Cornell University frat punished for ‘pig roast’ sex contest

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A frat at Cornell University has been punished for a sex contest dubbed the “Pig Roast.”

PIX-11 reports male students pledging to become members of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity chapter at Cornell were encouraged to have sex with as many females as possible, earning points based on the weight of their sexual conquests. In the case of a tie, the winner would be whichever pledge had sex with the heaviest women — giving the game its fat-shaming name of “Pig Roast.

The university said officials launched an investigation last year after multiple reports about the secret ritual on the Ithaca, N.Y., campus. Cornell’s fraternity and sorority review board determined the chapter was in violation of policies against hazing and sexually abusive behavior, and announced disciplinary actions Tuesday.

The frat has been placed on probation for two years. CBS reports Zeta Beta Tau must hire a live-in advisor during the two-year period, face external reviews, and participate in ongoing education about sexual violence.

Zeta Beta Tau said the Pig Roast was not “chapter sanctioned activities nor ones that brothers were aware of,” calling it contrary to its values and mission. In a statement, the Cornell chapter’s leadership and brotherhood said they were “shocked and appalled” about the unsanctioned activities.

“The Kappa Chapter of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity is horrified at the notion of the degradation and/or objectification of women, and the impact it has had on men and women across the United States and at Cornell,” the statement added.

PIX-11 reports the fraternity said it will also conduct a membership review and expel any members who don’t commit to Zeta Beta Tau’s ideals and values. It will also host multiple educational programs on healthy relationships.

“Our chapter has worked closely with the Zeta Beta Tau International Headquarters to draft and execute an action plan that addresses this alleged behavior,” according to the statement.

Senate leaders reach agreement on two-year budget deal, adding billions of dollars in federal spending

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BREAKING: Senate leaders have reached an agreement on a two-year budget deal, adding billions of dollars in federal spending.

The bipartisan accord would lift statutory budget limits by more than $200 billion and provide tens of billions of dollars in disaster relief funding.

Senate leaders unveiled the deal Wednesday after months of negotiations — and after Senate Democrats agreed to set aside immigration policy demands.

The plan still faces head winds — particularly in the House, where conservative Republicans are balking at the increased spending and liberal Democrats want further assurances on immigration.

The announcement came as Congress faces yet another government shutdown deadline of Thursday at midnight.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that she and “a large number” of fellow Democrats will oppose a spending deal to keep the government open unless she’s guaranteed a vote on immigration legislation.

The move came amid rising fury from House liberals and immigration activists as congressional leaders appeared on the cusp of announcing a massive two-year budget deal without a fix for “dreamers.” Although it was not immediately clear how many Democrats would follow Pelosi’s lead, her announcement raised new uncertainty about whether congressional leaders would be able to finalize the deal as planned Wednesday.

The rumored budget deal to bust spending caps for the military and domestic programs and pile hundreds of billions of dollars onto the debt already faced a threatened rebellion from the right, as House conservatives fumed about the increased spending.

Without congressional action, the government will begin to shut down Thursday at midnight.

[Senate leaders see two-year budget deal within their grasp]

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) brought a government shutdown to an end last month by guaranteeing a floor debate on immigration. Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she wanted the same commitment from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

“Without that commitment from Speaker Ryan, comparable to the commitment from Leader McConnell, this package does not have my support nor does it have the support of a large number of members of our caucus,” Pelosi said.

Undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, known as “dreamers,” are on the verge of losing their work permits after President Trump ended the program that protects them from deportation. Democrats had sought to use their leverage on spending legislation to achieve a fix for the dreamers, but without success.

Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said that the speaker “has already repeatedly stated we intend to do a DACA and immigration reform bill — one that the president supports.” Trump moved last year to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has given legal status to hundreds of thousands of dreamers, as soon as next month.

With the budget deal not expected to address the dreamers or any other immigration issue, Pelosi has to answer to angry members of her base and try to placate them.

She is facing massive internal pressure from immigrant supporters in her caucus, who have pushed relentlessly in recent months to use what little leverage they have in the House minority to secure protections for dreamers. Of 193 voting House Democrats, only 45 supported the deal that reopened the government after a three-day shutdown last month.

[Yes, another government shutdown is entirely possible]

Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), an outspoken leader of the party’s Latino bloc, said Tuesday that any budget deal that does not protect dreamers would represent “a complete betrayal of a key, core principle” for Democrats and compared it to party leaders agreeing to close down Planned Parenthood clinics or ending federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

“Look, I can’t make it any clearer,” he said. “I would have to go back to the Democratic caucus and denounce any such proposal and anybody that was involved in making it. I cannot be a Democrat in good standing if they’re not going to share values.”

Pelosi made the announcement as she commandeered the House floor in an unusual maneuver, using rules that allow House leaders to speak on the floor as long as they want. She used the time to tell the stories of one dreamer after another.

“Why should we in the House be treated in such a humiliating way when the Republican Senate leader has given that opportunity in a bipartisan way to his membership? What’s wrong? There’s something wrong with this picture,” Pelosi said.

She said that House Democrats met earlier Wednesday to discuss the situation and decided on the approach.

Pelosi’s dramatic House floor speech, which was stretching toward an hour, came the morning after top Senate leaders said they were close to finalizing the sweeping long-term budget deal.

The House passed a short-term measure Tuesday evening that would fund the government past the midnight Thursday deadline and avert a second partial shutdown in less than a month.

[Short-term spending bills epitomize congressional dysfunction and hurt the military]

The House bill, which passed 245 to 182, would fund most agencies through March 23 but is a nonstarter in the Senate because of Democratic opposition.

But the top Senate leaders of both parties told reporters earlier in the day that a breakthrough was at hand on a longer-term budget deal. Spending has vexed the Republican-controlled Congress for months, forcing lawmakers to rely on multiple short-term patches.

