1394 – Charles VI of France orders all Jews to leave his country.
In 1471
July 25 1587
July 25 1802
Thomas A Kempis lived among The Brothers of the Common Life Sickened by corruption in the Catholicism of their day, they had developed a form of discipline known as the “new devotion.” Their goal was to live as much like the early Christians as possible. They exalted Christ, labored to meet their own needs, and contributed to a common fund. They took no vows, but willingly chose poverty, chastity and obedience. Some lived at home, while others lived in communities. It was among these humble and devout people that Thomas was trained.
Under their tutelage, Thomas became a priest. He showed an aptitude for copying manuscripts and that became his vocation. He transcribed the Bible four times—a huge undertaking when one considers there are over eight-hundred thousand words in it. At the same time, he created writings of his own, including biographies of saints and a chronicle of his community, Mount St Agnes. However, the book linked most closely with his name is his devotional classic The Imitation of Christ.
On July 25, 1471, Thomas A Kempis died at the age of 91 and was greatly mourned.
Emperor Hideyoshi bans Christianity in Japan and orders all Christians to leave Japan.
Alexandre Dumas, French author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers was born.
July 25,1832 – The first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history occurs when four people are thrown off a vacant car on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts. The victims had been invited to view the process of transporting large and weighty loads of stone when a cable on a vacant car snapped on the return trip, throwing them off the train and over a 34-foot cliff. One man was killed and the others were seriously injured.
The steam locomotive was first pioneered in England at the beginning of the 19th century by Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began operation in 1828 with horse-drawn cars, but after the successful run of the Tom Thumb, a steam train that nearly outraced a horse in a public demonstration in 1830, steam power was added. By 1831, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had completed a line from Baltimore to Frederick, Maryland.
The acceptance of railroads came quickly in the 1830s, and by 1840 the nation had almost 3,000 miles of railway, greater than the combined European total of only 1,800 miles. The railroad network expanded quickly in the years before the Civil War, and by 1860 the American railroad system had become a national network of some 30,000 miles. Nine years later, transcontinental railroad service became possible for the first time.
On July 25, 1850 – Gold is discovered in the Rogue River in Oregon, extending the gold rush from Sacramento far up the Pacific Coast
On this day in 1866, the United States Congress appointed Lieutenant General Ulysses S Grant to be the first ever promoted to the rank of General
July 25, 1867 – President Andrew Johnson signed an act creating the territory of Wyoming
July 25, 1853, in a macabre instance of rough frontier justice, California Rangers claim a $6,000 award by bringing in the severed head—preserved in whiskey—of outlaw Joaquin Murrieta.
July 25, 1898, During the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launch their invasion of Puerto Rico, the 108-mile-long, 40-mile-wide island that was one of Spain’s two principal possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven deaths, U.S. troops under General Nelson A. Miles were able to secure the island by mid-August. After the signing of an armistice with Spain, American troops raised the U.S. flag over the island, formalizing U.S. authority over its one million inhabitants. In December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Spanish-American War and officially approving the cession of Puerto Rico to the United States.
In the first three decades of its rule, the U.S. government made efforts to Americanize its new possession, including granting full U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917 and considering a measure that would make English the island’s official language. However, during the 1930s, a nationalist movement led by the Popular Democratic Party won wide support across the island, and further U.S. assimilation was successfully opposed. Beginning in 1948, Puerto Ricans could elect their own governor, and in 1952 the U.S. Congress approved a new Puerto Rican constitution that made the island an autonomous U.S. commonwealth, with its citizens retaining American citizenship. The constitution was formally adopted by Puerto Rico on July 25, 1952, the 54th anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
Movements for Puerto Rican statehood, along with lesser movements for Puerto Rican independence, have won supporters on the island, but popular referendums in 1967 and 1993 demonstrated that the majority of Puerto Ricans still supported their special status as a U.S. commonwealth.
July 25, 1909 – French aviator Louis Bleriot becomes the first person to fly across the English Channel in an airplane
July 25, 1924 – Greece orders the deportation of 50,000 Armenians
On July 25, 1934, the Nazis shoot and kill the Chancellor of Austria Engelbert Dollfuss
On July 25, 1941 – the US government froze all Japanese and Chinese assets
On this day in 1943, Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy, is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost. Mussolini responded to it all with an uncharacteristic meekness.
During the evening of July 24 and the early hours of the 25th, the Grand Council of the fascist government met to discuss the immediate future of Italy. While all in attendance were jittery about countermanding their leader, Mussolini was sick, tired, and overwhelmed by the military reverses suffered by the Italian military. He seemed to be looking for a way out of power. One of the more reasonable within the Council, Dino Grandi, argued that the dictatorship had brought Italy to the brink of military disaster, elevated incompetents to levels of power, and alienated large portions of the population. He proposed a vote to transfer some of the leader’s power to the king. The motion was passed, with Mussolini barely reacting. While some extremists balked, and would later try to convince Mussolini to have those who voted with Grandi arrested, Il Duce was simply paralyzed, unable to choose any course of action.
Shortly after the Grand Council vote, Mussolini, groggy and unshaven, kept his routine 20-minute meeting with the king, during which he normally updated Victor Emanuele on the current state of affairs. This morning, the king informed Mussolini that General Pietro Badoglio would assume the powers of prime minister and that the war was all but lost for the Italians. Mussolini offered no objection. Upon leaving the meeting, he was arrested by the police, who had been secretly planning a pretext to remove the leader for quite some time. They now had the Council vote of “no confidence” as their formal rationale. Assured of his personal safety, Mussolini acquiesced to this too, as he had to everything else leading up to this pitiful end.
