South Korea’s Constitutional Court removed President Park Geun-hye from office over charges of bribery and corruption. The unanimous ruling strips Park of immunity from prosecution, meaning she could face criminal charges. Ms. Park’s powers were suspended in December after a legislative impeachment vote.
Eight justices of the Constitutional Court unanimously decided to unseat Ms. Park for committing “acts that violated the Constitution and laws” throughout her time in office, Acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi said in a ruling that was nationally broadcast that Ms. Park’s acts “betrayed the trust of the people and were of the kind that cannot be tolerated for the sake of protecting the Constitution.”
Ms. Park, 65, now faces prosecutors seeking to charge her with bribery, extortion and abuse of power in connection with allegations of conspiring with her childhood friend, Choi Soon-sil, to collect tens of millions of dollars in bribes from companies like Samsung.
Samsung Group scion Lee Jae-yong was arrested on bribery charges in February. He is accused of paying $36 million in bribes to President Park Geun-hye’s confidante, Choi Soon-sil, in return for political favors. Those are alleged to include government support for a merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015 that helped Mr. Lee, 48, inherit corporate control from his incapacitated father, Lee Kun-hee, the chairman.
Park’s removal capped months of turmoil, as hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets, week after week, to protest the sprawling corruption scandal and demands for her arrest. Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn: “In order to stop internal conflicts from intensifying, we should manage the social order and keep a stable government, so that national anxiety and the international society’s concern can be settled.”
Park Geun-hye was the nation’s first female president and the daughter of the Cold War military dictator Park Chung-hee. She had been an icon of the conservative establishment that joined Washington in pressing for a hard line against North Korea’s nuclear provocations.
After December’s impeachment vote, she continued to live in the presidential Blue House while awaiting the decision by the Constitutional Court. The house had been her childhood home since the age of 9. She left nearly two decades later after her mother and father were assassinated in separate incidents.
Park is now South Korea’s first democratically elected leader to be forced from office. Her removal comes amid rising tension with North Korea and China. A new election will be held in 60 days.
The upheaval comes days after North Korea test-fired several ballistic missiles and as the Trump administration began deploying a missile defense system to South Korea. Chinese officials warn the U.S. is escalating a regional arms race. Park’s conservative party losing power could mean South Korea’s next leader will take a more conciliatory approach toward North Korea.
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Three separate shootings have raised worries among Indians and other communities about possible violence against foreign workers in the United States. The senseless shooting of two technology workers from India and another man at a bar in Olathe, Kansas made national headlines. The victims, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, both engineers employed by Garmin were at Austins Bar & Grill in Olathe.
A witness says Adam Purinton, 51, became agitated by the presence of the two men and was asked to leave by regular patron Ian Grillot. Purinton left but returned a short time later and approached Kuchibhotla and Madasani. He opened fire, yelling “Get out of my country!” Kuchibhotla was killed and Madasani was wounded. Grillot, who was shot in the hand and chest, was praised as a hero for attempting to intervene and subdue the suspect during the shooting.
Purinton was arrested hours later at an Applebee’s restaurant in Clinton, Missouri, about 70 miles away from Olathe. Applebee’s employees called 911 and an Applebee’s bartender told police that a man had admitted to shooting two “Iranian” people in Olathe and was looking for a place to hide. Purinton faces one first degree murder charge and two charges of attempted first degree murder.
Another shooting occurred in Lancaster, South Carolina when 43 year old Harnish Patel was shot and killed in front of his home. Patel was killed after returning home from working at the Speedee Mart convenience store, which he owned. Patel had lived in the United States for 14 years. He was married and had one child in elementary school. He was originally from the Indian state of Gujarat. Police are still looking for the shooter.
Police are investigating a third shooting that occurred in Kent, Washington. The shooting of Deep Rai, a 39-year-old Sikh man, was shot while cleaning his car in his driveway. The victim’s family said a man approached and began calling him names, telling him, “Go home to your country!” The shooter then pushed him to the ground and shot him in the arm.
The victim lost consciousness and only realized he’d been shot when he regained consciousness in the hospital. He was released the next day and is expected to make a full recovery. Rai is a U.S. citizen originally from Punjab, India. Rai became the fourth Indian man to be shot within the last few weeks in the United States. All of the shootings are being investigated as possible hate crimes.
The Sikh Coalition said members of its community are at heightened risk of hate-crime attacks -partially because their faith requires the wearing of turbans and beards. In a statement, spokesman Rajdeep Singh said it’s important the Kent shooting be investigated as a hate crime. “While we appreciate the efforts of state and local officials to respond to attacks like this, we need our national leaders to make hate crime prevention a top priority,” he said. “Tone matters in our political discourse, because this is a matter of life or death for millions of Americans who are worried about losing loved ones to hate.”
