Huff, Puff, Pass? AG's Pot Fury Not Echoed By Task Force

Attorney General Jeff Sessions attends a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, Aug. 4, 2017. Sessions has warned of a crackdown on marijuana. But documents obtained by The Associated Press show he’s getting no fresh avenues from a special task force formed to find the best strategy. (AP Andrew Harnik)

WASHINGTON (AP, AUGUST 05, 2017) — The betting was that law-and-order Attorney General Jeff Sessions would come out against the legalized marijuana industry with guns blazing. But the task force Sessions assembled to find the best legal strategy is giving him no ammunition, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, a group of prosecutors and federal law enforcement officials, has come up with no new policy recommendations to advance the attorney general's aggressively anti-marijuana views. The group's report largely reiterates the current Justice Department policy on marijuana.

It encourages officials to keep studying whether to change or rescind the Obama administration's more hands-off approach to enforcement — a stance that has allowed the nation's experiment with legal pot to flourish. The report was not slated to be released publicly, but portions were obtained by the AP.

Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and blamed it for spikes in violence, has been promising to reconsider existing pot policy since he took office six months ago. His statements have sparked both support and worry across the political spectrum as a growing number of states have worked to legalize the drug.

Threats of a federal crackdown have united liberals, who object to the human costs of a war on pot, and some conservatives, who see it as a states' rights issue. Some advocates and members of Congress had feared the task force's recommendations would give Sessions the green light to begin dismantling what has become a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar pot industry that helps fund schools, educational programs and law enforcement.

But the tepid nature of the recommendations signals just how difficult it would be to change course on pot. Some in law enforcement support a tougher approach, but a bipartisan group of senators in March urged Sessions to uphold existing marijuana policy. Others in Congress are seeking ways to protect and promote pot businesses.

The vague recommendations may be intentional, reflecting an understanding that shutting down the entire industry is neither palatable nor possible, said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies marijuana law and was interviewed by members of the task force.

"If they come out with a more progressive, liberal policy, the attorney general is just going to reject it. They need to convince the attorney general that the recommendations are the best they can do without embarrassing the entire department by implementing a policy that fails," he said.

The task force suggestions are not final, and Sessions is in no way bound by them. The government still has plenty of ways it can punish weed-tolerant states, including raiding pot businesses and suing states where the drug is legal, a rare but quick path to compliance. The only one who could override a drastic move by Sessions is President Donald Trump, whose personal views on marijuana remain mostly unknown.

The Justice Department declined to comment. Rather than urging federal agents to shut down dispensaries and make mass arrests, the task force puts forth a more familiar approach. Its report says officials should continue to oppose rules that block the Justice Department from interfering with medical marijuana programs in states where it is allowed. Sessions wrote to members of Congress in May asking them — unsuccessfully so far — to undo those protections. The Obama administration also unsuccessfully opposed those rules.

The report suggests teaming the Justice Department with Treasury officials to offer guidance to financial institutions, telling them to implement robust anti-money laundering programs and report suspicious transactions involving businesses in states where pot is legal. That is already required by federal law.

And it tells officials to develop "centralized guidance, tools and data related to marijuana enforcement," two years after the Government Accountability Office told the Justice Department it needs to better document how it's tracking the effect of marijuana legalization in the states.

Most critically, and without offering direction, it says officials "should evaluate whether to maintain, revise or rescind" a set of Obama-era memos that allowed states to legalize marijuana on the condition that officials act to keep it from migrating to places where it is still outlawed and out of the hands of criminal cartels and children. Any changes to the policy could impact the way pot-legal states operate.

The recommendations are not surprising because "there's as much evidence that Sessions intends to maintain the system and help improve upon it as there is that he intends to roll it back," said Mason Tvert, who ran Colorado's legalization campaign. He pointed to Sessions' comment during his Senate confirmation hearing that while he opposed legalization, he understood the scarcity of federal resources and "echoed" the position of his Democratic predecessors.

But in July, he sent letters to Colorado and Washington that stirred concern, asking how they would address reports they were not adequately regulating the drug. It remains unclear how much weight Sessions might give the recommendations. He said he has been relying on them to enact policy in other areas. Apart from pot, the task force is studying a list of criminal justice issues. The overall report's executive summary says its work continues and its recommendations "do not comprehensively address every effort that the Department is planning or currently undertaking to reduce violent crime."

Hacker Who Helped Stop Global Cyberattack Arrested In US

British IT expert Marcus Hutchins speaks during an interview in Ilfracombe, England. Hutchins, a young British researcher credited with derailing a global cyberattack in May, has been arrested for allegedly creating and distributing banking malware, U.S. authorities say. Hutchins was detained in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017, while flying back to Britain from Defcon, an annual gathering of hackers of IT security gurus. A grand jury indictment charges Hutchins with “creating and distributing” malware known as the Kronos banking Trojan.

LAS VEGAS (AP, AUGUST 04, 2017) — Marcus Hutchins, a young British researcher credited with derailing a global cyberattack in May, was arrested for allegedly creating and distributing malicious software designed to collect bank-account passwords, U.S. authorities said Thursday.