On July 25, King Victor Emmanuel announced it would only be accepted the “resignations” of Premier Benito Mussolini and his entire cabinet. This led to the end of Italy’s alliance with Nazi Germany in World War II.
When news of Mussolini’s arrest was made public, relief seemed to be the prevailing mood. There was no attempt by fellow fascists to rescue him from the penal settlement on the island of Ponza to which he was committed.
During the last days of the war in Italy, Mussolini attempted to escape the advancing Allied Army by hiding in a German convoy headed toward the Alps. But on the way, Partisans stopped and searched the convoy.
They found their former dictator in the back of a truck wearing a privates overcoat over his striped general’s pants. The partisans took him prisoner as they also did with his mistress, Clara Petachi. The Council of partisan leaders, led by the Communists, secretly decided to execute Mussolini and 15 leading Fascists and his mistress for their war crimes. On April 29, 1945, they were hung at an Esso gas station in Milan.
July 25, 1944 – Allied forces begin the breakthrough of German lines in Normandy
On this day in 1945, President Harry S. Truman nonchalantly hints to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin that the United States has successfully developed a new weapon. In his diary, Truman privately referred to the new weapon, the atomic bomb, as the most terrible bomb in the history of the world.
The United States had successfully tested the world’s first atomic weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. Truman received the news while in Potsdam, Germany, conferring with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on post-World War II policy in Europe. On July 17, Truman told Churchill of the test’s success and the two agreed to put off telling Stalin about what Truman called the dynamite news until later–Truman first wanted to get Stalin to agree to enter the Pacific war on the Allies’ side with no strings on it.
On July 25, after receiving Stalin’s pledge to join the U.S. in the war against Japan in the Pacific, Truman casually informed the Soviet leader that the United States had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. Although Stalin did not appear to be impressed by the news, Truman hoped the information would increase the pressure on Stalin to concede to the Allies’ demands regarding the post-war division of Europe.
In his diary entry for July 25, Truman wrote that the new weapon would be used against military targets in Japan before August 10. He specifically mentioned avoiding women and children and mused it is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not discover this atomic bomb.
It turned out that Truman would not need the Soviets’ help in the Pacific after all. On August 6, 1945, one week before the Soviets were due to join combat operations, Truman ordered the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Two days later, he authorized a second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Although the total number of victims has been disputed, Japanese and U.S. government statisticians estimate that at least 140,000 men, women and children died immediately in the two blasts and an additional 74,000 died from the effects of bomb-related radiation by 1950.
On this day in 1946 – America detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. It was the first underwater test of the device.
Also on January 25, 1946 – Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their very first comedy show as a team at Club 500 in Atlantic City, NJ.
On this day in 1965, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan rocks the world of folk music when he performs at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and abandons his acoustic guitar for an electric one. By going electric, Dylan eventually moved rock and folk music closer together. He also infused rock and roll, known then for its mostly lightweight lyrics, with a more intellectual, poetic sensibility.
In 1965, Dylan released “Bringing It All Back Home,” a half-acoustic, half-electric recording in which he was backed by a nine-piece band, a departure from his previous pared-down performances. That summer, he made his historic live performance with an electric guitar at the folk festival in Newport, where he played such songs as “Maggie’s Farm” and “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Some fans reportedly booed Dylan at the time, although it’s long been a topic of debate as to whether the crowd was unhappy with Dylan or the poor sound system. Regardless, after Newport, Dylan’s popularity continued to soar as his musical style continued to evolve and he became known for his innovative, poetic and sometimes cryptic lyrics.
Dylan, who has a reputation for being reclusive and mysterious, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Today, he is a music icon whose successful career has endured for over 40 years.
July 25, 1966 – The Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love” was released and galloped to the top of the charts faster than a speeding bullet.
July 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon announces that henceforth the United States will expect its Asian allies to tend to their own military defense. The Nixon Doctrine, as the president’s statement came to be known, clearly indicated his determination to “Vietnamize” the Vietnam War.
When Richard Nixon took office in early 1969, the United States had been at war in Vietnam for nearly four years. The bloody conflict had already claimed the lives of more than 25,000 American troops and countless Vietnamese. Despite its best efforts, the United States was no closer to victory than before. At home, antiwar protesters were a constant presence in American cities and on college campuses. Nixon campaigned in 1968 with the promise of “peace with honor” in Vietnam. In July 1969, an important part of his plan for Vietnam became evident. During a stopover in Guam during a multination tour, the president issued a statement. It was time, he declared, for the United States to be “quite emphatic on two points” in dealing with its Asian allies. First, he assured America’s friends in Asia that “We will keep our treaty commitments.” However, “as far as the problems of military defense, except for the threat of a major power involving nuclear weapons,” the United States would be adopting a different stance. In relation to military defense, America would now “encourage and has a right to expect that this problem will be increasingly handled by, and the responsibility for it taken by, the Asian nations themselves.” He concluded that his recent talks with several Asian leaders indicated, “They are going to be willing to undertake this responsibility.”
The Nixon Doctrine marked the formal announcement of the president’s “Vietnamization” plan, whereby American troops would be slowly withdrawn from the conflict in Southeast Asia and be replaced by South Vietnamese troops. Over the course of his first term in office, Nixon held true to this doctrine by withdrawing a substantial portion of America’s fighting forces from Vietnam. In 1973, the United States and North Vietnam signed a peace treaty formally bringing the Vietnam War to a conclusion. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces crushed the South Vietnamese army and succeeded in reuniting the divided country under a communist regime.
July 25, 1968 – In the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which means Of Human Life, Pope Paul VI restates the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to artificial birth control.
And on this date in 1978 – Pete Rose (Cincinnati Red) broke the National League record for consecutive base hits as he got a hit in 38 straight games.
