Tag Archives: United States

Canada not convinced it will see surge in people crossing border

The former border crossing used by refugees as they walk from the United States to enter Canada at Emerson, Manitoba, Canada February 25, 2017. Picture taken Febraury 25. REUTERS/Lyle Stafford

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada sees no signs of a coming surge in asylum seekers illegally crossing the border from the United States, a senior government official told reporters on Thursday, even as a steady stream of people continued to walk across the frontier.

Several hundred people, mainly from Africa, have defied winter conditions to enter Canada since Jan. 1. They are fleeing President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, migrants and refugee agencies say.

A briefing by Canadian officials was the first of its kind and comes as the Liberal government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comes under increasing domestic political pressure to deal with the influx.

Trudeau must also ensure the issue does not complicate his relations with Trump.

Security experts predict more will try to come as the snow melts and the weather warms.

But officials told the briefing it was too early to say whether a trend was developing and noted the number involved was still very small compared to the roughly 26,000 people who ask for asylum in Canada on average every year.

“There is no reason to believe that simply changes in weather patterns is going to lead to (an) increase,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

As dawn broke on Thursday, Reuters photographer Dario Ayala watched the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrest a group of five – a man, two women and two children – after they scrambled across a ditch near the Quebec town of Hemmingford, on the border with New York state. The people said they came from Syria.

An RCMP officer standing on the Canadian side warned the group they would be detained if they crossed.

“Sorry, sorry, we have no choice,” said the man. Once in Canada, they were detained, and driven off for processing.

Later the same morning, at the same spot, Ayala saw police arrest seven people who said they were from Eritrea.

Reuters could not independently verify nationalities of people crossing the border on Thursday.

Government officials acknowledge an increase in people seeking asylum this year while insisting they have enough resources to cope.

Although no one has yet been charged by the police for illegally crossing the border, all those detained are checked to make sure they do not have convictions for serious crimes.

“We are not releasing anyone we have concerns about,” another official told the briefing.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Chris Reese)

Kansas Supreme Court finds state underfunds schools

(Reuters) – The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the state’s system of funding primary and secondary public schools falls short of an adequacy requirement in the state constitution.

The high court said it was delaying enforcement of its unanimous ruling until the end of June to give the legislature time to respond.

It warned that if the state fails to come up with a funding system that complies with the constitution by the June 30 deadline, the court will move to void the current method of school finance.

Kansas spends more than $4 billion a year on schools, with most of the money coming from the state general fund. The supreme court’s ruling could add another $800 million, according to Alan Rupe, an attorney for the four school districts that filed the lawsuit.

The ruling comes at a bad time for the Kansas budget. Tax cuts enacted in 2012 have gouged a hole in the budget as revenue failed to meet monthly estimates, although February marked a fourth straight month that collections met or exceeded projections.

A move in the state legislature to boost revenue by raising tax rates and eliminating a business exemption failed last week when the Senate was unable to override Governor Sam Brownback’s veto.

Rupe said the state’s fiscal woes should not interfere with the requirement to fund education properly.

“I don’t know that the constitution provides constitutional rights only when we can afford to do it,” he said.

The governor’s office will make a comment once the ruling is fully reviewed, according to a Brownback spokeswoman.

S&P Global Ratings cited the state’s structural budget pressures and reliance on one-time revenue measures when it revised the outlook on the state’s AA-minus credit rating to negative from stable last month.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog and Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis)

U.S.-allied militia agrees to hand villages to Syrian govt

FILE PHOTO: A road sign shows the direction to Manbij city, as seen from the western entrance of the city, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria June 19, 2016. The Arabic words read 'Under the Islamic State rule, you insure your self, money, religion and honour'. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-allied militia in northern Syria said on Thursday it would hand over villages on a front line where it has been fighting Turkish-backed rebels to Syrian government control, under an agreement with Russia.

The villages will be surrendered to the Syrian government in the coming days, an official in the Manbij Military Council told Reuters. An earlier statement by the council said the villages would be handed to Syrian border guards.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara the report was false, but added there was an agreement with Russia that Syrian government and opposition forces should not fight each other in that area.

The villages west of the city of Manbij have been a focus of fighting between the Turkish-backed rebels and the Manbij Military Council, the U.S.-allied militia, since Wednesday.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said this week Manbij was the next target of Ankara’s campaign in northern Syria following the capture of nearby al-Bab from Islamic State last week.

“We will move towards Manbij after the al-Bab operation is completed, but the operation has not started yet. We know that the U.S. special forces are in that region, and we want the YPG to leave Manbij as soon as possible,” Cavusoglu said.