Despite the optimism, no agreement was finalized, and even as congressional leaders were sounding an upbeat note, Trump was raising tensions by openly pondering a shutdown if Democrats did not agree to his immigration policies.

“I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of,” Trump said at a White House event focused on crime threats posed by some immigrants. “If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety . . . let’s shut it down.”

Trump’s remarks appeared unlikely to snuff out the negotiations, which mainly involved top congressional leaders and their aides — not the president or his White House deputies — and have largely steered clear of the explosive immigration issue.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday afternoon that Trump was not pushing for the inclusion of immigration policies in the budget accord, something that would upend the sensitive talks.

“I don’t think that we expect the budget deal to include specifics on the immigration reform,” she said. “But we want to get a deal on that.”

The agreement McConnell and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) are contemplating, with input from Ryan and Pelosi, would clear the way for a bipartisan accord that would break through the sharp divides that helped prompt a three-day government shutdown last month.

Under tentative numbers discussed by congressional aides who were not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations, defense spending would get an $80 billion boost above the existing $549 billion slated for 2018. Nondefense spending would rise by $63 billion from its current $516 billion. The 2019 budget would include similar increases.

“Democrats have made our position in these negotiations very clear,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “We support an increase in funding for our military and our middle class. The two are not mutually exclusive. We don’t want to do just one and leave the other behind.”

Among the other issues that could be addressed in the deal is an increase in the federal debt limit, which could be reached as soon as early March, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

A disaster aid package aimed at the victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires is also part of the talks, potentially adding $80 billion or more to the deal’s overall price tag. That provision could help win support from lawmakers representing affected areas in California, Florida and Texas, but further repel conservatives concerned about mounting federal spending.

Even the rumors of a coming deal were enough to send some conservative hard-liners reeling at the potential increase in federal spending.

“This is a bad, bad, bad, bad — you could say ‘bad’ a hundred times — deal,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus. “When you put it all together, a quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar increase in discretionary spending — not what we’re supposed to be doing.”

[House Republicans eye defense spending boost, complicating plan to avoid second shutdown]

But Republican leaders think they can sell the deal to rank-and-file members by highlighting the massive boost in defense spending that Trump and his defense advisers have wanted for months.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Congress should “not let disagreements on domestic policy continue to hold our nation’s defense hostage.” He warned that a failure to pass long-term funding would imperil troop paychecks, inhibit the maintenance of planes and ships, stunt recruiting and otherwise harm military readiness.

“To carry out the strategy you rightly directed we develop, we need you to pass a budget now,” he said.

Stocks largely level after early dive, morning of sharp swings

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U.S. stock markets lurched from negative to positive territory and back again Tuesday morning as investors attempted to navigate another rocky day in the markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average fluctuated in an unusually wide 934-point range in the first hour of trading, and further swings remained a risk after a morning of volatile trading.

Money managers urged investors to keep calm and noted that the U.S. and global economies remain strong. Earlier Tuesday morning, major companies reported another round of strong profits, with General Motors, BP, Allergan, several health-care companies and others beating analysts’ expectations.

Veteran traders and stock strategists believe the slide in stock prices over the past week is is a natural dip. The market had run up too high, too fast and needed to let off some steam, they say.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard told reporters after a speech in Lexington, Kty that “this is the most predicted selloff of all time because the markets have been up so much and they have had so many days in a row without meaningful down days,’’ Bloomberg News reported.

Bullard played down the risk of inflation, saying that data Friday showing a jump in average hourly earnings did not mean the economy was on the verge of a resurgence of inflation. He said other measures of wages were more restrained, Bloomberg reported.

Yet the markets remained nervous as exchanges in Asia and Europe plunged after Monday’s record single-day 1,175-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average, renewing questions about whether the long-running stock rally is heading for a rout that might undercut President Trump’s frequent boasts claiming credit for the markets’ rise.

“I think you’ve seen a normal market correction, although large,” Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said Tuesday at a House Financial Services Committee hearing. He said that computer trading algorithms made the market fall on Monday worse. “It definitely had an impact on market moves,” he said.

Nonetheless, Mnuchin added that “I’m not overly concerned about the market volatility. I think the fundamentals are quite strong.”

Asked whether the administration would take responsibility for downturns as well as increases in the stock market, Mnuchin said, “We’ll still claim credit that it’s up over 30 percent since the election.”

All U.S. stock market indexes opened down more than 1 percent Tuesday before rebounding. At 10:30 a.m., the Dow was down 0.3 percent and the broader SP 500 was down 0.1 percent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.65 percent. The yields on 10-year Treasury bills stood at 2.779 percent, below recent highs, and corporate bond rates held steady Monday, suggesting that a stampede out of stocks is not imminent.

Though the Dow Jones industrial average briefly crossed into correction territory, down more than 10 percent since its Jan. 26 high, it climbed back afterward. The SP 500 index came close to the 10 percent correction threshold but did not cross into it.

Japan’s Nikkei stock index closed down nearly 4.7 percent Tuesday, recovering from a precipitous 7 percent plunge earlier in the day. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed down 5.1 percent, while markets in Australia, South Korea and China also lost ground.

Minutes after the European markets opened, there were declines across most sectors. By the close of trading, the FTSE 100, which captures Britain’s largest companies, had fallen 2.6 percent, Germany’s DAX had tumbled 2.3 percent and France’s CAC 40 had dropped 2.4 percent.

Amid the selling frenzy, traders were left trying to assess whether this was just a roller-coaster moment in an overall climbing market or possibly a pivot point that could end a historic upward run by markets that created billions of dollars in paper wealth.

Investment adviser Edward Yardeni, author of forthcoming book “Predicting the Markets,” said there have been 60 panics in the bull market that dates back to March 9, 2009. Four of the panics knocked 10 to 20 percent off stock prices before the market recovered.