Hutchins was detained in Las Vegas on his way back to Britain from an annual gathering of hackers and information security gurus. A grand jury indictment charged Hutchins with creating and distributing malware known as the Kronos banking Trojan.

Such malware infects web browsers, then captures usernames and passwords when an unsuspecting user visits a bank or other trusted location. News of Hutchins' detention came as a shock to the cybersecurity community. Many had rallied behind the researcher whose quick thinking helped control the spread of the WannaCry attack that crippled thousands of computers last May.

The indictment, filed in a Wisconsin federal court last month, alleges that Hutchins and another defendant — whose name is redacted — conspired between July 2014 and July 2015 to advertise the availability of the Kronos malware on internet forums, sell the malware and profit from it. The indictment also accuses Hutchins of creating the malware.

Authorities said the malware was first made available in early 2014, and "marketed and distributed through AlphaBay, a hidden service on the Tor network." The U.S. Department of Justice announced in July that the AlphaBay "darknet" marketplace was shut down after an international law enforcement effort.

A court hearing was scheduled for Hutchins on Thursday afternoon in Las Vegas. It was not immediately clear if he has a lawyer. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group, said it was "deeply concerned" about Hutchins' arrest and was attempting to reach him.

Hutchins recently attended Def Con, an annual cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas that ended Sunday. On Wednesday, Hutchins made some routinecomments on Twitter that suggested he was at an airport getting ready to board a plane for a flight home. He never left Nevada.

A Justice Department spokesman confirmed the 22-year-old Hutchins was arrested Wednesday in Las Vegas. Officer Rodrigo Pena, a police spokesman in Henderson, near Las Vegas, said Hutchins spent the night in federal custody in the city lockup.

Andrew Mabbitt, a British digital security specialist who had been staying in Las Vegas with Hutchins, said he and his friends grew worried when they got "radio silence" from Hutchins for hours. The worries deepened when Hutchins' mother called to tell him the young researcher hadn't made his flight home.

Mabbitt said he eventually found Hutchins' name on a detention center website. News of his indictment Wednesday left colleagues scrambling to understand what happened. "We don't know the evidence the FBI has against him, however we do have some circumstantial evidence that he was involved in that community at the time," said computer security expert Rob Graham.

The big question is the identity of the co-defendant in the case, whose name is redacted in the indictment. Why was it blacked out? "Maybe the other guy testified against him," said Graham. The co-defendant allegedly advertised the malware online. Hutchins is accused of creating and transmitting the program.

The problem with software creation is that often a program includes code written by multiple programmers. Prosecutors might need to prove that Hutchins wrote code with specific targets. "I've written code that other people have injected malware into," said Graham. "We know that large parts of Kronos were written by other people."

One legal scholar who specializes in studying computer crime said it's unusual, and problematic, for prosecutors to go after someone simply for writing or selling malware — as opposed to using it to further a crime.

"This is the first case I know of where the government is prosecuting someone for creating or selling malware but not actually using it," said Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University. Kerr said it will be difficult to prove criminal intent.

"It's a constant issue in criminal law — the helping of people who are committing a crime," Kerr said. "When is that itself a crime?"

O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in Paris and Frank Bajak in Houston contributed to this report.

NIGERIA: FG Bars Foreign Professionals Without Nigeria Certification

__Declares state of emergency on science and technology 

__Gives 3-yr tax rebate to pioneer industries in Nigeria 

BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKURU, VANGUARD NIGERIA

Ogbonnaya Onu, Fed Minister Of Science & Technology 

ABUJA, NIGERIA (VANGUARD, AUGUST 02, 2017) –ABUJA – The Federal Executive Council, FEC, Wednesday approved a new policy that for any foreign professionals to practice in Nigeria, they have to be registered and certified by all the necessary regulatory bodies.

This is as the Federal Government has declared a state of emergency on science and technology to boost technological acquisition for the industrial growth of the country.

Meantime, to attract foreign industries, the Federal Executive Council has approved tax rebate which will serve as an incentive for pioneer industries operating in Nigeria. 

Briefing State House Correspondents after weekly FEC meeting at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa Abuja, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu said, “We agreed that from now on, any person who wants to practice any profession that has anything to do with science, engineering and technology, medical doctors, accountants, quantity surveyors just to mention but a few, that first they have to be certified by appropriate regulatory bodies in Nigeria.”

 The Minister said that FEC in its deliberations approved policy that will help to change the direction that will be taken as a nation, a direction that will be very useful in helping to start looking inwards to produce the things that the country needs as against depending on outside to import our requirements.

 He said, “Some of the highlights will involve where we have bulk purchases major items that will bring into the country those who normally would have supplied from outside the country will now come to Nigeria and establish their factories to produce in Nigeria.

 “By doing so, they will offer job opportunities to our people, tax will be paid to government, wealth will be created and most importantly, Nigeria will now acquire the necessary technology that will help us build capacity. 

“This is very important in our building our local capacity. There are so many areas that this new policy has coved because the aim of this new policy is to make sure that in the next ten years, Nigeria firms will be in a position to carry out very complex jobs. A sort of jobs that we don’t currently have the expertise to do in the country.