The Manbij Military Council is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed group of militias that includes the powerful Kurdish YPG group. The SDF captured the area around Manbij from Islamic State militants last year.

Turkey’s campaign in Syria is aimed at driving Islamic State from its border and at preventing expansion in the area by the YPG, which it regards as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is waging an insurgency against Ankara.

Cavusoglu said Turkey did not want the United States to continue cooperating with Kurdish groups and added that Turkey had repeatedly warned it would strike Kurdish militants if they remained in Manbij.

The multi-sided Syrian conflict began in 2011, drawing in regional states, the United States and Russia and leading to the country’s fragmentation into a patchwork of areas controlled by different armed groups.

(Reporting by Tom Perry and Angus McDowall in Beirut and Tulay Karadeniz and Ece Toksabay in Ankara; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Seven Baltimore police officers arrested on racketeering charges

A protester looks on as clouds of smoke and crowd control agents rise shortly after the deadline for a city-wide curfew passed in Baltimore, Maryland April 28, 2015, as crowds protest the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – Seven Baltimore police officers were arrested on Wednesday on federal racketeering charges for robbing and extorting up to $200,000 from victims, along with stealing guns and drugs, prosecutors said.

Many of the alleged shakedowns took place while the Baltimore Police Department was under intense media scrutiny and facing a U.S. Justice Department civil rights investigation for the 2015 police-involved death of a black man that plunged the largely African-American city into turmoil.

A grand jury last week indicted six detectives and a sergeant on charges of extorting money and robbing residents, filing false court paperwork and making false overtime claims, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland said. The indictment was unsealed on Wednesday.

“These are really simply robberies by people wearing police uniforms,” U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told a news conference.

The officers, all members in 2015 and 2016 of a gun-crime investigation unit, stole firearms, drugs and cash ranging from $200 to $200,000 from victims, some of whom had not committed crimes, Rosenstein’s office said in a statement.

The investigation began about a year ago as an outgrowth of a federal Drug Enforcement Administration probe into a drug-trafficking ring, Rosenstein said. One of the officers also faces a charge of possessing and planning to distribute heroin.

The officers had initial appearances on Wednesday in a U.S. court in Baltimore and were ordered held pending detention hearings, a spokeswoman for Rosenstein said.

In a statement, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said: “Reform isn’t always a pretty thing to watch unfold, but it’s necessary in our journey toward a police department our City deserves.”

The head of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police union, Gene Ryan, said in a statement he was “very disturbed” over the charges, but declined further comment until the cases were resolved.

All the officers are charged with racketeering conspiracy for robberies and extortion while part of the gun-crime unit. Five of the seven are charged with racketeering for shakedowns before they joined the task force.

They face a maximum of 20 years in prison for each count.

Baltimore was torn by rioting in April 2015 after a black man, Freddie Gray, died from an injury suffered in police custody. Six officers were indicted, but none were convicted.

Baltimore and the Justice Department reached agreement last month on a consent decree that calls for police reforms. The decree is awaiting approval by a federal judge.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Trump administration has found only $20 million in existing funds for wall

A general view shows a newly built section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at Sunland Park, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico January 26, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s promise to use existing funds to begin immediate construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border has hit a financial roadblock, according to a document seen by Reuters.

The rapid start of construction, promised throughout Trump’s campaign and in an executive order issued in January on border security, was to be financed, according to the White House, with “existing funds and resources” of the Department of Homeland Security.

But so far, the DHS has identified only $20 million that can be re-directed to the multi-billion-dollar project, according to a document prepared by the agency and distributed to congressional budget staff last week.

The document said the funds would be enough to cover a handful of contracts for wall prototypes, but not enough to begin construction of an actual barrier. This means that for the wall to move forward, the White House will need to convince Congress to appropriate funds.

An internal report, previously reported by Reuters, estimated that fully walling off or fencing the entire southern border would cost $21.6 billion – $9.3 million per mile of fence and $17.8 million per mile of wall.

DHS officials did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Trump has said he will ask Congress to pay for what existing funds cannot cover and that Mexico will be pressured to pay back U.S. taxpayers at a later date.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he will include funding for a border wall in the budget for next fiscal year. He has estimated the cost to be between $12 billion and $15 billion.

Many Republican lawmakers have said they would vote against a plan that does not offset the cost of the wall with spending cuts.

In the document it submitted to Congress, the DHS said it would reallocate $5 million from a fence project in Naco, Arizona, that came in under budget and $15 million from a project to install cameras on top of trucks at the border.

The surveillance project was awarded to Virginia-based Tactical Micro, but was held up due to protests from other contractors, according to the DHS document. Tactical Micro could not be reached for comment.

