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Stock Market Plummets After Trump Explores $100 Billion in New Chinese Tariffs

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(NEW YORK ) — Another increase in trade tensions has stocks falling sharply Friday as the U.S. considers an even larger set of tariffs on imports from China and the two countries exchange pointed statements. Technology companies and banks are taking some of the worst losses.

Stocks have changed direction again and again this week as investors tried to get a sense of whether a trade dispute between the two nations will escalate, an outcome that could have major consequences for the global economy. The market didn’t get any help from a March jobs report that was weaker than expected.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell dropped 581 points, or 2.4 percent, to 23,916 as of 2:15 p.m. Eastern time. Earlier it fell as much as 620 points.

The SP 500, which many index funds track, lost 53 points, or 2 percent, to 2,608. The Nasdaq composite slid 135 points, or 1.9 percent, to 6,940. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks dipped 29 points, or 1.9 percent, to 1,513.

The Dow average, which contains numerous multinational companies including industrial powerhouses Boeing and Caterpillar, has swung dramatically this week, with about 1,300 points separating its highest and lowest marks. It fell as much as 758 points Monday, then recovered all of those losses, and late Thursday it was up as much as 519 points for the week. It’s down 0.7 percent for the week.

The administration spent the past few days reassuring investors that it’s not rushing into a trade war, and China’s government has done the same. But late Thursday, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Trade Representative to consider placing tariffs on $100 billion in duties on Chinese imports. China said it would “counterattack with great strength” if he that happens.

Stocks dipped further after Trump criticized the World Trade Organization on Twitter Friday morning.

At the start of the week, the U.S. announced plans to put tariffs on $50 billion in goods imported from China, and the Chinese government responded with measures of equal size. Stocks plunged on Monday, but they rallied over the next few days as officials from both countries said they were open to talks and that the tariffs might never go into effect.

With administration officials sounding conciliatory one day and more hostile the next and the president always quick to fire off another tweet, investors simply don’t know what the U.S. wants to achieve, said Katie Nixon, chief investment officer for Northern Trust Wealth Management.

“The process itself seems to be quite chaotic,” she said. “We’re not quite sure what the long term strategy is.”

Still, she said businesses support the idea of making changes in America’s trade relationship with China. But even though investors are optimistic about the state of the global economy and company profits continue to grow, Nixon said the administration is creating the thing investors hate the most: uncertainty.

Technology companies make a lot of their sales in Asia and they have struggled as Wall Street worries about a slowdown in global economic growth. Optimism about the world economy has helped many tech companies make huge gains in the last year.

Apple skidded $3.46, or 2 percent, to $169.34 and Cisco Systems declined 98 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $40.84. PayPal dipped $2.63, or 3.4 percent, to $74.32.

Industrial companies might face the worst pain from tariffs, as they could find themselves dealing with higher costs for components imported into the U.S. while the duties on their goods in China harm their sales.

Caterpillar, a construction equipment maker, shed $584, or 3.9 percent, to $142.29 while farm equipment company Deere sank $5.56, or 3.7 percent, to $145.79. Aerospace giant Boeing dipped $12.20, or 3.6 percent, to $324.20.

Health care companies also declined. Johnson Johnson sank $2.99, or 2.3 percent, to $127.72 and health insurer UnitedHealth dropped $59, or 2.6 percent, to $223.18.

Employers added 103,000 jobs in March, which is weaker than the last few months. The Labor Department also said fewer jobs were added in January and February that it initially estimated. The unemployment rate remained low and the job market looks fundamentally healthy, but it’s possible some employers are struggling to find workers.

Benchmark U.S. crude dropped $1.17, or 1.8 percent, to $62.37 a barrel in New York while Brent crude, used to price international oils, lost 92 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $67.41 per barrel in London. Oil prices have also been volatile this week, as investors wonder if an increase in trade tensions will reduce demand for oil by slowing down the global economy.

Bond prices rose, sending yields lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.78 percent from 2.83 percent. The lower yields mean banks can’t make as much money from lending, and that send bank stocks lower. JPMorgan Chase fell $3.23, or 2.9 percent, to $108.65 and BBT lost $1.89, or 3.6 percent, to $51.

Gold rose $7.60 to $1,336.10 an ounce. Silver edged up 1 cent to $16.36 an ounce. Copper fell 2 cents to $3.06 a pound.

The dollar fell to 106.86 yen from 107.12 yen. The euro rose to $1.2287 from $1.2256.

