🇺🇸 **As Layoffs Arrive, Disney and Fox Staff Voice Frustrations**
*Hollywood Reporter* - <http://archive.is/d2Mn4>

At Walt Disney's shareholder meeting two weeks ago, CEO Bob Iger spoke of the "long-term value" inherent in the company's pending acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox. "We will hit the ground running as soon as the deal closes," he told attendees.

Nary a public word was spoken about layoffs, but less than two days after the $71.3 billion deal officially closed at two minutes past midnight ET on Wednesday, it was clear that hitting the ground running means, at least initially, lots of lost jobs.

"Today I hate everybody," said one nervous employee who worries for his job. "I hate Disney for buying Fox, I hate Fox for selling, I hate the politicians for allowing it to happen."
Part of the frustration, multiple employees tell The Hollywood Reporter, is that Disney has been less than forthcoming about who will be let go and when. Regarding severance, employees have been told they will get two weeks for every year served, capped at two years.
Says one Disney employee: "We feel like we're the ones who have been acquired because the people at Fox know what their severance packages are, if they are going to get let go, and nobody at Disney knows anything. People are panicking — and rightfully so — because nobody is telling them anything."
---------------

🇺🇸 **Head of Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen, announces resignation amid internal upheaval**
*LA Times* - <https://archive.fo/XfWnA>

The president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen, announced his resignation Friday, the latest in a series of high-profile departures at the anti-hate organization amid allegations of misconduct and workplace discrimination of female and black employees.

Cohen had been with the organization since 1986 and had been one of its most prominent figures in the public eye. His departure comes one week after he fired his longtime partner, Morris Dees — the center’s co-founder, chief trial counsel and its biggest public face for nearly half a century — for undisclosed misconduct.

At 5:03 p.m. Friday, Cohen sent a message to staff, with the subject line “Stepping Down,” announcing that he, too, would be leaving the organization that he and Dees had turned into a research and fundraising juggernaut.

“Whatever problems exist at the SPLC happened on my watch, so I take responsibility for them,” Cohen wrote, while asking the staff to avoid jumping to conclusions before the board completes an internal review of the Montgomery, Ala., organization’s work culture. Earlier this week, the board of directors announced that it had appointed Tina Tchen, the former chief of staff for Michelle Obama, to lead the inquiry.

Cohen told staff that he had asked the center’s board of directors in October to start searching for a new president, citing a need for a transition to a new generation of leadership. But “in light of recent events, I’ve asked the board to immediately launch a search for an interim president in order to give the organization the best chance to heal,” Cohen wrote.

A spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center declined to comment.

Cohen’s resignation comes the same day as a resignation by the organization’s legal director, Rhonda Brownstein, who did not give a reason for her departure in a brief email to her colleagues. Brownstein did not respond to requests for comment via email and LinkedIn.

---------------

🇲🇽 **Over 100 Central American migrants detained in northern Mexico**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.is/wjwoU>

Mexican police and federal officials on Saturday detained 107 Central American migrants seeking to enter the United States in the border city of Reynosa, the government of the northeastern state of Tamaulipas said.

Following a tip-off, state police intercepted a group of migrants who had been taken out of trucks in a western part of the city, which lies across the border from McAllen, Texas.

At the scene, unidentified gunmen began shooting at police, and one of the attackers was killed in the ensuing exchange of fire, the Tamaulipas government said in a statement.

The statement said police seized a firearm and cartridges but did not provide details on whether any gunmen were arrested or who they were.

Separately, police discovered a group of Central American men and women on the edge of a highway in Reynosa. They called in federal migration officials, who are now reviewing the legal status of the Central Americans detained, the government said.

The National Migration Institute counted 51 Guatemalans, 47 Hondurans and 9 Salvadorans detained in total, it added.

Mexico’s new government has pledged to regulate and stem the flows of people moving from Central America to its northern border as it seeks to reduce tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump over illegal immigration into the United States.
---------------

🇺🇸 **Mueller finds no Trump-Russia conspiracy but some questions left unresolved**
*reuters* - <https://archive.fo/sZstn>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion between U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, but left unresolved the issue of whether Trump obstructed justice by undermining the investigations that have dogged his presidency.

Even though Mueller’s findings on obstruction of justice were inconclusive, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a summary released on Sunday that Mueller’s team had not found enough proof to warrant bringing charges against Trump.

It marked a political victory for Trump. He quickly claimed “complete and total exoneration” while his Democratic opponents expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome and vowed to continue congressional probes into his business and personal dealings.

Mueller’s 22-month investigation ended with a finding that no one in Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government,” according to Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s confidential report.

The long-awaited report into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russian efforts to help him defeat his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, marked a major milestone of his presidency as he prepares for his 2020 re-election battle.

Trump describes the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt”, saying there was no collusion with Russia and denying he obstructed justice. He is certain to use the report to attack his Democratic opponents in the 2020 race.

