Daily News Digest: Recent Episodes
Tipping Point
We finally have some insight into how Disney will address the death of its “Star Wars” star, Carrie Fisher, as it prepares to release the next movie in the saga, “Episode VIII,” aka “The Last Jedi,” on December 15. Disney CEO Bob Iger, in a new interview, revealed that Fisher’s General Leia role will not undergo any tweaking, nor will there be any reviving of the actress along the lines of what we saw in “Rogue One.”
Today, judges at the International Criminal Court are expected to unveil the first compensation awards to victims of war crimes. The reparations, for 304 victims of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga, would be a landmark step for the tribunal, which was established in 2002 to prosecute the world’s worst crimes. The judges could decide to try to help the community as a whole, as well as award individual damages to victims. Katanga, 38, now on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo on other charges of war crimes and insurrection in the mineral-rich Ituri region, is liable for paying any designated compensation.
Before he sped across Westminster Bridge on Wednesday, plowing into pedestrians with a rented SUV before running onto Parliament grounds and fatally stabbing an unarmed policeman, Khalid Masood was considered by intelligence officers to be a criminal who posed little serious threat. A British-born Muslim convert, Masood had shown up on the periphery of previous terrorism investigations that brought him to the attention of Britain’s MI5 spy agency. His personal connections included people suspected of being keen to travel to join jihadi groups overseas, but Masood never joined them and was not being watched for terrorism, according to an anonymous U.S. government source.
In what might be the ultimate test of wills, President Trump and GOP lawmakers will proceed this morning with a vote in the House on the American Health Care bill, not sure if they have the votes to pass it. The risky move was presented to GOP lawmakers behind closed doors Thursday night after a long and intense day that saw a planned vote on the health care bill scrapped as the legislation remained short of votes amid cascading negotiations among conservative lawmakers, moderates and others. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told lawmakers the president had had enough and was ready to move on.
If you’ve ever thought of your smartphone as your second brain, the analogy may not be far off. A new study shows that when we follow navigational instructions, such as those given by GPS devices, the parts of our actual brains that normally perform navigation remain quiet. And, over time, this could mean humans will get worse at using their brains for pathfinding, said the study’s main author, Amir-Homayoun Javadi, a neuroscientist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.
President Trump says he doesn’t necessarily need facts before making such evidence-free claims as, say, former President Barack Obama’s wiretapping the phones at Trump Tower, because they’ve later been proved right. “I’m a very instinctual person,” Trump told Time magazine’s Michael Scherer in a phone interview from the Oval Office on Wednesday. “But my instinct turns out to be right.” The president offered a list of things he says he “predicted,” including Brexit, Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal, Bernie Sanders’ loss in the Democratic primary. He even regarded as upheld his false suggestion that a terror attack had occurred in Sweden the night before. Trump said such predictions are why he believes other unsubstantiated claims, like 3 million undocumented people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, will be proved right too.
Tyrannosaurus rex and his buddies could be on the move as a new study proposes a massive shakeup of the dinosaur family tree. Scientists who took a deeper look at dinosaur fossils suggest a different evolutionary history for dinosaurs, moving theropods such as T. rex to a new branch of the family tree and hinting at an earlier and more northern origin for other dinosaurs. The revised dinosaur tree makes more sense than the old one, initially designed more than a century ago based on hip shape, said Matt Baron, a paleontology doctoral student at the University of Cambridge in England. He is the lead author of the study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.
Researchers have found that vitamin D seems to play an important role in the development — and prevention — of autism. A study at the Queensland Brain Institute found that giving vitamin D supplements to mice during pregnancy completely prevented autism traits in their offspring. Previous research showed a link between pregnant women with low vitamin D levels and the increased likelihood of having a child with autistic traits. Sun exposure is the major source of vitamin D — which skin cells manufacture in response to UV rays — but it is also found in some foods. A new injection of funding has opened the field for researchers to take next steps in determining how much vitamin D supplement is necessary to reproduce these results in humans, says Dr. Wei Luan, a postdoctoral researcher involved in the study.
Taliban fighters have captured the strategic district of Sangin in the southern Afghan province of Helmand after security forces pulled out, leaving the district center to the insurgents, officials said on Thursday. The capture of the town in the opium-rich region of Helmand, where U.S. and British forces suffered heavy casualties until it was handed over to Afghan personnel, underscores the Taliban’s growing strength and the scale of the challenge facing the western-backed Afghan government and its international partners. Afghan forces have struggled to contain the spreading insurgency since international troops ended combat operations in 2014, leaving the Afghans to fight largely alone. With warmer spring weather beginning, increased fighting is expected across Afghanistan, and security officials have warned that 2017 may be even tougher than last year.
After seven years of fervent promises to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders buckled at a moment of truth Thursday, putting off a planned showdown vote in a stinging setback for the young administration. The White House insisted the House vote would still happen — Friday morning instead — but with opposition flowing from both strongly conservative and moderate-leaning GOP lawmakers, that was far from assured. The delay was announced after Trump, who ran for president as a master deal-maker, failed to close the deal with a group of fellow Republicans in the first major legislative test of his presidency. Still, leaders of the conservative Freedom Caucus said they were continuing to work with the White House late Thursday on their demands to limit the requirements on insurance companies now in place under former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Under legislation inspired by former “Jersey Shore” reality TV star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, no more than $10,000 of state money could go to pay speakers at New Jersey’s public universities. The Democrat-controlled Assembly is scheduled to vote on the bill Thursday. If approved, it will go to Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s desk. Republican Assemblyman John DiMaio says he was inspired to write the measure after Polizzi earned $32,000 to speak at Rutgers’ commencement in 2011.
U.S. wireless carriers Verizon and AT&T said on Wednesday that they have suspended advertising on Google’s YouTube and other platforms not related to search. AT&T is removing ads from the nonsearch inventory on Google because its “ads may have appeared alongside YouTube content promoting terrorism and hate,” the company wrote in an email. Verizon said it had suspended all advertising not related to search on Google’s nonsearch platforms after its ads were appearing on “non-sanctioned websites,” a spokeswoman wrote said.
As President Trump, a self-proclaimed master dealmaker, tries to push a health care bill through Congress, he is encountering an entrenched Republican political culture that for years has been rewarded for saying no. Over the last decade, Republicans who wanted to raise money or their profile could simply oppose then-President Barack Obama and get re-elected based on the success of their efforts to obstruct him. Meanwhile, outside groups such as Heritage Action, FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth — who are now opposing Trump’s health care replacement proposal, saying it does not go far enough — have followed this arc, too.
The United States is on top of the baseball world. Behind a brilliant, 1-hit performance from starter Marcus Stroman and a relentless offensive attack, Team USA defeated previously unbeaten Puerto Rico 8-0 to win its first World Baseball Classic. Stroman’s dominance quieted a Puerto Rico offense that had racked up 55 runs over its previous seven wins and earned him the honor of tournament MVP.
British police have made seven arrests in armed raids after an attack near Parliament that left four people dead and around 40 injured, the country’s top antiterrorism officer said on Thursday. In what police called a terrorist incident, authorities worked around the clock to piece together what happened when the attacker drove an SUV into several pedestrians on nearby Westminster Bridge, then charged at a policeman at the Parliament gates, stabbing him to death with a large knife before being gunned down by officers. Parliament was locked down for several hours, and police evacuated hundreds of MPs and visitors to nearby Westminster Abbey and the Metropolitan Police headquarters.
International researchers say they have found a way to assess a person’s genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by a given age, a tool that could lead to better diagnosis and treatment. The report in the journal PLOS Medicine was based on genetic data from more than 70,000 Alzheimer’s patients and elderly people without the disease participating in several major global studies on dementia. Most people with the disease begin to show symptoms in their 60s, but rarer cases of early onset Alzheimer’s can begin as early as the 30s.
