Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein pauses while announcing grand jury indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, during a news conference at the Justice Department [File: Leah Millis/Reuters]
US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller in May 2017 to investigate links between the Russian government and President Donald Trump’s campaign, said on Monday he was resigning from his post.
In a letter to Trump, Rosenstein echoed two of Trump’s signature phrases, writing that he helped staff the department with officials “devoted to the values that make America great” and adding that “we always put America first”.
According to the letter he will leave his post on May 11.
His departure ends a nearly two-year run defined by his appointment Mueller. The departure had been expected since the confirmation of William Barr as attorney general.
Mueller investigation
Rosenstein intended to leave in mid-March but stayed on a little longer for the completion of Mueller’s Russia investigation. Mueller submitted his report to the Justice Department last month. Although it stopped short of concluding Trump had committed a crime, it did not exonerate him. Rosenstein and Barr concluded that Trump did not obstruct justice.
Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller in 2017 following the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, had overseen his team’s work for much of the last two years and defended his investigation.
Trump repeatedly called the investigation a “witch-hunt”.
Barr said in a statement on Monday that Rosenstein’s “devotion to the Department and its professionals is unparalleled”.
“Over the course of his distinguished government career, he has navigated many challenging situations with strength, grace, and good humour,” Barr said. “Rod has been an invaluable partner to me during my return to the Department, and I have relied heavily on his leadership and judgment over the past several months.”
“She did not get treated well. That’s my responsibility,” said former Vice President Joe Biden of the Anita Hill hearings. | Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP Photo
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday said he takes “responsibility” for the treatment of Anita Hill during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ 1991 confirmation hearing.
The Democratic presidential candidate’s remarks were his latest attempts to address his oft-criticized handling of the hearing — during which Hill, a young African American law professor, faced aggressive questioning from an all-white, all-male Senate Judiciary Committee.
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“I believed her from the very beginning, but I was chairman,” Biden said in a “Good Morning America” interview that will air Tuesday. “She did not get a fair hearing. She did not get treated well. That’s my responsibility.”
In the four days since Biden officially announced his candidacy, the former vice president has faced a number of questions about Hill, to which he has offered a smattering of different responses. In an interview on “The View” last Friday, Biden said he was “sorry” Hill faced the treatment she did but did not claim personal responsibility for the way the hearing was handled.
”Look, there were a lot of mistakes made across the board. For that I apologize. We may have been able to conduct it better,” Biden said on “The View.” “I believed Dr. Hill from the beginning.”
The Biden campaign has already encountered snags in its early days, faced with queries about Hill and women who accused the former vice president of making them uncomfortable with his overly friendly touching. In an era that includes the #MeToo movement and a progressive push within the Democratic Party, Biden has faced skepticism about whether he is the right candidate among the generally young, diverse pool of 2020 contenders.
Hill told the New York Times last week that Biden recently called her to apologize personally for how she was treated during the hearing, a conversation she said left her unsatisfied.
“I cannot be satisfied by simply saying I’m sorry for what happened to you,” Hill said during the interview. “I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose.”
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has said delivering the S-400 to Turkey is a national priority [File: Vitaly Nevar/Reuters]
US President Donald Trump and Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call discussed a proposal to create a joint-working group on its planned purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defence system.
“Our honourable president brought up the proposal to establish a working group regarding the procurement of the S-400 defence system from the Russian Federation,” a statement from the Turkish presidency said.
The White House confirmed Trump and Erdogan discussed Turkey’s planned purchase of the controversial S-400s.
The two countries have argued for months over Turkey’s order for the missile defence system, which the United States says is incompatible with NATO’s defence network and could compromise its F-35 fighter jets.
Erdogan has repeatedly said Turkey won’t step back from the deal with Russia, despite mounting pressure from Washington – including threats of sanctions on Turkey.
“No one can demand that we give it up,” Erdogan said this month in Moscow alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. “This is our sovereign right.”
Putin said delivering the S-400s to Turkey was a national priority.
Face penalties?
