from Bloomberg http://ift.tt/2uSLCP1
via IFTTT
U.S. President Donald Trump dictated a statement, later shown to be misleading, in which his son Donald Trump Jr. said a meeting he had with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 was not related to his father’s presidential campaign, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
Trump Jr. released emails earlier in July that showed he eagerly agreed last year to meet a woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as part of Moscow’s official support for his father. The New York Times was first to report the meeting.
The Washington Post said Trump advisers discussed the new disclosure and agreed that Trump Jr. should issue a truthful account of the episode so that it “couldn't be repudiated later if the full details emerged.”
The president, who was flying home from Germany on July 8, changed the plan and “personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said he and the Russian lawyer had ‘primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children,'” the Post said, citing unnamed people with knowledge of the deliberations.
It said the statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared to publish the story, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was "not a campaign issue at the time."
An attorney for Trump, Jay Sekulow, issued a statement in response to the Post report: "Apart from being of no consequence, the characterizations are misinformed, inaccurate, and not pertinent."
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the Post story, nor did Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas.
For more on Trump, watch Fortune’s video:
U.S. investigators are probing whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and Trump's Republican presidential campaign.
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow sought to hurt Clinton and help Trump in the 2016 election. Russia denies any interference, and Trump has denied collusion with Russia.
The president applauded his son’s “transparency” after he released the email exchanges on July 11.
“It remains unclear exactly how much the president knew at the time of the flight about Trump Jr.'s meeting,” the Washington Post said.
David Sklansky, a professor of criminal law at Stanford Law School, said that if Trump, as reported by the Post, helped craft a misleading public statement about the meeting, he may have bolstered a potential obstruction of justice case against himself.
To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with “corrupt” intent. A misleading public statement could be used as evidence of corrupt intent, Sklansky said.
“Lying usually isn’t a crime,” he said. But “it could be relevant in determining whether something else the president did, like firing (former FBI Director James) Comey, was done corruptly.”
GameStop gme stores are staying open on Thanksgiving Day this year, breaking with a three-year policy of shutting up shop until Black Friday.
The video game retailer announced the changes in a conference call Monday, gaming website Kotaku reports, citing two company staff who joined the call.
GameStop later confirmed its holiday opening hours in a statement to Kotaku. "Many of our store associates and guests have asked for this,” the statement read, without specifying who or what “store associates” referred to. “We have heard their requests and are making an adjustment to our previous position on this topic."
GameStop’s U.S. stores have closed on Thanksgiving Day since 2014, when the company told political blog Think Progress it would shutter them “out of respect” for employees and their families.
For more on Thanksgiving opening hours, watch Fortune’s video:
Despite a diversification push bolstered by a string of acquisitions, the Texas-based retailer has continued to struggle against digital competition. In the fourth quarter of 2016, GameStop’s fiscal global sales decreased 13.6% to $3.05 billion. In its earnings release the company wrote that the fourth quarter was “significantly impacted” by “aggressive console promotions by other retailers on Thanksgiving [Day] and Black Friday.”
Earlier this year CNBC reported that GameStop expects to close between 2% to 3% of its global store footprint in 2017.
U.S. President Donald Trump took aim at insurers on Monday in an escalating threat to cut the health care subsidy payments that make Obamacare plans affordable, after repeatedly urging Republican senators to keep working to undo his Democratic predecessor’s healthcare law.
“If ObamaCare is hurting people, & it is, why shouldn’t it hurt the insurance companies & why should Congress not be paying what public pays?” Trump, a Republican, wrote on Twitter.
Trump, frustrated that he and Republicans have not been able to keep campaign promises to repeal and replace Obamacare, has threatened to let it implode. So far, the administration has continued to make the monthly subsidy payments, but withholding them would be one way to make good on Trump’s threat.
Republican Senator Rand Paul told reporters on Monday he spoke to Trump by phone and the president was considering taking executive action to address problems with the healthcare system.
Paul said he told Trump he thought he had the authority to create associations that would allow organizations – such as the AARP that represents retirees, or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – to offer group health insurance plans.
The White House declined to comment on matter.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said senators were too divided to keep working on healthcare overhaul legislation, and that he and other senior Republicans would take that message to the White House.
For more on health care, watch Fortune’s video:
“There’s just too much animosity and we’re too divided on healthcare,” Hatch said in an interview. He said lawmakers could return to a healthcare overhaul later but for now should pivot to tax reform.
