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Not two weeks ago, President Donald Trump wagged his finger at a Republican senator and scolded him for being “afraid of the NRA,” declaring that he would stand up to the powerful gun lobby and finally get results on quelling gun violence following last month’s Florida school shooting.

On Monday, Trump struck a very different tone as he backpedaled from his earlier demands for sweeping reforms and bowed to Washington reality. The president, who recently advocated increasing the minimum age to purchase an assault weapon to 21, tweeted that he’s “watching court cases and rulings” on the issue, adding that there is “not much political support (to put it mildly).”

Over the weekend, the White House released a limited plan to combat school shootings that leaves the question of arming teachers to states and local communities and sends the age issue to a commission for review. Just two days earlier, Trump had mocked commissions as something of a dead end while talking about the opioid epidemic. “We can’t just keep setting up blue-ribbon committees,” he said, adding that all they do is “talk, talk, talk.”

Seventeen people were killed in last month’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, prompting a national conversation about gun laws, fierce advocacy for stronger gun control from surviving students and, initially, a move from Trump to buck his allies at the National Rifle Association.

In a televised meeting with lawmakers on Feb. 28, Trump praised members of the gun lobby as “great patriots” but declared “that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything. It doesn’t make sense that I have to wait until I’m 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18.”

He then turned toward Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, and questioned why previous gun control legislation did not include that provision.

“You know why?” said Trump, answering his own question. “Because you’re afraid of the NRA, right? Ha ha.”

Toomey had a ready response after the president’s tweet Monday: “It’s quite obvious that I’m the guy that stood up to the NRA,” he said. Asked if Trump was afraid of the NRA, Toomey said, “I don’t know what’s driving his decision.”

His words rattled some Republicans in Congress and sparked hope among some gun control advocates that, unlike after so many previous mass shootings, meaningful regulations would be enacted. But Trump appeared to foreshadow his change of heart with a tweet the very next night.

“Good (Great) meeting in the Oval Office tonight with the NRA!” the president wrote.

Following ‘process’

White House aides said Monday the president was focusing on achievable options, after facing significant opposition from lawmakers on a more comprehensive approach. Trump will back two modest pieces of legislation, and the administration pledged to help states pay for firearms training for teachers.

Seemingly on the defensive after his about-face, Trump tweeted Monday of the age limit that “States are making this decision. Things are moving rapidly on this, but not much political support (to put it mildly).”

The White House insisted that Trump remained committed to more significant changes even if they are delayed.

“We can’t just write things down and make them law. We actually have to follow a process,” said press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Right now the president’s primary focus is pushing through things we know that have broad bipartisan support.”

She placed blame for the inaction on Capitol Hill. But Trump has made little effort to marshal the support of congressional Republicans or use his popularity with NRA voters to provide cover for his party during a contentious vote.

Democrats and gun control advocates were quick to pounce on the president’s retreat from previous demands, with Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeting that Trump “couldn’t even summon the political courage to propose raising the age limit on firearm purchases – despite repeated promises to support such a step at a meeting with lawmakers.”

Television personality Geraldo Rivera — who had urged the president to consider tougher age limits during a dinner at Trump’s Florida club — tweeted that Trump had “blinked in face of ferocious opposition from #NRA.”

Bipartisan support

Still, Trump argued that this was progress.

“Very strong improvement and strengthening of background checks will be fully backed by White House,” he tweeted. He added that an effort to bar bump stock devices was coming and that “Highly trained expert teachers will be allowed to conceal carry, subject to State Law. Armed guards OK, deterrent!”

Without strong advocacy from the White House, an ambitious gun package was unlikely to even get off the ground, given most Republicans’ opposition to any new restrictions. The two measures backed by Trump — an effort to strengthen the federal background check system and an anti-school violence grant program — both enjoy bipartisan support, though some Republicans object and many Democrats say they are insufficient.

Trump drew some Republican backing, with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who wrote the school safety bill, tweeting he was “grateful” for the White House backing and calling the measure “the best first step we can take” to make students safer.

No deadline was set for recommendations from Trump’s planned commission, but officials expected them within a year.
…

It’s a time-tested Washington strategy for making a difficult policy question disappear: death by “blue ribbon” commission.

Presidents, Congress and some agency heads set up panels stocked with subject experts to offer sage advice to policymakers. But these panels sometimes are used to slow-walk thorny policy into oblivion. 

President Donald Trump chose what one expert calls “the blue ribbon option” when he assigned a sensitive gun control proposal to a new panel on school safety, part of a package the White House announced Sunday in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. He put Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in charge of the panel and left clues that a key proposal he’s voiced support for — raising the purchase age for some firearms — was now in doubt

There’s “not much political support (to put it mildly),” the president tweeted about the proposal, which is opposed by the National Rifle Administration.

For lawmakers and presidents, creating a commission “represents movement, it’s something that they can report, especially if they’re subject to criticism that they’re taking no action or they’re tone deaf,” said Kenneth D. Kitts, a political science professor at the University of North Alabama and the author of “Presidential Commissions and National Security: The Politics of Damage Control.”

Trump has made it clear he doesn’t think much of such panels, either. 

“We can’t just keep setting up blue-ribbon committees with your wife and your wife and your husband and they meet and they have a meal and they talk. Talk, talk, talk,” the president groused when discussing the opioid crisis at a rally Saturday outside Pittsburgh. “That’s what I got in Washington. I got all these blue-ribbon committees. Everybody wants to be on a blue-ribbon committee.”

Commissions through history have produced important historical information, policy and even material for criminal trials. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the Warren Commission to produce a record of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. President George W. Bush’s 9/11 Commission was established to account for the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.Others were less successful. In 2010, President Barack Obama’s bipartisan debt reduction commission did not win enough votes among its members to send it to Congress for a vote.

In 2001, President George W. Bush created a 16-member bipartisan commission to study the feasibility of “modernizing” Social Security. Its recommendations floundered in Congress.

Critics of commissions say they’re primarily created for reasons other than good public policy: They allow lawmakers and officials to look like they’re doing something about controversial topics without having to take a position that could alienate some constituencies — such as the NRA, in the case of Republicans in this midterm election year. Their members are not elected or accountable to the public.

There’s also no quality control, and they’re expensive. The Congressional Research Service in November 2017 reported that commission costs can range from several hundred thousand dollars to more than $10 million. And after all that, lawmakers can simply ignore a commission’s conclusion.

Trump has had some experience as president with the peril of blue-ribbon commissions.

His unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegally cast ballots cost him the popular vote in 2016 led to his executive order last May establishing a commission on “election integrity.” The panel’s work quickly devolved into squabbling, with states refusing to give up their voting information and critics saying the commission was actually about suppressing votes.

In January, Trump terminated the commission and transferred its duties to the Department of Homeland Security.

His commission on opioids produced limited results. In October, Trump declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency. He announced an advertising campaign to combat what he said was the worst drug crisis in the nation’s history, but did not direct any new federal funding toward the effort.

Trump’s declaration stopped short of the emergency declaration that had been sought by a federal commission the president created to study the problem. An interim report by the commission argued for an emergency declaration, saying it would free additional money and resources.

But in its final report in November, the panel called only for more drug courts, more training for doctors and penalties for insurers that dodge covering addiction treatment. It did not call for new money to address the epidemic.

“Do you think the drug dealers who kill thousands of people during their lifetime, do you think they care who’s on a blue-ribbon committee?” Trump railed on Saturday.
…

It’s a time-tested Washington strategy for making a difficult policy question disappear: death by “blue ribbon” commission.

Presidents, Congress and some agency heads set up panels stocked with subject experts to offer sage advice to policymakers. But these panels sometimes are used to slow-walk thorny policy into oblivion. 

President Donald Trump chose what one expert calls “the blue ribbon option” when he assigned a sensitive gun control proposal to a new panel on school safety, part of a package the White House announced Sunday in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. He put Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in charge of the panel and left clues that a key proposal he’s voiced support for — raising the purchase age for some firearms — was now in doubt

There’s “not much political support (to put it mildly),” the president tweeted about the proposal, which is opposed by the National Rifle Administration.

For lawmakers and presidents, creating a commission “represents movement, it’s something that they can report, especially if they’re subject to criticism that they’re taking no action or they’re tone deaf,” said Kenneth D. Kitts, a political science professor at the University of North Alabama and the author of “Presidential Commissions and National Security: The Politics of Damage Control.”

Trump has made it clear he doesn’t think much of such panels, either. 

“We can’t just keep setting up blue-ribbon committees with your wife and your wife and your husband and they meet and they have a meal and they talk. Talk, talk, talk,” the president groused when discussing the opioid crisis at a rally Saturday outside Pittsburgh. “That’s what I got in Washington. I got all these blue-ribbon committees. Everybody wants to be on a blue-ribbon committee.”

Commissions through history have produced important historical information, policy and even material for criminal trials. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the Warren Commission to produce a record of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. President George W. Bush’s 9/11 Commission was established to account for the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.Others were less successful. In 2010, President Barack Obama’s bipartisan debt reduction commission did not win enough votes among its members to send it to Congress for a vote.

In 2001, President George W. Bush created a 16-member bipartisan commission to study the feasibility of “modernizing” Social Security. Its recommendations floundered in Congress.

Critics of commissions say they’re primarily created for reasons other than good public policy: They allow lawmakers and officials to look like they’re doing something about controversial topics without having to take a position that could alienate some constituencies — such as the NRA, in the case of Republicans in this midterm election year. Their members are not elected or accountable to the public.

There’s also no quality control, and they’re expensive. The Congressional Research Service in November 2017 reported that commission costs can range from several hundred thousand dollars to more than $10 million. And after all that, lawmakers can simply ignore a commission’s conclusion.

Trump has had some experience as president with the peril of blue-ribbon commissions.

His unsubstantiated claim that millions of illegally cast ballots cost him the popular vote in 2016 led to his executive order last May establishing a commission on “election integrity.” The panel’s work quickly devolved into squabbling, with states refusing to give up their voting information and critics saying the commission was actually about suppressing votes.

In January, Trump terminated the commission and transferred its duties to the Department of Homeland Security.

His commission on opioids produced limited results. In October, Trump declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency. He announced an advertising campaign to combat what he said was the worst drug crisis in the nation’s history, but did not direct any new federal funding toward the effort.

Trump’s declaration stopped short of the emergency declaration that had been sought by a federal commission the president created to study the problem. An interim report by the commission argued for an emergency declaration, saying it would free additional money and resources.

But in its final report in November, the panel called only for more drug courts, more training for doctors and penalties for insurers that dodge covering addiction treatment. It did not call for new money to address the epidemic.

“Do you think the drug dealers who kill thousands of people during their lifetime, do you think they care who’s on a blue-ribbon committee?” Trump railed on Saturday.
…

Immigrants from four countries and their American-born children sued the Trump administration Monday over its decision to end a program that lets them live and work legally in the United States.

Nine immigrants and five children filed the suit in federal court in San Francisco alleging the decision to end Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan was racially motivated.

The status is granted to countries ravaged by natural disasters or war. It lets citizens of those countries remain in the U.S. until the situation improves back home.

More than 200,000 immigrants could face deportation due to the change in policy, and they have more than 200,000 American children who risk being uprooted from their communities and schools, according to plaintiffs in the case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and other immigrant advocates.

Salvadoran plaintiff Orlando Zepeda has lived in California for more than three decades and is raising his 12- and 14-year-old children in Los Angeles. He said the change would be daunting.

Zepeda has worked in building maintenance for the past eight years and fears he wouldn’t recognize the country he left during the middle of a civil war when he was just a teenager.

“My home and family are here,” he said in a statement.

A message for the Department of Justice seeking comment was not immediately returned.

It’s the latest lawsuit filed against the Trump administration over its crackdown on immigration. A case filed last month by Haitian and Salvadoran immigrants in Massachusetts also alleges the decision to end temporary protected status was racially motivated.

Both suits came after Trump used vulgar language to describe the arrival of immigrants from Haiti and African countries.

The lawsuit in California alleges that the U.S. narrowed its criteria for determining whether countries qualified for temporary protected status. Since taking office, the Trump administration has ended the program for the four countries.

Choice: Country or family

The program was created for humanitarian reasons and the status can be renewed by the U.S. government following an evaluation.

El Salvador was designated for the program in 2001 after an earthquake and the country’s status was repeatedly renewed. The Trump administration announced in January that the program would expire for El Salvador in September 2019.

At that time, the American children of those immigrants could face the choice of leaving their country with their parents or staying without them, according to the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status for the children.

“These American children should not have to choose between their country and their family,” Ahilan Arulanantham, advocacy and legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, said in a statement.
…

Immigrants from four countries and their American-born children sued the Trump administration Monday over its decision to end a program that lets them live and work legally in the United States.

Nine immigrants and five children filed the suit in federal court in San Francisco alleging the decision to end Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan was racially motivated.

