Defense chief: US pullout from Afghanistan “slightly” ahead

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May 27, 2021

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress on Thursday that America’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is “slightly” ahead of schedule, but he provided no details.

President Joe Biden has ordered a full U.S. troop withdrawal by Sept. 11. Austin did not say when it may be complete.

Austin said at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing that the Defense Department’s proposed $715 billion budget will include money to help the military develop the capabilities to prevent attacks against the United States by terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

With the budget set to be released Friday, Austin provided few spending specifics to committee members asking about various priorities.

U.S. military commanders have said they will monitor and counter threats from al-Qaida and the Islamic State group from outside the country once U.S. forces leave Afghanistan later this summer. Militants are expected to try to regroup after U.S. and coalition forces depart.

So far, officials have acknowledged that the U.S. does not yet have any agreements for basing or overflights from any of Afghanistan’s countries.

Ferguson, Derkay combine for 6 RBIs, Vols advance in SEC

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

HOOVER, Ala. — Max Ferguson and Pete Derkay each collected three RBIs and No. 2 seed Tennessee beat third-seeded Mississippi State 12-2 in eight innings on Thursday for its first victory in the SEC Tournament since 2007.

Tennessee (44-15) advances to the fourth round on Friday. Mississippi State (40-16) was eliminated after being outscored 25-3 in two games.

Chad Dallas (10-1) became the first Tennessee pitcher since 2005 to reach 10 wins in a season. He went 6 2/3 innings, allowing just one run on six hits.

Derkay started the scoring with a three-run homer in a four-run second. Ferguson hit a two-run double in the eighth and two batters later, Drew Gilbert ended it on the 10-run rule with an RBI single down the right-field line.

Liam Spence was 3 for 4, with three singles and two RBIs for Tennessee. Gilbert also drove in two runs.

Christian MacLeod (5-4) allowed five runs in four innings for Mississippi State.

High gasoline prices unlikely to deter holiday travelers

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

NEW YORK — Memorial Day weekend gasoline prices are at their highest levels in seven years, but experts don’t expect the steep prices at the pumps to keep eager motorists off the road.

After more than a year of caution during the coronavirus pandemic, there’s pent-up demand for travel. And with vaccination rates increasing and coronavirus cases falling, some people are seizing the opportunity for a change of scenery during what has traditionally been one of America’s busiest holiday travel weekends.

“The industry is referring it to as ‘revenge travel,’” said Jeanette McGee, spokeswoman for the American Automobile Association. “People have more discretionary income, they’ve got a lot of PTO (paid time off) saved up, so they’re going to take more trips and spend more money.”

The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.03 this week. Memorial Day weekend prices have not been this high since 2014, when they averaged $3.65 a gallon.

Prices recently had been slightly higher than the current average, due in part to fuel delivery problems caused by a cyberattack and then shutdown of a major fuel artery, the Colonial Pipeline. Gasoline prices have largely stabilized since that hacking incident, but prices are expected to remain in the $3-per-gallon range during the summer, experts say.

The vaccine rollout has encouraged a gradual return to normal activities, and a strong labor market is supporting work-related driving, but discretionary driving has room to grow, said Lenny Rodriguez, team lead at S&P Global Platts.

AAA anticipates that 37 million Americans will travel by car and plane on Memorial Day weekend. That’s up 60% from last year, when many were cautious about the pandemic and stayed home. But it is still 13% below pre-pandemic travel levels reached during 2019’s Memorial Day weekend.

The association recommends filling up the gas tank before arriving at vacation destinations, because gasoline prices can be higher around popular tourist spots.

Universal hikes base pay to $15 an hour at Florida resort

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

ORLANDO, Fla. — Universal Orlando Resort announced Thursday that it’s raising the starting minimum wage at the Florida theme park complex to $15 an hour.

Universal says the higher wages apply to both full and part-time workers starting June 27. That makes Universal the first resort in central Florida’s theme park mecca to raise its base pay to $15 an hour, though unionized workers at its cross-town rival, Walt Disney World, three years ago approved a contract raising the hourly minimum to $15 by October 2021. Universal workers aren’t unionized.

The wage hike applies only to the Florida resort and not to its other parks, Universal spokesman Tom Schroder said in an email. But other employees among its 21,000-person workforce also will gain pay increases, based on job requirements and their time at the resort, the company said.

