House passes GOP tax bill, upping pressure on struggling Senate effort
House Republicans on Thursday passed legislation that would overhaul the U.S. tax code, a crucial step forward in their effort to enact the centerpiece of President Trump’s economic agenda.
The bill passed with 227 votes in favor and 205 against, a comfortable margin in the divided chamber. Thirteen Republicans voted against the bill, while no Democrats voted for it. […]
Congress’s nonpartisan tax analysts dealt the Senate an additional setback Thursday when they concluded the bill would, by the end of a decade, raise the average tax burden for households making less than $75,000 a year. Much of the hit to poor and working-class Americans would stem from the changes to the health-care law, as many would no longer get subsidies to help them afford health insurance because they would give up on buying it altogether, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner received and forwarded emails about WikiLeaks and a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” that he kept from Senate Judiciary Committee investigators, according to panel leaders demanding that he produce the missing records.
Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell on Thursday charging that Kushner has failed to disclose several documents, records and transcripts in response to multiple inquiries from committee investigators.
Republican efforts to force Roy Moore out of Alabama’s Senate race appeared to fizzle on Thursday, as the state party reaffirmed its commitment to the embattled nominee.
“The ALGOP Steering Committee supports Judge Roy Moore as our nominee and trusts the voters as they make the ultimate decision in this crucial race,” said state party chair Terry Lathan in a statement. “Judge Moore has vehemently denied the allegations made against him. He deserves to be presumed innocent of the accusations unless proven otherwise. He will continue to take his case straight to the people of Alabama.”
Latham and the rest of the 21-member steering committee had met Wednesday evening for nearly three hours, leaving their room at an Embassy Suites in Hoover, Ala., without saying anything to reporters. The committee, in theory, had the power to denounce Moore and invalidate any votes cast for him in the Dec. 12 election, a dramatic move that some Republicans had hoped would allow them to support a write-in candidate.
StarTribune
Franken Apologizes After Accused of Groping
U.S. Sen. Al Franken is facing an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee after a Los Angeles radio host revealed on Thursday that Franken kissed and groped her against her will in 2006.
The Minnesota Democrat did not deny the account by Leeann Tweeden that he kissed her without consent while they were rehearsing a comedy skit during a 2006 USO tour of the Middle East and Afghanistan, about two years before Franken was elected to the U.S. Senate. She also posted a photograph — which she learned about after the fact — of a grinning Franken, his hands reaching at her breasts as she slept. [...]
The unwelcome kiss was part of a skit Franken had scripted for the USO visit. Under what Tweeden described as pressure from Franken to rehearse the bit, she wrote that he "mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth."
The Hill
Roger Stone appeared to know Franken allegation was coming
Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone appeared to know there were sexual misconduct allegations involving Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) hours before they became public.
Stone has been banned from Twitter, but at 1 a.m. on Thursday morning an account connected to him tweeted a quote from the Republican political operative.
"Roger Stone says it's Al Franken's 'time in the barrel'. Franken next in long list of Democrats to be accused of 'grabby' behavior," read the tweet from Enter the Stone Zone.
Senate bill includes tax break on private jets
The latest version of the Senate Republican tax reform bill includes a break for companies that manage private jets.
A measure in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would lower taxes on some of the payments made by owners of private aircraft to management companies that help maintain, store and staff those planes for owners.
The language would exempt owners or leasers of private aircraft from paying taxes on certain costs related to the upkeep and maintenance of the jets, according to a description from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Gizmodo
Who delivers Amazon orders? Increasingly, it’s plainclothes contractors with few labor protections, driving their own cars, competing for shifts on the company’s own Uber-like platform. Though it’s deployed in dozens of cities and associated with one of the world’s biggest companies, government agencies and customers alike are nearly oblivious to the program’s existence.
In terms of size, efficiency, and ruthlessness, Amazon has few equals… Atop its vast empire, CEO Jeff Bezos commands the single largest personal fortune on the planet. Estimates place Amazon as the recipient of approximately one third of all dollars spent online… It’s a new kind of company, the likes of which the American economy has never before seen and is legislatively ill-prepared for.
