Britain said Tuesday that it would ban passengers from carrying laptops and other large electronic devices on flights into the country from six Middle Eastern nations, following a similar measure announced by the U.S. The new British directive will block carry-on electronics larger than 16 centimeters in length, 9.3 centimeters in width and with a depth of over 1.5 centimeters on direct flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. “Direct flights to the UK from these destinations continue to operate to the UK subject to these new measures being in place,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May told reporters. “We think these steps are necessary and proportionate to allow passengers to travel safely.” Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Transportation Safety Agency issued a similar ban on passengers flying directly to the United States from 10 Middle Eastern airports. The ban is not in response to some specific …

President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States, federal appellate Judge Neil Gorsuch, said during Senate confirmation hearings Tuesday he would continue to fully embrace the concept of judicial independence if he is appointed to the nation’s highest court. “I have offered no promises on how I would rule in any case to anyone,” Gorsuch said before a sharply divided Senate panel on the second day of his confirmation hearings. “And I don’t because everybody wants a fair judge to come to their case with an open mind to decide on the facts and the law.” WATCH: Gorsuch on impartiality Gorsuch also told the lawmakers he would have “no difficulty ruling against or for any party, other than based on what the law and the facts in the particular case require. The proceedings began Monday with opening statements, including one from Gorsuch, who made clear his …

President meets with Republican lawmakers ahead of key Thursday vote that would overturn Obama’s signature legislative achievement …

The only person to whom Dylann Roof shared his racist plan to massacre worshippers at a historically black South Carolina church is about to find out how long he will go to prison for lying to the FBI. Joey Meek is set to be sentenced Tuesday in Charleston by the same federal judge who presided over Roof’s trial, which ended in January with Roof being sentenced to death for the slaughter of nine people at Emanuel AME church. Meek faces 27 to 33 months behind bars. Meek said Roof shared his plan to shoot blacks at the historic African-American church in Charleston during a night at Meek’s house where they drank vodka, snorted cocaine, smoked marijuana and played video games. Authorities said that was about a week before the June 17, 2015, killings. Meek wasn’t prosecuted for not reporting Roof’s plans. Instead, federal prosecutors said he lied to the FBI …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s older daughter, Ivanka, now has an office in the West Wing of the White House and will have access to classified information, even though she is not a government employee. Ivanka Trump will not have an official title, but must abide by the ethics rules that apply to government workers, according to her attorney, Jamie Gorelick, who also said the first daughter will not be paid a government salary. The White House did not respond to requests for comment about the younger Trump’s role. A statement from Ivanka Trump said she will continue to offer her father “candid advice and counsel, as I have for my entire life.” Ivanka Trump was an effective surrogate for her father on the campaign trail and moved her young family to Washington.  She has signaled plans to work on issues like maternity leave and child care. Ivanka Trump has been …

An organization affiliated with Google is offering tools that news organizations and election-related sites can use to protect themselves from hacking. Jigsaw, a research arm of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., says that free and fair elections depend on access to information. . To ensure such access, Jigsaw says, sites for news, human rights and election monitoring need to be protected from cyberattacks. Jigsaw’s suite of tools, called Protect Your Election, is mostly a repackaging of existing tools: – Project Shield will help websites guard against denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers flood sites with so much traffic that legitimate visitors can’t get through. Users of Project Shield will be tapping technology and servers that Google already uses to protect its own sites from such attacks. – Password Alert is software that people can add to Chrome browsers to warn them when they try to enter their Google password on another …

Relatives of three prominent Venezuelan political prisoners Monday joined the leader of the Organization of American States in pleading for action to free the country from what they described as the repressive regime of President Nicolas Maduro. “We come here to ask the OAS … to end the dictatorship of Maduro,” activist Patricia de Ceballos said at a news conference with two other activists and OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro. Her husband, a former mayor in Venezuela, has been confined first at home, then in prison, for three years. “Venezuela needs democracy. … It’s urgent,” added Lilian Tintori, activist and wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. The founder of the Popular Will party is serving a 14-year sentence after being convicted of inciting violence during protests in February 2014. Last week, Almagro released a report recommending that, unless Venezuela agrees to quickly hold democratic elections, the regional organization’s Permanent …

U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Iraq’s prime minister and a large Iraqi delegation to the White House on Monday, for talks aimed at further coordinating efforts to defeat Islamic State extremists in northern Iraq. As the meeting opened, Trump praised Iraqi government efforts to face down the extremist group, and then told Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that he hoped to discuss the “vacuum” created when IS fighters seized control of large swaths of northern and western Iraq in 2014. “We will figure something out. Our main thrust is we have to get rid of ISIS,” Trump said, using an acronym for Islamic State.   Trump also lamented the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. forces from Mosul and the rest of Iraq — a decision made in 2008 and later implemented by President Barack Obama after Iraqi and U.S. negotiators could not agree on details for extending an immunity agreement covering U.S. …

Passengers flying on about a dozen Middle Eastern and North African airlines will be banned from bringing laptops and other large electronics into the cabin of direct flights to the U.S. The ban was revealed Monday in statements from Royal Jordanian Airlines and the official news agency of Saudi Arabia. It is expected to go into effect Tuesday. Royal Jordanian Airlines said in a tweet that U.S.-bound passengers would be barred from carrying most electronic devices aboard aircraft at the request of U.S. officials, including those that transit through Canada. The tweet has since been deleted. The ban does not apply to cellphones or medical devices, but does include laptops, tablets, electronic games and cameras. Those items can be stowed in checked baggage. U.S. airlines will not be affected since none fly nonstop to any of the counties being singled out. The reason for the ban was not immediately clear. …