 “And for such jobs, we will rely on foreign expertise and foreign firms for now but when they come, they have to work with Nigerian firms so that these Nigerian firms will understudy them and this will be from the conception to the commissioning.

 “That is the only way that we can hope to acquire to acquire the necessary technology to build our local capacity because our aim is like in the next ten years like I said we will be able to have own domestic firms, Nigerian firms to carry out all these jobs.

 “And in about 20 years, we want to see Nigerian firms competing with the very best in the world. 

“So, the Federal Executive Council, accepted to declare a state of emergency for science and technology and this is very important because even the economic recovery and growth plan 2018 to 2020 recognizes the cardinal place of science and technology in driving this recovery and growth plan of government.

 “We are not looking for transfer of technology because we know it will not happen, what we are looking for is acquisition of technology and we are interested in building our own capacity. 

“We are convinced that we can do this and we believe that with the approval given to this policy once implemented, we will be in a position to acquire technology. 

“This policy is a very comprehensive policy. We will pay a lot of attention to training. We will make sure that we have all the artisans we need, all the technicians that we need so that once somebody is building a house, once you get up to finishing of that house, you are most likely going to bring people from outside country. Many of them come from our neighboring countries. This we will not allow to continue. So we want to build the requisite manpower.

 “We will also use the Ministry of Interior to help us with a new classification in our immigration policy. Those areas that we lack expertise as of now, we will use that classification to bring in those who have such expertise particularly from African countries.

 “Then we will also be working closely with Nigerians in the Diaspora because many Nigerians outside the country have a lot of skills which we need at this time particularly in order to implement this policy, we will be working with them.

” FG approves tax rebate for pioneer industries

Also briefing journalists, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enalema said government has approved tax rebate for pioneer industry to establish in the country, noting that the policy was to serve as an incentive to attract new investors.

 The Minister said, “FEC approved a memorandum that was presented to amend the list of pioneer industries and products that will enjoy pioneer status going forward. 

“As many of you know the pioneer incentive scheme is governed by ye Industrial Development Income Tax Relief Act and the whole purpose is to give tax holidays to industries we consider pioneer. 

\“Pioneer doesn’t mean that they are new it only means that they are not yet mature, we want those industries to grow. We want to attract investment in them and you will find that this covers a wide range of industries and those tax holidays ranges from three to five years. 

“The pioneer list was last reviewed by the Federal Executive Council in 2006, so you could see that this was long overdue. 

“On doing the review, special attention was paid to the ERGP to capture the current realities that will help to implement the plan to make sure we attract the kind of investment, industries and players that will help to implement and realize our objectives in the ERGP. 

“I should also point out that there was multi stakeholder engagement, private and public sector in arriving at the industries that will be included in the pioneer incentive scheme. 

“In terms of the recommendations approved by FEC today: we have tried to remove all ambiguities in the definition of industries by reclassifying industries according to the international standard in industrial classification which is the global standard which is also the standard that is used by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics. 

“The other thing we also did is to agree that the pioneer list will be reviewed regularly every two years, biannually so that just that if things come up, we live in a fast changing world and we are being responsive to our world. In the case of additions to the list they will be effected immediately, for deletion of industries that we consider mature there will be a three year window that will be allowed for those that are already investing in that industry that were enjoying pioneer status to carry on till the end of that three year period.

 “Against this backdrop, we then approved 27 industries that were recommended for addition to the pioneer list today.

 “We also recommended and it was accepted by the Council that mineral oil prospecting which is governed by the Petroleum Profit Tax should not be part of the pioneer industries list which is really industries governed by the Companies Income Tax Act. 

“It was also accepted that given the success we have achieved in cement which are now net exporters, maybe that is an industry which we could say that we are now where we want to be in terms of maturity even though there is still a lot of scope for the application and the use of cement and you know that will continue. We already have critical mass in cement

 “The scheme will ensure that it will not deprive us of revenue. It is an incentive to make people enter your market, new enter industries, invest more for people who are already here. It will increase our tax base over time.”

4 Sanctuary Cities Facing Loss Of Crime-Fighting Assistance

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks in Columbus, Ohio. Sessions moved Thursday, Aug. 3, 2017, to again punish so-called sanctuary cities, this time threatening to deny federal crime-fighting resources to four cities beset by violence if they don’t step up efforts to help detain and deport people living in the country illegally.

WASHINGTON (AP, AUGUST 03, 2017) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions moved Thursday to again punish so-called sanctuary cities, this time threatening to deny federal crime-fighting resources to four cities beset by violence if they don't step up efforts to help detain and deport people living in the country illegally.

The Justice Department sent letters to cities struggling with gun violence, telling them they will be ineligible for a new program that aims to root out drug trafficking and gang crime unless they give federal immigration authorities access to jails and provide advance notice before releasing someone in custody who is wanted on immigration violations. The cities — Baltimore, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Stockton and San Bernardino in California — all expressed interest in the Justice Department's new Public Safety Partnership, which enlists federal agents, analysts and technology to help communities find solutions to crime.