Chicago police said Wednesday they were looking for up to six suspects who allegedly raped a teenage girl and broadcast the assault on Facebook Live. The victim was a 15-year-old girl, who went missing Sunday and was reunited with her family on Tuesday morning. It was the latest in a series of troubling incidents in which violent acts have been streamed live on Facebook, including two fatal shootings and the kidnapping and torture of a disabled 18-year-old.
As the godfather of the NBA’s modern player rest movement, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has long championed the importance of limiting the wear and tear on players’ bodies in order to prolong their careers and increase the chances of deep runs in the postseason. Commissioner Adam Silver has long been sympathetic to Popovich’s point of view, acknowledging the science that proves what a difference rest can make. But now that Silver is ramping up the pressure to consider more than just X’s and O’s when deciding when to rest players en masse, Popovich and other coaches around the league say they are eager to have dialogue with the league and its television partners to address an approach that is drawing the ire of fans and business partners.
On Wednesday, the professional networking site launched a section on its network dedicated to business news, seeking to draw users onto the service more frequently to read and talk about current events, company officials said. The addition of “Trending Storylines” is the latest attempt by LinkedIn, which was acquired by Microsoft last year, to grow beyond its roots as a job-hunting service and to add features associated with social media.
A knife-wielding man went on a deadly rampage at the heart of Britain’s seat of power Wednesday, mowing down pedestrians with a car on London’s Westminster Bridge before stabbing an armed police officer to death inside the gates of Parliament. Five people were killed, including the attacker, and about 40 others were injured. Lawmakers, lords, staff and visitors were prevented from leaving as the area was put on lockdown. The man was shot by police within the perimeter of Parliament and just yards from entrances to the building itself. He died, as did two pedestrians on the bridge and a police officer. A doctor who treated the wounded said some had “catastrophic” injuries. Police said they were treating the attacks as a terrorist incident and had launched a full counterterrorism investigation. Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the attack as “sick and depraved.”
Despite a push in recent years to make the U.S. education system more competitive and effective, foreign exchange students continue to view American high school experience as much less stimulating, according to a study published Wednesday. In the survey conducted last spring, 259 teenagers from various countries compared their experience in American schools to that in their home countries. Of the responses, 44 percent said U.S. students spend “much less” time on schoolwork, and asked how difficult their classes are in the U.S., 66 percent said they are “much easier.”
Despite a push in recent years to make the U.S. education system more competitive and effective, foreign exchange students continue to view American high school experience as much less stimulating, according to a study published Wednesday. In the survey conducted last spring, 259 teenagers from various countries compared their experience in American schools to that in their home countries. Of the responses, 44 percent said U.S. students spend “much less” time on schoolwork, and asked how difficult their classes are in the U.S., 66 percent said they are “much easier.”
For the first time in World Baseball Classic history, Team USA will play in the championship game, taking on the undefeated Team Puerto Rico on Wednesday. Seth Lugo will take the hill for Puerto Rico, and Toronto Blue Jays starter Marcus Stroman is expected to start for the U.S. Thus far, Puerto Rico is a perfect 7-0 during the tournament. One of those wins came against Team USA. Puerto Rico narrowly walked away with a win, picking up a 6-5 victory during the second round of tournament play. However, that result won’t matter going into Wednesday. The championship game is a winner-take-all affair, so everything will be on the line when the two teams get together for what promises to be an exciting rematch.
Hollywood fixture Chuck Barris, whose game show empire included “The Dating Game,” “The Newlywed Game,” and “The Gong Show,” has died at 87 of natural causes, his representative confirmed. The grinning, curly-haired Barris became a familiar face as creator and host of “The Gong Show,” which aired from 1976 to 1980. Patterned after the “Major Bowes Amateur Hour,” a radio hit in the 1930s, the program featured performers who had peculiar talents and, often, no talent at all. When the latter appeared on the show, Barris would strike an oversize gong, the show’s equivalent of vaudeville’s hook. At one point Barris was supplying the television networks with 27 hours of entertainment a week, mostly in five-days-a-week daytime game shows. Eventually, as “The Gong Show” and Barris’ other series were slipping, he sold his company and went into films, directing and starring in “The Gong Show Movie,” which stayed in theaters only a week. Afterward, a distraught Barris checked into a New York hotel and wrote his autobiography, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” in two months and in it, he claimed to have been a CIA assassin. Eventually craving an escape from the Hollywood rat race, Barris moved to a villa in the south of France in the 1980s and made few returns to his old haunts over the next two decades.
North Korea fired a test missile Wednesday morning, but the launch failed, U.S. and South Korean officials have confirmed. The missile was launched in the eastern Wonsan Province, where North Korea has previously attempted to launch its mobile-launched Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile. Believed to have a minimum range of 1,500 miles, the missile is of concern to U.S. officials because mobile-launched missiles are hard to track and can be fired on short notice. The failure might mean that the missile is newly developed, according to South Korean media. The reported launch failure comes as the North angrily reacts to ongoing annual U.S.-South Korean military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal.
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch enters the third day of his nomination hearings largely unscathed by Democratic attacks, while Republicans predict his confirmation. Democrats are divided on how hard to fight his nomination to the court, as illustrated by a palpable political intensity during the questioning that stretched beyond 11 hours. A growing number of Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are calling for Gorsuch’s confirmation to be delayed because of the FBI investigation of ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.
A bite from an Australian funnel web spider can kill a human in 15 minutes — but its venom could prove to be the world’s first treatment for brain damage caused by a stroke. Scientists were sequencing the DNA of the venom when they stumbled upon a compound that they believe may have far-reaching benefits for stroke sufferers. The protein, Hi1a, can protect brain cells from being destroyed by a stroke, even when administered hours later, according to researchers. Clinical trials on humans, which scientists hope to begin within two years, will now assess the compound, which could be rolled out to become the first treatment of its type.
President Trump signed a bill into law Tuesday that updates NASA’s mission to add exploration of Mars and authorizes $19.5 billion in spending for the U.S. space agency for the current budget year. It’s the first time in seven years that there has been an authorization bill for NASA, said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a chief sponsor of the bill.
Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren was absent from the air of Glenn Beck’s digital network the Blaze just days after declaring her support for abortion rights. During an appearance on ABC’s “The View” on Friday, Lahren explained that she was for abortion because as a proponent of limited government, it would be hypocritical of her to say she thinks the government “should decide what women do with their bodies.” The comments drew criticism from colleagues, including Beck. Beck took issue with Lahren’s argument on his radio show Monday, suggesting it lacked “intellectual honesty.” Lahren didn’t host her show on the Blaze on Monday night, and on Twitter she alluded to her absence.
Apple unveiled an updated version of its iPad tablet with a brighter screen on Tuesday, at the cheapest price ever for a full-sized tablet. The California-based company is widely expected to unveil an update to its flagship iPhone this fall that might have new features such as wireless charging, 3-D facial recognition and a curved display. In the meantime, along with the new iPad, Apple announced a variety of incremental updates and releases, including a new app for creating videos and sharing them with friends. The new app, along with extra iMessage features released in recent years, pushes Apple closer to competing with the features in social networking apps like Snapchat. It’s rare for Apple to release a full-sized iPad at such a low price. The new edition differs from its pricier sibling in several ways. It isn’t compatible with accessories like the Apple Pencil or SmartKeyboard; it’s missing the iPad Pro’s sharper camera and 4K video capabilities, offering a smaller camera, but it’s still plenty powerful for those who intend to browse the Web, check email, stream Netflix and play games. The discounted tablet could be a move to boost sales in an Apple product line that’s been steadily declining. In its most recent earnings report, Apple revealed that total iPad shipments dropped by 19 percent, while revenue from the tablets was down by 22 percent. Offering a cheaper option could give Apple fans and tablet shoppers a more compelling reason to upgrade from an older model or a mini.
