| Theresa May’s Brexit Deal Routed With Extension Now Seen as ‘Inevitable’ Posted: 12 Mar 2019 01:12 PM PDT  U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal was rejected once again by Parliament, throwing the country deeper into political crisis and raising the prospect that the divorce will be delayed or even reversed. In fact with the deal all but dead, Parliament will probably vote to postpone Brexit this week, and lawmakers -- including some of May's own Cabinet -- will likely try to maneuver to force the government to rip up its Brexit plans and start again. Members of Parliament are expected to vote Wednesday to take a chaotic no-deal option off the table.
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| One person killed, dozens of children feared trapped in collapsed Lagos building Posted: 13 Mar 2019 01:21 PM PDT  At least one person was killed and dozens of children were among those feared trapped after a four-storey building containing a primary school collapsed in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos on Wednesday. Adeshina Tiamiyu, general manager of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, said that the agency had recorded one death so far in the disaster, and had rescued nearly 50 people. Residents said around 100 children had attended the school, which was on the top levels of the building.
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| UK lawmakers to vote on requesting delay as Brexit day nears Posted: 13 Mar 2019 04:36 PM PDT  LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers have gone on record saying they don't want the U.K. to leave the European Union without a divorce agreement in place, increasing the odds that Brexit won't take place as planned at the end of the month.
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| Flight to Malaysia forced to turn around after mother leaves baby at airport Posted: 11 Mar 2019 08:45 PM PDT  A young mother on a flight from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia reportedly had the shock of her life when she realised she had accidentally left her baby behind in the airport terminal. The Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur returned to its gate in King Abdulaziz airport, Jeddah after the panicked woman alerted cabin crew that she had forgotten to bring her child. A video of the pilot requesting Air Traffic Control in Arabic and English for permission to return has gone viral on social media. "May God be with us. Can we come back or what?" he is heard asking. One of the surprised controllers can then be heard telling a colleague: "This flight is requesting to come back…a passenger forgot her baby in the waiting area, the poor thing." He then adds: "OK, head back to the gate. This is totally a new one for us!" The Gulf News reported that the bizarre incident took place over the weekend, implying that the plane was already in the air. However, some reports have suggested that the flight had not yet taken off, and the sequence of events is unclear from the video. The story ended happily, with the mother and baby reunited. The circumstances that led to her forgetting the baby are not known, but it would not be the first high-profile story of a parent unwittingly leaving a child behind. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha had a heart-stopping moment in 2012 when they realised they had left a Buckinghamshire pub without their daughter Nancy, 8. After meeting friends at the pub, they left in separate cars, only to realise at their destination that Nancy was not in either of them. When the prime minister's wife rushed back distraught to the venue, she found her daughter safe and well and helping the staff. Sign up for your essential, twice-daily briefing from The Telegraph with our free Front Page newsletter. Have you accidentally left your child somewhere? Or did your parents ever do it to you? Tell us in the comments section below. To join the conversation log in to your Telegraph account or register for free, here.
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| The nations grounding their Boeing 737s Posted: 12 Mar 2019 03:38 AM PDT  A number of countries have grounded Boeing's 737 MAX 8 medium-haul workhorse jet in response to the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board. There are some 350 of the 737 MAX 8 planes currently in service around the world. While some countries and airlines have opted to ground the planes, others are continuing to fly the aircraft pending an investigation into the crash and possible guidance from Boeing itself.
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| The Emerging Democratic Minority Posted: 12 Mar 2019 12:40 PM PDT  The biases of the media are so pervasive that there is little recognition of the steady disintegration of the Democrats, though it is occurring every day. Rational and intelligent members of the center-Left write to me every week with new concerns about where the Left is going. The Democratic National Committee's decision not to allow Fox News to put on one of their candidates' debates confirms the weakness of the party and of its leaders. The process of atomizing society into smaller and smaller bearers of less and less widespread grievances, on each of which the whole movement of protest, uproot, reveal, and punish is in constant paroxysms of righteousness, is becoming louder and faster and more absurdly overwrought by the day.To take the most prominent recent examples, the Democratic leadership has declared the Trump tax cuts and reform to be a "disaster . . . the worst legislation in history . . . crumbs" (Speaker Pelosi) for the country, and a huge payoff for the rich. Economic growth has doubled, real incomes are increasing in the middle-class and working-class income levels for the first time in 20 years, and the country has more jobs to fill than unemployed people to fill them. The Democratic leadership has not just contested the existence of a serious problem at the southern border; it has flirted with proposing the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and Beto O'Rourke, who outspent prominent incumbent senator Ted Cruz three to one in Texas and came close to winning last year, not only opposes building a defined border but urges that whatever fencing and other obstacles are now in place be removed. At the same time, most official Democrats support the legal effort to prohibit the Census Bureau, in pursuing its constitutional duty to determine the apportionment of state delegations to the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, from asking people about their citizenship, just as they have long waived the necessity of being a citizen to vote.Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell (California) has sponsored legislation to protect the media from the purported threat of physical assault by President Trump and has made a television tour throughout the Cohen road-show saying that anyone who needed "a fixer" shouldn't be president. Donald Trump was a New York billionaire property developer, impresario, and reality-television star, not a librarian in Swalwell's native Sac City, Iowa. Rich and active New Yorkers do need fixers (though Trump could have done better than Cohen). American presidents need to be worldlier than they recently have been, not moralistic yokels. Swalwell is a 38-year-old fourth-term congressman who, like much of the population, is contemplating a presidential run. Another Democratic congressman, whose name I decided I did not want to know or remember shortly after his soundbite began over the weekend, said that all the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees' subpoenas of the Trump entourage would not have been necessary if Trump had published his tax returns.This is the moronic level to which the opposition has excavated. Trump's tax returns have been audited, and often contested, every year for over 40 years by the IRS. If there were anything substantial lying dead under his fiscal floorboards, Trump's returns would be plastered and illuminated in Times Square, and Rachel Maddow would read them to viewers every night with the same breathy and then crestfallen excitement that she exhibited last year when reading from a questionably obtained Trump tax return that he had in one year paid "only . . . 55 million dollars." It was 18 months ago that Senator Chris Coons of Delaware declared that Trump's tax returns would reveal the Russian collusion to rig the election. The last Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, on discovering that Trump's son and son-in-law had met with a Russian woman at the Trump Tower, announced that treason may have occurred.For two years it was thought Mueller would be the deus ex machina who would end the imposture and terminate the aberrant Trump presidency. Now that it is clear that this is not happening, the Democrats, completely shameless at having to start all over with a new canard about Trump's illegitimate election, are calling for U-Hauls full of materials and scores of witnesses to again unleash the motor-mouthed non-stop-talking television airheads to tell us once more that we don't know what we don't know, and just because Mueller couldn't do it in two years with 15 investigators (so rabidly anti-Trump that some were fired and all had to be brought into the office on leash), that doesn't mean Trump isn't a criminal. Elizabeth Warren, self-remade into one of the ludicrous figures of American public life over her claim to being a beer-swilling native, tells cheering crowds that Trump may finish his term in prison. Liberal high-mindedness has reached its coronation; the debasement of the Eleanor Roosevelt tradition.Because this president had never sought or held any public office, elected or unelected, or a high military position, his presidential candidacy, which was the subject of such uproarious mirth until he was elected, has incited the inference that anyone, everyman (and woman), can be elected to that position. Thus the field of possible Democratic candidates has become absurdly crowded with absolute poltroons. It is like a New York City Marathon for the unfit. Governor Jay Inslee of Washington, who, when a guest in the White House, reprimanded the president for sending too many tweets, and who was chief judge-shopper for the initial fatuous district-court ruling purporting to exercise the president's rights over immigration, is running for president on the climate-change issue. His own measures on the subject were rejected in his home state. Americans, rightly, do not consider this a pressing issue, but he wants to ride this hobbyhorse to the White House.There are more than 30 possible or already declared Democratic candidates, and all but three or four tick at least three of the following high-explosive booby-trap boxes: a draconian green program based on Ocasio La Pasionaria's intuition that without it the world will burn up in twelve years; personal-income-tax rates in the 70 percent range; legalized infanticide; completely nationalized health care; open borders and no attempt to distinguish citizens from noncitizens; and vast reparations to African Americans, Latinos, and native people.The Trump-hating media are enablers of a fantasy game in which everyone pretends that the Democratic party has a large number of interesting, qualified, sensible people to choose from to knock off this president. The true evidence of what is happening is that the canaries in the mineshaft are falling over. There were only four putative candidates who had the position, recognition, and sensible perspective to make a serious race. Michael Bloomberg (who has drunk himself half-silly with the climate-change Kool-Aid) has gone to his default position of aiming for secretary of state, as he did with Jeb Bush and Hillary. He left the race, and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio followed him. Amy Klobuchar is unlikely to have the flair to win, but she is a presentable candidate. The inevitable Joe Biden, who first ran for president in 1988 but was knocked out for cribbing a platitudinous line from defeated British Labour-party leader Neil Kinnock, seems likely to make the race.In fact, Joe Biden is the man America needs. To be sure, he could not possibly win, and he does not have the judgment or moral authority to be an effective president. But he is an amiable old water buffalo who would make a somewhat respectable race and gather together the many Democratic constituencies that are now proliferating and multiplying like an aggressive virus, and by his honorable example, though failing to excite anyone, might also prevent every sane Democrat from voting Republican. Biden might spare his party a terrible fate and deliver it to a serious contender in 2024, when the country could be expected to continue its now well-established pattern of alternating parties in the White House every eight years. The polls are not now asking the questions they will in 18 months: Trump will have delivered on the economy, illegal immigration, trade, energy, and avoidance of foreign-policy fiascos, and his opponents are mainly quacks. America needs a two-party system with sane people at the head of each. Joe Biden is no world-beater, but he could spare the Democrats a world-historic beating at the polls next year.
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| Top cardinal gets six years jail for 'appalling' choirboy abuse Posted: 12 Mar 2019 11:43 PM PDT  Disgraced Australian Cardinal George Pell was on Wednesday sentenced to six years in prison for the "brazen" sexual abuse of two choirboys, in what the judge lambasted as a "grave" abuse of power. Judge Peter Kidd, his remarks broadcast live on television, said the 77-year-old was guilty of "appalling offending" and "breathtakingly arrogant" attacks that took advantage of his position of authority over the boys, then aged 13.
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| Airlines waive fees as blizzard threatens Denver, Great Plains Posted: 12 Mar 2019 01:48 PM PDT  Airlines waived change fees ahead of a winter storm expected to bring blizzard conditions to Denver and other parts of the Rockies and the Plains.
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| 'Full House' fans upset by news of Lori Loughlin's alleged involvement in college admissions scheme Posted: 13 Mar 2019 11:26 AM PDT  Fans visiting the famous house featured in the title sequence of "Full House" were disappointed by the news that one of the stars of the popular sitcom was involved in a college admissions scheme.
