June, 2019

Three large Chinese banks could lose their access to the U.S. financial system after a judge found them in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas in a probe into violation of North Korean sanctions, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The three banks are not identified by the judge, but details in the court ruling align with a 2017 civil forfeiture action against the Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, according to the report...

The administration said in a Monday letter to Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) that Conway would not testify, citing "long-standing precedent." The White House decided on the move ahead of a Wednesday vote from the panel to subpoena Conway if she does not appear voluntarily... In an interview earlier Monday, Conway simultaneously insisted she had not violated the law, that the law did not apply to assistants to the president and that Democrats were attempting to silence her. She did not say in the interview whether she planned to testify.

Cooper asked Carroll, "you don't feel like a victim?" after she suggested that was the case, and things went downhill fast.

The seemingly unstable Carroll replied, "I was not flung to the floor."

Cooper retorted, "I think most people think of rape as a violent assault..."

To which Carrol replied, stunning the CNN anchor, "I think most people think of rape as being sexy..."

Cooper stuttered, stumbled, and quickly cut the interview straight to a commercial break, but not before Carroll could add "...think of the fantasies."

Russia's national security adviser says Russian intelligence has determined that Iran shot down an American drone last week over Iranian airspace.

Nikolai Patrushev's assessment contradicts U.S. claims that the aircraft was downed in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz.

Patrushev spoke to reporters after a three-way meeting with his Russian and Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem. He said Iran has not briefed Russia about the incident but that the Russian Defense Ministry has concluded the drone had entered Iranian airspace.

He says: "We have not seen any proof otherwise."...

Estonia and the United Kingdom both spend 2.13% of their GDP on defence while Greece spends 2.24% and the US spends 3.42%...

Here are the top five countries by total expenditure:

• United States (730.15 billion dollars)
• United Kingdom (60.38 billion dollars)
• Germany (54.11 billion dollars)
• France (50.66 billion dollars)
• Italy (24.48 billion dollars)

“They’ll either get the point or ... we will simply enhance the maximum pressure campaign further,” Bolton told reporters after meeting his Russian and Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem. “It will be, I think, the combination of sanctions and other pressure that does bring Iran to the table.”

While the vast size of this massive cache is surprising, it's not entirely unexpected. Signals of the water first showed up in the 1970s, but until now, nobody suspected that this huge reservoir trapped in porous rock might run almost the entire length of the US Northeast.

The image above shows the giant aquifer in yellow hatched areas, with triangles representing survey expeditions.

June has so far proven to be a high point for market trends in 2019, though the entire year is up by significant margins. The Dow has seen a 14.7% uptick from 2018, while S&P has surged by 17.8%. June contributed largely to both gains.
President Trump has touted himself and the work of his administration for the stock market surge, tweeting, "Stock Market is on track to have the best June in over 50 years! Thank you Mr. President!"...

A Treasury spokesperson said that the process for issuing new notes was not political and that security and potential counterfeiting threats were the only considerations when it came to the currency redesign schedule. The $20 bill currently features President Andrew Jackson, one of President Donald Trump's favorite historical figures. Trump, who once described the move to put Tubman's likeness on the $20 note as "pure political correctness," has suggested that the famed abolitionist could be featured on the $2 bill instead.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said on Twitter that only 30 of 255 children remain at the Clint border patrol station in El Paso County following her office sending a letter on Friday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner John Sanders and U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost... The announcement comes after lawyers with Human Rights Watch said children had lived in the Clint short-term facility for up to four weeks, well above the 72 hours maximum limit set by U.S. law.

US parcel delivery firm FedEx Corp on Monday sued the US government, saying it should not be held liable if it inadvertently shipped products that violated a Trump administration ban on exports to some Chinese companies.

The move came after FedEx reignited Chinese ire over its business practices when a package containing a Huawei phone sent to the US was returned last week to its sender in Britain, in what FedEx said was an “operational error.” Fears that China would blacklist FedEx as a result sent its shares down 2.7 per cent on Monday.

Ostritz residents did their part too: the BBC reports that they bought more than 200 crates of beer from the supermarket. "The plan was devised a week in advance,” Georg Salditt, a community activist, told Bild. “We wanted to dry the Nazis out. We thought, if an alcohol ban is coming, we'll empty the shelves at the [supermarket]."

Somewhere between 500 and 600 neo-Nazis attended the festival, which was soundtracked by concerts from “far-right extremist bands.” There were also more than 1,400 police officers present, including federal police, riot squads, and cops from elsewhere in Germany and Poland...

“We call on Russia to take the responsible path, but we have seen no indication that Russia intends to do so,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference. “We will need to respond,” Stoltenberg said.

He declined to go into more details. But diplomats said defense ministers will consider more flights over Europe by U.S. warplanes capable of carrying nuclear warheads, more military training and the repositioning U.S. sea-based missiles.

His statement, made on Monday, comes amid nearly daily protests by Philippine nationalist groups over the incident. The demonstrators are pressing China to turn over the crew of the ship that rammed the smaller Filipino boat two weeks ago, sending its 22 crew members into the waters near Reed Bank before they were rescued by a Vietnamese vessel.

Reed Bank is well within the Philippines’ internationally recognized exclusive economic zone, but China claims that area and virtually all the rest of the South China Sea...

Chicago police on Monday released hundreds of files from the investigation into Jussie Smollett’s claim he was attacked by two men, including video footage that for the first time shows the “Empire” actor with a thin, white rope wrapped around his neck that he told detectives was a noose... In all, police released nearly 1,200 different individual files on Monday, including thousands of pages of documents, arrest reports and handwritten notes from police. Added up, there is more than 90 hours of video, much of it hour after hour of surveillance cameras high above city streets.

Trump said the sanctions “will deny the supreme leader and the supreme leader's office and those closely affiliated with him and the office access to key financial resources and support.” Speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the sanctions “lock up literally billions of dollars more of assets.”...

That’s a lot of planes. There’s about 500 grounded 737 Max jets around the world, as Bloomberg notes, with about 100 stuck at Boeing’s Renton factory. Those are the planes we’re seeing here, parked alongside people’s Priuses and Explorers...

“Most of the time, we usually find either adults or teenagers, but this is the first time we’ve actually found infants and toddlers, and it is pretty shocking for us,” said the Hidalgo County sheriff, J.E. Guerra, who broke the news of the discovery on Twitter late Sunday night.

Officials said there were as yet no signs of foul play, and that the four may have died from dehydration and heat exposure. The bodies appeared to be those of undocumented immigrants, but neither their identities nor their country of origin had been determined on Monday.