Trump transition raised flags about Flynn Russia contacts
Trump transition raised flags about Flynn Russia contacts
WASHINGTON (AP) — In late November, a member of Donald Trump’s transition team approached national security officials in the Obama White House with a curious request: Could the incoming team get a copy of the classified CIA profile on Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States?
Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and NATO official, wanted the information for his boss, Michael Flynn, who had been tapped by Trump to serve as White House national security adviser. Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak, according to two former Obama administration officials, and seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies.
To the Obama White House, Billingslea’s concerns were startling: a member of Trump’s own team suggesting the incoming Trump administration might be in over its head in dealing with an adversary.
The request now stands out as a warning signal for Obama officials who would soon see Flynn’s contacts with the Russian spiral into a controversy that would cost him his job and lead to a series of shocking accusations hurled by Trump against his predecessor’s administration.
In the following weeks, the Obama White House would grow deeply distrustful of Trump’s dealing with the Kremlin and anxious about his team’s ties. The concern — compounded by surge of new intelligence, including evidence of multiple calls, texts and at least one in-person meeting between Flynn and Kislyak — would eventually grow so great Obama advisers delayed telling Trump’s team about plans to punish Russia for its election meddling. Obama officials worried the incoming administration might tip off Moscow, according to one Obama adviser.
As bitter French campaign ends, Macron’s team hit by hack
PARIS (AP) — The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said it suffered a “massive and coordinated” hacking attack and document leak that it called a bid to destabilize Sunday’s presidential runoff.
His far-right rival Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, told The Associated Press that she believes she can pull off a surprise victory in the high-stakes vote that could change Europe’s direction.
Fears of hacking, fake news manipulation and Russian meddling clouded the French campaign but had largely gone unrealized — until late Friday’s admission by Macron’s campaign that it had suffered a coordinated online pirate attack had led to the leak of campaign emails and financial documents. It was unclear who was behind the hack and the leak.
A campaign blackout starting minutes after the Macron team announcement means that Le Pen’s campaign can’t legally comment on the leak.
In a statement, Macron’s En Marche movement said the hack took place a few weeks ago, and that the leaked documents have been mixed with false documents to “seed doubt and disinformation” and destabilize Sunday’s presidential runoff. Hillary Clinton’s U.S. presidential campaign suffered similar leaks, and also said that authentic documents were mixed with false documents.
US jobs data show some scars from recession finally healing
WASHINGTON (AP) — A burst of hiring in April provided reassurance for the U.S. economy after a slow start to the year: Job growth returned to a healthy pace. Unemployment hit a decade low. And the number of part-time workers who want full-time jobs reached its lowest point in nine years.
Employers last month added 211,000 jobs, more than double the weak showing in March, the Labor Department said Friday . And the unemployment rate dipped to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent in March.
Taken as a whole, the April jobs report suggested that American businesses are confident enough in their outlook for customer demand to keep adding jobs briskly despite a slump in the January-March quarter when the economy barely grew.
The jobs report “does increase our confidence that the soft patch in the first quarter is over,” Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Capital, said in an email to clients.
The gradual shift in hiring from part-time to full-time work is an encouraging one. It suggests that many businesses are meeting rising customer demand by expanding some employees’ hours. During much of the economic recovery, the number of part-timers remained unusually high — one reason why steady job growth didn’t produce sharp gains in pay or consumer spending.
Punching in past 65: Older-worker rate highest since 1962
NEW YORK (AP) — Retire by your mid-60s? How 1960s.
More Americans age 65 and over are still punching the clock, and the last time the percentage was this high was when John F. Kennedy was in the White House.
Last month, 19 percent of Americans age 65 and over were still working, according to government data released Friday. That’s the highest rate since 1962, and it caps a long trend higher since the figure bottomed out at 10 percent in 1985.
As America grows older and as life expectancy gets longer, some workers keep heading to the office because they like it and still feel engaged. But many others are continuing to work for a simpler, darker reason: They can’t afford not to.
More than a quarter of workers age 55 or older say they have less than $10,000 in savings and investments, according to the latest retirement confidence survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Perhaps because of slim nest eggs, nearly a third of workers in that age group say they expect to work until at least 70, if they retire at all.
Russia-backed Syrian safe zones plan goes into effect
BEIRUT (AP) — A deal hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran to set up “de-escalation zones” in mostly opposition-held parts of Syria went into effect in the early hours of Saturday.
The plan is the latest international attempt to reduce violence in the war-ravaged country, and is the first to envisage armed foreign monitors on the ground in Syria. The United States is not party to the agreement and the Syrian rivals have not signed on to the deal. The armed opposition, instead, was highly critical of the proposal, saying it lacks legitimacy.
The plan, details of which will still be worked out over the next several weeks, went into effect at midnight Friday. There were limited reports of bombing in northern Homs and Hama, two areas expected to be part of the “de-escalation zones,” activists said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
It is not clear how the cease-fire or “de-escalation zones” will be enforced in areas still to be determined in maps to emerge a month from now.
Russian officials said it will be at least another month until the details are worked out and the safe areas established.
Strawberry scientist is sued over the fruits of his research
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Plant scientist Douglas Shaw spent his career toiling in the fields in California to grow the perfect strawberry, one that was plump and bright red yet remained sweet even after the long trip to grocery stores across the country.
When the professor retired from the University of California at Davis and set up his own strawberry-breeding business, though, he found himself in a legal jam.
In a case set for trial in federal court later this month, the university is suing Shaw and his scientific partner, saying they stole the school’s intellectual property by taking some of the fruits of their research with them.
The two scientists claim in a $45 million lawsuit of their own that the university has unfairly kept some of their work locked in a freezer and is depriving the world of a better strawberry.
Some farmers in the No. 1 strawberry-growing state are worried the battle is going to stymie research and cause them to lose their competitive edge. California last year produced 1.6 million tons of strawberries valued at roughly $2 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.