The Washington Post
The Pentagon’s top watchdog has launched an investigation into money that former national security adviser and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn received from foreign groups and whether he failed to obtain proper approval to do so, lawmakers and defense officials said Thursday.
The investigation was disclosed by the House Oversight Committee on Thursday morning, and confirmed by the inspector general’s office. In the past, the Pentagon has advised retiring officers that because they can be recalled to military service, they are subject to the Constitution’s rarely enforced emoluments clause, which prohibits top officials from receiving payments or favors from foreign governments.
A Russian naval intelligence ship sank Thursday after colliding with a merchant freighter in foggy conditions on the Black Sea near Istanbul, the Turkish coast guard said. All 78 crew members on the Russian vessel were rescued.
The crew of the freighter Youzarsif H, a Togo-flagged ship traveling from Romania to Jordan and carrying 8,800 sheep, was unharmed and the ship suffered slight damage to its bow, according to local media reports.
Two U.S. service members were killed during operations against the Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the deaths occurred overnight in Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, where a small but virulent Islamic State cell poses a threat to Afghan and U.S. coalition forces.
An Afghan military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss current operations, said that there had been a joint U.S.-Afghan operation in a village near Nangahar’s Achin district Wednesday but was not aware of any casualties. He noted, however, that it had been a long day of fighting.
The Guardian
Russia has accused French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign team of discriminating against its media on Thursday, saying it had trampled on the freedom of the press by banning Russian news outlets from its events.
In Paris, a Macron spokesman confirmed that the Russian state-funded Sputnik news agency and RT TV channel had been barred from having media access to him, describing them as a “two-headed entity” which issued Russian state propaganda and fake news.
A tax plan released by the White House on Wednesday could deliver many millions of dollars annually in tax savings to Donald Trump personally under the guise of helping small businesses, multiple tax experts have told the Guardian.
Trump would not be alone among the super-rich to benefit from the plan, analysts said, although the structure of the Trump Organization, an agglomeration of hundreds of owner-operated entities, made it a prime potential beneficiary.
The US admiral in charge of a potential conflict with North Korea has said his goal is to bring Kim Jong-un “to his senses, not to his knees”, as the Trump administration signaled it intends to use economic and diplomatic pressure to denuclearize the peninsula. […]
Adm Harry Harris, the commander of US Pacific Command (Pacom), sounded dire notes before a congressional panel on Wednesday, testifying that he did not have confidence that North Korea would refrain from “something precipitous” should it succeed in miniaturizing a nuclear weapon to mount on a ballistic missile.
While Harris did not provide any timetable for reaching an “inflection point” in North Korean nuclear capabilities, he suggested that the North’s accelerating missile tests indicated that Pyongyang will at some point be able to launch a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States unless stopped by an external force, diplomatically or militarily.
The Globe and Mail
Ontario has balanced its budget for the first time in a decade, opening the taps to pour billions into health care and consumer-friendly spending, while wagering that a fast-growing economy will keep the province’s books in the black through next year’s election.
Premier Kathleen Wynne has eased back on the austerity imposed in Ontario in recent years as her Liberals have sought to erase the province’s deficit, allocating nearly $7-billion in new funding for health care over three years, including increasing hospitals’ operating budgets and providing free prescription drugs for everyone 24 years and under. This comes on top of an already announced promise to spend $1.44-billion to provide relief to homeowners from rapidly rising electricity rates. The newfound largesse however comes with no immediate plan to get the province’s ballooning debt under control.
Reuters
Protesters stormed into Macedonia's parliament and assaulted the leader of the Social Democrats on Thursday after his party and ethnic Albanian allies voted to elect an Albanian as parliament speaker, witnesses said.
Live television footage showed Social Democratic leader Zoran Zaev with blood trickling from one side of his forehead, not long after he announced that the majority coalition led by his party had elected Talat Xhaferi as parliament speaker.
A Reuters witness saw nationalist protesters angered over Xhaferi's election beating up another lawmaker in parliament. Broken glass littered the floor and traces of blood were seen in hallways.
The son of Venezuela's pro-government human rights ombudsman has surprised the country amid major protests against the leftist administration by publicly urging his father to "end the injustice."
The opposition has accused ombudsman Tarek Saab, whose title is "defender of the people," of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses and a lurch into dictatorship by Venezuela's unpopular President Nicolas Maduro.
Some 29 people have died so far during this month's unrest.
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday granted a request from the Trump administration to put litigation on hold in which states and industry groups are challenging an Obama administration pollution control rule for mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit canceled oral arguments that were due to take place on May 18. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said it wants to review the rule.
