The Trump administration has some mixed messages for Russia.
Three days ago, President Trump wanted the country back in the G7. Now, his Treasury Department is tossing sanctions on companies and people tied to Russian cyber attacks on the U.S., Reuters reports.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced sanctions against three Russian individuals and five companies tied to Russia's intelligence agency, saying they strengthened Russia's cyber capabilities, per Reuters. Those skills reportedly facilitated last year's worldwide NotPetya cyber attack as well as hits against the U.S. energy grid and internet infrastructure, and even helped Russia infiltrate underwater communication cables that span the world's oceans.
The U.S. previously sanctioned other Russians and companies who've gotten too close to Moscow, including some who allegedly tampered with the 2016 election. Kathryn Krawczyk
Fox is removing Jussie Smollett from Empire — at least for a little bit.
After police accused the actor of falsifying his report of a hate crime, Fox spent weeks insisting he wasn't being written off the show. Empire producers continued to stand by Smollett in a Friday statement, saying they were "placing our trust in the legal system as the process plays out." Still, they had decided to "remove" Smollett's "role of 'Jamal' from the final two episodes of the season."
Last month, Smollett filed a police report saying he was the victim of a hate crime and that two men attacked him in Chicago. After inconsistencies emerged in Smollett's account, police arrested him Wednesday night on charges of filing a false police report. Chicago police then alleged on Thursday that the purported crime was a staged "publicity stunt" to "promote his career" and perhaps secure a raise.
Smollett has since been released on bail and returned to the Empire set Friday, reportedly telling cast and crew there he's innocent. Various reports suggested Fox would cut Smollett's scenes from Empire or even fire him, but the network didn't take official action until Friday. In its statement, Fox only said it was cutting Smollett's scenes "to avoid further disruption on set," and reiterated that showrunners "care about him deeply." Read the whole statement from Fox on Twitter. Kathryn Krawczyk
The possible title of the next James Bond movie is leaving some of the franchise's fans shaken, not stirred.
The Guardian reported Friday that the working title being used during production of the upcoming 25th Bond film is Shatterhand. Working titles don't always reflect what a movie's final name will be — the Star Wars franchise, for instance, famously shoots under purposely ridiculous or obtuse titles, such as Space Bear for The Last Jedi.
But in this case, seeing Shatterhand show up as the working title for the next Bond movie is notable since it had already been rumored as one of the names that
Though the title is undeniably ridiculous, especially when viewed next to names like Spectre and Skyfall, it does have some significance to fans: Shatterhand is the alias used by Ernst Blofeld in the Bond book You Only Live Twice. Whether this ends up being the final title, then, the fact that it's reportedly being used during production seems to indicate that Christoph Waltz's villain from Spectre may return.
The film, which will see Daniel Craig returning in the lead role after previously saying he would rather "slash my wrists" than play the character again, will open on April 8, 2020. Brendan Morrow
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's fight against foreign aid has turned even more deadly.
U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó has welcomed humanitarian aid for the impoverished country, but Maduro announced the closure of the country's border with Brazil on Thursday in an attempt to keep it out. Civilians still tried to keep border traffic flowing on Friday, but soldiers fired back against the operation, leaving at least one dead and 12 injured, The Washington Post reports.
Maduro claimed victory last year in an election widely seen to be fraudulent, while Guaidó declared himself the legitimate interim leader as he and the U.S. continue to call for new elections. Since then, Maduro has maintained that any aid is an attempt to undermine his presidency and set up a blockade at the Colombian border last week. Guaidó said some aid did make it into the country.
Still, Maduro moved again to block aid by shutting down the Brazilian border, and said he was considering a "total closure" on the border with Colombia as well, per Al Jazeera. An indigenous community kept a checkpoint open on the border for aid to flow through, but a military convoy confronted the group Friday morning. Community members "sought to block the military vehicles by standing in front of them" and the military opened fire, "wounding at least 12 people, four of them seriously," the Post writes. At least one woman has died so far. Kathryn Krawczyk
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who was removed from his committee assignments last month after comments about white supremacy, says he will seek re-election in 2020 and will do so with a clean conscience.
King in an interview with Iowa Public Television on Thursday said that he has "nothing to apologize for," immediately going after the news media and citing President Trump as saying The New York Times is "a dishonest entity." King in January had been quoted in a Times interview as saying, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?" The congressman also faced criticism in October after meeting with a group with Nazi ties and endorsing a white nationalist candidate for Toronto mayor, reports The Washington Post.
But King on Thursday blamed the outrage he has faced in recent months on "formerly credible" news organizations, which create a "phenomenon that America is not ready for, and that's this cyberbullying that unleashes." He insisted that there is "no story whatsoever" and that these reports from the Times and the Post were false.
In particular, King claimed he had been misquoted by the Times and that his question of "how did that language become offensive?" was only referring to the term "Western civilization," not the terms white nationalist and white supremacist. The Times interview, however, was far from the first time King came under fire for using white supremacist language. He had also said in 2017, "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies," later defending this comment by saying "it's not about race." Additionally, he said of the term "white nationalist" in 2018, "It is a derogatory term today. I wouldn't have thought so maybe a year or two or three ago." Brendan Morrow