Heading into the midterm elections, the most volatile candidate this year isn’t on the ballot.

But President Donald Trump still loves to take his freewheeling political stylings on the road on behalf of his fellow Republicans and he’s raring to go for the sprint to Nov. 6.

His eagerness to campaign for candidates – and protect his political flank – has led Republican officials and Trump’s political team to devise a strategy for managing the president’s time. It’s designed to keep him in places where he can be helpful.

They’re also determined to try to manage his unpredictability so the party’s strongest asset in turning out core GOP voters doesn’t end up doing damage instead.

There’s a constant effort to keep him on best behavior.

This past week, Trump heeded pleas from advisers and Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, head of the GOP Senate campaign committee, to refrain from picking a favorite in the fractious Arizona primary, waiting until after the results were in to back the winner. Later, at a rally in Indiana for Senate candidate Mike Braun, the president largely stuck to his script, promoting his agenda and criticizing Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.

“Senate Republicans will not get to where they need to go without the president this fall. That means doing exactly what he’s been doing,” said Josh Holmes, a longtime adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “The great danger in a midterm is an enthusiasm gap and there is nobody who can close the enthusiasm gap quite like the president.”

Aides believe Trump’s drawing power is critical to a strong turnout among the most loyal GOP voters, which is helpful in many statewide contests. But his presence could be counterproductive in many House districts where incumbents are struggling to hold onto voters in the center.

But this is a celebrity-turned-president who hardly is a selfless leader of his adoptive party. He launched his own re-election campaign weeks after his swearing-in last year, rather than waiting until after the midterm elections, as did his predecessors. With Democrats increasingly optimistic about retaking the House, Trump is motivated by self-protection. He’s keenly aware of the threats and investigations that could come his way if Democrats hold a majority in either the House or Senate.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, and Trump created an unnecessary political firestorm with his delayed and muted response to the death of Sen. John McCain. Still, aides think he generally has grown more focused and disciplined entering the final push to the fall elections.

At his Indiana rally Thursday night, Trump stuck to familiar themes, talking about tax cuts and trade tariffs, slamming high-tech companies, railing against the Justice Department and calling MS-13 gang members animals. But he did not mention McCain, avoiding recounting the well-worn tale about the senator’s pivotal vote against the president’s health care bill.

After a week in which aides pushed Trump to rise above his personal grudges against McCain, the mere fact that Trump kept the senator out of his remarks was notable.

While Trump’s White House remains marked by turbulence, insiders said the political shop has managed to impose some discipline. On potential endorsements, for example, political director Bill Stepien and adviser John DeStefano bring Trump detailed binders on candidates’ voting records, including their past comments on Trump, where they have broken with the president and other details.

While Stepien and DeStefeno have gained influence, they must compete with other power centers. Vice President Mike Pence and the White House office of legislative affairs weigh in at times, and Donald Trump Jr. has proved a powerful influence.

Some races have proved complicated, as in the Arizona Senate race, where Kelly Ward and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio both promoted their ties to Trump, as did establishment favorite Rep. Martha McSally. Trump stayed out of the race and McSally handily defeated the two more controversial candidates, averting what GOP operatives believed could have been a disaster for the party this fall.

In the Tennessee governor’s race, Rep. Diane Black also pushed for an endorsement. Trump stayed out of that race, which she lost, on the advice of staff.

But the president could not be persuaded to stay silent in other cases.

He supported Foster Friess in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Wyoming. Friess, who lost, was strongly backed by Trump Jr. Aides also had pushed Trump not to endorse Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in his bid to be governor, but Trump did at the last minute, helping put Kobach over the top in the primary but making the race in November more competitive for Democrats.

Aides said they pick their battles with the president, prioritizing races that could swing the balance of congressional control.

For political travel, White House staffers, who are coordinating with party aides, have divided the electoral map into places Trump can be helpful and places where it’s better to send in others such as Pence, Cabinet secretaries or members of the first family.

“He’s prioritizing places where he’s performed well and where there’s a strong network of grassroots support,” said North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

When Trump makes a political trip, aides try to make sure the candidate meets the president at the airport, has time with him in the car and gets the right sound bites on stage. That script was followed Thursday with Braun; Trump called him a “special guy” and promised that Braun would “be a truly great senator.”

On Friday, as he praised a pair of North Carolina Republican candidates at both an official and political event, Trump was effusive in his praise before turning the spotlight on his own accomplishments.

Trump’s rallies also have served as a boost to the GOP’s massive email and voter contact database. Attendees are entered into the party’s system within 48 hours.

Republican National Committee staffers gather signatures on petitions from people waiting in line and register voters at the event. Within five days, those that have expressed an interest in volunteering are contacted to schedule their first session.

 
…

A U.S. Senate panel begins confirmation hearings Tuesday on the nomination of federal appellate court judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a pivotal life-time appointment President Donald Trump hopes will cement a conservative-leaning majority on the court for years to come.

Kavanaugh will face tough questioning from lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee about his views on a range of issues, including abortion, the powers of a special prosecutor to investigate Trump and Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the conflict between religious beliefs and gay rights, environmental controls and numerous other issues.

The White House is hoping the full Senate will confirm the 53-year-old Kavanaugh to the nine-member court later in September, in time for him to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy when the court opens a new term on October 1.

Kennedy most often sided with the court’s four-member conservative bloc, but provided a fifth vote with court liberals to reject efforts to curb abortion and gay rights or limit universities in their use of affirmative action to open up admissions to more racial minorities.

Most independent Supreme Court analysts are predicting, based on hundreds of decisions that Kavanaugh has written at the appellate court level, that Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would most often side with the conservatives on the court, rather than prove to be the swing vote that Kennedy often provided on key issues favoring liberal interpretations of U.S. law.

The eventual full Senate vote on Kavanaugh is expected to be close, with Republicans holding a narrow 50-49 majority with the death of Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. But Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is required by state law to name another Republican to replace McCain and says he expects to do so in the coming days.

If all 51 Republicans support Kavanaugh, he would become the court’s 114th justice. At the moment, no Republicans have said they will reject Kavanaugh’s nomination and no Democrats have said they will support it.

Democrats are expected to vote overwhelmingly against Kavanaugh’s nomination, although three Democratic senators who voted for Trump’s first high court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, have yet to voice opposition or support for Kavanaugh, pending the confirmation hearing.

Democratic Senators Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Joe Manchin in West Virginia all face tough re-election battles in November in states Trump won easily in the 2016 election and could face pressure from voters to approve the Trump court selection.

Kavanaugh has had a long career in Washington that spans work two decades ago on the impeachment investigation of former President Bill Clinton, as a White House aide to former President George W. Bush, and most recently 12 years on the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, a court often considered a stepping stone to a Supreme Court seat.
…

President Donald Trump’s administration wants to shut down U.S. government radio stations that announce official time, a service in operation since World War II.

WWV and WWVB in the state of Colorado and WWVH on the island of Kauai in the mid-Pacific state of Hawaii, send out signals that allow millions of clocks and watches to be set either manually or automatically.

WWVB continuously broadcasts digital time codes, using very long electromagnetic waves at a frequency of 60 kilohertz, which are automatically received by timekeeping devices in North America, keeping them accurate to a fraction of a second.

