– McDonald's Mighty Wings simply didn't fly with customers, and now the chain appears to just want to break even on them. Reports in December predicted that a promotion would be coming, and it's here: Instead of selling the wings at a buck each, McDonald's is now offering them at a rate of five for $3, or 60 cents per wing, Businessweek reports. That price will result in either breaking even or a small loss, says an analyst. But "they’ve paid for those wings. If they don’t sell (them), they would have to eat the entire loss." A McDonald's rep indicates to USA Today that Atlanta and Chicago might bear some of the blame for the flop: "While pricing during the national advertised launch was consistent with the test markets (Atlanta and Chicago), those markets were heavy wing markets which did not reflect some of our broader customers feelings towards the price and spice of the wings." Now, the discount will continue "until supply runs out"—and there's a big supply—says the rep, who notes that while the price has changed, the level of spice has not, though there's now "more awareness" of it.

Expand this summary.

McDonald's Mighty Wings (Photo: Paco Marquez McDonalds) Story Highlights Mighty Wings now sold in packs of 5 for $3

 That's about 60 cents per wing vs. the original $1 per wing

 National advertising began this week

 The Mighty Wings price has been seriously clipped.

 The bone-in chicken wings brought McDonald's some angst -- if not embarrassment -- last year when the wings sold poorly at about $1 a wing. This week, McDonald's brought them back to stores -- and began to nationally advertise them again -- at 40% price reduction. Now, a pack of five fetches $3 -- or about 60-cents per wing.

 McDonald's now concedes that the early regional testing it did on Mighty Wings last year did not reflect what consumers nationally might be willing to pay. Or, for that matter, just how much spice they want on their wings.

 "While pricing during the national advertised launch was consistent with the test markets (Atlanta and Chicago), those markets were heavy wing markets which did not reflect some of our broader customers feelings towards the price and spice of the wings," says Lisa McComb, a McDonald's spokeswoman.

 While the amount of spice has not been changed, "there is more awareness that they have a spicy kick to them," says McComb.

 For McDonald's, Mighty Wings has been a rather high-profile new product disappointment. While it's not uncommon for some new products to perform well regionally but poorly on a national scale, McDonald's CEO Don Thompson had high hopes for Mighty Wings.

 The problem, however, wasn't the product, but the price. "The product is good, but the price was too high," says Scott Hume, founder of the BurgerBusiness.com blog. "The lesson that McDonald's and other quick-service brands keep learning and relearning is that much of the (fast food) audience is unemployed, underemployed or otherwise very cautious with spending."

 Although the national re-rollout began this week, "thousands" of McDonald's restaurants have continued to sell Mighty Wings since they were introduced in Sept. 2013, says McComb.

 But it's too early to write an obituary for Might Wings, advises Hume. "If Mighty Wings score at 5 for $3 then they'll be back," he says. "But if the price break doesn't make them sell, then McDonald's is unlikely to give wings another try."

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ftZQ89 ||||| Sales & Marketing

 There’s a chicken wing clearance sale going on at McDonald’s (MCD). This week the chain began promoting its Mighty Wings at a new price of $3 for five wings, or about 60¢ each, compared with the original price of $1 per wing. That’s a 40 percent discount. At this price, McDonald’s will either break even or take a slight loss on the product, according to Nick Setyan, vice president in charge of equity research at Wedbush Securities.

 Mighty Wings will be sold at the discounted price “until supply runs out,” spokeswoman Lisa McComb wrote in an e-mail.

 “They’ve paid for those wings. If they don’t sell it, they would have to eat the entire loss,” Setyan said in an e-mail. “It’s really the only sensible option at this point.” McDonald’s declined to comment on the profitability of the wings. Even so, Setyan estimates that the new price reduces operating margins on wings by about 10 percentage points.

 Disappointing sales left the Golden Arches with roughly 10 million pounds of frozen wings—about 20 percent of what the chain purchased—at the end of 2013 after Mighty Wings launched nationally in September.

 “The original price point wasn’t as competitive as it could have been,” according to McComb. Although some consumers found the wings too spicy, the recipe has not changed; there’s “just more awareness that they have a little kick to them.” |||||


News article:

FILE - In this June 22, 2017, file photo, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listens during the "American Leadership in Emerging Technology" event with President Donald Trump in the East Room of... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and the Russia investigations (all times local):

 1:25 p.m.

 White House senior adviser and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner says he did not collude with Russia.

 Kushner spoke to reporters at the White House Monday after meeting with Senate investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. Kushner told reporters he wanted to be "very clear." He said he "did not collude with Russia nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so."

 Kushner says he "had no improper contacts" with Russia and says his actions were entirely "proper."

 Kushner left his private meeting with Senate investigators, nearly three hours after it began. He delivered a brief statement upon his return to the White House but did not answer reporters' questions.

 __

 12:30 p.m.

 President Donald Trump's son-in-law has concluded his meeting with Senate investigators probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

 Jared Kushner left the private meeting around 12:25 p.m., nearly three hours after it began. A man tried to hand him a Russian flag and police stopped him.

 Kushner is to make a public statement from the White House Monday afternoon.

 In a written statement released before the committee meeting, Kushner said he never colluded with Russians looking to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton and does not know of anyone who did.

 He disclosed four interactions with Russians during the campaign and transition, saying he had nothing to hide. Those were with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., a Russian banker and a Russian lawyer said to have damaging information about Clinton.

 Kushner was to meet Tuesday with the House intelligence committee.

 __

 11:10 a.m.

 House Speaker Paul Ryan says special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, isn't a biased partisan.

 Ryan's comments in a radio interview in Milwaukee come as President Donald Trump repeatedly has dismissed Mueller's investigation as a political witch hunt.

 On the "Jay Weber Show," Ryan was asked why more Republicans aren't defending Trump in light of the Mueller investigation.

 Ryan says the facts uncovered through the Mueller and congressional investigations will "vindicate themselves." And he says there's no question that Mueller is a Republican, noting that he was first appointed FBI director under Republican President George W. Bush in 2001.

 Ryan says, "I don't think many people are saying Bob Mueller is a biased partisan. He's anything but."

 ___

 9:45 a.m.

 President Donald Trump's son-in-law has arrived for questioning by Senate investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign.

 Jared Kushner is speaking in a closed session Monday to staff on the Senate intelligence committee. Earlier, he released an 11-page statement detailing four contacts with Russians during Trump's campaign and transition.

 Kushner in those prepared remarks says he "did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government."

 Kushner is to meet with lawmakers on the House intelligence committee Tuesday.

 __

 9:20 a.m.

 President Donald Trump is calling the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel "sleazy" for conducting what he says is a "biased" Russia investigation.

 The president tweeted Monday that "Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into 'Russia,' spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!"

 Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a "witch hunt" spearheaded by Democrats because of the Republican victory in 2016.

 California Rep. Schiff has been an outspoken advocate of hearing testimony from Trump associates on their contacts with Russian officials during last year's election.

 ___

 9 a.m.

 President Donald Trump is questioning why those investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion by members of his campaign aren't digging into Hillary Clinton's "crimes & Russia relations."

 In doing so, the president took his latest swipe at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, including him in the list of people who he says should be investigating Clinton's potential Russia links.

 Trump tweeted Monday, "So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?"

 Sessions recused himself from the investigation earlier this year after it was revealed that he had met with a top Russian diplomat last year.

 Trump condemned Sessions' recusal in a New York Times interview last week, saying he never should have taken the job as attorney general.

 __

 7:20 a.m.

 President Donald Trump's son-in-law says he received a "random email" during the presidential campaign from someone claiming to have Trump's tax returns and demanding ransom to keep the information secret.

 Jared Kushner says he interpreted the email as a hoax. Kushner says the email came from a person going by the name "Guccifer400." The name is an apparent reference to Guccifer 2.0, an anonymous hacker who has claimed responsibility for breaking into the Democratic National Committee's computer systems.