The latest sell-off is “Panic Attack #60 rather than the beginning of a bear market,” he said. “We can’t rule out a 1987-like event, which amounted to a one-day bear market.”

He added that “this time around, we have Blue Friday followed by Black Monday. While investors have suffered a black-and-blue bruising, we believe that the underlying strength in the global economy combined with the Trump tax cuts will boost earnings significantly this year.”

Fidelity Investments on its Web site cautioned investors that timing the market is difficult and that missing a small number of sharply up days could hurt long-run returns on investment.

Analysts said that the pace of the inevitable rise in interest rates remained a concern, but that the swift plunge in the market midafternoon on Monday appeared to be linked to computer trading rather than fundamental economic problems. Others said that a correction in stock prices was overdue.

Pavel Molchanov, equity analyst at the firm Raymond James, said the stock sell-off resembled the computer-driven ‘’flash crash’’ of 2010 or the sell-off after the Brexit referendum rather than a rerun of the financial crisis a decade ago.

“To state the obvious, on a percentage basis, yesterday’s drop doesn’t even enter the top 250,” he said. “Also, the past week provides a reminder — painful but timely — that volatility has not been repealed. Nothing goes up in a straight line.”

Yet analysts early Tuesday were forecasting a tough day for European investors — maybe the worst since British voters decided to divorce themselves from the European Union in a June 2016 referendum.

[Why the stock market is selling off]

Where some saw a bumpy ride, others welcomed the turbulence, saying that the high-flying global markets needed to cool their jets after soaring for more than a year. 

“I’m not quivering in my boots,” said David Buik, a market commentator for Panmure Gordon Co., a London-based investment bank and institutional stockbroker.

“The writing was on the wall for a pullback,” he said, noting that since Trump’s election in November 2016, the Dow Jones industrial average had soared 42 percent through its high at the end of January.

Trump has often boasted about the stock climb since he took office, but he has grown silent since the markets began their fall.

Vice President Pence shrugged off the downturn as “simply the ebb and flow” of financial markets.

“Today’s sell-off represents what is, very likely, simply the ebb and flow of our stock markets, and we recognize that,” Pence said during a stop in Alaska en route to South Korea to attend the Winter Olympics.

The steep declines in Europe and Asia on Tuesday followed a heart-stopping Monday that saw the Dow at one point plunge 1,600 points. The one-day drop of 1,175 points was one for the history books.

Though a dip had been expected for a while, U.S. losses seemed to spook global markets. “There’s genuine carnage out there,” said Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG in Melbourne, Australia. “Everyone is just running for the hills because nobody actually knows what’s causing this move.”

The fear was amplified by the fact that markets have been so stable for so long, he said. “We have become so accustomed to subdued volatility, so these moves feel even bigger than they are.”

[Trump, GOP discover peril of taking credit for stock market]

Wall Street has had a great run: The Dow Jones industrial average was up over 26 percent from January 2017 to January 2018. As Trump keeps saying on Twitter, the U.S. economy also looks solid, with unemployment at a 17-year low.

The sell-off started Friday when generally positive U.S. jobs figures showed strong wage growth, deepening concerns about inflation and possible rate hikes by the Federal Reserve — a “good news is bad news” scenario.

“The main reason for the decline on the U.S. stock market is that the recent figures released by the U.S. looked pretty strong,” explained Lu Zhengwei, chief economist at Shanghai-based Industrial Bank.

A payroll increase led to fear of a rate hike and Monday’s market “adjustment,” he said, “but there’s no significant concerns about the fundamentals of the U.S. economy.”

Still, the Dow’s precipitous drop created a climate of uncertainty in global markets.

In China, the Shanghai and Shenzhen bench marks closed down 3.3 and 4.2 percent, respectively, and the Nasdaq-style ChiNext index down 5.3 percent. 

“Market jitters are to be expected following the U.S. plunge on Friday and Monday, but this is only the beginning” said Wu Xianfeng, president of Longteng Asset Management, in Shenzhen.

“The sell-off is just a natural response to the moves in the U.S.,” agreed Richard Jerram, chief economist at the Bank of Singapore. “It is hard to find an Asia-centric explanation of the moves.”

And how long with the sell-off last? “Until the U.S. stabilizes,” he said. 

Rauhala reported from Beijing. Shirley Feng, Yang Liu and Amber Wang in Beijing and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report. 

Read more

Dow closes down nearly 1,200 points in volatile trading

Why the stock market is selling off, explained

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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False Tsunami Warning Issued Across The East Coast And Caribbean

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As people along the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean were preparing for their day around 8:30 a.m. ET, a smartphone push notification warned some of them of a possible tsunami.

The threat, as it turned out, was nonexistent. The National Weather Service tells NPR that it was a “test message” released by at least one private company as an official warning. In a statement, spokesperson Susan Buchanan said:

“The National Tsunami Warning Center of the National Weather Service issued a routine test message at approximately 8:30 am ET this morning. The test message was released by at least one private sector company as an official Tsunami Warning, resulting in widespread reports of tsunami warnings received via phones and other media across the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean.” 

The federal agency issued a tweet addressing the incident over an hour after the false warning was delivered.

The NWS would not elaborate on how widespread the warnings were, but said the agency is currently looking into why the test message was communicated as an actual tsunami warning.

The NWS says neither the agency nor its National Tsunami Warning Center division were responsible for the false push notification, which they say was misinterpreted and issued as an official warning by “at least one” private sector company.

The error comes weeks after a false ballistic missile alert in Hawaii declaring “THIS IS NOT A DRILL” advised Hawaii residents and tourists to seek immediate shelter.

The alert issued by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency was sent at 8:07 a.m local time. It took until 8:20 a.m. for the agency to post to its Twitter and Facebook accounts that there was no missile threat to Hawaii. It took the agency a full 38 minutes after it had sent the false alert to issue a correction through the emergency alert system.

