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Plan to rename LA Memorial Coliseum in question after United Airlines balks at proposed revision

Plan to rename LA Memorial Coliseum in question after United Airlines balks at proposed revision



A $69 million naming rights deal between the University of Southern California and United Airlines is now in limbo after the school said it wanted to amend the name of the iconic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum following criticism that the proposed corporate name would disrespect the stadium’s long history of honoring World War I troops.  

Suspect arrested in S Carolina university student's death

Suspect arrested in S Carolina university student's death



Police in South Carolina say they've arrested a suspect in connection with the death of a college student.

South Carolina man charged with kidnapping and murder of University of South Carolina student

South Carolina man charged with kidnapping and murder of University of South Carolina student



A South Carolina man was charged Saturday with the kidnapping and murder of University of South Carolina student Samantha Josephson; police say they believe he picked her up in a vehicle, killed her and dumped her body in a wooded area.

2 Air Force commanders relieved of posts after hazing probe

2 Air Force commanders relieved of posts after hazing probe



Two commanders of squadrons at Air Force bases in Alaska and Washington state have been relieved of their duties after hazing investigations of their units, KTUU TV station reports .

Wisconsin apartment building catches fire; ‘miraculous’ that all occupants accounted for, official says

Wisconsin apartment building catches fire; ‘miraculous’ that all occupants accounted for, official says



A Wisconsin apartment building was engulfed in flames in an overnight blaze, and the fire chief said it was “miraculous” that all of its occupants are accounted for.

Court strikes down school dress code rule that kept girls in skirts

Court strikes down school dress code rule that kept girls in skirts



The traditional-values dress code policy of a North Carolina charter school was tough. Now, it's also unconstitutional, based on the ruling of a federal judge.

California authorities intercept shipment of illegal fireworks: police

California authorities intercept shipment of illegal fireworks: police



Authorities in California on Friday said they were able to intercept a hefty shipment of illegal fireworks which weighed more than 1,800 pounds.

Georgia man charged with murder after fatally shooting 19-year-old who knocked on the wrong apartment door

Georgia man charged with murder after fatally shooting 19-year-old who knocked on the wrong apartment door



A Georgia man was arrested Friday after police say he fatally shot a 19-year-old man who accidentally knocked on the wrong apartment door.

Arizona woman arrested, accused of leading Border Patrol agents in a car chase with illegal immigrants in her trunk: officials

Arizona woman arrested, accused of leading Border Patrol agents in a car chase with illegal immigrants in her trunk: officials



An Arizona woman was taken into custody this week after Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials said she led agents on a car chase while two illegal immigrants were hidden in her trunk.

Redacted Mueller report expected to be released by mid-April

WASHINGTON (AP) — A redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation will be sent to Congress by mid-April and will not be shared with the White House beforehand, Attorney General William Barr said Friday.

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Venezuelans Take to the Streets After Another Round of Blackouts

“We will continue to hit the streets,” Juan Guaido, head of the National Assembly recognized as interim president by some 50 nations, told protesters Saturday in San Antonio de Los Altos. Unlike other protests since January, Guaido did not call for huge rallies in the capital of Caracas but rather urged Venezuelans to protest at key locations or in their own neighborhoods. “My food is rotting and my appliances are going haywire,¨ said Yolanda Bellorin, a retired lawyer protesting among her neighbors in Caracas’ Colinas de la California neighborhood.

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Chance of UK 'no-deal' Brexit has risen 'sharply', says France

French President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Friday the risk of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal had risen "very sharply" following parliament's rejection of Prime Minister Theresa May's withdrawal agreement for a third time. "France is well prepared (for no deal) and will accelerate its preparations for such a scenario," the Elysee said in a statement. It said it was now up to Britain to present an alternative plan in the coming days -- whether new elections, a second referendum, or a proposal for a customs union -- otherwise the country would leave the EU with no deal.

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The Latest: Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Latest on protests at Gaza border with Israel (all times local):

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Pound Slides as Parliament Fails to End Brexit Impasse Once More

The failure of May’s last-ditch effort to get her deal through Parliament leaves the U.K. with the choice between crashing out of the European Union without a deal in two weeks and seeking a long extension of its departure date. The British parliament will vote Monday on various alternatives to May’s agreement. Implied volatility on two-week pound-dollar options, which cover the current April 12 deadline for the U.K.’s exit, have surged to the highest level since the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum amid increased anxiety about a no-deal outcome.

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Friday's Brexit vote is last chance to secure exit delay: Attorney General

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox urged lawmakers to approve the government's EU withdrawal agreement on Friday, saying it was lawmakers' last chance to ensure that Brexit will be delayed until May 22. "This is therefore the last opportunity to take advantage of our legal right," Cox told parliament, citing conclusions of a European Council summit at which the EU agreed to a delay, conditional on the withdrawal agreement being approved this week. Cox was opening a debate that is expected to conclude with a vote at 1430 GMT. ...

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Theresa May’s Brexit Deal Still Looks Doomed. Here’s the Calculation

In parallel to debating May’s deal, members of Parliament are trying to find an alternative way through the impasse with a series of non-binding “indicative votes.” The results this week showed just how hard it will be to find a consensus that a Conservative prime minister could deliver.

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Investigators believe Boeing anti-stall system was activated in Ethiopian crash: Report

In a preliminary finding, officials investigating the crash of an Ethiopian airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 believe that a flight control feature designed to prevent a stall was activated before the plane nose-dived and crashed, The Wall Street Journal reports.

