AFN NEWS ON THE HOUR

Thursday, May 17, 2018　

 

1) From ABC News, I’m Richard Cantu. The White House story today has North Korea threatens to pull out of the next month summit with President Trump over the U.S. demanding to denuclearize. “This is something that we fully expected,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders says. It’s all part of the bargaining. “The President is very used to being ready for tough negotiations and if they wanna meet, we’ll be ready, and if they don’t, that’s OK, too. We’ll continue with the campaign of maximum pressure. That’s the case.” The summit’s scheduled for June 12th in Singapore.

 
2) The President released his financial disclosure report of footnote state. He reimbursed attorney Michael Cohen for as much as $250,000 for expenses last year. But there’s no mention of 130 grand paid to Stormy Daniels. The report says the President didn’t have to disclose the payment to Cohen, but did so in the interest of transparency.

 

3) Gina Haspel cleared a big hurdle to becoming CIA director by a 10-to-5 vote in the Senate Intelligence Committee recommending her confirmations. “Setting her up free, final senate vote in the coming days to be CIA director. Two of the committee seven Democrats sided with Republicans and backing her including the Committee’s top Democrat Mark Warner. The support followed Haspel’s acknowledgement that the CIA should not have conducted enhanced interrogation.” ABC’s Serena Marshall on Capitol Hill.

 

4) An environmental mystery; levels of the most common kind of ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbon (CFC 11) phased out over the last three decades have been rising since 2013. Federal planetary scientist Steve Montzka wrote a story, wrote a study published in the journal Nature. “The production of this gas was phased out about a decade ago, so we expected that its decline rate would have increased rather than slowed down.” Steve thinks CFC 11 might be bleeding off from products including building insulation manufactured before its production was banned.

 

5) Wall Street now closed up 63 points. The NASDUQ was a 47-point gainer. You’re listening to ABC News.

 

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From the Fox Business Network, for the 3rd consecutive year the No.1 financial regret for Americans is not saving enough for retirement followed by no emergency savings. The new survey by Bankrate.com also finding 1 in 4 have no plan to fix their money problems. // No regret for investors on Wall Street Wednesday, the Dow rising along with the other major indexes. Russell 2,000 which tracks smaller companies closing at all-time high. // For some real concerns about real state, a new report from the company ValueInsured shows more than 2/3 believe the housing market is unhealthy. Rising home prices and rising interest rates are the big reasons why. // Amazon wants to make shopping at Whole Foods more appetizing. The company is now offering its Amazon Prime members at 10% discount and some items are already on sale. The program launches in Florida on Wednesday and goes nationwide this summer. With the Fox Business Report, I am David Asman.