ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

March 28, 2018 (San Diego’s East County) - East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen on important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

• Senate passes massive spending bill to keep government open (CBS)
• Trump’s new national security advisor, John Bolton, could upend foreign policy (Time)
• ‘Lone DNC Hacker’ Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer (Daily Beast)
• Comedian Byron Allen buys the Weather Channel for $300 million (Bloomberg News)
• Congress blocks DeVos agenda in spending bill (CNN)
• Stormy Daniels describes her alleged affair with Donald Trump (CBS 60 Minutes)
• Trump cutting Obama-era refugee admissions 77% (Washington Examiner)
• Trump signs new transgender military ban (BBC)
• Congress Takes a Brush to the Budget, Barring Federal Funds For Portraits (NPR)

WORLD

• Mexico Pledges $4.3 Million Effort to Stop Tijuana Spills (KPBS)
• Congo crisis worsening, EU says, as government shuns aid conference (Reuters)
• Skyline farms in Hong Kong reap happiness along with food (CS Monitor)
• French police charge suspects in murder of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll (DW)
• French officer who swapped places with a hostage in terror attack dies (CNN)
• Famous Turkish singer sentenced to 10 months in jail for insulting Erdogan (Jerusalem Post)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

U.S.

Senate passes massive spending bill to keep government open (CBS)

The Senate has passed a massive "omnibus" spending package that will fund the government and avert a looming government shutdown. The legislation, which narrowly passed the House on Thursday, spends $1.3 trillion to keep the government open through the end of September. 

Trump’s new national security advisor, John Bolton, could upend foreign policy (Time)

Never fearing a fight, John Bolton’s decades-long resume in government has been defined by a distaste for treaties, contempt for diplomatic niceties and an ambivalence for the need to get along….His deep-seated belief to maintain a hardline approach toward adversaries once inspired his colleagues to give him a bronze-plated hand grenade as a trophy to celebrate his reputation as a bomb thrower.

‘Lone DNC Hacker’ Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer (Daily Beast)

Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate...That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Daily Beast has learned that the special counsel in that investigation, Robert Mueller, has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team.

Comedian Byron Allen buys the Weather Channel for $300 million (Bloomberg News)

The deal includes the famous cable TV network, but not online assets such as the website Weather.com and related mobile apps, which were acquired by International Business Machines Corp… “Snowstorms, rain, mudslides, our lives and our families’ safety depend on this info,” Allen said. “When a big storm happens, it’s the Super Bowl of weather. As many as 30 million people watch.”

Congress blocks DeVos agenda in spending bill (CNN)

Some significant proposals championed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump were rejected in the $1.3 trillion spending bill that's making its way through Congress. DeVos and Trump proposed a budget that would have cut the Education Department's budget by $3.6 billion and funneled more than $1 billion toward private school vouchers and other school choice plans.

Stormy Daniels describes her alleged affair with Donald Trump (CBS 60 Minutes)

The adult-film star and director is being threatened with financial ruin, but she wants to set the record straight about her alleged affair with Donald Trump

Trump cutting Obama-era refugee admissions 77% (Washington Examiner)

The Trump administration, which has proposed a massive 60 percent reduction in refugee admissions from the Obama-era high of 110,000, is expected to cut that number even deeper. according to preliminary estimates.

Trump signs new transgender military ban (BBC)

The new directive adopts recommendations from Defence Secretary Jim Mattis that "transgender persons who require or have undergone gender transition" cannot serve. But it gives the Pentagon and other agencies some discretion in the matter.

Congress Takes a Brush to the Budget, Barring Federal Funds For Portraits (NPR)

President Trump signed the Eliminating Government-funded Oil-painting Act, or EGO Act, into law Tuesday, permanently banning the use of federal funds for painted images of government officials.

WORLD

Mexico Pledges $4.3 Million Effort to Stop Tijuana Spills (KPBS)

Mexico is pledging to spend $4.3 million to clean the Tijuana river channel after two California cities sued a U.S. agency over the decades-old problem of sewage fouling U.S. wetlands and beaches.

Congo crisis worsening, EU says, as government shuns aid conference (Reuters)

The humanitarian situation in Democratic Republic of Congo is getting worse by the day, the European Union's top aid official said on Sunday, as the Congolese government shunned a conference seeking to alleviate the suffering.

Skyline farms in Hong Kong reap happiness along with food (CS Monitor)

Tapping into the growing interest in organic food, a number of rooftop farms are popping up on Hong Kong's skyscrapers. The farms help overworked Hong Kongers relieve stress through interacting with friends and nature.

French police charge suspects in murder of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll (Deutsche Well)

French authorities on Tuesday charged two [Muslim] men with the anti-Semitic murder of Mireille Knoll, an elderly Jewish French woman who was stabbed and burned to death in her eastern Paris apartment last week.

French officer who swapped places with a hostage in terror attack dies (CNN)

A police officer who swapped places with a female hostage during an attack by an ISIS supporter on a supermarket in southern France has died of his wounds, French authorities said.

Famous Turkish singer sentenced to 10 months in jail for insulting Erdogan (Jerusalem Post)

Insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison in Turkey.