WASHINGTON—The Trump administration said Monday that it is evaluating prospects for new sanctions against Russian entities and companies involved in Syria’s chemical-weapons program, a day after a top diplomat said Washington was ready to impose new punitive actions.
“We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future,“ White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters Monday. ”We’re evaluating, but nothing to announce right now.”
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Auditors wrote that the E.P.A.’s “failure to comply with a governmentwide statutory requirement that an agency notify the appropriations committees before it spends more than $5,000 for the office of a presidential appointee” was a violation of the law and should be reported to Congress and the president.
In an eight-page letter to lawmakers, Thomas H. Armstrong, the G.A.O.’s general counsel, said the agency did not send advance notice to Congress when it paid $43,238.68 from its Environmental Programs and Management budget to pay for the installation of the soundproof booth.
The G.A.O. reports its findings to Congress but has little enforcement power of its own.
Senator Tom Udall, the New Mexico Democrat who requested the investigation along with three other members of Congress, said Mr. Pruitt was “blatantly breaking laws and ethics rules that protect taxpayers from government waste, fraud and abuse in order to help himself to perks and special favors.”
Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over the E.P.A., also criticized the agency, while not identifying Mr. Pruitt by name.
“It is critical that E.P.A. and all federal agencies comply with notification requirements to Congress before spending taxpayer dollars,” Senator Barrasso said in a statement. “E.P.A. must give a full public accounting of this expenditure and explain why the agency thinks it was complying with the law.”
Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in a statement, “E.P.A. is addressing G.A.O.’s concern, with regard to Congressional notification about this expense, and will be sending Congress the necessary information this week.”
The G.A.O. report noted that federal laws would not have blocked E.P.A. from purchasing the phone booth, and Ms. Bowman said that the accountability office had recognized the need for employees to have access to secure telephone lines to handle sensitive information.
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The other report Monday, from the E.P.A.’s own inspector general, an independent office within agency, did not draw any conclusions as to whether Mr. Pruitt or his chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, violated laws in using the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 to hire officials and award raises.
Rather, it provided more than 80 pages of “requests for personnel action” showing that Mr. Jackson, often with the signed authorization of Mr. Pruitt, handled most of the paperwork associated with the employees.
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Arthur A. Elkins Jr., the E.P.A. Inspector General, indicated that more may be coming from his office regarding agency hiring practices, and said the report Monday was merely to alert officials to “certain factual information while our audit continues.”
A spokesman for the E.P.A., Jahan Wilcox, said in a statement that Mr. Pruitt did not determine his appointee’s salaries or raises. That, he said, is done by the E.P.A. chief of staff, White House liaison, and career human resource officials.
“Salaries are based on work history, and any increases are due to either new and additional responsibilities or promotions,” Mr. Wilcox said. “Salary determinations are made to avoid disparities among positions of equivalent or similar responsibilities, to the extent possible.”
He said that the agency would continue to provide information to the inspector general for any further inquiries.
The use of the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 to hire political appointees and grant raises to two Oklahoma aides has, in particular, drawn the ire of Democrats. According to documents provided under the Freedom of Information Act to American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group, Mr. Pruitt used the law to bring on board at least 20 political appointees, known as “administratively determined” hires.
Among those hires were Sarah Greenwalt, who served as general counsel for Mr. Pruitt when he served as attorney general of Oklahoma, and Millan Hupp, who was a financial and political consultant for Mr. Pruitt’s political action committees in Oklahoma.
The E.P.A. has acknowledged that it asked for Ms. Greenwalt’s salary to be raised from $107,435 to $164,200, and for Ms. Hupp’s to be raised from $86,460 to $114,590, under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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In an interview on April 4 with Fox News, Mr. Pruitt denied responsibility for the raises. “I found out this yesterday and I corrected the action, and we are in the process of finding out how it took place and correcting it,” he said.
The next day, Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, issued a statement taking responsibility for the raises and saying that Mr. Pruitt “had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired.”
Mr. Pruitt is not the first E.P.A. administrator to hire under the drinking water law. Agencies are allowed to fill up to 30 administratively determined positions and that authority has been used by both President Barack Obama and the elder President George Bush. Critics, however, said it was unusual to use the authority to hire deputy assistant administrators as Mr. Pruitt has.