 Kushner says the emailer demanded payment in Bitcoin, an online currency. Kushner says he showed the email to a Secret Service agent, who told him to ignore it. Kushner disclosed the details of the email ahead of a closed-door interview Monday with a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

 __

 6:33 a.m.

 The son-in-law of President Donald Trump is blaming his assistant for filing a version of his security clearance questionnaire that left off any contacts with foreign governments.

 Jared Kushner says the assistant accidentally filed the questionnaire while it was still being prepared. He says the initial form left off all foreign contacts, not just ones with Russians. Kushner says he eventually disclosed more than 100 contacts with people from more than 20 countries. Kushner says that list includes the King of Jordan, the prime minister of Israel and a high-ranking Mexican government official.

 Kushner is disclosing the information about his foreign contacts just hours before he speaks behind closed doors with a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion with Trump associates.

 ___

 6:06 a.m.

 The son-in-law of President Donald Trump says a June 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

 That's according to a statement Jared Kushner is providing to congressional committees this week.

 Emails released this month show Donald Trump Jr. accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

 Kushner says in his statement that Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting. He says he arrived late and heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions. He says he texted his assistant to call him out of the meeting.

 ___

 6:00 a.m.

 President Donald Trump's son-in-law says that he only had four contacts with Russians during the campaign and presidential transition and that none of them were improper.

 Jared Kusher also says he never colluded with any foreign government during the presidential campaign. He also is denying that Russians finance any of his business in the private sector.

 Kushner is disclosing the information in an 11-page statement provided to The Associated Press. The release of the statement comes just hours before he is to be interviewed by a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion by Trump associates.

 The interview with the Senate intelligence committee is behind closed doors.

 ___

 3:20 a.m.

 Congressional investigators probing Russia's meddling in the U.S. election will have their first opportunity this week to hear from someone in President Donald Trump's innermost circle: son-in-law Jared Kushner.

 Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the president and is married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, will talk to staff on the Senate Intelligence Committee Monday behind closed doors. On Tuesday, he'll talk privately to members of the House Intelligence Committee.

 Both panels are investigating Russian interference and possible connections to Trump's campaign. Kushner has attracted attention for a December meeting with a leading Russian diplomat. He oversaw digital strategy for the campaign, and some lawmakers have said they want more answers about whether Russian social media "trolls" were connected to Trump's election efforts. ||||| Jared Kushner really wants everyone to believe that he did nothing wrong.

 Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide released a public statement about the Russia scandal on Monday morning, a preview of what he’s going to say in closed-door congressional testimony this week.

 “I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent,�? Kushner writes. “Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.�?

 But a close read of the letter suggests that it does not, in fact, put these matters to rest. By Kushner’s own account, he met with Russian nationals four times during the presidential campaign and transition. His descriptions of these meetings are incomplete, full of unconfirmed details, and at times directly contradictory of other sources’ accounts of the same events.

 The statement is carefully constructed; the whole thing reads like it was put together by a very talented legal team. But shady behavior is still shady no matter how good the lawyers — and even Kushner’s very precise defense of his actions raises big new questions for the Trump-Russia scandal. What follows are three of the biggest issues it brings up.

 Someone has massively misled us on the Trump-Russia backchannel

 On December 1, 2016, Kushner met with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Trump’s now-disgraced National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was also present at the meeting.

 At this meeting, the Washington Post reported back in May, Kushner had asked Kislyak if it would be possible to set up a secure communications line between the Trump camp and Russia inside the Russian Embassy in Washington. The Post reported that this was “an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to US officials briefed on intelligence reports.�?

 In his statement on Monday, Kushner confirms that this meeting took place. He also confirms that he asked Kislyak about communicating through a secure line at the embassy. But he says it was a one-time proposal for receiving information about the Syrian conflict during the transition and denies that there was any effort to hide communications between the Trump camp and Russia from US snooping:

 I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, and I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn. The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a "secret back channel." I did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period. We did not discuss sanctions.

 To be clear, experts believe even this limited proposal was a bad idea. Anyone familiar with spying knows that sending a US citizen into a secure Russian communications facility would be rejected by both US and Russian intelligence as too risky. Kushner’s defense, in essence, is ignorance: He briefly proposed a really bad idea, it was shot down by Kislyak, and that was the end of it.

 But this is a very different account of the meeting than what appeared in the Post. A number of US intelligence officials, according to the Post, seemed to believe the effort was a far more ambitious attempt to hide the Trump team’s communications from the US’s own spies. This would be incredibly nefarious: It would suggest that there was some information Kushner wanted to share with the Russians (or vice versa) but did not want anyone in the US government, let alone the American public, to know about.

 There are only three possible options: The Post’s report is wrong, American spies misread the meeting, or Kushner is lying.

 This isn’t an unresolvable conflict. According to the Post, US intelligence officials based their assessment on an intercept of a phone call between Kislyak and his superiors at the Kremlin, wherein he recounted his version of the meeting.

 “Kislyak reportedly was taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an American to use Russian communications gear at its embassy or consulate,�? the Post’s Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, and Greg Miller write. “Officials said that it’s unclear what Kislyak would have had to gain by falsely characterizing his contacts with Kushner to Moscow.�?

 So far from clearing things up, Kushner’s letter has now raised a series of new questions: Why does his account of the meeting differ so sharply from what the intercept of Kislyak’s call seemed to suggest? What did Kislyak actually tell the Russian government about the call? And how does Flynn, who has offered to testify in exchange for immunity for prosecution, recall the meeting?

 Kushner met with a shady Russian banker/former intelligence officer at the Russian government’s urging

 After the December 1 meeting, Kislyak and Kushner stayed in touch. According to Kushner, he turned down multiple requests to meet with Kislyak again, once even arranging a meeting between Kislyak and his assistant to avoid having to sit down again (which seems odd, given Kislyak’s stature).

 The ambassador repeatedly insisted that Kushner meet with a man named Sergey Gorkov, the head of the state-connected Russian bank Vnesheconombank (VEB). Gorkov is known to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and graduated from the Russian FSB’s spy academy; his bank had been directly targeted by sanctions imposed by the Obama administration after the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet Kushner decided to have a sit-down with Gorkov at the Russian government’s urging.

 “I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President [Putin], and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days,�? Kushner says.

 This meeting has been public knowledge since March. But the details in Kushner’s statement raise new questions about the nature of the meeting itself.

 In a statement, Gorkov said the meeting was part of a broader strategy of sitting down with “business circles of the US, including with the head of Kushner Companies, Jared Kushner.�? This would suggest that the meeting was about potentially doing business together — which would raise serious conflict of interest questions given Kushner’s role doing policy work for his father-in-law. If they chatted about potentially providing loans to VEB, as my colleague Alexia Fernández Campbell explains, Kushner could face 20 years in prison under US sanctions law.

 Kushner flatly denies all of this.

 “At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind. At the end of the short meeting, we thanked each other and I went on to other meetings,�? he writes in his statement.

 Instead, he says, Gorkov gave him some gifts, “told me a little about his bank and made some statements about the Russian economy,�? and “said that he was friendly with President Putin, expressed disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future.�?

 That sounds extremely boring. So why would Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, badger Kushner — for days, Kushner’s account suggests — to take such a boring meeting? And why does the Putin-linked banker in question have an account of the meeting’s agenda that’s different from Kushner’s? And what “statements about the Russian economy�? did Gorkov allegedly make, exactly? Did they suggest investment opportunities for the Kushner Companies, perhaps loans?

 Again, Kushner’s statement doesn’t really resolve anything — instead, it raises a host of significant new questions about his links to the Kremlin.

 This letter reveals a ton of specific facts about collusion that set up Kushner for trouble

 These two meetings, with Kislyak and Gorkov, took place during the transition. But there’s another key meeting that Kushner took, this time during the campaign: Donald Trump Jr.’s now-infamous June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer to try to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.

 Kushner’s defense of attending the meeting is that he had no clue what it was really about.

 He claims not to have read to the bottom of the email chain in which it was written that the meeting was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.�? He claims to have been “a little late�? to the meeting, and that when he arrived they were talking about “the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children,�? implying that he missed the part where they discussed Russian dirt on Clinton (which according to Trump Jr. happened at the beginning).

