Anticipating that Hurricane Irma will devastate part of the United States, U.S. officials were preparing a massive response to the storm, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said on Friday. With Irma set to hit Florida as early as Saturday night, parts of Florida was expected to lose electricity for days, if not longer, and more than 100,000 people may need shelter, FEMA Administrator Brock Long warned at a news conference. Hurricane Irma continues to be a threat that is going to devastate the United States in either Florida or some of the southeastern states, Long said. Irma was a Category 5 hurricane, the most dangerous measure by the National Hurricane Center, before being downgraded to Category 4 early Friday after pummeling islands in the Caribbean. The United States has experienced only three Category 5 storms since 1851 and Irma is far larger than the last one to hit the United States in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to Long. He warned people not to ignore evacuation orders. They need to get out and listen and heed the warnings, Long said. Officials have thousands of personnel ready to respond and millions of meals and liters of water in place nearby, Long said. The National Weather Service said that Friday was the last day to evacuate before winds would start to reach unsafe speeds in Florida. Airlines added extra flights from Florida on Thursday before announcing plans to halt service from some southern Florida airports starting Friday afternoon. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price called Irma a remarkably dangerous storm and the window to get yourself in the right spot ... is closing rapidly. Price said the main hospital in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was closed after being damaged by Irma, and critically ill patients were being evacuated to Puerto Rico or other islands. On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 316-90 to approve a measure to more than double funding to $15.25 billion for FEMA and local block grants to handle natural disasters after the Senate passed the measure Thursday, 80-17. FEMA s disaster assistance fund could have run out of money Friday without action. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the measure Friday. The measure also extends the life of the National Flood Insurance Program through Dec. 5. It had been set to expire Sept. 30.


For seven years, the United States has fought to keep the euro zone intact, urging European officials toward action and supporting international bailout programs to keep the 17-nation currency union from cracking apart. That appears to have changed less than two weeks into Donald Trump's new administration. A sharp shift in tone toward Germany, casting the euro as fuel for that country's massive trade surplus, has raised concerns that the U.S. president's trade-centric world view may see the euro not as a geopolitical plus, but as another needless bit of multilateralism. While Trump has refrained from commenting directly on the euro, he praised Britain's decision to exit the European Union as a "great thing" and predicted that others would leave the bloc as the result of an influx of refugees. In comments published in the European press on Tuesday, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said the "grossly undervalued" euro served as a currency for Germany alone, allowing the country to "exploit" the United States and others. On Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary-designate Steven Mnuchin softened the traditional U.S. "strong dollar" mantra, suggesting that the dollar's current strength may be working against what has become perhaps the administration's central economic priority: reviving U.S. manufacturing and exports. Framed narrowly, that could put the United States on a clear a collision course with Germany, the world's fourth-largest economy and home to companies that rival top U.S. industrial giants, as it is with Mexico or China. "There seems to be this desire to go back to a divide and conquer style strategy where the U.S. negotiates against individual countries," said Douglas Rediker, executive chair of International Capital Strategies and a former U.S. executive board member at the International Monetary Fund. "To single (Germany) out when they don't have authority to manipulate their currency, requires you to make a leap - which is to say that 'We don't care that there actually is a common currency. We are going to take you to account.'" Monetary policy in the euro zone is set by the European Central Bank, and it is the ECB's money creation policies that have contributed to the euro's recent decline in value. Like the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing, those efforts have been regarded internationally as a reasonable response to the region's dangerous economic weakness - not as an effort to cheapen the currency to gain a trade advantage. "The question is how far will the new administration go with this?" said Jeromin Zettelmeyer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former German economic official. Trump could, for example, try to tax German goods to offset any perceived advantage gained from a cheap euro, Zettelmeyer said. An import duty has already been suggested as a way to redress alleged currency manipulation by China. "Trump seems to think that having a trade deficit with another country means that the other country is somehow stealing or at least getting the better deal," said Zettelmeyer. The first days of Trump's administration have touched off a wave of anxiety in Europe. European Council President Donald Tusk went so far as to list the new government in Washington among the chief "external" threats faced by Europe. Criticism of Germany's trade surplus, however, is not unique to Trump. The Treasury Department under President Obama added Germany to a "watch list" because of its large trade imbalances. The U.S. trade deficit with Germany stood at $77 billion as of 2015, three times that of other European Union countries combined, and $20 billion more than the deficit with Mexico, one of Trump's other economic nemeses. But for Obama officials, the aim was to get Germany to spend more and boost its imports of goods from the rest of Europe and the rest of the world. It was not to target the euro's value and, by extension, the steps taken by the ECB to revive European growth more broadly. Partly under American influence, the Group of 20 nations, including China, has in recent years agreed to consensus language that countries would "refrain from competitive devaluations." They have also generally avoided criticizing each other's central banks. That diplomacy is credited at least in part for China's recent shift toward a more flexible currency regime that organizations like the International Monetary Fund feel have brought the renminbi currency close to fair market value. In their last report on the euro zone, IMF staff said they did think the euro was undervalued. But they said the range could be anywhere from 0 to 10 percent, though likely larger for Germany. "The consequences (of a protectionist United States) affect us Germans as a leading export and import nation particularly hard," Federation of German Industries chief Dieter Kempf said in a speech in Berlin after the Navarro comments.


A Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll released on Friday put Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton just 5 percentage points above Republican rival Donald Trump ahead of Tuesday's U.S. presidential election. But major bookmakers and online exchanges are much more confident about a Clinton victory. Here is where they put the probability as of Sunday of each candidate winning the election: PredictIt, an online trading platform jointly run by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and Washington, D.C.-based political consulting firm Aristotle International Inc: Clinton - 81 percent Trump - 20 percent Iowa Electronic Markets, winner-takes-all trading market: Clinton - 71 percent Trump - 28 percent UK-based Betfair, internet betting exchange: Clinton - 83 percent Trump - 18 percent UK-based Ladbrokes, online betting platform: Clinton - 83 percent Trump - 22 percent Ireland's Paddy Power, bookmaker: Clinton - 83 percent Trump - 18 percent Probabilities were as of roughly 6:30 p.m. EST (2330 GMT) on Sunday.


The United States has charged a former Senegalese foreign minister and a former top Hong Kong government official with links to a Chinese energy conglomerate with bribing high-level officials in Chad and Uganda in exchange for contracts for the mainland company. Chi Ping Patrick Ho, 68, of Hong Kong, and Cheikh Gadio, 61, were charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, international money laundering and conspiracy, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement on Monday. It said Gadio, a former foreign minister of Senegal, was arrested in New York on Friday. It added that Ho, a former Hong Kong home affairs secretary who heads a non-governmental organization based in Hong Kong and Virginia, was arrested on Saturday. "Wiring almost a million dollars through New York's banking system in furtherance of their corrupt schemes, the defendants allegedly sought to generate business through bribes paid to the president of Chad and the Ugandan foreign minister," Joon Kim, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was quoted as saying in the statement. No one could be reached at the embassies of Chad and Uganda in Washington late on Monday. The missions did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment. In a statement, the U.S. Justice Department said the case against Ho involved two bribery schemes to pay high-level officials of Chad and Uganda in exchange for business advantages for a Shanghai-headquartered, multibillion-dollar energy firm. This energy company funded a non-government organization (NGO) based in Hong Kong and Virginia that Ho heads, the statement said, without naming the Shanghai company or the NGO. Ho is the secretary general of the Hong Kong-based China Energy Fund Committee, a mainland-backed think-tank that describes itself as a charitable, non-government organization. China Energy Fund Committee is fully funded by CEFC China Energy, a Shanghai-based private conglomerate, according to the think tank's website. The organization did not respond to an email requesting comment. CEFC China Energy said in a statement posted on its website late on Tuesday that: "As a non-governmental, non-profit organization, the fund is not involved in the commercial activities of CEFC China Energy." CEFC does not have any investment in Uganda, the company said in the statement, and its investment in Chad had been acquired via a stake bought from Taiwan's state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp and it had not dealt directly with the Chad government. "The company will continue monitoring this matter and will take necessary measures based on developments," it said. CEFC has been a key player in Chinese President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative, which aims to bolster China's global leadership ambitions by building infrastructure and trade links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing Tuesday that he was not aware of the specific details of the case. "I want to emphasize that the Chinese government consistently requires Chinese companies abroad to operate lawfully and abide by local laws and regulations." Idriss Deby has been Chad's president since 1990. Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa served as the president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2014 and 2015. Ho's attorney, Ed Kim, of Krieger Kim & Lewin LLP, declined to comment to Reuters. Bob Baum of Federal Defenders, who represented Gadio for the bail argument, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ho was ordered detained after appearing in court on Monday, the Justice Department statement said. It said Gadio appeared before a judge on Saturday and is being held until he can meet the conditions of a $1 million bond, according to court records. The Justice Department said a $2 million bribe was paid to Chad's president, who then provided the company with an opportunity to obtain oil rights in Chad without international competition. The department said in the statement that Gadio was the go-between and was paid $400,000 by Ho via wire transfers through New York. The Justice Department accused Ho of being involved with bribes and promises of future benefits to Uganda's foreign minister in exchange for help in obtaining business advantages for the Chinese company.


