Trump denies asking Comey to drop probe, decries ‘witch hunt’

U.S. President Donald Trump, striking a defiant tone on Thursday after days of political tumult, denied asking former FBI Director James Comey to drop a probe into his former national security adviser and decried a “witch hunt” against him.
Trump’s terse denial followed reports by Reuters and other media about a memo written by Comey alleging that Trump made the request to close down the investigation into Michael Flynn and Russia in February. Trump fired Comey on May 9.
“No. No. Next question,” Trump told a news conference in the White House, when asked if he “in any way, shape or form” ever urged Comey to end the probe.
Comey’s dismissal last week set off a series of jarring developments that culminated on Wednesday in the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to probe possible ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
They included media reports that Trump discussed sensitive intelligence on the Islamic State militant group with Russia’s foreign minister.
In a pair of morning Twitter posts and at a later news conference, the Republican president described calls by some on the left for his impeachment as “ridiculous” and said he had done nothing to warrant criminal charges.
“The entire thing has been a witch hunt and there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign – but I can always speak for myself – and the Russians. Zero,” he told the news conference, standing alongside Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
In his earlier Twitter posts, Trump criticized the naming of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, an official he himself appointed.
“With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!” Trump wrote on Thursday morning.
He did not offer any evidence of such acts in his reference to former Democratic President Barack Obama and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” Trump tweeted.
Democrats rejected Trump’s characterization.
“This is a truth hunt,” said Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Russia has denied U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that it interfered in the election campaign to try to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor. Trump has long bristled at the notion that Russia played any role in his November election victory over Clinton.
Trump fired Flynn on Feb. 14 for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations last year with Russia’s ambassador.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Flynn and other Trump campaign advisers were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the presidential race.
U.S. stocks recovered ground on Thursday as upbeat economic data emboldened investors to return to the market, a day after Wall Street saw the biggest selloff in eight months on worries the political turmoil could undermine Trump initiatives such as tax cuts that investors see as favoring economic growth.
DIVIDING THE COUNTRY
Rosenstein, the No. 2 Justice Department official, named Mueller amid mounting pressure in Congress for an independent investigation beyond existing FBI and congressional probes into the Russia issue.
Trump later told news anchors at the White House that Mueller’s appointment was a “very, very negative thing,” adding:
“I believe it hurts our country terribly, because it shows we’re a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country.”
Rosenstein briefed senators on Thursday but made no public comments. One of the attendees, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Rosenstein as anxious and nervous and said he drank multiple glasses of water “and spilled one.”
Afterward, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters that “everything he said was that you need to treat this investigation as if it may be a criminal investigation.”
A self-described friend of Comey’s wrote in a public blog post on Thursday that Comey had told him that he had rebuffed a Trump request for loyalty by promising only honesty.
“He also told me that Trump was perceptibly uncomfortable with this answer,” wrote Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a critic of Trump.
“And he said that ever since, the President had been trying to be chummy in a fashion that Comey felt was designed to absorb him into Trump’s world – to make him part of the team.”
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill said Rosenstein told senators that he knew Comey would be fired before he wrote his letter accusing him of missteps as FBI director, including his handling of an election-year probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
The White House initially said last week that Trump was prompted to fire Comey after reading the Rosenstein letter. Trump later said he had already decided to dismiss him and was thinking of “this Russia thing.”
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Trump called Comey weeks after he took office on Jan. 20 and asked him when federal authorities were going to say Trump was not under investigation. It cited two people briefed on the call.
Comey told Trump he should not contact him directly about FBI investigations but follow procedure and have the White House counsel ask the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, the Times reported.
A key issue Mueller may have to tackle is whether Trump has committed obstruction of justice, an offense that could be used in any effort in the Republican-led Congress to impeach him and remove him from office.
Asked about possible obstruction of justice, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters the special counsel would “follow the facts where ever they may lead” and that “it is premature to prejudge anything at this point.”

New ferry links North Korea and Russia despite U.S. calls for isolation

A new ferry between isolated North Korea and Russia docked for the first time at the Pacific port of Vladivostok on Thursday, in spite of U.S. calls for countries to curtail relations with Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.
The launch of the weekly service linking Vladivostok and the North Korean port of Rajin also came despite North Korea’s test-firing of a new type of ballistic missile on Sunday that landed in the sea near Russia.
The ferry’s Russian operators say it is purely a commercial venture, but the service’s launch coincides with what some experts say is a drive by North Korea to build ties with Moscow in case its closest ally China turns its back.
The service is pitched at Chinese tourists wanting to travel by sea to the Pacific port of Vladivostok, according to the operators.
China has no ports on the Sea of Japan, so traveling to North Korea and on to Vladivostok is the quickest way of reaching Vladivostok by sea.
“It’s our business, of our company, without any state subsidies, involvement and help,” Mikhail Khmel, the deputy director of Investstroytrest, the Russia firm operating the ferry, told reporters.
The new ferry link comes in spite of recent calls by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for countries to fully implement U.N. sanctions and review their ties with North Korea to pressure it to give up its weapons programs.
“We call on all nations to fully implement U.N. Security Council Resolutions, and sever or downgrade diplomatic and commercial relations with North Korea,” a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, Katina Adams, said when asked about the new ferry service.
Adams noted Russia’s “obligation” under U.N. Security Council resolutions, “to inspect all cargo, including personal luggage, of any individual traveling to or from” North Korea.
Journalists were unable to see passengers disembarking from the North Korean-flagged vessel Mangyongbong at Vladivostok because Russian officials kept them away from the quayside, citing unspecified security reasons.
But Reuters television was able to speak to three passengers, who said they were representatives of Chinese tourism agencies.
One of the passengers showed a photograph on her smartphone she said had been taken on board. It showed a plaque with an inscription in Korean which, she said, bore the name of North Korea’s long-dead founder Kim Il Sung.
The United States has been discussing possible new U.N. sanctions on North Korea with China, which disapproves of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deliver them, but remains its main trading partner.
Washington is looking to toughen U.N. sanctions to cut off Pyongyang’s sources of funding and to block smuggling of materials needed for its weapons programs.
Russia, especially the port of Vladivostok, is home to one of the largest overseas communities of North Koreans, who send home much-needed hard currency.
To date, there are no signs of a sustainable increase in trade between Russia and North Korea, but Russia has taken a more benign stance toward Pyongyang that other major powers.
Speaking in Beijing this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was against North Korea’s nuclear program, but that the world should talk to Pyongyang instead of threatening it.
Asked about the ferry, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday she “didn’t see a connection” between the new service and political issues.

