Robert Mercer, co-chief executive of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors, has been sued by a former employee who says he was fired after he publicly criticised his boss’s support for the US president. David Magerman, a long-time research scientist at the fund who had helped it build computer algorithms that make investment decisions, was terminated after giving two newspaper interviews […]
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban on people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority countries faces its latest legal test on Monday before a federal appeals court in Virginia. The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear an hour of oral arguments in the Trump administration’s appeal of a March 16 ruling by Maryland-based federal judge Theodore Chuang. His decision blocked […]
Emmanuel Macron’s triumph in the French presidential election nudged the euro to a six-month high against the dollar, with analysts and investors predicting that the result could spur a return of money to the eurozone. The euro inched up 0.1 per cent to $1.1021 in the hours after it became clear the centrist had beaten Marine Le Pen, before dipping 0.1 per cent to $1.0977 as Asian trading started. […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, won an emphatic victory in France’s presidential run-off against Marine Le Pen, the far-right Front National leader, on Sunday, taking 65.1 per cent of the vote, according to estimates. Mr Macron’s victory is a phenomenal achievement for the 39-year-old former Rothschild banker, who has never before held elected office and whose political movement En Marche! was […]
Monday UN focus on migrants The UN will meet in Geneva to address the “human rights of all migrants, social inclusion, cohesion and all forms of discrimination, including racism, xenophobia and intolerance”. Organisers say they are working towards an ambitious global policy on migration, an issue high on the political agenda after the Mediterranean migrants’ crisis and US President Donald Trump’s clampdown on migration into the US […]
America First Policies Group type: 501(c)(4) nonprofit Why it matters: America First Policies grew out of Trump’s political operation. Headed by Brad Parscale, who ran the digital and data portion of Trump’s campaign, and featuring a coterie of former aides, it was meant to serve as a quasi-independent outside group providing support for the president’s initiatives. Parscale has said America First Policies had raised around $25 million. […]
The Week in Fact-Checking is a newsletter from the American Press Institute and Poynter. Want it in your inbox every week? Subscribe here. In 2016, U.S. fact-checkers drew record traffic — but the Pants-on-Fire candidate still became the Pants-on-Fire president. This complicated reality could have led to big changes to the ways fact-checking is conducted in America. Yet the formats, tone and methods adopted by fact-checkers have […]
Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog, In Part One of this article I detailed how propaganda has been utilized by the Deep State for decades to control the minds of the masses and allow those in control to reap the benefits of never ending war. In Part Two I will discuss recent events, false flags, and propaganda campaigns utilized by the Deep State to […]
Mr. Greenblatt got a very different message at an earlier dinner with two other prominent Palestinians, Salam Fayyad and Ziad Asali, and two American Jewish diplomats, Elliott Abrams and Dennis B. Ross. They all told him that a breakthrough was not realistic now, and that Mr. Trump would be better off pursuing incremental advances, like bettering the economic fortunes of the Palestinians. Continue reading the main story […]
Of those who favor limits, the vast majority — four out of five people — say presidential campaigns should last for one year or less, the poll indicates. Democrats are most likely to want president campaign limitations, although most Republicans and independents want them, too. “Too long” was the most common answer poll respondents gave when asked to briefly describe Election 2016. “Long,” “crazy” and “bad” followed. […]
Jeff Immelt, the GE chairman and chief executive, has called for Donald Trump to keep the US in the Paris climate accord, weighing into a debate inside the new administration over a campaign promise to withdraw from the landmark agreement. “We are for staying in the treaty. I think global engagement is a good thing,” Mr Immelt told a Washington audience on Thursday. The business community “has […]
White House officials said foreign leaders would be more willing to help the United States if disagreements over human rights and other issues were aired in private. They cited the recent release of an Egyptian-American aid worker detained in Egypt, which was negotiated in quiet talks with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Continue reading the main story “Obama’s approach was to build support with the Arab public through […]
May 4, 2017 by: Katrina Manson in New York Donald Trump will visit Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican on his first foreign trip as US president in an effort to unite a coalition against Islamist terrorism and Iran and extract more from traditional allies. The travel plans mark a departure from US foreign policy norms, which usually see new presidents visit neighbouring Canada or Mexico within a month of taking office. […]
President Donald Trump’s most recent executive order is probably most noteworthy for what it doesn’t do, so we’ll start there. In February, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported that a draft executive order on religious freedom, sweeping in scope, was circulating in the administration. It would have forced the federal government to “accommodate” […] (via WSJ)
Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress are poised for a high-stakes vote on healthcare reform on Thursday that could decide whether the president will achieve one of the key elements of his domestic legislative agenda following a rough first 100 days in office. After three months of roller-coaster efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — the healthcare law known as Obamacare that was […]
By Jeff Mason and Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to do “whatever is necessary” to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians as he hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, but offered no sign of how he could revive long-stalled negotiations. In their first face-to-face meeting, Trump pressed Abbas and other Palestinian leaders to “speak in a unified […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here The Federal Reserve said it believed the recent slowdown in US growth was likely to prove temporary as it stayed on course for a further increase in short-term interest rates as soon as June. The US central bank kept its target range for the federal funds rate at 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent following its latest two-day meeting. In […]
Mr. Abbas, 82, who was among the negotiators on hand for the historic signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn in 1993, indicated that he did feel optimistic that nearly a quarter-century later Mr. Trump might be the president who finally builds on that initial agreement to forge a final resolution to the conflict. Continue reading the main story Praising Mr. Trump’s “courageous leadership,” […]
1. Optimism waning: Only 52 per cent of those polled said they felt things in their countries were moving in the right direction, a drop of 12 per cent from last year. 2. Overlooked by policymakers: A clear message to policymakers and governments across the region was that 81 per cent of young Arabs from across the region wanted their countries to do more to address their […]
Elsewhere on Wednesday, – TFW you have become verb used to specify there should be no lying in this particular bond quoting: Shortly after his indictment in 2013, Mr. Peters engaged in a chat session with a potential buyer about the price that would be offered for mortgage securities. The customer wrote, “Ok don’t litvak me! Go ahead with that bid.” – Guardian longread on where oil […]
By Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Donald Trump’s national security adviser described his boss’s foreign policy approach as “disruptive” on the eve of the U.S. president’s first White House meeting with the Palestinian leader, saying his unconventional ways could create an opportunity to ultimately help stabilize the Middle East. Trump faces deep skepticism at home and abroad over his chances for a breakthrough with Palestinian President Mahmoud […]
Republican leaders are battling to avert another healthcare setback for President Donald Trump as they rally support for a second attempt at reform under pressure from the White House. In the latest Trump administration gamble, senior White House officials have predicted a vote to overhaul Obamacare this week even though party chiefs on Tuesday did not have enough support to pass a bill. The White House is […]
They include coal executives Christopher Cline, founder of coal company Foresight Reserves LLC, and J Clifford Forrest, president of Rosebud Mining Company — each gave $1 million. Also contributing $1 million each: Hushang Ansary, a longtime oil executive and businessman, and his wife, Shahla Ansary. Inaugural committee donors who gave at least $1 million were invited to a long list of exclusive events over the inauguration weekend, […]
US President Donald Trump said the federal government needed a shutdown this autumn to fix what he called a “mess” in the wake of a Congressional deal that ignored key elements of his budget requests. Taking to Twitter to express his irritation over an agreement sealed on Sunday between the two parties that contained no funding for his border wall, Mr Trump complained that the Republicans had inadequate […]
