NYC Mayor Wants to Close Rikers Island Jail Over Next Decade

The mayor said Friday that he wants to close the city’s troubled Rikers Island jail complex, though he cautioned that doing so would be difficult and take at least a decade.

“It will take many years and it will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Among those challenges: The mayor said the jail’s daily population would have to be slashed to half of what it was just a few years ago. New, smaller jails would also have to be opened elsewhere in the city — a potentially lengthy process considering the possibility of neighborhood opposition.

Key details of the plan, including the cost and the location of alternative jails, are still a long way from being worked out, the mayor said.

The announcement comes two days ahead of the planned unveiling of recommendations by an independent commission established by the City Council after a string of brutality cases that exposed poor supervision, questionable medical care and corruption at Rikers. The commission has been considering options for Rikers as part of a broad examination of the city’s criminal justice system.

Previously, the mayor, a Democrat, had called proposals to close Rikers “noble” but too expensive.

On Friday, he said he had changed his mind because the jail system was housing fewer and fewer people, dropping to under 10,000 from a high of 15,000 just a few years ago, according to city figures. Most of the city’s jail population is at Rikers; there are about 2,400 inmates in other locations. De Blasio said the jail population would have to be at 5,000 in order to shut it.

De Blasio credited the drop partly to shifts in how law enforcement handles lower level crimes, like smoking marijuana in public.

Rikers is a 400-acre (162-hectare) former dump near the runways of LaGuardia Airport. It is accessible only by a narrow bridge between it and Queens. For decades, the city has sent its inmates there while they await trial, where they’re housed in 10 jail facilities.

Advocates for prisoners have been arguing that smaller jails, based in the city’s neighborhoods, would be better able to provide services and reduce delays getting criminal suspects to and from court.

Glenn Martin, an inmate advocate who has pushed a campaign to persuade the mayor to close the jail, called de Blasio’s decision “a step in the right direction.”

“Countless failed attempts at incremental reform have proven that the only viable solution is to close Rikers,” he said.

Neighborhood groups and others have resisted previous attempts to build or expand existing jails in the boroughs. City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said Friday that city officials should be thinking about how to help people entangled in the criminal justice system.

“Are we going to give these people another chance or are we going to write them off?” she asked.

Violence, mismanagement and corruption have been the subject of intense scrutiny by the media and federal prosecutors in recent years.

A 2015 settlement of civil litigation over pervasive brutality led to the installation of a monitor responsible for overseeing the city’s progress in adding thousands of surveillance cameras and stricter policies on use of force.

The Associated Press and other news outlets first exposed conditions on Rikers in a series of reports in 2014. Those reports included the suicide of Kalief Browder, who hanged himself after spending three years jailed — mostly in solitary — without trial and a homeless ex-Marine who essentially baked to death in a hot cell.

Source: newsmax

US Defense Chief Mattis: North Korea Has 'Got to be Stopped'

North Korea must be stopped on its path toward being able to threaten the United States with nuclear attack, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday in a stark expression of America’s top national security concern at the moment. He emphasized diplomatic means of changing Pyongyang’s “reckless” agenda.

On his first visit to Britain as Pentagon chief, Mattis also took rhetorical jabs at Russia and said America’s priority in Syria is defeating the Islamic State group rather than bringing down President Bashar Assad.

At a joint news conference with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, Mattis was reminded by a reporter that as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East several years ago, he considered Iran to be the biggest threat to U.S. interests. Asked how he would deal with Iran as secretary of defense, Mattis called Tehran a problem but quickly pivoted to condemning North Korea and described the isolated, communist country as the more immediate threat.

“This is a threat of both rhetoric and growing capability,” Mattis said, alluding to the North’s recent progress in building nuclear bombs and developing an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver such weapons to U.S. soil. Experts believe

North Korea will develop such capability in the next years, despite an array of international sanctions on the country. The Trump administration has been conducting a broad policy review of North Korea that includes military options, but Mattis stressed other approaches.

“We are working diplomatically, including with those that we might be able to enlist in this effort to get North Korea under control,” he said. “But right now it appears to be going in a very reckless manner.”

“That’s got to be stopped,” he concluded.

Mattis made clear he still worries about Iran’s involvement in what the U.S. sees as destabilizing activities across the Middle East. But he suggested that he now sees the world through a wider lens and that makes North Korea the more urgent problem.

He also aimed strong criticism at Russia, saying its “violations of international law are now a matter of record.” He was referring to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and “mucking around insider other people’s elections and that sort of thing.” He also cited Russian outreach to Afghanistan’s Taliban as a concern.

