President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has been actively considering ways to revamp a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill high-skilled jobs, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Possibilities for reforming the distribution of H-1B visas, which are used largely by the tech industry, were discussed at a meeting last month with chief executives of tech companies at Trump Tower, said two sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to talk about the closed-door talks. DON'T MISS Pharma grapples with drug price backlash DOJ to examine FBI actions in Clinton email probe Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller proposed scrapping the existing lottery system used to award the visas. A possible replacement system would favor visa petitions for jobs that pay the highest salaries, according to the sources. H-1B visas are intended for foreign nationals in "specialty" occupations that generally require higher education, which according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) includes, but is not limited to, scientists, engineers or computer programmers. The government awards 65,000 every year. Companies say they use them to recruit top talent. But a majority of the visas are awarded to outsourcing firms, sparking criticism by skeptics that say those firms use the visas to fill lower-level information technology jobs. Critics also say the lottery system benefits outsourcing firms that flood the system with mass applications. The H-1B visa program tends to be more critical to outsourcing firms than U.S. tech firms. For instance, more than 60 percent of the U.S. employees of Indian outsourcing firm Infosys (INFY.NS) are H-1B holders, and the company in its annual report has cited an increase in visa costs as among factors that could hurt its profitability. The top 10 recipients of H-1B visas in 2015 were all outsourcing firms, according to government data compiled by the IEEE-USA, a professional organization representing U.S. engineers. Sixty-five percent of H-1B petitions approved in the 2014 fiscal year went to tech workers, mostly from India, according to USCIS. In several high-profile cases, American workers were asked to train H-1B holders to do their jobs before being laid off themselves. The idea advanced by Miller in the tech meeting has also been pushed by the IEEE-USA. Miller previously served as a staffer for Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for attorney general, who has been an outspoken critic of abuses of the H-1B program. Trump, who has applied for H-1B visas to bring in foreign workers to his own businesses sent mixed messages about the program on the campaign trail. He assailed it for taking jobs from U.S. workers, but during a Republican debate last March said he was "softening" his position "because we have to have talented people in this country." He later issued a statement on his website saying he would "end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program." Trump businesses, like Trump National Golf Club and Trump Model Management, have received permission to bring in more than two dozen foreign employees on H-1B visas since 2011, according to Department of Labor data. During the meeting last month in New York, Trump seemed to be searching for middle ground, and members of his transition team raised specific proposals, the two sources said. A third source familiar with the talks said the Trump team has also discussed the plan to change the lottery system internally. There were more than a dozen top tech executives from some of the country's largest tech companies, including Google (GOOGL.O), Facebook (FB.O) and Apple (AAPL.O), present at the meeting. Microsoft (MSFT.O) CEO Satya Nadella said technology companies need to be able to recruit talent from abroad when necessary. Trump seemed open to modifying the H-1B program, the sources said. He said he wanted to stop "bad people" from immigrating to the United States, not "great people," according to one account of the meeting. Among proposals the group discussed was raising the cost of applications from large companies as a way to discourage bulk filing for the visas. Asked by Trump if they would object to that, none of the tech CEOs said they would. "In our view, the president-elect is not hostile to H-1B visas," said one of the sources familiar with discussions at the meeting. While Trump could initiate some changes to the visa program with executive action, significant shifts would likely need to go through a lengthy formal rulemaking process, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell Law School. Major changes would likely be subject to court challenges, he said. Other reforms, like changing the visa cap or offering more green cards to high-tech workers, could require Congressional action, Yale-Loehr said. A wide variety of companies, including Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO), use the H-1B visa program to bring in employees from abroad.


Venezuela's socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro claimed on national television Saturday that the nation's opposition was "murdering its own protesters," listing individuals killed by Venezuelan soldiers and Chavista gangs and blaming the leadership of the opposition for staging the deaths to garner support for their cause. [Maduro did not present any evidence to justify his claim. "These protests today are only in one percent of the nation," Maduro claimed on state television. "They are more violent than ever, you have all seen cases where they have murdered their own protesters. " He listed three cases of alleged staged murders, two shot to death and a third allegedly electrocuted. "If it weren't for Julio Borges and the MUD none of these tragedies would have happened," he alleged. Borges is the president of the National Assembly, the federal legislative body, and a party leader in the coalition known as the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). He has personally been the victim of state violence, beaten by a Chavista gang (colectivo) near the entrance of the National Assembly building in 2016. The gang succeeded in breaking his nose. Maduro also blamed Borges personally in a separate video segment for allegedly sending a gang to kidnap a bus driver. Maduro did not explain who kidnapped the driver or why, but by Monday, Venezuelan state television was showcasing a photo opportunity with Maduro and the driver, identified as Leonardo Leconte, on its online front page. At least 39 people have been killed in this most recent wave of protests, which began in March following an attempt by the Supreme Court to nullify the National Assembly and establish itself as the chief lawmaking body. The Venezuelan newspaper El Universal lists among them two of the most recent cases that align with the descriptions Maduro used in his remarks: Miguel Fernando Castillo Bracho, 27, and Anderson Dugarte, 38, who were both shot to death. The odds of opposition members being responsible for these shootings are barely existent, however, because of Venezuela's strict laws. The opposition is almost completely unarmed, as the private ownership of firearms is banned. Only criminal gangs and colectivos, some of whom operate as official paramilitaries, have the firearms used in these circumstances. In 2014, Maduro opened "disarmament centers" to pressure the few remaining civilians possessing weapons to return them. Three years later, Maduro promised a firearm to every Chavista who swore to use them against the opposition, setting a goal of distributing one million firearms to "militiamen" working for the government. Many other protester deaths cannot be explained as deeds of the opposition. Among the most notable are the protesters the military has killed on Maduro's orders. In one particularly gruesome incident caught on video, soldiers ran unarmed protesters over using large armored vehicles, killing at least three. Others among the 39 died without even meaning to protest, among them Ricarda González, who died asphyxiated by tear gas in her home. Only the military has access to tear gas and has used it liberally against protesters. Maduro's claim that the opposition is killing their own people recalls propaganda tactics used by its allies in the Middle East. The government of Iran, a longtime Chavista ally, has been particularly bold in denying violence that investigators have traced back to them. In 2015, when Uruguayan officials accused the Iranian government of using employees at its embassy to plant explosives near the Israeli embassy in Montevideo, Iranian officials accused Israel of bombing its own embassy to "create Iranophobia and tarnish the Islamic Republic's international image. " "Tehran has said in the past that Tel Aviv has ordered attacks against its own embassies in India and Georgia in order to damage Iran's image in the host countries," the Iranian government said at the time. Similarly, another ally of Tehran's, Syria's Bashar has accused Syrian rebels of attacking its own to frame his government for assorted human rights abuses. Following a Syrian government chemical weapons attack on civilians in April, Assad said the United States and Syrian rebels "fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack [a U. S. airstrike against the Syrian air force]. " Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.


Blockbuster Audio From '06 of Hillary Proposing RIGGING Palestine Election Observer  On September 5, 2006, Eli Chomsky was an editor and staff writer for the Jewish Press, and Hillary Clinton was running for a shoo-in re-election as a U.S. senator. Her trip making the rounds of editorial boards brought her to Brooklyn to meet the editorial board of the Jewish Press.The tape was never released and has only been heard by the small handful of Jewish Press staffers in the room. According to Chomsky, his old-school audiocassette is the only existent copy and no one has heard it since 2006, until today when he played it for the Observer.The tape is 45 minutes and contains much that is no longer relevant, such as analysis of the re-election battle that Sen. Joe Lieberman was then facing in Connecticut. But a seemingly throwaway remark about elections in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority has taken on new relevance amid persistent accusations in the presidential campaign by Clinton's Republican opponent Donald Trump that the current election is "rigged."Hillary Clinton listens to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speak during the third U.S. presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center on October 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Hillary Clinton listens to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speak during the third U.S. presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center on October 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats)."I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake," said Sen. Clinton. "And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win."