The only way to contain North Korea’s nuclear ambitions is to eliminate the Kim Jong Un regime, the high-level North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea last year told VOA, suggesting the U.S. should continue deploying pressure tactics against Pyongyang. As multiple nuclear and missile tests have taken place since Kim succeeded his father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011, the U.S. and South Korea have been ratcheting up pressure against North Korea, calling for a commitment to denuclearization before the resumption of any dialogue. This seems to still be the position of the Trump administration, which is reviewing “all options,” including U.S. military intervention against the North. “North Korea must understand that the only path to a secure, economically prosperous future is to abandon its development of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction,” said U.S. State Secretary Rex Tillerson in Seoul on Friday during his …

A man armed with a shotgun and a handgun opened fire on Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies Monday in the parking lot of their station, unleashing a brief gunfight that ended with the suspect’s death, authorities said. No one else was injured. Investigators were trying to determine what led the 47-year-old man to shoot at deputies in Temple City, about 15 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The man had walked into the station and told deputies that he wanted to register as a sex offender, Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said. The deputies “felt something was amiss” and followed the man into the parking lot, where he opened fire on them, McDonnell said. The suspect, whose name was not immediately released, then hopped into his SUV and kept shooting from the vehicle as the deputies returned fire, the sheriff said at a news conference. Video from news helicopters showed …

The Trump administration has released its first weekly report documenting the failure of some local law enforcement agencies to help federal immigration authorities apprehend undocumented immigrants. The report was mandated in President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” to expose sanctuary jurisdictions, meaning those who choose not to cooperate with federal immigration agents. From January 28 to February 3, the report says local police failed to honor 206 detainers issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A detainer is a request that local law enforcement hold on to individuals who ICE believes are subject to deportation. ‘Safer for everyone’ During that week, ICE issued 3,083 detainers. Ten jurisdictions failed to honor 157 of the 206. Clark County, Nevada, topped the list with 51 declined detainers, while Nassau County, New York, followed with 38. Detainers include charges or prior convictions for offenses …

A Russian man accused of helping develop and distribute malicious software designed to steal personal financial information pleaded guilty Monday to a charge of computer fraud. Mark Vartanyan, 29, who’s known to have used the online alias “Kolypto,” was arrested in Norway in October 2014 and was extradited to the U.S. in December. He entered a guilty plea in federal court in Atlanta after reaching a deal to cooperate with federal prosecutors, who have agreed not to seek more than five years in prison. He’s scheduled to be sentenced June 21. Vartanyan, a native of Moscow, was involved in the development, improvement, maintenance and distribution of Citadel, which infects computer systems and steals financial account credentials and personally identifiable information, prosecutor Greg D’Agincourt said in court. Starting in 2011, Citadel was marketed on invite-only, Russian-language internet forums used by cybercriminals, and users targeted the computer networks of major financial and …

While Donald Trump’s political fortunes were rising, his net worth was dropping to a mere $3.5 billion, or roughly a third of what he claimed during his successful campaign for the U.S. presidency, according to the latest Forbes list of the world’s billionaires. Trump tumbled more than 100 spots to No. 544 on the magazine’s 31st annual list, largely because of the impact of the slumping New York real estate market on his holdings. “Midtown Manhattan real estate is down; therefore, so is Donald Trump’s fortune,” the business magazine said in a statement. The developer-turned-politician, who ranked No. 205 last year, fell further behind to Bill Gates, the list’s perennial leader. Gates, the philanthropic co-founder of Microsoft Corp , was followed this year by Berkshire Hathaway Inc Chairman Warren Buffett at No. 2 and Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos at No. 3. While Trump’s net worth slipped, more people were …

The four children of undocumented farm worker Lucia de la Cruz dive into the bushes on their way home from school when they see anybody who might be an immigration agent. “They live in fear,” De la Cruz said, afraid they will be deported on the way to or from school in Homestead, Florida. Her children no longer want to attend classes. “It’s like a ghost that can separate us. I’m the only one left because their father was already deported,” De la Cruz said. She wants her children to grow up in the U.S., and not in her homeland of Guatemala where she fears the armed gangs that are there. But “imagine if I am deported; it is just like a death sentence. There is not much justice there,” De la Cruz said. Reports of recent crackdowns on illegal immigration have sparked alarm among advocates, citizens and immigrants in …

President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, federal appellate Judge Neil Gorsuch, made clear his conservative leanings by speaking out against judicial activism Monday during the first day of confirmation hearings before a sharply divided Senate panel. “It’s for this body, the people’s representatives [in Congress] to make new laws,” Gorsuch said. “If judges were just secret legislators, declaring not what the law is but what they would like it to be, the very idea of a government by the people and for the people would be at risk.” Republican praise; Democrat concern Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee praised Gorsuch’s conservative judicial philosophy, while Democrats voiced concerns that he would solidify what they view as the Supreme Court’s pro-corporate leanings. “No matter your politics, you should be concerned about the preservation of our constitutional order, and most importantly the separation of powers,” said the committee’s chairman, Chuck Grassley, an Iowa …