Republicans Seize on Impeachment for Edge in 2018 Midterms
By JONATHAN MARTINAPRIL 8, 2018
Republican leaders are raising money and energizing conservatives with warnings about congressional Democrats who want to impeach President Trump. The Democratic donor Tom Steyer paid for this billboard in Times Square in December. Credit Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency
WASHINGTON — As Republican leaders scramble to stave off a Democratic wave or at least mitigate their party’s losses in November, a strategy is emerging on the right for how to energize conservatives and drive a wedge between the anti-Trump left and moderate voters: warn that Democrats will immediately move to impeach President Trump if they capture the House.
What began last year as blaring political hyperbole on the right — the stuff of bold-lettered direct mail fund-raising pitches from little-known groups warning of a looming American “coup” — is now steadily drifting into the main currents of the 2018 message for Republicans.
The appeals have become a surefire way for candidates to raise small contributions from grass-roots conservatives who are devoted to Mr. Trump, veteran Republican fund-raisers say. But party strategists also believe that floating the possibility of impeachment can also act as a sort of scared-straight motivational tool for turnout. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas used his re-election kickoff rally to introduce a video featuring a faux news anchor reading would-be headlines were conservatives not to vote in November.
“Senate Majority Leader Schumer announced the impeachment trial of President Trump,” one of the anchors says.
And when Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, the chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, convened about two dozen party strategists in February for a private dinner at a French bistro here, the attendees were surprised when he raised an issue not included in his formal PowerPoint presentation: the threat of impeachment against Mr. Trump, which he said fired up the party base.
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Then there is the most prominent Republican to have started invoking the specter of a Democratic-controlled House impeaching Mr. Trump: the president himself. In just the last month, he has used three separate speeches to warn that Representative Maxine Waters, a veteran California Democrat he has casually insulted as a “low-I.Q. individual,” aims to impeach him.
Advisers to the president say they have made clear to him that Republican control of the House is tenuous, and some have encouraged him to more aggressively lay out the stakes for the midterm elections, including who exactly would be in charge of key committees should Democrats retake the chamber.
“Everybody has told him that,” Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, said about the prospect of a Democratic takeover of the House. “The threat of impeachment is something that unifies everybody in the party, even if you’re not a big Trump supporter.”
Democrats are divided on how to respond to the charge. Many top officials in the capital fear it is a political trap that would distract from their core message and possibly even boomerang back to harm them in November. But other more progressive figures see impeachment as a rallying cry of their own to galvanize the left’s anti-Trump base.
“I’ve been urging members to refrain from discussing impeachment,” said Representative Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, adding: “I think we should let these investigations conclude and see what evidence is found.”
The mere thought of impeachment could energize Trump supporters who may otherwise be disinclined to vote in the midterm elections without him on the ballot, supporters of the strategy say.
“I can’t even imagine the Democrats would go there,” said Mark Lundberg, the former chairman of the Sioux County Republican committee in Iowa. “Impeachment for what? For being rude to them? That would be so outrageous.”
And to those voters in the political center who may be uneasy with, or simply exhausted by, his tumultuous administration, the possibility of an even more chaotic 2019 in Washington is unappealing.
Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a member of the House Republican leadership, predicted that the possibility of impeachment would divide the hard left from the broader political mainstream.
“It separates their base from reasonable, rational people that decide elections,” said Mr. McHenry, noting that this bloc of the electorate does not “want to put people in power that are going to create complete chaos and in essence shut down any potential legislative progress.”
But the mere fact that Republicans are talking by early spring about running on an impeachment threat reveals the depth of their challenge going into this fall’s election. The first midterm campaign of a new administration is typically difficult for the president’s party. But the tempestuous Mr. Trump has compounded the Republicans’ difficulties by generating an unending stream of made-for-TV controversies that overshadow their policy achievements and the health of the economy.
There are voices in the Republican Party who believe that it is too soon to sound the alarm, and that doing so will come off as overly panicked. Indeed, what is striking about the politics of impeachment is that both parties are divided over how to navigate the issue in the midterm campaign.
Polls show most voters are not supportive of impeachment at the moment, but if Mr. Trump were to fire the White House special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, the country would become about evenly divided on the question.
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In January, 66 House Democrats, over a third of the caucus, voted to begin impeachment proceedings. That was eight more than the total number who voted for a similar measure in the House a month earlier.
“I think he’s committed impeachable offenses,” said Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee, adding that waiting for the special counsel is risky because Mr. Mueller’s inquiry may never “see the light of day.”
The Democratic leadership, though, has sought to tamp down these impulses. They believe Republicans are setting a trap and are irritated that the billionaire donor Tom Steyer, who recently said he wants to host a series of primary debates this year, is trumpeting the issue. These Democrats argue that the party needs to focus on a substantive agenda and assure voters that they will exercise sober and reasonable oversight of Mr. Trump.
On Thursday, the House Democratic campaign organization released a memo based on an internal poll that urged candidates to “express a willingness to work with the president when his agenda might help the district.”
“If impeachment becomes a political tool instead of the end result of a credible investigation, then you are as guilty as Trump, in some ways, of taking a hammer blow to institutions,” said David Axelrod, former President Barack Obama’s onetime chief strategist, adding that it would also create risks in swing districts. “To say I’m for impeachment come hell or high water is to promise chaos.”
And Democratic lawmakers say they are wise to the bait that Mr. Trump is placing before them when he invokes Ms. Waters, an outspoken black woman whose jeremiads against the president conservative media outlets delight in amplifying.
“They’re trying to encourage us to be more out front on impeachment so then they can use that to rev up their base and say, ‘That’s all the Democrats care about,’” said Representative Dina Titus of Nevada, a political-science professor by training.
To some Republican strategists, waving the bloody shirt of impeachment is unwise — at least this early in the election season.
“Republicans should leave that insanity to the left,” said Mike Shields, who worked for former Speaker Newt Gingrich during the Clinton impeachment wars of the 1990s. “We should be talking about the soaring economy, record low unemployment, 90 percent of workers getting tax cuts, defeating ISIS, and peace through strength on the Korean Peninsula.”
But other veteran party officials say what they are doing now is precisely what Democrats should have done to rouse their own voters, and protect their House majority, in the elections leading up to former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998.
“If the Democrats had been smart in ’94 and ’96, this would have been their message,” said Ralph Reed, a longtime Republican strategist, noting that buildup of what he called a “Clinton investigatory complex” made it clear Republicans intended to eventually impeach Mr. Clinton.
The group Mr. Reed runs, the Faith & Freedom Coalition, recently sent out a fund-raising solicitation seeking small contributions that warned about what it called the “Impeachment Election!” “Will you do your part to help stop this coup attempt by the radical anti-Christian left and the media against our duly elected president?” the letter read, with “stop” and “coup” in all capitals.
A direct mail solicitation from the Faith & Freedom Coalition. Credit
Other groups, some even more marginal, have filled the mailboxes of grass-roots conservatives with similar high-decibel appeals.
But what is notable is how this fire-and-brimstone approach is making its way into the party’s mainstream.
Last week, America Rising, a Washington-area candidate-tracking and opposition-research firm that assists Republicans, sent out a fund-raising email that read, “Right now the only thing standing between the president and the Democrats’ underhanded impeachment attempts is the Republican majority in the House fighting to defend our president.”
Or as Representative Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, a Republican, put in last week in a talk radio interview: “Do you think that the far-left Resist movement base of the Democrat Party would accept anything other than impeachment?”
Sunday, April 8, 2018
An Illinois town just banned assault weapons. The penalty if you keep one? Up to $1,000 a day - CNN
An Illinois town just banned assault weapons. The penalty if you keep one? Up to $1,000 a day
By AJ Willingham, CNN
Updated 2321 GMT (0721 HKT) April 5, 2018
Chicago-area community bans assault weapons
Chicago-area community bans assault weapons 02:12
(CNN)The village of Deerfield in northern Illinois has passed a ban on assault weapons, but it affects much more than sales and manufacturing.
If the 18,000 residents of the Chicago suburb don't forfeit or secure weapons that fall under the ban by June 13th, they will be charged from $200 to $1,000 a day as a penalty.
The Village wants a 'sense of safety'
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According to the ordinance, which the the Village Board of Trustees unanimously approved Monday night, it is unlawful for a person "to carry, keep, bear, transport or possess an assault weapon in the Village," except if the weapon is "broken down in a non-functioning state," is "not immediately accessible to any person," or is "unloaded and enclosed in a case, firearm carrying box, shipping box, or other container by a person who has been issued a currently valid Firearm Owner's Identification Card."
Law enforcement officers, current and retired, are exempted.
The ordinance makes specific reference to recent mass shootings in Parkland, Florida; Las Vegas; and Sutherland Springs, Texas. "Assault weapons have been increasingly used in an alarming number of notorious mass shooting incidents at public places, public venues, places of worship and places of public accommodation," the ordinance reads.
"I bought an AR-15 in 7 minutes" 02:35
The authors of the legislation claim the law "may increase the public's sense of safety...not withstanding potential objections regarding the availability of alternative weaponry or the enforceability of such a ban."
CNN has reached out to Deerfield's Management Analyst for comment.
Gun advocates call it 'draconian'
Objections, as you might imagine, have come in spades. On Thursday morning the Illinois State Rifle Association announced that they and the Second Amendment Foundation had jointly filed a lawsuit against the Village of Deerfield.
"They are blatantly violating state law and they are violating the Second Amendment," says Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association. He told CNN the ISRA has been receiving waves of calls from people upset over the ban and is confident the ISRA's legal challenge will prevail.
"The penalties are just draconian," he says. "A guy -- or a lady -- who owns a large-capacity magazine or anything like that could owe thousands of dollars, and if they cross the thin, almost invisible line between municipalities, they could be considered a criminal."
The NRA is supporting a similar lawsuit filed by the gun advocacy group Guns Save Life.
"Every law-abiding villager of Deerfield has the right to protect themselves, their homes, and their loved ones with the firearm that best suits their needs," Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA's lobbying arm, said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to the NRA for further comment.
GOP lawmaker: Some colleagues open to AR-15 ban 01:18
How the ordinance defines a problematic term
Of course, the term "assault weapon" is in and of itself highly contentious, and no discussion of such a ban would be complete without some clarification.
Since the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, there hasn't been any official definition for the term. It is often dismissed by gun-rights advocates for its imprecision in describing what, exactly, an assault weapon is or isn't.
A common NRA talking point states that an assault weapon should be defined as "any weapon used in an assault," whether it be a gun, a knife, or otherwise.
Deerfield's ordinance sets its own extensive definition of the term. In short, its version of an assault weapon is "a semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a large capacity magazine, detachable or otherwise." There are other aspects, including rifle additions and types of magazines.
As defined by the village, the term also includes semiautomatic pistols, semiautomatic shotguns, conversion kits and "any shotgun with a revolving cylinder."
The ban also provides an open-ended list of firearm models. It includes the AR-15 and its variants, which have been used in an overwhelming number of highly publicized mass shootings -- including February's attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
By AJ Willingham, CNN
Updated 2321 GMT (0721 HKT) April 5, 2018
Chicago-area community bans assault weapons
Chicago-area community bans assault weapons 02:12
(CNN)The village of Deerfield in northern Illinois has passed a ban on assault weapons, but it affects much more than sales and manufacturing.
If the 18,000 residents of the Chicago suburb don't forfeit or secure weapons that fall under the ban by June 13th, they will be charged from $200 to $1,000 a day as a penalty.
The Village wants a 'sense of safety'
Sponsor Content
How wellness is wedded to success in Thailand
See how the Thai capital equips itself with the right infrastructure to support and sustain a
growing population.
Promoted By Magnolia Quality Development Corporation
According to the ordinance, which the the Village Board of Trustees unanimously approved Monday night, it is unlawful for a person "to carry, keep, bear, transport or possess an assault weapon in the Village," except if the weapon is "broken down in a non-functioning state," is "not immediately accessible to any person," or is "unloaded and enclosed in a case, firearm carrying box, shipping box, or other container by a person who has been issued a currently valid Firearm Owner's Identification Card."
Law enforcement officers, current and retired, are exempted.
The ordinance makes specific reference to recent mass shootings in Parkland, Florida; Las Vegas; and Sutherland Springs, Texas. "Assault weapons have been increasingly used in an alarming number of notorious mass shooting incidents at public places, public venues, places of worship and places of public accommodation," the ordinance reads.
"I bought an AR-15 in 7 minutes" 02:35
The authors of the legislation claim the law "may increase the public's sense of safety...not withstanding potential objections regarding the availability of alternative weaponry or the enforceability of such a ban."
CNN has reached out to Deerfield's Management Analyst for comment.
Gun advocates call it 'draconian'
Objections, as you might imagine, have come in spades. On Thursday morning the Illinois State Rifle Association announced that they and the Second Amendment Foundation had jointly filed a lawsuit against the Village of Deerfield.
"They are blatantly violating state law and they are violating the Second Amendment," says Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association. He told CNN the ISRA has been receiving waves of calls from people upset over the ban and is confident the ISRA's legal challenge will prevail.
"The penalties are just draconian," he says. "A guy -- or a lady -- who owns a large-capacity magazine or anything like that could owe thousands of dollars, and if they cross the thin, almost invisible line between municipalities, they could be considered a criminal."
The NRA is supporting a similar lawsuit filed by the gun advocacy group Guns Save Life.
"Every law-abiding villager of Deerfield has the right to protect themselves, their homes, and their loved ones with the firearm that best suits their needs," Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA's lobbying arm, said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to the NRA for further comment.
GOP lawmaker: Some colleagues open to AR-15 ban 01:18
How the ordinance defines a problematic term
Of course, the term "assault weapon" is in and of itself highly contentious, and no discussion of such a ban would be complete without some clarification.
Since the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, there hasn't been any official definition for the term. It is often dismissed by gun-rights advocates for its imprecision in describing what, exactly, an assault weapon is or isn't.
A common NRA talking point states that an assault weapon should be defined as "any weapon used in an assault," whether it be a gun, a knife, or otherwise.
Deerfield's ordinance sets its own extensive definition of the term. In short, its version of an assault weapon is "a semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a large capacity magazine, detachable or otherwise." There are other aspects, including rifle additions and types of magazines.
As defined by the village, the term also includes semiautomatic pistols, semiautomatic shotguns, conversion kits and "any shotgun with a revolving cylinder."
The ban also provides an open-ended list of firearm models. It includes the AR-15 and its variants, which have been used in an overwhelming number of highly publicized mass shootings -- including February's attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
China Seeks EU's Support in Standing Up to U.S. Trade Threat - Bloomberg
China Seeks EU's Support in Standing Up to U.S. Trade Threat
April 6, 2018, 6:43 PM GMT+10
Hamburg University's Flassbeck Says Trump Opened a New Era on Trade
China called on the European Union to aid the Asian nation in rejecting protectionism from the U.S. and upholding the international trade order.
China and the EU “need to stand up together with a clear-cut position against protectionism, and need to work with each other to uphold the rules-based multilateral trade order,” Zhang Ming, the head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, said in an email response to questions from Bloomberg. Recent U.S. actions go “completely against the fundamental principles and values of the World Trade Organization,” he said.
To read more about U.S.-China trade tensions, click here.
China is in the midst of an escalating trade dispute with Washington and said on Wednesday it would levy an additional 25 percent tariff on about $50 billion of U.S. imports including soybeans, automobiles, chemicals and aircraft. That was in response to the release by the U.S. of a list of proposed tariffs a day earlier, covering $50 billion in Chinese products. President Donald Trump on Thursday increased the pressure by threatening additional levies on $100 billion in Chinese goods.
“China and the EU have kept positive, sound and timely communication following the U.S. move,” according to China’s head of mission. China and the EU need to work together to “sustain the sound momentum of global economic growth,” he said.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has said it’s currently in high-level talks seeking to alleviate the situation.
“The EU believes that measures should always be taken within the WTO framework, which provides numerous tools to effectively deal with trade differences,” Commission Spokesman Daniel Rosario said this week. “We call on the relevant parties to ensure WTO compliance of their trade actions.”
April 6, 2018, 6:43 PM GMT+10
Hamburg University's Flassbeck Says Trump Opened a New Era on Trade
China called on the European Union to aid the Asian nation in rejecting protectionism from the U.S. and upholding the international trade order.
China and the EU “need to stand up together with a clear-cut position against protectionism, and need to work with each other to uphold the rules-based multilateral trade order,” Zhang Ming, the head of the Chinese Mission to the EU, said in an email response to questions from Bloomberg. Recent U.S. actions go “completely against the fundamental principles and values of the World Trade Organization,” he said.
To read more about U.S.-China trade tensions, click here.