In this episode, we depart from the familiar format for a dive into the world of music streaming services. It is a topic that fascinates the Haggler, who can still barely fathom that for a mere $10 a month, he can get access to just about any musical recording on the planet. But which streaming app is the best? The Haggler has been mulling this question for a while, and after a lot of dabbling he regards Spotify as the gold standard. It is sturdy and remarkably fast when you play a song from the cloud, it starts so quickly it seems to be waiting for you. The system is also easy to use. Streaming services, at least to the Haggler, are all about creating playlists — grabbing albums and songs and putting them in a place where you can find them quickly. That process is simple and intuitive on Spotify. If the system has a weakness, it is a user interface, which is black and a Halloweenish shade of green — a little too goth for the Haggler's tastes. Far more important, it isn't great at introducing you to new albums and acts. It has features and algorithms designed to help you find undiscovered music, but they aren't compelling or visually appealing enough to be much help. The Haggler winds up listening to the same stuff over and over. This is why the Haggler has been rooting for Apple Music since an Android version of it was unveiled in November. The user interface is gorgeous — bright, airy and dominated by album art — and it is the finest new music introduction system ever created. It's like a professional matchmaker who never sleeps. It is always trying to find you something to love. But for all its upsides, Apple Music for iOS has been criticized for randomly deleting both songs and playlists. On Android, though, the app behaves even more weirdly. It took the Haggler a while to figure out what was happening. Then, a few weeks ago, it all became clear: Apple Music is stoned. Not stoned, either. Apple Music is fried. It has the kind of "Where am I?" buzz that should worry its friends. To wit: When the Haggler tries to turn an album into a playlist, only half the songs make the journey. Or all the songs make the journey but there are three copies of many. Or two copies. Sometimes, inexplicably, the songs are arranged alphabetically. "Heh heh heh," says Apple Music, or so it seems to the Haggler's ears. "I'm really high right now. " You sure are! Just as bad, the system is supposed to learn what music you like, but no matter how many times the Haggler presses the "I don't like this suggestion" button on jazz albums, Apple Music keeps serving up Chet Baker and Bill Evans in a "For you" list on the main menu. That's especially vexing because each time that button is pressed, up pops this message: "Got it. We'll keep that in mind. " But Apple Music forgets. Do you know why? It's totally baked. When someone consumes this amount of weed, for so long, it's time for an intervention, and fortunately Apple Music just completed one. On July 8, the company updated the program, promising a fix for an assortment of bugs. A fix for the iOS version was released a few weeks ago. The Haggler doesn't own an iPhone, so he can't comment on whether it has improved, though the "My music has vanished!" online complaints do seem to have died down. But he is happy to report that on his Android smartphone, the fixes work. Since the program update, playlists have been rationally sorted. No more triple copies, no more alphabetized albums. So is it time to ditch Spotify? Not so fast. Apple Music is still missing essential features. It doesn't let users make and share their own playlists, à la Spotify, which is how the Haggler got to know every song from the HBO show "Silicon Valley. " (Some fan of the show just made a compilation.) Apple Music also lacks crossfade, which allows the next song to fade in, over a customizable number of seconds, as the last song fades out. This is invaluable if you listen to music in part to block out the noise made by the rest of the universe. Also, while it's off recreational drugs, Apple Music is still balkier than Spotify, and is more likely to leave you staring at a spinning red line as it gathers its wits and looks for songs. And Apple Music has failed to streamline its playlist adding system. On Spotify, a playlist of Drake's album "Views" is automatically designated "Drake — Views. " On Apple Music, when you create a new playlist, it has no idea what to call it. The name is blank. So you have to type it yourself. This isn't exactly hard labor. But it adds to the sense that Apple Music needs more tweaks. The Haggler contacted Apple, but the company would not discuss whether any of these tweaks were coming, because it generally does not discuss future iterations of products. What's odd is that Apple is the user interface master of the world. If anything, you would expect it to take the bar established by Spotify and then leap over it. Instead, at least in a few crucial areas, it's lagging. Yet recently, after a few hours of rummaging around the "Radio" section of Apple Music — a bunch of shows curated by artists and D. J. s — the Haggler fell hard for a fantastic indie band from Oklahoma called Broncho and its song "Class Historian. " On Dr. Dre's radio station, the Pharmacy, he was reacquainted with A Tribe Called Quest's "Oh My God" which he hadn't heard in years. The "For you" list last week included an album of Beethoven's string trios that the Haggler will never again live without. If only someone could splice together the best parts of Apple Music and the best parts of Spotify, and then subtract each of their flaws. Unlikely, yes. But the Haggler can dream.


The youngest son of former vice presidential candidate and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine was arrested in Minnesota last weekend for his alleged role in an organized riot against Donald Trump and his policies. [Authorities discovered that Linwood Michael Kaine, 24, had planned his participation in a in St. Paul, Minnesota, against a rally in a clash that led to scuffles and the arrest of six people: WATCH: 'March 4 Trump' participants and counterprotesters engage in dueling chants at MN Capitol rotunda https: . — KSTP (@KSTP) March 4, 2017, According to St. Paul police spokesman Steve Linders, Kaine, who goes by the name Woody, "turned around and squared up to fight with the officer" as police tried to detain him. "The officer was able to place Mr. Kaine under arrest and take him to the Ramsey County jail for booking," the police spokesperson confirmed: Tim Kaine's son arrested after allegedly disrupting rally https: . pic. twitter. — CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) March 8, 2017, During the rally, which approximately 400 people and 50 attended, a Plymouth woman was hit in the head by a moving object, although she remained unharmed. In a statement, Sen. Tim Kaine ( ) who grew up in St. Paul, did not condemn his son's actions. "We love that our three children have their own views and concerns about current political issues. They fully understand the responsibility to express those concerns peacefully," Kaine said. The rally in Minnesota was one of many rallies to take place nationwide, as people expressed their support for Trump and his administration's agenda. Despite inaccurate media reports that the riots were an outgrowth of the protests themselves, the majority of rallies were peaceful. However, violence did break out in Berkeley, California, after activists disrupted the rally. Ten people were arrested while an elderly man lay in agony after being . You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com.


Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is busy criss-crossing the nation to spread his message of small government fanaticism, but his own state just got a lesson in why the federal government isn t just important, it can be lifesaving.While Cruz spent his time making offensive jokes about trans people this week, Texas has been hit with a horrific run of severe weather. Many areas of the state, particularly in Harris County, have seen their homes and jobs literally washed away in major flooding. The severe weather, which saw parts of major cities like Houston and Austin go underwater, is estimated to cost over $5 billion.Cruz, whose typical response to tragedy involves tweeting thoughts and prayers to the victims, has offered little else. Meanwhile, President Obama and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have gotten to work. This week, Obama approved federal disaster relief funding to the parts of Texas affected by the flooding.Federal assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster. The presidential disaster declaration, which includes all of Harris County, allows FEMA and other federal agencies to begin providing relief to individuals affected by this most recent flood. Harris County continues to work with local nonprofit and volunteer organizations to provide immediate relief, said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.Cruz, of course, famously voted against giving similar aid to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy (which may explain why New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wanted nothing to do with endorsing Cruz for president). His logic was that states should be left on their own, and federal aid was little more than government overreach. Citing the potential aid package s extra funding for other government projects a standard procedure Cruz said at the time: This bill is symptomatic of a larger problem in Washington an addiction to spending money we do not have. The United States Senate should not be in the business of exploiting victims of natural disasters to fund pork projects that further expand our debt. Some of the pork projects included funding scientific research into extreme weather events that scientists had hope to be able to help states avoid future disasters. Or as Cruz calls it wasteful spending. Despite Cruz s adherence to strict no hand outs when it came to other states, Texas being a massive state with tens of millions of people and lots of potential disasters has always stuck out its own hand when it came time for help.The recent onslaught of floods in Texas come at a bad time for Cruz politically. It certainly undermines his nearly pathological aversion to the federal government. It might be just the thing to remind people that Ted Cruz infamously shut down the very government that they are now counting on to help them rebuild after a horrific natural disaster. Suddenly reading Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor to avoid funding the government doesn t seem so noble, does it?


BloombergIn the hours after the president is elected, equity investors need to brace for volatility. What they shouldn t do is panic.That s because regardless of how prices react on Nov. 9, next-day moves in the S&P 500 Index are useless in telling what comes after.While the index swings an average 1.5 percent the day after the vote, gains or losses over the first 24 hours predict the market s direction 12 months later less than half the time.This matters because the compulsion to act in the vote s aftermath is often very strong stocks swing twice as violently as normal those days, data compiled by Bloomberg show. They plummeted 5 percent just after Barack Obama beat John McCain in 2008. But while nothing says Wednesday s reaction won t be a harbinger for the year, nothing says it will, either, and investors should think before doing anything rash. Trying to trade that is very difficult, said Thomas Melcher, the Philadelphia-based chief investment officer at PNC Asset Management Group. Even if the market sells off, if you have any reasonable time horizon, that should be a buying opportunity. The dust will settle and people will conclude the economy is OK. In the 22 elections going back to 1928, the S&P 500 has fallen 15 times the day after polls close, for an average loss of 1.8 percent Continue this story at BloombergREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files