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Trump out for blood in looming 2020 fight as legal perils far from over

The president celebrated victory with the Mueller report – but then his latest effort to invalidate Obamacare left some feeling he ‘stepped all over that message’ Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 28 March. Photograph: Cory Morse/AP It felt like a victory lap. At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Thursday night, surrounded by a sea of red Make America Great Again hats, a defiant Donald Trump held the podium before a raucous crowd. “After three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead,” the president declared in a 90-minute speech. Basking after the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which clouded the first two years of his presidency, Trump falsely claimed “total exoneration”. He vowed retaliation against some of his sharpest critics and suggested consequences for the media were in order. He spoke of doing away with Barack Obama’s healthcare law. And he threatened to shut down the US-Mexico border as early as next week. It was a stark reminder of how Trump views his executive authority and a glimpse of his looming fight for re-election. He is much more likely to be re-elected today than he seemed at the end of last week Michael Steele “He is much more likely to be re-elected today than he seemed at the end of last week,” said Michael Steel, a Republican operative who was an aide to former House speaker John Boehner. “I think that Democratic oversight activities will continue, but this definitely took the wind out of their sails.” However, Trump’s legal perils are far from over. According to a short letter to Congress by attorney general William Barr, the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election did not clear Trump of wrongdoing. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice, specifically stating that his report “does not exonerate” the president. Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy between Trump aides and Moscow, which the president said supported his longstanding claim of “no collusion”. Left unclear was what the special counsel had to say of repeated contacts between Trump associates and Russian nationals, and lies to prosecutors about such communications. On Friday, Barr said that by mid-April he would make public a redacted version of the Mueller report, which is nearly 400 pages long. The attorney general faced criticism after drawing his own conclusion, in his letter to Congress, that Mueller did not have sufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. In a second letter released on Friday, Barr said his initial assessment was not intended to be a summary of the Mueller report and that the American public “would soon be able to read it on their own”. Trump nonetheless seized on Barr’s rendering of the Mueller report. “There are a lot of people out there that have done some very, very evil things, some bad things, I would say some treasonous things against our country,” Trump told reporters last Sunday. “And hopefully people that have done such harm to our country – we’ve gone through a period of really bad things happening – those people will certainly be looked at. I’ve been looking at them for a long time.” On Fox News, Trump’s most prominent boosters chimed in. “This must be a day of reckoning for the media, for the deep state, for people who abuse power, and they did it so blatantly in this country,” said Sean Hannity, who ranks among Trump’s closest allies. It could be a reset but it’s not going to be, because the president is congenially incapable of resetting Rick Tyler “If we do not get this right, if we do not hold these people accountable, I promise you, with all the love I can muster for this country and our future for our kids and grandkids, we will lose the greatest country God has ever given man. We will lose it.” Initial polls showed little change in public perception of the Mueller investigation or potential wrongdoing by Trump. A CNN survey found nearly 60% of Americans believed Congress should continue to investigate, while 56% said they did not believe Trump had been exonerated of collusion, even though Barr’s letter said the special counsel could not establish a criminal conspiracy. Perhaps most tellingly, 86% said the findings would not affect their vote in 2020. “The political divide is virtually the same,” said Rick Tyler, a former aide to Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign. “If you didn’t like Trump before, you don’t like him anymore now. If you like Trump, you still like him.” “It could be a reset but it’s not going to be, because the president is congenially incapable of resetting.” ‘The party of healthcare’ Indeed, in the immediate wake of what some called the best week of his presidency, Trump returned to the impulsive style of governing that has prompted disorder and left his own party flatfooted. In a major shift, the administration announced on Wednesday it would back a legal effort to fully invalidate the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, a move that would threaten healthcare coverage for millions of Americans, an issue which proved central to November’s midterm elections, in which Democrats regained the House. At his Michigan rally Trump renewed his call to toss out the ACA, insisting Republicans would come to be known as the ‘party of healthcare’. Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP Trump’s move came over the objections of Barr and Alex Azar, his health secretary. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, reportedly told Trump the move made no sense, given Republicans do not have a plan to replace the ACA and would be unable to move legislation. “Members feel like [the Mueller report announcement] was great and Trump stepped all over that message with the Obamacare lawsuit announcement,” a House GOP aide told Axios. Tyler said: “While I can argue lots of different structures that would be better than Obamacare, that would be like overthrowing a foreign government with no replacement government. The result would be chaos.” Undaunted, at his Michigan rally Trump renewed his call to toss out the ACA, insisting Republicans would come to be known as the “party of healthcare”. And he didn’t stop there. Trump also vowed to shut down the Mexico border “next week”, a move that would do significant damage to the US economy. Mexico is a vital trading partner but Trump complained it was not doing enough to stop illegal immigration. Trump received familiar support from Fox. But other Republicans warned Trump not to jeopardize an otherwise positive moment. “I think it’s a good thing for America that a detailed and thorough investigation concluded that the president of the United States is not a witting or unwitting agent of a foreign power,” said Steel. “I do think there’s some danger that in the hubris of his response, the president makes mistakes.”

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Mueller report on Trump and Russia to be made public by mid-April: Barr

"Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own," Barr wrote in the letter to the top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House Judiciary committees. On March 22, Mueller completed his 22-month probe and Barr on Sunday sent a four-page letter to Congress that outlined the main findings. Barr told lawmakers that the investigation did not establish that members of the election campaign of President Donald Trump conspired with Russia.

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Pope issues new child abuse legislation for Vatican City

Pope Francis issued stringent child abuse legislation for Vatican City employees on Friday, as part of the Church's bid to address a wave of sex abuse allegations against priests. The legislation requires officials and employees in the Vatican City State as well the Roman Curia, the central administration of the Catholic Church, to immediately report any abuse against minors and vulnerable people or face fines or a prison sentence. Francis said in a letter released with his "motu proprio" decree that it was the duty of everyone "to generously welcome children and vulnerable persons, and to create a safe environment for them".

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Autopsy: Migrant child who died in US custody had infection

HOUSTON (AP) — A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of a bacterial infection while detained by the U.S. Border Patrol, according to an autopsy released Friday, in a case that drew worldwide attention to the plight of migrant families at the southern U.S. border.

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'That's unacceptable': Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stops person who insulted Republican

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shut down an audience member at an MSNBC town hall after someone called former Rep. Bob Inglis a "moron."