The status is granted to countries ravaged by natural disasters or war. It lets citizens of those countries remain in the U.S. until the situation improves back home.

More than 200,000 immigrants could face deportation due to the change in policy, and they have more than 200,000 American children who risk being uprooted from their communities and schools, according to plaintiffs in the case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and other immigrant advocates.

Salvadoran plaintiff Orlando Zepeda has lived in California for more than three decades and is raising his 12- and 14-year-old children in Los Angeles. He said the change would be daunting.

Zepeda has worked in building maintenance for the past eight years and fears he wouldn’t recognize the country he left during the middle of a civil war when he was just a teenager.

“My home and family are here,” he said in a statement.

A message for the Department of Justice seeking comment was not immediately returned.

It’s the latest lawsuit filed against the Trump administration over its crackdown on immigration. A case filed last month by Haitian and Salvadoran immigrants in Massachusetts also alleges the decision to end temporary protected status was racially motivated.

Both suits came after Trump used vulgar language to describe the arrival of immigrants from Haiti and African countries.

The lawsuit in California alleges that the U.S. narrowed its criteria for determining whether countries qualified for temporary protected status. Since taking office, the Trump administration has ended the program for the four countries.

Choice: Country or family

The program was created for humanitarian reasons and the status can be renewed by the U.S. government following an evaluation.

El Salvador was designated for the program in 2001 after an earthquake and the country’s status was repeatedly renewed. The Trump administration announced in January that the program would expire for El Salvador in September 2019.

At that time, the American children of those immigrants could face the choice of leaving their country with their parents or staying without them, according to the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status for the children.

“These American children should not have to choose between their country and their family,” Ahilan Arulanantham, advocacy and legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, said in a statement.
…

The White House pledged Sunday to help individual states provide “rigorous firearms training” to some teachers and endorsed a bill to tighten the federal background check system for gun purchasers, but backed off of President Donald Trump’s earlier endorsement of raising the minimum age to purchase some guns.

In a conference call with reporters, administration officials said Trump will urge states to give law enforcement the power to temporarily seize guns from people or preventing them from purchasing the weapons if they demonstrate a threat. The president will also support expanding mental health programs.

WATCH: Student walkout

​Trump earlier expressed support for raising the minimum age for buying assault weapons from 18 to 21, but the plan announced Sunday does not include that. 

There has been an increased national focus on gun control policy following last month’s mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead. Authorities have charged a 19-year-old with the killings, saying he used a semi-automatic rifle.

Many students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., have been vocal in calling for state and national leaders to take actions to ensure another such shootings do not happen again. Students across the country are planning a walkout Wednesday, the one-month anniversary of the Parkland shooting, as well as a march in Washington on March 24.

Trump wants to help states train specially qualified school personnel who volunteer to carry firearms and to encourage military veterans and retired police officers will be encouraged to seek new careers as teachers.

The idea of arming some teachers has been controversial and has drawn sharp opposition from the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers lobby, among other groups. NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia has said teachers should be focused on educating students and that there need to be solutions that will “keep guns out of the hands of those who want to use them to massacre innocent children and educators.”

Under the White House plan, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will chair a commission on school safety and violence that will report recommendations to Trump, probably within a year, according to administration officials. The panel will focus on a number of areas, including existing rating systems for “violent entertainment,” effects of press coverage of mass shootings, campus security best practices and the effectiveness of “psychotropic medication for treatment of troubled youth.”

DeVos characterized the administration’s efforts as “a pragmatic plan to dramatically increase school safety.”

“We are committed to working quickly because there’s no time to waste,” DeVos told reporters. “No student, no family, no teacher and no school should have to live the horror of Parkland or Sandy Hook or Columbine again.”

Senator Chuck Schumer criticized the White House plan in a tweet Sunday night, saying the administration “has taken tiny baby steps designed not to upset” the National Rifle Association gun-lobbying group while a gun violence epidemic “demands giants steps be taken.” He pledged Democrats will push for stricter steps, including universal background checks for gun buyers and a ban on assault weapons.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was also critical of the Trump administration’s plan.

“Americans should be able to expect President Trump to follow-through on the critical measures he acknowledged were needed, but today’s announcement was woefully inadequate and showed a profound lack of leadership that is crucial at this time,” said the group’s Co-President Avery Gardiner.

Gardiner said the group also wants universal background checks, bans on new assault weapons and allowing court-issued restraining orders to prevent people who represent a threat to themselves or to others from having access to guns.

Florida enacted its own law last week banning the purchase of firearms by anyone under the age of 21.

The NRA has filed a lawsuit challenging the law, calling it “an affront” to the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which many believe enshrines gun ownership.
…

The White House pledged Sunday to help individual states provide “rigorous firearms training” to some teachers and endorsed a bill to tighten the federal background check system for gun purchasers, but backed off of President Donald Trump’s earlier endorsement of raising the minimum age to purchase some guns.

In a conference call with reporters, administration officials said Trump will urge states to give law enforcement the power to temporarily seize guns from people or preventing them from purchasing the weapons if they demonstrate a threat. The president will also support expanding mental health programs.

WATCH: Student walkout

​Trump earlier expressed support for raising the minimum age for buying assault weapons from 18 to 21, but the plan announced Sunday does not include that. 

There has been an increased national focus on gun control policy following last month’s mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead. Authorities have charged a 19-year-old with the killings, saying he used a semi-automatic rifle.

Many students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., have been vocal in calling for state and national leaders to take actions to ensure another such shootings do not happen again. Students across the country are planning a walkout Wednesday, the one-month anniversary of the Parkland shooting, as well as a march in Washington on March 24.

Trump wants to help states train specially qualified school personnel who volunteer to carry firearms and to encourage military veterans and retired police officers will be encouraged to seek new careers as teachers.

The idea of arming some teachers has been controversial and has drawn sharp opposition from the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers lobby, among other groups. NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia has said teachers should be focused on educating students and that there need to be solutions that will “keep guns out of the hands of those who want to use them to massacre innocent children and educators.”

Under the White House plan, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will chair a commission on school safety and violence that will report recommendations to Trump, probably within a year, according to administration officials. The panel will focus on a number of areas, including existing rating systems for “violent entertainment,” effects of press coverage of mass shootings, campus security best practices and the effectiveness of “psychotropic medication for treatment of troubled youth.”

DeVos characterized the administration’s efforts as “a pragmatic plan to dramatically increase school safety.”

“We are committed to working quickly because there’s no time to waste,” DeVos told reporters. “No student, no family, no teacher and no school should have to live the horror of Parkland or Sandy Hook or Columbine again.”

