| Iranian Foreign Minister Proposes a Prisoner Swap With the U.S. Posted: 25 Apr 2019 12:30 AM PDT  "Let's have an exchange. I'm ready to do it," he said.
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| Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein offers biting defense of Russia investigation, jabs Obama administration Posted: 26 Apr 2019 08:46 AM PDT  Deputy AG Rosenstein offers staunch defense of Russia investigation
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| 25 years in prison for ex-Florida policeman who shot black motorist Posted: 25 Apr 2019 02:58 PM PDT  A former Florida police officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for fatally shooting a black man whose car had broken down on the highway. Nouman Raja, 41, was convicted of manslaughter and attempted murder last month for the October 2015 shooting of Corey Jones, a 31-year-old musician. Raja, a former member of the Palm Beach Gardens police force, is the first police officer to be convicted in Florida for the on-duty shooting death of a black man in three decades.
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| The Best Affordable Performance Cars, Trucks, and SUVs Posted: 26 Apr 2019 06:56 AM PDT |
| Never ending Mueller report: Today's Toon Posted: 25 Apr 2019 07:29 PM PDT  Want to keep up with USA TODAY's editorial cartoons? Bookmark this page. We'll update it frequently.
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| North Korean leader says peace on Korean peninsula depends on U.S. attitude: KCNA Posted: 25 Apr 2019 04:40 PM PDT  Kim's remarks were seen as keeping pressure on the United States to be more flexible in accepting Pyongyang's demands to ease sanctions, compared to the U.S. stance during his unsuccessful second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February. The North Korean leader said at the time he would wait until the end of the year for the United States to become more flexible. "The situation on the Korean peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point where it may return to its original state as the U.S. took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-U.S. summit talks," KCNA reported Kim as saying, using North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
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| 'I smiled in the face of bigotry': A woman's response to anti-Islam protesters goes viral Posted: 26 Apr 2019 03:24 PM PDT  A group of anti-Islam protesters gathered at a conference in Washington, D.C. One woman's reaction: 'I smiled in the face of bigotry.'
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| Joe Biden Starts His Campaign as the Frontrunner. That Could Hurt Him Posted: 25 Apr 2019 09:46 AM PDT  Many of Joe Biden's strengths may turn out to be weaknesses as his third presidential campaign gets underway this week.
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| House Dem. Threatens Trump Officials with ‘Incarceration’ for Refusing to Honor Subpoenas Posted: 26 Apr 2019 08:28 AM PDT  Representative Gerry Connolly (D., Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, said Friday that the panel might resort to the threat of incarceration should Trump administration officials continue to ignore its numerous subpoena-backed requests for documents."We're going to resist, and if a subpoena is issued and you're told you must testify, we will back that up," Connolly told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "And we will use any and all power in our command to make sure it's backed up — whether that's a contempt citation, whether that's going to court and getting that citation enforced, whether it's fines, whether it's possible incarceration. We will go to the max to enforce the constitutional role of the legislative branch of government."The president and his advisers have said explicitly that they will not yield to Democrats' demands that officials testify before the Oversight Committee regarding the issuance of security clearances, the formation of the so-called zero-tolerance immigration-enforcement policy, and other matters.White House adviser Stephen Miller, former security-clearance official Carl Kline, and John Gore, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, have thus far all refused to come before the panel.Connolly emphasized in particular the Committee's desire to hear from Miller, whom he called Trump's "immigration whisperer," regarding what measures the administration plans to take to harden the southern border in the wake of Secretary of Homeland Security Kierstjen Nielsen's departure."We want to hear from him: What is your thinking, what is it you've been advising the president, and where is it you think you're going to be taking us as a country with these kinds of policies and personnel changes?" Connolly said of Miller.
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| The Latest: Boy died of blunt force trauma to head Posted: 25 Apr 2019 02:10 PM PDT  WOODSTOCK, Ill. (AP) — The Latest on death of the 5-year-old northern Illinois boy (all times local):
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| Iraq on track to be third oil supplier in 2030: IEA Posted: 25 Apr 2019 04:25 AM PDT  Iraq is on track to produce nearly six million barrels of crude daily by 2030, the International Energy Agency said Thursday, which would make it the world's third biggest oil supplier. The IEA's wide-ranging report found that Iraq's production in the next decade could increase by an impressive 1.3 million barrels per day to a total of 5.9 million bpd. "Iraq is and will remain one of the key pillars of the oil market in the years to come," IEA head Fatih Birol told reporters on Thursday.
