Department of Transportation Launches Investigation Into Chick-fil-A Bans

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced on Friday that it will investigate whether two airports violated federal law or transportation regulations by denying a contract to Chick-fil-A on religious grounds. “The Department has received complaints alleging discrimination by two airport operators against a private company due to the expression of the owner’s religious beliefs,” DOT said in a statement. “FAA’s Office of Civil Rights has notified the San Antonio International Airport (SAT) and Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) that it has opened investigations into these complaints.”

The San Antonio city council passed a motion on March 21 to approve the Food, Beverage and Retail Prime Concession Agreement with Paradies Lagardère for the San Antonio International Airport with the condition that Chick-fil-A be excluded from the agreement. Councilman Roberto Treviño, who initially made the motion against Chick-fil-A, claimed the fast food restaurant expressed “anti-LGBTQ behavior” and that the ban reaffirmed that San Antonio is a champion of “equality and inclusion.” The prohibition came after a report noted that in 2017, Chick-fil-A donated nearly $2 million to the Salvation Army, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Paul Anderson Youth Home. The report asserted that the three charities were discriminatory against LGBTQ individuals. The ban received massive backlash, with many citing religious discrimination. Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who represents the portion of San Antonio where the airport is located, also slammed the decision as “rampant discriminatory action” and warned it may impact how he advocates for San Antonio while serving in Congress. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton announced days later that his office will investigate whether the city’s action violates Texas state law. Paxton also penned a letter to Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao urging she open a federal investigation to determine if the ban violated federal transportation regulations.

“When I announced my investigation of the City of San Antonio for its blatant discrimination against Chick-fil-A, I also brought this matter to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s attention,” Paxton told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “I had complete confidence Secretary Chao would recognize, as her office has today, that the City of San Antonio’s intolerant actions warrant investigation.” “Blatant discrimination based on the religious beliefs associated with a company and its owners violates the Constitution and is inconsistent with both Texas and federal law,” he added.

Buffalo Niagara International Airport also canceled plans to open a Chick-fil-A days later despite the widespread criticism that the San Antonio airport received. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) decided against its plan to install a Chick-fil-A franchise at the airport after Democratic New York state Rep. Sean Ryan voiced his disapproval. “The views of Chick-fil-A do not represent our state or the Western New York community, and businesses that support discrimination have no place operating in taxpayer-funded public facilities,” Ryan wrote in a lengthy Facebook post in April. “I urge you to reverse this decision and identify a different restaurant to operate at the airport.”

“FAA notes that Federal requirements prohibit airport operators from excluding persons on the basis of religious creed from participating in airport activities that receive or benefit from FAA grant funding,” DOT’s statement continued. “The findings of the investigations will be communicated to the complainants once the investigations are completed.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/department-of-transportation-launches-investigation-into-chick-fil-a-bans_2936598.html

Melania Trump Colors Fish With Kids at Japan Digital Museum

TOKYO—Melania Trump was perfectly cool Sunday at an air-conditioned interactive digital museum in Tokyo where she drew a purple fish and had it projected on a digital aquarium on the wall, as she and her host, Japanese first lady Akie Abe, joined dozens of schoolchildren while their husbands played golf under the scorching sun. Mrs. Trump drew the fish for a girl named Julia, and wrote underneath it: “Julia, Best Wishes, Melania Tump.” Her autograph became popular, prompting children to line up. The first lady signed on the back of each student’s artwork, along with a message “Be Best!”—her children’s initiative. The 30 children, third to sixth graders at a Tokyo elementary school, were a bit shy when the first lady in a stylish navy-color jumpsuit walked in, escorted by Akie Abe, but one by one they came over to her, and then in groups.

“Nice to meet you. Can you show me what you drew?” Melania Trump asked a boy with a name sticker on his chest saying “Aoi.” He showed her a green turtle with yellow feet, which then they projected on the wall and watched it move around. Akie Abe colored her turtle in pink, with three little red hearts on the back, and signed “Peace” as well as the new imperial era name “Reiwa” that started this month. The two first ladies also toured other exhibits that included the crystal room and the lamp room where they stopped for photo sprays.

