NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has been actively considering ways to revamp a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill high-skilled jobs, according to sources familiar with the discussions.  Possibilities for reforming the distribution of H-1B visas, which are used largely by the tech industry, were discussed at a meeting last month with chief executives of tech companies at Trump Tower, said two sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to talk about the closed-door talks.  DON’T MISS Pharma grapples with drug price backlash DOJ to examine FBI actions in Clinton email probe Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller proposed scrapping the existing lottery system used to award the visas. A possible replacement system would favor visa petitions for jobs that pay the highest salaries, according to the sources.  H-1B visas are intended for foreign nationals in “specialty” occupations that generally require higher education, which according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) includes, but is not limited to, scientists, engineers or computer programmers. The government awards 65,000 every year.  Companies say they use them to recruit top talent. But a majority of the visas are awarded to outsourcing firms, sparking criticism by skeptics that say those firms use the visas to fill lower-level information technology jobs. Critics also say the lottery system benefits outsourcing firms that flood the system with mass applications.  The H-1B visa program tends to be more critical to outsourcing firms than U.S. tech firms. For instance, more than 60 percent of the U.S. employees of Indian outsourcing firm Infosys (INFY.NS) are H-1B holders, and the company in its annual report has cited an increase in visa costs as among factors that could hurt its profitability.  The top 10 recipients of H-1B visas in 2015 were all outsourcing firms, according to government data compiled by the IEEE-USA, a professional organization representing U.S. engineers.  Sixty-five percent of H-1B petitions approved in the 2014 fiscal year went to tech workers, mostly from India, according to USCIS.  In several high-profile cases, American workers were asked to train H-1B holders to do their jobs before being laid off themselves.  The idea advanced by Miller in the tech meeting has also been pushed by the IEEE-USA.  Miller previously served as a staffer for Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s pick for attorney general, who has been an outspoken critic of abuses of the H-1B program.  Trump, who has applied for H-1B visas to bring in foreign workers to his own businesses sent mixed messages about the program on the campaign trail. He assailed it for taking jobs from U.S. workers, but during a Republican debate last March said he was “softening” his position “because we have to have talented people in this country.”  He later issued a statement on his website saying he would “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program.”  Trump businesses, like Trump National Golf Club and Trump Model Management, have received permission to bring in more than two dozen foreign employees on H-1B visas since 2011, according to Department of Labor data.  During the meeting last month in New York, Trump seemed to be searching for middle ground, and members of his transition team raised specific proposals, the two sources said. A third source familiar with the talks said the Trump team has also discussed the plan to change the lottery system internally.  There were more than a dozen top tech executives from some of the country’s largest tech companies, including Google (GOOGL.O), Facebook (FB.O) and Apple (AAPL.O), present at the meeting.  Microsoft (MSFT.O) CEO Satya Nadella said technology companies need to be able to recruit talent from abroad when necessary.  Trump seemed open to modifying the H-1B program, the sources said. He said he wanted to stop “bad people” from immigrating to the United States, not “great people,” according to one account of the meeting.  Among proposals the group discussed was raising the cost of applications from large companies as a way to discourage bulk filing for the visas. Asked by Trump if they would object to that, none of the tech CEOs said they would.  “In our view, the president-elect is not hostile to H-1B visas,” said one of the sources familiar with discussions at the meeting.  While Trump could initiate some changes to the visa program with executive action, significant shifts would likely need to go through a lengthy formal rulemaking process, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration expert at Cornell Law School. Major changes would likely be subject to court challenges, he said.  Other reforms, like changing the visa cap or offering more green cards to high-tech workers, could require Congressional action, Yale-Loehr said.  A wide variety of companies, including Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO), use the H-1B visa program to bring in employees from abroad.

Summary: ट्रंप और तकनीकी दिग्गजों ने एच1बी वीजा में बदलाव पर की बात


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council could vote as early as Wednesday on a push by the United States, Britain and France to bolster support for international inquiries into a deadly toxic gas attack in Syria, diplomats said, a move Russia had deemed unacceptable and unwarranted. The three countries have proposed a revised draft resolution, diplomats said, similar to a text they circulated to the 15-member council last week that condemns the April 4 attack and pushes Syria’s government to cooperate with investigators. Western powers blame the sarin gas attack, which killed scores of civilians - many of them children, on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.  Syria’s government has denied responsibility for the attack, which prompted a U.S. strike on a Syrian air base. The Security Council vote would come at the end of a visit to Moscow by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. A senior Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the most likely scenario appeared to be a veto of the U.N. resolution by Syrian ally Russia. Russia said last week the draft resolution was unacceptable and unwarranted.  The senior diplomat said that last week the Chinese had been prepared to abstain in a vote. Russia is one of five council veto powers, along with China, the United States, Britain and France. “We cannot give up and we must try in good faith, the best we can, to have a text of the Security Council condemning the attack, asking for a thorough investigation,” French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters on Tuesday. An Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) fact-finding mission is already investigating the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in a rebel-held area of northern Syria. If they determine chemical weapons were used, then a joint U.N./OPCW investigation will look at the incident to determine who is to blame. This team has already found Syrian government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and Islamic State militants used mustard gas. In February, Syrian ally Russia, backed by China, cast its seventh veto to protect Assad’s government from council action, blocking a bid by Western powers to impose sanctions over accusations of chemical weapons attacks. China has vetoed six resolutions on Syria.

Summary: सीरिया गैस हमले की जांच के लिए समर्थन बढ़ाने के लिए संयुक्त राष्ट्र पर पश्चिमी दबाव


DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump would want Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to step aside if sexual misconduct allegations against him are true, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Friday. A woman has accused Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, of initiating a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 years old and he was 32, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Moore, 70, the state’s former chief judge, vehemently denied the allegations, calling them “completely false and a desperate political attack.” “Like most Americans, the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person’s life,” Sanders said. “However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside,” she said, as Trump arrived in Vietnam on his 12-day Asia tour.

Summary: यौन दुराचार के आरोप सही पाए जाने पर ट्रंप चाहेंगे कि मूर पद छोड़ देंः व्हाइट हाउस


WARREN, Mich. (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Thursday said rival Donald Trump had no real plans to help middle-class families, arguing that his agenda of tax cuts and tough trade talk would throw the economy into recession. “He’s offered no credible plans to address what working families are up against today,” Clinton said in Warren, Michigan, shortly after touring Futuramic, a hangar-like, high-tech factory that makes parts for the aerospace industry. Clinton said Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, would scrap regulations meant to hold corporations accountable, cut taxes on “millionaires and Wall Street money managers,” and eliminate the estate tax, an inheritance tax that generally hits the wealthy. Clinton offered no new proposals of her own but sought to cast doubt on the image Trump promotes of himself as the voice for working people. The New York businessman is counting on his appeal to blue-collar voters with concerns about global trade to boost his chances in key states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio. Clinton on Thursday ran through many of the policies she has outlined over the last year to contrast herself with Trump, who has given far fewer details about his plans, as the presidential campaign heads toward the Nov. 8 election. Speaking to Fox News later on Thursday, Trump said he would cut business taxes to bring jobs back to the United States, while Clinton would have to double taxes to meet the increased spending on social programs in her plan. Trump delivered an economic speech in Detroit on Monday. He publicly named his economic advisers last week, which Clinton mocked as “six guys named Steve.” On Thursday, he released a list of nine additions to the council, eight of whom were women. New members included roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks, investor Carla Sands and hedge funder Anthony Scaramucci. Workers’ anxiety over trade deals has become a central theme in the 2016 election, and Clinton rejected the portrait Trump has painted that she only pretends not to favor the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal she praised when she was secretary of state from 2009-2013 but has more recently opposed. Clinton also says she would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by former President Bill Clinton, her husband. Trump routinely disparages the agreement as bad for American jobs.  “It’s true that too often past trade deals have been sold to the American people with rosy scenarios that didn’t pan out,” Clinton told the crowd of factory workers. “The answer is not to rant and rave, or cut ourselves off from the world. “The answer is to finally make trade work for us, not against us,” she said. “So my message to every worker in Michigan and across America is this: I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

Summary: क्लिंटन ने ट्रम्प की आर्थिक योजना की निंदा की, श्रमिकों की मदद करने का संकल्प लिया


(Reuters) - Power outages from Hurricane Irma dropped to about 5.8 million customers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama by Tuesday afternoon, down from a peak of over 7.4 million late Monday, according to utilities in the affected region. Most remaining outages were in Florida Power & Light s service area in the southern and eastern parts of the state. FPL, a unit of NextEra Energy Inc and the state s largest power company, said its total outages dipped to about 2.5 million customers by Tuesday evening from a peak of over 3.6 million early on Monday. FPL said it expects to restore essentially all of its customers in the eastern portion of the state by the weekend and the harder-hit western portion Florida by Sept. 22. The company warned, however, it would take longer to restore power to customers who suffered tornado damage or severe flooding. Outages in Florida for Duke Energy Corp, which serves the northern and central parts of the state, fell to around 1 million customers by Tuesday afternoon, down from a peak of about 1.2 million on Monday, according to the company s website. Irma hit southwestern Florida on Sunday morning as a dangerous Category 4 storm, the second-highest level on the five-notch Saffir-Simpson scale. It gradually weakened to a tropical storm and then a tropical depression on Monday. In Georgia, utilities reported over 1.1 million customers without power on Tuesday, down from a peak of around 1.3 million late Monday. Other big power utilities in Florida include units of Emera Inc and Southern Co, which also operates the biggest electric companies in Georgia and Alabama.

