Representatives for Mr. Lauer did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

News of Mr. Lauer’s sudden downfall shook the television world, where he had established himself as one of the most powerful men in his industry. Even President Trump — who himself has denied multiple allegations of sexual misconduct — weighed in, seizing on Mr. Lauer’s firing to denounce NBC News’s coverage and call for other senior figures at NBC News to be ousted.

Mr. Lauer, 59, joins an ignominious group of media figures felled by the recent spate of harassment claims, including the studio mogul Harvey Weinstein, the comedian Louis C.K., the CBS host Charlie Rose and the political journalist Mark Halperin. Journalists at several news outlets had recently conducted interviews with former and current NBC employees about Mr. Lauer’s behavior, alerting the network to potential articles about him. But it was the formal complaint on Monday that prompted NBC to take action.

In an editorial meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Lack said that Mr. Lauer’s involvement with the woman who made the complaint began while they were in Sochi, Russia, to cover the Winter Olympics in 2014, and that their involvement continued after they returned to New York, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

Other “Today” hosts learned of Mr. Lauer’s termination around 4 a.m. on Wednesday; staff members were told just minutes before the show went on the air at 7 a.m. Savannah Guthrie, Mr. Lauer’s co-anchor, was visibly shaken when she delivered the news to viewers, describing Mr. Lauer as “a dear, dear friend” and adding that she was “heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story.”

Soon after announcing the dismissal, Ms. Guthrie gripped the hand of Hoda Kotb, who was rushed in as an emergency substitute host. The network did not name a replacement for Mr. Lauer.

Ari Wilkenfeld, a civil rights lawyer with the firm Wilkenfeld, Herendeen Atkinson in Washington, said on Wednesday that he represented the woman who had made the initial complaint to NBC, but declined to identify her. In a statement provided to The Times, he praised the courage of his client and said:

“My client and I met with representatives from NBC’s human resources and legal departments at 6 p.m. on Monday for an interview that lasted several hours. Our impression at this point is that NBC acted quickly, as all companies should, when confronted with credible allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace.”

The woman met with reporters from The Times on Monday, but said she was not ready to discuss it publicly.

Besides his “Today” perch, Mr. Lauer was a genial co-host of events like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and the Winter and Summer Olympics, and he conducted countless interviews with celebrities. He also contributed to NBC News’s political coverage, although he was widely panned after a debate last year in which he appeared to go easy on Mr. Trump while asking aggressive questions of Hillary Clinton.

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The “Today” show caters to — and relies on — an overwhelmingly female audience, and Mr. Lauer is part of a cast that presents itself as a tight-knit family. Behind the scenes, however, the on-set environment could sometimes resemble a boys’ club, particularly in the years before Comcast completed its acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2013, according to interviews with more than half a dozen former staff members.

Jokes about women’s appearances were routine, the former employees said. One former producer recalled a director saying he “wanted some milk” in reference to one woman’s chest and making inappropriate comments about women over an audio feed with multiple people listening. Two former employees recalled colleagues playing a crude game in which they chose which female guests or staff members they would prefer to marry, kill or have sex with.

The former employees spoke anonymously because they feared their career prospects in the industry could be harmed.

Other current and former staff members, however, described a more professional work culture, and said they did not witness harassment. An NBC spokeswoman declined on Wednesday to comment on the “boys’ club” characterization, but pointed out that 13 of 19 senior-level female producers at “Today” had been promoted since 2015.

The woman who described the encounter in 2001 with Mr. Lauer in his office told The Times that the anchor had made inappropriate comments to her shortly after she started as a “Today” producer in the late 1990s.

While traveling with Mr. Lauer for a story, she said, he asked her inappropriate questions over dinner, like whether she had ever cheated on her husband. On the way to the airport, she said, Mr. Lauer sat uncomfortably close to her in the car; she recalled that when she moved away, he said, “You’re no fun.”

In 2001, the woman said, Mr. Lauer, who is married, asked her to his office to discuss a story during a workday. When she sat down, she said, he locked the door, which he could do by pressing a button while sitting at his desk. (People who worked at NBC said the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees.)

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The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse.

The woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later.

On Wednesday, the episode in Mr. Lauer’s office was reported to NBC News after the woman told her then-supervisor, who still works at the network. The woman said an NBC human resources representative had since contacted her.

The woman, who was in her early 40s at the time, told her then-husband about the encounter, which The Times confirmed with him in a phone call. The couple was separated at the time, and later divorced. She also described it to a friend five years ago, which the friend confirmed to The Times.

NBC News has suffered other black eyes, as well. Last year, the network reviewed 2005 footage from the NBC-owned show “Access Hollywood” that revealed Mr. Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitalia. But the footage was released first by a competitor, The Washington Post, embarrassing the NBC news division.

In recent weeks, NBC News was criticized for passing on an exposé of Mr. Weinstein by an MSNBC contributor, Ronan Farrow. Mr. Farrow’s reporting later appeared in The New Yorker, and helped set off the current wave of revelations about abuses by powerful men in media and entertainment.