Mrs. Trump arrived Saturday in Tokyo with President Donald Trump for a four-day state visit that is largely ceremonial and aimed for deepening personal ties between the two leaders. Trump and Abe played 16 holes at the Mobara golf course outside Tokyo, where the temperature rose as high as 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), in a “cozy atmosphere,” Japan’s Foreign Ministry said. Later Sunday, the First Ladies joined their husbands to watch Japan’s traditional sport of sumo and venture out into downtown Tokyo for a dinner double date. President Trump is the first American leader to do so. Trump, who is on a four-day state visit to Japan, presented a special U.S.-made trophy to the winner.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/melania-trump-colors-fish-with-kids-at-japan-digital-museum_2937444.html

Colorado Highway Closed ‘Indefinitely’ After Huge Boulders Fall

A highway in Colorado was closed “indefinitely” after two giant boulders rolled down a hill and left the roadway blocked. The City of Ouray wrote that the house-sized boulder rolled off a mountainside before hitting the Colorado highway 145, destroying the pavement. The rock is still located on the highway and will have to be blasted apart, said officials on May 25, the city said on Facebook.

The “significant rock fall” was located about 12 miles north of Dolores. “The slide consisting of dirt, rock and two huge boulders which have destroyed the full width of the highway pavement, leaving a trench approximately eight feet deep across both lanes. The road is impassable at this time,” city officials said.

“A boulder, the size of a building, which remains embedded on the highway needs to be blasted into smaller pieces in order to move it off the roadway,” the city explained. A photo of the boulder was posting on Facebook by the city, showing how it dwarfed a road worker standing in front of it.

The Colorado Department of Transportation said the boulder that slammed the highway estimated to weigh about 8.5 million pounds, or about 4,250 tons. Meanwhile, the boulder that is blocking the highway is believed to be about 2.3 million pounds, or about 1,150 tons. The Department of Transportation’s “maintenance division is developing plan to restore traffic flow. Once the safety of the highway work area can be cleared of any potential danger, crews will likely build a shoulder to run a temporary single lane alternating traffic operation,” said the San Miguel Sheriff’s Office. According to Fox31, the rock slide is unusual because it started about 1,000 feet above the highway in a cliff band at the top of a slope that leads down to the highway. Typically, boulders and rocks can fall on mountain highways in the state, namely after the spring snow and ice thaws.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/colorado-highway-closed-indefinitely-after-huge-boulders-blocks-roadway_2937552.html

Any possibility missing I=Indefinitely?

Oklahoma reaches $85 million settlement with Teva Pharmaceuticals ahead of trial

(Reuters) - Oklahoma has reached a $85 million settlement agreement with Israeli-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd ahead of the start of a trial in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit over the opioid epidemic, the state’s attorney general said on Sunday. While the terms of the agreement may take up to two weeks to finalize, the money will go to the state and be used to abate the opioid crisis in Oklahoma, Attorney General Mike Hunter said in a statement. An announcement of the specific terms of the agreement will be made at a later date, Hunter’s statement said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-opioids-litigation-oklahoma/oklahoma-reaches-85-million-settlement-with-teva-pharmaceuticals-ahead-of-trial-idUSKCN1SW0MS

>>6593263

KeK…I think there is some symbology in the Turtle..they are slow but deliberate in their movements. During dangerous times they retreat to their hard shell.

>>6593309

Indeed, bunker time for many..Thinking that's what FLOTUS was trying to convey..

>>6593335

They are doing this to try and stay under the radar of watchful eyes. Not going to work this time..49 states left..it's bound to be exposed.

>>6593309

Forgot this pic

Netanyahu struggles to form government amid talk of new election

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embarked on Sunday on what he termed a “final effort” to break a deadlock on forming a governing coalition ahead of a Wednesday deadline for a deal. In power for the past decade, Netanyahu has unexpectedly struggled to seal an agreement with a clutch of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that would align with his Likud party and ensure him a fifth term following Israel’s April 9 election.

Divisions between former Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party and United Torah Judaism over a military conscription bill governing exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students have plunged the coalition talks into stalemate. Lieberman has long said ultra-Orthodox men must share other Israeli Jews’ burden of mandatory service. Ultra-Orthodox parties say seminary students should be largely exempt from conscription as they have been since Israel was founded in 1948.