Also on this day in 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world’s first baby to be conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) is born at Oldham and District General Hospital in Manchester, England, to parents Lesley and Peter Brown. The healthy baby was delivered shortly before midnight by caesarean section and weighed in at five pounds, 12 ounces.
Before giving birth to Louise, Lesley Brown had suffered years of infertility due to blocked fallopian tubes.
The Browns had a second daughter, Natalie, several years later, also through IVF. In May 1999, Natalie became the first IVF baby to give birth to a child of her own. The child’s conception was natural, easing some concerns that female IVF babies would be unable to get pregnant naturally. In December 2006, Louise Brown, the original “test tube baby,” gave birth to a boy, Cameron John Mullinder, who also was conceived naturally.
Today, IVF is considered a mainstream medical treatment for infertility. Hundreds of thousands of children around the world have been conceived through the procedure, in some cases with donor eggs and sperm.
July 25, 1984 – Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to walk in space. She was aboard the orbiting space station Salyat 7.
On July 25, 1992, the opening ceremonies of the Games of the XXV Olympiad are held in Barcelona, Spain. The Barcelona Olympics were the first ever in which professional athletes were allowed to participate, and the first Games since 1972 in which every member nation of the International Olympic Committee competed. In all, 169 countries fielded teams, the most in the history of the Olympics.
The 1992 Summer Olympics came just one year after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Twelve former Soviet states fielded a united team, while others such as Estonia and Lithuania fielded their own teams for the first time since the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The former Yugoslavian territories Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; and Slovenia participated under their own flags for the first time. In addition, South Africa participated in the Olympics for the first time since 1960, when it was banned in protest of its racist apartheid policy.
One of the most anticipated performances of the 1992 Games was that of the U.S. men’s basketball team, nicknamed “The Dream Team.” International stars Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley competed alongside 11 other NBA All-Stars and Duke University standout Christian Laettner. The team schooled their competition, players who in many cases were just excited to be on the same court with them. Before the U.S. game against Angola, for instance, the Angolan players posed for pictures with their American competition and asked for autographs. For their part, the Americans were relaxed, confident and, following the lead of the gregarious Barkley, often joked with the press, their opponents and each other. The Dream Team won the gold easily, beating their opponents by an average of 44 points.
Another historic performance was made by Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia, winner of the 10,000 meters, who became the first black African woman ever to win an Olympic medal. Afterward, she shared a victory lap with white South African competitor Elana Meyer in recognition and celebration of South Africa’s recent abolishment of apartheid and as a symbolic gesture of African unity.
Other memorable moments from the Barcelona Games included American Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s second consecutive heptathlon victory; Carl Lewis’ third consecutive gold in the long jump; and host country Spain’s gold-medal performance in men’s soccer.
1994 – Israel and Jordan formally ended the state of war that had existed between them since 1948.
An Air France Concorde jet crashes upon takeoff in Paris on this day in 2000, killing everyone onboard as well as four people on the ground. The Concorde, the world’s fastest commercial jet, had enjoyed an exemplary safety record up to that point, with no crashes in the plane’s 31-year history.
Air France Flight 4590 left DeGaulle Airport for New York carrying nine crew members and 96 German tourists who were planning to take a cruise to Ecuador. Almost immediately after takeoff, however, the plane plunged to the ground near a hotel in Gonesse, France. A huge fireball erupted and all 105 people on the plane were killed immediately.
The Concorde fleet was grounded in the wake of this disaster while the cause was investigated. The Concorde, powered by four Rolls Royce turbojets, was able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in less than three-and-a-half hours, reaching speeds of 1,350 miles per hour, which is more than twice the speed of sound. The July 25 incident, though, was not related to the Concorde’s engine construction or speed.
The investigation revealed that the plane that took off just prior to Flight 4590 had dropped a piece of metal onto the runway. When the Concorde jet ran over it, its tire was shredded and thrown into one of the engines and fuel tanks, causing a disabling fire.
Concorde jets went back into service in November 2001, but a series of minor problems prompted both Air France and British Airways to end Concorde service permanently in October 2003.
2010 – WikiLeaks leaked to the public more than 90,000 internal reports involving the U.S.-led War in Afghanistan from 2004-2010.
Finally, July 25, 2015…..
Pollsters have warned that early polls are not reliable indicators of real support that will translate into votes. Voters are still not tuned into to the election, and, at this point, candidates with high name recognition who can dominate the news cycle can see inflated support. Trump — a media sensation with decades of high-profile entertainment ventures, real-estate deals, and reality-television show experience — is perfectly positioned to take advantage of that.
Many pollsters have pointed to Trump’s unfavorability rating, which remains higher than other GOP candidates in most polls. The Economist/YouGov poll showed the real-estate magnate’s unfavorability ratings did rise slightly following his comments about McCain.
“The poll results with regard to candidate standing are ephemeral at this stage, primarily a function of name recognition,” University of Michigan political science professor Michael Tractor, a polling expert, told Business Insider last month, as Trump began his surge. “Trump has greater name recognition than many of the others, especially the governors. But name recognition is not the same as support.”
Some polls, however, have shown Trump’s favorability numbers climbing. And the real-estate mogul has bulldozed his way into the forefront of issues that are hugely important in the 2016 race — especially with Republican primary voters.
Trump was one of the first 2016 candidates to call attention to the death of Kathryn Steinle, a 32-year-old woman who was allegedly murdered by an immigrant living in the US without permission.
From the headquarters of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas, this is Ray Mossholder and this is Worldwide News
From Pravda…..