 He then claims to have been super bored for the whole thing: “I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote ‘Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.’�?

 This, yet again, is an odd account of the meeting in question. It would lead us to believe that Kushner never asked Donald Trump Jr. why he brought Kushner into this waste of time meeting during a vital period in the campaign (right after they secured the nomination, shortly before the Republican National Convention).

 But perhaps more fundamentally, Kushner’s account provides a lot of details that can be checked by reporters, FBI agents, and congressional investigators. For example, was Kushner actually late enough to the meeting to miss every mention of potential assistance with the campaign? There were seven other people there, and you can bet the FBI will be talking to all of them to confirm Kushner’s story.

 There’s a lot for investigators to go on here

 Indeed, the entire section of the letter focusing on the campaign is like this: Kushner sets up very specific factual assertions, many of which can be easily checked by reporters and federal investigators.

 For example, Kushner specifically contests a report, from Reuters, that he had two calls with Kislyak during the campaign (specifically, between April and November 2016).

 “I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador,�? he writes. “We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place.�?

 This is a very specific factual assertion: There were no calls between Kushner and any number that could be traced back to Kislyak or one of his associates during a seven-month time frame. The FBI can review the same phone records and see who’s telling the truth.

 His first conversation with Kislyak, Kushner claims, took place at a Trump foreign policy speech delivered in April 2016 in Washington. Reportedly, Dimitri Simes — the CEO of the Center for the National Interest, which convened the speech — introduced the two men.

 “He [Simes] introduced me to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak,�? Kushner writes. “With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries. ... Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.�?

 Again, these are all specific assertions that investigators can look into, to see if they are outright false or at very least omit important context. And there’s every indication that Congress and the FBI will do just that.

 “His description of his financial relationships with individuals and businesses tied to Russia appears incomplete, at best,�? Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said in a statement emailed to press after the letter’s release. “There should be no presumption that he is telling the whole truth in this statement.�?

 Kushner’s legal team may have hoped that this letter would help put suspicion surrounding Kushner’s links to Russia to bed. It seems more likely that the opposite will be true: that the unanswered questions in this statement will lead to even closer scrutiny of one of the president’s top advisers.

 Watch: Why Donald Trump Jr.'s emails change everything ||||| "I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner says in the statement. "I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest."

 Kushner disputes a Reuters report claiming he had two phone calls between April and November 2016 with the Russian ambassador at the time, Sergey Kislyak, explaining that he has no recollection of those calls and a "comprehensive review of my land line and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls."

 Kushner also seeks to distance himself from the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that has become a part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, saying he had no prior knowledge of the topic and did not read Trump Jr.'s full email asking him to join the session.

 "That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time," Kushner said in the statement. "As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office."

 The bulk of the email revealed that Trump Jr. believed the Russian government would provide him with damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the meeting.

 The meeting's participants said the meeting instead focused on Russian adoptions, and Kushner says in his statement that he emailed his assistant about 10 minutes after he walked into the room.

 "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting," Kushner wrote to his assistant in an email provided to the committees alongside the statement. He quoted the emails in his statement but did not disclose them to the media.

 The previously undisclosed detail is just one of several that Kushner reveals in the letter in an effort to clear himself of any suspicions stemming from the congressional and federal investigations into contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russia.

 The June 2016 meeting set up by Trump Jr., which was only publicly revealed for the first time this month, has become a target of scrutiny in those investigations after emails revealed that Trump Jr. believed he would obtain damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.

 President Donald Trump has repeatedly decried the investigations as a "witch hunt," but the June 2016 meeting and surrounding emails offered the most concrete evidence that Trump campaign officials were open to collaborating with the Russian government.

 Kushner also addresses the controversy over his SF-86 form -- the questionnaire needed to obtain a security clearance -- explaining that it was prematurely submitted in error by his assistant, who believed the forms were complete.

 "People at my New York office were helping me find the information, organize it, review it and put it into the electronic form. They sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed," Kushner writes, noting that the form was a "rough draft" at the time. "Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017."

 Kushner says he and his team realized that evening the form was submitted prematurely and the next day, they provided an update to the transition noting that Kushner had "numerous contacts with foreign officials" and would soon provide a full accounting of those contacts.

 He would subsequently update the SF-86 form two more times. In the next update, he provided a list of more than 100 contacts with foreign officials, but left off the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

 JUST WATCHED Mueller to WH: Preserve Trump Jr. meeting docs Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Mueller to WH: Preserve Trump Jr. meeting docs 02:56

 Kushner said he later became aware of that update amid a review of his records, and his attorneys provided another update to his SF-86 form last month.

 Kushner also provided his first accounting of what he said were his only two meetings with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time, during the campaign and transition, and says that neither encounter included a discussion of US-imposed sanctions. Kislyak completed his service as ambassador and returned to Russia over the weekend.

 Kushner described his first encounter with Kislyak during the campaign as brief, with little more than "pleasantries exchanged."

 He then met with Kislyak during the transition, at which point the then-Russian ambassador offered to provide transition officials with Russian military information on the conflict in Syria.

 That meeting was the subject of reports claiming that Kushner and Kislyak had sought to establish a secret backchannel between the two countries, which Kushner denies.

 But Kushner does confirm that he sought to receive the Syria briefing from Russian generals at the Russian embassy in Washington because the transition office was not equipped with secure lines. But Kislyak said "that would not be possible," Kushner explains.

 Kushner also offers his first on-the-record account of his meeting with Sergey Gorkov, the head of the Russian state-owned VneshEconomBank, or VEB, whom Kushner says he met with at Kislyak's behest.

 Kushner disputes VEB's account of the meeting. He says he met with Gorkov in his capacity as a transition official because of Gorkov's close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. VEB, which has been under US sanctions since July 2014, has claimed the interaction was a business meeting set up due to Kushner's role as a prominent New York real estate developer.

 Now a senior adviser to the President, Kushner discloses that he received two gifts from Gorkov and said he asked his assistant to register them with the transition at the time: "One was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village."

 This story has been updated with additional details from Kushner's statement. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

 Jared Kushner told reporters Monday he had done nothing wrong, that no collusion with Russia had taken place, and that his father-in-law won in November because he ran a better campaign than Hillary Clinton — not because he got help from Moscow.

 "Let me be very clear. I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner, a senior presidential adviser, said at a podium in front of the White House after more than two hours of questions behind closed doors from staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

 Related: Jared Kushner’s Full Statement to Congress

 "Records and documents I’ve provided will show all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events in a very unique campaign," he said. "I had no improper contacts, I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information."

 He added, "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign and that is why he won. Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him."

 Earlier in the day, before Kushner was interviewed by the committee staff, he released an 11-page statement detailing four contacts with Russians during the election and transition and denying any collusion with Moscow.

 Among the meetings with Russian officials he addressed in his written statement was a June 2016 sit-down that included Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. In his statement, Kushner said that meeting was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

 Ahead of that meeting, Donald Trump Jr. had been promised potentially damaging information about Clinton, according to emails he released earlier this month — although the president's son has said the meeting did not produce any information and that Veselnitskaya wanted to discuss an adoption program of Russian children.

 Democrats have pounced on the meeting as evidence that Trump Jr. was willing to collude with a foreigner purporting to have information tied to the Russian government to help his father's presidential campaign and influence the results of the election.

 Kushner said in his initial Monday statement that he had not spoken to the lawyer since. "I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently," he said.

 In his statement, Kushner said his first meeting with a Russian official came in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Following a speech there by then-candidate Trump about foreign policy, the event’s host, Dimitri Simes, introduced Kushner "to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak."

 Kushner wrote of two additional meetings with Russian officials, both which occurred after Trump won.

 President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House advisor, Jared Kushner, arrives for a meeting with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on July 24 in Washington. Win McNamee / Getty Images

 A Dec. 1 meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower "lasted twenty- thirty minutes," where "Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President's National Security Advisor" was also present, Kushner said he "stated our desire for a fresh start in relations. Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President," he wrote.