Putin’s ex-wife linked to multi-million-dollar property business

The former wife of Russian president Vladimir Putin helped create and now supports a foundation that owns a historic Moscow property generating millions of dollars from tenants, a Reuters examination of property records has found.
The building was renovated with help from associates of Putin, and the rental income is paid to a private company owned by a person whose name is the same as the maiden name of Putin’s former wife, corporate records show.
The rent comes from Volkonsky House in central Moscow, which was an aristocrat’s home in pre-Soviet times and is now owned by The Center for the Development of Inter-personal Communications (CDIC). Lyudmila Putina helped set up the non-commercial foundation, according to a report in state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta and two sources who worked with the center. Lyudmila was Putin’s wife from 1983 until their divorce, which was announced in 2013.
The foundation was created in 2002, and in September 2006 Rossiiskaya Gazeta described Lyudmila as a “trustee” of the organization. In an interview with the newspaper that year, she used the term “we” when discussing the foundation, and three sources currently familiar with the foundation’s work said Lyudmila supports a literary prize and publishing arm that the foundation runs.
The CDIC has offices in Volkonsky House, but most of the building is let out to tenants, including two big state banks, documents show.
The tenants pay rent to a company called Meridian, which is 99 per cent owned by a company called Intererservis, corporate and property records reviewed by Reuters in early May showed. Intererservis, according to a state register of corporate entities, has been wholly owned since 2014 by a woman called Lyudmila Alexandrovna Shkrebnyova – which is the maiden name of Putin’s former wife.
Reuters was unable to find documents confirming that Shkrebnyova and Putin’s ex-wife are the same person. But other connections, besides the name, point to the former first lady and the owner of Intererservis being the same person. A previous general director of Intererversis was Olga Alexandrovna Tsomayeva. Several Russian media reports refer to her as the sister of Putin’s former wife. Tsomayeva could not be reached for comment.
In addition, the other 1 percent of Meridian is owned by Tatiana Shestakova, who was the wife of Vasily Shestakov, an old friend and judo sparring partner of Putin, until the Shestakovs divorced in 2013. Shestakova, who also helped create the CDIC, according to the state registry of corporate entities, could not be reached for comment.
The Kremlin property department supervised the renovation work on the Volkonsky House in Moscow’s Vozdvizhenka Street, according to rental documents reviewed by Reuters, even though the building no longer belonged to the state at the time.
A source involved in the renovation said Lyudmila Putina, then still the president’s wife, visited Volkonsky House to inspect the work. “We all knew that the (Kremlin property) department was constantly overseeing the process,” said the source, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. “When Mrs Putin made an inspection visit, they immediately closed down the whole of Vozdvizhenka Street.”
The Russian bank VTB, one of the current tenants in Volkonsky House, alone pays more than $2 million in annual rent, according to a tender document posted on a government website in 2015.
Reuters was unable to establish the total income Meridian receives from renting out space in the Moscow property or what it pays to the CDIC foundation. The company’s accounts for 2015 show revenues of 225 million rubles ($3.89 million), but do not disclose where the money goes.
Reuters sought comment from Meridian and the CDIC, via letters, telephone calls and visits, but received no reply. The Kremlin press service did not respond to questions about the president’s former wife.
The arrangements appear to fit a pattern in Putin’s Russia, whereby people close to the president benefit from contracts, loans, grants or assets from state enterprises or entities closely linked to the Kremlin. Reuters has previously reported how Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov, became a billionaire after marrying a daughter of the president by acquiring a large stake in a leading Russian gas and petrochemicals company. Reuters also reported how Shamalov acquired a substantial property in Biarritz, France, from a close associate of Putin.
Artur Ocheretny, described in Russian media as Shkrebnyova’s new husband since 2015, is the chairman of the management board of the CDIC. In 2014, after a low-profile career running a seafood business and an event-organizing company, he too became the owner of an Art Deco villa in a suburb of Biarritz, according to local sources. His villa is estimated by estate agents to be worth about 6 million euros.
Ocheretny did not respond to a request for comment passed to him via the CDIC.
HELPFUL FRIENDS
The building at 9 Vozdvizhenka Street is known as the Volkonsky House after its former owner General Nikolai Volkonsky, the grandfather of author Leo Tolstoy. In the 20th century, Sergei Yesenin, a popular poet, wrote some of his works there.
This historic site was later owned by the Russian Foreign Ministry, according to a 1992 presidential decree signed by Putin’s predecessor. By 2005, property records show, it had passed to a body called the Center for the Development of the Russian Language, which later changed its name to the Center for the Development of Inter-personal Communications.
Reuters was unable to establish on what terms the language center acquired the building. The agency that handles state property, Rosimushchestvo, did not respond to Reuters questions about the building.
The property was in need of renovation, and around 2005 major refurbishment was carried out. The president’s allies stepped in to help. The Konstantinovsky Foundation, which was set up soon after Putin became president to restore the Konstantinovsky Palace near Putin’s native St Petersburg, provided financial help, according to its website. The president often uses the palace to host foreign leaders.
Vladimir Kozhin, who from 2000 until 2014 was head of the Kremlin property department, was on the board of the Konstaninovsky Foundation at the time the renovation work was carried out on Volkonsky House. Kozhin remains on the board, which has at least one other associate of Putin on it. Neither the Konstantinovsky Foundation nor Kozhin, who is now a presidential aide, responded to requests for comment.
Yelena Krylova, a spokeswoman for the Kremlin property department, said she had no information about the department having been involved in the renovation.
The first phase of work was completed by 2005, according to property documents, and later an extra floor was added. Natalia Samover, a historian who campaigned against the addition, told Reuters: “The building has lost its historical appearance. We no longer have the Volkonsky House, we have an eyesore half a kilometer from the Kremlin.”
Volkonsky House now has 5,288 square meters of floor space available for rent, according to the state property register – an area slightly larger than the White House in Washington D.C.
VALUABLE TENANTS
Foundations such as the CDIC can be created for “social, charitable, cultural, educational, scientific and management objectives,” according to the Russian Justice Ministry. They can carry out entrepreneurial activity so long as it serves the purpose for which a foundation was created. 
For an undisclosed amount, the CDIC lets most of Volkonsky House to Meridian, which sublets out space in the property. VTB, one of Russia’s largest banks, rents 3,011 square meters, according to the 2015 tender document posted on the state procurement website. That document gives the value of the contract as 584 million rubles over a five year period, or $2.02 million per year.
Asked to comment, VTB said in a statement: “We rent these premises for the needs of the retail and corporate businesses of VTB group.”
Other tenants include state lender Sberbank; the Severstroygroup construction company, which has won defense ministry contracts; a travel agency; a sushi restaurant; and a Burger King outlet. Sberbank said it had rented space at market rates as part of its branch strategy; Severstroygroup did not respond to requests for comment.
Knight Frank, an agency that specializes in high-end real estate, said that current market rates in the building were about $600 per square meter per year. If all the leasable space in the building were let at that rate, it would generate annual revenue of $3.18 million.
Meridian’s income does not appear to go to its main owner, Intererservis, which reported revenues in 2015 of just 2.4 million rubles ($41,478) and a net profit of 1.76 million rubles ($30,417).
The CDIC’s most recent available accounts show that in 2015 its income from all sources was 343,350,000 rubles ($5.93 million). It was not clear what all those sources were.
In 2015 the CDIC spent 262,317,000 rubles ($4.53 million), according to the accounts, of which 3.4 percent was spent on social and charitable help, 6.5 percent on holding conferences and seminars, 22 percent on administrative costs and 29 percent on “other activities.” The remaining 39 percent was spent on acquiring fixed assets, stock and other property, and on “miscellaneous” items.
The CDIC did not respond to questions about the sources of its income and how it spent its money.
The Justice Ministry said the foundation had not made annual reports on its activities – as opposed to its financial accounts – publicly available, despite being required to do so by law. The ministry said the foundation had therefore been issued with a warning.

