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Two remote California desert communities assessed damage after two major earthquakes hit the area at the end of last week, followed by thousands of smaller aftershocks.

Ridgecrest and neighboring Trona were hit hard by the magnitude 7.1 quake that rocked the Mojave Desert towns Friday. A day earlier, a magnitude 6.4 temblor hit the same patch of the desert.

The area, about 240 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles, is in recovery mode after the quakes crumbled buildings, ignited fires and cut power to thousands of homes and businesses.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Sunday there was just a 1% chance of another magnitude 7 or higher earthquake in the next week, and a rising possibility of no magnitude 6 quakes.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for the area and warned local governments to strengthen alert systems and building codes. “It is a wake-up call for the rest of the state and other parts of the nation,” Newsom told reporters.

The damage wasn’t worse largely because of how remote the area is, but Newsom cautioned after touring Ridgecrest that “it’s deceiving, earthquake damage. You don’t notice it at first.”
 
The Democratic governor estimated the damage at more than $100 million and said U.S. President Donald Trump called him to offer federal support for rebuilding.

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Nearly one in every four Americans say they never plan to retire.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey released Sunday found 23% of Americans have no plans to stop working.

Another 23% say they expect to have to work well beyond their 65th birthday.  

Financial instability is the major reason for Americans to delay retirement, the poll found.

“The average retirement age that we see in the data has gone up a little bit, but it hasn’t gone up that much,” says Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. “So people have to live in retirement much longer, and they may not have enough assets to support themselves in retirement.”

When asked how comfortable they feel about retirement, just 14% of those under age 50 and 29% of those over age 50 felt “extremely or very prepared,” for retirement. About another 4 in 10 older adults say they do feel somewhat prepared, while just about one-third feel unprepared. By comparison, 56% of younger adults say they don’t feel prepared for retirement.

About 25% of those who had already retired said they didn’t feel prepared to stop working, according to the poll. Just 38% of fully retired individuals said they “felt very or extremely prepared.”

U.S. government data shows about 1 in 5 people age 65 and older were working or searching for a job in June, the AP reports.

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Many senior living communities in America are encouraging residents to socialize more with young people, something experts say will benefit both generations. Faiza Elmasry visited one of these senior living facilities where high school students serve and interact with residents. Faith Lapidus narrates.

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Emergency workers in Ridgecrest, Calif., are assessing the damage after a second major earthquake struck the desert community northeast of Los Angeles on Friday night. No deaths or major injuries have been reported from either the Thursday or Friday quake, but as Mike O’Sullivan reports, Friday’s magnitude-7.1 temblor caused additional damage and left residents shaken.

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Wealthy financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was arrested Saturday in New York on sex-trafficking charges involving allegations that date to the 2000s, according to law enforcement officials. 

Epstein, a wealthy hedge fund manager who once counted as friends former President Bill Clinton, Great Britain’s Prince Andrew, and President Donald Trump, was taken into federal custody, according to two officials.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the pending case. 

Epstein is expected to appear Monday in Manhattan federal court. A message was sent to his attorney seeking comment. 

Epstein’s arrest was first reported by The Daily Beast. 

Plea deal scrutiny

The arrest comes amid renewed scrutiny of a once-secret plea deal that Epstein entered into. 

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting and procuring a person younger than 18 for prostitution. The deal ended a federal investigation that could have landed Epstein in prison for life.

Instead, he was sentenced to 13 months in jail and was required to reach financial settlements with dozens of his once-teenage victims. Epstein also was required to register as a sex offender. 
 

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A vacant pizza restaurant exploded Saturday in a thundering roar at a South Florida shopping plaza, injuring more than 20 people as large chunks of concrete flew through the air.

The blast flung debris widely along a busy road in Plantation, west of Fort Lauderdale. The restaurant was destroyed, and nearby businesses and cars were damaged. Though firefighters found ruptured gas lines afterward, authorities said it was too early to determine a cause.

“We thought it was thunder at first, and then we felt the building shake and things started falling. I looked outside and it was almost like the world was ending,” said Alex Carver, a worker at a deli across the street from the explosion. “It was nuts, man. It was crazy.”

Debris thrown 50-100 yards

The explosion hurled large pieces of concrete up to 50 yards (45 meters) away and sent pieces of metal scattering as far as 100 yards (90 meters) across the street.  Carver said two of his co-workers’ cars were destroyed.

At least 21 people were injured though none of the injuries was life-threatening, Police Sgt. Jesica Ryan said.