Senator Chuck Schumer criticized the White House plan in a tweet Sunday night, saying the administration “has taken tiny baby steps designed not to upset” the National Rifle Association gun-lobbying group while a gun violence epidemic “demands giants steps be taken.” He pledged Democrats will push for stricter steps, including universal background checks for gun buyers and a ban on assault weapons.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was also critical of the Trump administration’s plan.

“Americans should be able to expect President Trump to follow-through on the critical measures he acknowledged were needed, but today’s announcement was woefully inadequate and showed a profound lack of leadership that is crucial at this time,” said the group’s Co-President Avery Gardiner.

Gardiner said the group also wants universal background checks, bans on new assault weapons and allowing court-issued restraining orders to prevent people who represent a threat to themselves or to others from having access to guns.

Florida enacted its own law last week banning the purchase of firearms by anyone under the age of 21.

The NRA has filed a lawsuit challenging the law, calling it “an affront” to the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which many believe enshrines gun ownership.
…

Students across the country have been protesting school gun violence since the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead. On March 14, the one-month anniversary, a national student walkout is planned to last 17 minutes in commemoration of the victims and as a statement to policymakers. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
…

The White House on Sunday vowed to help provide “rigorous firearms training” to some schoolteachers and formally endorsed a bill to tighten the federal background checks system, but backed off President Trump’s earlier call to raise the minimum age to purchase some guns to 21 years old from 18 years old.

Responding directly to last month’s gun massacre at a Florida high school, the president said the federal government will help states implement a number of moves, including training for specially qualified school personnel volunteers to carry firearms. Military veterans and retired police officers will be encouraged to seek new careers as teachers.

The idea of arming some teachers has been controversial and has drawn sharp opposition from the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers lobby, among other groups.

The White House says Trump also backs new laws to reform and  strengthen background checks for potential gun buyers and allow states to seek court orders to take away weapons from those who have shown to be a threat to themselves and others.

Trump is also proposing expanding mental health programs.

Many of the student survivors have urged Washington to toughen restrictions on gun purchases, including  raising the minimum age to purchase some guns to 21 years old from 18 years old.  But, such measures are fiercely opposed by the National Rifle Association.

After 17 people were shot and killed last month at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Trump elevated the issue of school safety in his administration. He called for raising the minimum age for purchasing an AR-15 or similar-style rifles from 18 to 21 years old.

“Now, this is not a popular thing to say, in terms of the NRA. But I’m saying it anyway,” Trump said in a Feb. 28 meeting with lawmakers. “You can buy a handgun — you can’t buy one; you have to wait until you’re 21. But you can buy the kind of weapon used in the school shooting at 18. I think it’s something you have to think about.”

But the plan released Sunday did not address the minimum age for gun purchases. When asked by reporters about the age issue, a senior administration official said it was “a state-based discussion right now” and would be explored by a commission chaired by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

DeVos characterized the administration’s efforts as “a pragmatic plan to dramatically increase school safety.”

“We are committed to working quickly because there’s no time to waste,” DeVos said on a Sunday evening conference call with reporters.  “No student, no family, no teacher and no school should have to live the horror of Parkland or Sandy Hook or Columbine again.”

Nikolas Cruz, charged with the shooting at Marjory Stonelam Douglas High School last month, is just 19 and allegedly used a AR-15 assault-style weapon.

He was also a well-known troublemaker at Douglas high school and made a number of violent threats.
…

The main events in a political campaign used to happen in the open: a debate, the release of a major TV ad or a public event where candidates tried to earn a spot on the evening news or the next day’s front page.

That was before the explosion of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as political platforms. Now some of a campaign’s most pivotal efforts happen in the often-murky world of social media, where ads can be targeted to ever-narrower slices of the electorate and run continuously with no disclosure of who is paying for them. Reporters cannot easily discern what voters are seeing, and hoaxes and forgeries spread instantaneously.

Journalists trying to hold candidates accountable have a hard time keeping up.

“There’s a whole dark area of campaigns out there when, if you’re not part of the target group, you don’t know anything about them,” said Larry Noble of the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, which seeks greater transparency in political spending. “And if reporters don’t know about it, they can’t ask questions about it.”

The problem came to widespread attention during the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump’s campaign invested heavily in digital advertising, and the term “fake news” emerged to describe pro-Trump propaganda masquerading as online news. Russian interference in the campaign included covert ads on social media and phony Facebook groups pumping out falsehoods.

The misinformation shows no sign of abating. The U.S. Senate election in Alabama in December was rife with fake online reports in support of Republican Roy Moore, who eventually lost to Democrat Doug Jones amid allegations that Moore had sexual contact with teenagers when he was a prosecutor in his 30s. Moore denied the accusations.

Politicians also try to create their own news operations. U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes’ campaign funded a purported news site called The California Republican, and the executive director of Maine’s Republican party last month acknowledged that he runs an anonymous website that is critical of Democrats.

Phony allegations are nothing new in politics. But they used to circulate in automated phone calls, mailers that were often tossed in the trash or, as far back as the 1800s, in partisan newspapers that published just once a day, noted Garlin Gilchrist, executive director of the Center for Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan.

The difference now is how quickly false information spreads.

“The problem is something that’s always existed … but social media is a different animal than news distribution in the past,” Gilchrist said.

A study released this past week found that false information spreads faster and wider on Twitter than real news stories. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology traced the path of more than 126,000 stories on Twitter and found that the average false story takes about 10 hours to reach 1,500 users compared with about 60 hours for real ones. On average, false information reaches 35 percent more people than true news.

A data analysis by Buzzfeed’s news site after the 2016 election found that the most popular fake stories generated greater engagement on Facebook than the top real stories in the three months before Election Day.

Because it’s increasingly easy to fabricate videos, which are viewed as the most reliable evidence available online, reporters “need stronger tools” to weed out frauds, Gilchrist said.

Social media also upends campaign advertising practices. Federal regulations require a record of every political advertisement that is broadcast on television and radio. But online ads have no comparable requirements.

Earlier this month, Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey announced that the platform would take new steps to try to stop harassment and false information. Facebook has partnered with media organizations, including The Associated Press, to flag false information on its platform. It recently announced plans to reform its political advertising, including making all ads on a page visible to all viewers, regardless of whether they were intended to see the spots. It also will require a line identifying the buyer on every political ad and create a four-year archive.

Still, because there are so many candidates for office in the U.S., Facebook is limiting itself to federal races at first.