Asked if Trump raised with Erdogan the US concerns about Turkey buying the S-400 system, a senior administration official said: “We have been clear and consistent in emphasizing our grave concerns on the S-400 acquisition with representatives of the Turkish government on numerous occasions and at the highest levels.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several US senators have warned Turkey it will face penalties for buying S-400s under a law that calls for sanctions against countries procuring military equipment from Russia.
Turkey has said as a NATO member it poses no threat to the United States and the sanctions should not apply.
Trump and Erdogan also discussed trade and the ongoing crisis in Syria, the White House said.
In his speech Monday, former Vice President Joe Biden stuck to an economic message tailored for Pittsburgh, where he praised organized labor and denigrated Wall Street CEOs.
At kickoff rally, the former veep sends a message that he plans to run a general election campaign from the start.
PITTSBURGH — In his first official event as a 2020 presidential candidate Monday, Joe Biden skipped right past the primary and went right to the general election.
From the atmospherics of his first campaign rally to the substance of his speech, the former vice president delivered a carefully calibrated message: while his rivals are chasing the Democratic nomination, Biden plans to pursue a mission focused on Donald Trump.
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“If I’m going to be able to beat Donald Trump in 2020, it’s going to happen here,” Biden told a packed crowd at the Teamsters Local 249 banquet hall.
Biden offered an economic message tailored for western Pennsylvania, where he praised organized labor and denigrated Wall Street CEOs and companies that used the Trump tax cuts to buy back stocks while laying off workers. He singled out the president by name, and also with implicit criticisms that left no question about whom he was referring to.
“Donald Trump is the only president who has decided not to represent the entire country. We need a president who will work for all Americans,” Biden said, standing in front of a sign that read Biden Works for America.
“The only thing that can tear America apart is America itself. But folks, everybody knows who Donald Trump is,” he said, urging the crowd to chose “hope over fear, unity over division and, most importantly, truth over lies.”
While other Democratic contenders criticize the president to varying degree, few have focused their attention so squarely on him. Biden announced his candidacy last week via an unorthodox video announcement that directly aimed at Trump’s response to violent demonstrations in Charlottesville in 2017. And Biden’s decision to headquarter his campaign in Philadelphia — and kick it off with a rally at the other end of the state in Pittsburgh — underscore his connection to Pennsylvania, a key industrial swing state Trump unexpectedly captured in 2016.
On Monday, Biden sought to remind those who filled the hall of his unique qualifications to wrest back working-class voters in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — two other Midwestern states Trump won in 2016 after decades in the Democratic fold in presidential elections.
“If you worry about Donald Trump being elected and he won Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, I don’t think it’s bad at all for Biden to announce his candidacy in Pennsylvania and say, ‘I can beat him here and in those places,’” said Joe Trippi, a veteran of multiple Democratic presidential campaigns.
“Electability is important,” he said. “And it’s probably more important than, say, our differences on healthcare. The Democrats all want to get to the same place on healthcare. But you have to win to do that.”
The strategic focus on the general election is to some degree a luxury granted by Biden’s status as a front-runner and former vice president. There’s no need to establish his name recognition or attempt to differentiate himself from the 19 other candidates — the party is already well-acquainted with him, for better and for worse.
And by positioning against Trump, Biden highlights one of his strengths as a candidate — the perception of electability that surrounds him. AMorning Consult/POLITICO poll earlier this month showed Biden with an 8 percentage point lead over Trump in the general election.
“Biden is not a nuanced policy guy and he’s not a ‘blow up the world and create a new system’ candidate. He’s an institutionalist. That’s his bread and butter,” said Aren Platt, a veteran Pennsylvania Democratic consultant. “A top concern for Democrats is they want someone who can win in November and Biden can make that case and I think that’s why, for the moment, he’s not so interested in bridging the gap between old and new Democrats.”
The general election positioning is already providing some dividends. Biden’s Charlottesville announcement video was panned by many Democrats, but it proved effective in provoking Trump to comment on the controversy and engage in an ongoing verbal tussle that only bolsters Biden’s case that he’s well-suited to take on the president.