Anti-Trump Cry Baby Cartoons

Senate tees up ‘accountability act’ as regulation fight intensifies

The U.S. Senate could soon approve a major overhaul of the federal bureaucracy and make lasting changes to regulation of the environment, education, banks and other areas.
On Wednesday a Senate committee sent a bill on to the full chamber that, supporters say, will make regulators more accountable to lawmakers and provide greater understanding of how rules affect the economy.
The next step, debating the bill on the Senate floor, has not been scheduled. The House of Representatives approved companion legislation in January.
Critics say the bill, the Regulatory Accountability Act, creates so many new requirements that it would paralyze regulators working to establish even the most basic rules and standards. They also say it makes cutting industry and banks’ costs a higher priority than protecting public health and safety.
For decades the political parties have been starkly divided over regulation and Republicans are currently winning their battle to lessen the red tape they say ties up business and hurts the economy. Republicans also say former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, pushed regulators to go beyond their duties of executing laws passed by Congress to create policy on their own.
Democrats say regulation, which touches nearly every part of American life, shields average people from health, financial and other threats and is needed to accomplish the goals set in laws.
The Senate bill would require more cost-benefit and other analyses, give courts and the White House greater checks on rulemaking, classify regulations by potential economic impact, and lengthen rulemaking processes.
One progressive group, Public Citizen, estimates it would add 53 steps to major rulemaking, possibly doubling the average amount of time it takes to finalize a regulation – currently four years.
The bill has pitted the powerful business group, the Chamber of Commerce, against progressive ones such as the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Senator Heidi Heitkamp broke ranks with her fellow Democrats to write the accountability act, indicating some members of the party may support the bill when the closely-divided Senate votes.
Also, Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, is working on alternative legislation that her party could find more palatable and could keep some of the bill’s measures.
Since Republicans swept Congress and the White House in November’s elections they have moved swiftly against regulation.
Using the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers killed 14 Obama-era regulations in the span of three months.
Trump’s efforts have yielded mixed results. His order to cut two existing regulations for every new one has stalled during a legal challenge. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency was jammed with thousands of pleas to maintain regulations when it asked for public comment on Trump’s order to look into repealing or rewriting current rules. The comment period closed Monday.

Republicans worry Trump scandals may doom legislative agenda

Scandals enveloping U.S. President Donald Trump have left Republican lawmakers and lobbyists increasingly gloomy about the prospects for passing sweeping tax cuts, a rollback of Obamacare and an ambitious infrastructure program.
With the White House and both chambers of the U.S. Congress under Republican control, party leaders and their allies in the business community had expected to get quick traction on their plans, with corporate tax cuts among the top priorities.
But four months into Trump’s tenure, only limited progress has been made. The House of Representatives passed a measure to rewrite Obamacare, but the Senate is only in the very early stages of considering the issue. Lawmakers are just beginning their push on tax reform.
In addition to congressional probes that are taking place into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign team and Russia, the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday named former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate the matter.
“It’s the elephant in the room right now,” said Republican Representative Pat Tiberi. “The smartest minds in the White House know that, whether it’s tax reform or anything else on the public policy front. It’s hard enough to get things done in the U.S. Capitol under the best of circumstances.”
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on tax reform on Thursday. Key administration and congressional leaders met Wednesday afternoon to discuss a path forward. But they remain a long way from signing a bill into law.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that “less drama from the White House” was needed to advance legislative priorities.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters on Wednesday that the legislative process had “pretty much ground to a halt” amid the tumult in Washington.
Republican Representative Steve Womack said it was important for committees investigating the Russia matter to move forward expeditiously to both ensure that the public gets answers and to clear the way for Congress to move on to other issues.
“Any time we get bogged down on these kinds of issues unrelated to the governing agenda, it serves to delay and to sometimes complicate the real job that we have to do for the American people,” Womack said.
At a news conference on Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged his colleagues to “seize this moment” to pass tax reform.
But instead of discussing tax rates and structures, Ryan was faced with a series of questions about James Comey, who Trump fired as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week, and the Russia investigation.
Several lobbyists said that in the past week their corporate clients have grown more cautious on the prospects for tax reform but still hope that at least a small package can be approved.
“My worry level has grown considerably,” one lobbyist said.
Some lobbyists suggested that Congress could consider focusing on tax breaks and perhaps leave aside the comprehensive overhaul of the tax code that they had originally hoped for.
“When this all started, the thing we heard from the Hill was ‘transformative tax reform,’” said a strategist who consults with major companies focused on tax reform. “I think as time passes, tax reform is going to look much different, that it may be begin to look more like tax cuts than tax reform.”