“The Sikh community is shaken and very frustrated at the hate and rhetoric that is being spread today about anyone that looks different, who looks like an immigrant.”
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The White House is seeking to dramatically reduce the power of the Environmental Protection Agency, slashing dozens of programs and laying off 20% of the agency’s staff. The proposed budget cut plans to cut the EPA’s budget by 25% to $6.1 billion, and cut its workforce by 20% to 12,400 employees, in the 2018 fiscal year that begins 1 October. The plans require the complete elimination of EPA programs on climate change, toxic waste cleanup, environmental justice and funding for Native Alaskan villages. It would slash funding to states for clean air and water programs by 30% percent as well.
According to sources that have seen preliminary directives from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Trump administration wants to cut spending by EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) by more than 40% from roughly $510 million to $290 million.
The cuts target scientific work in fields including climate change, air and water quality, and chemical safety. EPA’s $50 million external grant program for environmental scientists at universities would be eliminated altogether. Cuts in the new budget memo include climate, air, and energy research would fall from $91.7 million to $45.7 million. Research in chemical safety and sustainability would drop from $89.2 million to $61.8 million. Water-related science falls from $107.2 million to $70.1 million. The budget for sustainable healthy communities plunges from $139.7 million to $75.8 million. The OMB memo also states that the EPA would no longer contribute to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a multiagency task force that coordinates federal research on global change.
The OMB office says the cuts are needed to help reduce the burden that EPA regulations place on industry and state and local governments. Environmental scientists, regulators, and current and former EPA officials warn the reductions would devastate the agency’s efforts to carry out its mission of protecting human health and the environment.
The Trump administration’s final 2018 budget request is scheduled to be released on March 16th. It is not clear whether the administration will keep the steep EPA cuts in its final request to Congress, or whether Congress will approve the cuts. Many federal lawmakers, as well as state and local officials, have already expressed strong opposition to some of the cuts.
The new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a long EPA foe, has suggested that he will push back against parts of the preliminary White House plan. Some senior Republicans in Congress have also expressed doubts about the larger Trump administration budget plan driving the EPA cuts.
It calls for boosting discretionary defense spending in 2018 by $54 billion, and paying for that increase by cutting discretionary spending at civilian agencies such as EPA. The shift would likely require Congress to change a 2011 law, called the Budget Control Act, that imposes caps on domestic spending—but Democrats in the Senate have already said they would block any change unless it also includes spending increases for civilian programs.
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Jewish community centers (JCCs) and schools in a dozen US states have reported waves of bomb threats. It was the fourth wave of nationwide bomb threats against JCCs in the last five weeks. In total, 69 threats have been reported against 54 Jewish Community Centers.
The JCC Association of North America reported that since the beginning of the year, there have been 69 incidents at 54 Jewish Community Centers in 27 states and one Canadian province. Some of the centers that received threats are in Chicago, Buffalo, Houston, Tampa, Nashville, New Jersey, Manhattan and Long Island. All of the bomb threats were determined to be hoaxes.
At a Jewish cemetery in University City, Missouri, the gravesites of 170 Jews were vandalized over the weekend. On President’s Day, the Nashville facility, more full than usual with people exercising on the holiday weekend, was evacuated before security gave the all-clear.
Across the United States, Jewish communities are struggling to deal with this new wave of threats. The calls may not have resulted in violence yet but the intimidation has been felt across the country. American Jews are victims of more reported hate crimes than any other group in the United States and have been subject to the majority of religiously motivated offenses every year since 1995, according to FBI statistics. The threats and vandalism contribute to an atmosphere of anti-Semitism already well-established in the United States.
Dave Simon, the executive director of the JCC in Albuquerque, which has received multiple recent threats said “ The JCCs are equipped to handle these kinds of threats. Some, like Nashville, have full-time security staff, and members seem to understand the need for security. People don’t seem to be staying home; they’re still showing up to community events, swimming classes, and pre-school, all of which are central parts of JCC life.”
Nashville has gotten letters and postcards of support from Massachusetts, Vermont, and Washington State. The neighboring Catholic parish and local Islamic center sent messages of support as well. The attacks have been widely denounced by Jewish organizations and political leaders alike.