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः इरमा के बाद यू. एस. के दक्षिण-पूर्व में लगभग 5.8 लाख बिजली के बिना-उपयोगिताएँ


CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Early last year, Leandro Colmenares sold his car and his apartment and fled Venezuela s profound economic crisis, joining a wave of emigration to other Latin American countries. Colmenares, a medical equipment repairman, first set up in Panama with $7,000 in hand. When he could not get a visa and struggled to find work, he ended up with odd jobs like painting houses and doing electrical wiring for $25 a day.  In Venezuela, I was rubbing shoulders with doctors. Months later I was mopping the floor in a Panama furniture shop,  said Colmenares, who has two sons, including one who is disabled.  He then tried his luck in Colombia, where he again took odd jobs, mostly cooking. He opened a small cafe with other Venezuelans but it failed.   It was bad, I was going hungry. On weekends I ate once,  he said. And once again, he could not get a visa.  Crushed and having run out of money, Colmenares decided in February he had no choice but return to Venezuela empty-handed and by bus - one of an apparently growing number of Venezuelan emigrants forced to go home after failing to start a new life elsewhere in Latin America. These recent migrants are often poor, hopping on buses to Latin American capitals with as little as a few hundred dollars and scant prospect of finding a decent job.  The country I left was bad. When I came back it was worse,  said Colmenares, noting steep prices and ever less food on store shelves. He spends his days in his home in poor central Caracas, scraping out a living making dough for corn patties. For decades after World War II, Venezuela s flourishing oil economy made it a destination for mass immigration from southern Europe, with Portuguese bakeries and Spanish bars a common sight across Caracas.   But during 18 years of Socialist rule, an increase in crime, economic decay and political protests have prompted emigration to Miami, Madrid, and the rest of Latin America.  Sociologist Tomas Paez estimates over 2 million Venezuelans have left the country of 30 million, accelerating in the last two years as the OPEC member s recession has worsened, leading to shortages of vital medicines and food, runaway inflation and lack of formal jobs. While the early diaspora was mostly a middle-class phenomenon, recent migrants are more likely to be poor, heightening the chances that they will struggle.  There is no data on returnees but Reuters interviewed 10 Venezuelans who had emigrated after President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013 only to return.  For Miguel Blanco, a Caracas-based sociologist, the degree of poverty among people now leaving the country has led to more of them returning.  When migration is triggered by push factors, it can lead the migrant to fail because of lack of money,  said Blanco. Pockets of Venezuelan economic migrants, once a relatively rare sight in South America, have sprung up in cities from Bogota to Santiago de Chile. They are often seen hawking traditional corn patties on the streets or offering door-to-door beauty treatments.      Panama s head of migration said in August that some 2,000 Venezuelans were setting up there every week, compared with  about 500 to 600 before August, when Maduro s government created a legislative superbody that was widely condemned by the opposition and other countries as a power grab.  With about 60,000 Venezuelans already in Panama, the government has implemented visas as an entry requirement.  Peru has estimated that in the first half of 2017 some 40,000 Venezuelans entered the country.  Venezuelan government supporters have said the extent of emigration has been exaggerated. Maduro s administration scoffs at those who leave as selfish and unpatriotic. The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for data.  Colombia, which shares a porous border of some 2,219 kilometers with Venezuela, has estimated that about 36,000 Venezuelans enter daily, and that some 2,000 do not immediately return to their country.   Gerson Lopez, a 30-year-old graphic designer, said he was paid less by a Colombian beauty product company because he did not have legal documents.   Informal work there is very exploitative,  said Lopez.  Venezuelans are doing the work Colombians don t want to do.   Lopez was broke when he returned to Venezuela in late January after being unable to find good work in Bogota.   You have to think very hard if you re going to leave,  he said, adding bitterly,  (But) here you don t have any opportunities. All you do is survive.

Summary: वीजा नहीं, खराब नौकरियांः वेनेजुएला के प्रवासी अनिच्छा से घर लौट रहे हैं


CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela s President Nicolas Maduro railed at two of his main international critics on Wednesday, chiding Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy for  meddling  and mocking U.S. President Donald Trump for geographical ignorance. The United States has recently imposed sanctions on Venezuelan officials and Spain is pressing for the European Union to follow suit as international pressure grows on Maduro over his record on human rights and democracy.   Why is the global right wing so obsessed with our homeland?  leftist Maduro responded in an address on state TV.  Lampooning  little Mariano  for mispronouncing his name  Madero , Maduro said the conservative leader should focus instead on Spain s internal problems, Catalonia s independence push, and Europe s problematic relations with Washington.   Forget talking about Venezuela, which is a homeland of dignity,  Maduro said.  I reject and repudiate Mariano Rajoy s meddling, rude, absurd comments against Venezuela.  Maduro faces global criticism that he has turned Venezuela into a dictatorship with the creation of an all-powerful Constituent Assembly, jailing of political opponents and quashing of protests this year in which 125 people died.  The United States has issued several rounds of sanctions against Venezuela and Spain is pushing the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of Maduro s government. Having in recent days labeled Trump a  Hitler  and  imperial emperor  supporting violent coup-plotters in Venezuela, Maduro took aim this time at the Republican s intellect.  Donald Trump doesn t even know where Venezuela is. Give him a map, and he can t find Venezuela,  the Venezuelan leader said of Trump, widely ridiculed last week for referring to a non-existent African country  Nambia . Maduro s comments were a response to remarks by Trump and Rajoy after a White House meeting on Tuesday. The Venezuelan president has not yet commented on the opposition s decision to boycott talks scheduled for Wednesday with the government in the Dominican Republic in hope of resolving the OPEC nation s deep political crisis. The government had eagerly promoted the talks, while the opposition was reluctant from the outset, saying there was no sign of possible concessions.  The moment came to say  we want concrete steps, not good intentions ,  Luis Florido, spokesman for the opposition negotiating team, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.  We can t go to the Dominican Republic and just talk about anything ... We have learnt from the errors of past processes,  he added, referring to failed Vatican-led talks in 2016. The opposition wants a date for the next presidential election, due by the end of 2018, with guarantees it will be free and fair. It is also calling for freedom for hundreds of jailed activists, a foreign humanitarian aid corridor and respect for the opposition-led congress. Maduro repeatedly calls opposition leaders pawns of the United States intent on toppling him by force. He says the Constituent Assembly, elected in August in a vote boycotted by the opposition and condemned by various foreign powers, has brought peace to the nation of 30 million.

Summary: वेनेजुएला के नेता ने राजॉय को लताड़ा, ट्रंप का मजाक उड़ाया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republican leaders released a new draft of their healthcare bill on Thursday that retains key taxes on the wealthy and allows insurers to offer plans that do not comply with Obamacare regulations that mandate they cover certain health services.  The bill also keeps Obamacare’s limit on corporate tax deductions for executive pay in the health insurance industry, includes an additional $45 billion for the opioid epidemic and includes an additional $70 billion to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses. It also left the Medicaid overhaul in the initial bill largely unchanged, which drew opposition from moderate Republicans concerned it would throw many of their most vulnerable residents off their health insurance.

Summary: सीनेट रिपब्लिकन नेताओं ने स्वास्थ्य सेवा विधेयक का संशोधित संस्करण जारी किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday rejected speculation that future tax legislation could include temporary tax cuts for businesses, saying macro-economic elements of tax reform including rates must be permanent. “We very passionately believe that permanence is very, very important. So the big decision-making provisions in the tax code? - That stuff’s got to be permanent,” Ryan said in an interview with CNBC television. “There are other things you can do that can have time dates on it, to make sure that the numbers work. But the big macro-economic policies - the rates and things like that - that stuff has to be made permanent.” Ryan also said Republicans intend to keep a popular homeowner deduction for mortgage interest payments that some have talked about capping to help pay for tax cuts. But he indicated the deduction could change. “We recognize, acknowledge and believe you need to maintain the mortgage interest deduction. Whether it can be improved and how it works, that’s a discussion we’ll have on an ongoing basis,” Ryan said. President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have vowed to slash business tax rates and overhaul the U.S. tax code before year end, with a Republican-only strategy that requires a special parliamentary procedure to get legislation through the Senate on a simple majority. Republicans control the Senate by only a 52-48 margin. But they have struggled to find ways to pay for lower rates without violating Senate rules by expanding the federal deficit outside a 10-year budget window. Lobbyists say closed-door discussions between Congress and the Trump administration have considered an approach that would make tax cuts sunset after a decade, avoiding a Senate rule violation. But without permanent tax rates, Ryan said that businesses would be less likely to make the multi-year, multibillion-dollar investments necessary for driving economic growth, which Republicans say is their ultimate goal. “There are some who have said that because of our budget process, we might want to go temporary. It doesn’t actually work that way,” he said. “Permanence works, permanence is necessary and permanence is absolutely doable.”