Putin offers transcript to prove Trump did not pass Russia secrets

Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had not divulged any secrets during a meeting in Washington with Russian officials and offered to prove it by supplying Congress with a transcript.
But a leading U.S. Republican politician said he would have little faith in any notes Putin might supply.
Two U.S. officials said on Monday Trump had disclosed classified information about a planned Islamic State operation to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when they met last week, plunging the White House into a fresh controversy just four months into Trump’s tenure.
Trump, whose administration has been dogged by allegations that Russia helped him win the White House and that he and his allies are too cozy with Moscow, has defended his decision to discuss intelligence with the Russians after media reports of the meeting alarmed some U.S. and foreign politicians.
President Putin deployed his trademark sarcasm on Wednesday to make clear he thought the accusation that Trump had divulged secrets absurd.
“I spoke to him (Lavrov) today,” a smiling Putin told a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“I’ll be forced to issue him (Lavrov) with a reprimand because he did not share these secrets with us. Not with me, nor with representatives of Russia’s intelligence services. It was very bad of him.”
Putin, who still hopes Moscow can repair battered ties with the United States despite a deepening political scandal in the United States related to Trump’s purported Russia ties, said Moscow had rated Lavrov’s meeting with Trump highly.
If the Trump administration deemed it appropriate, Putin said Russia could hand over a transcript of Trump’s meeting with Lavrov to U.S. lawmakers to reassure them that no secrets were revealed.
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, later told reporters that Moscow had a written record of the conversation, not an audio recording.
KREMLIN CREDIBILITY
U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio was unimpressed with Putin’s offer and alluded to alleged Russian hacking of Democratic groups during the U.S. presidential election.
“I wouldn’t put much credibility into whatever Putin’s notes are,” Rubio said on Fox News. “And if it comes in an email, I wouldn’t click on the attachment.”
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is among those probing alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, called Putin’s offer “quite amusing.”
“The last person Trump needs to vouch for him right now is Vladimir Putin,” Schiff said in an interview with CBS News. “If they want to send something, you know, hats off. Send it our way… It’s credibility would be less than zero.”
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the U.S. election.
Trump is also under pressure over accusations he asked then-FBI Director James Comey to end the agency’s investigation into the Russia ties of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The allegation stems from a memo written by Comey and seen by a source familiar with the contents of the memo.
In Washington, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they wanted to see the Comey memo. U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger joined a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers who have said they would back some sort of independent investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
“If in fact what was in the memo is true, it’s very concerning and we need to get to the bottom of that,” Kinzinger said on CNN.
‘EITHER STUPID OR CORRUPT’
Complaining about what he said was “political schizophrenia” in the United States, Putin said Trump was not being allowed to do his job properly.
“It’s hard to imagine what else these people who generate such nonsense and rubbish can dream up next,” said Putin, referring to unnamed U.S. politicians.
“What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans. Either they don’t understand the damage they’re doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt.”
Russia has repeatedly said that Trump’s opponents are trying to damage him and Moscow by making what it says are false accusations about the billionaire president and the Russian government which initially had high hopes of a rapprochement.
Officials have told Reuters Trump’s alleged disclosure of classified information to Russia’s foreign minister is unlikely to stop allies who share intelligence with Washington from cooperating.
That view was reinforced on Wednesday when British Prime Minister Theresa May said her government had confidence in its relationship with the United States and would continue to share intelligence with Britain’s most important defense and security ally.

GM will cut operations in India, South Africa

General Motors Co plans to quit selling vehicles in India by the end of this year and will sell operations in South Africa, the latest steps in a strategy of focusing cash and engineering effort on fewer, more profitable markets.
The Detroit automaker said on Thursday it will take a $500 million charge in the second quarter to restructure operations in India, Africa and Singapore. It will cancel most of a planned $1 billion investment to build a new line of low-cost vehicles in India.
About $200 million of the charge will be a cash expense, GM said. The moves are expected to save $100 million a year in a sector of GM’s global business that last year lost about $800 million, the company said.
GM President Dan Ammann told Reuters in an interview that the latest restructuring moves – and a series of earlier decisions to quit unprofitable markets – allow GM to focus more money, engineering effort and senior management time on expanding where the company is strong, including China and the North American pickup and SUV business, where GM has a “product onslaught coming.”
GM also has said it is investing about $600 million a year in efforts to develop autonomous vehicles and transportation services.
“What are we spending our time doing?” Ammann said. “Are we spending time pursuing opportunities … or all of our time fixing problems?”
GM, like its Detroit rival Ford Motor Co, has found it increasingly expensive to compete in emerging markets outside of China. GM sold just 49,000 vehicles in India and South Africa combined last year.
Chief Executive Mary Barra traveled to New Delhi in 2015 to announce a plan to invest $1 billion there to build a new line of Chevrolet models developed as part of a Global Emerging Market vehicle program – GEM for short. Since then, auto sales overall in India have slumped, and GM has failed to gain traction against incumbents such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
Now, GM plans to stop selling Chevrolet brand vehicles by the end of the year and will produce vehicles only for export at its remaining factory in Talegaon. The company currently employs about 2,500 workers there.
GM said it would continue work at its design and engineering center near Bangalore.
PULLING BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA
The $5 billion GEM program, which GM is developing with its Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp, remains on track to account for about 2 million vehicles a year in global sales volume, mainly in Latin America, Mexico and China, Ammann said.
“The market opportunity for GEM has continued to grow,” he said.
In a separate move, GM plans to stop building Chevrolet vehicles in South Africa and sell its South African factory to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd, along with the 30 percent stake the U.S. automaker owns in a truck venture with Isuzu Motors. Isuzu agreed in February to buy out GM’s 57.7 percent stake in a joint venture in Kenya.
GM also will cut an undisclosed number of staff at its GM International Operations headquarters in Singapore. About 200 people work in that operation, the company said.
Since Barra took over GM in 2014, the one-time largest automaker in the world has taken aggressive steps to narrow its focus to China, the highly-profitable North American light truck and sport utility market, Latin America, vehicle financing and transportation services that ultimately could use autonomous vehicles.
Despite the restructuring moves, including Barra’s decision in March to sell loss-making European operations to French rival Peugeot SA, GM’s share price has been stuck in a range close around $33 where it went public in 2010 following a government-funded bankruptcy. GM shares closed on Wednesday at $32.42.
Barra and GM’s directors are under pressure from David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, which wants GM to split its common stock into two classes, one that pays dividends and a second that would be valued to reflect the company’s potential growth. Greenlight also has put forward a slate of three new directors. GM’s management and incumbent board have rejected Greenlight’s proposals. The hedge fund holds 54.8 million GM shares, or about 3.5 percent of the total.

Fake News Cartoons

Russia’s response to Trump leak reports: don’t read U.S. newspapers

Spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova attends a news briefing in Moscow, Russia, in this file photo dated October 6, 2015. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday advised that people don’t read American newspapers, in response to U.S. media reports that President Donald Trump had disclosed classified intelligence at a meeting with Russian officials.
The spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said she had received dozens of messages asking about the reports, which have been denied by the White House.
“Guys, have you been reading American newspapers again?” she wrote on her Facebook page. “You shouldn’t read them. You can put them to various uses, but you shouldn’t read them. Lately it’s become not only harmful, but dangerous too.”