President Trump received heavy criticism after he chastised a Jewish reporter and told him to “sit down” at his news conference when the reporter asked about the bomb threats. Reporter Jake Turx was cut off by Trump and chastised for not asking a simple question. Trump added, “So here’s the story, folks. Number one, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”
Jewish leaders were disappointed that the president didn’t take the opportunity to denounce the waves of attacks and anti-Semitism. Trump did finally speak out during a visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington on Tuesday when he said that the anti-Semitic threats are “horrible,” “painful,” and a “very sad reminder of the work that still must be done.”
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The Trump administration announced that it will enforce federal laws barring the use of marijuana, reversing an Obama administration policy that gave wide latitude to states to determine their own pot laws. Eight states – Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Maine – and Washington, D.C. have legalized both medicinal and recreational marijuana. The Obama administration had opted not to enforce federal prohibitions in states that had passed legislation legalizing the drug. It’s classified as a Schedule 1 drug — putting it in the same category as heroin — and the government can restrict cross-state shipment and financing as a result.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the Trump administration would prioritize enforcement in states that have passed laws allowing for the recreational—rather than medical—use of the drug. Just a day after the announcement, publicly traded shares of marijuana-related companies were tumbling and executives at recreational marijuana businesses were expressing their disappointment in the announcement.
The announcement was not a surprise to legalization advocates after Trump’s nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. Many advocates feel that Mr. Sessions has been “the single biggest opponent to legalization in the US Senate.”
In August 2013, a four-page directive issued by then-Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole essentially instructs that a hands-off approach be taken by the federal government in states that have voted on laws to legalize marijuana, regardless of the fact that marijuana is illegal at the federal level. The directive has been dubbed the “Cole Memo”.
President Trump has issued differing stances on marijuana legalization. In the 1990s, Trump told the Miami Herald that the US needed to “legalize drugs to win” the war on drugs. And in an interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly a year ago, Trump said he was in favor of medical marijuana “a hundred percent” while also calling Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry “a real problem.”
The industry is still new and is estimated to be worth over $6 billion so the reversal will cost some states millions in revenue and a loss of jobs. Recreational marijuana retailers in Oregon sell about $7 million worth of cannabis every week, or about $364 million a year.
In 2016, the marijuana industry in Colorado created more than 18,000 new full-time jobs and over $1 billion in retail sales. The industry also generated over $1 billion in additional economic activity such as growers renting warehouse space and the purchases of sophisticating lighting and irrigation equipment. Marijuana retailers also boost the economy when they rely on other companies, like contractors, lawyers and bookkeeping services, to conduct their own businesses. If the Trump Administration’s promise of a crackdown does take effect- all of this new found revenue will be lost.
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Many are outraged after a viral video showed an off-duty LAPD officer firing a gun near a group of kids after the officer grabbed a 13-year-old boy by his hoodie and restraining him. The incident took place near the officer’s home in Anaheim, California.
The cellphone video shows a man in plainclothes holding a boy against his will. The boy repeatedly says, “Let me go” but the man refuses. The man, who never identifies himself as an officer is surrounded by other children as he pulls the boy down the street over lawns. Eventually, the other kids come to the aid of the boy, pushing the officer over a row of hedges. The man, who still has hold of the boy is then seen drawing a pistol from his waistband before a gunshot rings out. No one was injured in the incident.
According to one of the youths, the group was walking home from school when the incident took place. The 13 year old says it quickly escalated and turned physical when the man tackled him and choked him. While the video does not show what happened prior, it starts with the boy being restrained and asking to be let go. He then says “why are you grabbing me, I just said not to talk to a girl like that! You called her a dumb c**t.” The man replies that she shouldn’t have been on his lawn.
Anaheim police say the officer had an ongoing dispute against children who were walking on his lawn. Both the 13-year-old boy and his 15-year-old brother were arrested. The off-duty officer, who has not been identified, was questioned by Anaheim police and released.
Overnight, around 300 protesters gathered near the officer’s home, before marching through Anaheim’s streets and blocking intersections. Some protesters shouted “hands up, don’t shoot” and “no justice, no peace.” Some demonstrators threw rocks and kicked police cars, while others broke windows or residences and cars, according to the LA Times.
There was also a small group of protestors who lingered around the officer’s home chanting “Don’t shoot the children.” The officer’s home and vehicle were vandalized before riot police arrived to protect the officer’s home. Twenty-four people were arrested on misdemeanor charges of failure to disperse.
The LAPD says the officer is on paid administrative leave while the department evaluates if his “use of deadly force complied with LAPD’s policies and procedures.” Anaheim police say they are reviewing other videos of the altercation to get a clearer picture of what happened.
