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Denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula can still be achieved peacefully because of Washington’s new engagement with China, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday, despite growing fears North Korea could soon conduct a new nuclear test.

South Korea is on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in the reclusive North that could be the trigger for a new nuclear test or launch of ballistic missiles, with a large concentration of military hardware massed on both sides of the border.

Tensions have risen sharply in recent months after Pyongyang conducted two nuclear weapons tests last year and carried out a steady stream of ballistic missile tests in defiance of United Nations resolutions and sanctions.

U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile but his deputy said in Sydney on Saturday a peaceful outcome was still achievable because of warming ties between Beijing and Washington.

“We truly believe that, as our allies in the region and China bring that pressure to bear, there is a chance that we can achieve a historic objective of a nuclear-free Korea peninsula by peaceful means,” Pence said.

“We are encouraged by the steps that China has taken so far,” he said at a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Earlier this week, Trump praised Chinese efforts to rein in “the menace of North Korea” after North Korean state media warned the United States of a “super-mighty preemptive strike”.

Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at his resort in Florida earlier this month and, while taking a hard line with North Korea, has focused his efforts on trying to convince China to put more pressure on its ally and neighbor.

However, Trump has also ordered what he has described as an “armada” to waters off the Korean peninsula as a warning to North Korea. There was some confusion about the whereabouts of the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group earlier this week. 

PILOT EJECTS

While it was thought the carrier group had been steaming toward the Korean peninsula, it had in fact been completing a training exercise with the Australian navy.

Pence said the carrier group was now expected to be in waters off the Korean peninsula before the end of the month, “within days”.

On Friday, the U.S. Navy said a pilot from the USS Carl Vinson had ejected safely while conducting a routine flight south of the Philippines.

It said the incident occurred as the F/A-18E was on a final approach to the carrier. The pilot was recovered by helicopter without injury. The statement did not say when the incident occurred.

In the face of the U.S. moves, North Korea said on Friday the state of affairs on the Korean peninsula was “extremely perilous”.

The North will celebrate the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army on Tuesday and has marked important events in the past by launching missiles or conducting nuclear tests.

Tuesday’s anniversary also comes as the North finishes winter military drills and as South Korea and the United States wrap up annual joint military exercises.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng said on Friday all those military exercises meant there was a lot of military equipment gathered in North Korea, as well as the South.

Satellite imagery analyzed by 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, found some activity under way at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, but the group said it was unclear whether the site was in a “tactical pause” before another test or was carrying out normal operations.

U.S. officials have also said there was an increased level of activity by Chinese bombers, signaling a possible heightened state of readiness. Russian media has denied reports Moscow was building up its forces near the Korean border.

China’s Defence Ministry, however, said its forces were maintaining normal combat preparedness.

North Korea remained defiant.

“Now that we possess mighty nuclear power to protect ourselves from U.S. nuclear threat, we will respond without the slightest hesitation to full-out war with full-out war and to nuclear war with our style of nuclear strike, and we will emerge victor in the final battle with the United States,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in SEOUL, Ben Blanchard on BEIJING, Phil Stewart in WASHINGTON, and Polina Devitt in MOSCOW; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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WASHINGTON ― Disability rights advocates and a leading Democratic think tank are livid at The Washington Post over a March 30 front-page story on the prevalence of disability benefits in rural America.

The newspaper claimed that “as many as one-third of working-age adults” in rural communities receive disability benefits. But as the Center for American Progress calculated ― and The Huffington Post confirmed by looking at the raw data ― that proportion holds true in only one county in the entire country.

Republicans often use stories like the Post’s to argue that the disability rolls have grown due to abuse from people who can work but simply do not want to. For example, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) complained in January 2015 that people were “gaming the system” to receive disability benefits. In fact, the Social Security Administration’s inspector general has estimated that the Social Security Disability Insurance program has a fraud rate below 1 percent. 

“They are perpetuating the same myths that have been debunked over and over again without regard for how misleading reporting can affect people with disabilities already living on the financial edge,” said Rebecca Vallas, managing director of the Center for American Progress’ Poverty to Prosperity program.

The Post issued a correction about a narrow aspect of the story on Monday, downsizing its count of “highest participation” counties, but it did not revise its estimate of the prevalence of disability benefits in rural areas. It also did not respond to multiple requests to clarify outstanding questions about ways in which its framing of disability programs lacks context about the factors truly driving growth in the program, raising the possibility of political attacks on benefits and their recipients.

They are perpetuating the same myths that have been debunked over and over again without regard for how misleading reporting can affect people with disabilities already living on the financial edge.
Rebecca Vallas, Center for American Progress

The Washington Post’s article, “Disabled or Just Desperate? Rural Americans Turn to Disability as Jobs Dry Up,” tells the story of Desmond Spencer, 39, an out-of-work roofer with a bad knee, as he considers applying for SSDI.