March 2, 2016: Zika PAYDAY! Obama wants to funnel $1.8 billion for vaccine research and more  I even published a mini-documentary revealing the published science that shows how DEET insecticide causes brain damage in humans. You can watch it at this link or view the video below:  If anyone from the Washington Post bothered to read Natural News and learn about real science, they would have learned that Zika has infected tens of millions of people throughout South America for decades , with absolutely no measurable increase in neurological deformations. (But facts be damned, the WashPost had a panic to push!) Nation after nation records tens of thousands of infections with ZERO birth defects…  Despite the factual reality of the situation, the state-controlled propagandists writing for rags like the Washington Post — a bogus newspaper that has lost all credibility in the minds of intelligent people — continued to pummel home their kooky science theories that claimed much of the U.S. South would be overrun by brain damaging mosquitoes, turning Southerners into shrunken-brained mutants while pregnant women fled northward to survive the airborne insect onslaught.  Instead, nothing happened . No explosion in shrunken-headed babies. No wave of birth defects across Florida, even as city officials desperately bombarded their own cities with brain-damaging insecticides. No national emergency declared by Obama to bring back DDT and eradicate baby-murdering mosquitoes by dousing our open streets with thick clouds of organophosphate neurotoxins.  Instead, the rate of neurological birth defects in most countries approached zero. Via the Washington Post's own graphic: (partial list)  Venezuela: 60,791 Zika infections… ZERO birth defects Honduras: 31,933 Zika infections… ONE birth defect Guadalupe: 30,969 Zika infections… ZERO birth defects Puerto Rico: 29,084 Zika infections… TWO birth defects Mexico: 4,837 Zika infections… ZERO birth defects  From the WashPost article:  Brazilian officials were bracing for a flood of fetal deformities as Zika spread this year to other regions of the country, Marinho said. However, "we are not seeing a big increase."  Gee, really?  The vast majority of the brain defects, it turns out, came from just one small region of Brazil. A total of 2,033 children are so far recorded with neurological defects there, even while most other countries throughout the region had ZERO birth defects (or near zero).  So what gives? Zika mosquitoes apparently carry geopolitical maps so they can solely target Brazil  You don't have to be a genius to figure out that the stupid science theories of the mainstream media are total hokum and bunk . If Zika really did cause brain defects, it would have spread all across South America by now. It would have spread into Florida, California, Mississippi and Louisiana. It would have devastated the American South, Cuba, Haiti, Curacao and all the other island nations across the Caribbean.  Yet the neurological defects were limited almost exclusively to Brazil.  Somehow, if we believe the illiterate Washington Post science writers — who may in fact be the only brain damage victims of Zika in North America — mosquitoes carry MAPS to make sure they only activate their brain damage voodoo in Brazil .  "…[A]lthough the outbreak has spread this year to more than 50 nations and territories across the Western Hemisphere, U.N. data shows just 142 cases of congenital birth defects linked to Zika so far outside Brazil," says WashPost.  Yes, my friends: GPA-carrying Zika mosquitoes are very careful to limit their pandemic voodoo to just one region of Brazil. By sheer coincidence, that's the same region where larvacide chemicals were dumped into the public water supply.  Apparently, there isn't a single "official" scientist in the entire global government who has thought to test the water. Just freaking WOW… Let's throw these morons out of power in every election, okay? They don't deserve any positions of authority over anyone else. They're all so incredibly stupid, they couldn't survive at all unless they functioned as parasites on the taxpayers. They aren't giving up hope just yet… science writers desperately hope for more brain damaged babies to prove them right  Enthusiasm for more brain damaged babies runs high at the Washington Post, which explains why they are all in for Hillary Clinton, the candidate of choice for brain damaged adults . Writing with a sense of real enthusiasm, the Washington Post can't wait for more brain damaged babies to appear:  Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are closely watching Puerto Rico, which has reported more than 26,800 cases of Zika. More than 7,000 pregnant women could be infected by the end of the year, according to the CDC. (Yippee?)  And now, the loony tunes quack science of the Zika "scientists" goes apoplectic, grasping for silly metaphors to try to obscure the fact that they are all stupid beyond belief . Via the WashPost:  "Now we've settled on Zika as the smoking gun, but we don't know who pulled the trigger," said Marques, speaking from Recife, where he is working with government researchers.  Huh? Wha? The metaphor doesn't even make any sense.  Maybe the problem is too much fornicating. Seriously, this is now part of their idiotic theory:  "Sexual habits and hygiene may also play a role," he said, explaining that researchers are looking at whether sexual transmission can infect the uterus and placenta with the virus, potentially exposing the fetus to elevated risk. "We suspect the villain has an accomplice, but we don't know who it is," Marques said.  Huh? Do they seriously think that people only have sex in Brazil but not other South American countries? Where does the Washington Post find these morons? I'm a real scientist saying all this  As you read all this, remember that I have rapidly become one of the world's leading research scientists on the quantitation of cannabinoids in hemp extracts using mass spec instrumentation. I led the team that developed the most pioneering (and accurate) CBD mass spec analysis method in existence today. You can read about it at this link . I also routinely test water, food and environmental samples for heavy metals, pesticides and a multitude of chemical contaminants. When I say these Zika scientists are complete morons, that's the educated opinion of an accomplished scientist correctly pointing out the lunacy of Zika scaremongering.  I could have solved this entire problem in the first few days by analyzing and detecting brain-damaging larvacide chemicals in the public water supply in Eastern Brazil. The entire project would have taken just a few days and cost almost nothing. Instead, Obama handed $1.8 billion to the vaccine companies in the midst of the Zika panic pushed by laughable rags like the Washington Post. It's all a racket, of course, just like their coverage of elections and political candidates. Everything you read at the Washington Post is a deception of one kind or another . The paper exists solely to promote the propaganda of the state so that the population can be manipulated and controlled. The Washington Post exists to terrorize the citizens with fascist propaganda parading as science  As you've also learned by now, the corrupt leftist establishment of junk science, criminal politicians and idiotic journalists isn't interested in legitimate scientific solutions . They all function as extensions of a fascist state that must routinely terrorize its citizens with pandemic boogeyman scare stories in order to demand absolute obedience to the vaccine mandates that actually do damage the brains of children.  Thus, SCIENCE be damned. They've got an agenda to push, and it doesn't matter to them whether that agenda is based on a single shred of real science. Zika is dangerous because they told you so, in exactly the same way they told you Hillary Clinton is totally honest, Obamacare would make health care more affordable, there's no such thing as voter fraud in America, and GMOs and vaccines are really, really good for you.  So you can put down the DEET and stop poisoning your skin like an obedient idiot. Yes, it was all a scam. Yes, the official "science" was totally rigged. Yes, the media lied to you yet again. Yes, the CDC is a criminal racket. Yes, all the health "officials" were completely full of s**t. And no, Zika is not going to cause your babies to be born with shrunken heads. VACCINES, on the other hand, will most definitely cause brain damage, as they still contain mercury, a potent neurotoxin the Washington Post ridiculously insists becomes magically neutralized when you inject it into the body of a child.


U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel said on Wednesday he would take more time to decide whether video excerpts of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump answering questions under oath about his Trump University seminars should be made public. Curiel is overseeing two class-action lawsuits in San Diego over the real estate seminar venture. A separate fraud case by New York state's attorney general is pending. Trump has suggested Curiel is biased against him because of his campaign rhetoric about illegal immigration. Curiel was born in Indiana but is of Mexican descent. On Wednesday, Trump's lawyers fought release of the videos, arguing that they would be exploited during the presidential campaign. "There's all kinds of potential for mischief," Daniel Petrocelli, a lawyer for Trump, told Curiel. Jason Forge, a lawyer for the students who claim they were misled and defrauded by Trump University, said Petrocelli could not point to any particular harm if the videos are released since transcripts are already public. The lawsuits accuse Trump of bilking students who paid as much as $35,000 each to learn his real estate investment strategies. The students claim they learned little. Trump has claimed a majority of students were satisfied with the seminars.


