Instant Alert: Trump reportedly calls Steve Bannon on his personal phone when John Kelly isn't around

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Trump reportedly calls Steve Bannon on his personal phone when John Kelly isn't around

by David Choi on Sep 1, 2017, 2:03 AM

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President Donald Trump is still calling his recently-fired chief strategist, Steve Bannon, from his personal phone, The Washington Post reported on Thursday night.

According to people with familiar with Trump's calls who were cited by The Post, the president would call Bannon when his chief of staff John Kelly was not around.

Kelly, who was sworn in after a late-July shakeup at the White House, began to dismantle the free-wheeling vibe of the West Wing following a spate of resignations and firings.

In a presidential administration stymied by damaging leaks, Kelly has sought to restore order in the West Wing, in part by limiting Trump's interactions with other non-essential personnel and maintain a tight circle around the president.

Upon his arrival, Kelly went straight to work, making personnel changes with military-like precision — first by dismissing communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who was embroiled in scandal following his controversial interview with New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza.

Bannon, no stranger to controversy for his far-right, nationalist views, was rumored to be on the outs weeks before his dismissal was announced. Kelly and Bannon "mutually agreed" to part ways two weeks ago, according to a White House statement.

SEE ALSO: Far-right media outlets are worried they may lose Trump's attention


 
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Instant Alert: Tech giants are joining forces to urge Trump to protect undocumented immigrants

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Tech giants are joining forces to urge Trump to protect undocumented immigrants

by Bryan Logan on Sep 1, 2017, 12:43 AM

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Dozens of tech-industry titans are joining forces to urge President Donald Trump to maintain protections for undocumented immigrants who are covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

That program, better known by the acronym DACA, is an Obama-era policy that shields immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the US illegally as children.

Trump was expected to announce changes to DACA on Friday, ahead of a deadline by which 10 attorneys general threatened to sue over the program if Trump did not take action.

Executives from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and many others echoed other business leaders in their letter to Trump, saying "All DACA recipients grew up in America, registered with our government, submitted to extensive background checks, and are diligently giving back to our communities and paying income taxes." their joint letter read.

"Our economy would lose $460.3 billion from the national GDP and $24.6 billion in Social Security and Medicare tax contributions," if DACA recipients lose their protections and face deportation, the letter continued, calling dreamers "vital to the future of our companies and our economy."

The letter was posted on FWD.us, a bipartisan organization backed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top tech industry executives. Dozens of them have signed the letter, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who wrote in a separate statement on Thursday: "DACA recipients bring a wide array of educational and professional backgrounds that enable them to contribute in crucial ways to our nation’s workforce."

Silicon Valley luminaries and corporate CEOs have increasingly leaned in on Trump recently. Several chief executives rebuked the president over his handling of the white nationalist Charlottesville protests that turned deadly on August 12.

Trump has previously wavered on his support for DACA, saying in February"We are going to deal with DACA with heart," and calling the deliberations "very, very difficult."

SEE ALSO: Microsoft's CEO is again standing up to Trump on immigration


 
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Instant Alert: James Mattis explains viral 'hold the line' video and his support for Trump

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James Mattis explains viral 'hold the line' video and his support for Trump

by David Choi on Aug 31, 2017, 11:02 PM

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Secretary of Defense James Mattis dismissed murmurings of an ideological divide between himself and President Donald Trump during a press briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday.

Mattis recalled his now-viral "hold the line" speech he gave in front of US service members in Jordan earlier this month, in which his comments were construed not only as a rebuke to a microcosm in America that lacked "understanding and [respect]," but as an ethical separation between Trump and himself.

During the Thursday briefing at the Pentagon, Mattis attempted to explain the true meaning behind his words by first referencing Trump's recent speech on Afghanistan.

"If you'll remember, the first, I don't know, three, four, five, six paragraphs was about America coming together," Mattis said. "And so, fresh in my mind a couple hours later, and I used that theme to say that, you know, we've got to come back together, get that fundamental friendliness. "You guys — military guys, you hold the line as our country comes back together."

"And people took — literally, I — I'm using the president's thoughts and they thought that I was distancing from the president," Mattis continued. "So I mean, it shows how ludicrous this really is."

