Trump son-in-law Kushner a focus in Russia probe: US media

May 26, 2017

Washington, May 26: The FBI is investigating meetings that US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had in December with Russian officials, The Washington Post and NBC News reported Thursday.Kushner

Meanwhile, the chairman of the House oversight committee asked the FBI to turn over more documents about former director James Comey's interactions with the White House and Justice Department, including materials dating back nearly four years to the Obama administration.

The FBI and the oversight committee - as well as several other congressional panels - are looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump fired Comey May 9 amid questions about the FBI's investigation, which is now being led by special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director.

Kushner, a key White House adviser, had meetings late last year with Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov.

The Post story cited anonymous "people familiar with the investigation," who said the FBI investigation does not mean that Kushner is suspected of a crime.

Kushner attorney Jamie Gorelick released a statement saying: "Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry."

Earlier Thursday, House oversight committee chairman Jason Chaffetz told acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he wants records of Comey's contacts with the White House and Justice Department dating to September 2013, when Comey was sworn in as FBI director under President Barack Obama.

In a letter to McCabe, Chaffetz said he is seeking to review Comey's memos and other written materials so he can "better understand" Comey's communications with the White House and attorney general's office.

Chaffetz, R-Utah, previously requested Comey's recent memos about his private contacts with Trump. But the bureau told him Thursday it could not yet turn them over because of Mueller's probe.

Chaffetz, who said last week he has his "subpoena pen" ready to force Comey or the FBI to turn over the documents, told McCabe that "Congress and the American public have a right and a duty to examine this issue independently of the special counsel's investigation."

He added, in a thinly veiled threat, "I trust and hope you understand this and make the right decision - to produce these documents to the committee immediately and on a voluntary basis."

Chaffetz's letter comes a month before he is scheduled to leave office after abruptly announcing his resignation earlier this year. He canceled a hearing scheduled Wednesday after Comey declined to testify.

Assistant FBI Director Gregory Brower told Chaffetz on Thursday the agency is evaluating his request and will update him as soon as possible.

Some Republican members of Congress have pressured Chaffetz to step down from the Comey probe, saying it should be led by someone who will remain in Congress.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C, is considered the front-runner to replace Chaffetz as oversight chair. Gowdy led a special House panel that spent more than two years investigating the deadly 2012 attacks at a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

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News Network
June 9,2020

Jun 9: The World Health Organization says it still believes the spread of the coronavirus from people without symptoms is “rare,” despite warnings from numerous experts worldwide that such transmission is more frequent and likely explains why the pandemic has been so hard to contain.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO''s technical lead on COVID-19 said at a press briefing on Monday that many countries are reporting cases of spread from people who are asymptomatic, or those with no clinical symptoms.

But when questioned in more detail about these cases, Van Kerkhove said many of them turn out to have mild disease, or unusual symptoms.

Although health officials in countries including Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere have warned that COVID-19 is spreading from people without symptoms, WHO has maintained that this type of spread is not a driver of the pandemic and is probably accounts for about 6 per cent of spread, at most.

Numerous studies have suggested that the virus is spreading from people without symptoms, but many of those are either anecdotal reports or based on modeling.

Van Kerkhove said that based on data from countries, when people with no symptoms of COVID-19 are tracked over a long period to see if they spread the disease, there are very few cases of spread.

“We are constantly looking at this data and we''re trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question,” she said. “It still appears to be rare that asymptomatic individuals actually transmit onward.”

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Agencies
May 28,2020

Washington, May 28: US President Donald Trump has warned social media giants that his government could "strongly regulate" or "close them down" after Twitter fact-checked one of his tweets for the first time.

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices," Xinhua news agency reported citing Trump as saying in a tweet to his 80 million followers on Wednesday.

"We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."

Later in the day, he said that Twitter "has now shown everything we have been saying about them... is correct" and vowed "big action to follow".

The President's remarks came after Twitter slapped a warning label on one of his tweets on Tuesday, cautioning readers "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud".

It was in response to Trump's tweet, without providing evidence, said: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent."

Also Read: Obama was ‘grossly incompetent president’, says Donald Trump
It is unclear what regulatory steps the president could take without new laws passed by Congress, the BBC reported.

The White House is yet to offer further details.

Earlier, Trump has accused Twitter of interfering in this year's US presidential election scheduled for November, saying the company was "completely stifling free speech, and I, as president, will not allow it to happen".

With more than 52,000 tweets currently to his name, Trump is a prolific tweeter and relies on the platform to disseminate his views to millions of people.

He has used Twitter to launch attacks on opponents, with targets ranging from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to his political rivals in the US.

In 2017 he used anti-Muslim tweets aimed at London Mayor Sadiq Khan to serve a domestic political purpose of warning about immigration.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Hubei, Mar 25: As a bus departed from its terminus at Hankou Railway Station at 5:25 am Wednesday morning, Wuhan started to resume bus service after nine weeks of lockdown.

Apart from a driver, a safety supervisor was also on each bus, whose duty was to make sure all passengers are healthy.
"For those who do not use smartphones, they should bring with them a health certificate issued by the health authorities," said Zhou Jingjing, a safety supervisor aboard bus No. 511 departing from the Wuchang Railway Station complex.
The once hardest-hit city in central China's Hubei Province during the COVID-19 outbreak took unprecedented traffic restrictions on Jan 23. All of its public transport and all outbound flights and trains had been suspended in an attempt to contain the virus within the region.

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