Also on Monday, the inspector general for the Department of Interior reviewed costs associated with charter flights that Secretary Ryan Zinke took and found no violation of laws.
But investigators concluded that a $12,377 charter flight the secretary took in June to his home state of Montana from Las Vegas, where he was speaking to a hockey team, might have been avoided if agency employees had worked with the hockey team to better accommodate the secretary’s schedule.
Nonetheless, Mr. Zinke “generally followed relevant law, policy, rules and regulations” when he chartered the flight, auditors said.
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The fighting began at 7:15 p.m. ET Sunday, and it wasn’t until just before 3 a.m. Monday that the facility was fully secured, the South Carolina Department of Corrections tweeted.
Bryan Stirling, director of the Department of Corrections, told reporters that after the first fight broke out in one dorm, a second and third started about an hour and a half later in two other dorms. Emergency officials were left scrambling to get proper backup from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, a statewide law enforcement agency.
Forty-four officers were on duty at a facility that houses about 1,500 inmates, Stirling said.
While it might normally take one to two hours to safely clear a dorm, which houses about 250 inmates, this was an unusual case because of the series of fights in three separate dorms, corrections officials said.
“We will gather a force that is safe, and we will go in and take that dorm back with force,” Stirling said. “We are not going to put our officers and other staff in harm’s way.”
Inmates did not resist when the various dorms were taken back and brought under control, according to authorities.
Stirling couldn’t confirm an Associated Press report from an inmate who said he witnessed the violence and saw bodies “literally stacked on top of each other.” Stirling said bodies were left along fences, but were placed there by other inmates, not officers.
Several emergency crews across the region were called to the “mass casualty” situation, Lee County Fire and Rescue tweeted earlier Monday.
The inmates who died were later identified as Raymond Scott, 28; Michael Milledge, 44; Damonte Rivera, 24; Eddie Gaskins, 32; Joshua Jenkins, 33; Corey Scott, 38; and Cornelius McClary, 33.
Lee Correctional, about 40 miles east of Columbia, houses some of South Carolina’s most violent and longest-serving offenders. Two officers were stabbed in a 2015 fight. One inmate killed another in February.
A guard was also overpowered by several inmates last month at Lee Correctional, allowing them to take control of a building for more than an hour.
In another situation in 2012, an officer was attacked while escorting a nurse in one of the buildings, leading to a six-hour standoff. Inmates reportedly used smuggled cellphones to call 911 with their demands, but were stopped after more than 100 officers and agents used tear gas to get inside.
Smuggled cellphones continue to be a major problem throughout Southern prisons. In South Carolina, officers have found and taken one phone for every three inmates, the highest rate in the country, NBC News reported last year.
McMaster said he favors allowing the Federal Communications Commission to jam cellphone signals around prisons, which could deter smuggling and other criminal activity behind bars. The FCC has argued that it’s up to prisons to police cellphone use and worries that interfering with cell signals could affect users outside the prisons.
South Carolina, meanwhile, is also grappling with a rise in inmate killings, state data shows.
The number of inmates killed in prison by other inmates rose to 12 in 2017 from three in 2015. Two of the deaths last year occurred at Lee Correctional, according to The State.
Stirling said chronic understaffing has meant that fewer employees are available to oversee inmates. Lee Correctional has a nearly 30 percent vacancy for front-line officers.
Adding to the difficulties that prisons face is that inmates are often unwilling to snitch about impending violence.
“It’s hard to investigate these matters in prison because folks just aren’t going to tell,” Stirling told The State in January. “That’s just the prison culture. You see something, you don’t say anything.”
State law enforcement officials said Monday that they would continue investigating the inmate deaths.
Harry Anderson, the amiable actor who presided over the NBC comedy “Night Court” for nine seasons, has died at his home in Asheville, N.C., according to a local media report. He was 65.
Anderson was found at his home by police officers early Monday morning, according to a report by WSPA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Spartanburg, N.C. No foul play was suspected, police told the station.
Anderson was a magician-turned-actor who was known as a rabid fan of jazz singer Mel Torme. The affection for Torme was woven into his TV alter ego, Judge Harry Stone, a quirky character who ruled the bench at a Manhattan night court. The sitcom was a mainstay of NBC from 1984 to 1992. Anderson earned three consecutive Emmy nominations for his work on the show from 1985-1987.
