News Daypop Archives

Paul Manafort was found guilty Tuesday on eight of 18 counts in his financial fraud trial, with a mistrial declared on ten other counts. Manafort, former manager of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was convicted on one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account, two counts of bank fraud, and five counts of tax fraud. He faced a 32-count indictment stemming from a probe by special counsel Robert Mueller. The charges are not related to his work with Donald Trump, but rather focused on accusations of financial crimes stretching back to his time as a political consultant in Ukraine more than a decade ago.... [Read Full Story]

A woman was killed Monday morning in an apparent alligator attack on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. Witnesses told investigators the woman was walking her dog near a lagoon about 9:30 a.m. when she was attacked and pulled underwater by the animal. Emergency responders found the woman’s body in the lagoon; she as identified her as Cassandra Cline, 45, of Hilton Head Island. An alligator believed responsible for the attack was found and killed at the scene, the sheriff’s office said. The attack happened off Wood Duck Road in Sea Pines Plantation. While alligator attacks on humans are rare, they are not unheard of in the Deep South. In June, a Florida woman walking her dogs was pulled into the water and killed by an alligator.  An autopsy is being conducted at the Medical University of South Carolina to determine the cause of the death.... [Read Full Story]

A Colorado man was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the killings of his pregnant wife and their two young daughters, prosecutors said. Chris Watts is being held in the deaths of Shanann Watts, 34, and daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3. Two additional first-degree murder charges accuse him of causing the death of a child under age 12. Watts also faces three counts of tampering with a body, and a count of first-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy. Watts, 33, is being held without bond, with his next court appearance scheduled for Tuesday morning. Shanann, Bella and Celeste were reported missing August 13 from their home in Frederick, Colorado. Their bodies were found Thursday at the site of a petroleum and natural gas company where Chris Watts had worked.... [Read Full Story]

A wildfire in Montana’s Glacier National Park is forcing more evacuations, and has burned within a mile of the scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was reported Sunday that officials say protecting the highway through the park is their priority, with firefighters taking precautions to keep it from spreading there.  Operations chief Rocky Gilbert said the concern is that destabilization could lead rock and trees to fall for years. Officials evacuated the Fish Creek Campground and told residents in the small town of Apgar on Lake McDonald that they might have to leave. The historic Lake McDonald Lodge and private cabins along Going-to-the-Sun Road are already under evacuation orders. A wildfire near California’s Yosemite National Park has been fully contained following a recent week-long closure, ... [Read Full Story]

In a series of tweets Sunday morning, President Trump is defending himself and the White House from the ongoing Russia probe, saying he has “nothing to hide” — this amid reports that White House Counsel Don McGahn is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mr. Trump slammed a New York Times report that McGahn had been cooperating “extensively” with Mueller over the last nine months and has submitted to a series of three interviews with investigators – totaling 30 hours of face-time.  Trump tweeted: “The failing New York Times wrote a fake piece today implying that because White House Councel [sic] Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel [sic], he must be a John Dean type “RAT,”” Mr. Trump tweeted. He stated that he “allowed” McGahn and “all others” to testify, and that he “didn’t have to.” ... [Read Full Story]

The bodies of a pregnant missing Colorado woman and her 2 young daughter have been recovered in a Denver suburb, just one day after authorities arrested the woman’s husband on suspicion of three counts of murder. Searchers on Thursday afternoon found what appear to be the bodies of 4-year-old Bella Watts and 3-year-old Celeste Watts. The remains of their mother, 34-year-old Shanann Watts, were found earlier on property in northern Colorado owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corp, where the suspect, Chris Watts, had been employed. Shanann Watts (who was 15 weeks pregnant), and her daughters were reported missing on Monday afternoon. Her husband and the children’s father, Chris Watts, 33, was taken into custody Wednesday night in connection with their disappearance. Their case had made national headlines as her husband took to the airwaves earlier this week to plead for his family’s safe return. “This is the worst possible outcome that any of us can imagine,” Colorado Bureau of Investigation director John Camper said in a press conference on Thursday.  Colorado prosecutors say they believe Watts killed his pregnant wife and two daughters in their home, though they would not provide any further details. ... [Read Full Story]

U.S. health officials have approved a new generic version of EpiPen, the emergency allergy medication. The Food and Drug Administration’s action Thursday opens the door to more competition for a drug that has faced public outrage over its price tag. The injections are stocked by schools and parents to treat allergic reactions to food and bug bites. The new generic version will be sold by Teva Pharmaceuticals. EpiPen maker Mylan has dominated the $1 billion market for two decades and competing shots are not widely marketed or prescribed by doctors. In 2016, Congress blasted Mylan for raising the price to $600, a five-fold increase over nearly a decade, in which the company responded to by launching its own lower-cost generic version for $300.... [Read Full Story]