Germany’s DAX was down 0.5 percent while France’s CAC-40 fell 0.3 percent lower. The FTSE 100 in Britain lost 0.2 percent.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index dipped 0.4 percent while South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.3 percent but Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.1 percent after trading resumed following a holiday as investors caught up with the previous day’s global gains.

Gun store employee says YouTube shooter did not stand out

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An employee at a San Diego gun store where a woman bought the pistol used to shoot three people at YouTube headquarters said there was nothing remarkable about the transaction, a newspaper reports.

Manny Mendoza, rangemaster at The Gun Range, said that the woman now widely known for posting prolific and bizarre videos on exercise, animal cruelty and veganism was not memorable.

“It’s not like she stood out,” Mendoza said to the Bay Area News Group. “I wish we could look into someone’s soul.”

Nasim Aghdam, an Iranian native in her late 30s, walked through a parking garage into a courtyard at the YouTube campus Tuesday and opened fire, police said. She wounded three people before killing herself.

San Bruno Police Commander Geoff Caldwell said Aghdam legally bought the 9mm handgun Jan. 16, and it was registered in her name. She was found with two magazines and the pistol.

Authorities and family members say she was angry about the policies and practices of the company.

She posted videos under the online name Nasime Sabz, and a website in that name decried YouTube’s policies, saying the company was trying to “suppress” content creators.

Aghdam took the pistol from the store the same day that the world’s biggest online video website announced stricter requirements for video producers to make money from views of their videos.

Her family has expressed shock and sorrow at the shootings, and said they warned law enforcement that she might be headed to YouTube and that she “hated” the company.

“Right now I’m thinking, she never hurt one ant. How (could) she shoot the people?” said her father, Ismail Aghdam, said in an interview with Good Morning America that aired Friday.

The family showed ABC News the sparsely furnished bedroom where she produced videos in which she exercised, promoted animal rights and explained the vegan diet, often wearing elaborate costumes or carrying a rabbit.

Ismail Aghdam reported his daughter missing on Monday.

Mountain View police encountered her sleeping in a car around 2 a.m. Tuesday, but had no reason to detain her. They say family members never said she could become violent or post a threat to YouTube employees.

San Bruno police say she practiced shooting at a local gun range on Tuesday before driving to YouTube headquarters.

Of three people wounded by gunshots, a 36-year-old man initially classified as critically injured remained hospitalized Friday in fair condition.

‘I’m not going to be a Gabby Giffords’: Congressman draws gun in meeting with constituents

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Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., pulled out his loaded .38-caliber handgun and placed it on a table for several minutes while making a point about gun rights during a meeting with constituents Friday. 

“I’m not going to be a Gabby Giffords,” Norman said, during the “coffee with constituents” meeting at a Rock Hill, S.C., restaurant. Giffords, a former Arizona congresswoman, was shot outside a grocery store during a constituent gathering in 2011.

“I don’t mind dying, but whoever shoots me better shoot well or I’m shooting back,” Norman told The Post and Courier.

Giffords’ husband, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, said in a statement that Norman is “no Gabby Giffords.”

“Americans are increasingly faced with a stark choice: leaders like Gabby, who work hard together to find solutions to problems, or extremists like the NRA and Congressman Norman, who rely on intimidation tactics and perpetuating fear,” Kelly said.

Norman vowed to continue to display his gun at future constituent meetings.

“I’m tired of these liberals jumping on the guns themselves as if they are the cause of the problem,” Norman told The Post and Courier. “Guns are not the problem.”

He told the paper guns are only dangerous in the hands of criminals. 

Contributing: The Associated Press

FBI Files:Jared Loughner apparently wrote poem for 2011 killing spree

More: Florida judge grants police request to seize man’s guns under new law inspired by Parkland shooting

Largest earthquake in several years shakes Southern California, causing landslides on Santa Cruz Island

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Southern California was rattled Thursday by a magnitude 5.3 earthquake that struck near the Channel Islands.

The quake was the strongest in Southern California in several years, jangling some nerves but causing no major damage because it occurred offshore in the Pacific Ocean and not on land.

The quake did cause some minor landslides and earth movement on Santa Cruz Island, which was close to the epicenter, and rattled a bald eagle whose livestreamed reaction to the temblor went viral.

“A 5.3 could be damaging if it was right under our feet,” said John Vidale, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center at USC. “It’s right on the edge of being an earthquake that could be dangerous. It’s a reminder that we need to be ready in the future.”