Mueller himself did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump broke the law, but he presented his evidence to Barr to make a determination.
----------------

🇺🇸 **Avenatti arrested for allegedly trying to extort $20 million from Nike**
*Politico* - <https://archive.fo/pf6v3>

Michael Avenatti, the attorney who shot to national fame for representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels in her case against President Donald Trump, was arrested Monday in two separate cases of alleged financial crimes on both coasts.

New York prosecutors accused Avenatti of attempting to extract more than $20 million from Nike Inc. by threatening to inflict financial and reputational harm on the company. Avenatti, a frequent attacker of Trump who flirted with a 2020 presidential bid, is also facing separate bank and wire fraud charges in Los Angeles, authorities said.

The California lawyer received national attention while representing Daniels in two lawsuits against Trump related to hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign. Prosecutors on Monday said Avenatti used his newfound fame to intimidate Nike for money.

According to the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, Avenatti allegedly threatened to hold a press conference to announce allegations of employee misconduct at the athletic-wear company unless Nike hired Avenatti and an unnamed co-conspirator to conduct an “internal investigation” of the company for somewhere between $15 million and $25 million.
---------------

🇺🇸 **DOJ, FBI stonewalled House GOP request for McCabe texts, sources say**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.fo/umKID>

Republican investigators on the House Intelligence Committee formally requested former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s work-related text messages as part of their surveillance abuse inquiry last March, but they were denied, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The sources questioned whether the rejection amounted to an obstruction of congressional oversight, after Fox News on Friday published previously unseen texts between then-FBI Deputy Director McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page discussing numerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) matters.

An attorney for McCabe, the FBI, and the DOJ did not respond to Fox News' requests for comment following the publication of the texts on Friday.

In their document request, dated March 23, 2018, House investigators demanded the DOJ and FBI promptly turn over "all documents and communications, including emails and text messages" in which Page, McCabe, and seven others "discussed, referenced, or undertook work regarding [British ex-spy] Christopher Steele, the Steele dossier, related FISA applications and the application process."

Other individuals included in the House GOP's request for information were former FBI Director James Comey, then-Special Agent Peter Strzok, and senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr -- who became a back channel between Steele and the FBI, after Steele was fired by the bureau on the eve of the 2016 presidential election over his contacts with the media.
---------------

🇺🇸 **Pentagon chief says $1 billion of funding shifted to border wall**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/JwEUo>

The U.S. Department of Defense shifted $1 billion to plan and build a 57-mile section of “pedestrian fencing”, roads and lighting along the border between the United States and Mexico, the Pentagon chief said on Monday.

Last week, the Pentagon gave Congress a list that included $12.8 billion of construction projects for which it said funds could be redirected for construction along the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency last month in a bid to fund his promised border wall without congressional approval.

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said in a memo to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen that the Department of Defense had the authority to support counter-narcotics activities near international boundaries.

Shanahan authorized the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to begin planning and executing the project that would involve building 57 miles of 18-foot-high fencing, constructing and improving roads, and installing lighting within the Yuma and El Paso sections of the U.S.-Mexico border.
---------------

🇺🇸 **Jussie Smollett Charges Dropped; ‘His Record Has Been Wiped Clean’**
*CBS Chicago* - <https://archive.fo/CoJBp>

Less than two weeks after “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly lying to police about a hate crime, prosecutors have dropped charges in the case.

Cook County prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against Smollett at an unscheduled hearing in the case Tuesday morning. Smollett will forfeit the $10,000 bail he posted after his arrest.

“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office stated in an email.

Sources tell CBS 2 that CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson is furious and that he received no notification about the charges being dropped. CBS 2 is told that he will speak after the police graduation taking place.

Smollett’s spokesperson said his record would be “fully expunged.”

“Today, all criminal charges against Jussie Smollett were dropped and his record has been wiped clean of the filing of this tragic complaint against him. Jussie was attacked by two people he was unable to identify on January 29th. He was a victim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator as a result of false and inappropriate remarks made to the public causing an inappropriate rush to judgement,” spokeswoman Anne Kavanaugh stated in an email.
---------------

🇺🇸 **Lawyer for Michael Jackson, Jussie Smollett named as Avenatti co-conspirator**
*NY Post* - <https://archive.fo/GVlAw>

One of the alleged co-conspirators in the Michael Avenatti extortion case is a California lawyer and longtime CNN analyst “known for representation of celebrity and public figure clients” — including Colin Kaepernick, Michael Jackson and Jussie Smollett, a report says.

Attorney Mark Geragos, 61, was not actually named in the criminal complaint against Avenatti, but two sources familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal that he is the “CC-1” that prosecutors referred to in the document.

According to his website, Geragos has represented “some of the most prominent figures in the world” over the last 30 years. His client list includes rap moguls Suge Knight and Sean “Diddy” Combs, actress Winona Ryder, boxer Mike Tyson, singer Chris Brown and convicted murderer Scott Peterson.

In the early 2000s, Geragos helped the late King of Pop secure an acquittal on child molestation charges in California. He had been trying to get Smollett, the former “Empire” star, out of his legal troubles before Avenatti’s arrest Monday.

The actor has been charged with 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly staging his own hate crime. Geragos defended him in a statement to CNN earlier this month while still serving as a network contributor.

