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– President Obama staked his presidency on the Afghanistan war last night, but pundits are widely split on how convincingly he made the case for escalation. This was no George W. Bush on an aircraft carrier, writes Matthew Cooper in the Atlantic. This was a community organizer turned war president," making a compelling, "almost Kissengerian" argument that just like with health care we need to spend now to save later, Cooper notes. "The worst major speech of his presidency" left Joan Walsh at Salon deeply pessimistic about the chances of success in Afghanistan. Obama failed to give any convincing reasons why we are escalating the fight in Afghanistan now, and didn't seem all that convinced himself, she writes. Obama's "strangely schizophrenic" emphasis on the possibly incompatible goals of victory and a speedy withdrawal is unlikely to go down well with either liberals or conservatives, and won't persuade the undecided, writes Ross Douthat at the New York Times. The president barely seemed to mention military strategy, he notes. Obama showed "a steely resolve" that had been lacking before, writes Richard Cohen at the Washingon Post. The president showed it is possible to urge a nation to war "using reason and logic, facts and figures—and not by waving the bloody shirt of patriotic fibs," Cohen notes.

« Key Democrats React To Obama | Main | Obama's Speech: Morning Review Thoughts »

 One of the tropes of modern politics is to establish oneself as a sensible centrist, a Third Way realist surrounded by naivety on both sides. And so Bill Clinton rejected, he said, the "brain dead politics" of the left and right and revived the term, Third Way, once used for non-aligned nations navigating between communism and capitalism. Obama's notion that one group favors the status quo while another wants a massive escalation in Afghanistan ,and a third wants a total withdrawal is a bit of a misnomer. I haven't heard anyone argue for continued troop levels. The argument has either been to add troops of various numbers or get out as soon as possible.

 That said, the president delivered a thoughtful and sober speech outlining how we got into Afghanistan and how, he thinks, we can get out. The logic wasn't flawless. John McCain has asked why we should set an arbitrary date of July 2011 to begin withdrawal of troops. It's a good question.

 But what was most compelling was the speech's tone. Its almost Kissingerian focus on national self-interest and realism. There weren't Wilsonian-Bushian flourishes about democracy. About the best he could say about Hamad Karzai was that his eleciton complied with the laws of Afghanistan. Women's rights? Bush laced his Iraq speeches with talk of Saddam's rape rooms. And the lifting of the burqa was one of the things that gave our mission to Afghanistan its nobility, even if it was born of retaliation. The open invitation to individual Taliban to defect was built on the idea, seen in Iraq, that you can buy off your enemies.

 The logic is the same as health care: we must spend more now to save later. It's a difficult notion to sell but it carries with it the hope of something better. This wasn't Bush on an aircraft carrier or Obama in Iowa railing about Iraq or Hillary and Iraq. This was a community organizer turned war president. He had always argued that Afghanistan was the good war, the one that should have been the center or our attention. For years the Left in America echoed that line until Iraq started to ease, and now many of the Afghanistan-only shouters have become advocates of a full retreat. That's their right. But if Obama lost Mother Jones and The Nation and Salon tonight, he's hoping he can get them and everyone else back with something resembling victory on the ground, however incomplete. Let's hope he's right.

  ||||| The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson has a very interesting piece this week on what he calls the “doom loop” of Western liberalism — in which low birth rates slow growth and create a pressing need for new immigrants, which in turn feeds xenophobia and leads to a decline in support for the welfare state, which leads to stratification, further discontent and an authoritarian turn, which presumably slows growth further, etc., etc., until liberalism goes kaput. It’s an argument that dovetails with my own fertility-related preoccupations, but not surprisingly I think it’s limited somewhat by Thompson’s own assumptions, which I’ll push back against gently here.

 First, Thompson takes it as a given that where fertility rates fall, immigration will necessarily be a net economic benefit — citing as evidence a 2016 National Academy of Sciences report that finds that immigrants to the United States and their children supply a net fiscal surplus over the long term. But my sense is that this is one of those “sometimes, not always” cases, where instead of some eternal verity — immigrants are good for the economy, always and everywhere — you have a great deal of variation depending on both the immigrant group and the conditions that await them. The NAS report itself is open to more immigration-skeptical interpretations than Thompson’s, it concedes that the pattern in recent immigrant assimilation is less encouraging the pattern of past cohorts … and it’s only looking at the United States, a country with a particularly favorable history of assimilating migrants and a relatively flexible labor market by global standards, among other distinctive factors.