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| Kill a 'Raptor': How to Shoot Down an F-22 Stealth Fighter Posted: 25 Apr 2019 06:00 PM PDT  The Chinese—like the Russians—have formidable electronic attack capabilities including DRFM jammers.The U.S. Air Force has as a tiny fleet of 186 Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighters. That's all that survived out of 187 production aircraft (195 jets if developmental airframes are included) that were built out of the 750 that were originally planned. Of those 186 remaining Raptors, only 123 are "combat-coded" aircraft with another twenty that are classified as backup aircraft inventory machines. The rest are test and training assets.But even if 186 aircraft remain in the Air Force's inventory—not all of those fighters are operational. At least two—possibly more—jets are not currently flyable. One test aircraft—tail 91-4006—at Edward Air Force Base (AFB) in California has avionics that are so old; it's not worth bothering to fly it anymore. Another aircraft—02-4037—was badly damaged in a belly landing at Tyndall AFB, Fla. It's going to take at least four years and $98 million to repair the damage. The Air Force has also had trouble with repairing other F-22s due to snafus with retrieving improperly stored production tooling for the jet.This first appeared in October 2015.
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| Tesla's Musk agrees to new vetting rules for tweets in SEC deal Posted: 26 Apr 2019 04:07 PM PDT  Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk has reached a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a dispute over his use of Twitter, agreeing to submit his public statements about the company's finances and other topics to vetting by its legal counsel, according to a court filing on Friday. If it is approved by a judge, the deal means the Tesla founder no longer faces the prospect of being held in contempt for violating an earlier settlement with the agency, which had required him to submit statements "material" to investors for prior review. Shares of Tesla rose 1.4 percent to $238.50 in after hours trading.
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| Why can't Twitter stop Trump's hateful tweets about Ilhan Omar? Posted: 26 Apr 2019 09:24 AM PDT  Congresswoman received death threats following video Trump posted – but he didn't technically violate the rules The rules just aren't the same for Donald Trump as they are for the rest of us. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apparently admitted as much this week on a phone call with Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar.As reported by the Washington Post, Dorsey, often criticized for his inaction when it comes removing hateful and threatening content from the platform, was asked by Omar why he hadn't taken down a video posted by Trump earlier in the month. The video, which spliced together misleading and out of context comments from Omar about the issue of Islamophobia with footage of the 9/11 attacks, was clearly targeted harassment to anyone who saw it.Indeed Omar said she saw a sharp uptick in death threats after it was posted. But since it came from Trump, and not an average Twitter user, there was nothing Dorsey could do, he said. The tweet didn't technically violate the rules in any case, he added. (Anyone who has used Twitter will understand the frustration at trying to parse what exactly those rules are.)The call with Omar came the same day Dorsey met with Trump in the White House, a meeting in which the president is said to have largely complained about his follower count."During their conversation, [Dorsey] emphasized that death threats, incitement to violence and hateful conduct are not allowed on Twitter," the social media platform said in a statement to the Post. "We've significantly invested in technology to proactively surface this type of content and will continue to focus on reducing the burden on the individual being targeted."Dorsey has said in the past that the public interest value of Trump's tweets outweigh the harm of his occasional calls for violence or threats against foreign governments or members of the media"Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate," the company explained in statement last year. "It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions."More recently Dorsey declined to say whether a hypothetical direct call from Trump to murder a journalist would be grounds for his banishment.The permissive double standard applied to Trump on Twitter hasn't stopped him from regularly suggesting that he is himself being treated unfairly. This week Trump tweeted that Twitter doesn't "treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory…" In fact it seems more probable that Republicans such as Trump are given much more leeway than others. A recent story from Motherboard reported that one of the reasons Twitter has had trouble removing white supremacist content from the platform, as they have largely done with the Islamic State, is that the algorithms they use might end up affecting Republican politicians."When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," Trump once said in a prescient boast.When it comes to his behavior as reported in the Mueller report, as well as his social media habits, it seems like Trump behaves like he can get away with anything. So far he's right.
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| Police visited AJ Freund’s house 17 times before his brutal death. Why was the boy in his parents’ care? Posted: 26 Apr 2019 07:00 AM PDT  Last December, police reports indicated dog feces and urine were scattered throughout 5-year-old Andrew "AJ" Freund's home.