“Facebook is moving faster than regulators are around the world toward some better stuff,” said Sam Jeffers of the UK-based group Who Targets You, which pushes for better online campaign disclosure.

He cited three recent elections in which underdog campaigns invested heavily in online ads and beat the polling expectations to win: the 2015 parliamentary races and the Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential race the following year.

Who Targets You designed an online tool that will collect Facebook political ads and deposit them in a database.

In the U.S., the nonprofit investigative outlet ProPublica has a similar project underway with a widget called Political Ad Tracker, which can be downloaded by readers to build a database of online ads. Other organizations, including the AP, have begun publishing stories specifically intended to knock down false information circulating on social media.

Some efforts are more local. In Seattle’s municipal election last year, online ad spending increased 5,000 percent over the previous cycle in 2013. Eli Sanders, a reporter for the alternative weekly The Stranger, unearthed a city ordinance that requires any outlet that distributes a political ad to make copies available for public inspection. His reporting inspired the city’s ethics and elections commission to demand the data from online outlets.

Google and Facebook have shared some fragmentary information with the Seattle commission, and through them Sanders is getting his own window into the online political marketplace. One outside group that supported the candidate who won the mayoral election, Jenny A. Durkan, spent $20,000 on one ad on a Google platform that the company displayed between 1 million and 5 million times.

“Just like at the national level, locally there is this whole segment of political advertising that is not transparent,” Sanders said.
…

The main events in a political campaign used to happen in the open: a debate, the release of a major TV ad or a public event where candidates tried to earn a spot on the evening news or the next day’s front page.

That was before the explosion of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as political platforms. Now some of a campaign’s most pivotal efforts happen in the often-murky world of social media, where ads can be targeted to ever-narrower slices of the electorate and run continuously with no disclosure of who is paying for them. Reporters cannot easily discern what voters are seeing, and hoaxes and forgeries spread instantaneously.

Journalists trying to hold candidates accountable have a hard time keeping up.

“There’s a whole dark area of campaigns out there when, if you’re not part of the target group, you don’t know anything about them,” said Larry Noble of the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, which seeks greater transparency in political spending. “And if reporters don’t know about it, they can’t ask questions about it.”

The problem came to widespread attention during the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump’s campaign invested heavily in digital advertising, and the term “fake news” emerged to describe pro-Trump propaganda masquerading as online news. Russian interference in the campaign included covert ads on social media and phony Facebook groups pumping out falsehoods.

The misinformation shows no sign of abating. The U.S. Senate election in Alabama in December was rife with fake online reports in support of Republican Roy Moore, who eventually lost to Democrat Doug Jones amid allegations that Moore had sexual contact with teenagers when he was a prosecutor in his 30s. Moore denied the accusations.

Politicians also try to create their own news operations. U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes’ campaign funded a purported news site called The California Republican, and the executive director of Maine’s Republican party last month acknowledged that he runs an anonymous website that is critical of Democrats.

Phony allegations are nothing new in politics. But they used to circulate in automated phone calls, mailers that were often tossed in the trash or, as far back as the 1800s, in partisan newspapers that published just once a day, noted Garlin Gilchrist, executive director of the Center for Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan.

The difference now is how quickly false information spreads.

“The problem is something that’s always existed … but social media is a different animal than news distribution in the past,” Gilchrist said.

A study released this past week found that false information spreads faster and wider on Twitter than real news stories. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology traced the path of more than 126,000 stories on Twitter and found that the average false story takes about 10 hours to reach 1,500 users compared with about 60 hours for real ones. On average, false information reaches 35 percent more people than true news.

A data analysis by Buzzfeed’s news site after the 2016 election found that the most popular fake stories generated greater engagement on Facebook than the top real stories in the three months before Election Day.

Because it’s increasingly easy to fabricate videos, which are viewed as the most reliable evidence available online, reporters “need stronger tools” to weed out frauds, Gilchrist said.

Social media also upends campaign advertising practices. Federal regulations require a record of every political advertisement that is broadcast on television and radio. But online ads have no comparable requirements.

Earlier this month, Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey announced that the platform would take new steps to try to stop harassment and false information. Facebook has partnered with media organizations, including The Associated Press, to flag false information on its platform. It recently announced plans to reform its political advertising, including making all ads on a page visible to all viewers, regardless of whether they were intended to see the spots. It also will require a line identifying the buyer on every political ad and create a four-year archive.

Still, because there are so many candidates for office in the U.S., Facebook is limiting itself to federal races at first.

“Facebook is moving faster than regulators are around the world toward some better stuff,” said Sam Jeffers of the UK-based group Who Targets You, which pushes for better online campaign disclosure.

He cited three recent elections in which underdog campaigns invested heavily in online ads and beat the polling expectations to win: the 2015 parliamentary races and the Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential race the following year.

Who Targets You designed an online tool that will collect Facebook political ads and deposit them in a database.

In the U.S., the nonprofit investigative outlet ProPublica has a similar project underway with a widget called Political Ad Tracker, which can be downloaded by readers to build a database of online ads. Other organizations, including the AP, have begun publishing stories specifically intended to knock down false information circulating on social media.

Some efforts are more local. In Seattle’s municipal election last year, online ad spending increased 5,000 percent over the previous cycle in 2013. Eli Sanders, a reporter for the alternative weekly The Stranger, unearthed a city ordinance that requires any outlet that distributes a political ad to make copies available for public inspection. His reporting inspired the city’s ethics and elections commission to demand the data from online outlets.

Google and Facebook have shared some fragmentary information with the Seattle commission, and through them Sanders is getting his own window into the online political marketplace. One outside group that supported the candidate who won the mayoral election, Jenny A. Durkan, spent $20,000 on one ad on a Google platform that the company displayed between 1 million and 5 million times.

“Just like at the national level, locally there is this whole segment of political advertising that is not transparent,” Sanders said.
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Washington is abuzz over what could prove to be the biggest diplomatic breakthrough of recent decades: a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, almost no concrete details are known about the encounter, which was announced without warning last week and took much of the world by surprise
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Washington is abuzz over what could prove to be the biggest diplomatic breakthrough of recent decades: a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, almost no concrete details are known about the encounter, which was announced without warning last week and took much of the world by surprise
…

U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed new attacks Sunday on two of his favorite targets, opposition Democrats and the national news media.

In one of a string of Twitter comments, the U.S. leader contended that Democratic lawmakers were continuing “to obstruct the confirmation of hundreds of good and talented people who are needed to run our government.” He said there is a record number of vacancies in the State Department.

“Ambassadors and many others are being slow walked” in the confirmation process, he said. “Senate must approve NOW!”