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President Donald Trump
walks alongside a CNN logo.
AP Images
/ Alan Diaz

• CNN reportedly will boycott the White House’s annual
  Christmas party, due to President Donald Trump’s “continued
  attacks” on the press.
• The party is meant for members of the press and White
  House officials to socialize.
• “Christmas comes early,” White House press secretary
  Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted, following the
  announcement.

---

Citing President Donald Trump’s “continued attacks” on the press,
CNN is boycotting the White House’s
annual Christmas party, according to a Politico report Tuesday.

“CNN will not be attending this year’s White House Christmas
party,” a CNN spokesperson told Politico. “In light of the
President’s continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN, we
do not feel it is appropriate to celebrate with him as his
invited guests.”

Despite not taking part in the festivities, the CNN spokesperson
said that they would provide coverage for the event: “We will
send a White House reporting team to the event and report on it
if news warrants.”

Following the announcement, White House press secretary Sarah
Huckabee Sanders appeared to be elated: “Christmas comes early!
Finally, good news from @CNN,” Sanders tweeted to Politico’s story.

The event, in which members of the press and White House
officials can escape from their ongoing, daily feuds, is being
overshadowed by Trump’s hostile stance towards certain networks,
particularly CNN.

“[Fox News] is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN,
but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major
source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD
very poorly,” Trump tweeted Saturday. “The outside
world does not see the truth from them!”

CNN reporters have since condemned Trump’s statement, one of many
about the network, and replied to his original tweet.

“At CNN we dodge bullets to bring you the news,” tweeted Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s
chief international correspondent. “Nothing fake about that.”

“If President Trump knew the facts, he would never have sent that
tweet,” Amanpour said in another tweet.

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to block President Trump’s pick to be the temporary leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, denying a request by a high-ranking agency employee that she be put in charge instead.

In turning down Leandra English’s request for a temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly acknowledged that the case raised constitutional questions, but he ruled that White House budget director Mick Mulvaney can remain acting CFPB director. Former CFPB litigation counsel Deepak Gupta, representing English, said they would weigh their options to resolve an issue they say has left the six-year old agency and its 1,600 employees in legal limbo.

“There needs to be an answer, and there needs to be a final answer. There needs to be a resolution of this cloud of impropriety hanging over the bureau,” Gupta told reporters after the hearing.

The Trump administration applauded the decision and said the ruling supports its contention that Mulvaney is the rightful acting director.

“It’s time for the Democrats to stop enabling this brazen political stunt by a rogue employee and allow Acting Director Mulvaney to continue the Bureau’s smooth transition into an agency that truly serves to help consumers,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement.

Even before the decision, Mulvaney was moving aggressively to reshape an agency he has criticized in the past. On his first day in the office, he announced a 30-day freeze on the issuance of new rules and hiring. On Tuesday, he started a new Twitter account — @CFPBdirector — and posted a picture of himself at a desk with an American flag in the background. “Busy day at the @CFPB. Digging into the details,” the tweet said. On the agency’s website, Mulvaney is now listed as director with a note that says “Bio coming soon.”

“Anyone who thinks that a Trump administration CFPB would be the same as an Obama administration CFPB is simply being naive,” he told reporters Monday. “Elections have consequences at every agency, including the CFPB.”

That is probably just the beginning of the changes the CFPB could see under the Trump administration. Republicans and the banking industry have complained that the agency, created in reaction to the global financial crisis, lacks accountability and that its rulemaking has made it harder for consumers to get loans. House Republicans approved legislation this year that would strip the CFPB of many of its powers.

“I would expect a sea change,” said Alan Kaplinsky, head of the consumer financial services group for the law firm Ballard Spahr. It could be “a very significant shift in direction, but it won’t happen overnight.”

While Democrats and consumer groups acknowledge it is inevitable that a Trump nominee will lead the agency, they worry that the White House could leave Mulvaney as acting director for months, or longer, before nominating a permanent replacement.

Instead, they say, the Trump administration should be forced to nominate someone who would have to go through an extensive vetting and Senate confirmation process. Then there would be a better chance of securing a director who is less hostile toward the CFPB, they say.

“I do think there is a difference between Mulvaney, and the actions he would try to take as acting director, and a permanent, Senate-confirmed nominee,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. “Some of the Trump nominees have been rejected.”

The tug-of-war over the leadership began last week after former CFPB director Richard Cordray resigned and promoted his chief of staff, English, who he said would run the department on an interim basis. Trump quickly appointed Mulvaney, a longtime critic of the bureau, to the job instead. Each camp claimed that the law was on their side and that they were in charge.

In court, English’s attorney argued that the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which established the agency after the financial crisis, laid out a specific plan of succession authorizing the deputy director to take over until a White House nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Also, they said, Mulvaney cannot wear two hats by simultaneously leading the independent financial regulator while serving as director the Office of Management and Budget.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate argued that Trump had authority under an earlier law, the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act, and cited supporting opinions by the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel and the CFPB’s general counsel.