Some senators were not ready to drop healthcare, however.
Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, met with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and several Republican state governors at the White House on Monday to discuss a proposal Cassidy and others have made to send federal healthcare funds to the states in grants, Cassidy told reporters.
But Cassidy said he had not discussed bringing his proposal to the Senate floor with Senate leaders. And the third-ranking Republican senator, John Thune, told reporters Monday evening that until there is a proposal that can win a majority of senators’ support, “I think we've had our vote and we're moving onto tax reform.”
Hatch, in the interview with Reuters, also said he thought Congress would have to approve new funds for the government’s cost-sharing reduction subsidies to insurers that Trump had been threatening to end. These subsidies lower the price of health coverage for the poor under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
Insurers have asked the government to commit to making the $8 billion in payments for 2018, saying they may raise rates or leave the individual insurance marketplace if there is too much uncertainty.
We recently noticed an open source design for TinyFPGA A-Series boards from [Luke Valenty]. The tiny boards measure 18 mm by 30.5 mm and are breadboard friendly. You can choose a board that holds a Lattice Mach XO2-256 or an XO2-1200, if you need the additional capacity.
The boards have the JTAG interface on the side pins and also on a top header that would be handy to plug in a JTAG dongle for programming. The tiny chips are much easier to work with when they are entombed in a breakout board like this. Bigger boards with LEDs and other I/O devices are good for learning, but they aren’t always good for integrating into a larger project. The TinyFPGA boards would easily work in a device you were prototyping or doing a small production run.
The files are on GitHub. According to the project’s main web site, this is the “A-series” because there are “B-series” boards forthcoming that use USB instead of JTAG, and will use the Lattice ICE FPGA devices.
The components on the board are 0603 and QFN32 packages. [Luke] suggests a solder stencil, paste, and an oven, but these size components are hand solderable, with practice.
If you want to look at the how and why of FPGAs, we covered another Lattice part in great detail, winding up with a PWM output device. Although the parts are subtly different, the work flow and principles will be the same. You’d just need the right JTAG dongle to do the programming.
Via Dezeen
Researchers at software brand Adobe have developed a prototype tool that allows users to mix colours on screen as if they were working in real paint.
Playful Palette offers artists and illustrators an alternative to the standard colour picker that most graphics software, such as Adobe Photoshop, relies on. Users would be able to blend colours more easily and compare different shades.
The tool is based on research into the ways artists work in traditional media – and the shortcomings they experience with digital counterparts.
1. Gorgeous Homemade Tablet Powered by #RaspberryPi 3 with Modified Components | #piday
2. Photos of Animals Retouched to Look Like Real-Life Minecraft Creatures
3. 3D Printed Bikini Top by @RealSexyCyborg
5. Why Your Nexus 5 is Stuck in Boot Loop
6. Rack Mount Raspberry Pi by Doug Santo
7. Visual Studio Code Extension for Arduino is now open sourced! @msdev @arduinoorg #FreeArduino
8. Is the Arduino STAR OTTO open source? @ST_World @ArduinoOrg @ST_News @arduino #freearduino
9. Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an ’80s computer
10. Chipmaker AMD Makes a Big Bet on Brand-New Tech
Former Sen. Bob Kerrey describes what it’s like to face pressure from Senate colleagues for casting a controversial vote as Sens. Collins, McCain and Murkowski just did on health care.
Republicans inside and outside the White House worry that President Trump will fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions with grave consequences. Can new Chief of Staff John Kelly prevent that? Bloomberg’s Al Hunt and The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff join...
1. Gorgeous Homemade Tablet Powered by #RaspberryPi 3 with Modified Components | #piday
2. Photos of Animals Retouched to Look Like Real-Life Minecraft Creatures
3. 3D Printed Bikini Top by @RealSexyCyborg
5. Why Your Nexus 5 is Stuck in Boot Loop
6. Rack Mount Raspberry Pi by Doug Santo
7. Visual Studio Code Extension for Arduino is now open sourced! @msdev @arduinoorg #FreeArduino
8. Is the Arduino STAR OTTO open source? @ST_World @ArduinoOrg @ST_News @arduino #freearduino
9. Radiohead album hides an app that only runs on an ’80s computer
10. Chipmaker AMD Makes a Big Bet on Brand-New Tech