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Corporations are endangering Americans. Trump doesn't care

From Boeing to Monsanto and beyond: this week has revealed the tip of the iceberg of regulatory neglect ‘Trump and his appointees have unambiguously signaled to corporations they can now do as they please.’ Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images Why didn’t Boeing do it right? Why isn’t Facebook protecting user passwords? Why is Phillip Morris allowed to promote vaping? Why hasn’t Wells Fargo reformed itself? Why hasn’t Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) recalled its Roundup weedkiller? Answer: corporate greed coupled with inept and corrupt regulators. These are just a few of the examples in the news these days of corporate harms inflicted on innocent people. To be sure, some began before the Trump administration. But Trump and his appointees have unambiguously signaled to corporations they can now do as they please. Boeing wanted to get its 737 Max 8 out quickly because airlines want to pack in more passengers at lower fuel costs (hence the “max”). But neither Boeing nor the airlines shelled out money to adequately train pilots on the new software made necessary by the new design. Nonetheless, Trump’s FAA certified the plane in March 2017. And after two subsequent deadly crashes, the US was slower to ground them than other countries. Last week Facebook admitted to storing hundreds of millions of Facebook users’ passwords in plain text that could be searched by more than 20,000 Facebook employees. The admission came just a year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that Facebook shared the personal data of as many as 87 million users with a political data firm. In reality, Facebook’s business model is based on giving personal data to advertisers so they can tailor their pitches precisely to potential customers. So despite repeated reassurances by Mark Zuckerberg, the firm will continue to do what it wants with personal information. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has the power to force Facebook to better guard users’ privacy. But so far Trump’s FTC has done nothing – not even to enforce a 2011 agreement in which Facebook promised to do just that. Altria (Phillip Morris) was losing ground on its sales of cigarettes, but the firm has recently found a future in vaping. Because inhaling nicotine in any form poses a health hazard, the FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb wanted to curb advertising of vaping products to teenagers. Gottlieb thought he had Altria’s agreement, but then the firm bought the vaping company Juul. Its stock has already gained 14% this year. What happened to Gottlieb? He’s out at the FDA, after barely a year on the job. Wells Fargo has publicly apologized for having deceived customers with fake bank accounts, unwarranted fees and unwanted products. Its top executives say they have eliminated the aggressive sales targets that were responsible for the fraud. But Wells Fargo employees told the New York Times recently that they’re still under heavy pressure to squeeze extra money out of customers. Some have witnessed colleagues bending or breaking internal rules to meet ambitious performance goals. What has Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Agency done about this? Nothing. It’s been defanged. This week, a federal jury awarded $80m in damages to a California man who blamed Monsanto’s (now Bayer’s) Roundup weedkiller for his cancer, after finding that Roundup was defectively designed, that Monsanto failed to warn of the herbicide’s cancer risk, and that the company acted negligently. It was the second jury in eight months to reach the same conclusion about Roundup. Roundup contains glyphosate, a suspected carcinogen. Cases from more than 1,000 farmers and other agricultural workers stricken with non-Hodgkin lymphoma are already pending in federal and state courts. What has Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency done about glyphosate? In December 2017 its office of pesticide programs concluded that glyphosate wasn’t likely to cause cancer – although eight of the 15 experts on whom the agency relied expressed significant concerns about that conclusion, and three more expressed concerns about the data. These are just tips of a vast iceberg of regulatory neglect, frozen into place by Trump’s appointees, of which at least 187 were lobbyists before they joined the administration. This is trickle-down economics of a different sort than Trump’s corporate tax cuts. The major beneficiaries of this are the same big corporations, including their top executives and major investors. But these burdens are trickling down as unsafe products, fraudulent services, loss of privacy, even loss of life. Big money has had an inhibiting effect on regulators in several previous administrations. What’s unique under Trump is the blatancy of it all, and the shameless willingness of Trump appointees to turn a blind eye to corporate wrongdoing. Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress yell “socialism!” at proposals for better balancing private greed with the common good. Yet unless a better balance is achieved, capitalism as we know it is in deep trouble. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. He is also a columnist for Guardian US

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The Stuff of Saturn's Rings Actually Coats Its Tiny Ravioli Moons

A new analysis of the ringed planet's inner moons shines a light on their origins.

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Pet zebra shot and killed by owner in Florida after escaping

A man has shot and killed his pet zebra after it escaped from his ranch in Callahan, a town in Florida.The animal, reportedly named Shadow, broke free from Cottonwood Ranch and ran down a main road, chased by several vehicles.Witnesses said the zebra was eventually cornered in a cul-de-sac around two miles from the ranch, where the owner shot and killed it.Bill Leeper, the local sheriff, said he understood that Shadow was injured during the escape and that the owner chose to euthanise the zebra while police officers were at the scene.Witnesses told WJXT-TV that the animal did not appear injured but the decision was made to kill it so that it could not hurt anyone.“I had to stop and think a minute,” Jenee Watkins told the news outlet.“It’s not every day you see a zebra trotting through your neighbourhood.”Officials have confirmed that the owner did not have a valid license to keep a zebra on his ranch.A state permit is required to own and keep a zebra in Florida.It is unclear whether he will face charges over the lack of permit.Officials said the investigation into the animal’s escape and death was ongoing.

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Trump’s Group Health Plan Rules Struck Down as ACA ‘End-Run’

U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington on Thursday blocked new rules governing so-called association health plans, or AHPs, which let businesses and individuals band together to create group health plans that offer less expensive coverage than the ACA -- but without some of its protections. It follows twin rulings Wednesday by another Washington judge who blocked administration-sanctioned plans to impose work requirements for some Medicaid recipients in Kentucky and Arkansas. The Justice Department has hardened its opposition to Obamacare in separate litigation, and Trump is seeking to make health care a centerpiece of the Republican agenda going in to the 2020 campaign season.