McConnell: Border tax would likely not pass U.S. Senate – Bloomberg TV

Any tax reform plan that includes a border adjustment tax would likely not pass the U.S. Senate, its Republican Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.
McConnell added that any tax plan would also have to be revenue neutral.

Trump trade officials prefer tri-lateral NAFTA deal: U.S. senators

The Trump administration’s top trade officials hope to keep the North American Free Trade Agreement as a trilateral deal in negotiations with Canada and Mexico to revamp the 23-year-old pact, senators said on Tuesday.
Several members of the Senate Finance Committee said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and new U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told them in a closed door meeting that they would prefer the current three-nation format but left open the possibility of parallel bilateral agreements with Canada and Mexico.
“Their preference is trilateral,” Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow told reporters after the meeting.
Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said from the meeting it sounded to him as if a trilateral deal was more likely “unless there’s problems” with that approach.
“If trilaterally you aren’t getting anyplace, I suppose then you do it bilaterally,” Grassley said.
Ross, who has floated the idea of doing two bilateral trade deals with Canada and Mexico, declined to confirm the administration’s preference for a trilateral approach.
“Right now it is a trilateral deal and we shall see what comes in the future but the important thing is to get to the substance,” Ross told reporters after leaving the meeting, adding that talks would be “long and complicated.”
The meeting was one of several on Capitol Hill this week involving Lighthizer, who was sworn in as U.S. trade representative on Monday, that are required for the Trump administration to trigger the start of the NAFTA negotiating process with a 90-day consultation period.
Farm state senators said they also warned Ross and Lighthizer not to take actions that would damage agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico.
“We made it pretty clear that’s a priority, that we don’t want to see ag hurt,” said Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican. “NAFTA by and large has been good for agriculture, and we’re seeing some disruptions in the ag marketplace today because of uncertainty about where this is headed.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, said Ross and Lighthizer assured him they would push to drop NAFTA’s dispute-resolution mechanism. Trump has complained that the mechanism is biased against the United States.

Embroiled in controversies, Trump seeks boost on foreign trip

Besieged by controversy at home, U.S. President Donald Trump is under pressure to stick to the script and avoid fresh flare-ups when he embarks this week on his first foreign trip, a nine-day trek to the Middle East and Europe.
White House officials and Republicans close to the administration say Trump, who campaigned on an “America First” slogan, wants to demonstrate leadership abroad on his visit with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Israel and the West Bank, the pope at the Vatican, NATO leaders in Brussels and G7 counterparts in Sicily.
Trump faces fierce criticism over his sharing of sensitive national security information with Russian officials and his firing last week of FBI Director James Comey. Allegations that he previously asked Comey to end an investigation into his former national security adviser drew a new round of attacks on Tuesday.
A Republican strategist close to the White House said Trump needed a strong trip to help put the past tumultuous 10 days behind him.
“If the White House is looking for this international trip to turn the page, then it really needs to come off well without any balls dropped or serious mistakes,” said the strategist, who requested anonymity.
“This is their time to shine, to show Americans and the world that the White House isn’t becoming a circus of errors.”
Airing his frustrations on Twitter, Trump has lashed out at leaks to the news media from officials inside his administration. Confidants say a staff shake-up is possible, although major changes are unlikely before Trump’s foreign trip.
His political woes will add to Trump’s challenges as he tries to bolster ties abroad.
“This trip combines so many different things and actors that the question is going to be what’s the message that he wants to communicate when he’s out there,” said Lanhee Chen, who advised Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and Marco Rubio’s in 2016.
‘DON’T THINK HE UNDERSTANDS IT’
Some doubt whether Trump, a businessman-turned politician who never held elective office before becoming president in January, is ready for a smooth presidential debut abroad.
One Republican official, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, said after meeting Trump recently he did not think the president had a firm enough grasp on the nuances of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I don’t think he understands it,” said the official, adding that Trump needed more detailed briefings before leaving on Friday. “I think it’s a very difficult challenge and I hope he’s going to talk to a lot of smart people.”
White House advisers insisted Trump was up to speed on the Middle East, having already hosted Arab, Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the White House.
“His way of doing diplomacy, which really contrasts with President Obama’s approach, is to … prioritize the personal relationship,” said Michael Singh, a foreign policy adviser to former Republican President George W. Bush.
To prepare for his trip, Trump has been meeting with briefers including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Conversations with some officials who have briefed Trump and others who are aware of how he absorbs information portray a president with a short attention span.
He likes single-page memos and visual aids like maps, charts, graphs and photos.
National Security Council officials have strategically included Trump’s name in “as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned,” according to one source, who relayed conversations he had with NSC officials.
Trump likes to look at a map of the country involved when he learns about a topic.
“He likes to visualize things,” said a senior administration official. “The guy’s a builder. He has spent his whole life looking at architectural renderings and floor plans.”
PREDECESSORS’ GAFFES
Although Trump has a string of golf resorts around the world that he has visited, the trip could take him out of his comfort zone. He generally prefers his own bed to hotel rooms. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he often flew home after a day of campaigning rather than staying in hotels overnight.
Presidential rhetoric and gaffes abroad have caused problems for some of Trump’s predecessors.
Bush drew fire after his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Slovenia in June 2001, when he said he had looked the former KGB chief in the eye and “I was able to get a sense of his soul.” The comment was seen as naive.
Even body language is watched carefully. Democratic President Barack Obama was criticized for bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito in a visit to Japan in November 2009.
One Gulf Arab official said Trump’s decision to make Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, the first stop on his trip would send a message that America did not see Islam as an enemy.
    The trip could be a chance for the president to counter critics who accuse him of being anti-Muslim because of the order he issued, now blocked by U.S. courts, temporarily banning entry into the United States by citizens of several Muslim-majority countries.
    But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if Trump, who is prone to speaking off-the-cuff, ended up undercutting his own message, it could be damaging.
“It can backfire, I mean it can seriously backfire,” the official said.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to Bush, said that since the trip would be Trump’s first overseas, the stakes were higher.
“The meaning and importance of his first trip abroad will be exaggerated, but it gives him a chance to get bipartisan accolades, or a chance to fail badly and have the failure exaggerated,” Fleischer said.