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| Senate Democrat Targets College Donors After Admissions Scandal Posted: 13 Mar 2019 03:07 PM PDT  Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, said Wednesday he plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit donors to colleges to take a tax deduction for those charitable contributions before or during the time a family member is enrolled. Wyden's announcement follows the indictments of dozens of wealthy parents, college coaches and a college admission counselor in a sweeping criminal conspiracy to gain admission to elite universities, including Yale, Stanford and Georgetown.
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| Bomb cyclone: Extreme snow storm hits central US with millions in 'bombogenesis' path Posted: 13 Mar 2019 10:06 AM PDT  A strong winter storm has brought snow, flood threats, and high winds to parts of central US today. The blizzard is being referred to as a 'bomb cyclone' — or bombogenesis — due to a sharp drop in pressure over a short period of time. As the storm conditions descended upon the central US, residents tweeted of the cold conditions and the accumulating snow that closed schools down in some cities, while delaying start times in others.
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| U.S. immigration agency to close its overseas offices Posted: 12 Mar 2019 12:20 PM PDT  The move is the latest from an administration that has worked to limit both legal and illegal immigration since Trump took office in January 2017, including cuts to the U.S. refugee program and heightened vetting of U.S. visa applications. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Francis Cissna, in an email message to agency employees, announced plans for closure of the international field offices. The agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, currently operates 23 offices overseas, scattered across Latin America, Europe and Asia, according to the agency's website.
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| Norwegian Air to seek compensation from Boeing for MAX groundings Posted: 13 Mar 2019 06:05 AM PDT  "We expect Boeing to take this bill," Norwegian said in an emailed statement. The Oslo-based airline has 18 'MAX' passenger jets in its 163-aircraft fleet. Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said on Monday that he was confident in the safety of the 737 MAX in an email to employees, which was seen by Reuters.
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| Elon Musk shoots back at US regulators, accusing them of 'retaliation and censorship' Posted: 11 Mar 2019 11:01 PM PDT  Tesla's chief executive Elon Musk shot back against US financial regulators on Monday, arguing that his recent tweet about his company's production numbers did not violate a previous fraud settlement and that he cannot be held in contempt. Lawyers for Mr Musk said that his "single, immaterial" tweet to more than 24 million Twitter followers, claiming that Tesla would produce around 500,000 electric cars in 2019, complied with the communications policy his company has been forced to adopt. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had asked a court in New York City to hold Musk in contempt, saying his tweet in February violated a fraud settlement from September which barred him from sharing material information about Tesla on social media without the company's pre-approval. Bur Mr Musk's lawyers argued in a court filing that the SEC was exceeding its power in attempting to hold him in contempt, saying its action "smacks of retaliation and censorship". "This contempt action, following Musk's sincerely-held criticism of the SEC on 60 Minutes [a US TV show], also reflects concerning and unprecedented overreach on the part of the SEC," the filing said. In December, Musk said in an interview with the US news programme 60 Minutes that: "I do not have respect for the SEC." The settlement between Musk, Tesla and the SEC resolved an SEC lawsuit over claims Mr Musk made on Twitter in August that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share. The SEC called those tweets "false and misleading", and a deal never materialized. As part of that settlement, Musk stepped down as the company's chairman and he and Tesla agreed to pay $20m each (£15m) in fines. The renewed public battle between Tesla's chief executive and the top US securities regulator adds pressure on Mr Musk, the public face of Tesla, who is struggling to make the company profitable after cutting the price of its Model 3 sedan to $35,000. Tesla has backed off a plan to close all its US stores and said it will instead raise prices of its higher-end vehicles by about 3 percent on average. In the filing, Mr Musk's lawyers said his tweet was a "proud and optimistic restatement of publicly disclosed information." Mr Musk corrected his tweet four hours later to say that the "annualized production rate" at year-end 2019 would probably be about 500,000, with deliveries expected to be about 400,000. Moreover, Mr Musk has exhibited self-censorship in dramatically reducing the volume of tweets since the settlement, they wrote, adding that the SEC's request, if granted, would raise free speech issues. "This self-censorship is reflective of his commitment to adhering to the Order and avoiding unnecessary disputes with the SEC," they wrote in the filing. Mr Musk called the regulator the "Shortseller Enrichment Commission" on Twitter after the settlement, and tweeted that "something is broken with SEC oversight" just one day after the agency started pursuing the contempt order. Legal experts have said the SEC could now pursue multiple avenues, including a higher fine, imposing further restrictions on Mr Musk's activities or removing him from Tesla's board or helm. Tesla published a new communications policy in December for senior executives as part of the settlement. It called for Tesla's general counsel and a newly designated in-house securities law attorney to pre-approve any written statements about Tesla that could be material. A disclosure controls committee, made up of board members Brad Buss, Antonio Gracias and James Murdoch, was tasked with overseeing compliance with the new policy.
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| GM's new Corvette is so powerful, it's warping the frame in tests, report says Posted: 13 Mar 2019 10:13 AM PDT  The redesigned Chevrolet Corvette C8 for 2020 has a new engine that is reportedly so powerful it's compromising the vehicle's structural integrity.
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| Eight killed, 37 rescued, in Lagos building collapse Posted: 13 Mar 2019 02:26 PM PDT  Children had been attending an "illegal school" inside the residential building when the structure collapsed, officials said. "Thirty-seven people were rescued alive and eight were recovered dead," Ibrahim Farinloye of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said in a statement. Earlier officials said dozens of children were trapped inside the building which collapsed mid-morning in an area near Itafaji market on Lagos Island.