TIJUANA, Mexico — Even before President Trump decided to build the wall, this Mexican border city was already overwhelmed. So many Haitian migrants, traveling across the Americas, began arriving here last year with hopes of crossing into the United States that churches, community halls, programs, rehabilitation centers and private citizens have opened their doors to house, feed and clothe them. In one shelter, about 250 migrants — men, women and children — share two toilets and one shower. Four hundred are crammed into a church. A soup kitchen sleeps hundreds in hallways, a pantry and a lot out back. Now, some officials and advocates worry that Mr. Trump's plan could spur immigration crises in towns and cities all along the border and, indeed, throughout Mexico. The Mexican government, they say, may not be able to handle it. Mr. Trump is seeking to tighten the border, restrict immigration and increase deportations from the United States. In announcing his actions this week, the president said they would "help Mexico by deterring illegal immigration. " "Going to be very, very good for Mexico," he declared. Yet some international officials and advocates envision a potential nightmare for the country. A growing number of people have been streaming north from Central America, fleeing violence and poverty in their homelands. Nearly 409, 000 were caught trying to cross the southwestern border of the United States illegally in the 2016 fiscal year, a 23 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, according to American government statistics. And the trend has continued over the past few months. As more migrants are blocked at the American border and more undocumented immigrants are deported from the United States, border communities in Mexico could be overwhelmed, migrant shelters could overflow, the ranks of the unemployed could swell, and Mexico will bear the strain, officials and advocates say. "It's worrying us," said Christopher Gascon, chief of the Mexico office for the International Organization for Migration. "How Mexico can handle that is going to be a whole new area of concern. I don't think the absorptive capacity is there. " Even before this week, Mexico was facing extraordinary migration pressures. The waves of Central Americans heading north were severely testing Mexico's border patrol in the south of the country and led to a sharp increase in the number of people applying for asylum in Mexico, with applications more than doubling from 2015 to 2016. Mexican officials were also scrambling to develop a strategy in case Mr. Trump made good on his promises to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants, a population that includes millions of Mexicans. An intergovernmental group began on Monday to study ways to help integrate deportees into Mexican society. Beyond that, recent changes in American policy during the Obama administration had already contributed to the surge in Haitian migrants, as well as to a separate wave of Cuban migrants. Thousands of Cubans found themselves stranded in Mexico and Central America this month after the Obama administration ended a longstanding policy that favored Cubans. Under American pressure, President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico had been trying to stanch the flow of migrants heading through his country, starting the Southern Border Program in 2014 in an attempt to control the movement of people and goods crossing the border with Guatemala. The plan contributed to a doubling of deportations between 2013, before it was enacted, and 2016. Nearly all the deportees in recent years have been from Central America. But the country's borders remain highly porous. The International Organization for Migration estimates that between 400, 000 and 500, 000 undocumented migrants transit through the country every year, about 90 percent of them Central Americans. Here in the state of Baja California, the migrant crisis has highlighted the Mexican government's limited capacity to deal with the challenges. Haitian migrants, traveling from Brazil, began arriving in this border city last spring. For a while, the Haitians had little trouble crossing into the United States. In recognition of the troubles in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake there, American border officials allowed undocumented Haitians to enter under a humanitarian parole provision, with permission to stay for as long as three years. The migrants filled the handful of longstanding migrant shelters and cheap hotels in Tijuana while they waited, often for weeks, for their appointments with American border officials. Then in late September, the Obama administration suddenly announced that it was fully resuming the deportations of Haitians, hoping the policy change would dissuade more Haitians from migrating. Still, the Haitians kept coming. As the Haitian migrant population has ballooned — there are now about 4, 500 Haitians in Tijuana and elsewhere in northern Baja California — the Mexican authorities have resisted pleas to open a emergency shelter. More than 30 shelters are providing for the Haitians, yet none are . Most of the burden of sheltering, feeding, clothing and caring for the nonstop stream of Haitians has fallen to civil society groups and individuals, who have accused the government of doing too little too late. This month, a coalition of the main shelters in Tijuana and Mexicali sent a letter to Mr. Peña Nieto demanding a more robust federal "intervention" to address the crisis. The shelters have yet to receive a reply, they said. Advocacy and humanitarian groups in Tijuana filed a complaint this week with the National Human Rights Commission alleging that federal officials had violated the migrants' human rights "in a widespread and repeated manner" by failing to address the crisis. Federal officials have rejected the criticism that they have been neglectful. "Is there room to do more? Yes," Rodulfo Figueroa Pacheco, chief of the Baja California office of the federal migration agency, said in an interview last week, before the complaint was filed. "It's been a struggle. " "But," he added, "it isn't true that the governments have been unresponsive. " The crisis, now in its ninth month, has been a crushing burden on the shelters. The migrant population at one longstanding shelter, Movimiento Juventud 2000, with capacity for about 25 people, soared to about 250, many of them living in donated tents in an adjoining lot that becomes a swale of mud when it rains. Iglesia Cristiana Embajadores de Jesus, a church situated in a denuded ravine on the western edge of Tijuana, was sheltering hundreds of people even though it was not connected to the municipal water supply and had to refill its tanks with a water truck. Administrators at Desayunador Salesiano Padre Chava, which had for years served as a soup kitchen, repurposed nearly the entire building, including corridors and the pantry, into a sprawling dormitory that at one point housed more than 500 people. Claudia Portela, coordinator of Padre Chava, which recently opened a smaller second shelter, estimates that donations have provided for 98 percent of their needs during the crisis. Government officials, while acknowledging that the bulk of the humanitarian assistance has come from civil society, insist that they have provided crucial services but have been sorely limited by budgets that were already under strain amid Mexico's economic malaise. "Our deployment has been very, very small," Mr. Figueroa said. "Institutional capacities are not as robust as we'd like. " But despite the limitations, he said, government agencies had donated more than $280, 000, about 445, 000 meals, thousands of blankets, hundreds of mattresses and many other goods and services since late October. State and federal officials, he said, were still discussing the possibility of opening a shelter, but the proposal raised difficult practical and philosophical questions. "Will we be building something we can't unbuild?" he said. Ad hoc networks of humanitarian groups have scrambled to help. "For me, the worst part is the omission of the federal government," said Soraya Vazquez, one of nine women who run the Comité Estratégico de Ayuda Humanitaria Tijuana, a local group formed in September. "The government has to recognize it as a humanitarian crisis. " On a recent morning, she and her colleague, Adriana Reyna, jumped into Ms. Reyna's sport utility vehicle and took a tour of several shelters in Tijuana to assess their needs. At Iglesia Cristiana Embajadores de Jesus, the church in the ravine, a Haitian girl had fallen. Her parents worried she had fractured a bone. So the women drove the child and her father to a nearby clinic where they arranged for a free evaluation, then swung by a pharmacy to pick up some medicine to treat the pain and swelling. At another shelter, the women lined up doctor's appointments for a man with an infected leg wound and for two migrants who were experiencing complications with their pregnancies. They also strategized about setting up a piñata workshop that would give migrants employment. A message arrived, saying that an cinema had about 30 pillows to donate. With a phone call, the women found a taker: a shelter in central Tijuana. At Iglesia Central del Nazareno, which had been converted into a shelter, the coordinator asked the women whether they had heard anything new about how Haitian migrants were being received at the United States border. Were they being deported? It was the day after Mr. Trump's inauguration, and rumors were flying. "I hope they'll all be able to cross. I hope they'll be O. K.," said the coordinator, Ruth Gaxiola, fighting back tears. She looked exhausted. Ms. Vazquez opened her arms, and the women embraced.