The explosion demolished the building, leaving behind only part of its metal frame. The restaurant, called PizzaFire, had been out of business for several months. The blast also blew out the windows of a popular fitness club next door at the shopping plaza in Broward County.

Close call for family

Jesse Walaschek had just left the fitness club with his wife and three children, ages 4, 6 and 8. They were parked near the restaurant and had just driven about 50 yards (45 meters) away when they heard the blast.

“It was a massive explosion like I have never experienced,” he said.

Walasheck said dust and debris filled the air.

“Everything just stopped. You didn’t see anybody. I just wanted to get these guys safe,” he said, pointing to his children. “If this had happened a minute before when we were getting the kids in the car, it would have been really bad.”

Firefighters investigate

Dozens of firefighters responded and could be seen picking through the rubble with dogs sniffing through the debris to make sure people weren’t trapped underneath. There were no known fatalities immediately after the explosion.

Fire department Battalion Chief Joel Gordon said there were ruptured gas lines when firefighters arrived, but he couldn’t say for certain that it was a gas explosion.

“At this point, nobody was killed. Thank goodness for that. As bad as it is, it could have been a lot worse,” Gordon said.

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President Donald Trump roused a political tempest when he decided to plant himself squarely in Independence Day observances with a speech from the Lincoln Memorial. His words from that platform, though, were strikingly measured, except for some befuddlement over American military history.

The unscripted Trump — the one the world sees day to day — was to be found on Twitter and in other venues. It was in such places that the president misrepresented his record on care for veterans, the health of the economy, the state of the auto industry and more.

Some rhetoric in review:

MARS

TRUMP: “Someday soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars.” — July 4 speech.

THE FACTS: This is not happening soon; almost certainly not while he is president even if he wins a second term.

The Trump administration has a placed a priority on the moon over Mars for human exploration (President Barack Obama favored Mars) and hopes to accelerate NASA’s plan for returning people to the lunar surface. It has asked Congress to approve enough money to make a moon mission possible by 2024, instead of 2028. But even if that happens, Mars would come years after that.

International space agencies have made aspirational statements about possibly landing humans on Mars during the 2030s.

Trump’s speech was almost entirely free of exaggerations about his agenda; this was an exception.

HISTORY

TRUMP: “The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air (unintelligible), it rammed the ramparts. It took over the airports. It did everything it had to do. And at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory. And when dawn came, their star-spangled banner waved defiant.” — July 4 speech.

THE FACTS: Trump said the teleprompter stopped working during this passage: “I knew the speech very well so I was able to do it without a teleprompter.”

There were, of course, no airplanes during the War of Independence, and the Battle of Fort McHenry took place during the War of 1812, not the revolution. Trump segued from colonial times to modern times and back to the War of 1812 so fast that it seemed he was conflating wars and misstating aviation history. But the confusion apparently came from his need to wing it when the script went down.

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “The Economy is the BEST IT HAS EVER BEEN!” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The economy is not one of the best in the country’s history. It expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. That growth was the highest in just four years for the first quarter.

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight years, a level it has not yet reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth even reached 7.2 percent in 1984.

In fact, there are many signs that growth is slowing, partly because of Trump’s trade fights with China and Europe. Factory activity has decelerated for three straight months as global growth has slowed and companies are reining in their spending on large equipment.

Most economists forecast the economy will expand at just a 2% annual rate in the April-June period.

Trump is pushing the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, to cut short-term interest rates to shore up the economy. That isn’t something a president would do amid the strongest economy in history.

Economists mostly expect the Fed will cut rates, either at its next meeting in July or in September. Lower rates make it easier for people to borrow and buy new homes and cars.

Powell said last week the economy is facing growing uncertainties and he indicated the Fed would take the necessary steps to sustain the expansion, a sign that the Fed could cut rates soon.

The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. But most of that took place under Obama.

The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

NORTH KOREA

TRUMP, on North Korea’s help in returning the remains of U.S. troops from the Korean War: “The remains are coming back as they get them, as they find them. The remains of our great heroes from the war. And we really appreciate that.” — remarks Sunday to Korean business leaders in Seoul.

TRUMP: “We’re very happy about the remains having come back. And they’re bringing back — in fact, we were notified they have additional remains of our great heroes from many years ago.” — remarks June 28 in Japan.

THE FACTS: His account is at odds with developments.

No remains of U.S. service members have been returned since last summer and the U.S. suspended efforts in May to get negotiations on the remains back on track in time to have more repatriated this year. It hopes more remains may be brought home next year.

The Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency, which is the outfit responsible for recovering U.S. war remains and returning them to families, “has not received any new information from (North Korean) officials regarding the turn over or recovery of remains,” spokesman Charles Prichard said Wednesday.

He said his agency is “still working to communicate” with the North Korean army “as it is our intent to find common ground on resuming recovery missions” in 2020.

Last summer, in line with the first summit between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.

U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.

The Pentagon estimates that 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.

VETERANS

TRUMP, on approving private-sector health care for veterans: “I actually came up with the idea. I said, ‘Why don’t we just have the veterans go out and see a private doctor and we’ll pay the cost of the doctor and that will solve the problem?’ Some veterans were waiting for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, they couldn’t get any service at all. I said, ‘We’ll just send them out.’ And what I thought it was a genius idea, brilliant idea. I came back and met with the board and a lot of the people that handled the VA. … They said, ‘Actually sir, we’ve been trying to get that passed for 40 years, and we haven’t been able to get it.’ I’m good at getting things done. … It’s really cut down big on the waits.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.

TRUMP: “We passed VA Choice and VA Accountability to give our veterans the care that they deserve and they have been trying to pass these things for 45 years.” — Montoursville, Pennsylvania, rally on May 20.

THE FACTS: Trump did not invent the idea of giving veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. Nor is he the first president in 40 years to pass the program.

Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

Under the expansion which took effect last month, veterans still may have to wait weeks to see a doctor. They program allows veterans to see a private doctor if their VA wait is 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes.

Indeed, the VA says it does not expect a major increase in veterans seeking care outside the VA under Trump’s expanded program, partly because wait times in the private sector are typically longer than at VA. “The care in the private sector, nine times out of 10, is probably not as good as care in VA,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told Congress in March.

TRUMP: “On average, 20 veterans and members take their own lives every day. … We’re working very very hard on that. In fact, the first time I heard the number was 23, and now it’s down somewhat. But it’s such an unacceptable number.” — call on June 25 with military veterans.

THE FACTS: Trump incorrectly suggests that he helped reduce veterans’ suicide, noting that his administration was working “very, very hard” on the problem and that in fact the figure had come down. But no decline has been registered during his administration. There was a drop during the Obama administration but that might be due to the way veterans’ suicides are counted.

The VA estimated in 2013 that 22 veterans were taking their lives each day on average (not 23, as Trump put it). The estimate was based on data submitted from fewer than half the states. In 2016, VA released an estimate of 20 suicides per day, based on 2014 data from all 50 states as well as the Pentagon.

The estimated average has not budged since.

Trump has pledged additional money for suicide prevention and created in March a Cabinet-level task force that will seek to develop a national roadmap for suicide prevention, part of a campaign pledge to improve health care for veterans.

Still, a report by the Government Accountability Office in December found that the VA had left millions of dollars unspent that were available for suicide prevention efforts. The report said the VA had spent just $57,000 out of $6.2 million available for paid media, such as social-media postings, due in part to leadership turmoil at the agency.

MILITARY PAY

TRUMP: “You also got very nice pay raises for the last couple of years. Congratulations. Oh, you care about that. They care about that. I didn’t think you noticed. Yeah, you were entitled. You know, it was close to 10 years before you had an increase. Ten years. And we said, ‘It’s time.’ And you got a couple of good ones, big ones, nice ones.” — remarks June 30 to service members at Osan Air Base, South Korea.

THE FACTS: He’s been spreading this falsehood for more than a year, soaking up cheers from crowds for something he didn’t do. In May 2018, for example, he declared to graduates of the United States Naval Academy: “We just got you a big pay raise. First time in 10 years.”

U.S. military members have received a pay raise every year for decades .

Trump also boasts about the size of the military pay raises under his administration, but there’s nothing extraordinary about them.

Several raises in the past decade have been larger than service members are getting under Trump — 2.6% this year, 2.4% last year, 2.1% in 2017.

Raises in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for example, were all 3.4% or more.

Pay increases shrank after that because of congressionally mandated budget caps. Trump and Congress did break a trend that began in 2011 of pay raises that hovered between 1% and 2%.

AUTOS

TRUMP: “We have many, many companies that left our country and they’re now coming back. Especially the automobile business. We have auto plants being built all over the country. We went decades and no plant was built. No plant was even expanded.” — remarks Monday in Oval Office.