“This redundant and vindictive indictment is nothing more than a desperate attempt to make headlines,” Geragos said.

CNN issued a statement on Monday after word got out about Geragos’ involvement in the Avenatti case, saying he was “no longer” an analyst.

Geragos’ website bio describes him as “the only lawyer besides Johnnie Cochran ever named ‘Lawyer of the Year’ in both Criminal and Civil arenas.”
---------------

🇺🇸 **Nolte: Dying CNN Lost Almost 30% of Primetime Audience Week of March18th**
*Breitbart* - <https://archive.fo/Iipfd>

During the week of March 18, the far-left CNN lost almost 30 percent of an audience that is already minuscule.
In the arenas of credibility and viewership, CNN is a dying brand. Over the last week, the news has been especially bad for the far-left outlet.

On the credibility front, CNN chief Jeff Zucker tried to excuse his network’s two-year deliberate deception about Trump colluding with the Russians by admitting on Tuesday that no one at CNN does investigative work. Like we didn’t already know that.

“We are not investigators,” he told the far-left New York Times. “We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did.”

For the week of March 18, meaning prior to the release of the Mueller Report exonerating Trump from the Russia Collusion Hoax, CNN lost a jaw-dropping 24 percent of its total day viewers and 27 percent of its primetime viewers, when compared to this same week last year.
---------------

🇺🇸 **Facebook to ban white nationalism and separatism**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/Q1N1S>

Facebook has said it will block "praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism" on Facebook and Instagram from next week.

The social media giant also pledged to improve its ability to identify and block material from terrorist groups.

Facebook users searching for offending terms will be directed to a charity which combats far-right extremism.

The social network has come under pressure after a man livestreamed an attack on two mosques in New Zealand.

Facebook had previously allowed some white nationalist content it did not view as racist - including permission for users to call for the creation of white ethno-states.

The company said it had deemed white nationalism an acceptable form of expression on a par with "things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people's identity".

But in a blog post on Wednesday it said that after three months of consultation with "members of civil society and academics", it found that white nationalism could not be "meaningfully separated" from white supremacy and organised hate groups.
----------------

🇺🇸 **Federal judge BLOCKS California's move to ban high-capacity ammunition**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.fo/UGND2>

A federal judge declared California’s ban on high-capacity gun magazines over 10 rounds as unconstitutional on Friday, following a lawsuit by the state's arm of the National Rifle Association.

On Friday San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled the law against high-capacity gun magazines was unconstitutional, blocking the state from enforcing the voter-approved ban outlined California’s Proposition 63.

The proposition was made to prevent the use of such magazines, which are often used in mass shootings and got passed on the November 8, 2016 ballot.

California law has prohibited buying or selling of magazines with over 10 rounds since 2000, but those who had them before then were allowed to keep them.

In 2016, the Legislature and voters approved a law removing that provision.

The California arm of the National Rifle Association then sued and Benitez sided with the group's argument that banning the magazines infringes on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
---------------

🇺🇸🇬🇹🇭🇳🇸🇻**Donald Trump cuts financial assistance to Northern Triangle countries Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and claims 'they haven't done a thing for us'**
*Daily Mail* - <https://archive.fo/5ZSYA>

Donald Trump has announced that he is cutting financial assistance to the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Trump hinted at the cuts on Friday, as a Mexican minister claimed that the 'mother of all caravans' with more than 20,000 people was being organized by Honduras.

ABC reported Trump as saying: 'I’ve ended payments to Guatemala, to Honduras, and to El Salvador. No money goes there anymore.

Trump said the funds totaled $500 million, but it wasn’t clear if that figure was accurate.

The State Department announced in December that the U.S. would mobilize $5.8 billion in public and private american investment to the three countries.

But Trump claimed those financial aid programs would end saying: 'We’re not paying them anymore because they haven’t done a thing for us.' Most migrants from the three countries come to the U.S.
---------------

🇺🇸🇮🇱 **'It's not about the Benjamins,' Netanyahu says of U.S. support for Israel**
*Reuters* - <https://archive.fo/0vMKN>

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “it’s not about the Benjamins” as he hit back on Tuesday against any suggestion that U.S. politicians are paid to support Israel.

A tweet in February by Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, a freshman legislator from Minnesota, was widely seen as echoing an anti-Semitic slur that Jews influence governments through money.

“It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” Omar wrote, using a slang term for $100 bills. She subsequently apologized, saying she was grateful for “Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history” of anti-Semitic references.

Netanyahu, addressing a Washington convention of the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, said via satellite from Tel Aviv: “Some people will just never get it. They’ll never understand why the vast majority of Americans - Jews and non-Jews alike - support Israel.”

He did not mention Omar by name.

“Take it from this Benjamin: it’s not about the Benjamins,” Netanyahu said. “The reason the people of America support Israel is not because they want our money, it’s because they share our values.”
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🇮🇳 **Modi hails India as military space power after anti-satellite missile test**
*Reuters* - <http://archive.fo/lMsny>

India shot down one of its own satellites in low-Earth orbit with a ground-to-space missile on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, hailing his country’s first test of such weaponry as a breakthrough establishing it as a military space power.