President Donald Trump is revoking the security clearance of former Obama administration CIA director John Brennan, the White House said Wednesday. “Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. Brennan has been deeply critical of Trump’s conduct, calling his performance at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland “nothing short of treasonous.” Sanders said the security clearances of other current and formers officials are also “under review.” They include former FBI Director James Comey; James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; former national security adviser Susan Rice; and Andrew McCabe, who served as Trump’s deputy FBI director until he was fired in March. ... [Read Full Story]

Some popular breakfast foods and cereals marketed to children contain a weed-killing chemical that some health authorities have linked to cancer. New research out Wednesday morning discovered trace amounts of glyphosate in oats, granolas, and snack bars. Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) said “we’re very concerned that consumers are eating more glyphosate than they know.” They found glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto weed-killer RoundUp, in all but two samples. EWG used its own more stringent standards to conclude that products with excessive levels of the herbicide included Quaker “Old Fashioned Oats,” Cheerios, Quaker “Dinosaur Egg” Instant Oats, Great Value Instant Oats, and Back To Nature Classic Granola Clusters. Quaker responded to the EWG’s report with a statement which read in part, “We proudly stand by the safety and quality of our Quaker products.” General Mills responded by saying, “Our products are safe and without question they meet regulatory safety levels. The EPA has researched this issue and has set rules that we follow.”... [Read Full Story]

More than 1,000 children were molested by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in six cdioceses, while senior church officials took steps to cover it up, according to a landmark grand jury report released Tuesday. The grand jury said it believes the “real number” of abused children might be “in the thousands” since some records were lost and victims were afraid to come forward. The report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period of decades.The report faulted Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former longtime bishop of Pittsburgh who now leads the Washington archdiocese, for what it said was his part in the concealment of clergy sexual abuse. Wuerl defended himself, releasing a statement Tuesday that said he had “acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse.” The Pennsylvania grand jury heard from dozens of witnesses and reviewed more than a half-million pages of internal documents from the Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton dioceses. The identities of those clergy members remain under court seal.... [Read Full Story]

 A 51-year-old highway bridge in the Italian port city of Genoa collapsed on Tuesday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 15 others. Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte called it “an immense tragedy … inconceivable in a modern system like ours, a modern country.” The disaster, on a major interchange connecting Genoa and other northern cities with beaches in eastern Liguria into France, focused attention on Italy’s aging infrastructure. What caused the Morandi Bridge to fall remained unknown, and prosecutors said they were opening an investigation but had not identified any targets. Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said the collapse was “unacceptable” and that if negligence played a role “whoever made a mistake must pay.”  Officials in the Liguria region said Tuesday night that 26 people had died, saying two more bodies had been found and one of the 16 injured had died in surgery. ... [Read Full Story]

Twitter after the release of the audio, calling her “wacky” and “vicious,” though also acknowledging he had initially resisted Kelly’s previous attempts to oust her from the West Wing. ... [Read Full Story]

Peter Strzok, a longtime FBI agent who was removed from the Russia investigation over anti-Trump text messages, has been fired by the agency, it was announced on Monday. The FBI had been reviewing Strzok’s employment after the politically charged text messages were discovered last year. President Donald Trump’s allies have seized on the texts, saying they show the investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia is tainted by political bias. Strzok was fired late Friday by FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, said his lawyer, Aitan Goelman.... [Read Full Story]

Alaska’s North Slope was hit Sunday by the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the region, according to the state’s seismologist. At 6:58 a.m. Sunday,  magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck an area 42 miles east of Kavik River Camp and 343 miles northeast of Fairbanks, the state’s second-biggest city. The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake had a depth of about 6 miles. State seismologist Mike West reported that the earthquake was the biggest recorded in the North Slope. Later Sunday, another magnitude 6.1 earthquake hit at 1:15 p.m. near the city of Kaktovik on Alaska’s North Slope, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The epicenter was southwest of Kaktovik, which has about 290 people. Several aftershocks were reported across northern Alaska. The Alaska Earthquake Center said there were no reports of damage.... [Read Full Story]

White nationalists and counter-protesters gathered in front of the White House Sunday to mark one year since the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia. Police in Washington, D.C. ordered tight security for the “Unite the Right” rally. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency in Charlottesville ahead of the anniversary. Last year, one woman, Heather Heyer, was struck and killed by a car driven by a white supremacist. That rally began as a protest against a plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which still stands in Charlottesville. Also on Sunday morning, more than 200 people gathered at Charlottesville’s Washington Park to protest racism, gathering to recite poetry, sing songs and hold a moment of silence.... [Read Full Story]