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| Suspension doubled for cop in shooting of 18-year-old Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:07 PM PDT ![Suspension doubled for cop in shooting of 18-year-old]( "Suspension doubled for cop in shooting of 18-year-old") CHICAGO (AP) — A police accountability office and the Chicago police superintendent have agreed to doubling the 90-day suspension that had been suggested for a Chicago police sergeant found to have unjustifiably shot an unarmed autistic 18-year-old.
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| California dismantles its execution chamber as governor orders moratorium on death penalty: ‘I couldn’t sleep at night’ Posted: 13 Mar 2019 03:34 PM PDT  California's governor has signed a moratorium halting the use of the death penalty, saying he would be unable to sleep at night if he sent just one innocent person to their death. Gavin Newsom, who was sworn in as the state's 40th governor in January, said statistics suggested at least one of the 737 inmates on California's death row – more than any other state – ought not to be there. Citing a National Academy of Sciences report that estimated 1 out of every 25 people on death row was innocent, the governor said he was not prepared to go along with such a system.
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| CNN hit with $275 million defamation suit by Kentucky student Posted: 13 Mar 2019 05:53 AM PDT  The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann in federal court in Kentucky, seeks $275 million in compensatory and punitive damages over the videotaped incident in the nation's capital. Sandmann and other Covington Catholic students had been in Washington to attend a March for Life anti-abortion rally.
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| Manafort’s Light Sentence in Washington Owes to How Mueller Charged Him Posted: 13 Mar 2019 01:09 PM PDT  Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 43 additional months in prison by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. Manafort had been sentenced to 47 months' imprisonment last week by a federal judge in Virginia.The Washington sentence was imposed at shortly after noon today, in a proceeding that took more than two hours.Manafort was facing two conspiracy counts, each with a maximum five-year (or 60-month) sentence. On count one, Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed 60 months, 30 months to run concurrent and 30 consecutive to the 47-month sentence imposed in Judge T. S. Ellis in Alexandria. On count two, Judge Jackson sentenced Manafort to 13 months' incarceration, to run consecutive to both count one and the Virginia sentence.The bottom-line result of the two cases is a prison sentence of 90 months (seven and a half years), in addition to millions of dollars in property forfeitures and fines.In my column previewing today's sentencing, I predicted that Manafort's total sentence between the two cases would be closer to 20 years. I was wrong because I made a basic mistake: I focused myopically on the federal sentencing guidelines calculation in the plea agreement that Manafort signed with the special counsel when he pled guilty in Washington. I forgot that, in order to induce Manafort to plead guilty, the special counsel's office sweetened the pot by capping his statutory exposure at ten years' imprisonment.Because the crimes Manafort admitted conspiring to commit are serious felonies (e.g., money laundering and witness tampering), his guidelines were very high, calling for a term of between 210 and 262 months (18 to 22 years) in prison. But prosecutors rendered the guidelines largely irrelevant by tucking the 20-year felonies into a pair of counts charged under a federal conspiracy provision that carries a maximum five-year sentence.As I'll come to, this violated Justice Department charging practices. For today's purposes, though, the significant thing is that, in any situation where the sentence called for by the sentencing guidelines is greater than the maximum sentence permitted by the statutes of conviction, the statutes control. Therefore, even though the top guidelines-range sentence would have been 262 months, Judge Jackson was restricted to no more than 120 months.She ended up imposing, in effect, 43 months, added on to the 47-month sentence imposed by Judge Ellis. Given the caterwauling that followed Ellis's decision last week, there will no doubt be complaints that Jackson let Manafort off too easy. But if you feel that way, then Mueller shoulders much of the blame.I have complained before about the special counsel's flouting of Justice Department charging policies. Manafort's two-count plea deal in the District of Columbia is a good example.The count one conspiracy charged money laundering, a 20-year felony, as one of the objectives. Saliently, money laundering has its own conspiracy provision (Section 1956(h)), which also calls for a penalty of up to 20 years' imprisonment. When Congress thinks a crime is important enough to have its own conspiracy provision, federal prosecutors are supposed to charge that provision, since it reflects the punishment Congress has directed for that conduct.Yet, to shield Manafort from Congress's intended penalty, Mueller allowed him to plead guilty under the penal code's catch-all conspiracy provision, Section 371. This section has a maximum penalty of five years and is supposed to apply only to less serious crimes that do not have their own conspiracy provision. Federal prosecutors are not supposed to frustrate congressional intent by charging the catch-all conspiracy when the underlying conduct (here, money laundering) has a conspiracy provision that calls for a more severe sentence (here, 20 years).Indeed, the reason why Manafort's sentencing guidelines are so much higher than the statutory penalties for the crimes charged is that the guidelines are driven by how Congress rates the criminal conduct involved, whereas Mueller did not charge the statutes that correlate to that conduct.An example: Let's say a defendant committed two money-laundering felonies. That would add up to 40 years of statutory exposure. The guidelines reflect how seriously Congress takes money laundering. If sentencing practice is working properly, the guidelines range should be within the statutory range. The statutes state a wide range that accounts for all possible money-laundering offenses, from the least serious to the most serious (in our two-count example, zero to 40 years). The guidelines, by contrast, more narrowly reflect the defendant's actual conduct, which should fall someplace between least and most serious. Thus, if the defendant in our example pled guilty to the two 20-year counts, it would make sense for the guidelines to calculate a range of 210 to 262 months, comfortably within this 40-year statutory range.To shield Manafort, however, Mueller avoided charging the applicable 20-year conspiracy count. He instead charged the five-year conspiracy count, far below what Congress and the Sentencing Commission have indicated is a commensurate penalty for money laundering.The second conspiracy count to which Manafort pled guilty involved witness tampering. The witness-tampering provision Mueller cited, Section 1512(b)(1), prescribes a 20-year offense. Like money laundering, witness tampering has its own conspiracy provision, which makes the penalty 20 years. Yet, once again, instead of charging Manafort under Congress's witness-tampering provision, Mueller charged him under Section 371, insulating him from the harsher sentence.Bottom line: Yes, Judge Ellis could have imposed a much more severe sentence; and Judge Jackson could have imposed a harsher total sentence by maxing out the two five-year counts (120 months) and running them consecutively to Ellis's 47-month term — that would have made for a 167-month sentence, instead of 90 months.Nevertheless, if you want to know why Manafort faced comparatively limited prison time today, blame Special Counsel Mueller. Under federal law, conspiracies to commit money laundering and witness tampering should have carried an aggregate 40 years of statutory exposure. That would have enabled the judge to impose a stiff guidelines sentence of between 210 and 262 months. But the special counsel invoked the wrong conspiracy statutes to spare Manafort greater punishment.When the prosecutor bends the rules to be lenient, it signals to the court that leniency is in order.