The rule, known as the MATS rule, has been in place for years and utilities have already complied by upgrading or shutting older coal-fired power plants.
Deutsche Welle
As tension between Moscow and the West was on the rise following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin was steadily looking for instruments to wield its political influence abroad. In addition to the work of its security services, Moscow employed Russian-speaking organized crime networks in Europe as a new tool in this simmering conflict, according to a new study published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank with offices across Europe.
The report claims there is a close connection between the Kremlin's state security apparatus represented by the Foreign Intelligence Service, military intelligence (GRU), and the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Russian organized criminal groups active in European countries. Moreover, the Kremlin often tasks these groups to act on its behalf. "The Russian state is highly criminalised, and the interpenetration of the criminal ‘underworld’ and the political ‘upperworld’ has led the regime to use criminals from time to time as instruments of its rule," the ECFR study said.
More than 100 officers have swooped on 11 sites in the state of Bavaria belonging to members of an extremist gun club. Investigators believe they may have been planning attacks on minorities.
Police in Bavaria raided properties belonging to members of a self-styled "gun club" on Thursday, without giving details of any arrests made.
The New York Times
… the suggestion from the White House that Mr. Trump was finalizing an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the United States from Nafta revealed a different, more experienced Mexico, one that was learning to live with what it considers Mr. Trump’s bluster and stagecraft — and not inclined to publicly react too quickly.
“It seems like he’s sitting at a poker table bluffing rather than making serious decisions,” said Senator Armando Ríos Piter, a Mexican legislator. “In front of a bluffer, you always have to maintain a firm and dignified position.”
Syrian and rebel officials blamed Israel for several explosions Thursday morning at warehouses near the Damascus airport that the Israeli news media said were housing weapons bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Israel, which has carried out attacks on precision missiles and other forms of advanced weaponry in the past, did not directly confirm or deny the attack, in keeping with its policy.
But Yisrael Katz, the Israeli intelligence minister, seemed to acknowledge his country’s involvement, saying the attack was “consistent” with Israel’s policy of not allowing Hezbollah to obtain such weaponry.
In an unusual interview, R. C. Hammond, Mr. Tillerson’s spokesman, said the secretary intended to embark within days on a listening tour of the building and then a restructuring of the department’s operations. Only after those are underway will he begin to name his wider leadership team.
With a Senate confirmation process that takes months, that means the department will remain largely leaderless until well into 2018. And no other department in the federal government is as dependent on political appointees, or as paralyzed when the appointment process freezes.
Bloomberg
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program is deepening after the issue dominated talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Moscow.
He and Abe believe the situation on the Korean peninsula has “seriously deteriorated,” Putin said Thursday after the Kremlin meeting. “We call on all states involved in the region’s affairs to refrain from military rhetoric and seek peaceful, constructive dialogue.”
An alliance of Kenyan opposition parties chose former Prime Minister Raila Odinga as its candidate to run against President Uhuru Kenyatta in elections scheduled for August.
Odinga’s running mate on the National Super Alliance ticket will be former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, co-principal Musalia Mudavadi said Thursday at a rally in the capital, Nairobi. The two were recommended by a technical committee that also considered Mudavadi and Senator Moses Wetang’ula as potential candidates.
BBC News
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says some British people have "illusions" about discussing the UK's future ties with the EU at the same time as nailing down the UK's Brexit terms.
An EU-UK deal can only be discussed once the exit issues - such as UK payments to the EU budget - are resolved, Mrs Merkel told German MPs. The UK initiated the formal procedure to leave the EU on 29 March.
The UK Government has lost a court bid to delay publication of its air pollution strategy, and must now release it before the June election.
Courts had given the government until Monday 24 April to set out draft guidelines to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution.
Al Jazeera
At least three Indian soldiers and two suspected rebels were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir after fighters stormed a military camp close to the heavily militarised Line of Control dividing the disputed region, Indian officials said.
The fighters used guns and grenades to target soldiers in Panzgam, northwest of Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, said army spokesman Rajesh Kalia.
Protesters booed Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed off stage during a town hall meeting in a southeastern region that has been shaken by protests and a general strike.
Six years since a revolution ignited by grievances over joblessness, corruption and perceived marginalisation of the country's periphery, Tunisia has again witnessed a wave of protests.
The Hill
Trump’s plan to overhaul the federal tax code threatens to fall disproportionately on residents of liberal-leaning states, a short-term boost for state governments that could turn into a long-term drag…
Trump has proposed ending that state and local tax deduction. Experts who reviewed Trump’s outline… said that will mean higher taxes for those who live in states with more progressive tax codes, like California, New York, Oregon and New Jersey.