News Daypop Archives

57-year-old bureaucrat Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel replaced Raul Castro as the president of Cuba on Thursday, launching a new political era. The National Assembly announced that Diaz-Canel had been approved as the sole candidate for president. However, the 86-year-old Castro will remain head of the Communist Party, which is designated by the constitution as “the superior guiding force of society and the state.” As a result, he will still be the most powerful person in Cuba for the time being.  ...Read more

An island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the island struggles to repair an increasingly unstable power grid, just seven months after Hurricane Maria. Officials said an excavator accidentally downed a transmission line. Officials said it could take 24 to 36 hours to fully restore power to more than 1.4 million customers as outrage grew across the island about the state of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority. It is the second major outage in less than a week, with the previous one affecting some 840,000 customers. Several large power outages have hit Puerto Rico in recent months, but Wednesday was the first time since the Category 4 storm struck on Sept. 20 that the U.S. territory has experienced a full island-wide blackout.  Officials reported no cancellations or delays at major airports due to the use of generators. They said restoring power to hospitals, airports, banking centers and water pumping systems was the priority, following that would be businesses and then homes. ...Read more

The Southwest Airlines pilot who made an emergency landing Tuesday after the jet blew an engine and lost a window at 32,000 feet was one of the first female pilots to fly with the U.S. Navy. Tammie Jo Shults, 56, was calm as she navigated the damaged Dallas-bound jet, Flight 1380, to an emergency landing in Philadelphia. The twin-engine Boeing 737 that left New York’s LaGuardia Airport had 143 customers and five crew on board. One passenger died and 7 others were injured. Jennifer Riordan, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was identified as the woman who died. Riordan was the mother of two and a Wells Fargo bank executive. Shults took the plane into a rapid descent as passengers employed oxygen masks and braced for impact. The veteran pilot managed to safely land the plane at Philadelphia International at 11:30 a.m.   ...Read more

Former first lady Barbara Bush died Tuesday at her home in Houston, Texas. She was 92. Mrs. Bush served as the country’s first lady from 1989 to 1993. She passed away shortly after deciding to forgo further medical treatments for her failing health. A statement from the office of former President George H.W. Bush read, “a former first lady of the United States of America and relentless proponent of family literacy, Barbara Pierce Bush passed away Tuesday, April 17, 2018, at the age of 92.”  Mr. and Mrs. Bush celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary on Jan. 6. Mrs. Bush was one of only two first ladies in the history of the country who was also the mother of a president; George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States.  ...Read more

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Starbucks Corporation’s Chief Executive Kevin Johnson hopes to meet with the two black men arrested at one of its Philadelphia cafes last week to apologize for the incident, which has sparked accusations of racial profiling at the coffee chain. “The circumstances surrounding the incident and the outcome in our store on Thursday were reprehensible … they were wrong,” Johnson said on Monday, amid protests and calls for a boycott on social media. The 2 men had not made a purchase, but were handcuffed and arrested for trespassing on Thursday after a store manager called 911 and reported them for refusing to leave. Witnesses said the men were calmly sitting in the cafe and in a widely viewed video, some patrons asked police whether they were targeted because they are black. Police released the men, who were not charged. The female manager who reported the men to police has left the company, a Starbucks representative said. ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen revealed in court that Fox News host Sean Hannity was one of his clients, this after a federal judge overruled his effort to withhold the client’s identity. Cohen was in court on Monday to ask a judge to limit the ability of federal prosecutors to review documents seized from him last week through a warrant as part of a criminal investigation. Cohen argued that some of the seized documents are protected by attorney-client privilege or otherwise unconnected to the investigation. “I understand if he doesn’t want his name out there, but that’s not enough under the law,” Wood said, before ordering a lawyer for Cohen to disclose the name. Sean Hannity is a conservative television host known for advocating for Trump on his Fox News show. ...Read more

Former First Lady Barbara Bush is in failing health and will not seek additional medical care after a series of recent hospitalizations, a spokesman for the Bush family said on Sunday. Bush, 92, will “instead focus on comfort care” for unspecified health complications, according to a statement. Mrs. Bush is the wife of former President George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States who is now 93, and mother of 43rd President George W. Bush. “It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself — thanks to her abiding faith — but for others,” a statement from the office of George H.W. Bush said Sunday. “She is surrounded by a family she adores, and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving.” ...Read more

Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said this weekend that “the United States is locked and loaded” to strike Syria again if the country’s regime continues to use chemical weapons. Haley relayed the message from President Trump at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council hours after a U.S.-led bombardment targeted Syrian chemical weapons facilities. Haley also accused Russia of defending Syrian President Bashar Assad and failing to ensure that the war-torn country’s cache of poison gas was destroyed. “When our President draws a red line, our President enforces the red,” she said. “The United States of America will not allow the Assad regime to continue using chemical weapons.” ...Read more

President Donald Trump said he has “full confidence” in White House lawyer Ty Cobb, who has urged Trump to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.  In a tweet on Thursday, Mr. Trump said “I have agreed with the historically cooperative, disciplined approach that we have engaged in with Robert Mueller (Unlike the Clintons!) He continued, “I have full confidence in Ty Cobb, my Special Counsel, and have been fully advised throughout each phase of this process.” Some of Trump’s strongest supporters have been urging the president to take a more aggressive position toward Mueller’s investigation, in particular after FBI agents descended on the office and home of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Trump has called the FBI raid an “attack on our country.”  However in a separate Twitter post Thursday, Mr. Trump denied reports that he had tried to dismiss Mueller last year. “If I wanted to fire Robert Mueller in December, as reported by the Failing New York Times, I would have fired him,” Trump said.  Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation to protect the special counsel from being fired without cause. ...Read more