China is in the midst of an escalating trade dispute with Washington and said on Wednesday it would levy an additional 25 percent tariff on about $50 billion of U.S. imports including soybeans, automobiles, chemicals and aircraft. That was in response to the release by the U.S. of a list of proposed tariffs a day earlier, covering $50 billion in Chinese products. President Donald Trump on Thursday increased the pressure by threatening additional levies on $100 billion in Chinese goods.
“China and the EU have kept positive, sound and timely communication following the U.S. move,” according to China’s head of mission. China and the EU need to work together to “sustain the sound momentum of global economic growth,” he said.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has said it’s currently in high-level talks seeking to alleviate the situation.
“The EU believes that measures should always be taken within the WTO framework, which provides numerous tools to effectively deal with trade differences,” Commission Spokesman Daniel Rosario said this week. “We call on the relevant parties to ensure WTO compliance of their trade actions.”
Republican congressman introduces bill which would require all US post offices to hang photos of Trump and Pence - Independent
April 5, 2018
Republican congressman introduces bill which would require all US post offices to hang photos of Trump and Pence
Politician’s proposal comes after president tells him local post office hung photos of Barack Obama and Joe Biden
Maya Oppenheim @mayaoppenheim
A draft of the legislation says it would compel official portraits of whoever is in the positions to be displayed side by side in post offices across the US Reuters
US post offices will be forced to display photos of Donald Trump and Mike Pence if a Republican congressman succeeds in getting his bill passed.
New York Representative Dan Donovan is planning to introduce a piece of legislation that will require the public institutions to exhibit photos of the president and the vice president.
A draft of the legislation said it would require official portraits of whoever is in the positions to be displayed side by side in post offices across the US.
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The politician’s proposal comes after a Staten Island resident told Mr Donovan a local post office hung photos of Mr Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden, but chose not to display photos of Mr Trump or Mr Pence.
Mr Trump recently signed legislation stopping federal funds from being used for oil paintings of high-level politicians, the president and the vice president.
The bill came after a 2013 report revealed agencies had forked out more than $100,000 (£81,460) on official portraits since 2010.
Mr Donovan is facing a primary challenge from former Representative Michael Grimm – a businessman who finished an eight-month prison sentence in 2016 after pleading guilty to tax fraud.
Mr Donovan won a special election to fill the seat after Mr Grimm - who once notoriously threatened to throw a political reporter off a balcony - resigned in early 2015.
The battle between the pair has become increasingly acrimonious and aggressive as both politicians have attempt to present themselves as the Trump-like figure of the race.
Republican congressman introduces bill which would require all US post offices to hang photos of Trump and Pence
Politician’s proposal comes after president tells him local post office hung photos of Barack Obama and Joe Biden
Maya Oppenheim @mayaoppenheim
A draft of the legislation says it would compel official portraits of whoever is in the positions to be displayed side by side in post offices across the US Reuters
US post offices will be forced to display photos of Donald Trump and Mike Pence if a Republican congressman succeeds in getting his bill passed.
New York Representative Dan Donovan is planning to introduce a piece of legislation that will require the public institutions to exhibit photos of the president and the vice president.
A draft of the legislation said it would require official portraits of whoever is in the positions to be displayed side by side in post offices across the US.
Kimmel on why Trump hates Amazon: "Bezos is actually a billionaire'
Mike Myers returns as Dr Evil to mock Donald Trump's administration
Trump to deploy troops to the Mexican border 'as soon as tonight'
Is Trump right to Amazon is costing the US Post Office billions?
The politician’s proposal comes after a Staten Island resident told Mr Donovan a local post office hung photos of Mr Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden, but chose not to display photos of Mr Trump or Mr Pence.
Mr Trump recently signed legislation stopping federal funds from being used for oil paintings of high-level politicians, the president and the vice president.
The bill came after a 2013 report revealed agencies had forked out more than $100,000 (£81,460) on official portraits since 2010.
Mr Donovan is facing a primary challenge from former Representative Michael Grimm – a businessman who finished an eight-month prison sentence in 2016 after pleading guilty to tax fraud.
Mr Donovan won a special election to fill the seat after Mr Grimm - who once notoriously threatened to throw a political reporter off a balcony - resigned in early 2015.
The battle between the pair has become increasingly acrimonious and aggressive as both politicians have attempt to present themselves as the Trump-like figure of the race.
US federal judge rules that AR-15s and large capacity magazines are not protected by Second Amendment - Independent
April 7, 2018
US federal judge rules that AR-15s and large capacity magazines are not protected by Second Amendment
Massachusetts sold 10,000 assault-style rifles in 2015, and virtually none a year later
Clark Mindock New York @ClarkMindock
State law prohibits the sale of AR-15s and similar weapons
A federal judge has ruled that the Second Amendment does not protect a citizen’s right to own an AR-15 rifle and other, similar semi-automatic “military style” rifles and high capacity magazines.
“AR-15s and [large capacity magazines] are most useful in military service, they are beyond the scope of the Second Amendment ... and may be banned,” Massachusetts District Court Judge William Young wrote in his ruling.
The year-old case was first brought to court in January 2017 by a group of gun owners, the nonprofit Gun Owner’s Action League, and gun stores in the state.
At least 86 teenagers dead since the Parkland shooting
Those plaintiffs had filed their lawsuit after the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, announced in the aftermath of the 2016 Orlando, Florida shooting at the Pulse nightclub that the state would begin enforcing its 1998 ban on assault weapons. The Pulse shooting was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
Following Mr Young’s ruling, Ms Healey issued a statement praising the decision and vowing to push back against the gun lobby that has wielded intense power across the country in recent decades.
“Today’s decision upholding the Assault Weapons Ban vindicates the right of the people of Massachusetts to protect themselves from these weapons of war and my office’s efforts to enforce the law,“ Ms Healey said in the statement. ”Strong gun laws save lives, and we will not be intimidated by the gun lobby in our efforts to end the sale of assault weapons and protect our communities and schools. Families across the country should take heart in this victory.”
Ms Healey’s office has said that sales of the assault-style semi-automatic weapons has virtually ended since she began enforcing the 1998 law. As many as 10,000 of those weapons were sold the year prior.
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In writing his decision, Mr Young made reference in large part to the landmark 2008 Supreme Court case District of Columbia v Heller, in which Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a majority ruling that largely upheld an individual’s right to own a firearm but noted that there are limitations of the Second Amendment.
Mr Young, in his decision, called Mr Scalia’s 2008 writing a “tour de force” on the Second Amendment and said that many of the features of AR-15 rifles and large capacity magazines are designed with the intent for military use and not for civilian use, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.
“The AR-15 and its analogs, along with large capacity magazines, are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional right to 'bear Arms,'” Mr Young wrote in his conclusion.
US federal judge rules that AR-15s and large capacity magazines are not protected by Second Amendment
Massachusetts sold 10,000 assault-style rifles in 2015, and virtually none a year later
Clark Mindock New York @ClarkMindock
State law prohibits the sale of AR-15s and similar weapons
A federal judge has ruled that the Second Amendment does not protect a citizen’s right to own an AR-15 rifle and other, similar semi-automatic “military style” rifles and high capacity magazines.
“AR-15s and [large capacity magazines] are most useful in military service, they are beyond the scope of the Second Amendment ... and may be banned,” Massachusetts District Court Judge William Young wrote in his ruling.
The year-old case was first brought to court in January 2017 by a group of gun owners, the nonprofit Gun Owner’s Action League, and gun stores in the state.
At least 86 teenagers dead since the Parkland shooting
Those plaintiffs had filed their lawsuit after the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, announced in the aftermath of the 2016 Orlando, Florida shooting at the Pulse nightclub that the state would begin enforcing its 1998 ban on assault weapons. The Pulse shooting was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
Following Mr Young’s ruling, Ms Healey issued a statement praising the decision and vowing to push back against the gun lobby that has wielded intense power across the country in recent decades.
“Today’s decision upholding the Assault Weapons Ban vindicates the right of the people of Massachusetts to protect themselves from these weapons of war and my office’s efforts to enforce the law,“ Ms Healey said in the statement. ”Strong gun laws save lives, and we will not be intimidated by the gun lobby in our efforts to end the sale of assault weapons and protect our communities and schools. Families across the country should take heart in this victory.”
Ms Healey’s office has said that sales of the assault-style semi-automatic weapons has virtually ended since she began enforcing the 1998 law. As many as 10,000 of those weapons were sold the year prior.
Son buys AR-15 using mother's tattoo money 'to commit school shooting'
Republican Senate candidate claims he was blocked from Facebook
Worshippers bring AR-15 style rifles to church ceremony in Pennsylania
Doctor describes 'sledgehammer' injuries left by AR-15 in Florida
In writing his decision, Mr Young made reference in large part to the landmark 2008 Supreme Court case District of Columbia v Heller, in which Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a majority ruling that largely upheld an individual’s right to own a firearm but noted that there are limitations of the Second Amendment.
Mr Young, in his decision, called Mr Scalia’s 2008 writing a “tour de force” on the Second Amendment and said that many of the features of AR-15 rifles and large capacity magazines are designed with the intent for military use and not for civilian use, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.
“The AR-15 and its analogs, along with large capacity magazines, are simply not weapons within the original meaning of the individual constitutional right to 'bear Arms,'” Mr Young wrote in his conclusion.
State Dept. monitoring reports of new chemical attack in Syria - NBC News
State Dept. monitoring reports of new chemical attack in Syria
"These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community," the department spokesperson said.
by Safia Samee Ali / Apr.08.2018 / 2:12 PM ET / Updated 6:56 PM ET
This photo released by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows smoke rising after Syrian government airstrikes hit in the town of Douma, in eastern Ghouta region east of Damascus, Syria, Saturday, April. 7, 2018.AP
The State Department says it is monitoring reports of a possible chemical weapons attack that may have killed dozens of civilians in the Syrian city of Douma.
"We continue to closely follow disturbing reports on April 7 regarding another alleged chemical weapons attack, this time targeting a hospital in Douma, Syria," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement.
"Reports from a number of contacts and medical personnel on the ground indicate a potentially high number of casualties, including among families hiding in shelters," she said. "These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community."
The White Helmets, a Syrian civil defense organization, tweeted several photos and videos of alleged victims Saturday night saying "entire families in shelters gassed to death in #Douma #EastGhouta hiding in their cellars, suffocated from the poisonous gas bringing the initial death toll to more than 40."
The claim has not been verified by NBC News.
The Syrian American Medical Society, which has physicians in the country, said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six people, and a second attack with "mixed agents" including nerve agents had hit a nearby building, Reuters reported.
The Syrian government has disputed any reports of gas attacks, saying the allegations are an attempt by rebels to stop the army from advancing, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.
Russia, which supports the Assad regime, also denied the reports in a statement from its Defense Ministry on Sunday morning.
"We strongly reject this information and confirm readiness after Douma is liberated from militants to send Russian specialists in radiation, chemical and biological protection to collect data to confirm that these statements are fabricated," said the statement provided to the TASS news agency.
Russia also accused the West of using the allegations to undermine military operations in the area.
Douma is located in eastern Ghouta, a region that has been subjected to a bombing campaign that intensified in February. Eastern Ghouta was among the first communities to rise up against the government in 2011.
If confirmed, the use of chemical weapons would be another instance of the banned substances alleged to have been used in Syria’s brutal civil war.
Nauert said that the possible chemical attack comes a little more than a year after “Assad’s forces conducted a sarin gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun, which killed approximately 100 Syrians,” referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Nauert said that “The United States continues to use all efforts available to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable,” and said Russia "ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks."
The United States calls on Russia to end this unmitigated support immediately and work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks," she said in the statement.
Related
Syria's civil war has been raging for 7 years. What's behind it?
President Donald Trump reluctantly agreed to keep U.S. troops in Syria for an undetermined period of time to defeat Islamic State on Tuesday.
Trump in April of 2017 ordered a cruise missile strike against a Syrian airbase, which he said was in response to a chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians.
The president said on Tuesday that he wanted to get out of Syria and bring U.S. troops back home. The U.S. has around 2,000 forces on the ground fighting the Islamic State.
April 2: President Trump reluctantly agrees to keep U.S. troops in Syria
01:31
A senior administration official told NBC News that Trump reluctantly agreed in a meeting with his national security team Tuesday to keep U.S. troops in Syria for an undetermined period of time to defeat ISIS, but pressured them to end U.S. involvement in the conflict as soon as possible.
"These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community," the department spokesperson said.
by Safia Samee Ali / Apr.08.2018 / 2:12 PM ET / Updated 6:56 PM ET
This photo released by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows smoke rising after Syrian government airstrikes hit in the town of Douma, in eastern Ghouta region east of Damascus, Syria, Saturday, April. 7, 2018.AP
The State Department says it is monitoring reports of a possible chemical weapons attack that may have killed dozens of civilians in the Syrian city of Douma.
"We continue to closely follow disturbing reports on April 7 regarding another alleged chemical weapons attack, this time targeting a hospital in Douma, Syria," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement.
"Reports from a number of contacts and medical personnel on the ground indicate a potentially high number of casualties, including among families hiding in shelters," she said. "These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community."
The White Helmets, a Syrian civil defense organization, tweeted several photos and videos of alleged victims Saturday night saying "entire families in shelters gassed to death in #Douma #EastGhouta hiding in their cellars, suffocated from the poisonous gas bringing the initial death toll to more than 40."
The claim has not been verified by NBC News.
The Syrian American Medical Society, which has physicians in the country, said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six people, and a second attack with "mixed agents" including nerve agents had hit a nearby building, Reuters reported.
The Syrian government has disputed any reports of gas attacks, saying the allegations are an attempt by rebels to stop the army from advancing, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.
Russia, which supports the Assad regime, also denied the reports in a statement from its Defense Ministry on Sunday morning.
"We strongly reject this information and confirm readiness after Douma is liberated from militants to send Russian specialists in radiation, chemical and biological protection to collect data to confirm that these statements are fabricated," said the statement provided to the TASS news agency.
Russia also accused the West of using the allegations to undermine military operations in the area.
Douma is located in eastern Ghouta, a region that has been subjected to a bombing campaign that intensified in February. Eastern Ghouta was among the first communities to rise up against the government in 2011.
If confirmed, the use of chemical weapons would be another instance of the banned substances alleged to have been used in Syria’s brutal civil war.
Nauert said that the possible chemical attack comes a little more than a year after “Assad’s forces conducted a sarin gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun, which killed approximately 100 Syrians,” referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Nauert said that “The United States continues to use all efforts available to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable,” and said Russia "ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks."
The United States calls on Russia to end this unmitigated support immediately and work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks," she said in the statement.
Related
Syria's civil war has been raging for 7 years. What's behind it?
President Donald Trump reluctantly agreed to keep U.S. troops in Syria for an undetermined period of time to defeat Islamic State on Tuesday.
Trump in April of 2017 ordered a cruise missile strike against a Syrian airbase, which he said was in response to a chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians.
The president said on Tuesday that he wanted to get out of Syria and bring U.S. troops back home. The U.S. has around 2,000 forces on the ground fighting the Islamic State.
April 2: President Trump reluctantly agrees to keep U.S. troops in Syria
01:31
A senior administration official told NBC News that Trump reluctantly agreed in a meeting with his national security team Tuesday to keep U.S. troops in Syria for an undetermined period of time to defeat ISIS, but pressured them to end U.S. involvement in the conflict as soon as possible.
The Real Reason Jeff Bezos Grinds Trump's Gears He’s the opposite of Trump in nearly every dimension - Bloomberg
The Real Reason Jeff Bezos Grinds Trump's Gears
He’s the opposite of Trump in nearly every dimension.
August 18, 2017, 9:00 PM GMT+10
Bully pulp. Photographer: David Ryder/Getty Images, left; Sean Gallup/Getty Images
As if he weren’t in enough trouble already, President Trump took to Twitter Wednesday to attack America’s most trusted brand: “Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!”
Why would a supposedly jobs-obsessed president denounce a company that’s in the midst of a giant hiring spree — with many of those jobs going to workers (and men!) without college degrees? If he wants to condemn a leading U.S. company, why not pick on Google, which is fast becoming a conservative symbol of politically correct intolerance? That at least would be popular with his base.
In fact, Trump’s irritation isn’t really with Amazon. Rather, he is obsessed with Jeff Bezos, whom he keeps denouncing by name. The guy clearly gets under his skin.
The obvious reason is that Bezos — not Amazon, Mr. President — owns the Washington Post. But Trump’s obsession seems a little too personal to be about the Post alone. After all, he regularly attacks the New York Times without mentioning the Ochs-Sulzberger family or Carlos Slim.
