CNN
Exclusive: Mueller's team questioning Russian oligarchs
Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has taken the unusual step of questioning Russian oligarchs who traveled into the US, stopping at least one and searching his electronic devices when his private jet landed at a New York area airport, according to multiple sources familiar with the inquiry.
A second Russian oligarch was stopped during a recent trip to the US, although it is not clear if he was searched, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Mueller's team has also made an informal voluntary document and interview request to a third Russian oligarch who has not traveled to the US recently.
The situations have one thing in common: Investigators are asking whether wealthy Russians illegally funneled cash donations directly or indirectly into Donald Trump's presidential campaign and inauguration.
Reuters
'You'll be sorry,' Russia tells Britain at U.N. nerve agent attack meeting
Russia told Britain at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday that “you’re playing with fire and you’ll be sorry” over its accusations that Moscow was to blame for poisoning a former Russian spy and his daughter.
It was the second showdown between Russia and Britain at the world body since the March 4 nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in an English town. Russia, which requested Thursday’s council meeting, denies any involvement…
“We have told our British colleagues that ‘you’re playing with fire and you’ll be sorry’,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said during a more than 30-minute speech that attempted to poke holes in Britain’s allegations against Moscow.
Trade dispute escalates as Trump threatens $100 billion more in China tariffs
Donald Trump on Thursday directed U.S. trade officials to identify tariffs on $100 billion more Chinese imports, upping the ante in an already high-stakes trade confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.
The further tariffs were being considered “in light of China’s unfair retaliation” against earlier U.S. trade actions, which included a proposed $50 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods, Trump said in a White House statement.
“This is what a trade war looks like, and what we have warned against from the start,” said National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay.
“We are on a dangerous downward spiral and American families will be on the losing end,” Shay added in a statement, urging Trump “to stop playing a game of chicken with the U.S. economy.”
Mexico president joins political foes to blast Trump border plan
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Thursday sharply rebuked Donald Trump over his plan to send National Guard troops to the border, joining with opponents to tell the U.S. leader not to vent his domestic political “frustration” on Mexico…
In an unusually combative address, a stern-looking Pena Nieto urged Trump to stop sowing discord between the two nations and demanded a more respectful tone in bilateral relations.
“If your recent declarations are due to frustration over issues to do with internal policy, your laws, or your Congress, direct yourself to them, not to Mexicans,” Pena Nieto said.
The Washington Post
Scott Pruitt’s job in jeopardy amid expanding ethics issues
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt fought for his job Thursday, facing a new barrage of allegations about issues ranging from his past housing arrangement and first-class travel to the reassignment of senior staff who criticized how he was spending taxpayer funds.
Even as President Trump repeatedly expressed his support for Pruitt in public, top White House aides began to escalate their disapproval, suggesting the administrator has mischaracterized his role in boosting the salaries of two employees. On Thursday evening, two EPA officials confirmed that Pruitt endorsed the idea last month of giving substantial raises to senior counsel Sarah Greenwalt and scheduling and advance director Millan Hupp — although he did not carry out the pay raise himself.
And Pruitt’s decision to ignore White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly’s warnings to be more cautious about giving public interviews only complicated his standing with many of Trump’s key aides.
Trump says he didn’t know his attorney paid $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels
Trump said Thursday that he did not know that his personal attorney paid adult-film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 days before the presidential election to prevent her from publicly accusing Trump of having an affair.
In his first public response to questions about the payment, the president said he did not know where his attorney, Michael Cohen, got the money, and he declined to say whether he had ever set up a fund for Cohen to cover such expenses.
Trump’s brief remarks Thursday afternoon raised the stakes for the president on two fronts. Daniels’s attorney immediately suggested that Trump’s version of events would be shown to be untruthful if he is deposed in a lawsuit brought by the adult-film star. And Trump’s lack of knowledge about a hefty payment made in the final weeks of his presidential campaign could have implications for complaints now before the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department about the arrangement’s legality.
In Eastern Europe, the E.U. faces a rebellion more threatening than Brexit
The triumph of liberal democracy is being attacked from within by E.U. members that openly deride the club’s values, principles and rules. The bloc, meanwhile, has been incapable of fighting back, its weakness a side effect of the optimism with which it grew.
Ground zero for the rebellion is here in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban is running for reelection Sunday with boasts of his illiberalism, swipes at the hostile E.U. “empire” and promises to further tighten his grip on a country dancing ever closer to the edge of autocracy.