However, 13 months into his presidency, Trump has failed to nominate officials to fill key openings, including his ambassador to South Korea, even though he has agreed to meet by May with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the possible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. There has been a wave of retirements among State Department officials, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has left top positions unfilled.

Trump complained about the national news media’s reports on polls showing him with “somewhat low” voter approval ratings, while he said they underplay the Republican-leaning Rasmussen Reports poll showing him “at around 50%.”

“They know they are lying when they say it. Turn off the show — FAKE NEWS!” Trump said.

The Rasmussen tracking survey on Friday actually showed voters disapproving of his White House performance by a 54-44 percent margin, not much better than Real Clear Politics’s national average of polls giving Trump a negative 53.7-40.9 standing.

Trump claimed news reports have failed to report a 5-0 Republican run of victories in special elections for seats in the House of Representatives since he took office, when the actual number is 5-1, and Republicans lost a Senate seat in Alabama to a Democrat for the first time in 25 years.

Trump also attacked a story in the “failing New York Times” about his possible hiring of another attorney to bolster his response to the ongoing criminal investigation of possible collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. He described one of the writers of the story, Maggie Haberman, as “a Hillary flunky (who) knows nothing about me and is not given access.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed new attacks Sunday on two of his favorite targets, opposition Democrats and the national news media.

In one of a string of Twitter comments, the U.S. leader contended that Democratic lawmakers were continuing “to obstruct the confirmation of hundreds of good and talented people who are needed to run our government.” He said there is a record number of vacancies in the State Department.

“Ambassadors and many others are being slow walked” in the confirmation process, he said. “Senate must approve NOW!”

However, 13 months into his presidency, Trump has failed to nominate officials to fill key openings, including his ambassador to South Korea, even though he has agreed to meet by May with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the possible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. There has been a wave of retirements among State Department officials, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has left top positions unfilled.

Trump complained about the national news media’s reports on polls showing him with “somewhat low” voter approval ratings, while he said they underplay the Republican-leaning Rasmussen Reports poll showing him “at around 50%.”

“They know they are lying when they say it. Turn off the show — FAKE NEWS!” Trump said.

The Rasmussen tracking survey on Friday actually showed voters disapproving of his White House performance by a 54-44 percent margin, not much better than Real Clear Politics’s national average of polls giving Trump a negative 53.7-40.9 standing.

Trump claimed news reports have failed to report a 5-0 Republican run of victories in special elections for seats in the House of Representatives since he took office, when the actual number is 5-1, and Republicans lost a Senate seat in Alabama to a Democrat for the first time in 25 years.

Trump also attacked a story in the “failing New York Times” about his possible hiring of another attorney to bolster his response to the ongoing criminal investigation of possible collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. He described one of the writers of the story, Maggie Haberman, as “a Hillary flunky (who) knows nothing about me and is not given access.”
…

President Donald Trump said Saturday that his controversial tariffs would bring back the U.S. steel industry, as he campaigned in Pennsylvania steel country for a Republican congressional candidate in a tight race.

Trump’s appearance was aimed at helping Republican Rick Saccone in a district Trump won overwhelmingly in 2016 as part of a narrow win in Pennsylvania.

Trump spent a lot of time talking about his own fortunes in a “Make America Great Again” rally for Saccone in an airport hangar at the Pittsburgh International Airport.

Economic boost forecast

A day after getting news that the U.S. economy produced 313,000 jobs last month, Trump said his policies were paying off. He said 25 percent tariffs on steel imports would help boost Pennsylvania’s economy.

Critics say the tariffs could trigger retaliatory trade measures and damage the U.S. economy. There are also doubts about how far Trump’s policies will go toward resuscitating the battered American steel industry.

“Your steel is coming back. It’s all coming back,” Trump told several thousand cheering supporters.

Trump vowed to fight any retaliatory trade measures by, for example, slapping taxes on imported European cars.

Trump also said he hoped to run against Oprah Winfrey, although the entertainer has ruled out a run despite pressure on her to seek the presidency.

“I’d love to beat Oprah. I know her weakness,” said Trump, without giving details.

Saccone is trying to win an election Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s 18th District to replace Republican Tim Murphy, who resigned last fall while enmeshed in a sex scandal.

Close race

Saccone is competing against Democrat Conor Lamb, and polls show a close race. Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway campaigned for Saccone on Thursday at a Lincoln Day dinner in Allegheny County.

A Saccone loss would be a blow to Trump, the first loss by Republicans of a seat in the House of Representatives since he took office in January 2017.

The results will not affect Republican control of the chamber.

The race could signal how much help Trump can provide Republican congressional candidates trying to keep control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm elections next November.

Typically the party that controls the White House loses seats in the U.S. Congress in the first election after a new president takes office. But Trump hopes a strong economy and tax cuts he pushed through Congress in December will help him beat the odds. 
…

President Donald Trump said Saturday that his controversial tariffs would bring back the U.S. steel industry, as he campaigned in Pennsylvania steel country for a Republican congressional candidate in a tight race.

Trump’s appearance was aimed at helping Republican Rick Saccone in a district Trump won overwhelmingly in 2016 as part of a narrow win in Pennsylvania.

Trump spent a lot of time talking about his own fortunes in a “Make America Great Again” rally for Saccone in an airport hangar at the Pittsburgh International Airport.

Economic boost forecast

A day after getting news that the U.S. economy produced 313,000 jobs last month, Trump said his policies were paying off. He said 25 percent tariffs on steel imports would help boost Pennsylvania’s economy.

Critics say the tariffs could trigger retaliatory trade measures and damage the U.S. economy. There are also doubts about how far Trump’s policies will go toward resuscitating the battered American steel industry.

“Your steel is coming back. It’s all coming back,” Trump told several thousand cheering supporters.

Trump vowed to fight any retaliatory trade measures by, for example, slapping taxes on imported European cars.

Trump also said he hoped to run against Oprah Winfrey, although the entertainer has ruled out a run despite pressure on her to seek the presidency.

“I’d love to beat Oprah. I know her weakness,” said Trump, without giving details.

Saccone is trying to win an election Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s 18th District to replace Republican Tim Murphy, who resigned last fall while enmeshed in a sex scandal.

Close race

Saccone is competing against Democrat Conor Lamb, and polls show a close race. Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway campaigned for Saccone on Thursday at a Lincoln Day dinner in Allegheny County.

A Saccone loss would be a blow to Trump, the first loss by Republicans of a seat in the House of Representatives since he took office in January 2017.