India would be the fourth country to have used such an anti-satellite weapon after the United States, Russia and China, according to Modi, who heads into general elections next month.

“Our scientists shot down a live satellite 300 kilometers away in space, in low-Earth orbit,” Modi said in a television broadcast.

“India has made an unprecedented achievement today,” he added, speaking in Hindi. “India registered its name as a space power.”

Anti-satellite weapons permit attacks on enemy satellites, blinding them or disrupting communications, as well as providing a technology base for intercepting ballistic missiles.

Such capabilities have raised fears of the weaponization of space and setting off a race between rivals.
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🇹🇷 **Turkey local elections: Setback for Erdogan in big cities**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/adLdm>

The party of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lost control of the capital, Ankara, in local elections, in a blow to his 16-year rule.

The main opposition is also slightly ahead in the contest for mayor of Istanbul, figures published by the state-run Anadolu news agency suggest.

But the president's AKP party is challenging the result in both cities.

Municipal elections were held across the nation on Sunday and an AKP-led alliance won more than 51% of the vote.

The elections, considered a verdict on Mr Erdogan's rule, have been taking place during an economic downturn.

The currency, the lira, has been losing value recently and the economy went into recession in the last three months of 2018.

**What are the results?**
More than 57 million people in the country were registered to vote for mayors and councillors. Turnout was high at just under 85%.

The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Mansur Yavas won in Ankara, officials said. With almost all votes counted, he was on nearly 51% and the AKP's Mehmet Ozhaseki had won the support of just over 47%.

Both CHP and the AKP claim victory in Istanbul, which has been in the hands of parties linked to Mr Erdogan since 1994, when he was elected the city's mayor.

The election commission said the CHP's Ekrem Imamoglu was leading there by less than 0.5%, but that the results of more than 80 ballot boxes were being challenged. Results carried by Anadolu put the margin even narrower, at less than 0.25%.
----------------

🇺🇸 **‘Beyond Sketchy’: Facebook Demanding Some New Users’ Email Passwords**
*The Daily Beast* - <https://archive.fo/FOAgV>

Just two weeks after admitting it stored hundreds of millions of its users’ own passwords insecurely, Facebook is demanding some users fork over the password for their outside email account as the price of admission to the social network.

Facebook users are being interrupted by an interstitial demanding they provide the password for the email account they gave to Facebook when signing up. “To continue using Facebook, you’ll need to confirm your email,” the message demands. “Since you signed up with [email address], you can do that automatically …”

A form below the message asked for the users’ “email password.”

“That’s beyond sketchy,” security consultant Jake Williams told the Daily Beast. “They should not be taking your password or handling your password in the background. If that’s what’s required to sign up with Facebook, you’re better off not being on Facebook.”

In a statement emailed to The Daily Beast after this story published, Facebook reiterated its claim it doesn’t store the email passwords. But the company also announced it will end the practice altogether.

“We understand the password verification option isn’t the best way to go about this, so we are going to stop offering it,” Facebook wrote.
---------------

🇺🇸🇨🇳 **Yujing Zhang: Woman with Chinese passports, malware inside Mar-a-Lago facing federal charges**
*NBC WPTV West Palm Beach* - <https://archive.fo/feVTJ>

A woman carrying two Republic of China passports, four cellphones, a laptop, a hard drive and a thumb drive with malware on it made her way past an initial security checkpoint at Mar-a-Lago when President Trump was in town on March 30, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

The woman, identified as Yujing Zhang, said she was there to "go to the pool," when first approached by a Secret Service agent, an affidavit said.

Mar-a-Lago security could not find her on the access list so security contacted the manager of the Beach Club who said Zhang is the last name of a member of the private club, the report said.

Based on her responses the Secret Service determined there was probable cause to charge Zhang with making false statements toward federal law enforcement agents and unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds.

The first charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The second charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Zhang had an initial court appearance Monday morning before federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman. A detention
hearing is set for April 8.
---------------

🇺🇸 **Martin Shkreli in solitary confinement after running company from prison, report says**
*CBS News* - <https://archive.fo/LYXRA>

Martin Shkreli, the so-called "Pharma Bro" who became notorious after hiking the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000 percent, is reportedly in solitary confinement after using a contraband mobile phone to continue running his business while in prison.

Shkreli, who turned 36 on March 17, was reportedly sent into solitary confinement last month at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix, New Jersey, reports Forbes, citing two sources who claimed knowledge of Shkreli's situation. The Bureau of Prisons told Forbes it couldn't comment on Shkreli's whereabouts, saying it can't release information about individuals, although it said Shkreli's mobile phone use was under investigation.

An inmate at the same prison as Shkreli told Forbes that the hedge fund CEO was still in solitary confinement as of Sunday. The inmate, Justin Liverman, told the publication that cellphones are relatively easy to obtain at the Federal Correctional Institution, with inmates renting phone time from others or paying about $1,000 to secure a phone, even though cellphone usage for inmates is prohibited. Liverman is serving five years for computer hacking.

