Hasta La Gadget!

Hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computers and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email during the 2016 presidential campaign “had nothing to do with us,” President Donald Trump told John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.

“Had nothing to do with this, and everyone knows it,” the president added.

But that’s not what intelligence information has shown. The U.S. intelligence community has argued, both publicly and via anonymous leaks in the press, that Russia interfered in the election in an effort to help Trump win. But Trump refuses to accept that, too. “I’ll go along with Russia,” Trump told Dickerson immediately before speculating that the hacking also “could’ve been China, could’ve been a lot of different groups.” 

Democrats have gone further than the intelligence community, occasionally suggesting that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian attempts to boost Trump’s chances. Although reporting that some Trump associates had contacts with Russian intelligence officials is widespread, there’s no evidence that the Trump campaign secretly coordinated hacking or the release of hacked materials with the Russian government or its surrogates.

Trump isn’t always easy to understand, but that seems to be what he was trying to say Sunday: We didn’t coordinate with the Russians, and I’m not even sure the Russians were involved in the hacking.

Here’s the thing: Democrats don’t need to prove some secret collusion between Russia and the the Trump campaign to show that Russia wanted Trump to win, and Trump wanted Russia’s help.

Most public evidence suggests the election hacking did have to do with Trump. Russian support for Trump’s campaign was abundantly clear from the country’s public actions ― especially the work of state-backed media outlets and internet trolls. And Trump himself publicly called for Russia to hack his opponent’s emails. This is a lesson that super PACs, which sometimes release their plans publicly so as to avoid laws forbidding coordination with political candidates, learned a long time ago: You don’t have to coordinate in secret if you can coordinate publicly.

None of this is to say whether Trump associates’ ties to Russia were or weren’t above-board ― we just don’t know yet. No one has been charged with a crime ― not even Michael Flynn, Trump’s ex-national security adviser who omitted payments from three “Russia-linked entities” on his security clearance application, according to a Fox News report earlier this month. And Russian support for Trump likely had a lot to do with Russian opposition to Clinton ― and with policy positions Trump took before being elected but has since repudiated, such as skepticism for the NATO military alliance and skepticism for U.S. military strikes on the government of Syrian dictator (and Russian ally) Bashar Assad. 

The fact that the Russian government seemed to want Trump to win, and that it probably helped him do so, doesn’t disqualify him from the presidency or make him guilty of a crime. But it does suggest that he wasn’t and isn’t as popular at home as he likes to believe. That seems to be the suggestion that Trump can’t stand: That he didn’t win all by himself.

See a video of part of the Russia section of the interview below:

And here’s a transcript of the relevant section of the interview:

JOHN DICKERSON: You don’t think it’s phony that they, the Russians, tried to meddle in the election? You believe that? 

DONALD TRUMP: That, I don’t know. I don’t know.

DICKERSON: That you don’t know or you do know?

TRUMP: Well, I have a problem. You have Podesta, who, by the way, I understand has a company with his brother in Russia. Hillary’s husband makes speeches in Russia. Hillary did a uranium deal with Russia. Nobody ever talks about that. But I don’t know― 

DICKERSON: You don’t― 

TRUMP: ―because the F.B.I. was not allowed by Podesta to go in and check all of the records on their servers and everything else that you would normally have to check. That’s number one.
Number two, knowing something about hacking, if you don’t catch a hacker, okay, in the act, it’s very hard to say who did the hacking. With that being said, I’ll go along with Russia. Could’ve been China, could’ve been a lot of different groups. 

DICKERSON: So President Donald Trump is ambivalent―

TRUMP: But it could’ve―

DICKERSON: ―about or not ambivalent, you’re not just not sure

TRUMP: No. We have to find out what happened. I’d love to find out what happened.

DICKERSON: But you don’t think it’s the Russians―

TRUMP: I can tell you one thing. Had nothing to do with us. Had nothing to do with this, and everyone knows it.

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By Karen Solomon & Tim Barribeau

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Xiaomi launched its new flagship smartphone in China earlier this month. The Xiaomi Mi 6 has been very well received in the company’s home market with more than 1.2 million people registering their interest to pick up the device on JD.com which is the largest online retailer in China. Xiaomi fans in India might be hoping that this handset would be launched in their country as well but if rumors are believed, that’s not going to happen.

Xiaomi normally launches new flagship smartphones in China first. That doesn’t surprise anybody given that China is Xiaomi’s home market. The handsets then gradually make their way to other markets such as India.

Many might have been keeping their fingers crossed for a Xiaomi Mi 6 India launch but the latest rumors suggest that this might not happen. It’s claimed that Xiaomi is changing its strategy for the new flagship smartphone and will keep it limited to China at this point in time.

It goes without saying that Xiaomi fans in India might not be too happy about this. India happens to be the second largest market for Xiaomi so the company would definitely have a good reason for doing this.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that this information comes from unofficial sources so there’s every possibility that the Xiaomi Mi 6 India launch might eventually take place.

Xiaomi Mi 6 India Launch Ruled out , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

A Taiwanese hiker who got lost while trekking the Himalayas with his girlfriend was rescued by officials on Wednesday, three days after his partner had died.

Rescuers found Liang Sheng-yueh, 21, unconscious with his dead girlfriend, Liu Chen-chun, 19, on the banks of a river in Tipling in northern Dhading, Nepal, according to the Himalayan Times. Liang and Liu’s body were airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu on Wednesday, two days before Liang’s birthday.

The couple was from Taiwan and both were students at the National Taiwan University, according to the Kathmandu Post. 

Liang and Liu came to Nepal in late February to hike the Langtang mountain range in the district of Rasuwa. Their families reported them missing after they lost contact with them in early March. A search team was dispatched and had been looking for them for weeks.

Madhav Basnet, a rescuer, told CNN that the couple was hiking around the remote Ganesh Himal route without a guide when they got lost. They tried to follow the river hoping to find a village, but reached the edge of a waterfall instead.

The couple fell 100 meters into a ravine, then took shelter in a small cave where they were later found. They had been lost in the wilderness for 47 days, according to CNN.

“He was sleeping when we found them,” Basnet told the Guardian. “He woke up after he heard us. We were very surprised to find him alive. He said that the girl died three days earlier.”

Lost in the mountains, the couple ate potatoes and noodles for 10 days until they ran out of food. Basnet told the Himalayan Times that Liang was able to survive on drinking water.

Chakra Raj Pandey, medical director at the hospital in Kathmandu, said Liang “was not very stable psychologically,” according to CNN. When he was discovered in the mountains, rescuers found him with lice in his hair and maggots between his toes. Medical officials say he lost a total of 66 pounds during the ordeal.

In the hospital, Liang told the Agence France-Presse that the mountain was “very cold” and he had difficulty sleeping.

Officials say that Liang is now out of danger. He celebrated his 21st birthday in the hospital on Friday.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Ridley Scott is at the helm of a nearly 40-year franchise of films about killer aliens who are smarter and deadlier than us. It’s not a coincidence, since Scott thinks that could happen in real life.

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