THE FACTS: There’s no evidence that car companies are flooding back to the U.S. He’s also incorrect in saying that auto plants haven’t been built in decades. A number of automakers — Toyota, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen among them — opened plants in recent decades, mostly in the South.

Government statistics show that jobs in auto and parts manufacturing grew at a slower rate in the two-plus years since Trump took office than in the two prior years.

Between January of 2017, when Trump was inaugurated, and May of this year, the latest figures available, U.S. auto and parts makers added 44,000 jobs, or a 4.6 percent increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But in the two years before Trump took office, the industry added 63,600 manufacturing jobs, a 7.1 percent increase.

The only automaker announcing plans to reopen a plant in Michigan is Fiat Chrysler, which is restarting an old engine plant to build three-row SUVs. It’s been planning to do so since before Trump was elected. GM is even closing two Detroit-area factories: One builds cars and the other builds transmissions. Toyota is building a new factory in Alabama with Mazda, and Volvo opened a plant in South Carolina last year, but in each case, that was in the works before Trump took office.

Automakers have made announcements about new models being built in Michigan, but no other factories have been reopened. Ford stopped building the Focus compact car in the Detroit suburb of Wayne last year, but it’s being replaced by the manufacture of a small pickup and a new SUV. That announcement was made in December 2016, before Trump took office.

GM, meantime, is closing factories in Ohio and Maryland.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP: “Robert Mueller is being asked to testify yet again. He said he could only stick to the Report, & that is what he would and must do. After so much testimony & total transparency, this Witch Hunt must now end. No more Do Overs.” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: It’s highly questionable to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia investigation.

Trump declined to sit for an interview with the special counsel’s team, gave written answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire Mueller or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry.

In the end, the Mueller report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice.

According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted. The report instead factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter.

IRAN

TRUMP: “Iran was violating the 150 Billion Dollar (plus 1.8 Billion Dollar in CASH) Nuclear Deal with the United States, and others who paid NOTHING, long before I became President – and they have now breached their stockpile limit. Not good!” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: To be clear, there was no $150 billion payout from the U.S. treasury. The money he refers to represents Iranian assets held abroad that were frozen until the international deal was reached and Tehran was allowed to access its funds.

The payout of about $1.8 billion is a separate matter. That dates to the 1970s, when Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic relations ruptured.

That left people, businesses and governments in each country indebted to partners in the other, and these complex claims took decades to sort out in tribunals and arbitration. For its part, Iran paid settlements of more than $2.5 billion to U.S. citizens and businesses.

The day after the nuclear deal was implemented, the U.S. and Iran announced they had settled the claim over the 1970s military equipment order, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with about $1.3 billion in interest. The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night. The arrangement provided for the interest to be paid later, not crammed into containers.

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Federal agents descended on the suburban Maryland house with the flash and bang of a stun grenade, blocked off the street and spent hours questioning the homeowner about a theft of government documents that prosecutors would later describe as “breathtaking” in its scale.

The suspect, Harold Martin, was a contractor for the National Security Agency. His arrest followed news of a devastating disclosure of government hacking tools by a mysterious internet group calling itself the Shadow Brokers . It seemed to some that the United States might have found another Edward Snowden, who also had been a contractor for the agency.

“You’re a bad man. There’s no way around that,” one law enforcement official conducting the raid told Martin, court papers say. “You’re a bad man.”

Later this month, about three years after that raid, the case against Martin is scheduled to be resolved in Baltimore’s federal court. But the identity of the Shadow Brokers, and whoever was responsible for a leak with extraordinary national security implications, will remain a public mystery even as the case concludes.

Authorities have established that Martin walked off with thousands of pages of secret documents over a two-decade career in national security, most recently with the NSA, whose headquarters is about 15 miles from his home in Glen Burnie, Maryland. He pleaded guilty to a single count of willful retention of national defense information and faces a nine-year prison sentence under a plea deal.

Investigators found in his home and car detailed description of computer infrastructure and classified technical operations in a raid that took place two weeks after the Shadow Brokers surfaced online to advertise the sale of some of the NSA’s closely guarded hacking tools. Yet authorities have never publicly linked Martin or anyone else to the Shadow Brokers and the U.S. has not announced whether it suspects government insiders, Russian intelligence or someone else entirely.

The question is important because the U.S. believes North Korea and Russia relied on the stolen tools, which provide the means to exploit software vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, in unleashing punishing global cyberattacks on businesses, hospitals and cities. The release, which occurred while the NSA was already under scrutiny because of Snowden’s 2013 disclosures, raised questions about the government’s ability to maintain secrets .