Anderson gained national attention after he guest starred as grifter Harry “the Hat” Gittes on NBC’s “Cheers” in the early 1980s. On “Night Court,” Anderson played a goofy but big-hearted judge who encountered a host of oddball characters and cases every week. The series also starred John Larroquette, Richard Moll, Charles Robinson, Marsha Warfield, and Markie Post. Anderson also directed two episodes of the series and wrote or co-wrote five episodes during its long run.
After “Night Court,” Anderson co-starred as columnist Dave Barry in the CBS comedy “Dave’s World,” which ran for four seasons. Anderson moved to New Orleans in 2000 to open the nightclub Oswald’s Speakeasy, where he performed a mix of comedy and magic, and a magic and curio shop dubbed Sideshow.
Anderson logged a guest spot in FX’s “Son of the Beach” in 2002 and a 2008 appearance on NBC’s “30 Rock.” But for the most part, he stayed away from Hollywood. He moved to North Carolina in 2006 after New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Born in Rhode Island, Anderson reportedly had a difficult childhood and moved frequently with his mother, who he once described in an interview with Playboy as “a hustler.” He moved to California at the age of 16 to be with his father. He became a street performer and reportedly ran a lucrative shell game on the streets of San Francisco for a time.
Anderson made his way to L.A.’s famed Magic Castle in the early 1980s, where he connected with an agent, according to TCM.com. He made several appearances on “Saturday Night Live” around this time. After “Night Court” made him a star, Anderson hosted “SNL” in 1985.
Anderson’s other credits included guest shots on “Tales From the Crypt” and HBO’s “Tanner ’88,” “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” and “The John Larroquette Show.” He starred in the 1990 ABC miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “It.”
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Stormy Daniels speaks outside of court.
Time
NEW YORK — A federal judge dealt a legal setback to President Trump on Monday, denying his bid to review records seized in an FBI search of his personal attorney’s home and office before federal prosecutors review them.
The decision came in a court hearing where it was revealed that the client list of presidential lawyer Michael Cohen, who represented Trump in offering hush money to a porn star, also includes one of the president’s biggest cheerleaders: Fox News host Sean Hannity.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood issued the ruling after lawyers for the Department of Justice, Cohen, the Trump Organization, and Trump himself squared off in a high-stakes clash over attorney-client privilege. The attorneys clashed over who should be able to see records seized last week in an FBI raid on Cohen’s home, hotel room, and offices .
On hand in Manhattan federal court for the arguments was a spectator much in the news: Stormy Daniels, the pornographic video actress who claims to have had a consensual affair with Trump. She is trying to void the terms of a $130,000 hush-money settlement she reached with Cohen just before the 2016 presidential election.
The Justice Department wants a group of its own attorneys known as a “taint team” — those not conducting a criminal investigation of Cohen — to examine the records and decide which ones can’t be used because they involve attorney-client privilege. Attorneys for Cohen suggested appointing an impartial special master to decide. And Trump himself wants to review the records with his lawyers and make his own decision.
“He is objecting that anyone other than himself” be able to make that determination, Trump attorney Joanna Hendon told the court.
More: Who is Michael Cohen? Some see Trump’s lawyer as overzealous bully. Team Trump sees an undying loyalist.
Wood denied Hendon’s application for a temporary restraining order that would block federal investigators from examining the seized material for their criminal investigation. Instead, she instructed prosecutors to assemble and index the seized records and give copies to all parties in the case.
The judge asked the opposing attorneys to submit a joint proposal with four names for a potential special master, whom the judge said “could have some role” in sorting through the seized documents and determining what was privileged.
Wood also authorized prosecutors to conduct electronic reviews of the seized material to determine such things as how often certain names, businesses and events appear in the records. Denying an objection by Hendon, the judge ruled federal investigators could obtain the statistical data without examining the underlying content.
Cohen has become the central figure in a growing presidential sex scandal, accused of using cash payments and non-disclosure agreements in an attempt to silence Trump accusers such Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
His attorneys filed a letter with the court Monday that provided general information about Cohen’s legal work but pointedly withheld the name of one of his three law clients. They argued that the client’s identity should remain sealed to preserve his privacy and avoid subjecting him to embarrassment.