Rather, the very existence of Bezos seems to drive Trump crazy. Trump’s image, to himself and his fans, is that of alpha male — the dominant primate in the room. Simply by going about his business (and largely ignoring Trump), Bezos refutes that claim. He is a far more admired and influential businessman than Trump and, of course, immeasurably richer. (Bezos doesn’t have to hide his financial records to maintain the appearance of wealth.) Yet he’s the opposite of Trump in nearly every dimension. (Bezos and I have mutual friends and, although it’s been years, we’ve seen each other socially on rare occasions.)
Start with appearance. Trump, who likes his staff to have the right “look,” would never cast a wiry guy who doesn’t hide his lack of hair as a big-time businessman. How can someone only five-foot-nine intimidate people into submission? In Trumpworld, intimidation, not value-creation, is what business is all about.
Bezos also has a sense of humor, often at his own expense, and a famously raucous laugh. Trump is humorless. He certainly doesn’t laugh at himself.
Bezos speaks clearly and has amazing message discipline even by the standards of successful CEOs — something that struck me when I first interviewed him way back in 1996. Trump: not so much.
Trump grew up rich, went to private schools, and had an undistinguished college career. Bezos grew up middle-class, went to public schools, and knocked the top out of Princeton, graduating with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering and computer science. One had a rich father; the other has brains.
And then there are their families. Bezos is famously close to his. “They are such a normal, close-knit family, it’s almost abnormal,” a friend told Vogue when the magazine profiled his novelist wife MacKenzie in 2013.
Theirs is to all appearances a love match of mutually admiring equals. “I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her résumé before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were,” Bezos told Vogue, punctuating the remark with his famous laugh. By contrast, Trump treats his family, and above all his wife, as mere props for his personal glorification.
The biggest difference is that Bezos projects the self-confidence of someone with nothing to prove. “I don’t think he’s a showman,” Amazon board member Patty Stonesifer told Wired in a 1999 profile of Bezos, “but people are drawn to him because he seems unbelievably like a winner. And they want to help him win.”
Trump, by contrast, projects thin-skinned insecurity. And in his zero-sum world there can be only one winner. The question dogging Amazon’s stock price is how much damage the president might do to this American success story in order to serve his personal pique.
He’s the opposite of Trump in nearly every dimension.
August 18, 2017, 9:00 PM GMT+10
Bully pulp. Photographer: David Ryder/Getty Images, left; Sean Gallup/Getty Images
As if he weren’t in enough trouble already, President Trump took to Twitter Wednesday to attack America’s most trusted brand: “Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!”
Why would a supposedly jobs-obsessed president denounce a company that’s in the midst of a giant hiring spree — with many of those jobs going to workers (and men!) without college degrees? If he wants to condemn a leading U.S. company, why not pick on Google, which is fast becoming a conservative symbol of politically correct intolerance? That at least would be popular with his base.
In fact, Trump’s irritation isn’t really with Amazon. Rather, he is obsessed with Jeff Bezos, whom he keeps denouncing by name. The guy clearly gets under his skin.
The obvious reason is that Bezos — not Amazon, Mr. President — owns the Washington Post. But Trump’s obsession seems a little too personal to be about the Post alone. After all, he regularly attacks the New York Times without mentioning the Ochs-Sulzberger family or Carlos Slim.
Rather, the very existence of Bezos seems to drive Trump crazy. Trump’s image, to himself and his fans, is that of alpha male — the dominant primate in the room. Simply by going about his business (and largely ignoring Trump), Bezos refutes that claim. He is a far more admired and influential businessman than Trump and, of course, immeasurably richer. (Bezos doesn’t have to hide his financial records to maintain the appearance of wealth.) Yet he’s the opposite of Trump in nearly every dimension. (Bezos and I have mutual friends and, although it’s been years, we’ve seen each other socially on rare occasions.)
Start with appearance. Trump, who likes his staff to have the right “look,” would never cast a wiry guy who doesn’t hide his lack of hair as a big-time businessman. How can someone only five-foot-nine intimidate people into submission? In Trumpworld, intimidation, not value-creation, is what business is all about.
Bezos also has a sense of humor, often at his own expense, and a famously raucous laugh. Trump is humorless. He certainly doesn’t laugh at himself.
Bezos speaks clearly and has amazing message discipline even by the standards of successful CEOs — something that struck me when I first interviewed him way back in 1996. Trump: not so much.
Trump grew up rich, went to private schools, and had an undistinguished college career. Bezos grew up middle-class, went to public schools, and knocked the top out of Princeton, graduating with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering and computer science. One had a rich father; the other has brains.
And then there are their families. Bezos is famously close to his. “They are such a normal, close-knit family, it’s almost abnormal,” a friend told Vogue when the magazine profiled his novelist wife MacKenzie in 2013.
Theirs is to all appearances a love match of mutually admiring equals. “I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her résumé before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were,” Bezos told Vogue, punctuating the remark with his famous laugh. By contrast, Trump treats his family, and above all his wife, as mere props for his personal glorification.
The biggest difference is that Bezos projects the self-confidence of someone with nothing to prove. “I don’t think he’s a showman,” Amazon board member Patty Stonesifer told Wired in a 1999 profile of Bezos, “but people are drawn to him because he seems unbelievably like a winner. And they want to help him win.”
Trump, by contrast, projects thin-skinned insecurity. And in his zero-sum world there can be only one winner. The question dogging Amazon’s stock price is how much damage the president might do to this American success story in order to serve his personal pique.
The FBI Seizes and Shuts Down Backpage.com and Affiliate Websites - TIME
The FBI Seizes and Shuts Down Backpage.com and Affiliate Websites
Posted: 06 Apr 2018 03:56 PM PDT
(PHOENIX) — Federal law enforcement authorities are in the process of seizing Backpage.com and its affiliated websites.
A notice that appeared Friday afternoon at Backpage.com says the websites are being seized as part of an enforcement action by the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service.
The notice doesn’t characterize or provide any details on the nature of the enforcement action.
It says authorities plan to release information about the enforcement action later Friday.
Backpage.com lets users create posts to sell items, seek a roommate, participate in forums, list upcoming events or post job openings.
But Backpage.com also has listings for adult escorts and other sexual services, and authorities say advertising related to those services has been extremely lucrative.
Markets Dive as White House Sends Mixed Signals on Trade Fight - TIME Business
Markets Dive as White House Sends Mixed Signals on Trade Fight
Posted: 06 Apr 2018 11:42 AM PDT
(NEW YORK ) — The trade clash between President Donald Trump and China’s government is escalating, with Beijing pledging to “counterattack with great strength” if Trump follows through on threats to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods.
Trump made his out-of-the-blue move when China threatened to retaliate for the first round of tariffs planned by the United States. But for someone who has long fashioned himself as a master negotiator, Trump left it unclear whether he was bluffing or willing to risk a long trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies, with steep consequences for consumers, businesses and an already shaken stock market.
“They aren’t going to bully him into backing down,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign adviser who is now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He said the Chinese “are going to have to make concessions — period.”
The White House sent mixed signals on Friday as financial markets slid from investor concern about a significant trade fight.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC he was “cautiously optimistic” that the U.S. and China could reach an agreement before any tariffs go into place. But, he added, “there is the potential of a trade war.”
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters the U.S. was “not in a trade war,” adding, “China is the problem. Blame China, not Trump.”
Trump’s latest proposal intensified what was already shaping up to be the biggest trade battle for more than a half century. The U.S. bought more than $500 billion in goods from China last year and now is planning or considering penalties on some $150 billion of those imports. The U.S. sold about $130 billion in goods to China in 2017 and faces a potentially devastating hit to its market there if China responds in kind.
Global financial markets have fallen sharply as the world’s two biggest economies squared off — the Dow Jones industrial average sank 572 points Friday.
Trump told advisers Thursday he was unhappy with China’s decision to tax $50 billion in American products, including soybeans and small aircraft, in response to a U.S. move this week to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods.
Rather than waiting weeks for the U.S. tariffs to be implemented, Trump backed a plan by Robert Lighthizer, his trade representative, and was encouraged by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser, to seek the enhanced tariffs.
China said negotiations were impossible under the circumstances. But Trump officials said the president and his team remained in contact with President Xi Jinping and expressed hope to him of resolving the dispute through talks.
In Beijing, a Commerce Ministry spokesman said China doesn’t want a trade war — but isn’t afraid to fight one.
“If the U.S. side announces the list of products for $100 billion in tariffs, the Chinese side has fully prepared and will without hesitation counterattack with great strength,” spokesman Gao Feng said. He gave no indication what measures Beijing might take.
Trump has also pushed for a crackdown on China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property, and he criticized the World Trade Organization, an arbiter of trade disputes, in a tweet Friday for allegedly favoring China. Trump asserted the WTO gives the Asian superpower “tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S.”
U.S. officials have played down the threat of a broader trade dispute, saying a negotiated outcome is still possible. But economists warn that the tit for tat bears the hallmarks of a classic trade rift that could keep growing. Worry is intensifying among Republicans, who traditionally have favored liberalized trade.
“The administration needs to be thinking about the unintended consequences and what are those ripple effects, those domino effects, and what are the retaliatory actions that are likely to be taken,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the Senate’s No. 3 Republican, in an interview with KDLT-TV in Sioux Falls.
The standoff began last month when the U.S. imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. China countered by announcing penalties on $3 billion worth of U.S. products. The next day, the United States proposed the $50 billion in duties on Chinese imports. Beijing responded within hours with a threat of further tariffs of its own.
Further escalation could be in the offing. The U.S. Treasury is working on plans to restrict Chinese technology investments in the United States. And there’s talk that the U.S. could also put limits on visas for Chinese who want to visit or study in this country.
Kudlow told reporters the U.S. may provide a list of suggestions to China “as to what we would like to have come out of this,” and those issues were under discussion.
“Negotiations are better than tariffs,” Kudlow said. “A solution in the next three months would be better than anything. I think that’s eminently doable.” He added: “But Trump is not just using tariffs as a negotiating card. He said that to me.”
For Trump, the dispute runs the risk of blunting the economic benefits of his tax overhaul, which is at the center of congressional Republicans’ case for voters to keep them in power in the 2018 elections. China’s retaliation so far has targeted Midwest farmers, including growers of soybeans, corn and wheat. That could specifically harm core Trump supporters.
“With respect to the Trump administration, its political success will rise and fall with the economy,” Kudlow said. “And the economy is doing rather well now and I expect it to do even better.”
Posted: 06 Apr 2018 11:42 AM PDT
(NEW YORK ) — The trade clash between President Donald Trump and China’s government is escalating, with Beijing pledging to “counterattack with great strength” if Trump follows through on threats to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods.
Trump made his out-of-the-blue move when China threatened to retaliate for the first round of tariffs planned by the United States. But for someone who has long fashioned himself as a master negotiator, Trump left it unclear whether he was bluffing or willing to risk a long trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies, with steep consequences for consumers, businesses and an already shaken stock market.
“They aren’t going to bully him into backing down,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign adviser who is now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He said the Chinese “are going to have to make concessions — period.”
The White House sent mixed signals on Friday as financial markets slid from investor concern about a significant trade fight.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC he was “cautiously optimistic” that the U.S. and China could reach an agreement before any tariffs go into place. But, he added, “there is the potential of a trade war.”
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters the U.S. was “not in a trade war,” adding, “China is the problem. Blame China, not Trump.”
Trump’s latest proposal intensified what was already shaping up to be the biggest trade battle for more than a half century. The U.S. bought more than $500 billion in goods from China last year and now is planning or considering penalties on some $150 billion of those imports. The U.S. sold about $130 billion in goods to China in 2017 and faces a potentially devastating hit to its market there if China responds in kind.
Global financial markets have fallen sharply as the world’s two biggest economies squared off — the Dow Jones industrial average sank 572 points Friday.
Trump told advisers Thursday he was unhappy with China’s decision to tax $50 billion in American products, including soybeans and small aircraft, in response to a U.S. move this week to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods.
Rather than waiting weeks for the U.S. tariffs to be implemented, Trump backed a plan by Robert Lighthizer, his trade representative, and was encouraged by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser, to seek the enhanced tariffs.
China said negotiations were impossible under the circumstances. But Trump officials said the president and his team remained in contact with President Xi Jinping and expressed hope to him of resolving the dispute through talks.
In Beijing, a Commerce Ministry spokesman said China doesn’t want a trade war — but isn’t afraid to fight one.
“If the U.S. side announces the list of products for $100 billion in tariffs, the Chinese side has fully prepared and will without hesitation counterattack with great strength,” spokesman Gao Feng said. He gave no indication what measures Beijing might take.
Trump has also pushed for a crackdown on China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property, and he criticized the World Trade Organization, an arbiter of trade disputes, in a tweet Friday for allegedly favoring China. Trump asserted the WTO gives the Asian superpower “tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S.”
U.S. officials have played down the threat of a broader trade dispute, saying a negotiated outcome is still possible. But economists warn that the tit for tat bears the hallmarks of a classic trade rift that could keep growing. Worry is intensifying among Republicans, who traditionally have favored liberalized trade.
“The administration needs to be thinking about the unintended consequences and what are those ripple effects, those domino effects, and what are the retaliatory actions that are likely to be taken,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the Senate’s No. 3 Republican, in an interview with KDLT-TV in Sioux Falls.
The standoff began last month when the U.S. imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. China countered by announcing penalties on $3 billion worth of U.S. products. The next day, the United States proposed the $50 billion in duties on Chinese imports. Beijing responded within hours with a threat of further tariffs of its own.
Further escalation could be in the offing. The U.S. Treasury is working on plans to restrict Chinese technology investments in the United States. And there’s talk that the U.S. could also put limits on visas for Chinese who want to visit or study in this country.
Kudlow told reporters the U.S. may provide a list of suggestions to China “as to what we would like to have come out of this,” and those issues were under discussion.
“Negotiations are better than tariffs,” Kudlow said. “A solution in the next three months would be better than anything. I think that’s eminently doable.” He added: “But Trump is not just using tariffs as a negotiating card. He said that to me.”
For Trump, the dispute runs the risk of blunting the economic benefits of his tax overhaul, which is at the center of congressional Republicans’ case for voters to keep them in power in the 2018 elections. China’s retaliation so far has targeted Midwest farmers, including growers of soybeans, corn and wheat. That could specifically harm core Trump supporters.
“With respect to the Trump administration, its political success will rise and fall with the economy,” Kudlow said. “And the economy is doing rather well now and I expect it to do even better.”
President Trump Keeps Attacking Amazon. See How His Tweets Have Hurt Other Companies - TIME
President Trump Keeps Attacking Amazon. See How His Tweets Have Hurt Other Companies
Posted: 06 Apr 2018 12:31 PM PDT
President Trump is relentlessly attacking retail giant Amazon, saying recently the company has put “many thousands of retailers out of business,” claiming it pays “little or no taxes to state and local governments,” and slamming its arrangement with the United States Postal service as unfair.
Trump’s claims about the roughly $700 billion Seattle, Wash.-based Amazon are mixed in their accuracy.
It’s certainly true that rival retailers large and small have struggled amid Amazon’s growing dominance in the field. But some would say that’s the natural and even desirable result of a more efficient or otherwise smarter firm entering a marketplace.
Trump’s assertions about Amazon’s tax practices and its effect on the USPS, meanwhile, are dubious at best. Amazon indeed pays taxes, though like many corporations (and individuals) it takes steps to minimize its liabilities. And many observers argue Amazon is in fact a lifeline for the USPS, which relies on parcel delivery to make up for the death of other mail in the digital age. (The USPS’ economic struggles stem largely from a law that requires it to pre-fund future retirees’ health benefits.)
But it’s still a unique phenomenon for a sitting President to publicly attack an American company. And Trump could indeed take action against Amazon, if he so chose. Indeed, his assault appears to have investors spooked — Trump’s tweets have repeatedly coincided with falloffs in the company’s stock.
Should Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, be worried about Trump’s Twitter tirades? Maybe not, if recent history is any judge. Trump has gone after a number of publicly-traded companies in recent months, including Lockheed Martin, Toyota, and more. Even if Trump’s missives caused a dip for those companies’ stocks, the effect was typically temporary, if notable at all.
Below, see how President Trump’s attacks have impacted various companies’ stock prices in recent months. Clicking each company name will show a stock chart for the two weeks prior to and after a Trump tweet critical of that firm. (Of course, many factors can weigh into a company’s stock valuation at any moment.)
Posted: 06 Apr 2018 12:31 PM PDT
President Trump is relentlessly attacking retail giant Amazon, saying recently the company has put “many thousands of retailers out of business,” claiming it pays “little or no taxes to state and local governments,” and slamming its arrangement with the United States Postal service as unfair.