Get short URL 0 1 0 0 Relations between Moscow and Belgrade are developing favorably, nevertheless, additional stimuli would benefit their trade and economic cooperation, Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev on Wednesday.  BELGRADE (Sputnik) — During his visit, apart from Dacic and Stefanovic, Patrushev is expected to meet with Serbian Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic, and President Tomislav Nikolic. As part of the visit, Patrushev will take part in the ceremony of laying wreaths at the memorial to the liberators of Belgrade and at the monument to Soviet soldiers. © AP Photo/ Darko Vojinovic Serbian Minister Stands for Increased Cooperation With Russian Security Services "Minister Dacic stressed that relations between Serbia and Russia are traditionally good, and are developing in the interests, and to the satisfaction, of both countries, as well as that it is necessary to provide additional incentives for the development of trade and economic relations," the Serbian Foreign Ministry press service announced, citing the first deputy head of the Serbian government.  In the afternoon, before speaking with Patrushev, Interior Minister of Serbia Nebojsa Stefanovic said that Belgrade was successfully cooperating with the Russian Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service and the National Guard. Patrushev proposed to work on a memorandum of understanding to create the conditions for regular communication on security matters of mutual interest. ...


When the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, said on Tuesday that his investigators had no "direct evidence" that Hillary Clinton's email account had been "successfully hacked," both private experts and federal investigators immediately understood his meaning: It very likely had been breached, but the intruders were far too skilled to leave evidence of their work. Mr. Comey described, in fairly blistering terms, a set of email practices that left Mrs. Clinton's systems wide open to Russian and Chinese hackers, and an array of others. She had no cybersecurity professional monitoring her system. She took her BlackBerry everywhere she went, "sending and receiving emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. " Her use of "a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. " In the end, the risks created by Mrs. Clinton's insistence on keeping her communications on a private server may prove to be a larger issue than the relatively small amount of classified data investigators said they found on her system. But the central mystery — who got into the system, if anyone — may never be resolved. "Reading between the lines and following Comey's logic, it does sound as if the F. B. I. believes a compromise of Clinton's email is more likely than not," said Adam Segal, the author of "Hacked World Order," who studies cyberissues at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Sophisticated attackers would have known of the existence of the account, would have targeted it and would not have been seen. " Mr. Comey couched his concern on Tuesday by repeating the intelligence community's favorite phrase — "we assess" — four times, but ultimately reached no conclusion. "We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account," he said. But that was notable: Until Mr. Comey spoke, Mrs. Clinton and her campaign have said that her server — there were actually several, in succession — was never hacked. A State Department inspector general's report issued this year reported what looked like several attempts at "spear phishing" — fake emails intended to get a user to click on a link that would install malware on a computer — but there is no evidence that those links were activated. Mrs. Clinton, and her campaign, have always maintained that the server was secure. President Obama backed her up in an interview last October on CBS's "60 Minutes. " "I don't think it posed a national security problem," he said. But Mr. Comey painted a different picture. "Hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact," he said. And that would have meant that tracking the trail of electronic breadcrumbs back to her server would have been a pretty simple task. After that, their ability to break in would have been a mix of skill and luck, but they had plenty of time to get it right. Mrs. Clinton's best defense, and one she cannot utter in public, is that whatever the risks of keeping her own email server, that server was certainly no more vulnerable than the State Department's. Had she held an unclassified account in the State Department's official system, as the rules required, she certainly would have been hacked. Russian intruders were thoroughly inside that system for years — since at least 2007 — before the State Department shut its system down several times to perform a digital exorcism in late 2014, nearly two years after Mrs. Clinton left office. Either out of embarrassment or to protect its sources of intelligence, the Obama administration has never publicly blamed Russia for stealing data from the unclassified systems at the State Department and the White House, just as it has never publicly identified China as the culprit in the theft of information on nearly 22 million Americans stored by the Office of Personnel Management. Mrs. Clinton's campaign has insisted that the server did have some cyber protection software, but they have not said what kind. But security software is useless unless it is updated constantly to reflect threats that change every day. Even then, there are ways for a determined, hacker to get in. The best hackers use a gap in the software that has never been discovered before called a "zero day," suggesting there are zero days of warning about its dangers, or they wait for a user error, including clicking on a link. Perhaps Mr. Comey's most surprising suggestion was that Mrs. Clinton had used her private email while in the territory of what he called "sophisticated adversaries. " That usually means China and Russia, but could include visits elsewhere, including Eastern Europe. James A. Lewis, a former government cyber security expert who now studies the cyber activities of nations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said, "If she used it in Russia or China, they almost certainly picked it up. " Once the hardware is in a foreign country, and on its phone networks, it is particularly vulnerable. Malware can be placed on it that could turn the phone into a listening device. One lurking question is whether Mrs. Clinton's own practice of taking the phone around the world made it susceptible to tinkering by a foreign government. The State Department worries so much about corrupted cellphones that visitors to the secretary's suite on the seventh floor must place their devices in lockers near the guard's desk. Mrs. Clinton, her campaign said on Wednesday, took her smartphone to the State Department but kept it in a room outside the secure area around her office suite. Moreover, for truly sensitive data, the State Department does not use its own networks at all. It quietly uses a network run by one of the major intelligence agencies, according to officials familiar with the system. That suggests a lack of confidence that State's classified systems can be fully trusted. Since the disclosure that Mrs. Clinton used private email, officials in the government and many outside it have been monitoring the internet, looking to see if any of her messages, or those directed to her, made their way into the public domain. Documents from the Democratic National Committee began circulating after it announced a breach that also appears to have been conducted by Russian intelligence. Nothing from Mrs. Clinton has surfaced. But that does not mean they were not stolen, only that they have not been made public.


Leading Republicans have already expressed anxieties about Tillerson, as they contend with intelligence assessments saying that Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election to help turn the tables Trump s way. FOX NewsThe RINOs will certainly join in with their concerns just like Marco Rubio did in a tweet: Being a friend of Vladimir is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #SecretaryOfState. Sen. Marco RubioPresident-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he intends to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State.Tillerson impressed Trump during the two meetings he had with him. Trump had high praise for the energy titan, calling him a world class player . He s in charge of an oil company that s pretty much double the size of his next nearest competitor, Trump told host Chris Wallace. It s been a company that s been unbelievably managed, and to me a great advantage is he knows many of the players and he knows them well. He does massive deals in Russia, he does massive deals for the company. Not for himself, for the company. Trump pointed to Tillerson s relations with Moscow and other political hot spots as a selling point. As ExxonMobil s chief, he maintained close ties with Russia and was awarded by Russian President Vladimir Putin with the Order of Friendship in 2013, a high honor for a foreign citizen.


President Obama is optimistic about Brazil's ability to meet political and economic challenges in the wake of a recent International Monetary Fund assessment, the White House said on Tuesday. "The United States and President Obama himself have confidence in the durability of the Brazilian democracy to weather those challenges," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.


In another humiliating defeat that will have major ramifications for Republicans going forward, all 8 Justices on the Supreme Court upheld a lower court s ruling that Texas Republicans could not redraw voting districts to suppress the growing Latino vote.The one person, one vote case was designed by conservatives to exclude non-voting populations when drawing the electoral map for the state. The immediate effect would be that districts with large numbers of non-eligible voters (like, for instance, Latino immigrants and children), would be lumped together, giving much more power to rural, mostly white and older, districts.I m sure you ll be shocked to know that older white people tend to vote Republican. But that surely wasn t the intent behind this move to consolidate power increase the fairness of elections for white people everyone.If this all sounds a bit confusing (and it should), what Republicans were trying to say is that people who can t vote, children, immigrants, convicted felons, etc. do not deserve the same kind of representation in their local government. Because they re not really people or something. But really, this was just the latest GOP attempt at rigging elections.Right now, the populations of large racially diverse cities mean that those cities have several (or more) voting districts and they tend to be far more liberal than rural, mostly white districts. That means that in a state like Texas, the cities are threatening to overpower the rural areas in terms of electoral power and turn the state purple and eventually blue. The goal of this court case was to reverse that trend and greatly reduce the number of city districts, thus, making the rural (and conservative) districts more powerful.But apparently this was a voter suppression tactic too far for even the conservatives on the Court:Six justices signed on to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg s decision, and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas the most conservative members of the court concurred in the judgment. Total-population apportionment meets the equal protection demand, by rendering each representative alert to the interests and constituent-service requests of all who dwell in the representative s district, Ginsburg said.Even if Scalia had still been alive, it looks like he might have been the only dissent. And maybe Thomas after Scalia had told him what to think.The conservative Justices were not opposed to the basic premise of the plan (stripping large cities of their voting power), just this particular method. Once Republicans come up with a new avenue of attack (and they will), they ll try it again and if Republicans control the White House and put another Scalia on the bench, they might get away with it next time.See why voting blue is important?