Kelly, a Trump appointee who joined the federal court in Washington in September, sided with the Trump administration, allowing Mulvaney to stay in place for now. “On its face, the VRA does appear to apply to this situation,” Kelly ruled.

The independent structure of the agency, which Democrats fought to keep under Cordray, now gives Mulvaney a freer hand to operate. Instead of having to consult a multi-member board, the acting director can make many changes alone, industry experts and consumer advocates note. While English would have been likely to keep the status quo, they say, Mulvaney can now make significant changes without much oversight — such as abandoning investigations or shrinking the agency’s budget.

The CFPB, for example, has been working on rules for the past few years to address bank overdraft fees and the tactics used by debt collectors. It has also finalized regulations targeting the billions of dollars in fees collected by payday lenders offering high-cost, short-term loans. Those regulations don’t go into effect until 2019, giving Mulvaney time to alter the rules or get rid of them, consumer advocates say. “The payday rule is certainly at risk,” Donner said.

The agency has also announced cases against dozens of financial institutions that are pending in court or under investigation. Mulvaney or another Trump appointee could decide to abandon or rethink those efforts.

“I think he [Mulvaney] will take a fresh look at all of the CFPB pending investigations and decide whether or not CFPB should continue them,” said Kaplinsky, who has represented firms against the agency.

The industry is also looking toward more fundamental changes to the way the agency operates. The banking industry, for example, has been critical of a CFPB database of consumer complaints against financial institutions. They say the database sometimes includes incorrect information or unproven grievances. Community banks have rumbled that the agency unfairly hobbles them with the same regulatory burdens as their much larger competitors.

Before the Tuesday court hearing, protesters assembled outside the CFPB’s Washington offices, holding signs and chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Mick Mulvaney has to go” as employees entered and exited the building. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who came up with the idea for the CFPB, told the crowd that the fight was not about politics. “This is about what is fair. This agency has forced the biggest banks in the country to return more than $12 billion directly to people they’ve cheated,” she said. “Some of those people were Democrats and some of those people were Republicans. It didn’t matter.”

Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

“I think we’re going to get it passed,” Mr. Trump said at the White House later in the day. “It’s going to have lots of adjustments before it ends, but the end result will be a very, very massive — the largest in the history of our country — tax cut.”

Republicans emerged from the lunch increasingly optimistic about the bill’s fate and played down the concerns that had threatened to bedevil its passage.

Three key Republican holdouts, Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, sounded positive about the bill on Tuesday after gaining assurances from Mr. Trump and Republican leadership that those worries would be addressed.

The bill passed the Senate Budget Committee on a party-line vote

Photo

Among those who voted the bill out of committee were Mr. Johnson and Mr. Corker, both of whom had said on Monday they would oppose the legislation without changes to address their individual concerns. Mr. Johnson wants more favorable treatment for pass-through businesses and Mr. Corker wants assurances the $1.5 trillion tax bill won’t add to the deficit.

But the meeting with Mr. Trump and discussions with Republican leaders seemed to have swayed them enough to vote to advance the plan.

A vote on Wednesday could open the bill to debate and amendments

On Wednesday, the Senate will vote on a procedural motion to begin consideration of the bill on the Senate floor. If that passes, the Senate can begin offering and debating amendments to the bill, which is a precursor to a floor vote that could happen on Friday.

But there are still hurdles ahead, including the need to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation. And there doesn’t seem to be a lot of receptivity to the change that Mr. Corker wants made, which would require some taxes to increase if the overall package adds to the deficit.

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So while the Senate took a big step forward, it still has several more paces to go before declaring victory.

Mr. Trump attacked ‘Chuck and Nancy,’ and then they pulled out of a White House meeting

Photo

The two top Democrats, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, refused to attend a meeting with Mr. Trump and congressional leaders that was scheduled for the afternoon after the president posted on Twitter this morning that he was meeting with “Chuck and Nancy” to discuss ways to avert a government shutdown and wrote “I don’t see a deal!”

“Given that the President doesn’t see a deal between Democrats and the White House, we believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress instead,” Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi said in a statement.

“Rather than going to the White House for a show meeting that won’t result in an agreement, we’ve asked Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan to meet this afternoon. We don’t have any time to waste in addressing the issues that confront us, so we’re going to continue to negotiate with Republican leaders who may be interested in reaching a bipartisan agreement.”

Just a few months ago, Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi seemed to be forging a fruitful partnership with Mr. Trump, who refers to them as “Chuck and Nancy.” In September, the president sided with them to strike a fiscal deal that raised the debt limit and extended government funding into December.

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Now, lawmakers are facing another pressing fiscal deadline, as government funding expires Dec. 8. Republican leaders in Congress will need Democratic votes in order to keep the government open beyond that date. Mr. Trump’s tweet follows similar comments about the minority party on Monday, when he said he did not need Democrats to support the tax bill moving through Congress.

The White House spokeswoman said that the Democrats’ boycott showed ‘pettiness’

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, accused Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer of “pettiness” in declining to attend Tuesday afternoon’s meeting.

