Calista241
Calista241's JournalGermany and Austria warn US over expanded Russia sanctions
Source: Politico
Germany and Austria on Thursday hit back at proposed U.S. sanctions that would threaten European companies participating in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, accusing the U.S. of politicizing its economic interest in selling natural gas to Europe.
“Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austria’s Federal Chancellor Christian Kern said in a joint statement.
U.S. senators on Wednesday supported extending and expanding sanctions against Moscow.
The two politicians warned that it wouldn’t “only be highly regrettable, but also damaging” to their countries’ cooperation on the Ukraine crisis if “irrelevant considerations such as U.S. economic interest in exporting gas were to gain the upper hand.” At the heart of their push-back is the planned expansion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
Read more: http://www.politico.eu/article/germany-and-austria-warn-u-s-over-expanded-russia-sanctions/
'Cereal' offender shoots man with Rice Krispies filled bullet
Source: NY Post
A flake allegedly stuffed a shotgun shell full of Rice Krispies and blasted it at another man, according to reports.
Cops busted Timothy Glass Jr., 29, on Wednesday after they say the Eureka, Calif. man use a flare gun to fire the breakfast-stuffed bullet at the victim’s hand, then flee on a bike, according to KRCR News.
Police caught up with Glass, but he put up a fight and hurt one of the officers in the process, the channel reports.
His first victim was rushed to hospital with non-life threatening wounds to his hand but told cops he doesn’t want to pursue charges.
Read more: http://nypost.com/2017/06/09/cereal-offender-shoots-man-with-rice-krispies-filled-bullet/
This one made me laugh, Something we all need from time to time. I wonder what posssessed him to put cereal in a shotgun shell, and put said shotgun shell into a flare gun. And it actually worked.
Justice Department ends practice of using settlements to fund outside groups
Source: The Hill
The Justice Department will end an Obama-era practice of allowing settlements won in federal legal cases to be donated to community organizations or other third-party groups, declaring that settlements must now be directed towards those directly harmed by wrongdoing, according to a memo obtained by Reuters.
The Justice Department's policy on settlements was a hallmark of the legal proceedings following the U.S. housing market collapse. From 2013 to 2016, the Obama Justice Department directed $46 billion in settlements to outside groups that focused on housing aid and other issues.
The move from Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the latest in the Trump administration's efforts to undo Obama-era policies long criticized by conservatives.
"In recent years the Department of Justice has sometimes required or encouraged defendants to make these payments to third parties as a condition of settlement," Sessions said in a statement. "We are ending this practice and ensuring that settlement funds are only used to compensate victims, redress harm, and punish and deter unlawful conduct."
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336701-justice-department-ends-practice-of-using-settlements-to-fund-outside
Supreme Court agrees to decide major privacy case on cellphone data
Source: Reuters
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a major case on privacy rights in the digital age that will determine whether police officers need warrants to access past cellphone location information kept by wireless carriers.
The justices agreed to hear an appeal brought by a man who was arrested in 2011 as part of an investigation into a string of armed robberies at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in the Detroit area over the preceding months. Police helped establish that the man, Timothy Carpenter, was near the scene of the crimes by securing cell site location information from his cellphone carrier.
At issue is whether failing to obtain a warrant violates a defendant's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment.
The information that law enforcement agencies can obtain from wireless carriers shows which local cellphone towers users connect to at the time they make calls. Police can use historical data to determine if a suspect was in the vicinity of a crime scene or real-time data to track a suspect.
Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN18W1RY
Supreme Court limits SEC's power to recover ill-gotten gains
Source: Reuters
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday scaled back the Securities and Exchange Commission's power to recover ill-gotten profits from defendants' misconduct, handing Wall Street firms a victory and dealing another blow to the regulator's enforcement powers.
In a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court found that the SEC's recovery remedy known as "disgorgement" is subject to a five-year statute of limitations. The justices sided with New Mexico-based investment adviser Charles Kokesh, who previously was ordered by a judge to pay $2.4 million in penalties plus $34.9 million in disgorgement of illegal profits after the SEC sued him.
The decision marked the second time since 2013 that the Supreme Court has reined in the SEC's enforcement powers. In the prior case, called Gabelli v. SEC, the justices unanimously ruled that civil monetary penalties are also subject to a five-year time bar.
The ruling represented a major victory for Wall Street firms, whose Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association trade group had urged the justices to curb the SEC's powers in order to provide more certainty and predictability to the enforcement process.
Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN18W1UQ
Missile Defense Test Succeeds, Pentagon Says, Amid Tensions With North Korea
Source: New York Times
An upgraded American interceptor rocket collided with a mock intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday afternoon in the skies over the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon said, marking the first successful test of whether the Defense Department could shoot down a warhead from North Korea heading toward the continental United States at speeds approaching true battle conditions.
At a time when tensions with North Korea are running high, the successful test gave the Defense Department’s beleaguered missile defense program a victory — the ability to say that it is making strides in protecting the United States from a nuclear warhead that could be launched from a mountainside in North Korea. With the test on Tuesday, five of the last 10 tests have at least partly succeeded.
The test “demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat,” said Vice Adm. James D. Syring, the director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, calling the test a “critical milestone for this program.”
But while Defense Department officials said initial indications showed that the test met its primary objective by hitting the target, they provided no details. The department will continue to evaluate other data to determine how the system performed over all. The test on Tuesday was against a single missile, but the North Koreans have begun to practice shooting multiple missiles at a time in an effort to confuse American defenses.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/us/politics/missile-defense-test-north-korea.html
Sources: 3rd US Naval Strike Force Deployed to Deter North Korea
Source: Voice of America
The United States is sending a third aircraft carrier strike force to the western Pacific region in an apparent warning to North Korea to deter its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, two sources have told VOA.
The USS Nimitz, one of the world’s largest warships, will join two other supercarriers, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan, in the western Pacific, the sources told VOA's Steve Herman.
The U.S. military has rarely simultaneously deployed three aircraft carriers to the same region.
But North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threat is seen as a major security challenge for President Donald Trump, who has vowed to prevent the country from being able to strike the U.S. with a nuclear missile, a capability experts say Pyongyang could have some time after 2020.
Read more: https://www.voanews.com/a/third-naval-strike-force-deployed-north-korea/3873637.html
Exclusive: Tillerson declines to host Ramadan event at State Department
Source: Reuters
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam's holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.
Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day's fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department.
Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department's Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
According to an April 6 memo seen by Reuters, the office - which typically initiates such events - recommended that Tillerson hold an Eid al-Fitr reception.
Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN18M2IE
Nicky Hayden dies from injuries suffered in bicycle crash
Source: ESPN
CESENA, Italy -- Former MotoGP world champion Nicky Hayden died in hospital on Monday, five days after he was hit by a car while training on his bicycle. Hayden was 35.
Maurizio Bufalini Hospital in Cesena, where Hayden had been since the collision last Wednesday, made the announcement. Hayden had severe cerebral damage and multiple traumatic injuries.
"The medical team has verified the death of the patient Nicholas Patrick Hayden, who has been undergoing care since last Wednesday May 17 in the intensive care unit of the Bufalini Hospital in Cesena following a very serious polytrauma which occurred the same day," the hospital statement said.
Hayden was training on the Rimini coast following a motorcycle race at nearby Imola. The Peugeot that hit Hayden had its windshield smashed.
Read more: http://www.espn.com/racing/story/_/id/19437147/american-motorcycle-racer-nicky-hayden-dies-injuries-suffered-bicycle-crash
Yes, i'm aware this article is not Trump related.
Many people here will likely not know who Hayden was, but he had a profound affect on my early life and is largely the reason i ride motorcycles today. A quote i saw on Facebook read: "A lot of people followed Michael Jordan, others followed Pelé, Steve Young or Ayrton Senna. But i always watched Nicky Hayden."
He was always described as one of the hardest working, yet most likable and nicest rider in the MotoGP paddock.
Tiffany Trump to attend Georgetown Law School in the fall
Source: Politico
Tiffany Trump, the 23-year-old daughter of President Donald Trump, will be attending Georgetown Law School in the fall, a representative for the family confirmed.
She had previously toured Harvard Law School last December. But her chosen school is much closer to her father and half-sister Ivanka Trump. The law school is about a mile-and-a-half walk from the White House and is ranked 15 by U.S. News and World Report.
...
Tiffany Trump, the only child of Donald Trump and Marla Maples, graduated last spring from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in sociology and urban studies. Trump has interned for Vogue (reportedly arranged by Ivanka), released a song called “Like a Bird,” and has done some modeling as well.
She’s given hints of her future education plans to her social media followers. Last year she posted a picture of her LSAT prep books with the phrase “I got this,” garnering more than 7,000 likes on Instagram.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/08/tiffany-trump-georgetown-law-school-238112
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Member since: Sat Jun 1, 2013, 01:19 AM
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