Summary: हाउस स्पीकर रेयान ने कहा कि कर सुधार में दरें स्थायी होनी चाहिए


NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Tim Scott faced a quandary on Saturday in hosting his town hall: he promised to meet with his South Carolina constituents, but he wanted to avoid the kind of adversarial free-for-all so many Republicans encountered this week. Scott decided to ban placards from his North Charlestown meeting in hopes of averting the raucousness that erupted at dozens of town halls during the first congressional recess of Donald Trump’s month-old presidency. The senator also required the crowd submit questions in writing ahead of time after other Republican lawmakers faced a wave of anger on issues ranging from Trump’s immigration and healthcare policies to the president’s ties to Russia.  Despite Scott’s precautions, arguments broke out and constituents told one another to shut up, though many in the audience - mostly white and over the age of 50 - said the senator remained respectful and sincere. And it never degenerated into an all-out shouting match. Scott, the only African-American Republican in the U.S. Senate, began his town hall by pulling slips of paper from a box and reading the questions aloud. But the overflow audience of 300, evenly divided between Trump opponents and supporters, reacted with loud boos and cheers, even before he could begin to answer. To a question about a rise in hate crimes, Scott said the trend predates the president’s campaign.  “We can blame Trump for a lot of things but I don’t think we can blame him for this one,” he said, following a pattern of distancing himself from Trump without directly criticizing him. “Some people have come to the conclusion that this president has already failed,” Scott said. “I hope that most of us, whether you voted for him or not, hope that he succeeds.” When asked about Trump’s repeated denunciations of the media, Scott said he believed the press was more biased than in the past. Even so, he said, “I do not believe the press is an enemy to the American people,” a phrase coined by the president. Still, the meeting’s format started to break down almost from the outset, with the audience shouting asides, while others tried to silence them. Scott answered some of the comments, but if he was interrupted, he tried to talk over the offender. The confrontational tone of this week’s town halls is part of a tide of anti-Trump protests, marches and rallies that show little sign of abating just over a month into the new administration.  The anti-Trump energy has prompted talk of a liberal-style Tea Party movement, in reference to the protests in 2009 that helped reshape the Republican Party and arguably laid the groundwork for Trump’s surprise electoral victory last year.     At Scott’s town hall, the senator did allow a mother to stand up and tell her story. She said one of her two premature children died and the other was 6 years old with medical bills totaling more than $2 million, she said tearfully.  “The Affordable Care Act is imperfect but it is a good law. It saved my family,” she said to a standing ovation, referring to the health care program known as Obamacare. “That’s a heartbreaking story,” Scott said, pointing out that he chose ACA coverage for himself and his staff. Even so,    “Obamacare is not sustainable.” The session almost broke down when a man stood up and faced the crowd as audience members were peppering Scott with loud comments. “Let the man answer the question,” the man said on the senator’s behalf. “Sit down and shut up.”  Two men who wore red “Make America Great Again” hats clapped loudly. Arguments broke out in the crowd.  Eventually, Scott threatened to walk out. “I know we prefer to blame Trump for our incivility,” he said. “Let me ask, if we want to continue this conversation, that we do so in a way that no one feels threatened.” His admonitions appeared to work. Order was eventually restored, and Scott gave up on picking questions from the box and started calling on audience members if they raised their hands. The session ended on a relatively civil note.  (Story corrects paragraph 5 to read “the only African American Republican in the U.S. Senate” instead of “the only African American in the U.S. Senate”.)

Summary: साउथ कैरोलिना रिपब्लिकन के टाउन हॉल में हंगामा शुरू, शांतिपूर्ण तरीके से समाप्त हुआ


(Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday denied that he misled legislators when he previously failed to disclose a meeting he attended with then-candidate Donald Trump and aides where campaign connections to Russia were discussed. Sessions testified in Congress that, following a guilty plea by Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, he now remembers a March 2016 meeting at which Papadopoulos was present and suggested he could arrange a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Democratic Representative Ted Lieu, who sits on the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter on Tuesday he believes Sessions committed perjury when he previously denied knowledge of contact between Trump’s campaign and Russia.  The following describes the crime of perjury and whether it would apply to Sessions’ conduct. What is perjury?     A person can be convicted of perjury only if they intentionally make a false statement under oath about a fact pertinent to a relevant investigation or criminal case. Under federal law the penalty for perjury is a prison sentence of up to five years or eight years in terrorism-related cases. “You can’t x-ray people’s minds to see what they were thinking and what they knew, so perjury can be a difficult crime to prove,” said Bennett Gershman, a professor of criminal law at Pace Law School.  Did Sessions commit perjury?     Some legal experts said there is a strong argument that Sessions committed perjury at an Oct. 18 oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During that hearing, Democratic Senator Al Franken asked Sessions whether “surrogates from the Trump campaign had communications with the Russians.” Sessions responded, “I did not, and I’m not aware of anyone else that did, and I don’t believe it happened.” Gershman said that Sessions’ failure to disclose the Papadopoulos meeting could amount to perjury. Perjury prosecutions based on congressional testimony are rare, in part because lawmakers often ask circuitous questions. But in this case Franken asked a straightforward question and the response Sessions gave was misleading, Gershman said. However, Stuart Green, a professor of criminal law at Rutgers University School of Law, said Sessions would have a plausible argument that Papadopoulos’ communications were not the type of contacts Franken was asking about since they were with Russian government intermediaries rather than Russian officials. “There’s a bit of wiggle room there,” Green said.     What if Sessions says he forgot about Papadopoulos’ remarks?     Sessions said at the hearing on Tuesday that he forgot about the March 2016 meeting because the Trump campaign was “a form of chaos” from the beginning. “We traveled all the time, sometimes to several places in one day. Sleep was in short supply,” he said. A prosecutor could use circumstantial evidence to undermine such a defense, lawyers said. Gershman said Sessions’ statement that he did not recall Papadopoulos’ remarks at the meeting would raise skepticism since Sessions led the meeting, Trump attended it and important national security matters were discussed. “It’s something a person would be hard-pressed to claim they don’t remember,” he said.      Who could prosecute Sessions for perjury?     Any charges against Sessions would likely be brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Green said that Mueller’s mandate clearly encompasses looking into whether Sessions tried to conceal the extent of Russia’s influence in the election. But Gershman noted that Mueller may be reluctant to charge Sessions with perjury because the case would not be solid. “When you bring a charge against a high-profile figure you don’t want to lose because then it looks like a witchunt,” he said.

Summary: सवाल-जवाबः क्या सेशंस ने रूस के संपर्कों की जानकारी से इनकार करके कानून तोड़ा?


AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Former Baylor University President Kenneth Starr resigned as chancellor of the world’s largest Baptist university on Wednesday after being implicated in a report for not doing enough to probe sexual assaults by athletes. Starr, who rose to prominence for his exhaustive investigation of sex scandals surrounding then-President Bill Clinton, stepped down as chancellor but will keep his post as a professor in Baylor’s law school. “With sorrow, earlier this morning, I announced my resignation effective immediately as chancellor of Baylor University as a matter of conscience,” Starr said in an exclusive interview on ESPN television’s “Outside the Lines.” Starr added he was unaware of what was happening but still accepted responsibility. “We need to put this horrible situation behind us,” he said.  One of the victims of sexual assault at Baylor, identified only as “Sarah,” told the show she sent a letter to Starr about being raped. She finds it hard to believe that he did not know about other sexual assaults. Baylor’s board of regents accepted the resignation, the school said. Last week, the central Texas university in Waco removed Starr as president and fired head football coach Art Briles after an independent report found administrators mishandled sexual abuse cases involving football players. The investigation found actions by Baylor administrators directly discouraged students from reporting sexual assaults. In one case, the actions included retaliating against a complainant for reporting a sexual assault. “We were horrified by what we learned from the investigation and again express our public acknowledgment and deepest apologies,” the board said in a statement on Wednesday. In March, a former student at Baylor brought a negligence lawsuit in federal court against the school, claiming it acted callously and indifferently after she was raped by a Baylor football player. In a separate scandal, Baylor football player Sam Ukwuachu was sentenced last year to six months in jail for sexually assaulting a fellow student in 2013. Starr became Baylor’s president in 2010, promising to promote the school’s “great tradition in the Christian world.” A former appeals court judge, Starr was appointed as a special counsel to investigate Clinton over a real estate investment and other matters. His probe widened to include Clinton’s sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives.  Republicans could not muster the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to remove Clinton from office.

Summary: स्टार ने यौन उत्पीड़न घोटाले के बाद बेलर के कुलाधिपति पद से दिया इस्तीफा


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States’ decision to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement was a “major disappointment for global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote global security,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday.  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “remains confident that cities, states and businesses within the United States - along with other countries - will continue to demonstrate vision and leadership by working for the low-carbon, resilient economic growth that will create quality jobs and markets for 21st century prosperity,” Dujarric said.  He said it was crucial that the United States remains a leader on environmental issues and that Guterres looked forward to engaging with the U.S. government “to build the sustainable future on which our grandchildren depend.”