Platt and others caution, however, that basing a primary campaign on November electability can be risky — falter in an early state after being the front-runner, and the electability argument starts to evaporate.
After his Pittsburgh event, Biden makes four stops in Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday, travels to South Carolina over the weekend and then heads to Nevada and California before returning to Philadelphia.
Joel Benenson, a top advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, said it was clear why Biden went right after Trump in his announcement video — because no one else had.
But, Benenson noted, since Trump has been the first president in the history of the Gallup Poll to not reach 50 percent approval at this point in his term, Democrats might considermost of their candidates as good match-ups against the president.
“Running as the guy to beat Trump makes sense, but on the other hand, if [Trump is] that weakened, is that really the best argument to make in a field of more than a dozen largely, very talented people?” Benenson asked. “Elections are about big things, not small things. They’re about the future and not the past.”
Benenson said he loves Biden and the help he gave Obama in the White House and on the ticket in 2008 and 2012, but whether he has a clear appeal to white working-class or other voters in 2020 is yet to be determined.
Biden’s blue-collar bona fides aren’t all that he is relying on. As the other campaigns move more to the left, Biden insiders say it creates a space for him to win the forgotten, moderate voters who have a significant voice in Democratic primaries.
“The Democratic Party and the primary isn’t progressive Twitter,” said one Democrat helping Biden’s campaign. “What you see on social media is distorted.”
Howard Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said his union decided to endorse Biden as soon as he got out of the starting gate because they believe he can win and that he reflects the sensibilities of their working-class membership.
“Joe Biden is the candidate in our view that has the voice and the connection with the workers in middle America that abandoned the Democratic candidate in 2016,” Schaitberger said. “I’m very concerned about a Democratic party lurching too far to the left. They might have high-minded ideals that sound good. But in our view, he’s someone who has the skill set to stay on that middle lane or middle road. He can win. That’s the real bottom line. Who can win?”
The New England Patriots might have lost Rob Gronkowski this offseason, but oddsmakers in Las Vegas still see the defending Super Bowl champions as the NFL‘s top team heading into the 2019 regular season.
Caesars listed the Patriots’ over/under at 11 wins for the upcoming year. The Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints are tied for second at 10.5.
Gronkowski wasn’t the only notable departure for the Patriots. Trey Flowers signed afive-year, $90 millioncontract with the Detroit Lions, taking away New England’s best defensive player in 2018.
Considering the Patriots have won at least 11 games every year since 2009, though, their over/under is about where you’d expect it to be.
The Cleveland Browns are almost at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. By hitting its projected win total, Cleveland would register its most victories since 2007.
Having said that, nine wins is a reasonable estimate for a team that went 7-8-1 in 2018 and has one of the top young quarterbacks in the league with Baker Mayfield. The Browns accelerated their playoff timeline by acquiring Odell Beckham Jr. and Olivier Vernon from the New York Giants and signing Sheldon Richardson and Morgan Burnett.
A nine-win season might actually be a disappointment given what fans are hoping to see from Cleveland.
Oddsmakers don’t see No. 1 overall draft pick Kyler Murray drastically impacting the Arizona Cardinals fortunes in 2019. With 5.5 wins, Arizona is tied with the New York Giants for the second-lowest over/under total.
Murray was excellent in his only season as a starter for Oklahoma, throwing for 4,361 yards and 42 touchdowns and winning the Heisman Trophy.
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The skepticism around the Cardinals is justified, though. They’re clearly in rebuilding mode and will likely start a rookie quarterback in Week 1 with a first-year NFL head coach in Kliff Kingsbury.
The San Francisco 49ers, who selected Nick Bosa with the No. 2 overall pick, are pegged for a four-win improvement, but that isn’t entirely down to the Ohio State pass-rusher.
Jimmy Garoppolo should beback healthyfor the start of the regular season after a torn ACL limited him to three games in 2018. The 49ers also strengthened their defense by adding Dee Ford and Kwon Alexander.