 A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban a widely-used pesticide that critics say can endanger children and farmers. The 2-1 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle overturned former EPA commissioner Scott Pruitt’s March 2017 denial of a petition by environmental groups to halt the use of chlorpyrifos on food crops such as fruits, vegetables and nuts. Pruitt’s ruling had reversed a 2015 Obama administration recommendation to extend to food a 2000 ban on chlorpyrifos that covered most household settings. “This shows that the EPA can’t just ignore the science that this pesticide damages children’s brains,” Marisa Ordonia, a lawyer for Earthjustice, which represented the petitioners, said in an interview. “The Trump administration has to follow the law, as does everyone else.” ... [Read Full Story]

Vice President Mike Pence has announced plans for a new, separate U.S. Space Force as sixth military service by 2020. Pence says it’s needed to ensure America’s dominance in space amid heightened competition and threats from China and Russia. He says that while space was once peaceful and uncontested, it is now crowded and adversarial.President Donald Trump has called for a “separate but equal” space force. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has endorsed plans to reorganize the military’s space warfighting forces but has previously opposed launching an expensive separate new service. However, any proposal to create a new service would require congressional action.... [Read Full Story]

The Trump administration said Wednesday it would impose new sanctions on Russia for its involvement in the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, and his daughter Yulia Skripal. The pair were found unconscious on a bench after they came into contact with a Novichok nerve agent. They were taken to the hospital in critical condition and have now been released. The State Department announced Wednesday it had determined the Russian government had “used chemical or biological weapons” in violation of international law. The administration’s announcement came after demands from the GOP chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ed Royce of California. Royce called on the administration to hold Russia accountable for the Skripal poisonings. British officials have blamed Russia for the poisonings, but Russia has denied any involvement.... [Read Full Story]

Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y. pleaded not guilty Wednesday afternoon to federal insider trading charges. The congressman was arrested earlier in the day on charges that he shared non-public information with family and friends related to Australian biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics, on which Collins served as a board member. An indictment released Wednesday alleges that Collins, 68, called his son from the White House lawn and share information with him about a failed drug trial, and that his son and others then sold stock based on that tip before the trial results became public. Collins’ son, Cameron Collins, 25, as well as the father of his fiancee, Stephen Zarsky, 66, were also charged, according to the court filing. All three pleaded not guilty on Wednesday and will be released on $500,000 bond. The next court hearing is set for Oct. 11, less than a month before Collins will face reelection. ... [Read Full Story]

Searchers found the remains of a boy after raiding a makeshift compound last week in search of a missing Georgia child, authorities said Tuesday. The remains were found Monday during a search in Amalia, near the Colorado border; authorities were awaiting positive identification of the remains. The search for Abdul-ghani of Georgia led authorities Friday to the squalid compound where they found Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, the father of the missing boy, along with four other adults and 11 children living in filthy conditions. Wahhaj told the boy’s mother that he wanted to perform an exorcism on the child, who suffered from seizures, because he believed the 3-year-old was possessed by the devil. The mother told police that Wahhaj took the boy for a trip to a park and never returned. Wahhaj was armed with several guns, including a loaded AR-15 assault rifle, when he was taken into custody without incident at the compound, the sheriff said. Children ages 1 to 15 were rescued from the compound that had been under investigation for months.... [Read Full Story]

The West Hollywood City Council voted for the removal of President Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, this according to the city’s mayor. The neighborhood’s City Council passed the resolution, citing Trump’s “attacks” on “minorities, immigrants” and other groups, West Hollywood Mayor John Duran said. The council does not have any direct authority over the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but did share the resolution with the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce which does have authority. In a statement, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Leron Gubler said his group would refer the council’s resolution to its executive committee “for consideration at their next meeting. “As of now, there are no plans to remove any stars from the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” Gubler said. Trump’s star has been vandalized repeatedly in recent years. Last month, a man with a pickax smashed it to pieces, and in 2016 a man dressed as a construction worker also smashed the star with a pickax and sledgehammer.... [Read Full Story]

Apple Inc, YouTube, Facebook Inc and Spotify all took down podcasts and channels from U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, saying on Monday that the Infowars author had broken community standards. Since founding Infowars in 1999, Jones has built a vast audience. Among the theories he has promoted is that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington were staged by the government.  Facebook said it removed the pages “for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies.” And Apple deleted most Infowars podcasts and a spokeswoman said in a statement that the company “does not tolerate hate speech” and publishes guidelines that developers and publishers must follow.  Infowars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson tweeted that the take-downs amounted to censorship and were intended to help Democrats in the national election this fall. ... [Read Full Story]