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने कहा कि पेरिस समझौते से अमेरिका की वापसी 'बड़ी निराशा' है


(Reuters) - Having spent billions of dollars on post-crisis U.S. financial industry reforms they once scorned, bankers are concerned the Trump administration, joined by a like-minded Congress, will scrap or significantly change the rules. To comply with a rule known as Dodd-Frank, which was enacted in 2010 following the financial crisis, big U.S banks hired tens of thousands of staffers, built new technology systems, hived off businesses, simplified corporate structures and doubled the amount of capital they hold. JPMorgan Chase & Co has said that in its mortgage business alone, employees spent 800,000 hours in compliance training in a single year. The industry went into these changes kicking and screaming. Banks lobbied hard against Dodd-Frank as it was being drafted, then cajoled regulators to go easy in defining and implementing precise rules. But now that the heavy lifting has been done and Dodd-Frank is largely in effect, the industry see a total  elimination as more of a threat than a blessing. Dodd-Frank has largely made banks safer and the once-opaque derivatives market more transparent, banking executives said.  President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, and some important lawmakers in the incoming Republican Congress have pledged to dismantle the law and put a new one in place. It is not yet clear what the replacement would look like, but Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has drafted a blueprint called The CHOICE Act. The proposal has a mix of things the industry largely supports, such as abolishing the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), but it also has some ideas Wall Street vehemently opposes, like ramping up capital requirements to a level that would likely force big banks to split apart. Proposed changes are also likely to run into stiff opposition from some congressional Democrats, particularly Senator Elizabeth Warren, architect of the CFPB. Big U.S. banks including JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Wells Fargo & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley have seen big gains in their share prices since the Nov. 8 election, partly on expectations that regulators will soon have a much lighter touch. “There is scope for lower taxes, less regulation, and more growth,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report on Tuesday recommending big bank stocks. However, bankers, lawyers and consultants who spoke to Reuters said any big rollback in rulemaking could take several years to implement and may introduce more costs. “One of the dangers of dismantling regulation is that it will be costly and disruptive,” said Mike Alix, a consultant at PwC who works with banks on regulatory matters. “By and large they’ve gotten themselves into shape and they’re not looking to get out of shape.” Industry sources said they are hoping it’s possible to roll back some elements of Dodd-Frank that they view as too onerous or misguided, without scrapping the entire law. For instance, many would like to see the Volcker rule, which places restrictions on proprietary trading, go away. The rule was intended to prevent federally insured banks from placing speculative bets in the markets, and would be repealed as part of Hensarling’s plan. Some banks are taking a second look at compliance initiatives until they gain further clarity on what will happen in Washington. At a conference this month, Bank of America Corp Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag said he is being “a little more cautious” about compliance spending. It is difficult to know whether it is worth spending another $30 million on Volcker rule compliance, he said, because doing so may be a waste of money but not doing so could leave the bank at risk if the rule is implemented as planned. “Even if Volcker doesn’t go away, there are still questions about how tough the enforcement would be,” said Mark Nuccio, who leads the bank regulatory practice at law firm Ropes & Gray LLP. “Banks are deciding they may take the foot off the gas pedal now and just see what happens.”

Summary: डोड-फ्रैंक के साथ बड़े बैंकों के संबंधः यह जटिल है


JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH (Reuters) - Israel hailed U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as its capital on Wednesday, but the Palestinians condemned the move and said it diminished Washington s role as a peace mediator. In a landmark speech in Washington, Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy in defiance of warnings from around the world that the gesture risked creating further unrest in the Middle East. Past U.S. presidents have insisted that the status of Jerusalem - home to sites holy to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions - must be decided in negotiations between the two sides. Palestinian factions called a general strike on Thursday throughout the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Palestinian areas of Jerusalem and for rallies to be held at midday (1000 GMT) in protest at Trump s move, raising the chances of violent clashes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded video message that Trump s decision had made for a  historic day  and was  an important step toward peace .     He added that any peace deal with the Palestinians would have to include Jerusalem as Israel s capital and he urged other countries to follow the U.S. lead by also moving their embassies to the city. He said there would be no change to access to Jerusalem s holy sites.  Israel will always ensure freedom of worship for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.  But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Trump s move was  tantamount to the United States abdicating its role as a peace mediator  and declared Jerusalem as the  eternal capital of the State of Palestine . Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed it, declaring the whole of the city as its capital, a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state which they want to establish in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  With this announcement, the American administration has chosen to violate all international and bilateral agreements and resolutions and it has chosen to violate international consensus,  Abbas said. The move, he said, would serve  the extremist groups which try to turn the conflict in our region into a religious war that will drag the region ... into international conflicts and endless wars.  Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since 2014. Trump s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is leading Trump s efforts to restart them but those efforts have shown little progress. Israel s West Bank settlement building has been one of the main obstacles. Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip, said Trump s move was  flagrant aggression against the Palestinian people  and urged Arabs and Muslims to  undermine the U.S. s interests in the region  and to  shun Israel.

Summary: इजरायल ने ट्रम्प की 'ऐतिहासिक' घोषणा की सराहना की, फिलिस्तीनियों ने की निंदा


EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Scotland s devolved government has recommended that its parliament at Holyrood withhold consent for legislation to withdraw Britain from the European Union, on the grounds that it could water down their powers, a document filed by the Scottish government said on Tuesday. The approval of the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales does not represent a veto to the Brexit process, although it would stretch Britain s constitutional tensions yet further by forcing the UK government of Prime Minister Theresa May to ignore the expressed wish of the devolved bodies. Scotland would work with the Welsh government to propose amendments to the bill which, if agreement were reached, would allow it to recommend its passage in the devolved assemblies, the document said. The bill will end the supremacy of EU law in the UK and convert all existing EU laws into domestic ones.  Along with the Welsh government, the Scottish government cannot recommend to the parliament that it gives consent to the bill as currently drafted,  the document filed with the Scottish parliament said.  The Scottish government is also clear that the result of withdrawal from the EU should not be centralization of power in Whitehall and Westminster. However, that is what the bill proposes.   Scotland s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been arguing that Brexit as proposed flies in the face of the devolution agreement, which up to now has allowed assemblies in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast to legislate on their own domestic policies such as health and education. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to keep EU membership in a June 2016 referendum while England and Wales voted to leave.  It remains a matter of regret to the Scottish government that the UK plans to withdraw from the EU. The government nevertheless accepts that preparations should be made for withdrawal from the EU, including preserving a functioning legal system,  the document said.  The Scottish government s key objections to the bill as introduced relate to the provisions on the competence of the Scottish parliament and government (...) and those on powers for UK and Scottish ministers to alter domestic law,  it said. The Scottish and Welsh governments argue that returning powers now exercised by the EU to the UK government will imply restrictions on the power of Scottish and Welsh chambers. But Britain s Scotland minister, David Mundell, has said that the repeal will ultimately result in a boost in devolved parliamentary power.

Summary: स्कॉटिश सरकार ने यूरोपीय संघ से वापसी विधेयक को अस्वीकार करने की सिफारिश की


BAMAKO (Reuters) - Rival Tuareg groups said on Thursday they had signed a peace deal in northern Mali, raising hopes of an end to years of fighting and broken ceasefires. Senior members of the separatist CMA and their pro-government opponents known as the Platform said they had settled their differences in the arid region, which is still reeling from a 2012 Islamist insurgency. Past deals have fizzled as goodwill faded - though observers said they were optimistic, as the pact had been signed in Bamako on Wednesday night under the watch of the United Nations, government officials and international mediators.  We assure that in future we will respect all the commitments we have made before you and before the international community,  senior Platform official Fahad Ag Almahamoud said on state radio.  CMA official Bilal Ag Cherif echoed the message, saying:  all parties must respect this document in their behavior and their everyday actions .  Rival Tuareg groups have fought over territory and politics for years. More recent clashes have complicated efforts to counter al Qaeda-linked militants who took the north in 2012 before a French-led intervention pushed them back. The peace deal followed a temporary ceasefire agreed last month which allowed the regional governor to return to the city of Kidal.  This seems like a more permanent agreement (following the ceasefire) and could hold for now,  said Andrew Lebovich, of the European Council on Foreign Relations.  It depends on the internal calculations of each group and if people are simply using the agreement to rebuild their forces.

Summary: प्रतिद्वंद्वी तुआरेग ने माली की वर्षों की लड़ाई को समाप्त करने के लिए समझौते पर हस्ताक्षर किए


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma has rejected local news reports that his office has started drafting regulations for a state of emergency, the president s office said on Tuesday. Emergency laws were last deployed in parts of Africa s most industrialized economy in 1985 under former president P.W. Botha, the face of white South Africa as president at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle.   The Presidency rejects the media reports alleging that The Presidency has started composing draft regulations for a state of emergency and that President Jacob Zuma has appointed a team to draw up such regulations,  Zuma s office said in a statement.  The Presidency is not working on regulations for a state of emergency.    Emergency powers have not been used in South Africa since the country s 1994 transition to multi-racial democracy after decades of white apartheid rule. The Rapport newspaper had reported that Zuma had ordered that regulations for a state of emergency be prepared to be part of the State of Emergency Act passed in 1997. The newspaper said the detailed regulations that would outline what should happen during a state of emergency were never passed into law when the main legislation was enacted. It cited documents showing that Zuma had set up a team to make the draft regulations. According to Rapport  the draft regulations would ban anyone from writing  publishing or broadcasting threatening material and give security forces power to use as much force as necessary to restore law and order.