The results will not affect Republican control of the chamber.

The race could signal how much help Trump can provide Republican congressional candidates trying to keep control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm elections next November.

Typically the party that controls the White House loses seats in the U.S. Congress in the first election after a new president takes office. But Trump hopes a strong economy and tax cuts he pushed through Congress in December will help him beat the odds. 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he “couldn’t care less” if Russian citizens sought to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, insisting that the Kremlin had nothing to do with the efforts.

“Why have you decided the Russian authorities, myself included, gave anybody permission to do this?” Putin asked in an often-combative interview with NBC News aired late Friday.

U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller last month indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies and charged them with running a social-media campaign to sow political divisions in the United States and help Donald Trump win the presidency.

“So what if they’re Russians?” Putin told NBC. “There are 146 million Russians. So what? I don’t care. I couldn’t care less…. They do not represent the interests of the Russian state.”

Putin said that the indicted individuals are “not working for the government” and suggested instead, “Perhaps some of them worked for one of the candidates.” 

The most well-known of the Russians indicted, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has ties to Putin and the state. Prigozhin is accused of funneling money into the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which is often described as a notorious “troll factory” and which is also named in the indictment.

Despite Mueller’s 37-page indictment detailing charges against the Russians, Putin said he has seen no evidence that their actions broke any law. He was emphatic that he would never extradite the suspects to the United States to face trial.

“We in Russia cannot prosecute anyone as long as they have not violated Russian law,” he said.

Putin rejected allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the election, despite the conclusion last year by U.S. intelligence agencies that he personally directed a campaign to do so in 2016.

“Could anyone really believe that Russia, thousands of miles away…influenced the outcome of the election? Doesn’t that sound ridiculous, even to you?” Putin asked NBC interviewer Megyn Kelly.

“It’s not our goal to interfere. We do not see what goal we would accomplish by interfering,” Putin said.

The U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January 2017 that in addition to aiding Trump, for whom they said the Kremlin had developed a clear preference, Russia’s aims included undermining faith in the U.S. electoral system and denigrating Trump’s main rival, Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.

During the campaign, Clinton signaled that she would be tough on Russia over actions such as its interference in Ukraine, and Putin’s relationship with the former secretary of state has been marked by sometimes palpable tension. As he prepared to return to the presidency in 2012 after a stint as prime minister, Putin accused Clinton of fomenting anti-government protests in Russia.

Last month, U.S. intelligence chiefs said Russian attempts to meddle in U.S. politics are continuing unabated and pose a threat to midterm congressional elections in November.

Trump himself has repeatedly refused to condemn Russia over the alleged meddling and has said that he admires Putin as a strong leader.

Putin suggested in the interview that the reason Trump has seemed deferential to him is he knew upon taking office that he needed to develop a “cooperative relationship” with Russia and thus he needed to treat his counterpart with respect.

On another issue, Putin told NBC he has no plans to change the Russian Constitution to eliminate term limits on his presidency.

“I have never changed the constitution. I have no such plans today,” he said.

Some material for this article came from AFP.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he “couldn’t care less” if Russian citizens sought to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, insisting that the Kremlin had nothing to do with the efforts.

“Why have you decided the Russian authorities, myself included, gave anybody permission to do this?” Putin asked in an often-combative interview with NBC News aired late Friday.

U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller last month indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies and charged them with running a social-media campaign to sow political divisions in the United States and help Donald Trump win the presidency.

“So what if they’re Russians?” Putin told NBC. “There are 146 million Russians. So what? I don’t care. I couldn’t care less…. They do not represent the interests of the Russian state.”

Putin said that the indicted individuals are “not working for the government” and suggested instead, “Perhaps some of them worked for one of the candidates.” 

The most well-known of the Russians indicted, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has ties to Putin and the state. Prigozhin is accused of funneling money into the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which is often described as a notorious “troll factory” and which is also named in the indictment.

Despite Mueller’s 37-page indictment detailing charges against the Russians, Putin said he has seen no evidence that their actions broke any law. He was emphatic that he would never extradite the suspects to the United States to face trial.

“We in Russia cannot prosecute anyone as long as they have not violated Russian law,” he said.

Putin rejected allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the election, despite the conclusion last year by U.S. intelligence agencies that he personally directed a campaign to do so in 2016.

“Could anyone really believe that Russia, thousands of miles away…influenced the outcome of the election? Doesn’t that sound ridiculous, even to you?” Putin asked NBC interviewer Megyn Kelly.

“It’s not our goal to interfere. We do not see what goal we would accomplish by interfering,” Putin said.

The U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January 2017 that in addition to aiding Trump, for whom they said the Kremlin had developed a clear preference, Russia’s aims included undermining faith in the U.S. electoral system and denigrating Trump’s main rival, Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.

During the campaign, Clinton signaled that she would be tough on Russia over actions such as its interference in Ukraine, and Putin’s relationship with the former secretary of state has been marked by sometimes palpable tension. As he prepared to return to the presidency in 2012 after a stint as prime minister, Putin accused Clinton of fomenting anti-government protests in Russia.

Last month, U.S. intelligence chiefs said Russian attempts to meddle in U.S. politics are continuing unabated and pose a threat to midterm congressional elections in November.

Trump himself has repeatedly refused to condemn Russia over the alleged meddling and has said that he admires Putin as a strong leader.

Putin suggested in the interview that the reason Trump has seemed deferential to him is he knew upon taking office that he needed to develop a “cooperative relationship” with Russia and thus he needed to treat his counterpart with respect.

On another issue, Putin told NBC he has no plans to change the Russian Constitution to eliminate term limits on his presidency.

“I have never changed the constitution. I have no such plans today,” he said.

Some material for this article came from AFP.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday that the political reconciliation between Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga is “a very positive step,” adding that the United States supports Kenya’s political inclusion and democracy. Tillerson’s trip to Africa is his first as the top U.S. diplomat and promotes good governance, something high on his agenda. VOA State Department Correspondent Nike Ching reports from Nairobi, Kenya.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday that the political reconciliation between Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga is “a very positive step,” adding that the United States supports Kenya’s political inclusion and democracy. Tillerson’s trip to Africa is his first as the top U.S. diplomat and promotes good governance, something high on his agenda. VOA State Department Correspondent Nike Ching reports from Nairobi, Kenya.
…

The National Rifle Association (NRA), a U.S. gun rights group, is suing the state of Florida for enacting gun control legislation that raises the minimum age to buy rifles from 18 to 21.