Shkreli turned to illegal cellphone use to run the drug company Phoenixus AG, formerly known as Turing Pharmaceuticals, while serving a seven-year sentence for lying to investors in two failed hedge funds, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.

Using the contraband mobile phone, Shkreli reportedly fired the company's chief executive, who was on a safari. Shkreli was also regularly posting to social media, creating a new Twitter account under the name @sriole, although that account was no longer active soon after the Journal's report. Previously, Shkreli had been suspended from Twitter for violating its rules against harassment.
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🇺🇸🇮🇳 **NASA chief slams India's 'terrible' anti-satellite test**
*NBC News* - <https://archive.fo/d1pJ4>

According to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, India's recent anti-satellite test created 60 pieces of orbital debris big enough to track, 24 of which rise higher than the International Space Station's orbit around Earth.

Bridenstine had harsh words to say about India's test April 1 at a NASA town hall meeting, saying that causing this type of risk to humans in space, and low Earth orbit operations, was unacceptable.

"That is a terrible, terrible thing, to create an event that sends debris in an apogee that goes above the International Space Station," Bridenstine said at the town hall meeting, which was livestreamed on NASA TV. "And that kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight that we need to see happen."

"We are charged with commercializing low Earth orbit; we are charged with enabling more activities in space than we've ever seen before for the purpose of benefiting the human condition, whether it's pharmaceuticals or printing human organs in 3D to save lives here on Earth, or manufacturing capabilities in space that you're not able to do in a gravity well," he added. "All of those are placed at risk when these kind of events happen — and when one country does it, then other countries feel like they have to do it as well."

Bridenstine said that NASA has identified 400 pieces of orbital debris from the event, including the 60 greater than 10 centimeters in diameter that the agency can track and 24 that travel through the space station's orbital height. As of last week, the agency, along with the Combined Space Operations Center at Vandenberg, had estimated that the risk to the International Space Station of small-debris impact had risen by 44 percent over a period of 10 days.
----------------

🇺🇸 **Lori Lightfoot elected Chicago mayor, will be 1st black woman and 1st openly gay person to hold post**
*NBC News* - <https://archive.fo/qWNhh>

Former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot defeated Toni Preckwinkle in a runoff for Chicago mayor Tuesday. She will be the first openly gay person and first black woman to lead the city.

The Associated Press called the race for Lightfoot shortly before 8 p.m. local time.

With over 91 percent of precincts in, Lightfoot led Preckwinkle 73.7 percent to 26.3 percent, according to the Chicago board of elections website.

Lightfoot pumped her fist in the air and the crowd cheered when she said, “Thank you Chicago!”

“In this election Toni and I were competitors, but our differences are nothing compared to what we can achieve together,” Lightfoot said. “Now that it’s over, I know we will work together for the city that we both love.”

"Today, you did more than make history," Lightfoot said. "You created a movement for change."

Lightfoot, 56, who was an assistant U.S. attorney before she entered private practice, has never held elective office before.

The runoff election was bound to be historic, as either of the two candidates was going to be Chicago’s first black female mayor. The city is around 33 percent black, according to 2010 Census data.
----------------

🇺🇸 **Joe Biden Still Won’t Apologize For Alleged Inappropriate Touching**
*Huffington Post* - <https://archive.fo/k6lPt>

Former Vice President Joe Biden elaborated on accusations that he inappropriately touched and kissed women without their permission. But he stopped short of apologizing directly to them.

“I’ve always tried to make a human connection ― that’s my responsibility, I think,” Biden said in a video uploaded to Twitter on Wednesday. “I shake hands, I hug people, I grab men and women by the shoulders and say, ‘You can do this.’”

Last week, former Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores said she felt “powerless” when she said Biden put his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair and kissed her head.

“He made me feel uneasy, gross, and confused,” she wrote in an op-ed in New York Magazine’s The Cut. “The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners — and I felt powerless to do anything about it.”

Other women have come forward with similar accusations since Flores published her account.
---------------

🇷🇺 **Russia Invents Flying, Shooting Kalashnikov Rifle Drone**
*The Moscow Times* - <https://archive.fo/fGGuk>

Russia’s largest defense contractor has invented an assault rifle drone capable of flying and shooting at the same time.

The state-owned Almaz-Antey company filed a patent for the armed drone with the Federal Service for Intellectual Property in 2018. Described as “a fully functioning [gun] inside a set of wings,” the 23-kilogram drone is capable of flying for 40 minutes and staying aloft while shooting.

“Our task was to lift a device with a weapon into the sky and provide maximum stability of its performance and high accuracy of striking the target,” said its designer, the Moscow Aviation Institute.

According to the institute, the drone is equipped with an autoloading Kalashnikov rifle with a 10-round, box-type magazine.

The drone rifle can continue tracking a target that it misses the first time around without the need to manually adjust its flight path, the aviation institute said.

Video footage shows the drone taking off and flying for several minutes before landing. Another video shows a shooter picking up the airframe and firing a few rounds.