Summary: दक्षिण अफ्रीका के जुमा ने उन रिपोर्टों को खारिज कर दिया कि उनका कार्यालय आपातकालीन कानूनों का मसौदा तैयार कर रहा है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States hopes Arab countries involved in a diplomatic split with Qatar will soon present Doha a list of “reasonable and actionable” demands to move the crisis toward a resolution, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday. Tillerson’s comments came in a short statement a day after the State Department bluntly questioned the motives of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in announcing their boycott of Qatar on June 5, saying it was “mystified” the Gulf states had not released their grievances. It was Washington’s strongest language yet on a dispute that erupted after the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties and transport links to isolate Qatar. The Arab countries accuse Qatar of funding terrorism, fomenting regional instability or cosying up to their enemy Iran. Qatar has denied the accusations. “We understand a list of demands has been prepared and coordinated by the Saudis, Emiratis, Egyptians and Bahrainis,” the Tillerson statement said. “We hope the list ... will soon be presented to Qatar and will be reasonable and actionable.” Tillerson also said the United States backs a Kuwaiti mediation effort aimed at resolving the crisis. Asked about the Qatar issue at a later news conference, Tillerson said the United States wanted to achieve unity among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries so that they can focus on the fight against Islamic State militants across the region. “Our role has been to encourage the parties to get their issues on the table, clearly articulated, so that those issues can be addressed and some resolution process can get under way to bring this to a conclusion,” Tillerson said. Qatar hosts a vital U.S. military base, Al Udeid, to which more than 11,000 U.S. and coalition forces are deployed or assigned and from which more than 100 aircraft operate. U.S. President Donald Trump has taken a tough stance on Qatar, accusing it of being a “high level” sponsor of terrorism, but he has also offered help to the parties in the dispute to resolve their differences.

Summary: तीखी आलोचना के बाद टिलरसन ने खाड़ी देशों की मांगों को कतर को भेजने का आग्रह किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A 20 percent import tax, backed by Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, is unlikely to win enough support from the Senate Finance Committee to be part of any Senate tax reform bill, the panel’s Republican chairman said on Tuesday. The comment by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah is the strongest sign yet of the daunting legislative challenge that lies ahead for the border adjustment tax, or BAT, a controversial House Republican proposal that has already divided the business community and Republicans in Congress. Hatch’s finance committee, which consists of 14 Republicans and 12 Democrats, has oversight authority for tax policy and would need to approve any tax reform legislation considered in the Senate. “It’s going to be tough to pass. I don’t think we can move it through the Finance Committee,” the Utah Republican told reporters after discussing the BAT proposal at a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Hatch said the administration also opposes BAT: “They’re against that ... if I interpret it correctly.” The proposal, which would exempt U.S. export revenues from federal taxation but impose a flat 20 percent tax on imports, is strongly backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady. Neither Ryan’s office nor Brady’s had an immediate comment on Hatch’s remarks. If the House approved BAT but the Senate excluded it from legislation, House Republicans would need to use bicameral negotiations to get it included in final legislation for President Donald Trump’s signature. House Republicans have billed border adjustment as a way to meet Trump’s pledge to create jobs at home while preventing American companies from moving manufacturing jobs and production facilities overseas. But it has divided U.S. business by drawing enthusiastic support from exporters and fierce opposition from import-dependent industries, leaving many Republican lawmakers wary of the proposal. Republican supporters say BAT is needed to pay for steep business tax cuts, citing independent analyses that estimate it would raise more than $1 trillion over a decade. Administration officials have called for financing tax cuts with future economic growth. Some lawmakers have suggested deficit-financed tax cuts instead.        “We have to raise revenue,” Hatch said. “There’s no question about that. And we will. We know where it all is anyway.”

Summary: अमेरिकी सीनेट का वित्त पैनल आयात कर का समर्थन नहीं कर सकताः अध्यक्ष


LONDON (Reuters) - Scotland s independence-minded devolved government said it respected the position of the Catalonian regional government that declared independence from Spain on Friday.  We understand and respect the position of the Catalan Government,  Scottish Cabinet Secretary for External Affairs Fiona Hyslop said in a statement.  While Spain has the right to oppose independence, the people of Catalonia must have the ability to determine their own future,  she said.  Today s Declaration of Independence came about only after repeated calls for dialogue were refused.  She added:  The European Union has a political and moral responsibility to support dialogue to identify how the situation can be resolved peacefully and democratically.

Summary: स्कॉटलैंड की विकेंद्रीकृत सरकार ने कहा कि वह कैटेलोनिया की स्वतंत्रता की स्थिति का सम्मान करती है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jordan’s King Abdullah praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s  commitment to addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said he had hope for the Arab League peace initiative proposed for the region. “The president’s early engagement in bringing the Palestinians and Israelis together has been a very encouraging sign for all of us,” Abdullah said at a White House news conference with the new American president. Abdullah said the Arab League peace initiative “offers a historic reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Summary: अब्दुल्ला ने इज़राइल-फिलिस्तीनी शांति में ट्रम्प की भागीदारी का स्वागत किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is willing to consider a small increase on the corporate tax rate if it is needed to finalize the bill in the U.S. Congress, White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday. Mulvaney made his comments after President Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that the corporate tax rate could end up at 22 percent once the Senate and House of Representatives reconcile or “conference” their respective versions of the legislation, even though both bills currently stand at 20 percent. “My understanding is that the Senate (bill) has a 20 percent rate now. The House has a 20 percent rate now. We’re happy with both of those numbers,” Mulvaney said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If something small happens in conference that gets us across the finish line, we’ll look at it on a case-by-case basis. But I don’t think you’ll see any significant change in our position on the corporate taxes,” Mulvaney said.

Summary: व्हाइट हाउस कॉर्पोरेट कर की दर में छोटे बदलाव के लिए तैयारः बजट प्रमुख मुलवेनी


MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Wednesday it viewed U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent statements on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as anti-Russian and said they were unlikely to improve fragile relations between Russia and the United States. Obama on Tuesday strongly criticized Trump for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and for appearing on a TV channel, RT, funded by the Russian government. “Unfortunately, we see continued displays of often hard-core Russophobia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Obama’s intervention, told a conference call with reporters. “We can only express regret in this regard. “This rhetoric, which is being formulated in electoral campaign style ... is unlikely to help fledgling fragile attempts to build at least some sort of mutual trust.”

Summary: क्रेमलिनः ओबामा की रूस विरोधी आलोचना, बेहतर संबंधों को बढ़ावा नहीं देगी


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chances that the Republican Party will decide its nominee for the November presidential election through a brokered convention have increased since Super Tuesday even as front-runner Donald Trump has racked up primary wins, according to two online betting sites.  According to PredictIt, the probability of a brokered convention stood at 43 percent as of midday on Wednesday, following primaries in five states, including Florida and Illinois, the previous night. That was up from 35 percent on March 2, the day after Trump won contests in seven out of 11 states, according to the website, which is run by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. According to Ladbrokes PLC, another online betting site, the chances of a brokered convention were 4-5 on Wednesday, down from evens on March 2. That means there is a 56 percent probability of a brokered convention, up from 50 percent. Trump’s chances of winning the general election dropped to 5/2 from 2/1 despite his victories on Tuesday night, but Ladbrokes attributed the result partly to a large single bet of nearly $20,000 that skewed the results. That gives him a 29 percent probability of winning, down from 33 percent.  The billionaire New York businessman has emerged as the clear leader in the Republican race. On Tuesday, he scored big wins in primaries in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina, knocking out rival Marco Rubio and bringing him closer to the 1,237 convention delegates he needs to win the nomination. But he lost the crucial state of Ohio and left the door open for those in the party trying to stop him from becoming the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election. That means that Trump might fall short of the majority required, enabling the party’s establishment to put forward another name at the July convention in Cleveland to formally pick its candidate. Meanwhile, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency fell to 4/9 from 8/15. That increases her probability of winning to 69 percent from 65 percent following Tuesday’s primary victories in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina. Those wins cast doubt on U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ ability to overtake her for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Summary: सुपर मंगलवार के बाद से रिपब्लिकन दलाली वाले सम्मेलन की संभावनाः प्रेडिक्ट इट