France and Tunisia make the western news headlines, Syria and Kuwait seem to have been forgotten. 1 dead, 2 injured in France, at least 27 dead in Tunisia, many western tourists among them. Elsewhere, with no western victims and therefore out of the spotlight, 16 dead in a Kuwait Mosque blast and a horrific massacre at Kobane in Syria, where Islamic State has returned.
France has increased its security level to the maximum after a terrorist strike at a US-owned gas production facility in Lyon, south-eastern France, occasioned the death of one man
The attack in France was at the Air Products gas factory in L’Isle-d’Abeau, Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, Lyon, south-eastern France, in which a man known to the French security services since 2006 drove a car into the factory, shortly before the head of a local businessman was found hanging from the factory gates with an inscription in Arabic attached to it. The attack was perpetrated at around 10.00 a.m. local time.
The car was driven through the factory gates and careered into some gas canisters, which caused an explosion wounding two people. French President François Hollande stated that “We have no doubt that the attack was to blow up the building. It bears the hallmarks of a terrorist attack”, adding that “We all remember what happened before in our country”, promising that France will never give in to fear”, remembering the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January in which twelve people were killed.
One man arrested in connection with the attack, namely 35-year-old Yacine Sali, under investigation for radicalization between 2006 and 2008, when the investigation was discontinued. Sali, a father of three, does not have a police record. Another man was arrested after being seen driving back and forth past the factory.
Tunisia: The terror attack in Tunisia was perpetrated in the tourist resort of Sousse, where an attempted attack in 2013 failed. At least twenty-seven people are confirmed dead and tourists remain hiding in their rooms. Hotel Bellevue and the Royal Kenz Hotel were the ones affected in the terrorist strike, carried out by gunmen on the beach. Some eye-witness reports indicate that the gunmen arrived on boats.
6.1 million tourists visited Tunisia in 2014, showing the importance of an industry which supports 473,000 jobs and contributes over 15 per cent of the North-African country’s GDP.
Kuwait: Explosion after Friday prayers
Meanwhile in Kuwait City a bomb went off in the Shia al-Imam al-Sadiq Mosque during Friday prayers. A Twitter account linked to Islamic State claimed responsibility for the incident, stating that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt, who was a member of Islamic State affiliate group Najd Province. 179 people have been treated for their injuries, while sixteen people are confirmed dead. Nearly all the victims are men and boys.
Syria
Islamic State re-entered the northern city of Kobane 24 hours ago and have already massacred 120 civilians. The terrorist forces fired at men, woman and children as they entered the town from which they were expelled earlier in the year. It is thought this latest attack is more of a revenge raid than an invasion.
– See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/26-06-2015/131139-terror_strikes-0/#sthash.II0mgWBA.dpuf
From CBN……
Stock markets worldwide took a major hit Monday after Greece moved one step closer to financial chaos, raising concern it could default on its international debt.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced over the weekend that banks will be closed for six business days, beginning Monday.
Cash withdrawals will also be restricted, with citizens limited to withdrawing just $66 a day.
The moves follow a breakdown in last-ditch talks between Greece and its lenders last week, when the Greek prime minister called for a surprise referendum on the country’s bailout.
Tsipras wants the Greek people to vote on whether to accept bailout plans offered to the country or reject them.
The proposal elicited mixed reactions.
“I have no idea what we are voting for, yes or no, we don’t know what to say,” Athens resident Triandalfila Bourbourda said. “I think we shouldn’t have gone so far to get into this mess.”
George Georgis, another resident of the capital, thinks Greeks will “fight back.”
“Now it’s our time to say no because they [the creditors] want the whole [of] our land,” Georgis said. “They want our freedom; they want our rights; they want our properties; they want our homeland. I think the Greek people will fight back.”
There’s concern that Greece may default on its debt and try to solve its financial crisis by abandoning the euro.
International leaders are now desperately looking for a solution that will allow it to keep the euro in place as its currency.
Meanwhile, Greece won’t be getting any help from the European Central Bank, which decided Sunday not to increase the amount of emergency credit for Greek banks.
Without that line of credit, the country’s four major banks could soon run out of cash.
Some analysts predict that the Greek government and its creditors will need to negotiate an entirely new bailout to keep from defaulting on its debt.
This bulletin just in…..
ATHENS — Greece today asked for its third European bailout in five years, just hours before its financial lifeline was set to expire and it defaulted on its debts.
Menwhile from the New York Post
The governor of Puerto Rico said in a televised address Monday that the island cannot pay back more than $70 billion in debt, setting up an unprecedented financial crisis that could rock the municipal bond market and lead to higher borrowing costs for governments across the United States.
“This is not about politics,” said Puerto Rico’s governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla. “It’s about math.”
Garcia Padilla said the country needed to postpone for several years its debt payments.
“The first step is to revive economic growth…We will never get out of this vicious cycle,” said Garcia Padilla. “But we need to do more—much more—to return to riches and to become more competitive and have an expansion in the private market.”
Garcia Padilla proposed creating a committee that would work together to create reforms to the country, but he said “sacrifices should be shared,” adding that he welcomed “creditors who want to cooperate.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told members of the media Monday that federal officials would work with Puerto Rican leaders to address financial challenges after the island’s governor said it could not pay back its debt.
Puerto Rico’s move could roil financial markets already dealing with the turmoil of the renewed debt crisis in Greece. It also raises questions about the once-staid municipal bond market, which states and cities count on to pay upfront costs for public improvements such as roads, parks and hospitals.
For many years, those bonds were considered safe investments — but those assumptions have been shifting in recent years as a small but steady string of U.S. municipalities, including Detroit, as well as Stockton and Vallejo in California, have tumbled into bankruptcy.