Rick Gates on Monday took the stand in the federal fraud case against his former business partner, ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, testifying that he and Manafort conspired to commit bank and tax fraud. Manafort, facing charges of bank and tax fraud related to his work in Ukraine, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Gates is considered a star witness against Manafort, and struck a plea deal with prosecutors to cooperate in the case against his former business partner.  During his testimony, Gates read out loud the language from his indictment charging him with conspiracy and making false statements to the government. Gates testified that he and Manafort under-reported income an d failed to file Foreign Bank Account Report forms. He also testified that he lied to Manafort’s bookkeeper and accountants. Manafort served as chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign during the summer of 2016, and was forced out in August of that year amid news stories about his ties to then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.... [Read Full Story]

President Donald Trump’s dismantled voter fraud commission uncovered no evidence to prove his claim that millions voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election, according to an analysis of administration documents by a former member. Maine’s Secretary of State and former commission member, Matthew Dunlap stated in a letter issued Friday “that the Commission predicted it would find widespread evidence of fraud actually reveals a troubling bias.” Dunlap, a Democrat, wrote that he joined the commission in “good faith” and with “optimism,” but that his experience with the bipartisan group left him skeptical of the intention of the study. The commission released documents on June 27 after Dunlap filed a lawsuit in November against it in an effort to gain access to materials and documentation he felt was being kept from him and other members of the committee.... [Read Full Story]

A powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian tourist island of Lombok on Sunday, killing at least 82 people, one week after another quake on Lombok killed more than a dozen. The latest quake damaged buildings as far away as Denpasar on Bali, including a department store and the airport terminal. On Lombok, soldiers and other rescuers carried injured people on stretchers and carpets to an evacuation center. National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the toll had risen to 82 with hundreds others injured. Thousands of homes were damaged and most people were killed by collapsing houses, he said. A total of 65 of the deaths were in North Lombok district, nine in West Lombok district, four in the provincial capital Mataram and two each in Central Lombok and East Lombok districts, Nugroho said. The quake, recorded at magnitude 7.0 by the U.S. Geological Survey, struck early Sunday evening at a depth of 6 miles in the northern part of Lombok.... [Read Full Story]

Apple Inc. became the first U.S.-based company with a market value of $1 trillion, four decades after it was co-founded by Steve Jobs and later revolutionized the worlds of computing, music and mobile communications. The consumer-technology giant briefly touched the milestone in New York trading Thursday morning, based on share count data the company disclosed in a recent regulatory filing. Other tech giants are not far behind Apple, with Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp. worth more than $800 billion each. Since its inception in 1976, Apple has consistently reimagined what a computer can be and defined how humans interact with devices and software. The iMac desktop computer, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad have all been hugely successful. ... [Read Full Story]

California and 18 other U.S. states promised on Thursday to fight a Trump administration proposal to weaken fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and force states into line, arguing the United States has an obligation to protect the environment for future generations. The 19 states, and Washington D.C, announced they would sue to halt the proposed rollback. The Trump administration billed the proposed rollback from Obama-era fuel efficiency standards as a way to help car companies and lower vehicle prices for consumers, but critics said the plan would accelerate climate change and increase fuel prices.  ... [Read Full Story]

A Roman Catholic bishop in Pennsylvania released the names on Wednesday of 71 clergy members and seminarians accused of sexually abusing children since the 1940s, acting in advance of a release of grand jury findings on clergy abuse in the state. The name of every bishop in the diocese in the past seven decades will be removed from buildings in the diocese, in recognition of their failure to properly deal with accusations of abuse. Those on the list would be removed from “any position of honor” throughout the Diocese of Harrisburg in central Pennsylvania, the diocese said in a statement. “I express our profound sorrow and apologize to the survivors of child sex abuse, the Catholic faithful and the general public for the abuses that took place and for those church officials who failed to protect children,” Bishop Ronald Gainer of the Diocese of Harrisburg said in the statement.... [Read Full Story]

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In opening statements that kicked off the trial of Paul Manafort on Tuesday, prosecutors accused former Trump campaign chairman of being a “shrewd” liar who orchestrated a global scheme to avoid paying taxes on millions of dollars. Uzo Asonye, a prosecutor working on the case with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, said Manafort lived an “extravagant lifestyle” fueled by millions of dollars in “secret income” that he earned from his lobbying in Ukraine. In opening statements for the defense, Manafort’s defense attorney Thomas Zehnle shifted much of the blame to the Ukrainian oligarchs Manafort worked for and the business associates he worked with. Manafort is facing 18 charges, including accusations of filing false tax returns, failing to report foreign bank accounts and defrauding several banks. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 305 years in prison. He has denied all charges.... [Read Full Story]