"By taking simple, common-sense considerations into account, we are encouraging every jurisdiction in this country to cooperate with federal law enforcement," Sessions said in a statement that accompanied the letters. "That will ultimately make all of us safer — especially law enforcement on our streets."

In the letters, the department asked the four prospective cities' police departments to show proof of their compliance by Aug. 18. The threat marks Sessions' latest effort to force local authorities to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, part of a push to reduce crime he believes is linked to illegal immigration. Sessions has pledged to make fighting street crime the Justice Department's top priority, but the strategy is putting him at odds with some city leaders, who say the best way to fight crime and build community trust is to keep local police out of federal immigration matters.

Sessions last week told jurisdictions they need to meet the same conditions or lose out on millions of dollars from a separate program that aims to send grant money to support law enforcement. That move made some local officials more defiant.

The Justice Department in June tapped 12 cities to receive aid through the Public Safety Partnership, and officials said the four cities that were sent the letters had expressed interest in the next chance at participating. Cities were chosen based on higher-than-average rates of violence and willingness to receive the help and training. Cities that want to be involved going forward will have to show they allow unfettered communication between police and federal immigration authorities, give agents access to jails in order to question immigrants, and provide them 48-hours' notice when someone in the country illegally is about to be released.

Rwanda’s Forever President

BY BERT INGELAERE

NEW YORK TIMES

AUGUST 02, 2017

Paul Kagame Supporters At A Political Rally In The Burera District Of Rwanda Image: Clement Uwiringiyimana/Reuters

ANTWERP, BELGIUM (NEW YORK TIMES) — There is an election in Rwanda on Friday, but its outcome already is nearly certain: President Paul Kagame will win a third seven-year term. Elections there are not a contest for power. They are the ritual confirmation of the power in place.

Mr. Kagame generally wins by margins that would make a dictator proud: In 2010, he scored some 93 percent of the vote. He is the only ruler most Rwandans born since the 1994 genocide know. The Rwandans who remember leaders before him have reason to wonder if they will ever see another: The state’s mighty security apparatus is quietly eloquent, with all those soldiers and police officers routinely patrolling both city streets and the countryside.

Mr. Kagame is up against two innocuous candidates after the national election commission disqualified Diane Rwigara, his strongest opponent, and two other independent contenders. The opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, who was placed under house arrest in the lead-up to the 2010 election, is now in jail serving a dubious 15-year sentence for threatening state security, among other things. Journalists have also been intimidated and stifled; Freedom House categorizes Rwanda as “not free.”

Mr. Kagame wasn’t supposed to run this time because he would be coming up against the two-term limit set by the Constitution. But in 2015 the government proposed an amendment and had it sanctioned in a referendum (roundly criticized by human rights groups), opening the way for Mr. Kagame to stand for re-election this year — and again until 2034.

Burundi was condemned internationally in 2015 after President Pierre Nkurunziza flouted term limits to run for a third mandate. Last year, President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo skirted term restrictions by simply delaying the next election, triggering protests and then a crackdown that led to sanctions against his government. Yet nothing of the sort has happened to Mr. Kagame or his administration despite its ploys to keep him in power basically unchallenged.

Why? Because Mr. Kagame has been masterful at deflecting criticism of his illiberalism by pointing to Rwanda’s economic performance. The country is touted as a model: The government claims that the economy grew by an average of about 8 percent a year between 2001 and 2014, and that the rate of poverty dropped from nearly 57 percent in 2006 to less than 40 percent in 2014. Neither Mr. Nkurunziza nor Mr. Kabila could proffer such results.

Mr. Kagame’s supporters, in Rwanda and beyond, sing to his tune. In a way, they have to. Western donors and international organizations may well prefer democratic values to big-man politics. But having poured great sums of money into Rwanda since the 1994 genocide, they want to be impressed by the headway Mr. Kagame claims to have made — on economic growth and poverty reduction, but also maternal health care and the prosecution of suspected mass killers. Asia has tigers; now Africa has found its lion. Many want to believe that while Mr. Kagame may have been cutting corners on democracy, he has delivered on development.

Has he, though?

In fact, his government’s record is shakier than it looks, including on some of the major achievements it is credited with.

Consider poverty reduction. Back in 2005, I was stationed in Rwanda with a World Bank team, working on a large-scale study of poverty. Six months into it, after we had collected hundreds of survey questionnaires about the well-being of ordinary Rwandans and conducted hundreds of discussions with villagers, the Rwandan security forces seized half of our files on the pretext that our research’s design was tainted by “genocide ideology” — a vague notion supposedly something like sectarianism that the government often invokes to criminalize what it sees as challenges to its authority. After lengthy negotiations between World Bank and Rwandan officials, the project was abandoned. We never determined what the poverty trends were: The information we had collected was destroyed before it could be analyzed.

Matters have hardly improved. Major studies can only be carried out by the Rwandan authorities or under their close supervision. Independent researchers have come to question the government’s methodology for analyzing data.

Officially, the poverty rate decreased by nearly 6 percentage points between 2011 and 2014. But Filip Reyntjens, a Rwanda expert at the University of Antwerp, has argued that it might actually have increased by about 6 percentage points during that period. Several articles published by the Review of African Political Economy also challenge Rwanda’s official poverty figures, as well as its G.D.P. growth rates.