 Kushner, in his statement, also wrote of a Dec. 13 meeting with Sergey Gorkov, who Kislyak had said "was a banker and someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together."

 "I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President, and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days," Kushner wrote.

 "As I did at the meeting with Ambassador Kislyak, I expressed the same sentiments I had with other foreign officials I met. There were no specific policies discussed. We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration," Kushner wrote.

 NBC News had reported in June that members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees proving Russian interference might be looking into whether Kushner had been looking for a customer in Moscow to buy the massively expensive 41-story tower at 666 Fifth Avenue from his family's real estate company.

 The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating Russia's alleged attempted interference in the 2016 presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the covert operation was intended to damage Clinton's campaign and evolved into an attempt to help Trump win.

 Kushner arrived at Capitol Hill for his interviews around 9:40 a.m., and did not respond to questions being shouted by reporters.

 He emerged more than two hours later, responding to more shouted questions from reporters that his interviews had gone "very well" and that he had answered "as many (questions) as they had." He later spoke to reporters in front of the White House at a podium with the White House seal on it.

 His interview took place in a special area used for classified briefings and meetings called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF. The SCIF is on the second floor of the Hart Senate Office Building, the same place where the Intelligence Committee has held recent interviews with James Clapper, Denis McDonough and Susan Rice.

 Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate panel, said Monday there was a "broad bipartisan expectation" that Kushner would be called before the committee again. ||||| STATEMENT OF JARED C. KUSHNER TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES

 July 24, 2017

 I am voluntarily providing this statement, submitting documents, and sitting for interviews in order to shed light on issues that have been raised about my role in the Trump for President Campaign and during the transition period.

 I am not a person who has sought the spotlight. First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception. Because there has been a great deal of conjecture, speculation, and inaccurate information about me, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight.

 My Role in the Trump for President Campaign

 Before joining the administration, I worked in the private sector, building and managing companies. My experience was in business, not politics, and it was not my initial intent to play a large role in my father-in-law's campaign when he decided to run for President. However, as the campaign progressed, I was called on to assist with various tasks and aspects of the campaign, and took on more and more responsibility.

 Over the course of the primaries and general election campaign, my role continued to evolve. I ultimately worked with the finance, scheduling, communications, speechwriting, polling, data and digital teams, as well as becoming a point of contact for foreign government officials.

 All of these were tasks that I had never performed on a campaign previously. When I was faced with a new challenge, I would reach out to contacts, ask advice, find the right person to manage the specific challenge, and work with that person to develop and execute a plan of action. I was lucky to work with some incredibly talented people along the way, all of whom made significant contributions toward the campaign's ultimate success. Our nimble culture allowed us to adjust to the ever-changing circumstances and make changes on the fly as the situation warranted. I share this information because these actions should be viewed through the lens of a fast-paced campaign with thousands of meetings and interactions, some of which were impactful and memorable and many of which were not.

 It is also important to note that a campaign's success starts with its message and its messenger. Donald Trump had the right vision for America and delivered his message perfectly. The results speak for themselves. Not only did President Trump defeat sixteen skilled and experienced primary opponents and win the presidency; he did so spending a fraction of what his opponent spent in the general election. He outworked his opponent and ran one of the best campaigns in history using both modern technology and traditional methods to bring his message to the American people.

 Campaign Contacts with Foreign Persons

 When it became apparent that my father-in-law was going to be the Republican nominee for President, as normally happens, a number of officials from foreign countries attempted to reach out to the campaign. My father-in-law asked me to be a point of contact with these foreign countries. These were not contacts that I initiated, but, over the course of the campaign, I had incoming contacts with people from approximately 15 countries. To put these requests in context, I must have received thousands of calls, letters and emails from people looking to talk or meet on a variety of issues and topics, including hundreds from outside the United States. While I could not be responsive to everyone, I tried to be respectful of any foreign government contacts with whom it would be important to maintain an ongoing, productive working relationship were the candidate to prevail. To that end, I called on a variety of people with deep experience, such as Dr. Henry Kissinger, for advice on policy for the candidate, which countries/representatives with which the campaign should engage, and what messaging would resonate. In addition, it was typical for me to receive 200 or more emails a day during the campaign. I did not have the time to read every one, especially long emails from unknown senders or email chains to which I was added at some later point in the exchange.

 With respect to my contacts with Russia or Russian representatives during the campaign, there were hardly any. The first that I can recall was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. in April 2016. This was when then candidate Trump was delivering a major foreign policy speech. Doing the event and speech had been my idea, and I oversaw its execution. I arrived at the hotel early to make sure all logistics were in order. After that, I stopped into the reception to thank the host of the event, Dimitri Simes, the publisher of the bi-monthly foreign policy magazine, The National Interest, who had done a great job putting everything together. Mr. Simes and his group had created the guest list and extended the invitations for the event. He introduced me to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump's speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America's foreign policy. The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.

 Reuters news service has reported that I had two calls with Ambassador Kislyak at some time between April and November of 2016. While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador. We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place. A comprehensive review of my land line and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls. I had no ongoing relationship with the Ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then. In fact, on November 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian Ambassador. When the campaign received an email purporting to be an official note of congratulations from President Putin, I was asked how we could verify it was real. To do so I thought the best way would be to ask the only contact I recalled meeting from the Russian government, which was the Ambassador I had met months earlier, so I sent an email asking Mr. Simes, "What is the name of the Russian ambassador?" Through my lawyer, I have asked Reuters to provide the dates on which the calls supposedly occurred or the phone number at which I supposedly reached, or was reached by, Ambassador Kislyak. The journalist refused to provide any corroborating evidence that they occurred.

 The only other Russian contact during the campaign is one I did not recall at all until I was reviewing documents and emails in response to congressional requests for information. In June 2016, my brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. asked if I was free to stop by a meeting on June 9 at 3:00 p.m. The campaign was headquartered in the same building as his office in Trump Tower, and it was common for each of us to swing by the other's meetings when requested. He eventually sent me his own email changing the time of the meeting to 4:00 p.m. That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time. As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office. Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as "Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner." No one else was mentioned.

 I arrived at the meeting a little late. When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting. Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting." I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since. I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently. I did not read or recall this email exchange before it was shown to me by my lawyers when reviewing documents for submission to the committees. No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted. Finally, after seeing the email, I disclosed this meeting prior to it being reported in the press on a supplement to my security clearance form, even if that was not required as meeting the definitions of the form.

 There was one more possible contact that I will note. On October 30, 2016, I received a random email from the screenname "Guccifer400." This email, which I interpreted as a hoax, was an extortion attempt and threatened to reveal candidate Trump's tax returns and demanded that we send him 52 bitcoins in exchange for not publishing that information. I brought the email to the attention of a U.S. Secret Service agent on the plane we were all travelling on and asked what he thought. He advised me to ignore it and not to reply -- which is what I did. The sender never contacted me again.

 To the best of my recollection, these were the full extent of contacts I had during the campaign with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government.

 Transition Contacts with Foreign Persons

 The transition period after the election was even more active than the campaign. Starting on election night, we began to receive an incredible volume of messages and invitations from well-wishers in the United States and abroad. Dozens of messages came from foreign officials seeking to set up foreign leader calls and create lines of communication and relationships with what would be the new administration. During this period, I recall having over fifty contacts with people from over fifteen countries. Two of those meetings were with Russians, neither of which I solicited.

 On November 16, 2016, my assistant received a request for a meeting from the Russian Ambassador. As I mentioned before, previous to receiving this request, I could not even recall the Russian Ambassador's name, and had to ask for the name of the individual I had seen at the Mayflower Hotel almost seven months earlier. In addition, far from being urgent, that meeting was not set up for two weeks -- on December 1. The meeting occurred in Trump Tower, where we had our transition office, and lasted twenty- thirty minutes. Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President's National Security Advisor, also attended. During the meeting, after pleasantries were exchanged, as I had done in many of the meetings I had and would have with foreign officials, I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations. Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President. The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day.