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| Suicide bomb leader cast shadow of fear over Sri Lanka town Posted: 26 Apr 2019 01:10 AM PDT  Zahran Hashim's sword-wielding zealotry fuelled fears in the sleepy east coast town of Kattankudy long before the cleric became Sri Lanka's most wanted man over the horrific Easter Sunday suicide attacks. Heavy security surrounded the main mosque in the Muslim-majority town of Kattankudy, where religious leaders say they sounded the alarm about Hashim years ago, beginning with his expulsion from a seminary during his teens. "It was the first time a student has been expelled for being a hardliner," said Mohammed Buhary Mohammed Fahim, a senior official at the Jamiathul Falah seminary who was a younger contemporary of Hashim's at the school.
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| Joe Biden: AOC-linked progressive group blasts 2020 candidate as ‘old guard’ and ‘no we can’t’ politician Posted: 25 Apr 2019 09:09 AM PDT  A progressive group aligned with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has blasted Joe Biden as the "old guard" of Democratic politics, just hours after the former vice president announced his candidacy for president.Justice Democrats, a PAC that supported candidates like Ms Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, declared on Thursday morning it would support whoever becomes the Democratic nominee — but claimed candidates such as Mr Biden had divided America and led to the election of Donald Trump."The old guard of the Democratic Party failed to stop Trump, and they can't be counted on to lead the fight against his divide-and-conquer politics today. The party needs new leadership with a bold vision capable of energizing voters in the Democratic base who stayed home in 2016," the statement read.But, the group went on to blast Mr Biden specifically, and used the former campaign slogan of Barack Obama — "Yes We Can" — against the former vice president."While we're going to support the Democrat nominee, we can't let a so-called 'centrist' like Joe Biden divide the Democratic Party and turn it into the party of 'No, we can't,'" the group wrote. The early attack highlights the broad ideological spectrum represented in the 2020 Democratic field, which now has 20 candidates with Mr Biden in the race.While Mr Biden has led in many early polls of Democratic voters, voters have also shown strong support for Bernie Sanders — a candidate largely written off during his 2016 run against Hillary Clinton, only to aggressively compete in that primary. Candidates like Mr Sanders have sworn off support from big moneyed interests, drawing a clear line between their candidacies and those of candidates like Mr Biden, who is supported by big money interests and whose campaign announcement was expected to be followed hours later by a fundraiser hosted by an executive for Comcast — one of America's largest telecommunication companies.
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| Rosenstein Calls Out Obama Admin For Failing to ‘Publicize’ Russian Election Interference Posted: 26 Apr 2019 05:38 AM PDT  During a private speech Thursday evening, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein lamented the Obama administration's decision not to "publicize" Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.Rosenstein, who oversaw special counsel Robert Mueller's recently-concluded investigation into Russian election interference, suggested that the Obama administration did the public a disservice by not publicly revealing "the full story" of the Kremlin's attempt to disrupt the election while adequate counter-measures could have been taken."Some critical decisions about the Russia investigation were made before I got there. The previous Administration chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls, and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America," Rosenstein said during an address to the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association.Rosenstein went on to criticize former FBI director James Comey for his decision to reveal the existence of a counterintelligence investigation into Russian election interference at the height of the 2016 campaign."The FBI disclosed classified evidence about the investigation to ranking legislators and their staffers. Someone selectively leaked details to the news media. The FBI Director announced at a congressional hearing that there was a counterintelligence investigation that might result in criminal charges," he continued. "Then the former FBI Director alleged that the President pressured him to close the investigation, and the President denied that the conversation occurred."Obama administration officials elected not to publicize the extent of the Kremlin's interference efforts because they believed they would be seen to be tilting the scales toward Hillary Clinton by exposing Russia's preference for Trump, NBC News reported in December 2016. Their confidence in Clinton's victory also bolstered their belief that alarming the public about election interference would prove unnecessary.
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| Australia leader plays down terror threat at Gallipoli event Posted: 25 Apr 2019 02:43 AM PDT  CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's prime minister played down Thursday any potential link between the arrest of a suspected Islamic State group member in Turkey and a World War I battle commemoration in Gallipoli attended by hundreds of Australians and New Zealanders.
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| Ex-Minnesota policeman says he shot Australian woman to protect partner Posted: 25 Apr 2019 05:08 PM PDT  Mohamed Noor, 33, is charged in the murder of 40-year-old Justine Ruszczyk Damond, whom he shot through his patrol car window during the night of July 15, 2017 in a dark alley while responding to her 911 call to report a possible sexual assault near her Minneapolis home. Noor testified in a Minneapolis courtroom that he shot Damond after he and his partner Matthew Harrity, who was in the driver's seat, heard a loud noise. Harrity had trouble removing his gun from its holster and "he turned to me with fear in his eyes," Noor said during his five-hour testimony.