The resort is now hiring thousands of workers for what is expected to be a busy summer fueled by pent-up demand from the pandemic.

“We are excited about our future and we want team members who will be excited to be part of that journey,” said John Sprouls, chief administrative officer for Universal Parks & Resorts. “This is about taking care of both our current team members and those who will be joining our team.”

Eagles add former Jaguars GM Dave Caldwell to front office

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Eagles have hired former Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Dave Caldwell as a personnel executive.

Caldwell spent the past eight years in Jacksonville, which had one winning season in that span. In his new role with the Eagles, Caldwell will contribute to evaluating the team while also assisting with both the pro scouting and college scouting process.

The Eagles also promoted Catherine Raîche to vice president of football operations and Ameena Soliman to pro scout.

Raîche previously served as the Eagles football operations/player personnel coordinator for the past two seasons. She will now be involved in all areas of football operations and player personnel, including pro and college scouting, contract management, player/staff development, and football research.

Soliman joined the organization as a player personnel intern in 2018 and served as the team’s player personnel coordinator the past two seasons.

In other changes to the football operations department, Brandon Brown and Ian Cunningham both were named director of player personnel.

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AP source: Biden ending Trump OK for US oil company in Syria

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

The Biden administration has decided it will not renew a waiver that allowed a politically connected U.S. oil company to operate in northeast Syria under President Donald Trump’s pledge to “keep the oil” produced in the region, according to a U.S. official familiar with the decision.

Treasury Department rules prohibit most U.S. companies from doing business in Syria. The waiver for Delta Crescent Energy was issued in April 2020, months after Trump announced that he wanted to keep some U.S. troops in the oil-rich region to maintain control of the oil profits.

Trump’s “keep the oil” message was no longer U.S. foreign policy under the Biden administration, and using the U.S. military to facilitate Syrian oil production was deemed inappropriate, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the decision and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The company was founded in 2019 by James Cain, U.S. ambassador to Denmark under President George W. Bush; James Reese, a retired Army Delta Force officer; and John Dorrier Jr., a former executive with United Kingdom-based Gulfsands Petroleum. Cain, a onetime executive with the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, has donated more than $30,000 to the Republican Party and GOP candidates over the years.

Northeastern Syria is the center for what remains of Syria’s oil industry. It is in shambles but remains one of the main sources of revenues for the Kurdish-led autonomous administration there.

Trump repeatedly spoke of keeping some U.S. troops in Syria to help “keep the oil” and “secure the oil,” but his aides sought to dispel the idea the United States was trying to profit from the region’s oil reserves. After DCE’s license, from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, to operate became public last August, the State Department issued a statement in which it underscored that the “United States government does not own, control, or manage the oil resources in Syria.”

Trump’s comments about Syria’s oil frustrated critics, and some allies, who said the loose talk fed into the narrative that American policy in the Middle East was driven by U.S. energy concerns and they argued it undercut U.S. diplomatic efforts to press for peace and stability in the region.

Dorrier, DCE’s CEO, said the company had some $2 billion in contracts to sell oil into the international market that will benefit American allies in northeast Syria that have helped in the fight against the Islamic State group. He said Trump’s comments did not lead to the company winning the oil licensing agreement and that presidential orders issued during the Obama administration had invited U.S. companies to apply for licenses in agriculture, telecommunications and oil and gas in Syria.

“If the Biden Administration chooses not to renew the OFAC license, it will be a substantial change in policy that does not support Coalition Allies who fought and died to eliminate ISIS,” Dorrier said in a statement. “Depriving our Allies of the opportunity for sanctions relief on critical infrastructure as laid out by the Obama administration would, in effect, turn the North and East of Syria over to Russian, Regime and Iranian forces.”

Dorrier also said Trump’s “keep the oil” message “was hyperbole, not policy.”

The White House press office declined to comment about the decision, stating that as “a general matter” it does not comment on specific licenses, including to confirm whether one exists.

Biden administration officials, during a visit this month to northeast Syria, stressed to Kurdish administrators overseeing the area that the U.S. military presence was exclusively focused on preventing an IS resurgence, according to a State Department official who was not authorized the discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The news site Al-Monitor was first to report of the administration’s decision to end the waiver.