“It’s disappointing that Senator Schumer and Leader Pelosi are refusing to come to the table and discuss urgent issues,” she said in a statement. “The president’s invitation to the Democrat leaders still stands and he encourages them to put aside their pettiness, stop the political grandstanding, show up and get to work. These issues are too important.”

Republican leaders say Democrats were playing politics with their boycott

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, said in a statement that Democrats need to show up at the meeting if they care about preventing a government shutdown.

“We have important work to do, and Democratic leaders have continually found new excuses not to meet with the administration to discuss these issues,” they said. “Democrats are putting government operations, particularly resources for our men and women on the battlefield, at great risk by pulling these antics. There is a meeting at the White House this afternoon, and if Democrats want to reach an agreement, they will be there.”

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Democrats have deep concerns about the tax bill, too

Mr. Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor, pounded on Republicans and Mr. Trump for blocking Democrats from participating in the tax overhaul, saying it would help the rich and corporations instead of the middle class.

“It’s an issue crying out for a bipartisan solution,” he said of the tax rewrite. “There are a lot of areas we agree. We have to work to find a middle ground that’s acceptable to both parties.” The bill as it stands, he said, would balloon the debt and help hedge funds and lobbyists but not average Americans.

Democrats are also worried about a provision in the Senate bill that repeals the requirement that most Americans have health insurance or pay a penalty. Dropping the so-called individual mandate would produce savings that would help pay for the tax cuts, since people would forgo health insurance and therefore the government would spend less on subsidized health coverage.

Right now, about 4.5 percent of tax filers pay a penalty rather than get health insurance. Here’s a look at who they are and where they live:

A “dynamic” economic analysis may come on Wednesday

Senate Republicans have been speeding ahead toward a vote on their tax bill even without a “dynamic” score from the Joint Committee on Taxation that would show the effects of the proposed tax cuts on the economy. That score is important, since it will show the extent to which the tax cuts will boost growth and avoid adding to the deficit.

The analysis could roil the tax debate at the 11th hour by giving pause to deficit hawks in the Senate. It would be the first attempt by the committee to project the economic effects of the Republican tax plans. The House passed its bill this month before the committee could complete a so-called dynamic score of the bill.

Outside analysts expect the score will show that the Senate bill does not create nearly enough economic growth to generate revenues to offset those lost via tax cuts. Such a showing would undermine Republicans’ claims that the bill would pay for itself.

In a letter that was sent on Monday to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the J.C.T. said there is still a chance that such an analysis could be ready this week, perhaps as soon as late Wednesday.

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“The Joint Committee staff is currently involved in analyzing the macroeconomic effects of the bill, and is trying to complete the analysis for purposes of producing the estimate of the budget effects” in time to inform debate on the Senate floor, Thomas Barthold, chief of staff of the J.C.T. wrote in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the finance committee.

Thus far, dynamic analyses of the Republican tax bills have failed to match the promises of the party’s lawmakers that the tax cuts would pay for themselves by creating a surge of economic growth and new revenues.

Mr. Barthold could make no guarantees that the analysis would be ready in time and he warned that it would not account for any last minute changes that are made to the bill.

“When we produce these estimates, we subject them to a number of quality checks before releasing them, and cannot guarantee a specific release time until we have completed that process,” he said.

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The battle over who will lead a prominent federal consumer watchdog agency escalated Monday, with dueling leaders each claiming control before a federal judge during a chaotic day of public appearances and maneuvering.

By the end of the day, it was still unclear who was the true acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — President Trump’s pick of White House budget director Mick Mulvaney or one of the agency’s longtime executives, Leandra English.

Mulvaney showed up at the agency’s Washington headquarters early in the morning bearing a bag of doughnuts and then firing off an email ordering the staff to disregard any orders from English. His office tweeted photos of Mulvaney taking part in office meetings and he invited in the press to announce that he had declared a temporary freeze on hiring and rulemaking.

Trump “wants me to get it [the agency] back to the point where it can protect people without trampling on capitalism,” Mulvaney said.

English, meanwhile, came to the office and sent an early morning email welcoming the staff of 1,600 back from the Thanksgiving holiday and then headed to Capitol Hill, where she met with several Democratic lawmakers. She held her first public appearance before a barrage of cameras and reporters sitting alongside Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Barely audible, English said the lawmakers had been “very helpful.”

Leandra English, a longtime executive with the CFPB, speaks with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) before a meeting on Capitol Hill Monday. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

The confusion promised to continue for at least another day after a federal judge — a recent Trump appointee — declined to rule immediately on English’s request for a temporary restraining order barring Mulvaney from taking over.

English’s attorney, Deepak Gupta, asked U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly to rule as “expeditiously as possible” in a way that could be immediately appealed. “Everyone needs to know who is director of the bureau,” Gupta said.

The standoff is quickly turning into one of the highest-profile efforts by the Trump administration to roll back the government’s oversight over the financial industry. And it is bringing to a head a long-simmering partisan fight over the CFPB, an agency established in 2011 in response to the global financial crisis.

