Family members of Japanese abducted by North Korea met U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday and welcomed his sympathy for their very sad plight, but said it meant nothing unless it led to action to bring home their loved ones. Trump has incorporated into his attacks on Pyongyang the story of Megumi Yokota, 13 when she was snatched off a lonely beach by North Korean agents 40 years ago, mentioning her in a September speech at the United Nations. For his part, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he will not rest until the return of all 13 of those Pyongyang says were kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies, making the issue a keystone of his political career. On Monday, Trump met Megumi s mother Sakie, becoming the third president to do so, as well as the relatives of seven other abductees Pyongyang says are dead - like Megumi, who hanged herself, North Korea says. We ll work together and see if we can do something, now the spotlight is on, Trump later told a joint news conference with Abe, calling the abductions a very, very sad thing . Perhaps the regime itself would send them back. I think it would be a tremendous signal if Kim Jong Un would send them back. Megumi s mother and younger twin brothers were later part of a news conference that welcomed Trump s attention, although cautiously, with several members saying decades had passed and nothing had been done, even by Abe s government. It seemed the president listened carefully to all our stories and was impressed, said Koichiro Iizuka, an infant abandoned in a creche when his mother, Yaeko Taguchi, was abducted in 1978. But if this is all that comes of this meeting, it s absolutely outrageous, he added. It s how we face the previous neglect and take action that s important. The families can do little, said Megumi s mother, now 81 and visibly frail. This is an issue of politics, of diplomacy, she said. All we can say is: please help them.


Russian President Vladimir Putin, a dog lover, received a top breed puppy as a belated birthday gift on Wednesday from Turkmenistan s president who is keen to recover lost Russian markets for Turkmen gas. We have a common friend - this is the world s unique alabai dog. And today I brought this little alabai with me, President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said before talks with Putin, pulling the pup out from a portable cage and holding it up by the scruff of its neck. Putin, who marked his 65th birthday on Oct. 7, took the puppy, called Verny which means faithful in Russian, and kissed it in its forehead. The alabai is a home-bred Turkmen variety of the Central Asian shepherd dog. Along with the handmade carpets and the ancient Akhal Teke breed of race horses, it is officially listed as part of Turkmenistan s national heritage. Plush and cuddly when they are young, alabai dogs grow into fierce shepherd dogs, fearless in warding off wolves but also in dealing with human strangers. Berdymukhamedov, a flamboyant former dentist whose interests range from sport cars to noble horses, enjoys a personality cult and autocratic powers in his desert nation which sits on the world s fourth-largest natural gas reserves. The two men held talks at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, on the sidelines of a summit of ex-Soviet states, with the Turkmen side keen to see a possible resumption of natural gas exports to Russia. Russia, once the main buyer of Turkmen gas, stopped buying the fuel last year due to a price dispute. China, with its growing appetite for energy, is now the main market for Turkmen gas. Some other foreign leaders including those of Japan and Bulgaria have also given Putin puppies of rare breeds as gifts.


An aggressive advertising and lobbying campaign by conservative activists and financial interests this week stalled a plan in the U.S. Congress to rescue Puerto Rico from crippling debt, while lawmakers adjourned on Friday with no clear path forward. As its economy reels and basic services are threatened, the U.S. island territory is pleading for help from Washington, but lawmakers have been unable to formulate a response, or even estimate when they might be able to advance a legislative fix. Puerto Rico is staring down a May 1 deadline for paying about $422 million to Government Development Bank bondholders. With that as a backdrop, the Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives huddled privately for 90 minutes on Friday to hear ideas, then decided to go home. "There may be different ways to fix a problem that may include doing nothing and allow it to work through the court system," conservative Republican Representative Mick Mulvaney, of South Carolina, told reporters following the meeting. In the face of an election-year wave of radio, television and print advertisements warning of a federal "bailout" for Puerto Rico, House Republicans had already put off planned committee votes on a rescue package earlier this week. The Center for Individual Freedom, a conservative activist group, has spent $200,000 on television advertisements around Washington, D.C., this month, according to the Sunlight Foundation, a lobbying watchdog. The center's ads call for a halt to "the Washington bailout of Puerto Rico." Another group that opposes a Puerto Rico rescue, Main Street Bondholders, has run newspaper ads. Radio spots have reached Utah voters warning of a "radical plan" to usher Puerto Rico into bankruptcy and urging local Representative Rob Bishop to protect investors. Bishop chairs the House committee overseeing Puerto Rico legislation. With a 45 percent poverty rate and $72 billion in debt, Puerto Rico needs an orderly way to shed some of its debt, leading Republicans agree, though compromise on details remains elusive. House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats support a rescue effort to help Puerto Rico. A proposal backed by Ryan and Bishop would lead investors towards a voluntary reduction of loans and a compulsory write-down if no compromise were possible. Democrats have pressed for changes to a draft bill, knowing their votes likely will be needed to win passage in the House. Ryan has insisted that there is no "bailout" under development, while scurrying to figure out how he can please conservative Republicans without alienating too many Democrats. Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, a conservative stalwart, told reporters: "The liberal, financially irresponsible members of the Republican conference will cozy up to the Democrats and they will work out an agreement." Anti-rescue ads are also running in Louisiana, whose Representative Garret Graves said on Friday: "The campaign has been effective in distorting reality."


Steve Bannon, Donald Trump s new campaign CEO, is the former chairman of the radical alt-right media company Breitbart. On Sunday, Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter and former Breitbart spokesman Kurt Bardella explained that the site is the de facto SuperPAC of Donald Trump. The two, along with former NPR CEO, Ken Stern explained the significance of the merger.Stelter begins the segment by describing the political merger as Trumpbart. We could call it a political merger, Trumpbart. This week, GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway became the new face of Donald Trump s campaign, appearing all across TV. But it s Steve Bannon who may be the new inner voice of the campaign. Until Tuesday, he was the executive chairman of the far-right website Breitbart. On Wednesday, he became the Trump campaign s CEO. Stelter asks Bardell to describe Breitbart to people who may not be familiar with the media site. Bardell responds, saying: I think you look at it as the de facto SuperPAC of Donald Trump. And really for the last year, year and a half in the Republican primary, they have been the rapid response arm of the Trump campaign. Anytime anything, Bardell says before being interrupted by Stelter. Rapid response arm of the Trump campaign? Let s underscore that You re saying it s even, what, further to the right than Fox News? Oh my gosh, it s not even a they make Fox News look like MSNBC, Bardella clarifies. I think that any time that there was a controversy, something that Trump may have said that was generating headlines, Breitbart was the first destination that you could go to to see in real time what the Trump line of thinking was. It was the most sympathetic voice for Trump, and anytime that anyone in the mainstream media would in any way, characterize, or attack, or question Trump s tactics, they were the place that you could go to for that sympathetic ear for Trump. This merger comes at an odd time for the Trump campaign it might end up being Breitbart that benefits from the merger. Trump has already tried and failed to pivot to the center multiple times on his most controversial positions. Having Bannon on board his campaign is only going to make that task that much more difficult. Breitbart, on the other hand, has a spokesman who they can use to make whatever reactionary conspiracy they might have go mainstream.You can watch the segment below.Featured image from video screenshot


Sunday night's Writer's Guild of America awards show turned into a exercise in as Hollywood's top writers repeatedly skewered the president during presentations and acceptance speeches.[ Patton Oswalt took on hosting duties for the Los ceremony and began the night by introducing his event security, two men dressed as "soldiers from armed forces of the Russian Federation. " "People here tonight are angry about two things — that Deadpool is nominated for Best Screenplay and that Trump is President," Oswalt joked. "Donald Trump, I want to be very careful about making jokes about. I don't want to be kicked to death tonight by James Woods," at which point the conservative actor hopped onstage, snatched off Oswalt's shoe, and chided him: "This is an awards show, get some shoes, Jesus. " The impromptu bit was not scripted, Oswalt assured his social media followers. Regaining control of the show, Oswalt continued: "I feel bad for Trump. Here's what happened: They had the [White House] Correspondents' Dinner, Obama went up and made fun of Donald, and Donald said, 'I'm taking his job. '" "Now he's sitting there saying: 'This job sucks! My life before this was amazing! '" he added. "Donald Trump taking Obama's job would be like if the head of linguistics at Rutgers made fun of David Lee Roth … and he said, 'I'm the head of linguistics at Rutgers. Bring on the hookers and cocaine! '" Later, Chelsea Handler took her own shot at Trump by ridiculing his claim that millions of people may have illegally voted in the 2016 general election, though the talk show host's jokes didn't appear to land with the audience. "If you win this award tonight I want everybody to remember not to get a big head because there are millions of illegal voters in California. Not to mention the ones in Massachusetts who took a bus and voted in New Hampshire," Handler joked. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who was awarded the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement, went on a fiery tirade during his acceptance speech. The West Wing creator condemned Trump as being "out of touch" and urged the room full of writers to combat the administration by writing stories that help heal the country. While accepting the WGA West's Laurel Award, director Oliver Stone broke from the night's bias and instead bashed both major political parties. "It's fashionable now to take shots at Republicans and Trump and all that and avoid the Obamas and Clintons," Stone said, according to Deadline. "But remember this: In the 13 wars we've started over the last 30 years and the 14 trillion dollars we've spent and the hundreds of thousands of lives that have perished from this Earth, remember that it wasn't one leader but a system — both Republican and Democrat. " Introducing Stone was actor and rare Hollywood conservative James Woods. "So my publicists says 'Whatever you do don't talk politics.' I say, 'Ok.' And I show up and 15 minutes later I'm Darth Vader," Woods joked. Back in New York at the WGA Awards East, which were taking place simultaneously, host Lewis Black also took shots at Trump. "We're living at the intersection of satire and reality," Black joked. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson


McConnell was shut down completely in this debate as all amendments he put forth were rejected including the McConnell-Burr Amendment.Congress approved sweeping changes Tuesday to surveillance laws enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks, eliminating the National Security Agency s disputed bulk phone-records collection program and replacing it with a more restrictive measure to keep the records in phone companies hands.Two days after Congress let the phone-records collection and several other anti-terror programs expire, the Senate s 67-32 vote sent the legislation to President Barack Obama, who signed it Tuesday night. This legislation will strengthen civil liberty safeguards and provide greater public confidence in these programs, Obama said in a statement. Officials said it could take at least several days to restart the collection.The legislation will revive most of the programs the Senate had allowed to lapse in a dizzying collision of presidential politics and national security policy. But the authorization will undergo major changes, the legacy of agency contractor Edward Snowden s explosive revelations two years ago about domestic spying by the government.In an unusual shifting of alliances, the legislation passed with the support of Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, but over the strong opposition of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell failed to persuade the Senate to extend the current law unchanged, and came up short in a last-ditch effort Tuesday to amend the House version, as nearly a dozen of his own Republicans abandoned him in a series of votes. This is a step in the wrong direction, a frustrated McConnell said on the Senate floor ahead of the Senate s final vote to approve the House version, dubbed the USA Freedom Act. He said the legislation does not enhance the privacy protections of American citizens. And it surely undermines American security by taking one more tool form our warfighters at exactly the wrong time. The legislation remakes the most controversial aspect of the USA Patriot Act the once-secret bulk collection program that allows the National Security Agency to sweep up Americans phone records and comb through them for ties to international terrorists. Over six months the NSA would lose the power to collect and store those records, but the government still could gain court orders to obtain data connected to specific numbers from the phone companies, which typically store them for 18 months.It would also continue other post-9/11 surveillance provisions that lapsed Sunday night, and which are considered more effective than the phone-data collection program. These include the FBI s authority to gather business records in terrorism and espionage investigations and to more easily eavesdrop on suspects who are discarding cellphones to avoid surveillance.


It took Trump s family and friends under an hour after a mass shooting at a congressional Republican baseball practice to win the awards for Worst Reaction to a Mass Shooting. And sadly, many Trump voters appear to be eating it up.Both Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump Jr. managed to promote unsubstantiated and largely debunked information coming out to push a narrative that the shooter had targeted Republicans and not Democrats. The reality is: Nobody knows why the shooter did it. Not yet.Don and Kellyanne both used a single source: Rep. Jeff Duncan, whose narrative began coming to pieces shortly after he had made the comment.The man Duncan and other Republicans described as having asked whether the people playing baseball were Republicans or Democrats looked nothing like the man who later shot at them, as numerous reporters began noting.The description of the guy who asked lawmakers if GOP or Dems was practicing and the actual shooter appear to be different people. Kyle Feldscher (@Kyle_Feldscher) June 14, 2017.@RepDeSantis says the guy who asked him if it was GOP or Dems was in running clothes.@JeffFlake said shooter was wearing jeans. Kyle Feldscher (@Kyle_Feldscher) June 14, 2017Especially since DeSantis said the guy wasn t carrying anything at the time. AR-15s not the easiest to hide. Emily Crockett (@emilycrockett) June 14, 2017In fact, as Andrea Mitchell reported, the FBI is now saying it does not appear to, at first glance, have a political motivation.FBI takes over investigation discounts reports of political motive Alexandria police say 5 people transported to hospital community is safe https://t.co/ZifZ6pZa4V Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) June 14, 2017Despite that lack of confirmation, right-wing media ran with the unsubstantiated reports like they were official statements by investigators. Drudge, in one egregious example, even misquoted one of the Republicans at the scene to make it seem like the shooter said he wanted to kill as many Republicans as possible. Breitbart and InfoWars both quickly joined in. No such words were said.The White House released a statement saying the president had been briefed on the situation, but it s unclear what his briefing looked like. Trump gets much of his news from Drudge, Breitbart and Fox News. It s entirely possible that the President of the United States believes the lies being spread by right-wing media and his advisors.At this time no one knows the true motives of the shooter. Police have him in custody and, unlike Trump s son, are conducting a thorough investigation before blasting out unsubstantiated reports into the public. Rather than waiting, the right-wing media and Trump s own White House decided to exploit the tragedy in order to further their agenda of smearing liberals. It s beyond maddening to watch the group who once called President Obama divisive for expressing sorrow for Trayvon Martin now openly and gleefully delight in spreading vitriol and lies about their political opponents.UPDATE: FBI investigators identified the shooter as James Hodgkinson. There is evidence to suggest he supported Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary. Police have again dismissed the idea that he had asked people at the baseball game what political affiliation they were.What still isn t known is why he decided to go on a shooting spree.BREAKING: Gov't official: Suspect in shooting of congressman in Virginia identified as Illinois man named James T. Hodgkinson. The Associated Press (@AP) June 14, 2017UPDATE 2: Rep. Duncan says he still believes the man who approached him earlier in the morning was the shooter. Adds that it isn t uncommon for people to drop by and ask questions.Rep. Duncan says he had the conversation with person he believes was shooter, who asked if team practicing was GOP or Democrat Caitlin Huey-Burns (@CHueyBurns) June 14, 2017


