Month: February 2018

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had little interest in opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling until a friend “who’s in that world and in that business” called and told him Republicans have been trying to do so for decades. 

It was at that moment, it seems, that it became a competition.

“After that I said, ‘Oh, make sure that’s in the [tax] bill,’” Trump said during a speech at the GOP congressional retreat in West Virginia.

“I really didn’t care about it,” he added. “And then when I heard that everybody wanted it — for 40 years they’ve been trying to get it approved — I said, ‘Make sure you don’t lose ANWR.’”

Trump didn’t say who first urged him to push for opening the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, also known as the 1002 Area.  

The GOP tax bill passed in December includes a provision, introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), that requires Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to approve at least two lease sales for drilling — each covering no less than 400,000 acres — in the refuge’s coastal plain. The region is home to polar bears, moose and caribou, and it has been the subject of a decades-long battle between energy companies and conservationists. 

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told a rather different story shortly after Trump’s speech. In an interview with The Washington Post, Sullivan said he and Murkowski briefed the president on several Alaska issues, including ANWR, early last year and were surprised at Trump’s knowledge about the state. Trump’s grandfather reportedly worked on an 1890s route that led to the Yukon gold fields.

“He actually knew a fair amount about Alaska,” Sullivan told the Post. “It’s pretty amazing history. His grandfather was there.”

In his speech Thursday, Trump called the refuge “one of the great potential fields anywhere in the world” and said drilling it is a “great opportunity for Alaska.”

This post has been updated with quotes from Sen. Dan Sullivan about Trump’s relationship with Alaska.

A new report discloses at least five previously unreported mass graves in Myanmar, adding further evidence of the systematic killing of Rohingya Muslim civilians by the country’s military.

More than two dozen Rohingya refugees living in temporary shelters in neighboring Bangladesh confirmed the existence of the mass graves in interviews with The Associated Press, and suggested more are yet to be discovered.

The Myanmar government has acknowledged only one mass grave, which it said contains the remains of 10 “terrorists” in the village of Inn Din. But survivors in refugee camps shared accounts with AP of family homes torched, towns ambushed with gunfire, and small children and elderly thrown into flames.

Refugees told AP of an Aug. 27 attack in which more than 200 soldiers stormed the village of Gu Dar Pyin and brought with them shovels to dig mass graves and acid to burn away the faces and hands of victims to prevent identification of the bodies.

“It was a mixed-up jumble of corpses piled on top of each other,” Noor Kadir, a survivor of the attack, told AP. “I felt such sorrow for them.”

Thousands of Rohingyas have fled Myanmar since the military launched a campaign of violence against them in late 2016.  

Those who have been displaced fear renewed violence if they go back to their home country, though Myanmar is working on a repatriation agreement with Bangladesh to return the Rohingya refugees. Myanmar’s government maintains that members of the Muslim group are foreigners, and does not allow them citizenship.

Myanmar’s civil leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate and former political prisoner, has denied damning reports of state-sanctioned abuse against the minority Muslims in the Buddhist-majority country. But human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the United Nations, report abuses that some say look increasingly like genocide.

“What the Myanmar government claims to be the conduct of military or security operations is actually an established pattern of domination, aggression and violations against ethnic groups,” Yanghee Lee, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a report dated Feb. 1.

Last week, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a veteran U.S. diplomat, abruptly resigned from an international panel established to advise Myanmar on the Rohingya crisis. In a letter announcing his decision, Richardson decried the country’s lack of “moral leadership” and said he could no longer “in good conscience serve in this role.”

The New York Daily News’ parent company has let go of two top editors at the newspaper following investigations last month into harassment allegations made against them by current and former employees, Tronc confirmed to HuffPost on Thursday.

“I can confirm that both are no longer with the company,” said a spokesperson for the company.

Tronc fired Rob Moore, the newspaper’s managing editor, along with Alexander “Doc” Jones, who edited the paper’s Sunday edition.

Moore came under investigation in January only after NPR contacted Tronc, the parent company, to ask about a sexual harassment complaint made against Moore the month before. 

Moore was suspended later that week, following a HuffPost report that he fostered a culture of fear in the newsroom, telling employees that he would get rid of anyone who complained about him to HR. 

HuffPost also reported that Tronc had suspended and begun investigating Jones, after the company received complaints about him as well. At least some of those complaints were sexual in nature.

Former employees told HuffPost that Jones, who worked at the newspaper for over two decades, displayed a “pattern” of inappropriate behavior toward young women.

Tronc’s investigation into “various complaints” determined that Jones made “unwanted physical contact with female employees such as kissing them, hugging them and/or grabbing their hands,” according to an internal company email obtained by HuffPost.

Additionally, the document revealed that Jones had previously been given a “warning” about his behavior and that the decision to terminate his employment was based partially on Jones’ “own admissions.” It was dated Jan. 30. 

Staffers also told HuffPost that the human resources department did not take proper action on complaints against Jones’ behavior prior to Tronc’s takeover.

“Media, as you know, is a tough enough biz to work in these days,” one staffer told HuffPost at the time. “It’s even tougher for women, because you have men like Rob and Doc contaminating the culture.”

The New York Daily News has since brought back former Editor-in-Chief Jim Rich after a brief stint as executive editor of HuffPost. The outlet had been searching for a permanent editor-in-chief since at least December, when Arthur Browne retired. 

A 15-year-old boy is in critical condition and a 15-year-old girl is in fair condition after being shot inside a classroom at Sal Castro Middle School in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to authorities. 

The suspected shooter, a 12-year-old female student, has been taken into custody by the Los Angeles Police Department. Officers say they have recovered the weapon used in the attack.

The boy is believed to have been shot in the head, according to NBC Los Angeles reporter Jonathan Gonzalez, who is on scene. The other student was struck in the hand by a bullet, KTLA reports. 

Both of the injured teenagers have been transported to a local trauma center, according to a Los Angeles Fire Department alert.

Three others, including an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old, suffered minor injuries from shrapnel or broken glass, officials told ABC 7.

At a press conference on Thursday, LAPD deputy Chief Robert Arcos said it was too early to speculate about the shooter’s possible motive or how the suspect obtained the weapon.

Los Angeles School Police Department Chief Steven Zipperman described the incident as “very traumatic” for the other students who were in the classroom at the time. He said the campus had been put on lockdown and searched before officers declared it safe. 

Arcos said “parents who are watching should be assured their children are in great care.”

There have been at least seven other school shootings so far this year that have resulted in death or injury.