The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to start the process of eliminating net neutrality rules and the classification of home and mobile Internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposes eliminating the Title II classification and seeks comment on what, if anything, should replace the current net neutrality rules. But Chairman Ajit Pai is making no promises about reinstating the two-year-old net neutrality rules that forbid ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet content or prioritizing content in exchange for payment. Pai's proposal argues that throttling websites and applications might somehow help Internet users. […]
The net neutrality rules were approved in February 2015 when Republicans were in the commission's minority. Today, Pai and fellow Republican Michael O'Rielly voted in favor of the plan to eliminate the rules while Democrat Mignon Clyburn voted to preserve them.
A single mutation may explain why Zika suddenly erupted from obscurity to become the alarming re-emerging infectious disease it is today, researchers report in Nature.
According to researchers from Texas and China, the mutation boosts Zika’s ability to hop into feasting mosquitoes that can then shuttle the virus to more victims. Based on archived viral strains, the mutation popped up sometime between the virus’ low-profile outbreaks in Southeastern Asia (which took place in 2007 and 2012) and Zika’s explosive emergence in the Americas beginning in 2015.
“Our data offer a potential explanation for the recent re-emergence of ZIKV [Zika virus],” the authors conclude. And, they go on, the findings suggest that co-evolution between a virus and its vector—mosquitoes, in this case—is just as important for outbreak risk as co-evolution with its hosts—us.
The Washington Post
Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein told the full Senate he knew that former Director James B. Comey would be fired before he wrote his controversial memo that the White House initially used as justification for President Trump firing the FBI director.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said that Rosenstein told the senators that he knew on Monday, the day before Comey was fired, that Trump was going to fire him. He also told them that he was not pressured into writing his memo.
“He learned the president’s decision to fire him and then he wrote his memo with his rationale,” Durbin said.
Pence has hardly been immune from Trump's foibles and from saying untrue things about them. And now twice in the past week, his defenses of the White House he serves in have been pretty directly contradicted in ways that seriously call into question his credibility.
Below are three big instances in which Pence said something that turned out to be highly misleading at best and clearly false at worst, starting with the newest one.
1) Michael Flynn's status as a foreign agent for Turkey
2) The explanation of James Comey's firing
3) Flynn talking about sanctions with Russia
From our standpoint 66 million years later, it's easy to assume the demise of the dinosaurs was an inevitability.
But an international team of researchers is making a radical argument for why that may not be the case: Had the asteroid that likely wiped out the dinosaurs slammed into the planet a few minutes earlier or later, the scientists say, the fabled reptiles could still be walking the earth now.
The Guardian
The US senator John McCain has called for Turkey’s ambassador to the US to be removed from the country following a brawl outside his Washington DC residence this week.
A bloody fight erupted between Turkish security personnel and protesters on Tuesday during Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Washington.
It was never written down and never given a name, but France had a detailed plan to “protect the Republic” if far right leader Marine Le Pen was elected president, French media have reported.
“It was like a multi-stage rocket,” an unnamed senior official told l’Obs magazine. “The philosophy, and the absolute imperative, was to keep the peace, while also respecting our constitutional rules.”
News of the plan emerged as polls suggested support for the new centrist movement formed by Emmanuel Macron – who defeated Le Pen in the presidential runoff – was growing ahead of parliamentary elections on 11 and 18 June.
Brazil’s president Michel Temer has vowed to fight for his political life after the supreme court approved an investigation of allegations that he condoned hush money pay-offs to a witness in a sprawling corruption scandal.
“I will not resign. I repeat: I will not resign. I know what I did,” he said in a live TV broadcast, amid growing calls for him to stand down following the suspension of one of his closest confidants in Congress and most powerful coalition allies in the Senate.
The moves on Thursday followed explosive claims that he was secretly taped discussing hush-money payments to former House speaker Eduardo Cunha, who was jailed for his role in the massive Petrobras corruption scandal, prompting calls for him to step down or be impeached.