The temblor occurred just before 12:30 p.m. and was centered south of Santa Cruz Island, about 90 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. It was felt as far away as Bakersfield, Palmdale and the city of Orange, according to witnesses and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Earthquake early-warning system gave heads-up before 5.3 magnitude temblor hit L.A. area »

The L.A. area feels an earthquake of this magnitude on average about once a year, Vidale said.

There is a 1-in-20 chance that Thursday’s quake will lead to a larger one in the next few weeks, he said. But, more than likely, smaller aftershocks that may not even be felt will follow, he said.

The quake was too small and too far away from the coast to trigger any tsunami concerns.

“It would never make a wave that you could see,” Vidale said.



But it was large enough to activate the state’s developing earthquake early-warning system.

Vidale said he and colleagues at USC heard beeping 10 to 15 seconds before the quake’s shaking reached their campus.

“We all felt it pretty well. It was small and distinct,” he said. “We heard the warning go off and then we heard the shaking.”

The early-warning system is under development by the USGS and is available only to a limited array of testers, but it is expected that more people will be eligible to test the system later this year.

It works on a simple principle: The shaking from an earthquake travels at the speed of sound through rock — which is slower than the speed of today’s communications systems.

For example, it would take more than a minute for a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that starts at the Salton Sea and travels up the state’s longest fault, the San Andreas, to shake Los Angeles, 150 miles away. An early-warning system would give L.A. residents crucial seconds, and perhaps even more than a minute, to prepare.

It got a significant boost in the federal budget signed into law in March, defying an earlier proposal by President Trump to end federal funding for the program.

As part of the $1.3-trillion budget bill approved by Congress and signed by Trump, officials approved $22.9 million for the project. That more than doubles the $10.2 million it got in the previous year’s budget.

The USGS has said it planned to begin issuing limited public alerts from the system by the end of this year, as long as funding wasn’t cut. Southern California is one area where the network of seismic sensors is dense enough at present to begin early warnings.

Earthquake that rattled L.A. area was strongest in years »

The temblor was located near the East Santa Cruz Basin fault zone, said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson, and seismologist Lucy Jones said on Twitter that the fault system “moves Southern California around a bend of the San Andreas fault.”

“Earthquakes happen out there now and again. There’s a major offshore fault system,” Hauksson said.

When asked why some people felt the earthquake but others nearby didn’t, Hauksson said where a person is matters a lot. “People in high rises probably felt it pretty well,” he said. People on softer soils might also feel stronger shaking.

Among those creatures startled by the quake were the feathered inhabitants of a bald eagle’s nest high above Santa Cruz Island.

A National Park Service live web camera trained on the nest shows a parent eagle and three chicks as their tree begins shaking. The parent flies off as the chicks look around bewildered. The parent eagle returns moments later, after the shaking.

The last quake to be felt this widely in the L.A. area was a magnitude 4.4 in Encino in 2014. That quake also shook a wide area and was the largest in the Los Angeles area in four years. It was noted by seismologists as the strongest to hit directly under the Santa Monica Mountains in 80 years.

The last time an area earthquake produced more energy than Thursday’s temblor was in 2012, when a magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck the border town of Brawley in Imperial County. Local officials reported 20 mobile homes shifted from their foundations and cosmetic damage to downtown buildings.

The epicenter of Thursday’s quake was south of the Channel Islands. A magnitude 4.8 quake in the same area rattled the region in 2013, but that epicenter was much closer to the coast, three miles away from Isla Vista, and produced moderate shaking, enough to knock down a few photo frames.

A park service spokeswoman told KEYT that Thursday’s quake sent some bricks toppling off a chimney from a historic ranch property built in the 1860s on one of the islands.

The Santa Barbara area is home to a number of earthquake faults, the largest of which is the Santa Ynez fault, which is 80 miles long and runs just north of the city. That fault is believed to be capable of triggering an earthquake as powerful as magnitude 7.5.

Get ready for a major quake. What to do before — and during — a big one »

The great Santa Barbara quake of 1925, recorded at a magnitude 6.8, destroyed much of the city’s downtown on State Street, damaged rail lines, caused extensive landslides and was felt as far away as Orange County. It killed 13 people.

Since the magnitude 7.2 Easter Sunday earthquake of 2010 that hit along the California-Mexico border, there have been 14 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater in Southern California. Hauksson estimated that perhaps about half of them were felt in Los Angeles.

Seismologist Lucy Jones said she received a complaint Thursday about her calling earthquake activity like this normal. Some people on Twitter asked her what the larger meaning was behind the earthquake. But there isn’t any larger meaning nor a clue of when the next big earthquake will come or where it will hit, she said.