The alert was issued because emergency worker believed there really was a missile threat, according to a preliminary investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. That employee, who had “confused real-life events and drills in the past” according to the FCC, was fired.

SpaceX’s First Falcon Heavy Rocket to Launch 4th Electric Car to Leave Earth

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CAPE CANAVERAL — SpaceX is poised to make history by launching the world’s fourth electric car into space.

Years in the making, the commercial spaceflight company is preparing to launch its first Falcon Heavy rocket, which as its name implies, is a heavy-lift booster built from a core stage and two of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 recoverable rockets. According to SpaceX, when the Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be “the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two.”

Only NASA’s Saturn V rocket, which carried six crews — and three electric cars — to the moon almost 50 years ago, could deliver more payload to orbit. (The space shuttle had more thrust at launch than the Falcon Heavy, but had a lower payload capacity.) [Watch SpaceX Launch Falcon Heavy at 1:30 pm ET] 

Even though the Falcon Heavy is based on the design of the proven (and flight-proven, or reflown) Falcon 9, its configuration is new and so carries new risks. The rocket’s 27 Merlin engines must fire in unison and the two side mounted boosters need to separate from the core — something SpaceX has never done in flight. 

“Going through the sound barrier, you get supersonic shockwaves. You could have some shockwave impingement, or where two shockwaves interact and amplify the effect, that could cause a failure as it goes transonic,” said Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO and chief designer, in a call with reporters on Monday (Feb. 5) “Then around Max-Q, which is maximum dynamic air pressure — that is when the force on the rocket is the greatest — and that’s possibly where it could fail as well.”

“We’re worried about ice potentially falling off the upper stage onto the nose cones of the side boosters,” Musk continued. “That would be like a cannon ball coming through the nose cone. And then the separation system has not been tested in flight. We have tested everything that we could think of for the separation of those side boosters on the ground, but this is the first time it has to operate in flight.”

As such, Falcon Heavy’s success on its maiden mission is not a sure thing and so placing a satellite or some other operational payload on board wasn’t considered a prudent move. Test flights typically carry a mass simulator, taking the place of the payload in the form dead weight, like concrete or steel blocks.

“That seemed extremely boring,” Musk wrote on Twitter in December, just before revealing what would top the rocket.

“We decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel,” he said. “The payload will be an original Tesla Roadster, playing [the song] ‘Space Oddity,’ on a billion-year elliptic Mars orbit.” 

‘Starman in [a] Red Roadster’

More specifically, Musk, who is also the CEO and product architect at Telsa, said it was his personal “midnight cherry” Roadster.

Photographs of the electric car taken prior to it being encapsulated in its protective fairing for launch revealed a few more details.

Strapped into the driver’s seat is a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit of the same black and white style as SpaceX designed for NASA astronauts to soon wear for flights on the company’s Dragon spacecraft to and from the International Space Station. Musk referred to the driver as “Starman” — another nod to the late David Bowie — in a tweet on Monday (Feb. 5).

“If you look closely you’ll see a little Easter egg on the dashboard,” Musk teased, talking to reporters.

The photos appear to show a miniature version of the Roadster, complete with its own tiny Starman, on the dash of the convertible.

Starman in Red Roadster

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Feb 4, 2018 at 9:50pm PST

The (full-size) car is mounted atop the Falcon Heavy’s second stage such that its front is higher than its rear. The second stage will fire its single Merlin engine three times, first to place the it and Tesla into space, then to demonstrate the Heavy’s ability to insert satellites directly into geosynchronous Earth orbit and then finally, if all goes to plan, to thrust the Roadster into deep space.

Between the second and third burns, the Roadster will coast for six hours, passing in and out of the Van Allen belts, a concentrated region of radiation that surrounds Earth.

“We’re going to be testing something on this flight which we’ve never done before, a six hour coast in deep space that’s going to go through the Van Allen belts,” said Musk. “So, it is going to get whacked [by radiation] pretty hard.”

“The fuel [for the second stage] could freeze and the oxygen [for the engine] could vaporize, all of which could inhibit the third burn which is necessary for trans-Mars injection,” he said. [From Shaking to ‘Cannonballing’ Ice: Here’s What the Falcon Heavy Faces on Epic Test Flight]

If the stage survives the “grand tour” of the Van Allen belts and successfully fires its engine for a third time, then the Tesla will leave Earth on a journey to out where Mars circles the sun.

“It will go out to Mars orbit,” said Musk, “about 400 million kilometers from Earth, about 250 to 270 million miles, and be doing 11 kilometers per second [7 miles per second].”

“It is going to be in a precessing elliptical orbit, with one part of the ellipse being in Earth orbit and the other part being in Mars orbit. So essentially, it will be an Earth-Mars cycler and we estimate it will be in that orbit for several million years, maybe in excess of a billion years, and at times it will come extremely close to Mars and there is a tiny, tiny chance it will hit Mars,” he said, adding that the chances of an impact with the Red Planet was “extremely tiny.” 

Credit: collectSPACE.com

Following in their tire marks

Musk’s Tesla Roadster will be the first car that was built to be driven on Earth to be launched into space, but for the first car to leave the planet, you need to look back almost half a century.

The first and last time that a car ventured beyond Earth was aboard NASA’s three last Apollo missions to the moon. The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV, or lunar rover) helped expand the ground that the Apollo astronauts could cover while exploring the lunar surface.

Built by Boeing and General Motors, the latter providing the rover’s wheels, motor and suspension, the Apollo astronauts’ car drew its power from two silver-zinc potassium hydroxide non-rechargeable batteries and had a range of 57 miles (92 kilometers).

By comparison, the Tesla Roadster uses a lithium-ion power pack with a range of 244 miles (393 km). But the Roadster won’t be driving on its space voyage.

