WASHINGTON – Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged Friday that her meeting with Bill Clinton while his wife is under federal investigation “cast a shadow” on the public’s perception of a case playing heavily into the presidential campaign.
“I certainly wouldn’t do it again,” Lynch said of the meeting, which created immediate bipartisan angst and underscored the political consequences of the FBI-led probe into the former secretary of state’s email.
Lynch hastened to add that she would follow the recommendations of career prosecutors on whether to file criminal charges in the case, removing herself from that decision.
Her statements were aimed at tamping down concerns that the investigation could be politically tainted or that Lynch, an Obama administration appointee, might overrule the findings of agents and prosecutors.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Gov. Jerry Brown signed six stringent gun-control measures Friday that will require people to turn in high-capacity magazines and mandate background checks for ammunition sales, as California Democrats seek to strengthen gun laws that are already among the strictest in the nation.
Brown vetoed five other bills, including requirement to register homemade firearms and report lost or stolen weapons to authorities.
The Democratic governor’s action is consistent with his mixed record on gun control. Some of the enacted bills duplicate provisions of a November ballot measure by Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
WASHINGTON – Financial inequality became even wider in the United States last year, with average income for the top 1 percent of households surging 7.7 percent to $1.36 million.
Income for the richest sliver rose twice as fast as it did for the remaining 99 percent of households, according to an updated analysis of tax data by Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Still, the incomes of households outside the top 1 percent appear finally to be recovering from the Great Recession.
Associated Press