However, Wood ordered Cohen’s lawyers to reveal the unknown third client, saying his identity is not subject to attorney-client privilege. “I understand he doesn’t want his name out there. That’s not enough,” she said.
After some discussion about whether the disclosure would be in writing or in open court, Cohen attorney Stephen Ryan announced the name to audible murmurs in the packed courtroom: “The client’s name is Sean Hannity.”
On his national radio show later, Hannity acknowledged he had sought advice from Cohen but said he never engaged him as an attorney. Cohen never billed him and never represented him in any matter involving a third party, Hannity said.
“Everybody’s going insane here,” Hannity said between radio segments attacking former FBI director James Comey. “I’ve known Michael a long, long time. And let me be very clear to the media: Michael has never represented me in any matter. I’ve never been a client in the traditional sense.”
Hannity said his discussions with Cohen “dealt almost exclusively about real estate.”
“I have occasionally had brief conversations with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective, and I assumed that those conversations were confidential,” he said.
As one of Trump’s most vocal supporters — and one who reportedly speaks to the president frequently — Hannity attacked the FBI for the raid on Cohen’s offices last week without disclosing details of his relationship with Cohen.
The Bubble: Mueller has ‘declared war against the president,’ Sean Hannity says
Summer Zervos: The former “Apprentice” contestant has accused the president of sexual misconduct, including kissing and groping her in the years after she left the show. She has filed suit against him, saying he made defamatory remarks about her after she came forward with her story.
Seen here, Summer Zervos, left, stands with her lawyer Gloria Allred outside the New York County Criminal Court on Dec. 5, 2017, in New York. The judge in the case allowed on March 20, 2018, Zervos’ defamation suit against Trump to proceed.
resigned from the Republican National Committee after using Cohen to arrange a $1.6 million payment to another Playboy model he reportedly impregnated.
The Cohen raid, conducted by FBI agents with a search warrant a week ago, sought evidence of those payments, which could violate laws on bank fraud and campaign contributions. Trump himself has denied knowing anything about Cohen’s efforts to pay off his accusers, and has also denied the affairs.
On Twitter Sunday, Trump decried the breach of his communications with Cohen. “Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past,” he said. “All lawyers are deflated and concerned!”
Trump’s personal lawyers argued Sunday that the Justice Department can’t fairly evaluate whether Cohen’s records are protected by attorney-client privilege.
More: Attorney asks judge to allow Trump to review evidence the FBI seized from Cohen
Hendon said in court papers that prosecutors have already made up their minds that attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply — “a bias that virtually guarantees that there will not be a fair privilege review of the seized materials.”
She argued that if investigators wanted to see Cohen’s work for Trump, they should have issued a subpoena.
The Justice Department argued that Cohen and Trump haven’t provided evidence that Trump sought legal advice from Cohen, and that Cohen acted more as a “fixer” than a lawyer.
“Under the President’s theory, every person who has communicated with a lawyer would be given the power to turn every search warrant into a subpoena and to demand the return of lawfully-seized evidence in order to undertake their own review of the evidence. Such a rule is unworkable and ripe for abuse,” wrote Robert Khuzami, deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Outside the courthouse, Daniels’ lawyer claimed vindication in his client’s attempts to shed light on Cohen’s tactics in protecting Trump over the years.
“He is radioactive,” said Michael Avenatti, who represents the porn actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. “The president trusted Mr. Cohen as his fixer for years. He trusted him with his innermost secrets, and I think the chickens are coming home to roost.”
Michael Cohen, an attorney for Donald Trump, arrives in Trump Tower in New York on Dec. 16, 2016. Stormy Daniels, the porn star whom President Donald Trump’s personal attorney acknowledged paying $130,000 just before Election Day, believes she is now free to discuss her alleged sexual encounter with Trump, her manager xtold The Associated Press Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, believes that Cohen invalidated a non-disclosure agreement after two news stories: One, in which Cohen told The New York Times that he made the six-figure payment with his personal funds, and another in the Daily Beast, which reported that Cohen was shopping a book proposal that would touch on Daniels’ story, said the manager, Gina Rodriguez.