A 42-day deadline mandated by law to announce a new government expires on Wednesday, and President Reuven Rivlin can then assign the task to another legislator after consultations with the leaders of political parties. That could open the way for former military chief Benny Gantz, leader of the centrist Blue and White party, to try. But he would need the backing of some of Likud’s allies to persuade Rivlin he could put together a ruling majority in parliament. Likud and Blue and White each won 35 of the Knesset’s 120 seats seats in the April ballot, but Netanyahu was seen as having clinched victory because of the right-wing majority that emerged.

In a video published on Twitter on Sunday, Netanyahu said he had invited all of his negotiating partners to meet him in “a final attempt to form a right-wing government” and avoid “an unnecessary election”. A Likud source said the sessions would be held later in the day and on Monday. Parallel to the negotiations, Likud announced preparations for a possible national ballot, with November already touted by political analysts as a likely date. Likud lawmaker Miki Zohar released a draft of a dissolution bill that he said he was submitting to parliament, but no date for a vote in the legislature was announced. Likud said its secretariat would meet on Tuesday “to prepare for an election”.

Some political commentators saw those moves as an attempt to pressure Likud’s negotiating partners into a deal, given the possibility of a voter backlash against another national ballot so soon after the previous one and the uncertainty of the election’s outcome in a country riven by divisions. The scheduling of an election - and Likud could face an uphill battle for the necessary 61 votes in parliament to pass a dissolution resolution - would pre-empt a coalition-building assignment from Rivlin and ensure Netanyahu remains as interim prime minister until a new government is formed.

Already locked in a legal battle over his potential indictment in three corruption cases, Netanyahu has vowed to remain in office even if he is charged. He denies any wrongdoing and is scheduled to argue against indictment at a pre-trial hearing in October.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-politics/netanyahu-struggles-to-form-government-amid-talk-of-new-election-idUSKCN1SW0LT?il=0

Hong Kong protestors demand China be held to account for 1989 Tiananmen crackdown

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched through central Hong Kong on Sunday as part of annual demonstrations demanding that China be held accountable for its democracy crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square three decades ago. Human rights groups and witnesses say that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died in the bloodshed as Chinese tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square and soldiers fired on student-led democracy protesters, beginning on the night of June 3, 1989. The Tiananmen crackdown is a taboo subject in China and authorities have refused to accept full accountability or release the death toll.

This year, for the 30th anniversary, censors at Chinese internet companies say that tools to detect and block content related to the 1989 crackdown have reached unprecedented levels of accuracy, aided by machine learning and voice and image recognition. Hong Kong and Macau are the only places on Chinese soil where the event is commemorated each year, while the democratic island of Taiwan also holds public gatherings for the victims.

The Hong Kong demonstrators marched to China’s main representative “liaison” office in the city, where some held up banners while chanting slogans including “the people will not forget”. Many of the protesters also held up yellow umbrellas, a symbol of Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy “umbrella revolution”, while calling for the scrapping of a proposed extradition law that would allow people to be sent to China to face trial.

Lawyers, business people and diplomats have expressed widespread concern that the law could extend China’s control into Hong Kong and undermine the city’s vaunted rule of law. The umbrellas carried the words “Support freedom. Oppose evil law”

“The Hong Kong people have not forgotten the event of 30 years ago,” said lawmaker Wu Chi-wai, who heads the city’s main opposition Democratic Party. “The (Chinese) Communist Party tries to erase those memories. But the Hong Kong people have kept it up and are looking for the day when the dictatorship on the mainland will end.”

Some in the crowds were also from mainland China. Among them was Chen Shen, who said he had watched a documentary on the crackdown and later shared it widely with friends using a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent Chinese censors. “I felt angry and sad,” he said during the march. “I think Chinese people have the right to know the truth.”

Police estimated that 2,100 people took part in Sunday’s march. An annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park on June 4 is expected to draw tens of thousands of people.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-tiananmen/hong-kong-protestors-demand-china-be-held-to-account-for-1989-tiananmen-crackdown-idUSKCN1SW0DJ?il=0

>>6593482

>>6593544

Attempts to control will fail.