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| Surprising Ways to Eat Corned Beef, From Nachos to Egg Rolls Posted: 13 Mar 2019 10:33 AM PDT |
| Colorado to North Dakota faces travel-snarling blizzard at midweek Posted: 12 Mar 2019 03:00 AM PDT  AccuWeather meteorologists expect a major blizzard to unfold with winds likely to approach hurricane force, heavy snow and massive drifts.
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| The Latest: US aviation team arrives at Ethiopia crash site Posted: 11 Mar 2019 11:40 PM PDT  ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — The Latest on Ethiopian Airlines crash (all times local):
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| Arizona State University gets dissed in college bribery scandal court documents Posted: 12 Mar 2019 08:54 PM PDT  Actress Lori Loughlin's husband, Mossimo Giannulli, noted ASU's more lax admission standards in an email to a cooperating witness in the case.
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| Spotify files antitrust complaint against Apple over its 'app tax' Posted: 13 Mar 2019 04:24 AM PDT  Spotify has declared war on Apple over the fees it charges for access to the iPhone App Store in a move that that could have far-reaching consequences for the media and technology industries. In a formal competition complaint to Brussels, the Swedish music streaming giant 's founder Daniel Ek accused Apple of abusing its dominance of the smartphone market to "deliberately disadvantage" competitors. The music streaming business has also complained that its service is locked out of Apple devices including the HomePod smart speaker and Apple Watch. Spotify general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said he believed the business was losing out commercially because of Apple's policy of taking a 30 pc cut from apps downloaded via its App Store. "We feel confident in the economic analysis we have submitted to the Commission that we could have done better than we have done so far," he said. The complaint is the latest sign of growing resistance to Apple from companies which offer music and video streaming and gaming services available via its App Store. In a blog post, Daniel Ek wrote on Wednesday that "Apple has introduced rules to the App Store that purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience—essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers." Mr Ek said that Spotify had attempted to resolve the dispute directly with Apple, but decided to approach antitrust regulators in Europe to intervene. A spokesman for the European Commission said that "the Commission has received a complaint by Spotify, which we are assessing under our standard procedures." Apple declined to comment. The antitrust complaint adds to a growing backlash against the tolls Apple and Google charge to developers using their app stores. Apple's policy of taking a cut from apps distributed via its service forced Spotify to increase monthly subscriptions for premium sales via the Apple App Store from £9.99 to £12.99. Around the same time, Apple launched a competing music streaming service for £9.99 per month, it added. Spotify has since pulled the option to subscribe to its premium service from its iPhone app. EU regulators are also increasingly concerned about how technology platforms control the online ecosystem and may rig the game to their own advantage.
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| British MPs vote to reject no-deal Brexit Posted: 13 Mar 2019 02:37 PM PDT  British MPs voted to reject a no-deal Brexit on Wednesday, prompting Prime Minister Theresa May to announce she will put her EU divorce plan to parliament for a third time in the coming days. May warned that if MPs did not adopt the deal there could have to be a lengthy delay to Brexit that would see Britain elect members to the European Parliament in elections in May. The chaotic session of parliament demonstrated once again the splits in parliament over Brexit, reflecting the deep divisions that remain in Britain almost three years after the 2016 referendum vote.
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| Kim Jong Un Seen Having More to Lose If He Tests Missile Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:36 PM PDT  Two days after Kim's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump broke down over sanctions relief and disarmament steps last month, satellite images showed that North Korea was rebuilding a long-range rocket site it recently dismantled. The activity suggests that the country could be preparing to launch a missile or satellite that would push back against Trump while providing valuable data to improve his weapons capability.
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| The Latest: Smollett's lawyer welcomes cameras in courtroom Posted: 12 Mar 2019 10:26 AM PDT  CHICAGO (AP) — The Latest on the case against "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett (all times local):
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| On his birthday, Twitter mocks Mitt Romney for the way he blows out his candles Posted: 12 Mar 2019 05:18 PM PDT  For his 72nd birthday, Sen. Mitt Romney was given a cake made out of Twinkies, his favorite snack. But some objected to how he blew out his candles.