Gregory Korte reported from Washington.
David S. Buckel, a prominent gay rights lawyer and environmental advocate, self-immolated in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Saturday.
Jose F. Moreno/AP
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Jose F. Moreno/AP
David S. Buckel, a prominent gay rights lawyer and environmental advocate, self-immolated in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Saturday.
Jose F. Moreno/AP
A prominent lawyer who spent years fighting for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people set himself on fire Saturday.
David S. Buckel’s charred remains were found in a New York park, The New York Times reported. In a letter Buckel emailed to the publication and other media outlets earlier that day, he wrote, “Honorable purpose in life invites honorable purpose in death.”
A former marriage project director for Lambda Legal, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights of LGBT people, Buckel played a major role in a long, dark battle for recognition and equality.
In one of his most noted cases, he represented the mother of Brandon Teena, a transgender man who had notified a Nebraska sheriff that he had been raped. The sheriff informed Teena’s assailants who killed him in the days that followed. “It should not be the case that reporting a crime makes matters worse for you,” Buckel told The Daily Nebraskan in 2001. Eventually the sheriff was found liable for failing to protect Teena and his brutal murder was dramatized in a film called Boys Don’t Cry starring Hillary Swank.
In 1996, Buckel represented an openly gay Wisconsin student who dropped out of high school after suffering prolonged physical and verbal bullying by peers, with no intervention by the school administration. In a landmark decision, the federal court ruled that the school should have prevented anti-gay harassment.
In 2006, he argued to the New Jersey Supreme Court that gay couples were not receiving equal protection of the law after municipalities them denied marriage licenses. As he embarked on the marriage equity case, he asked his future legal partner, “Do you want to be involved in the greatest civil rights movement of our time?”
Through his career, he stood up to the Boy Scouts of America, the U.S. military and the I.R.S., according to Cornell Law School, where he received his law degree. He also represented low-income and disabled people.
By 2016, Buckel was focusing on protecting the environment. As a senior organics recovery coordinator for an initiative hosted by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, he wrote about how Brooklynites were composting food with the help of solar and wind energy.
On the last day of his life, he reportedly emphasized environmental responsibility, stating in a note to the media, “Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather. Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”
It was a warm, sunny morning, and a Twitter account by Prospect Park had tweeted, “Host your child’s next birthday party in Brooklyn’s Backyard. Families can rent the Prospect Park Carousel for birthdays and special occasions.”
The Times said that authorities had cleared away Buckel’s body by 11 a.m., and a dark, circular patch was left in its place marked by two cones.
The New York City Police Department told NPR that a note was left at the scene. “It is being treated at the time as a suicide but it’s still under investigation,” a spokesperson said.
Camilla Taylor, Lambda director of constitutional litigation and acting legal director, said in a written statement, “We have lost a movement leader, a colleague, and a friend. We will honor his life by continuing his fight for a better world.”
Houston (AP) — Former first lady Barbara Bush is in “failing health” and won’t seek additional medical treatment, a Bush family spokesman said Sunday.
“Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs. Bush, now age 92, has decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care,” spokesman Jim McGrath said in a news release.
McGrath did not elaborate as to the nature of Bush’s health problems. She has been treated for decades for Graves’ disease, which is a thyroid condition, had heart surgery in 2009 for a severe narrowing of her main heart valve and was hospitalized a year before that for surgery on a perforated ulcer.
“It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself — thanks to her abiding faith — but for others,” McGrath said. “She is surrounded by a family she adores, and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving.”
Bush, who is at home in Houston, is one of only two first ladies who was also the mother of a president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, the nation’s second president, and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president.
Bush married George H.W. Bush on Jan. 6, 1945. They had six children and have been married longer than any presidential couple in American history.
Eight years after she and her husband left the White House, Mrs. Bush stood with her husband as their son George W. was sworn in as the 43rd president.
President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement Sunday evening that “the President’s and first lady’s prayers are with all of the Bush family during this time.”
Bush is known for her white hair and her triple-strand fake pearl necklace.
Her brown hair began to gray in the 1950s, while her 3 -year-old daughter Pauline, known to her family as Robin, underwent treatment for leukemia and eventually died in October
1953. She later said dyed hair didn’t look good on her and credited the color to the public’s perception of her as “everybody’s grandmother.”