 The Ambassador expressed similar sentiments about relations, and then said he especially wanted to address U.S. policy in Syria, and that he wanted to convey information from what he called his "generals." He said he wanted to provide information that would help inform the new administration. He said the generals could not easily come to the U.S. to convey this information and he asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation. General Flynn or I explained that there were no such lines. I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, and I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn. The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a "secret back channel." I did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period. We did not discuss sanctions.

 Approximately a week later, on December 6, the Embassy asked if I could meet with the Ambassador on December 7. I declined. They then asked if I could meet on December 6; I declined again. They then asked when the earliest was that I could meet. I declined these requests because I was working on many other responsibilities for the transition. He asked if he could meet my assistant instead and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed. He did so on December 12. My assistant reported that the Ambassador had requested that I meet with a person named Sergey Gorkov who he said was a banker and someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together. I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President, and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days. I made room on my schedule for the meeting that occurred the next day, on December 13.

 The meeting with Mr. Gorkov lasted twenty to twenty-five minutes. He introduced himself and gave me two gifts -- one was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village. (Any notion that I tried to conceal this meeting or that I took it thinking it was in my capacity as a businessman is false. In fact, I gave my assistant these gifts to formally register them with the transition office). After that, he told me a little about his bank and made some statements about the Russian economy. He said that he was friendly with President Putin, expressed disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future. As I did at the meeting with Ambassador Kislyak, I expressed the same sentiments I had with other foreign officials I met. There were no specific policies discussed. We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration. At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind. At the end of the short meeting, we thanked each other and I went on to other meetings. I did not know or have any contact with Mr. Gorkov before that meeting, and I have had no reason to connect with him since.

 To the best of my recollection, these were the only two contacts I had during the transition with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government.

 Disclosure of Contacts on My Security Clearance Form

 There has been a good deal of misinformation reported about my SF-86 form. As my attorneys and I have previously explained, my SF-86 application was prematurely submitted due to a miscommunication and initially did not list any contacts (not just with Russians) with foreign government officials. Here are some facts about that form and the efforts I have made to supplement it.

 In the week before the Inauguration, amid the scramble of finalizing the unwinding of my involvement from my company, moving my family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from my outside positions and complete my security and financial disclosure forms, people at my New York office were helping me find the information, organize it, review it and put it into the electronic form. They sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed. At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known). Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017.

 That evening, when we realized the form had been submitted prematurely, we informed the transition team that we needed to make changes and additions to the form. The very next day, January 19, 2017, we submitted supplemental information to the transition, which confirmed receipt and said they would immediately transmit it to the FBI. The supplement disclosed that I had "numerous contacts with foreign officials" and that we were going through my records to provide an accurate and complete list. I provided a list of those contacts in the normal course, before my background investigation interview and prior to any inquiries or media reports about my form.

 It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians. That is not the case. In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted. The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form. These included meetings with individuals such as Jordan's King Abdullah II, Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Luis Videgaray Caso and many more. All of these had been left off before.

 Over the last six months, I have made every effort to provide the FBI with whatever information is needed to investigate my background. In addition, my attorneys have explained that the security clearance process is one in which supplements are expected and invited. The form itself instructs that, during the interview, the information in the document can be "update[d], clarif[ied], and explain[ed]" as part of the security clearance process. A good example is the June 9 meeting. For reasons that should be clear from the explanation of that meeting I have provided, I did not remember the meeting and certainly did not remember it as one with anyone who had to be included on an SF-86. When documents reviewed for production in connection with committee requests reminded me that meeting had occurred, and because of the language in the email chain that I then read for the first time, I included that meeting on a supplement. I did so even though my attorneys were unable to conclude that the Russian lawyer was a representative of any foreign country and thus fell outside the scope of the form. This supplemental information was also provided voluntarily, well prior to any media inquiries, reporting or request for this information, and it was done soon after I was reminded of the meeting.

 ****

 As I have said from the very first media inquiry, I am happy to share information with the

 investigating bodies. I have shown today that I am willing to do so and will continue to cooperate as I have nothing to hide. As I indicated, I know there has been a great deal of speculation and conjecture about my contacts with any officials or people from Russia. I have disclosed these contacts and described them as fully as I can recall. The record and documents I am providing will show that I had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable. I am very grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight. I also have tried to provide context for my role in the campaign, and I am proud of the candidate that we supported, of the campaign that we ran, and the victory that we achieved.

 It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defense. I have tried to focus on the important work at hand and serve this President and this country to the best of my abilities. I hope that through my answers to questions, written statements and documents I have now been able to demonstrate the entirety of my limited contacts with Russian representatives during the campaign and transition. I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– With the first of his two days of congressional testimony in the books, Jared Kushner made a rare public statement Monday afternoon to reaffirm his main point: "I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," he said, per the AP. Kushner spoke outside the White House after meeting behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee. While he largely reiterated points made earlier in an 11-page statement to Congress, Kushner also suggested that the Russia investigation has political undertones. "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won," he said, per NBC News. "Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him." Kushner has said all of his actions related to four meetings with Russian nationals were aboveboard, per CNN. He added during his speech that he had "no improper contacts" and has "not relied on Russian funds for my businesses." Kushner is back on Capitol Hill Tuesday, when he again testifies behind closed doors, this time with the House Intelligence Committee. As for that 11-page statement, an analysis by Zack Beauchamp at Vox finds the carefully worded descriptions of the Russian meetings to be incomplete. "The whole thing reads like it was put together by a very talented legal team," he writes. Judge for yourself here.


Article:

Law enforcement investigating death of great white shark at Aptos beach

 APTOS, Calif. - UPDATE: 6/20/2018 3:00 p.m. Law enforcement officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife are investigating the death of a great white shark that washed ashore an Aptos beach on Sunday.

 The Department said necropsy results are in but they're not releasing that information at this time.

 Experts believe the shark was a juvenile, weighing about 500 pounds and eight feet in length.

 The shark was found with cuts and wounds around it's body.

 PREVIOUS STORY:

 UPDATE 06/18/18 5:40PM A Great White Shark washed-up on an Aptos beach, Sunday.

 The young, male, shark was found dead near the Seascape Beach Resort.

 Experts on scene tell KION it is around eight feet long and about 500 pounds.

 “It’s in the same generational category as the other two that stranded last year. These are all sub-adults and we suspect it’s from the same group of sharks that began moving in in 2015,” says Sean Van Sommeran with the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation.

 They are still trying to figure out how it got there and why it died. The shark has puncture wounds on the body, indicating a possible fight with another sea animal.

 But Van Sommeran says that's probably not why the shark died, “it could have swallowed some debris or junk. It could have a hook injury, you know try to steal somebody’s fish and swallow a hook and if it hooks in the wrong spot they’ll bleed out just like a salmon. Or it could be one of the pathogens we’ve identified through the study since 2007 with a number of different sharks.”

 The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is handling the necropsy. They tell KION they will preform it on Tuesday and could have results as early as Tuesday night, or later in the week.

 Responders say after an incident last year when a sharks dorsal fin was cut off they have to respond quickly when a shark washes to shore.

 "Also because the teeth, you know, the fin was taken off the one last year. You can get 1000 bucks

 for that thing if you find the right market. Cause it’s illegal and that makes the price go up,” says Van Sommeran.

 Experts say if you come across a marine animal stranded on shore, report it to lifeguards or authorities right away. Wether it is dead or alive it is still valuable.

 PREVIOUS STORY:

 A Great White Shark washed-up on an Aptos beach, Sunday.

 The young, male, shark was found dead near the Seascape Beach Resort.

 Experts on scene tell KION it is around eight feet long and about 500 pounds. They are still trying to figure out how it got there and why it died. Their theories point to puncture wounds on the body, indicating a possible fight with another sea animal.

 UC Santa Cruz is handling the necropsy.

 KION's Ashley Keehn has the details at 5 and 6 p.m.

  ||||| CLICK HERE if you are having a problem viewing the photos or video on a mobile device

 APTOS — Concerned the ocean would reclaim the very dead and very heavy juvenile great white shark before it could be carted off to a research lab, one marine biologist laid down next to the fearsome fish while another snapped a picture to document its size.