“It was extraordinarily damaging, probably more damaging than Snowden,” cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier said of the Shadow Brokers leaks. “Those tools were a lot of money to design and create.”

Yet none of that is likely to be mentioned at Martin’s July 17 sentencing. The hearing instead will turn on dramatically different depictions of the enigmatic Martin, a Navy veteran, longtime government contractor — most recently at Booz Allen Hamilton — and doctoral candidate at the time of his arrest.

Prosecutors allege Martin jeopardized national security by bringing home reams of classified information even as, they say, he once castigated colleagues as “clowns” for lax security measures. Soon after his arrest, they cast aspersions on his character and motives, citing a binge-drinking habit, his arsenal of unregistered weapons and online communication in Russian and other languages.

The agents who searched his home that August 2016 afternoon found a trove of documents in his car, home and a dusty, unlocked shed. The 50 terabytes of information from 1996 to 2016 included personal details of government employees and “Top Secret” email chains, handwritten notes describing the NSA’s classified computer infrastructure, and descriptions of classified technical operations.

Defense lawyers paint him as a compulsive hoarder whose quirky tendencies may have led him astray but who never betrayed his country.

“What began as an effort by Mr. Martin to be good at his job, to be better at his job, to be as good as he could be, to see the whole picture at his job, became something more complicated than that,” public defender James Wyda said at a 2016 detention hearing. “It became a compulsion.

“This was not Spycraft behavior,” he added. “This is not how a Russian spy or something like that would ever conduct business.”

It’s unclear how Martin came to the FBI’s attention, but a redacted court order from a judge suggests agents may have been looking for a Shadow Brokers link when they obtained search warrants for his Twitter account and property before the raid.

The December 2018 ruling from U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett notes that the FBI was investigating the online disclosure of stolen government property. It cites a Twitter message from an account allegedly belonging to Martin — @HAL_999999999 — that requested a meeting with someone whose name is blacked out and stated “shelf life, three weeks.”

In a likely reference to the Shadow Brokers disclosures, investigators said tweets from Martin’s account were sent hours before stolen government records were advertised and posted online. Investigators also alleged that Martin would have had access to the same classified information as what appeared online.

The recipient of the message is redacted, although Politico reported it went to the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, which in turn notified the U.S. Kaspersky declined to discuss the Martin case.

The roughly 20 officers who stormed Martin’s home did so with dramatic force, arriving with a battering ram and a “flash bang” device meant to cause temporary disorientation. State troopers shut down the road as agents interrogated Martin for four hours.

Martin was never charged with disclosing information and was accused only of unlawfully retaining defense information. The Shadow Brokers, which two weeks before Martin’s arrest surfaced on Twitter with the warning that it would auction off NSA hacking tools online, continued trickling out disclosures after Martin was in custody, a seeming indication that someone else may have been responsible.

Even so, his case refocused public attention on repeated government failures to safeguard some of the nation’s most highly classified information, with Martin one of several contractors accused of mishandling or spilling government secrets. Most notable is Snowden, a fellow Booz Allen contractor facing U.S. charges and living in Russia.

The NSA has since done more to protect its network and security and increased the monitoring of its employees, said security and counterintelligence director Marlisa Smith.

“I won’t tell you we’ve erased the risk of insider threat, it will never be down to zero, but we’ve worked very hard to mitigate and minimize the risk,” Smith said.

Booz Allen scrambled to respond to Martin’s arrest, hiring ex-FBI director Robert Mueller to investigate. Since Martin’s arrest, the company said it has added policies to improve its review process of employees at hiring and to ensure managers are more in touch with their subordinates.

As for the mystery of who or what is behind the Shadow Brokers, there’s little certainty that the government will ever publicly resolve that lingering question, especially given the classified nature of the theft and the embarrassment it caused the U.S.

“I don’t know if anybody knows other than the Russians,” said former NSA computer scientist Dave Aitel. “And we don’t even know if it’s the Russians. We don’t know at this point; anything could be true.”

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Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos’ divorce from his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie Bezos, was finalized by a Seattle-area judge Friday, paving the way for her to receive $38.3 billion worth of Amazon stock, Bloomberg reported.

In April, Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, said in a filing that 4% of its outstanding stock or 19.7 million shares would be registered in MacKenzie Bezos’ name after court approval of the divorce.