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Judge nixes Mexican holiday for executive charged in U.S. college admissions scandal

A federal judge on Friday nixed the international family vacation plans of a former senior executive at private equity firm TPG Capital charged in connection with the U.S. college admissions scandal, saying he posed a flight risk. Bill McGlashan, who prosecutors say was among the wealthy parents who engaged in fraud and bribery schemes to help get their children into colleges, had sought to go ahead with a planned family vacation to Mexico.

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Joe Biden accused of kissing former Nevada lawmaker, an allegation he doesn't recall

Joe Biden’s spokesman said Friday that the former vice president does not recall kissing Nevada political candidate Lucy Flores on the back of her head during a 2014 event.

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Alex Jones blames conspiracy claims on 'psychosis'

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones blamed the various claims he's made over the years, including that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax, on "psychosis," according to a deposition the "Infowars" host has given as part of a Texas lawsuit.

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Ben Shapiro responds to being called 'alt-right' and 'radical' by media

The Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro reacts to the media's attacks against him on 'Fox & Friends.'

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Who is paying for Monsanto's crimes? We are

A US court ordered Monsanto to pay $80m in damages because it hid cancer risks. That’s a small consolation for victims ‘And while Bayer may dole out a few billion dollars in damages, who is really being made to pay?’ Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images The chickens are coming home to roost, as they say in farm country. For the second time in less than eight months a US jury has found that decades of scientific evidence demonstrates a clear cancer connection to Monsanto’s line of top-selling Roundup herbicides, which are used widely by consumers and farmers. Twice now jurors have additionally determined that the company’s own internal records show Monsanto has intentionally manipulated the public record to hide the cancer risks. Both juries found punitive damages were warranted because the company’s cover-up of cancer risks was so egregious. The juries saw evidence that Monsanto has ghost-written scientific papers, tried to silence scientists, scuttled independent government testing and cozied up to regulators for favorable safety reviews of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Even the US district judge Vince Chhabria, who oversaw the San Francisco trial that concluded Wednesday with an $80.2m damage award, had harsh words for Monsanto. Chhabria said there were “large swaths of evidence” showing that the company’s herbicides could cause cancer. He also said there was “a great deal of evidence that Monsanto has not taken a responsible, objective approach to the safety of its product … and does not particularly care whether its product is in fact giving people cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about the issue.” Monsanto’s new owner, the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, asserts that the juries and judges are wrong; the evidence of a cancer risk is invalid; the evidence of bad corporate conduct is misunderstood and out of context; and that the company will ultimately prevail. Meanwhile, Monsanto critics are celebrating the wins and counting on more as a third trial got underway this week and 11,000 additional plaintiffs await their turn. As well, a growing number of communities and businesses are backing away from use of Monsanto’s herbicides. And investors are punishing Bayer, pushing share prices to a seven-year low on Thursday. Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Tom Claps has warned shareholders to brace for a global settlement of between $2.5bn and $4.5bn. “We don’t believe [Monsanto] will lose every single trial, but we do believe that they could lose a significant majority,” he told the Guardian. Following the recent courtroom victories, some have cheered the notion that Monsanto is finally being made to pay for alleged wrongdoing. But by selling to Bayer last summer for $63bn just before the Roundup cancer lawsuits started going to trial, Monsanto executives were able to walk away from the legal mess with riches. The Monsanto chairman Hugh Grant’s exit package allowed him to pocket $32m, for instance. Amid the uproar of the courtroom scuffles, a larger issue looms: Monsanto’s push to make use of glyphosate herbicides so pervasive that traces are commonly found in our food and even our bodily fluids, is just one example of how several corporate giants are creating lasting human health and environmental woes around the world. Monsanto and its brethren have targeted farmers in particular as a critical market for their herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, and now many farmers around the world believe they cannot farm without them. Studies show that along with promoting illness and disease in people, these pesticides pushed by Bayer and Monsanto, DowDuPont and other corporate players, are endangering wildlife, soil health, water quality and the long-term sustainability of food production. Yet regulators have allowed these corporations to combine forces, making them ever more powerful and more able to direct public policies that favor their interests. The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren this week called for taking back some of that power. She announced on Wednesday a plan to break up big agribusinesses and work against the type of corporate capture of Washington we have seen in recent years. It’s a solid step in the right direction. But it cannot undo the suffering of cancer victims, nor easily transform a deeply contaminated landscape to create a healthier future and unleash us from the chains of a pesticide-dependent agricultural system. And while Bayer may dole out a few billion dollars in damages, who is really being made to pay? We all are. Carey Gillam is a journalist and author, and a public interest researcher for US Right to Know, a not-for-profit food industry research group

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New Australian laws could see social media execs jailed over terror images

Australia pledged Saturday to introduce new laws that could see social media executives jailed and tech giants fined billions for failing to remove extremist material from their platforms. The tough new legislation will be brought to parliament next week as Canberra pushes for social media companies to prevent their platforms from being "weaponised" by terrorists in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attacks. Facebook said it "quickly" removed a staggering 1.5 million videos of the white supremacist massacre livestreamed on the social media platform.