DCE said it has not received word from the Treasury Department that the license, which was set to expire at the end of April, will not be renewed. The department typically gives companies additional time to wind down operations, according to the U.S. official.

A former U.S. official familiar with the discussions said the administration has been communicating that it does not intend to renew the waiver but had not taken final action yet. This person was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. decision to allow an American company to refine and market oil was denounced by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s government and ally Russia after it became public last August, not long after then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged during the a congressional hearing that the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria had come to an agreement with an American oil company.

Trump became focused on northeastern Syria’s oil in October 2019 after he abruptly announced his intention to draw down U.S. troops deployed against IS in the area.

At the time, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had been pressing Trump to withdraw troops from the region. With his decision, Trump cleared the way for a Turkish military assault and effectively abandoned Kurdish fighters who fought alongside American forces in the yearslong battle to defeat IS militants in the region.

But when advisers floated the idea of keeping some troops in northeastern Syria to guard oil fields, it resonated with Trump. It also presented U.S. military commanders — wary of entirely leaving the area — with a way to keep some troops in place.

The area controlled by the Kurdish-led autonomous administration shrunk after Turkey’s military offensive in northeast Syria in October 2019.

Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at the time that the main goal of the American troop presence was to make sure the IS was contained and unable to gain control of the oil fields and the revenue they generated. The administration also saw some benefit to Kurds being in control of the oil.

Still, Trump repeatedly said in remarks to reporters and on his Twitter account that U.S. troops were staying in Syria to keep and protect northeast Syria’s deep oil reserves.

“We stayed back and kept the oil,” Trump told reporters in November 2019. “Other people can patrol the border of Syria … and Turkey. Let them. They’ve been fighting for a thousand years. Let them do the border. We don’t want to do that. We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we’re keeping the oil. I like oil. We’re keeping the oil.”

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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Guatemala issues 10 warrants for 1984 killings, abductions

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

GUATEMALA CITY — A judge in Guatemala issued arrest warrants Thursday for 10 people accused of abductions, torture, rape and killings in 1984.

The crimes came to light because of a police document covering that year dubbed the “Military Diary.”

Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez confirmed the warrants, but did not identify who the suspects were. Prosecutors confirmed that all 10 had been arrested.

A source close to case who could not speak on the record said that at least one army general and two civilians were among those arrested.

The document that surfaced in 1999 describes the disappearances, abuse and deaths of more than 190 people during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war.

The typewritten, 74-page document includes annotations in codes like “300,” which experts later discovered meant “killed.” There are 99 names in the document with that code.

One victim was described as a suspected leftist guerrilla, Prudencio de Jesús Carrera Camey. He was held for two weeks and killed. He was 15 years old.

Another entry recorded the detention of university professor Rudy Gustavo Figueroa Muñoz. Abducted on Oct. 12, 1984, he was held for 52 days; his family didn’t know where he was until December, when his body turned up — and the “300” annotation appeared next to his name.

His son Rudy Figueroa was 11 when his father disappeared: “My younger brother was born while he was detained. He never met him.”

Some detainees included in the report survived, but others were never heard from again.

More than 200,000 people died in the civil war, which ended with peace accords in 1996. But more than 45,000 people remain missing.

2 months in prison for dad who paid $40K in ACT cheat scheme

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

BOSTON — The founder of a private equity firm who paid $40,000 to have someone secretly correct his daughter’s ACT exam answers was sentenced Thursday to two months in prison for his role in the college admissions bribery scheme.

Before the judge handed down his sentence, Mark Hauser cried as he asked for forgiveness and said had been driven only by a desire to help his youngest daughter, who has struggled throughout her life with serious medical issues.

“I know medical challenges are not an excuse,” Hauser said during the hearing held in Boston’s federal court. “I was in a really bad place with her struggles. I was not trying to establish prestige for myself or for my daughter. My only concern was to help her catch her breath,” he said.

Lawyers for “Full House” actress Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, said during their sentencing hearings last year that Hauser was the one who recommended they work with the ringleader of the college bribery scheme, Rick Singer. Hauser used to serve as chairman of the board of the Los Angeles high school attended by Loughlin and Giannulli’s daughters.

The case against Hauser and his plea agreement was made public hours after the sentencing hearings for Loughlin and Giannulli last August. Giannulli was released from prison last month after being sentenced to five months for paying $500,000 to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as bogus crew recruits. Loughlin served two months behind bars.