The DHS only searched for extra funds within its $376 million budget for border security fencing, infrastructure and technology, so it would not have to ask for congressional approval to repurpose funding, according to the document.

Contractors cannot begin bidding to develop prototypes until March 6 but more than 265 businesses already have listed themselves as “interested parties” on a government web site.

Those interested range from small businesses to large government contractors such as Raytheon <RTN.N>.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Sue Horton and Bill Trott)

School board in key transgender case seeks U.S. high court delay

File Photo: A bathroom sign welcomes both genders at the Cacao Cinnamon coffee shop in Durham, North Carolina, United States on May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Photo

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Virginia school board sued by a student over bathroom access in a major transgender rights case asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to delay the matter until at least April, when President Donald Trump’s conservative nominee could be on the bench and potentially cast the deciding vote.

Lawyers on both sides of the dispute urged the justices to decide the case even though the Trump administration on Feb. 22 rescinded Obama administration guidance to public schools to let transgender students use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity. The Gloucester County School Board asked for the delay so the Trump administration, which is not a party in the case, can file a brief providing its views.

The court, currently one justice short, has scheduled oral arguments for March 28 on whether the school board violated a federal anti-discrimination law when it blocked Gavin Grimm, a female-born transgender high school student who identifies as male, from using the boys’ bathroom. A ruling is due by the end of June.

Trump on Jan. 31 nominated appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy on the court caused by the February 2016 death of conservative justice Antonin Scalia. The Senate has scheduled Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings to begin on March 20 and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he hopes Gorsuch will be confirmed before the start of a Senate recess in mid-April.

The court currently has four conservatives and four liberals. Gorsuch’s confirmation would restore a long-standing conservative majority.

If the justices delay arguments until the court’s two-week session beginning April 17 or even put it over until the next court term starts in October, Gorsuch potentially could participate. If the court hears the case with eight justices, it could split 4-4, which would leave in place a lower court’s ruling favoring the student, Gavin Grimm, but set no nationwide legal precedent.

The justice asked both sides to weigh in after the Trump administration’s action.

Although Trump’s decision to roll back Obama’s May 2016 guidance effectively knocked out one of the legal questions in the case, lawyers on both sides said the justices can still decide whether a federal law, known as Title IX, that bars sex discrimination in education covers transgender students.

Trump’s move “makes resolution of that question more urgent than ever,” said Joshua Block, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents Grimm and opposed a postponement.

“Delaying resolution of that question will only lead to further harm, confusion and protracted litigation for transgender students and school districts across the country,” Block added.

The court could take a more cautious approach and send the case back to the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its April 2016 ruling in favor of Grimm in light of the Trump administration’s action.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Dow tops 21,000 on Trump speech, rate hike talk

A screen shows the Dow Jones Industrial Average soon after the market opened on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange . REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

(Reuters) – The Dow crossed the 21,000 mark for the first time ever on Wednesday, as President Donald Trump’s measured tone in his first speech to Congress lifted investor optimism and bank stocks surged on hopes of an interest rate hike this month.

Trump on Tuesday said he wanted to boost the U.S. economy with a “massive” tax relief and make a $1 trillion effort on infrastructure, bets that have helped Wall Street scale new records since the November election.

“Trump came off very Presidential and investors are drawing optimism from the way he delivered the message in his speech,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

“Today is just another vote of confidence in Donald Trump being able to do what he says he wants to do.”

If the Dow closes above 21,000, it would have taken 24 trading sessions since the blue-chip index first closed above 20,000, matching the fastest move between thousand-point milestones, which happened between March and May 1999 and took the index above 11,000.

Banks and industrial stocks, which have benefited the most in the post-election rally, were the biggest gainers on Wednesday. The spike also helped the S&P to break out from the tight trading range the index has been stuck in since Dec. 7.

The three main indexes were on track for their best one-day gain since Nov. 7, a day before the U.S. presidential election.

The S&P financial index <.SPSY> soared 2.7 percent, outperforming the other 10 major sectors, also helped by key Federal Reserve officials who hinted at an interest rate hike this month.

The KBW Nasdaq Bank index <.BKX> was up 3.3 percent, while the dollar gained 0.6 percent.

The odds of March rate hike also rose after the Commerce Department reported that January inflation ticked up by the most in four years.

Traders have now priced in a nearly 70 percent chance of rate hike when the Fed’s policy-setting body meets on March 14-15, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Gold prices, the CBOE Volatility index <.VIX> and bond proxy sectors of the S&P 500 dropped.

“The specter of higher rates means the economy is doing better,” Bakhos said.