Trump’s claims about the roughly $700 billion Seattle, Wash.-based Amazon are mixed in their accuracy.
It’s certainly true that rival retailers large and small have struggled amid Amazon’s growing dominance in the field. But some would say that’s the natural and even desirable result of a more efficient or otherwise smarter firm entering a marketplace.
Trump’s assertions about Amazon’s tax practices and its effect on the USPS, meanwhile, are dubious at best. Amazon indeed pays taxes, though like many corporations (and individuals) it takes steps to minimize its liabilities. And many observers argue Amazon is in fact a lifeline for the USPS, which relies on parcel delivery to make up for the death of other mail in the digital age. (The USPS’ economic struggles stem largely from a law that requires it to pre-fund future retirees’ health benefits.)
But it’s still a unique phenomenon for a sitting President to publicly attack an American company. And Trump could indeed take action against Amazon, if he so chose. Indeed, his assault appears to have investors spooked — Trump’s tweets have repeatedly coincided with falloffs in the company’s stock.
Should Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, be worried about Trump’s Twitter tirades? Maybe not, if recent history is any judge. Trump has gone after a number of publicly-traded companies in recent months, including Lockheed Martin, Toyota, and more. Even if Trump’s missives caused a dip for those companies’ stocks, the effect was typically temporary, if notable at all.
Below, see how President Trump’s attacks have impacted various companies’ stock prices in recent months. Clicking each company name will show a stock chart for the two weeks prior to and after a Trump tweet critical of that firm. (Of course, many factors can weigh into a company’s stock valuation at any moment.)
Corbyn is 'Kremlin's useful idiot', says Boris Johnson - BBC News
April 8, 2018
Corbyn is 'Kremlin's useful idiot', says Boris Johnson
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has described Jeremy Corbyn as the "Kremlin's useful idiot" over his response to the Salisbury poisoning.
He said the Labour leader was giving Moscow "propaganda" false credibility by refusing to "unequivocally" back the government's view it was responsible.
Labour said Mr Johnson had "made a fool of himself" by misrepresenting what he was told by chemical weapons experts.
It stressed Mr Corbyn had repeatedly said the evidence pointed to Russia.
'Avalanche of lies'
Moscow has denied the UK government's claim that it was behind the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, on 4 March.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Johnson said the Kremlin had made a "cynical attempt to bury awkward facts beneath an avalanche of lies and disinformation".
He said the Russian government and state-owned media had invented 29 theories about the attack.
Russian spy: What we know so far
Yulia Skripal 'getting stronger daily'
Ex-spy 'improving rapidly' after poisoning
"There is only one thing that gives the Kremlin succour and lends false credibility to its propaganda onslaught. That is when politicians from the targeted countries join in," Mr Johnson said.
"Sadly, I am driven to the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn has joined this effort."
A Labour Party spokesperson said: "Jeremy Corbyn has repeatedly said the evidence points to Russia being responsible, directly or indirectly, and that the Russian authorities must be held to account on the basis of evidence."
He added Mr Johnson had "made a fool of himself and undermined the government by seriously misrepresenting what he was told by Porton Down chemical weapons experts.
"These ridiculous insults won't distract attention from the fact that he has clearly misled the public over vital issues of national security."
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in hospital
Last week Mr Johnson and Mr Corbyn also clashed over the Salisbury case.
Mr Corbyn implied the foreign secretary had exaggerated the findings of the UK's defence laboratory Porton Down on the source of the Novichok nerve agent used in the attack.
Mr Johnson, who during the 2017 general election campaign referred to Mr Corbyn as a "mutton-headed, old mugwump", said the Labour leader's remarks were "lamentable".
'Diversionary tactic'
A diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West has followed the attack in Salisbury, with more than 20 countries expelling Russian envoys in solidarity with the UK.
On Saturday, the Foreign Office described a Russian request for a meeting with Mr Johnson on the Salisbury poisoning as a "diversionary tactic".
The Foreign Office said it would respond to the invitation "in due course".
It followed Russian Embassy criticism of the UK government's refusal - on immigration rules - to grant a visa to Ms Skripal's cousin, Viktoria Skripal, to visit Britain.
The embassy says the refusal to allow Viktoria Skripal to visit her cousin and uncle was "disappointing" and "politically motivated".
Mr Skripal was jailed by Russia for spying for Britain, but released as part of a spy swap between the US and Russia in 2010.
Yulia was visiting him in the UK when the attack happened on 4 March. She is now conscious and talking in hospital.
Salisbury District Hospital has said Mr Skripal, is responding well to treatment and "improving rapidly".
Corbyn is 'Kremlin's useful idiot', says Boris Johnson
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has described Jeremy Corbyn as the "Kremlin's useful idiot" over his response to the Salisbury poisoning.
He said the Labour leader was giving Moscow "propaganda" false credibility by refusing to "unequivocally" back the government's view it was responsible.
Labour said Mr Johnson had "made a fool of himself" by misrepresenting what he was told by chemical weapons experts.
It stressed Mr Corbyn had repeatedly said the evidence pointed to Russia.
'Avalanche of lies'
Moscow has denied the UK government's claim that it was behind the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, on 4 March.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Johnson said the Kremlin had made a "cynical attempt to bury awkward facts beneath an avalanche of lies and disinformation".
He said the Russian government and state-owned media had invented 29 theories about the attack.
Russian spy: What we know so far
Yulia Skripal 'getting stronger daily'
Ex-spy 'improving rapidly' after poisoning
"There is only one thing that gives the Kremlin succour and lends false credibility to its propaganda onslaught. That is when politicians from the targeted countries join in," Mr Johnson said.
"Sadly, I am driven to the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn has joined this effort."
A Labour Party spokesperson said: "Jeremy Corbyn has repeatedly said the evidence points to Russia being responsible, directly or indirectly, and that the Russian authorities must be held to account on the basis of evidence."
He added Mr Johnson had "made a fool of himself and undermined the government by seriously misrepresenting what he was told by Porton Down chemical weapons experts.
"These ridiculous insults won't distract attention from the fact that he has clearly misled the public over vital issues of national security."
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in hospital
Last week Mr Johnson and Mr Corbyn also clashed over the Salisbury case.
Mr Corbyn implied the foreign secretary had exaggerated the findings of the UK's defence laboratory Porton Down on the source of the Novichok nerve agent used in the attack.
Mr Johnson, who during the 2017 general election campaign referred to Mr Corbyn as a "mutton-headed, old mugwump", said the Labour leader's remarks were "lamentable".
'Diversionary tactic'
A diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West has followed the attack in Salisbury, with more than 20 countries expelling Russian envoys in solidarity with the UK.
On Saturday, the Foreign Office described a Russian request for a meeting with Mr Johnson on the Salisbury poisoning as a "diversionary tactic".
The Foreign Office said it would respond to the invitation "in due course".
It followed Russian Embassy criticism of the UK government's refusal - on immigration rules - to grant a visa to Ms Skripal's cousin, Viktoria Skripal, to visit Britain.
The embassy says the refusal to allow Viktoria Skripal to visit her cousin and uncle was "disappointing" and "politically motivated".
Mr Skripal was jailed by Russia for spying for Britain, but released as part of a spy swap between the US and Russia in 2010.
Yulia was visiting him in the UK when the attack happened on 4 March. She is now conscious and talking in hospital.
Salisbury District Hospital has said Mr Skripal, is responding well to treatment and "improving rapidly".
Trump Tower fire: Man dies in blaze at New York property - BBC News
April 8, 2018
Trump Tower fire: Man dies in blaze at New York property
Trump Tower fire: 'You got to get out'
One man has died and four firefighters have been injured in a blaze at Trump Tower in New York.
The victim was a male resident of the building who died after being taken to hospital, fire officials said.
US President Donald Trump has a home and an office in the building. But Mr Trump, First Lady Melania and their son Barron are currently in Washington DC.
The fire erupted on the 50th floor of the high-rise, which contains apartments and office space.
The cause of the blaze has not yet been released.
FDNY
✔
@FDNY
#FDNY members remain on scene of a 4-alarm fire, 721 5th Ave in Manhattan. There is currently one serious injury to a civilian reported. (Photo credit: @nycoem)
8:56 AM - Apr 8, 2018
Thick black smoke and fire was seen coming from the skyscraper at around 18:00 (2200 GMT).
Around 45 minutes later - before news of the death emerged - the president tweeted that the fire was out. He said it had been "very confined" as the tower is a "well-built building".
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!
8:42 AM - Apr 8, 2018
Shortly afterwards the Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, Daniel Nigro, warned that the situation was "still not considered to be under control" due to "a considerable amount of smoke" in the building.
"We found fire on the 50th floor of the building. The apartment was entirely on fire. Members pushed in heroically, they were knocking down the fire and found one occupant of the apartment who is in critical condition," the fire service quoted him as saying.
"This was a very difficult fire. As you can imagine, the apartment is quite large, we are 50 storeys up.
"We had many floors to search, and stairways."
He said that the apartment had no sprinklers. Owners of older residential high-rises such as Trump Tower are not required to install sprinklers unless the building undergoes major renovation, according to the Associated Press.
Streets surrounding the building in Midtown Manhattan were closed off during the fire. Some 200 fire personnel responded to the incident, which the fire department tweeted had been brought under control.
Trump Tower fire: Man dies in blaze at New York property
Trump Tower fire: 'You got to get out'
One man has died and four firefighters have been injured in a blaze at Trump Tower in New York.
The victim was a male resident of the building who died after being taken to hospital, fire officials said.
US President Donald Trump has a home and an office in the building. But Mr Trump, First Lady Melania and their son Barron are currently in Washington DC.
The fire erupted on the 50th floor of the high-rise, which contains apartments and office space.
The cause of the blaze has not yet been released.
FDNY
✔
@FDNY
#FDNY members remain on scene of a 4-alarm fire, 721 5th Ave in Manhattan. There is currently one serious injury to a civilian reported. (Photo credit: @nycoem)
8:56 AM - Apr 8, 2018
Thick black smoke and fire was seen coming from the skyscraper at around 18:00 (2200 GMT).
Around 45 minutes later - before news of the death emerged - the president tweeted that the fire was out. He said it had been "very confined" as the tower is a "well-built building".
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!
8:42 AM - Apr 8, 2018
Shortly afterwards the Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, Daniel Nigro, warned that the situation was "still not considered to be under control" due to "a considerable amount of smoke" in the building.
"We found fire on the 50th floor of the building. The apartment was entirely on fire. Members pushed in heroically, they were knocking down the fire and found one occupant of the apartment who is in critical condition," the fire service quoted him as saying.
"This was a very difficult fire. As you can imagine, the apartment is quite large, we are 50 storeys up.
"We had many floors to search, and stairways."
He said that the apartment had no sprinklers. Owners of older residential high-rises such as Trump Tower are not required to install sprinklers unless the building undergoes major renovation, according to the Associated Press.
Streets surrounding the building in Midtown Manhattan were closed off during the fire. Some 200 fire personnel responded to the incident, which the fire department tweeted had been brought under control.
Syria war: At least 70 killed in suspected chemical attack in Douma - BBC News
April 8, 2018
Syria war: At least 70 killed in suspected chemical attack in Douma
Douma children treated after chemical attack
At least 70 people have died in a suspected chemical attack in Douma, the last rebel-held town in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, rescuers and medics say.
Volunteer rescue force the White Helmets tweeted graphic images showing several bodies in basements. It said the deaths were likely to rise.
There has been no independent verification of the reports.
Syria's government has called the allegations of a chemical attack a "fabrication".
The US state department said reports suggested "a potentially high number of casualties", including families in shelters.
It said Russia - with its "unwavering support" for Syria's government - "ultimately bears responsibility" for the alleged attacks.
Syrian warplanes strike rebel enclave
Mattis warns Syria over poison gas use
'We will stay until the end': A doctor's battle in Eastern Ghouta
"The regime's history of using chemical weapons against its own people is not in dispute," it said in a statement.
What do we know about the attack?
Several medical, monitoring and activist groups reported details of a chemical attack, but figures vary and details of what happened are still emerging.
"Seventy people suffocated to death and hundreds are still suffocating," said Raed al-Saleh, head of the White Helmets. An earlier, now deleted tweet, put the number dead at more than 150.
The pro-opposition Ghouta Media Center tweeted that more than 75 people had "suffocated", while a further 1,000 people had suffered the effects of the alleged attack.
It blamed a barrel bomb allegedly dropped by a helicopter which it said contained Sarin, a toxic nerve agent.
The Union of Medical Relief Organizations, a US-based charity that works with Syrian hospitals, told the BBC the Damascus Rural Specialty Hospital had confirmed 70 deaths.
Pro-government forces are fighting to drive rebels out of Douma
A spokeswoman said reports on the ground suggested a much higher number of around 180 dead, but that it was hard to reach victims.
She said there were reports of people being treated for symptoms including convulsions and foaming of the mouth, consistent with nerve or mixed nerve and chlorine gas exposure.
Continued shelling overnight and on Sunday was making it impossible to reach victims.
As the allegations emerged, Syria's state news agency Sana said the reports were invented by the Jaish al-Islam rebels who remain in control in Douma.
"Jaish al-Islam terrorists are in a state of collapse and their media outlets are [making] chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab army," Sana said.
Has the Syrian government used chemical weapons before?
In August 2013, rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were fired at rebel-held areas of the Eastern Ghouta, killing hundreds of people.
A UN mission confirmed the use of Sarin, but it was not asked to state who was responsible. Western powers said only Syrian government forces could have carried out the attack.
In April 2017, more than 80 people died in a Sarin attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, and a joint inquiry by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) held the Syrian government responsible.
About 80 people died and many more were injured in the attack on Khan Sheikhoun
Activists, medics and the US say Syrian government forces dropped bombs containing toxic chlorine gas on rebel-held towns in early 2018.
The joint UN-OPCW mission is investigating the reports. It previously found that government forces have used chlorine as a weapon at least three times during the seven-year civil war.
Syria government behind 2017 Sarin attack - UN
US President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile attack against Syria following the Khan Sheikhoun attack. It was the first direct US military action against forces commanded by Syria's president.
Last month, the Washington Post newspaper reported that Mr Trump had discussed the possibility of another American attack on Syria with top security officials, but decided not to take action. A spokeswoman for Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has denied any such discussion took place.
What's happening in Douma?
Douma is the last rebel-held town in Syria's Eastern Ghouta region, and is under siege from Russian-backed Syrian government forces.
An intense aerial and ground assault was launched on Friday after talks between Moscow and the rebels broke down.
Before negotiations failed, Jaish al-Islam had been trying to secure a deal that would let its members stay in Douma as a local security force.
'Deal struck' over Syrian rebel bastion
Why is there a war in Syria?
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said government air strikes had killed 40 civilians on Friday, and a further 30 on Saturday.
More were feared to have been killed in new shelling on Sunday - even as the Syrian government said it was ready to start negotiations with Jaish al-islam.
State media said six civilians had also died in rebel shelling of the capital Damascus, with 38 injured. Jaish al-Islam denied it was responsible.
Syrian state media said civilians in the suburbs of Damascus had been killed and injured by rebel mortar fire
Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad have recaptured almost the entire Eastern Ghouta region through a fierce offensive that started in February.
More than 1,600 people are reported to have been killed and thousands injured.
Syria war: At least 70 killed in suspected chemical attack in Douma
Douma children treated after chemical attack
At least 70 people have died in a suspected chemical attack in Douma, the last rebel-held town in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, rescuers and medics say.
Volunteer rescue force the White Helmets tweeted graphic images showing several bodies in basements. It said the deaths were likely to rise.
There has been no independent verification of the reports.
Syria's government has called the allegations of a chemical attack a "fabrication".
The US state department said reports suggested "a potentially high number of casualties", including families in shelters.
It said Russia - with its "unwavering support" for Syria's government - "ultimately bears responsibility" for the alleged attacks.
Syrian warplanes strike rebel enclave
Mattis warns Syria over poison gas use
'We will stay until the end': A doctor's battle in Eastern Ghouta
"The regime's history of using chemical weapons against its own people is not in dispute," it said in a statement.
What do we know about the attack?
Several medical, monitoring and activist groups reported details of a chemical attack, but figures vary and details of what happened are still emerging.
"Seventy people suffocated to death and hundreds are still suffocating," said Raed al-Saleh, head of the White Helmets. An earlier, now deleted tweet, put the number dead at more than 150.
The pro-opposition Ghouta Media Center tweeted that more than 75 people had "suffocated", while a further 1,000 people had suffered the effects of the alleged attack.
It blamed a barrel bomb allegedly dropped by a helicopter which it said contained Sarin, a toxic nerve agent.