Thousands of demonstrators from largely Francophone Cameroon s English-speaking minority took to the streets to demand more rights on Friday, some of them hoisting separatist flags. Two Anglophone regions in the west account for about a sixth of Cameroon s population. Long-standing complaints of political and economic discrimination spilled over there last year when lawyers and teachers called for reforms. Security forces killed six protesters and arrested hundreds of others, and the internet was shut down in the region from January to April, crippling businesses in a crackdown that was condemned internationally. Friday s protests were the largest and most widespread in months and came the day after a bomb suspected to have been planted by separatists wounded three policemen in Bamenda, capital of the Northwest region. The protests appeared to go beyond previous demands for justice and education reform. In Buea, capital of the Southwest region, a Reuters reporter saw protesters take down a national flag outside a police station, while officers looked on, and hoist the blue and white striped one of Ambazonia , a name for the Anglophone territory. A local journalist described a similar incident in the nearby town of Ekona. In Buea, young men with their faces painted blue and white blew whistles and shouted We want freedom! . We need independence. We need to be free. We are Ambazonians, said Emmanuel Che, one of the protesters. The only solution to this matter is let the government solve the problem by giving our independence. Some Anglophones have been demanding independence for years, but they are outnumbered by those merely demanding reforms, experts say. Still, the unrest is uncomfortable to the government of President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 35 years and was addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Friday. It is intensifying now. It has shifted to another level of extremism, said political analyst Albert Nchinda. Cameroon s linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors. After independence in 1960, the English-speaking part opted to join French Cameroon instead of Nigeria.


John McCain survived brutal torture and six years as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. If Donald Trump thinks he can intimidate him, he should think again.On Friday, the Arizona senator released a statement announcing his intention to vote against the Graham-Cassidy bill that Republicans have introduced to repeal Obamacare.The bill would strip healthcare from 30 million Americans, and turn Medicaid into a block grant program that would cease to exist after a few years. The bill also gives states the power to obtain waivers so that insurance companies can discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. America s healthcare system would be thrown into dire chaos, and Trump is absolutely okay with that.McCain is not.The issue is too important, and too many lives are at risk, for us to leave the American people guessing from one election to the next whether and how they will acquire health insurance. A bill of this impact requires a bipartisan approach.Senators Alexander and Murray have been negotiating in good faith to fix some of the problems with Obamacare. But I fear that the prospect of one last attempt at a strictly Republican bill has left the impression that their efforts cannot succeed. I hope they will resume their work should this last attempt at a partisan solution fail.I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal. I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried. Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will effect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it. Without a full CBO score, which won t be available by the end of the month, we won t have reliable answers to any of those questions.And for that, Trump viciously attacked McCain.John McCain never had any intention of voting for this Bill, which his Governor loves. He campaigned on Repeal & Replace. Let Arizona down! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017Arizona had a 116% increase in ObamaCare premiums last year, with deductibles very high. Chuck Schumer sold John McCain a bill of goods. Sad Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017Large Block Grants to States is a good thing to do. Better control & management. Great for Arizona. McCain let his best friend L.G. down! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017First off, block grants are not enough to cover all the people who desperately need healthcare. In fact, it limits funding to the point where state officials will have to decide who gets care and who doesn t to avoid using up the grant money on expensive treatments, which sounds a lot like a death panel.Second, Lindsey Graham s friendship with McCain does not mean they vote the same, as Graham made clear on Twitter.My friendship with @SenJohnMcCain is not based on how he votes but respect for how he s lived his life and the person he is. Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) September 22, 2017Obamacare has its flaws, but those flaws can be fixed easily with bipartisan legislation. McCain understands this and he understands that repealing Obamacare would leave tens of millions of Americans without healthcare, including millions of conservatives in red states.Donald Trump is an asshole. He wants to kill a major healthcare law just because it is known as Obamacare and because he is desperate for major legislation to sign. He hasn t even actually read the damn bill, which medical organizations and the healthcare industry agree is terrible.Besides, if Trump wanted McCain s vote so much he should have thought of that before criticizing him for being a POW.Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images


President-elect Donald Trump played a round of golf at his Jupiter golf course Saturday morning without notifying the traveling press pool that traditionally reports on his whereabouts. According to media reports, Trump headed to his Trump National Golf Club sometime in the morning. The golf course sits off Donald Ross Road about a half-hour drive north of Trump s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, where he and his family have been spending time for the Christmas and New Year s holidays. Mar-a-Lago was slated to host its lavish annual New Year s gala later Saturday.A club member tweeted a photo of Trump on the course, saying he was accompanied by about 25 Secret Service agents, The Associated Press reported.David Markus of Miami was spending some time at the golf club to celebrate the New Year s holiday when he and his family spotted Trump. He snapped a few photos of Trump, including one with Markus three daughters taken near the club s pool. Markus said Trump started his golf game around 9:30 a.m. and ate lunch around 2 p.m. before leaving the club.Trump s golf outing was a last-minute decision to play We are in the home stretch of this transition period and don t anticipate any additional situations like this between now and inauguration, Grisham said in a statement to the AP. We hope this one incident doesn t negate all the progress we have made and look forward to continuing the great relationships we have built. Grisham said Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago about 3:10 p.m.


By Heather Callaghan, Editor There's no denying that nature – and our exposure to it – has a profound effect on our mental well-being. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is only...


U.S. allegations that Russia is breaking its Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Washington lack evidence and are speculative, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.


Just another day in the holy month of Ramadan London is the scene of carnage again with another terror attack. A van plowed into pedestrians on London Bridge with reports of men jumping out of the van to stab random people. We re posting details as they come in from the UK. Several people have been killed and the latest update is that 5 armed terrorists are on the run in London.Meanwhile, a video has been posted on social media showing what appears to be Muslim men who have just witnessed the London Bridge terror attack and are simply observers of a horrific terror attack against innocent people. You can hear them speaking in Arabic and saying something about 3 attacks, after which time you can hear one of them yell, Allah Akbar! It s interesting to hear how the Muslim men in the vehicle respond to the murder of innocent people at the hands of Islamic extremists . After watching this video, one has to wonder how exactly, we should go about differentiating between the moderate and extremist Muslims Muslims laughing and yelling Allah Ackbar in London after #LondonBridge attack pic.twitter.com/6XjlwwQqQ7 Tanya Tay (@realTanyaTay) June 3, 2017


Military British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon (Photo by AFP)  British Defense Minister Michael Fallon says the UK is set to deploy hundreds of troops to the Baltic region in Europe to support its NATO allies in the face of a "more assertive Russia."  Fallon told a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels on Wednesday that Britain would send 800 soldiers to Estonia to fulfill its pledge to deliver one of four battalions to NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence in Eastern Europe.  "Backed by a rising defense budget, this deployment of air, land and sea forces shows that we will continue to play a leading role in NATO, supporting the defense and security of our allies from the north to the south of the alliance," Fallon said.  NATO had announced in July that it would deploy, on a rotational basis, four multinational battalions to Poland and the Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—to deter what it referred to as "any Russian incursion."  During his address at the meeting, Fallon also said that four British Typhoon fighter jets would be dispatched to Romania under the NATO Southern Air Policing mission, which is supposed to protect the Baltic states' airspace against possible attacks from Russia.  "This is about two things: reassurance, and that needs to be done with some formidable presence, and deterrence," Fallon had said in an earlier interview. "This is not simply a trip-wire….This is a serious military presence."  The move is likely to draw criticism from Moscow, which has been angered by NATO's military buildup on its Western borders.  The US-led military alliance cut its ties with Moscow in 2014 and has been reinforcing its presence near Russia's borders ever since.  The UK and Russia have strong disagreements over a number of issues, mainly the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.  The two countries' military forces have been involved in a series of aerial and naval confrontations, with Britain sending its jets and warships on several occasions to intercept Russian bombers and naval fleets.  The latest of those encounters occurred on Thursday, when the Russian aircraft career Admiral Kuznetsov and its seven-ship task force were "shadowed" by two British warships on a course to sail through the North Sea and English Channel, on their way to Syria. Loading ...