Those defaults at least offered investors the protection provided by Chapter 9 of the U.S. bankruptcy code, which sets out an orderly process by which investors can recoup at least some of their money. But like states, Puerto Rico is not permitted to file for bankruptcy. A failure to iron out an agreement with creditors could ignite an unwieldy, uncharted and long-lasting process to sort out the island’s financial obligations.
In addition, with as much as $73 billion in debt, the island’s debt obligation is four times that of Detroit, which became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy in 2012.
The implications are serious for Americans outside Puerto Rico largely because many hold island bonds in mutual funds. At one point in 2013, an estimated three out of four municipal bond mutual funds held Puerto Rican bonds, which were attractive because of their high yields and exemption from federal, state and local taxes.
Garcia Padilla will seek concessions from creditors, which range from mutual funds in the United States to large hedge funds that have been buying Puerto Rican debt at high interest rates, in an effort to stretch out loan payments and drive down borrowing costs that are hamstringing Puerto Rico’s struggling economy.
On Monday, the governor and Puerto Rico’s government development bank released a report analyzing the island’s finances written by former World Bank chief economist and former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund Anne Krueger and economists Ranjit Teja and Andrew Wolfe.
“The report…for the first time acknowledges the true extent of the problem,” said Garcia Padilla in a statement Monday. “We must make difficult decisions to meet the challenges we now know are ahead, and I intend to do everything in my power to lead us through this time.”
The government’s conclusion that it is unable to pay its debts was first reported by the New York Times. “It’s accurate,” said Gabriela Melendez, a Washington-based spokeswoman for the Puerto Rican government.
“My administration is doing everything not to default,” Garcia Padilla said in an interview with the New York Times. “But we have to make the economy grow. If not, we will be in a death spiral.”
A U.S. commonwealth with a population of 3.6 million, Puerto Rico carries more debt per capita than any state in the country. The island has been staggering under the increasing weight of those obligations for years as its economy has tanked, triggering an exodus of island residents to the mainland not seen since the 1950’s.
Meanwhile, the government has raised taxes, cut government employment and slashed pensions in a futile effort to get its debt burden under control. Those actions have only slowed the acceleration of debt creation, while harming efforts to reignite the economy.
The financial crisis in Puerto Rico has been playing out for years, although until now the government has been able to keep things moving by cutting spending and borrowing more and more money on Wall Street. But with rating agencies downgrading Puerto Rican debt to near-junk levels, the island has had to pay high rates to borrow money.
“What will happen is that our economy will get into a worse situation and we’ll have less money to pay them,” the governor said in the New York Times interview. “They will be shooting themselves in the foot.”
The island’s web of debt includes general-obligation bonds, which Puerto Rico’s constitution says must be repaid even before government workers receive their pay.
But billions of dollars more in bonds were floated by public corporations that provide critical services on the island, including providing electric power, building roads and running water and sewer authorities. Beyond the bond debt, the island owes some $37 billion in pension obligations to workers and former workers.
Puerto Rico has been pushing for Congress to grant bankruptcy protection for its public corporations, but that legislation has gone nowhere.
Jonnelle Marte contributed to this report.
Michael A. Fletcher is a national economics correspondent, writing about unemployment, state and municipal debt, the evolving job market and the auto industry.
And while all this is going on…..
President Obama unveiled a long-awaited plan to drastically expand the number of people eligible for overtime pay, in a move that he said would ensure “hard work is rewarded” — but that critics warn could hurt job growth at a fragile time.
Under the proposal unveiled late Monday, salaried workers who earn nearly $1,000 per week would become eligible for overtime pay.
The rule from the Labor Department would more than double the threshold at which employers can avoid paying overtime, from the current $455 a week to $970 a week by next year. That would mean salaried employees earning less than $50,440 a year would be assured overtime if they work more than 40 hours per week, up from the current $23,660 a year.
“We’ve got to keep making sure hard work is rewarded,” Obama wrote in an op-ed in The Huffington Post. “That’s how America should do business. In this country, a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.”
Although the Labor Department’s estimates suggest the proposal would raise wages for 5 million people, other estimates are far higher. The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, recently estimated that a threshold of $984 a week would cover 15 million people.
“This is by definition middle-class people. This reverses decades of neglect,” said EPI President Larry Mishel.
Under the current threshold, only about 8 percent of salaried workers are eligible for 11/2 times their regular pay when they work overtime. The EPI estimates that doubling the salary level would make up to 40 percent of salaried workers eligible.
Yet many Republicans have opposed Obama’s plans to increase the threshold, arguing that doing so would discourage companies from creating jobs and dampen economic growth. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who chairs the Senate’s labor panel, has derided the idea as designed “to make it as unappealing as possible” for companies to create jobs.
To keep up with future inflation and wage growth, the proposal will peg the salary threshold at the 40th percentile of income, individuals familiar with the plan said.
The president was to promote the proposal during a visit Thursday to La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Obama’s proposal aims to narrow a loophole that the president has long said some employers exploit to avoid paying overtime.
Employees who make above the salary threshold can be denied overtime if they are deemed managers. Some work grueling schedules at fast food chains and retail stores, but with no overtime eligibility, their pay may be lower per hour than many workers they supervise.
The existing salary cap, established in 2004 under President George W. Bush, has been eroded by inflation. Obama has long charged that the level is too low and undercuts the intent of the overtime law.
The proposed changes will be open for public comment and could take months to finalize. They can be enacted through regulation, without approval by the Republican-led Congress.
Obama, in his op-ed, argued the exemption was intended for highly paid, white-collar employees but now punished lower-income workers because the government has failed to update the regulations.
The beneficiaries would be people like Brittany Swa, 30, a former manager of a Chipotle restaurant in Denver. As a management trainee, she started as an entry-level crew member in March 2010. After several months she began working as an “apprentice,” which required a minimum 50-hour work week.