 The photo, taken at Beer Can Beach in Aptos on Sunday, was posted on the Facebook page of Salinas-based TV station KSBW, where it received a number of negative comments.

 Get breaking news with our free mobile app. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store.

 “This was once a living being and it’s just OK to lay next to it smiling?” one person wrote. “This is appalling … justice needs to be had.”

 “This could not be more messed up,” wrote another.

 The marine biologist who captured the moment, Giancarlo Thomae, defended his colleague in a phone interview Monday. He knew how tall she was and had her lie next to the shark for scale.

 “We didn’t know if this animal would be lost to the tide,” Thomae said. “That was the reason why we did it.”

 Start your day with the news you need from the Bay Area and beyond.

 Sign up for our Morning Report weekday newsletter.

 But Thomae said he understood why some people found the picture deeply upsetting.

 “People are really opinionated especially with such a majestic creature washing up dead,” he said. “As a marine biologist and a fellow nature lover, I admire the fact that people are sad and concerned about the animals.”

 Eventually, help arrived to transport the shark to the UC Santa Cruz-affiliated Joseph M. Long Marine Laboratory, where a necropsy is scheduled to take place Tuesday.

 Thomae, who also works as a captain for Moss Landing-based Sanctuary Cruises Whale Watching, has been studying great whites for the past four years. He said the shark, which measured 8 feet 9 inches long and weighed about 500 pounds, was “very fat and healthy.”

 “Whatever killed the shark killed it quickly,” he said.

 The great white had fresh puncture wounds and scars from feeding on sea lions and even had sea lion fur in its jaws, but Thomae said he doubted the predator was killed by its prey.

 Like our Facebook page for more conversation and news coverage from the Bay Area and beyond.

 Instead, the great white likely died from a bacterial infection, he said.

 “There have been strains of bacteria that affect brain functions of sharks, and many shark deaths have been blamed on Carnobacterium infections in previous years,” said Thomae in a news release, adding that the bacteria are nearly harmless to humans.

 The carcass also presents a unique opportunity for researchers, Thomae said. To his knowledge, the great white is only the second to wash up on area beaches in the past couple of years.

 “The only way you can research them is by either tagging them or by studying a dead one,” he said.

 Get top headlines in your inbox every afternoon. Get the free PM Report newsletter.

 Despite the negative reaction to the photo, Thomae said he wouldn’t think twice about taking another one if faced with a similar set of circumstances.

 “As a scientist and marine biologist,” he said, “I’m going to do whatever needs to be done to get the job done.” ||||| Aptos great white shark death investigation turns criminal

 Now Playing:

 An investigation into why a great white shark washed ashore dead on an Aptos beach has now turned into a criminal investigation.

 The young, 500-pound, 9-foot-long adult male shark was discovered Sunday morning on Seascape Beach. Researchers conducted a necropsy to determine the seemingly healthy shark's cause of death.

 During the necropsy, something was discovered that troubled researchers.

 "Upon receiving the lab's necropsy results, our law enforcement division is now taking up the investigation," said Peter Tira of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

 Tira would not say what researchers found that led them to get law enforcement involved.

 A marine biologist lies next to a dead shark washed up on a beach in Aptos, Calif., on June 17, 2018. A marine biologist lies next to a dead shark washed up on a beach in Aptos, Calif., on June 17, 2018. Photo: Giancarlo Thomae

 Photo: Neil Hammerschlag, Associated Press

 Baker Beach

 1959: Treading water, Unprovoked fatal Baker Beach

 1959: Treading water, Unprovoked fatal Photo: Susan Ragan, AP

 Stinson Beach

 1998: Boogie boarding, Unprovoked non fatal 2002: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Stinson Beach

 1998: Boogie boarding, Unprovoked non fatal 2002: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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 Ano Nuevo Island San Mateo County

 1979: Scuba diving, Unprovoked non fatal 1991: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 1992: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Ano Nuevo Island San Mateo County

 1979: Scuba diving, Unprovoked non fatal 1991: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 1992: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Frederic Larson, The Chronicle

 San Francisco Bay

 1851: Hard hat diving near an Alameda County cannery, unprovoked non fatal 1926: Swimming with dog near an Alameda County cannery, unprovoked non fatal 1956: Fishing off Van Ness municipal pier, unprovoked non fatal less San Francisco Bay

 1851: Hard hat diving near an Alameda County cannery, unprovoked non fatal 1926: Swimming with dog near an Alameda County cannery, unprovoked non fatal 1956: Fishing off Van Ness municipal ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

 Tomales Bay

 1960: Skindiving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1961: Free diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1969: Bird Rock, Tomales Point, Free diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1974: Free diving, Unprovoked non fatal 1984: Free diving, Unprovoked non fatal 1996: Bird Rock, Tomales Point, Free diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal less Tomales Bay

 1960: Skindiving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1961: Free diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1969: Bird Rock, Tomales Point, Free diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1974: Free ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

 The Farallon Islands

 1/14/1962: Spearfishing, Unprovoked non fatal 11/11/1962: Spearfishing, Unprovoked non fatal 1964: Spearfishing, Unprovoked non fatal 1974: Diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1975: Scuba diving, Unprovoked non fatal 1985: Unprovoked non fatal 1989: Diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal less The Farallon Islands

 1/14/1962: Spearfishing, Unprovoked non fatal 11/11/1962: Spearfishing, Unprovoked non fatal 1964: Spearfishing, Unprovoked non fatal 1974: Diving for abalone, Unprovoked non ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

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 San Gregorio Beach

 1974: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal San Gregorio Beach

 1974: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Dana Edwards, Special To The Chronicle

 Salmon Creek Beach Sonoma County

 10/3/1996: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 11/29/1996: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2002: Body boarding, Unprovoked non fatal 2004: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2005: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal less Salmon Creek Beach Sonoma County

 10/3/1996: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 11/29/1996: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2002: Body boarding, Unprovoked non fatal 2004: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2005: ... more Photo: Darryl Bush, SFC

 Portuguese Beach Sonoma County

 1961: Swimming, Unprovoked non fatal Portuguese Beach Sonoma County

 1961: Swimming, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

 Pleasure Point Santa Cruz

 2012: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Pleasure Point Santa Cruz

 2012: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Christine Delsol, Special To The Chronicle

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 Pigeon Point San Mateo County

 1969: Free diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1984: Skindiving, Unprovoked fatal 2010: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal 2011: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Pigeon Point San Mateo County

 1969: Free diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1984: Skindiving, Unprovoked fatal 2010: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal 2011: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Frederic Larson, The Chronicle

 Ocean Beach

 2005: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Ocean Beach

 2005: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Buy photo

 Mavericks Half Moon Bay

 2000: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2005: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2013 Pillar Point, Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Mavericks Half Moon Bay

 2000: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2005: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2013 Pillar Point, Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Buy photo

 Manresa State Beach

 2014: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Manresa State Beach

 2014: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Vince Maggiora, SFC

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 Linda Mar Beach San Mateo County

 1986: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 1993: Free diving, Unprovoked non fatal Linda Mar Beach San Mateo County

 1986: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 1993: Free diving, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Chris Hardy, SFC

 Limantour Beach Point Reyes National Seashore

 2004: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Limantour Beach Point Reyes National Seashore

 2004: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Brant Ward

 Goat Rock Beach Sonoma County

 1993: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Goat Rock Beach Sonoma County

 1993: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

 Dillon Beach Marin County

 1959: Swimming, Unprovoked non fatal 1996: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2006: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2008: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Dillon Beach Marin County

 1959: Swimming, Unprovoked non fatal 1996: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2006: Surfing, Unprovoked non fatal 2008: Kayaking, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Brant Ward, SFC

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 Bodega Head State Park Sonoma County

 1959: Diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1968: Free diving, Unprovoked non fatal

 Bodega Head State Park Sonoma County

 1959: Diving for abalone, Unprovoked non fatal 1968: Free diving, Unprovoked non fatal Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

 Bean Hollow State Beach San Mateo County

 2007: Fishing from kayak, Unprovoked non fatal

 (Pictured: the kayak that was bitten by a shark at Bean Hollow State Beach) Bean Hollow State Beach San Mateo County

 2007: Fishing from kayak, Unprovoked non fatal

 (Pictured: the kayak that was bitten by a shark at Bean Hollow State Beach) Photo: Courtesy Of Doug Mar, Handout

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 Photo: Giancarlo Thomae Image 1 of / 28 Caption Close Aptos great white shark death investigation turns criminal 1 / 28 Back to Gallery

 Suspicion that foul play may be involved in the great white shark's death sent shock waves through the research community, especially among those who study the protected species.