“If you shut down these stations, you turn off all those clocks,” said Don Sullivan, who managed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) stations between 1994 and 2005.

​GPS not good enough

Some argue the terrestrial time signal have been rendered obsolete by the government’s Global Positioning System, whose satellites also transmit time signals, but users disagree, noting GPS devices must have an unobstructed view of a number of satellites in space to properly function.

“Sixty kilohertz permeates in a way GPS can’t,” Sullivan told VOA, explaining that WWVB’s very low frequency signal can be received inside buildings and it is an important backup to GPS in case adversaries attempt to interfere with the satellite radio-navigation system.

WWV and WWVH broadcast on a number of shortwave frequencies, meaning their signals can be received globally.

The Trump administration proposes, in its Fiscal 2019 budget to Congress, cutting $26.6 million and 136 jobs from NIST’s fundamental measurements, quantum science and measurement dissemination activities.

The budget document acknowledges that in addition to synchronizing clocks and watches, the time signals are also used in appliances, cameras and irrigation controllers.

“It’s crazy,” Sullivan said of the proposed cut. “It’s absolutely insane.”

NIST officials say they cannot comment on budget matters. The White House referred questions about NIST’s funding to the Office of Management and Budget, which has not responded to an inquiry from VOA.

Oldest continuously operating radio station

WWV, the oldest continuously operating radio station in the United States, first went on the air from Washington in 1919, conducting propagation experiments and playing music. In the early years, it also transmitted — via Morse code — news reports prepared by the Agriculture Department.

The station subsequently was moved to Maryland and then to Colorado in 1966. WWV has been a frequency standard since 1922 and has disseminated official U.S. time since 1944.

All of the NIST stations rely on extremely precise atomic clocks for the accuracy of their time signals.

WWV, at two minutes past every hour, also transmits a 440 hertz note (A above middle C), something it has done since 1936, allowing musicians to tune their pianos and other instruments.

All three stations retain a huge following worldwide, according to Sullivan.

WWV and WWVH broadcasts can also be heard by telephone and about 2,000 calls are received daily, according to NIST. (To listen to the broadcasts by phone, dial +1-303-499-7111 for WWV and +1-808-335-4363 for WWVH.)

The telephone time-of-day service also is used to synchronize clocks and watches, and for the calibration of stopwatches and timers (although slightly less accurate than radio reception). 

Tom Kelly, an amateur radio operator in the state of Oregon, has launched a petition to try to save the stations. His goal is to collect 100,000 online signatures from U.S. residents by September 15 that would compel a response from the White House.

Kelly’s petition calls the stations “an instrumental part in the telecommunications field, ranging from broadcasting to scientific research and education,” noting their transmissions of marine storm warnings, GPS satellite health reports and specific information about solar activity and radio propagation conditions.

Britain, China, Germany, Japan and Russia also have very low frequency time transmissions, but their stations are too distant to automatically set clocks in the United States.

Among other proposed cuts for NIST are its environmental measurement projects measuring the impact of aerosols on pollution and climate change and gas reference materials used by industry to reduce costs of complying with regulations and the Urban Dome research grants for determining how to measure greenhouse gas emissions for cities and across regions.
…

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says she has “no intention of taking any action” regarding any possible use of federal funds to arm teachers or provide them with firearms training.

DeVos’ comments came Friday after a top official in her department, asked about arming teachers, said states and local jurisdictions always “had the flexibility” to decide how to use federal education funds.

Frank Brogan, assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education, said arming educators “is a good example of a profoundly personal decision on the part of a school or a school district or even a state.” President Donald Trump and DeVos have said that schools may benefit from having armed teachers and should have that option.

DeVos not authorized

DeVos said Friday that “Congress did not authorize me or the Department to make those decisions” about arming teachers or training them on the use of firearms.

Her comments were in a letter to Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House committee overseeing education, and were posted by the department on Twitter.

“I will not take any action that would expand or restrict the responsibilities and flexibilities granted to state and local education agencies by Congress,” DeVos wrote.

Democrats and education groups have argued, however, that the funds are intended for academics, not guns.

DeVos heads a federal commission on school safety that was formed after the deadly Valentine’s Day shooting at a Florida high school.

An early draft of the commission’s report recommends that states and communities determine “based on the unique circumstances of each school” whether to arm its security personnel and teachers to be able to respond to violence. The draft’s section on training school personnel was reviewed by AP.

Official cites Texas program

In an interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Brogan cited the “school marshal” program in Texas where school employees can volunteer to carry weapons on campuses after undergoing training. Educators from some remote rural schools also told the panel that they rely on armed school personnel because the police may take too long to arrive. Others, however, argued that arming teachers is dangerous and could make schools feel like prisons.

Brogan said the Every Student Succeeds Act, a bipartisan law that shifts education authority to states, provides about $1 billion in annual funding for various school needs, including 20 percent specifically set aside for school safety.

“The people at the local level who’ve been there for years could make the decisions about what services to purchase, what equipment to buy to fulfill the general broad obligations laid out in that law,” he said.

The debate arose earlier this month after a small rural school district in Oklahoma and the state of Texas asked the department to clarify what the funds can be used for.

“The position is: You have the language … the language was written specifically to and always interpreted to mean ‘this is your money,”’ Brogan said.

Democratic lawmakers and teachers blasted the idea, accusing the Trump administration of acting in the interests of the National Rifle Association, and several congressmen called for legislation that would prohibit the use of those funds for guns.
…

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says she has “no intention of taking any action” regarding any possible use of federal funds to arm teachers or provide them with firearms training.

DeVos’ comments came Friday after a top official in her department, asked about arming teachers, said states and local jurisdictions always “had the flexibility” to decide how to use federal education funds.

Frank Brogan, assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education, said arming educators “is a good example of a profoundly personal decision on the part of a school or a school district or even a state.” President Donald Trump and DeVos have said that schools may benefit from having armed teachers and should have that option.

DeVos not authorized

DeVos said Friday that “Congress did not authorize me or the Department to make those decisions” about arming teachers or training them on the use of firearms.

Her comments were in a letter to Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House committee overseeing education, and were posted by the department on Twitter.

“I will not take any action that would expand or restrict the responsibilities and flexibilities granted to state and local education agencies by Congress,” DeVos wrote.

Democrats and education groups have argued, however, that the funds are intended for academics, not guns.

DeVos heads a federal commission on school safety that was formed after the deadly Valentine’s Day shooting at a Florida high school.

An early draft of the commission’s report recommends that states and communities determine “based on the unique circumstances of each school” whether to arm its security personnel and teachers to be able to respond to violence. The draft’s section on training school personnel was reviewed by AP.

Official cites Texas program

In an interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Brogan cited the “school marshal” program in Texas where school employees can volunteer to carry weapons on campuses after undergoing training. Educators from some remote rural schools also told the panel that they rely on armed school personnel because the police may take too long to arrive. Others, however, argued that arming teachers is dangerous and could make schools feel like prisons.

Brogan said the Every Student Succeeds Act, a bipartisan law that shifts education authority to states, provides about $1 billion in annual funding for various school needs, including 20 percent specifically set aside for school safety.

“The people at the local level who’ve been there for years could make the decisions about what services to purchase, what equipment to buy to fulfill the general broad obligations laid out in that law,” he said.