San Francisco should be among those competing for a wild-card berth in the NFC.
The New York governor released a statement saying ‘the only thing illegal is the gun lobby’s insurance scheme.’
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo struck back Monday at President Donald Trump in an escalating war of words over the New York attorney general’s recently launched investigation of the National Rifle Association.
In a pair of morning tweets, Trump said the NRA was “under siege by Cuomo and the New York State A.G.” and accused them of abusing their legal authority to target the group.
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“So much litigation. The NRA should leave and fight from the outside of this very difficult to deal with (unfair) State!” Trump said in his follow-up tweet.
In response, Cuomo released a statement saying “the only thing illegal is the gun lobby’s insurance scheme,” and noting the incidence in mass gun violence in the United State over the past several years.
“You have done nothing but tweet about it,” Cuomo said. “The scourge of gun violence is a national crisis plaguing our country and killing our children. It demands action. And action, Mr. President, requires true leadership.”
Attorney General Tish James’s office on Friday announced it was investigating the NRA over allegations of self-dealing that potentially threaten the organization’s nonprofit status.
The Cuomo administration is engaged in a legal battle with the NRA stemming from the Department of Financial Service’s attempts to penalize companies that offered an NRA-backed insurance product that’s illegal in the state.
The NRA has also been roiled by an internal fracas that led its president, Oliver North, to resign over the weekend after losing a power struggle with long-time chief executive Wayne LaPierre.
A spokesperson for James did not have an immediate comment on the back-and-forth between Cuomo and Trump.
The death toll in northern Mozambique from Cyclone Kenneth has jumped to 38 after the storm battered the country last week, officials have said, with aid workers struggling to reach some of the worst-affected areas.
Mozambique’s National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC) said in its latest update on Monday that in addition to the dozens of people killed, about 35,000 homes were damaged or wiped out by the cyclone and the rising floodwaters unleashed in its wake.
The cyclone made landfall on Thursday in the country’s northernmost Cabo Delgado province, bringing with it torrential rains and wind gusts of more than 200 kilometres per hour. The carnage has affected more than 160,000 people to date, according to INGC estimates.
Before battering Mozambique’s shores it slammed into the Comoros, an archipelago off Africa’s southeastern coast, killing four people, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
More than 160,000 people have been affected by the storm and its aftermath so far, according to Mozambique officials [Emidio Josine/AFP]
It is the strongest cyclone to ever lash Africa, according to the OCHA, with further heavy rain predicted for the coming days.
“Cyclone Kenneth made landfall at the end of the rainy season, when river levels were already high, increasing the risk of river flooding,” the UN agency said in its latest update.
“Humanitarian needs in Mozambique have sky-rocketed, and the humanitarian response will need to rapidly scale-up,” it added.
Aid efforts hampered by rains
Cyclone Kenneth has further stretched resources in a region still recovering from Cyclone Idai, which struck further south in March, killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands of others from their homes.
Idai destroyed Mozambique’s port city of Beira and submerged entire villages, vast swaths of land and 700,000 hectares of crops. It killed more than 1,000 people across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
It is the first time in recorded history that two cyclones have struck Mozambique in a single season, raising concerns about climate change.
Search and rescue officials pass by submerged houses in a Pemba neighbourhood flooded in the aftermath of Cyclone Kenneth [Mike Hutchings/Reuters]
The rising waters brought about by the latest storm have made many roads impassable and hampered air efforts to reach communities outside the region’s capital, Pemba, including districts to the north of the city such as Macomia and Quissanga.
Heavy rains on Monday grounded some aid flights for the second day in a row, impeding efforts to reach survivors of the storm, Reuters news agency reported.
However, a brief break in the downpours allowed rescuers to send one helicopter packed with aid to the island of Ibo, off the northern coast of Mozambique, where the cyclone flattened hundreds of homes.