The Union of Medical Relief Organizations, a US-based charity that works with Syrian hospitals, told the BBC the Damascus Rural Specialty Hospital had confirmed 70 deaths.
Pro-government forces are fighting to drive rebels out of Douma
A spokeswoman said reports on the ground suggested a much higher number of around 180 dead, but that it was hard to reach victims.
She said there were reports of people being treated for symptoms including convulsions and foaming of the mouth, consistent with nerve or mixed nerve and chlorine gas exposure.
Continued shelling overnight and on Sunday was making it impossible to reach victims.
As the allegations emerged, Syria's state news agency Sana said the reports were invented by the Jaish al-Islam rebels who remain in control in Douma.
"Jaish al-Islam terrorists are in a state of collapse and their media outlets are [making] chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab army," Sana said.
Has the Syrian government used chemical weapons before?
In August 2013, rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were fired at rebel-held areas of the Eastern Ghouta, killing hundreds of people.
A UN mission confirmed the use of Sarin, but it was not asked to state who was responsible. Western powers said only Syrian government forces could have carried out the attack.
In April 2017, more than 80 people died in a Sarin attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, and a joint inquiry by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) held the Syrian government responsible.
About 80 people died and many more were injured in the attack on Khan Sheikhoun
Activists, medics and the US say Syrian government forces dropped bombs containing toxic chlorine gas on rebel-held towns in early 2018.
The joint UN-OPCW mission is investigating the reports. It previously found that government forces have used chlorine as a weapon at least three times during the seven-year civil war.
Syria government behind 2017 Sarin attack - UN
US President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile attack against Syria following the Khan Sheikhoun attack. It was the first direct US military action against forces commanded by Syria's president.
Last month, the Washington Post newspaper reported that Mr Trump had discussed the possibility of another American attack on Syria with top security officials, but decided not to take action. A spokeswoman for Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has denied any such discussion took place.
What's happening in Douma?
Douma is the last rebel-held town in Syria's Eastern Ghouta region, and is under siege from Russian-backed Syrian government forces.
An intense aerial and ground assault was launched on Friday after talks between Moscow and the rebels broke down.
Before negotiations failed, Jaish al-Islam had been trying to secure a deal that would let its members stay in Douma as a local security force.
'Deal struck' over Syrian rebel bastion
Why is there a war in Syria?
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said government air strikes had killed 40 civilians on Friday, and a further 30 on Saturday.
More were feared to have been killed in new shelling on Sunday - even as the Syrian government said it was ready to start negotiations with Jaish al-islam.
State media said six civilians had also died in rebel shelling of the capital Damascus, with 38 injured. Jaish al-Islam denied it was responsible.
Syrian state media said civilians in the suburbs of Damascus had been killed and injured by rebel mortar fire
Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad have recaptured almost the entire Eastern Ghouta region through a fierce offensive that started in February.
More than 1,600 people are reported to have been killed and thousands injured.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
The F-22 and the F-35 were built with communication systems that don’t work together, a problem that’s going to take a lot of money to fix. - Bloomberg
Why America’s Two Top Fighter Jets Can’t Talk to Each Other
The F-22 and the F-35 were built with communication systems that don’t work together, a problem that’s going to take a lot of money to fix.
By
April 2, 2018, 6:00 PM GMT+10 Updated on April 3, 2018, 9:30 AM GMT+10
Why America's Most Sophisticated Fighter Jets Can't Talk to Each Other
With the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II, the U.S. has fielded two of the world’s most sophisticated, maneuverable and stealthy fighter jets. They both function as airborne shepherds of America’s flock of older combat aircraft, using their state-of-the-art systems to communicate threats and targets on the ground and in the air.
Unfortunately, they have a difficult time communicating with each other.
The F-22, originally designed as an air superiority fighter, dates to the mid-1980s and was created to dispense near-invisible lethality against Soviet targets before the enemy knew it was there. The plane’s requirements for maximum stealth extended to its communications systems, since they can betray an aircraft’s location. But budget considerations and initial optimism about a post-Cold War world cut short its production. In 2009, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended the program.
And that’s where the problem begins. Had the Air Force gotten all the F-22s it wanted—more than double the 183 or so it has—integration of its systems with another fleet of “fifth generation” fighters wouldn’t have been as critical. The F-22’s Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL) is much older than the system used on the newer F-35. While the F-22’s IFDL protocol can receive data from the F-35 and other allied aircraft, such as the F-16 and Eurofighter Typhoon, it can’t transmit the vast array of situational data it collects.
In a recent story on the situation, Air Force Magazine likened U.S. combat communications among the various aircraft to “a kind of Tower of Babel.” And the necessary modifications haven’t been fast in coming. “There’s a lot of improvements that could have been done and should have been done 15 years ago,” said David Rockwell, a senior defense electronics analyst with Teal Group. “The Air Force postponed a lot of things for [the] F-22.”
A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor at the Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition on Oct. 16.Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
Both the Raptor and Lightning II are known as “fifth-generation” aircraft because of their stealth, sensors and other capabilities. Jets such as the Air Forces’s F-15 and F-16 and the Navy’s F/A-18 are “fourth-generation.” Russia and China also are fielding and refining their fifth-generation fighters, the Su-57 and J-31, respectively.
The U.S. fifth-generation jets are adept at disseminating a more detailed view of the battle space to older aircraft, increasing the former’s “survivability” in combat. The F-35 fleet also has what’s called a multifunction advanced data link (MADL) to gather and share information with other F-35s. This fusion of sensor data—and the ability to distribute it with allied aircraft—allows the F-35 to serve as a “quarterback” during a conflict. “You hear it from the [F-15) Eagles and the Marine Corps,” said Billie Flynn, an F-35 test pilot at Lockheed Martin Corp., which also made the F-22. “We’re keeping our own forces much more engaged and boosting survivability.”
“The thing that’s great about having Link 16 and MADL onboard and the sensor fusion is the amount of situational awareness the pilot has,” Lt. Col. George Watkins, a squadron commander, said in an Air Force statement last year. “I can see the whole war, and where all the other players are, from a god’s-eye view. That makes me a lot more effective.”
“We don’t have data anymore,” said Flynn, a former squadron commander for the Royal Canadian Air Force. “We have knowledge.”
An F-35A at Hill Air Force Base in Utah in 2016.Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg
When it comes to talking to each other, however, the F-22 and F-35 pilots currently must use secure voice links. This temporary fix has worked in training and simulated combat, Flynn said.
Keeping the F-22 relevant has been a 15-year effort. The Air Force established a modernization program in 2003, with 10 unique upgrades and enhancements. To date, the program has awarded contracts totaling as much as $12.9 billion, according to a Defense Department Inspector General audit on F-22 modernization released last month. The IG criticized the Air Force’s software development and contracting strategies.
“We’re always working on ways to improve connectivity wherever the mission requires additional information sharing,” an Air Force spokesman, Major Ken Scholz, said in an email. “As well, the F-35A and F-22 are very complementary assets, particularly in highly contested areas.”
Still, the Air Force doesn’t plan to begin fixing the communications problem until 2021, when the F-22 fleet is scheduled to have the system upgraded.
China’s J-31 stealth fighter aircraft in 2014.Photographer: Brent Lewin
While these two fighters have a ways to go until they share the same communications and sensor systems, there’s at least one thing they already have in common: they’re budget busters. The Raptor is the most expensive aircraft in the U.S. arsenal, in terms of cost per flight hour; the program ended up costing taxpayers more than $330 million per unit.
Operating and maintenance costs have grown daunting for the F-35 as well. The Air Force may need to cut almost 600 from its planned order of 1,763 if upkeep costs can’t be lowered by more than a third. It also faces annual maintenance costs of almost $4 billion for a fighter fleet that’s likely to top $1 trillion in sustainment through 2070 across the three service branches.
Meanwhile, Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed and others are working on near-term fixes for the F-22’s communications problems. Longer term, the Air Force would like to find a way to extend the existing stealth profile to its upgraded communications and radar systems, Rockwell said. “There could already be a partial classified solution in the short-term,” he said. “This is exactly the sort of thing that goes classified because you don’t want to put out that the F-22 can interact with other things.”
The F-22 and the F-35 were built with communication systems that don’t work together, a problem that’s going to take a lot of money to fix.
By
April 2, 2018, 6:00 PM GMT+10 Updated on April 3, 2018, 9:30 AM GMT+10
Why America's Most Sophisticated Fighter Jets Can't Talk to Each Other
With the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II, the U.S. has fielded two of the world’s most sophisticated, maneuverable and stealthy fighter jets. They both function as airborne shepherds of America’s flock of older combat aircraft, using their state-of-the-art systems to communicate threats and targets on the ground and in the air.
Unfortunately, they have a difficult time communicating with each other.
The F-22, originally designed as an air superiority fighter, dates to the mid-1980s and was created to dispense near-invisible lethality against Soviet targets before the enemy knew it was there. The plane’s requirements for maximum stealth extended to its communications systems, since they can betray an aircraft’s location. But budget considerations and initial optimism about a post-Cold War world cut short its production. In 2009, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended the program.
And that’s where the problem begins. Had the Air Force gotten all the F-22s it wanted—more than double the 183 or so it has—integration of its systems with another fleet of “fifth generation” fighters wouldn’t have been as critical. The F-22’s Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL) is much older than the system used on the newer F-35. While the F-22’s IFDL protocol can receive data from the F-35 and other allied aircraft, such as the F-16 and Eurofighter Typhoon, it can’t transmit the vast array of situational data it collects.
In a recent story on the situation, Air Force Magazine likened U.S. combat communications among the various aircraft to “a kind of Tower of Babel.” And the necessary modifications haven’t been fast in coming. “There’s a lot of improvements that could have been done and should have been done 15 years ago,” said David Rockwell, a senior defense electronics analyst with Teal Group. “The Air Force postponed a lot of things for [the] F-22.”
A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor at the Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition on Oct. 16.Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
Both the Raptor and Lightning II are known as “fifth-generation” aircraft because of their stealth, sensors and other capabilities. Jets such as the Air Forces’s F-15 and F-16 and the Navy’s F/A-18 are “fourth-generation.” Russia and China also are fielding and refining their fifth-generation fighters, the Su-57 and J-31, respectively.
The U.S. fifth-generation jets are adept at disseminating a more detailed view of the battle space to older aircraft, increasing the former’s “survivability” in combat. The F-35 fleet also has what’s called a multifunction advanced data link (MADL) to gather and share information with other F-35s. This fusion of sensor data—and the ability to distribute it with allied aircraft—allows the F-35 to serve as a “quarterback” during a conflict. “You hear it from the [F-15) Eagles and the Marine Corps,” said Billie Flynn, an F-35 test pilot at Lockheed Martin Corp., which also made the F-22. “We’re keeping our own forces much more engaged and boosting survivability.”
“The thing that’s great about having Link 16 and MADL onboard and the sensor fusion is the amount of situational awareness the pilot has,” Lt. Col. George Watkins, a squadron commander, said in an Air Force statement last year. “I can see the whole war, and where all the other players are, from a god’s-eye view. That makes me a lot more effective.”
“We don’t have data anymore,” said Flynn, a former squadron commander for the Royal Canadian Air Force. “We have knowledge.”
An F-35A at Hill Air Force Base in Utah in 2016.Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg
When it comes to talking to each other, however, the F-22 and F-35 pilots currently must use secure voice links. This temporary fix has worked in training and simulated combat, Flynn said.
Keeping the F-22 relevant has been a 15-year effort. The Air Force established a modernization program in 2003, with 10 unique upgrades and enhancements. To date, the program has awarded contracts totaling as much as $12.9 billion, according to a Defense Department Inspector General audit on F-22 modernization released last month. The IG criticized the Air Force’s software development and contracting strategies.
“We’re always working on ways to improve connectivity wherever the mission requires additional information sharing,” an Air Force spokesman, Major Ken Scholz, said in an email. “As well, the F-35A and F-22 are very complementary assets, particularly in highly contested areas.”
Still, the Air Force doesn’t plan to begin fixing the communications problem until 2021, when the F-22 fleet is scheduled to have the system upgraded.
China’s J-31 stealth fighter aircraft in 2014.Photographer: Brent Lewin
While these two fighters have a ways to go until they share the same communications and sensor systems, there’s at least one thing they already have in common: they’re budget busters. The Raptor is the most expensive aircraft in the U.S. arsenal, in terms of cost per flight hour; the program ended up costing taxpayers more than $330 million per unit.
Operating and maintenance costs have grown daunting for the F-35 as well. The Air Force may need to cut almost 600 from its planned order of 1,763 if upkeep costs can’t be lowered by more than a third. It also faces annual maintenance costs of almost $4 billion for a fighter fleet that’s likely to top $1 trillion in sustainment through 2070 across the three service branches.
Meanwhile, Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed and others are working on near-term fixes for the F-22’s communications problems. Longer term, the Air Force would like to find a way to extend the existing stealth profile to its upgraded communications and radar systems, Rockwell said. “There could already be a partial classified solution in the short-term,” he said. “This is exactly the sort of thing that goes classified because you don’t want to put out that the F-22 can interact with other things.”
Almost 80% of U.K. Companies Pay Women Less Than Men - TIMe Business
Almost 80% of U.K. Companies Pay Women Less Than Men
Posted: 05 Apr 2018 09:07 AM PDT
More than 10,000 employers in the United Kingdom publicly reported their gender pay gap data Wednesday as a result of a 2017 regulation aimed at promoting equal pay for equal work. And judging by the results, organizations have a long way to go.
Companies with more than 250 employees in the U.K. are now required to disclose salary data and any gender wage gap publicly online and to the government, thanks to legislation passed last April. More than 78% of U.K. companies paid men more than women, with a median pay gap of 9.7% on average, according to the BBC’s analysis of the data.
The required reporting is intended to shine a light on pay practices and what may stall a woman’s career advancement. In the case of these U.K.-based companies, many found hefty gender wage gaps due to the high number of male executives or leaders filling the highest-paying roles.
The data released this week produced stunning results, with banks, airlines, retailers and British soccer clubs reporting significant differences in the mean salaries between men and women.
Top investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup reported mean hourly rate differences for U.K.-based female and male employees at 55.5% and 48.4% respectively, according to the data. U.K.-run banks like HSBC and Barclays reported women earned a mean hourly rate of 59% and 48%, respectively, less than their male counterparts.
Ryanair, an Irish-based airline, reported a 67% difference in the mean hourly earnings between men and women. EasyJet, a British airline, reported a 51.7% difference. Due to its highly paid male athletes, the Stoke City Football Club reported women earned 92.5% lower in mean hourly earnings than men. The disparity in the median hourly rate between women and men for the club was 30.5%.
This first round of significant reporting — with data all available on the government’s website — includes a number of gender wage gap data, from the proportion of women in the highest or lowest pay groups at a company to the percentage of women and men who have received bonuses.
“Publishing and monitoring pay gaps will help employers understand the reasons for any gap and consider whether they need to develop action plans to tackle the causes,” the government’s Equality and Human Rights Commission said.
BREAKING: Over 10,000 employers with 250 or more staff have now published their #GenderPayGap data. Those that haven't now face legal action. https://t.co/JGxKC9eMon pic.twitter.com/FOhibwJCVW
— EHRC (@EHRC) April 5, 2018
Pay transparency, as exhibited by the U.K., is one of the top initiatives pushed by equal pay advocates around the world. In the United States, champions of the cause point to pay transparency as a mechanism that can be used by women to better leverage themselves in salary negotiations and hold leaders at the company accountable for their payroll.
Both the U.K. and the United States have passed versions of an Equal Pay Act decades ago, making it a requirement for women and men to be paid equally for the same work. Disparities in pay still exist despite this, however. In the U.S., women earn around $0.80 on the dollar of their male counterparts, according to the most recent data from the Institute of Women’s Policy Research.
Posted: 05 Apr 2018 09:07 AM PDT
More than 10,000 employers in the United Kingdom publicly reported their gender pay gap data Wednesday as a result of a 2017 regulation aimed at promoting equal pay for equal work. And judging by the results, organizations have a long way to go.
Companies with more than 250 employees in the U.K. are now required to disclose salary data and any gender wage gap publicly online and to the government, thanks to legislation passed last April. More than 78% of U.K. companies paid men more than women, with a median pay gap of 9.7% on average, according to the BBC’s analysis of the data.
The required reporting is intended to shine a light on pay practices and what may stall a woman’s career advancement. In the case of these U.K.-based companies, many found hefty gender wage gaps due to the high number of male executives or leaders filling the highest-paying roles.
The data released this week produced stunning results, with banks, airlines, retailers and British soccer clubs reporting significant differences in the mean salaries between men and women.