It will however, be sending back data, and with luck, imagery of its departure from Earth.

“There are three cameras on the Roadster. They really should provide some epic views, if they work and everything goes well,” said Musk.

Watch SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy animation set to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” at collectSPACE.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2018 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

Winner of $560M lottery says she made a ‘huge mistake’

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CLOSE

After winning a $560 million dollar Powerball, a New Hampshire woman wants to remain anonymous. Veuer’s Natasha Abellard (@NatashaAbellard) has the story.
Buzz60

A New Hampshire woman who bought a Powerball ticket worth $560 million last month is fighting to remain anonymous, saying in a lawsuit that releasing her name would “constitute a significant invasion of her privacy.”

The woman filed suit against the New Hampshire Lottery Commission under the pseudonym Jane Doe. She says she made a “huge mistake” when she signed her real name on the back of the ticket before contacting a lawyer, who told her she could have remained anonymous had she established a trust and then had a trustee sign the ticket.

The lawsuit, filed last week, describes the woman as an “engaged community member.” 

“She wishes to continue this work and the freedom to walk into a grocery store or attend public events without being known or targeted as the winner of a half-billion dollars,” the complaint said. It adds that she plans on remaining in New Hampshire and giving back “to the state and community that has given so much to her.”

The woman is represented by the law firm of Shaheen and Gordon. William Shaheen wrote a blogpost Jan. 8, two days after the drawing, that shines a spotlight on the difficulties the lawsuit might face.

“Don’t sign that back of the ticket because if you sign it you lost confidentiality,” he says. “It becomes public, and you lost the option of staying anonymous.”

The woman has not yet claimed the prize, and the lawsuit says the fight for her anonymity is costing her a fortune in interest.

More: Numbing numbers: $1B awaits unprecedented lottery jackpot winners

More: One lucky N.H. ticket wins $570M Powerball jackpot

The New Hampshire Lottery, however, is standing firm.

“The New Hampshire Lottery understands that winning a $560 million Powerball jackpot is a life-changing occurrence,” Charlie McIntyre, the New Hampshire Lottery’s executive director, said in a statement. “Having awarded numerous Powerball jackpots over the years, we also understand that the procedures in place for prize claimants are critically important for the security and integrity of the lottery, our players and our games.”

McIntyre said he understands the winner’s desire to keep her name out of the media. But he said the state attorney general’s office has advised him that “the lottery must proceed in accordance its rules and by state law in processing this claim like any other.” 

Jane Doe won the Powerball drawing Jan. 6. The ticket was bought at Reeds Ferry Market, a modest convenience store in Merrimack, N.H. The owner even came out a winner, claiming a $75,000 prize for selling the lucky ducat.

“Can you believe someone just walked into my store and won?!” Safa told USA TODAY last month. “Most of my customers are local, and I’m hoping it’s someone local. But whoever it is, congratulations to them.”

The lawsuit, however, says Jane Doe now joins a small demographic of big jackpot winners that “has historically been victimized by the unscrupulous.” The lawsuit even raises the issue of the opioid crisis in stating that New Hampshire, “despite it’s bucolic beauty … is not immune to crime.”

“The disclosure of Ms. Doe’s identifying information would constitute an invasion of privacy because the limited public interest in disclosure is far outweighed by Ms. Doe’s interest in remaining anonymous,” the lawsuit states.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth: I swore an oath to the Constitution, not to clap when Trump demands

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Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who has emerged in recent weeks as one of President Trump’s most vocal critics, fired back after Trump called Democrats “treasonous” for not applauding him during his State of the Union address.

“We don’t live in a dictatorship or monarchy. I swore an oath — in the military and in the Senate — to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not to mindlessly cater to the whims of Cadet Bone Spurs and clap when he demands I clap,” Duckworth (D-Ill.) wrote in a tweet, using a nickname she had given Trump, who had said in previous interviews that he was granted medical deferment during the Vietnam War after bone spurs in his feet were diagnosed.

Duckworth, who lost her legs in 2004 while serving in Iraq as an Army helicopter pilot, then shared this quote from Theodore Roosevelt, lifted from an opinion piece the former president wrote during World War I: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

Duckworth has been highly critical of Trump, particularly on issues involving the military and national security.

In a Senate floor speech last month, Duckworth called Trump a “five-deferment draft dodger” who had no business accusing Democrats — like herself — of not caring for the military.

“Does he even know that there are service members who are in harm’s way right now, watching him, looking for their commander in chief to show leadership, rather than to try to deflect blame?” Duckworth said.

The speech was prompted by a tweet in which Trump accused Democrats of “holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration.” It’s one of many partisan attacks Trump launched to blame Democrats for a congressional budget stalemate that had led to a partial federal government shutdown.

The junior senator also accused Trump of trying to bait North Korea into a war by escalating his rhetoric against Kim Jong Un.

“I have a message for ‘Cadet Bone Spurs,’ ” Duckworth said. “If you cared about our military, you’d stop baiting Kim Jong Un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops, and millions of innocent civilians, in danger.”

During a speech about tax cuts Monday, Trump veered off script and accused Democrats of treason, a crime punishable by death, for not applauding even as he touted positive unemployment numbers during his State of the Union address.

“Even on positive news like that, really positive news like that, they were like death and un-American,” Trump told a crowd in Blue Ash, Ohio. “Somebody said ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? Shall we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

Responding to criticism Tuesday, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told NBC News that Trump was speaking “tongue in cheek” and was simply saying that all Americans, regardless of party, should celebrate positive news.

Amy B Wang and John Wagner contributed to this post.