Media outlets have expressed doubts that the Kalashnikov drone will be able to “shoot people in what would essentially be a flying drive-by,” saying it will likely function as a “crazy-looking distraction.”

Others have described the invention as a “terrifying vision of the future of warfare.”

Meanwhile, Kalashnikov unveiled a suicide drone last month and is still working on its steel-frame “flying car.”
---------------

https://youtu.be/v5q--PYfs8Q

https://youtu.be/jXekPeTiDUo

🇺🇸 540 Million Facebook user records exposed online including emails, passwords and other user data

Gizmodo - <http://archive.is/xyptK>

-------------
Researchers at the cybersecurity firm UpGuard on Wednesday said they had discovered the existence of two datasets together containing the personal data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users. Both were left publicly accessible.
In a blog post, UpGuard connected one of the leaky databases to a Mexico-based media company called Cultura Colectiva. The data set reportedly contains over 146 GB of data, which amounts to over 540 million Facebook user records, including comments, likes, reactions, account names, Facebook user IDs, and more.
----------------------

🇺🇸 NY House Rep Alexandria Cortez named in complaint to Federal Election comission over "Dark Money" fundraising.

Tim Pool - <https://youtu.be/LL9w73iflCE>
----------------
NY House representative Alexandria ocasio-cortez has been named in a federal election complaint over an alleged dark money scam to raise more funds than allowed under federal law in addition to using the money for private expenses be complaint alleges. Some of the money raised was claimed to have been used to pay her boyfriend as well as for personal expenses.
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🇺🇸 **Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and wife MacKenzie finalise divorce deal**
*BBC* - <https://archive.fo/b9m0E>

Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, has reached a divorce settlement with his wife, MacKenzie, which leaves her a 4% stake in Amazon.

Under the terms of the deal, MacKenzie Bezos will hand over her voting power to her husband of 25 years.

She will also give up her interests in the Washington Post newspaper and Mr Bezos' space travel firm Blue Origin.

Amazon's stock market value is worth $890.7bn, which means MacKenzie Bezos retains a stake worth more than $35bn.

Ms Bezos made the announcement in a tweet - her first and only one since joining the microblogging website this month - stating that she was
"grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage to Jeff with support from each other".

The couple had been together since before Mr Bezos set up Amazon in 1994, with Ms Bezos employed as one of the firm's first members of staff.

Amazon is now vast online retail business which last year generated sales of $232.8bn and has helped Mr Bezos and his family amass a $131bn fortune, according to Forbes magazine.

Ms Bezos is a successful novelist who has written two books, The Testing of Luther Albright and Traps, and was taught by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison
who once said of her pupil that she was "one of the best students I've ever had in my creative-writing classes... really one of the best".
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🇫🇷 : **Twitter Blocks French Government’s Get-Out-The-Vote Campaign with France’s Fake News Law**
*Breitbart* - <https://archive.fo/EDKAE>

A recently-passed law in France — ostensibly to combat propaganda and misinformation — was used by Twitter against the French government’s political campaign to increase voter registration ahead of upcoming European Parliament elections scheduled for May 26.
In December, France passed a law requiring “political campaigns” online to disclose their benefactors. The French state describes the law as “combating the manipulation of information.”

France’s Government Information Service sought to purchase promotional services on Twitter for its #OuiJeVote (Yes, I Vote) campaign. It told AFP: “Twitter does not know how to do that today, and so decided to have a completely hard-line policy, which is to cut any so-called political campaign.”

The French government denies any partisan political dimension to its voter-registration efforts, further rejecting Twitter’ characterization of the operation as a “political campaign.”

Gizmodo reported that Twitter does not know how to incorporate the required disclosure information onto its platform in accordance with the French law:

Just one hitch. According to AFP, Twitter has no idea how to actually incorporate that information onto its platform. So instead of running afoul of the law, Twitter decided to just opt out of French political campaigns altogether.

Several French government officials criticized Twitter for failing to “comply” with government demands.

Twitter requires that all “political campaigning ads” in Europe go through its “certification process” for approval.
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🇺🇸 🇨🇳 **Trump Says U.S.-China Trade Deal Close, but No Summit Plans Yet**
*The Wall Street Journal* - <http://archive.is/uiPUv>

The U.S. and China are aiming to reach a trade deal in the next four weeks, President Trump said, though he failed to announce a much-anticipated summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Mr. Trump struck an upbeat tone on Thursday, but his remarks suggest the two nations will struggle to meet their informal goal of a deal by the end of April. U.S. negotiators have told industry officials that even after reaching a preliminary deal, they will need an additional two weeks beyond that to review the fine print.

There are “major, major issues left,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said. “We’re certainly making more progress than we would have thought when we started.”

From the Chinese side, negotiators were willing to go along with a summit, said Cornell University China Scholar Eswar Prasad, who speaks with Chinese officials regularly. They believed setting a date would push the U.S. to complete details of a deal by a certain deadline.

The White House didn’t expect to announce a date for a meeting, said an administration official Thursday. Setting a date could telegraph Mr. Trump’s eagerness to strike a deal and reduce the U.S.’s bargaining leverage on the final points, said trade experts.