With a crucial vote on the GOP’s Obamacare replacement looming, President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that Republican legislators who don’t support the bill would face electoral consequences. But opponents, including some prominent Republican senators, disagree — and public opinion polling, which is running strongly against the bill, is on their side. “I honestly think many of you will lose your seats in 2018 if you don’t get this done,” said Trump after a Tuesday meeting with Republican legislators, according to multiple sources in the room. The president was on Capitol Hill to lobby for votes for the American Health Care Act, the GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill. The House plans to vote on the AHCA Thursday. The top Republican in the Senate agreed with the president.
Former MMA fighter Jonathan Koppenhaver, also known as War Machine, was found guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend by a Las Vegas jury on Monday. Jurors deadlocked on two attempted-murder charges, but Koppenhaver was convicted on 29 other counts related to the beating and sexual assault of Christine Mackinday, a porn actress who goes by the adult film name Christy Mack, in August 2014. Koppenhaver was also found guilty of assaulting a male, Corey Thomas, who was in Mackinday’s apartment the day of the attack. He could face up to life in prison.
Fox News Channel has pulled legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano from the air after disavowing his on-air claim that British intelligence officials had helped former President Barack Obama spy on President Trump. On Monday, Napolitano was absent during the network’s coverage of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. The judge hasn’t been seen on the network since his column ran last Thursday. Sources say Napolitano has been benched and won’t be appearing on the air in the near future.
In response to an unspecified terrorism threat, officials are reportedly ready to announce that passengers on some U.S.-bound foreign airline flights will have to check electronic devices larger than a cell phone. The new rule, which has been under consideration since the government learned of a threat several weeks ago, is slated to be announced today by the Department of Homeland Security. Affected airports and countries have yet to be named, but CNN reported that the ban is related to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and that some information came from a recent U.S. special forces raid in Yemen. The ban was revealed Monday in statements from Royal Jordanian Airlines and the official news agency of Saudi Arabia. A congressional aide speaking to AP anonymously said that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly phoned lawmakers over the weekend to brief them on the aviation security issues that prompted the impending electronics ban. Spokesmen for the Homeland Security Department and the Transportation Security Administration declined to comment.
Hollywood actor Ben Stiller has teamed up with social media stars to raise $2 million for people facing starvation in Somalia amid a devastating drought. The “Zoolander” actor is trying to recruit other celebrities to support the Love Army for Somalia initiative, which has already raised over $1.8 million since Friday. An initial flight full of food will take off next Monday for Somalia, where more than 6 million people — about half the population — need help. The United Nations has warned that Somalia risks slipping back into famine as worsening drought leaves millions without food, water or health care; famine last struck pockets of Somalia in 2011, killing 260,000 people.
James Comey’s testimony on Monday that a counterintelligence investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government began last summer enraged Democrats, who already blamed him for rattling the 2016 campaign’s closing days. The FBI director confirmed that the Trump campaign was probed in July, the same month Comey announced that the agency had finished its investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information — and three months before he announced that the Clinton probe was continuing, just days before the election. Comey said during his testimony that Russia “hates” Clinton and wanted her to lose the election, adding that only Democratic emails were released during the political hacks.
The mystery of Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jersey led police all the way to Mexico, and authorities were investigating a former tabloid newspaper executive’s possible role in the theft. Police and the NFL announced Monday that Brady’s jersey, which disappeared from the locker room after the Patriots beat the Atlantic Falcons in overtime last month, was in the “possession of a credentialed member of the international media.” The missing jersey — and the subsequent investigation — captivated fans and social media for several days after the Super Bowl.
Billionaire philanthropist David Rockefeller, former head of Chase Manhattan bank and patriarch of one of the most famous and influential American families, died on Monday, a family spokesman said. He was 101. Rockefeller, who reportedly gave away nearly $2 billion in his lifetime, died in his sleep of congestive heart failure at his home in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., spokesman Fraser Seitel said in a statement.
Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, on Monday emphasized the need for judicial independence at the opening of his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, under the shadow of Trump’s tweets against jurists who have ruled against him. Republicans praised the conservative federal appeals court judge from Colorado as highly qualified for a lifetime appointment as a justice, with the ideological balance of the Supreme Court at stake. Despite slim chances of blocking his confirmation in the GOP-led Senate, Democrats raised questions about Gorsuch’s suitability, suggesting he’s favored corporations over “the little guy” while serving at the bench, while Republicans accused Democrats of trying to turn Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing into a referendum on the GOP president. Committee Democrats contend that Gorsuch only has a shot at the position because Republicans refused last year to consider then-President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland.
At least 18 were killed when a large tree fell into the pool they were swimming in at the base of a waterfall in Ghana, according to police. The tree crushed or drowned people enjoying a day out at a popular beauty spot. The waterfall, near the town of Kintampo, was busy with weekend day-trippers, many of them high school students, when the freak accident happened on Sunday.
The head of the FBI publicly challenged President Trump on Monday, denying the president’s claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his 2016 election campaign and confirming his agency had launched a criminal investigation into any collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Trump created a controversy in early March when he accused Obama on Twitter of wiretapping his campaign. The tweet, written without supporting evidence, pulled attention away from the claims of Russian interference in the election. Last week, Trump’s team expanded the accusations when press secretary Sean Spicer cited Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano’s claim that Britain’s spy agency was behind the surveillance, drawing ire from one of America’s closest allies.
Spring, which officially begins Monday, should bring more of the balmy weather that the U.S. East Coast and much of the South have enjoyed this winter, forecasters say. As the East luxuriated in mild temperatures and Texas and Louisiana had the warmest winter in more than a century, the West Coast enjoyed a welcome stretch of wet weather after years of drought. But winter returned with a vengeance last week in New York City and other parts of the Northeast, with a paralyzing snowstorm and a sustained stretch of subfreezing temperatures. And a final twist of winter weirdness will play out for the East before the region basks in the warmth again.
A new report reveals that Norway is the happiest country on earth. The nation edged out the previous winner, Denmark, which fell to second place. Iceland, Switzerland and Finland round out the top 5. The United States was 14th in the latest ranking, down from No. 13 last year, continuing a downward trend. Over the years, Americans have steadily been rating themselves as less happy.
A judge is scheduled to hear new arguments today from Roman Polanski’s lawyer about why the fugitive director’s long-running underage sex case should be drawn to a close. The hearing will be the first one in seven years. Polanski’s lawyer has asked the judge to unseal testimony and also signal whether the Oscar winner would face any additional time if he were to return to Los Angeles for sentencing. The proceedings date back to 1977, when Polanski plied a 13-year-old girl with champagne and half a sedative before raping her at actor Jack Nicholson’s house.
The madness is back in March. A scintillating Sunday of games jolted the tournament to life like a triple shot of espresso. North Carolina, the South Region No. 1 seed, had the most frenetic finish, blowing a 17-point lead and then scoring the game’s final 12 points to hold off Arkansas. Kentucky had its hands full until the end against Wichita State, needing two blocked 3-pointers in the final minute to beat the Shockers 65-62. South Carolina, the No. 7 seed in the East, had the biggest takedown, knocking off No. 2 Duke 88-81 in what was essentially a home game in Greenville.