Yet her duties changed little. She had a key to the shop and could make bank deposits, but otherwise spent nearly all her time preparing orders and working the cash register. She frequently worked 60 hours a week but didn’t get overtime because she earned $36,000.
The grueling hours continued after she was promoted to store manager in October 2010. She left two years later and has joined a class-action lawsuit against Chipotle, charging that apprentices shouldn’t be classified as managers exempt from overtime. A spokesman for Chipotle declined to comment on the case.
By Benjamin Mueller NEW YORK TIMES JUNE 30, 2015
After tunneling out of maximum-security cells, Richard W. Matt and David Sweat waited for the Jeep, driven by a cooperating prison employee, that would take them to Mexico.
It never arrived. Eighteen days of cabin stays and bushwhacking later, the partnership that spawned one of the most improbable prison escapes in New York history crumbled, as Sweat left his older accomplice behind for fear that he was slowing them down.
Until this weekend, investigators were a step slow, too, bogged down by dense vegetation, slow responses and miscommunication.
But on Monday, a day after Sweat was shot and taken into custody by a state trooper in a freshly cut hayfield and three days after Matt was killed by a federal agent, new details surfaced about the three-week manhunt for the two convicted murderers that gripped remote stretches of northern New York.
It was a history of hesitation and interagency conflict, and also of lucky breaks for law enforcement officers who scoured the woods as the inmates’ labyrinthine escape plot devolved into haphazard flight.
In the end, neither convict made it more than 40 miles from the Clinton Correctional Facility, and in their last days the men – separated for the first time in years – showed signs of growing desperation as they left a trail of chocolate wrappers and opened bottles of grape gin and rum. Investigators capitalized, ending the inmates’ flight without any known injuries to the public or law enforcement officials.
A week distinguished by DNA discoveries and well-organized sweeps was the final stage of a 23-day slog that was hampered, at times, by missed signals.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered a large cadre of nonstate law enforcement personnel out of the command center as the manhunt got underway.
And, in the swamps and forests where the inmates hid, investigators sometimes spurned the assistance of local officials and hunters.
In the dawn hours of June 6, after Matt and Sweat’s cell beds were found to be holding dummies fashioned out of sweatshirts, investigators initially believed the inmates were stuck in the prison’s system of tunnels.
Only after they discovered an open manhole about 400 feet outside the prison did the police understand the killers had emerged from it, David Favro, the sheriff of Clinton County, said. Favro was informed of the open manhole at 8:30 a.m., three hours after the men were found missing, he said.
By then, a sighting by a resident who lives near the manhole had gone stale. The resident, Leslie Lewis, 29, said he saw two men run through his backyard and hurry down the street shortly after midnight. It was not until 9 a.m. that a state trooper knocked on his door for an interview.
Lewis’ mother, Dawn Mattoon, said it was around 3 p.m., after Cuomo had come to look at the manhole, that she saw state troopers arriving with dogs to sniff for a scent in the backyard.
Without clear orders, Favro acted on his own hunches. He drove to Lyon Mountain, about 10 miles from the prison, after he learned of the escape, thinking it might offer the kind of rural, out-of-the-way route the men might take.
He said he imagined himself bringing them in. “Local hero comes in with two guys in the back of his truck would have been nice,” he said. “Never saw anything.”
Favro’s frustration was compounded when Cuomo arrived at the command center and told him and all the other nonstate employees to leave, said a close friend of the sheriff’s, David Andrews, the director of the local radio station WIRY. Andrews said Favro was angered at being notified of the escape so late and was astonished that Cuomo had asked him to leave.
“At first they were asked to leave, and he said, ‘But I’m the sheriff,"” Andrews recalled. “Then they were told they had to leave. He was furious and went home.”
Favro declined to discuss the governor’s arrival in detail, but he said after that, he and his team of deputies got little guidance from the State Police officials who were directing the investigation. The deputies “just kind of roved around hoping to get lucky,” he said.
In a statement, a spokesman for Cuomo, John P.L. Kelly, did not dispute that Cuomo had asked non-state officials to leave.
“It is customary for state officials to do confidential briefings to relay sensitive information to other state officials during the initial stages of any investigation,” the statement read. “However, the State Police and other state agencies have coordinated extensively with local and federal law enforcement authorities.”
The search soon began pinballing across quiet pockets on the eastern edge of the state and to towns along its southern border. Several local officials and county sheriffs said they learned of the developments only by chance.
In Willsboro, New York, 35 miles southeast of the prison, Shaun Gillilland, the town supervisor, said he drove to the local command center after a friend told him, “My yard is full of cops.” There had been a sighting of two men on foot near a rural road. He found several state and federal officials gathered around the back of a pickup truck, scrutinizing a map whose scale he said was too small to show the uneven geography.
“The command and control did not seem in my opinion to be real firm,” Gillilland said. “They were always referring to some command post in Dannemora for direction.”
Residents kept in the dark about search plans were sometimes startled by officers climbing into their garages or homes.
Beth Schiller, of Willsboro, came home to her 100-acre property, where she rarely locked the doors, to find her .22-caliber rifle missing from the corner of her sunroom. There was no note saying officers had entered the home, and a group of troopers who went inside with her said they had no idea why it was missing. They told her to call her husband, a physician, to see if he had it with him at work.
“The anxiety,” Schiller said. “Imagine going into your own home and seeing a gun is missing when there are two people supposedly out in your area.”
Only later was she able to determine that officers had found it during a search and taken it for safety. That night, after several rounds of paperwork, the State Police gave it back to her and her husband.