Lawyers for the NRA are asking a federal judge to block the new age restriction, arguing that it violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican long allied with the NRA, signed the legislation earlier Friday after the Republican-controlled statehouse narrowly approved the measure.

The NRA insisted that the measure “punishes law-abiding gun owners for the criminal acts of a deranged individual.”

In addition to the new age restriction, the Florida bill also adds a three-day waiting period to buy long guns, which was previously only for handguns. It also bans bump stocks, a device that allow guns to mimic fully automatic fire.

The law also creates a so-called “guardian” program that enables school staff to carry handguns if they wish and if they complete law enforcement training.

The legislation comes three weeks after a shooter killed 17 people at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“What I’m proud of in this state is that we reacted to a horrible situation,” Scott said after signing the bill Friday. He said the bill represents a compromise for people on both sides of the gun debate and balances “our individual rights with need for public safety.”

Student activists had campaigned for even tougher gun control restrictions, including a ban on assault-style weapons, which was not included in the final bill.

Authorities say the accused gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was 18 years old when he legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle used in the massacre.

The NRA, which claims 5 million members, is one of the country’s most powerful lobbying groups for gun rights. Founded in 1871, it seeks to educate the public about firearms and defend U.S. citizens’ Second Amendment rights. It has directly lobbied for and against legislation since 1975.
…

The National Rifle Association (NRA), a U.S. gun rights group, is suing the state of Florida for enacting gun control legislation that raises the minimum age to buy rifles from 18 to 21.

Lawyers for the NRA are asking a federal judge to block the new age restriction, arguing that it violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican long allied with the NRA, signed the legislation earlier Friday after the Republican-controlled statehouse narrowly approved the measure.

The NRA insisted that the measure “punishes law-abiding gun owners for the criminal acts of a deranged individual.”

In addition to the new age restriction, the Florida bill also adds a three-day waiting period to buy long guns, which was previously only for handguns. It also bans bump stocks, a device that allow guns to mimic fully automatic fire.

The law also creates a so-called “guardian” program that enables school staff to carry handguns if they wish and if they complete law enforcement training.

The legislation comes three weeks after a shooter killed 17 people at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“What I’m proud of in this state is that we reacted to a horrible situation,” Scott said after signing the bill Friday. He said the bill represents a compromise for people on both sides of the gun debate and balances “our individual rights with need for public safety.”

Student activists had campaigned for even tougher gun control restrictions, including a ban on assault-style weapons, which was not included in the final bill.

Authorities say the accused gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was 18 years old when he legally purchased the AR-15 assault-style rifle used in the massacre.

The NRA, which claims 5 million members, is one of the country’s most powerful lobbying groups for gun rights. Founded in 1871, it seeks to educate the public about firearms and defend U.S. citizens’ Second Amendment rights. It has directly lobbied for and against legislation since 1975.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is on the other side of the world on a week-long Africa tour, says President Donald Trump’s decision to hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came from Trump himself, but he downplayed any suggestion that the State Department was blindsided by the announcement.

Speaking in Djibouti on Friday, the top U.S. diplomat said he spoke with the U.S. president by phone very early in the day.

“We had a good conversation; this is something he’s had on his mind for quite some time, so it was not a surprise in any way because I think this has long been something he’s expressed it openly before, about his willingness to meet with Kim Jong Un,” Tillerson told reporters.

Tillerson made his remarks one day after South Korean officials, standing in front of the White House, announced the summit between Trump and Kim. Tillerson sought to temper expectations for a diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea just hours earlier on Thursday.

“In terms of direct talks with the United States — and you asked negotiations, and we’re a long ways from negotiations — I think … we just need to be very clear-eyed and realistic about it,” Tillerson said.

When asked about what had changed in 24 hours, Tillerson made a distinction between “talks” with North Korea, and structured “negotiations.” Tillerson said what stood out for him was what he termed the dramatic shift in Kim Jong Un’s position.

“Really what changed was his posture in a fairly dramatic way that, in all honesty, came as a little bit of a surprise to us as well that he was so forward-leaning in his conversations with the delegation from South Korea,” the secretary said, referring to meetings this past week between a delegation from South Korea and the North Koreans in the North’s capital, Pyongyang.

Some former national security officials say it’s likely Tillerson was unaware such an announcement could come from Trump.

“We can only assume this announcement took the secretary by surprise because, earlier in the day, he [Tillerson] told reporters the United States was “a long way” from negotiations,” said Jeff Prescott, a senior national security aide to former President Barack Obama, told VOA on Friday.

“The secretary being out of the loop would fit a pattern of an erratic foreign policy that lacks process and rigor,” he added.

A number of North Korea and arms control experts have also expressed surprise at the announcement, saying they welcome talks, but are also concerned about the stakes of such a high-profile meeting, set to happen by May.

Prescott says the Trump administration must do all it can to turn this potential opening into an opportunity to advance U.S. interests, not Kim’s.

“That objective has been made all the more difficult because this administration confronts today’s news with one hand tied behind its back,” the former Obama administration official said. “We have no ambassador in Seoul—not even a nominee—and no senior State Department official charged with overseeing the North Korean nuclear challenge.”

Robert Einhorn with the Brookings Institution welcomed news of the summit and that North Korea will suspend nuclear and missile tests while talks are underway. But the senior fellow for the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative said he has some reservations on the terms of such a summit.

“I am concerned by President Trump’s response to the invitation that he meet with Kim Jong Un — not that he agreed to meet but that he agreed to meet by May,” Einhorn said. “Such meetings have to be well prepared, and the president should have insisted on lower-level exploratory talks that could test North Korea’s seriousness before committing to a date.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce welcomed the summit announcement.

“Kim Jong Un’s desire to talk shows sanctions the administration has implemented are starting to work. We can pursue more diplomacy, as we keep applying pressure ounce by ounce,” the Republican lawmaker said Friday.

The ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, noted the president should rely on experts in other parts of his administration to carefully prepare for such a meeting.

“In the weeks before the summit, clear-eyed diplomacy and preparation will be vital, given the risks involved in such a high-stakes leaders meeting this early in a negotiation,” Schiff said in a statement. “It will require the president to rely on the expertise within the State Department, the intelligence community, and throughout the government, and not simply on his own estimation of his skills as a deal maker.'”

Former advisor to both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state Aaron David Miller told VOA the Trump administration currently lacks the experts on North Korea to prepare for direct talks.

“Right now, it is hard to identify any single individual or team of individuals that has both the negotiating experience and knowledge of the history, the cultural and political sensitivity, and knowledge of how the North Koreans behave and how they see the world,” he said.
…