WITWATERSRAND BASIN, South Africa — A mile down in an unused mine tunnel, scientists guided by helmet lamps trudged through darkness and the muck of a flooded, uneven floor. In the subterranean world of the Beatrix gold mine, they shed their backpacks, taking out tools and meticulously prepared test tubes to collect samples. Leaning a ladder against the hard rock wall, Tullis C. Onstott, a geosciences professor at Princeton, climbed to open an old valve about a dozen feet up. Out flowed water of microbes, organisms flourishing not from the warmth of the sun, but by heat generated from the interior of the planet below. These tiny — bacteria and other microbes and even little worms — exist in places nearly impossible to reach, living in eternal darkness, in hard rock. Scientists like Dr. Onstott have been on the hunt for life in the underworld, not just in South Africa but in mines in South Dakota and at the bottom of oceans. What they learn could provide insights into where life could exist elsewhere in the solar system, including Mars. Microbial Martians might well look like what lives in the rocks here at a deep underground mine. The same conditions almost certainly exist on Mars. Drill a hole there, drop these organisms in, and they might happily multiply, fueled by chemical reactions in the rocks and drips of water. "As long as you can get below the ice, no problems," Dr. Onstott said. "They just need a little bit of water. " Mars has long been a focus of space exploration and science fiction dreams. NASA has sent more robotic probes there than any other planet. But now there is renewed interest in sending people as well. NASA has been enthusiastically promoting its "Journey to Mars" goal to send astronauts there in the 2030s. Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, is promising that he will be able to get there a decade sooner and set up colonies. Astronauts on Mars would be able to greatly accelerate the quest for answers to the most intriguing questions about the red planet. Was there ever life on Mars? Could there be life there today? It was not that long ago that scientists had written off Mars as lifeless. Forty years ago, NASA spent nearly $1 billion on its Viking mission, which revealed a cold, dry world seemingly devoid of organic molecules that are the building blocks of life. But more recent missions have discovered compelling evidence that Mars was not always such an uninviting place. In its youth, more than three billion years ago, the planet was warmer and wetter, blanketed with a thick atmosphere — possibly almost Earthlike. A fanciful but plausible notion is that life did originate on Mars, then traveled to Earth via meteorites, and we are all descendants of Martians. Eventually, Mars did turn cold and dry. Radiation broke apart the water molecules, and the lighter hydrogen atoms escaped to space. The atmosphere thinned to wisps. But if life did arise on Mars, might it have migrated to the underworld and persisted? For a couple of decades, Dr. Onstott has been talking his way into South African gold mines, regaling the mine managers with the wonder of deep Earth life to overcome their wariness. In many ways, the mines provide easy access to the depths — a ride in a cagelike elevator, jammed against miners starting their shift, descending quickly as lights from the different levels zip past. Think of it as traveling through a skyscraper, going down. Dr. Onstott and his colleagues had made repeated pilgrimages to this particular tunnel in this particular mine, Beatrix, 160 miles southwest of Johannesburg. When miners carve out new tunnels, they poke holes through the rock to see what surprises might lie ahead. Sometimes the borehole taps into a section of fractured rock with water coursing through. Then the fracture is drained and plugged. But this particular tunnel at Beatrix never entered production, so the borehole valve remains, allowing the scientists to return to draw samples from the same place. At this level, almost a mile underground, the elevator gates open to a concrete cavern with the unremarkable plainness of a parking garage. A minirailway system transports miners and ore back and forth. The side tunnel, though, is pitch black save for the helmet lamps, and the trek to the valve is a slosh through muck and over tangles of mangled electrical cabling. Scientists led by Dr. Onstott made their most recent trip to South Africa in June last year. Over a couple of hours, they took their fill of the water and set up an apparatus that remains attached to the valve, trapping microbes, which were retrieved later in the summer. Since then, they have been analyzing the samples to understand this assemblage of life. The existence of what biologists now call the Earth's deep biosphere was unknown to almost all biologists at the time of the Viking mission. Life lived at the surface, in the soil or in the oceans. At the bottom of the food chain, the primary producers, were plants and microbes that used photosynthesis and sunlight to power the conversion of carbon dioxide into organic molecules. Other creatures ate the plants and microbes, and then larger creatures ate the smaller ones. In someplace that was always dark, it seemed obvious there could be no primary producers and therefore no life at all. Some scientists noticed close to a century ago this might not always be true. Edson S. Bastin, a geologist at the University of Chicago, wondered why some petroleum was "sour" — with high levels of sulfur that not only corroded pipes but also generated more pollution when burned. Bastin realized bacteria could do that, in particular a type of bacteria that does not need oxygen and eats sulfur compounds known as sulfates and excretes hydrogen sulfide — the rotten egg smell — and bicarbonate, the unwanted chemicals in sour crude oil. He and a colleague, Frank E. Greer, successfully cultured such bacteria from groundwater from an oil field, and Bastin speculated these could be descendants of bacteria that had been trapped in ocean sediments more than 250 million years ago. Other scientists contended that this must be a mistake, merely surface microbes on the drill that had contaminated the sample. In the late 1980s, the Department of Energy started a drilling project, carefully pulling up pristine cores from a couple hundred yards down. Bacteria, fungi and other microbes abounded in the cores. That spurred additional research and discoveries, including bacteria that lived in the heat of underground oil deposits and finally, a microbe that degraded oil as Bastin had predicted. Today, the deep biosphere is thought to account for 10 to 20 percent of mass of all life on Earth. Life, biologists also discovered, perseveres in other environments once thought sterile — highly acidic water, highly alkaline water, highly salty water, boiling water around volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean. "The truth is it's virtually everywhere we look," Penny Boston, the director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, said in July at a panel celebrating the 40th anniversary of Viking's landing on Mars. Results from an earlier trip to Beatrix befuddled Dr. Onstott. He had expected the mine microbes to be feeding off organic matter dissolved in the water. In this picture, the ecosystem would be largely devoid of primary producers and instead subsist on leftovers, the detritus of long dead organisms washed down from above or deposited with the sediment 2. 9 billion years ago. "The only problem was that we didn't have any indication they were eating the organic matter in the fracture water," Dr. Onstott said. They figured out that the carbon molecules in the microbes came from methane, a plausible answer. Microbes known as methanogens consume hydrogen and carbon dioxide and produce methane other microbes known as methanotrophs eat methane. But the Beatrix water contained little of either. "It didn't make any sense at all," Dr. Onstott said. "It made zero sense to us. " Maggie Lau, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Onstott's laboratory, started examining the genetic snippets for clues of how the Beatrix community of microbes worked. With the newest data, it turned out there was a wider community of primary producer microbes, eating nitrogen and sulfur compounds. In essence, the waste of one microbe helped feed its neighbor, and only a little bit of methane, an molecule, was enough to power the entire community. "Now, for the first time, we're getting a true description of the ecosystem," Dr. Onstott said. "We think it's a fairly common phenomenon. " After working at Beatrix, the scientists went north, to the Limpopo region close to South Africa's border with Zimbabwe. There, they collected water from hot springs, whose source of water from far below should carry up underground microbes. One sampling site was in the middle of a small village where houses do not have plumbing and the spring, the hottest in South Africa, is a pond that serves as a communal spot for cleaning laundry. Another is a pool at a resort, once catering to the country's white minority. Surprisingly, the spring waters contained almost no microbes — barely enough DNA to analyze. But water from two locations contained considerable amounts of methane, an encouraging sign. The methane is also a possible connection to Mars. A dozen years ago, three teams of scientists, one using data from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, the other two using observations from Earth, made the controversial claim of methane floating in the Martian atmosphere. That was a surprise, because sunlight and chemical reactions destroy methane any methane there would have had to have been released recently. There are two ways to produce methane. One is a geological process that requires heat and liquid water. The other is methanogens. Perplexingly, the readings of methane later vanished. As NASA's Curiosity rover drove across Gale Crater a couple of years ago, it too detected a burp of methane that lasted a couple of months. But it has not detected any burps since. Perhaps an underground population of methanogens and methanotrophs is creating, then destroying methane quickly, accounting for its sudden appearance and disappearance from the atmosphere. If Beatrix is a guide, the methane could be providing the energy for many other microbes. Conventional wisdom is that Martian life, if it exists, would be limited to microbes. But that too is a guess. In the South African mine, the researchers also discovered a species of tiny worms eating the bacteria. "It's like Moby Dick in Lake Ontario," Dr. Onstott said. "It was a big surprise to find something that big in a tiny fracture of a rock. The fact it would be down there in such a confined space slithering around is pretty amazing. " The odds of Mars life, past or present, are just conjecture. Even if life did arise on Mars four billion years ago and later migrated underground, could it have survived for four billion years? There are reasons to be skeptical. When low on water and energy, microbes can slow their metabolism or enter a state of suspended animation, able to revive when conditions improve. But many biologists doubt that such a tenuous hold on life could extend for a few billion years. Mars also lacks Earth's plate tectonics, a continual recycling of the outer crust of the planets that fractures rocks and exposes new minerals for microbes to eat. If life is deep underground, robotic spacecraft would not find them easily. NASA's InSight spacecraft, scheduled to launch in 2018, will carry an instrument that can burrow 16 feet into the ground, but it is essentially just a thermometer to measure the flow of heat to the surface. NASA's next rover, launching in 2020, is largely a clone of Curiosity with different experiments. It will drill rock samples to be returned to Earth by a later mission, but those samples will be from rocks at the surface. All this new interest in possible life on Mars is a sort of vindication for Gilbert V. Levin, one of the scientists who worked on Viking. Dr. Levin is sure he discovered life on Mars 40 years ago, and everyone else has been drawing the wrong conclusions from the Viking data. If he is right, then perhaps rediscovering life on Mars may require just scratching the surface. The two Vikings carried what was known as the labeled release experiment, developed by Dr. Levin and another investigator, Patricia A. Straat. Essentially, radioactive food made with unstable was added to samples of Martian soil. The idea was that if microbes digested the food, the would be released in a stream of radioactive carbon dioxide and other gases rising out of the soil. That is exactly what happened. Then other samples were heated to 320 degrees Fahrenheit to sterilize them. If microbes were generating the radioactive gases, then there should be no gas rising from the sterilized soil. That, too, is what happened. "The response on Mars is well within the responses from terrestrial soils," Dr. Levin said, "most closely the Arctic and Alaska. " But in the absence of organic molecules, other Viking scientists discounted the possibility of life. It was like claiming the existence of a city in a place lacking wood, steel, bricks or any other building materials. Dr. Levin has proposed, again and again, sending another labeled release experiment to Mars, to no avail. NASA's 2020 rover will be able to catalog a wide variety of organic molecules, but carries nothing to look for life directly. Dr. Levin may finally get his wish with ExoMars, a European rover scheduled to launch in 2020. He is working with one of the teams building one of ExoMars's instruments to see if it could be modified to incorporate the labeled release apparatus. There is a bit of a race against time. Dr. Levin, the last surviving member of the Viking biology team, is 92. "All I have to do is last that long," he said.


