Steve Mnuchin refuses to release Trump’s tax returns
On Monday, the Treasury Department said that it would not release President Donald Trump’s tax returns to Congress; this defies the request made by House Democrats.
Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, wrote that the request for the tax returns “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” and that he was not authorized to disclose them, in a letter to Rep. Richard E. Neal.
This sets up a legal battle likely to be resolved in the Supreme Court. Many candidates for public office have released their tax returns, but Trump did not do so during the 2016 election.
Myanmar releases jailed journalists
On Tuesday, two journalists were released from prison in Myanmar. U Wa Lone and U Kyaw Soe Oo, both reporters from Reuters, were arrested in December 2017 and were sentenced in September to seven years in prison under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act.
For more than a year, they sat in prison after reporting on the country’s deadly crackdown on the Rohingya minority group. They received documents from a police officer as part of their investigation into a 2017 massacre of 10 Rohingya villagers.
Along with their colleagues from Reuters, the two reporters were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in April for international reporting, which is one of journalism’s most prestigious awards.
“I’m really happy and excited to see my family and my colleagues,” Wa Lone told reporters. “I can’t wait to go to my newsroom.”
At least 41 killed in deadly plane fire
On Sunday, at least 41 people aboard an aircraft were killed in a fire while crash landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The flight made an emergency landing after it turned back on a flight to Murmansk, a Russian city in the arctic circle, for unspecified reasons.
The flight was airborne for 28 minutes before it returned for an emergency landing while still laden with unburned fuel. The fuel ignited after a rough touchdown and flames quickly engulfed the aircraft, killing 41 of 78 people aboard. Passengers escaped the plane, a Sukhoi SSJ100, via inflatable emergency slides and ran across the tarmac.
The Russian airline, Aeroflot, said the aircraft was evacuated in 55 seconds, compared with the “industry norm” of 90 seconds. According to a series of short statements on its website, the flight crew “did everything in its power to save passenger lives and provide emergency assistance to those involved. Tragically, they were unable to save all of those aboard.”