There s crazy and then there s nonsensical, conspiratorial, out of your head, paranoid with a tinfoil hat on your head, curled in the fetal position in your mom s basement crazy. The latter would be radio talk show host Alex Jones.Not only does he believe that President Obama somehow secretly had Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia killed, a man who was 79-years-old and a known smoker and we know died of natural causes, but now he believes that the president has plans for other people as well. You know, so Obama can finally unleash his true intentions for the nation. After all, he still hasn t come for anyone s guns or forced us all to be Muslim yet.Jones declared in a morbid Facebook post, this is the season of treason, this is the time of betrayal and we would be fools not to ask the question. Which clearly begs the question, who is allowing Alex Jones to have any sort of internet privileges? He s more than lost his mind, he s replaced it with a new bag of nuts.However, he goes on: You just get used to this, Scalia found, it s natural, nothing going on here, he just died naturally. And you re like, Whoa. Red flag. Then you realize, Obama is one vote away from being able to ban guns, open the borders and actually have the court engage in its agenda and now Scalia dies. I mean, this is hard core I wonder if Clarence Thomas will die of a heart attack next week. If this is an assassination, it signifies that they re dropping the hammer, that s the canary in the coal mine. Wait! There s more! Are they going to kill Clarence Thomas? Maybe they ll kill Ron Paul. Maybe they ll kill Donald Trump next. They all had heart attacks. How many more of these are we going to sit here and put up with? Or maybe their airplane blows up. Someone needs to tell this guy to relax. However, he adds: My gut tells me they killed him and all the intellectual evidence lays it out. The only thing his gut indicates is that he s had one too many cheeseburgers.He then goes on to insist that Republicans need to block anyone Obama nominates, because if they don t liberals are going to destroy the Constitution and start a civil war. He literally believes Obama is coming after everyone.Jones has said a lot of crazy things in his career, but this may take the cake. // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>Breaking: Justice Scalia Murdered?Posted by Alex Jones on Saturday, February 13, 2016Featured image: screencap


President Donald Trump on Wednesday shared anti-Muslim videos posted on Twitter by a far-right British party leader, drawing condemnation from Britain, U.S. Muslim groups and some members of Congress. The White House defended the retweets by the Republican president, who during the 2016 U.S. election campaign called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," saying that he was raising security issues. As president, Trump has issued executive orders banning entry to some citizens of several Muslim-majority countries, although courts have partially blocked the measures from taking effect. "Look, I'm not talking about the nature of the video," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters. "The threat is real and that's what the president is talking about is the need for national security, the need for military spending, and those are very real things. There's nothing fake about that." Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of anti-immigration Britain First, posted the videos which she said showed a group of people who were Muslims beating a teenage boy to death, battering a boy on crutches and destroying a Christian statue. Fransen was convicted earlier this month of abusing a Muslim woman and was ordered to pay a fine and legal costs. Some British lawmakers demanded an apology from Trump for sharing the videos with his nearly 44 million Twitter followers and U.S. Muslim groups said he had been incendiary and reckless. "It is wrong for the president to have done this," the spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said. "Britain First seeks to divide communities through their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people," the spokesman said. Trump fired back at May over her criticism. "Theresa @theresamay, don't focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine," Trump tweeted, using an incorrect Twitter handle for May. He later issued a tweet with her correct handle, "@Theresa_May". Reuters was unable to immediately verify the videos and Fransen herself said they had come from various online sources which had been posted on her social media pages. "I'm delighted," Fransen, who has 53,000 Twitter followers, told Reuters. She said Trump's retweets showed the president shared her aim of raising awareness of "issues such as Islam". The White House repeatedly refused to be drawn into the content of the videos or whether Trump was aware of the source of the tweets. "It's about ensuring that individuals who come into the United States don't pose a public safety or terrorism threat," White House spokesman Raj Shah told reporters aboard Air Force One. Fransen thanked Trump and said, "The important message here is Donald Trump has been made aware of the persecution and prosecution of a political leader in Britain for giving what has been said by police to be an anti-Islamic speech." ANTI-IMMIGRATION One of the videos that Trump retweeted first circulated on social and Egyptian state media in 2013, showing what appeared to be supporters of now-ousted Islamist President Mohammed Mursi throwing two youths from a concrete tower onto a roof. In reference to another video that was titled "Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!", the Netherlands embassy in the United States tweeted back at Trump saying: "@realDonaldTrump Facts do matter. The perpetrator of the violent act in this video was born and raised in the Netherlands. He received and completed his sentence under Dutch law." Trump's promotion of the videos contrasts with the way he often criticizes mainstream U.S. media, lambasting some outlets for "fake news" when they air segments he regards as being against him. "What we saw today is one of many videos that is circulating on anti-Muslim hate websites," said Ilhan Cagri with the U.S.-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. "It is years-old and simply aims to breed fear for Muslims and Islam and breed violence. It has nothing to do with the practice of Islam itself," Cagri said. The Anti-Defamation League said the retweets would only encourage "extremists and anti-Muslim bigots in the United States and abroad who exploit the propaganda value." "Such content is the engine that fuels extremist movements and will embolden bigots in the U.S. who already believe the president is a fellow traveler," the ADL said in a statement. Democrats in Congress and at least one Republican lawmaker were also critical of Trump. "The violence depicted in these videos is horrific, but it is abhorrent that President Trump would choose to deliberately fan the flames of hatred and religious bigotry," Democratic U.S. Senator Jack Reed said in a statement. Republican Senator John McCain, a frequent critic of Trump, said he was "surprised" that Trump had chosen to retweet those videos. "What do I think about it? Obviously, surprised. Surprised," he told Reuters as he left a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah at the U.S. Senate. Britain First is a peripheral political party which wants to end all immigration and bring in a comprehensive ban on Islam, with anyone found to be promoting the religion's ideology to be deported or imprisoned. The group, which rarely garners any media attention but attracts a few hundred protesters to its regular street demonstrations, states on its website it is a "loyalist movement." Critics say it is simply racist. Last week, Fransen was charged by the police in Northern Ireland with using threatening, abusive or insulting words in a speech at a rally in Belfast in August. Along with the group's leader, she was also charged in September with causing religiously aggravated harassment over the distribution of leaflets and posting online videos during a court trial involving a number of Muslim men accused and later convicted of rape. Politicians in Britain condemned Trump, with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, describing his tweets as "abhorrent, dangerous and a threat to our society." In contrast, David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who has run for political office in Louisiana, praised Trump. "He's condemned for showing us what the fake news media won't," Duke wrote on Twitter. "Thank God for Trump! That's why we love him!"


Connie Kopelov, whose wedding to Phyllis Siegel in 2011 was the first legal marriage in New York City, died in Manhattan on Saturday. She was 90. Her death was confirmed by Ms. Siegel, who said Ms. Kopelov had been in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. Ms. Kopelov and Ms. Siegel had been partners for 23 years when they were married by the city clerk on July 24, 2011 — the same day that a state law took effect allowing couples to marry. That morning, Ms. Kopelov, then 85, and Ms. Siegel, 76, were the first couple through the door of the marriage bureau, on Worth Street in Lower Manhattan. The City Council speaker at the time, Christine C. Quinn, a lesbian and prominent gay rights activist, stood in attendance around 9 a. m. as the clerk, Michael McSweeney, said, "I now pronounce you married. " Ms. Siegel held Ms. Kopelov's head and kissed her on the left cheek. Ms. Kopelov smiled and held her marriage license aloft. "I lost my breath," Ms. Siegel said in March, recalling the moment. "It was just the most exciting loss of breath I've ever had. I just was so happy. " From that day on, Ms. Siegel said, people would stop them on the street and congratulate them. Constance Kopelov was born on April 14, 1926, in the industrial city of Kokomo, Ind. to Samuel and Bessie Kopelov. She graduated from Northwestern University in 1947 with a bachelor's degree in political science and later earned a master's from Goddard College in Vermont in 1974. In 1955 she moved from Chicago to New York City, where she held positions in union organizations, including the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the Workers Defense League. Her work often focused on women's issues, and she taught courses on women's labor history at Cornell University and New York University. "She was always fighting for an issue," Ms. Siegel said. "She was always for the underdog. " Besides her wife, Ms. Kopelov is survived by a sister, Deborah Dorosin. Ms. Kopelov and Ms. Siegel met in the through their involvement with an advocacy group, Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders. New York State's legalization of marriage followed a multiyear legislative battle that ended with the State Senate's narrow approval of the Marriage Equality Act in June 2011. The law took effect one month later, on a Sunday, after which hundreds of gay and lesbian couples turned up at town halls and city clerks' offices across the state. New York became the sixth and largest state to allow couples to wed, a milestone that energized advocates as they pushed their campaign across the country. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees all Americans, including couples, a right to marriage. In 2012, just shy of their first wedding anniversary, Ms. Kopelov and Ms. Siegel were honored as grand marshals of New York City's Gay Pride Parade, along with the singer Cyndi Lauper and Chris Salgardo, the president of the cosmetics company Kiehl's. The couple were chauffeured down Fifth Avenue in a lime green convertible.