French Government Cartoons

Deputy attorney general to brief full Senate on Comey firing

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will conduct a classified briefing on Thursday, May 18 for the full U.S. Senate on President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday.
The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement he hoped senators would use the briefing at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) to seek the “full truth” about Comey’s dismissal, press Rosenstein “to make way” for a special prosecutor and ensure the administration preserves and makes public any audio recordings of his conversations with Comey.
Critics have assailed Trump for abruptly firing Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
Russia denies it sought to interfere in the election. Trump has dismissed such talk as little more than sour grapes by Democrats who cannot accept his upset victory on Nov. 8.
Democrats have been calling for a special prosecutor or select committee to investigate, saying getting to the bottom of foreign interference in the U.S. election is too important to leave to potentially partisan committees in Congress.
Comey’s firing last week added to the worries, and even some of Trump’s fellow Republicans have expressed concern about the timing of his dismissal.
The top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said she has asked Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan to request a similar briefing for the House.
There was no immediate word from Ryan’s office. However, administration officials typically do not conduct such briefings for only one of the two chambers.

Republican Representative Gowdy says he is not interested in FBI job

Republican U.S. Representative Trey Gowdy, who was among 11 people being considered for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said on Monday he is not interested in the job.
Gowdy said in a statement that he told Attorney General Jeff Sessions he “would not be the right person” to lead the agency. President Donald Trump touched off a political firestorm last week by firing FBI Director James Comey, who was leading a probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

French right torn apart as Macron, PM prepare to name government

The head of France’s main conservative party disowned his colleague Edouard Philippe on Tuesday for taking up the job of prime minister under centrist President Emmanuel Macron.
Speaking as the new president prepared to name the rest of his government later in the day, Francois Baroin, leader of The Republicans (LR) party which is being torn apart by Macron’s divide and conquer tactics, said on BFM TV Philippe had “made a choice which is not ours.”
Macron appointed Philippe, a lawmaker from the moderate wing of The Republicans party, on Monday to head his first government in a move aimed at broadening his political appeal and weakening opponents before parliamentary elections in June.
Several Socialist members of parliament have also joined Macron’s cause and 21 LR members of parliament, including some party heavyweights and former ministers, issued a joint statement on Monday urging the party to positively respond to the “hand extended by the president”.
“It will be up to him to struggle with this element of schizophrenia,” Baroin added.
Macron is looking to the June elections to give him and his own start-up Republic on the Move (REM) party the majority in parliament needed to push through his plans to cut state spending, boost investment and create jobs, after years of economic malaise.
The nomination is a direct challenge to The Republicans, who say they aim to be the biggest party in the lower house of parliament but are lagging behind REM in the first opinion polls ahead of that ballot.
Baroin reacted sharply to a suggestion that Macron, a 39-year-old ex-banker who served briefly as economy minister in a Socialist government, was reshaping politics.
“What Emmanuel Macron is proposing is dynamiting not political reshaping,” he said, adding that the LR did not want to confront him but were prepared for political discussion with him.

Ford to cut North America, Asia salaried workers by 10 percent: source

Ford Motor Co plans to shrink its salaried workforce in North America and Asia by about 10 percent as it works to boost profits and its sliding stock price, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters on Monday.
A person briefed on the plan said Ford plans to offer generous early retirement incentives to reduce its salaried headcount by Oct. 1, but does not plan cuts to its hourly workforce or its production.
The move could put the U.S. automaker on a collision course with President Donald Trump, who has made boosting auto employment a top priority. Ford has about 30,000 salaried workers in the United States.
The cuts are part of a previously announced plan to slash costs by $3 billion, the person said, as U.S. new vehicles auto sales have shown signs of decline after seven years of consecutive growth since the end of the Great Recession.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday evening that Ford plans to cut 10 percent of its 200,000-person global workforce, but the person briefed on the plan disputed that figure. The source requested anonymity in order to be able to discuss the matter freely.
Ford declined to comment on any job cuts but said it remains focused on its core strategies to “drive profitable growth”.
“Reducing costs and becoming as lean and efficient as possible also remain part of that work,” it said in a statement. “We have not announced any new people efficiency actions, nor do we comment on speculation.”
Ford plans to emphasize the voluntary nature of the staff reductions. Ford said April 27 when it reported first-quarter earnings that it planned to cut $3 billion in costs.
“We are continuing our intense focus on cost and the reason for that is not only mindful of the current environment that we’re in, but also I think preparing us even more for a downturn scenario,” Chief Executive Mark Fields told analysts in a conference call at that time.
JOBS JOBS JOBS
During his election campaign President Trump was highly critical of the auto industry’s use of Mexican plants to produce vehicles for the U.S. market.
Since taking office, Trump has regularly focused on creating jobs in sectors like the automotive industry, though he has released few concrete plans to do so.
Following criticism from Trump, in January Ford scrapped plans to build a $1.6 billion car factory in Mexico and instead added 700 jobs in Michigan.
In March, Ford said it would invest $1.2 billion in three Michigan facilities and create 130 jobs in projects largely in line with a previous agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
Trump pounced on that announcement before Ford could release its plans.
“Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants,” Trump posted on Twitter. “Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!”

Happy Mother's Day

U.S. Justice Department orders tougher criminal punishments

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration called for tougher charges and longer prison time for criminals in a move to return to strict enforcement of federal sentencing rules, according to a memo the U.S. Department of Justice released on Friday.
In a two-page note to federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed course from the previous Obama administration and told the nation’s 94 U.S. attorneys to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense.”
The move is in line with tough campaign rhetoric against criminals by U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who had also pledged to support police and law enforcement.
“This is a key part of President Trump’s promise to keep America safe,” Sessions said in remarks at the Justice Department.
Under former president Barack Obama, a Democrat, the Justice Department had sought to reduce mandatory-minimum sentences to reduce jail time for low-level drug crimes and ease overcrowding at federal U.S. prisons.
Obama’s then-attorney general Eric Holder advised prosecutors to avoid pursuing the toughest charges in certain cases, such as more minor drug offenses, that would have triggered mandatory sentencing under laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s.
In recent years, there has been growing bipartisan interest among some in Congress, U.S. states and the courts to reevaluate lengthy prison terms and instead focus on alternatives to reducing criminal behavior.
Sessions’ memo, dated on Wednesday, rescinds the Obama-era policy, saying federal prosecutors must now get approval from a supervisor if they want to bring charges or seek sentences that are milder than the strictest options available in a case.
“These reversals will be both substantively and financially ruinous, setting the Department back on a track to again spending one third of its budget on incarcerating people, rather than preventing, detecting, or investigating crime” Holder said of Sessions’s decision in a statement on Friday.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a longtime opponent of bipartisan sentencing reform efforts in Congress, called it a “common sense” way to reduce drugs and crime.
But other Republicans rejected that claim, saying drug use should be treated medically and that the department’s policy shift would only deepen the nation’s racial divide.
“Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated too many minorities for too long,” Senator Rand Paul said.
PRISON POPULATIONS LIKELY TO RISE
Holly Harris, head of the bipartisan sentencing reform organization U.S. Justice Action Network, said reform efforts have taken hold even in deep-red conservative states where Republicans dominate.
“It’s frustrating that Washington is not looking to the states as the laboratories of democracy,” she said.
Twenty-three U.S. states since 2007 have changed their sentencing laws to reserve prison space for the most serious or repeat offenders, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
The federal change is also likely to increase the number of people in the United States who are sentenced to U.S. prison.
“Reversing (Holder’s) directive will exacerbate prison overcrowding, increase spending and jeopardize the safety of staff and prisoners,” said Marc Mauer, who leads The Sentencing Project, a national criminal justice research and advocacy group.
The number of sentenced prisoners in federal custody fell slightly during Obama’s time in office, reversing a decades-old trend of growth.
Federal inmates represent a sliver of the overall U.S. prison population of more than 1.5 million, according to Justice Department statistics.
On Friday, Sessions said the change was necessary to combat rising drug use and crime, particularly in cities.
Several law enforcement leaders said the new policy would not mitigate the nation’s growing opioid epidemic, which Trump has pledged to make a top priority.
“Decades of experience shows we cannot arrest and incarcerate our way out of America’s drug problem. Instead, we must direct resources to treatment and to specifically combating violent crime,” said Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney in Utah.