The debate arose earlier this month after a small rural school district in Oklahoma and the state of Texas asked the department to clarify what the funds can be used for.

“The position is: You have the language … the language was written specifically to and always interpreted to mean ‘this is your money,”’ Brogan said.

Democratic lawmakers and teachers blasted the idea, accusing the Trump administration of acting in the interests of the National Rifle Association, and several congressmen called for legislation that would prohibit the use of those funds for guns.
…

The Trump administration is under increasing pressure to speed up the reunification of immigrant families it separated at the Mexican border, following allegations three youngsters were sexually abused while in U.S. custody.

The government of El Salvador said the three, ages 12 to 17, were victimized at shelters in Arizona, and it asked the U.S. to make their return a priority.

“May they leave the shelters as soon as possible, because it is there that they are the most vulnerable,” Deputy Foreign Relations Minister Liduvina Magarin said in San Salvador on Thursday.

Deadline a month ago

The U.S. government already is facing heavy criticism over its slow pace in reuniting more than 2,600 children who were separated from their parents last spring before the Trump administration agreed to stop the practice. Most have since been reunited, but hundreds remain apart more than a month after the deadline set by a judge.

Before the Trump administration reversed course, many of the parents had been deported to their home countries while their children remained in shelters in the U.S.

Attorneys for the U.S. government and the immigrant families discussed how to accelerate the process at a hearing Friday in San Diego in front of U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who set the deadline.

Magarin gave few details on the three cases other than to say they involved “sexual violations, sexual abuses.” She said her government is ready with lawyers and psychologists to help the families, adding: “The psychological and emotional impact is forever.”

“It’s unbelievable that children who were fleeing violence here were met in the United States with the worst violence a child could encounter,” said Cesar Rios, director of the Salvadoran Migrant Institute.

More information is needed to investigate, the U.S. Department Health and Human Services said in a statement Friday, that adding that “without additional details, we are unable to confirm or deny these allegations took place” at a facility overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. It contracts with nonprofits and other third parties to run shelters for unaccompanied minors arriving at the border.

Administration asks ACLU to find the families

In trying to reunite families, the Trump administration has put the onus on the American Civil Liberties Union, asking that the organization use its “considerable resources” to find parents in their home countries, mostly Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

The governments of those countries and nonprofit organizations have been trying to locate the families. Those efforts have included posting public notices and putting hotline numbers on billboards in the hope a parent missing a child might see the signs and call.

“Every day that these children are separated and left in government facilities does more damage,” said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney representing separated families. “Even if the facilities were palaces, the separation of young children from their parents causes potentially permanent trauma.”

The government and ACLU indicated in the hearing Friday that the process should start to speed up.

200 cases could be resolved soon

Gelernt told the judge as many as 200 cases could be resolved in the next week or two. Those include families who want to be reunited in their home countries and those who want to waive their right to reunification and keep their child in the United States to pursue asylum.

The judge also said the administration can expedite cases where families have expressed the desire for the child to be sent back and not worry about it violating a temporary halt on deportations of families seeking asylum.

Justice Department attorney Scott Stewart said the government wants to remove any roadblocks.

“There are a lot of folks that want to move forward with reunification,” he told the judge.

Parents increasingly anxious

More than 300 parents who have been deported are waiting for their sons and daughters to be returned to them in their homelands. Many are growing increasingly anxious.

Among them is Evelin Roxana Meyer, whose 11-year-old son, Eduardo Almendarez Meyer, was told this week that he won’t be leaving the U.S. until Nov. 27. He has been held at a government-contracted shelter in Brownsville, Texas, since he was separated from his father in early June.

The boy’s mother said her husband was told when he signed his deportation papers that his son would be waiting for him in Honduras.

“Now it’ll be six months before we see him? Oh my God,” Meyer said Friday, crying during a telephone interview from her hometown of La Union. “I don’t know why it’s taking so long. My son is worried. He tells me, ‘More time here, Mommy? Oh, no. Why?’ I don’t know what to tell him.”

Child psychologist Barbara Van Dahlen, founder of Give an Hour, a network of mental health professions that is offering to counsel the separated families, said the reports of abuse are likely to worsen the immigrant parents’ anxieties.

“I can’t imagine the stress, the anxiety, the terror, if I was separated from my child, and then the thought that possibly some of these kids are being abused,” Van Dahlen said. “It would be so debilitating and destructive that it would be hard for some parents to function.”
…

The Trump administration is under increasing pressure to speed up the reunification of immigrant families it separated at the Mexican border, following allegations three youngsters were sexually abused while in U.S. custody.

The government of El Salvador said the three, ages 12 to 17, were victimized at shelters in Arizona, and it asked the U.S. to make their return a priority.

“May they leave the shelters as soon as possible, because it is there that they are the most vulnerable,” Deputy Foreign Relations Minister Liduvina Magarin said in San Salvador on Thursday.

Deadline a month ago

The U.S. government already is facing heavy criticism over its slow pace in reuniting more than 2,600 children who were separated from their parents last spring before the Trump administration agreed to stop the practice. Most have since been reunited, but hundreds remain apart more than a month after the deadline set by a judge.

Before the Trump administration reversed course, many of the parents had been deported to their home countries while their children remained in shelters in the U.S.

Attorneys for the U.S. government and the immigrant families discussed how to accelerate the process at a hearing Friday in San Diego in front of U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who set the deadline.

Magarin gave few details on the three cases other than to say they involved “sexual violations, sexual abuses.” She said her government is ready with lawyers and psychologists to help the families, adding: “The psychological and emotional impact is forever.”

“It’s unbelievable that children who were fleeing violence here were met in the United States with the worst violence a child could encounter,” said Cesar Rios, director of the Salvadoran Migrant Institute.

More information is needed to investigate, the U.S. Department Health and Human Services said in a statement Friday, that adding that “without additional details, we are unable to confirm or deny these allegations took place” at a facility overseen by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. It contracts with nonprofits and other third parties to run shelters for unaccompanied minors arriving at the border.

Administration asks ACLU to find the families

In trying to reunite families, the Trump administration has put the onus on the American Civil Liberties Union, asking that the organization use its “considerable resources” to find parents in their home countries, mostly Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

The governments of those countries and nonprofit organizations have been trying to locate the families. Those efforts have included posting public notices and putting hotline numbers on billboards in the hope a parent missing a child might see the signs and call.

“Every day that these children are separated and left in government facilities does more damage,” said Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney representing separated families. “Even if the facilities were palaces, the separation of young children from their parents causes potentially permanent trauma.”

The government and ACLU indicated in the hearing Friday that the process should start to speed up.

200 cases could be resolved soon

Gelernt told the judge as many as 200 cases could be resolved in the next week or two. Those include families who want to be reunited in their home countries and those who want to waive their right to reunification and keep their child in the United States to pursue asylum.

The judge also said the administration can expedite cases where families have expressed the desire for the child to be sent back and not worry about it violating a temporary halt on deportations of families seeking asylum.

Justice Department attorney Scott Stewart said the government wants to remove any roadblocks.

“There are a lot of folks that want to move forward with reunification,” he told the judge.

Parents increasingly anxious

More than 300 parents who have been deported are waiting for their sons and daughters to be returned to them in their homelands. Many are growing increasingly anxious.