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| Google rolls out new search and booking developments to Hotels search Posted: 13 Mar 2019 08:26 AM PDT  Google has quietly launched a complete roll-out of Google Hotels, a new search and booking platform akin to Google Flights.
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| Ford Slaps a Top-Speed Governor on the Most Powerful Mustang Shelby GT500 to Date Posted: 13 Mar 2019 06:00 AM PDT  The Shelby GT500 will deliver the goods in corners, not just a straight line.
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| Royal baby 2019: The Duchess of Sussex's due date, possible names, and all the latest news Posted: 13 Mar 2019 10:14 AM PDT  The Duchess of Sussex once described motherhood as being on her "bucket list", the Duke of Sussex frequently confessed he would love to have children, and the rest is royally romantic history. The newlyweds, who married in Windsor last May, are just weeks away from welcoming their first child. As the nation waits for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh's eighth grandchild to arrive, please enjoy everything we know about royal baby Sussex so far. When is the Royal baby due? Though Kensington Palace have only publicly declared that the royal baby is due in the spring, six-month pregnant Meghan let slip that she is due at the end of April or early May during an engagement in Birkenhead earlier this year. The couple announced their pregnancy to family and friends at Princess Eugenie's wedding in October, just days before their royal tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. This means he or she could easily be born on the same day as their great-grandmother (yes, the Queen), who will celebrate turning 93 on April 21. If the couple do know the gender, they're keeping it very quiet. They recently said they'd be "thrilled" with a baby boy or girl. A look back at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's baby photos Where will the Duchess of Sussex give birth? No one outside of the family knows for sure but staff at the Lindo Wing at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, have been advised not to take holiday in the spring, sparking speculation the Duchess plans to give birth there. Contrary to earlier reports saying the former American actress plans to give birth on the NHS, she may follow in the footsteps of the Duchess of Cambridge instead. Kate had her three children at the same private maternity unit and Princess Diana gave birth to Harry there in 1984. A source told the Telegraph: "Staff at the Lindo Wing have been asked not to take holiday in April. Everyone thinks it's got something to do with the royal baby but no one is confirming anything." It had been reported that Meghan, 37, planned to give birth on the NHS at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey. It is seven miles closer than the Lindo Wing to Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, where the Sussexes are due to move to this year. Diana, Princess of Wales and Prince Charles leave the Lindo Wing with Prince Harry in 1984 Credit: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images) Giving birth in the Lindo Wing The £6,000-a-night Lindo wing offers a "five-star" birthing experience with expectant mothers accommodated in spacious private rooms with en-suite bathrooms. Patients are invited to pick their meals from lavish a la carte menus - including a wine and champagne list - and are even offered a celebratory post-labour afternoon tea. The first night in Lindo wing costs £5,900 (for the 'normal' delivery package) and every additional night is charged at £1,175. Patients can also pay extra for a deluxe package, where the rooms are slightly bigger, which costs £6,275 for the first 24 hours and £1,550 for extra nights. Read more about the Lindo Wing here. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge leave Paddington's Lindo Wing with their third child, Prince Louis in April 2018 Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images What will the royal baby be called? There is much suspense as to what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will call their baby. The youngster will be born into the British royal family, where tradition is an intrinsic part of the Windsors' lives. If they go classic, possibilities include Alice, Mary, Elizabeth or Victoria for a girl, and Philip, Frederick, Charles, Arthur, Edward or James for a boy. Of course, the pair are also forward-thinking royals and the Duchess has her own American upbringing to draw on. Canadian-born Autumn Phillips, and husband Peter Phillips, opted for a non-traditional name for their daughter Savannah - the Queen's first great-grandchild - in 2010. In the US, the most popular name for a baby girl is Emma and Liam for a baby boy. In the UK, the most popular name for a girl born in 2017 was Olivia and, for a boy, Oliver. In short, it's anyone's guess. Where will the baby fall in the line of succession? Seventh in line, which means it's highly unlikely the child will ever be monarch. The baby will have three cousins: Prince George (a future king), Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis - all of whom are further up the line of succession. It is a safe bet that the throne will stay on the Cambridge side of the family. The baby will bump Harry's uncle, the Duke of York, into eighth place in the line of succession. His daughters - Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie - will move into ninth and 10th place. Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex - the Queen's youngest son, drops out of the top 10 for the first time to 11th in line. The Royal Family Tree (fix) What title will the new royal baby have? The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's baby will not be a prince nor a princess unless the Queen steps in. King George V - Harry's great great grandfather - limited titles within the royal family in 1917. This means the couple's first born, as a great-grandchild of the sovereign, is too far down the line of succession to be an HRH. George V declared that: "the grandchildren of the sons of any such Sovereign in the direct male line (save only the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) shall have and enjoy in all occasions the style and title enjoyed by the children of Dukes of these Our Realms." The eldest son and heir apparent of a duke can use one of his father's lesser grade peerage titles by courtesy, according to Debrett's. With this in mind, a first son of Harry's would become Earl of Dumbarton - one of the subsidiary titles Harry received from the Queen on the morning of his wedding. A daughter would be Lady (first name) Mountbatten-Windsor, and any subsequent sons Lord (first name) Mounbatten-Windsor. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during a visit to Rabat, late February 2019 Credit: PA Will the baby have dual citizenship? The Duke and Duchess could apply for their child to have dual US-UK citizenship. The Duchess is in the process of becoming a British citizen but it is not known whether she will hold dual nationality, and at present is still a US citizen. According to the American Embassy in the UK, a child born outside of the US and in wedlock to a US citizen parent and a non US citizen parent, may acquire US citizenship at birth if the US parent lived in America for five years - two of which were after the age of 14. Where will the family live? The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are due to move into Frogmore Cottage in the grounds of Windsor Castle this year. The propertym however, is still under-going extensive refurbishment. Since 2017 the couple have been living at Nottingham Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace, near the Duke of Cambridge and his family. The move means they will be 20 miles away from them. Read more about Nottingham Cottage here. The Royals who live at Kensington Palace Will the Sussex's hire a nanny? Most likely. Harry has been close to all his nannies and it is likely he and Meghan will arrange for a nanny to care for their baby while they are on official engagements. Kate and William have the help of their full-time live-in nanny Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo. Meghan's close friend Jessica Mulroney had two nannies to help her with her twin boys and younger daughter. The couple will almost certainly call upon the help of Meghan's mother Doria Ragland who will no doubt make frequent visits to London from her Los Angeles home to visit her grandchild. Read more about what it's really like to be a royal nanny here. What happened at Meghan's baby shower? Late February, Meghan embarked on a "private" five-day trip to New York without any royal aides. Though we now know the Duchess managed to enjoy many activities incognito (like having macarons at Ladurée in Soho and shopping at children's boutique Bonpoint), sources told US media her solo stint would end with a baby shower just in time to call the paparazzi. The unexpectedly public event happened seemed to happens as quickly as media pens could be set up outside The Mark Hotel on New York's Upper East Side. Many deliveries - including a flat pack baby coat and buckets of flowers, including pink roses, while a flat pack baby cot - were dropped off throughout the morning before guests arrived. Abigail Spencer, the actress who played 'Scottie' alongside the Duchess in legal drama Suits, was one of the first to be photographed walking through the front door, immediately recognisable despite a beanie hat and dark glasses. Other celebrity guests arrivals include Amal Clooney, CBS news anchor Gayle King, stylist Jessica Mulroney, and Misha Nonoo (the fashion designer who reportedly set Harry and Meghan up on a blind date). Reportedly, the baby shower - which cost over £100,000 - itself was partially funded by tennis ace Serena Williams, who paid to host in it The Mark's penthouse suite. Other reported extravagances include a performance by Kanye West's favourite harpist, a candy floss machine and £150 steaks. The Duchess rounded off her New York trip with a three and a half hour night out with her best friends, leaving her hotel just before 7pm and heading to the trendy Ralph Lauren Polo Bar. She was once again celebrating with Serena Williams and Jessica Mulroney before the women head their separate ways around 10.15pm - the Duchess returning to The Mark hotel. The Duchess is reported to be awaiting a second baby shower - thrown by her British friends - in the next few weeks. Keep up to date with the Royal family by signing up to our weekly newsletter, Your Royal Appointment.
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| Woman attacked by jaguar says Arizona zoo should consider 'moving fence' Posted: 12 Mar 2019 10:02 AM PDT  A woman who was mauled by a jaguar at an Arizona zoo said she was in the "wrong" but that the zoo should consider moving the fence. The woman, identified as Leanne, was visiting the Wildlife World Zoo near Phoenix on Saturday when she decided to take a selfie with a black jaguar.
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| Smartphone shipments to China hit six-year low in February: market data Posted: 13 Mar 2019 03:50 AM PDT  Shipments to the world's biggest smartphone market totaled 14.5 million units, down 19.9 percent from a year ago, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a government-affiliated research institute. Overall consumer purchases typically slow during February as the Chinese spend much of the month with family celebrating the Lunar New Year. Apple cited slowing iPhone sales in China when it took the rare step of cutting its sales forecast earlier this year.
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| No-deal or delay? Brexit deal defeat leaves UK in limbo Posted: 12 Mar 2019 01:36 PM PDT  London (AFP) - A hard no-deal Brexit or a delay on Britain leaving the European Union? The British parliament's thumping defeat of Theresa May's Brexit deal increases the likelihood of both options.
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| 13 Modern Shower Curtains That'll Instantly Upgrade Your Bathroom Posted: 12 Mar 2019 01:59 PM PDT |
| Paul Manafort gets additional 3 1/2 years at 2nd sentencing, then indicted in New York Posted: 13 Mar 2019 03:38 PM PDT  Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort faced his second sentencing hearing in as many weeks Wednesday, with a judge tacking on more than 3 1/2 additional years in prison beyond the roughly four-year punishment he has already received.
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| Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels split up Posted: 12 Mar 2019 02:53 PM PDT  Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was first to announce she had new representation in a tweet posted Tuesday afternoon.
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| Should Catholics keep their faith? Sex abuse scandals prompt more to personally question ties to church, poll finds Posted: 13 Mar 2019 07:16 AM PDT  Amid the latest spate of allegations of sexual abuse by priests, an increasing percentage of Catholics are re-examining their commitment to the religion, new poll shows.
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| Turkish, Israeli name-calling covers 'tyrant' to 'dictator' Posted: 13 Mar 2019 09:28 AM PDT  ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The latest quarrel between the leaders of Turkey and Israel continued for a second day Wednesday as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "thief" and a "tyrant."
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| Former NTSB chief: Hundreds of Boeing jets should be grounded in wake of Ethiopia crash Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:53 PM PDT  More than a dozen airlines grounded some of Boeing's newest jets, the Max 8, as investigators probed an Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157.