I’m of the view that expanding individual freedoms is essential, not incidental, to a country’s long-term development. As Angus Deaton, a Nobel laureate in economics, said to a Rwandan minister in 2015, “improvements in public health can never be truly secure in nondemocratic states.” But I concede that Rwanda has made remarkable economic progress since facing near-total destruction in 1994, and that some think it is still worth debating the merits of trade-offs between democracy and development.

Whatever one thinks of these issues, however, everyone should be concerned that the Kagame government has been fudging, hiding or selectively presenting the raw facts of its economic record. Rwanda may be forgoing democracy for development only to wind up with no democracy and far less development than many think.

Bert Ingelaere is a lecturer in development studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is the author of “Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice After Genocide.”

Progressive Think Tank To Release 50-Page Report Saying Trump Colluded With Russia

BY MALLORY SHEBOURNE

THE HILL

AUGUST 02, 2017

Trump Image Provided By The Hill

The progressive think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) is reportedly preparing to publish a report alleging that President Trump's campaign colluded with Russia.

According to a Tuesday report by Buzz Feed News, CAP will release the report on Wednesday, which presents the argument for Congressional Democrats that Trump's campaign staff colluded with the Kremlin.

"We're ... trying to convey that it's time to stop beating around the bush on Trump's collusion with Russia. There is a mountain of evidence that Trump and his associates colluded with Russia and it's time to start saying so," Adam Jentleson, a senior strategic adviser for CAP, told BuzzFeed.

"We think it's time to be a lot more forward-leading because the evidence is overwhelming."

The imminent release of the report comes as the special counsel's probe into Russia's election meddling and potential ties between Trump campaign staff members and Moscow deepen.

The think tank is planning to present the report, which totals almost 50 pages, to "key offices" in Congress, the report said.

Lawsuit: Fox Coordinated With White House On False Story

Rod Wheeler's lawsuit against Fox News is photographed Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, in Washington. Wheeler, an investigator who worked on the Seth Rich case claims Fox News fabricated quotes implicating the murdered Democratic National Committee staffer in the WikiLeaks scandal and coordinated with the Trump administration as it worked on the story.



NEW YORK (AP, AUGUST 02, 2017) — A lawsuit filed Tuesday lays out an explosive tale of Trump allies, the White House and Fox News Channel conspiring to push a false story about Democratic leaks and an unsolved killing in order to distract attention from the Russia investigation that has been swirling around the president.

The lawsuit was filed against Fox by an investigator who had been looking into the killing of Seth Rich, a former Democratic National Committee staff member killed in 2016 in what police say was a botched robbery. The investigator alleges that Fox quoted him as saying things he never said and was willing to show President Donald Trump its story before it was posted online.

It's the second time in two days that Trump has been accused of being actively involved in pushing a public narrative to lower the heat of the Russia story. The Washington Post reported that the president had written a misleading statement for his son to give to The New York Times about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting last summer with a Russian who promised dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Rich's death has become fodder for conspiracy theorists, deeply angering the 27-year-old's family. In May, the story was thrust into the headlines again when Fox posted a story on its website in which investigator Rod Wheeler said there had been contact between Rich and WikiLeaks, the organization that posted a trove of DNC emails last year. The story was heavily promoted by Fox News host Sean Hannity, who has informally advised the president.

In the lawsuit, Wheeler now says that he never made that statement. He also contends he was told his false comments were put in the story because Trump wanted it that way. Rich's family released a statement Tuesday night supporting the lawsuit. "While we can't speak to the evidence that you now have, we are hopeful that this brings an end to what has been the most emotionally difficult time in our lives and an end to conspiracy theories surrounding our beloved Seth," the family wrote.

Fox says it's "completely erroneous" to suggest it pushed the story to distract from the Russia investigation. Wheeler has made contradictory statements regarding the case and is simultaneously filing a racial discrimination lawsuit against the network, represented by a lawyer who has other lawsuits against Fox.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had no knowledge of the false story before it was posted and that it was "completely untrue" that the White House had any role in shaping it.

Wheeler, a Fox contributor on law enforcement issues, said he was brought into the Rich case by donor and Trump supporter Ed Butowsky. He says Butowsky, who has also made occasional guest appearances on Fox News, was intent on establishing a link between Rich and WikiLeaks.

Two days before the Fox article was published, Wheeler said he got a text message from Butowsky: "Not to add any more pressure but the president just read the article. He wants the article out immediately. It's now all up to you. But don't feel the pressure."

Butowsky said in a phone interview Tuesday he has never met Trump and his text message to Wheeler about the president reading the article was "tongue-in-cheek." Fox removed the story from its website a week after it was published, saying "it was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all of our reporting." Hannity ultimately backed away, saying he was acting out of respect for Rich's family.

Wheeler also said that he and Butowsky had met with outgoing White House press secretary Sean Spicer and showed Spicer notes on Wheeler's investigation. Spicer asked to be kept informed, the lawsuit said.