Among them is Evelin Roxana Meyer, whose 11-year-old son, Eduardo Almendarez Meyer, was told this week that he won’t be leaving the U.S. until Nov. 27. He has been held at a government-contracted shelter in Brownsville, Texas, since he was separated from his father in early June.

The boy’s mother said her husband was told when he signed his deportation papers that his son would be waiting for him in Honduras.

“Now it’ll be six months before we see him? Oh my God,” Meyer said Friday, crying during a telephone interview from her hometown of La Union. “I don’t know why it’s taking so long. My son is worried. He tells me, ‘More time here, Mommy? Oh, no. Why?’ I don’t know what to tell him.”

Child psychologist Barbara Van Dahlen, founder of Give an Hour, a network of mental health professions that is offering to counsel the separated families, said the reports of abuse are likely to worsen the immigrant parents’ anxieties.

“I can’t imagine the stress, the anxiety, the terror, if I was separated from my child, and then the thought that possibly some of these kids are being abused,” Van Dahlen said. “It would be so debilitating and destructive that it would be hard for some parents to function.”
…

The Trump administration has cut funding to the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees, calling the organization “irredeemably flawed.”

The U.S. State Department ended decades of support to the organization Friday, saying “the administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency).”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.N. agency’s “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years.”

UNRWA provides health care, education and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The agency says it provides services to about 5 million Palestinian refugees, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the war that led to Israel’s establishment in 1948.

The United States supplies nearly 30 percent of the total budget of UNRWA and donated $355 million to the agency in 2016. However, in January, the Trump administration withheld $65 million it had been due to provide UNRWA and released only $60 million in funds.

Last week, the Trump administration announced it would cut more than $200 million in economic aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza. A senior State Department official said the decision took into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance to Gaza, where “Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation.”

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs Gaza, seized the coastal territory in 2007 from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. That led to Israel and Egypt placing severe economic restrictions on the region.

Under the Trump administration, Washington has taken a number of actions that have angered the Palestinians, including recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May. The Palestinian leadership has been boycotting Washington’s peace efforts since the Jerusalem announcement.
…

The Trump administration has cut funding to the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees, calling the organization “irredeemably flawed.”

The U.S. State Department ended decades of support to the organization Friday, saying “the administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency).”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.N. agency’s “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries is simply unsustainable and has been in crisis mode for many years.”

UNRWA provides health care, education and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The agency says it provides services to about 5 million Palestinian refugees, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the war that led to Israel’s establishment in 1948.

The United States supplies nearly 30 percent of the total budget of UNRWA and donated $355 million to the agency in 2016. However, in January, the Trump administration withheld $65 million it had been due to provide UNRWA and released only $60 million in funds.

Last week, the Trump administration announced it would cut more than $200 million in economic aid to the Palestinians, following a review of the funding for projects in the West Bank and Gaza. A senior State Department official said the decision took into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance to Gaza, where “Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation.”

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs Gaza, seized the coastal territory in 2007 from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. That led to Israel and Egypt placing severe economic restrictions on the region.

Under the Trump administration, Washington has taken a number of actions that have angered the Palestinians, including recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv in May. The Palestinian leadership has been boycotting Washington’s peace efforts since the Jerusalem announcement.
…

The remains of the late Senator John McCain are lying in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda Friday as Americans continue to mourn the loss of the long-time legislator and war hero.

McCain’s remains were flown Thursday to Washington from Arizona, the southwestern U.S. state he represented in Congress since he was first elected in 1982.

Hundreds of members of Congress are expected to attend a ceremony in the rotunda, an honor that has been bestowed upon just 30 Americans throughout the country’s history. McCain’s coffin will rest on a wooden platform known as a catafalque, which was first used in 1865 to support the casket of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

President Donald Trump was not invited to Friday’s ceremony or McCain’s funeral on Saturday, a decision viewed by many as a rebuke of Trump. A bitter feud between Trump and the two- time presidential hopeful took root during Trump’s 2016 campaign, when he mocked McCain for getting captured during the Vietnam War and said McCain was not a war hero.

Vice President Mike Pence will, instead, speak at the ceremony and other administration officials will be present, as will McCain’s widow, Cindy, his seven children and his 106-year-old mother, Roberta McCain.

After Friday’s ceremony, McCain will lie in state for the rest of the day for public viewing in the rotunda, where his flag-draped coffin will be presided over by a Capitol Hill Guard of Honor.

Two former presidents, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama, will deliver remarks at Saturday’s memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington.

McCain lost the Republican presidential nomination to Bush in 2000 and the presidential election to Obama in 2008.

The former aviator who was a prisoner of war for more than five years will be buried Sunday at his college alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in nearby Annapolis, Maryland.

McCain died last Saturday at age 81 after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday described his old friend as a man who lived by an ageless code of honor, courage and duty for his country.

Three former NATO secretaries general have called for the alliance’s new $1.4 billion Brussels-based headquarters to be named McCain.

“Despite his being a U.S. Senator, across Europe we all felt that John McCain III was one of our own,” they said in a letter to the British paper The Times.

In a letter, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who served in the top post from 2009-2014, George Robertson (1999-2003) and Javier Solana (1995-1999) have supported the tribute to the Arizona Republican’s work in “promoting transatlantic unity.”

The letter, published Thursday, reads: “As three former secretary-generals of NATO, we believe that the transatlantic alliance is the cornerstone of a stable, peaceful and free world. Few things symbolize this alliance, and the enduring benefits of American global leadership, more vividly than the life and work of John McCain.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed he received the request to name the new NATO headquarters after Senator John McCain.

“This proposal will be studied carefully,” said NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescuin in a statement.

McCain lost the Republican presidential nomination to Bush in 2000 and the presidential election to Obama in 2008.

The former aviator who was a prisoner of war for more than five years will be buried Sunday at his college alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in nearby Annapolis, Maryland.

McCain died last Saturday at age 81 after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday described his old friend as a man who lived by an ageless code of honor, courage and duty for his country.

“Character is destiny, John had character,” Biden said at a funeral service for the 81-year-old McCain in the Arizona capital of Phoenix.

 
…

The remains of the late Senator John McCain are lying in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda Friday as Americans continue to mourn the loss of the long-time legislator and war hero.

McCain’s remains were flown Thursday to Washington from Arizona, the southwestern U.S. state he represented in Congress since he was first elected in 1982.

Hundreds of members of Congress are expected to attend a ceremony in the rotunda, an honor that has been bestowed upon just 30 Americans throughout the country’s history. McCain’s coffin will rest on a wooden platform known as a catafalque, which was first used in 1865 to support the casket of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

President Donald Trump was not invited to Friday’s ceremony or McCain’s funeral on Saturday, a decision viewed by many as a rebuke of Trump. A bitter feud between Trump and the two- time presidential hopeful took root during Trump’s 2016 campaign, when he mocked McCain for getting captured during the Vietnam War and said McCain was not a war hero.

Vice President Mike Pence will, instead, speak at the ceremony and other administration officials will be present, as will McCain’s widow, Cindy, his seven children and his 106-year-old mother, Roberta McCain.