On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will consider Donald J. Trump's choice of Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma's attorney general since 2011, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Pruitt spent much of his time in office fighting the Obama administration over the E. P. A. 's actions to regulate air and water pollution and to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The committee is led by Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, an outspoken contrarian on climate change, and includes several Republicans openly hostile to federal action to address it. The Democratic members of the committee include some of the Senate's strongest supporters of the E. P. A. and most forceful voices for decisive action on climate change. We asked readers what questions they would ask if they could question Mr. Pruitt. More than 2, 000 replied, and their answers largely fell into a few categories. Here is what some of them would like to know. Many readers seemed familiar with Mr. Pruitt's statement that the science of climate change is "far from settled. " Most pointed out that an overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity, specifically by the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and asked for Mr. Pruitt's sources for his position. Seth Rudman, 28, a scientific researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, asked, "Can you describe the shortcomings of the scientific evidence for climate change and the type of data that would be needed to convince you that climate change is happening?" While being a scientist is not a requirement for the job, readers worried about what having a climate denialist at the top might mean for the agency. "During the Bush administration, climate scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, claimed that their voices were suppressed and their reports changed to minimize the role of humans in accelerating climate change and its impact," wrote Donald Chartier, 60, the founder and chief executive of an internet company in Chicago. "Can you assure us that E. P. A. scientists will be allowed to present scientific evidence and data freely to the American people, without retaliation?" Others focused on the risk Mr. Pruitt was taking by denying the risks of climate change. "If the scientific consensus on climate change proves correct and the changes in the Earth's weather cause widespread devastation, loss of life and property and great economic damage, who should be held responsible for staying the actions that might have prevented or ameliorated these outcomes?" asked Joseph Griffin, 72, a retiree from Bellefonte, Pa. During his time as attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt has been seen by some to be cozy with the fossil fuel industry. He filed 14 suits against the E. P. A. challenging the agency's environmental regulations, looking to soften the blow of federal policies against oil, gas, agriculture and other interests. In 13 of those cases, companies that had contributed money to Mr. Pruitt or to political campaign committees also signed on. Readers were concerned that Mr. Pruitt might continue to advance the interests of industry, possibly to the detriment of public health and safety. "How do you intend to serve the public need to protect the environment when you have demonstrated a preference for the rights of corporate shareholders?" asked Alison ten Cate, 50, an energy efficiency consultant from Belmont, Calif. Others wrote that Mr. Pruitt should be asked if he would be willing to disclose the companies and lobbyists that have given money to his campaigns, and agree to recuse himself from decisions involving them. Mr. Pruitt has argued that states are in a better position to regulate their environment and industries than the federal government, which he has accused of overreach. Many readers argued that air and water do not respect state borders, so it is the federal government's responsibility to regulate these interstate issues. "You have worked against the E. P. A. in favor of managing interstate and global issues at the state level. Why?" asked Charles Haddox, 59, a marketing manager in Denver. "What success stories can you relate in detail showing states are more successful at protecting resources in the absence of federal regulation?" They also wondered where the limits of Mr. Pruitt's federalism might lie. "Does your belief in federalism mean you will not interfere with the efforts of California and other states to address climate change?" wrote Michael McCabe, 19, a student at Sarah Lawrence College. "Or will you serve the interests of the fossil fuel industry and interfere with states' efforts?" Some asked practical questions, like Mavis 65, a teacher and naturalist in Memphis, who wanted to know how Mr. Pruitt could continue to push for state and local jurisdiction of clean air and water "in light of the Flint, Mich. water scandal. " High levels of lead were found in the city's water supply, largely a result of state and local regulatory failures, and the federal government had to intervene (some argue too late). Several readers seemed puzzled at why Mr. Pruitt would want to run a federal regulatory agency if he saw federal regulations as a problem, and wondered if he had other ideas for how to regulate pollutants. Some also would like to hear examples of success on environmental issues from his time in office in Oklahoma. Mark Baker, 48, an American who works for Diageo, an international beverage company, in Brussels, asked, "Can you provide an example of a policy that originated at the state or local level under your watch in Oklahoma and that resulted in cleaner water or air for Oklahoma's citizens?" "Do you believe in protecting water, air and land from pollution?" wrote Sabina Gasper, 55, who works for the pharmaceutical industry in Bismarck, N. D. "Do you believe that regulations are the way to do this? If not, how should these resources be protected?" Some struck a more hopeful tone, like Lilian Howard, "nearing 80 years of age," a retired travel consultant and writer from Virginia Beach, who wrote, "Would you briefly discuss a few actions by the E. P. A. which you believe were successful in protecting the American people and their natural surroundings from harm and how you might hope we can improve upon these during the new administration?"


For those blithely inclined toward the view that Britain would somehow find a way to sever its relationship with the European Union free of drama or financial consequences — like canceling a car rental reservation, with a tad more paperwork — Friday was a sobering day of reckoning. As the British pound plunged some 6 percent against the American dollar in the span of two minutes in early trading in Asia, the markets offered a reminder that divorce tends to be messy, expensive and laced with uncertainties. It rarely ends happily. The selling was so frenzied and swift that those who swap currencies for a living spoke of computerized transactions going haywire, rogue algorithms at work or a data entry error. The drop in the value of the pound appeared excessive, and it soon recovered some losses, though the British currency was down about 17 percent — around 25 cents — since June 23, the day Britain voted to abandon Europe. More than anything, though, the precipitous drop seemed to attest to an increasingly unmistakable reality: Britain's vote to exit the European Union — Brexit, in common parlance — has put its commercial relationships with the world on uncertain and potentially perilous ground. That poses risks for the British economy, making its money less attractive to hold. "The world believes that the U. K. is going to be poorer in the future, and find it more expensive to trade," said Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent research institution in London. "Essentially, the world is betting against the pound. " And against the British economy. The immediate cause of the plunge appeared to be a speech by the French president, François Hollande, on Thursday evening in Paris, in which he endorsed the view that Britain must be forced to swallow unpalatable terms of departure to discourage other European Union members from eyeing the exits. "The U. K. has decided to do a Brexit, I believe even a hard Brexit," Mr. Hollande said. "Well, then, we must go all the way through the U. K.'s willingness to leave the E. U. We have to have this firmness. "If not," he continued, "we would jeopardize the fundamental principles of the E. U. Other countries would want to leave the E. U. to get the supposed advantages without the obligations. " Hard Brexit, Soft Brexit, Brexit Over Easy. No one really knows what these terms mean (and the last one is made up). But, crudely, they divide potential outcomes into the ones in which Britain maintains effective inclusion within Europe's single market — a realm sprawling from Ireland to Romania, holding some 500 million people — and the ones in which Britain winds up outside. Mr. Hollande's line echoed a speech given by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany earlier that day. The week began with an admission from Britain's new Conservative prime minister, Theresa May, that access to the European market is likely to be a casualty of Britain's pursuit of a primary aspiration expressed in the Brexit vote: imposing limits on immigration. European leaders have been resolute that free movement of people across the borders of member nations is a nonnegotiable cost of admission in the common market. But Brexiteers had steadfastly maintained the illusion that Britain could have it both ways — that it could retain access to the European market while still controlling immigration. In destroying that idea, the prime minister's admission badly rattled the markets. The stakes are considerable. Britain ships nearly half its exports to other European Union members. The giants of global banking have turned London into a financial center rivaling New York, using hubs here to extend their reach across the rest of the European market. Investment has poured into Britain from around the world, as major manufacturers have set up factories so they can sell their wares across Europe without incurring tariffs. To one degree or another — and no one really knows how much — Brexit puts all of this in play. Negotiations between Britain and Europe are expected to commence sometime early next year. Whatever settlement results must be ratified by the remaining members of the European Union, meaning that Britain's economic prospects are now tethered to the vagaries of domestic politics in 27 other countries. None of these risks were unforeseen. During a fractious campaign leading up to the referendum, great reams of paper were released sketching out the potential effects on the British economy should voters opt to leave. Reports varied on details and degree, but they nearly unanimously concluded that Brexit would entail economic pain. The British Treasury surveyed the trading arrangements the government might strike with Europe after a Brexit vote and concluded it could lop some 6. 2 percent off the gross domestic product by 2030. That would leave the average household worse off by about 4, 300 pounds a year (at the current, depressed exchange rate, about $5, 300). But those campaigning to leave dismissed such talk as fearmongering. They described a swashbuckling and reinvigorated Britain that would break free from a stagnating Europe — the land of unemployed children moving in with their parents — to instead focus on improving trade with countries like China, India and the United States. Since the vote, those who urged leaving Europe have pointed to the facts that the sun still rises and the earth still spins to declare validation. Even as the pound has fallen against the dollar, consumer spending has generally held up along with employment. Economic growth has yet to be hit. Boutiques and restaurants in London remain packed. Some have focused on the upsides of a declining pound, which makes British exports cheaper on world markets and renders Britain a more affordable tourist destination. But this misses the fact that nearly of the goods and services consumed in Britain are imported. In dollar terms, the price of those goods and services is spiking. Eventually, economists assume, this inflation will work its way through the economy, further depressing growth by crimping consumer spending and potentially sowing unemployment. During the campaign, those in favor of leaving offered assurance that, whatever resulted, Britain would ultimately secure a beneficial trade deal with Europe. Germany sells vast quantities of cars to British consumers, giving it every incentive to keep trade flowing unimpeded by tariffs. As the largest economy in the union, Germany would hold the cards. But in her speech on Thursday, Ms. Merkel took direct aim at that argument, telling a gathering of industry leaders that any wavering on the principle of free movement of people would pose "a systemic challenge for the entire European Union. " The sudden plummeting of the pound appeared to signal that investors were absorbing the intricacies of this dynamic, and seeing through the Brexiteers' claims that Britain could impose limits on immigration while also negotiating a settlement with Europe that would maintain access to the common market. Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who campaigned for leaving the European Union and is now foreign secretary, managed last week to maintain the government line while simultaneously making fun of the charade. "Our policy is having our cake and eating it," he told the British tabloid, The Sun. But on Sunday, as Prime Minister May addressed a gathering of her governing Conservative Party in Birmingham, she essentially dumped the cake in the bin. "We have voted to leave the European Union and become a fully independent, sovereign country," Mrs. May declared. "We will do what independent, sovereign countries do. We will decide for ourselves how we control immigration. " In short, a "hard Brexit" appeared to be in Britain's future. "Somehow, a whole combination of people were in denial up until now," said Adam S. Posen, a former member of the committee at the Bank of England, and now president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. "There were the people who thought Brexit would be reversed," he continued. "There were the people who delusionally thought there would be a soft Brexit, and all the northern Europeans would be nice to them. And there were people who believed that this crew in charge of the British negotiations were somehow going to strike a good deal. All of the delusions have run out of material. "