Share on Facebook Share on Twitter A few years ago, Neil deGrasse said that yes, extraterrestrials may be visiting our planet, and people do see Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), but he also stated that it is a big leap for one to assume a UFO is of extraterrestrial in origin. ( source ) As you will see from the information below, it's not a big leap, which is why so many other scientists around the world support the extraterrestrial hypotheses. It's also important to note that this article is not implying that Carl Saga is a 'bad' person. If this information is indeed true, we still do not know the circumstances and details of it. It is a common occurrence for 'UFO's to be tracked on military radar , and more and more people are starting to believe that these objects are of extraterrestrial origin. and there is a good amount of evidence to believe that. One reason for this is the disclosure of evidence supporting such a hypothesis in recent years. If you want to see a fraction of that evidence, you can check out this article or the one pertaining to military radar linked above, or you can visit the exopolitics section of our website, here . If you really want to go in depth and read some proper studies on this topic, you can check out Richard Dolan's books . They are a great place to start, he is a brilliant academic and one of the world's leading researchers on the topic of UFOs. Sagan's Close Colleague Apart from the congressional hearings on this subject, and the fairly recent citizens hearing that took place, along with the release of official documentation, there has been a surge in people believing that ETs are real because of the work of scholars like Dr. Brian O'Leary. Brian was a close colleague of Carl Sagan, who recruited him to teach at Cornell University in the late 1960's, where he researched and lectured in the department of astronomy and physics. After Cornell, he taught physics, astronomy, and science policy assessment at various academic institutions, including the University of California Berkeley, Hampshire College, and finally at Princeton University from 1976 to 1981. After this he went on to Washington, where he would become an advisor to various political leaders, presidential candidates, and the United States Congress. Before all of this, Dr. O'Leary was a NASA astronaut and a member of the sixth group of astronauts selected by NASA in August of 1967. One year after that, as mentioned above, Sagan recruited him to teach at Cornell. O'Leary was also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as secretary of the American Geophysical Union's Planetology Section. Furthermore, he was the team leader of the Asteroidal Resources Group for NASA's Ames Summer Study on Space Settlements. He was a founding board member of the International Association for New Science as well as founding president of the New Energy Movement. "Carl Sagan called me from Cornell and asked me to join the faculty. I accepted the offer and spent many years at Cornell in the astronomy department, planetary science department. And I became very creative in research then, but still within the bounds of western science, but in the planetary exploration program. That was for a period of about a decade." ( source )( source ) As you can see, his resume is more than extensive, and O'Leary is just one out of hundreds of people with this type of distinguished background to blow the lid on the extraterrestrial phenomenon. I use his video below in a lot of my extraterrestrial/UFO related articles, and I apologize to our regular readers, but I feel it's always useful to share with readers who have yet to come across it. The clip is taken from the Thrive documentary which, if you haven't seen yet, I highly recommend. You can read his entire biography — though I'll warn you it is quite large — HERE . Above I've provided only the highlights of his impressive career. Brian passed away shortly after this video was taken. Apparently it happened shortly after having a heart attack and a diagnosis of intestinal cancer. What He Said Carl Sagan Did He had some interesting things to say during a live interview with Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot (view full live interview here , read transcript of video here ). O'Leary and Sagan were close for a number of years, but had a little bit of a falling out when O'Leary decided to leave Cornell. In the interview, he remarked: It was… One very cold snowy day in May, I landed in Syracuse, and there was a horizontal blizzard — in May — and I said: That's it for upstate New York . And Carl thought that was very frivolous. Because, of course, he was kind of an empire-builder kind of guy; and he also had a huge ego. After he left, O'Leary started to examine some of Carl's work. He said that the famous "Face" in Cydonia on Mars — photographed by Viking in 1975, this enormous formation (about a mile across) resembled a human face and created a major buzz at the time — was tampered with by Sagan before being released to the public: It was very, very disappointing to me, because not only was Carl wrong, he also fudged data. He published a picture of the "Face" in Parade Magazine , a popular article, saying that the "Face" was just a natural formation, but he doctored the picture to make it not look like a face. At this time, Sagan and O'Leary were arguably the world's two leading experts on Mars, and they entered into many disagreements over that face. This rift was made clear in O'Leary's publication in 1998, "Carl Sagan & I: On Opposite Sides of Mars." It can be found in The Case for the Face: Scientists Examine the Evidence for Alien Artifacts on Mars , eds. Stanley V. McDaniel and Monica Rix Paxson. Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press. In May of 1990, O'Leary released a paper titled " Analysis of Images of the Face on Mars and Possible Intelligent Origin " which only further demonstrated his skepticism. It was published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol.43 No.5. O'Leary also went on the record and stated: I began to realize, just directly from the scientific point of view, not only hearsay, that this man was colluding with NASA, that there might be more to this than before. . . . Carl was on a committee with a number of notable people. There was a report issued by the Brookings Institution in 1961 — and that's about when I knew Carl, during those years; the '60s mostly was when I worked closely with him — that he and this other group said: Well, if any ETs ever showed up on the Earth, it has to be covered up. That's the only way we're going to be able to manage this, because if we can't, then it would be too much of a culture shock. Quite a shocking statement from someone of Brian's stature, isn't it? In the interview, he goes on to say that Carl and his colleagues recommended that the governments cover up the UFO phenomenon, and that he believes this provided justification for the ongoing cover-up It's important to note that this does not make Sagan a 'bad guy.' He was clearly the opposite of that, and his love for science and educating humanity was quite clear. If he was in favour of covering this up, if he did know about it, there is a very good chance it was done for what they perceived to be, good reasons. Sure, there might be some corporate reasons, and some other not so pleasant reasons the cover-up remains today, but it's plausible to assume that in the beginning, perhaps there was no I'll intent. "Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense." Former head of CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960 (source) Why It's Time To Listen To Contactees, Abductees & Experiences/ A Psychological Standpoint Just to clarify, 'contactees' are usually those who have reported 'friendly' contact experiences with extraterrestrials, 'abductees' are those who have had what they perceive to be fearful experiences, and experiencers are those who neither view the experience as 'good' or 'bad," but simply just an experience. It's important to note this, because various people have reported different types of experiences with different types of beings. "Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered… We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time." – Dr. Edgar Mitchell, ScD, 6th man to walk on the Moon ( source ) ( source ) The reality is that some people who claim to have had contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings actually have. John Mack, A Harvard professor, psychiatrist and Pulitzer Price recipient stresses that: "Yes, it's both. It's both literally, physically happening to a degree; and it's also some kind of psychological, spiritual experience occurring and originating perhaps in another dimension. And so the phenomenon stretches us, or it asks us to stretch to open to realities that are not simply the literal physical world, but to extend to the possibility that there are other unseen realities from which our consciousness, our, if you will, learning processes over the past several hundred years have closed us off." ( source ) We published an article earlier this year regarding John Mack, and more than 60 school children witnessing non-human beings and a large craft landing. The children were interviewed by him, and it was quite a remarkable story with all of the children providing very similiar stories. Until this day these children have been speaking of it, an event occurred more than 20 years ago…. "They describe these events like a person talks about something that has happened to them. I can tell that these are people of sound mind telling me something…" (quote continued and taken from the video linked below) -Dr. John Mack, professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School You can watch THIS video of Mack Interview the children, and you can read THIS article that goes more into detail on that case. According to retired McGill University professor in the Department of Psychology (research areas beings cognition and cognitive Neuroscience), Dr. Don Donderi: "Some of what people report as UFOs are extraterrestrial (ET) vehicles. Some of those extraterrestrial vehicles actually have ET crews, and some of those ET crews catch and release humans." ( source ) Academicians like these, and others like Richard Dolan , David M. Jacobs and more have been studying this phenomena for decades, and the reports of beings and examining why they are here, what they are doing, what they look like and more has been documented by their (and others) research. What I find most fascinating about these stories is how many of them seem to compliment each other instead of contradicting each other, which just adds to the mystery. As far as physical research goes: "There are a great many photographs of such body marks, many of which are in an equilateral triangle pattern of red dots on the wrist or near the ankle. Also common are scoop marks," in which it appears as if a small amount of tissue was removed from beneath the skin, leaving an indentation." -Richard Dolan (taken from his book, UFOs for the 21st century mind ) Below is a clip of Dr. Roger Leir. a doctor of podiatric medicine, and arguably the best known individual with regards to extracting alleged alien implants. He has performed more than fifteen surgeries that removed sixteen separate distinct objects. These objects have been investigated by several prestigious laboratories, including Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico Tech, and many others. Unfortunately, he passed away in March 2014, but his legacy lives on.  Truth is, as former NASA astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor puts it, "there is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been visiting us for a vary long time." ( source ) Interesting Quotes About The UFO Phenomenon (A Few Out Of Many) ***Please keep in mind, the documentation regarding this phenomenon can be found from links that were mentioned in the very first paragraph of this article " Everything is in a process of investigation both in the United States and in Spain, as well as the rest of the world. The nations of the world are currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is an international exchange of data." – General Carlos Castro Cavero (1979). From "UFOs and the National Security State, Volume 2,″ written by Richard Dolan. "There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, by other civilizations. Who they are, where they are from, and what they want should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not be the subject of 'rubishing' by tabloid newspapers." ( source ) – Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee "There is another way whether it's wormholes or warping space, there's got to be a way to generate energy so that you can pull it out of the vacuum, and the fact that they're here shows us that they found a way." ( source ) – Jack Kasher, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of physics, University of Nebraska. "This thing has gotten so highly-classified… it is just impossible to get anything on it. I have no idea who controls the flow of need-to-know because, frankly, I was told in such an emphatic way that it was none of my business that I've never tried to make it to be my business since. I have been interested in this subject for a long time and I do know that whatever the Air Force has on the subject is going to remain highly classified." – Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (source) "Yes, it's both. It's both literally, physically happening to a degree; and it's also some kind of psychological, spiritual experience occurring and originating perhaps in another dimension. And so the phenomenon stretches us, or it asks us to stretch to open to realities that are not simply the literal physical world, but to extend to the possibility that there are other unseen realities from which our consciousness, our, if you will, learning processes over the past several hundred years have closed us off." – John Mack,Dr. John E. Mack, a Harvard University psychologist and Pulitzer prize winner" ( source ) "An extraterrestrial influence is investigating our planet. Something is monitoring the planet and they are monitoring it very cautiously." — 2008 Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel ( source )( source ) "Some of what people report as UFOs are extraterrestrial (ET) vehicles. Some of those extraterrestrial vehicles actually have ET crews, and some of those ET crews catch and release humans." — Dr. Don Donderi, a retired McGill University Professor of 40 years in the Department of Psychology ( source ) "Intelligent beings from other star systems have been and are visiting our planet Earth. They are variously referred to as Visitors, Others, Star People, Et's, etc…They are visiting Earth now; this is not a matter of conjecture or wistful thinking. – Theodor C. Loder III, Phd, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire ( source ) "Decades ago, visitors from other plants warned us about where we were headed and offered to help. But instead, we, or at least some of us, interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after." – Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defense Minister ( source ) My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago. The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving, and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was a loneliness like no other." – Richard Wagamese , Ojibway Author ( source ) I'm skeptical about many things, including the notion that government always knows best, and that the people can't be trusted with the truth. The time to pull the curtain back on this subject is long overdue. We have statements from the most credible sources – those in a position to know – about a fascinating phenomenon, the nature of which is yet to be determined. John Podesta, for example — former White House Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, Barack Obama's right hand man (councillor), and the current head of Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign,Taken from Leslie Kean's 2010 New York Times bestseller, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, And Government Officials Go On The Record, in which Podesta wrote the forward "Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered… We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time…I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real." – Doctor Edgar Mitchell, 6th man to walk on the moon( source ) ( source )( source)  The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.  You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.  "If "Survivor" was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and "The Sacred Science" hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune


COLUMBIA, S. C. — Alex Szkaradek is a landlord who seems to have the best of both worlds. Mr. Szkaradek, 36, collects rent, but he never has to pay for repairs on any of the more than 5, 500 homes — many of them rundown — that his firm manages across the country. The firm, Vision Property Management, blurs the line between what it means to be a renter and a homeowner. These companies do not offer regular leases or mortgages — they offer "rent to own" contracts on homes that require tenants to make all repairs, no matter how big or small. Mr. Szkaradek says Vision, a leader in the market, is bringing the dream of homeownership to Americans who lack good credit or are too poor to qualify for mortgages. In many communities, housing prices have recovered from the financial crisis. At the bottom end, however, banks have all but stopped making loans for homes worth less than $100, 000, leaving millions of people with few options. But these agreements reside in a gray area of the law. An examination by The New York Times of contracts and court filings, as well as interviews with housing lawyers and more than a dozen of Vision's customers across the country, found that these deals are risky, lack consumer protections and may not be enforceable in some states. Most tenants walk away with nothing, having sunk money for rent and repairs into homes they had once hoped to own. Others faced surprise evictions, having signed a contract that did not disclose what repairs were needed, yet set a deadline for making sure the home was up to local housing code. As different tenants move in and out of the same property over the course of years, many homes fall further into disrepair. A recent report from the National Consumer Law Center found similar issues with certain programs, calling them deceptive in nature. When Donna Thomas signed a lease for a Cincinnati home with Vision, she said she was not told that it had unresolved building code violations and a standing order from the city to remain vacant. Samuel Rankin thought he was starting fresh when he and his two daughters moved out of a 1970s trailer home into a Vision rental home in Alexander, Ark. But he soon discovered that the house, located just outside Little Rock, had no heat, no water and major problems with its sewage system that led to nearly $10, 000 in repairs. Ms. Thomas's and Mr. Rankin's cases are not isolated, The Times found. It is difficult to measure the size of the housing market. Nobody tracks activity, and few agreements end in actual purchases, so they tend not to be recorded. Across the country, however, dozens of smaller firms offer to lease cheap homes with options to buy, such as Vision does. Entrepreneurs conduct seminars at conferences for small landlords hoping to strike it rich. And housing lawyers in cities including Detroit, Philadelphia and Columbus, Ohio, say they are seeing an uptick in disputes involving transactions. Several big Wall Street companies like the Blackstone Group and Home Partners of America offer programs through which people can buy the homes they are renting. But those homes are often relatively new or recently renovated, and worth well over $100, 000. The deals at the lower end of the market are the ones that worry housing advocates. "We're seeing an influx in these contracts," said Katarina Karac, a city lawyer for Columbus, who is involved in one case the city has against Vision. "It looks like a relationship, except instead of having the landlord take care of the property, they are putting that obligation on the tenant," she added. Every home rented by Vision comes "as is" and has strict contractual terms that require a tenant to pay for any repairs, no matter how big. Renters are given a few months to deal with any outstanding building code violations and to make the homes habitable. In interviews, as well as in court documents, customers said they were confused by the contracts' terms and requirements, and were not sure whether they were owners or renters. They signed their leases and put down an initial payment to reserve the right to buy the house. Unlike most typical home purchases, contracts have no requirement to obtain an independent home inspection. The customers contend they were not informed of outstanding issues with Vision homes, many of which the company had bought for $10, 000 or less. Tenants who are evicted during the tenure of these contracts walk away receiving no credit for money spent on repairs or renovations. leases are similar in many ways to contracts for deeds: installment contracts that call for the resident to make monthly payments to the seller. Unlike a contract for deed — which typically lasts 30 years, at the end of a Vision contract, tenants still need to find financing to complete the deal. The buyer does not receive legal title to the home until the last payment is made. Federal and state regulators began looking into deals after a article in The Times in February highlighted the resurgence of these transactions. Seven United States senators recently wrote to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to express concern over the lack of protections for home buyers. Still, contract for deeds are at least subject to basic regulations like the Federal Truth in Lending Act, which requires firms to detail how much interest they are charging and how many payments prospective buyers must make before they own the house. In most states, landlords are required to keep the homes and apartments that they rent in habitable condition. Some legal experts said contracts like the ones used by Vision could violate that requirement. Cincinnati, for example, has an ordinance that requires landlords to adhere to building, housing and safety codes, as well as to "make all repairs and do whatever is reasonably necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition. " Judith Fox, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, said that in most states landlord obligations cannot be waived. "If it's a lease and they are claiming that none of the obligations apply, then I would argue they have to adhere to federal truth in lending rules. " She added, "You can't have it both ways. " Vision, based here, buys homes spread across 24 states through nearly two dozen limited liability companies, all with different names like MI Seven, OH Seven and Kaja Holdings. The firm advertises its properties on its website, through Craigslist and in handwritten signs posted on the lawns of properties promoting low monthly rents. Negotiations are done via phone or email, and prospective tenants are given a code to a lockbox on the door to inspect properties. inspections can be difficult with the power turned off in a home before it is bought, however. Last September, Ms. Thomas signed a lease for a home on McHenry Avenue in Cincinnati that required her to bring the property into a habitable condition within three months. Vision's contract offered to sell her the home for $27, 000. It was only after signing the contract that Ms. Thomas, 38, learned of at least three unaddressed violations and about $5, 000 in unpaid fines. She then sought a lawyer to get out of her contract and recover her $600 initial payment. "It was like pulling teeth to get them to give me $600 of my money back," Ms. Thomas said. Within days, Vision found another tenant, a couple who moved into the same house. None of the building code violations had been addressed. Edward Cunningham, a Cincinnati building department official, said the city had issued more than 20 notices to Vision on the property. "Communications have been very poor in this case," he said. There are $13, 250 in unpaid citations on the McHenry home and the city has referred the matter to a collection agency. Vision bought the house from Fannie Mae for $9, 300 in 2014. Mr. Szkaradek, of Vision, said the firm had a small team that worked with municipal officials to address outstanding code violations. In subsequent emails, he said that Vision offered "a full and unconditional refund" to tenants within the first 30 days of a contract and that the firm had consulted with regulatory counsel in drafting its contract. "Our goal is to put people into houses and turn renters into homeowners," Mr. Szkaradek said during an interview at Vision's offices in a building on the outskirts of Columbia, S. C. He declined to comment on specific cases. Mr. Szkaradek refers to Vision's contract as a "hybrid lease" that enables renters to build up "implied equity" with each monthly rent payment. Vision works with clients to help them through the process of managing payments, he said. Vision, which does not provide financing for tenants to buy homes, pointed to Mr. Rankin as one client it has worked with to help make a home livable. In October, Mr. Rankin moved into his home after signing a contract that valued the house at $38, 000. There was no carpeting and no linoleum on the floors, and the walls were covered with what Mr. Rankin described as a substance. These issues seemed easily fixable, though, Mr. Rankin said, because he runs his own flooring company. But not even a craftsman like Mr. Rankin was prepared for the biggest problem with the house: a condemned septic tank that the local water department said needed to be upgraded. The cost to install a new sewerage system was more than $8, 000, Mr. Rankin said. Vision helped him find a contractor to make the repairs, but it rolled the cost into a new contract that revalued the purchase price of the home to $60, 000 and increased his monthly costs by $65, to $470 a month. "Financially, they kind of stuck it to me," Mr. Rankin said. But, he added, "when you don't have any options and someone is willing to work with you, it's really a blessing. " Vision paid $10, 760 to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the house last July. "If you're doubling your money off of people who are scraping by and you're taking advantage of their vulnerability to enrich yourself, that is being predatory," said Beryl Satter, the author of the 2009 book "Family Properties," which chronicled the exploitation of black homeowners in Chicago. Nearly half of Vision's homes were bought from Fannie Mae, the mortgage firm, according to RealtyTrac. A number of tenants and former tenants interviewed said they had hoped to buy homes from Vision either by ultimately getting a mortgage or saving cash to buy a home outright. But other tenants expressed concern they would end up losing the home. That is what happened to Heidi Anderson, 45, whose two children and partner moved into a Vision house in Vassar, Mich. last fall. They spent the winter months without heat because the furnace had been submerged in water and no longer worked. The only thing they had to keep warm during a cold Michigan winter, she said, was an electric heater and a stove in the kitchen. Ms. Anderson said she called Vision several times about the furnace, but nobody got back to her, so she stopped paying rent. In February, Vision filed a nonpayment proceeding, seeking the family's eviction and $3, 100 in overdue rent. She sent a check to Vision, she added, but the company returned it, saying it was late. Days before Memorial Day weekend, the family moved out, before the formal eviction. They have since moved into another nearby home through a deal. It was the best option available because, Ms. Anderson said, she still could not qualify for a mortgage. "There is a little bit of work, but mostly it's cosmetic," she said. "The furnace works. "