After Friday’s ceremony, McCain will lie in state for the rest of the day for public viewing in the rotunda, where his flag-draped coffin will be presided over by a Capitol Hill Guard of Honor.

Two former presidents, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama, will deliver remarks at Saturday’s memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington.

McCain lost the Republican presidential nomination to Bush in 2000 and the presidential election to Obama in 2008.

The former aviator who was a prisoner of war for more than five years will be buried Sunday at his college alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in nearby Annapolis, Maryland.

McCain died last Saturday at age 81 after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday described his old friend as a man who lived by an ageless code of honor, courage and duty for his country.

Three former NATO secretaries general have called for the alliance’s new $1.4 billion Brussels-based headquarters to be named McCain.

“Despite his being a U.S. Senator, across Europe we all felt that John McCain III was one of our own,” they said in a letter to the British paper The Times.

In a letter, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who served in the top post from 2009-2014, George Robertson (1999-2003) and Javier Solana (1995-1999) have supported the tribute to the Arizona Republican’s work in “promoting transatlantic unity.”

The letter, published Thursday, reads: “As three former secretary-generals of NATO, we believe that the transatlantic alliance is the cornerstone of a stable, peaceful and free world. Few things symbolize this alliance, and the enduring benefits of American global leadership, more vividly than the life and work of John McCain.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed he received the request to name the new NATO headquarters after Senator John McCain.

“This proposal will be studied carefully,” said NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescuin in a statement.

McCain lost the Republican presidential nomination to Bush in 2000 and the presidential election to Obama in 2008.

The former aviator who was a prisoner of war for more than five years will be buried Sunday at his college alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in nearby Annapolis, Maryland.

McCain died last Saturday at age 81 after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday described his old friend as a man who lived by an ageless code of honor, courage and duty for his country.

“Character is destiny, John had character,” Biden said at a funeral service for the 81-year-old McCain in the Arizona capital of Phoenix.

 
…

Thousands of mourners have come to pay their respects to music legend Aretha Franklin, who will be laid to rest Friday in Detroit, Michigan. A star-studded roster of performers and speakers are scheduled to attend. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
…

Thousands of mourners have come to pay their respects to music legend Aretha Franklin, who will be laid to rest Friday in Detroit, Michigan. A star-studded roster of performers and speakers are scheduled to attend. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
…

Notably absent from the final tribute ceremonies for U.S. Senator John McCain, who died last Saturday, is President Donald Trump. McCain and Trump disagreed on a number of issues, including U.S. relations with Russia. Some analysts view the feud as emblematic of the clash of values within the Republican Party. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
…

Notably absent from the final tribute ceremonies for U.S. Senator John McCain, who died last Saturday, is President Donald Trump. McCain and Trump disagreed on a number of issues, including U.S. relations with Russia. Some analysts view the feud as emblematic of the clash of values within the Republican Party. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump, at political rally in the Midwestern state of Indiana, again directed his ire at the country’s top national law enforcement officials.

“Our Justice Department and our FBI have to start doing their job, doing it right and doing it well,” Trump said Thursday evening. “People are angry.”

“What’s happening is a disgrace,” declared the president.

“I wanted to stay out, but at some point if it doesn’t straighten out properly … I will get involved and I’ll get in there if I have to,” Trump added.

Sessions’ job

Earlier in the day at the White House, the president referred to the special counsel’s probe into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russians as an “illegal investigation.”

Speaking to the Bloomberg news agency, Trump said the job of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from oversight of the investigation, is safe until, at least, the November midterm election.

“I just would love to have him do a great job,” Trump said during the Oval Office interview, adding that he would “love to have him look at the other side,” reiterating calls for the Justice Department to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the origins of the Russia probe.

“I do question what is Jeff doing,” he added.

The president has repeatedly ridiculed Sessions, the top U.S. law enforcement officer, as “weak” for not pursuing what the president and many other Republicans perceive as anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

​FBI refuted Trump claim

The FBI, on Wednesday, refuted the claim Trump made without citing evidence that the e-mails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the 2016 election, had her e-mails hacked by China.

Trump, earlier Wednesday had said federal law enforcement risked losing credibility if it did not further investigate the matter.

“Look at what she’s getting away with?” Trump said about Clinton at the Indiana rally, prompting the crowd in the 11,000-seat Ford Center to briefly chant “lock her up.”

Trump has repeatedly called the investigation, headed by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is a former FBI director, a politically motivated witch hunt.

The president repeatedly asserts there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Six convictions, 12 indictments

Mueller’s investigation has so far resulted in six people being convicted of crimes. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on August 21 was the first person to be convicted in a jury trial from the probe, which also returned indictments in July against 12 Russian intelligence officers in the computer hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

On Twitter earlier in the day Trump denied referenced reports he has tried to have Sessions and Mueller removed from their positions.

Discussing his soon-to-depart White House Counsel, Donald McGahn, the president tweeted: “I liked Don, but he was NOT responsible for me not firing Bob Mueller or Jeff Sessions. So much Fake Reporting and Fake News!”

During the evening’s rally in Evansville, Trump again targeted journalists for harsh criticism, accusing them of being in alliance with those who oppose him politically, including “deep state radicals.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump, at political rally in the Midwestern state of Indiana, again directed his ire at the country’s top national law enforcement officials.

“Our Justice Department and our FBI have to start doing their job, doing it right and doing it well,” Trump said Thursday evening. “People are angry.”

“What’s happening is a disgrace,” declared the president.

“I wanted to stay out, but at some point if it doesn’t straighten out properly … I will get involved and I’ll get in there if I have to,” Trump added.

Sessions’ job

Earlier in the day at the White House, the president referred to the special counsel’s probe into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russians as an “illegal investigation.”

Speaking to the Bloomberg news agency, Trump said the job of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from oversight of the investigation, is safe until, at least, the November midterm election.

“I just would love to have him do a great job,” Trump said during the Oval Office interview, adding that he would “love to have him look at the other side,” reiterating calls for the Justice Department to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the origins of the Russia probe.

“I do question what is Jeff doing,” he added.

The president has repeatedly ridiculed Sessions, the top U.S. law enforcement officer, as “weak” for not pursuing what the president and many other Republicans perceive as anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

​FBI refuted Trump claim

The FBI, on Wednesday, refuted the claim Trump made without citing evidence that the e-mails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the 2016 election, had her e-mails hacked by China.

Trump, earlier Wednesday had said federal law enforcement risked losing credibility if it did not further investigate the matter.

“Look at what she’s getting away with?” Trump said about Clinton at the Indiana rally, prompting the crowd in the 11,000-seat Ford Center to briefly chant “lock her up.”

Trump has repeatedly called the investigation, headed by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is a former FBI director, a politically motivated witch hunt.

The president repeatedly asserts there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Six convictions, 12 indictments

Mueller’s investigation has so far resulted in six people being convicted of crimes. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on August 21 was the first person to be convicted in a jury trial from the probe, which also returned indictments in July against 12 Russian intelligence officers in the computer hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

On Twitter earlier in the day Trump denied referenced reports he has tried to have Sessions and Mueller removed from their positions.

Discussing his soon-to-depart White House Counsel, Donald McGahn, the president tweeted: “I liked Don, but he was NOT responsible for me not firing Bob Mueller or Jeff Sessions. So much Fake Reporting and Fake News!”