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday. While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA’s analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named. The position of the ODNI, which oversees the 17 agency-strong U.S. intelligence community, could give Trump fresh ammunition to dispute the CIA assessment, which he rejected as “ridiculous” in weekend remarks, and press his assertion that no evidence implicates Russia in the cyber attacks. Trump’s rejection of the CIA’s judgment marks the latest in a string of disputes over Russia’s international conduct that have erupted between the president-elect and the intelligence community he will soon command. An ODNI spokesman declined to comment on the issue. “ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,” said one of the three U.S. officials. “Of course they can’t, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA’s analysis - a deductive assessment of the available intelligence - for the same reason, the three officials said. The ODNI, headed by James Clapper, was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the recommendation of the commission that investigated the attacks. The commission, which identified major intelligence failures, recommended the office’s creation to improve coordination among U.S. intelligence agencies. In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against American political organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Democratic President Barack Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks. Reports of the assessment by the CIA, which has not publicly disclosed its findings, have prompted congressional leaders to call for an investigation. Obama last week ordered intelligence agencies to review the cyber attacks and foreign intervention in the presidential election and to deliver a report before he turns power over to Trump on Jan. 20. The CIA assessed after the election that the attacks on political organizations were aimed at swaying the vote for Trump because the targeting of Republican organizations diminished toward the end of the summer and focused on Democratic groups, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Friday. Moreover, only materials filched from Democratic groups - such as emails stolen from John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman - were made public via WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, and other outlets, U.S. officials said. The CIA conclusion was a “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the three officials said on Monday. “(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added. Republican Senator John McCain said on Monday there was “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the election. “It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation,” he told Reuters. McCain questioned an assertion made on Sunday by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, tapped by Trump to be his White House chief of staff, that there were no hacks of computers belonging to Republican organizations. “Actually, because Mr. Priebus said that doesn’t mean it’s true,” said McCain. “We need a thorough investigation of it, whether both (Democratic and Republican organizations) were hacked into, what the Russian intentions were. We cannot draw a conclusion yet. That’s why we need a thorough investigation.” In an angry letter sent to ODNI chief Clapper on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top U.S. intelligence official had not informed the panel of the CIA’s analysis and the difference between its judgment and the FBI’s assessment. Noting that Clapper in November testified that intelligence agencies lacked strong evidence linking Russian cyber attacks to the WikiLeaks disclosures, Nunes asked that Clapper, together with CIA and FBI counterparts, brief the panel by Friday on the latest intelligence assessment of Russian hacking during the election campaign.

Summary: एक्सक्लूसिवः शीर्ष अमेरिकी जासूसी एजेंसी ने रूस की हैकिंग पर सी. आई. ए. के मूल्यांकन को स्वीकार नहीं किया है-सूत्र


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Saturday denied that he was leaving his post to be replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Asked if there was any truth to the multiple reports about him this week, Tillerson told Reuters: “None.” “People need to get better sources,” he said in a brief interview at the State Department ahead of a dinner to celebrate the recipients of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors awards. Tillerson said he hoped to be at the same reception a year from now. “I’m going to be here as long as I can be effective and get something done,” he said. “We’re getting a lot done.” Senior administration officials on Thursday said President Donald Trump was mulling a plan to oust the top U.S. diplomat, whose relationship with the president has been strained by Tillerson’s softer line on North Korea and other policy differences. Trump denied the reports on Friday, saying in a tweet that he worked well with Tillerson and that the diplomat was not going anywhere.

Summary: टिलरसन ने कहा कि उन्हें बदले जाने की खबरों में कोई सच्चाई नहीं है


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress could as soon as January start to dismantle President Barack Obama’s transformation of student loan rules by blocking freshly minted regulations designed to help students who say they were defrauded by for-profit colleges. The new measures, which lay out loan relief procedures for the students, were issued by the Department of Education just days before the election. That is recent enough to allow the new Republican-led Congress to disapprove them under a 1996 law called the Congressional Review Act. It gives Congress 60 legislative days to reverse regulations with a simple vote. Republicans opposed the rule when it was proposed. Lamar Alexander, who chairs the Senate committee on education, is considering introducing a resolution that would overturn the so-called “Borrower Defense” rule, according to a spokeswoman.  Even without a legislative reversal, president-elect Donald Trump, who ran on an anti-regulation platform and started his own for-profit school, could instruct agencies to be more restrictive in how they interpret this rule and others aimed at easing student loan burdens. Students who attended the now-defunct Trump University did not qualify for federal loans and are not eligible for loan relief. Trump is facing civil lawsuits alleging fraud related to the school. After he was elected president, the stocks of for-profit education companies rose. The borrower defense rule was inspired by the meltdown of Corinthian Colleges Inc. in 2015, according to Rohit Chopra, who worked on the Corinthian case at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and later moved to the Department of Education as a special adviser. In recent months, ITT Tech. Inc. has also folded, leaving students adrift. By law, students at struggling technical and professional colleges are already allowed relief on federal loans, but the new rule creates a path for getting that relief. Students can make a fraud claim to the Education Department and then apply for a refund of federal money they borrowed and then paid to the school. It is the payment on a fraud complaint - sometimes made in the absence of any actual conviction - that rankles Republicans. They also dislike that the rule leaves students free to file class action suits against the schools, instead of arbitrating all disputes, said Neal McCluskey, who follows higher education at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.  It is not clear how many students - or how much in loans - would be affected by the new rule. The Education Department says it has already approved $250 million in relief to more than 15,000 applications from students who borrowed to attend Corinthian. The projected 10-year federal government expenses associated with the rules total $16 billion.  Congressional disapproval resolutions have failed in the past, because Obama vetoed them. But in 2017, anti-regulation Republicans will control the House, the Senate and the White House, and it takes only a simple majority of both chambers to reverse a rule.  Education Secretary John King defends the rule, saying his department went through a very thorough rule-making process and addressed thousands of comments in the final version of the regulations. “The fact remains that students need some sort of process for student loan discharge in the case of a school closure or fraud,” said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “I’m not sure it’s as easy as simply voiding the entire regulation.” There are other higher education reforms a Trump administration might undo, said Elizabeth Baylor, director for post-secondary education at left-leaning Center for American Progress. Many borrower programs instituted under Obama are at the education secretary’s discretion, and Trump could appoint someone stricter on granting relief. A new secretary could also simply discontinue programs, she said.  In the same vein, Steve Gunderson, president of Career Education Colleges and Universities, says Congress could block the new rule without a resolution, either through an upcoming budget bill or education legislation.

Summary: ओबामा काल की छात्र ऋण राहत को खत्म कर सकती है कांग्रेस


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge rejected a request for a new trial by two former associates of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who were convicted for their roles in the “Bridgegate” lane closure scandal. The decision late Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton clears the way for the two defendants to be sentenced on March 15. Bridget Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff under the Republican governor, and Bill Baroni, the former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were convicted in November of orchestrating the shutdown of access lanes at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013. U.S. prosecutors said the resulting gridlock in Fort Lee, New Jersey, was intended to punish the town’s Democratic mayor for declining to back Christie’s re-election campaign. Christie has not been charged in the case and has denied any knowledge of the plan. But Kelly and another conspirator, former Port Authority official David Wildstein, both testified that Christie was aware of the lane closures before they occurred. Wildstein pleaded guilty and appeared at trial as the government’s star witness. In asking for an acquittal or a new trial, Kelly’s lawyers had argued that Wigenton erred when she instructed jurors that they could convict the defendants even if prosecutors failed to prove they had intentionally targeted the mayor for retribution. The motivation for the scheme, Kelly’s lawyers said, was at the core of the government’s case. But Wigenton said motive, while central to the prosecution, is not a required element of the crimes for which Baroni and Kelly were convicted. “The government was under no obligation to introduce evidence of motive, although motive helps present a coherent narrative of events to a jury,” she wrote. Lawyers for Baroni and Kelly did not immediately respond to requests for comment. They can still ask a U.S. appeals court to overturn the verdict after sentencing has taken place. A spokesman for New Jersey’s chief federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, declined to comment on the ruling. The scandal’s fallout helped sink Christie’s once-promising political career. He was passed over for a position in President Donald Trump’s administration after his own presidential bid sputtered, and he has seen record-low approval ratings in New Jersey.

Summary: पूर्व क्रिस्टी सहयोगियों ने 'ब्रिजगेट' मामले में नए मुकदमे के लिए बोली हारी