The State Police kept a tight lid on information about the search during its first two weeks, but that appeared to change on June 19 when, at nearly midnight, they sent a release saying there had been a sighting in the Elmira area. News conferences and daily news releases soon delivered substantial information on the locations of search efforts, and what credible witnesses had reported.
Around five days before he was caught, Sweat split from Matt, he told investigators on Monday, concerned that Matt was holding him back. Matt, 14 years older than his partner, also may have been struggling with blisters on his foot, officials have said, citing bloody socks left at a hunting cabin they discovered on June 20.
The search effort seemed to gain momentum when, on June 24, officials discovered evidence of a break-in by Matt at a hunting cabin in Malone, New York.
It was a vast area of rolling hills and soggy swamps made more difficult to navigate by heavy rains, suddenly flooded by up to 1,500 officers, the Franklin County sheriff, Kevin Mulverhill, said. “Nobody questioned assignments,” he said. “Everyone who was there was all about how can I help.”
Few state or local officials had experience with such an elaborate search over such difficult terrain, Mulverhill said. “I don’t think anybody really prepares for a manhunt that’s going to use 1,200 people,” he said. “I don’t think that’s something you train for.”
State troopers and sheriff’s deputies stood guard along roadways, listening for rustles in these woods. Tactical teams from specialized units of the Department of Corrections or federal Customs and Border Protection swept the woods, hoping to push the escapees toward a road.
Trail cameras posted on trees took photos of any movement they detected.
On June 26, the owner of a hunting camp, Bobby Willett, found bottles of grape gin and rum out of place in a cabin, a neighbor and cousin said. The neighbor, Jonathan Chodat, said investigators also removed evidence from a nearby abandoned trailer where they believed Matt had been staying that was 50 feet into the woods from Route 30 in Malone.
When Matt fired a shot at a moving camper trailer, in what some officials described as an effort to steal it, investigators blanketed the woods and heard him cough. He was shot three times and killed by a federal agent.
That same day, investigators found a chocolate wrapper in an area off Webster Street in Malone, north of where Matt was killed, that they later determined had traces of Sweat’s DNA, Mulverhill said. Over the weekend, officers left a 22-square-mile search area that had been set up farther south, and moved north to an area around Constable.
Late Sunday afternoon, Sgt. Jay Cook of the New York State Police noticed Sweat jogging north along a roadway, only a few miles from Canada.
The son of dairy farmers, Cook is a dedicated outdoorsman who hunts and fishes and runs a small maple sugaring operation on his property.
After joining the Air Force and working as a corrections officer, Cook fulfilled his dream of joining the State Police, said his mother, Judith Cook.
“He is an excellent shot; his career revolved around that,” said Billy Jones, the chairman of the Franklin County Legislature and a friend.
He got his chance to end the manhunt when he chased Sweat across a hayfield. A tree line drew closer and closer.
He shot Sweat twice in the torso, and the search was over.
In a series of scathing dissents, each of the High Court’s four conservative justices took apart Justice Anthony Kennedy’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision piece-by-piece.
Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, wrote that “the majority fails to provide even a single sentence explaining” how the 14th Amendment applies to redefining marriage.
“The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent,” he wrote. “There is, after all, no ‘Companionship and Understanding’ or ‘Nobility and Dignity’ Clause in the Constitution.”
Instead, the court ignored its own precedent in the 1972 Baker v. Nelson case, which ruled there is no constitutional right to homosexual “marriage.”
In a separate dissent, Justice Scalia called the decision a “judicial Putsch” that is “lacking even a thin veneer of law.” He described the majority’s often flowery language as “the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”
Roberts said the opinion took an “unprincipled approach” that he likened to theDred Scott decision, which ratified slavery on the eve of the Civil War.
While all of the dissenting justices warned that the decision usurped the role of the people in a democratic government, each made his own distinctive critiques, as well.
Justice Roberts warned that today’s ruling was not comparable to striking down laws against interracial marriage, because at no time was the ethnicity of the spouses considered a defining factor of marriage itself.
He also warned that by changing the fundamental definition of marriage, the justices had opened the door to redefining other vital components of matrimony. “It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage,” he wrote.
Justice Thomas wrote that the opinion holds “potentially ruinous consequences for religious liberty.” Recognizing the threat that the government may revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions, Thomas added that “the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious property.”
The traditional American view of limited government was another casualty, he wrote. “Our Constitution — like the Declaration of Independence before it — was predicated on a simple truth: One’s liberty, not to mention one’s dignity, was something to be shielded from — not provided by — the state.”
Justice Samuel Alito alone said that marriage existed for the sake of procreation and child-rearing. The majority opinion is based on ideas of romantic love, he wrote. “This understanding of marriage, which focuses almost entirely on the happiness of persons who choose to marry, is shared by many people today, but it is not the traditional one. For millennia, marriage was inextricably linked to the one thing that only an opposite-sex couple can do: procreate.”
All of the justices had a similar concern, though: The decision substitutes the views of five unelected justices for the democratic process, much as Roe v. Wade did for abortion in 1973.
“If a bare majority of justices can invent a new right and impose that right on the rest of the country, the only real limit on what future majorities will be able to do is their own sense of what those with political power and cultural influence are willing to tolerate,” Justice Alito wrote in his dissent.
He concluded, “All Americans, whatever their thinking on that issue, should worry about what the majority’s claim of power portends.”
Also from CBN……
WASHINGTON — Now that the Supreme Court has changed the definition of marriage, many Christians are trying to figure out what that means for them.
Business is back to normal outside the Supreme Court building, but there’s no denying that the votes of five justices dramatically changed the nation.