An offshore oil and gas well in Australia leaked oil continuously into the ocean for two months in 2016, releasing an estimated 10,500 litres. But the spill was never made public by the regulator and details about the well, its whereabouts and operator remain secret.
In its annual offshore performance report released this week, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority included a mention of a 10,500-litre spill in April 2016. It provided limited details about, noting that it had been identified during a routine inspection.
Reuters
The U.S. military carried out an air strike on Thursday against militia supported by the Syrian government that posed a threat to U.S. and U.S.-backed Syrian fighters in the country's south, U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday.
The militia, who numbered in the dozens and drove a tank and a small number of construction vehicles, ignored warning shots from U.S. aircraft and, according to a U.S.-led coalition statement, even "apparent Russian attempts to dissuade" their advance.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers on Thursday that he has some doubts that what are known as alternate scoring models will give enough credit to the potential for economic growth when assessing the impact of the Trump administration's tax plan.
In late April, the administration put out a one-page overview of its tax reform plans, which would cut taxes for businesses to 15 percent, as well as cutting taxes and simplifying income tax brackets for individuals. Critics questioned how the tax cuts would be offset without driving up the federal deficit.
"What I have said repeatedly is that any plan we put forward we believe should be paid for with economic growth," Mnuchin told the Senate Banking Committee. "I am concerned as to whether some of the models will attribute enough growth in dynamic scoring but when we present the details we will present how we think it should be paid for."
BBC News
Greece's parliament has approved a new package of austerity measures needed to release the next instalment of its multi-billion-dollar bailout.
The tax rises and further cuts to pensions were sought by Greece's foreign creditors.
As MPs voted, anti-austerity protesters clashed with police in central Athens.
Eurozone finance ministers meet on Monday to decide if Greece has done enough to receive a €7.5bn (£6.4bn; $8.3bn) loan plus debt relief.
Prime Minister Theresa May has promised a "mainstream government that would deliver for mainstream Britain".
Launching the Conservative manifesto, Mrs May said a strong economy and delivering Brexit were top priorities.
The manifesto drops the 2015 pledge not to raise income tax or National Insurance and has big changes to social care funding in England.
Deutsche Welle
The presidential election in Iran on May 19 could significantly shape the future of the country, and the final outcome will also have an impact far beyond Tehran, given Iran's nuclear capacities and strategic importance in the Middle East…
Iranians will have their pick out of these four candidates:
Hassan Rouhani: The 68-year-old religious scholar and lawyer is the incumbent president. He is seen as a moderate reformist and is one of two front-runners alongside Ebrahim Raisi (see below)…
Ebrahim Raisi: The 57-year-old cleric is seen as a close ally of and potential successor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei…
Mostafa Mirsalim: The former culture minister is considered to be an archconservative…
Mostafa Hashemitaba: The 76-year old centrist-reformist served as vice president from 1997 to 2005 under Mohammad Khatami, the first reformist president… As with Mostafa Mirsalim, it's seen as highly unlikely that Hashemitaba will win.
Despite efforts by the United Nations to impose isolating sanctions on North Korea in response to the country's continued development of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, trade between Russia and North Korea soared more than 85 percent in the first four months of the year.
Citing Russian customs data, the Voice of America broadcaster has reported that bilateral trade climbed to $31.83 million (29 million euros) in the January-March quarter, with the vast majority being energy products going over the border into the North.
NPR
China pledged tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure financing and development aid, and elicited support from scores of countries to promote economic integration and free global trade through the creation of what Beijing is calling a "new Silk Road."
Twenty-nine heads of state and representatives of more than 130 countries attended the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. At its conclusion, leaders signed a communiqué espousing a "shared commitment to building an open economy, ensuring free and inclusive trade [and] opposing all forms of protectionism."
The plan would, in theory, create a network of trade routes, rail lines, ports and highways, linking countries on four continents. China is calling it the "plan of the century."