During the evening’s rally in Evansville, Trump again targeted journalists for harsh criticism, accusing them of being in alliance with those who oppose him politically, including “deep state radicals.”
…

Environmentalists are alarmed that President Donald Trump is following through on his campaign pledges to roll back Obama-era rules that tightened restrictions on greenhouse gases, promising the moves would lead to more American jobs and economic growth.

At a recent rally in Charleston, West Virginia, under a “Trump Digs Coal” banner, the president announced plans to roll back the Clean Power Plan.

“We are putting our great coal miners back to work.” Trump said, claiming that coal is necessary for the nation’s energy security. “You can do a lot of things to those solar panels, but you know what you can’t hurt? Coal. You can do whatever you want to coal.”

Trump’s plan abandons the previous administration’s goal of scaling back U.S. reliance on coal and reducing the nation’s carbon emissions by a third by the year 2030. Instead, Trump wants to allow coal-producing states like West Virginia to set their own limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed a repeal of the American Clean Cars Standards, the Obama-era regulation that set stringent limits on vehicle fuel-efficiency and emissions. The proposal include revoking the rights of states to set their own strict vehicle emission targets, setting up a legal battle with California and 18 other states with ambitious clean cars programs.

Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, said the state will fight what it believes to be “an egregious proposal that violates the law and is damaging to the interests of the people of this country when it comes to improving air quality.”

Environmental activists also have denounced the proposals. Tomas Carbonell of the Environmental Defense Fund said cars and power plants are responsible for the majority of carbon pollution in the U.S. He added that the administration’s rollback of these climate protections “sends a real signal to the world that America is not going to do its part to reduce pollution.”

Even the administration’s Environmental Protection Agency’s own analysis acknowledges that increased pollution from the rollback of the Clean Power Plan could lead to 1,400 more premature deaths each year by 2030. Carbonell said this would mean health and economic costs with potentially “billions of dollars in net harm to Americans resulting from this proposal even after you take into account the compliance cost.”

The plan is supported by the industry lobby that says Trump’s coal-friendly policies create jobs. Jason Bostic from the West Virginia Coal Association said that since Trump took office, the state has added about 3,000 direct mining jobs. He dismissed criticism that coal is a dying industry that hurts the environment.

“I think what you have are critics outside of this industry that are a little bit unrealistic in their goals about a renewable economy built on wind power, wishes and unicorns.” he said.

If approved, Trump’s proposal, called the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” could keep coal plants operating longer, by allowing them to invest in facilities without having to upgrade pollution control technologies to meet existing standards.

Yet, experts are skeptical the proposal would actually would save coal jobs in the long term given that there are cheaper and cleaner energy sources like natural gas, and that the cost of renewable energy like solar and wind continue to drop.

Blair Beasley of the Bipartisan Policy Center said, “The coal industry is still facing some pretty significant headwinds,” despite Trump’s rollbacks.

Most analysts believe Trump’s proposal is driven more by political rather than economic considerations. In West Virginia, Trump’s approval ratings are almost always above the national average. Beasley noted, however, that as the power sector transitions away from coal, there are communities that potentially could be left behind, and this is an important consideration in policymaking.

The Clean Power Plan was blocked by the Supreme Court in early 2016 and never implemented. Yet, West Virginians blamed President Barack Obama for the decline of the coal industry.

In his last year in office, Obama’s approval rating in the state was 24 percent, the lowest in the nation. Jake Zuckerman, political reporter at the Charleston Gazette-Mail said that a fair criticism for the Obama administration is they did not hold public hearings in West Virginia on the Clean Power Plan.

“I think that people got this feeling that they weren’t being heard, which I think carries a lot of weight here,” he said.

Now these coal miners feel Trump is listening. At the Trump rally in Charleston, Kevin Abbot from Gilbert, West Virginia, said he lost his job under Obama, but now he’s back to work.

“I’m tickled to death,” he said. “The pay went up. The mining industry went up. So, everything’s looking real good as far as mining goes.”

Abbott, who has been mining for 32 years, said he likes everything Trump has done. “He’s sticking with his campaign promises.”

The administration’s proposals to roll back antipollution standards are in line with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement. Every country in the world except the U.S. and Syria, are now signatories of the agreement, which aims to mitigate the effects of global warming.
…

Environmentalists are alarmed that President Donald Trump is following through on his campaign pledges to roll back Obama-era rules that tightened restrictions on greenhouse gases, promising the moves would lead to more American jobs and economic growth.

At a recent rally in Charleston, West Virginia, under a “Trump Digs Coal” banner, the president announced plans to roll back the Clean Power Plan.

“We are putting our great coal miners back to work.” Trump said, claiming that coal is necessary for the nation’s energy security. “You can do a lot of things to those solar panels, but you know what you can’t hurt? Coal. You can do whatever you want to coal.”

Trump’s plan abandons the previous administration’s goal of scaling back U.S. reliance on coal and reducing the nation’s carbon emissions by a third by the year 2030. Instead, Trump wants to allow coal-producing states like West Virginia to set their own limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed a repeal of the American Clean Cars Standards, the Obama-era regulation that set stringent limits on vehicle fuel-efficiency and emissions. The proposal include revoking the rights of states to set their own strict vehicle emission targets, setting up a legal battle with California and 18 other states with ambitious clean cars programs.

Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, said the state will fight what it believes to be “an egregious proposal that violates the law and is damaging to the interests of the people of this country when it comes to improving air quality.”

Environmental activists also have denounced the proposals. Tomas Carbonell of the Environmental Defense Fund said cars and power plants are responsible for the majority of carbon pollution in the U.S. He added that the administration’s rollback of these climate protections “sends a real signal to the world that America is not going to do its part to reduce pollution.”

Even the administration’s Environmental Protection Agency’s own analysis acknowledges that increased pollution from the rollback of the Clean Power Plan could lead to 1,400 more premature deaths each year by 2030. Carbonell said this would mean health and economic costs with potentially “billions of dollars in net harm to Americans resulting from this proposal even after you take into account the compliance cost.”

The plan is supported by the industry lobby that says Trump’s coal-friendly policies create jobs. Jason Bostic from the West Virginia Coal Association said that since Trump took office, the state has added about 3,000 direct mining jobs. He dismissed criticism that coal is a dying industry that hurts the environment.

“I think what you have are critics outside of this industry that are a little bit unrealistic in their goals about a renewable economy built on wind power, wishes and unicorns.” he said.

If approved, Trump’s proposal, called the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” could keep coal plants operating longer, by allowing them to invest in facilities without having to upgrade pollution control technologies to meet existing standards.

Yet, experts are skeptical the proposal would actually would save coal jobs in the long term given that there are cheaper and cleaner energy sources like natural gas, and that the cost of renewable energy like solar and wind continue to drop.

Blair Beasley of the Bipartisan Policy Center said, “The coal industry is still facing some pretty significant headwinds,” despite Trump’s rollbacks.

Most analysts believe Trump’s proposal is driven more by political rather than economic considerations. In West Virginia, Trump’s approval ratings are almost always above the national average. Beasley noted, however, that as the power sector transitions away from coal, there are communities that potentially could be left behind, and this is an important consideration in policymaking.