The tug-of-war left the CFPB’s staff and contractors befuddled over how to proceed. Legal experts said any actions taken by either Mulvaney or English could later be challenged in court should they not ultimately prevail — effectively freezing the agency’s ongoing work. The CFPB, for example, is working on rules for debt collectors, which are now likely to stall, legal experts said.

Republicans have been trying to gain control of the agency for years, complaining that the CFPB lacked accountability and its rulemaking made it harder for consumers to get loans. Republicans in Congress, for example, recently voted to block a regulation allowing consumers to sue their banks, arguing it would trigger a flood of frivolous lawsuits and drive up costs. On Twitter, Trump called the agency a “total disaster.”

[Wall Street wins big as Senate votes to roll back regulations allowing consumers to sue their banks]

But Democrats and consumer advocates have cheered the CFPB’s aggressive actions against big financial institutions, noting its record $100 million fine against Wells Fargo for opening millions of fake accounts consumers didn’t want. The agency, they say, was intentionally created to be independent of Congress and from political pressure from the White House. Schumer said he recalled language being added to the legislation about who could temporarily replace an absent director to further limit political interference.

“We purposely put that to avoid putting a fox in charge of the henhouse,” he told reporters.

The Trump administration spent months privately fuming that the CFPB’s longtime director, Richard Cordray, initially did not resign like other banking industry regulators following the election, and they have recently accused him of using his office to gain political advantage. A former attorney general of Ohio, Cordray has been rumored to be interested in running for governor.

“We think that a lot of the past practices under the previous director and under the previous administration were used more to advance political ambitions and not about protecting American consumers, which is what that’s supposed to be,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday.

When Cordray did resign Friday, he set off a showdown with the White House by promoting his chief of staff, English, to deputy director, and saying that she would serve as acting director until the Senate confirmed his permanent replacement. Trump struck back a few hours later by announcing that Mulvaney would take the job instead.

[CFPB official Leandra English sues to block Trump White House pick Mick Mulvaney]

Both sides spent the holiday weekend in a war of words about the fine print in dueling federal statutes. English’s supporters argue that the legislation that created the agency in 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act, gave the power to appoint an acting director to Cordray. And some questioned whether Mulvaney would have the time to properly run such a large agency while also serving as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. As head of OMB, he is tasked with negotiating budget agreements with Capitol Hill. A deal must be brokered before a deadline next week to avoid a partial government shutdown. Mulvaney said he plans to work three days a week at the agency and three days at OMB.

“President Trump put a cloud over the agency by invoking a statute [to appoint Mulvaney] that doesn’t apply here,” said Warren, who, as a bankruptcy professor at Harvard Law School, came up with the idea for the agency. “The agency has been an effective cop on the beat, and the banks don’t want an effective cop on the beat.”

Schumer said Trump has nominated people devoted to terminating the agencies they were nominated to run. Mulvaney, he said, is “only the latest in a line of Trojan horse candidates.”

Trump has installed new leadership at the top of several other regulatory agencies, many of which have already taken a more business-friendly tone. He is likely to follow that pattern with his eventual nominee to replace Cordray — a decision that Mulvaney said will happen quickly.

Mulvaney, a frequent critic of the CFPB, once called the agency a “joke . . . in a sick, sad way.” He stood by those 2015 remarks Monday but said the concerns among some consumer advocates were overblown.

“Rumors that I’m going to set the place on fire or blow it up or lock the doors are completely false,” he said. “We intend to execute the laws of the United States, including the provisions of Dodd-Frank that govern the CFPB.”

At the court hearing, Mulvaney’s attorney, Brett Shumate, a deputy assistant attorney general, was asked by the judge whether the government would agree that English would not be fired, to remove some of the urgency from the matter.

Shumate said he could not “give any representation or assurance on that score.”

For confused CFPB employees, José Andrés, the Washington celebrity chef who once had his own legal dispute with the president over operating a restaurant in Trump’s D.C. hotel, offered a respite. “Have two bosses? Please bring a proof you work there to any of our DC restaurants and the first drink is on us,” he offered on Twitt er.

Steven Mufson, Spencer S. Hsu and Thomas Heath contributed to this report.

(Reuters) – Hawaii this week will resume monthly statewide testing of its Cold War-era nuclear attack warning sirens for the first time in about 30 years, in preparation for a potential missile launch from North Korea, emergency management officials said on Monday.

Wailing air-raid sirens will be sounded for about 60 seconds from more than 400 locations across the central Pacific islands starting at 11:45 a.m. on Friday, in a test that will be repeated on the first business day of each month thereafter, state officials said.

Monthly tests of the nuclear attack siren are being reintroduced in Hawaii in conjunction with public service announcements urging residents of the islands to “get inside, stay inside and stay tuned” if they should hear the warning.

“Emergency preparedness is knowing what to expect and what to do for all hazards,” Hawaii Emergency Management Agency chief Vern Miyagi said in one video message posted online. He did not mention North Korea specifically.

But the nuclear attack sirens, discontinued since the 1980s when the Cold War drew to a close, are being reactivated in light of recent test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea deemed capable of reaching the state, agency spokeswoman Arlina Agbayani told Reuters.