“This is an epic deal, historic—if it happens,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ll see what happens.”
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🇺🇸 **Suspect arrested in North Dakota quadruple murder**
*Fox News* - <http://archive.is/b6CnD>

A "person of interest" who was detained Thursday in connection with four workplace murders in North Dakota earlier this week has now been arrested and charged with the killings, authorities said.

The suspect, identified as Chad Isaak, 44, of Washburn, N.D., lived in a trailer park managed by the Mandan, N.D., the company where the slayings occurred Monday, according to reports. Washburn is about 35 miles north of Mandan.

Police Chief Jason Ziegler, of Mandan, said surveillance video of a vehicle of interest helped lead investigators to Isaak, who was apprehended after a traffic stop Thursday evening.

Four people were found shot and stabbed inside family-owned company RJR Maintenance and Management. The victims were identified as co-owner Robert Fakler and employees Adam Fuehrer and Lois and Bill Cobb.

Isaak was in custody at the McLean County jail, Heavy reported. Police did not speculate on a motive.
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🇺🇸 **Mormon Church to allow baptisms, blessings for children of LGBT parents**
*The Hill* - <https://archive.fo/yFcCT>

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) on Thursday announced that it will now allow baptisms and give blessings to children of parents who are in the LGBT community.

The changes were announced by Dallin Oaks, first counselor of LDS's First Presidency, during the church’s 189th Annual General Conference, according to The Deseret News, which reported that 2015 mandates had not allowed the children of LGBT parents to be baptized until the age of 18.

"The very positive policies announced this morning should help affected families,” Oaks said, according to the Salt Lake City news outlet. "In addition, our members' efforts to show more understanding, compassion and love should increase respect and understanding among all people of good will."

The Deseret News noted the changes are only to church policy, not church doctrine, and leaders made note of the distinction.

"These changes do not represent a shift in church doctrine related to marriage or the commandments of God in regard to chastity and morality," the release announcing the changes said.

Oaks said the updates to church policy are part of an effort to “reduce the hate and contention so common today.”

"We are optimistic that a majority of people — whatever their beliefs and orientations — long for better understanding and less contentious communications,” he said. “That is surely our desire, and we seek the help of our members and others to attain it."

Additional changes include updates to the church's handbook that call for removing the label of apostasy for homosexual behavior.

Previously, both homosexual behavior and blessings or baptism of children living with same-sex parents was considered apostasy that required a church disciplinary council.
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🇬🇧 **Police stationed outside Ecuador embassy in London amid WikiLeaks tweets on Julian Assange**
*CBS News* - <https://archive.fo/2FX71>

British police stationed armed officers outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Friday after tweets from WikiLeaks quoted what it said were high-level sources saying Julian Assange could be kicked out of the building within "hours to days." The red-brick embassy building with white window frames and balconies was quiet, though a few protesters gathered outside.

No embassy official commented on the WikiLeaks founder's status. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Assange is a "free man" and can leave the embassy whenever he chooses.

Asked about the presence of armed officers outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, London's Metropolitan Police force said there had been no change in police procedure. Police said in a statement there is an active warrant for Assange's arrest and that the police are "obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy."

Police withdrew the round-the-clock guard outside the embassy in October 2015 after more than three years in favor of what the service called a "covert" approach.

Assange hasn't left the embassy since August 2012, fearing if he steps off Ecuador's diplomatic soil he will be arrested and extradited to the U.S. for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks.

Ecuador's foreign ministry issued a statement late Thursday saying it wouldn't comment on what it called "rumors, theories or conjectures."
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🇺🇸 **Trump administration nearly doubles H-2B guest visa program, which brings many Mexican workers**
*SF Gate/Washington Post* - <https://archive.fo/V2zMt>

As President Donald Trump threatened to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border in recent days, his Department of Homeland Security nearly doubled the number of temporary guest worker visas available this summer.

DHS and the Labor Department plan to grant an additional 30,000 H-2B visas this summer on top of the 33,000 H-2B visas they had planned to give out, the agencies confirmed.

The H-2B visa is for foreign workers to come to the United States and work for several months at a company such as a landscaper, amusement park or hotel. About 80 percent of these visas went to people from Mexico and Central America last year, government data show.

Trump says there is a national emergency at the southern border because too many people are trying to come to the United States. On Friday, he implored migrants to turn around and go home.

"We can't take you anymore," Trump said Friday while standing at the border in California. "Our country is full."

But his administration is giving a different message to some short-term workers. With the additional visas, the Trump administration is on track to grant 96,000 H-2B visas this fiscal year, the most since 2007, when George W. Bush was president.
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🇺🇸 **Judge rules New York county can’t ban unvaccinated children from schools, parks**
*Philadelphia Inquirer/Washington Post* - <https://archive.fo/NCmzj>

Ten days after a New York county banned unvaccinated children from public places in an effort to stem the rise of measles cases, a state judge put the injunction on hold.

"Children are hereby permitted to return to their respective schools forthwith and otherwise to assemble in public places," Judge Rolf Thorsen wrote in his Friday decision.