The Clean Power Plan was blocked by the Supreme Court in early 2016 and never implemented. Yet, West Virginians blamed President Barack Obama for the decline of the coal industry.

In his last year in office, Obama’s approval rating in the state was 24 percent, the lowest in the nation. Jake Zuckerman, political reporter at the Charleston Gazette-Mail said that a fair criticism for the Obama administration is they did not hold public hearings in West Virginia on the Clean Power Plan.

“I think that people got this feeling that they weren’t being heard, which I think carries a lot of weight here,” he said.

Now these coal miners feel Trump is listening. At the Trump rally in Charleston, Kevin Abbot from Gilbert, West Virginia, said he lost his job under Obama, but now he’s back to work.

“I’m tickled to death,” he said. “The pay went up. The mining industry went up. So, everything’s looking real good as far as mining goes.”

Abbott, who has been mining for 32 years, said he likes everything Trump has done. “He’s sticking with his campaign promises.”

The administration’s proposals to roll back antipollution standards are in line with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement. Every country in the world except the U.S. and Syria, are now signatories of the agreement, which aims to mitigate the effects of global warming.
…

President Donald Trump has followed through on pledges to roll-back Obama-era rules that tightened restrictions on greenhouse gases, promising the moves would lead to more American jobs and economic growth. Trump’s proposal includes loosening restrictions to the American Clean Cars Standards and the Clean Power Plan. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.
…

President Donald Trump has followed through on pledges to roll-back Obama-era rules that tightened restrictions on greenhouse gases, promising the moves would lead to more American jobs and economic growth. Trump’s proposal includes loosening restrictions to the American Clean Cars Standards and the Clean Power Plan. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.
…

The National Enquirer has long explained its support for Donald Trump as a business decision based on the president’s popularity among its readers. But private financial documents and circulation figures obtained by The Associated Press show that the tabloid’s business was declining even as it published stories attacking Trump’s political foes and, prosecutors claim, helped suppress stories about his alleged sexual affairs.

The Enquirer’s privately held parent company, American Media Inc., lost $72 million for the year ending in March, the records obtained by the AP show. And despite AMI chairman David Pecker’s claims that the Enquirer’s heavy focus on Trump sells papers, the documents show that the Enquirer’s average weekly circulation fell by 18 percent to 265,000 in its 2018 fiscal year from the same period the year before, the greatest percentage loss of any AMI-owned publication. The slide follows the Enquirer’s 15 percent circulation loss for the previous 12 months, a span that included the presidential election.

More broadly, the documents obtained by the AP show that American Media isn’t making enough money to cover the interest accruing on its $882 million in long-term debt and that the company expects “continued declines in circulation and advertising revenues” in the current year. That leaves AMI reliant on debt to keep its operations afloat and finance a string of recent acquisitions that are transforming the tabloid news industry.

New Jersey creditors

That creditor backstopping AMI is a New Jersey investment fund called Chatham Asset Management. Its top executive dined with Pecker and Trump at the White House last year, and the fund has both a history of Republican political donations and ties to the administration of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, which awarded it hundreds of millions of dollars in state retirement funds to manage.

AMI’s current debts stem from the declining fortunes of the magazine industry and a series of acquisitions. Chatham has kept this number from ballooning further by converting some of the debt it is owed into shares in the company.

Hush money allegations

The publisher’s precarious financials and reliance on Chatham are a backdrop to the publisher’s growing entanglement in a federal investigation of allegations of hush money payments and violations of campaign finance laws.

Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty last week to criminal violations of campaign laws, accepting prosecutors’ claim that he, Trump and the National Enquirer were involved in buying the silence of an adult-film actress and a former Playboy model who claim to have had affairs with Trump. Pecker and his top editorial deputy, Dylan Howard, have received immunity in exchange for their cooperation. Along with Cohen, they are among the latest longtime Trump loyalists to be swept up in the federal investigations engulfing the president and his inner circle.

Neither AMI nor company officials have been charged in the case.

AMI did not provide an on-the-record response to detailed questions from the AP sent to Howard, Pecker and its outside spokesman. But a confidential financial document obtained by the AP argues that investors should focus on its current cash flows and not its profitability. Over the last two years, it has generated a combined $12 million cash flow from operations even as it has posted $160 million in overall losses.

AMI also recently announced efforts to refinance as much as $450 million in debt. Despite the company’s recent purchases of US Weekly and rival gossip publisher Bauer Media, revenue from AMI’s existing publications continues to drop, the financial report obtained by the AP shows.

Trump’s ‘a personal friend of mine’

Pecker has long maintained an aura of absolute control over the Enquirer and its sister publications, boasting of his willingness to spend AMI’s money to benefit Trump.

“The guy’s a personal friend of mine,” he told The New Yorker magazine last summer, explaining why AMI paid former Playmate Karen McDougal $150,000 in a deal that prevented her from going public with her claim that she’d had an affair with Trump.

Owned by management firm

But Pecker owns only a small fraction of AMI, around 8 percent, according to the company. More than 80 percent of AMI, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars of its debt, belongs to Chatham Asset Management, with billionaire investor Leon Cooperman owning an additional 7 percent.

Chatham declined to address questions about the Enquirer’s relationship with Trump or the future of its investment in AMI. But the firm released a statement saying Chatham “has no involvement in the editorial process or the day-to-day business decisions of the company.”

Among Chatham’s largest investors, according to public records, is New Jersey’s public pension fund. Chatham manages investment decisions for more than $300 million in pension holdings for the state.

Asked about AMI’s alleged involvement with campaign finance law violations and hush money payments, state Treasury spokeswoman Jennifer Sciortino told the AP that “we expect our investment partners to invest in good businesses with strong management teams that follow all applicable laws.” She declined to say whether New Jersey had discussed AMI with Chatham, but said, “We are in regular contact with our investment partners regarding underlying portfolio companies and we provide feedback when appropriate.”

The confidential financial document obtained by the AP states that AMI’s $882 million in long-term debt owed to creditors as of March is a competitive disadvantage that may compromise its ability to launch new projects, borrow additional money or even pay for “general corporate requirements.”

​Trump concern

While the details of AMI’s financial difficulties described in the confidential document haven’t been previously reported, the prospect that Pecker and AMI might not protect Trump’s secrets forever has long been a concern. Trump and Cohen even discussed the possibility that the ties between Trump and the National Enquirer might someday unravel.

In July, Cohen released an audio recording in which the men discussed plans to buy McDougal’s story of an affair with Trump from the National Enquirer. Such a purchase was necessary, they suggested, to prevent Trump from having to permanently rely on a tight relationship with the tabloid.

“You never know where that company — you never know what he’s gonna be,” Cohen says.

“David gets hit by a truck,” Trump says.

“Correct,” Cohen replies. “So, I’m all over that.”

According to the documents accompanying Cohen’s guilty plea last week, Trump’s purchase of McDougal’s story never occurred.
…

The National Enquirer has long explained its support for Donald Trump as a business decision based on the president’s popularity among its readers. But private financial documents and circulation figures obtained by The Associated Press show that the tabloid’s business was declining even as it published stories attacking Trump’s political foes and, prosecutors claim, helped suppress stories about his alleged sexual affairs.