FBI Director James Comey, as well as National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, will testify before the House intelligence committee today in one of several congressional panels exploring allegations of Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election. Also of interest to the committee are any connections between Russia and associates of President Trump and the question of whether any surveillance of Trump was conducted for political reasons. The top two lawmakers on the House committee said Sunday that documents delivered by the Justice Department and FBI late last week offer no evidence that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump Tower, the president’s New York City headquarters. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the panel’s ranking Democrat, says the material does offer circumstantial evidence that U.S. citizens colluded with Russians to interfere in the election.
U.S. lawmakers from both parties said on Sunday they had seen no proof to support the claim by President Trump that his predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him last year, adding pressure on Trump to explain or back off his repeated assertion. Several Republicans last week urged Trump to apologize for the allegations he made in a series of tweets on March 4. The maelstrom also caused tension with key U.S. allies after spokesman Sean Spicer suggested last week that Britain’s intelligence services aided the Obama administration in the alleged wiretap. Though the charges were somewhat retracted, the spiraling claims threaten to distract Republicans from campaign promises on health care and taxes.
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” the studio’s latest live action update of a cartoon classic, waltzed its way to a towering $170 million debut this weekend, setting a new record for a March opening and solidifying the Mouse House’s status as the dominant player in the film business. The makeover of the 1991 Oscar-winning film follows previous live-action remakes such as “Alice in Wonderland,” “Cinderella,” “Maleficent” and last year’s “The Jungle Book.” Many more are on the way, including those for “Dumbo,” “Mulan,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.”
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday rejected President Trump’s claim that Germany owes NATO and the United States “vast sums” of money for defense. Trump took to Twitter on Saturday – a day after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington – to say that Germany “owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!” “There is no debt account at NATO,” von der Leyen said in a statement, adding that it was wrong to link the alliance’s target for members to spend 2 percent of their economic output on defense by 2024 solely to NATO.
An Afghan soldier opened fire Sunday inside a base in southern Helmand province, wounding three U.S. soldiers before being shot dead. No insurgent group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, which highlights long-simmering tensions between Afghan and foreign forces. So-called insider attacks — when Afghan soldiers and police turn their guns on their colleagues or on international troops — have been a major problem during the more than 15-year war but now occur less frequently after security measures were improved and the number of foreign troops in the country fell sharply.
Thirteen months after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Senate is finally holding confirmation hearings to fill the vacancy, considering President Trump’s choice of Neil Gorsuch for the high court. Republicans refused to even grant a hearing to former President Barack Obama’s choice, Merrick Garland, insisting the next president should decide. Now Democrats are under pressure to reject Gorsuch. When Gorsuch is sworn in for his hearing on Monday, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will try to make the case that he is a pro-business, social conservative insufficiently independent of the president.
U.S. chipmaker Intel agreed to buy Israeli driverless car-technology firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion on Monday, positioning itself for a dominant role in the fast-moving autonomous-driving sector. Intel is trying to accelerate a push into what many chip companies view as the next big opportunity: self-driving cars and the data they generate. With Mobileye, Intel gains the ability to offer automakers a larger package of all the components they will need as vehicles become autonomous.
The release of the live-action remake of the classic fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast" has been postponed indefinitely in Malaysia, pending an “internal review,“ according to the Star Online. The Walt Disney Co. (Malaysia) confirmed that the film, which was due to be released this Thursday, has been postponed, but gave no explanation. The movie also prompted an advisory from the head of the Anglican Church in Singapore, who called on parents to “provide guidance to their children” on the movie.
The release of Egypt’s ex-President Hosni Mubarak that was approved Monday ends “talk of the Arab Spring” uprising that toppled him in 2011 after 30 years in power, an analyst said. The 88-year-old was cleared of murder charges this month in his final court appearance, having stood trial on charges ranging from corruption to ordering the killing of some of the 2011 demonstrators. Mubarak’s expected release comes as many leaders of the 2011 protest that ousted him linger in jail, but members of his former regime walk free.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 14 million people would would lose health insurance next year under the new Republican plan to replace Obamacare and that figure would grow to 24 million by 2026. The numbers, released in a long-awaited report on Monday afternoon, further complicate the GOP’s messy effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and will likely increase doubts about the replacement’s viability. The White House says it disagrees “strenuously” with a budget analysis and Health Secretary Tom Price still vows it will cover more individuals and lower costs. Price complained the CBO only looked at the House bill, and not the two other parts of their three-phase plan.
Turkey announced a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands on Monday over its refusal to allow two Turkish ministers to address expatriate Turks there to drum up votes. Turkey also halted high-level political discussions between the two countries and closed Turkish airspace to Dutch diplomats. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, the government’s chief spokesman, also said Ankara might re-evaluate its deal with the European Union to halt the flow of migrants from Turkish shores to Europe. Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador’s entry back into Turkey and advise Parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group.
The English language contains an alphabet soup of swear words. Those of a sweary disposition can draw upon the A-word, the B-word, the C-word, the F-word, the S-word, the W-word and many more. So here's a puzzle - if you see the F-word spelled out with all four letters, are you more offended than when you read F with asterisks?
A mountain of trash gave way in a massive garbage dump on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital, killing at least 35 people and leaving several dozen missing, residents said, as officials vowed to relocate those who called the landfill home. Addis Ababa city spokeswoman Dagmawit Moges said most of the dead were women and children, and more bodies were expected to be found in the coming hours. Many people at the landfill had been scavenging items to make a living, but others live there because renting homes, largely built of mud and sticks, is relatively inexpensive.
Great white sharks are discovering what tourists have known for years: Cape Cod is a great place to spend the summer. The latest data from a multiyear study of the ocean predators found that the number of sharks in waters off the vacation haven appears to be on the rise, said Greg Skomal, a senior scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the state’s top shark expert. But that’s no reason to cancel vacation. The sharks are after seals, not humans, and towns are using the information from the study to keep it that way.
New surveillance footage has emerged of Michael Brown, the black teenage shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., suggesting that he had not, in fact, robbed a convenience store hours before he was killed. Brown’s 2014 death sparked weeks of sometimes violent protests and ignited a national debate about race relations and law enforcement in the United States. The new video, used in the documentary “Stranger Fruit,” which premiered Saturday at the South by Southwest film festival, suggests that Brown’s altercation with store employees in a separate visit to the shop was tied to a suspected drug transaction with the shop employees. In the video, Brown can be seen handing over the counter a small bag before a store clerk gives Brown two large boxes of cigarillos. Just before leaving the store, Brown returns to the counter and has the clerk hold the bag with the cigarillos behind the counter.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday warned the Netherlands would pay a price for preventing his ministers from holding rallies to win support in a referendum on expanding his powers, as a crisis escalated with Turkey’s key EU partners. Erdogan also repeated hugely controversial accusations that the Netherlands — occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II — was behaving like fascists in its treatment of Turkish ministers. Analysts are predicting a tight outcome to the April 16 referendum in which millions of Turks residing abroad are eligible to vote. But Turkey’s Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya was expelled after being prevented from addressing a rally in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. That came hours after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was denied airport landing rights to address crowds at a Rotterdam rally.
Selection Sunday is here. The selection committee has made almost all of its decisions, the bracket reveal is hours away, and soon enough, the field for the 2017 NCAA tournament will be set. However, there are a few decisions to make. A detailed breakdown of the field reveals that, of the 36 at-large spots available, 31 or 32 are locked up; four or five bids are still up for grabs, with nine or 10 teams hoping to snatch them and run to the Big Dance. The most polarizing team in college basketball is, after a season of controversy, tumult and underachievement, finally playing near its best. Duke always had the pieces to be a title contender, if not a title favorite, and those pieces have clicked into place, first in early February, and now once and for all in the ACC tournament. On Sunday, the Blue Devils made ACC Tournament history, winning four games in four days.