The mounting political crisis in Spain over Catalonia s campaign for independence intensified on Saturday with a new row over the control of the local police force as the regional government pressed ahead with plans to hold an illegal vote next weekend. The State prosecutor in Catalonia told all local and national police forces on Saturday that they had been temporarily placed under a single chain of command reporting directly to the interior ministry in Madrid. But Catalonia s interior chief, Joaquim Forn, said his department and the local police, or Mossos d Esquadra, did not accept this decision. We denounce the intervention of the state to control the police forces of Catalonia ... We will not accept this control, Forn said in a televised speech. It was not immediately clear whether the regional administration and the Mossos could actually oppose the decision, as Spanish laws allow for the possibility of state police taking the lead over the police of an autonomous community during a joint operation. The central government representative in Catalonia, Enric Millo, had earlier said the Mossos remained in charge of security in Catalonia though they would be coordinated directly by the interior ministry and not by the local authorities, together with two national police forces also on the ground in Catalonia. We are not taking over the police competencies of the regional government, Millo told reporters after an event held by his People s Party (PP) in Palma de Mallorca, in Eastern Spain. Millo also called on Catalan leaders, including Forn, to stop encouraging street protests and demonstrations. Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia said the prosecutor s order would remain in place until at least Oct. 1, when the vote is due to take place. The Mossos are one of the symbols of Catalonia s autonomy and for many Catalans the prosecutor s decision may be reminiscent of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship of Francisco Franco, when the Mossos were abolished. Several pro-independence groups have called for widespread protests on Sunday in central Barcelona. Let s respond to the state with an unstoppable wave of democracy, a Whatsapp message which was used to organize the demonstration read. The Catalonian government opened a new website on Saturday with details of how and where to vote on Oct. 1, challenging several court rulings that had blocked previous sites and declared the referendum unconstitutional. You can t stem the tide, Catalonia s president Carles Puigdemont said on Twitter in giving the link to the new website. But Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted again that the vote should not go ahead. It will not happen because this would mean liquidating the law, he said at the PP event in Palma de Mallorca. Acting on court orders, the Spanish state police has already raided the regional government offices, arrested temporarily several senior Catalan officials accused of organizing the referendum and seized ballot papers, ballot boxes, voting lists and electoral material and literature. The finance ministry in Madrid has also taken control of regional finances to make sure public money is not being spent to pay for the logistics the vote or to campaign. Between 3,000 and 4,000 police officers coming from other Spanish regions have already arrived in Catalonia or are on their way. They will join 5,000 state police already based in the region and 17,000 local Mossos.


British Prime Minister Theresa May is fully focused on tackling extremism, her spokesman said on Thursday, responding to a tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump telling her to focus on "destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism". Asked if May was focused on tackling extremism: her spokesman said: "Yes." "The overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country are law-abiding people who abhor extremism in all its forms. The prime minister has been clear ... that where Islamist extremism does exist it should be tackled head on. We are working hard to do that both at home and internationally and ... with our U.S. partners."


Rep. Louie Gohmert ( ) told Fox and Friends on Friday that Congress concluding business on Thursday and not being in session on the day after fired FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he leaked information about his private conversations with President Donald Trump left the president to "dangle. "[House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office on Tuesday sent out an email announcing the change. "Members are advised that — pending timely completion of H. R. 10 — votes are no longer expected in the House on Friday, June 9," the email stated. "Last votes of the week are now expected at approximately 4:00 PM on Thursday, June 8. " The Majority Leader's office told Breitbart News that the decision was made because the Democrats withdrew all amendments from the Choice Act being considered by the House leading to business concluding a day early. But Gohmert said it sends the wrong message about Republicans support for Trump. "Tuesday, apparently, our leadership changed the week's scheduling and said let's go dark on Friday, which means the emphasis will not be on what we're doing good in Washington," Gohmert said. "We are basically leaving the president to dangle," Gohmert said. "I'm very concerned we are not being supportive enough to get the message out and here President Trump is … as [Senator] Marco Rubio was pointing out … the only thing that didn't leak was the truth — that [Trump] was not under investigation. " Meanwhile, at his weekly press briefing on Thursday, Ryan said he didn't have time to watch the Comey hearing but vaguely supported Trump by claiming he was "new" to the government and its modus operandi. "As far as the conversations and all that, I'm not going to speculate on any of this, I would just add that of course there needs to be a degree of independence between the DOJ, FBI and the White House and lines of communications established," Ryan told reporters. "The president's new at this, he's new to government," Ryan continued. "So he probably wasn't steeped in the long running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses. "He's new to this," Ryan said. "We now know why [Trump] was frustrated when the FBI director told him three times there's no investigation of him yet the speculation was allowed to continue," Ryan said. "So obviously we know now why he was frustrated. "


U.S. President Barack Obama in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post on Monday announced that he is banning solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons, citing concerns about its harmful psychological effects. The move comes amid a national movement demanding criminal justice reform, which was sparked by numerous high-profile police killings in recent years. In the opinion piece, Obama also said solitary confinement could no longer be used as a punishment for low-level infractions. He said the package of changes would include an expansion of treatment for mentally ill prisoners and an increase in the amount of time inmates in solitary can spend outside of their cells. He said the changes would affect some 10,000 federal prisoners and stemmed from a review of the practice he directed the U.S. Justice Department to conduct last summer. Obama cited the story of Kalief Browder, a black 16-year-old who was arrested in 2010 and spent almost two years in solitary confinement in New York City's Rikers Island jail before his release in 2013 and eventual suicide two years later. Solitary confinement, Obama wrote, is "increasingly overused on people such as Kalief, with heartbreaking results — which is why my administration is taking steps to address this problem." Obama said research suggests solitary confinement has been linked to depression, alienation, withdrawal, a reduced ability to interact with others and the potential for violent behavior. He said states that have worked to cut back their use of the technique have seen drops in assaults on staff and more prisoners engage in rehabilitation programs. Obama said he hoped the changes he has ordered in the treatment of federal prisoners would serve as a model for reforms by state and local corrections systems. "There are as many as 100,000 people held in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons - including juveniles and people with mental illnesses," Obama said. "As many as 25,000 inmates are serving months, even years of their sentences alone in a tiny cell, with almost no human contact." Just last month, New York state agreed to end its "overreliance" on solitary confinement as a means to discipline inmates in its prisons, as part of a settlement to a lawsuit brought against the state by the New York Civil Liberties Union. California last September also agreed to sharply cut its use of solitary confinement as part of a sweeping settlement to a lawsuit brought by prisoners.


Two Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants riding on a motorcycle in Gaza were killed in an explosion on Tuesday which the group implied was caused by an accidental detonation during preparations for an attack. Israel s military denied accounts by local residents that the militants were killed in an air strike. Violence along the Israel-Gaza border has flared since U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition last week of Jerusalem as Israel s capital and the Israeli military s demolition on Sunday of a cross-border tunnel it said was dug by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the small coastal enclave. On Monday, Israel s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted a rocket fired by militants in Gaza. Shortly afterward, Israel responded with tank fire and air strikes targeting positions of Hamas. In a statement after Tuesday s explosion, Islamic Jihad said: We mourn the men - martyrs of preparation . The group usually employs the term to refer to casualties caused by the accidental detonation of weapons or explosives used in attacks against Israel.


The Syrian army pressed an offensive in Aleppo on Friday with ground fighting and air strikes in an operation to retake all of the city's rebel-held east that would bring victory in the civil war closer for President Bashar al-Assad. "The advance is going according to plan and is sometimes faster than expected," a Syrian military source told Reuters. The Syrian army and its allies had recaptured 32 of east Aleppo's 40 neighborhoods, about 85 percent of the area, he said. Reuters journalists, rebels and a monitor confirmed the military thrust. There were no reports the Syrian army had made significant gains. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Syrian army had suspended military activity to let civilians leave rebel-held areas, RIA news agency reported. The army and its allies tried to advance on two fronts, a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya rebel group said. "Helicopters, warplanes and rocket bombardment like every day. Nothing has changed," the official said. Despite the bombardment, "the guys are steadfast," the official added. During a tour of Old Aleppo on Friday, which the Syrian army took control of this week, Reuters journalists counted the sound of nine air strikes in about half an hour. Fighting could be heard from other areas nearby. The Russian air force and Iran-backed Shi'ite militias are fighting in Aleppo on the government side. Rebel leaders have given no sign they are about to withdraw as the civilian population is squeezed into an ever-decreasing area. Russian Defense Ministry official Sergei Rudskoi said on Friday up to 10,500 Syrian citizens had fled parts of east Aleppo still controlled by rebels in the last 24 hours. This could not be independently verified. Syrian government and allied forces have in the last two weeks driven rebels from most of their territory in what was once Syria's most populous city. The rebels have controlled the eastern section since 2012, and Assad said in an interview published on Thursday that retaking Aleppo would change the course of the civil war across the whole country. The Syrian government now appears closer to victory than at any point in the five years since protests against Assad evolved into an armed rebellion. The war has killed more than 300,000 people and made more than half of Syrians homeless. Outside of Aleppo, the Syrian army declared a ceasefire in several areas around Damascus and the northwestern province of Idlib beginning on Friday evening, without saying how long it would last. There was no immediate comment from rebels. But there was no sign of any such truce inside Aleppo. "There are aerial raids on the city's neighborhoods with highly explosive incendiary bombs, barrel bombs and artillery shelling," a fighter with the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group on an eastern Aleppo frontline told Reuters. In Old Aleppo, newly recaptured by the government, there was widespread destruction in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, with fire-damaged ancient buildings, structures reduced to rubble and spent ordnance everywhere. At the side of a road sat a woman in her late 20s, veiled, dressed in black, and weeping as she cradled her baby. "My son was born after three months of siege. There were no hospitals, no diapers, no milk," she said. "My milk is dry from fear and panic." Dozens of displaced civilians, including children, had gathered in the road with their belongings after fleeing the Saliheen district, where battles continued. Maher Tashtash, aged nine, said the bombardment had been frightening and rebels had told them they faced death if caught by the army. His brother Mohammed, 12, said they had hidden in a cellar until the fighting passed. Even the dead were not spared the carnage. In the Dar al-Islam cemetery near Ibn Sina street in al-Hamdaniya, graves were destroyed. People were burying corpses in open public ground. The United Nations estimates about 100,000 people are now squeezed into an "ever shrinking" rebel-held pocket of Aleppo with virtually no access to food, water or medical care. In rebel-held Aleppo, a Reuters journalist said there were intense clashes on Friday in Sheikh Saeed district in the south of the eastern sector, where the Observatory and a Syrian military source said government forces advanced on Thursday. Fighting also took place northeast of Aleppo, where Turkey has intervened to support rebels against both Islamic State fighters and Kurdish groups. Turkish-backed rebels closed in on the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab with Turkish tanks and warplanes supporting the assault, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Moscow and Washington have discussed a ceasefire to let civilians escape eastern Aleppo and aid enter. Russia also wants the United States to urge rebel fighters to abandon their territory and accept transport out. U.N. envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura told the Security Council on Thursday there were signs fighters in Aleppo may want to leave and the council should help them go, diplomats said. The Syrian government said on Friday it was ready to resume dialogue with the opposition, without external intervention or preconditions. Rebels said no such contacts were taking place. "There are no negotiations now, except what's being discussed internationally," said Zakaria Malahifji, head of the political office of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim rebel group, speaking from Turkey. "We have asked for the evacuation of civilians who want to leave and of the injured. The fighters are determined to stay and face things." U.S. and Russian officials will meet in Geneva on Saturday to discuss Aleppo, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a news briefing on Friday. The talks will focus on achieving a pause in the fighting, the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians, and ensuring a safe departure for those who want to leave, Toner said. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has invested months of intensive diplomacy on Syria, acknowledged the exasperation many feel. "I know people are tired of these meetings. I'm tired of these meetings. ... what am I supposed to do? Go home and have a nice weekend in Massachusetts while people are dying?" Kerry said at the U.S. embassy in Paris, according to a State Department transcript. "What is happening in Aleppo is the worst catastrophe – what's happening in Syria is the worst catastrophe since World War Two itself. It's unacceptable. It's horrible." The U.N. General Assembly voted 122 to 13 on Friday to demand an immediate cessation of hostilities in Syria, humanitarian aid access throughout the country and an end to all sieges, including in Aleppo. General Assembly resolutions are non-binding but can carry political weight. The European Union said on Friday it would introduce more sanctions on Syrian individuals and entities over the Aleppo offensive. The U.N. human rights office said hundreds of men from eastern Aleppo were missing after leaving rebel-held areas, voicing deep concern over their fate at the hands of government forces. The government has dismissed reports of mass arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings by its forces as fabrications. Rebels for their part deny they have prevented civilians from leaving opposition-controlled areas.