The Enquirer’s privately held parent company, American Media Inc., lost $72 million for the year ending in March, the records obtained by the AP show. And despite AMI chairman David Pecker’s claims that the Enquirer’s heavy focus on Trump sells papers, the documents show that the Enquirer’s average weekly circulation fell by 18 percent to 265,000 in its 2018 fiscal year from the same period the year before, the greatest percentage loss of any AMI-owned publication. The slide follows the Enquirer’s 15 percent circulation loss for the previous 12 months, a span that included the presidential election.

More broadly, the documents obtained by the AP show that American Media isn’t making enough money to cover the interest accruing on its $882 million in long-term debt and that the company expects “continued declines in circulation and advertising revenues” in the current year. That leaves AMI reliant on debt to keep its operations afloat and finance a string of recent acquisitions that are transforming the tabloid news industry.

New Jersey creditors

That creditor backstopping AMI is a New Jersey investment fund called Chatham Asset Management. Its top executive dined with Pecker and Trump at the White House last year, and the fund has both a history of Republican political donations and ties to the administration of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, which awarded it hundreds of millions of dollars in state retirement funds to manage.

AMI’s current debts stem from the declining fortunes of the magazine industry and a series of acquisitions. Chatham has kept this number from ballooning further by converting some of the debt it is owed into shares in the company.

Hush money allegations

The publisher’s precarious financials and reliance on Chatham are a backdrop to the publisher’s growing entanglement in a federal investigation of allegations of hush money payments and violations of campaign finance laws.

Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty last week to criminal violations of campaign laws, accepting prosecutors’ claim that he, Trump and the National Enquirer were involved in buying the silence of an adult-film actress and a former Playboy model who claim to have had affairs with Trump. Pecker and his top editorial deputy, Dylan Howard, have received immunity in exchange for their cooperation. Along with Cohen, they are among the latest longtime Trump loyalists to be swept up in the federal investigations engulfing the president and his inner circle.

Neither AMI nor company officials have been charged in the case.

AMI did not provide an on-the-record response to detailed questions from the AP sent to Howard, Pecker and its outside spokesman. But a confidential financial document obtained by the AP argues that investors should focus on its current cash flows and not its profitability. Over the last two years, it has generated a combined $12 million cash flow from operations even as it has posted $160 million in overall losses.

AMI also recently announced efforts to refinance as much as $450 million in debt. Despite the company’s recent purchases of US Weekly and rival gossip publisher Bauer Media, revenue from AMI’s existing publications continues to drop, the financial report obtained by the AP shows.

Trump’s ‘a personal friend of mine’

Pecker has long maintained an aura of absolute control over the Enquirer and its sister publications, boasting of his willingness to spend AMI’s money to benefit Trump.

“The guy’s a personal friend of mine,” he told The New Yorker magazine last summer, explaining why AMI paid former Playmate Karen McDougal $150,000 in a deal that prevented her from going public with her claim that she’d had an affair with Trump.

Owned by management firm

But Pecker owns only a small fraction of AMI, around 8 percent, according to the company. More than 80 percent of AMI, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars of its debt, belongs to Chatham Asset Management, with billionaire investor Leon Cooperman owning an additional 7 percent.

Chatham declined to address questions about the Enquirer’s relationship with Trump or the future of its investment in AMI. But the firm released a statement saying Chatham “has no involvement in the editorial process or the day-to-day business decisions of the company.”

Among Chatham’s largest investors, according to public records, is New Jersey’s public pension fund. Chatham manages investment decisions for more than $300 million in pension holdings for the state.

Asked about AMI’s alleged involvement with campaign finance law violations and hush money payments, state Treasury spokeswoman Jennifer Sciortino told the AP that “we expect our investment partners to invest in good businesses with strong management teams that follow all applicable laws.” She declined to say whether New Jersey had discussed AMI with Chatham, but said, “We are in regular contact with our investment partners regarding underlying portfolio companies and we provide feedback when appropriate.”

The confidential financial document obtained by the AP states that AMI’s $882 million in long-term debt owed to creditors as of March is a competitive disadvantage that may compromise its ability to launch new projects, borrow additional money or even pay for “general corporate requirements.”

​Trump concern

While the details of AMI’s financial difficulties described in the confidential document haven’t been previously reported, the prospect that Pecker and AMI might not protect Trump’s secrets forever has long been a concern. Trump and Cohen even discussed the possibility that the ties between Trump and the National Enquirer might someday unravel.

In July, Cohen released an audio recording in which the men discussed plans to buy McDougal’s story of an affair with Trump from the National Enquirer. Such a purchase was necessary, they suggested, to prevent Trump from having to permanently rely on a tight relationship with the tabloid.

“You never know where that company — you never know what he’s gonna be,” Cohen says.

“David gets hit by a truck,” Trump says.

“Correct,” Cohen replies. “So, I’m all over that.”

According to the documents accompanying Cohen’s guilty plea last week, Trump’s purchase of McDougal’s story never occurred.
…

White House counsel Don McGahn, criticized by allies of President Donald Trump for extensively cooperating with the special counsel, will soon leave his job after months of speculation that he was on his way out.

Trump announced the development on Twitter.

Trump said McGahn will oversee the inside Washington campaign to win Senate confirmation next month of federal appellate court judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

McGahn has been shepherding Kavanaugh to senators’ offices in recent weeks for lengthy introductory meetings with the lawmakers ahead of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings that start next Tuesday. The White House is hopeful the Senate will confirm Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination in time for him to join the court when its new term starts October 1.

Wednesday’s announcement comes amid reported tension between Trump and McGahn, who is said to have been interviewed several times by investigators working for special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller is seeking to determine whether the president obstructed justice in the probe of ties between Trump’s election campaign and Russia.

Reports said McGahn answered questions about many of the inside-the-White House events related to actions that Trump has taken, although McGahn’s lawyer said he did not implicate the president in wrongdoing.

Exasperation with Trump’s temper prompted McGahn to nickname the president “King Kong,” according to a recent article in The New York Times.

“McGahn’s relationship with the president has been strained for quite a while due to the ongoing Russia probe,” Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer, told VOA.

“His likely successor, Emmet Flood, is far better suited experience-wise to lead the legal response” to the special counsel’s requests, said Moss, the deputy executive director of the James Madison Project.

McGahn has been viewed inside the White House and among conservatives as a critical member of Trump’s team, leading the successful effort to put like-minded judges on federal benches and cutting government regulation.

McGahn “has been very effective at implementing the president’s priority of appointing highly qualified judges who have a traditional, modest understanding of their role in our system of government,” according to Thomas Jipping, deputy director for legal and judicial studies at the Heritage Foundation.

“That process has a lot of moving parts and political volatility, but Don has stayed on target and kept it moving,” Jipping told VOA.

The White House counsel was asked by the president in June of 2017 to fire Mueller. According to media reports McGahn, who had been the Trump campaign and transition team top lawyer, refused and threatened to resign.

The 50-year-old former chair of the Federal Election Commission would become the latest in a long line of officials who have left Trump’s 19-month presidency, either officials who have been fired, pushed out or voluntarily departed.

His departure will come as the White House prepares for a likely onslaught of congressional investigations if the Democrats retake the House of Representatives in the November midterm election.

VOA’s Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
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