Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday he’ll begin punishing sanctuary cities, withholding potentially billions of dollars in federal money — and even clawing back funds that had been doled out in the past.
Speaking at the White House, Mr. Sessions said his department is preparing to dole out more than $4 billion in funds this year, but will try to prevent any of it from going to sanctuaries.
“Countless Americans would be alive today … if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended,” Mr. Sessions said.
He said he’s carrying out a policy laid out by the Obama administration last year, which identified three grant programs — the COPS grants, Byrne grants and State Criminal Alien Assistance Program money — that already require sanctuary certification.
The Obama administration didn’t end up enforcing that policy, but Mr. Sessions said he’ll begin.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors is meeting this week to discuss potential changes to the envelope system through which winners are announced at the Oscars each year. The possible shakeup comes after bungling at this year’s awards caused a mistaken winner to be announced. Warren Beatty was handed the wrong envelope backstage, which led him to mistakenly say La La Land won Best Picture, when the winner was actually Moonlight. The Academy is expected to keep accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in charge of the envelope system, despite company officials being blamed for the mixup.

Picking themselves up after the bruising collapse of their health care plan, President Trump and Republicans in Congress will start this week on a legislative obstacle course that will be even more arduous: the first overhaul of the tax code in three decades. Mr. Trump’s inability to make good on his promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act has made the already daunting challenge of tax reform even more difficult. Not only has Mr. Trump’s aura of political invincibility been shattered, but without killing the Affordable Care Act, Republicans will be unable to rewrite the tax code in the sweeping fashion that the president has called for. The grand plans of lower rates, fewer loopholes and a tax on imports may have to be scaled back to a big corporate tax cut and possibly an individual tax cut. A lot of people think Mr. Trump might go for this to get an easy win.

Young adults who use social media for at least two hours a day double their risk of feeling socially isolated, a new study finds. The findings led lead author Brian A. Primack, M.D., Ph.D., director of Pitt’s Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health, to sound the alarm on the effect of too much social media in young people. “This is an important issue to study because mental health problems and social isolation are at epidemic levels among young adults,” he says in a university news release.

LBN-WHERE THE ELITE AND UNDERDOGS MEET:

President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is reportedly being lined up to lead his own White House office meant to reform the federal government via business solutions typically used in the private sector. Kushner, whose wife, Ivanka, recently obtained her own White House office, is said to be leading the new White House Office of American Innovation. “The government should be run like a great American company,” Kushner said. The bureau will allegedly come up with ideas to help the government become more lean and effective. “All Americans, regardless of their political views, can recognize that government stagnation has hindered our ability to properly function, often creating widespread congestion and leading to cost overruns and delays,” Trump said in a statement to The Washington Post. “I promised the American people I would produce results, and apply my ‘ahead of schedule, under budget’ mentality to the government.”

A defiant Alexei Navalny was sentenced Monday to 15 days in jail for resisting arrest and fined 20,000 rubles (about $350) for organizing Russia’s nationwide anti-government protests over the weekend. With a selfie posted to Twitter from a Moscow court, the Russian opposition leader sent a tweet reading, “The time will come when we will put them on trial.” In the courtroom, he called on Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev to appear and explain why the protests took place—his activist group has accused Medvedev of corruption and illegally amassing vast real-estate holdings. Navalny has previously declared that he intends to run for president against Vladimir Putin next year. The Kremlin on Monday accused demonstrators of “provoking violence” and organizers of “consciously misleading people” with protests that included tens of thousands of people across Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday that while Putin respects the right to peacefully assemble, his government regarded Sunday’s protests as unlawful. More than 1,000 people were detained, according to The Guardian. In a statement late Sunday, the U.S. State Department said it condemned the detention of the hundreds of peaceful protesters.

