China’s Leader Urges Restraint on North Korea in Call With Trump:
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has urged President Trump to show restraint toward North Korea despite signs that the North may be preparing a nuclear test. Mr. Xi made the appeal in a phone call with Mr. Trump on Monday that reflected growing alarm over North Korea’s plans, which could tip the region into crisis. The phone conversation, on Monday morning in Beijing, came after Mr. Trump had already used a meeting with Mr. Xi in Florida, a follow-up phone call, interviews and Twitter messages to press Mr. Xi to do more to deter North Korea from holding additional nuclear and missile tests. The United States and its allies have been on alert for another atomic test by the North. In the latest call, the third between the two leaders, Mr. Xi indicated to Mr. Trump that China opposed any such test by North Korea, but he also nudged Mr. Trump to avoid a tit-for-tat response to the North’s fiery threats, according to a report on Chinese television.
Trump Boasts of Highest TV Ratings Since 9/11
U.S. President
Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, U.S., before traveling to Palm Beach, Florida for the Good
Friday holiday/Easter weekend, April 13, 2017. President Trump in a new AP interview published Monday boasted that he has delivered CBS its best ratings “since the World Trade Center came down.” After being asked about his relationship with voters and lawmakers across the aisle, Trump pivoted to the high viewership numbers his national TV appearances bring in: “It’s interesting, I have, seem to get very high ratings… You know [
Fox News Sunday host]
Chris Wallace had 9.2 million people, it’s the highest in the history of the show. I have all the ratings for all those morning shows. When I go, they go double, triple. Chris Wallace, look back during the Army-Navy football game, I did his show that morning. It had 9.2 million people. It’s the highest they’ve ever had.” He then bragged about his ratings on CBS’s
Sunday show
Face the Nation: “[Host John] Dickerson had 5.2 million people. It’s the highest for
Face the Nation or, as I call it, ‘Deface the Nation.’ It’s the highest for ‘Deface the Nation’ since the World Trade Center. Since the World Trade Center came down. It’s a tremendous advantage.” He then immediately transitioned to railing against “fake media”—save for Fox News—treating him “unfairly.”
New Orleans Removes Confederate Statues
New Orleans started taking down the first of four prominent Confederate monuments in the city early Monday morning, at about 1:30 a.m. The city is the most recent Southern stronghold to remove symbols interpreted by many to memorialize white supremacy and racism. The first monument to be removed overnight was one that “commemorates whites who tried to topple a biracial post-Civil War government in New Orleans,” according to local reports. City officials chose to take it down overnight in order to minimize disruption from those who take issue with the removal. Some have sent death threats. “There’s a better way to use the property these monuments are on and a way that better reflects who we are,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu told the Associated Press.
Sandberg: Facebook Doesn’t Want to Be the ‘Arbiter of the Truth’
Sheryl Sandberg, feminist author and chief operating officer of Facebook, says the social-media giant doesn’t see itself as a publisher or an “arbiter of the truth.” The social-networking site has come under fire in recent months for not appropriately fighting “fake news” articles published on its pages. “We are really a platform and we take our responsibilities on false news very seriously. False news hurts everyone because it makes our community uninformed, it hurts our community, it hurts countries. And we know that people want to see accurate news on Facebook and that’s what we want them to see,” Sandberg told the BBC in an interview expected to be broadcast Monday. She added, “I don’t think we have to be the publisher and we definitely don’t want to be the arbiter of the truth. We don’t think that’s appropriate for us. We think everyone needs to do their part. Newsrooms have to do their part, [as do] media companies, classrooms and technology companies.”
LOOK CLOSELY (at reality) – READ LBN
Duterte: I’ll Eat the Livers of Captured Extremists
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said during a speech Sunday that he can be “50 times” more brutal than extremists and Muslim militants who’ve staged beheadings. Duterte warned that he would even “eat” terrorists—whom he also called “animals”—if they were captured alive. The president was speaking at a national sports tournament when he made the comments. “Just give me vinegar and salt, I’ll eat his liver,” Duterte said. Meanwhile, a Filipino lawyer on Monday requested that the International Criminal Court charge Duterte and 11 other officials with mass murder and crimes against humanity in the deaths of thousands of civilians over at least three decades. Jude Josue Sabio filed a 77-page complaint describing Duterte as the “mastermind” of an effort that killed nearly 10,000 people since 1988, when he was elected mayor of Davao City. “The situation in the Philippines reveals a terrifying, gruesome, and disastrous continuing commission of extrajudicial executions or mass murder from the time President Duterte was the mayor of Davao City,” the complaint says.
THINK FREELY – READ LBN:
Astronaut Peggy Whitson Breaks Record
Peggy Whitson has broken a new record for the most days in space by a U.S. astronaut. The record was previously held by
Jeff Williams, who had a total of 534. She already held the record for the oldest woman to have gone to space, most spacewalks carried out by a woman, and the first woman to command the International Space Station twice. She is 57. Earlier this month, NASA astronaut
Shane Kimbrough turned command of the ISS over to her: “The Space Station is in great hands with Peggy.” Whitson is expected to have a 20-minute phone call with President
Trump live on NASA Television, which will be streamed on Facebook at
10 a.m. ET.
LBN-SEE IT:…
Jeanne Moreau and
Orson Welles in their 1965 film, “Chimes at
Midnight.” Welles’s heavily annotated script for the film is among the items newly acquired by the University of Michigan from his youngest daughter,
Beatrice Welles.