At 12:18 p.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was up 290.2 points, or 1.39 percent, at 21,102.44, the S&P 500 <.SPX> was up 33.11 points, or 1.40 percent, at 2,396.75 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was up 76.88 points, or 1.32 percent, at 5,902.31.

Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors, including industrials <.SPLRCI> and materials <.SPLRCM>, gained between 1.4 and 2.7 percent.

Lowe’s <LOW.N> stock jumped 9.3 percent to $81.22 and was the biggest percentage gainer on the S&P, after the home improvement chain issued an upbeat sales forecast.

One laggard on all the three indexes was Intel <INTC.O>, which fell 1.2 percent after Bernstein downgraded the stock to “underperform” and cut its price target.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,044 to 891. On the Nasdaq, 2,192 issues rose and 620 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 127 new 52-week highs and four new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 189 new highs and 32 new lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

White House supports renewal of spy law without reforms: official

A surveillance camera is pictured atop the border fence separating the United States and Mexico in El Paso, U.S. January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo

By Steve Holland and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration supports renewing without reforms a key surveillance law governing how the U.S. government collects electronic communications that is due to expire at the end of the year, a White House official said on Wednesday.

“We support the clean reauthorization and the administration believes it’s necessary to protect the security of the nation,” the official said on customary condition of anonymity.

The law, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), has been criticized by privacy and civil liberties advocates as allowing broad, intrusive spying. It gained renewed attention following the 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Portions of the law, including a provision known as Section 702, will expire on Dec. 31, 2017, unless Congress reauthorizes them.

Section 702 enables two internet surveillance programs called Prism and Upstream, classified details of which were revealed by Snowden’s leaks.

Prism gathers messaging data from Alphabet Inc’s Google , Facebook Inc , Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and other major tech companies that is sent to and from a foreign target under surveillance. Upstream allows the NSA to copy Web traffic flowing along the internet backbone located inside the United States and search that data for certain terms associated with a target.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have said reforms to Section 702 are needed, in part to ensure the privacy protections on Americans are not violated. The U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee met Wednesday to discuss possible changes to the law.

Though FISA is intended to govern spy programs intended for foreigners, an unknown amount of communications belonging to Americans are also collected due to a range of technical and practical reasons.

Such collection has been defended by U.S. intelligence agencies as “incidental,” but privacy groups have said it allows for backdoor seizures of data without proper judicial oversight.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Dustin Volz, writing by Dustin Volz; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Andrew Hay)

Storms move east after killing three in U.S. Midwest

By Brendan O’Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Tornadoes and storms that already have killed at least three people and destroyed homes in the U.S. Midwest are moving east on Wednesday, the National Weather Service and media reported.

Tornado watches remained in effect from northeast Arkansas north into Ohio and eastern Pennsylvania for Wednesday morning after the band of storms rolled through the Midwest on Tuesday night, the National Weather Service said.

“Widespread damaging winds can be expected, along with some tornado risk,” the service said in an advisory.

The storm system will continue moving east toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to AccuWeather meteorologists. This is likely to bring severe thunderstorms and possible travel delays later on Wednesday to New York City, Washington, Philadelphia and Boston.

The storm has left tens of thousands of people without electricity and killed at least three people, according to local officials and media reports. One person died while driving on a Missouri freeway after strong winds swept old cars from a nearby junkyard onto the road.

Tornado spotters have already reported at least 23 twisters in Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Tennessee and Indiana on Tuesday evening, the National Weather Service said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

New Trump travel order expected in coming days, Pence says

DAY 19 / FEBRUARY 7: Vice President Mike Pence was called in to break a Senate vote tie that threatened to defeat the confirmation of billionaire Betsy DeVos as education secretary.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump plans to finalize a new order limiting travel to the United States in the coming days, his vice president said on Wednesday, after federal courts blocked the administration’s earlier travel ban.

A White House source had previously said the new order was likely to be announced on Wednesday.

More than two dozen lawsuits were filed in U.S. courts against the Jan. 27 travel ban, which temporarily barred entry to the United States for people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, as well as halting the U.S. refugee program.

The ban was suspended by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in a case brought by Washington state. The Trump administration then said it would produce a new order.

“They’re putting out the finishing touches on that executive order. It should be out in the next few days,” Vice President Mike Pence told CBS program “This Morning.”

The original order triggered chaos at airports as people, including legal residents known as green card holders, were temporarily blocked from entering the country and federal agencies tried to interpret the new guidelines.

The administration has said it is likely the new directive will exclude legal permanent residents, making it harder for opponents to challenge the ban. [L2N1GD20P]

Pence did not elaborate on the revised directive.

The Associated Press, citing unidentified U.S. officials, reported late on Tuesday that the new order will remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary travel ban.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Frances Kerry)