THINK FREELY – READ LBN:

The Secret Service said a woman arrested last week after getting caught by her shoelaces while trying to jump the White House fence has been arrested again for trying to scale another Washington perimeter. This marks the woman’s third arrest, Secret Service spokesman Shawn Holtzclaw said. She was first arrested March 21, after the White House incident, and then again days later after violating an order to stay away from the area. She was picked up again at about 2:15 a.m. Sunday after setting off an alarm while scaling a fence at the Treasury Building, next to the White House, officials said. She was carrying only a backpack and a sleeping bag when she was arrested, Holtzclaw said. She now faces a second charge of unlawful entry, in addition to contempt of court for ignoring an order to stay away from the area. The Secret Service did not identify the woman, but the Associated Press, citing court documents, named her as 38-year-old Marci Anderson Wahl.

WHO READS LBN? Film director Oliver Assayas:

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER:   ***Former White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has joined NBC News as a political analyst, the network announced Monday. Earnest, who most recently served as former President Barack Obama’s spokesman, made his first appearances Monday morning on Today and Morning Joe. Earnest worked for Obama for 10 years, having started as the then-candidate’s Iowa communications director during the 2008 presidential campaign.

LBN-SPOTLIGHT: “Without Notes”, TV’s revealing interview show —— 

LBN-HEALTH WATCH:   ***Researchers are finding that thoughts like these, the hallmarks of people sometimes called “cockeyed optimists,” can do far more than raise one’s spirits. They may actually improve health and extend life. There is no longer any doubt that what happens in the brain influences what happens in the body. When facing a health crisis, actively cultivating positive emotions can boost the immune system and counter depression. Studies have shown an indisputable link between having a positive outlook and health benefits like lower blood pressure, less heart disease, better weight control and healthier blood sugar levels.

LBN-BOOK NEWS:   ***A new book reveals the strange and complicated relationship Amy Winehouse had with the paparazzi. In “Amy: A Life Through the Lens,” two photographer brothers say that the army of snappers who followed the tragic singer — who died in 2011 — would lend her money, act as “an extra layer of security,” helped her handlers track her down when she went missing, and even took pictures for Winehouse just so that she could check her outfit. ButDarren and Elliott Bloom could also snap at the paparazzi who covered her short and tumultuous career. The brothers even write that Winehouse’s father, Mitch, “hired” them as her “official paparazzi,” offering them access to her in return for deleting unflattering photos of her and helping “get Amy out of certain situations without the press hounding her.”

LBN-SPOTLIGHT: “Leadership is communicating others’ worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” —— 

LBN-COMMENTARY by Tony Robbins: Most people don’t get in the game—maybe a little through their 401(k), but they don’tknow what they’re doing unfortunately—and the returns show that. So why don’t they get into the market? There are tons of millennials who have been saying, “The market’s overvalued and it’s gonna crash” for eight years, and they’ve missed out on a 250 percent increase. Or people said, “Trump’s in, it’s going to crash,” and the market’s up since Trump took office. Like Warren Buffett said to me, “Tony, betting against America for two centuries is the dumbest bet you could make,” because we keep becoming more productive, we have population growth that keeps us going, we’ve got inflation, and those things have caused us, in the long-term, to continue to go up. But there hasn’t been one bear market that wasn’t followed instantly by a bull market in the next year. Remember 2008? It went up 69 percent from March 9^th to 12 months later. I’m here to show people that it’s more dangerous to not be in the market.

LBN-COMMENTARY by Laurie Yehia: Why devote valuable LBN space to judging someone for trying to work on saving her marriage to a sick guy? Who are we to think we know better about when and how to engage compassion, strength, love, and vision? We should not assume that Huma Abedin is acting out of weakness. A sex addict, like an alcoholic, may or may not be able to overcome–but would you judge someone for not giving up on their alcoholic spouse? I would rather see you publish news of import than catty judgments about private lives of public figures.

LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:….