When should you leave for your Thanksgiving drive in order to avoid getting stuck in traffic with the tens of millions of people on the road? That depends on where you are, according to Google. Based on last year's travel patterns from Google Maps users, the best day to leave is the Sunday before Thanksgiving, though the time varies. If you've already missed that window, never fear: Google has also compiled the worst time to leave. Below are the best and worst departure times and return times for 10 popular U. S. cities, as well as some airport traffic recommendations and trending destinations. If you do not see your city, the general trend is that you'll hit less traffic if you can leave on Sunday and return on Friday, while the slowest commutes are for those departing on Wednesday and returning on Saturday. Also, stores that sell stuff tend to be busy. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 5 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic You'll hit less traffic before noon or after 4 p. m. Trending Destinations How badly do you want that $5 player? "Outlet mall" searches point to heavy on Thursday and Friday. Searches for "animal shelter" are also high on Friday, which is great news for animals needing new homes. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 5 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 5 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic The only time to avoid O'Hare is if you're coming from Milwaukee around 3 p. m. Otherwise, it should be business as usual. Trending Destinations Chicagoans love to party on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, with "night club" topping the list. That might explain why "Mongolian BBQ restaurant" is tops on Thanksgiving. Who feels like cooking at that point? Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 2 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has free admission on Thanksgiving, which may explain why "zoo" is the destination on turkey day. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 8 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations Pies and parades rule Houston Thanksgiving week, with "pie shop" being the most searched for term on Wednesday and "city hall" on Thursday, which points to Houston's 67th annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year's marshalls are Simone Biles and Simone Manuel. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 5 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 5 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic Arrive before 3 p. m. or leave after 10 p. m. to avoid the worst of it. Anyone leaving on a around 10 p. m. can expect a trip twice as long. Trending Destinations When I think of Los Angeles, ham shops always come to mind. No, not really, but "ham shop" is what people are looking for the most on the day before Thanksgiving. Is turkey not a thing in Los Angeles? Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 2 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations Where's the buffet? Buzzed Miamians want to know. "Buffet restaurants" and "liquor store" are the top two search terms on Thanksgiving day. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 5 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 2 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic From Manhattan, arrive before 6 p. m. or the commute could be twice as long. Trending Destinations Many are wondering if the "natural history museum" is open on Thanksgiving, but not as many who are looking for a "pie shop," which is the top term on Wednesday and Thursday. And, of course, that classic Thanksgiving tradition of dining at a "fondue restaurant" is represented with the search term on Thursday. I think we can all remember our first Thanksgiving memory quite well. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations Nothing out of the ordinary here, with "electronics store," "liquor store" and "appliance store" topping the list. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 2 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations More folks in Phoenix are concerned about airport parking on Thanksgiving day than most of these other cities, with "airport parking lot" listed as the third most searched term. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 2 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations There are a lot of people shopping, but many are also checking out the historic sites, with "zoo," "national museum" and "memorial park" rounding out the top five most searched terms on Friday.


David Duke October 27, 2016  Today Dr. Duke and Dr. Slattery talked about Hillary's clear acts of treason against the United States by providing massive shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia at a time that she knew they were providing support to ISIS. Dr. Duke, if elected to the Senate, would be in a position to expose Hillary and push for her impeachment should she win (steal) the election.  Dr. Slattery discussed post-election scenarios. He noted that if Trump wins in a close election, a small number of Republican electors could be bribed to vote for Hillary, throwing the election to her, or even vote for Pence, throwing the election to the House of Representatives to decide from amongst Trump, Hillary, and Pence. Should Hillary win and Trump supporters feel the election was illegitimate, impeachment would be more likely.  This is an extremely educating and enlightening show. Please share it widely.


The U.S. Congress moved rapidly on Thursday to send President Donald Trump a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown this weekend, leaving fights over budget priorities and a range of other controversial issues for the coming weeks. The House of Representatives, working against a Friday midnight deadline, approved legislation in a 235-193 vote to fund a wide range of federal programs through Dec. 22. The Senate followed up by approving the bill 81-14. The White House has said Trump will sign it into law. The measure creates more time for a reckoning between Republicans and Democrats about budget differences, which Trump discussed in a meeting with leading lawmakers at the White House earlier in the day. "We hope that we're going to make some great progress for our country. I think that will happen," Trump said. The White House said negotiations would resume on Friday. Leaders now have about two weeks to find common ground on a host of thorny issues for the next government funding bill in order to prevent a partial government shutdown on Dec. 23. Both sides want to avoid having parts of the government close, particularly during the holidays, for fear of a public backlash, and leaders from both parties have preemptively blamed the other for such a potential outcome. That political blame game is likely to continue in the next two weeks while, behind the scenes, leaders hammer out a compromise. Republicans mainly want a big increase in defense spending for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2018. But Democrats are insisting that any added Pentagon funding be accompanied by increases to other domestic programs. Democrats also want to enact into law protections for nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were children when they were brought into the United States. Republicans want a much wider series of immigration law changes to further clamp down on foreign arrivals, and they want immigration negotiations to be held on a separate track from the government funding bill. Democrats also want to shore up the Affordable Care Act, known as "Obamacare," by reviving federal subsidies for low-income people in the program. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer joined Trump and Republican congressional leaders for the talks after canceling a similarly planned meeting last week when the president posted a note on Twitter attacking their policy positions. The two Democrats said in a statement that the meeting on Thursday was productive but nothing specific had been agreed. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis joined the group to discuss military matters. The White House foresees a compromise with lawmakers that will include increases in defense and non-defense spending, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told Reuters. He said the White House wants a deal that covers spending for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. Earlier on Thursday, Schumer said Trump seemed to be rooting for a shutdown and warned that, if one occurs, "it will fall on his shoulders." "His party controls the Senate, the House and the presidency," he said. "Nobody here wants to see a shutdown. We Democrats are not interested in one." Pelosi said Democrats were not willing to shut down the government over the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) immigration program, but she also said "we will not leave here without a DACA fix."