Selection Sunday is here. The selection committee has made almost all of its decisions, the bracket reveal is hours away, and soon enough, the field for the 2017 NCAA tournament will be set. However, there are a few decisions to make. A detailed breakdown of the field reveals that, of the 36 at-large spots available, 31 or 32 are locked up; four or five bids are still up for grabs, with nine or 10 teams hoping to snatch them and run to the Big Dance. The most polarizing team in college basketball is, after a season of controversy, tumult and underachievement, finally playing near its best. Duke always had the pieces to be a title contender, if not a title favorite, and those pieces have clicked into place, first in early February, and now once and for all in the ACC tournament. On Sunday, the Blue Devils made ACC Tournament history, winning four games in four days.
In response to the trend for gluten-free products, on Thursday the American Heart Association announced research, based on 30 years of surveys, that establishes a link between gluten-free diets and a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. To date, no scientific studies have demonstrated any health benefits that accrue from a gluten-free diet for the vast majority of people who do not suffer from Celiac disease or gluten intolerance. Researchers from the University of Harvard evaluated the impact of a gluten-free diet on the health of subjects with no medical diagnosis of gluten intolerance. People who regularly consume gluten have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. At the same time, the researchers noted that those who sought to avoid gluten consumed less cereal fiber, which is known to reduce the risk of diabetes.
Alec Baldwin returned to “Saturday Night Live” this weekend to reprise his role as President Donald Trump, kicking off the show with a cold open inspired by the sci-fi film “Independence Day.” Set at a military base about to be invaded by aliens, Baldwin’s Trump is debriefed by an officer, played by cast member Kenan Thompson. The cold open implies that Trump relies on questionable sources for his facts. Later in the show, guest host Scarlett Johansson plays first daughter Ivanka Trump, spoofing a commercial for Ivanka’s fictitious perfume, “Complicit.”
Joni Sledge, one of four sisters who together sang one of disco’s most enduring songs with “We Are Family,” has died, a representative said Saturday. She was 60. Sledge was found dead in her home by a friend in Phoenix, Ariz., on Friday, the band’s publicist, Biff Warren, said. A cause of death has not been determined. He said she had not been ill.
Daylight saving time is the practice of moving clocks forward by one hour during summer months so that daylight lasts longer into evening. Most of North America and Europe follows the custom, while the majority of countries elsewhere do not. According to a growing body of scientific research, when clocks in almost all of the United States spring forward by an hour on Sunday, it will likely prompt an increase in heart attacks and strokes, cause more car accidents and reduce worker productivity, according to studies. It will also fail to cut the nation’s energy bill, contrary to what the experts once believed. Disruptions, even minor ones, to human beings’ sleep patterns can have outsized effects.
Despite the NFL barring teams from trading cash for draft picks, the Cleveland Browns brain trust got imaginative and found a way to purchase a second-round pick from the Houston Texans, acquiring quarterback Brock Osweiler and his ugly contract. Cleveland gets Osweiler, a 2018 second-round pick and a 2017 sixth-round pick from the Texans, while absorbing $16 million of Osweiler’s guaranteed salary on the 2017 cap. Meantime, Houston gets a 2017 fourth-round pick from the Browns and clears $10 million in cap space immediately and $16 million in cash.
In a classic performance by the sometimes nerdy policy wonk Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the House speaker acknowledged on Thursday that the rollout of a new health care law to replace Obamacare has produced “a lot of frustration” among conservatives and “a lot of confusion.” But he also made it clear to conservative House members who want the bill to go even further: This is as good as it gets. It’s an indication that just three days after releasing the text of their plan Monday evening, Republican leaders and the White House realize that the first major initiative of the Trump presidency is in trouble.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he has no qualms sending newly captured terror suspects to the Guantánamo Bay detention center, describing it as a “very fine place.” During an interview Thursday with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Sessions was asked if either he or President Trump intended to shut down the facility. Sessions said he wasn’t in favor of doing that, adding that the U.S. government has spent “a lot of money fixing it up.”
Detective Kevin Becker of the Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed that a recent visit to fitness guru’s home for a welfare check came up concern-free. Becker adds that Simmons, who has not been seen outside of his home since February 2014, has been welcoming every time the LAPD has stopped by. The home check came just after the premiere of a new podcast called “Missing Richard Simmons,” where a former fitness client and friend of Simmons looks into his whereabouts. Simmons has been the target of this kind of suspicion for a few years now, as many ponder why he would have chosen to remove himself completely from public life.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously ruled Friday to remove impeached President Park Geun-hye from office over a corruption scandal that has plunged the country into political turmoil and worsened a national divide. The ruling capped a stunning fall for Park, the country’s first female leader, who rode a wave of lingering conservative nostalgia for her late dictator father to victory in 2012, only to see her presidency crumble as millions of furious protesters filled the nation’s streets. The ruling also opens her up to possible criminal proceedings.
The Kremlin on Thursday rejected U.S. claims of Russian violations of a landmark nuclear arms treaty, saying it has respected the pact and will continue to do so.The controversy over the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty adds another thorn in the side for President Trump’s declared goal of improving ties with Moscow, coming at a time when his administration is facing questions over alleged contacts with Russia during the 2016 U.S. election campaign. Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday accused Russia of deploying a land-based cruise missile in violation of “the spirit and intent” of the treaty.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked Thursday whether Mexico will pay for President Trump’s planned wall along the United States’ southern border — a promise Trump repeated countless times during his 2016 presidential campaign. “Uh, no,” McConnell replied during a Politico Playbook breakfast in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning. While McConnell said he is in favor of “border security,” the Kentucky Republican also suggested that in some places, a border wall “is probably not the best way to secure the border.” Trump has said that due to natural barriers, his wall project would not need to be continuous. Lawmakers in border states have said that a physical wall is not enough to secure the border and that a combination of fencing, technology and patrol officers is needed in many areas. Trump has repeatedly vowed that Mexico would pay for his proposed wall despite public refusals by Mexican officials.
Legal challenges against President Trump’s revised travel ban mounted as Washington state said it would renew its request to block the executive order. State Attorney General Robert Ferguson told a news conference on Thursday he believes a court injunction against the Jan. 27 travel ban is still in effect and would apply to the new order. Washington state filed a lawsuit against Trump’s original ban, and a federal judge in Seattle ordered an emergency halt to the policy. A federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the judge’s ruling. Ferguson said it’s not the government but the court that gets to decide whether the revised order is different enough that it would not be covered by the previous temporary restraining order.
A 42-year-old Australian man who allegedly posed as Justin Bieber online to solicit explicit images from children has been charged with more than 900 child sex offenses. Bieber, a 23-year-old Canadian pop singer, is currently in Australia performing his “Purpose World Tour.” Police have warned young fans and their parents to be extra vigilant when using the Internet.
Determined House Republicans won early victories Thursday on divisive legislation to undo former President Barack Obama’s health care law, winning approval in key committees after marathon all-night sessions despite Democratic protests and intense opposition from doctors and consumer groups. The GOP scored triumphs in the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce panels after lengthy debate, as the committees approved legislation to reshape the way millions of Americans pay for medical care. As his committees wrapped up work on the legislation, House Speaker Paul Ryan sought to bolster support among conservatives in his own party. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said fellow Republicans must get in a “governing mode,” while Trump denied the bill was in trouble.
An Australian lake has turned a vivid pink thanks to extreme salt levels in a startling natural phenomenon that resembles a toxic spill. Parks Victoria chief conservation scientist Mark Norman said on Thursday that the spectacle was the result of green algae at the bottom of the lake responding to high levels of salt. He added that hot weather makes the salt concentrate further.