Every time I try to be mad at Trump, the media reel me back in by launching some ridiculous, unprovoked attack. This time, it's the fake news story about Trump "leaking" classified information to the Russkies. [The president can't "leak" classified information: It's his to declassify. The big secret Trump allegedly revealed is that Muslims might try to blow up a plane with laptops. I already knew that. I read it in The New York Times. The New York Times, March 22, 2017: Devices Banned on Some Planes Over ISIS Fears, Intelligence showing that the Islamic State is developing a bomb hidden in portable electronics spurred the United States and Britain on Tuesday to bar passengers from airports in a total of 10 countries from carrying laptop computers … two senior American counterterrorism officials said. … This totally secret, Deep information has been widely published in thousands of news outlets throughout the civilized world. There was yet another round of stories last week with the update that the U. S. is considering a laptop ban on flights from Europe as well. Hey, you know what might make more sense than banning laptops? How about banning Muslims? Bear with me here, I'm still working out the details, but I'm almost certain a federal judge in Hawaii can't block a president's temporary ban on Muslim immigration just because he's testy with Trump over some campaign statements. As Northwestern law professor Eugene Kontorovich explained in The Washington Post, courts have never examined a politician's campaign statements for improper motive, because 1) campaigns are not part of the deliberative process and 2) to start doing so would open the door to "examinations of the entire lives of political officials whose motives may be relevant to legal questions. " Nonetheless, Kontorovich says, that is the legal argument being advanced against Trump's travel ban: "Trump is a bigot, and thus his winning presidential campaign in fact impeaches him from exercising key constitutional and statutory powers, such as administering the immigration laws. " To preserve their judicial coup, this Monday, the 9th Circuit sent out the geriatric ward to hear an appeal of the Hawaii judge's absurd ruling. At their ages, there's a good chance the judges will be dead by the time the Supreme Court overturns them. Arguing against Trump's exercise of his constitutional and statutory powers was American, Neal Katyal. (There are plenty of . You couldn't get one of them to argue that we should end our country through mass immigration?) At oral argument before the three wheezing gargoyles, Katyal announced that, before enforcing federal immigration laws passed by generations of Democrats and Republicans working together in Congress, the president of the United States is required to profess: "Islam is peace. " There's a new legal principle! Asked by one of the if Trump is the only president who would be prohibited from issuing this precise travel ban because of his statements about Muslims, the smarmy, preening, pretentious Katyal answered: "I think the most important point is, if you don't say all these things, you never wind up with an executive order like this. " As lawyers say: Nonresponsive! But as long as we're operating under these new rules for determining a U. S. president's rights and responsibilities, how about looking at everything Trump has said about Muslims? For example, may the courts consider this quote from September 2015? Trump: "I love the Muslims. I think they are great people. … Would I consider putting a in my Cabinet? Oh, absolutely. No problem with that. " Lawyers like Katyal aren't telling the courts what Trump said they're telling courts their own crazy interpretations of what Trump said. No liberal is capable of accurately reporting Trump's position because the left never understood his position in the first place. As Peter Thiel said, the media take Trump literally, but not seriously, while the people take him seriously, but not literally. After the San Bernardino terrorist attacks in December 2015, Trump made the perfectly reasonable suggestion that we curtail our breakneck importation of Muslims, some of whom periodically erupt in murderous violence. The media concluded: TRUMP HATES MUSLIMS! Nothing Trump or anyone else said could persuade them otherwise. Here's what Trump actually said: What's happened is, we're out of control. We have no idea who's coming into our country. We have no idea if they love us or if they hate us. … I have friends that are Muslims. They are great people. But they know we have a problem. They know we have a real problem. 'Cause something is going on. And we can't put up with it, folks. … "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. … Where the hatred comes from and why — we'll have to determine, we're going to have to figure it out. We have to figure it out. We can't live like this. It's going to get worse and worse. You're going to have more World Trade Centers. … " Throughout the campaign, Trump supporters tried in vain to explain the "Muslim ban" to a hostile media dead set on interpreting everything out of Trump's mouth in the ugliest possible way. For example, our general policy on Muslim immigration would be "No, thanks!" but there would be exceptions. So Charles Krauthammer can stop worrying about King Abdullah of Jordan. In March, Trump supporter Andy Dean told a dense CNN anchor: He's talking about the culture of Islam in the Middle East. … We love Muslims in America and they love us. Why? We have a great culture that respects women's rights. … The thing about Muslims in the Middle East is they don't respect women's rights. If a woman wants to get a divorce in the Middle East, that woman could be killed. If you want to leave the religion of Islam in the Middle East, you can be killed. It's very real. To the same blockhead anchor, Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany had to fill in an edited quote the network had just shown of Trump: It's important to know what happened 15 seconds later. Anderson Cooper said to him, "Are you speaking of radical Islam or are you speaking of Islam?" He said radical sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, though. So he did say radical Islam. He said it repeatedly during his campaign. He said, "I have Muslim friends. I love the Muslim people. " … One of Trump's vast number of supporters told HLN's Drew Pinksy: I love what (Trump) is doing with the Muslims getting out of the country, because if they really knew what that was about — if they knew that that was about freedom. It was about freedom versus enslavement. He's right. It's not about religion. It's not about nationality. It's about hitting the pause button on bringing in radical Islam's dysfunctional, misogynist, violent, culture. The voters understood Trump. (At least some of us did — barely enough of us to elect him president!) Liberals didn't. But now the courts are blocking Trump's exercise of presidential powers based on the left's own idiotic misinterpretations of what he said.


Is there really anything more irresponsible than standing before a large group of people on a stage in South Africa and telling them that SEX doesn t transmit AIDS? As long as Theron s a card carrying Hollywood liberal, she gets a pass and anything she says. After all, her reckless remarks were only for the good of the poor blacks in Africa right?The HIV virus can be spread in plenty more ways than just sex, actress Charlize Theron asserted while delivering the opening remarks at the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa on Monday. It is not just AIDS, she said. It is the culture that condones rape and shames victims into silence. It is the cycle of poverty and violence that traps girls into teen marriages and forces them to sell their bodies to provide for their families. It is the racism that allows the white and the wealthy to exploit the black and the poor and then blame them for their own suffering. It is the homophobia that shames and isolates LGBT youth and keeps them from life-saving healthcare and education. HIV is not just transmitted by sex, Theron added. It s transmitted by sexism, racism, poverty and homophobia. And if we re going to end AIDS, we have to cure the disease within our own hearts and within our own minds first. -BreitbartThis certainly isn t the first time the rabid anti-gun actress has made the news (well almost) for making a completely unfounded and idiotic comment. In May, 2014, Theron compared the media s coverage of her to rape . When asked by Sky News whether she ever Googled herself, Theron replied, I don t do that, so that s my saving grace. When you start living in that world, and doing that, you start, I guess, feeling raped. Critics went wild over her twisted analogy. But in the end, she s a Hollywood liberal and much like their good friend in the White House, they re untouchable. The sky is the limit when it comes to the ignorant and irresponsible statements they are able to make without ever being held accountable.