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Mueller report: How Trump avoided interview with special counsel during Russia investigation

It was March 2018, nearly 10 months into his Russia investigation, when special counsel Robert Mueller III, a man of few words, raised the stakes dramatically in a meeting with Donald Trump's lawyers: If the president did not sit down voluntarily for an interview, he could face a subpoena.In the months that followed, Mr Mueller never explicitly threatened to issue a subpoena as his office pursued a presidential interview, a sit-down for which the special counsel was pushing as late as December.But with that prospect hanging over them, Mr Trump's legal team conducted a quiet, multi-pronged pressure campaign to avert such an action and keep the president from coming face-to-face with federal investigators - fearful he would perjure himself.At one point last summer, when a lull in talks had the president's attorneys worried that Mr Mueller was seriously contemplating a subpoena, White House lawyer Emmet Flood wrote a memo laying out the legal arguments for protecting the president's executive privilege. He sent the document to Mr Mueller's office and to the deputy for top Justice Department official Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the probe, according to two people familiar with Mr Flood's outreach.Meanwhile, the Trump lawyers sent a steady stream of documents and witnesses to the special counsel, chipping away at Mr Mueller's justification for needing an interview with the president.[[gallery-0]] In the end, the decision not to subpoena the president is one of the lingering mysteries of Mr Mueller's 22-month investigation, which concluded last week when he filed a report numbering more than 300 pages.The special counsel did not find a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but - in an unusual move - failed to come to a decision about whether Mr Trump obstructed justice, according to a summary of the Mueller report released by attorney general William Barr. An interview with the president would have been pivotal to helping assess whether the president had corrupt intent, a key element of such a charge, legal experts said.It is an open question whether a subpoena would have survived the court challenge Mr Trump's lawyers say they would have waged. The Supreme Court has never issued definitive guidance on issuing a subpoena to a president, but had Mr Mueller pursued one, the courts could have established a precedent for future presidents.In assessing whether to pursue such a high-stakes move, the special counsel was not operating with complete autonomy. That was a contrast with predecessors such as Kenneth Starr, who investigated President Bill Clinton and had broad leeway under the now-expired independent counsel statute.But Mr Mueller was supervised by Mr Rosenstein, a Trump appointee. The special counsel, Mr Rosenstein noted in one letter to a Republican senator, "remains accountable like every other subordinate."Mr Rosenstein himself was under intense political pressure: Mr Trump mused about firing the one-time George W Bush appointee and former US attorney for Maryland, whom he derided at one point as "the Democrat from Baltimore." And House conservatives threatened to impeach Mr Rosenstein, accusing him of withholding information about the Russia probe.Internal Justice Department discussions about whether to subpoena the president - including Mr Rosenstein's views on such an action - remain tightly held.In the final months of the probe, there was upheaval in the department's leadership. Mr Trump ousted attorney general Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the investigation. He was replaced temporarily by his former chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, who was publicly critical of the special counsel before joining the department.A month before Mr Mueller submitted his report, Mr Barr was confirmed as attorney general. He had questioned Mr Mueller's obstruction-of-justice inquiry in a June 2018 memo to Mr Rosenstein months before his appointment, writing that "Mueller should not be permitted to demand that the President submit to interrogation about alleged obstruction."If Mr Mueller wanted to push for a subpoena, he did not force the issue with Justice Department leaders. Mr Barr told lawmakers last week that no decision the special counsel wanted to take was vetoed during the investigation.The Justice Department and the special counsel's office declined to comment.More answers could be revealed in Mr Mueller's full report, which House Democrats are pushing Mr Barr to release.What is known is that the president's lawyers now believe keeping their client from sitting down with investigators was their greatest victory."The president would not have helped his case had he gone in," said Mark Corallo, a former spokesperson for Mr Trump's legal team. "No lawyer worth his salt would let that happen."The president was initially inclined to sit for an interview with Mr Mueller. He thought he could deliver a convincing performance and put a swift end to the probe.Negotiations between the sides began around Thanksgiving 2017, and an interview was scheduled for January 2018, according to a person close to the legal team and a former senior administration official.But John Dowd, then the president's lead attorney, cancelled the session. He had argued against it because he feared Mr Trump could misspeak or even lie. And a practice session with the president further convinced Mr Dowd that the president could be a problematic interviewee, these people said.White House officials declined to comment.Over the next 12 months, Mr Mueller tried repeatedly to reschedule the interview, to no avail.Mr Trump continued to state publicly that he would be glad to sit for an interview - he believed being seen as willing to talk with prosecutors showed "strength," according to a former administration official with direct knowledge of his thinking. But the president came to agree with his lawyers that doing so would be too risky, especially after former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017, current and former White House aides said.Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that some of what Mr Trump's legal advisers were hearing from Mr Mueller "raised our suspicion that this is a trap, rather than a search for more information."As the standoff continued, Mr Mueller's team discussed at length the idea of issuing a subpoena, if necessary, to compel Mr Trump to sit for an interview, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.The discussions - which included Mr Mueller, his top deputy James Quarles, and prosecutors Michael Dreeben and Aaron Zebley - centred both on whether a subpoena was legally feasible and what the costs of such a move might be to the overall investigation, the person said.A fight over a presidential subpoena would have been likely to set legal precedent.Under President Richard Nixon, the US Supreme Court ruled that investigators could subpoena evidence from a sitting president and ordered Nixon to turn over materials including secret recordings made in the Oval Office. That ruling did not, however, address testimony by the president.When Mr Starr was independent counsel, he issued a subpoena to Mr Clinton ordering the president to testify before a grand jury about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Mr Clinton's team considered challenging the subpoena in court but instead decided that it would be politically damaging to be seen as fighting the investigation. Mr Clinton's lawyers agreed that he would voluntarily sit for an interview, and Mr Starr withdrew the subpoena - leaving open the question of whether a president can be compelled to give testimony.Robert Ray, a former independent counsel now in private practice at Thompson & Knight, said Mr Mueller's team would have had to weigh whether a subpoena could survive the court challenge that was all but certain to come from the Trump White House.The Supreme Court has never issued definitive guidance on the question, but in a previous independent counsel investigation, of Mike Espy, an agriculture secretary in the Clinton administration, an appellate court offered some clarity on the bounds of how the White House could fight a subpoena by citing presidential privilege.On the basis of the precedent from that case - which was focused on documents, rather than an interview – Mr Mueller would have had to demonstrate both a need to subpoena Mr Trump to advance his investigation