Anaheim mayor Tom Tait and Police Chief Raul Quezada both said they were thankful no one was wounded when the officer fired a handgun into the ground. They also both said they are disturbed by video that shows an off-duty Los Angeles police officer firing his gun during a confrontation with a teenager.
Police Chief Quezada told reporters “As a father and as a police chief, I too am disturbed by what I saw on the videos that were posted on the Internet,” He said he hopes a criminal investigation into the matter, which involved several teens and an off-duty Los Angeles police officer who lives in Anaheim, will be completed within two weeks. No one has been formally charged in the incident.
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President Trump signed legislation to repeal a Dodd-Frank anti-corruption measure requiring oil and mining companies to disclose payments to governments. The rule had required public oil, gas and mineral extraction companies to disclose annually its payments to both foreign governments and the U.S. government.
According to lawmakers, these disclosures help fight corruption in resource-rich countries. The requirement was the Cardin-Lugar Anti-Corruption Provision of 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act – signed by former President Barack Obama and named for former Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. The regulation was widely support from Democrats, who argued the transparency requirement could reduce instances of corruption in resource-rich countries overseas.
The goal of the rule is to prevent foreign leaders from skimming off the payments that drillers and miners make to their countries. It was put in place to stop the corruption that enriches the politically connected but deprives regular people of their country’s mineral wealth.
The oil industry had fiercely lobbied against the measure. The resource extraction rule has been controversial since it was mandated in 2010, which is why it took six years for it to be finalized. Exxon, Chevron (CXW) and the National Mining Association were among the dozens of entities to submit comments opposing the rule.
Longtime ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who is now secretary of state, personally lobbied against the rule, flying to Washington, D.C., to meet with then-Senator Richard Lugar in 2010 to try to get the measure removed from Dodd-Frank. The American Petroleum Institute, the chief U.S. energy lobbying organization”s main argument against the rule was that it puts U.S. companies at a disadvantage, because their foreign competitors are not subject to the requirements.
However, many major European drillers like BP, Total and Royal Dutch Shell, Russian oil and gas giants Rosneft and Gazprom, as well as Canadian firms must report what they pay to foreign governments. The U.S. rules would have forced some Chinese and Brazilian firms to do so as well.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement that the provision in question “would have put American oil and natural gas companies at a disadvantage on the world stage, and actually could have threatened the safety of American workers abroad.”
Lawmakers used the Congressional Review Act, a seldom-used legislative route that essentially fast-tracks the regulatory repeal process. By accessing the provisions laid out, it allows lawmakers to expedite a resolution that requires little notice before introduction and is not subject to filibuster. It also requires only a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate to pass.
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In northern Afghanistan, six Red Cross workers were killed and two others were missing on Wednesday after an attack. The Taliban quickly denied any involvement in the attack. The governor of Jowzjan Province, Lutfullah Azizi, blamed affiliates of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, for the attack.
Mr. Azizi said that the Red Cross had begun a mission to distribute livestock material in the Qush Tepah area of Jowzjan Province, where the attack happened, but that its work was suspended by recent avalanches. When workers went to resume giving out aid, they were targeted.
“They were a team of eight people in three vehicles, including three drivers and five staff,” Mr. Azizi said. “Islamic State attacked the convoy, killed the three drivers and three staff members on the spot and took two staff members with them.”
The plan was for the Red Cross staff to help distribute the 1,000 tons of feed, which is critical for farmers because there is nowhere for animals to graze in the winter months. Before the vehicles got to the distribution point, they were ambushed by armed men. The panic button sent an alert to Red Cross offices in Kabul, but efforts to reach the staffers by satellite phone and other means failed. “We couldn’t get hold of them,” says Thomas Glass, head of communications for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan. The Red Cross is “desperately” searching for the two missing field staff members.
Glass stated that the Red Cross has 30 years of continuous presence in Afghanistan and they are well-known and respected for their work within the communities they serve. The vehicles are clearly marked so the ambush has all the signs of a deliberate attack. Red Cross workers being attacked in Afghanistan is nothing new but the loss of 6 lives at one time seems like another level of violence.
In Afghanistan, the Red Cross helps with many efforts for the communities such as supporting health care, anti-poverty work and sanitation efforts. The Red Cross issued a statement that activities are suspended until Tuesday, possibly longer. Certain activities will continue, such as the treatment of patients at medical facilities will continue but any movement in the field, including the transfer of war-wounded to hospitals, has been put on hold.
Qush Tepah is about 37 miles from the provincial capital and is rife with militant groups, including five Islamic State factions with an estimated 200 fighters. A spokesman for the northern police zone said there were about 600 foreign fighters in five Northern provinces.