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| Russian DNA: How the F-35 Was Partly Inspired By This Old Russian Fighter Posted: 25 Apr 2019 05:30 PM PDT  The Yak-141 Freestyle may not technically count as a predecessor to the F-35, but the JSF does seem to have at least some Russian DNA floating around its engine design — and as the F-35 came to fruition in the United States, the Yak-141 Freestyle died a quiet death in Russia. However, if a resurgent Russian defense industry chooses to move forward with a carrier-based VTOL aircraft, at least one Russian legislator has called for the Yak-141 to be revived, most likely with a stealthier new look for a new Cold War.For all the yelling and shouting over the Department of Defense's much-maligned F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, there's an unusual, often overlooked footnote in the trillion-dollar project's history: its origins as an experimental Soviet fighter that only fell into Lockheed Martin's lap because a desperate Russian aerospace company needed some cold, hard cash.Before the F-35, there was the Yak-141 'Freestyle' multi-role vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) fighter born during a tumultuous period in Russian military history. Though the Yak-141's first flight in 1987 was a revolutionary contribution to the development of VTOL systems, the hovering death bird was largely developed as the Soviet Union came apart at the seams, and the newly-broke Russian military was in no position to continue development of the new aircraft after the Berlin Wall.(This first appeared in 2018.)
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| Goldman Says How to Avoid Policy-Risk Woes in Health Stocks Posted: 25 Apr 2019 05:18 AM PDT  Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has a few ideas about how to navigate such a tricky environment. Investors who had been putting concerns about policy risk on the back burner, thinking election season was too far in the future to matter yet, all of a sudden had to focus on it again as of last week. Health-care stocks in the S&P 500 tumbled 4.4 percent last week versus a drop of 0.1 percent for the broader index, fueled by comments from insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc.'s CEO about the "Medicare for All" idea advocated by some progressive Democratic presidential candidates.
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| Could the inspector general's FISA probe derail Democrats' impeachment plans? Posted: 25 Apr 2019 05:02 AM PDT  Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg expects a hard-hitting report from Michael Horowitz.
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| This Petty’s Garage Ford Mustang Is The Perfect Summer Muscle Car Posted: 26 Apr 2019 06:24 AM PDT  Some people mock those who decide to buy a convertible Mustang, making jibes about how it's a 'girl's car' and how it isn't a manly Mustang. Well, prepare to have such shortsighted comments shutdown by this seriously potent pony car. This 2018 Ford Mustang Petty's Garage King Edition packs some power, all while its occupants enjoy the sunshine.
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| Trump committed obstruction of justice and should be indicted, says Fox News analyst in devastating attack Posted: 26 Apr 2019 07:46 AM PDT  Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano has broken down allegations Donald Trump obstructed justice in a scathing video published this week. While the president's favourite network often features hosts defending him against Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, Mr Napolitano asserted he was guilty of obstructing justice amid the years-long federal probe."When the president asks his former adviser and my former colleague KT McFarland to write an untruthful letter to the file knowing the government would subpoena it, that's obstruction of justice," he said in the video. "When the president asks Cory Lewandowski, his former campaign manager, to get Mueller fired, that's obstruction of justice."Mr Napolitano continued breaking down the special counsel's report, which noted at least 10 examples of possible obstruction on the part of the president. "When he dangled the pardon in front of Michael Cohen in order to keep Cohen from testifying against him, that's obstruction of justice," he said, before adding, "Why not charge him?"He also penned a damning Op-Ed this week that refuted Attorney General William Barr's analysis of the report. Mr Barr has cleared the president of wrongdoing and said he would not be filing any charges against him. "On obstruction, Barr is wrong," Mr Napolitano wrote. "The president's job is to enforce federal law.""If he had ordered its violation to save innocent life or preserve human freedom, he would have a moral defence," he continued. "But ordering obstruction to save himself from the consequences of his own behaviour is unlawful, defenceless and condemnable."The comments arrived nearly a week after the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mr Mueller's report, which found an extensive, multi-pronged operation conducted by Russian operatives throughout the 2016 election to sway voter attitudes against Hillary Clinton and in favour of Mr Trump. House Democrats have issued subpoenas for the full report, meanwhile, calling on Mr Barr and Mr Mueller to testify before committees investigating Russian interference and the president's financial dealings.