The couple announced their plan to divorce in a joint Twitter statement in January, causing some to worry that Jeff Bezos could wind up with reduced Amazon voting power or that he or MacKenzie would liquidate large position.

He retains a 12% stake worth $114.8 billion and remains the world’s richest person, Bloomberg said. MacKenzie Bezos has said she would give him voting control of her shares.

MacKenzie in May pledged to give half her fortune to charity to join the “Giving Pledge,” a campaign announced by billionaire Warren Buffett and Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates in 2010.

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NATO and Russia did not make any breakthroughs on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in talks at the alliance headquarters, NATO’s secretary-general said.

“We did not see any sign of Russia being willing to come back into compliance with the INF treaty,” Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Friday in Brussels after a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. 

Stoltenberg said the chances of a resolution on a landmark Cold War arms treaty were “going down, day by day” but that NATO had not given up on its efforts to try to persuade Moscow to destroy the SSC-8 land-based cruise missile with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles).

Moscow says it is fully in compliance with the INF treaty negotiated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which eliminated the medium-range missile arsenals of the two countries.

The United States is set to pull out of the treaty on August 2, arguing that it needs to develop its own warheads to deter Moscow, after Russia’s last-minute decision not to destroy the medium-range missile that NATO says violates the INF.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to host a massive “Salute to America” extravaganza on the nation’s 243rd birthday has some critics calling for an investigation into how taxpayer money may have been used to finance the event.

Trump played host Thursday evening in Washington for what he called “The Show of a Lifetime” to celebrate the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Trump directly took charge of the celebration, by introducing military jet flyovers, patriotic music and a display of military tanks.

Amid tight security and soggy weather, Trump delivered a long speech at the Lincoln Memorial. It was the first time in nearly 70 years that a sitting U.S. president had spoken on Washington’s National Mall – a long grassy area that houses several monuments – to mark the holiday festivities.

A Celebration of Independence, in Trump Fashion video player.

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While the final price tag for Independence Day event is not known, The Washington Post reported Tuesday the National Park Service was diverting $2.5 million in entrance and recreation fees to cover costs. Trump tweeted the cost “will be very little compared to what it is worth.” The National Park Service falls under the purview of the Department of the Interior.

Two groups — the non-profit Democracy Forward and the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association — are urging the department’s Office of the Inspector General to investigate what they say may be a “potentially unlawful decision to divert” national parks funds for the July 4 event. In a recent statement, the groups said the move “potentially violates a federal law that allows these visitor fees to be used only for specific purposes related to enhancing visitor experiences…”

Criticism also came from former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the two dozen or so Democratic candidates seeking to make Trump a one-term president. In remarks in Iowa, Biden said the event in Washington was to “stroke” Trump’s ego.

It is not clear how many people turned out for the Salute to America event on the National Mall; but, before leaving the White House Friday for a trip to Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump said, “We had a phenomenal crowd last night.” He also said, “Last night was spectacular.” He predicted the event would draw a lot of recruits into the U.S. military.

The Fourth of July festivities commemorate America’s declaration of independence from Britain in 1776.

Trump called the history of the United States “the epic tale of a great nation of people who have risked everything for what they know is right and what they know is true.”

There were fears Trump would turn the nation’s birthday party into a political event by talking about what he feels are his accomplishments as president.

But he made no mention of politics, next year’s election or the Democratic candidates seeking the White House. Trump avoided talking about what divides Americans and spoke of what unifies them.

“As we gather this evening in the joy of freedom, we remember that we all share a truly extraordinary heritage. Together, we are one of the greatest stories ever told,” the president said. “Americans love our freedom and no one will ever take it away from us…our nation is stronger today than it ever was before.”

Trump paid special tribute to each branch of the U.S. military and appealed to young Americans to consider making the military a career.

But many who live in Washington were angry that the Pentagon and security officials commandeered areas of the National Mall where the public usually gathers for celebrations.

Others were upset the White House handed out tickets for seats to Trump’s speech only to Republicans loyal to the president.

Anti-Trump protesters were highly visible along the mall all day, including the now familiar blimp depicting Trump as an angry baby in a diaper. Vendors sold mini-Trump baby balloons on wooden sticks for demonstrators to wave.

Protesters included military veterans who said they resented someone who never served in the military exploiting their service for his satisfaction. Trump supporters in red “Make America Great Again” hats confronted some of the protesters, but their debates were civil and free of insults and name-calling. Parades, picnics and fireworks took place in other parts of the United States as well.

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