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| This Instant Pot rival costs over $200… and it’s totally worth it Posted: 12 Mar 2019 12:26 PM PDT ![This Instant Pot rival costs over $200… and it's totally worth it]( "This Instant Pot rival costs over $200… and it's totally worth it") We're huge Instant Pot fans here at BGR Deals, and our regular readers probably know that. It's not often we would recommend another brand over Instant Pot -- especially one that's even pricier -- but there are exceptions to every rule. The Breville BPR700BSS Pro Multi Function Cooker is one of the most advanced and consistent multi-use cookers we've ever come across. It has 11 different cooking modes, a nice big color-changing LCD display that indicates what the cooker is doing, and precise controls that let you fine-tune your settings so your food comes out perfect every time. It costs almost $250, but it's worth every penny if you have the means.Here are the key details from the product page: * Color changing LCD tells you when the cooker is pressurizing, cooking or releasing steam * 3-Way Safety System/Safety locking lid, automatic hands-free steam release, safety valve * 11 pressure cook settings plus a custom setting to suit your favorite recipes * Keep Warm function turns on after cooking so food is ready to serve when you are * Removable cooking bowl with PTFE and PFOA free ceramic coating * Capacity : 6 quart (MAX), 1 quart (MIN).Dimensions:12.5 x 13.5 x 14 inches
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| Xerox - yes, Xerox - leads 2019 gains in S&P tech index Posted: 12 Mar 2019 12:00 PM PDT  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - ** Xerox Corp is leading the S&P 500 information technology index so far in 2019, boasting a gain of 57.4 pct as the printer maker plans to restructure ** Programmable chipmaker Xilinx is up 43.6 pct YTD, the second-best performer in the S&P tech index, which itself is up 15.5 pct YTD, leading the other 10 S&P sectors ** 112-year old XRX said on Mar 7 that it would become a wholly owned unit of a new holding company, with the new company trading under its current XRX ticker ** In the last two quarters, XRX topped profit estimates and undertook initiatives to streamline its business under the new management ** XRX on Tuesday was down 0.3 pct, and it is up 4.6 pct over the past 12 months.
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| Kim Jong-un absent from North Korea election announcement Posted: 11 Mar 2019 10:12 PM PDT  Kim Jong-un was not on the list of 687 candidates elected to the North Korean parliament in Sunday's election, state media announced on Tuesday, although his sister was voted into the rubber-stamp parliament. No reason has been given for Mr Kim's absence from the ballot, five years after he was elected in the previous vote as head of the Workers' Party of Korea. Every candidate who did run in the election was returned with 100 percent of the vote in their constituencies, including Kim Yo-jung, Mr Kim's younger sister, who previously worked in the government's propaganda division but has more recently taken on the management of his day-to-day schedule. "North Korean elections have no meaning anyway, but this is designed to show that Kim feels himself to be above those who were elected", said Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor who specialises in North Korea's leadership at Tokyo's Waseda University. "He is telling the nation that he is not on the same level as the rest of the party and it is effectively beneath him to go through the election process", he added. "This will not affect his control on the party or the nation, but it is meant to show that he's a better leader than his own father and Kim Il-sung, his grandfather and the founder of North Korea". Rah Jong-yil, a former head of South Korean intelligence charged with monitoring the North, echoed that assessment. "Kim apparently does not consider it necessary for himself to be elected, but he is the head of state so he will still be in parliament and make all the decisions, which means the entire election is a joke. "It's all for the facade of legitimacy and this will change nothing in the way the country is run or the leadership's policies". Fully 99.99 percent of all eligible voters had exercised their democratic right to select their leaders, KCNA reported, with citizens serving at sea excused the obligation to vote. The results of the election were never in any doubt - each ballot paper only has one name and anyone who wants to vote against the approved candidate has to enter a special booth and put a cross through the name. But defectors say that Mr Kim's standing has been damaged by his failure to win concessions on sanctions on the regime at the recent Hanoi summit with President Donald Trump. "Mr Kim expected a lot from this summit", said Lee Ae-ran, who fled North Korea with her family in 1997 but retains contacts there as president of The Centre for Liberty and Reunification. "It was more than simply relief from the sanctions; he believed a victory in Hanoi would earn him more support from the people, enabling him to tighten his control over the nation even more". And while discontent was never going to be reflected in Sunday's election, Mrs Lee says it is not far beneath the surface. "The sanctions are causing the economic devastation to spread in the North and people are struggling to overcome the terrible shortage of food", she told The Telegraph. "I believe the grudges they hold towards Kim could worsen and possibly even explode. "Any rupture could be lethal to Kim Jong-un and his regime", she added. Voters queue to cast their ballots at the '3.26 Pyongyang Cable Factory' during voting for the Supreme People's Assembly elections, in Pyongyang Credit: ED JONES/AFP Mrs Lee said the North Korean dictator will use the election to "replace the 'older generation', who were loyal to his father, with his own group of flatterers", but she believes the resentment will inevitably deepen. "If the people in the North can continue to build stronger connections with the outside world and complaints against the party and the leadership continue to grow, then the people will realise that they can escape from the abuse that they are presently suffering at the hands of their own leaders", she said. Jiro Ishimaru, chief editor of AsiaPress, said his network of "citizen reporters" in North Korea is saying that there is "extreme disappointment" at the failure of the Hanoi summit, which the regime had indicated would be a victory for Mr Kim that would see sanctions quickly lifted. There is a growing sense that Mr Kim "is an incompetent person", he added.
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