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| The Latest: Military clashes with suspects in Sri Lanka Posted: 26 Apr 2019 12:16 PM PDT  COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The Latest on the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka (all times local):
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| White House to Congress: top Trump immigration aide won't testify Posted: 25 Apr 2019 09:45 AM PDT  In a letter on Wednesday to the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, the White House said Stephen Miller would not testify before the committee about Trump immigration initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant children from their parents and his threat to send illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities. "In accordance with longstanding precedent, we respectfully decline the invitation to make Mr. Miller available for testimony before the committee," the White House counsel said in the letter, which was provided to Reuters on Thursday. The refusal is part of a wider pushback by the Republican president against legal requests from the Democratic-led House, which is conducting several investigations of his administration, including his tax returns, White House security clearances and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
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| Grassed up: Facebook leads Myanmar police to weed-growing Americans Posted: 24 Apr 2019 11:57 PM PDT  Myanmar police have arrested one American and two locals after photos on Facebook led them to a huge plantation of towering marijuana plants near Mandalay. Pictures of the fields of weed started circulating on the platform last week -- a rare sight online in a country where police photos of seized heroin and methamphetamine are far more common. Police raided the 20-acre site in Ngunzun township Monday to find nearly 350,000 marijuana plants -- some up to two metres tall -- 380 kilograms of seeds and 270 kilograms of marijuana, the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) announced Wednesday.
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| Warren’s College-Loan Plan Is a Decent Start Posted: 25 Apr 2019 07:30 AM PDT  The proposal has three basic components — making public universities free, providing more funding for historically black colleges and universities, and cancelling large amounts of student debt. The idea of free public universities is something I've argued against in the past. Warren's plan would use government funding to replace the lost tuition, but this system might not allow universities to increase their expenditures in the future to meet the needs of research or educational-quality improvements.
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| Mom discovers vomit on daughter's Frontier Airlines seat, gets into altercation with flight attendant Posted: 26 Apr 2019 09:12 AM PDT  A 53-year-old North Carolina woman and her teenage daughter discovered vomit in their seating area on a recent Frontier Airlines flight.
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| Trump's visits Buttigieg country for speech at NRA convention but singles out only Bernie Sanders Posted: 26 Apr 2019 12:05 PM PDT  President Donald Trump visited Pete Buttigieg territory for the NRA convention and mentioned Bernie Sanders but not the South Bend mayor.
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| A.J. Freund case: Police report reveals harrowing details of boy's short life Posted: 25 Apr 2019 06:46 AM PDT  After the body of 5-year-old Andrew "A
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| EU slams Russia citizenship move as new attack on Ukraine Posted: 25 Apr 2019 06:39 PM PDT  BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union hit out Thursday at Russia's move to fast-track citizenship applications from people living in conflict areas in eastern Ukraine, slamming it as an attack on Ukraine's sovereignty that undermines an already-fragile peace agreement.
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| Trump says he is holding big Pharma accountable in opioid fight Posted: 24 Apr 2019 07:10 PM PDT  America's opioid epidemic, especially damaging in rural areas where Trump is popular, has been a focus for the Republican president. On Tuesday, the government charged drug distributor Rochester Drug Co-operative Inc and company executives for their role in fueling the epidemic.
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| Microsoft tops trillion-dollar mark for first time Posted: 25 Apr 2019 07:13 AM PDT  Microsoft hit the trillion-dollar value mark Thursday for the first time, becoming the third technology giant to reach the symbolic milestone. Shares in Microsoft rallied some five percent to $130.59 in early Wall Street trade after a robust earnings report a day earlier. At its current levels, Microsoft is the world's most valuable company, ahead of Apple and Amazon, which last year topped $1 trillion before slipping back.
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| Come on a Guided Tour of Where F-35 Stealth Fighters are Born Posted: 24 Apr 2019 07:00 PM PDT  Flynn explained that the stealth engineering contributing to the F-35 has some origins as far back as the Gulf War-era F-117 NightHawk. "With the F-117, we learned how to embed antennas in the leading edge of the airplane. This concept went right into the F-22," Flynn added.(Ft. Worth, Texas) -- Filled with stacks of fuselage panels, engine components and a wide assortment of pipes, electronics and avionics, the sprawling F-35 construction facility in Ft. Worth, Texas, resembles a small city filled with engineers, mechanics, electricians and airplanes at various stages of construction.This first appeared earlier in April 2019.While some stations include vertically-hanging airplane wings, rudders, pipes and intricate collections of wires running through the fuselage, others contain little more than an assortment of seemingly disconnected small parts. Farther along the mile-long construction strip, heavily trafficked by workers, builders and engineers, there are bays with nearly completed F-35 with a light-green exterior. These "about to be finished" F-35s, roll into a separate environmentally-controlled hanger where they await a final coat of blended gray paint - giving the aircraft its color.