Top investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup reported mean hourly rate differences for U.K.-based female and male employees at 55.5% and 48.4% respectively, according to the data. U.K.-run banks like HSBC and Barclays reported women earned a mean hourly rate of 59% and 48%, respectively, less than their male counterparts.
Ryanair, an Irish-based airline, reported a 67% difference in the mean hourly earnings between men and women. EasyJet, a British airline, reported a 51.7% difference. Due to its highly paid male athletes, the Stoke City Football Club reported women earned 92.5% lower in mean hourly earnings than men. The disparity in the median hourly rate between women and men for the club was 30.5%.
This first round of significant reporting — with data all available on the government’s website — includes a number of gender wage gap data, from the proportion of women in the highest or lowest pay groups at a company to the percentage of women and men who have received bonuses.
“Publishing and monitoring pay gaps will help employers understand the reasons for any gap and consider whether they need to develop action plans to tackle the causes,” the government’s Equality and Human Rights Commission said.
BREAKING: Over 10,000 employers with 250 or more staff have now published their #GenderPayGap data. Those that haven't now face legal action. https://t.co/JGxKC9eMon pic.twitter.com/FOhibwJCVW
— EHRC (@EHRC) April 5, 2018
Pay transparency, as exhibited by the U.K., is one of the top initiatives pushed by equal pay advocates around the world. In the United States, champions of the cause point to pay transparency as a mechanism that can be used by women to better leverage themselves in salary negotiations and hold leaders at the company accountable for their payroll.
Both the U.K. and the United States have passed versions of an Equal Pay Act decades ago, making it a requirement for women and men to be paid equally for the same work. Disparities in pay still exist despite this, however. In the U.S., women earn around $0.80 on the dollar of their male counterparts, according to the most recent data from the Institute of Women’s Policy Research.
Amazon’s Reach Into New Markets Is Helping the Company Shrug Off Trump’s Jabs - TIME Business
Amazon’s Reach Into New Markets Is Helping the Company Shrug Off Trump’s Jabs
Posted: 05 Apr 2018 04:44 PM PDT
(WASHINGTON) — Amazon is spending millions of dollars on lobbying as the global online retailer seeks to expand its reach into a swath of industries that President Donald Trump’s broadsides haven’t come close to hitting.
Trump’s attacks over the last week targeted what Amazon is best known for: rapidly shipping just about any product you can imagine to your door. But the company CEO Jeff Bezos founded more than two decades ago is now a sprawling empire that sells groceries in brick-and-mortar stores, hosts the online services of other companies and federal offices in a network of data centers, and even recently branched into health care.
Amazon relies on a nearly 30-member in-house lobbying team that’s four times as large as it was three years ago as well as outside firms to influence the lawmakers and federal regulators who can help determine its success. The outside roster includes a retired congressman from Washington state who was a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee when he stepped down.
Overall, Amazon spent $15.6 million on lobbying in 2017.
“Amazon is just not on an even playing field,” Trump told reporters Thursday aboard Air Force One. “They have a tremendous lobbying effort, in addition to having The Washington Post, which is as far as I’m concerned another lobbyist. But they have a big lobbying effort, one of the biggest, frankly, one of the biggest.”
Bezos owns the Post. He and the newspaper have previously declared that Bezos isn’t involved in any journalistic decisions.
Earlier in the week, Trump alleged that Amazon is bilking the U.S. Postal Service for being its “delivery boy,” a doubtful claim about a contract that’s actually been judged profitable for the post office. And he has charged that Amazon pays “little or no taxes,” a claim that may have merit. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said in February that Amazon “has built its business model on tax avoidance.” Amazon reported $5.6 billion of U.S. profits in 2017 “and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on it,” according to Gardner.
The company declined to comment on Trump’s remarks and did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its lobbying operations.
Amazon has grown rapidly since it launched in 1995 as a site that sold books. It has changed the way people buy paper towels, diapers or just about anything else. And its ambitions go far beyond online shopping: its Alexa voice assistant is in tablets, cars and its Echo devices; it runs the Whole Foods grocery chain; the company produces movies and TV shows and it designs its own brands of furniture and clothing.
The company is in the midst of launching an independent business with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway that is seeking to lower health care costs for employees at the three companies. Given the three players’ outsize influence the alliance has the potential to shake up how Americans shop for health care and the initiative sent a shudder through the industry when it was announced in January.
Amazon Web Services is angling for a much larger share of the federal government’s market for cloud computing, which allows massive amounts of data to be stored and managed on remote servers. The CIA signed a $600 million deal with Amazon in 2013 to build a system to share secure data across the U.S. intelligence community.
A partner of Amazon Web Services, the Virginia-based Rean Cloud LLC, in February scored what appeared to be a lucrative cloud computing contract from the Pentagon. But the contract, initially projected to be worth as much as $950 million, was scaled back to $65 million after Amazon’s competitors complained about the award.
Lobbying disclosure records filed with the House and Senate show Amazon is engaged on a wide variety of other issues, from trade to transportation to telecommunications. The company also lobbied lawmakers and federal agencies on the testing and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. Amazon has been exploring the use of drones for deliveries, but current federal rules restrict flying beyond the operator’s line of sight.
The $15.6 million Amazon spent on lobbying last year was $2.6 million more than in 2016, according to the disclosure records. The bulk of the money — $12.8 million — went for Amazon’s in-house lobbying team. The nearly 30-member unit is led by Brian Huseman, who worked previously as chief of staff at the Federal Trade Commission and a Justice Department trial attorney.
As most large corporations do, Amazon also employs outside lobbying firms — as many as 14 in 2017.
In Amazon’s corner is former Washington congressman Norm Dicks of the firm Van Ness Feldman. Dicks was serving as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee when he ended his 36-year congressional career in 2013. He represented the company on information technology matters and “issues related to cloud computing usage by the federal government,” according to the records, which show Van Ness Feldman earned $160,000 from Amazon last year.
Amazon brought aboard four new firms in 2017, according to the records. Newcomers Ballard Partners, BGR Government Affairs, Brownstein Hyatt, and McGuireWoods Consulting lobbied for Amazon on transportation, taxes, drones and other issues.
President Trump Wants to Hit Chinese Goods With $100 Billion in New Tariffs - TIME
President Trump Wants to Hit Chinese Goods With $100 Billion in New Tariffs
Posted: 05 Apr 2018 06:58 PM PDT
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider slapping an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods on Thursday in a dramatic escalation of the trade dispute between the two countries.
Trump’s surprise move came a day after Beijing announced plans to tax $50 billion in American products, including soybeans and small aircraft, in response to a U.S. move this week to slap tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports.
And it intensified what was already shaping up to be the biggest trade battle since World War II. Global financial markets had fallen sharply as the world’s two biggest economies squared off over Beijing’s aggressive trade tactics. But they had calmed down Wednesday and Thursday on hopes the U.S. and China would find a diplomatic solution.
Instead, the White House announced after the markets closed Thursday that Trump had instructed the Office of the United States Trade Representative to consider whether $100 billion of additional tariffs would be appropriate and, if so, to identify which products they should apply to. He’s also instructed his secretary of agriculture “to implement a plan to protect our farmers and agricultural interests.”
“China’s illicit trade practices — ignored for years by Washington — have destroyed thousands of American factories and millions of American jobs,” Trump said in a statement announcing the decision.
The latest escalation comes after the U.S. on Tuesday said it would impose 25 percent duties on $50 billion of imports from China, and China quickly retaliated by listing $50 billion of products that it could hit with its own 25 percent tariffs. The Chinese list Wednesday included soybeans, the biggest U.S. export to China, and aircraft up to 45 tons (41 metric tons) in weight. Also on the list were American beef, whiskey, passenger vehicles and industrial chemicals.
Earlier in the week, Beijing announced separate import duties on $3 billion of U.S. goods in response to the Trump administration’s duties on all steel and aluminum imports, including from China.
U.S. officials have sought to downplay the threat of a broader trade dispute, saying a negotiated outcome is still possible. But economists warn that the tit-for-tat moves bear the hallmarks of a classic trade rift that could escalate. And already, tensions between the world’s two biggest economies have rattled global stock markets.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer called China’s moved “unjustified” and said Trump’s proposal was an “appropriate response to China’s recent threat of new tariffs.”
“Such measures would undoubtedly cause further harm to American workers, farmers, and businesses,” he said in a statement. “Under these circumstances, the President is right to ask for additional appropriate action to obtain the elimination of the unfair acts, policies, and practices identified in USTR’s report.”
The clash reflects the tension between Trump’s promises to narrow a U.S. trade deficit with China that stood at $375.2 billion in goods last year and China’s ruling Communist Party’s development ambitions. Trump says China’s trade practices have caused American factories to close and lead to the loss of American jobs.
Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said earlier Thursday in an interview with Fox Business Network that negotiations were ongoing. But, he said, “at the end of the day, China’s unfair and illegal trading actions are damaging to economic growth, for the U.S., for China and for the rest of the world.”
He also called Trump “the first guy with a backbone in decades … to actually go after it. Not just whisper it, but to go after it with at least preliminary actions.”
But Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a frequent Trump critic, called the escalation “the dumbest possible way” to punish China.
“Hopefully the President is just blowing off steam again but, if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts,” Sasse said in a statement. “Let’s absolutely take on Chinese bad behavior, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us.”
Any additional tariffs would be subject to a public comment process and would not go into effect until that process is complete.
Posted: 05 Apr 2018 06:58 PM PDT
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider slapping an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods on Thursday in a dramatic escalation of the trade dispute between the two countries.
Trump’s surprise move came a day after Beijing announced plans to tax $50 billion in American products, including soybeans and small aircraft, in response to a U.S. move this week to slap tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports.
And it intensified what was already shaping up to be the biggest trade battle since World War II. Global financial markets had fallen sharply as the world’s two biggest economies squared off over Beijing’s aggressive trade tactics. But they had calmed down Wednesday and Thursday on hopes the U.S. and China would find a diplomatic solution.
Instead, the White House announced after the markets closed Thursday that Trump had instructed the Office of the United States Trade Representative to consider whether $100 billion of additional tariffs would be appropriate and, if so, to identify which products they should apply to. He’s also instructed his secretary of agriculture “to implement a plan to protect our farmers and agricultural interests.”
“China’s illicit trade practices — ignored for years by Washington — have destroyed thousands of American factories and millions of American jobs,” Trump said in a statement announcing the decision.
The latest escalation comes after the U.S. on Tuesday said it would impose 25 percent duties on $50 billion of imports from China, and China quickly retaliated by listing $50 billion of products that it could hit with its own 25 percent tariffs. The Chinese list Wednesday included soybeans, the biggest U.S. export to China, and aircraft up to 45 tons (41 metric tons) in weight. Also on the list were American beef, whiskey, passenger vehicles and industrial chemicals.
Earlier in the week, Beijing announced separate import duties on $3 billion of U.S. goods in response to the Trump administration’s duties on all steel and aluminum imports, including from China.
U.S. officials have sought to downplay the threat of a broader trade dispute, saying a negotiated outcome is still possible. But economists warn that the tit-for-tat moves bear the hallmarks of a classic trade rift that could escalate. And already, tensions between the world’s two biggest economies have rattled global stock markets.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer called China’s moved “unjustified” and said Trump’s proposal was an “appropriate response to China’s recent threat of new tariffs.”
“Such measures would undoubtedly cause further harm to American workers, farmers, and businesses,” he said in a statement. “Under these circumstances, the President is right to ask for additional appropriate action to obtain the elimination of the unfair acts, policies, and practices identified in USTR’s report.”
The clash reflects the tension between Trump’s promises to narrow a U.S. trade deficit with China that stood at $375.2 billion in goods last year and China’s ruling Communist Party’s development ambitions. Trump says China’s trade practices have caused American factories to close and lead to the loss of American jobs.
Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said earlier Thursday in an interview with Fox Business Network that negotiations were ongoing. But, he said, “at the end of the day, China’s unfair and illegal trading actions are damaging to economic growth, for the U.S., for China and for the rest of the world.”
He also called Trump “the first guy with a backbone in decades … to actually go after it. Not just whisper it, but to go after it with at least preliminary actions.”
But Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., a frequent Trump critic, called the escalation “the dumbest possible way” to punish China.
“Hopefully the President is just blowing off steam again but, if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts,” Sasse said in a statement. “Let’s absolutely take on Chinese bad behavior, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us.”
Any additional tariffs would be subject to a public comment process and would not go into effect until that process is complete.
Trump Thinks He’s Wildly Popular - Intelligencer ( New York Magazine )
April 7, 2018
Trump Thinks He’s Wildly Popular
By
Ed Kilgore
To the president, America is one big Trump rally.
The 45th president of the United States is such a powerful font of misinformation that it’s often difficult to isolate and analyze specific things he says that are factually dubious or flat-out wrong. But this week he’s been promoting a particularly odd and potentially significant meme: that he’s a whole lot more popular than is indicated by any objective measurements.
Out of nowhere, at a West Virginia event ostensibly aimed at publicizing the effects of the GOP’s 2017 tax cut bill, Trump revived his post-2016 election claims that “millions and millions” of Californians had voted multiple times, robbing him of a national popular vote victory over Hillary Clinton. He offered no evidence for this stunning allegation, perhaps because none exists.
But Trump’s assertions of unverified popularity were not strictly retrospective. He also spent some time this week bragging about–and exaggerating–a single poll’s assessment of his current job approval numbers:
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his Administration.
9:08 PM - Apr 3, 2018
The “honest polling” bit was presumably an allusion to his past unsupported claims that most polls–i.e., the ones that don’t give him the kind of numbers he gets from Rasmussen–are “fake.” This in turn apparently depends on his belief–debunked repeatedly–that most of the polls were way off in 2016 (that’s true only if buy his massive-voter-fraud fantasy).
But in any event, his Rasmussen shout-out is as dubious as his general attitude towards polls. For one thing, while Raz’s daily tracking poll did indeed show his approval rating hitting 50 percent on Monday–and hey, 51 percent on Wednesday!--it’s back down to 47 percent on Friday. And it’s been bouncing around the mid-to-high forties for months, also reaching 50 percent in February, and last year in April and June. Anyone even vaguely familiar with polling knows that Rasmussen’s polls have a distinctly pro-Republican “house effect.” That doesn’t mean the data it produces is useless, but does mean it strays so regularly and predictably from polling averages that a thumb on the scale is wise:
Drew Linzer
✔
@DrewLinzer
Polling firms' house effects on Trump job approval, relative to aggregate.
+4% Rasmussen
+3% Politico/Morning Consult
+1% SurveyMonkey
-2% Ipsos/Reuters
-2% YouGov/Economist
-3% Gallup
Data courtesy @pollster
3:54 AM - Apr 4, 2018
Accordingly, one of the more reliable polling average methodologies, at Five Thirty Eight, adjusts Rasmussen’s findings to counter-act the “house effect.” So Friday’s 47 percent Trump approval rating goes into the averages as 42 percent. Another polling average source, Real Clear Politics, does not adjust polls for “house effects,” but similarly shows Rasmussen as being off-kilter (the current RCP average for Trump’s approval ratings is 41.5 percent). In case you want to dismiss Five Thirty Eight as a “liberal” site (despite its against-the-grain predictions in 2016 that Trump had a real chance to win), it should be noted that RCP’s management is quite conservative.
Touting Rasmussen as the only “honest” poll was not enough for Trump, though. In a radio interview today, the president suggested that his job approval number should have been higher:
“A poll just came out now, Rasmussen, it’s now 51,” Trump said. “They say that it’s 51 but add another 7 or 8 points to it. … They don’t want to talk about it, but when they get into the booth they’re going to vote for Trump.”
This belief in the “shy Trump voter,” of course, is based on an theory that had some currency early in the 2016 presidential nominating contest, but was eventually disproved, as Politico noted at the time:
[T]here’s little evidence that shy Trump voters actually exist. In the Republican primaries, he didn’t outperform his poll numbers relative to his leading challengers — and, until he ran away with the nomination in late April and May, he performed significantly worse than the polls suggested.
Perhaps Trump thinks the “shy Trump voter” phenomenon was proven true by the general election results, which showed the polls were wrong–except they really didn’t, unless you buy his voter fraud theory. You see how quickly Trump’s “reasoning” takes you down the rabbit hole to slippery contentions based on other slippery contentions.
What we cannot really know, of course, is whether the president really believes what he’s saying, or just wants other people to believe what he’s saying. But the circular nature of his disinformation can be seductive to people who are inclined in his direction anyway. If the mainstream news about him is “fake” and so are the non-Rasmussen polls, then there’s only one source of information you can trust: the man himself. Evil as it is, it’s as good a method as any to keep his troops feeling upbeat and ready to vote.
