Top News Stories for Today – Mar 8, 2019
Top News Stories for Today – Mar 8, 2019
Superbloom in California
The desert is blossoming with wildflowers in Southern California. For the second time in two years, an event known as a “superbloom” is occurring. A superbloom usually happens every 10 years or so, but heavy rains have created the ideal climate for Mother Nature’s spectacular display of flowers in the desert. The appearance of desert lilies in December heralded the possibility that Mother Nature was about to stage a show, and she did not disappoint.
The pageantry can best be seen in California’s 640,000 acre Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, northeast of San Diego. The desert lilies continue to thrive. Orange poppies that have sprouted along Southern California highways are also expected to bloom soon in the desert. Mike McElhatton, the educational program director of the Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association, told AccuWeather “in the past, we have seen only small concentrations in select valleys.” He added, “This year, it already appears that a vast majority of the 50-mile park will be in bloom.” The Voice of America
Manafort sentenced to 47 months
A US federal judge on Thursday sentenced Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, to 47 months in prison for tax and bank fraud. The sentence was substantially less than the 19 to 21 years prosecutors wanted, which most likely would have put Manafort, 69, behind bars for the rest of his life. Along with sentencing Manafort to nearly four years in prison, Ellis fined him $50,000.
Manafort was charged with hiding from the government millions of dollars he earned as a lobbyist for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych — millions of dollars on which he paid no taxes. Manafort also lied to banks in Virginia to secure loans for his luxurious lifestyle, which included large homes and designer clothes. In addition, Manafort has been convicted of separate federal charges of conspiracy and witness tampering. He is to be sentenced for those crimes next week. The Voice of America
Trump to visit tornado victims in Alabama
President Donald Trump said he will travel to Alabama on Friday to visit with the victims of a devastating tornado that killed at least 23 people. Tornado ripped through parts of Florida, South Carolina and Georgia over the weekend. The area had been warned of possible tornadoes days before the storm, but some Alabama residents were warned only eight to nine minutes before the killer twister struck.
Trump has made several trips to visit with the victims of natural disasters in recent months, including to California after last year’s wild fires and to the Carolinas following Hurricane Florence. USA Today
Files on WH’s security clearances leaked
From a White House source, the House Oversight Committee has obtained documents related to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s security clearances that the Trump administration refused to provide, according to a senior Democratic aide involved in handling the documents.
The documents leaked to the Oversight Committee provide detailed information on the timeline for how Kushner’s and Trump’s security clearances were approved and who the people were involved in processing and the final decision. The documents are “part of the puzzle that we would be asking for” from the White House, a senior Democratic aide told Axios. Axios
US House votes to condemn bigotry
he US House of Representatives has voted to condemn “hateful expressions of intolerance” amid a row over anti-Semitism. Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar has prompted sharp objections recently for frequently criticizing Israel and pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington. Her Democratic party was split over how and whether to censure the freshman lawmaker. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has denied the resolution was made to rebuke Omar.
Pelosi has previously said she does not believe Omar understood “the weight of her words”. The Democratic-controlled House voted 407-23 in favor of the resolution condemning discrimination against Jewish people, Muslims, Latinos and other minorities. Some Democrats had pushed for a vote purely condemning anti-Semitism, but the resolution was broad and did not mention Omar by name. BBC
May urges EU to agree backstop changes
Theresa May has warned the UK “may never leave the EU at all”, if MPs reject her Brexit deal next week. She told workers in Grimsby that “no one knows what may happen” if her withdrawal agreement is voted down for a second time and a delay was likely.
Brexit, she insisted, “belonged” not to MPs but to voters, adding: “Everyone now wants to get it done”. But she conceded talks on legally binding changes to the controversial backstop had proved “difficult”. The EU has told the UK to come forward with new ideas to break the deadlock ahead of Tuesday’s vote by MPs. BBC
Dragon undocks Int’l space station
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule has undocked from the International Space Station. The Dragon pulled away from the station early Friday, and an Atlantic Ocean splashdown is expected Friday morning. The Dragon brought supplies and equipment to the space station where it stayed five days as astronauts conducted tests and inspected the Dragon’s cabin.
The Dragon is the first American commercially built-and-operated crew spacecraft in eight years, since the end of the space shuttle program. NASA has awarded millions of dollars to SpaceX and Boeing to design and operate a capsule to launch astronauts into orbit from American soil beginning some time this year. It is not immediately clear if that goal will be reached. SpaceX is entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company. Musk is also the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla. The Voice of America