WASHINGTON Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari said on Wednesday that there should not be any relaxation of regulations that have tightened oversight of Wall Street. “Progress has been made. I wouldn’t want to roll that back off the biggest banks,” Kashkari said at an event in Minneapolis, when asked about the fate of the Dodd-Frank reform act that was passed in part to prevent big […]
BEIRUT: A top Syrian Kurdish official on Wednesday welcomed the US decision to arm Kurdish fighters with heavier weapons, saying it would “legitimize” the force as it prepares to march on Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Daesh group.But Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said the decision, announced by the Trump administration Tuesday, was “unacceptable.”The US said it would provide heavier arms to the Kurdish-led […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he fired FBI Director James Comey because he was not doing a good job. “He wasn’t doing a good job, very simply. He wasn’t doing a good job,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office during a brief photo op as he met with Henry Kissinger, a former secretary of state. Trump declined to answer further questions about the […]
By Yashaswini Swamynathan U.S. stocks were slightly lower on Wednesday, dragged down by Walt Disney’s disappointing results, while investors turned cautious after President Donald Trump fired his FBI chief. Disney (DIS.N) fell 2.5 percent and was the top drag on the Dow and the S&P 500 after the media company reported quarterly revenue below analysts’ expectations. Trump said he fired FBI Director James Comey, who had been […]
As we reported last night, pretty much no one within the FBI had the slightest idea that Comey’s firing was coming. Even Comey himself, according to the New York Times, learned of his dismissal on the news and thought it was just a prank. Not surprisingly, this sudden and shocking ouster of an FBI director that has led an agency of 56 U.S. field offices and 30,000 […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Sean Hannity, the eight-figure archetype of selective moral outrage, last night charged the press with going “completely insane” over the James Comey firing. Hannity accused it of “selective moral outrage,” proving it takes one to know one amid wall-to-wall Comey […]
ISTANBUL Every weapon obtained by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia constitutes a threat to Turkey, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday, emphasising Ankara’s opposition to a U.S. deal to arm the fighters against Islamic State. Cavusoglu, who was speaking to reporters while on a visit to Montenegro, said the YPG was a terrorist organisation, the same as the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and that […]
BEIJING China said on Wednesday it had complained to the United States after a U.S. Congressional delegation visited exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at his headquarters in India this week. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi flew with a bipartisan delegation to the Himalayan hill town where the 81-year-old Buddhist leader is based, seeking to draw world attention to human rights in Tibet as President Donald […]
Doomed children gasp their last breaths in the back of a truck filled with lifeless bodies that could have been their playmates hours ago. Volunteers sprint back and forth in an attempt to salvage the remaining lives. And a camera witnesses it all, capturing video that the public won’t see for more than a month. That was the scene shown Tuesday, when CNN showed horrific footage of […]
It took Richard Nixon five months to fire the man investigating him. It took Donald Trump less than four. The difference is that Mr Nixon did little to conceal his motive — to save his presidency. Mr Trump, on the other hand, says he fired James Comey for having mishandled last year’s email investigation into Hillary Clinton. Even by Mr Trump’s standards, this stretches credulity. Mr Trump […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the White House on Wednesday to discuss Syria and a wide range of international issues, a senior U.S. official said. It will be the highest-level contact between Trump and the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin since Trump took office on Jan. 20. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on the agenda […]
By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey in the fallout over Comey’s probe of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s emails last year, saying Comey was no longer able to effectively lead the law enforcement agency. Comey had been leading an FBI investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible […]
By Timothy Gardner | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Eight Democratic senators asked U.S. regulators on Tuesday to launch an investigation into billionaire Carl Icahn’s activities in the U.S. biofuels blending credit market, saying the activist investor may have violated trading laws since becoming an adviser to President Donald Trump. “We are writing to request that your agencies investigate whether Carl Icahn violated insider trading laws, anti-market manipulation laws, or […]
ABU DHABI // Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, will hold talks with US president Donald Trump in Washington on Monday. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the meeting is aimed at deepening Washington’s cooperation with a key Middle East partner. The meeting is scheduled to take place a week before Mr Trump makes the first […]
A group of US senators has urged a government investigation into billionaire Carl Icahn’s involvement in an obscure market for US biofuel credits, arguing he profited by influencing prices through his role as informal counsel to President Donald Trump. Mr Icahn controls CVR Energy, an oil refiner which trades credits used to meet a federal mandate for mixing ethanol and biodiesel with petroleum products. In December, the […]
Turkey was informed of Mr. Trump’s decision, according to an American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing private diplomatic communications. Continue reading the main story The Turkish government had no immediate reaction, with officials declining to comment before Mr. Erdogan’s office did. But the move was likely to anger Mr. Erdogan, who has been pressing the United States to lessen its […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump will not make a decision on whether the United States should remain in the Paris climate agreement until after he returns from the May 26-27 G7 summit, the White House said Tuesday. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Trump is continuing to hear from advisers on the pros and cons of the United States remaining in the global accord, but that […]
US stocks hit fresh intraday highs on Wednesday, with Apple’s market value breaking through $800bn for the first time, as an earnings trade replaces the so-called Trump trade. The best US earnings season in five years has powered Wall Street to new heights even as the pro-business tax, regulation and infrastructure policies of Donald Trump are taking longer to translate into action than investors had hoped. The […]
Despite paying trillions in Federal taxes every year, Americans’ requests for a clear, detailed breakdown of where their money goes every year, have gone unanswered and been ignored by both Republican and Democrat administrations for one simple reason: transparency has an unpleasant way of mutating into accountability, which is the scariest thing imaginable for any career politician. Not any more. On Tuesday, the US Treasury launched a […]
Facebook is under fire again over the way it handles fake news, as an Austrian court just ruled the company must remove all posts considered to be hate speech. The ruling doesn’t refer to just local posts either — the Austrian court ordered Facebook to remove hateful content globally, which makes the ruling significant even beyond the country’s borders. Austria Takes Steps Against Facebook Hate Speech Austria’s Green party, […]
Donald Trump’s promise of the biggest tax reforms since the Reagan era has cast minds back to the go-go years of postwar Manhattan, when cocktail glasses brimmed, steaks bulged and meal bills soared. The generous treatment of business meal expenses fuelled a phenomenon called the “three martini lunch”. As good for networking as it was bad for afternoon acuity, the more money diners spent on liquor, the […]
By Giulia Segreti | MILAN MILAN Former U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he was confident that the United States would keep moving “in the right direction” on climate change, although the process might slow down under the current administration. Before taking office, President Donald Trump pledged to cancel a deal signed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015, which aims to limit rising temperatures […]
Moon Jae-in has triumphed in the South Korean presidential election with over 40 percent of the vote, according to exit polls. But the liberal leader’s solid victory can’t patch over deeper political wounds. Just as the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union left British society divided and Donald Trump’s election polarized Americans, the impeachment of Park Geun-hye has split South Korea. While more than 75 […]
OSLO Nations around the world have adopted more than 1,200 laws to curb climate change, up from about 60 two decades ago, which is a sign of widening efforts to limit rising temperatures, a study showed on Tuesday. “Most countries have a legal basis on which future action can be built,” Patricia Espinosa, the U.N.’s climate change chief, told a webcast news conference of the findings issued […]