President Trump on Saturday urged graduates of Liberty University to “never give up” and find the courage to challenge the establishment and critics, much like he has done in Washington.
"In my short time in Washington, I've seen firsthand how the system is broken," he said. "A small group of failed voices, who think they know everything … want to tell everybody else how to live,” Trump said in his commencement speech at the Christian school, in Lynchburg, Va.
“But you aren't going to let other people tell you what to believe, especially when you know that you're right. … We don't need a lecture from Washington on how to lead our lives."
Trump, a businessman and first-time elected official, made three previous visits to Liberty but none likely as important as his January 2016 trip in which he asked and received the support of evangelical Christians.
Jerry Falwell Jr., Liberty's president, helped Trump win an overwhelming 80 percent of the white evangelical vote, in his 2016 White House victory.
"Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy," Trump said Saturday, in his first college commencement speech as president. "Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right. And they know what is right, but they don't have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it."
Newly elected U.S. presidents often give their first commencement addresses at the University of Notre Dame, the country's best-known Roman Catholic school.
Former Presidents Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did so during their first year in office. But this year, Vice President Mike Pence will speak at Notre Dame's graduation, becoming the first vice president to do so.
Notre Dame spokesman Paul Browne declined to say whether Trump had been invited to the May 21 ceremony, saying it was against school policy to reveal who had turned down offers.
Trump's remarks in Virginia marked his first extended public appearance since he fired James Comey as FBI director on Tuesday.
The president on Saturday didn't talk about Comey. And he has largely stayed out of public view since Tuesday, when he removed the head of the agency investigating Russia's role in the 2016 election, along with possible ties between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.
Aboard Air Force One, en route to Liberty, Trump said he could appoint a new FBI director by Friday, before departing on his first overseas presidential trip.
Several candidates were interview Saturday at Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. Whoever is appointed would have to be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate.
A recent Pew Research Center survey marking Trump's first 100 days in office, a milestone reached on April 29, found three-quarters of white evangelicals approved of his performance as president while just 39 percent of the general public held the same view.
“I’m thrilled to be back at Liberty University,” said Trump, who repeatedly thanked the stadium-filled crowd for helping him get elected. “Boy did you come out and vote.”
Christian conservatives have been overjoyed by Trump's appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, along with Trump's choice of socially conservative Cabinet members and other officials, such as Charmaine Yoest, a prominent anti-abortion activist named to the Department of Health and Human Services.
But they had a mixed response to an executive order on religious liberty that Trump signed last week. He directed the IRS to ease up on enforcing an already rarely enforced limit on partisan political activity by churches.
He also promised "regulatory relief" for those who object on religious grounds to the birth control coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act health law. Yet the order did not address one of the most pressing demands from religious conservatives: broad exemptions from recognizing same-sex marriage.
Still, Falwell, who endorsed Trump in January 2016 just before that year's Iowa caucuses, praised Trump's actions on issues that concern Christian conservatives.
"I really don't think any other president has done more for evangelicals and the faith community in four months than President Trump has," Falwell said.
Falwell became a key surrogate and validator for the thrice-married Trump during the campaign, frequently traveling with Trump on the candidate's plane and appearing at events. Falwell often compared Trump to his later father, the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, and argued that while Trump wasn't the most religious candidate in the race, he was the man the country needed.
"The more that a broken system tells you that you're wrong, the more certain you must be that you must keep pushing ahead," added Trump, who often complains about being underestimated during the presidential campaign.

White House: North Korea has been 'flagrant menace for far too long'

The White House responded to the latest North Korean ballistic missile launch late Saturday, saying that the rogue regime has been a “flagrant menace for far too long.”
The statement added that President Trump “cannot imagine that Russia is pleased” with North Korea’s latest test because the missile landed close to Russia soil. The statement pointed out that the missile landed closer to Russia than to Japan.
The White House said the U.S. maintains its "ironclad commitment" to stand with its allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea, and added that the latest "provocation" should serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against the North.
The Pentagon confirmed that North Korea launched some type of ballistic missile at around 10:30 a.m. Hawaii time. It was launched near Kusung and landed in the Sea of Japan.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America.
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported the missile traveled about 435 miles.
The launch is the first in two weeks since the last attempt to fire a missile ended in a failure just minutes into flight.
The isolated regime attempted but failed to test-launch ballistic missiles four consecutive times in the past two months but has conducted a variety of missile testing since the beginning of last year at fast pace.
Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in late April that a "major, major conflict" with the North was possible, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs.
The launch is the first since a new liberal president took office in South Korea on Wednesday, saying dialog as well as pressure must be used to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and stop the North's weapons pursuit.