With better weather conditions this morning, and MAF’s support, we could lift food & other urgent items to Ibo Island. But it’s raining again & this will impact operations during the rest of the day. Check this video with Gemma Connell on #CycloneKenneth response in #Mozambiquepic.twitter.com/D0kcQp0zfx
— OCHA Southern & Eastern Africa (@UNOCHA_ROSEA) April 29, 2019
Deborah Nguyen, a communications officer for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), told Al Jazeera from Pemba that downpours were expected to continue throughout the region for the next four days at least.
“We suspect with the [continued] flooding, more people might be displaced,” Nguyen said, adding that officials were expecting twice as much rain to fall following Cyclone Kenneth as that which accompanied Cyclone Idai.
“We are really concerned. The more it rains the more difficult it will be for people to move around and find food,” she added.
Nguyen also said the WFP had deployed two helicopters to Pemba from Beira and Zimbabwe, both of which will be used to deliver foodstuffs and other emergency supplies to areas now inaccessible by road.
Heavy rains in #Mozambique northern province of #CaboDelgado are raising floodwater levels and rendering communities affected by #CycloneKenneth harder to reach.
The UN on Sunday announced it had released $13m in emergency funds for Mozambique and the Comoros to provide food and water and repair infrastructure.
“The funds will help in reducing the suffering of the affected people including mitigating the impact on food security caused by the destruction and loss of farmland, livestock and fisheries, in addition to the damage and destruction of homes”, said Mark Lowcock, the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
Sometimes, true stories beat just about anything made up for the big and small screens. When they’re as juicy as Lil Nas X‘s narrative in the country music realm, they’re pure gold. Take what happened this weekend at Stagecoach, a country-music festival in Indio, California.
After effectively being told in March that his song “Old Town Road” — which has since hit No. 1 and become one of the biggest hits of the year — wasn’t country enough to be included on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart, it’s only fitting that a month later, he performed the song for the first time live at Stagecoach. Along for the ride was Billy Ray Cyrus, who collaborated with Lil Nas X on the song’s remix. Together, as fan-captured footage reveals, they made history.
Diplo, who recently released his own remix of “Old Town Road” in addition to a potential country pivot of his own, brought out the two performers to cap off his set. First came Cyrus, slowly strumming his guitar onstage in an explosion of smoke, singing the first lines of the remix. Lil Nas X then came out in yeehaw-dinous fashion, booming the track’s soft country lyricism with a commanding tone. The crowd went bananas, clinging to every word and regurgitating every syllable of both artists’ verses.
Earlier this month, “Old Town Road” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming the biggest song in America. The track previously climbed to No. 19 on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart but was removed from in March because, as Billboard said in a statement, it didn’t “embrace enough elements of today’s country music.” Cyrus hopped on the remix after reaching out to Lil Nas X publicly to support him.
Take a look at a video of the energetic performance up above.
Texas Tech and men’s basketball coach Chris Beard agreed Monday on a six-year, $27.45 million contract that will keep him in Lubbock through 2024-25.
“Thank you to President Schovanec, Kirby Hocutt, Tony Hernandez, Chancellor Mitchell and the Board of Regents for making this strong commitment to both me and our men’s basketball program,” Beard said in a statement. “Thank you to our players and staff, both former and current, for your commitment to winning. Special thanks to our fans and our students for your incredible support and passion. Together we have accomplished some great things in the past three years but we are not satisfied and will continue working tirelessly to build one of the best college basketball programs in the nation.”
Beard, 46, has posted a 76-31 record in three seasons at Texas Tech. He led the Red Raiders to an Elite Eight berth in 2018 and to the 2019 national championship game before losing to Virginia.
This article will be updated to provide more information on this story as it becomes available.
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![Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein pauses while announcing grand jury indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, during a news conference at the Justice Department [File: Leah Millis/Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/9/24/bb034121fbaf44399534d571fb8059eb_18.jpg "US Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein sends resignation letter to Trump")
![Russia's Vladimir Putin has said delivering the S-400 to Turkey is a national priority [File: Vitaly Nevar/Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/4/29/1164200495e046c3b3fd672b53dded88_18.jpg "Trump, Erdogan discuss working group on Russian S-400")
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