Lawmakers suggest former Trump aide Flynn broke US law ADVERTISING Lawmakers suggest former Trump aide Flynn broke US law WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, appeared to violate federal law when he failed to
Lawmakers suggest former Trump aide Flynn broke US law
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, appeared to violate federal law when he failed to seek permission or inform the U.S. government about accepting tens of thousands of dollars from Russian organizations after a trip there in 2015, leaders of a House oversight committee said Tuesday.
The congressmen also raised new questions about fees Flynn received as part of $530,000 in consulting work his company performed for a businessman tied to Turkey’s government.
The bipartisan accusations that Flynn may have broken the law come as his foreign contacts are being examined by other congressional committees as part of investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Congress returned earlier this week from its spring recess, and Tuesday’s announcements reflected renewed interest on Capitol Hill.
Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said Flynn could be criminally prosecuted because, as a former Army officer, he was barred from accepting payments from foreign governments. Flynn, who headed the military’s top intelligence agency, is a retired lieutenant general and was Trump’s national security adviser until he was fired in February.
“That money needs to be recovered,” said Chaffetz, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “You simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else.”
World’s last male northern white rhino gets help from Tinder
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The world’s last male northern white rhino has joined the Tinder dating app as wildlife experts make a last-chance breeding effort to keep his species alive.
“I don’t mean to be too forward, but the fate of the species literally depends on me,” the rhino’s profile says. “I perform well under pressure.”
The campaign called “The Most Eligible Bachelor in the World,” by a Kenyan wildlife conservancy and the dating app, focuses on the rhino named Sudan.
The 43-year-old and his last two female companions are unable to breed naturally because of issues that include old age.
Ol Pejeta Conservancy and the app aim to raise $9 million for research into breeding methods, including in-vitro fertilization, in an effort to save the species from extinction.
Ivanka Trump hears groans as she defends father in Berlin
BERLIN (AP) — Ivanka Trump drew groans and hisses Tuesday from an audience in Berlin while defending her father’s attitude toward women, but she brushed it aside as “politics” during her first overseas trip as a White House adviser.
Appearing on a high-powered panel at a conference to push for more support for women in business, Trump also said she was still trying to define her place in her father’s administration.
“I am rather unfamiliar with this role as well, as it is quite new to me, it’s been a little under 100 days,” she said.
Trump has been a vocal advocate for policies benefiting working women and vocational training. But she also has faced criticism in the United States, particularly from those who think she has done little to temper her father’s conservative agenda.
Sharing a stage with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and others, Trump was asked by the moderator whom she was representing — President Donald Trump, the American people, or her own business interests.
Sabers rattle amid Korean standoff, WH to brief senators
WASHINGTON (AP) — North Korea conducted live-fire artillery drills and a U.S. guided-missile submarine arrived in South Korea on Tuesday, as the Trump administration prepared an extraordinary White House briefing for senators on the escalating nuclear threat.
Fears North Korea could mark the 85th anniversary of its military’s founding with a nuclear test explosion or a ballistic missile launch proved unfounded. But the unpredictable communist nation rattled its saber all the same, with drills that served as a reminder of the threat it poses below the border to U.S.-allied South Korea.
The exercise in the area of east coast city of Wonsan involved 300 to 400 artillery pieces, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said. An official from Seoul’s Defense Ministry couldn’t confirm such details. Seoul lies only 25 miles from the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, well within artillery range.
President Donald Trump has sent more U.S. military assets to the region in a show of force while leaning on China to exert economic pressure on its wayward ally. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who spoke to Trump on Monday, is urging restraint from both Pyongyang and Washington.
In Washington, top Trump administration officials are due to brief the entire U.S. Senate on Wednesday. A rapid tempo of North Korean weapons testing in the past year has pushed Kim Jong Un’s authoritarian nation closer to developing a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the U.S. mainland.
Trump condemns Holocaust deniers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pledging to confront anti-Semitism in all its forms and to “never be silent,” President Donald Trump on Tuesday denounced as accomplices to “horrible evil” anyone who denies that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
In a speech marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trump also pledged that as president of the United States he will “always stand with the Jewish people.”
Trump spoke at a U.S. Capitol ceremony hosted by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to mark the unveiling of a new conservation and research center. The center will serve as a repository for a vast collection of artifacts by those who survived Adolf Hitler’s massacre of Jews during World War II.
Members of Congress and Holocaust survivors — whose strength and courage Trump said was an inspiration — attended the emotional event in the Rotunda, the center of the Capitol. Survivors lit candles at the end of the ceremony.
“Those who deny the Holocaust are an accomplice to this horrible evil and we’ll never be silent. We just won’t,” he said. “We will never, ever be silent in the face of evil again.”
Chinese court sentences US businesswoman accused of spying
HOUSTON (AP) — An American woman detained during a business trip to China and charged with spying was sentenced Tuesday to 3 ½ years in prison, raising the possibility that she may be allowed to return home soon.
Phan Phan-Gillis has faced an uncertain fate since March 2015, when she disappeared from her group traveling in southern China. She was later accused of espionage, which carries a possible death sentence. A United Nations panel has said her detention violated international norms, and the U.S. has long pressed China to resolve the case fairly.
The U.S. State Department confirmed that she had been sentenced Tuesday. While Phan-Gillis’ trial was closed to the public, a representative from the American consulate in Guangzhou, China, was allowed to attend the public announcement of the verdict against her, the State Department said.
Under Chinese law, Phan-Gillis could be eligible now for parole and deportation, said John Kamm, founder of the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, which monitors human rights and legal issues in China. Kamm said he expects China to parole Phan-Gillis “fairly soon.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a message about her case.
