House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and three other people were wounded Wednesday morning when a gunman opened fire on members of the Republican congressional baseball team as they were practicing on a field in Alexandria, Virginia.
The gunman, James T. Hodgkinson, was then shot by police and later died of his wounds.
Scalise was standing at second base when the shooting erupted and he was hit in the left hip, witnesses said. He managed to drag himself into the outfield amid all the shooting and was later rushed back across the river to a Washington, D.C. hospital.
After undergoing emergency surgery, Scalise was in critical but stable condition, a spokesman for MedStar Washington Hospital Center said.
. James Hodgkinson of Belleville protests outside of the United States Post Office in Downtown Belleville, Illinois on April 17, 2012. Derik Holtmann / AP
More than 190 Democratic lawmakers sued President Donald Trump in federal court on Wednesday, saying he had accepted funds from foreign governments through his businesses without congressional consent in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint said Trump had not sought congressional approval for any of the payments his hundreds of businesses had received from foreign governments since he took office in January, even though the Constitution requires him to do so.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment but has said Trump’s business interests do not violate the Constitution. The Trump Organization has said it will donate profits from customers representing foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury but will not require such customers to identify themselves.
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Carlos Barria / Reuters
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment but has said President Trump’s business interests do not violate the Constitution.
Acting US ambassador to China David Rank resigned from his post in Beijing over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, several sources familiar with the decision told CNN.
A career foreign service officer since 1990, Rank assumed the position of deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Beijing in January 2016 and had been serving as charge d’affaires until the arrival of Trump’s pick for the job, former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who was confirmed by Congress late last month.
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“Dave is exactly the type of diplomat any American would want representing their interests abroad, and he was sought after within the State Department for increasingly difficult and challenging assignments because he’s strategic, smart, savvy, curious, loyal and non-partisan,” said Dan Feldman, who worked with Rank for five years on Afghan issues.
President Donald Trump condemned the racially charged Portland, Oregon, train stabbings on Monday, tweeting that they were “unacceptable.”
“The violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable. The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/ them,” read the tweet from the official @POTUS account.
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Trump had not previously commented on the matter.
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Vice President Mike Pence echoed Trump’s sentiment on Twitter.
Republicans largely dismissed the results of a Congressional Budget Office report out Wednesday that said a House-passed health care bill would cause millions to lose insurance and potentially have the greatest impact on the least healthy Americans.
As House Republicans questioned the ability of the Congressional score-keepers, their fellow party members in the Senate vowed that their ideas to replace the Affordable Care Act would look nothing like the House bill assessed Wednesday.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Health Education and Labor Committee who is in part tasked with writing parts of the Senate’s bill, used the score as another reason to push the American Health Care Act aside.
Russian officials bragged in conversations during the presidential campaign that they had cultivated a strong relationship with former Trump adviser retired Gen. Michael Flynn and believed they could use him to influence Donald Trump and his team, sources told CNN.
The conversations deeply concerned US intelligence officials, some of whom acted on their own to limit how much sensitive information they shared with Flynn, who was tapped to become Trump’s national security adviser, current and former governments officials said.
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“This was a five-alarm fire from early on,” one former Obama administration official said, “the way the Russians were talking about him.” Another former administration official said Flynn was viewed as a potential national security problem.
President Donald Trump bragged to two top Russian officials last week that firing “nut job” FBI Director James Comey eased “great pressure” on him, The New York Times reported Friday.
“I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump said, according to the Times. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
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Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak came one day after Comey was fired.
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White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not refute the Times story but said it was Comey’s “grandstanding and politicizing” of the Russia investigation that put pressure on the administration’s ability to engage Moscow.
“The President has always emphasized the importance of making deals with Russia as it relates to Syria, Ukraine, defeating ISIS and other key issues for the benefit and safety of the American people,” Spicer said in a statement to CNN. “By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.”
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He added, “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations.”
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear North Carolina’s appeal of a court ruling that found its legislature intended to discriminate against minorities in enacting one of the toughest voter ID laws in the nation.
The action leaves in place a federal appellate court ruling which previously struck down portions of the law and blocked enforcement.
As is the court’s usual custom, no explanation was given for turning down the appeal, and no vote was noted. Chief Justice John Roberts said the state had produced a “blizzard of filings” over who was authorized to appeal. He noted that although the court declined to hear the case, the refusal expresses no opinion about the merits of the issue.
. A pile of government pamphlets explaining North Carolina’s controversial “Voter ID” law sits on table at a polling station as the law goes into effect for the state’s presidential primary in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. on March 15. Chris Keane / Reuters
The Justice Department on Wednesday appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including potential collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign associates and Russian officials.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to the position in a letter obtained by CNN. Attorney General Jeff Sessions previously recused himself from any involvement in the Russia investigation due to his role as a prominent campaign adviser and surrogate.
As special counsel, Mueller is “authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters,” according to the Justice Department order Rosenstein signed.
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Robert Mueller – He’s now in charge of Russian investigation
The US said Monday it believes the Syrian government has built a large crematorium near the notorious Saydnaya Military Prison in an effort to hide mass atrocities carried out there, and placed the onus on Russia to rein in the regime.
Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, laid out newly unveiled declassified intelligence in a series of photographs and said Russia, a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad, must use its influence to stop Assad’s continued atrocities.
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“Although the regime’s many atrocities are well-documented, we believe the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass atrocities taking place in Saydnaya prison,” Jones said. “We are appalled by the atrocities taking place in Syria” with the “seemingly unconditional support of Russia.”
Jones said the regime could be killing as many as 50 detainees a day at Saydnaya. In February, Amnesty International alleged that thousands of people have been hanged at the Syrian prison just 45 minutes outside the capital of Damascus in a secret crackdown on dissent.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
James Hodgkinson of Belleville protests outside of the United States Post Office in Downtown Belleville, Illinois on April 17, 2012. Derik Holtmann / AP
Killer
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Robert Mueller – He’s now in charge of Russian investigation
James' World 2 