North Korea fires missile days after new South Korea leader pledges dialogue

North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Sunday in defiance of calls to rein in its weapons program, days after a new leader in its old rival South Korea came to power pledging to engage it in dialogue.
The U.S. Pacific Command said it was assessing the type of missile but it was “not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile”. Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said the missile could be of a new type.
The missile flew 700 km (430 miles) and reached an altitude of more than 2,000 km (1,245 miles), according to officials in South Korea and Japan, further and higher than an intermediate-range missile North Korea successfully tested in February from the same region of Kusong, northwest of its capital, Pyongyang.
North Korea is widely believed to be developing an intercontinental missile tipped with a nuclear weapon that is capable of reaching the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed not to let that happen.
An intercontinental ballistic missile is considered to have a range of more than 6,000 km (3,700 miles).
Experts said the altitude the missile tested on Sunday reached meant it was launched at a high trajectory, which would limit the lateral distance it traveled.
But if it was fired at a standard trajectory, it would have a range of at least 4,000 km (2,500 miles), experts said.
Kim Dong-yub, of Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said he estimated a standard trajectory would give it a range of 6,000 km.
Japan said the missile flew for 30 minutes before dropping into the sea between North Korea’s east coast and Japan. The North has consistently test-fired missiles in that direction.
“The launch may indeed represent a new missile with a long range,” said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, referring to the estimated altitude of more than 2,000 km. “It is definitely concerning.”
In Washington, the White House said Trump “cannot imagine Russia is pleased” with the test as the missile landed closer to Russia than to Japan.
“With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil – in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan – the President cannot imagine that Russia is pleased,” it said.
The launch served as a call for all nations to implement stronger sanctions against North Korea, it added.
‘CLEAR VIOLATION’
Speaking in Beijing, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, told reporters Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had discussed the situation on the Korean peninsula, including the latest missile launch and expressed “mutual concerns” about growing tension.
Putin is in Beijing for a conference on a plan for a new Silk Road. Delegations from the United States, South Korea and North Korea are also there.
The launch, at 5:27 a.m. Seoul time (2027 GMT Saturday), came two weeks after North Korea fired a missile that disintegrated minutes into flight, marking its fourth consecutive failure since March.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who took office on Wednesday, held his first National Security Council in response to the launch, which he called a “clear violation” of U.N. Security Council resolutions, his office said.
“The president said while South Korea remains open to the possibility of dialogue with North Korea, it is only possible when the North shows a change in attitude,” Yoon Young-chan, Moon’s press secretary, told a briefing.
Moon won Tuesday’s election on a platform of a moderate approach to North Korea and has said he would be willing to go to Pyongyang under the right circumstances, arguing dialogue must be used in parallel with sanctions.
China, the North’s sole main ally which nevertheless objects to its weapons programs, called for restraint and for no one to exacerbate tension.
“China opposes relevant launch activities by North Korea that are contrary to Security Council resolutions,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The launch will also complicate Moon’s efforts to mend ties with China that have been strained by a decision by South Korea’s former government to deploy a U.S. anti-missile defense system aimed at defending against North Korea, but which China sees as a threat to its security.
Moon told Chinese President Xi last week that it would be difficult to resolve the issue unless North Korea stopped being provocative.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said North Korea’s missile launches were a “grave threat to our country and a clear violation of UN resolutions”.
North Korea on Feb. 12, launched the Pukguksong-2 missile, an upgraded, extended-range version of its submarine-launched ballistic missile, from the same site.
South Korean and U.S. military officials said the February launch was a significant development as it successfully tested a solid-fuel engine from a mobile launcher. The missile flew about 500 km with an altitude of 550 km.
The North attempted but failed to test-launch ballistic missiles four times in the past two months but has conducted various tests since the beginning of last year at an unprecedented pace.
It also conducted its fourth and fifth nuclear tests last year.
Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in April that a “major, major conflict” with the North was possible but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome.
Trump has also said he would be “honored” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances.
On Saturday, a top North Korean diplomat said it was open to dialogue with the Trump administration under the right conditions.

pork barrel spending cartoons

GOP Document Outlines ‘Stealth’ Congressional Earmark Process

Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb speaks during a Reuters Newsmaker event in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

May 12, 2017
Washington, DC – John Hines, OAN Senior Political Correspondent
The term “congressional earmark” refers to the longstanding practice in which Members of Congress allocate pork barrel spending for their own districts. House Speaker Paul Ryan has placed a moratorium on earmarks saying they lead to uncontrolled spending. But now there is new evidence that Congress may have a system for “stealth earmarks.”
“What I’ve found is a PowerPoint presentation that proves that both parties are still using the earmark process secretly just now calling it ‘earmarks.’ But the earmark process goes on,” claims Patrick Howley, Editor, Big League Politics.com. “In the article, I refer to it as ‘stealth earmarks,’ which I think is a good term that pretty much encapsulates it. This is a PowerPoint presentation delivered by Appropriations leadership to GOP Congressmen. So, it’s a pass word only on-line system where Congressmen can go in and make their submissions for the earmarks they want and in 80 or 90 percent of cases they get the pork barrel spending that they want,” the reporter explains.”
The Power Point presentation proves that both parties are still using the earmark process, says Howley, nevertheless, he says the document specifically discourages the term “earmark.”
“In fact they even have a chart here, where they go through the you know the system for how a bill becomes a law. And they have a little yellow box with an arrow going around the typical system and says this is how you get your earmarks into the bill. Don’t use the term ‘earmarks,’ they even tell the Members ‘do not use the term earmark’ and do not be germane in the language that you use with these submissions,”he states.
Indeed, the document instructs members not to use the term earmark, and, even though Bill Christian of Citizens Against Government Waste says he cannot confirm the legitimacy of the document, the practice–if true–is disturbing.
“I would say that it would be disturbing if such a secretive end run around the earmark moratorium did in fact exist. This betrayal of the elected representatives’ pledge to abandon the corruptive practice of earmarking would run completely counter to the ‘drain the swamp’ message of the 2016 elections,” says Christian.
Appropriations Committee spokesperson Jennifer Hing commented officially in an email: “The notion that this was an instruction on earmarks is a total fabrication. This was simply an educational document to explain the proper way for members and their constituents to have their voices heard in the federal funding process. In fact, the committee specifically warns against asking for earmarks in any way.”

Treasury unit to share records with Senate for Trump-Russia probe: WSJ

A unit of the U.S. Treasury Department that fights money laundering will provide financial records to an investigation by the Senate into possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump and his associates, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Senate Intelligence Committee asked for the records from the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, late last month, the Journal cited the people as saying. (http://on.wsj.com/2qbNL7K)
One person said the records were needed to decide whether there was collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign, the Journal said.
Representatives for FinCEN and Republican Senator Richard Burr, the intelligence committee chairman, declined to comment, the Journal said.
The Senate probe took on added significance after Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey earlier this week amid an agency investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible Moscow ties to the Trump presidential campaign. The House of Representatives intelligence panel is conducting a similar probe.