 "Great white's have numerous protections under state and federal laws. They are an extremely rare animal and play a crucial role at keeping the oceans, ecosystems and food webs balanced," said marine biologist Giancarlo Thomae.

 MORE: Researcher tries to end controversy over photo with shark

 If someone intentionally killed the shark, they could face stiff penalties and fines.

 When the 500-pound shark was discovered Sunday, it didn't appear to have any obvious signs of trauma other than small wounds from sea lion bites on its face.

 One researcher described it as "fat and robust." |||||
What is a summary?

– A great white shark with cuts and puncture wounds on its body washed ashore, dead, on a beach in Aptos, Calif., Sunday, and law enforcement officials with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife are investigating. The male shark, believed to be a juvenile, weighed about 500 pounds and was eight or nine feet long. A necropsy was completed on the seemingly healthy shark, which was described as "fat and robust," and something it uncovered led the investigation to turn criminal, but it's not clear what, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, noting that the idea of foul play being involved sent "shock waves" through the research community. "Great whites have numerous protections under state and federal laws. They are an extremely rare animal and play a crucial role at keeping the oceans, ecosystems and food webs balanced," one researcher says. Another researcher had earlier theorized to KION the shark may have been involved in a fight with another sea animal, swallowed debris, suffered an injury from a fishing hook, or that a pathogen could be to blame. A marine biologist had previously come under fire for posing for a photo with the dead shark, the San Jose Mercury News reports, though researchers said they were just attempting to document its size in case it washed away before its body could be recovered.


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– Ted Cruz found himself fending off some embarrassing questions from the press corps Tuesday regarding porn. He blamed a late-night Twitter "like" of a risque clip from his official feed on a "staffing issue," reports NBC San Francisco. "There are a number of people on the team that have access to the account and it appears that someone inadvertently hit the like button," he said. Then somebody asked directly if he was the one who hit the like button. "It was a staffing issue," he replied, adding, "We're dealing with it internally, but it was a mistake. It was not malicious conduct." Cruz also tried to make light of the gaffe and all the attention it was getting. "If I had known that this would trend so quickly ... perhaps we should have posted something like this during the Indiana primary," he said. The Washington Post, meanwhile, can't resist digging into Cruz's memoir, specifically the part where he wrote about watching hard-core porn with Supreme Court justices back when he was a 26-year-old law clerk. (They were looking into whether online porn should be subject to regulations.) In the book, he recalls Sandra Day O'Connor muttering, "Oh my."

Late Monday night, someone with access to Cruz's Twitter account appeared to have "liked" a tweet featuring pornography. (Published Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017)

 U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is getting a lot of unwanted attention on social media Tuesday morning after the Texas Republican's account "liked" a tweet featuring a pornographic video tweeted by Pornhub.

 It isn't clear who with access to Cruz's Twitter account tapped the like button on the tweet — Cruz didn't say when asked about it Tuesday — but it was un-done overnight, a representative of his noted.

 "The offensive tweet posted on @tedcruz account earlier has been removed by staff and reported to Twitter," Catherine Frazier, Cruz's communications director, tweeted shortly after 1 a.m. Tuesday.

 By then, Cruz was trending worldwide.

 Sen. Ted Cruz on Why His Twitter Account Left a ❤ on Porn

 Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill about the pornographic tweet that was briefly “liked” by his official Twitter account Monday night. (Published Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017)

 Cruz addressed the notoriety Tuesday, even joking about it before answering questions from reporters on Capitol Hill: "This is not how I envisioned waking up this morning."

 He said he could have used this kind of attention during the Indiana primary, when he was running for president.

 "There are a number of people on the team that have access to the account and it appears that someone inadvertently hit the like button. And when we discovered the post, which I was I guess an hour or two later, we pulled it down," Cruz said.

 Asked if he was the person who liked the tweet, Cruz said, "It was a staffing issue."

 He said the action wasn't deliberate and reiterated that when asked if the person responsible would be disciplined.

 "We're dealing with it internally, but it was a mistake. It was not malicious conduct," Cruz said.

 WATCH: Cruz Urges Voters to 'Vote Your Conscience'

 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) did not use his time at the RNC pulpic to endorse the GOP nominee, Donald Trump. Instead, Cruz urged people to “vote their conscience” up and down the ballot in an appeal to Republican voters who don’t support Trump. (Published Wednesday, July 20, 2016)

 The vice president of Pornhub released a statement on Tuesday, which read, in part:

 "Following Ted's scandalous late night activity on Twitter last night, thanks to Reality Kings, we are making the video Ted liked available to the masses."

 It's not the first time Cruz has discussed porn-watching publicly.

 In a 2015 book, he recalled watching "explicit, hard-core pornography" with Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whom he was clerking for at the time, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, The Washington Post reported. The two were being shown how easy it can be to find porn online. Cruz recalled O'Connor muttering, "Oh, my," as they viewed the video.

 Trump Says Iran Deal Not in US National Security Interests

 "We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran's nuclear breakout," President Donald Trump said on Friday, Oct. 13, 2017. (Published Friday, Oct. 13, 2017)

 Some on social media Tuesday pointed to the time when Cruz, while serving as solicitor general of Texas from 2003 to 2008, helmed the office as it defended a state ban on sex toys. The state eventually dropped the case.

 Copyright Associated Press / NBC Bay Area ||||| Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) reiterated Wednesday that he was not the person who highlighted an explicit Twitter post that made the senator the target of viral mockery online.

 “It was not me, and it’s not going to happen again,” Cruz said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.

 The Texas senator woke up Tuesday to find his name trending on Twitter — linked overnight to a certain explicit video, perhaps unfairly, perhaps irrevocably.

 The video clip itself is just over two minutes, details of its contents mostly unprintable. It features a sectional sofa, the pornographic actress Cory Chase, her fictitious nude stepdaughter, and a very energetic young man.

 Cruz, of course, is nowhere to be seen in the footage, which has been floating around the Internet for more than a year. But around midnight Eastern time, someone signed into the senator’s official Twitter account and clicked a little heart below the video — and thus did @tedcruz “like” porn.

 That someone was a staff member who had accidentally hit the wrong button, the Texas senator told CNN.

 “It was an honest mistake,” he explained.

 Cruz declined to identify the staff member or say if the person would be punished.

 On Tuesday morning, reporters waited outside the U.S. Capitol to question Cruz about his online alias’s handiwork, which he disavowed.

 “It was a staffing issue and it was inadvertent,” the senator said. “It was a mistake.”

 He said “a number of people” in his office had access to his account — contra Jimmy Kimmel and much of the critical Internet, who had assumed the senator himself clicked the heart, before someone else unclicked it after news of the “like” became an online joke.

 And twice that morning, reporters asked him if he himself was the liker.

 “No,” Cruz said quietly as he finally walked away.

 Cruz has watched porn on the Internet at least once, regardless of what happened on his Twitter account Monday night. He said so in his book “A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America.”

 It was back in the 1990s, and all very proper.

 Cruz at the time was a 26-year-old law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court, which was deciding whether Internet porn should be regulated. Some justices decided they first needed to see the stuff for themselves, and so the young future senator got an eyeful.