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Trump calls Democratic lawmakers who didn’t applaud him ‘treasonous,’ ‘un-American’

Trump was speaking ‘tongue in cheek’ when he said Democrats were ‘treasonous,’ spokesman says

FTSE and European stock markets fall after US and Asia rout

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Asian markets plunged overnight after Dow Jones registered its largest points fall in history







Carnage in the stock markets. An investor monitors stock prices at a brokerage house in Beijing as shares tumbled in Asia.
Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Fears of another plunge in Wall Street shares proved unfounded on Tuesday after the Dow Jones shrugged off an initial 500-point drop to post early gains.

It was a volatile open session as shares fell further into the red before investors regained their nerve and the Dow rose 184 points or 0.6% to 24,527.

The gains followed the biggest ever one-day points fall on the US index on Monday, when the Dow plunged by 1,175 as traders bet on interest rate rises.

The FTSE 100 of Britain’s biggest listed companies initially fell by 255 points or 3.5% to 7,079.41 as the turmoil spread to global markets. The index later recovered some of its losses, and was down 138 points or 1.9% at 7,196.

QA

What are FTSE 100’s biggest percentage falls?

1) 20 October 1987 -12.22%
2) 19 October 1987 -10.84%
Black Monday (October 19) followed a plunge on Wall Street on the previous Friday when UK markets were shut due to a hurricane hitting the country. The market fall was prompted by tensions between Iran and the US, and carried over to the following day 

3) 10 October 2008 -8.85%
Markets fell sharply in October 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subprime mortgage chaos which hit other financial institutions

4) 6 October 2008 -7.85%
Growing fears about the health of struggling banks as the financial crisis deepens, despite a number of countries saying they would guarantee bank deposits

5) 15 October 2008 -7.16%
Concerns continue despite global bank bailout plans unveiled

6) 26 October 1987 -6.19%
Continuing fallout from the Black Monday turmoil

7) 11 September 2001 -5.72%
The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York

8) 6 November 2008 -5.70%
Bank of England and European Central Bank cut interest rates amid talk of a recession

9) 22 October 1987 -5.69%
Black Monday fallout continues

10) 21 January 2008 -5.48%
Fears grow of a US recession

Investors took fright elsewhere in Europe as trading got under way, with markets in Germany, France, Italy and Spain all down by more than 3%.

“The stock market open in the UK and Europe looks about as bad as it can get,” said Jasper Lawler, the head of research at online trading firm London Capital Group. “The bloodbath on Wall Street, which was repeated in Asia has seen confidence evaporate in Europe.”

QA

What are the FTSE 100’s biggest points falls?

1) 6 October 2008 -391.06
Growing fears about the health of struggling banks as the financial crisis deepens, despite a number of countries saying they would guarantee bank deposits.

2) 10 October 2008 –381.75
Markets fell sharply in October 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subprime mortgage chaos that hit other financial institutions. 

3) 21 January 2008 -323.47
Fears grow of a US recession.

4) 15 October 2008 -314.62
Concerns about the financial system continue despite global bank bailout plans unveiled. 

5) 24 August 2015 -288.78
Worries about a slowdown in the Chinese economy send global markets tumbling. 

6) 11 September 2001 -287.70
Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

7) 29 September 2008 -269.70
Bradford Bingley to be nationalised and US Congress votes against a bank bailout bill put forward by the Treasury and Federal Reserve.

8) 4 January 2000 -264.35
Dotcom boom begins to unwind, amid talk of Federal Reserve rate hikes.

9) 6 November 2008 -258.32
Bank of England and European Central Bank cut interest rates amid talk of a recession

10) 20 October 1987 -250.70
The day after Black Monday – which recorded a 249.6-point fall – saw markets continue their slump, prompted by tensions  between Iran and the US.

Falls in Europe followed a near 5% drop in Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index and a 3.3% fall on Australia’s ASX200.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index declined by as much as 7% during the day’s trade before a slight recovery to close down 4.7%. The Nikkei’s decline of 1,071.84 points was its largest points fall since 2016.

Maki Sawada, from the investment research and investor services department at Nomura Securities Co, said stocks were being sold in panic after the Wall Street losses.

Quick guide

The stock market drop

For several weeks, economists and analysts have warned that inflation levels in major economies could increase this year beyond the 2% to 3% that central banks believe is good for developed countries. Official US figures turned those concerns into a sell-off last Friday, after they showed average wage rises in the US had reached 2.9%. The data increased fears that shop prices would soon rise further, increasing the pressure for high interest rates to calm the economy down. Investors then bolted at the prospect of an era of cheap money – which encourages consumers and companies to spend – coming to an end. Over the past month, several members of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, have argued that three 0.25% interest rate rises scheduled for this year could become four or five.

There is every prospect that the US economic data will continue to strengthen, increasing the potential for higher interest rates. President Donald Trump’s tax reform bill, which gained approval in Congress before Christmas, will inject more than $1tn (£710bn) into the US economy, much of it in the form of corporation tax cuts. Many firms have pledged to give a slice of the cash to their workers. Decades of flat wages should mean that increases expected in 2018 and possibly 2019 are too small to trigger a reaction from the central bank, but investors are betting rates will rise. As a consequence, stock market jitters could continue.

Many developing world economies have borrowed heavily in dollars and will be stung by the higher cost of servicing their debts. On the other hand, a booming US economy will suck in imports from those nations, boosting the incomes of the developing world. However, the eurozone looks unlikely to increase interest rates until its recovery is more firmly anchored. That means the euro will continue to rise in value against the dollar, making it harder for European countries to export to the US.

“The sell-off accelerated in a chain reaction,” she told Kyodo News.

Other markets across Asia also suffered losses. South Korea’s Composite Stock Price Index fell by about 3% in morning trade. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index plunged 4.9% while the Shanghai Composite index lost 2.2%.

These losses followed the dive in the Dow Jones industrial average on Monday, with investors appearing to react to equity losses and concerns that central banks will soon increase interest rates to rein in inflation. It coincided with the arrival of Jerome Powell as the new chair of the US Federal Reserve.