Orban’s defiance presents the E.U. with a far different threat than the one it faced in 2016, when Britain voted to exit and speculation swirled over who might go next. It may be more serious than that — a challenge that endangers the character of the union.
'Zombie-like' raccoons believed to be infected with distemper in Youngstown, Ohio
Robert Coggeshall was playing with his beagles outside his Youngstown, Ohio, house around noon Friday when he saw the raccoon.
The 72-year-old pushed his dogs inside as the raccoon fearlessly made its way right up to the glass door, and for a few moments, the animals sat face to face, fascinated with one another.
Coggeshall thought something was wrong with the raccoon, since it was out in broad daylight. What came next confirmed that. As Coggeshall left his garage to try to shoo the animal away, the raccoon stood up on its hind feet and flashed its sharp, white teeth and pink gums. Saliva dripped from its mouth.
The Guardian
Former Trump aide approved 'black ops' to help Ukraine president
Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.
The project was designed to boost the reputation of Ukraine’s then leader, Viktor Yanukovych. It was part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort carried out by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych’s embattled government, emails and documents reveal.
The strategies included:
- Proposing to rewrite Wikipedia entries to smear a key opponent of the then Ukrainian president.
- Setting up a fake thinktank in Vienna to disseminate viewpoints supporting Yanukovych.
- A social media blitz “aimed at targeted audiences in Europe and the US”.
- Briefing journalists from the rightwing website Breitbart to attack Clinton when she was US secretary of state.
American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus
Gallup released its annual survey on American perceptions about global warming last week, and the results were a bit discouraging. While 85–90% of Democrats are worried about global warming, realize humans are causing it, and are aware that most scientists agree on this, independents and Republicans are a different story. Only 35% of Republicans and 62% of independents realize humans are causing global warming (down from 40% and 70% last year, respectively), a similar number are worried about it, and only 42% of Republicans and 65% of independents are aware of the scientific consensus – also significantly down from last year’s Gallup poll.
The Trump administration’s polarizing stance on climate change is probably the main contributor to this decline in conservative acceptance of climate change realities. A recent study found evidence that “Americans may have formed their attitudes [on climate change] by using party elite cues” delivered via the media. In particular, the study found that Fox News “is consistently more partisan than other [news] outlets” and has incorporated politicians into the majority of its climate segments.
New research sheds light on Neanderthals' distinctive features
Previous research has suggested a number of possible explanations for Neanderthals’ facial shape, including that it enabled a forceful bite with the front teeth – a theory based on their relatively large incisors and signs of tooth wear.
“As well as the processing of food, it looks like they were using their teeth [for] gripping as a third hand, and that of course would put a lot of force on the front of the jawbone,” said Dr Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London and a co-author of the new study.
But the study appears to rule out that theory, instead supporting other explanations for Neanderthals’ facial structure, including that it provided an efficient way to warm and moisten cold, dry air and move large volumes of air through the nasal passage. Such heavy breathing, the researchers say, could also be an adaptation to cold climates or prove a boon for an energetic lifestyle, noting that it is thought Neanderthals used up to 4,480 calories a day in finding food during the winter and keeping warm.
Ars Technica
500 years of Mississippi flood data shows things have gotten worse
It's hard to get a sense of the Mississippi River's scale without having seen it. It drains water from 31 of the 48 contiguous states, along with parts of Canada, and its outflow can average up to 20,000 cubic meters of water every second. When something that big floods, it can be a staggeringly destructive event, one that can impact multiple states as the surge of water makes its way downstream to the ocean.
Accordingly, humans have been attempting to limit the impact of flooding by building structures that contain the river and direct its overflows. But as floods have continued to plague the river basin, including a massive 2011 flood, people have started to question whether the structures we've built have only made matters worse. A new study reaches back 500 years to gather data on past floods and answers that question with a yes.
CEO says Facebook will impose new EU privacy rules “everywhere”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took an apologetic tone in a call with reporters Wednesday afternoon, weeks after the Cambridge Analytica debacle that has put a new level of pressure on the social media giant.
"We didn't think about how people could use these tools for harm as well," Zuckerberg said.
The call, which lasted nearly an hour, came just after the company's chief technology officer issued a lengthy statement outlining numerous changes the company is making in the name of privacy and information security. Facebook is also updating its privacy policy.