trump's statement in full
There had been concerns that if the allied strikes had hit Russian military personnel, it would have further escalated tension.

The US says the scale of the strikes was about "double" what was launched in April 2017 after a chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed more than 80 people.

US-led strikes on Syria: What was targeted? - BBC News

US-led strikes on Syria: What was targeted? 14 April 2018 The US, UK and France say their air forces and navies have conducted strikes on several sites in Syria, firing 105 missiles. US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the allies had taken "decisive action" against the Syrian government's "chemical weapons infrastructure". The strikes took place at about 04:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Saturday, a week after a suspected chemical attack on the then-rebel-held town of Douma, which opposition activists, medics and rescue workers say killed more than 40 people. President Bashar al-Assad's government has denied ever using chemical weapons, and its key ally Russia says it has evidence the Douma incident was "staged". The Syrian government insists its entire chemical arsenal was destroyed under a deal signed after an attack in 2013 that involved the nerve agent Sarin. However, experts from the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have ascribed four chemical attacks to the government since then, including a 2017 Sarin attack on rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun. What was targeted? The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, said warships and jets had fired missiles that hit and destroyed three targets "specifically associated with the Syrian regime's chemical weapons programme". The warships were deployed in the Red Sea, the northern Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean Sea. 1. Barzeh research and development centre, Damascus The branch of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) in the capital's northern Barzeh district was a "centre for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology", Gen Dunford said. Lt Gen Kenneth McKenzie, director of the US military's Joint Staff, said 76 missiles were fired at the facility - 57 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 19 joint air-to-surface stand-off missiles. "Initial assessments are that this target was destroyed. This is going to set the Syrian chemical weapons programme back for years," he said. The Syrian state news agency reported that several missiles hit the SSRC facility, "destroying a building that included scientific laboratories and a training centre". Media caption"Rumbling like thunder": A CBS reporter in Damascus witnessed the start of the strikes The SSRC is a government agency that is officially tasked with advancing and co-ordinating scientific activities in Syria. However, a Western intelligence agency told the BBC in May 2017 that the SSRC branch in Barzeh - along with two others in nearby Dummar (Jamraya) and in Masyaf, in Hama province - were being used to produce chemical and biological munitions in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The agency alleged that the Barzeh facility specialised in installing chemical weapons on long-range missiles and artillery, and that manufacturing and maintenance of the munitions was taking place in closed sections that were not accessible to OPCW inspectors. Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished! 10:21 PM - Apr 14, 2018 At the same time, the US imposed economic sanctions on 271 SSRC employees, who it said "have expertise in chemistry and related disciplines and/or have worked in support of SSRC's chemical weapons programme since at least 2012". Despite the allegations, the OPCW subsequently reported that it had carried out two inspections of Barzah and Dummar facilities - which is also known as Jamraya - in February and November 2017 and not observed "any activities inconsistent with obligations under the CWC". 2. Him Shinshar chemical weapons storage site, west of Homs Image copyrightUS DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Gen Dunford said the US believed this was "the primary location of Syrian Sarin and precursor production equipment". Gen McKenzie said 22 missiles hit the facility - nine US Tomahawk missiles, eight British Storm Shadow missiles, and 5 naval cruise missiles and 2 SCALP cruise missiles launched by France. The UK Ministry of Defence said Royal Air Force Tornado GR4s had launched eight Storm Shadow missiles at a military facility in the same location - a former missile base some 25km (15 miles) west of the city of Homs. It the facility was used to "keep chemical weapon precursors stockpiled in breach of Syria's obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention". Precursor chemicals are generally dual-use chemicals that can be combined to produce blister agents like sulphur mustard or nerve agents like Sarin. "Very careful scientific analysis was applied to determine where best to target the Storm Shadows to maximise the destruction of the stockpiled chemicals and to minimise any risks of contamination to the surrounding area," the MoD added. "The facility which was struck is located some distance from any known concentrations of civilian habitation, reducing yet further any such risk." Syria's state news agency reported that missiles had targeted a military position in Homs province, but that they had been "thwarted and diverted from their path". Three civilians were injured, it said, without providing any further details. 3. Him Shinshar chemical weapons bunker, west of Homs Gen Dunford said the facility, about 7km from the storage site, "contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post". Gen McKenzie said seven SCALP missiles were deployed and that the bunker facility was "successfully hit". Were any missiles intercepted? Media captionGen Kenneth McKenzie describes the strikes Gen McKenzie said initial indications were that the objectives were "accomplished without material interference from Syria". The attacks on multiple axes by US, British and French warships and aircraft "were able to overwhelm the Syrian air defence system". "We are confident that all of our missiles reached their targets. At the end of the strike mission, all of our aircraft safely returned to their bases." Gen McKenzie said the US military assessed that more than 40 surface-to-air missiles were launched by Syrian government forces. "Most of these launches occurred after the last impact of our strike was over," he noted, adding that it was likely most of the missiles were fired without guidance. What does Russia say? Russian military spokesman Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi told reporters in Moscow that "a number of Syrian military airfields, industrial and research facilities" were targeted by US, British and French missile strikes. He said preliminary reports suggested 103 cruise missiles were launched. Syria's mostly Soviet-era air defence systems had "successfully countered the air and naval strikes", intercepting 71 of the cruise missiles, Gen Rudskoi added. He cited Russian military data as showing: Four missiles targeted Damascus International Airport 12 targeted the Dumayr airbase, east of Damascus, but all were shot down 18 targeted the Marj Ruhayil (Bulay) airbase, south of the capital 12 targeted the Shayrat airbase, but all were shot down Five out of the nine that targeted the Mezzeh military airport were shot down Thirteen of the 16 that targeted "Homs aerodrome" were shot down Thirty targeted facilities related to Syria's alleged chemical weapons programme in Barzeh and Jaramana, a south-eastern district of Damascus. Seven missiles were shot down. The facilities were partially destroyed, but had not been used for a long time, according to Gen Rudskoi "Russia considers the strike to be a response to the success of the Syrian armed forces in fighting international terrorism and liberating its territory, rather than a response to the alleged chemical attack," Gen Rudskoi said.