Biggest one-day falls for the FTSE 100

“This was volatility unleashed,” said Jack Ablin, the chief investment officer at at Cresset Wealth. “It’s partially fear of interest rates, partially this new Fed chairman Jerome Powell, partially the market is overvalued relative to fundamentals.”

While market fear may not be based in any change in economic fundamentals, in its last meeting under chair Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve indicated it expects inflation pressures to increase through the year.

Biggest one-day falls for the Dow Jones
Biggest one-day falls for the Dow Jones

According to projections released in December, officials expect three rate hikes in 2018 – so long as market conditions remain broadly as they are – but some economists believe the central bank could add another increase at its final meeting of the year.

If the market falls continue they could prove problematic for Donald Trump who has consistently touted record high stock markets as proof that his presidency is boosting the economy.

US stocks have now lost $1tn in value in the first five days of February. However, the White House, responding to the market drop insisted on Monday night that long-term economic fundamentals “remain exceptionally strong”.

Vice President Mike Pence characterised the stock market’s plunge as “simply the ebb and flow of our stock market”.

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On Monday, the FTSE 100 suffered its worst single-day slump since Theresa May called the snap election last April.

The index fell 1.3% to 7,345 – having peaked at almost 7,800 last month – extending its longest losing streak since November into a fifth day.

“The era of cheap money is ending, and for markets who got addicted to it, it’s undoubtedly bad news,” said Hussein Sayed, the chief market strategist at currency dealer FXTM.

Larry Nassar sentenced to 40 to 125 years in Eaton County

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10:52 AM ET

CHARLOTTE, Mich. — There were silent hugs and quiet tears in the gallery of an Eaton County courtroom Monday morning as convicted sexual predator Larry Nassar spent what will likely be his final seconds in a public setting with his head down and hands folded in his lap. Minutes earlier, Nassar told a room full of some of the women he manipulated and abused that their words would stay with him in prison for the rest of his life.

Lawyer doubts number of Nassar assaults

Shannon Smith, the defense attorney for Larry Nassar, told WWJ Newsradio on Thursday that she doesn’t believe her client is capable of sexually assaulting all of the women who have accused him of doing so.

Judge Janice Cunningham sentenced Nassar to a minimum of 40 years and a maximum of 125 years for his crimes in Eaton County. Her sentence was the third and final punishment Nassar will receive in criminal court. The former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics team doctor spent the last several weeks in Michigan courtrooms listening to some of the hundreds of women who say he used his notoriety and authority as a famous physician to sexually abuse them over the last 25 years.

“The words expressed by everyone that has spoken including the parents have impacted me to my innermost soul,” Nassar said, reading from a slip of paper that he kept tucked in a breast pocket of his orange prison jumpsuit. “With that being said, I understand and acknowledge that it pales in comparison to the pain, trauma and emotions you all feel.”

Cunningham said that her sentence was meant to protect society from Nassar in the future and also serve as a deterrent to any others who would think to use their positions of power to gain and exploit trust for their own personal pleasure. She told the former doctor that the pain he caused to his victims and their families spanned the world and was “incomprehensible.” She thanked the women and girls who provided impact statements in court and told them that while their emotional and physical pain might continue, their words helped put an end to Nassar’s criminal proceedings and were heard around the world.

“Their stories are not redundant even though many descriptions of the grooming by the defendant are eerily similar,” Cunningham said. “… Each voice and each story does make a difference.”

Nassar pleaded guilty to 10 counts of criminal sexual conduct in November. Seven of those counts came from crimes in Ingham County, where Michigan State and Nassar’s former clinic are located. The other three came in Eaton County, where Nassar lived and frequently treated young gymnasts at the youth club Twistars.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sentenced him to up to 175 years in state prison during a hearing in Ingham County two weeks ago. A federal judge sentenced Nassar to 60 years in federal prison on child pornography charges in December. The clock on his state prison time begins when his federal sentence expires, and the Ingham and Eaton County sentences run concurrently. Nassar, 54, would not be eligible for parole until the year 2117.

Monday’s hearing was the 10th combined day in court for Nassar on his state charges in the past three weeks. During that time, 204 different individual provided impact statements to Cunningham and Aquilina.

While Nassar’s federal sentence was already likely to keep him behind bars for the remainder of his natural life, prosecutors said providing a forum for the women who say Nassar abused them to confront him and tell their stories in court was an important part of the plea deal they negotiated with the disgraced doctor’s attorneys.

“I truly believe we have seen the worst of humanity in these past few weeks. And we’ve also seen the best. We have seen how one voice can start a movement, how a reckoning can become justice,” assistant attorney general Angela Povilaitis said.

The one voice Povilaitis referenced was that of Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accused Nassar of sexual abuse in a 2016 article in the Indianapolis Star. Denhollander’s story, and her ensuing complaint to police, were the catalyst for Nassar’s downfall. She was the final woman to provide an impact statement on Friday. Denhollander asked the judge: “How much is a little girl worth?” She told Judge Cunningham that Monday would be her opportunity to answer that question by using the full weight of the law against Nassar.

“Tell them they are worth everything. Tell them they are seen. Tell them they are heard. Tell them they matter,” Denhollander said. “May the rest of the world begin to live out that answer as well.”

Many of the speakers in court during the past several weeks used their time to demand accountability from the people and institutions they say could have stopped Nassar sooner. Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee are among the co-defendants in civil lawsuits that more than 200 women have filed regarding Nassar’s abuse.

More than a dozen girls and women say they told an authority figure about Nassar’s inappropriate behavior at some point before his arrest in September 2016. Larissa Boyce, a former youth gymnast, says she told Michigan State coach Kathie Klages in 1997 that Nassar had touched her inappropriately.