Mattis hinted the Trump administration was close to deciding how to respond to Russia’s recent deployment of a ground-based medium-range cruise missile — an action the Pentagon recently declared a violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty.

Britain’s Fallon said he and Mattis discussed the INF issue in their private talks Friday. More broadly, he said the NATO alliance cannot return to business as usual with Russia.

“There is a pattern of interference by Russia,” Fallon said. When the West does engage with Moscow, he added, “we need to be wary of what Russia is up to.”

On Syria, which has been wracked by years of civil and IS’ insurgency, Mattis said the U.S. government is “working this one day at a time.” He said the focus is IS’ stated intention of attacking the West, including Europe.

“We’re going to have to keep them on their back foot, and that’s where we’re concentrating at this point,” he said, alluding to U.S.-supported offensives in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.

Source: newsmax

Sessions: Ferguson Emblem of Tense Relationship with Police

Ferguson, Missouri, has become “an emblem of the tense relationship” between law enforcement and those it serves, especially minority communities, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday during a visit to St. Louis.

Sessions, speaking to a gathering of law enforcement leaders at the federal courthouse that sits roughly 12 miles from Ferguson, said the Justice Department will work with them to battle the rising tide of violent crime in America. He said he supports “proactive, up-close policing — when officers get out of their squad cars and interact with everyone on their beat — that builds trust, prevents violent crime, saves lives and creates a good atmosphere.”

But Sessions said that sort of police work has become increasingly difficult in what he called “an age of viral videos and targeted killings of police.”

“Unfortunately, in recent years law enforcement as a whole has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the crime and unacceptable deeds of a few in their ranks,” Sessions said. “Amid this intense public scrutiny and criticism, morale has gone down, while the number in their ranks killed in the line of duty has gone up.”

Ferguson, he said, has become “an emblem of the tense relationship between law enforcement and the communities we serve, especially our minority communities.”

Ferguson became a flashpoint after 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, was killed by white officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014. Months of often violent protests followed the shooting. A St. Louis County grand jury and the Justice Department cleared Wilson of wrongdoing in November 2014, and he resigned that same month.

But the Justice Department investigation under then-Attorney General Eric Holder found significant racial profiling and bias in both Ferguson’s police department and municipal court. The city and the Justice Department settled a lawsuit last year that requires significant changes in policing. That process is ongoing.

Sessions is taking a far different approach than Holder. Civil rights investigations of police were common during the Obama administration. Sessions has suggested that civil rights investigations hinder police, causing them to back off out of fear of scrutiny of their every move. In fact, some have labeled the phenomenon the “Ferguson Effect.”

Ferguson Police Chief Delrish Moss, who attended the speech, said he was encouraged by Sessions’ commitment to battling violent crime. And Moss believes the Justice Department remains steadfast in working with Ferguson leaders to eliminate racial bias.

“We’re working with the Department of Justice, in fact, on a weekly basis,” Moss said. “They remain as committed as they always have been to the reforms we’ve agreed upon.”

President Ronald Reagan chose Sessions for a federal judgeship in the 1980s, but the nomination was rejected amid concerns about racially charged comments and his failed prosecution of three black civil rights activists on voting fraud charges.

Denise Lieberman, a St. Louis lawyer with the civil rights group Advancement Project, said Sessions’ approach is concerning at a time when allegations of violence by police are at an all-time high.

“We also know that the role of the Department of Justice is absolutely critical to ensuring that policing agencies are complying with the law, and they are a crucial step in bringing accountability to policing,” Lieberman said. “We see that right here in Ferguson.”

Sessions told the St. Louis audience he has ordered the creation of a crime-fighting task force that brings together the leaders of the FBI, DEA, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service. He said battling the heroin and opioid epidemic is a crucial element of the fight to stem violent crime.

Source: newsmax

Former Marine Security Expert: 'We Already Are in a Cyberwar' With Russia

A former U.S. Marine Corps cyber security expert said the U.S. is already in a cyber war with Russia. 

“Hacking, especially when it comes to different countries, is nothing new. The United States hacks Russia,” David Kennedy said in a video for Business Insider. “Russia hacks the United States. We hack China, China hacks us.

It’s literally a game where we don’t want to impact them because they can impact us and vice versa,” he continues.

“So in the event that Russia decides to launch a cyberattack that directly impacts our economy, or our power grid, or our water treatment facilities, things that we rely on for core day-to-day life.

“We have the exact same foot-holds into their environment and we can do the exact same thing. So right now it’s really a pain game on who wants to withstand the most about of main and who has the most capabilities. So everybody is scared of each other.”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Russian actions during the election could be an “act of war,” but according to Kennedy, “we don’t know what classifies a cyber war or what would cause an act of war, right now there’s no definition of that.”