"I mean, I'm not trying to make fun of the people who write along those lines," Mattis said referring to the narrative that he was distancing himself from Trump. "I think this is more someone's rather rich imagination," he said.

Theories of a divide between Trump and other White House officials — most notably Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the White House's Economic Council director Gary Cohn — have spread as Trump continues to baffle critics and supporters following his administration's response to the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia, rally and continued provocations from North Korea.

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Tillerson fueled rumors of a White House rift when he was asked whether anyone doubted Trump's values, in which he responded: "The president speaks for himself."

Cohn took a more direct approach, publicly criticizing Trump for his controversial response to the Charlottesville protests and said that the White House "must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning" white nationalist and white supremacist groups.

Mattis expressed his confidence that the ostensible divisiveness in the US was not a threat to the military's unity in the field.

"The way our military is organized, the leaders — and by leaders, I mean the sergeants and the gunnery sergeants, the chief petty officers, the lieutenants, the captains — there is such a cohesion to the US military," Mattis said. "There's a reason this is a national jewel, this US military. It's a national jewel. And that almost insulates it in a very proud way from something like we saw in Charlottesville."

"That's not to say it's not a concern, because this lack of a fundamental friendliness among all of us, something I think the president brought up very well in those opening paragraphs of the Afghanistan speech ... I agree a hundred percent with the way the president characterized that," Mattis said.

SEE ALSO: Trump's chief of staff jokes: 'Best job I ever had was as a sergeant in the Marine Corps'


 
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Instant Alert: 'Hell's breaking loose': 911 operators in Houston are struggling to answer thousands of calls for help

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'Hell's breaking loose': 911 operators in Houston are struggling to answer thousands of calls for help

by Matt Sedensky on Aug 31, 2017, 8:34 PM

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HOUSTON (AP) — Some of the callers are panicking; others exude a strange serenity. One moment, Harvey’s floodwaters are pouring into a home, the next a motorist is trapped on an inundated interstate. A woman goes into labor in a washed-out neighborhood, and a split-second later, a family seeks rescue from their attic. The pleas for help stream in hour after hour, call after call after call.

In the thick of a paralyzing storm and its aftermath, the weight of this swamped city’s problems are landing at the cavernous 911 call center, where operators are racing to keep up as people dial in by the tens of thousands.

“This is like nothing we’ve ever experienced before,” operator Erika Wells says, in a short reprieve between calls.

At its worst, from Sunday into Monday, some 75,000 calls poured in, more than eight times the normal 24-hour load, and those dialing sometimes endured long waits to reach an operator. Even as time passed and the volume dropped, more than 21,000 people called between Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon, when an Associated Press reporter was given exclusive access to observe work at the center. In a single hour, dozens of calls can arrive at a single operator’s headset.

Wells reported for work on Saturday at 2 p.m. and worked a 20-hour stretch through Harvey’s immediate aftermath before she finally stepped away at 10 a.m. Sunday. Like her colleagues, she has camped out at the center since. She works frenzied 12-hour shifts and sleeps each night on a cot in a darkened hallway with a cluster of female colleagues. It feels like some sort of strange summer camp.

She is 26, a lifelong Houstonian, and first set foot in the call center nine years ago, when she was a high schooler taking part in a co-op program. She’s worked here ever since, through floods and Super Bowls and New Year’s Eves, but never something quite like this.

Wells sits before four screens in a massive, dimly lit room thick with the hum of the dozens of others tending to Houston’s misery. Giant displays hang from the back wall, projecting images from the world outside — streets turned to rivers, rescues from rooftops, and officials chattering about a storm that won’t seem to go away. All the while, the calls stream in to her.

“Houston 911: Do you need medical, police or fire?” she asks each one.

After so many hours and so many calls, it all has become a blur. Still, some stick out: The man who calmly reported water had reached his knees and drowned his dog; the house packed with 10 people in desperate need of an escape; the woman whose baby chose the worst time to enter the world.

“I literally watched it go from a regular Saturday, to this water is everywhere, to now all hell’s breaking loose,” she says.

rockport texas police harveyShe cajoled callers to breathe and stay calm as she tried to collect the information she needed to help them. Some surprised her with their seeming nonchalance in the face of tragedy, like the man who was trapped in his home, and the woman whose husband had died. Each time she hung up or transferred the caller to a police or fire dispatcher, another came through, almost immediately.