A single 150-kiloton weapon detonated over Pearl Harbor on the main island of Oahu would be expected to kill 18,000 people outright and leave 50,000 to 120,000 others injured across a blast zone several miles wide, agency spokesman Richard Rapoza said, citing projections based on assessments of North Korea’s nuclear weapons technology.

While casualties on that scale would be unprecedented on U.S. soil, a fact sheet issued by the agency stressed that 90 percent of Hawaii’s 1.4 million-plus residents would survive “the direct effects of such an explosion.”

Oahu, home to a heavy concentration of the U.S. military command structure, as well as the state capital, Honolulu, and about two-thirds of the state’s population, is seen as an especially likely target for potential North Korean nuclear aggression against the United States.

In the event of an actual nuclear missile launch at Hawaii from North Korea, the U.S. Pacific Command would alert state emergency officials to sound the attack sirens, giving island residents just 12 to 15 minutes of warning before impact, according to the state’s fact sheet.

In that case, residents are advised to take cover “in a building or other substantial structure.” Although no designated nuclear shelters exist, staying indoors offers the best chance of limiting exposure to radioactive fallout.

The siren tests are being added to existing monthly tests of Hawaii’s steady-tone siren warnings for hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Those alerts also undergo monthly tests on radio, TV and cellphone networks.

When emergency management officials initiated the new warning campaign, “there were concerns we would scare the public,” Miyagi said in a recent presentation. “What we are putting out is information based on the best science that we have on what would happen if that weapon hit Honolulu or the assumed targets.”

Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney

A portrait of Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, and American actress Meghan Markle, who is engaged to Prince Harry. (Print Collector/Getty Images and Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images)

When Britain’s Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle announced their engagement Monday, Twitter erupted with the news that the newest princess in the royal family would be bi-racial.

“We got us a Black princess ya’ll,” GirlTyler exulted. “Shout out to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Their wedding will be my Super Bowl.”

We got us a Black princess ya’ll. You really can’t tell me a damn thing for the rest of the day because it won’t matter. Shout out to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Their wedding will be my Super Bowl. pic.twitter.com/WmBnGm5AuZ

— GirlTyler (@sheistyler) November 27, 2017

But Markle, whose mother is black and whose father is white, may not be the first mixed-race royal.

Some historians suspect that Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III who bore the king 15 children, was of African descent.

Historian Mario De Valdes y Cocom argues that Queen Charlotte was directly descended from a black branch of the Portuguese royal family: Alfonso III and his concubine, Ouruana, a black Moor.

In the 13th century, “Alfonso III of Portugal conquered a little town named Faro from the Moors,” said Valdes, a researcher for Frontline PBS. “He demanded [the governor’s] daughter as a paramour. He had three children with her.”

According to Valdes, one of their sons, Martin Alfonso, married into the noble de Sousa family, who also had black ancestry. Queen Charlotte had African blood from both families.

Valdes, who grew up in Belize, began researching Queen Charlotte’s African ancestry in 1967, after he moved to Boston.

“I had heard these stories from my Jamaican nanny, Etheralda “TeeTee” Cole,” Valdes recalled.

He discovered that a royal physician, Baron Christian Friedrich Stockmar, described Queen Charlotte as “small and crooked, with a true mulatto face.”

Sir Walter Scott  wrote that she was “ill-colored” and called her family “a bunch of ill-colored orangutans.”

One prime minister once wrote of Queen Charlotte: “Her nose is too wide and her lips too thick.”

In several British colonies, Queen Charlotte was often honored by blacks who were convinced from her portraits and likeness on coins that she had African ancestry.

Valdes became fascinated by official portraits of Queen Charlotte in which her features, he said, were visibly “negroid.”

“I started a systematic geneological search,” said Valdes, which is how he traced her ancestry back to the mixed-race branch of the Portuguese royal family.

Charlotte, who was born May 19, 1744, was the youngest daughter of Duke Carl Ludwig Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen. She was a 17-year-old German princess when she traveled to England to wed King George III, who later went to war with his American colonies and lost rather badly. His mother most likely chose Charlotte to be his bride.

“Back in London, the king’s enthusiasm mounted daily,” wrote Janice Hadlow in the book, “A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III.” “He had acquired a portrait of Charlotte and was said to be mighty fond of it, but won’t let any mortal look at it.”

[Cheers, Prince Harry! But the last time a British royal married an American, it didn’t go well]

King George III ordered that gowns be made and waiting for his new bride when she arrived in London.

He met Charlotte for the first time on their wedding day, Sept. 8, 1761.

“Introduced to the king, Charlotte ‘threw herself at his feet, he raised her up, embraced her and led her through the garden up the steps into the palace,’ ” Hadlow wrote. “Some later reminiscences asserted that at the moment of their meeting, the king had been shocked by Charlotte’s appearance.”

In a portrait painted by Sir Allan Ramsay, Queen Charlotte’s hair is piled high in curly ringlets. Her neck is long and her skin appears to be café-au-lait.

