September 4th, 2019

A Los Angeles man who prosecutors say sold counterfeit oxycodone to rapper Mac Miller two days before his death from an accidental drug overdose was arrested on Wednesday on federal charges.

Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says he predicted years ago that Iran would escalate its provocations against the United States — and he partly blames the Obama administration’s anemic reaction to an Iranian plot to bomb a restaurant in Washington, D.C.

“As governor, my number one priority is keeping our kids safe,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement Wednesday. “And right now, companies selling vaping products are using candy flavors to hook children on nicotine and misleading claims to promote the belief that these products are safe. That ends today”... Michigan’s policy stops a bit short of San Francisco’s, banning only the retail and online sale of flavored vapor products while leaving unflavored products alone. It also bans advertising that uses “terms like ‘clean,’ ‘safe,’ and ‘healthy’ that perpetuate beliefs that these products are harmless,” according to a release from Whitmer’s office.

The legal team representing the Obamas filed a petition to cancel the trademark of an e-book publishing company called Higher Ground Enterprises, much to the chagrin of the publishing company... Zerner told Fox News that the “Obamas have known for almost a year” that their Higher Ground Productions trademark application was rejected by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office because it was too similar to his client’s Higher Ground Enterprises. “Instead of simply picking another name, the Obamas' lawyers have now filed a meritless petition to cancel my client's trademark so they can take it for themselves,” Zerner said.

The Queen’s son, who has been repeatedly named in court filings in the Epstein sex scandal, was due to appear as a royal guest at a string of upcoming formal engagements in Northern Ireland. But several appearances have been scrapped — with one organizer saying the prince’s presence would “change the narrative” of their event, according to Sky News. The nixed appearances include the opening of a railway station after a $6.1 million overhaul, as well as several others that had yet to be formally listed over security concerns, the outlet said.

U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras ordered the White House on Tuesday to immediately give Playboy correspondent Brian Karem his press pass back after it was revoked for 30 days. Karem sued the White House in August "to enjoin the ongoing violation of his First and Fifth Amendment rights"... The White House revoked Karem's pass after getting into a confrontation with guests in the Rose Garden after attending a social media summit. Former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka got into Karem's face, where the two of them exchanged a short verbal spat.

In case you forgot, here's what happened in the Rose Garden:

The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that under the terms of the agreement, Google will pay $136 million to the commission and $34 million to New York state for alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a children’s privacy law. In addition to knowingly and illegally harvesting the information from kids without receiving parental consent, regulators said YouTube made millions of dollars by using the data collected from children to deliver targeted ads to them.

It appears President Macron's last ditch effort to create conditions to eventually bring Tehran and Washington back to the nuclear negotiating table by offering Iran a $15 billion credit line as an incentive to come back into compliance with the nuclear deal is making headway. However, the US would have to soften on its harsh 100% Iran oil sanctions to meet Tehran's conditions for the credit line.

The Google-owned company calls the June update — in which YouTube said it would specifically prohibit videos that glorify Nazi ideology or deny documented violent events like the Holocaust — a "fundamental shift in our policies" that resulted in the takedown of more than 100,000 individual videos during the second quarter of the year. The number of comments removed during the same period doubled to over 500 million, in part due to the new hate speech policy.

YouTube said that the 30,000 videos it had removed in the last month represented 3 percent of the views that knitting videos generated during the same period...

The defense secretary on Tuesday approved a border-wall spending plan that will divert funds from more than 100 military construction projects to earmark $3.6 billion for constructing a wall on the southern border with Mexico. The plan to allocate money for the border wall will take funds from some 127 existing military projects, according to the Pentagon. It’s not clear which projects will be affected.

Mr. Craig avoided a maximum potential sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. A jury of nine men and three women reached the verdict after four hours of deliberation, evaluating evidence presented during a three-week trial that included 16 prosecution witnesses and five for the defense. Ultimately, the jury concluded that Mr. Craig did not deceive the Justice Department investigators during a 2013 meeting to discuss his work on a project for the Ukrainian government.

Forty-seven percent of all Americans and 57% of government employees think Comey ought to face legal consequences after the Department of Justice’s inspector general found that he violated FBI policy, according to a Rasmussen poll released Tuesday.

As Sallet prepares to depart later this month for an executive position at FBI headquarters in Washington, he says there is still a lot more still to be revealed about the ongoing corruption probe. And while he won’t be here to see it, Sallet said he’s proud to have helped send a message to politicians "that it is not business as usual.” “Our corruption program is extremely busy,” Sallet said in an interview Tuesday from the FBI offices on the West Side. “While there have been plenty of overt actions that have occurred, the city of Chicago should expect more to come.”

After two years overseeing one of the FBI’s busiest field offices, Sallet, who turns 49 this week, has been tapped by FBI Director Christopher Wray to serve as the bureau’s chief financial officer and chief property officer — a top level position that will not only highlight his accounting background, but also give him a seat at the table in discussing major operational decisions.

The proposal, introduced in April, would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China. The bill was suspended in June but Ms Lam stopped short of scrapping it. Full withdrawal was one of five key demands of protesters, who also want full democracy. Some rejected Ms Lam's move and vowed to keep on protesting. In a televised address on Wednesday, Ms Lam also announced other measures that appeared to be designed to soothe unrest... On Monday, Ms Lam was heard on leaked audio tapes blaming herself for igniting Hong Kong's political crisis, and saying it was unforgiveable of her to have caused such huge havoc.

The Minnesota congresswoman and her husband allegedly separated in March, and Omar asked Hirsi to divorce her around that time because she didn’t want to file the papers — but Hirsi refused, telling her if she wanted a divorce she should do it herself, said the source, who has known both parties for 20 years. The husband allegedly changed his mind after Tim Mynett’s wife last week filed bombshell divorce papers claiming her spouse was having an affair with the Somali-born US representative — with Hirsi said to be angry he had been made to look the fool by the allegations of an extramarital affair.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed a resolution declaring the National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization” and urged the federal government to do the same – the latest escalation in the heated rhetoric from Democrats regarding the NRA in the wake of several deadly mass shootings. The resolution, which passed Tuesday and says the U.S. is “plagued by an epidemic of gun violence,” accuses the NRA of using “its considerable wealth and organization strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence.”

An anonymous man on Tuesday urged a New York judge to permanently keep secret many of the remaining sealed documents in a defamation lawsuit filed by one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, against the late money manager’s confidante, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

The man doesn’t explain why he believes his name may appear in the documents, or in what context, but he fears his reputation may be damaged by “unproven allegations of impropriety.”...