Ingenuity alone doesn’t account for Amazon’s dominant position. The company’s Economic Development Team works hard to secure state and local subsidies, which research from watchdog group Good Jobs First indicates surpasses $1 billion, a figure which the advocacy group’s executive director, Greg LeRoy, freely admitted to Gizmodo is far from comprehensive. Infrastructure in the company’s home base of Seattle has strained to keep pace with Amazon’s meteoric growth, and the city has experienced massive increases housing costs. While North America’s metro areas—including Seattle—scramble to offer attractive incentives to host Bezos’s second headquarters, research indicates that when Amazon comes to town, it might be killing more jobs than it creates.
The majority of consumers, however, either don’t know or don’t care. Strip Amazon to its most familiar elements, and it’s a devilishly simple everything-store with limitless stuff-supply. You buy it. It shows up. Fast.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Driverless vehicle lanes on I-94 being studied for Foxconn
Spurred by Foxconn Technology Group and its plans for a mega-factory in Racine County, state highway planners are studying the possibility of including special lanes for driverless vehicles on I-94. […]
Word of the possible development here emerged Monday from Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, as he spoke at a meeting of the Greater Milwaukee Committee on the challenges the region faces in preparing for Foxconn.
Among those challenges are increased traffic and the problem of getting huge numbers of workers — Foxconn says it will employ as many as 13,000 — to a semi-rural area 8 miles west of downtown Racine and more than 20 miles from downtown Milwaukee.
NPR
Keystone Pipeline Oil Spill Reported In South Dakota
TransCanada, the company that owns and operates the Keystone Pipeline, says that an estimated 210,000 gallons, or 5,000 barrels, of oil have spilled near the small town of Amherst, S.D.
The cause of the leak is under investigation, according to the company's website. TransCanada crews detected a drop in pressure at about 6 a.m. CT Thursday morning and shut down the pipeline, which runs from Hardesty, Alberta, to Cushing, Okla., and Wood River/Patoka, Ill.
Amherst is about 200 miles north of Sioux Falls, S.D., and about 25 miles from the state's border with North Dakota.
Native American Students Fight Discrimination By Celebrating Their Heritage
[…] A new survey found that nationwide, three-quarters of Native Americans believe there is discrimination against their group today. The poll is a collaboration between NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The members of the Massena Central High School Mohawk Club are trying to fight that discrimination by sharing their history, culture and food with their classmates.
After Tokyo Commuter Train Leaves 20 Seconds Early, Company Apologizes
Passengers on a morning train on the Tokyo region's Tsukuba Express line might not have noticed anything was amiss Tuesday. But when their train left Minami-Nagareyama station, it did so 20 seconds ahead of schedule — and when the company noticed, it issued an apology to customers.
The train was traveling northbound on the line that connects Tokyo's Akihabara station with Tsukuba to the northeast — a trip that takes less than an hour. After passengers had boarded, the crew didn't check the time, resulting in the slightly early departure "around" 9:44 a.m., the company said.
The train had arrived at the station on time, at 40 seconds past 9:43 a.m. It was supposed to leave one minute later, at 9:44:40 — but instead, it left at 9:44:20.
"We deeply apologize for the severe inconvenience imposed upon our customers," the Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company said, in a translation by Sora News 24.
The Guardian
Lions next in line of fire as US rolls back curbs on African hunting trophies
Hunting interests have scored a major victory with the Trump administration’s decision to allow Americans to bring home body parts of elephants shot for sport in Africa. Another totemic species now looks set to follow suit – lions.
As the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) was announcing it was lifting a ban on the import of elephant “trophies” from Zimbabwe and Zambia, it also quietly published new guidelines that showed lions shot in the two African countries will also be eligible to adorn American homes.
“This all suggests that rather than being the protectors of wildlife, the federal government is now a promoter of trophy hunting,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States.
Respect for human rights can prevent 'vicious cycle' of terrorism, says UN chief
The world faces an unprecedented terrorist threat which finds its best breeding ground in countries that suppress human rights, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said in a major speech designed to put countering terrorism at the heart of the UN’s agenda.
Speaking in the UK at Soas University of London, Guterres argued that upholding human rights and the rule of law was the safest way to prevent “a vicious circle of instability and resentment”.
“Societies based on respect for human rights and with economic opportunities for all represent the most tangible and meaningful alternative to the recruitment strategies of terrorist groups,” he said.