“There’s a human need for creating patterns,” Jones said. “It doesn’t make us safer or less safe. It’s a reminder of our reality.”

Earthquake activity in the Channel Islands shouldn’t be all that surprising. After all, earthquakes created the Channel Islands.

In fact, mountains throughout California are generally creations of earthquakes, Jones said.

Earthquakes pushed up the Santa Ynez Mountains in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The Santa Monica and Hollywood faults were responsible for creating the Santa Monica Mountains. The Sierra Madre fault is pushing up the San Gabriels. The Chino Hills were thrust upward by the Chino Hills fault.

“If you see mountains in California, that means something is moving up those mountains faster than erosion is wearing them down,” Jones said in an interview. “Basically, when you see mountains, think earthquakes in California.”

Staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

Twitter: @JosephSerna

ron.lin@latimes.com

Twitter: @ronlin

UPDATES:

6:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information about the early-warning system and seismic history.

3:50 p.m.: This article was updated with reports of a damaged chimney on a historic property near the quake epicenter.

3:15 p.m.: This article was updated with details on a bald eagle nest on Santa Cruz Island.

2:20 p.m.: This article was updated with reports that there was no damage in Los Angeles.

1:45 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from seismologists and the Los Angeles Fire Department.

1:05 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from John Vidale, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, and information on past Southern California earthquakes.

12:50 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from the Los Angeles Police Department.

12:40 p.m.: This article was updated with an upgrade to the quake’s magnitude and comments from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.

This article was originally published at 12:35 p.m.

Trump Denies Knowing of Any Hush Money Paid to Porn Actress

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The president’s comments on Thursday could create a predicament for him and his legal team. Ms. Clifford’s case is based on the notion that the confidentiality agreement is invalid because Mr. Trump was not a party to it. By saying he was not aware of the agreement, Mr. Trump appeared to confirm that argument, which would mean neither party is legally bound by it, thus potentially paving the way for Ms. Clifford to break her silence without consequences.

Ms. Clifford’s pugnacious lawyer, Michael J. Avenatti, quickly issued a statement to respond to Mr. Trump’s claim. He said that the president’s professed ignorance of the payment would improve his client’s case, suggesting that he would use legal discovery to expose the back and forth around the payment.

“Our case just got that much better,” Mr. Avenatti said in the statement. “We very much look forward to testing the truthfulness of Mr. Trump’s feigned lack of knowledge concerning the $130,000 as he stated on Air Force One.”

“As history teaches us, it is one thing to deceive the press and quite another to do so under oath,” he added.

Later, Mr. Avenatti appeared to exult on Twitter about what he suggested were undisciplined comments by Mr. Trump that would give Ms. Clifford the upper hand in the legal dispute.

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“Good (actually GREAT) things come to those who wait!!!” Mr. Avenatti wrote. “The strength of our case just went up exponentially. You can’t have an agreement when one party claims to know nothing about it. #nodiscipline.”

Mr. Cohen did not respond on Thursday to requests for comment. Charles Harder, a lawyer representing Mr. Trump in his legal wrangling with Ms. Clifford, also did not respond to requests for comment on the president’s remarks and how they could affect his case.

Mr. Trump and a company affiliated with him filed papers in court on Monday seeking to force Ms. Clifford to raise her disputes through private arbitration, not lawsuits.

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Arbitration would shield the case from public view, sparing Mr. Trump the public spectacle that would attend a lawsuit with a discovery process and a trial. Mr. Avenatti said at the time that he would vigorously oppose the effort to resolve the case privately. In fact, on Thursday night, he said that Mr. Trump’s remarks had made him more determined than ever to try to depose the president.

“If the president didn’t know anything about the payment, then he obviously didn’t know anything about the agreement, in which case you can’t have an agreement,” Mr. Avenatti said in an interview on MSNBC. “And then there is no such thing as an NDA,” he added, referring to a nondisclosure agreement.

“Now if, on the other hand, what he said on Air Force One is not accurate — and I, for one, have serious questions as to its veracity or accuracy — they’ve got a whole host of problems,” Mr. Avenatti said.

The president and his lawyers have been working to prevent Ms. Clifford, who sat for a lengthy interview that aired on “60 Minutes” last month, from making further public statements.

In February, she said that she believed that Mr. Cohen had violated the agreement and that she, as a result, was no longer bound by it. Mr. Cohen secretly obtained a restraining order late that month to prevent her from speaking.