Utah could soon have the strictest DUI threshold in the nation. State lawmakers on Wednesday night voted to lower the limit for a driver’s blood-alcohol content to 0.05 percent, down from 0.08 percent. The measure now heads to Gov. Gary Herbert, who has said he supports the legislation. If he signs the bill, it will take effect Dec. 30, 2018, which would ensure the harsher standard is in place before alcohol-laden celebrations on New Year’s Eve. Opponents say the law will not make roads safer and that lawmakers should have focused instead on drivers with higher blood-alcohol content who cause most alcohol-related traffic deaths.
The Federal Communications Commission says it will investigate the root cause of an outage that prevented AT&T wireless customers in several states from connecting to 911. AT&T confirmed the outage at 9:49 p.m. ET on Tuesday after law enforcement agencies in several states — including Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia — and the District of Columbia informed residents about the outage, and suggested other ways to contact emergency services. Service to 911 was restored by about 10:30 p.m. ET.
Republicans on a pivotal House committee scored an initial triumph in their effort to scuttle former President Barack Obama’s health care law. In a predawn vote Thursday, they voted to abolish the tax penalty that the Affordable Care Act imposes on people who don’t purchase insurance, reshaping how millions of Americans buy medical care. The bill would replace income-based subsidies that the ACA provided with tax credits based more on age. Insurers would charge higher premiums for customers who drop coverage for over two months. Yet the Ways and Means panel’s approval of the health care legislation only masked deeper problems that GOP backers face within their own ranks and with hospitals, doctors and consumer groups.
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman reportedly plans to accept a role in President Trump’s administration as the U.S. ambassador to Russia — a high-profile and sensitive post amid investigations into contacts between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. Trump made the offer to Huntsman earlier this week, according to a White House official speaking anonymously. Huntsman is an interesting choice for the job, given several conflicts he has had with Trump and given the ongoing investigations into contacts between Trump’s team and the Kremlin. Huntsman’s selection comes after Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions has faced Democratic calls for his resignation after he did not say in his Senate confirmation hearing that he had had two conversations with that same ambassador. This would not be Huntsman’s first diplomatic role: He was the nation’s top diplomat to Singapore under President George H.W. Bush and then served in that role with China under President Barack Obama.
Republicans on a pivotal House committee scored an initial triumph in their effort to scuttle former President Barack Obama’s health care law. In a predawn vote Thursday, they voted to abolish the tax penalty that the Affordable Care Act imposes on people who don’t purchase insurance, reshaping how millions of Americans buy medical care. The bill would replace income-based subsidies that the ACA provided with tax credits based more on age. Insurers would charge higher premiums for customers who drop coverage for over two months. Yet the Ways and Means panel’s approval of the health care legislation only masked deeper problems that GOP backers face within their own ranks and with hospitals, doctors and consumer groups.
Just a two hours drive northwest of Tokyo, you can find one of the world’s most entertaining museums. It’s called the Chinsekikan, Japanese for ‘hall of curious rocks’, and inside, visitors can find more than 1,700 rocks that look peculiar in some way, 900 of which resemble faces. Among some of the celebrities housed at this Madame Tussaud’s for minerals are E.T., Elvis Presley, and, of course, Jesus Christ.
A video of a person claiming to be Kim Jong Nam’s son has surfaced, apparently the first time a family member has spoken about the assassination at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13. In the video, which was uploaded to the YouTube page of Cheollima Civil Defense, a young-looking man identifying himself as Kim Han Sol from North Korea says in English that his father was killed a few days ago and that he was with his mother and sister. There was no indication where or precisely when the video was made. The man, who appears alone against a plain background, opens up a passport and shows it to the camera to prove his identity, but the image of the page is obscured. South Korea’s intelligence agency confirmed the individual’s identity.
Donald Trump’s newly revised travel ban faced its first legal challenge late Tuesday evening as the state of Hawaii filed a request in federal court to revise a lawsuit previously lodged against the president’s first, failed ban. Trump’s new executive order, signed on Monday, bars new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries instead of seven and seeks to alleviate some of the complaints against the initial order, issued on Jan. 27, which was chaotically rolled out and subsequently halted by a federal court following a barrage of legal challenges.
A cinema chain has unveiled a new plan to entice families with young children — cinema screens with their own playgrounds inside. Cinépolis USA revealed plans to put a children’s playground in movie theaters. The first-of-its-kind design plops a 55-foot-long and 25-foot-high “play structure” inside the auditorium itself. There are also AstroTurfed areas for smaller children, hanging tires and animal sculptures to clamber on. Play is encouraged only in the 15 minutes prior to showtime.
Barcelona completed perhaps the most sensational comeback in soccer history by beating Paris Saint-Germain 6-1 to reach the Champions League quarterfinals on Wednesday, scoring the decisive goal of a 6-5 victory on aggregate in the fifth minute of stoppage time. Sergi Roberto’s dramatic late goal sent the Nou Camp wild and made Barcelona the first team ever to overturn a 4-0 first-leg defeat since the Champions League format started in the 1992-93 season. PSG seemed certain to go through after Edinson Cavani scored a valuable away goal following Barcelona’s opening salvo of three goals. Barcelona needed three more goals to advance, and the feat seemed impossible even after Neymar scored with a free kick in the 88th minute. But the Brazil striker scored a penalty in the 90th and then followed up with a chipped pass for substitute Roberto to steer the ball beyond goalkeeper Kevin Trapp in injury time. The winner sent Barcelona’s bench flooding onto the pitch as the stadium celebrated.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Wednesday that they have been aware since the end of last year of a security breach at the CIA that led to antisecrecy group WikiLeaks publishing agency documents on its hacking tools. The officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that they believed the documents published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday were authentic. Investigators were focusing on CIA contractors as the likely source of passing materials to WikiLeaks, the officials said.
President Trump may soon have one less thing to keep him up at night — Alec Baldwin may stop impersonating him on “Saturday Night Live.” Baldwin, who has frequently raised the president’s ire and ended up on the receiving end of some of the president’s tweets, said that he probably won’t continue the role much longer. In an interview with “Extra,” Baldwin said he might retire from playing the president, not because he was overworked or wanted to spend more time on his new book, but out of concern for the well-being of viewers.
A former British spy who compiled an explosive and unproven dossier on President Trump’s purported activities in Russia has returned to work. Christopher Steele said Tuesday he is “really pleased” to be back in his London office after a prolonged period out of public view. He went into hiding in January after his name was published in connection with the dossier. The 52-year-old runs London-based Orbis Business Intelligence, a private security firm. He made a statement outside the firm’s Central London office, thanking the public for its support and saying he won’t be making any further comments.
Winning NFL free agency often doesn’t translate into wins on the field. Check out the “Dream Team” the Philadelphia Eagles put together in 2011. They spent a ton of money on free agents and were favorites to win the division and contend for a Super Bowl, but they went 8-8 that season and 4-12 the next. Lesson learned? No way. The overall crop of free agents this year is mediocre, but teams will still overspend for players the same way Philadelphia did before. Many are looking for quick fixes or the one guy who can be a difference maker.
George Michael died of natural causes as the result of heart disease and a fatty liver, a British coroner said Tuesday. Darren Salter, senior coroner for the county of Oxfordshire in southern England, said a postmortem has found that the iconic singer died of “dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and fatty liver.” Dilated cardiomyopathy is a condition in which the left ventricle of the heart becomes stretched and weakened, limiting the heart’s ability to pump blood. Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle. The former Wham! singer-songwriter was found dead at his country home in Oxfordshire on Dec. 25. He was 53.