UNITED NATIONS/MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia warned on Friday that U.S. cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base could have “extremely serious” consequences, as President Donald Trump’s first major foray into a foreign conflict opened up a rift between Moscow and Washington. The warships USS Porter and USS Ross in the Mediterranean Sea launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat air base, which the Pentagon says was involved in a chemical weapons attack this week. (Graphic locator map on attack - tmsnrt.rs/2nm68H0)  It was Trump’s biggest foreign policy decision since taking office in January and the kind of direct intervention in Syria’s six-year-old civil war his predecessor Barack Obama avoided. The strikes were in reaction to what Washington says was a poison gas attack by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that killed at least 70 people in rebel-held territory. Syria denies it carried out the attack. They catapulted Washington into confrontation with Russia, which has advisers on the ground aiding its close ally Assad. “We strongly condemn the illegitimate actions by the U.S. The consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious,” Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev charged that the U.S. strikes were one step away from clashing with Russia’s military. U.S. officials informed Russian forces ahead of the missile strikes and avoided hitting Russian personnel. (Graphic explaining kind of missile used in attack - tmsnrt.rs/2nkJYWa)           Satellite imagery suggests the base houses Russian special forces and helicopters, part of the Kremlin’s effort to help Assad fight Islamic State and other militant groups.  Trump has frequently urged improved relations with Russia, strained under Obama over Syria, Ukraine and other issues, was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday night when the attack occurred.     Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, in Florida with Trump, said on Friday the United States would announce additional sanctions on Syria in the near future but offered no specifics. Russia’s Defense Ministry responded to the attack by calling in the U.S. military attache in Moscow to say that at midnight Moscow time (5 p.m. EDT) it would close down a communications line used to avoid accidental clashes between Russian and U.S. forces in Syria, Interfax new agency said. U.S. warplanes frequently attack Islamic State militants in Syria and come close to Russian forces. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Friday the Trump administration was ready to take further steps if needed. “We are prepared to do more, but we hope that will not be necessary,” she told the U.N. Security Council. “The United States will not stand by when chemical weapons are used. It is in our vital national security interest to prevent the spread and use of chemical weapons.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also was in Florida with Trump and is scheduled to go to Moscow next week, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the Russian reaction because it showed continued support for Assad. Iran, which supports Assad and has been criticized by Trump, condemned the strike, with President Hassan Rouhani saying it would bring “only destruction and danger to the region and the globe.” U.S. officials called the intervention a “one-off” intended to deter future chemical weapons attacks and not an expansion of the U.S. role in the Syrian war.  U.S. allies from Asia, Europe and the Middle East expressed support for the attack, if sometimes cautiously. The action is likely to be interpreted as a signal to Russia, and countries such as North Korea, China and Iran where Trump has faced foreign policy tests early in his presidency, of his willingness to use force. The United States is now likely to be more aggressive in pursuing intelligence about Syria’s suspected chemical weapons program. The Pentagon has also signaled interest in determining any Russian complicity. “At a minimum, the Russians failed to rein in the Syrian regime activity,” a senior U.S. military official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official also said the United States had been unable to determine if a Russian or Syrian aircraft bombed a hospital that was treating victims of the chemical attack. Russia joined the war on Assad’s behalf in 2015, turning the momentum in his favor. Although Moscow supports opposing sides in the war between Assad and rebels, the United States and Russia say they share a single main enemy, Islamic State. Tillerson said the strike took out about 20 percent of the seventh wing of the Syrian air force and hit a fueling facility. The base’s runway was still in use. Assad’s office said Syria would strike its enemies harder. Damascus and Moscow denied Syrian forces were behind the gas attack but Western countries dismissed their explanation that chemicals leaked from a rebel weapons depot after an air strike. The Syrian army said the U.S. attack killed six people and called it “blatant aggression” that made the United States a partner of “terrorist groups” including Islamic State. There was no independent confirmation of civilian casualties. U.S. lawmakers from both parties on Friday backed Trump’s action but demanded he spell out a broader strategy for dealing with the conflict and consult with Congress on any further action. The U.N. Security Council had been negotiating a resolution, proposed by the United States, France and Britain on Tuesday, to condemn the gas attack and push the Syrian government to cooperate with international investigators. Russia said the text was unacceptable and diplomats said it was unlikely to be put to a vote. Russia expects Tillerson to explain Washington’s stance when he visits Moscow next week, Interfax news agency cited a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman as saying. Washington has long backed rebels fighting Assad in a multi-sided civil war that has killed more than 400,000 people and driven half of Syrians from their homes since 2011. The United States has conducted air strikes against Islamic State, which controls territory in eastern and northern Syria, and a small number of U.S. troops are helping rebel militias. Asked whether the strikes set back any efforts to work with Russia to defeat Islamic State, sometimes known as ISIS, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said: “There can be a shared commitment to defeat ISIS and also agree that you can’t gas your own people.” Tuesday's attack was the first time since 2013 that Syria was accused of using sarin, a banned nerve agent it was meant to have given up under a Russian-brokered, U.N.-enforced deal that persuaded Obama to call off air strikes four years ago. (Chart of cumulated reported deaths from chemical gases in Syria - tmsnrt.rs/2o5Xbz6)  Video depicted limp bodies and children choking while rescuers tried to wash off the poison gas. Russian state television blamed rebels and did not show footage of victims.                     The U.S. strikes cheered Assad’s enemies, after months when Western powers appeared to grow increasingly resigned to his staying in power. But opposition figures said an isolated assault was far from the decisive intervention they seek. Neither the Trump administration nor its predecessor has laid out a policy aimed at ending the Syrian conflict.

Summary: रूस ने सीरिया में अमेरिकी हमले के गंभीर परिणाम भुगतने की चेतावनी दी


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Last August, Bernie Sanders sat on a Craigslist-bought beige couch in his Washington office plotting to steal the social media spotlight from 10 Republicans taking the stage for the first televised debate of the 2016 presidential campaign.     Next to the Democratic presidential candidate, 74, sat 27-year-old Hector Sigala, his digital media director. For the next two hours, Sigala turned Sanders’ sometimes acerbic, sometimes funny running commentary into a stream of 140-character tweets using the hashtag #DebateWithBernie that stole the show - at least on Twitter.  Some 17 million people were reached during the debate, according to the campaign’s Twitter data reviewed by Reuters. It was the first in a string of Twitter wins by Sanders during a presidential contest widely viewed as a coming-of-age moment for social media in national politics. Sanders didn’t even stop when the debate was interrupted by commercials. When an ad for a new Tom Hanks film appeared, he tweeted: “Tom Hanks. Finally. Somebody who makes some sense.”  Eight months later, Sigala is a key lieutenant in the Sanders campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, one of a new breed of digital media specialists who have become indispensable in an election where platforms like Twitter allow candidates to communicate with supporters easily, bash opponents or swiftly counter-attack. Sigala goes everywhere – on dates, to parties and to restaurants – with his black backpack and MacBook laptop just in case something tweet-worthy breaks. He was driving his cousin to the airport last Wednesday when Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, said women who end pregnancies should be punished if the United States bans abortion, comments that were widely condemned. Sigala pulled the car over and tweeted: “Your Republican frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. Shameful.” Sanders has close to 2 million followers on his Twitter campaign account and has tweeted nearly 8,000 times. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, has tweeted less, 5,000 times, but she has nearly 6 million followers.  Sanders, however, has an edge because his tweets are much more personalized than Clinton’s, say some social media strategy experts. “He’s been able to really resonate with (different groups) and connect with them on a level that many other candidates have not been able to do,” said marketing consultant and social media strategy specialist Dr. Kay Green. While Twitter could not provide data directly comparing the 2016 and 2012 presidential races, a spokesman said tweets about the Democrat and Republican primary debates held so far have been viewed 9 billion times. On Facebook, the number of interactions (likes, posts, comments and shares) related to the 2016 election is up exponentially. Facebook users engaged in 411.5 million interactions on average in January and February, up nearly threefold from the nearly 142 million per month average for all of 2015.  “The most obvious difference in the social conversations around the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections is, simply put, size,” said Kellan Terry, an analyst with Brandwatch, a company that tracks and analyzes data from social media sites. “The volume of social mentions around this year’s presidential election is massive.”  Sigala and Sanders met in 2012 when he interned in Sanders’ Senate office in Vermont. Sanders, he says, bonded with him during a stroll down Church Street in Burlington, discussing a topic only Internet nerds could love: net neutrality.      Now, he manages both Sanders’ and his wife Jane’s social media accounts. In practice that means he is the person tweeting comments attributed to Sanders. On Twitter, “I am Bernie Sanders,” Sigala joked. Twitter tends to attract more millennials, who have largely backed the Brooklyn-born Vermont senator. The tweets and posts that get the best reaction are those that appear to be directly from Sanders’ mouth.      “He used to come up with a lot of quips himself,” Sigala said of Sanders, but the rigors of the 2016 campaign schedule mean Sigala is now often the one doing the tweeting.     Tweets about Sanders’ bread-and-butter issues like climate change, healthcare, race and gender typically roll off Sigala’s fingertips in a tone and style that would be hard to distinguish from the senator’s.  Take, for example, a tweet from Sanders’ Twitter handle on March 18 in response to a debate over student tuition that was posted by Sigala in the first person:  “Every public college and university in this country should be tuition-free. I know my opponent thinks it’s a radical idea, I don’t,” it said, taking a dig at Clinton.     But some news events require Sanders’ sign-off. On the day of the Brussels bomb attacks, in which 32 people were killed, Sigala had to wait hours before getting the go-ahead from a busy Sanders to post a condolence message. On a recent afternoon, Sigala was sitting in a Washington office posting messages to various social media sites while a college basketball game played on a nearby TV. When he isn’t live-tweeting or reacting to breaking news, he’s referring to a Microsoft Word document that contains 54 pages of prepared tweets on a list of issues.  When he took over the @BernieSanders Twitter account last May it had 50,000 followers. He would check it obsessively each day to see how many new followers it had attracted.  Now, with nearly 2 million followers, Sigala is less focused on the numbers and more interested in figuring out which tweets perform best. For example, he has discovered through trial and error that a tweet reading “We have got to” do something will do significantly worse than a tweet reading “We gotta.” “That’s because it sounds like Brooklyn Bernie,” Sigala said with a laugh.