Ramsay, Valdes said, was an abolitionist married to the niece of Lord Mansfield, the judge who ruled in 1772 that slavery should be abolished in the British Empire. And Ramsay was uncle by marriage to Dido Elizabeth Lindsay, the black grand-niece of Lord Mans field. Dido’s life story was recently recounted in the movie, “Belle.”

In 1999, the London Sunday Times published an article with the headline: “REVEALED: THE QUEEN’S BLACK ANCESTORS.”

“The connection had been rumored but never proved,” the Times wrote. “The royal family has hidden credentials that make its members appropriate leaders of Britain’s multicultural society. It has black and mixed-raced royal ancestors who have never been publicly acknowledged. An American genealogist has established that Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, was directly descended from the illegitimate son of an African mistress in the Portuguese royal house.”

After the Times story, The Boston Globe hailed Valdes’ research as ground breaking. Charlotte, who died in 1818, passed on her mixed-race heritage to her granddaughter, Queen Victoria, and to Britain’s present day monarch, Queen Elizabeth.

Some scholars in England dismissed the evidence as weak —  and beside the point.

 

“It really is so remote,” David Williamson, co-editor of Debrett’s Peerage, the guide to Britain’s barons, dukes and duchesses, marquises, and other titled people, told the Globe. “In any case, all European royal families somewhere are linked to the kings of Castile. There is a lot of Moorish blood in the Portuguese royal family and it has diffused over the rest of Europe. The question is, who cares?”

A Buckingham Palace spokesman did not deny Queen Charlotte’s African ancestry of Queen Charlotte. Spokesman David Buck told the Globe: “This has been rumored for years and years. It is a matter of history, and frankly, we’ve got far more important things to talk about.”

Valdes said that in the current racial climate, the genealogy is very important to history.

“In reaction to the horrors of what happened in Charlottesville, which is named after this queen, her ancestry is very relevant.”

Read more Retropolis:

Cheers, Prince Harry! But the last time a British royal married an American, it didn’t go well.

Diana’s final hours: Dodi’s yacht, a Ritz suite, a diamond ring and relentless photographers

The gang rape was horrific. The NAACP sent Rosa Parks to investigate.

Jane Wyman as the anti-Ivana Trump: Why Ronald Reagan’s ex-wife refused to dish about him

JFK’s last birthday: Gifts, champagne and wandering hands on the presidential yacht

 

 

Actress Susan Sarandon arrives at the Time 100 gala celebrating the magazine’s naming of the 100 most influential people in the world for the past year in New York April 29, 2014.

 (Reuters)

Actress Susan Sarandon is having a tough time since the 2016 election as the star is now being attacked by the left for refusing to support Hillary Clinton.

Despite campaigning for Hillary in 2001, she was a supporter of Bernie Sanders in 2016. When he failed to take the Democratic nomination, the actress did not shift her star-powered support to Hillary, which got the attention of the moderates and the left in a very negative way.

“I got from Hillary people ‘I hope your crotch is grabbed,’ ‘I hope you’re raped.’ Misogynistic attacks. Recently, I said ‘I stand with Dreamers and that started another wave,” she told The Guardian in a recent interview. “From the left! ‘How dare you! You who are responsible for this!’”

Since the election, Sarandon’s career has been marred by all things politics. She couldn’t even appear on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” without the host asking her to defend her political position. However, she stands by her decision to, as a New Yorker, vote for third party candidate Jill Stein over Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. However, it’s the assertion that fans got that she believed Hillary would be more dangerous than Trump in office that’s been hard to shake. The assertion stems from an interview she did with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on “All In With Chris Hayes” she gave prior to the Democratic National Convention. When asked if she ever made that claim outright in her latest interview, she had this to say: .

“No exactly, but I don’t mind that quote. I did think she was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she was president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother. Look what happened under Obama that we didn’t notice.”

While Sarandon has not publicly given her support directly to Donald Trump, she seems to be very confident in her belief that a Clinton presidency would not have people on the left as better off as they think they would be.

Meredith, based in Des Moines, is a Midwestern publisher through and through. Its founder, Edwin Thomas Meredith, entered the media business in 1902 with a magazine called Successful Farming. He soon began the still-thriving Better Homes and Gardens, which has a circulation of more than 7 million.

Its popular magazines have long focused on families and women, taking aim more at Middle America. It has eschewed an expensive headquarters in Manhattan and maintained a diversified portfolio — the company also owns local television stations — that has allowed Meredith to better weather the economic storm that has faced print publishers.

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But as Meredith has stood relatively strong, Time Inc. has stumbled. The company failed to keep pace as the industrywide transformation from print to digital rendered old methods of magazine-making obsolete and publishing companies crumbled under the pressure of declines in print advertising and circulation.

For Meredith, a hardy company with a loyal print readership, the acquisition of Time Inc. represents a long-elusive victory.

“This is a transformative transaction for Meredith Corporation,” Tom Harty, Meredith’s president and chief operating officer, said in the company’s statement announcing the agreement.