London jihadist Khalid Masood was not a “proper Muslim,” instead preferring the service of prostitutes and days-long crack binges. In the days since Masood’s rampage, a complicated picture of the bloodthirsty zealot has emerged – both as a loving, sweet schoolboy and violent adult. “He wasn’t a proper Muslim,” one-time landlord Cassie Havard told The Sun . “He (had sex with) prostitutes, smoked copious amounts of crack and stuck knives in people’s faces.” Havard said there was also a paranoid, violent streak to Masood – also known as Adrian Emls — just under the surface. “He was a madman. After one four-day crack session, one druggie pal got paranoid and accused him of being an undercover cop,” she said. “Adrian went absolutely wild and ran to the kitchen to grab the biggest knife he could find. He went back in the room and slashed the guy’s face to pieces. It was horrific, but he always had that darker side about
him.”

LBN – WHERE THE ELITE AND UNDERDOGS MEET:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool Huma Abedin four times, and she’ll still take you back. After years of public humiliation by her sext-a-holic husband, Anthony Weiner, 40-year-old Abedin finally separated from the former congressman in August, one day after The New York Post reported that he had sent yet another explicit photo to a woman — this one showing his toddler son asleep beside him. But sources say that Hillary Clinton’s righthand woman is now giving the marriage another try. “Huma has been working hard on her relationship with Anthony,” said a source close to the Abedin family. “He has been spending 80 to 90 percent of his time at the [Irving Place apartment] they share . . . If there is a disagreement, he goes to his mother’s apartment in Brooklyn. “Both [his and her] families are hoping they will reconcile.”

U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Sunday that London attacker Khalid Masood used the messaging service WhatsApp, and that intelligence services are unable to access one of the messages because it was encrypted. Appearing on the BBC and Sky News, Rudd said WhatsApp and similar messaging apps should cooperate with intelligence services and provide necessary information. “We need to make sure that organizations like WhatsApp—and there are plenty of others like that—don’t provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other,” Rudd said. Last year, Apple resisted the FBI’s requests to unlock an iPhone used by the man who carried out the terror attack in San Bernardino, California.

LBN-INVESTIGATES: A human can make over 10,000 facial expressions to express a wide variety of subtle emotions.

LBN – WHEN YOU HAVE THE GUTS FOR THE TRUTH:

LBN-BUSINESS INSIDER:   ******Venerable Manhattan restaurants Le Cirque and Circo went into bankruptcy Friday as famed owners the Maccioni family worked to restructure its finances. Mauro Maccioni, the son of the legendary restaurateur Sirio,  said the move was to protect the leases for the two fine-dining mainstays, whose regulars include Woody Allen, John Paulson, President Trump, Robert De Niro and ­Steven Schwartzman.   ***Media expert and best-selling author Michael Levine will give a lunch-time speech tomorrow (Monday) for the prestigious Beverly Hills Rotary Club at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

LBN-MEDIA INSIDER:   ***Conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren has reportedly been “banned permanently” from The Blaze, where she hosted a popular but controversial TV show. Lahren was previously suspended after she declared she was pro-choice, despite suggesting numerous times on her show that she is pro-life.   ***Boris Epshteyn, a top official in the White House press office and one of President Donald Trump’s most noticeable TV surrogates from the campaign, is leaving the administration, according to The New York Times. A senior administration official said it was possible Epshteyn would have a new role inside the administration, but the move is still in the works. The Times reported that Epshteyn, who leads the White House’s surrogate operations, became “combative” with TV producers when booking guests.   ****Variety has named veteran music journalist Shirley Halperin as Executive Editor, Music — signaling the entertainment publication’s launch of a new initiative to cover the music and live entertainment businesses.

LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:   ***Power Rangers directorDean Israelite has left CAA for WME.   ***UTA has promoted nine agents to partner, thereby increasing its top ranks by 20 percent. Joining the existing 44 partners are: Sarah Clossey, motion picture talent Steve Cohen, motion picture talentGueran Ducoty, head of licensing and endorsements Charles Ferraro, motion picture literary Pete Franciosa, head of production Allan Haldeman, television Keya Khayatian, motion picture literary Tim Phillips, television literary Jo Yao, motion picture talent.