and show that he could not get the information he sought in any other way, Mr Ray said.Another major factor was time: Mr Mueller had to consider the likelihood that such a move would bog the investigation down in a lengthy legal battle."That's a major fight, and you have to decide whether, in the country's best interests, it's worth it," Mr Ray said.Mr Mueller broached the topic during a tense meeting on 5 March 2018, at the special counsel offices in Southwest Washington, as Mr Trump's attorneys maintained that the president had no obligation to talk to investigators.The special counsel noted there was an option if Mr Trump declined: He could be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, as The Washington Post previously reported.Mr Dowd erupted angrily."You're screwing with the work of the president of the United States," he told Mr Mueller, according to two people briefed on the discussion.After that meeting, the special counsel team changed its approach: trying to coax Mr Trump to sit for an interview voluntarily.Prosecutors hoped the president would agree to meet, mindful that they could not explicitly threaten a subpoena unless they were prepared to issue one, according to a person familiar with the matter.Still, Mr Trump's legal advisers felt after the March meeting that a subpoena threat hung over the president."The whole exercise was premised on the idea that that was a legal option they could pursue, and we were never absolutely sure until the end that they would not," said one Trump adviser familiar with the legal negotiations.That threat governed the president's legal strategy in the months that would follow.Mr Trump's lawyers left the distinct public impression that they were not an equal match for Mr Mueller, a venerated former FBI director. Mr Dowd and Ty Cobb, another legal adviser to Mr Trump, were overheard by a reporter discussing over lunch at a popular Washington steakhouse how much they would cooperate with Mr Mueller. Mr Giuliani developed a habit of misspeaking in meandering television interviews.But behind the scenes, Mr Trump's legal advisers had a quiet weapon: a husband-and-wife pair of criminal lawyers, Jane and Martin Raskin, who brought rigor and regimen to the team when they came aboard in April 2018.While Mr Giuliani and attorney Jay Sekulow managed the public relations strategy, the Raskins did most of the lawyering from a temporary office they set up in Washington. They declined to comment.Mr Giuliani said that roughly 80 per cent of the Trump team's interactions with the special counsel's office were handled by Jane Raskin, who has known both Mr Mueller and Mr Quarles for years. She knew Mr Mueller from her time as a federal prosecutor in Boston, while her husband had worked with Mr Quarles.She communicated mostly by email, developing a written record that Mr Trump's attorneys intended to use as evidence of their cooperation and responsiveness if they ended up in court fighting a subpoena.Martin Raskin, meanwhile, did a great deal of the writing and editing of legal arguments, including a "counter report" defending the president that Mr Giuliani said has been prepared but may never be released.Central to the Trump strategy - developed first by Mr Cobb and Mr Dowd and later carried out by Mr Giuliani, Mr Sekulow and the Raskins, as well as Mr Flood, who from his White House perch represented the office of the presidency - was to cooperate fully with every request for documents and witnesses from Mr Mueller, including Mr Trump's written answers to some questions.Their goal: to satisfy Mr Mueller's hunt for information to the extent that the special counsel would not have legal standing to subpoena the president's oral testimony."We allowed them to question everybody, and they turned over every document they were asked for: 1.4 million documents," Mr Giuliani said. "We had what you would call unprecedented cooperation."Mr Trump's lawyers, citing the independent counsel investigation of Mr Espy, argued that to justify a subpoena of Mr Trump, Mr Mueller needed to prove he could not get the information in any way other than by asking the president."No matter what question they would say they wanted to ask, I felt confident we could turn it over and say, 'You already have the answer to it,'" Mr Giuliani said. "If they said, 'Why did you fire Comey?' I'd give them five interviews, and particularly the Lester Holt tape, where he goes into great detail as to his reasons."Mr Giuliani was referring to Mr Trump's May 2017 interview with the NBC Nightly News anchor in which the president said he was thinking about "this Russia thing" when he fired James Comey as FBI director, one of the actions Mr Mueller was investigating as possible obstruction of justice.All the while, Mr Giuliani said, the legal team was not convinced that it would have prevailed in court. "Honestly, I don't know who would have won," he said. "I think our argument got better as time went on. But I don't know if we would have won."As Mr Mueller's lawyers quietly laboured, a political storm was raging around them.Mr Trump, his lawyers and his allies in Congress routinely attacked Mr Mueller and his investigators as compromised and corrupt. The president repeatedly urged an end to the probe, which he condemned as a "witch hunt," a "fraud" and a "hoax" that was wasting taxpayer money.Mr Rosenstein urged lawmakers to respect the confidential work of the special counsel, saying in a June 2018 letter to senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that the probe would comply with all laws and Justice Department policies.But Mr Rosenstein also noted that Mr Mueller was not an entirely independent actor - and that his work was being closely supervised."Under the terms of his appointment, both by statute and by regulation, special counsel Mueller remains accountable like every other subordinate Department official," Mr Rosenstein wrote.A few months later, Mr Flood sent his memo on the scope of executive privilege. While it made broad arguments, the document could have been construed to pertain to Mr Mueller's push to interview the president, according to someone with knowledge of the contents.Notably, Mr Flood sent the memo not just to Mr Mueller's office, but also to Mr Rosenstein by way of his top deputy, Edward O'Callaghan.Mr Flood declined to comment.As each month passed without a subpoena, the president's attorneys increasingly doubted that Mr Mueller would seek to obtain one, according to people with knowledge of internal discussions.Mr Mueller's team kept insisting it needed to interview the president - but never followed through with an actual demand.Mr Mueller and Mr Quarles would stress that they needed to know Mr Trump's intentions when he fired Mr Comey and took other actions that could have thwarted the Russia investigation. Jane Raskin would respond by pressing them for a legal justification for seeking to interview the president, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.The president's team asked, "What evidence have you obtained that justifies you interviewing the president?" according the person, who added that Mr Mueller's office was "never able to articulate a compelling case. They never gave up asking, but they had no good answer for that question."In the absence of an interview, Mr Trump's attorneys offered Mr Mueller a substitute: The president would provide answers to a set of questions about Russia and the campaign, submitted in writing. But, citing executive privilege, they refused to provide answers to questions pertaining to the president's time in office - questions that went to the heart of the special counsel's inquiry into possible obstruction of justice.However, the process of compiling answers dragged. Mr Trump's lawyers found it difficult to get the president to focus on drafting the submission, according to people familiar with the sessions. Mr Trump's meetings with his lawyers were frequently interrupted by phone calls and other White House business.Finally, in late November 2018, the lawyers sent Mr Trump's answers to Mr Mueller.In December, Mr Mueller's team made one more request for an interview with the president.And in January, the special counsel's office contacted Mr Trump's lawyers to ask some follow-up questions, according to people familiar with the request.But Mr Trump's lawyers again declined. They neither agreed to an interview nor answered the additional questions.Two months later, Mr Mueller submitted his report without having spoken to the president. The investigation was over.The Washington Post