In recent weeks, officials in northern Afghanistan had expressed concern about an increase in foreign fighters there, many of them suspected of affiliation with the Islamic State. Amnesty International condemned the attack and noted that violence has intensified recently in Afghanistan. The work of humanitarian workers and journalists has become increasingly dangerous as there has been an increase of deliberate attacks on aid workers and journalists.
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Immediately after swearing in Sessions as attorney general, President Trump signed three new executive orders addressing crime and immigration. One executive order seeks to increase penalties on those found guilty of assaulting police officers. A second order directs law enforcement agencies to increase intelligence sharing while going after drug cartels. A third order directs Attorney General Sessions to prioritize fighting “illegal immigration” alongside drug trafficking and violent crime.
President Trump also green-lighted construction of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, a proposal he repeatedly mentioned while campaigning. The wall is just one component of sweeping action Trump took to clamp down on immigration to the U.S. “Building this barrier is more than just a campaign promise, it is a common-sense first step to securing our border. This will stem the flow of drugs, crime, and illegal immigration into the United States. And yes, one way or another, as the President has said, Mexico will pay for it,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
Other actions recently taken by President Trump include:
- Ending federal grant funding to sanctuary cities and states, which opt out of reporting undocumented immigrants.
- Ordering the Department of Homeland Security to allocate funds or establish contracts for the construction or operation of detention facilities.
- Ending the policy known as “catch and release,” under which some immigrants are released from detention while they await a hearing with an immigration judge.
- Prioritizing the deportation of immigrants who have committed crimes.
During the White House press briefing on Wednesday, Spicer reiterated earlier statements that the President’s priority would be on criminals. “His priorities, first and foremost, are the people in this country that seek to do us harm,” he said.
Reactions to the immigration actions were swift from eight immigration and refugee-rights groups who joined a conference call to denounce the new orders. They argue that the orders make the U.S. less safe and tear apart families and communities across the country. Advocates said the executive orders are “anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and anti-religious freedom”. None of the advocacy organizations that were on the call had been briefed or received any guidance from the Trump Administration on the orders and future immigration plans.
Advocacy groups are preparing to take legal action and provide lawyers to protect people who are concerned about pending visa applications, hate crimes and continued confusion at the U.S. border. Many mayors of U.S. cities who have adopted sanctuary policies have said they are ready and willing to push back on Trump’s funding plans.
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President Trump has imposed a controversial 90-day ban on travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. On January 27th, Trump signed the order banning travel from the seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days and suspending all refugee admission for 120 days. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leadership saw the final details shortly before the order was finalized.
The result was widespread confusion across the country on Saturday as airports struggled to adjust to the new directives. Stories of families separated or detained for hours starting circulating news outlets.The policy team at the White House developed the executive order on refugees and visas and avoided the traditional inter-agency process that allowed the Justice Department and homeland security agencies to provide operational guidance.
DHS arrived at the legal interpretation that the executive order restrictions did not apply to people with lawful permanent residence, referred to as green card holders. The White House overruled that guidance overnight and decided that on a case by case basis, DHS could allow green card holders to enter the US. The Department of Homeland Security decided that green card holders would be allowed to board international flights but would be considered on a case-by-case basis after passing a secondary screening.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates announced the Justice Department would not defend Trump’s executive order temporarily banning all refugees, as well as all citizens, from the seven Muslim-majority nations. Just hours after her announcement, President Trump fired her. Yates had served in the Justice Department for 27 years and Trump had asked her to serve as acting attorney general until the Senate confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions.
Yates is not the only one to publicly disagree with the executive order. More than 200 State Department officials and diplomats have signed on to drafts of a dissent memo that condemns Trump’s executive order. Executives at a growing number of corporations have spoken out against Trump’s immigration ban, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla, Airbnb, Ford and Goldman Sachs. World-wide protests has erupted across the globe as well.
Then, Federal Judge James Robart, who presides in Seattle, halted the enforcement of Trump’s order Friday night, effective nationwide. Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Washington state and Minnesota who sought to stop the order, he said the states “have met their burden of demonstrating that they face immediate and irreparable injury as a result of the signing and implementation of the Executive Order. ” He said the order adversely affects residents in areas of education, employment, education and freedom to travel.
The Department of Homeland Security announced it has suspended all actions to implement the immigration order and will resume standard inspections of travelers as it did prior to the signing of the travel ban. They said the Justice Department — which is expected to file an emergency motion to stop the order — needed to challenge the ruling “at the earliest possible time.”
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