Prepare for the Perseids. This week, the annual meteor shower will illuminate the night sky with cosmic fireworks, creating a particularly dazzling display for skygazers across the Northern Hemisphere. NASA estimates that between 160 and 200 meteors will ignite in Earth's atmosphere every hour during the display's peak on Thursday night and Friday morning. Normally the shower has between 80 and 100 space specks. You can thank Jupiter and its intense gravity for turning this year's meteor shower into a meteor hurricane. The Perseids occur when Earth runs into pieces of debris floating in the solar system that were left behind by Comet . The dirty snowball orbits the sun about once every 133 years. It made its last close pass by the sun in 1992. But you won't be seeing the leftovers of that event. A general rule of thumb with meteor showers is that you are never watching remnants from a comet's most recent orbit. Instead, the burning bits come from the previous pass. In this case, the debris were ejected when Comet visited in 1862 or earlier. For this week's shower, Jupiter's gravity has tugged together at least three meteor streams left by the comet into Earth's path. Our planet will run into a cluster of leftovers from Comet 's rendezvous in 1862, 1479 and 1079. "You're seeing pieces of ice that have been orbiting for that long themselves into the Earth's atmosphere," said Bill Cooke, an astronomer with NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Jupiter's large gravitational pull is constantly influencing the meteor streams, according to Dr. Cooke. Sometimes it tugs them toward Earth, and sometimes it pushes them farther away. The last time a special Perseids shower like this one occurred was in 2009. The Perseids zoom through the atmosphere at around 133, 000 miles per hour and burst about 60 miles overhead, according to Dr. Cooke. Most of the meteors are about the size of a grain of sand, but some can be as large as a silver dollar. You should be able to see many of the small bursts, but it's the handful of large ones that create fireballs when set ablaze. "It scares you to the bone when you see it coming across," said Jackie Faherty, an astronomer from the American Museum of Natural History. "If you get just one, it will be embedded in your vision for all time. I don't think you forget things like this. " The best way to see the Perseids meteor shower, according to Dr. Faherty, is to go to a location with a clear view of the entire night sky. Ideally you would go somewhere with dark skies, but she said the main thing to look for is a spot that offers a wide, unobstructed view. She said that even in a crowded city like New York you could still spot some of the flashes by going to a rooftop. The best time to watch is before dawn on Friday. Before getting their hopes up, stargazers should be warned that the weather and moonlight can obscure the show. If that happens, there are several livestreams of the event to watch, like one hosted by NASA and one hosted by Slooh, a global system of cameras and telescopes pointed at the sky. Still, Dr. Faherty suggests people get outside and try to see it for themselves. "It is worth waiting out there for an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours even to catch a glimpse of something like this," she said. "When you get a good one, it will rival the stars in the sky. "


U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that Iran must immediately stop its financial and military support for "terrorists and militias" and he reiterated that it never be permitted to possess atomic arms. "Most importantly, the United States and Israel can declare with one voice that Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon - never, ever - and must cease its deadly funding, training and equipping of terrorists and militias, and it must cease immediately," Trump said in public remarks at a meeting in Jerusalem with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. The United States brands Iran a "state sponsor of terrorism". It says Tehran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war, Houthi rebels in Yemen's civil war and the Hezbollah Shi'ite political party and militia in Lebanon have helped destabilize the Middle East. Trump flew to Israel from Riyadh earlier in the day, on the second leg of his first overseas trip since entering office in January. In his speech at Rivlin's official residence, Trump said he was deeply encouraged by his conversations with Muslim world leaders in Saudi Arabia. "Many expressed their resolve to help end terrorism and the spread of radicalization. Many Muslim nations have already taken steps to begin following through on this commitment," he said. "There is a growing realization among your Arab neighbors that they have common cause with you in the threat posed by Iran," Trump told Rivlin.


A young Singaporean blogger who says he was persecuted for his political opinions in the Southeast Asian country was released on Tuesday from U.S. detention in Chicago after a federal immigration panel ruled in his favor. The federal Board of Immigration Appeals upheld a March decision by a Chicago immigration judge granting asylum to Amos Yee, 18, who had been jailed twice in Singapore for social media postings critical of government officials, his attorneys said on Tuesday. Now I can criticize the Singapore government without being sent to prison, Yee told Reuters after his release. Yee s trials in Singapore were closely watched by rights groups and the United Nations, and fueled debate in Singapore over censorship, the limits of free speech and political correctness. Yee had been in U.S. immigration detention since December 2016 when he arrived seeking asylum, according to Yee s attorney Sandra Grossman. The court made its ruling on Sept. 21, but Grossman said she only learned of the outcome this week. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which opposed Yee s asylum application and argued the Singapore government had legitimately prosecuted him, could not be immediately reached. The department could appeal the ruling to a circuit court but Grossman said she believed it was unlikely. Chicago immigration Judge Samuel Cole found Yee s prosecution, detention and treatment by Singapore authorities constitute(s) persecution on account of Yee s political opinions. Officials at Singapore s embassy in Washington could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday. In March, the country s Ministry of Home Affairs issued a statement in which it quoted Yee s remarks against Muslims and Christians and noted Yee had pleaded guilty to charges against him. In September last year, Yee pleaded guilty to six charges of deliberately posting comments on the internet - in videos, blog posts and a picture - that were critical of Christianity and Islam. He was sentenced to six weeks in jail. In 2015, Yee was convicted on charges of harassment and insulting a religious group over comments he made about former premier Lee Kuan Yew and Christians soon after Lee s death. His sentence at the time amounted to four weeks in jail. The case now goes back to a Chicago immigration court to complete any security investigations or exams as part of the asylum process.


While it should surprise absolutely no one that Iowa Rep. Steve King is a blatant, flaming, disgusting pig of a racist, what he just did on Twitter puts him into the same category as the KKK and the Neo-Nazis here in the U.S. He met with two white supremacist demagogues Geert Wilders from the Netherlands and Frauke Petry from Germany in 2016 and expressed strong support for their ahem anti-immigrant policies. But today, he not only doubled down on that, he was so obviously white supremacist he earned accolades for it from one David Duke.King tweeted a cartoon from Voice of Europe, a publication that could easily be a Make America Great Again publication for Trump if it was American. It says:Hundreds of Islamists shouting Allahu Akbar in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Wilders is right for over 10 years. #turkijerel pic.twitter.com/dV2SjXg23r Voice of Europe (@V_of_Europe) March 12, 2017King, not to be outdone on the white supremacy front, then tweeted:Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can t restore our civilization with somebody else s babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO Steve King (@SteveKingIA) March 12, 2017In other words, King just said that culture is rooted in demographics, which implies that he believes the only way to preserve true American and Western European culture is to preserve white superiority. That s what known white nationalist groups also say about brown people polluting the white gene pool.Now, read what David Duke s reply was to that:Just in case you were thinking about moving -> sanity reigns supreme in Iowa s 4th congressional district.#MakeAmericaGreatAgain https://t.co/RRjTzAzlKw David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) March 12, 2017 Reigns supreme. No double entendre there at all. You know you ve arrived as a white supremacist when David Duke applauds you. Steve King needs to be ousted from Congress. He s the antithesis of America.