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Turks vote in local elections which could see Erdogan lose in big cities

Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than 16 years thanks to strong economic growth and supreme campaigning skills, has become the country's most popular, yet also most divisive, leader in modern history. With the economy contracting following a currency crisis last year in which the lira lost more than 30 percent of its value, some voters appeared ready to punish Erdogan who has ruled with an increasingly uncompromising stance. This week, as authorities again scrambled to shore up the lira, Erdogan cast the country's economic woes as resulting from attacks by the West, saying Turkey would overcome its troubles following Sunday's vote and adding he was "the boss" of the economy.

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Police standoff on an Atlanta-area freeway halts traffic

ATLANTA (AP) — A police standoff brought traffic to a standstill Friday on an Atlanta-area freeway as officers confronted a motorist who they believed was armed and matched the description of a robbery suspect.

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'Pitch up, pitch up': Final moments of Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max jet before crash

A pilot on the Ethiopian Airlines flight which crashed three weeks ago was heard saying “pitch up, pitch up” just moments before the disaster, the Wall St Journal has reported.  The conversation happened when the plane was just 450ft (137m) off the ground as the aircraft begun to point downwards, according to the paper.  The plane's radio reportedly died moments after the comment was captured. All 157 people on board were killed when the Boeing 737 Max crashed.  The plane’s anti-stalling system, which sees its direction automatically righted if a sensor picks up the aircraft is tilting up too far, has been blamed for the disaster.  The investigation is on-going and no official cause for the crash has been made public.  Forensic experts work at the crash site of an Ethiopian airways operated by a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft Credit: TONY KARUMBA / AFP The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that investigators have determined that the flight-control system on an Ethiopian Airlines jet automatically activated before the aircraft plunged into the ground on March 10. The preliminary conclusion was based on information from the aircraft's data and voice recorders and indicates a link between that accident and an earlier Lion Air crash in Indonesia, the newspaper said. Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration declined to comment on the report. Also on Friday, The New York Times reported that the Ethiopian jet's data recorder yielded evidence that a sensor incorrectly triggered the anti-stall system, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.  Once activated, the MCAS forced the plane into a dive and ultimately a crash that killed everyone on board, the newspaper said. Boeing is facing mounting pressure to roll out a software update on its best-selling plane in time for airlines to use the jets during the peak summer travel season. Kebebew Legesse, the mother of Ethiopian Airlines cabin crew Ayantu Girmay mourns at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash Credit: REUTERS/Baz Ratner Company engineers and test pilots are working to fix anti-stall technology on the Boeing 737 Max that is suspected to have played a role in two deadly crashes in the last six months. Boeing is also seeing its own expenses rise, although it would not disclose how much it is costing the company to make the software fix and also train pilots how to use it. Cowen Research analysts say a "very rough guess" is that Boeing will pay about $2 billion after insurance to fix the plane, pay crash victims' families and compensate airlines that had to cancel flights. Most Wall Street analysts are betting that the planes will be flying again in less than three months, while noting that it could take longer in countries that plan to conduct their own reviews of Boeing's upgrade instead of taking the word of the U.S. regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration.

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UK lawmakers reject Brexit deal for third time

British MPs on Friday rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's EU divorce deal for a third time, opening the way for a long delay to Brexit -- or a chaotic "no deal" withdrawal in two weeks. The pound slipped as lawmakers defied May's plea to end the deadlock that has plunged Britain into a deep political crisis, defeating her withdrawal agreement by 344 votes to 286. The EU has set a deadline of April 12 for a decision, with two likely options: Britain leaves with no deal at all, or agrees a lengthy extension to allow time for a new approach.

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Who is running for president in 2020? An interactive guide

The 2020 field has become crowded in recent weeks. Here's a look at who has announced their candidacy or opened an exploratory committee in the hunt for the presidency.

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What we learned from Barr's summary of the Mueller report