A North Carolina police officer has been terminated after shooting her own daughter. She was showing off her service weapon to guests at her home when the girl was shot in the abdomen. A Lincoln County sheriff's deputy is facing a double tragedy after accidentally shooting her daughter with her service firearm while off-duty. Misty Michelle Flowers allegedly had friends to her home Saturday night and was showing her service weapon to them when she accidentally fired. The bullet traveled through a wall and hit her 11-year-old daughter in the abdomen, the Shelby Star reported . The girl is expected to recover, unlike her mother's career. As a result, Flowers has been terminated and is being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation. While it is not uncommon for officers to bring their service weapons home with them after a shift, the sheriff's office's policy states, " Members shall ensure that all firearms and ammunition are locked and secured while in their homes. " In addition, the policy manual states : " Members should be aware that negligent storage of a firearm could result in civil liability. " Lincoln County Sheriff David Carpenter has made efforts to distance his department from Flowers' actions, saying, " I find gross negligence and disregard for the safety of others over what transpired Saturday. " He also reiterated how the department's policy on storing firearms had been made clear, saying basic firearm safety measures are " included in hundreds and hundreds of hours of training they received during basic law enforcement training and also during service training. " Flowers had been with the department since August 2015. She was terminated on Monday while at the hospital. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple  We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ).  Contributed by RT.com of RT.com .


West Virginia has been devastated by a loss of 10,000 jobs due to the Obama administration s efforts to shut down the coal industry. If Hillary Clinton is elected, we can see a continuation of job loss there. Here s what she said a few weeks ago about the coal industry:


The left has locked onto a stat that 18 school shootings have happened this year. This is FAKE NEWS that needs to be shut down. Bernie Sanders and others referred to this statistic right after the Parkland mass shooting.Anti-gun groups included in the statistics a suicide at a school in Michigan that had been closed. This fake statistic trivializes the horrific crime that happened at Parkland or any other TRUE school shooting. EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY TRIES TO HIJACK THE NARRATIVE:Everytown for Gun Safety, the Michael Bloomberg backed anti-gun group founded after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was the original source for that particular statistic. The group s initial tweet claiming that the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was the 18th school shooting in 2018 has now been retweeted more than 1,200 times:Our hearts are with all those impacted by the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida today.This is the 18th school shooting in the U.S. in 2018. https://t.co/YdPLz4zuOS Everytown (@Everytown) February 14, 2018The group defines a school shooting is any time a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds. ACCIDENTAL GUN DISCHARGES AND SUICIDES AREN T SCHOOL SHOOTINGS It turns out that Everytown s database turns up ridiculous examples that ARE NOT school shootings:On January 10, gunshots, which most likely originated off-campus, hit a window of the visual arts building at California State University, San Bernardino. Classes were immediately canceled as the university went into lockdown, though a police search failed to turn up any shooter on campus. On February 5, in a suburb of Minneapolis, a school liaison officer was sitting on a bench talking with some students when a third-grader pressed the trigger on the officer s holstered weapon, causing it to fire and strike the floor. Those were no doubt terrifying incidents for the people involved, and they may even have policy implications, but they are not what anyone thinks of when they hear the phrase school shootings. But the media and several prominent politicians, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), eagerly regurgitated the context-free statistic in the aftermath of the shooting in Florida, apparently without stopping to wonder why they hadn t heard about the other 17 school shootings that supposedly had happened since January 1.This isn t just an embarrassing case of confirmation bias. Spreading such misleading statistics affects how Americans from ordinary working people to elected officials understand and cope with these terrible incidents.


The One World Trade Center Twitter account announced they would be lighting the tower green in solidarity with the #ParisAgreement #OneWTC will be lit green tonight in solidarity with the #ParisAgreement @OneWTC One World Trade (@OneWTC) June 1, 2017Hundreds of people protested in Lower Manhattan and buildings were lit green in solidarity after President Trump declared Thursday that the U.S. is withdrawing from the landmark Paris climate agreement.About 400 protesters gathered at Foley Square after Trump s announcement. They held signs and chanted, What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now! The crowd marched through the streets to nearby City Hall, where they pounded drums and chanted, You can t drink oil, leave it in the soil! In a show of solidarity, Gov. Cuomo said One World Trade Center and the Kosciuszko Bridge would be lit green on Thursday night. Mayor de Blasio said City Hall would also light up green. NBCNYWatch:One World Trade Center lights up green after President Trump ditches global climate agreement https://t.co/sCHSiqP25r pic.twitter.com/M8r66YYgNM NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) June 2, 2017Twitter users responded to liberals and the liberal media who heralded the decision to use the WTC site to trash Trump. Kelly called the decision to use the WTC for international political purposes, disgusting That is disgusting using The World Trade Center for international political purposes! That is AMERICAN sacred ground. Kelly T (@ktellmemore) June 3, 2017Kelly T wasn t the only Twitter user who found the politicizing of the WTC site to be disgusting: World Trade Center people better get their act together blowout the green candle it's disgusting and if it was Blasio it makes worse.! pic.twitter.com/m7zE3pUH5C joseph e pintinalli (@1handputter) June 3, 2017Others were offended that One World Trade Center was being used as a political pawn Disgusting the WTC is sacred ground of the USA not a political pawn Michael (@mweis1964) June 3, 2017https://twitter.com/EntreAmis1000/status/870996745215295494Others mocked their hypocrisy, as they used large amounts of electricity to light the massive tower:So they lit the building up using electricity and expanding their carbon footprint?THAT WILL SHOW US!! Meier Ben Avraham (@hebrewservative) June 2, 2017That makes sense show green and waste electricity William Burrows (@wabr101) June 3, 2017


Is there a single person left on Robert Mueller s Trump-Russian collusion team who isn t in bed with Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?An attorney for special counsel Robert Mueller attended Hillary Clinton s election night party in New York City, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.Andrew Weissmann s attendance at the party is one of many signs pointing to a troubling bias from the attorney. Weissmann has been described by The New York Times as Mueller s lieutenant and pit bull. Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained an email Tuesday that revealed Weissmann praised former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates defiance of Trump. I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects, Weissmann wrote to Yates on Jan. 30. The email followed Yates instruction to the DOJ not to defend an executive order banning immigration from seven nations, an act that led to her dismissal by President Trump.Weissmann is one of several Democratic donors that have been hired by Mueller, a registered Republican. The special counsel s pit bull donated a combined $6,600 to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.The special counsel s probe has been criticized by Trump s allies, but the White House maintains Trump has no intention to fire Mueller. Daily Caller


In the small southern market town of Molcaxac, 650 miles (1050 km) from the U.S. border, Alicia Villa is praying to God that Republican candidate Donald Trump does not become the next president of the United States. Over the past two decades, as Mexico's rural economy stalled, Molcaxac and hundreds of towns like it became dependent on dollars sent by relatives who made the perilous journey north, a lifeline she fears will be cut by a Trump White House. Villa, 65, said funds sent by a daughter working illegally as a house cleaner in Sacramento, California have supported her family for 12 years because the work she does as receptionist in Molcaxac does not pay enough to make ends meet. "I am Catholic and I have asked God and the Virgin of Asuncion that he lose," Villa said of Trump, placing her head in her hands and intoning a prayer in the square of the deeply religious hill town dominated by a striking blue church. Inside, the church was adorned with notes thanking migrant relatives for money sent to help build homes, start businesses and pay for marriages in the town surrounded by rivers, mountains and meadows in the state of Puebla. "Trump says he will kick out everyone who doesn't have papers and we really need them to be there," said Villa, adding that she had not seen some family members living in the United States in 20 years. Trump, a real-estate tycoon who has narrowed the gap with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton ahead of next Tuesday's vote, has vowed to make it harder for illegal immigrants to live and work in the United States, to increase deportations and to limit remittances unless Mexico pays billions for a wall along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S.-Mexico border. Such policies would take a heavy toll in Molcaxac, where local authorities say more than 70 percent of the population lives on remittances sent home by immigrants to the United States, many of them undocumented. "Our town has improved a lot since our people started to leave for the United States," said stonemason Esteban Marquez, whose workshop was partly funded by remittances from one of his children. Mexico has more than 5 million citizens living without regular papers in the United States, or about half of the entire undocumented population. Those men and women send back a large chunk of Mexico's foreign exchange earnings, contributing more than $20 billion in remittances wired this year through September. According to Mexico's Central Bank, Puebla received $1 billion in remittances in the same period, making it the fifth biggest recipient among Mexican states. So many people from Puebla live in the New York area that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Trump supporter, visited the state in 2014. Couriers have grown rich transporting salsas and fresh cheese to homesick natives up north. The money has transformed places like Molcaxac, a picturesque town dotted with well-built homes attesting to the flow of dollars. It is not just the potential loss of income Trump could spark that worries Molcaxac locals. The lack of employment in rural Mexico is one of the main reasons drug gangs find it easy to recruit among young people and those deported from the United States, they say. "Here in Mexico, the truth is there is nothing for them," said stonemason Marquez. "The people who stay need to survive, and since there is no work, they get pulled into crime." Opinion polls in the run-up to the election suggest that Villa's prayers stand a good chance of being answered, with most putting Clinton consistently ahead of her Republican rival. But the polls also show her losing ground in the final stretch. Real Clear Politics, which averages the results of most major polls, shows Clinton's advantage had declined from 4.6 percentage points to 1.7 points over the past week. Even those of more modest means in Molcaxac are on edge with America's election. "Only God knows if they are going to be able to stay there," said Serafina Martinez, who at 70 still works in the fields. She worries it would be hard to survive without the little her son in California sends when he can. "I would like him to keep helping us with pennies," said Martinez, her curved back laden with firewood and groceries. Still, the uncertainty has also helped locals in an unexpected way: the Mexican peso's value plunges every time Trump advances, making the dollar remittances stretch further. But there is no doubt in the minds of Molcaxac's townspeople that they would rather see Clinton in the White House. Clinton has proposed comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship, and says she will end detention of immigrant families. "I think she will win, and that gives us hope that our relatives will be able to regularize (their papers)," said Teresa Amador, selling flowers in the main market. "I have a son who was born there, and he is going to vote for the lady."