“It was back to back to back to back,” she says.

As operators have tended to strangers’ tragedies, they’ve juggled their own lives. Though Wells’ home is unscathed, on Monday she received word her ex-husband’s home was not and that her children, ages 2 and 4, had to be evacuated by boat. Other operators have suffered severe losses to their homes. Wells said one operator needed to dial 911 to request a rooftop rescue.

They have taken to heart the suffering of others, too. LaKendric Westbrook, a call center supervisor, says some operators have been overwhelmed by the pain they hear through their headsets, and the limited relief they can offer.

“You just want to go through the phone and help them,” Westbrook says.

On Tuesday afternoon, as 841 calls reach the center in a single hour, Wells encounters the ordinary and the harrowing. A little girl, with shrieks and laughter in the background, calls to say she needs a firetruck; clearly, she does not. A woman seeks help for her sister, trapped in her home with a sick baby. A burglary, an assault, a report of looting, mixed among repeated misdials.

“I need to get out of the house. I need help,” a trembling voice pleads.

This is the slowest it’s been in days, and still the pace is furious. A woman calls wondering if she’s in danger, if the rising waters mean she should be rescued. A report of a woman seen drifting into chest-deep water on the freeway. A woman fearful for the fate of a friend.

“I got flooded,” one woman says flatly. “Do you need to be rescued?” Wells asks. “Yes,” she answers.

Wells shows no sign of stress as the calls come in. Her pink-manicured fingers type away the details of each person’s report.

Inside this bunker, the tragedy feels both intensely personal and strangely distant. The news coverage plays over and over and the calls continue to come in, but it doesn’t quite seem real — Wells hasn’t yet emerged from this building or seen the damage first hand.

Her children have said they’re proud of her, and she has felt a bit of pride too. She saw a tweet about the volume of calls coming in and thought to herself, “I was part of that.”

A circle of new faces has emerged in the center of this sprawling space, a signal that new operators have arrived and Wells’ shift has finally neared its end. The faint sound of a helicopter can be heard outside as a steady rain continues to fall. She misses her children, her bed, and soy chai lattes at Starbucks.

But after all that this storm has brought, she says, her colleagues feel like family, and this place feels like home.


 
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People will take 1.2 trillion digital photos this year — thanks to smartphones

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People will take 1.2 trillion digital photos this year — thanks to smartphones

Thanks to smartphones, millions of people around the globe are turning into prolific photographers. According to estimates from InfoTrends, people will take a hundred billion more photos in 2017 than they did in 2016. As highlighted by this chart from Statista — which is based on the InfoTrends' data — the vast majority of those photos will be taken on smartphones. 

Sales of digital cameras have drastically declined over the years, dropping from 121.5 million in 2010 to an estimated 13 million in the first half of 2016, according to the Camera and Imaging Products Association. The sophistication of smartphone cameras allows everyday users to take high-quality pictures easily, and for most consumers, it makes no sense to spend extra money on a separate device just to take photographs.

The popularity of social-media sites including Facebook and Instagram has likely played another key role in the rise of smartphone cameras, since it's generally much easier to upload photos from a smartphone than from stand-alone cameras. 
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Instant Alert: People will take 1.2 trillion digital photos this year — thanks to smartphones

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People will take 1.2 trillion digital photos this year — thanks to smartphones

by Caroline Cakebread on Aug 31, 2017, 7:50 PM

Thanks to smartphones, millions of people around the globe are turning into prolific photographers. According to estimates from InfoTrends, people will take a hundred billion more photos in 2017 than they did in 2016. As highlighted by this chart from Statista — which is based on the InfoTrend's data — the vast majority of those photos will be taken on smartphones. 

Sales of digital cameras have drastically declined over the years, dropping from 121.5 million in 2010 to an estimated 13 million in the first half of 2016, according to the Camera and Imaging Products Association. The sophistication of smartphone cameras allows everyday users to take high-quality pictures easily, and for most consumers, it makes no sense to spend extra money on a separate device just to take photographs.

The popularity of social-media sites including Facebook and Instagram has likely played another key role in the rise of smartphone cameras, since it's generally much easier to upload photos from a smartphone than from stand-alone cameras. Chart of the Day 8/31

SEE ALSO: One chart shows Netflix's dramatic 20 year rise


 
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