“And that has profound impacts. It changes what kids are taught in the school, changes the way religious organizations are treated,” Brian Brown, with the National Organization for Marriage, said.
Over the weekend gay pride parades and celebrations from California to Chicago, and even Alaska, made news.
The court’s decision doesn’t take effect for several weeks, but even in states that didn’t allow gay marriage, like Georgia, same-sex couples were allowed to wed.
“I think everyone has the right to be happy and we were raised with the mentality that you should do what makes you happy,” Christi Justis, a college student at Virginia Commonwealth University, said.
However, many Americans fear that sentiment shared by many millennials won’t apply to people who have religious objections to the government’s new definition of marriage.
There’s no question that the next fight is religious liberty, as some fear the court’s ruling on marriage will embolden those who seek to punish Christians who wish to live, work and raise their families in accordance with their faith.
“Religious liberty is not just the freedom to worship in your chapel; it’s the freedom to live our your faith in everyday life Monday through Sunday, in the workplace, in the public square, in the marketplace, at your home, at your school, at your charity,” Ryan Anderson, with the Heritage Foundation, explained.
Many fear the court’s ruling opens the door for a number of unconventional marriages to eventually win favor by the government.
“If California were to redefine marriage to include polygamy or polyamory, could a Texan go to California, have a group marriage, and then move back to Texas and say ‘the constitution requires you to recognize this,"” Anderson asked.
The what-if’s and the reality of gay marriage in all 50 states will be hot on the campaign trail this summer, and the divisions are miles apart.
While all of the Democratic candidates celebrated the court’s ruling, all of the Republican candidates expressed some level of disappointment.
“I think the left is now going to go after our First Amendment rights,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal warned Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
“I think it is wrong for the federal government to force Christian individuals, businesses, pastors, churches to participate in wedding ceremonies that violate our sincerely held religious beliefs,” Jindal continued.
“We have to stand up and fight for religious liberty,” he said.
One the same program, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, “If you have a church, a mosque or a synagogue and you’re following your faith and you refuse to perform a same-sex marriage because it’s outside the tenets of your faith, in my presidency, you will not lose your tax exempt status.”
“Are we gonna trade one level of what’s called discrimination for a new level of discrimination against people of faith,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee asked on “This Week.”
“The problem here is, that the government is going to put people of faith in an untenable situation where they’re forced to choose between obeying God and obeying the government,” Mark Trammell, with the Liberty Center for Law and Policy, warned.
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In his recent podcast interview with comedian Marc Maron, President Obama reflected on the passing of time. His daughters are growing older and have less time to hang with their dad. “I’ve got to start thinking, well, what’s going to replace that fun,” he said.
Good question, and it goes for the rest of Obama’s life as well. In eighteen months he will be an ex-president, term-limited and out of a job. Just fifty-five, the former leader of the free world will still be in the prime of life.
Obama hasn’t said what he has in mind for his next act. His options are virtually endless. What he decides is going to matter—especially to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Assuming she is nominated, Hillary can’t be elected president in 2016 without a huge black turnout. Obama will, of course, endorse her, but his blessing can’t be lukewarm. He will have to go all out. In politics, that kind of an effort does not come without a quid pro quo.
What could President Clinton do for her predecessor? The most obvious answer is: Appoint him to the Supreme Court.
There is a precedent. William Howard Taft went from the White House to the Court. As a former constitutional lawyer and teacher, Obama is more than qualified professionally.
The president has been a persistent critic of the conservative-leaning Roberts Court. He would automatically become the leader of the Court’s liberal faction and perhaps—with additional Clinton appointments—its eventual majority. That, in turn, would give him a chance to defend his own presidential legacy and press his agenda.
Not incidentally, appointing Obama to the Supreme Court would serve the interests of President Hillary Clinton. Out of office, Obama would likely remain the de facto leader of the Democratic African-American base and a powerful voice on issues like immigration, gun control, voting rights and free trade. This is the sort of influence no president wants to cede to a predecessor. She’s stuck with Bill, but she’s not married to Barack. Put him on the Supreme Court and he won’t be able to (overtly) meddle in party politics or constrain her presidential power.
There is something else that a President Hillary Clinton could do for Obama: Give his wife a job. Michelle Obama, like her husband, is on her way to becoming an unemployed empty-nester.
Michelle Obama is as qualified for public office as Hillary Clinton was in 2000, when she first won a Senate seat from New York. For that matter, she is not less qualified than her husband when he won his Senate seat from Illinois 2006. A Clinton administration could clear the decks for a Senate run by Michelle, or offer her a senior cabinet post.
If Hillary loses in 2016, Obama will still have plenty of options. He could emulate Bill Clinton and start a multi-billion dollar charitable foundation, while supplementing his income with seven-figure speeches and a little help from his friends. He could follow Jimmy Carter’s example and turn his Presidential Library into a center for international policy (and meddling) on issues like climate change, free trade and rapprochement with the Muslim world.
It is a given (literally) that Obama will make a fortune with a memoir. That is a post-presidential prerogative. But unlike his predecessors, he is capable of more than a standard retrospective.
Obama is a man of letters. His first book, “Dreams from My Father,” attests to that. He may be a second-rate chief executive, but he is a first-rate writer.
Writing isn’t retirement. Writing is work. But for the right person, it is rewarding work. Nobody invades an author’s privacy (especially if it is guarded by the Secret Service). Writers have time for family and friends, room for reading and reflection and creativity. Those who can command an audience can exert lasting influence. Certainly Barack Obama would command that kind of attention.
I’m sure that President Obama is considering numerous scenarios and options. Once he leaves office, Barack Obama will still remain a formidable presence in American public life a man with the potential to exert a powerful influence on his party, his country and the world.