Trump Thinks He’s Wildly Popular
By
Ed Kilgore
To the president, America is one big Trump rally.
The 45th president of the United States is such a powerful font of misinformation that it’s often difficult to isolate and analyze specific things he says that are factually dubious or flat-out wrong. But this week he’s been promoting a particularly odd and potentially significant meme: that he’s a whole lot more popular than is indicated by any objective measurements.
Out of nowhere, at a West Virginia event ostensibly aimed at publicizing the effects of the GOP’s 2017 tax cut bill, Trump revived his post-2016 election claims that “millions and millions” of Californians had voted multiple times, robbing him of a national popular vote victory over Hillary Clinton. He offered no evidence for this stunning allegation, perhaps because none exists.
But Trump’s assertions of unverified popularity were not strictly retrospective. He also spent some time this week bragging about–and exaggerating–a single poll’s assessment of his current job approval numbers:
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his Administration.
9:08 PM - Apr 3, 2018
The “honest polling” bit was presumably an allusion to his past unsupported claims that most polls–i.e., the ones that don’t give him the kind of numbers he gets from Rasmussen–are “fake.” This in turn apparently depends on his belief–debunked repeatedly–that most of the polls were way off in 2016 (that’s true only if buy his massive-voter-fraud fantasy).
But in any event, his Rasmussen shout-out is as dubious as his general attitude towards polls. For one thing, while Raz’s daily tracking poll did indeed show his approval rating hitting 50 percent on Monday–and hey, 51 percent on Wednesday!--it’s back down to 47 percent on Friday. And it’s been bouncing around the mid-to-high forties for months, also reaching 50 percent in February, and last year in April and June. Anyone even vaguely familiar with polling knows that Rasmussen’s polls have a distinctly pro-Republican “house effect.” That doesn’t mean the data it produces is useless, but does mean it strays so regularly and predictably from polling averages that a thumb on the scale is wise:
Drew Linzer
✔
@DrewLinzer
Polling firms' house effects on Trump job approval, relative to aggregate.
+4% Rasmussen
+3% Politico/Morning Consult
+1% SurveyMonkey
-2% Ipsos/Reuters
-2% YouGov/Economist
-3% Gallup
Data courtesy @pollster
3:54 AM - Apr 4, 2018
Accordingly, one of the more reliable polling average methodologies, at Five Thirty Eight, adjusts Rasmussen’s findings to counter-act the “house effect.” So Friday’s 47 percent Trump approval rating goes into the averages as 42 percent. Another polling average source, Real Clear Politics, does not adjust polls for “house effects,” but similarly shows Rasmussen as being off-kilter (the current RCP average for Trump’s approval ratings is 41.5 percent). In case you want to dismiss Five Thirty Eight as a “liberal” site (despite its against-the-grain predictions in 2016 that Trump had a real chance to win), it should be noted that RCP’s management is quite conservative.
Touting Rasmussen as the only “honest” poll was not enough for Trump, though. In a radio interview today, the president suggested that his job approval number should have been higher:
“A poll just came out now, Rasmussen, it’s now 51,” Trump said. “They say that it’s 51 but add another 7 or 8 points to it. … They don’t want to talk about it, but when they get into the booth they’re going to vote for Trump.”
This belief in the “shy Trump voter,” of course, is based on an theory that had some currency early in the 2016 presidential nominating contest, but was eventually disproved, as Politico noted at the time:
[T]here’s little evidence that shy Trump voters actually exist. In the Republican primaries, he didn’t outperform his poll numbers relative to his leading challengers — and, until he ran away with the nomination in late April and May, he performed significantly worse than the polls suggested.
Perhaps Trump thinks the “shy Trump voter” phenomenon was proven true by the general election results, which showed the polls were wrong–except they really didn’t, unless you buy his voter fraud theory. You see how quickly Trump’s “reasoning” takes you down the rabbit hole to slippery contentions based on other slippery contentions.
What we cannot really know, of course, is whether the president really believes what he’s saying, or just wants other people to believe what he’s saying. But the circular nature of his disinformation can be seductive to people who are inclined in his direction anyway. If the mainstream news about him is “fake” and so are the non-Rasmussen polls, then there’s only one source of information you can trust: the man himself. Evil as it is, it’s as good a method as any to keep his troops feeling upbeat and ready to vote.
There’s a Real Risk That Trump’s Trade War With China Won’t Change Anything - TIME Business
There’s a Real Risk That Trump’s Trade War With China Won’t Change Anything
Posted: 06 Apr 2018 01:41 AM PDT
To quote Will Ferrell in the hit movie Anchorman, “Boy, that escalated quickly.”
On Friday, China’s Commerce Ministry said it would fight “at any cost” new $100 billion tariffs proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, indicating Beijing’s resolve to respond in kind to punitive measures Washington has threatened for alleged Chinese intellectual property (IP) theft.
Talk of a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies had already spooked markets following Wednesday’s announcement that China planned to tax $50 billion in American goods — including soybeans, whiskey and aircraft — in response to an earlier proposal by Washington to slap a similar hike on 1,300 Chinese products.
Hopes that the tussle was simply posturing before a negotiated outcome were dampened after Trump instructed his secretary of agriculture “to implement a plan to protect our farmers and agricultural interests.”
“China’s illicit trade practices — ignored for years by Washington — have destroyed thousands of American factories and millions of American jobs,” Trump said in a statement. A seven-month investigation by the U.S. Trade Representative found that “Chinese theft of American IP currently costs between $225 billion and $600 billion annually.”
The spat spotlights the tension between Trump’s promises to narrow the current $375.2 billion U.S. trade deficit with China, which he claims costs American jobs, and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitious development plans, which include eradicating poverty from the world’s most populous nation by 2020.
Simon Baptist, chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told TIME by email that Washington has legitimate complaints about China’s IP protection record, but responding with trade sanctions paints the U.S. as the trade aggressor. “A better approach would have been to take action through investment and patent rules,” he says.
By virtue of the trade imbalance, the U.S. has the potential to hurt China more than the other way around through the tariffs. If imposed, analysts say China can expect a significant number of bankruptcies and rising unemployment. China is targeting a healthy if slowing 6.5% growth this year.
However, protecting American agriculture is not simple. For one, China may take any new government support into account when calculating future tariff retaliation, nullifying that support’s impact. Secondly, for the U.S. to boost farmer subsidizes would bring third parties into the dispute — especially large producers such as the E.U., Brazil and Australia — who at the very least would complain to the WTO.
“I think it would have been more effective to go to the Chinese with a series of trade allies and say, ‘it’s all of us saying this, we’re all going to act unless you change your policies and we’re all watching to see what you actually do so,’” says Derek Scissors, an economist focusing on China a the American Enterprise Institute.
Fixing the IP issue is also no simple manner. While China needed foreign cash early in its economic liberalization and development in the 1980s and 1990s, for the last decade the country has been financially buoyant. Since then, the very point of foreign investment has been to engineer IP transfer, which is generally done by forcing foreign firms to partner with local Chinese entities — essentially enabling those entities to pilfer IP. Western firms have been so desperate to access the Chinese market that they agreed to operate under those terms — and are now paying the price.
“One guilty party in all of this are U.S. firms themselves, many of whom have actively assisted in ‘voluntary’ technology transfer through joint ventures in order to access China’s domestic market,” adds Baptist.
As such, addressing the IP issue would involve China changing the entire way it interacts with foreign investment. And while leveling the playing field is a noble goal in itself, the question remains whether volatile markets and falling profits across the U.S. economy are a price worth paying to get there.
“Does the U.S. have a plan to actually pursue and at least partly win this trade war? I don’t see that,” says Scissors. “So if I were an American company, I’d be nervous that you’re going to take this pain for the next few years and end up with nothing really different than where you started.”
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Says There Were Likely Other Breaches Like Cambridge Analytica - TIME
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Says There Were Likely Other Breaches Like Cambridge Analytica
Posted: 06 Apr 2018 06:45 AM PDT
Facebook’s second-in-command says the company expects to uncover additional violations of users’ personal data, just two days after it announced that the Trump campaign-linked data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica had accessed the information of as many as 87 million people.
“I’m not going to sit here and say that we’re not going to find more because we are,” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in an interview that aired on the Today show Friday.
In the interview, Sandberg’s posture was defensive, stressing that the social media giant “cared about privacy all along.”
Watch @savannahguthrie's full interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg pic.twitter.com/RQ4dsecfes
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 6, 2018
“But I think we got the balance wrong,” she told Guthrie. “I think we were very idealistic and not rigorous enough and then there’s the possible misuse. What we are focused on is making sure those possible use cases get shut down.”
Guthrie pressed Sandberg for an explanation as to why Facebook “took so long” to address the Cambridge Analytica data breach, which was first reported in 2015.
“We thought that the data had been deleted,” Sandberg said.
But she conceded that Facebook “should have” notified users of the breach. Sandberg’s remarks come days before Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder and chief executive officer, is scheduled to testify before Congress amidst the fallout from the data scandal.
How one high school produced the CEOs of Microsoft, Adobe and Mastercard - CNBC News
How one high school produced the CEOs of Microsoft, Adobe and Mastercard
Abigail Hess | @AbigailJHess 12:07 PM ET Thu, 5 April 2018
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
One of the best high schools in the world is located in Begumpet, India and it's the alma mater of some of the most influential business people on earth, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga.
In an interview with Stephen Dubner on an episode of the "Freakonomics" podcast, Nadella revealed that all three of the CEOs attended Hyderabad Public School (HPS), a private school founded in 1923 that's attended by over 2,800 students.
At first, Nadella dismissed his shared educational experience with Narayen and Banga as a coincidence. "I think it's one of those false positives that you can take too much out of, right? I think each of us have had our own unique story and unique path," he said.
But Dubner was not so quick to downplay the role that HPS or Nadella's home country had in producing some of the most powerful business executives in the world.
"I understand that you kind of downplay it and say, 'It might be a false positive,'" said Dubner. "But I think a lot of people listening around the world will want to say, 'Whatever they are doing to succeed so brilliantly, if I could perhaps mimic just parts of that within my own family.'"
Nadella conceeded, saying he does "believe that there is a certain structure to the educational system of that country that I think I definitely benefited from."
Here's how one school has managed to produce so many industry leaders.
Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe
Mark Neuling | CNBC
Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe
Teaching outside the classroom
While Nadella agrees that HPS was formative, he says that one of the best parts about the school is that students are able to pursue a range of interests outside of the classroom.
"I think it was formative in very different ways," says Nadella. "Shantanu [Narayen] was a debater. I was a cricketer, and we all learned different things there."
Studies show that students who have access to a wide range of extracurriculars earn better grades and better scores on standardized tests. Research conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics found that participation in extracurricular activities even improves student graduation rates.
By offering a wide range of activities including rock climbing and horseback riding, HPS is able to take advantage of these benefits and also engage a wide range of students and help turn them into well-rounded and impassioned learners.
"HPS produces generals and not foot-soldiers," said HPS principal Ramandeep Kaur Samra to The Economic Times. "We want our students to lead, whichever field they want, small or big, but in a passionate manner.
Ajay Banga, chief executive of Mastercard
MasterCard
Ajay Banga, chief executive of Mastercard
Big thinking
Nadella says that the part of his high school education that influenced him the most was how HPS encouraged him and his peers to think big.
"I think more than anything else, it gave us the freedom to think, learn, and pursue bold dreams," explains Nadella.
"HPS has a unique academic philosophy," says the school's website. "We train students to make a difference in whatever they do and leave their footprints on the sands of time."
Empowering students to think long and hard about the world around them, is not just the right thing to do, it also helps students grow successful adults. For instance, students who believe that anything is possible are more likely to find success in academics.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine studied 240 children ages seven to 10 and found that being positive improved their ability to answer math problems, increased their memories and enhanced their problem-solving abilities.
"I was a shy, closed and introverted child during my early days of schooling," one alumni tells The Economic Times. "[HPS] infused a lot of confidence in me."
When Nadella visited his high school last year, he agreed. "Attending the HPS was the best break I had in my life," he said.
Abigail Hess | @AbigailJHess 12:07 PM ET Thu, 5 April 2018
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
One of the best high schools in the world is located in Begumpet, India and it's the alma mater of some of the most influential business people on earth, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga.
In an interview with Stephen Dubner on an episode of the "Freakonomics" podcast, Nadella revealed that all three of the CEOs attended Hyderabad Public School (HPS), a private school founded in 1923 that's attended by over 2,800 students.
At first, Nadella dismissed his shared educational experience with Narayen and Banga as a coincidence. "I think it's one of those false positives that you can take too much out of, right? I think each of us have had our own unique story and unique path," he said.
But Dubner was not so quick to downplay the role that HPS or Nadella's home country had in producing some of the most powerful business executives in the world.
"I understand that you kind of downplay it and say, 'It might be a false positive,'" said Dubner. "But I think a lot of people listening around the world will want to say, 'Whatever they are doing to succeed so brilliantly, if I could perhaps mimic just parts of that within my own family.'"
Nadella conceeded, saying he does "believe that there is a certain structure to the educational system of that country that I think I definitely benefited from."
Here's how one school has managed to produce so many industry leaders.
Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe
Mark Neuling | CNBC
Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe
Teaching outside the classroom
While Nadella agrees that HPS was formative, he says that one of the best parts about the school is that students are able to pursue a range of interests outside of the classroom.
"I think it was formative in very different ways," says Nadella. "Shantanu [Narayen] was a debater. I was a cricketer, and we all learned different things there."
Studies show that students who have access to a wide range of extracurriculars earn better grades and better scores on standardized tests. Research conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics found that participation in extracurricular activities even improves student graduation rates.
By offering a wide range of activities including rock climbing and horseback riding, HPS is able to take advantage of these benefits and also engage a wide range of students and help turn them into well-rounded and impassioned learners.
"HPS produces generals and not foot-soldiers," said HPS principal Ramandeep Kaur Samra to The Economic Times. "We want our students to lead, whichever field they want, small or big, but in a passionate manner.
Ajay Banga, chief executive of Mastercard
MasterCard
Ajay Banga, chief executive of Mastercard
Big thinking
Nadella says that the part of his high school education that influenced him the most was how HPS encouraged him and his peers to think big.
"I think more than anything else, it gave us the freedom to think, learn, and pursue bold dreams," explains Nadella.
"HPS has a unique academic philosophy," says the school's website. "We train students to make a difference in whatever they do and leave their footprints on the sands of time."
Empowering students to think long and hard about the world around them, is not just the right thing to do, it also helps students grow successful adults. For instance, students who believe that anything is possible are more likely to find success in academics.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine studied 240 children ages seven to 10 and found that being positive improved their ability to answer math problems, increased their memories and enhanced their problem-solving abilities.
"I was a shy, closed and introverted child during my early days of schooling," one alumni tells The Economic Times. "[HPS] infused a lot of confidence in me."
When Nadella visited his high school last year, he agreed. "Attending the HPS was the best break I had in my life," he said.
Trump immigration: Texas sends National Guard to Mexico border - BBC News
April 7. 2018
Trump immigration: Texas sends National Guard to Mexico border
Mr Trump's plans have sparked tensions with Mexico
The US state of Texas is deploying National Guard members to the border with Mexico following a call from President Donald Trump.
A Guard spokesman said 250 personnel would be sent to patrol the area within the next 72 hours.
Arizona is also planning to deploy 150 troops there next week.
President Trump says he wants to send up to 4,000 National Guard members to secure the border with Mexico, until his proposed border wall is built.
The states of New Mexico and California have been asked to take similar action to Texas and Arizona.
Media captionTrump: 'We will be guarding our wall with military'
Also on Friday, the US president outlined plans to end a practice dubbed "catch and release" as part of his stricter anti-immigration policies.
Mr Trump wants illegal immigrants to be held in detention while they wait to hear if they will be deported, instead of being freed.
He has asked the US Department of Defense for a detailed list of military and other facilities that could perform that function.
Trump sets targets on immigration cases
US may tie social media to visas
Mr Trump has sent several tweets over the past seven days railing against illegal immigration, and accusing Democrats of allowing "open borders, drugs and crime".
He declared on Twitter that Republicans should "go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws [on illegal migrants] NOW".
Mr Trump also threatened Mexico, saying the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) was at risk unless it stopped the movement of migrants over the border.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!
12:25 AM - Apr 2, 2018
End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump
Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto has condemned what he called "threatening or disrespectful attitudes" from Mr Trump.
Trump: 'Mexicans are professional mountain climbers'
Is sending troops a first?
The president has called sending troops to the Mexico border a "big step", but both his predecessors also dispatched the National Guard there.
