Authorities say bomber mocked Trump before subway attack
NEW YORK — The Bangladeshi immigrant arrested in a botched suicide bombing in the New York subway mocked President Donald Trump on Facebook on his way to carry out the attack, writing “Trump you failed to protect your nation,” authorities said Tuesday as they brought federal charges against him.
Akayed Ullah, 27, was accused of detonating a pipe bomb strapped to his body in an underground passageway between Times Square — the city’s busiest subway station — and the bustling Port Authority Bus Terminal. The device did not fully detonate, and Ullah was the only one seriously hurt in the Monday morning attack.
At the hospital where he was taken with burns on his hands and torso, he told officers, “I did it for the Islamic State,” according to the criminal complaint. Also, a search of his Brooklyn apartment turned up a passport in his name, scrawled with the words “O AMERICA, DIE IN YOUR RAGE,” authorities said.
He was expected to appear before a magistrate, though it was not immediately clear if he was well enough to go to court. His court-appointed lawyer did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
At a news conference, Acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said Ullah picked a rush hour on a weekday to maximize casualties in his quest “to kill, to maim and to destroy.”
Tax package would lower top tax rate for wealthy Americans
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans on Tuesday rushed toward a deal on a massive tax package that would reduce the top tax rate for wealthy Americans to 37 percent and slash the corporate rate to a level slightly higher than what businesses and conservatives wanted.
In a flurry of last-minute changes that could profoundly affect the pocketbooks of millions of Americans, House and Senate negotiators agreed to expand a deduction for state and local taxes to allow individuals to deduct income taxes as well as property taxes. The deduction is valuable to residents in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.
Negotiators also agreed to set the corporate income tax rate at 21 percent, said two congressional aides who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private negotiations. Both the House bill and the Senate bill would have lowered the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.
Business and conservative groups lobbied hard for the 20 percent corporate rate. Negotiators agreed to bump it up to 21 percent to help offset revenue losses from other tax breaks, the aides said.
As the final parameters of the bill took shape, negotiators agreed to cut the top tax rate for individuals from 39.6 percent to 37 percent in a windfall for the richest Americans. The reduction is certain to provide ammunition for Democrats who complain that the tax package is a massive giveaway to corporations and the rich.
Paris hosts major climate summit — and it’s all about Trump
PARIS — The global climate summit in Paris was designed to bypass Donald Trump, but the U.S. president ended up playing a starring role.
Trump became the unwitting villain as world leaders, investors and other Americans assailed him Tuesday for rejecting the Paris climate accord.
To emphasize their point — and prevent others from following his lead — they announced more than $1 billion in investments to make it easier for countries and industries to give up oil and coal.
French President Emmanuel Macron used the summit to seize the global spotlight, capitalizing on Trump’s isolationist policies and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s domestic weakness to position himself as the world’s moral compass on climate change.
“We’re not moving fast enough,” Macron said, warning that the 2015 Paris climate accord is “fragile.”
NTSB cites weak safety culture by owner of sunken El Faro
The owner of the sunken cargo ship El Faro had a weak corporate safety culture that contributed to the vessel’s demise and the deaths of 33 mariners, federal accident investigators said on Tuesday.
The National Transportation Safety Board said that as a company, TOTE Maritime, Inc. suffered from a lack of “critical” aspects of safety management and training, one of the many problems the board hopes to mitigate through the adoption of 53 draft safety measures it’s recommending as a result of its probe.
The board noted that the captain was relying on outdated weather information, using a system he hadn’t been formally trained on; that a hatch left open in the storm allowed flooding in a cargo hold, destabilizing the vessel; and that the crew had not been adequately trained to deal with flooding and other effects of harsh weather.
The El Faro lost engine power in a Category 3 hurricane while sailing from Jacksonville to San Juan, Puerto Rico and eventually sank in 15,000 feet of water near the Bahamas.
NTSB investigators said Capt. Michael Davidson was using outdated weather data as he dismissed multiple requests by his mates to take a slower, safer route. Davidson relied on an emailed weather product called the Bon Voyage System, which by design runs six hours behind online National Hurricane Center updates. Investigators believe, based on the captain’s decisions and comments recorded on the ship’s voyage data recorder, or “black box,” he wasn’t aware of the delay.
Ed Lee, San Francisco’s 1st Asian-American mayor, dies at 65
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who led the city during a development boom fueled by unprecedented tech wealth, died early Tuesday. He was 65.
Lee’s death was announced by the city in a statement. No cause of death was immediately given. London Breed, the president of the Board of Supervisors, was sworn into office as acting mayor.
“It is with profound sadness and terrible grief that we confirm that Mayor Edwin M. Lee passed away on Tuesday, Dec. 12 at 1:11 a.m. at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital,” the statement said. “Family, friends and colleagues were at his side. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Anita, his two daughters, Brianna and Tania, and his family.”
Lee became mayor in 2011, becoming the first Asian-American to hold the job. He was first appointed in 2011 to replace Gavin Newsom, who was elected as California’s lieutenant governor, and subsequently ran for a full term later that year. He was re-elected in 2015.
Lee led San Francisco just as the tech boom began to take hold in the city. Unemployment plummeted, and the city saw a wave of development, symbolized by a new tallest building, the Salesforce Tower.
By wire sources