In addition to his private equity firm, Hauser also ran an insurance company. Days after prosecutors announced Hauser’s plea deal, Florida-based insurance company Brown & Brown announced that they were backing out of a deal to buy Hauser’s insurance firm for $187 million.

Hauser, who splits his time between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Los Angeles, paid Singer $40,000 to have someone pose as his daughter’s ACT proctor and secretly correct her answers, authorities said in court documents. The proctor, Mark Riddell, has also pleaded guilty in the scheme. Riddell got Hauser’s daughter a score of 31 out of 36, prosecutors have said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin O’Connell had asked for two months behind bars, saying Hauser’s actions were not a momentary lapse in judgement but a concerted effort to use his privilege to give his daughter a leg up in the admissions process.

Hauser’s lawyer had sought probation instead of prison time. Hauser pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.

Yellen says economic recovery likely to be ‘bumpy’

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that the economic recovery is going to be “bumpy” with high inflation readings likely to last through the end of this year.

But Yellen insisted that the inflation pressures will be temporary and if they do threaten to become embedded in the economy, the government has the tools to address that threat.

In testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee Thursday, Yellen was asked about a big jump in prices reported last week, which showed consumer price index rising by 4.2% over the past year, the largest 12-month gain since 2008.

Yellen said that the April price increase was the result of a number of special factors related to the economy opening back up. She said as she has in the past that the price jump would be temporary but she indicated it would be more than a one-time gain.

“I expect it to last, however, for several more months and to see high annual rates of inflation through the end of this year,” Yellen told lawmakers.

“As the economy gets back on line, it is going to be a bumpy process,” Yellen said.

The high April inflation reading, Yellen said, reflected in part big gains in the pries of airline tickets, hotel rooms and recreation, all areas where prices had fallen dramatically after the pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020.

In addition, Yellen said prices were being driven higher by supply chain shortages in such critical areas as computer chips and auto production, where there were temporary factory shutdowns during the pandemic.

“We have an economy that was struck by a very severe and unusual shock. It caused very substantial shifts in spending patterns,” she said.

Yellen said that she started studying economics and began her professional career during the 1970s, the last period of high inflation in this country.

“I remember what that terrible period was like. No one wants to see that happen again,” she said. “We obviously have to watch the current situation very closely.”

Yellen was testifying on the Treasury Department’s budget request for next year. The Biden administration will release its full 2022 budget request Friday.

The administration’s budget calls for a significant boost in funding for the Internal Revenue Service, an agency under the Treasury Department. Yellen said the increased funding was needed to boost IRS efforts to narrow the tax gap, the amount of payments that are being evaded which she said could total $7 trillion over the next decade.

“Many of the country’s wealthiest taxpayers do not pay their full tax bill and the IRS is not nearly staffed up enough to ensure compliance,” Yellen said.

She said that currently the IRS has fewer auditors than at any time since World War II.

Korda to face Paul in all-American semifinal in Parma

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The Associated Press

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May 27, 2021

PARMA, Italy — Sebastian Korda beat eighth-seeded Yoshihito Nishioka 6-3, 6-3 on Thursday to set up an all-American semifinal against Tommy Paul at the Emilia-Romagna Open.

The 63rd-ranked Korda stormed into a 3-0 lead and never looked back as he reached his first clay-court semifinal.

“I played a great match. I know he has been playing really good tennis, he reached the semifinal in Lyon,” the 20-year-old Korda said. “But it’s my first semifinal on clay and I’m super happy.”

Korda next faces the sixth-seeded Paul, who eased past fourth-seeded Jan-Lennard Struff 6-2, 6-4.

“I’m really good friends with Tommy,” Korda said. “We practice together a lot. It’s going to be a really fun match. He’s been playing great, so hopefully it will be a fun one.”

It will be their second tour-level meeting after Korda came back from a set down to beat Paul in Delray Beach in January on his way to the final.

Paul is the only seeded player left in Parma.

The other semifinal pits Marco Cecchinato — the only Italian left in the draw — against Jaume Munar of Spain.

The 80th-ranked Munar routed fifth-seeded Richard Gasquet 6-1, 6-1 while Cecchinato beat Norbert Gombos 6-3, 6-1.

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