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| 10 Free Public Art Installations on Our Summer Bucket List Posted: 26 Apr 2019 02:43 PM PDT |
| Schools curb students' appetites for Grubhub, Uber Eats deliveries during school day Posted: 25 Apr 2019 11:04 AM PDT  Kids like food delivered via apps such as DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats, but schools worry about safety concerns and class disruptions.
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| Want a Bugatti Chiron? Better Hurry Up and Wait Posted: 26 Apr 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Fewer than 100 units of this 16-cylinder hypercar are still available.
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| Judge Slams Kim Foxx For Double Standard in Smollett Case: ‘Your Office Created This Mess’ Posted: 25 Apr 2019 09:12 AM PDT  A Cook County judge recently castigated State's Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting an anonymous woman for filing a false police report after dropping all charges against Empire actor Jussie Smollett, who was indicted for the same offense.Smollett was indicted by a grand jury on sixteen charges earlier this year following an extensive investigation that yielded substantial evidence that he paid two associates to attack him in the middle of the night in order to elevate his public profile.Foxx's office then dropped all charges without requiring that Smollett admit guilt, despite the strenuous objections of the Chicago Police Department and the mayor's office. Foxx's office, in explaining the decision, cited Smollett's record of community service and the fact that no one was physically harmed in the commission of his alleged crime.Cook County judge Marc Martin, while presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating an untenable situation in which anyone charged with filing a false police report should expect to be granted the leniency afforded to Smollett."Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn't have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer's very good. And this smells, big time. I didn't create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She's being treated differently," Martin said to Foxx during a recent court proceeding, according to a transcript obtained by a local Fox affiliate."There's no publicity on this case. She doesn't have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown," Martin continued. "It's not right. And [if] I proceed in this matter, you're just digging yourselves further in a hole. [If the] press gets a hold of this, it'll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?"> Smollett double standard? Cook Co. Judge Marc Martin rips Kim Foxx's office for its handling of false police report case involving suburban woman. Wonders why they're not giving her same consideration they gave @JussieSmollett. Exclusive story tonight @fox32news pic.twitter.com/e75GipLRo5> > -- Dane Placko FOX 32 (@dsplacko) April 24, 2019Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through her correspondence with her assistant, Joseph Magats. In a series of text messages sent in early March and obtained by the Chicago Tribune, Foxx cautions Magats against appearing overzealous in their prosecution of Smollett."Sooo……I'm recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A," Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8."Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it's indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn't mean we should," she added, referring to the case of disgraced pop singer R. Kelly.Smollett continues to maintain his innocence and has said he is considering suing the Chicago police for damages. The fate of Smollett's tenure on the hit show Empire remains unclear, but his co-stars Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard are demanding that he appear on the show's next season."Together, as a united front, we stand with Jussie Smollett and ask that our co-star, brother and friend be brought back for our sixth season of Empire," the show's top cast said in a statement released this week.
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| President Donald Trump on Joe Biden's 2020 run: 'He's not the brightest lightbulb in the group' Posted: 25 Apr 2019 07:05 PM PDT  President Trump called the former vice president "Sleepy Joe," before adding, "If you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!"
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| Tesla's Elon Musk, SEC again ask for more time to reach deal over CEO's Twitter use Posted: 25 Apr 2019 05:34 PM PDT  Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday sought a second delay and requested to provide the court another joint submission on or before April 30, indicating whether they have reached an agreement to settle a dispute over Musk's use of Twitter, both parties said in a court filing. The SEC in February sought to have Musk found in contempt of a fraud settlement last year after the CEO tweeted details about Tesla production numbers that were not vetted by the electric vehicle company's attorneys. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan ordered Musk and the SEC to try to resolve the dispute on their own.
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| Texts between the FBI's Strzok and Page draw investigator focus Posted: 25 Apr 2019 03:16 PM PDT  Nine days after the presidential election, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page exchanged texts that Fox News has learned are under new scrutiny by congressional investigators reviewing the genesis of the Russia probe; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports.
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