Spicer plays down the importance of that meeting. "Ed is a longtime supporter of the president's agenda who often appears in the media," Spicer said Tuesday. "He asked for a 10-minute meeting, with no specified topic, to catch up and said he would be bringing along a contributor to Fox News. As Ed himself has noted, he has never met the president and the White House had nothing to do with his story."

On the day the Fox story was posted, Spicer was asked about the report that Rich had emailed WikiLeaks. He said, "I'm not aware of that" and did not mention that he had met with Butowsky and Wheeler a month earlier.

One of Trump's attorneys, Jay Sekulow, also devoted attention to the Rich story during several Hannity appearances in May, before his hiring by Trump was announced. "There's a lot more to this, I would suspect," Sekulow said on the May 18 show, which Hannity devoted almost entirely to a discussion about Rich. "You can't ignore the fact that it was a DNC staffer. You can't ignore the fact that there was nothing taken from the individual's body."

He said that while he hadn't seen "the files" on Rich, the incident "undercuts" the argument that Russians interfered in the election. At the time, Trump was facing news stories about the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and possible ties between his campaign aides and Moscow. He continues to blast the inquiries as a "witch hunt" aimed at discrediting his election win and tries to focus attention on Clinton, who has largely faded from the headlines.

Jay Wallace, Fox News president, says, "The accusation that FoxNews.com published Malia Zimmerman's story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous." Malia Zimmerman was a Fox producer on the story.

"The retraction of this story is still being investigated internally and we have no evidence that Rod Wheeler was misquoted by Zimmerman," Wallace said. In May, Wheeler told Fox's local affiliate in Washington that he "absolutely" had sources at the FBI saying that there was information that could link Rich to WikiLeaks. But the station noted that Wheeler subsequently said contradictory things to other news organizations, and the station could not contact him again.

Fox News Channel's prime-time opinion hosts, particularly Hannity, make no secret of their admiration for Trump. But any charges that the network worked with Trump on a false story could harm the reputations of the network's journalists.

Trump has fostered an unusually close relationship with Fox and many of its personalities, particularly Hannity. Hannity gave Trump a frequent platform for non-challenging interviews during the campaign, along with advice on air and behind the scenes. The "Fox and Friends" morning show also is a Trump favorite.

Jill Colvin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Donna Cassata in Washington and Shelley Acoca in New York contributed.

With Baby Steps, Senate Republicans Abandoning The President

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. speaks to members of the media as he walks to a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington. There wasn’t a dramatic public break, or a precise moment when it happened. But little by little, Senate Republicans have been turning their backs on President Donald Trump. They’ve defied his Twitter demands, defeated his top agenda item and passed veto-proof sanctions on Russia over administration objections. Flake took aim at Trump and his own party in a new book, writing that “Unnerving silence in the face of an erratic executive branch is an abdication” and “the strange specter of an American president’s seeming affection for strongmen and authoritarians created such a cognitive dissonance among my generation of conservatives _ who had come of age under existential threat from the Soviet Union _ that it was almost impossible to believe.”

WASHINGTON (ASSOCIATED PRESS, AUGUST 02, 2017) — There wasn't a dramatic public break or an exact moment it happened. But step by step, Senate Republicans are turning their backs on President Donald Trump. They defeated an Obamacare repeal bill despite Trump's pleas. They're ignoring his Twitter demands that they get back to work on it. They dissed the White House budget director, defended the attorney general against the president's attacks and passed veto-proof sanctions on Russia over his administration's objections.

They're reasserting their independence, which looked sorely diminished in the aftermath of Trump's surprise election win. "We work for the American people," Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Tuesday. "We don't work for the president."

Those are surprisingly tough words from a Republican whose state Trump won easily less than a year ago. But after six months of controversies and historically low approval ratings, it's clear Trump isn't commanding the fear or respect he once did.

Some Republicans no doubt are giving voice to long-held reservations about a man whose election was essentially a hostile takeover of their party. But it is notable that the loudest criticism is coming from the Senate, where few Republicans are burdened with facing an electorate anytime soon. The situation is different in the House, where most Republicans represent conservative districts still loyal to Trump. For those lawmakers, the fear of facing a conservative primary challenger, possibly fueled by angry Trump followers, is real.

In the most remarkable example of public Trump-bashing, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is taking aim at the president and his own party in a new book, writing that "Unnerving silence in the face of an erratic executive branch is an abdication" and marveling at "the strange specter of an American president's seeming affection for strongmen and authoritarians."

The criticism from Flake is especially striking since he is one of just two GOP senators facing competitive re-election races in next year's midterm elections, the other being Dean Heller of Nevada. The other 50 Senate Republicans are largely insulated from blow-back from Trump's still-loyal base, at least in the short term, since they won't face voters for several years.

That is likely contributing to their defiance, which is emerging now after an accumulation of frustrations, culminating in the failure of the health care bill Friday. In particular, senators were aghast over Trump's recent attacks on their longtime colleague Jeff Sessions, the former Alabama senator who is now attorney general and facing Trump's wrath over having recused himself from the investigation into possible collaboration between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina deemed Trump's treatment of Sessions "unseemly" and "a sign of great weakness on the part of President Trump." The comments were echoed by other Republican senators.