Her pearls sparked a national fashion trend when she wore them to her husband’s inauguration in 1989. The pearls became synonymous with Bush, who later said she selected them to hide the wrinkles in her neck. The candid admission only bolstered her common sense and down-to-earth public image.
Her 93-year-old husband, the nation’s 41st president who served from 1989 to 1993, also has had health issues in recent years. In April 2017, he was hospitalized in Houston for two weeks for a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. He was hospitalized months earlier, also for pneumonia. He has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.
Before being president, he served as a congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan’s vice president.
Barbara Pierce Bush was born June 8, 1925, in Rye, New York. Her father was the publisher of McCall’s and Redbook magazines. She and George H.W. Bush married when she was 19 and while he was a young naval aviator. After World War II, the Bushes moved to Texas where he went into the oil business.
Along with her memoirs, she’s the author of “C. Fred’s Story” and “Millie’s Book,” based on the lives of her dogs. Proceeds from the books benefited adult and family literacy programs. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy began during her White House years with the goal of improving the lives of disadvantaged Americans by boosting literacy among parents and their children. The foundation partners with local programs and has awarded more than $40 million to create or expand more than 1,500 literacy programs nationwide.
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This story has been corrected to show George H.W. Bush is 93, not 94.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin apologized on Sunday to people who he said were hurt by his “guarantee” that children were abused after a massive teacher walkout shut schools on Friday.
In a video posted on his YouTube page, Bevin, a Republican, said he had been trying to address the “unintended consequences” of closing schools when he told reporters n Friday that “somewhere in Kentucky today, a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”
“I guarantee you somewhere today, a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them,” Bevin added.
The comments led to a resolution from the state’s Republican-led House of Representatives condemning Bevin.
“While this body may not agree with all that the teachers asserted, it is without question that the right to of freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances are the backbone of our democracy,” the resolution said.
At least 44 school districts across Kentucky closed on Friday after thousands of teachers called in sick to attend a rally at the state capital, NBC affiliate WAVE of Louisville reported. They asked lawmakers to override Bevin’s veto of two bills that would have increased public education funding.
PARIS — The Latest on Macron’s televised appeareance (all times local):
12:30 a.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to ease the anger of striking French railway workers who oppose a planned extensive reform of their profession.
Macron announced Sunday night that the French state will take over part of the multibillion-dollar debt of France’s national SNCF rail company, starting in 2020. The debt takeover was one of the railway unions’ demands.
The president also said he wanted to reassure railway workers that SNCF would remain a national railway company with 100 percent of its shares public.
Macron said privatizing SCNF “does not make sense.” His comments came during a live interview on French TV channel BFM and online investigative website Mediapart.
The French leader did confirm plans to revoke a special status that allows rail drivers to retain jobs and other benefits for life. The government wants to do away with the protections to make the rail sector more competitive.
The railway unions began national rolling strikes earlier this month.
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10 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron says the joint military strikes by the U.S., France and Britain against Syrian targets were led in retaliation after the Allies got evidence the government of Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own people.
Macron said the strikes were “retaliation, not an act of war” in a live interview Sunday on French TV channel BMF and online investigative site Mediapart.
The president says the allies had “full international legitimacy to intervene” in Syria because the strikes were about enforcing international humanitarian law.
The French leader said the allies were forced to act without an explicit mandate from the U.N. because of the “constant stalemate of the Russians” in the Security Council.
Macron says the allies “arrived at a time when these strikes had become indispensable.”
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7:50 p.m.
Almost one year into his term, French President Emmanuel Macron will discuss the airstrikes in Syria and defend an economic reform agenda that has prompted widespread worker strikes.
Macron was scheduled to make a television appearance on Sunday night. It will be his first since the U.S., France and the U.K. launched the airstrikes early Saturday.
The 40-year-old leader is expected to explain his decision to join the operation, the biggest test yet of his foreign policy.
In the domestic field, he is likely to highlight France’s improved economic environment, despite simmering anger over his labor law changes.
Retirees, hospital workers, students and others have taken to the streets to protest his government’s planned reforms.
Train workers have launched on-and-off strikes over a railway labor reform plan, disrupting traffic nationwide.
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