Charles Koch, the chief executive of Koch Industries, and David Koch have long sought to shape political discourse through their support of nonprofit organizations, universities and think tanks. But in its announcement of the deal, Meredith said that the private equity fund, Koch Equity Development, would not have a seat on Meredith’s board of directors and would “have no influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations.”

Steve Lombardo, a spokesman for Koch Industries, also said that the Kochs had no plans to take an active role in the expanded company. “This is a passive financial investment made through our equity development arm,” Mr. Lombardo said. The company’s role in the transaction, he said, was similar to that of a bank.

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Mr. Lombardo said the company is constantly evaluating investment opportunities.

“We’re looking at deals across all sectors, all industries,” he said. “This just happened to be one that made sense.”

A deal between Meredith and Time Inc. fell apart in 2013 after Meredith reportedly said that it did not want to acquire some of Time Inc.’s best-known titles, including Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated. Meredith also expressed interest in buying Time Inc. earlier this year before it walked away — in part because it could not secure sufficient financing. The Kochs helped the company overcome that problem.

Adding Time Inc.’s portfolio will give Meredith even more national scale, which will help it continue to appeal to advertisers on both the print and digital sides. But the company will also have to adjust to printing weekly titles, which it currently does not do. Meredith said it expected its deal for Time Inc. would result in $400 million to $500 million in cost savings in its first two years.

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In a note to its staff members on Sunday night, Rich Battista, the chief executive of Time Inc., said, he believed in “our strategic transformation plan and in our ability to write the next great chapter of this storied company.”

“That said, as a publicly traded company, and one operating in such a dynamic industry as media, we know circumstances can change quickly,” he said. Meredith, Mr. Battista added, “presented us with an opportunity to combine companies to create even greater scale and financial flexibility.”

Under the terms of the deal, Meredith will pay $18.50 a share for Time Inc. The boards of both companies finalized the deal on Sunday evening. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.

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The investment from the Kochs, Meredith said, “underscores a strong belief in Meredith’s strength as a business operator, its strategies and its ability to unlock significant value from the Time Inc. acquisition.”

Some Koch allies have suggested that the brothers would view their investment purely as a moneymaking opportunity. But others familiar with the Kochs’ thinking speculated that they could nonetheless use the media properties — which reach millions of online and print readers — to promote their brand of conservatism. The investment would also give the Kochs a way to combine the arsenal of voter information held by a data analytics company controlled by their network, i360, with the publishers’ consumer data.

After Time Warner, the home of HBO and Warner Bros., spun off Time Inc. in 2014, the publisher was left to fend for itself in a world increasingly turning its back on print media. Bedeviled by relentless cost cuts and executive turnover, the company has struggled to articulate a business strategy less focused on the printed page.

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Mr. Battista, who was named Time Inc.’s chief executive last year, and the new chief operating officer, Jen Wong, embarked on an aggressive strategy to increase digital revenue, including enhancing advertising technology capabilities and offering customers paid services, such as insurance for pets and a food and wine club. The company had also earmarked $400 million in cost cuts.

Time Inc. executives had been adamant that their stand-alone strategy could position the company for a successful future. But in an industry that increasingly values size and breadth, Time Inc. was staring into ongoing uncertainty. For its most recent quarter, it reported a 9 percent drop in total revenue compared with the same period last year, and a 12 percent decrease in advertising revenue.

Mr. Battista is expected to stay on at Time Inc. through the close of the deal, after which he will leave the company.

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Minnesota Senator Al Franken has said he has been left “embarrassed and ashamed” by the allegations of sexual misconduct against him – but it appears he will not be resigning.

Speaking in an interview with The Star Tribune on Sunday, Franken, who is facing accusations ranging from groping to forcibly kissing four women, said he had been caught by surprise by the allegations and would be “more careful and more sensitive” in the future.

The Democrat senator, who had previously been known for highlighting women’s issues, has maintained a low profile since the allegations emerged but is now speaking out about the accusations and said he was looking forward to returning to work after the Thanksgiving break.

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Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) listens during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing titled ‘Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online’ on Capitol Hill, October 31, 2017 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

“I’m embarrassed and ashamed. I’ve let a lot of people down and I’m hoping I can make it up to them and gradually regain their trust,” Franken told The Tribune in a phone interview on Sunday.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow,” he added.

Among the allegations made against the senator was one from radio host Leeann Tweeden, who said Franken had forcibly kissed her while the pair were on a USO tour in 2006, and Lindsay Menz said Franken had groped her buttocks while the pair posed for a picture together in 2010; with two other women reporting similar allegations to the Huffington Post anonymously.

“I don’t remember these photographs, I don’t,” he said of the buttock-grabbing allegation. “This is not something I would intentionally do.”

The senator explained he had been: “thinking about how that could happen and I just recognize that I need to be more careful and a lot more sensitive in these situations.”

However, Franken did not rule out any further allegations against him from emerging, stating: “If you had asked me two weeks ago, ‘Would any woman say I had treated her with disrespect?’ I would have said no. So this has just caught me by surprise… I certainly hope not.”

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