Then, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, a former House member, suggested on a Sunday show that the Senate must pass health care before doing anything else. No. 2 Republican John Cornyn didn't hesitate to go after him.

"I don't think he's got much experience in the Senate as I recall, and he's got a big job," Cornyn said. "He ought to do that job and let us do our jobs." The ill will flows both ways. At Tuesday's White House briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointedly blamed lawmakers for the president's failures to deliver. "I think what's hurting the legislative agenda is Congress' inability to get things passed," she said.

Trump has been ignoring past warnings from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to stay out of the Senate's business, tweeting relentless commands in the wake of Friday's failure on health care that the Senate should eliminate the filibuster rule that requires 60 votes to move forward on much major legislation.

"Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT'S TIME!" the president said over Twitter. That ignored the fact that Republicans tried to pass the health care bill under rules that required only a simple majority.

So Republicans, in turn, ignored Trump. "It's pretty obvious that our problem on health care was not the Democrats," McConnell said drily on Tuesday. "We didn't have 50 Republicans." Some Republicans say Trump and his administration only made it harder to pass health care by ineptly pressuring Sen. Lisa Murkowski with threats from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about consequences for her state, which rankled the Alaska senator. She proceeded to postpone votes in the Energy committee she chairs on a group of administration nominees, while saying it was for unrelated reasons, and voted "no" on the health bill.

"I think most Republican senators have their own identity that's separate from the president," said Alex Conant, a GOP strategist and former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "If you look at the elections last fall almost every Republican senator who was up for re-election ran ahead of Trump and that's not a fact that's lost on Congress."

The House has been a friendlier place for Trump. Republicans there pushed through a health care bill in May. "For the most part our caucus is still in support of the president," said Rep. James Comer of Kentucky. "That doesn't mean we agree with everything he says and does, but we still support his agenda, his presidency, and we're not going to fumble the ball."

In the Senate, though, lawmakers and the president appear to be going their separate ways, with some senators talking as though Trump is almost irrelevant. "Ever since we've been here we've really been following our lead, right?" said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. "Whether it was the Supreme Court justice or the Russia sanctions bill, attempting to do health care and obviously we did so unsuccessfully, and now we're moving on to tax reform, but most of this has, almost every bit of this has been 100 percent internal to Congress."

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Matthew Daly and Jill Colvin contributed.

NIGERIA: 52% Of Married Couples In Akwa Ibom Are HIV Positive- AKSACA

NIGERIAN BULLETIN

AUGUST 01, 2017

According to Dr. Nkereuwem Etok, the Programme Manager of Akwa Ibom state Agency for the Control of AIDS (AKSACA), 51.6 percent of married men and women in the state have tested positive to HIV/AIDS.

“We have areas of high prevalence, before the statistics started coming we were sure that the most-at risk population will be the commercial sex workers, we were sure that this group will be the most affected but our data showed surprisingly that married men and women are the highest HIV infections with 51.6 percent.

“The commercial sex workers recorded only 4 percent while those engaged in casual sex recorded second highest with 30 percent’’ he said.

He attributed the high prevalence rate among the couples to include denial the existence of HIV/AIDS virus and the fact that most of them engage in sex not minding the status of the other sex partners.

Trump On Tricky Legal Ground With 'Obamacare' Threat

President Donald Trump pauses during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Trump’s threat to stop billions of dollars in government payments to insurers and force the collapse of “Obamacare” could put the government in a tricky legal situation. Legal experts say he’d be handing insurers a solid court case, while undermining his own leverage to compel Democrats to negotiate, especially if premiums jump by 20 percent as expected after such a move.

WASHINGTON (AP, AUGUST 01, 2017) — President Donald Trump's threat to stop billions of dollars in government payments to insurers and force the collapse of "Obamacare" could put the government in a legal bind. Law experts say he'd be handing insurers a solid court case, while undermining his own leverage to compel Democrats to negotiate, especially if premiums jump by 20 percent as expected after such a move.

"Trump thinks he's holding all the cards. But Democrats know what's in his hand, and he's got a pair of twos," said University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley. Democrats "aren't about to agree to dismantle the Affordable Care Act just because Trump makes a reckless bet."

For months, the president has been threatening to stop payments that reimburse insurers for providing required financial assistance to low-income consumers, reducing their copays and deductibles. Administration officials say the decision could come any day.

The "cost-sharing" subsidies are under a legal cloud because of a dispute over whether the Obama health care law properly approved the payments. Other parts of the health care law, however, clearly direct the government to reimburse insurers.

With the issue unresolved, the Trump administration has been paying insurers each month, as the Obama administration had done previously. Meanwhile, attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., are seeking to block the administration from canceling the subsidies.

"This is not a game," said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. "Millions of people would not be able to afford health insurance for their families." Trump returned to the issue last week after the GOP drive to repeal the health care law fell apart in the Senate, tweeting, "As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!"

He elaborated in another tweet, "If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies...will end very soon!" It's not accurate to call the cost-sharing subsidies a bailout, said Tim Jost, a professor emeritus at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Virginia.