Is there any question what Obama s priorities are in his final 8 1/2 months in office? His legacy will most certainly be that of the most divisive President (and First Lady) to ever occupy the White House. Every law enforcement officer in America should be concerned about his obsession with taking them down a few notches.President Obama is meeting with a group of music stars on Friday to discuss his push for criminal justice reform and his initiaitve dedicated to helping young men and boys of color.Rappers Busta Rhymes, Common, J. Cole, Wale, Ludacris and Chance the Rapper are all attending the meeting, according to a senior administration official.The meeting comes as Obama is trying to beef up support for the My Brother s Keeper Initiative, which is designed to help young African-Americans get an education, college degree and job training.Obama and his supporters launched a nonprofit group last May that will allow the president to continue the work once he leaves office.The president has also tried to keep momentum behind a bipartisan coalition looking to pass legislation in Congress that would reduce prison sentences for many non-violent drug offenders. Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and My Brother s Keeper task force chairman Broderick Johnson also attended the meeting.War On Cops: President Obama says his criminal justice reform doublespeak for pardoning criminals and investigating cops is gaining bipartisan support. New FBI crime data should stop the movement in its tracks.Last fall, we argued that Obama s war on police, prosecuted with the help of his Black Lives Matter goons, sparked a national crime wave. Violent criminals are getting the upper hand as the Ferguson effect takes hold in cities across the country, we noted. Less-aggressive policing has emboldened the bad guys, leading to a nationwide spike in murder. Officers fear violating softer new use-of-force and arrest policies, pushed on cities by the Obama Justice Department, will open them up to civil-rights prosecution. Many have backed off patrols and stops in dangerous urban areas as a result. The result: Year-over-year homicide rates are up 76% in Milwaukee; 60% in St. Louis; 56% in Baltimore; 44% in Washington, D.C.; 22% in New Orleans; 20% in Chicago; 20% in Kansas City; and 17% in Dallas. Single-digit rises have been seen in New York and other cities. Soon after, FBI Director James Comey indicated that spiking murder rates may be partly due to the Ferguson effect police reluctance to carry out their duties over fear of being investigated for abuse or discrimination, or shot by angry thugs in the line of duty.Police chiefs echoed his concerns, prompting the attorney general to gather major police chiefs and mayors together in Washington for a crime summit. It was supposed to be a closed meeting, no press allowed.But a Washington Post reporter snuck in and recorded Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel complaining that all the vitriol thrown at cops had put them in a fetal position. Obama s former chief of staff said they were backing off crime in gang-infested areas of his city.Obama pooh-poohed the city-by-city reports of climbing murder rates, arguing that there wasn t any aggregate data to show a national trend. But now we have the national data from the FBI. It confirms that the U.S. murder rate shot up 6.2% in the first half of 2015 from a year earlier. The spike reverses a three-year downtrend.Overall violent crime murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault rose almost 2%, in contrast to a nearly 5% drop in the comparable period of 2014. Violent crime rose in all but one of the nation s four regions, the FBI said, and all but two city groupings.If liberal pundits and politicians want to stop soaring crime rates, they should stop vilifying cops. And they should start speaking out against the Black Lives Matter race-mongers and their criminal-justice reforming patrons in the White House.


House Speaker Paul D. Ryan's deepest ideological instincts were formed in the conservative movement of the 1980s. "You have to understand, I come from the conservative wing of the party, I'm a movement conservative," the Wisconsin Republican told a small group of reporters soon after becoming speaker. Three weeks later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) explained that his first instincts were to help get his endangered Republican incumbents reelected, right down to scheduling votes on legislation. "Our majority will be maintained only if we do well in purple states," McConnell said in a December interview with The Washington Post. That distance between two of the three most important Republicans in the nation is at the core of how Ryan and McConnell came to such different conclusions about what to do about the emergence of the other most powerful Republican: Donald Trump. On Wednesday evening, 24 hours after Trump won the Indiana primary and knocked out his remaining presidential contenders, McConnell released a tepid statement saying he would support the nominee. By Thursday afternoon Ryan appeared on CNN to question Trump's conservative credentials on key policy positions, lambaste his campaign of "belittlement" toward women and minorities, and said he was not yet prepared to support Trump. [Ryan says he is 'not ready' to back Trump, deepening GOP divide] That Ryan-McConnell split also explains a broader divide among Republicans here in Washington. Much of the Republican political class is coming to terms with the inevitable — Trump will be their nominee — and figuring out how best to handle what they consider a bad situation. But for the idealists — some say ideologues — who came of age worshiping the Ronald Reagan doctrine of free markets, strong national defense and an optimistic "shining city upon a hill" tone, they cannot countenance Trump taking over what they still consider a conservative party. Ryan, 46, is very much in this wing of the party. He cited his late political mentor, Jack Kemp, a 1980s congressman whose optimistic economic vision became a bedrock conservative principle, in his declaration that "I'm not there yet" in supporting Trump. Today's conservative intelligentsia has been so flummoxed by Trump's ascendancy because, on so many issues, he is squarely against Ryan's worldview. Trump is ready to start trade wars with China and other nations, rather than support trade deals that Ryan himself helped craft as a committee chairman before he became speaker. Trump has criticized lawmakers for considering sweeping changes to Social Security and Medicare, the very issues that sparked the rise of Ryan when he released budgets with optimistic titles like "Pathway to Prosperity" that included radical changes in entitlement policy. Perhaps the only thing they seem to share these days is a love of the media and the back-and-forth jousting it provides — yet Trump uses his TV appearances to advance slash-and-burn tactics with opponents, while Ryan frequents shows to talk about a "confident America" with bold conservative ideas to help the poor. "A lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard bearer that bears our standards," Ryan told Jake Tapper on CNN's "The Lead" Thursday. [Ryan tries to pivot from "disheartened state of politics" – without ever mentioning Donald Trump] What's stunning to these Reagan-worshiping disciples is that a lot of Republican voters don't want someone who bears Ryan's standards. Trump did not just win the nomination, but he has, quite simply, routed the field. "The man has won over 10 million votes," said Josh Holmes, a top political adviser to McConnell. That's more votes than any Republican ever in a presidential primary. Looking at that equation, McConnell made a different, highly tactical decision on Trump. Sticking by his previous assurances he would support the nominee, McConnell said that the businessman had some work ahead of him. "As the presumptive nominee, he now has the opportunity and the obligation to unite our party around our goals," McConnell said in a brief statement. Advisers to both GOP leaders confirmed that each side knew ahead of time what was coming. Ryan's and McConnell's chiefs of staff, David Hoppe and Sharon Soderstrom, are close friends who first worked together in the 1980s. They remain in close contact over each decision, and did so this week. Where Ryan saw Trump's ideological apostasies, McConnell saw a simple reality that he needs to make the best of: Trump no longer has any opponent and he's going to be the nominee, collecting votes from tens of millions of Americans in November. It's time to figure out how those endangered Republicans — eight of whom are facing tough competition in states that will also be presidential battlegrounds — can appeal to middle-of-the-road voters who will ultimately tip the balance in their races but also not alienate the Trump supporters. "McConnell has never spent a lot of time wringing his hands about situations he cannot control," Holmes said. "His job is to run the Senate and help his members and stay out of their way as they navigate their state's politics." Some Washington insiders suggested that Ryan's move gave endangered House Republicans cover to take similar positions and steer clear of Trump questions. Instead, Democrats said Ryan gave them the freedom to keep asking, almost daily, whether Trump had "earned" their vote, a position that Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) took Friday in her suburban battleground district. "This starts an alarm clock that will go off eventually," Matt Thornton, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said. "By setting up the 'earn my vote' standard, Republicans are only begging the question, 'OK, what does that mean?' When will Trump earn your vote?" McConnell considers himself an artful tactician who rarely hands his opponents a weapon to use against him. Ever since Ryan began talking about drafting a "bold" agenda for Republicans, McConnell has given polite public support without any assurances his candidates would support it, lest some proposal be too far reaching for any of them. "Before taking up measures, I'm going to be in consultation with my members, and it is a fact that we have a number of members up in purple states this year," McConnell said in December. Ryan never held back, promising early on a vision based on his upbringing under Kemp. "The conservative movement is beginning to concentrate itself on the fact that 2016 is everything, and the best way to have the best outcome is to unify by applying our principles to ideas and offering an agenda. So to me, the best path to unify is to propose and offer an exciting agenda," the new speaker told reporters back in November. It's just no longer clear which Republicans agree with the exciting agenda Paul Ryan wants to craft.


Donald Trump's new top political strategist predicted on Friday the Republican presidential front-runner would amass the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch his party's nomination well before the Republican National Convention in July. Veteran campaign tactician Paul Manafort was chosen by Trump on Thursday to oversee a fractious nomination process that many Republicans expect may not yield a clear winner before the convention. Manafort said on CNN's "New Day" program that rival Ted Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, will not be able to dent Trump's delegate lead before California's June 7 primary. "The reality is: Ted Cruz has seen his best day," Manafort said. "The reality is: this convention process will be over with sometime in June, probably June 7, and it'll be apparent to the world that Trump is over that 1,237 number." Trump has been uncharacteristically quiet on social media after his double-digit loss to Cruz in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, which followed a series of missteps on the campaign trail including his statement, later recanted, advocating punishment for women who have illegal abortions. In elevating Manafort, Trump said he would add more staff before the convention in an expansion of his campaign team beyond the close-knit group of advisers who have been at his side since he jumped into the presidential race last June. "People that I know that want to get involved and wanted to before but didn't have a way in," Manafort said. The next presidential nominating contests before the Nov. 8 election include a number in East Coast states seen as more fertile ground for the real estate tycoon, including in his native New York on April 19. Manafort cited Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland as states where Trump would do well. "By the time we get to California the momentum is going be very clear and Ted Cruz' path to victory is going to be in shambles," he said. Cruz, appearing on the CNN program earlier, said he had a clear path to 1,237 delegates. "It's difficult. We've got to win and we've got to win consistently," Cruz said. "He's right. He has to win," Manafort said.


Sacked Catalonian leader Carles Puigdemont has turned himself in to Belgian police, Belgian public broadcaster VRT said on Sunday, citing a source. Belgian prosecutors, who have a European arrest warrant from Spain for Puigdemont and four of his associates, will brief media on the case at 1300 GMT.


Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr  The list of women sexually assaulted by Donald J. Trump just keeps growing — and a new cringe-inducing video from a 2011 corporate speech adds yet another . In the video, Trump not only sexually assaults, but humiliates, the 2004 Miss Universe winner on stage, in front of thousands. "She's not very bright"  Both candidates have had cringe-inducing moments this election cycle, but by-the-by, Clinton's have been significantly less than Trump's have and Trump's have come in rapid succession of horrible moments; a parade of everything wrong with the masculine idea in the United States. A new video posted by the Huffington Post on Saturday added yet another horrible moment to the raft of them — a raft that, in any decent society, would have already sunk.  A few weeks ago, a tape of Donald Trump emerged into the popular conscious. The tape contained two things: Trump admitting that he sexually assaulted women and Trump using the word "pussy." No points for guessing which one pissed off more of his evangelical supporters. Since then, a huge number of women have come forward and leveled accusations of sexual assault at Donald Trump.  Make no mistake, Trump is having his Bill Cosby moment right now.  Among the list of accusations against Trump include claims that Trump told a group of 10-year-olds that he'd date them in 10 years, a telling a group of 14-year-olds he'd date them in a few years, groping women, sexually assaulting women, and we can't forget that he's been accused of raping a 13-year-old at a party hosted by infamous American financier and level three sex offender Jeffery Epstein (who served three months of an 18 month prison sentence for soliciting sex from an underage prostitute, because we don't have a two-tier justice system at all in the United States).  Thus, this new footage that shows Trump forcing 2004 Miss Universe winner Jennifer Hawkins into a nonconsensual kiss and then humiliating her on stage isn't an aberration. It's a continuation of the skeevy behavior that a huge number of men are not only okay with, not only think is normal, but believe is something that's worth preserving and perpetuating instead of stamping out like an intellectual scabies infection.  The video shows Trump calling Hawkins on stage to join him after telling the audience his philosophy of using revenge to succeed in business: "Get even with people," he said. "If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe that."  There are a few quotes from the Bible that are relevant here, but I'm pretty sure that Biblical literalists and right-wing evangelicals don't know what those quotes are. They're too busy agreeing with Trump.  Trump was apparently mad at Hawkins the day before because he thought she'd slighted him by declining to introduce him at an event in Sydney — Hawkins, it should be noted, is Australian. Once she was onstage with Trump, Hawkings laughed apologetically and said it was a "miscommunication with my management," which left her, "[feeling] really bad."  Trump seemed to accept this, saying: "When she found out, she got in her car and she got her ass over here, and I love her."  Spray-tan Hitler has a well-known vindictive streak. He at least entertained the possibility of forming a PAC to sink the political careers of Ted Cruz — voted second most punchable face in the world after Trump superfan and Breitbart personality Milo Yiannopoulos — and John Kasich after the two of them refused to show up at the Republican national convention and kiss his ring. He's threatened to use his power as president to arrest people he disagrees with. To say he's vindictive may well be a British-level understatement (and if he's elected, it'll definitely be a British-level mistake).  That vindictive streak is probably what led to the sequence of bizarre events that followed, culminating ultimately with Trump forcing a nonconsensual kiss on Hawkins.  First, he described how he would have embarrassed Hawkin if she'd really slighted him: "I was actually going to get up and tell you that Jennifer is a beautiful girl on the outside, but she's not very bright. That wouldn't have been true, but I would have said it anyway."  Trump then made a sexual pun, and of course lingered on it until the audience got it or laughed out of awkwardness, I can't be sure which: "And you know what? She came tonight, she came — came, she came, she came." Once the audience laughed, Trump added: "See, so they have the same filthy minds in Australia."  Then he grabbed her around the waist and forced a kiss on her. This is pretty much on par with what others have accused Trump of doing — according to Cathy Heller, who claims that Trump assaulted her at a Mother's Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago : "He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips," she claimed. Alarmed, she said she leaned backwards to avoid him and almost lost her balance. "And he said, 'Oh, come on.' He was strong. And he grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips." She turned her head, she claims, and Trump planted a kiss on the side of her mouth. "He kept me there for a little too long," Heller said. "And then he just walked away."  If you feel like you need a shower after this, just remember: you probably have a relative who thinks voting for this man is a good idea.  Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images Share this Article!


Donald Trump sure knows how to add insult to injury.Republicans in Congress must be seriously regretting their decision to endorse Trump now after they were totally humiliated on Thursday at the White House.During a meeting inside the Oval Office to discuss debt ceiling proposals, Trump stunned Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell by taking a deal offered by the Democrats which increases the debt ceiling for three months and provides Texas with Hurricane Harvey relief with no strings attached. Republicans were hoping for an 18 month increase and wanted to hold hurricane relief hostage in order to get concessions from the Democrats on other issues.But Trump pulled the rug out from under them because he knows that Republicans are incapable of governing even with majority control of the House and Senate.And that s why Trump kicked Republicans while they were down on Friday morning, suggesting he took the Democrats offer because of Republican failures to pass legislation. He then whined about the filibuster and asked Republicans to work on tax reform and get it done before the end of the month.Republicans, sorry, but I ve been hearing about Repeal & Replace for 7 years, didn t happen! Even worse, the Senate Filibuster Rule will . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2017 never allow the Republicans to pass even great legislation. 8 Dems control will rarely get 60 (vs. 51) votes. It is a Repub Death Wish! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2017Republicans must start the Tax Reform/Tax Cut legislation ASAP. Don t wait until the end of September. Needed now more than ever. Hurry! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2017Republicans are not going to get tax reform done by the end of the month. They have even passed the debt ceiling bill with Hurricane Harvey relief yet. The GOP is a fractured party right now, the majority of whom are controlled by an extremist base.Trump would be better off working with the Democrats. He d not only get things done, he would be able to sign legislation that is far better for the country.Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images


Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said on Wednesday that he does not see a "political path forward" in his 2016 bid for the White House. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who has not yet won a state contest of the more than a dozen held so far, said he will not attend Thursday's Republican debate in Detroit. He has not formally suspended his campaign. (Reporting by Megan Cassella; editing by Tim Ahmann) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.


Protesters Clash After Mount Greenwood Police-Involved Shooting Laura Podesta and Will Jones, ABC 7 (Chicago), November 7, 2016  Protesters clashed Sunday afternoon near the site of a deadly police shooting of a 25-year-old man in Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood.  Investigators said Joshua Beal, of Indianapolis, was armed when a confrontation between him and officers resulted in him being fatally shot. However, family members dispute the police narrative.  Michael Beal, Joshua Beal's brother, was charged with aggravated battery to a police officer, resisting arrest and attempting to disarm a police officer, a Cook County State's Attorney spokesperson said Monday. He is scheduled to appear in court at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.  On Sunday, Mount Greenwood residents squared off against activists demonstrating against the shooting. The clash between Black Lives Matters and Blue Lives Matters groups became tense at times as they exchanged chants such as "KKK" on one side and "CPD" on the other side.  {snip}  According to police, the shooting occurred after a vehicle leaving funeral services at a nearby cemetery stopped in traffic in front of a Chicago fire house near West 111th Street and South Troy Street. An off-duty firefighter told the driver that they were illegally blocking the fire lane. The occupants exited the vehicle and a verbal/physical altercation ensured, police said. An off-duty Chicago police officer was inside a nearby business and assisted the firefighter.  A Chicago police sergeant driving to work stopped when he observed a man with a firearm in his hands. After the man "failed to drop his weapon, shots were fired striking the individual multiple times," police said.  {snip}  According to family, an off-duty officer in an unmarked vehicle cut off one of the vehicles in the funeral procession. The family members and officer got out of their vehicles. After a verbal exchange, gunfire erupted but Beal's family said that he did not provoke the officer, and merely disclosing that he had a concealed weapon permit.  {snip}  Video circulated online on Sunday that claimed to show Beal holding a gun.  "The problem is everybody is making their assumptions based on the little stuff they see, the picture, the video. No one knows what happened," activist Ja'Mal Green said.  The video appears to capture the tense moments before the shooting, showing at least two people with their guns out. In another video, gunshots can be heard.  {snip}


Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday that Russia was preparing lawsuits to reclaim what Moscow says was illegally seized property in the United States, Russia s foreign ministry said. Lavrov, in a telephone conversation with Tillerson, also said it was unacceptable that U.S. authorities had removed Russian flags from its seized diplomatic buildings in the United States, the ministry said. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, asked about the accusations later, told reporters that U.S. actions at the shuttered Russian facilities were perfectly legal and were carried out with a lot of thought and in a judicious fashion. The flags of the former Russian consular properties in San Francisco were respectfully lowered. They re safely stored within each of the buildings, Nauert said. There s no country in the world that pays greater respect to its own flag and to the flags of other nations. That is something that we take seriously. But Russia s foreign ministry said Lavrov stressed to Tillerson that the lawlessness continued by U.S. officials runs counter to declarations made at the highest level in Washington about intentions to normalize the bilateral relations, which have hit an all-time low. Russian staff left the consulate in San Francisco last month after Washington ordered Moscow to vacate some of its diplomatic properties, part of a series of tit-for-tat actions resulting from a souring of relations between the two countries.