It is a vivid, empathic tale of one man’s struggle to maintain his dignity and care for his family members as they grapple with serious health problems and economic deprivation in job-scarce rural Alabama.

Where the Post gets it wrong, according to CAP, is in its use of Spencer’s experience to suggest that excessive reliance on disability benefits is a virtual epidemic in some predominantly white, rural areas.

Using the Post’s data, CAP took apart the Post’s boldest assertion: that “as many as one-third” of working-age adults in rural communities receive disability benefits.

Out of more than 3,100 counties in the U.S., only McDowell County, West Virginia ― one of the most impoverished counties in the country ― comes close to one-third participation, with 32.2 percent of residents receiving either SSDI or SSI benefits. The actual average is only 9.1 percent of working-age adults in rural counties receive benefits from one of those two programs, according to CAP’s analysis of the data sets the Post used.

“There’s a word for using data this way: cherry-picking,” Rebecca Vallas, Rachel West and Katherine Gallagher-Robbins of CAP’s Poverty to Prosperity program wrote in the analysis they published Tuesday. 

Even if the Post’s characterization had been accurate, though, disability rights advocates and liberal scholars would have taken issue with the fundamental premise of the story.

The Post presents Spencer as an example of the millions of Americans who have begun receiving disability benefits “over the past two decades as the number of people on disability has surged.”

Scholars do not dispute that disability rolls have increased. But when it comes to SSDI in particular, demographic factors, such as the aging of the baby boom generation and the rise in working women now eligible for benefits, can explain the vast majority of the increase in enrollment, noted Kathleen Romig, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who wrote her own critique of the Post story on March 31.

And as Social Security’s full retirement age nears 67, it means more workers who would have transitioned into the retirement program at 65 have stayed on disability.

“This is not a new phenomenon, and it is a totally expected phenomenon,” Romig said. 

The article leaves readers with the impression that the application process is as basic as picking up the phone and making a phone call.
T.J. Sutcliffe, The Arc

Higher percentages of people with disabilities in rural counties, like the one where Spencer lives, she added, can be explained by the aging population and the higher concentration of blue-collar workers, who are more likely to work in physically debilitating jobs or lack access to adequate health care. 

The demographic-driven growth in the number of SSDI beneficiaries actually peaked in 2013 and has been declining steadily as baby boomers begin to draw Social Security.

“Those trends have played themselves out, and we are in a different era now, but the media narrative has not caught up,” Romig said.

The Post concedes as much, noting that the increase in benefits in rural parts of the country was “partly driven by demographic changes that are now slowing as disabled baby-boomers age into retirement.”

But critics believe that an article whose entire assumption is that information about national trends can be gleaned from one person’s experience by its very nature under-emphasizes those demographic changes.

“There are a lot of reasons why rural America has higher rates of disability, but the Post chose to only chase the check,” said Vallas, former deputy director of government affairs for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives, an association of disability claims attorneys. 

It is not even clear whether Spencer will apply for benefits. At the end of the Post’s article, Spencer called the Social Security Administration to set up a meeting to discuss how to apply for benefits.

“The article leaves readers with the impression that the application process is as basic as picking up the phone and making a phone call,” said T.J. Sutcliffe, director of income and housing policy for The ARC, one of the country’s leading disability rights groups. “What we know is that the Social Security disability standard is one of the most stringent standards in the industrialized world. It is actually very difficult to qualify for disability.”

The government awarded SSDI benefits to less than one-third (32 percent) of workers who applied in 2016. If the application is rejected on the first round ― and the vast majority are ― receiving benefits on appeal can often take over a year and a half. The average benefit for those workers who ultimately qualify is $1,171 a month.

Congressional Republicans declined to significantly change SSDI when transferring revenue from the retirement fund to plug an imminent shortfall in November 2015.

And President Donald Trump didn’t address Social Security in his first budget proposal.

But that does not keep activists from worrying about the ammunition that stories like the one in the Post could give Republicans now that they control the White House and Congress.

That’s particularly true since Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, a former member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, stood by his belief that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” in his confirmation hearing, and he hopes to convince Trump of the wisdom of scaling back social insurance programs.

In an interview with CNBC last week, Mulvaney declined to rule out cutting SSDI this year, claiming “it’s become effectively a long-term unemployment, permanent unemployment program.”

“This kind of story,” Vallas said, “risks providing cover to Mick Mulvaney and congressional Republicans who have been looking for a way to cut Social Security for years. It has tremendously high stakes, particularly given the political climate we are in right now.”

Disability rights advocates like Sutcliffe and Vallas have been critical of what they see as reputable national outlets approaching the subject of SSDI ham-handedly in the past.

An in-depth NPR story in 2012 also claimed that the growth in SSDI and SSI rolls was the result of greater dependency without acknowledging the demographic factors, such as an aging population, contributing to rises in enrollment. NPR drew similarly detailed critiques from policy analysts.