Collective Gridwork Fluctuations 10/23/2016  We are going through many fluctuations in the gridwork this month and these are challenging many as they are "moved" from one gridwork to the next… connected, disconnected, connected, disconnected… there are huge periods of template wipes where we go offline, disconnect and then come back up online… This is the strongest I've experienced this since June 2015. Huge disconnects, which need to occur so we can shift to a whole new collective timeline.  If you are feeling this, then it's continual re-calibrations in the gridwork, which you hold/link up to with your Crystalline LightBody Structure.  A lot of people's feelings are all over the place, whether subtly or loudly…. The more we exist as a soul, the more subtle this is. The more human, the more external/loud this is. There have been such huge energetic releases lately by collectives….  This month has been about re-calibrating our systems, massive physical upgrades for many as how we function is completely re-worked even more than before.  To cleanse collective wounds for more love to emerge from within all, many must experience what they don't want before they understand what's important and the kundalini fire must be ignited to awaken the spirit/soul inside. This mass root chakra awakening that was triggered collectively in January 2016 has lit the fire, fueling the souls need to emerge from within. As collectives exit the old 3D matrix simulation and awaken from the slumber, all the suppression and victimhood must be cleared as each takes their power back from within. As chaos ensues for many to release, the more released, the more the gridwork is affected by the masses coming online, going back offline, coming back online… These fluctuations are affecting all of us, in our own ways.  To understand, one must be totally connected inside and in-tune with their own energetic gridwork to be aware of what is what. While the more crystalline light we are, the less we are subjected to unconscious collectives, we are affected when our NEW Earth Gridwork is being re-calibrated with such intensity now.  So, for those who feel disconnected, this is a part of the process as we clear old timelines and move/jump into new ones. We have to disconnect from anything that's no longer in alignment/supporting our new existence here. The programs for this were held in the physical body/cellular structures and these continue immense re-sequencing and re-coding, because of these mega-frequency upgrades that we are experiencing every day now.  As multi-dimension light beings, you can experience multiple emotions simultaneously, while not being bound by any of them. You can observe what your re-calibrations are and honor this, while not being affected by the transitional phases as much as before. Your mind is no longer dictated by the emotion you feel. You can be a peace and always feel the magic while something else cleanses/clears. You don't shift out of alignment while your body/mind/emotions do their thing. It's a process that you honor and understand through your presence and connection inside. You can feel disconnected yet not be totally disconnected…. for you know the adjustments are important to move you into your next phase of a more awesome reality……  The reason I write this is because if there is any human'ness left, the human aspect will go to judgement and this creates suffering inside. Let go of the judgment and be okay, accept whatever you are feeling or not feeling inside and choose how you desire to experience the phase you are going through as these huge shifts occur. Kindness and compassion towards yourself, will allow you to feel these for others too. Remember, you are evolving beyond human comprehension and you don't always need to understand everything first…. it takes awhile….be patient and listen to your body, honor you and how you need to feel as you shift. Pull away if you need to, connect with others if you need to….  These are unprecedented vibrations we are in now. These are new territory for all. We don't know until we experience, and those predicting can only predict according the the vibrations that they have access to thus far. No one can tell you what timeline you are going to be in, for every moment is a different vibration now. Vibrations create realities, so the moment you shift vibrationally, then your timeline changes. As you master what you are doing/creating/transmitting vibrationally, then you get to participate in which timelines you desire to activate to experience here. Some timelines are always a surprise, because there are always a gazillion that were a higher vibration than you had access to before. The faster we integrate, the faster we experience the highest one's possible thus far.  Now, we have connected back up and the Unified Field is stronger and at a much higher frequency than before. Collectively the gridwork is back online. We have super high frequencies continually now. Much is going on for everyone moving further into being responsible for the realities that they create. The backlash of unconsciousness is going to continue to be more visible as the physical reality becomes louder for those hearts and minds not open yet. The beauty and magnificence for intentionally transmitted conscious realities become more profoundly magical by the moment. The polarity continues out there, but it does not have to inside. The more in-tune and aligned one is, the softer and easier physical realities are. These higher vibrational realities are very soft, the exchanges are beyond beautiful when all is aligned. You will know when it is not, as you won't be happy, inspired and in-joy the experience. Just the recognition gives you the ability to choose where you are going to focus your energy and attention for what you experience here.  Get ready loves….. powerful energies is an understatement. For many of us, we are going through physical realignments more than normal, as our crystal bodies are embedded with deep sacred soul codes now. It's not an emotional or mental experience anymore. It's just physical re-calibrations and our physical bodies process energies much differently than before. We've moved beyond the heart and the head. Now the spine is the primary processing center, which is why so many are experiencing the nervous system overhauls. I'll share more on this as we go. Bizarre is an understatement for our "new bodies"…. They require great care now.  See you guys tomorrow. Sleep well and happy traveling! p.s. We entered Galactic Frequencies a bit ago as well. Not that these all aren't, but we've achieved the overall frequency field-wise to be fully galactic right now. In-JOY these exquisite HOME frequencies loves! ♥


Libya's U.N.-backed government has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's temporary ban on its nationals and those of six other countries entering the United States, which put in question attendance at a high-profile conference on Libya planned in Washington for mid-February. The executive order by Trump comes at a time of uncertainty over U.S. policy in Libya, which remains mired in the chaos that followed the NATO-backed 2011 uprising against long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi. The U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), was strongly supported by former U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, but has struggled to assert its authority in Tripoli and beyond. Factions in eastern Libya aligned with a rival government and with powerful military commander Khalifa Haftar welcomed Trump's election, hoping for more support for their anti-Islamist stance. Trump's travel ban has angered some Libyans, including students studying or planning to study in the United States. GNA Foreign Minister Mohammed Siyala called it an "unjust decision" that should be reviewed. "These actions represent racial discrimination on the basis of religion and are incompatible with human rights," he told local TV station Libya's Channel. Authorities in eastern Libya declined to comment on the ban for days. A spokesman for the eastern-based government said on Wednesday however the order "could not be rejected", given Libya's own institutional confusion. A member of the eastern parliament, Youssef al-Fakhri, said that despite Libya's political and security problems, the measure was "not appropriate". The order appeared to put in jeopardy the participation of Libyans invited to a Feb. 16 conference titled "Libya-U.S. Relations 2017: New Vision, Hope and Opportunities". The event, co-hosted by the National Council on U.S.-Libya Relations, lists Libyan speakers including two former prime ministers and the head of the National Oil Corporation (NOC). Several speakers are loyal to or connected with eastern-based factions. "We are clearly concerned with the risk of denial of entrance to some of our key speakers and participants from Libya," Hani Shennib, the council's president, said in an email. "However, we are working diligently with authorities here in the USA and we are hopeful that a resolution to facilitate entrance of our conference participants will [be] present in the next 2-3 days." A GNA spokesman, Ashraf al-Tulti, told Reuters Libya's foreign ministry would request exceptions from the U.S. Department of State for Libyan attendees. Exceptions to the travel ban can be made on a case by case basis, and diplomatic visas are exempt. Tulti, who was invited to attend the Washington conference and holds a diplomatic passport, said he was still waiting for a visa. One Libyan speaker said she had a visa, but was still investigating whether she would be able to attend. Under the order released on Friday, travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are banned from entering the United States for at least 90 days. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said some countries "may not be taken off the list anytime soon, if they are countries that are in various states of collapse".


The British actor Jude Law, whose recent screen incarnations include playing a warlord (the forthcoming "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword") and the pope (in HBO's "The Young Pope") can now add wizardry to his oeuvre: He'll play a young Albus Dumbledore in the next installment of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," J. K. Rowling's prequel series to the Harry Potter tales. Played in the Harry Potter films by Richard Harris and then, after Mr. Harris' death, Michael Gambon, Dumbledore is the beloved headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts. In the next "Fantastic Beasts," Mr. Law's Dumbledore will be the school's professor of transfiguration. Released last November, the first "Fantastic Beasts" starred Eddie Redmayne and Katherine Waterston, and was a lucrative hit for Warner Bros. drawing $234 million domestically at the box office. It was Ms. Rowling's first screenplay, and she has also written the second. David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter films as well as the first "Fantastic Beasts," will return as director. The film is scheduled for a November 2018 release.