The new cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been going on for a while, but has now escalated to a critical stage. It would be great if our President would take a stand and make his position known to the American public. But we re not dealing with just any President. We re dealing with Barack Hussein Obama, the guy who buddies up to terrorist and communist nations. We re talking about a President who treats our enemies like friends and many of our allies like enemies. Pay attention to this very important situation in the Middle East. It could get very ugly As the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia heats up, the Barack Obama administration is trying to straddle the fence and not take sides, but its actions tell a different story they all seem to favor Tehran.Following the Saudi government s announcement Saturday that it had executed 47 prisoners, including a popular Shiite cleric, the U.S. State Department did two things. First, it issued a statement expressing concern that Riyadh s actions were exacerbating sectarian tensions. Then Secretary of State John Kerry called Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, urging him to try to de-escalate the crisis.Spokesmen for the White House and State Department on Monday insisted that the U.S. was not taking a side, and that Kerry was set to call Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. But U.S. and Arab diplomats tell us that America s Gulf allies, who feel most threatened by Iran, see things very differently.The State Department has criticized Saudi Arabia before for executions and its human rights record. But this time, its spokesman, John Kirby, undermined the Saudi claim that Iran s government was culpable for the attacks on its embassy, noting in his opening statement that Iran appears to have arrested some of those responsible.What s more, the Saudis argue that this time the U.S. criticism went too far because the cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, was inciting terrorism. We do not accept any criticism of the kingdom s judicial system, al-Jubeir said Sunday. What happened was that those who have led terrorist operations that led to the killing of innocent people, were convicted. Following Saudi Arabia s decision Sunday to cut diplomatic ties and end Iran-bound commercial flights, Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates also downgraded relations. One senior Gulf diplomat told us he expected other Sunni Arab states would follow suit.At the root of the problem for Sunni Arab states is the nuclear deal reached last summer by Iran and Western nations. When the White House sold the pact to Congress and Middle Eastern allies, its message was clear: Nothing in the deal would prevent the U.S. from sanctioning Iran for non-nuclear issues. Yet that has not been the case.Last week, the Treasury Department balked at the last moment on sanctioning 11 entities and individuals it deemed responsible for helping the Iranian government develop its ballistic missile program in violation of United Nations sanctions. Treasury officials had told lawmakers the new sanctions would be announced Dec. 30, but then the announcement never came.Hill staffers briefed on the issue said that the State Department had intervened at the last minute, following objections by the Iranian government. A senior administration official told us the sanctions weren t dead and that the U.S. was still working through some remaining issues, but didn t specify any timetable.A week earlier, Kerry wrote personally to Zarif to assure him that the Obama administration could waive new restrictions in a law passed by Congress that would require visas for anyone who had visited Iran to enter the United States. The Iranian government had objected that the visa requirement would violate the terms of the nuclear agreement.


While Londoners were coming together in a show of courage and compassion for the victims of a terror attack, an intrepid Breitbart writer decided it would be a good time to exploit the tragedy to promote her racist, white nationalist ideology.In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Katie McHugh tweeted:There would be no deadly terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn t live there. #LondonBridge Katie McHugh?? (@k_mcq) June 3, 2017Later, when a user pointed out that she was an idiot, she responded by dismissing him because he was Indian. (He was right, she was wrong. He is an Iranian-American actor. She really is an idiot.)What followed was even more ranting about Muslims, a seemingly endless stream of hate directed at an entire religion which Katie loathes. Even by Breitbart s standards, it was openly racist. CNN contacted several anonymous employees of the right-wing website and they expressed disgust in their coworker. I find it appalling, one Breitbart employee told CNN. It s a terrible comment, another Breitbart employee told CNN, saying it was wrong to make a blanket statement about an entire religious group. I would never write what she said. (Note: These employees shouldn t get too much credit. How sad is it that they wanted their names to be hidden before they said something so straightforward as racism is bad ?)Things only got worse for McHugh as people went digging into her history of racism. She has been proudly boasting of her Islamophobia for years, including disgusting attacks like this one also while she was employed at Breitbart:One day later and Breitbart finally caved to the pressure and fired Katie for the bigoted remarks. (Like at Fox News, 2017 has been a bit of a bloodbath for Breitbart. Before this scandal, they were forced to fire their star personality, Milo Yiannopoulos for endorsing child rape.)But in an added twist of hypocrisy, Katie has now launched a crowdfunding page (hosted by a white nationalist-run website wesearchr ) in which she begs for handouts to make ends meet while she s unemployed. The Breitbarter wants your welfare please!Donate here so I can pay my medical bills and get employed again. And keep telling the truth. https://t.co/IRAUOj6pIL #LondonBridge Katie McHugh?? (@k_mcq) June 5, 2017The fact that she needs money to pay her medical bills is particularly rich coming from a Breitbart employee. The website ran relentless attack ads disguised as news to stop universal healthcare from happening. To this day, the site supports a repeal of Obamacare the same insurance pool that would allow McHugh to have health insurance even if she can t find a website to hire her after her racism went viral.And naturally, McHugh is spinning her dismissal from Breitbart as a conspiracy to silence her conservative views.McHugh wanted a raise for tweeting there would be no deadly terror attacks if Muslims didn t live there. To quote an Iranian-American actor:You're a real moron Pej Vahdat (@pejvahdat) June 3, 2017


A federal judge in Hawaii indefinitely extended on Wednesday an order blocking enforcement of President Donald Trump's revised ban on travel to the United States from six predominantly Muslim countries. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson turned an earlier temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the state of Hawaii challenging Trump's travel directive as unconstitutional religious discrimination. Trump signed the new ban on March 6 in a bid to overcome legal problems with a January executive order that caused chaos at airports and sparked mass protests before a Washington judge stopped its enforcement in February. Trump has said the travel ban is needed for national security. In its challenge to the travel ban, Hawaii claims its state universities would be harmed by the order because they would have trouble recruiting students and faculty. It also says the island state's economy would be hit by a decline in tourism. The court papers cite reports that travel to the United States "took a nosedive" after Trump's actions. The state was joined by a new plaintiff named Ismail Elshikh, an American citizen from Egypt who is an imam at the Muslim Association of Hawaii and whose mother-in-law lives in Syria, according to the lawsuit. Hawaii and other opponents of the ban claim that the motivation behind it is based on religion and Trump's election campaign promise of "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." "The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has," Watson wrote on Wednesday. Watson wrote that his decision to grant the preliminary injunction was based on the likelihood that the state would succeed in proving that the travel ban violated the U.S. Constitution's religious freedom protection. Trump has vowed to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is currently split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives with the president's pick - appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch - still awaiting confirmation.