What’s in the attorney general’s summary of the Trump-Russia investigation? And will the report be made public? Full four-page letter of Barr’s summaryFollow the latest US politics news William Barr sent his summary of the Muller report to Congress on Sunday Photograph: Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images Barr is still reviewing Muller’s report William Barr: Although my review is ongoing, I believe that it is in the public interest to describe the report and to summarize the principal conclusions reached by the Special Counsel and the results of his investigation. Barr immediately makes clear that his letter will only be a summary of the top-line conclusions from Robert Mueller’s 22-month investigation. At just four pages long, the letter makes no claim to outline the full substance of the special counsel’s findings, nor does it detail the evidence Mueller has amassed or the legal reasoning behind his decision making. Instead, we have the bare bones. Mueller had handed the full report to the attorney general less than 48 hours earlier, and Barr makes clear he is still reviewing its contents. On the size of the investigation In the report, the Special Counsel noted that, in completing his investigation, he employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff. The Special Counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses. Here, the sheer size of the Mueller investigation is laid bare for the first time. Although the cost of the Russia investigation has been public for some time, along with the 37 public indictments issued by Mueller, the scale of the evidence he has amassed has not been known. Barr is clearly alluding to how comprehensive the special counsel’s investigation has been. While the length of Mueller’s final report is not known, it is likely to be based on hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence. Democrats have made clear they want access to as much of the report and its underlying evidence as possible. No new indictments The report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the Special Counsel obtain any sealed indictments yet to be made public. This is the first of Barr’s major announcements: Mueller will issue no fresh charges as the investigation wraps up. This is clearly good news for members of Donald Trump’s inner circle, including his son Donald Trump Jr, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and, indeed, for Trump himself. There had been speculation that a number of sealed indictments in the same district court handling the Mueller prosecution could relate to further indictments from the special counsel. This is now clearly not the case. However, other criminal investigations involving the president and members of his inner circle are ongoing, most notably in the southern district of New York. Barr makes no comment on the status of these proceedings. On collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” This is undoubtedly a pivotal conclusion of the investigation. Following almost two years of investigation Barr says that Mueller has found no evidence to prove that any member of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. He quotes only a partial sentence from the report to substantiate this. Also of note here is Barr’s supplying a short definition of how Mueller defined collusion. Quoting directly from Mueller’s report in a short footnote, Barr says the special counsel counted collusion as an “agreement – tacit or express – between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference”. This means that for any member of the campaign to be accused of colluding with Russia they would have had to have done so knowingly. Barr says that Mueller found two ways in which Russians interfered during 2016: a coordinated internet disinformation campaign and direct computer hacking. He provides no further details on the crimes themselves but further information on at least some of these actions has already been made public by Mueller through criminal indictments. On obstruction of justice The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as “difficult issues” of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Barr briskly moves on to the last major revelation from Mueller: the special counsel was unable to decide whether Donald Trump obstructed justice during the investigation. Barr once again hangs a partial sentence quoted from the report making clear that Mueller did not completely clear Trump of obstruction. But the scant details make it impossible to understand the legal reasoning behind Mueller’s decision nor all the evidence taken into account to make it. Conclusion on obstruction of justice After reviewing the Special Counsel’s final report on these issues; consulting with Department officials, including the Office of Legal Counsel; and applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. This revelation is likely to be the most controversial, at least until more of Mueller’s report is released. It was Barr and his deputy Rod Rosenstein, both appointed to their positions by Trump himself, that decided the president should face no prosecution over obstruction of justice. Although Barr displays those he consulted with to make that decision and cites justice department guidelines governing the process, there is no escaping that the decision not to prosecute the president was made by one of his own cabinet members who has already privately described Mueller’s investigation of obstruction of justice as “fatally misconceived”. Barr explains his decision not to charge Trump with obstruction Generally speaking, to obtain and sustain an obstruction conviction, the government would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person, acting with corrupt intent, engaged in obstructive conduct with a a sufficient nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding. In cataloguing the President’s actions, many of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgement, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent, each of which, under the Department’s principles of federal prosecution guiding charging decisions, would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to establish an obstruction-of-justice offense. Barr provides a little elaboration on his decision not to charge Trump with obstruction. Critically, Barr makes the point that at least part of the reason Trump is not being charged is due to the lack of an underlying crime. That while there may be sound arguments for Trump obstructing justice, it was not itself a criminal act because there had been no crime in the first place. There is also a suggestion from Barr here that while many of these potentially obstructive actions took place in public – it seems likely he is partially referring to Trump’s public comments on his decision to fire FBI director James Comey – there are others the public may not yet know about. Will the public see the Mueller report? As I have previously stated, however, I am mindful of the public interest in this matter. For that reason, my goal and intent is to release as much of the Special Counsel’s report as I can consistent with applicable law, regulations, and Departmental policies. The attorney general concludes by making a commitment to making parts of Mueller’s report available to the public. In a letter to lawmakers on 29 March, Barr said a redacted version of the report would be delivered to Congress by mid-April, possibly before. Senior Democrats have indicated they will issue a subpoena for the full report if they are not satisfied with what Barr provides.

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Alex Jones: Instagram refuses to remove right-wing conspiracy theorists' anti-semitic post

Infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was expected to have his Instagram account shut down, or at least have a recently posted photo deleted, after he recently posted an image of an art piece called “False Profits” on his Instagram story.The image depicts six white men with hooked noses playing monopoly on the backs of other humans, surrounded by gold, skulls, money, medicine, and a globe. In the background appears to be the city of Manhattan in nuclear fall-out, and the men sit in front of the pyramid of the Great Seal of the United States.The pyramid with the all-seeing eye has been co-opted by conspiracy theorists as evidence of an evil “new world order”. The globe on the table also may potentially represent “globalists”, two heavily used anti-semitic tropes.Despite this, Instagram claims that the post did not violate their community standards.There seems to be disagreement at parent-company Facebook among high level executives, if Jones is a hate figure or not, as seen in leaked emails.The post has since been removed, although not by Instagram.This is not the first time Jones has been criticised for posting controversial conspiracy material. Jones is known for claiming that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a false flag hoax and for his claims that in fluoride treated water turns frogs gay.

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Is This The Perfect Chevrolet Corvette C2 Restomod?

The C2 generation of the 1960s Chevrolet Corvette has to be one of the most charismatic incarnations of America’s favorite sports car. This custom 1967 model heading to auction with Barrett-Jackson blends old and new together.

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Palestinians mass at Gaza border to mark protest anniversary

Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied at the Israel-Gaza border on Saturday, facing off against Israeli tanks and troops on the first anniversary of the 'Great March of Return' demonstrations.

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Turks begin voting in local polls which Erdogan could lose in big cities

Turks began voting on Sunday in local elections that President Tayyip Erdogan has described as a matter of survival for the country.

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Comedian in front as curtain rises on Ukrainian presidential election

Ukrainians began voting in a presidential election on Sunday in which a comedian with no political experience and who plays a fictional president in a popular TV series is tipped to win the first round.

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