The controversial ban, announced by a spokesman for Rockland County Executive Ed Day, was an effort to address an outbreak in Rockland County, where 167 confirmed cases of measles had been reported as of Friday.

Officials in the county declared a state of emergency, as Lindsey Bever reported in The Washington Post last week, announcing that the ban would remain in place for 30 days or until unvaccinated minors receive the MMR vaccine to protect them against measles, mumps and rubella. Unvaccinated minors, official said, would not be permitted in enclosed places like churches, schools and shopping centers.

"We must not allow this outbreak to continue," Day said at a news conference. "We will not sit idly by while children in our community are at risk."

Dorit Reiss, a professor at U.C. Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, said a ban by executive order was an unusual step, one that prompted outrage in the national anti-vaccine community.

But she saw it largely as a symbolic measure.

"It wasn't as aggressive as it could have been," Reiss said. "They weren't intending to do mass arrests."

Day said cases in which parents and guardians violated the ban would be referred to the district attorney's office. Violations would be considered misdemeanors, punishable by a $500 fine or up to six months in jail.
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🇺🇸 **Samsung’s Galaxy S10 fingerprint sensor fooled by 3D printed fingerprint**
*The Verge* - <https://archive.fo/zPjRu>

In recent years, smartphone manufacturers have been implementing advanced features for users to secure their devices, using fingerprint readers, face mapping, and even sensors that map out the blood veins in the palm of your hand. But there are still ways to get around such measures, and one user found that he could fool the in-display fingerprint reader on his Samsung Galaxy S10 with a 3D print of his fingerprint.

In a post on Imgur, user darkshark outlined his project: he took a picture of his fingerprint on a wineglass, processed it in Photoshop, and made a model using 3ds Max that allowed him to extrude the lines in the picture into a 3D version. After a 13-minute print (and three attempts with some tweaks), he was able to print out a version of his fingerprint that fooled the phone’s sensor.

The Galaxy S10’s fingerprint sensor doesn’t rely on a capacitive fingerprint scanner that’s been used in other versions of the phone, using instead an ultrasonic sensor that’s apparently more difficult to spoof. darkshark points out that it didn’t take much to spoof his own fingerprint. A concern, he notes, is that payment and banking apps are increasingly using the authentication from a fingerprint sensor to unlock, and all he needed to get into his phone was a photograph, some software, and access to a 3D printer. “I can do this entire process in less than 3 minutes and remotely start the 3d print so that it’s done by the time I get to it,” he writes.
---------------

🇺🇸 **Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigns**
*New York Daily News* - <https://archive.fo/zPjRu>

Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security, resigned from the post Sunday.

Nielsen, who was confirmed in December 2017, handed in her resignation to President Trump during a meeting Sunday afternoon.

“Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service,” Trump tweeted around 6 p.m.

The DHS Secretary has overseen a controversial policy of separating migrant families at the border after the plan was launched by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in July 2017, despite at times denying that such a policy existed.
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🇺🇸 **Neo-Nazi website founder must return to US to face lawsuit**
*Yahoo News/AP* - <https://archive.fo/CKLuY>

A neo-Nazi website operator is not excused from returning to the U.S. for questioning under oath in a lawsuit accusing him of orchestrating an anti-Semitic "troll storm" against a Montana real estate agent's family, a federal judge has ruled.

The Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin claims it's too dangerous for him to travel to the U.S., but Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch ruled Friday that Anglin's personal safety concerns are "factually unsupported" and no basis for a protective order sparing him from an in-person deposition in the U.S.

One of Anglin's attorneys, Marc Randazza, said in a text message Monday that his client has made it clear to him and to the court that he won't return to the U.S. Randazza said he expects that Anglin would "willingly" accept a default judgment against him before returning to the U.S. for a deposition by Tanya Gersh's attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"The end result of that will be that the SPLC will get a piece of paper, my client will pay nothing and there won't even be a decision on the legal merits, at least clarifying the law. Everyone loses," Randazza wrote.

Anglin, an Ohio native, claims he hasn't been to the U.S. since 2012. He refuses to disclose his current whereabouts, claiming he gets death threats. But he has said he took up residency in the Philippines sometime before 2010, moved to Greece in 2013 and then moved to Cambodia four days before Tanya Gersh sued him in 2017.

Anglin's attorneys had argued the court can order Anglin's deposition to take place abroad or by telephone or video conference. Court records show Anglin suggested meeting in Cuba or Venezuela for his deposition — a suggestion that Gersh's attorneys found dubious.
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🇸🇰 **Slovak court considers banning parliamentary far right party**
*Fox News Network* - <https://archive.fo/pTPUf>

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia – Slovakia's Supreme Court is deciding whether to ban a parliamentary party for the first time in the country's history.

The court listened Tuesday to a request that emanated from the country's prosecutor general to remove the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia party because he considers it a threat to democracy.
It is set to issue a verdict on April 29.

The party has 14 lawmakers in the 150-seat parliament and is among the top four strongest parties.

Its members openly admire the Nazi puppet state that the country was during World War II, use Nazi salutes, consider NATO a terror group and want the country out of the European Union.
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