Likewise, an October 2013 “60 Minutes” investigation sounding the alarms about SSDI’s rising costs drew widespread criticism for relying on anecdotes of alleged abuse to characterize a national trend.

“We’ve seen this before,” Sutcliffe said. “Any time there is reporting, particularly at the national level, that leads the public to have an incomplete or inaccurate view of the disability programs, … it runs the risks of policymakers getting mis-impressions about the program and considering changes to the program that would make the program less adequate and make it harder for Social Security to fulfill its function.” 

The Post will soon have an opportunity to redeem itself in the eyes of critics that see it as yet another reputable news organization exaggerating the challenges facing disability programs. The newspaper made it clear in its article that the March 30 profile and investigation is the first of a series of stories that will explore disability benefits.

“We hope that as the Post continues this series that it will work hard to get the numbers to be as accurate as possible and provide its readers with more context about what those numbers mean, as well as how the program operates and affects people’s lives,” Sutcliffe concluded.

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In the latest dust-up on a U.S. plane, an American Airlines employee was captured on video challenging a passenger to fight, saying, “C’mon, hit me,” during a tense showdown on a San Francisco flight.

Tempers flared on Flight 591 to Dallas on Friday less than two weeks after a passenger was dragged off a United flight to make way for a crew member to fly.

American Airlines issued a statement soon after the plane landed that officials are investigating the incident, and worker has been “removed from duty.”

As the video begins a woman is seen in the front of the plane, upset and crying, with a baby in her arms. The passenger who videotaped the incident, Surain Adyanthaya, said on Facebook that she had been struck by her stroller as a flight attendant roughly yanked it away from her as people were boarding. ABC reported that the passenger, who is reportedly Argentinian, may not have understood why her stroller was taken from her.

“OMG! AA flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby,” Adyanthaya posted to Facebook. “Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her.”

On the video, a man and a woman speak out on the woman’s behalf as she continues crying and asking for her stroller back. 

At one point a man with an ID around his neck, apparently the flight attendant who had taken the stroller, re-enters the plane and speaks to the pilot standing by. Then the male passenger jumps up from his seat, and points angrily at the airline employee, saying: “Hey, bud, you do that to me and I’ll knock you flat.”

“Try it,” the man says aggressively on the video. “Hit me. C’mon, hit me. C’mon, bring it on. You don’t know what the story is.” The pilot and the flight attendant are both touching the man, holding him back.

The passenger responds: “I don’t care what the story is. You almost hurt a baby!”

The woman and her children were escorted off the plane, according to Adyanthaya.

American issued a statement saying that officials launched an investigation into the incident after seeing the video. Officials offered no other details about what happened, but the airline apologized to the passenger and her family. She  was placed on another flight in first class and “we are taking special care of her and her family,” said the statement.

“What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers,. We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident.”

The statement added: “The actions of our team member captured here do not appear to reflect patience or empathy, two values necessary for customer care. In short, we are disappointed by these actions. The American team member has been removed from duty while we immediately investigate this incident.”

“We have seen the video and have already started an investigation to obtain the facts. What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers. We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident. We are making sure all of her family’s needs are being met while she is in our care.  After electing to take another flight, we are taking special care of her and her family and upgrading them to first class for the remainder of their international trip.

The actions of our team member captured here do not appear to reflect patience or empathy, two values necessary for customer care. In short, we are disappointed by these actions. The American team member has been removed from duty while we immediately investigate this incident.”

On April 9 Dr. David Dao was violently dragged from a United flight in Chicago because the airline needed seats for traveling crew members. His lawyer said he suffered a concussion and broken nose, and lost two teeth in the shocking confrontation.

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Fake news is a problem because it misleads where it can cause wrong perceptions, although the impact of fake news probably peaked during the US elections where many believed that the amount of fake news making their rounds had impacted the outcome of the elections. Turns out that over in France, they are facing a similar problem as well.

In a report from Reuters, it seems that there are social media accounts that are being generated automatically which are then used to flood the country with fake news ahead of the elections. A study conducted by Oxford University researchers found that a quarter of political links shared on social media platforms like Twitter was fake, although the researchers are saying that it isn’t quite as severe compared to the recent US presidential campaign.

While the study was based on links shared on Twitter, Kevin Limonier of the University of Paris VIII suggested that a greater role was being played by Facebook. The social media platform has since suspended more than 30,000 accounts that are suspected to have been automated.

To be fair, Facebook has announced that they are working on trying to curb fake news. They have been resorting to all kinds of tactics, such as putting warning labels, taking away advertising opportunities for publications that publish such news, and so on, although it is clear from this that this is still very much a problem that needs to be dealt with.

Fake News Is Flooding France Ahead Of Elections , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.