According to CBS News, Cheney said at the Economic Times’ Global Business Summit in New Delhi: “There’s not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate, but there’s no question that there was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization, to interfere in major ways with our basic, fundamental democratic processes.

“In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.”

Source: newsmax

Verizon: Android Spyware Coming Soon to Your Device

Verizon has announced it will install spyware called AppFlash on all of its users’ Android devices within the next few weeks, just days after the House of Representatives passed legislation that would allow internet providers to sell people’s browser histories to advertisers.

AppFlash works to connect content and services between different apps, and suggests restaurants, music, movies, etc., that might interest users, according to TechCrunch. To be able to make relevant suggestions, the spyware gathers data about your preferences from your searches and apps.

Not only does the spyware collect your phone number, it also records your location and everything stored on your device, including the information for all of your contacts, Engadget reported.

Verizon said the information would be shared with all of the companies Verizon owns or is partnered with, including AOL.

The revelation caused privacy watchdog the Electronic Frontier Foundation to initially decry AppFlash as “the first horseman of the privacy apocalypse,” according to PhoneArena.

The digital rights group did back off from their strong opposition to the software, pending further investigation, when Verizon clarified users would have to opt in to the software.

“You can easily disable the app,” a Verizon spokeswoman said, CNET reported. “Nobody is required to use it.

Twitter users seem universally opposed to the spyware addition, with many saying they plan to seek other ISPs and cell phone service providers.

Hey @verizon, your new mandatory Appflash spyware is a great way to encourage your customers to dump you for @ATT.http://bit.ly/2nTHMnB

— Northern Cali-Gator (@microdile) March 31, 2017

Dear Verizon,
You were my 1st, have been my only. I trusted you. I plan to see other ISPs. You and your spyware deserve each other.
Irene

— Irene Koehler (@IreneKoehler) March 31, 2017

Source: newsmax

Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown on Running for President: 'Don't Rule It Out'

California Gov. Jerry Brown  may be leaving open the possibility of a run for the presidency, according to SFGate. 

“I don’t think I’m running for office. All I’ve got left is lieutenant governor, treasurer, and controller,” he said at a Thursday press conference.

A person in the crowd then yelled,”Or president,” according to the Los Angeles Times. 

“I’d be 82 then. But you know, don’t rule it out,” Brown said.

An aide later clarified Brown’s comment for the LA Times, saying, “He was joking.”

The governor on Wednesday proposed raising $52 billion with a gasoline tax increase to fix California’s roads, Los Angeles Daily News reported. 

Source: newsmax

Commerce's Wilbur Ross Hopes for Cooperation From Chinese President

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday he hopes President Donald Trump’s upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping will result in a commitment toward the two countries working collaboratively.

“What I would hope would come out would be a commitment to start abiding by the rules and a commitment to working collaboratively to help reduce our deficit,” Ross told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” program.

Trump on Thursday tweeted that the session will be a “very difficult one” because “we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses.”

Friday, Trump plans to sign two executive orders aimed at reshaping U.S. trade policy, aiming the orders at foreign trade abuses. The signings come a week before Trump will meet with the Chinese leader.

Ross told Fox News that the first order will commission the Commerce Department to perform a 90-day study, “country by country, of the causes for our deficits with them.”

“As you know, we have $500 billion of total deficit,” Ross said. “This will be a real analytical pinpointing so it can form the basis of policy decisions. For the first time, there will be a systemic analysis of the problem, so that we can have very detailed and very accurate solutions.”

The research wille result in a public report, said Ross, as will Trump’s responses.

The second executive order will strengthen the nation’s anti-dumping rules, in hopes of slowing how China and other nations dump their products onto the international market a lower rates than U.S. companies can match.

“What the second order does is it corrects the problem we’ve had in collecting the anti-dumping duties,” Ross said. “There are $3 million worth of duties that have never been collected, because they set up straw man importers that don’t have any financial substance. By the time the case ends, there is nobody against whom you can asses the fine.”

The order will require that letters of credit, insurance company bonds, or cash be put up by companies, so that fines can be assessed and levied for dumping, said Ross.

Source: newsmax

NBC News: Obama Admin. Created List of Russia Probe Docs

Officials within former President Barack Obama’s administration created a list, using serial numbers to document all of the classified files related to the Russia-election investigation, NBC News reported.

The purpose — get the documents in front of Senate Intelligence Committee members before President Donald Trump took office for fear they might get buried come Jan. 20, NBC reported.