Then last month, Mr. Trump’s legal team filed a motion asking to move the case from state court to federal court, which may have been an effort to increase the likelihood that it would be resolved in arbitration.


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Conor McGregor remains in police custody after rampage at UFC media event

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Conor McGregor responded to UFC President Dana White’s decision to strip him of his lightweight belt in typically understated fashion: by tweeting an unprintable insult, crashing a pre-fight media event in Brooklyn, N.Y., chucking a barricade and prompting a scene of general mayhem that left at least one fighter injured and organizers stunned. For his trouble, McGregor landed in some.

McGregor turned himself into police Thursday and was arrested and charged with three counts of assault and one count of criminal mischief after his role in Thursday’s fracas that left UFC fighter Michael Chiesa in the hospital with a facial laceration, Reuters reported.

According to the Independent, McGregor was held overnight and remained in police custody early Friday morning as he awaited a court appearance in Brooklyn. MMA Fighting reports that Cian Cowley, McGregor’s SBG teammate, also was charged with one count of assault and one count of criminal mischief over the incident.

Three matches scheduled for Saturday’s UFC 223 card have been scrapped because of the fracas. Chiesa, who was to fight Anthony Pettis, was cut in the face and was in the hospital; he has been deemed unfit to fight by the New York State Athletic Commission and the UFC medical team. Ray Borg, a flyweight who was scheduled to battle Brandon Moreno, also was deemed unfit to fight after suffering corneal abrasions. Artem Lobov, a McGregor ally who was apparently part of the incident, also was pulled from the card.

[ Conor McGregor says he’s done prizefighting, wants to ‘legitimize’ UFC title ]

It was unclear whether Thursday’s incident was prompted by White stripping McGregor of his belt, or by previous bad feelings between McGregor’s camp and Khabib Nurmagomedov, scheduled to fight Max Holloway for McGregor’s vacated belt in Saturday’s main event. Nurmagomedov was filmed in a confrontation with Lobov, the McGregor ally, earlier this week.

On Thursday, McGregor and his entourage approached a large vehicle full of fighters that was leaving Barclays Center in Brooklyn after the media event, according to MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani and videos posted of the incident. “Chairs were thrown through the van window and one passenger on the van was injured,” Helwani reported, in an apparent reference to Chiesa.

Videos posted to social media show a chaotic scene, with at least one guardrail being flung and general disorder. (A fuller video of the bus incident is here; it contains explicit language.)

“Conor went bananas and put a beating on the van that we were in,” Chiesa’s coach Rick Little told MMAjunkie. “A million security guards had to restrain him. Mike’s cut up now. He’s got marks on him, for sure. I don’t think too serious. Everything happened so fast, it was just like we got jumped.”

Little told the site that his fighter had been cut by shattered glass. And some media members at the arena reported that the target of McGrergor’s ire was apparently Nurmagomedov, who seemed to believe that was the case.

“I am laughing inside,” the Russian told Helwani. “You broke window? Why? Come inside. If you real gangster why don’t you come inside? This is big history gangster place. Brooklyn. You want to talk to me? Send me location. I am going to come. No problem.”

White, meanwhile, called the incident the most despicable thing in UFC history, according to ESPN’s Okamoto.

“You want to grab 30 [expletive] friends and come down here and do what you did today?” White said in a video posted by Okamoto. “It’s disgusting. And I don’t think anybody is going to be huge Conor McGregor fans after this. I don’t know if he’s on drugs or what his deal is, but to come and do this and act like this?”

Later Thursday night, the UFC issued a statement regarding the incident:

Thursday afternoon, following the UFC 223 media day at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, an incident in the facility injured two athletes on Saturday’s card, forcing them to be pulled from the event.

Lightweight Michael Chiesa, who received several facial cuts, was deemed unfit to fight by the New York State Athletic Commission and the UFC medical team, and he was removed from his bout against Anthony Pettis.

Flyweight Ray Borg, who was scheduled to face Brandon Moreno, was deemed unfit to fight as well due to multiple cornea abrasions.

Also removed from the card was the featherweight bout between Artem Lobov and Alex Caceres due to Lobov’s involvement in the incident.

UFC 223 will proceed as scheduled with 10 bouts.

White’s anger toward longtime UFC moneymaker McGregor seemed genuine, but others quickly pointed out that a McGregor-Nurmagomedov fight might be more lucrative after Thursday’s drama. Daniel Cormier, one of the sport’s stars, tweeted that McGregor should be taken into custody and escorted to the arena Saturday “to make him fight Khabib … That’s true punishment!”