In December 2005, when Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act, tightening restrictions against torture but barring lawsuits by Guantánamo detainees, Neil Gorsuch stood at the center of the internal debate about whether President Bush should issue a signing statement about the bill. Judge Gorsuch, whose Supreme Court confirmation hearing is set to start on Monday, was then a senior official in the Justice Department. He pushed strongly for a signing statement — in part, he wrote in an email, because it could make clear the Bush administration's view that the new torture ban was "best read as essentially codifying existing interrogation policies. " An email chain about the development of Mr. Bush's eventual signing statement, which attracted critics because it also claimed a right to bypass the torture ban under his powers as commander in chief, was among more than 100 pages of emails and documents from Judge Gorsuch's tenure at the Justice Department that the Trump administration provided to the Senate late on Friday. The executive branch had previously withheld those pages from nearly 175, 000 documents it provided to Congress because it considered them covered by a privilege for confidential internal deliberations. But it waived that privilege after Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested their disclosure. Previous disclosures showed that Judge Gorsuch helped to defend and advance the Bush administration's positions related to Guantánamo detainees, military commissions and other policy disputes arising in the war on terrorism, although those policies had been set by others. That same caveat applies to the newly available documents. Still, they could provide further clues to Judge Gorsuch's approach to defining the scope and limits of a president's power in matters. Disputes about the legality of interrogation and surveillance policies arose in December 2005, and each came to involve Judge Gorsuch. First, Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act. Most of the attention given to the legislation focused on its creation of a new law, championed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that barred officials from inflicting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment on detainees anywhere in the world. The Bush administration, which was running a torture program for terrorism suspects in overseas C. I. A. "black site" prisons, opposed Mr. McCain's efforts. At the same time, Judge Gorsuch was working with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to include an amendment cutting off Guantánamo detainees' access to the courts, which the administration supported. Both the torture ban and the components made it into the final bill, setting up the internal debate about whether to have Mr. Bush issue a signing statement, an official document laying out a president's understanding of a bill as he signs it into law. Judge Gorsuch argued for a signing statement for several reasons, including that such a statement would help advance the view that the measure applied to existing lawsuits and not just to future ones — a view the Supreme Court later rejected — and that it could set the stage for interpreting the torture ban in a limited way. Although his email did not mention it, the context was that earlier in 2005, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, in a memo, had already concluded that C. I. A. interrogation tactics like waterboarding and sleep deprivation did not amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Judge Gorsuch wrote that issuing a statement "would help inoculate against the potential of having the administration criticized sometime in the future for not making sufficient changes in interrogation policy in light of the McCain portion of the amendment. " Importantly, the email chain also shows that the most disputed part of Mr. Bush's signing statement — a line that implied the president could bypass the new statute under his purported constitutional powers — was drafted not by Judge Gorsuch but by David Addington, the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney. Another controversy that broke out in December 2005 stemmed from the revelation that Mr. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to wiretap Americans' international phone calls and emails without warrants, despite a 1978 law that required warrants. The Bush administration argued that its program was legal in part because the president had inherent power to conduct warrantless surveillance for national security. Critics responded that even if the president may do something in the absence of a legal limit, it does not necessarily follow that he can still do it after a law forbids it. In March 2006, Judge Gorsuch helped to draft a statement for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a hearing about the program. An initial draft said the president wielded "inherent" powers to conduct warrantless surveillance in wartime that "cannot be diminished or legislated away. " But, the internal emails show, Paul Clement, the solicitor general at the time, objected that the suggestion Congress cannot encroach upon how presidents conduct surveillance was unconvincing, so Judge Gorsuch took that line out. Still, in an email distributing the revised draft, Judge Gorsuch made clear that he did not endorse either view. "I am but the scrivener looking for language that might please everybody," he wrote, "and I have tried to accomplish that in the attached latest draft. "


Since becoming prime minister for the second time in 2012, Shinzo Abe has made it a centerpiece of his foreign policy to steer Japan closer to the United States. Even as Washington has lost ground in the region, with China expanding its presence in the South China Sea and North Korea defying efforts to restrain its nuclear development, Mr. Abe has stood by the Obama administration, holding it close. Yet as Mr. Abe visits Pearl Harbor on Tuesday with President Obama, in a symbolic capstone to the relationship between the two leaders, that approach may be tested more than ever. The Partnership, the multinational trade deal that both Mr. Abe and Mr. Obama championed, is in tatters now that Donald J. Trump has promised to torpedo it. North Korea appears to be on the verge of a nuclear breakthrough. China has lately been more aggressive in both the East and South China Seas. And Mr. Trump brings other kinds of uncertainty, grumbling about Japanese trade barriers and the cost of United States military support, and raising the specter of a more confrontational approach to China that could have unpredictable results in the region. "Japan is in a kind of a crisis over what direction we can go," said Kyoji Fukao, a professor of international economics at Hitotsubashi University. The alliance between Japan and the United States has endured since the end of World War II, but analysts say Mr. Abe, a conservative nationalist, and Mr. Obama, a liberal who had ambitions to change the world, have helped to make the partnership stronger than it has been for decades. "This is the strongest, most reliable and trusting relationship probably in the last 40 years at least," said Takatoshi Ito, a professor of international finance and trade at Columbia University. "This has been a good four years. " Given Mr. Abe's nationalist leanings, he might not have seemed the most likely Japanese leader to embrace the United States, or a Democrat like Mr. Obama, so warmly. Yet since he took office four years ago, after an earlier stint as prime minister in Mr. Abe has committed Japan to several policies favored by the Obama administration. Mr. Abe expanded Japan's support of United States military bases despite fierce opposition in Okinawa, and pushed through controversial security legislation that allows Japan's military, the Self Defense Forces, to participate in combat missions abroad. He offered nonmilitary aid to countries battling the Islamic State, even as ISIS militants killed a Japanese hostage. The clearest motivation for Mr. Abe was the need for a partner in defending against a rising China. "In the regional geopolitics, I think Japan and the U. S. are both pushed closer to each other by China," Mr. Ito said. "For security, there is no one but the U. S. which can provide the security to Japan, so there is no question about it. " Mr. Obama provided very clear promises of protection. In 2014, during a visit to Tokyo, he declared that a security treaty obligated the United States to defend Japan in its confrontation with China over a set of disputed islands in the East China Sea, known in Japan as the Senkaku and in China as the Diaoyu. It was the first time an American president had explicitly said so. Now Japan's leaders are warily watching Mr. Trump's approach to China. They may like that Mr. Trump is taking a more aggressive stance toward Beijing on issues like trade, Taiwan and the South China Sea, but there are also risks for Japan if that stance triggers a hostile response. "Standing tall Beijing is of course welcome," said Sheila A. Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. But "the potential for use of force or a much more bellicose U. S. relationship would be an uncomfortable spot for Tokyo. " Partly in hopes of providing another counterweight to China, Mr. Abe has worked for months to develop a relationship with Russia, trying to resolve a dispute over a set of islands that has prevented the signing of a peace treaty since World War II ended. But a recent summit meeting in Japan between Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, and Mr. Abe ended with little progress. Perhaps an even bigger disappointment for Mr. Abe is Mr. Trump's vow to pull the United States out of the Partnership, on which both Mr. Abe and Mr. Obama spent considerable political capital. For Mr. Abe, it was in part an excuse to push for changes in Japan's agricultural industry, as well as an opportunity to gain access for Japanese manufacturers to export markets in the United States and elsewhere. Now his only hope is to try to persuade Mr. Trump to resuscitate the deal. Mr. Abe briefly met Mr. Trump in New York in November, and he hopes to see Mr. Trump again in Washington shortly after the inauguration. Mr. Abe has said he will continue to push for trade deals with other countries, and he is also seeking international partners on other issues. He visited Cuba and talked with the former leader Fidel Castro before he died, asking for Mr. Castro's help in reining in North Korea's nuclear program. In October, Japan and Britain conducted their first joint military exercises as part of a move to establish closer security ties in the East and South China Seas. But the alliance with the United States remains the bedrock of Japan's security, and none of its leaders are currently considering any other significant alternative. Given that, Mr. Abe and other Japanese officials will work hard to persuade Mr. Trump to maintain a strong partnership. Some analysts said that may be a matter of education as much as anything else. "We are not sure that he knows the concrete measures or details of U. S. security relations," said Fumiaki Kubo, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo, speaking of Mr. Trump. "What Prime Minister Abe has to do is give him Lesson 101 on U. S. relations," Mr. Kubo said.


Investigators on Friday reconstructed the seconds before a train plowed into a school bus at a level crossing in southern France and killed at least five children, an incident the prime minister described as horrific . The collision on Thursday afternoon ripped the bus apart and authorities worked into the night to identify the first victims. The official death toll came after a source close to the investigation earlier said six youngsters had lost their lives in an incident that stunned the small community of Millas, near Perpignan. Hospitals appealed for blood to help them treat seven others who remain in a critical condition. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said the cause of the crash was still unclear. It occurred at a crossing which was not considered dangerous. Investigators are looking into whether the automatic barriers and lights on the level crossing malfunctioned and have taken blood samples from the driver for toxicology studies, French media reported. The driver, a 49-year-old woman who was injured in the collision, was described lucid by the manager of the bus company in an interview with BFM TV. The bus was well maintained, he added. The train was carrying 25 passengers and traveling at 80 kmh, the regulatory speed for the section of track where the collision occurred, the national SNCF railway said.


South Africa s African National Congress said on Saturday its executive committee had decided that ANC officials barred by courts from attending its leadership conference this weekend would not take part in voting. We had a special (committee meeting), which was urgent, to deal with the three court cases that were given yesterday. All the structures that were nullified will not be voting delegates at conference, ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe told reporters. We don t want to contaminate the conference... They will not vote on any matter. Courts ruled that senior officials in two provinces seen as backing Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for party leader had been illegally elected and therefore could not attend, sparking a rally in the rand with investors betting that the decision favored her rival, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.