A former Obama official told NBC they wanted “to share it with those on the Hill who could lawfully see the documents” and keep them in a second safe outside of CIA headquarters.

The report echoes what a former Obama Defense Department official has been saying in recent weeks.

Evelyn Farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense and now a national security analyst for NBC News, said she had urged the Obama administration as well as lawmakers to gather and preserve intelligence about the Trump-Russia probe.

“I got worried that the process wasn’t being followed with regard to Capitol Hill, with regard to Congress, because it wasn’t clear to me that the White House was keeping them in the loop, Farkas said during an MSNBC segment Thursday.

“And that was really important, especially since we were about to have a transition in the government.”

Source: newsmax

Sessions Speeding Up Deportation of Illegal Immigrants in Federal Prisons

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is moving to quickly deport imprisoned immigrants.

Sessions is expanding the Institutional Hearing Program that uses in-person and video-conference hearings so judges can determine if any illegal immigrants in federal prisons should be deported after their sentences are up, The Daily Caller is reporting.

“We owe it to the American people to ensure that illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes and are serving time in our federal prisons are expeditiously removed from our country as the law requires,” Sessions said.

“This expansion and modernization of the Institutional Hearing Program gives us the tools to continue making Americans safe again in their communities.”

The program is designed to speed up the process rather than releasing the inmates to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility for further determination of their status.

Under the expanded program, 14 federal prisons and six contract facilities will now be included. Each of the facilities will have their video teleconference abilities increased, Fox News reported.

The Justice Department believes the improved procedures will also reduce costs to taxpayers, according to the news network.

Source: newsmax

Hillary Clinton Slams Proposed Trump Budget Cuts for Diplomacy in Georgetown Speech

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is criticizing President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts to international programs, saying “turning our backs on diplomacy won’t make our country safer.”

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee made the comments in a speech at Georgetown University on Friday. She also took a veiled swipe at the Trump administration — and drew applause from the crowd — when she remarked, “here I go again, talking about research, evidence and facts.”

Senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway earlier this year defended disputed numbers on the inaugural crowd from the White House as “alternative facts.”

Clinton stressed the need for spending on diplomacy by quoting Defense Secretary James Mattis, who said cutting funds for the State Department means he has to buy more ammunition.

Source: newsmax

DHS Marks California, Connecticut as Sanctuary States

The Department of Homeland Security has designated the states of California and Connecticut to their list of areas where law enforcement decline to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Law enforcement in those states are able to decline ICE requests to detain illegal immigrants who’ve been arrested for unrelated crimes due to “Trust Acts,” though they are still required to detain illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Both California and Connecticut agree to comply with ICE detainers for illegal immigrants who fall within certain criteria, including gang members and convicted felons.

Since President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13768, the DHS is required to release weekly reports on areas of the country where law enforcement refuse to cooperate with ICE.

According to this report, Connecticut law enforcement have ceased cooperating with detainers based “solely on the basis of a final order of removal, unless accompanied by a judicial warrant, or past criminal conviction, unless the conviction is for a violent felony.”

“ICE is continually reviewing this report. It’s a living document, and as we become aware of more public-facing policies, more jurisdictions will be added to the list,” an ICE spokesperson told The Washington Times. 

In a press release earlier this month, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., decried the list as an attempt “to paint all immigrants as killers and rapists. Trump and his team incorrectly see Fourth Amendment policies that require warrants to hold prisoners for the Feds as a threat to public safety, but the reality is that in most cities, the police have found that acting as deportation police makes it harder to keep their cities safe.”

Source: newsmax

Tillerson: US Will Uphold Russia Sanctions Until it Respects Pledges

BRUSSELS — U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Washington will ease sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine only when Moscow respects commitments to help restore peace.

Tillerson said Friday that “the United States sanctions will remain until Moscow reverses the actions that triggered our sanctions.”

He said separate sanctions imposed over Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula “must remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine.”

Tillerson called on Moscow to use its influence over separatists to help stop the violence and attacks on peace monitors.

Fighting between Ukraine government forces and separatist rebels has killed more than 9,800 people since April 2014.

A 2015 peace deal helped reduce the scale of fighting, but violence has continued and attempts at a political settlement have failed.

Earlier Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis aimed strong criticism at Russia, saying its “violations of international law are now a matter of record.” He was referring to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and “mucking around insider other people’s elections and that sort of thing.” He also cited Russian outreach to Afghanistan’s Taliban as a concern.

Mattis hinted the Trump administration was close to deciding how to respond to Russia’s recent deployment of a ground-based medium-range cruise missile — an action the Pentagon recently declared a violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty.