White had announced earlier this week there would be “no interim champ” following Saturday’s scheduled lightweight main event between Max Holloway and Nurmagomedov.

“When this fight is over, champion,” White said at a news conference, gesturing to Nurmagomedov and Holloway. “One of these guys will be the champion.”

This news was not taken well by McGregor, the previous permanent holder of that title.

“You’s’ll strip me of nothing,” he tweeted very early Thursday morning, before calling UFC officials an unprintable word.

McGregor won the lightweight title by defeating Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205 in a November 2016 bout but stepped away from the octagon to train for last year’s lucrative boxing match against Floyd Mayweather. Tony Ferguson stepped in to win an interim lightweight belt in McGregor’s absence, but White said Saturday’s bout between Nurmagomedov and Holloway will decide a new official champion.

“Tony Ferguson isn’t being stripped. The only person here who is losing a belt is Conor. Conor’s losing the belt, these two are fighting for the belt,” White said at the news conference.

“The interim belt that he had, those two [Nurmagomedov and Ferguson] were supposed to fight — doesn’t happen. One of these guys will be the champion. Tony is still the number one contender.”

Before Thursday’s fracas, White insisted that McGregor “is coming back this year, 100 percent,” adding, “We’ll see how this thing plays out [with the lightweight title], and we’ll go from there.”

He later reiterated that stance on Fox Sports’ “UFC Tonight,” saying: “Conor does want to fight. Conor and I have been talking a lot. Conor does want to come back, he does want to fight, so he will fight this year.”

Again, he said this before Thursday’s events.

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Air Force Thunderbirds pilot killed in F-16 crash near Las Vegas

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A U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds pilot was killed Wednesday while doing routine training maneuvers at Nellis Air Force Base, officials said.

The pilot’s identity was being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Air Force officials said the pilot’s F-16 fighter plane went down about 10:30 a.m. on the Nevada Test and Training Range. The cause of the crash was not immediately known and the Accident Investigation Board of the Air Force was investigating.

In response to the crash, the Thunderbirds canceled their participation at this weekend’s Air Space Expo at March Air Force Base in Riverside County. Officials at Nellis Air Force Base said it was unclear how the mishap would affect the Thunderbirds’ schedule for the remainder of the year. The team performs a heavy schedule, with 33 shows already set for 2018.

According to the Thunderbirds’ website, eight of the 12 officers assigned to the team are experienced fighter pilots and six fly in air show demonstrations. Officers of the elite team serve two-year tour stints and, according to the website, three of the six demonstration pilots change each year to maintain smooth transitions within the team.

The Thunderbirds have been performing since 1953.

Clark County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick, whose district includes Nellis, released a statement Wednesday night offering condolences to the family of the deceased pilot.

“This is a tragic day for the Las Vegas community and the nation,” she said. “I urge the community to keep the Nellis family in your thoughts during this difficult time and to let service men and women know, now more than ever, that we appreciate their service.”

Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev.), whose district includes the base, said in a tweet that it was “heartbreaking” news.

Wednesday’s crash marked the second military aircraft crash in recent days on American soil. On Tuesday, a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter crashed during exercises along the U.S.-Mexico border in California. Four members of that flight crew were killed.

david.montero@latimes.com

Twitter: @davemontero

UPDATES:

10:20 p.m.: This article has been updated with information about the pilot and the Thunderbirds.

This article was originally published at 2 p.m.

Philippine island a ‘cesspool,’ will close for 6 months

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the closure of the tourist destination of Boracay for up to six months after saying the waters off its famed white-sand beaches had become a “cesspool” due to overcrowding and development.

Duterte approved the total shutdown of Boracay as a tourist destination starting April 26 in a cabinet meeting Wednesday night after extensive discussions of its impact, including ways to help about 17,000 workers who may be displaced, tourism undersecretary Frederick Alegre said Thursday.

“This is not about profit, it’s about the political will to deal with years of neglect of the environment,” Alegre said. “We need to act swiftly to save the island and avert its further deterioration.”

Last February, Duterte said Boracay’s water has turned into a “cesspool” with human waste being discharged into the sea.

More than two million tourists visited Boracay last year to enjoy its powdery beaches, spectacular sunsets and festive nightlife, generating about 56 billion pesos ($1.3 billion) in revenue. But the influx of tourists, neglected infrastructure and growth of resort establishments and poor settlements have threatened to turn Boracay into a “dead island” in less than a decade, according to a government study.