 “As we watched these graphic pictures fill our screens, wide-eyed, no one said a word,” Cruz wrote regarding some act involving a cantaloupe. “Except for Justice O’Connor, who lowered her head, squinted slightly, and muttered, ‘Oh, my.’ ”

 Which is exactly the same thing @KieraGorden said in the small hours of the morning more than 20 years later, when she and what seems like half the conscious online population discovered the clip of stepmother and stepdaughter and sweaty male friend beneath the senator’s banner portrait.

 “OH MY.”

 Well done @TedCruz using the power of "like" to illustrate the evils of porn #Weiner pic.twitter.com/SQDPh1cRTp — Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) September 12, 2017

 It was gone by about 2 a.m., and the senator’s spokeswoman Catherine Frazier wrote shortly afterward on her own account: “The offensive tweet posted on @tedcruz account earlier has been removed by staff and reported to Twitter.”

 That only raised more questions, including: Reported the tweet for what? A Twitter spokeswoman said the company never comments on individual accounts, though porn is allowed on the site, with some limitations.

 Even if the details of its travels into @tedcruz’s column of “likes” remain a mystery, the video’s provenance is fairly clear.

 It published in early 2016 on the porn site Reality Kings. “Cory has not been getting along with her step daughter Kacey lately,” reads the jacket blurb. They were getting along fine by the end of the film.

 Then, as porn tends to, clips of the movie made their way across the Internet.

 Early Monday morning, they entered the endless stream of tweets on the account known as @SexuallPosts.

 And about 24 hours later, the owner of that account was among the first to learn that a U.S. senator’s name was listed among his contents’ endorsers.

 “A friend texted me. It’s really pretty comical,” said Kyle, who didn’t want to give his last name, lest he have to explain to friends and family why he runs a few sexually explicit “marketing sites” among the dozens of Twitter accounts he owns.

 Kyle didn’t know more than anyone else about how and why @tedcruz liked that particular clip, which he said had been viewed more than 2 million times before Cruz was forced to publicly deny clicking on it.

 Denial or not, it’s been good for business.

 “Follow for the Same Porn @TedCruz Watches,” reads the new banner text on @SexuallPosts.

 And denial or not, the senator continues to be mocked across the Internet.

 “Everyone on twitter after 1 a.m. on a Monday knows exactly how this whole thing works,” one wag wrote after Cruz’s spokeswoman blamed staff for the like. “You’re foolin’ nobody.”

 Quipped another: “Liking a porn tweet is by far the least offensive, most normal thing Ted Cruz has ever done.”

 Sexual prurience hasn’t been a major theme of Cruz’s politics over the years. But he has intersected with porn a few times since his days of Supreme Court justices and cantaloupes.

 As the solicitor general for the state of Texas in 2004, Mother Jones reported, Cruz’s legal team tried to defend a law banning the sale of sex toys. His office drafted a 76-page brief that argued that the government had an interest in discouraging “autonomous sex,” Mother Jones wrote — and “there is no substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals for nonmedical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship.”

 Some recalled the case years later, when Cruz ran unsuccessfully for president in the Republican Primary in 2016. One was his freshman-year college roommate:

 Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a right to "stimulate their genitals." I was his college roommate. This would be a new belief of his. — Craig Mazin (@clmazin) April 13, 2016

 Another was a radio host, who prompted candidate Cruz to disavow the long-dead Texas dildo ban, and say: “What people do in their own private time with themselves is their own business and it’s none of government’s business.”

 Cruz made the same point Wednesday when CNN’s Bash asked about his past defense of the sex toys sales ban. The senator said that as then-solicitor general, his job was to “defend the laws passed by the Texas legislature.”

 “One of those laws was a law restricting the sale of sex toys. It’s a stupid law,” Cruz said.

 “Consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want in their bedrooms.”

 But election business was another matter. The same year, the Cruz campaign inadvertently cast a former soft-core porn actress in an ad attacking his rival, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

 The campaign killed the ad after discovering Amy Lindsay’s film history, and the actress protested that she worked mainstream roles along with the occasional erotic film.

 “You guys have all painted me as this big porn star, which I am not,” Lindsay told The Post at the time.

 Speaking of porn stars, the other big name from Tuesday’s tweet scandal was apparently one of the last to find out her star had crossed with Cruz.

 “So I hear I am trending with Ted Cruz,” Cory Chase wrote on Twitter in the late morning — long after the like had been revoked. “I am literally in the dark with hardly any access to the Internet world. #OMG #hurricaneirma.”

 And so the actress reminded us all that, porn storms aside, there are other things going on in the world.

 “This was not how I envisioned waking up this morning,” Cruz told his journalist interrogators at the Capitol, and then got in a crack of his own:

 “If I had known that this would trend so quickly, then perhaps we should have posted something like this during the Indiana primary.”

 This post has been updated.

 More reading:

 Why Ted Cruz watched pornography with Supreme Court justices

 Cruz kills campaign ad featuring former soft-core porn star

 Cruz calls Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling ‘fundamentally wrong’

 Ted Cruz definitely isn’t the Zodiac Killer |||||


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– Here's an unfortunate hypothetical: An earthquake strikes along the San Andreas fault, damaging three aqueducts that cross it some 32 times. Those aqueducts supply Los Angeles with all but 12% of its water—meaning a serious quake could ultimately leave 22 million people without water. (There would be about six month's worth of water stored on the LA side of the fault, but fixing busted aqueducts could take more than twice that long.) Officials have been aware of the potential for a single quake to hit all three aqueducts since 2008, but as the Los Angeles Times reports, they're now moving to do something about it for the first time. But any solution is pretty far off, in terms of time and money—in terms of the latter, the LAT uses the word "billions." None of the aqueducts has yet had to deal with the scenario; the last huge quake (magnitude 7.9) along the fault was in 1857. The Los Angeles aqueduct travels across the fault under a mountain, by way of the five-mile-long concrete Elizabeth Tunnel. Building a brand new tunnel is the priciest option; sending water over the mountains via an electric pumping mechanism is another idea. In the case of the Colorado River Aqueduct, a quake could raise a section of the pipe by 13 feet, and there aren't any pumps in place to ferry the water to LA. The mayor last week requested that proposals on the issue be submitted by July. Meanwhile, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that there may be another fault to fear: It points to new research that shows the San Jacinto fault could generate an earthquake as powerful as what the San Andreas fault is capable of.

The San Jacinto fault, a twitchy system that cuts through the East County, could produce larger earthquakes than scientists believed and may rival the San Andreas in power, according to research led by San Diego State University.

 "A magnitude 7.5 was generally accepted to be the largest earthquake that would like occur on the fault," said Tom Rockwell, an SDSU seismologist and the study's leader. "We have shown that the central and northern sections of the San Jacinto fault appear to fail together at times, and that would be in the magnitude 7.6 to 7.7 range.

 SDSU's Tom Rockwell is one of the world's foremost authorities on the San Jacinto fault. — Gary Robbins Share Photo 

 

 Reddit

 ✉ SDSU's Tom Rockwell is one of the world's foremost authorities on the San Jacinto fault. — Gary Robbins

 "If it ruptures onto the San Andreas fault, it could approach a magnitude 8.0, although we don't see evidence that that has happened in the past couple of thousand years. The take home here is that earthquakes on the San Jacinto fault potentially rival those on the San Andreas fault."

 The San Jacinto system is a 130-mile strike-slip fault that stretches from Imperial County through Anza, Ocotillo Wells and Borrego Springs into Riverside County and the San Bernardino Valley. Rockwell oversaw field studies that examined 21 seismic events that have occurred on the fault over the past 4,000 years. The study, recently published in the journal Pure and Applied Geophysics, was centered at Hog Lake, a spot near Anza.

 The San Jacinto is part of the larger San Andreas fault, the dividing line between the Pacific and North American plates. Scientists say that the two faults are responsible for roughly 80 percent of the slippage along the plates. Rockwell has played a major role in revealing the path of the San Jacinto and reconstructing its history. Records show that the fault produced a magnitude 6.5 quake in April 1968. A different strand of the fault, known as Superstition Hills, produced a 6.7 quake in November 1987 that was strongly felt in San Diego.

 Could San Andreas quake destroy the Hoover Dam

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