Rare Copy of the Declaration of Independence Found in England:
A rare copy of the Declaration of Independence has turned up across the pond — tucked away in a records office in southern England, researchers discovered. The document, held at the West Sussex Record Office in Chicester, UK, and dubbed “The Sussex Declaration,” apparently dates back to the 1780s, according to a press release from Harvard University. It is believed to have once belonged to the Third Duke of Richmond, known as the “Radical Duke” for his support of the Americans during the Revolution. The historic find is on the same “ornamental scale” as the Matlack Declaration, housed in the National Archives, the release said.
Obama Hid Security Threat of Released Prisoners in Iran Deal:
When it released seven men as part of a prisoner swap with Iran, the Obama Administration hid the fact that some were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security, according to a report Monday. Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics that can be used in surface-to-air cruise missiles, Politico reported. One was serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware. In announcing the deal that secured the long-awaited release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former Marine Amir Hekmati and three other Americans, President Obama referred to the seven men being exchanged as “civilians.”
LBN-INVESTIGATES: During the Great Depression, many people tried apple selling to avoid the shame of panhandling. In New York City alone, there were as many as 6,000 apple sellers
LBN-NOTICED: ***
Beyoncé at LA’s Beauty & Essex. ***
Vincent Pastore, Tony Sirico and
Bobby Cannavaleseeing singer Eddie Brigati at the Cutting Room in NYC. ***
Kate Hudson celebrating her birthday with
Derek Blasberg and Jennifer Meyer at Pizzana in Los Angeles. **
Geoffrey Zakarian, Charlie Palmer, Todd English and
Alain Sailhacamong a dozen top chefs whooping it up at Tony Fortuna’s TBar in NYC, which hosted the after-party for the Culinary Institute of America gala that honored
Martha Stewart, Shep Gordon and Jacques Pépin. ***
Colin Cowie and
Mark Ingram at a party celebrating famed
Obama White House holiday event designer and Allison Williams’ wedding planner,
Bryan Rafanelli. ***
Cloris Leachman, who turns 91 on
April 30, is still the life of the party. Leachman was the center of attention at a bash for her new Starz series, “American Gods,”
on Thursday in LA, where she partied late into the evening — bumping and grinding with other partygoers. “She was one of the last to leave and joked on the way out that she was going to another bar,” says an attendee. ***
Mark Cuban — who has been an outspoken critic of
Donald Trump, saying his presidency is “political chemotherapy” — had a friendly lunch with personal attorney to the president
Michael Cohen. A fellow diner at Freds at Barneys in NYC
on Friday told us of the Dallas Mavericks owner and Cohen: “They actually looked like old friends. There wasn’t any fireworks between them over
Trump. Cuban was really nice and took photos with everyone in the restaurant who approached him.” ***Looking frail and gaunt, 81-year-old actor
Burt Reynolds needed some deliverance from the dog-and-pony show on the red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival
on Saturday. The “Deliverance’’ and “Smokey and the Bandit’’ actor walked into the event leaning on a cane but soon also needed a stool while he posed with festival founder
Robert De Niro and
Chevy Chase, who co-stars with him in the new flick “Dog Years.”
LBN-VIDEO LINK: Will Ferrell: Thank God I Have a College Degree —
LBN-SPOTLIGHT: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. —–
LBN-SITE OF THE DAY:
“The history and science of earthquakes as presented by Exploratorium.”
LBN-R.I.P.: Kate O’Beirne, the former Washington editor of National Review, died on Sunday.
LBN-COMMENTARY by Tom Sykes: Erin Moran, the 56-year old actress best known for playing Joanie Cunningham on the television classic Happy Days, who was found dead at her mother’s trailer park home in Indiana on Saturday afternoon, had refused help from at least “half a dozen” former child stars as her life spiraled out of control, a child-actor advocate has suggested. Paul Petersen, who runs the group A Minor Consideration, wrote in a Facebook post about Erin: “She was so far away in Indiana. The help she ran from was right here, as close as a call. Those of us who knew her pain and remember it so well must tonight rededicate ourselves to the task of making sure that none of our brethren pass away unremarked or feel unloved. “Fame won young can be a cruel mistress, often outlasting the person within the purpose. Dearest Erin, you will be remembered by all those with the humility to understand what it means to say, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’” In a later post, Petersen explicitly confirmed attempts to reach out to Moran had been made by himself and other peers, saying: “I am proud of our efforts over the years to help Erin Moran whose troubles were many and complex. Don’t doubt for a moment that we tried… sincerely tried through time and treasure… to give comfort to one of our own.
LBN-COMMENTARY by Sheryl Sandberg: Two years ago, in an instant, everything changed for my family and me. While my husband, Dave, and I were on vacation, he died suddenly from a cardiac arrhythmia. Flying home to tell my 7-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son that their father had died was the worst experience of my life. During that unimaginable trip, I turned for advice to a friend who counsels grieving children. She said that the most important thing was to tell my kids over and over how much I loved them and that they were not alone. In the fog of those early and brutal weeks and months, I tried to use the guidance she had given me. My biggest fear was that my children’s happiness would be destroyed by our devastating loss. I needed to know what, if anything, I could do to get them through this. I also started talking with my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist and professor who studies how people find motivation and meaning. Together, we set out to learn everything we could about how kids persevere through adversity.
LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:…
LBN-OVERHEARD: ***Amber Heard and Elon Musk have confirmed to their millions of social-media followers that they are an item by sharing a loved up picture of Musk with a big, red, kiss-shaped lipstick mark on his cheek. In a co-ordinated strike, the two individuals both shared the same picture at the same time. ***“Happy Days” actress Erin Moran died of cancer, officials said Monday. The coroner and sheriff of Harrison County, Indiana, said Moran did not have any illegal drugs at home when her body was found on Saturday. he 56-year-old Moran, who played Joanie Cunningham on the iconic sitcom, had a history of alcohol abuse.
LBN E-Lert Edited By Dan Gaylord
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