The island can only sustain 30,000 people but teems with 70,000 at any time, including 50,000 residents and daily arrivals of about 20,000 tourists, Alegre said.

Hundreds of settlers have also illegally built homes and structures in forests and protected wetlands over the years, officials said.

Only about 47 per cent of the hundreds of establishments are connected to the island’s main sewerage treatment plant, with many of the rest possibly maintaining crude septic tanks and others discharging their waste directly into the sea, Alegre said.

Specifics of rehabilitation not known

Parts of the 1,000-hectare island in central Aklan province could re-open earlier than six months if sewage containment and treatment systems could be built earlier and beach resorts comply with environmental regulations, he said.

The government has yet to provide specifics about the rehabilitation, but Epimaco Densing, assistant secretary of the interior, on Thursday said a soft opening could take place within three or four months, after drainage systems were fixed and illegal structures dismantled.

Priorities, officials said, were overhauls to roads, sewage treatment and waste disposal facilities to handle about 82 to 104 tonnes of waste a day, of which only 27 tonnes is brought out off the island, according to the interior ministry.

Jose Clemente, president of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines, said businesses needed time to adjust.

“We are a bit depressed right now,” he said.  “I really feel for the people in Boracay,” he added. “They really need to find ways to be employed, or at least keep their head above water for the next six months.”

The impact on hotels and resorts has yet to be fully assessed. Boracay, one of 7,300 islands in the archipelago nation, hosts 1,800 businesses, including global hotel chains like Shangri-La and Movenpick, and locally listed companies Megaworld Corp and Manila Water.

Flights reduced

Philippine Airlines said it would reduce flights en route to airports serving as a gateway to the small island, about 315 kilometres south of Manila.

Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra said emergency calamity funds would be used to help workers at tourist establishments affected by Boracay’s temporary closure.

About 17,000 are employed in Boracay’s tourist establishments, and 10,000 to 12,000 others benefit from the bustling tourism business.

A similar decision was made in Thailand where Maya Bay, on Phi Phi Leh island in the Andaman Sea, will be closed for four months starting in June.

Many Thai marine parks close for part of the year but the release of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Beach, in 2000 made picturesque Maya Bay so popular it stayed open year-round. It averages 200 boats and 4,000 visitors daily, but recent surveys found the area’s coral reefs and sea life damaged or gone.

Other Thai destinations ruined by mass tourism, Koh Yoong in the Phi Phi island chain and Koh Tachai in the Similan Islands National Park, have been off-limits to tourists permanently since mid-2016.

Australia latest to open probe into Facebook data scandal

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Australia’s privacy watchdog has opened an investigation into Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal.

Yesterday Facebook revealed that more users than previously thought could have had their personal information passed to the company back in 2014 — saying as many as 87 million Facebook users could have had their data “improperly shared”, thereby confirming the testimony of ex-Cambridge Analytica employee, Chris Wylie, who last month told a UK parliamentary committee he believed that substantially more than 50M Facebook users had had their information swiped.

And while most of these Facebook users are located in the US, multiple millions are not.

The company confirmed the international split yesterday in a blog post — including that 1 million+ of the total are UK users; more than 620k are Canadian; and more than 300k are Australian.

Though in tiny grey lettering at the bottom of the graphic Facebook caveats that these figures are merely its “best estimates” of the maximum number of affected users.

After the US, the largest proportion of Facebook users affected by the data leakage were in the Philippines and Indonesia.

In a statement today the Australian watchdog (OAIC) said it has opened a formal investigation into Facebook.

“The investigation will consider whether Facebook has breached the Privacy Act 1988(Privacy Act). Given the global nature of this matter, the OAIC will confer with regulatory authorities internationally,” it writes. “All organisations that are covered by the Privacy Act have obligations in relation to the personal information that they hold. This includes taking reasonable steps to ensure that personal information is held securely, and ensuring that customers are adequately notified about the collection and handling of their personal information.”

We’ve reached out to the National Privacy Commission in the Philippines for a reaction to the Cambridge Analytica revelations.

Indonesia does not yet have a comprehensive regulation protecting personal data — and concerned consumers in the country can but hope this latest Facebook privacy scandal will act as a catalyst for change.

Elsewhere, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada announced that it was opening a formal investigation into Facebook on March 26. In an op-ed, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien also wrote that the Cambridge Analytica scandal underscored deficiencies in the country’s privacy laws.