President Barack Obama sent some 1,200 soldiers to guard the boundary, while President George W Bush deployed about 6,000 troops to help Border Patrol in what was called Operation Jump Start.
Both deployments lasted for around a year.
US Defence Secretary James Mattis has approved funding for up to 4,000 National Guard troops from the Pentagon budget until the end of September, the Associated Press reports.
When is Trump going to build his wall?
Constructing a "big, beautiful wall" along the Mexican border was a signature Trump campaign promise, but so far the plan to erect a new physical barrier has been thwarted by lawmakers and appears to have stalled.
A major government spending bill which he signed last month included $1.6bn (£1.1bn) for the border wall - far short of the $25bn the White House sought.
And there were strings attached to the funding Congress did approve. Most of it can only be used to repair stretches of the border where there already is a wall, not to build new segments.
Trump denies changing view on Mexico wall
Six things that could topple Trump's wall
Trump vents anger at child immigrant programme
Last month the Pentagon confirmed Mr Trump had held "initial" talks with his defence secretary about using some of the Pentagon's budget to build a wall.
Skip Twitter post 2 by @realDonaldTrump
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!
8:33 PM - Mar 25, 2018
But two Democratic senators wrote to the defence secretary on Monday saying his department had "no legal authority" to use its funds for such a purpose.
"Such a controversial move could only be funded by cutting other vital priorities for our service members," wrote Senators Dick Durbin and Jack Reed.
In December, US Border Patrol announced arrests at the southern border had fallen to their lowest level since 1971, apparently indicating that fewer people were attempting the crossing.
Trump immigration: Texas sends National Guard to Mexico border
Mr Trump's plans have sparked tensions with Mexico
The US state of Texas is deploying National Guard members to the border with Mexico following a call from President Donald Trump.
A Guard spokesman said 250 personnel would be sent to patrol the area within the next 72 hours.
Arizona is also planning to deploy 150 troops there next week.
President Trump says he wants to send up to 4,000 National Guard members to secure the border with Mexico, until his proposed border wall is built.
The states of New Mexico and California have been asked to take similar action to Texas and Arizona.
Media captionTrump: 'We will be guarding our wall with military'
Also on Friday, the US president outlined plans to end a practice dubbed "catch and release" as part of his stricter anti-immigration policies.
Mr Trump wants illegal immigrants to be held in detention while they wait to hear if they will be deported, instead of being freed.
He has asked the US Department of Defense for a detailed list of military and other facilities that could perform that function.
Trump sets targets on immigration cases
US may tie social media to visas
Mr Trump has sent several tweets over the past seven days railing against illegal immigration, and accusing Democrats of allowing "open borders, drugs and crime".
He declared on Twitter that Republicans should "go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws [on illegal migrants] NOW".
Mr Trump also threatened Mexico, saying the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) was at risk unless it stopped the movement of migrants over the border.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!
12:25 AM - Apr 2, 2018
End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump
Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto has condemned what he called "threatening or disrespectful attitudes" from Mr Trump.
Trump: 'Mexicans are professional mountain climbers'
Is sending troops a first?
The president has called sending troops to the Mexico border a "big step", but both his predecessors also dispatched the National Guard there.
President Barack Obama sent some 1,200 soldiers to guard the boundary, while President George W Bush deployed about 6,000 troops to help Border Patrol in what was called Operation Jump Start.
Both deployments lasted for around a year.
US Defence Secretary James Mattis has approved funding for up to 4,000 National Guard troops from the Pentagon budget until the end of September, the Associated Press reports.
When is Trump going to build his wall?
Constructing a "big, beautiful wall" along the Mexican border was a signature Trump campaign promise, but so far the plan to erect a new physical barrier has been thwarted by lawmakers and appears to have stalled.
A major government spending bill which he signed last month included $1.6bn (£1.1bn) for the border wall - far short of the $25bn the White House sought.
And there were strings attached to the funding Congress did approve. Most of it can only be used to repair stretches of the border where there already is a wall, not to build new segments.
Trump denies changing view on Mexico wall
Six things that could topple Trump's wall
Trump vents anger at child immigrant programme
Last month the Pentagon confirmed Mr Trump had held "initial" talks with his defence secretary about using some of the Pentagon's budget to build a wall.
Skip Twitter post 2 by @realDonaldTrump
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!
8:33 PM - Mar 25, 2018
But two Democratic senators wrote to the defence secretary on Monday saying his department had "no legal authority" to use its funds for such a purpose.
"Such a controversial move could only be funded by cutting other vital priorities for our service members," wrote Senators Dick Durbin and Jack Reed.
In December, US Border Patrol announced arrests at the southern border had fallen to their lowest level since 1971, apparently indicating that fewer people were attempting the crossing.
Russian spy: Embassy requests meeting with Boris Johnson - BBC News
April 7, 2018
Russian spy: Embassy requests meeting with Boris Johnson
The Russian Embassy in London has requested a meeting between its ambassador and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson over the Salisbury poisoning.
An embassy spokesperson said it was "high time" for a meeting to discuss the investigation, as well as a "whole range of bilateral issues".
Current interaction between the Russian Embassy and the foreign office was "utterly unsatisfactory", they said.
The Foreign Office confirmed it had received the request.
Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned with a toxic nerve agent called Novichok in Salisbury more than a month ago.
The UK government claims Russia is behind the attack but Moscow has denied all involvement.
Ex-spy 'improving rapidly' after poisoning
Russian spy: What we know so far
Yulia Skripal 'getting stronger daily'
In a statement sent to the BBC an embassy spokesman said: "We believe that it is high time to arrange a meeting between Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson."
It added that the ambassador had already sent a note to the foreign secretary, and it hoped "the British side will engage constructively and that such meeting is arranged shortly".
The Foreign Office said it would respond in due course.
Image caption
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in hospital
The request follows criticism from the Russian Embassy after the British government's refusal to grant a visa to Ms Skripal's cousin, Viktoria Skripal, to visit the UK.
On Friday the Home Office said the application did not comply with immigration rules.
But the Russian Embassy said Sergei and Yulia "remain hidden from the public".
"The stubborn refusal to cooperate, to provide transparency and to answer the numerous questions means Britain has something to hide," an embassy spokesman said.
Viktoria Skripal later told the BBC she did not have enough money in her bank account to satisfy the visa requirements.
Skripal phone call: 'I have no doubt it was Yulia'
Sergei Skripal: Who is the former Russian colonel?
Mr Skripal was jailed by Russia for spying for Britain's intelligence service, but released as part of a spy swap between the US and Russia in 2010.
His daughter Yulia was visiting him in the UK when the attack happened on 4 March.
Salisbury District Hospital has said Mr Skripal, is responding well to treatment and "improving rapidly".
His daughter Yulia is conscious and talking in hospital.
A diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West has followed, with more than 20 countries expelling Russian envoys in solidarity with the UK.
Russian spy: Embassy requests meeting with Boris Johnson
The Russian Embassy in London has requested a meeting between its ambassador and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson over the Salisbury poisoning.
An embassy spokesperson said it was "high time" for a meeting to discuss the investigation, as well as a "whole range of bilateral issues".
Current interaction between the Russian Embassy and the foreign office was "utterly unsatisfactory", they said.
The Foreign Office confirmed it had received the request.
Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned with a toxic nerve agent called Novichok in Salisbury more than a month ago.
The UK government claims Russia is behind the attack but Moscow has denied all involvement.
Ex-spy 'improving rapidly' after poisoning
Russian spy: What we know so far
Yulia Skripal 'getting stronger daily'
In a statement sent to the BBC an embassy spokesman said: "We believe that it is high time to arrange a meeting between Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson."
It added that the ambassador had already sent a note to the foreign secretary, and it hoped "the British side will engage constructively and that such meeting is arranged shortly".
The Foreign Office said it would respond in due course.
Image caption
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in hospital
The request follows criticism from the Russian Embassy after the British government's refusal to grant a visa to Ms Skripal's cousin, Viktoria Skripal, to visit the UK.
On Friday the Home Office said the application did not comply with immigration rules.
But the Russian Embassy said Sergei and Yulia "remain hidden from the public".
"The stubborn refusal to cooperate, to provide transparency and to answer the numerous questions means Britain has something to hide," an embassy spokesman said.
Viktoria Skripal later told the BBC she did not have enough money in her bank account to satisfy the visa requirements.
Skripal phone call: 'I have no doubt it was Yulia'
Sergei Skripal: Who is the former Russian colonel?
Mr Skripal was jailed by Russia for spying for Britain's intelligence service, but released as part of a spy swap between the US and Russia in 2010.
His daughter Yulia was visiting him in the UK when the attack happened on 4 March.
Salisbury District Hospital has said Mr Skripal, is responding well to treatment and "improving rapidly".
His daughter Yulia is conscious and talking in hospital.
A diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West has followed, with more than 20 countries expelling Russian envoys in solidarity with the UK.
Facebook suspends AIQ data firm used by Vote Leave in Brexit campaign - BBC News
April 7, 2018
Facebook suspends AIQ data firm used by Vote Leave in Brexit campaign
The British Columbia-based company denies ever being part of Cambridge Analytica or its parent company SCL
Facebook has suspended a Canadian data firm that played a key role in the campaign for the UK to leave the EU.
The social media giant cites reported links with Cambridge Analytica (CA), the consultancy accused of improperly accessing the data of millions.
Facebook says it is suspending AggregateIQ (AIQ) because it may have improperly received users' data.
AIQ denies ever being part of CA, its parent company, SCL, or accessing improperly obtained Facebook data.
The Vote Leave campaign paid AIQ £2.7m ($3.8m) ahead of the 2016 EU referendum.
An ex-volunteer with the campaign has also claimed Vote Leave donated £625,000 to another group to get around campaign spending limits, with most of the money going to AIQ. Vote Leave has denied any wrongdoing.
AIQ's website once quoted Vote Leave chief Dominic Cummings saying: "Without a doubt, the Vote Leave campaign owes a great deal of its success to the work of AggregateIQ. We couldn't have done it without them." The quote has since been removed.
In total, AIQ was given £3.5m by groups campaigning for Brexit, including Vote Leave, the Democratic Unionist Party and Veterans for Britain. The UK's Electoral Commission reopened an investigation into Vote Leave's campaign spending in November.
Zuckerberg: I'm still the man to run Facebook
Facebook scandal 'hit 87 million users'
Can targeted online ads really change a voter's behaviour?
"In light of recent reports that AggregateIQ may be affiliated with SCL and may, as a result, have improperly received FB user data, we have added them to the list of entities we have suspended from our platform while we investigate," a Facebook spokesperson said.
"Our internal review continues, and we will co-operate fully with any investigations by regulatory authorities."
In a message posted to its website, AIQ says it is "100% Canadian owned and operated" and "has never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica or SCL".
It adds: "Aggregate IQ has never managed, nor did we ever have access to, any Facebook data or database allegedly obtained improperly by Cambridge Analytica."
Media captionHow the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal unfolded
It also denied ever employing Chris Wylie, the Canadian whistleblower who alleged that the data of 50m people was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has since said the number of people affected could be closer to 87m. CA says it obtained the data of no more than 30m people and has deleted all of it.
Spotlight on Brexit campaign
Analysis by technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones
It was three weeks ago that Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica just hours before a whistleblower's revelations to the Observer newspaper triggered the current scandal over improper use of data.
Christopher Wylie insisted that Aggregate IQ was closely linked to Cambridge Analytica, and supplied documents to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee which he said proved it.
Now Facebook's decision to suspend the Canadian firm from its platform appears to give further validation to Mr Wylie's claims. It also throws the spotlight back onto the potential use of Facebook data during the Brexit campaign.
Facebook says it is looking into whether the data that Cambridge Analytica acquired improperly from as many as 87 million people - 1 million of them in the UK - ended up with Aggregate IQ. The firm worked for both Vote Leave and BeLeave during the EU referendum campaign, but has always insisted it has never been a part of Cambridge Analytica, and has not had access to any of its Facebook data.
AIQ is a small company operating out of Victoria, British Columbia. It uses data to help micro-target voters and was founded by two Canadian political staffers.
Apart from its Brexit work the company has also been accused by Mr Wylie of distributing "incredibly anti-Islamic" content on social media ahead of the 2015 Nigerian presidential election to discredit Muslim opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari, who went on to win the contest.
The BBC has approached AIQ for a response to the Nigeria allegations.
Mr Wylie has said that AIQ was referred to among Cambridge Analytica staff as "our Canadian office". He told the Guardian he helped to set up the firm as a "Canadian entity for people who wanted to work on SCL projects who didn't want to move to London" and that he had known the firm's co-founder, Jeff Silvester, since he was 16.
AIQ says it "has never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica" and that "Chris Wylie has never been employed by AggregateIQ".
Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of a row over whether it used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to sway the outcome of the US 2016 presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum.
Facebook suspends AIQ data firm used by Vote Leave in Brexit campaign
The British Columbia-based company denies ever being part of Cambridge Analytica or its parent company SCL
Facebook has suspended a Canadian data firm that played a key role in the campaign for the UK to leave the EU.
The social media giant cites reported links with Cambridge Analytica (CA), the consultancy accused of improperly accessing the data of millions.
Facebook says it is suspending AggregateIQ (AIQ) because it may have improperly received users' data.
AIQ denies ever being part of CA, its parent company, SCL, or accessing improperly obtained Facebook data.
The Vote Leave campaign paid AIQ £2.7m ($3.8m) ahead of the 2016 EU referendum.
An ex-volunteer with the campaign has also claimed Vote Leave donated £625,000 to another group to get around campaign spending limits, with most of the money going to AIQ. Vote Leave has denied any wrongdoing.
AIQ's website once quoted Vote Leave chief Dominic Cummings saying: "Without a doubt, the Vote Leave campaign owes a great deal of its success to the work of AggregateIQ. We couldn't have done it without them." The quote has since been removed.
In total, AIQ was given £3.5m by groups campaigning for Brexit, including Vote Leave, the Democratic Unionist Party and Veterans for Britain. The UK's Electoral Commission reopened an investigation into Vote Leave's campaign spending in November.
Zuckerberg: I'm still the man to run Facebook
Facebook scandal 'hit 87 million users'
Can targeted online ads really change a voter's behaviour?
"In light of recent reports that AggregateIQ may be affiliated with SCL and may, as a result, have improperly received FB user data, we have added them to the list of entities we have suspended from our platform while we investigate," a Facebook spokesperson said.
"Our internal review continues, and we will co-operate fully with any investigations by regulatory authorities."
In a message posted to its website, AIQ says it is "100% Canadian owned and operated" and "has never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica or SCL".
It adds: "Aggregate IQ has never managed, nor did we ever have access to, any Facebook data or database allegedly obtained improperly by Cambridge Analytica."
Media captionHow the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal unfolded
It also denied ever employing Chris Wylie, the Canadian whistleblower who alleged that the data of 50m people was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has since said the number of people affected could be closer to 87m. CA says it obtained the data of no more than 30m people and has deleted all of it.
Spotlight on Brexit campaign
Analysis by technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones
It was three weeks ago that Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica just hours before a whistleblower's revelations to the Observer newspaper triggered the current scandal over improper use of data.
Christopher Wylie insisted that Aggregate IQ was closely linked to Cambridge Analytica, and supplied documents to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee which he said proved it.
Now Facebook's decision to suspend the Canadian firm from its platform appears to give further validation to Mr Wylie's claims. It also throws the spotlight back onto the potential use of Facebook data during the Brexit campaign.
Facebook says it is looking into whether the data that Cambridge Analytica acquired improperly from as many as 87 million people - 1 million of them in the UK - ended up with Aggregate IQ. The firm worked for both Vote Leave and BeLeave during the EU referendum campaign, but has always insisted it has never been a part of Cambridge Analytica, and has not had access to any of its Facebook data.
AIQ is a small company operating out of Victoria, British Columbia. It uses data to help micro-target voters and was founded by two Canadian political staffers.
Apart from its Brexit work the company has also been accused by Mr Wylie of distributing "incredibly anti-Islamic" content on social media ahead of the 2015 Nigerian presidential election to discredit Muslim opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari, who went on to win the contest.
The BBC has approached AIQ for a response to the Nigeria allegations.
Mr Wylie has said that AIQ was referred to among Cambridge Analytica staff as "our Canadian office". He told the Guardian he helped to set up the firm as a "Canadian entity for people who wanted to work on SCL projects who didn't want to move to London" and that he had known the firm's co-founder, Jeff Silvester, since he was 16.
AIQ says it "has never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica" and that "Chris Wylie has never been employed by AggregateIQ".
Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of a row over whether it used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to sway the outcome of the US 2016 presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum.
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