The Trump administration has set into motion the process to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, following through on the president's earlier promise.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer formally notified congressional leaders in a letter Thursday that the president intends to launch negotiations with Canada and Mexico "as soon as practicable."
"The United States seeks to support higher-paying jobs in the United States and to grow the U.S. economy by improving U.S. opportunities under NAFTA," the letter reads. "In particular, we note that NAFTA was negotiated 25 years ago, and while our economy and businesses have changed over that period, NAFTA has not."
At a Senate hearing Thursday, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, accused Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin of failing to answer his questions about President Trump's business ties to people who might be violating money laundering and other U.S. laws.
Mnuchin responded by suggesting Brown "just send me a note on what you are looking for."
Brown pointed out that he had already sent a two-page letter.
CNN
The former head of the House Russia investigation, Rep. Devin Nunes, is continuing to review intelligence relating to Russia, a move that has Democrats grumbling that he has violated the spirit of his recusal.
Nunes, a California Republican, took a trip to the CIA this week to review Russia intelligence, according to House intelligence committee sources. As word of Nunes trip trickled out among lawmakers this week, it angered Democrats who thought that they had moved past the chaos spurred by Nunes' coordination with the White House.
Rep. Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, shrugged when asked if he was concerned that Nunes had not completely removed himself from the House Russia investigation. "He recused himself, so he can set those limits," Quigley said.
Vice President Mike Pence is standing by a March statement that he first learned of now-fired national security adviser Michael Flynn's ties to Turkey from media reports, despite renewed scrutiny and revelations President Donald Trump's transition team was made aware far earlier.
"The vice president stands by his comments in March upon first hearing the news regarding General Flynn's ties to Turkey and fully supports the President's decision to ask for General Flynn's resignation," said an aide to Pence, who declined to be named.
But questions about what Pence knew and when are swirling thanks to new media reports about what Flynn revealed to Trump's transition team, which Pence oversaw.
If there was a single theme to emerge from today's second go at joint Cabinet-level meetings with the Mexican government, it came across stunningly loud and clear: That the real heart of Mexico's ongoing, bloody battle with hard drug production, organized crime and murder lies firmly in the United States.
"We Americans must own this problem. It is ours," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated bluntly during a news conference. America's "pervasive demand" for illegal drugs was brought up repeatedly throughout the day, as if US officials could not strike the tone hard enough.
ProPublica
Two weeks ago, on a sparkling spring morning, we went trawling along Florida’s coastal waterway. But not for fish.
We parked a 17-foot motor boat in a lagoon about 800 feet from the back lawn of The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach and pointed a 2-foot wireless antenna that resembled a potato gun toward the club. Within a minute, we spotted three weakly encrypted Wi-Fi networks. We could have hacked them in less than five minutes, but we refrained…
The risks posed by the lax security, experts say, go well beyond simple digital snooping. Sophisticated attackers could take advantage of vulnerabilities in the Wi-Fi networks to take over devices like computers or smart phones and use them to record conversations involving anyone on the premises.
Bloomberg
The House’s main tax-writing panel held its first hearing on how to overhaul the tax code Thursday, where Republican leaders continued to endorse far-reaching proposals that their Senate counterparts have rejected.
Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, used the hearing to build support for the tax blueprint endorsed by Speaker Paul Ryan. Testimony from executives with AT&T Inc., Emerson Electric Co. and S&P Global Inc. touted the benefits of many of that plan’s provisions, including a measure that lets corporations immediately deduct the full value of their capital spending.
But the path forward for a successful tax overhaul got no clearer. Senate GOP leaders have criticized the two main revenue-raisers in the House plan -- imposing a border-adjusted tax on companies’ imports and domestic sales, and eliminating their ability to deduct net interest payments. Both would help pay for the steep tax-rate cuts that Republican leaders have pledged to deliver -- if the cuts are to be permanent under Senate budget rules.