Boyce was one of the final women to address the court in a statement made Friday afternoon. She asked anyone who enabled Nassar to prey on young women for as long as he did to come forward and explain how that happened.

“You have a second chance to do the right thing,” Boyce said. “I hope and pray you can be transparent and willing to admit you missed this. Teach our country and the world how you missed this. Own up to your mistakes. I believe there is an opportunity for you to stand up and redeem these mistakes by doing the right thing now.”

The Michigan attorney general’s office is also conducting a broad, sweeping investigation into the handling of sexual assault on Michigan State’s campus to find out if and when others at the university could have done more to stop Nassar. Attorney general Bill Schuette assigned special counsel Bill Forsythe to lead the investigation.

“No department and no individual at Michigan State is off-limits,” Schuette said.

Denhollander and Boyce both said Monday’s proceedings came as a relief after a few long weeks in court and much longer years waiting to see Nassar brought to justice.

“I felt like a weight was lifted off of me,” Boyce said. “Finally I don’t have to face him in court anymore. It’s almost like this chapter is coming to a close in a way.”

New bipartisan immigration plan to be introduced in the Senate

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Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) arrives on Capitol Hill on July 11, 2017. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Two senators eager to see Congress start crossing items off its long to-do list are set to introduce a bipartisan plan  Monday designed to settle two of the more pressing parts of the immigration debate and let lawmakers move on to other issues.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) plan to formally introduce a bill that would grant permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers” and start bolstering security along the U.S.-Mexico border. But the measure would not immediately authorize spending the $25 billion President Trump is seeking to fortify the border with new wall and fence construction. Some Republicans are seeking at least $30 billion.

The McCain-Coons plan also would grant legal status to dreamers who have been in the country since 2013 — a larger pool of undocumented immigrants than the 1.8 million Trump supports legalizing.

The bill says nothing about curbing family-based legal migration or making changes to the diversity lottery program — two other priorities for Trump and conservative Republicans.

In a statement, McCain said the bill “would address the most urgent priorities” of legalizing the status of dreamers and make changes to border security — and allow Congress to move on.

“It’s time we end the gridlock so we can quickly move on to completing a long-term budget agreement that provides our men and women in uniform the support they deserve,” he added.

The new legislation comes as Congress has four days to meet another short-term spending deadline at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Immigration has been a dominant subject of the months-long talks to set new federal spending levels, as Democrats have insisted on enacting changes in immigration policy to win their support ever since Trump announced plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, last September.

The program is set to end March 5, although members of both parties believe that an ongoing federal court case that challenged Trump’s decision could keep the program operational for at least a few more months if Congress fails to act.

Trump, however, appeared to stand firm on his demands to fund the wall as part of any DACA legislation.

“Any deal on DACA that does not include STRONG border security and the desperately needed WALL is a total waste of time,” Trump tweeted Monday. “March 5th is rapidly approaching and the Dems seem not to care about DACA. Make a deal!”


Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill after the Senate reached an agreement to end the government shutdown on Jan. 22. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

A three-day partial government shutdown last month was forced in part by Democrats who withheld support for a short-term spending plan until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed to allow votes on immigration legislation if a compromise can’t be included as part of the next short-term spending bill. Negotiators in both parties and both chambers are still working on a potential plan and are expected to continue doing so this week.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), a lead Democratic negotiator on immigration policy, said that “there is not likely to be a DACA deal” this week.

He told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday: “I don’t see a government shutdown coming, but I do see a promise by Senator McConnell to finally bring this critical issue that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in America, finally bringing it to a full debate. That’s what we were looking for when there was a shutdown. We’ve achieve that goal, we’re moving forward.”

Whether the McCain-Coons bill could pass the Senate is unclear — but it is nearly identical to legislation already introduced in the House with wide support. The USA Act, introduced by Reps. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), has 54 co-sponsors — 27 members from each party — and has been the subject of conversations between Trump administration officials and senior congressional leaders trying to sort out the contours of a potential immigration debate.

But conservative lawmakers and some administration officials already consider the plan insufficient because it fails to do more to boost security along the southern border.

Like the House version, the new Senate bill calls for the use of drones and other technology to establish better “situational awareness and operational control of the border.” Rather than immediately spending the billions of dollars Trump is seeking for new wall and fencing construction, the legislation would require the secretary of homeland security to submit to Congress a new southern border security strategy within a year of the bill’s passage. That plan would need to include “a list of known physical barriers, levees, technologies, tools, and other devices that can be used to achieve and maintain situational awareness and operational control along the southern border” and a projected cost per mile for any changes.

“While reaching a deal cannot come soon enough for America’s service members, the current political reality demands bipartisan cooperation to address the impending expiration of the DACA program and secure the southern border,” McCain said.

Coons added that the bill “doesn’t solve every immigration issue, but it does address the two most pressing problems we face: protecting DACA recipients and securing the border.”

McCain is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a leading defense hawk who is furious with the slow pace of negotiations about increased federal spending levels. Supporters of increased military spending in both parties want Congress to enact a budget plan so the Pentagon can work on long-term planning.

McCain has Stage 4 brain cancer and has been absent from Washington since before Christmas. He is not expected to be on Capitol Hill this week.

Sponsoring this immigration measure is a stark departure from McCain’s aggressive stance on border security. During his 2010 reelection campaign, he vowed to “complete the danged fence” across Arizona’s span with Mexico. In 2013, he was a lead GOP negotiator on a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform plan that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate but fizzled in the House.

Coons is a relative newcomer to the years-long fight over immigration policy — but he has been an eager participant in recent bipartisan talks to end a partial government shutdown and broker a compromise on immigration policy. He is set to share more details about the bill later Monday.

News of the new McCain-Coons bill was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Brian Murphy contributed to this report.

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Immigration proposal contains bitter pills for both sides