"They are no more a bailout than payments made by the government to a private company for building a bomber," he said. That's at the root of the Trump administration's potential legal problem if the president makes good on this threat.

The health law clearly requires insurers to help low-income consumers with their copays and deductibles. Nearly 3 in 5 HealthCare.gov customers qualify for the assistance, which can reduce a deductible of $3,500 to several hundred dollars. The cost to the government is about $7 billion a year.

The law also specifies that the government "shall make periodic and timely payments" to reimburse insurers for the cost-sharing assistance that they provide. Nonetheless, the payments remain under a cloud because of a disagreement over whether they were properly approved in the language of the health law, by providing an "appropriation."

The Constitution says the government shall not spend money without a congressional appropriation. Think of an appropriation as an electronic instruction to your bank to pay a recurring monthly bill. You fully intend to pay, and the money you've budgeted is in your account. But the payment will not go out unless you specifically direct your bank to send it.

House Republicans trying to thwart the ACA sued the Obama administration in federal district court in Washington, arguing that the law lacked specific language appropriating the cost-sharing subsidies.

The district court judge agreed with House Republicans, and now the case is on hold before the U.S. appeals court in Washington. California's Becerra and other state attorneys general are asking that court to let them join the case, in defense of the subsidies.

Both Bagley and Jost have followed the matter closely, and they disagree on whether the health law properly approved the payments to insurers. Bagley says it did not; while Jost says it did. However, the two experts agree that insurers would have a solid lawsuit if Trump stops the payments. Insurers could sue in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which hears claims for money against the government.

"The ACA promised to make these payments — that could not be clearer — and Congress has done nothing to limit that promise," said Bagley. "I think there would very likely be litigation if the Trump administration tries to cut off the payments," said Jost.

Another way to resolve it: Congress could appropriate the money, even if temporarily, for a couple of years. "Simply letting Obamacare collapse will cause even more pain," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said recently.

If the president makes good on his threat, experts estimate that premiums for a standard "silver" plan would increase by about 19 percent. Insurers could recover the cost-sharing money by raising premiums, since those are also subsidized by the ACA, and there's no question about their appropriation.

But millions of people who buy individual health care policies without any financial assistance from the government would face prohibitive cost increases. And more insurers might decide to leave already shaky markets.

"The president is likely to own the fallout if he forces the collapse," said Bagley. "But the president may not see it the same way."

Shahid Abbasi Elected As Pakistan's Prime Minister

Pakistan's premier-designate Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, right, leaves with his aids after meeting with politicians in Parliament house in Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, July 31, 2017. Pakistan's parliament will meet Tuesday to elect a new prime minister after the disqualification of three-term prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League party nominated Sharif's longtime loyalist Abbasi for the top slot on Saturday.

ISLAMABAD (AP, AUGUST 01, 2017) — Pakistan's lower house of parliament on Tuesday elected veteran lawmaker Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the country's new prime minister, less than a week after the Supreme Court disqualified thrice-elected Nawaz Sharif for concealing assets.

Abbasi, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League party, got 221 votes in the 342-member National Assembly. His closest rival Syed Naveed Qamar from the opposition Pakistan People's Party secured 47 votes, according to Ayaz Sadiq, the National Assembly Speaker. Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, a lawmaker from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, founded by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, got 33 votes.

Abbasi replaced the 67-year-old Sharif, who was disqualified by the top court Friday for concealing assets — specifically, that his son's Dubai-based company listed a monthly salary for him. Sharif claimed he never received any of that money.

In his first televised speech, an emotionally-charged Abbasi dismissed the corruption allegations against Sharif as baseless and said he hoped the deposed premier would return to parliament soon. He said the people of Pakistan did not accept Sharif's disqualification, and vowed to follow in his footsteps of Sharif.

Abbasi stopped short of criticizing the judiciary, saying legal experts were surprised by the decision to disqualify Sharif and that "no one is willing to accept it." He said Sharif was victimized for putting Pakistan back on the path of progress and bringing in foreign investments worth billions of dollars to Pakistan.

He said Sharif was able to attract foreign investment because he was an honest person. Abbasi also asked his countrymen to pay their taxes honestly as he plans to take stern action against anyone involved in tax evasion. He said rich people must pay their taxes for Pakistan's economy to improve. He promised better health and education facilities for his countrymen.

Abbasi said he would ensure the rule of law and that he would run the country strictly according to the constitution. Sharif's party has said it will file a petition with the Supreme Court next week asking for a review of its decision to disqualify him.

Sharif's party wants Abbasi to serve as an interim premier until Sharif's younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab province, wins a national assembly seat in a by-election. The opposition has criticized this intention as dynastic and undemocratic. The next general election is due to take place in June 2018.

Abbasi's rival candidates Qamar and Ahmed congratulated him on becoming the new prime minister. Meanwhile, a female lawmaker from Khan's party on Tuesday quit the party, calling the party leader a "characterless person."

Ayesha Gulalai Wazir posted a tweet saying the honor of female party members was not safe because Khan had an "immoral character." There was no immediate comment from Khan's party about the allegation.