President Trump and his top health official praised the new House Republican health care legislation Tuesday, even as surging conservative opposition complicated party leaders’ drive to sell the proposal to rank-and-file lawmakers and the public. Trump’s morning tweet lauding “our wonderful new Healthcare Bill” kicked off the day. Yet by lunchtime, conservative lawmakers and others were blasting the bill, underscoring the challenge Republicans face in pushing one of their top priorities to passage. The legislation would primarily affect some 20 million people who purchase their own private health plans directly from an insurer and the more than 70 million covered by Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people.
A juror’s use of racial or ethnic slurs during deliberations over a defendant’s guilt can be a reason for breaching the centuries-old legal principle of secrecy in the jury room, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The court ruled 5-3 in a Colorado case in which a juror reportedly tied defendant Miguel Angel Pena Rodriguez’s guilt to his Hispanic heritage. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said the need to erase racial prejudice from legal proceedings overrides long-standing policies aimed at keeping jury deliberations generally off-limits in bids to overturn verdicts. The juror’s statements came to light only after Pena Rodriguez was convicted of inappropriately touching teenage girls.
Former President Barack Obama is planning a secret Communist coup to overthrow the United States government. At least, that’s what Google says. The California-based search giant is being criticized because of how it promotes fake news and wild conspiracy theories through its “featured snippets in search” functionality. The feature automatically pulls in short answers to common queries from popular websites. When it works, it leads to the search engine helpfully answering questions without requiring the user to click a further link, but when it doesn’t, it pulls from sites sharing fake news or propaganda or serves up simple falsehoods.
Veterinarians in Bangkok operated Monday on the 25-year-old female green sea turtle nicknamed “Bank,” whose indigestible diet was a result of many tourists seeking good fortune tossing coins into her pool over many years in the eastern town of Sri Racha. The loose change eventually formed a heavy ball in her stomach, and the weight cracked the turtle’s ventral shell, causing a life-threatening infection. The vets said they believed the seven-hour operation was the world’s first such surgery. Typically, a green sea turtle, which is listed as an endangered animal, has a lifespan of around 80 years, said Roongroje Thanawongnuwech, dean of Chulalongkorn University’s veterinary faculty.
President Trump signed a revised executive order on Monday banning citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from traveling to the U.S. but removing Iraq from the list, after his controversial first attempt was blocked in the courts. To hedge off legal challenges, the new ban clarifies that green card holders will not be affected, but it keeps a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It does not, however, single out Syria with an indefinite ban, as did the first measure. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the new order would take effect on March 16, a delay aimed to limit the kind of disruption created by the original order. It may also serve to distract attention from the administration’s rolling crises on ties with Russia. The first order sparked chaos and protests at airports, but members of Trump’s Cabinet say the ban is “vital” to national security.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled legislation on Monday to repeal the central tenets of the Obamacare healthcare law, including its expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and a cap on federal funding for Medicaid going forward. The plan would repeal the law’s fines on people who don’t purchase health insurance. Instead of the statute’s income-based premium subsidies, people would get tax credits based on age. The subsidies would phase out for higher-earning people. The bill also proposes to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood — but the White House dangled the offer that if the organization discontinues providing abortions it can keep its funds. No federal funding goes toward abortion, according to the non-profit.
Resisting the urge to overreact to NFL scouting combine numbers is an exercise in restraint, but sometimes it’s just futile. Case in point: Myles Garrett. The Texas A&M pass rusher entered Indy as the presumed favorite to be picked first by the Cleveland Browns, and he will leave town likely even more entrenched in that position. The only thing that might change this is if the Browns — these are the Browns, yes — were to trade the pick. And yes, they’re fielding offers for No. 1, but it might take even more to get it now.
The FBI will help investigate the shooting of a Sikh man who said a gunman approached him as he worked on his car in his suburban Seattle driveway and told him “go back to your own country,” authorities said Sunday. Kent Police Chief Ken Thomas said no arrests have yet been after the victim was shot in the arm Friday night about 20 miles south of Seattle but that he did not believe anyone was in imminent danger. India’s foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj, identified the victim on Twitter early Sunday, saying, “I am sorry to know about the attack on Deep Rai, a U.S. national of Indian origin.” She said she had spoken to Rai’s father, who told her Rai is out of danger and recovering in a hospital.
Russian news reports say curious and pious people are visiting a bust of the last czar in the Crimean capital after reports spread that the sculpture appeared to be weeping. The bust of Nicholas II was erected near the Crimean prosecutor’s office in Simferopol in 2016, two years after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine. Nicholas II, like previous czars, is considered a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church. Reports of statues and other inanimate objects appearing to weep periodically surface in various religions. Natalia Poklonskaya, the former Crimean prosecutor, called the appearance of moisture “a miracle that neither scientists or anyone can explain.” She noted that it corresponds with the 100th anniversary of Nicholas II’s abdication from power. “The sovereign in helping us,” she said Friday on Tsargrad TV.
British actress Emma Watson hit back at critics who said she betrayed her feminist ideals by posing for a revealing picture in Vanity Fair magazine where parts of her breasts were exposed. Watson, the “Harry Potter” movie series co-star and pioneer of the HeForShe campaign to make men advocate for feminism, talked about the photo shoot for the magazine while promoting her latest film, the Disney live action “Beauty and the Beast.” “It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is,” she said in an interview with Reuters.
President Donald Trump turned to Congress on Sunday for help finding evidence to support his unsubstantiated claim that former President Barack Obama had Trump’s telephones tapped during the election. Obama’s intelligence chief said no such action was ever carried out. Republican leaders of Congress appeared willing to honor the president’s request, but the move has potential risks for the president, particularly if the House and Senate intelligence committees unearth damaging information about Trump, his aides or his associates. FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department “to publicly reject” Trump’s assertion that Obama ordered the tapping of Trump’s phones, the New York Times reported Sunday. “Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected,” the paper said, citing “senior American officials” as its source. Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said nothing matching Trump’s claims had taken place.
One Direction star Louis Tomlinson has been arrested for allegedly attacking a photographer at Los Angeles International Airport, an incident the singer’s lawyer described as “provoked” by paparazzi. The incident happened Friday after Tomlinson, arriving on a flight with his girlfriend, Eleanor Calder, asked a photographer to stop filming. After an alleged scuffle, the photographer made a citizen’s arrest of Tomlinson. Tomlinson was released, and a court date was set for March 29.
North Carolina’s new Democratic governor and majority Republican legislature are charging at each other in a constitutional game of chicken over their powers, a confrontation that could shape the recent conservative direction of state policies and spending. The confrontation continues Tuesday, when the two branches of state government appear for a court hearing before the third. A panel of three trial judges will gather in Raleigh to hear lawyers for Gov. Roy Cooper dispute attorneys for the state House and Senate leaders over whether new laws are constitutional.
President Trump is telling advisers and allies that he may shelve, at least temporarily, his plan to pursue a deal with Moscow on the Islamic State group and other national security matters, according to administration officials and Western diplomats. In conversations with diplomats and other officials, Trump and his aides have ascribed the new thinking to Moscow’s recent provocations. But the reconsideration of a central tenet of his foreign policy underscores the growing political risks in forging closer relations with Russia, as long as the FBI investigates his campaign associates’ connections to Moscow and congressional committees step up their inquiries into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Uber has been wielding a secret weapon to thwart authorities who have been trying to curtail or shut down its ride-hailing service in cities around the world. The program included a feature nicknamed “Greyball” internally that identified regulators who were posing as riders while trying to collect evidence that Uber’s service was breaking local laws governing taxis. To stymie those efforts, Uber served up a fake version of its app to make it appear the undercover regulators were summoning a car, only to have the ride canceled. The San Francisco company mined the data that it collects through its real app to pinpoint the undercover agents.
President Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of having Trump Tower telephones “wire tapped” during last year’s election, a startling claim that Obama’s spokesman said was false. Trump did not offer any evidence or details, or say what prompted him to make the allegation. Trump, whose administration has been under siege over campaign contacts with Russian officials, said in a series of early morning tweets that he “just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!’
Nintendo’s Switch console went on sale Friday in a global launch seen as key to the Japanese video game giant reversing flagging sales and moving past the failure of its last console, the Wii U. The new, $299 unit, which works both at home and on the go, blends the Super Mario maker’s history in the console and handheld device business with its fledgling mobile gaming strategy, which got a big brand win after Pokemon Go’s success last summer. Eager gamers queued up from early Friday morning at stores across Japan as Switch went on sale around 9 a.m. local time.
Activist and actress Jane Fonda has spoken for the first time about being raped and sexually abused as a child, saying she was raised with “the disease to please” others. The two-time Oscar winner made the comments in a conversation with actress Brie Larson for the Net-a-Porter magazine the Edit. The interview is intended to mark International Women’s Day on March 8. Fonda, 79, a longtime outspoken advocate of women’s rights, said it had taken her years to stand up for herself in Hollywood on issues such as pay and the roles she took.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin used his first senior staff meeting last month to tell his new aides he would not tolerate leaks to the news media, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Current and former officials said that in a departure from past practice, access to a classified computer system at the White House has been tightened by political appointees to prevent professional staffers from seeing memos being prepared for the new president. And at the Department of Homeland Security, some officials told Reuters they fear a witch hunt is under way for the leaker of a draft intelligence report which found little evidence that citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries covered by Trump’s now-suspended travel ban pose a threat to the United States.
If you’re a “Star Trek” (or “X-Men”) fan or a Democrat, here’s news for you. Patrick Stewart has found a silver lining to Donald Trump’s election as president: Stewart is applying to become a United States citizen. The actor best known as Professor Xavier and Captain Picard revealed the news on The View, where Stewart was promoting “Logan,” the final standalone Wolverine film, which opens Friday. The 76-year-old British star said that he and his wife went to Washington last month to visit friends and to ask them what they could do about Trump. He said the only answer was to “fight” and “oppose” Trump, but he can’t do that because he’s not a citizen.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions may not have been clear about his contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 election, but this much is evident: the controversy over possible Kremlin involvement in American politics is not going to fade away anytime soon. An avalanche of new revelations about ties between President Trump’s aides and Russia forced the White House back on the defensive Friday, overshadowing a presidential weekend trip to Florida and his well-received speech to Congress. Before heading to his Mar-a-Lago resort for the fourth time in five weeks, Trump accused his political foes of conducting “a total witch hunt” into links with Moscow, which he denies.
Syrian troops backed by Russian jets completed the recapture of the historic city of Palmyra from the Islamic State group Thursday, the Kremlin and the Syrian army said, in another blow to the jihadists. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the jihadists had totally withdrawn from the desert city, but not before mining several areas. The oasis city has changed hands several times during Syria’s six-year civil war and become a symbol of ISIS’ wanton destruction of priceless cultural heritage in areas under its control. Moscow’s support has been key in the Syrian army’s Palmyra push. After losing ground in the early years of the war, Syria’s controversial President Bashar Assad’s regime has regained significant territory thanks in large part to Russian assistance.
A year after making season-long headlines for kneeling during the national anthem, Colin Kaepernick plans on standing for the anthem next season, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Kaepernick, according to Schefter, believes his protest drew enough attention to the social injustice he was trying to highlight, and he no longer wants the protest to “detract from the positive change that he believes has been created.” Kaepernick caused a stir last season when he was seen sitting on the bench or kneeling during the national anthem before games for the San Francisco 49ers. Kaepernick told reporters that it was a protest he took up to draw attention to social inequality.
Former Spokane, Wash., NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal, who resigned amid criticism that she was passing herself off as black, has changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo. Court documents show a judge granted her request on Oct. 7, 2016. Her new name has origins in Africa. The former Dolezal has acknowledged that she is “Caucasian biologically” but says she identifies as black. Her race became a national topic of conversation in 2015 after a local news reporter questioned her on camera about her background. She told Britain’s Guardian newspaper last week that she can’t find a job and the only work she has been offered is in reality TV and porn. Her memoir is set to be released later this month.
Under growing pressure from Democrats and Republicans alike, Attorney General Jeff Sessions agreed Thursday to recuse himself from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. His action followed revelations he twice met with the Russian ambassador and didn’t say so when pressed by Congress. Sessions rejected any suggestion that he tried to mislead anyone about his contacts with the ambassador, saying in a press conference, “That is not my intent. That is not correct.” He did allow, though, that he should have been more careful in his testimony.
The White House is proposing to slash a quarter of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, targeting climate-change programs and those designed to prevent air and water pollution like lead contamination, a source with direct knowledge of the proposal said on Thursday. President Trump has long signaled his intention to reverse former Democratic President Barack Obama’s climate-change initiatives. But the Republican president has vowed his planned overhaul of green regulation would not jeopardize America’s water and air quality.
Betsy DeVos, the controversial newly appointed secretary of education, is facing scorn on Capitol Hill and around the country after releasing a statement that compared the emergence of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), amid pervasive and overt racial exclusion, with the battle for “school choice.” In a statement tied to a listening session with HBCU leaders, DeVos said HBCUs “are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality.” DeVos appeared to be trying to make the point, popular with conservatives, that when schools operate in a marketplace, they tend to fill the otherwise unserved needs of students.
New Orleans Saints running back Mark Ingram and three teammates said on Monday that they were denied entry to a London club for being “too urban.” Ingram, who won the Heisman Trophy as a member of Alabama, said on Twitter that he had a reserved table at Cirque le Soir, a circus-themed spot in Soho in Central London. He, along with Sterling Moore, Vonn Bell, B.W. Webb, and two others, were reportedly denied entry. The players detailed the situation on Twitter. “They told us they were '6 big guys’ that are too 'Urban’ but nobody taller than 5'11!!” Ingram tweeted, followed by a few relevant emoji. The Saints play the Miami Dolphins in London this season. Ingram said the incident wouldn’t affect his excitement for the game or his affection for the country.
Rates of colon and rectal cancer are rising sharply among young and middle-aged adults in the United States, but doctors have yet to pinpoint why, researchers said Tuesday. The report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that Generation X and millennials face anywhere from twice to four times the risk of colon and rectal cancer as their baby boomer counterparts. Experts say colon and rectal cancer can be inherited and can also be influenced by the high-fat, low-fiber diets that are common in the Western world. Screening for colorectal cancer is generally not recommended for people under age 50 unless they have a family history of the disease. Rebecca Siegel, a researcher with the American Cancer Society, said current screening practices might warrant a second look
President Donald Trump will issue a broad call for overhauling the nation’s health care system and revving up the U.S. economy when he delivers his first address to Congress Tuesday night. But he could leave anxious lawmakers with few specific guidelines for tackling the complicated legislative priorities that have divided his own Republican Party. In one surprise given his history of anti-immigrant rhetoric as a candidate and action as president, Trump may also voice support for immigration legislation, a senior administration official said ahead of the address. The White House offered no details about what the president would want in such a measure, including whether he would support a path to citizenship or legalization for millions of people in the U.S. illegally.
The FBI is investigating the shooting last week of two Indian workers at a bar in Kansas as a hate crime. A white U.S. Navy veteran has been charged in the shooting, which resulted in the death of one of the men and the wounding of the other, as well as an American who sought to intervene. Adam Purinton, 51, is accused of killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, and wounding Alok Madasani, also 32, as well as Ian Grillot, who tried to intervene last week at Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, a Kansas City suburb.