Jacinda Ardern to Donald Trump: 'No one marched when I was elected'
New Zealand’s new prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has described how she joked with Donald Trump when they first met, telling the US president “no one marched when I was elected”. […]
“I was waiting to walk out to be introduced at the east Asia summit gala dinner, where we all paraded and while we were waiting, Trump, in jest, patted the person next to him on the shoulder, pointed at me and said, ‘This lady caused a lot of upset in her country,’ talking about the election.” Ardern told Newsroom.
“I said, ‘Well, you know, only maybe 40%,’ then he said it again and I said, ‘You know,’ laughing, ‘no one marched when I was elected’.”
Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the web: 'The system is failing'
Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s optimism about the future of the web is starting to wane in the face of a “nasty storm” of issues including the rollback of net neutrality protections, the proliferation of fake news, propaganda and the web’s increasing polarisation. […]
“The system is failing. The way ad revenue works with clickbait is not fulfilling the goal of helping humanity promote truth and democracy. So I am concerned,” said Berners-Lee, who in March called for the regulation of online political advertising to prevent it from being used in “unethical ways”.
'Apu was a tool for kids to go after you': why The Simpsons remains problematic
he words “thank you, come again” have haunted Hari Kondabolu, the Queens-born standup comic, for 28 years, he tells us at the beginning of his new documentary. Why? Because that’s the catchphrase uttered repeatedly by a certain cartoon store clerk, The Simpsons’ Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, a beloved recurring character who was more or less a noxious pastiche of south Asian stereotypes.
Voiced by the white actor Hank Azaria, Apu is an unlikely subject for a documentary, having appeared in less than one-third of the show’s 623 episodes. But he’s also an appropriate case study into issues of representation, especially for a film that’s as much about The Simpsons as it is Kondabolu’s attempt to unpack – per the documentary’s title – The Problem with Apu.
CNN
Homeland Security's head of community outreach resigns over past controversial comments on black community, Islam
Rev. Jamie Johnson resigned Thursday as the head of faith-based and neighborhood partnerships at the Department of Homeland Security after a CNN KFile report revealed inflammatory past comments he made about the black community and Islam.
In past radio appearances, Johnson had said the black community was responsible for turning major US cities into "slums" and argued that Islam's only contribution to society was "oil and dead bodies."
Deutsche Welle
Zimbabwe crisis: Uncertainty reigns over Mugabe future
President Robert Mugabe is refusing to resign, news agencies have reported citing unnamed sources from Zimbabwe. South African ministers have arrived in Harare to mediate between the president and the army.
A delegation from South Africa was in Harare Thursday to discuss a resolution to the upheaval in Zimbabwe linked with President Robert Mugabe.
The crisis surrounding the 93-year-old president came to a head when the army seized control of the country on Wednesday. Mugabe was put under house arrest in his compound in Harare, with the country's army taking over state television and blocking key roads. On Thursday, however, state-run television showed the president meeting with military Commmander Constantino Chiweng at the State House, where he apparently also met with the South African envoys. The report said the talks on resolving the crisis were ongoing.
Russia vetoes UN resolution on chemical weapons probe in Syria
The US and Russia clashed in the UN Security Council on Thursday, with the latest contentious vote marking the 10th time Moscow has used its veto power to block a motion on Syria since the civil war began in 2011.
Russia rejected a US-drafted motion to extend the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), the international inquiry focusing on the use of chemical weapons in Syria. China, also a veto power, abstained from the vote. The move comes just hours before the previous mandate is set to expire.
Commenting on the US' initiative, Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the proposal was not balanced and would help entrench "the inherent flaws of the JIM," which had been established with Russian backing in 2015.
LA Times
His constant gunfire terrorized neighbors. But authorities could not prevent gunman's rampage
The screaming and gunfire coming from Kevin Neal’s blue mobile home last week was so disturbing that Jayne Barnes-Vinson called the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office to complain.
“I heard a man and a woman screaming, like fighting, and the man was shooting off rounds like an automatic gun. So I was scared,” Barnes-Vinson said.
Deputies arrived, she said, but told her they could not pinpoint the source of the gunfire.
Neal’s penchant for firing off guns and threatening neighbors was well-known in this rural corner of Northern California even though he was barred from having any guns in his possession.