Summary: बर्नी सैंडर्स का भूत ट्वीटर अपना ब्रुकलिन उच्चारण रखता है


TOKYO (Reuters) - The U.N. refugee agency has urged Japan to resettle more asylum seekers, its chief said on Monday, pressuring the country to  help solve a global crisis after giving refugee status to just three people in the first half of the year. Japan is one of the developed world s least welcoming countries for asylum seekers. It accepted 28 in 2016, despite applications from a record 10,091 people. It has since 2008 given home to limited numbers of refugees through a so-called third-country resettlement scheme, resettling a total of 152 people - mostly ethnic Karen people from Myanmar living in Thai and Malaysian camps.  That program is very small, about 20-30 refugees a year,  U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a news conference in Tokyo.  I have asked the government to consider whether it could be expanded.  Japan s reluctance to accept refugees mirrors a wider caution towards immigration in a nation where many pride themselves on cultural and ethnic homogeneity.  Its record at home has drawn sharp criticism from international human rights groups, and has been at odds with its traditional status as a major international donor on refugees.  But Japan s donations to the UNHCR have slipped: in the year to Oct. 2, it was the fourth-largest donor, giving $152 million, compared to the second-largest four years ago.      Contributions from the government to the UNHCR have been declining a little bit every year since 2013,  Grandi said.  What I asked the government to consider is that the needs of refugees and displaced people are increasing.  More than 2 million people fleeing wars or persecution have joined the ranks of the world s refugees this year. At the end of last year, the latest figure available, 17.2 million refugees fell under the UNHCR s mandate. Japan says that many people claim asylum in Japan to find work, encouraged by access to renewable work permits for people applying for refugee status. It officially rejects unskilled migrant workers, even as a fast-shrinking and ageing population blunts the potency of government efforts to rouse the economy from over two decades of sluggish growth and deflation. The Justice Ministry, which oversees refugee recognition, is weighing steps including restrictions on work permits for asylum seekers to curb what it deems  abusive  applications.

Summary: संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने पहली छमाही में सिर्फ तीन शरणार्थियों को लेने के बाद जापान से और शरणार्थियों को फिर से बसाने का आग्रह किया


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pete Domenici, a former minor league baseball pitcher who became a major league power player in the U.S. Senate on energy and budget issues and New Mexico’s longest-serving senator, died on Wednesday in Albuquerque at age 85. Domenici, a Republican, served as chairman of the Budget Committee and Energy and Natural Resources Committee during his 36 years in the Senate before deciding not to seek re-election in 2008 due to a degenerative brain disease. Brandi Sanchez, a spokeswoman for his son’s law firm in Albuquerque, confirmed the death of the former senator. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote on Twitter that the Senate was saddened to learn of “the passing of our friend Senator Pete Domenici.”       Domenici, the son of Italian immigrants, was a key player in a 1997 balanced budget measure negotiated with Democratic President Bill Clinton and was a prominent supporter of nuclear energy. He also fought for greater health insurance coverage for people with mental illness. His daughter Clare, one of his eight children with wife Nancy, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Domenici was instrumental in the Senate in securing Republican President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts, Republican President George H.W. Bush’s 1990 tax hikes and the 1997 budget deal reached between Clinton and Republicans. He was considered a leading “deficit hawk.” Domenici was a pragmatic conservative Republican who was able to work with Senate Democrats like Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. “My success as a senator has come only through working together with my Senate colleagues from all parties - they know that and I know that,” he said in 2007. That success came after friends urged Domenici not to go into politics to spare him from personal attacks. “Obviously, I didn’t listen to them,” he said. “And I’m glad I didn’t. I have found politics to not be as harsh as my friends predicted. For the most part, it’s been just the opposite.” Domenici was not in good health in his final years in the Senate. In October 2007, at age 75, he announced his decision not to seek a seventh six-year term in the Senate the following year due to progression of the incurable brain disorder called frontotemporal lobar degeneration. In February 2013, Domenici at age 80 acknowledged he had fathered a child out of wedlock in the 1970s with the daughter of Paul Laxalt, who at the time was one of his colleagues in the Senate. Domenici and Michelle Laxalt, who was 24 at the time, made the admission because they said they feared the information would be made public to try to smear Domenici’s reputation. She became an influential Washington lobbyist. Domenici was born in 1932 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1954 and then pitched for the Albuquerque Dukes, a minor league club for the Brooklyn Dodgers. “If he had a better curveball, he probably never would have been in the Senate,” Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman and Domenici aide, told USA Today in 2007. After baseball, Domenici became a math teacher, lawyer and Albuquerque city commissioner before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, becoming New Mexico’s first Republican senator in 38 years. He was a powerful advocate for his state in Congress and helped steer money to U.S. Energy Department nuclear facilities such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory. George H.W. Bush considered making Domenici his vice presidential running mate in 1988 before choosing Dan Quayle, a less prominent senator. Near the end of his political career, the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Domenici in April 2008 for creating “an appearance of impropriety that reflected unfavorably upon the Senate” when he telephoned the top federal prosecutor in New Mexico to ask if an indictment in a politically sensitive corruption case would come before the November 2006 elections.

Summary: पूर्व अमेरिकी सीनेटर पीट डोमेनिसी, बजट, ऊर्जा के मुद्दों पर दिग्गज, का निधन हो गया


JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) - At least 61 people died when the most powerful earthquake to hit Mexico in over eight decades tore through buildings and forced mass evacuations in the poor southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, triggering alerts as far away as Southeast Asia. The 8.1 magnitude quake off the southern coast late Thursday was stronger than a devastating 1985 temblor that flattened swathes of Mexico City and killed thousands. The tremor rattled Mexico City and shook Guatemala and El Salvador, but the Oaxacan town of Juchitan bore the brunt of the disaster, with sections of the town hall, a hotel, a church, a bar and other buildings reduced to rubble. Dalia Vasquez, a 55-year old cook, said she watched emergency workers haul the bodies of her elderly neighbor and her middle-aged son from their collapsed home.  Her own house was badly damaged. Frightened by the possibility of aftershocks, she planned to sleep with dozens more in the streets and parks.  We have nothing now. We don t have any savings,  she said. President Enrique Pena Nieto flew to the battered town to oversee rescue efforts. The town s mayor, Gloria Sanchez, called it  the most terrible moment  in Juchitan s history.   Facades of shattered buildings, fallen tiles and broken glass from shop fronts and banks littered the pavements of Juchitan while heavily armed soldiers patrolled and stood guard at areas cordoned off due to the extent of the damage. Startled residents stepped through the rubble of about 100 wrecked buildings, including houses, a flattened Volkswagen dealership and Juchitan s shattered town hall. Scores paced the terrain or sat outside warily, mindful of the frequent aftershocks and reliving the night s terror.   It was brutal, brutal. It was like a monster, like a train was passing over our roofs,  said Jesus Mendoza, 53, as he milled about in a park across from the damaged town hall.  Alma Rosa, sitting in vigil with a relative by the body of a loved one draped in a red shroud, said:  We went to buy a coffin, but there aren t any because there are so many bodies.  All the deaths were in three neighboring states clustered near the epicenter that lay about 70 km (40 miles) off the coast. At least 45 people died in Oaxaca, many of them in Juchitan, while in Chiapas the count reached 12 and in Tabasco four people lost their lives, according to federal and state officials. In Chiapas, home to many of Mexico s indigenous ethnic groups, thousands of people in coastal areas were evacuated as a precaution when the quake sparked tsunami warnings, but only two-foot waves were produced by the quake. State oil company Pemex said there was no structural damage to it s 330,000 barrel-per-day Salina Cruz refinery, which it had shut down as a precaution, but it said it was checking problems in the electrical system before restarting the plant. At least 250 people in Oaxaca were also injured, according to agriculture minister Jose Calzada. Classes were suspended in much of central and southern Mexico on Friday to allow authorities to assess the impact. Dozens of schools were damaged, officials said. People ran into the streets in Mexico City, one of the world s largest metropolises and home to more than 20 million, and alarms sounded after the quake struck just before midnight. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake s epicenter was 54 miles (87 km) southwest of the town of Pijijiapan at a depth of 43 miles (69 km). John Bellini, a geophysicist at the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, said it was the strongest quake since an 8.1 temblor struck the western state of Jalisco in 1932. Across the Pacific, both the Philippines and New Zealand were on alert for possible tsunamis. Windows were shattered at Mexico City airport and power went out in several neighborhoods of the capital, affecting more than 1 million people. The cornice of a hotel came down in the southern tourist city of Oaxaca, a witness said. Mexico City is built on a spongy, drained lake bed that amplifies earthquakes along the volcanic country s multiple seismic fault lines. The 1985 earthquake was just inland, about 230 miles from Mexico City, while Thursday s was 470 miles away.  Authorities reported dozens of aftershocks, and President Pena Nieto said the quake was felt by around 50 million of Mexico s roughly 120 million population. Mexico is evaluating whether the quake will trigger a payout from a World Bank-backed catastrophe bond, Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said on Friday. Meade said the bond s coverage could reach $150 million, depending on magnitude and location. But he said Mexico has sufficient funds to pay for a cleanup whether the bond was triggered or not.

Summary: मेक्सिको के 85 वर्षों में सबसे शक्तिशाली भूकंप ने गरीब दक्षिण में दर्जनों लोगों की जान ले ली