“At the moment, for example, federal political parties are not subject to privacy laws,” he said. “This is clearly unacceptable. Information about our political views is highly sensitive and therefore particularly worthy of protection. We must take action in the face of serious allegations that democracy is being manipulated through analysis of the personal information of voters. Bringing parties under privacy laws would be a step in the right direction.”

Back in Europe, the UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, was already investigating Facebook as part of a wider investigation into data analytics for political purposes which it kicked off in May 2017.

We’ve asked if the agency intends to also open a second investigation into Facebook in light of the 1M+ UK users affected by the CA data mishandling — and will update this post with any response.

Late last month the UK’s information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, revealed the watchdog had been looking into Facebook’s partner category service as part of its political probe, examining how the company used third party data to inform targeted advertising.

In a statement she said she had raised the service as “a significant area of concern” with Facebook — and welcomed Facebook’s decision to shutter it.

And last month the ICO was also granted a warrant to enter and search Cambridge Analytica’s offices.

Reacting to the Cambridge Analytica scandal last month, Andrea Jelinek, chair of the European Union’s influential data protection body, the Article 29 Working Party — which is made up of reps of all the national DPAs — said the group would be supporting the ICO’s investigation.

“As a rule personal data cannot be used without full transparency on how it is used and with whom it is shared. This is therefore a very serious allegation with far-reaching consequences for data protection rights of individuals and the democratic process,” she said in a statement. “ICO, the UK ́s data protection authority, is conducting the investigation into this matter. As Chair of the Article 29 Working Party, I fully support their investigation. The Members of the Article 29 Working Party will work together in this process.”

Also last month the European Commission’s justice and consumer affairs commissioner, Vera Jourova, told the BBC that the executive body would like to see new legislation in the US to strengthen data protection.

In Europe the incoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) beefs up the enforcement of privacy rules with tighter requirements on how data is handled and a new regime of tougher fines for violations.

“We would like to see more robust and reliable legislation on American side,” said Jourova. “Something similar or comparable with the GDPR. And I believe that one day it will happen also in United States and that’s why I am now so curious how American society will react on this scandal — and other scandals which might come.”

The EC has a specific lever to press the US on this point — in the form of the Privacy Shield arrangement which simplifies the process of authorizing personal data flows between the EU and the US by allowing companies to self-certify their adherence to a set of privacy principles.

Both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica are signatories to Privacy Shield — and are currently listed as ‘active participants’ in the framework (for now).

The mechanism was negotiated as a direct replacement for Safe Harbor — after Europe’s top court struck down that earlier arrangement, in 2015, in the wake of the Snowden disclosures about US government mass surveillance programs.

The Privacy Shield arrangement has its critics. It also includes a regime of annual reviews. In the BBC interview Jourova made a point of reminding the US that the arrangement — which thousands of companies rely on to keep their data flows moving — remains under constant review.

She also said she would be writing to Facebook seeking answers about the Cambridge Analytica scandal. “What we want from Facebook is to obey and to respect the European laws,” she added.

For its part Facebook caused confusion about its commitment to raising data protection standards on its platform this week after founder Mark Zuckerberg told a Reuters journalist that it will not be universally applying GDPR for all its users — given the law applies for all Facebook’s international users that essentially means the company intends to apply a lower privacy standard for North American users (whose data is processed in the US, rather than in Ireland where its international HQ is located, within the EU).

However in a follow up conference call with journalists Zuckerberg made some carefully worded remarks that seem to further fog the issue — saying: “We intend to make all the same controls available everywhere, not just in Europe” yet going on to caveat that statement with: “Is it going to be exactly the same format? Probably not. We’ll need to figure out what makes sense in different markets with different laws in different places.”

At this stage it remains unclear whether Facebook will universally apply GDPR or not. Zuckerberg’s remarks suggest there will indeed be some discrepancies in how it handles data protection for different users — what those differences will be remains to be seen.

In remarks made on Twitter today, Jourova described the growing scale of the data misuse scandal as “very worrying” — and said the Commission “will watch closely” how the company’s application of GDPR “will work in practice”.

Yesterday the Facebook founder also revealed that search tools on the platform had made it possible for “malicious actors” to discover the identities and collect information on most of its 2 billion users worldwide — essentially confessing to yet another massive data leak.

He said Facebook had now disabled the tool.

As with the millions of Facebook users whose data was improperly passed to Cambridge Analytica, the company is unlikely to be able to precisely confirm the full extent of how the search loophole was exploited to leak personal data.

Nor will it be able to delete any of the personal information that was maliciously swiped.