LBN-NOTICED: ***Michael Kors seeing Broadway show “Significant Other” in NYC.  ***Venus Williams at a W Miami Citi Taste of Tennis event, saying of sister Serena’s wedding plans, “If I knew, I wouldn’t tell”.   ***Cynthia Erivo at Diamond Horseshoe for Legendary Damon’s Annual Luxx Ball in NYC.   ***Mario Lopez at Benjamin Prime and also Broadway’s “Groundhog Day” in NYC.   ****Danielle Savre of Tyler Perry’s new show “Too Close to Home” at Brasserie 8½ in NYC.   ***Sean Young at Il Gattopardo in NYC.   ***Michael B. Jordan at Rochelles in NYC.

LBN-SPOTLIGHT: The conclusion of the intriguing conversation with the world’s most famous dominatrix –Isabelle Sinclaire — “Without Notes”, the revealing TV interview show —- 

LBN-COMMENTARY by MAUREEN DOWD: You sold yourself as the businessman who could shake things up and make Washington work again. Instead, you got worked over by the Republican leadership and the business community, who set you up to do their bidding. That’s why they’re putting up with all your craziness about Russia and wiretapping and unending lies and rattling our allies. They’re counting on you being a delusional dupe who didn’t even know what was in the bill because you’re sitting around in a bathrobe getting your information from wackadoodles on Fox News and then, as The Post reported, peppering aides with the query, “Is this really a good bill?” You got played. It took W. years to smash everything. You’re way ahead of schedule.

LBN-COMMENTARY by LAWRENCE GROBEL: Celebrities seem to exist in most cultures—some for their prowess as being stronger or more agile than others, some for their sharp wit, some for their ability to mimic others. I don’t know why we are so obsessed as a culture by celebrities, but I’ve seen how people react to seeing someone famous and all I can say is that I’m glad I’m not one. It can be frightening when a stranger approaches you in a restaurant or on a street with a demand for an autograph or a picture. I’ve been with Goldie Hawn when she was approached at a Japanese restaurant by a guy who acted like he knew her and saw how she handled it; with Al Pacino when a woman took him by surprise on the street where he lives in Beverly Hills and thrust a DVD at him, as he jumped away from her and tossed the DVD into a bush as if it might explode. I’ve been around celebs when paparazzi are waiting for them, and I can understand why they react the way they often do. A lot of it stems from when the Manson “Family” committed their crimes, making celebrities afraid. And afterJohn Lennon got shot, it just magnified how vulnerable celebrities are. It’s no fun being a target for the insane.

LBN-COMMENTARY by DENNIS PRAGER: Contrary to one of the left’s more mendacious claims, diversity has not been America’s great strength. America’s great strength has been forging an American identity out of diversity. But the left, with its identity politics and commitment to multiculturalism — as expressed, for example, by ballots in dozens of languages, the proliferation of ethnic studies departments at universities and the allowance of all-black dorms and graduation ceremonies — is undoing that.

LBN-SPOTLIGHT: Make Your Computer Serve You —– 

LBN – A DIFFERENT VIEW:….

LBN-OVERHEARD:   *****Liam Payne is about to start singing a lot of lullabies. The One Direction crooner and girlfriend Cheryl Cole welcomed their first child together on Wednesday, March 22, and it’s a boy. Liam took to Instagram with a heartfelt message about fatherhood.   ***Carrie Fisher was honored by a dear and old friend at a public celebration of her and her mother Debbie Reynolds‘ lives, which was live-streamed Saturday. Star Wars droid R2-D2 made a cameo appearance onstage alongside Carrie’s brother and Debbie’s son Todd Fisher, who hosted the event at a reception hall at the Hollywood Hills’ Forest Lawn Memorial Park, where both actresses were laid to rest together at a private funeral in January.   ***Spanish film star Antonio Banderas says he has recovered from a heart attack that he had in January. The 56-year-old Banderas tells Spanish media that “I suffered a heart attack on Jan. 26, but it wasn’t serious and hasn’t caused any damage.”