Source: newsmax

Jobs Departing US for Mexico Again as Trump's Threats Ignored

After Donald Trump’s election, the flow of manufacturers setting up shop south of the border dwindled to a trickle. Ford Motor Co. and Carrier Corp., caught in Trump’s Twitter crosshairs, scrapped plans to move jobs to Mexico in two very public examples of the slowdown.

But now the pace is picking back up. Illinois Tool Works Inc. will close an auto-parts plant in Mazon, Illinois, this month and head to Ciudad Juarez. Triumph Group Inc. is reducing the Spokane, Washington, workforce that makes fiber-composite parts for Boeing Co. aircraft and moving production to Zacatecas and Baja California. TE Connectivity Ltd. is shuttering a pressure-sensor plant in Pennsauken, New Jersey, in favor of a facility in Hermosillo.

While Trump hasn’t stopped pounding his America First bully pulpit, and the future of Nafta remains uncertain, “there’s cautious optimism and a hopeful attitude that cooler heads will prevail in Washington,” said Ross Baldwin, chief executive officer of Tacna Services Inc., which facilitates relocations.

Baldwin has seen the evidence: After business ground to a halt back in November, he’s now juggling two Mexico-bound clients. San Diego-based Tacna helps manage 4,500 workers in Mexico, where factory wages are about a fifth of those in the U.S. That may explain why Mexican manufacturing jobs rose 3.2 percent in January from a year ago as they dropped 0.3 percent in the U.S.

The renewed exodus shows how difficult it will be for Trump to turn the macroeconomic tide just by jawboning alone. This week, he trumpeted a Ford investment in Michigan plants with a cap-lock fanfare: “JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!” The $1.2 billion will create or retain only 130 positions, though. (While Ford canceled plans in November for a new $1.6 billion facility in Mexico, winning Trump’s praise, it employs more than 7,000 workers in that country.)

Trump’s plans to renegotiate Nafta and talk of punitive tariffs can’t erase the need to manufacture in lower-cost countries, said Alan Russell, CEO of El Paso, Texas-based Tecma Group., which also helps open and operate factories in Mexico. European companies tap the Czech Republic for low wages and Asia has Vietnam, and the U.S. needs Mexico to remain competitive with labor-intensive products, he said.

“This isn’t about taking jobs from the U.S. — It’s about saving companies.”

Russell helped Firstronic LLC open a factory in Juarez in 2014 to make circuit boards for customers including Audi and Tesla Inc. Workers, sporting maroon lab coats and wearing rubber straps on their shoes to ward off static electricity, make about $10 a day running computer-driven machines that insert capacitors and resistors onto green boards and solder them into place. 

The Juarez expansion — and joint ventures in the Czech Republic and China — was a factor in Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Firstronic winning larger contracts from producers of auto parts and medical supplies, said CEO John Sammut. His sales are surging at a 30 percent annual clip.

Grow and Thrive

In Spokane, Triumph Group dismissed almost 80 production workers in January and plans to eliminate another 30 jobs by August as it moves work to Mexican plants, said Steve Warren, a local official of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

“They are being pressured to supply parts as low cost as possible,” he said.

Tapping cheap labor sometimes isn’t just about lowering costs, but accelerating growth. Large purchasers, including Kongsberg Automotive and Dura Automotive Systems, prefer to deal with a few global suppliers rather than a myriad of local companies.

“If we were only producing in the U.S., we would lose out on the vast majority of the contract opportunities,” Sammut said. With the increase in business, Firstronic has added revenue and jobs in Grand Rapids, he said.

Businesses haven’t dismissed a Nafta renegotiation or policies being considered in Washington that might prove costly. A plan by House Republicans to implement a 20 percent border adjustment tax has raised concerns, especially among retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that import many of their wares. The tax would be applied to sales of imported goods to reduce the U.S. trade deficit, which reached $734 billion in 2016.

Trump repeated to a joint session of Congress last month his refrain that he will make it “much, much harder for companies to leave our country.” But his recent stumbles — travel bans blocked by courts and a health-care bill scuttled by his own party — underscore the limitations on presidential power and the difficulty he may have punishing companies or overhauling Nafta.

At a February conference in El Paso to discuss how Trump’s policies may affect trade, most in the room of plant managers, supply-chain officers and suppliers predicted Nafta would likely be changed but not discarded, and that the changes might not be harmful.

Whatever happens, Russell said his business fostering Mexican manufacturing will grow this year. The pressure to reduce costs is that relentless.

“When you dissect the worst-case scenarios, it still makes sense to go forward with their business plans,” he said. “It’s a competitive world.”

Source: newsmax