USA Today
China Says U.S. Concessions Needed To Defuse North Korea Crisis
China’s proposal for the United States to offer concessions to North Korea in return for a freeze on its nuclear weapons program probably won’t halt the North’s already advanced program but it might be the best way to lessen tensions, analysts say.
“It has lost a lot of value now that North Korea has tested weapons and missiles,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. "It's more about just reducing tensions." […]
China said Thursday it is standing by its proposal, which calls for the U.S. to suspend its large military exercises with South Korea in the region in return for an agreement by North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons program.
Foreign Backpackers in Australia Enslaved by Farmers
The popular program is promoted as a cultural exchange: Young and adventurous travelers can experience Australia's wild outback, while farmers gain much needed agricultural labor.
In reality, the 88-day working holiday has turned into a living nightmare for thousands of backpackers being exploited and abused by unscrupulous farmers.
Many find themselves in debt, forced to pay rent for weeks at hostels while waiting for work that never arrives. Others are injured or fear for their lives, forced to operate dangerous machinery without training. Many report underpayment. Some report sexual assault. And accommodations are often appalling.
Massive Antarctic iceberg the size of Delaware slowly on the move as scientists get up-close view
Researchers finally getting an up-close view of the mammoth iceberg that sheared off an Antarctica ice shelf earlier this year aren't having to look far — the 1-trillion ton chunk of ice hasn't moved much.
The massive iceberg the size of Delaware has only moved about 15 miles at its southern edge, while its northern edge remains much closer to the Larsen C ice shelf it departed in July.
As Antarctica nears summer, shedding its months of darkness, scientists have finally been able to see the iceberg, named A-68, in person. Stubbornly thick sea ice has blocked it from potentially traveling farther out to sea.
Reuters
U.S. regulator votes to loosen media ownership rules
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to remove key roadblocks to increased consolidation among media companies, potentially unleashing new deals among TV, radio and newspaper owners as they seek to better compete with online media.
The Republican-led FCC voted 3-2 to eliminate the 42-year-old ban on cross-ownership of a newspaper and TV station in a major market. It also voted to make it easier for media companies to buy additional TV stations in the same market, and for local stations to jointly sell advertising time and for companies to buy additional radio stations in some markets.
McCain warns Trump over staffing Pentagon with industry insiders
Senator John McCain warned President Donald Trump on Thursday against nominating any more defense industry insiders to top Pentagon posts, as his committee questioned an executive from Lockheed Martin Corp about potential conflicts of interest. […]
McCain, chairman of the Senate’s armed services committee, said he was troubled by the number of Defense Department nominees drawn from the defense industry. He said he would oppose any more such nominations after John Rood, Trump’s pick for the Pentagon’s No. 3 job, who appeared before the committee on Thursday.
Bloomberg
Mueller Subpoenaed Trump Campaign for More Documents
Special Counsel Robert Mueller served U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign a subpoena in mid-October, according to two people familiar with the matter, in the latest sign that his criminal investigation is aggressively pursuing links between campaign officials and Russia.
The subpoena to more than a dozen campaign officials sought documents related to any contacts they had with Russian operatives, according to one of the people who requested anonymity to speak about sensitive investigative matters.
One of the people described the subpoena as relatively routine and an effort by Mueller to ensure his investigators have access to all the materials they have previously sought. Mueller requested some new supplemental materials but the subpoena doesn’t represent opening a new line of investigation, this person said.
Puerto Rico Economists See Bleak Picture of Island's Future
Puerto Rican economists are predicting a bleak future for the storm-ravaged island.
At a panel discussion in San Juan convened Thursday by the territory’s federal oversight board, economist Jose Villamil said the population could decline to less than 3 million by 2026, a drop of more than 400,000 from the most recent count. Another, Juan Lara, said the economy could contract by as much as 15 percent in the fiscal year that ends in June, depending on how long it takes to restore power throughout the island. A third said a conservative estimate of the storm damage is $115 billion -- a sum equal to more than a year’s economic output.
"The board, Congress and local government authorities need to address a more realistic estimate of damages," said economist Heidie Calero, the president of a local consulting firm, who presented the damage number. "Business as usual will not, I repeat will not, come back quickly."