 Europe is another matter: If there’s some reason to doubt the inevitable fiscal benefits of recent immigration to our shores, there are strong reasons to doubt its benefits in recent and ongoing European demographic experiments. The wave of migrants welcomed under Angela Merkel’s temporary open door policy, for instance, are not obviously a perfect match with the economic needs of Germany, and still-less-obviously an easy fit when it comes to the cultural assimilation upon which economic success depends.

 Of course time will tell, but for now it seems quite possible that in Europe the doom loop could be even uglier than Thompson allows, insofar as falling birth rates may panic elites into supporting mass immigration policies that promise to save their economies on paper … but in fact contribute in their own way to stagnation and stratification even before you take into account the politics of backlash. ||||| AP/Charles Dharapak

 I may be the only person in the United States who was trying to wait for President Obama's Afghanistan speech to make up my mind about his war plans. Of course, I mostly failed at that. Sure, all of Obama's options are bad, but still, few decisions seem as clear-cut as this one. Escalation is hard to see as an exit strategy. Obama has no clear path to "victory." We are likely to waste more lives than we save. I thought that was true before Obama's big speech, and I still think it now, afterward.

 At the moment he needed all of his persuasive powers, Obama gave the worst major speech of his presidency. I admit: I expected to be, even wanted to be, carried away a bit by Obama's trademark rhetorical magic. But I wasn't, not even a little. I found the speech rushed, sing-songy and perfunctory, delivered by rote. I despise the right-wing Obama-Teleprompter taunts, but even I wanted to say, Look at your audience, not the damn Teleprompter, Mr. President. Obama looked haggard, his eyes deeper set, and I believe this decision pained him. But I'm not sure even he believes it's the right decision. Neocon Danielle Pletka tweeted happily mid-speech: "So far, could be Bush speaking," and later, approvingly: "count me gobsmacked." That makes two of us. Rep. Maxine Waters spoke for me on "Countdown" tonight when she opened her remarks by telling Keith Olbermann: "I'm very saddened."

 On specifics: Obama lost me early by rehashing the history of our decision to invade Afghanistan, using mawkish and tired 9/11 imagery. We all know why we went in, and most Democrats supported it: to topple the Taliban government that harbored and supported al-Qaida as it plotted to kill almost 3,000 people in 2001. The question is why are we escalating now? I didn't hear a compelling reason. Obama sugarcoated the problems with the corrupt Karzai administration, and this year's disputed election, with a dismissive "although it was marred by fraud" it was "consistent with the constitution." Wow, that's inspiring. He told Karzai "the days of the blank check are over," but barely defined what that means. The most chilling story I read today was Juan Cole's, on the way Afghanistan's parliament is MIA, and the country's various governmental agencies, from ministries of public works to agriculture, have spent a fraction of the limited funds they have available. It made me hugely pessimistic that Obama's promise of a "civilian surge" had a prayer of making a difference. He needed to address the dysfunction within the Afghan government more specifically to convince me that he could find a way out.

 The president also fudged by calling the Afghanistan/Pakistan border "the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda" -- yet it seems to me it actually matters to our strategy which side of the admittedly blurry border is the bigger problem. Finally, maybe most disputably, Obama insisted "we are not facing a broad-based insurgency." It may not be country-wide, but we are certainly facing a broad-based Pashtun insurgency, one that only seems to grow the more troops we send. Obama invoked Iraq -- mistakenly, in my opinion, many times -- but to the extent that the "surge" there was a limited if likely temporary success, it was because it met up with the "Sunni awakening," a homegrown rebellion against al-Qaida and a weariness with war among formerly insurgent Sunnis. Obama needs a "Pashtun awakening," but so far the only one on the horizon features Pashtuns waking up to fight the U.S. Some liberals might be encouraged by his promise to begin withdrawing troops by the summer of 2011, but given the uncertainty of the strategy, who can trust that?

 So what's an increasingly disappointed Democrat and Obama supporter to do?

 First of all, it would help to admit that in this case, Obama is keeping a campaign promise, not breaking one. Most liberal Obama backers probably either disagreed with his stance on Afghanistan, or didn't take it seriously. Still, many sold him as the only progressive candidate in the race, in stark contrast with the hawkish Hillary Clinton. That was never true, and Obama proved it last year when he made Clinton his secretary of state and kept Robert Gates as defense secretary. The howls of betrayal by progressives I respect like Michael Moore, Arianna Huffington and Keith Olbermann are at least partly a measure of their own misunderstanding of Obama's candidacy. The American left needs to smarten up, and toughen up, if it wants to make deep, lasting change in this country.

 I'm deeply disappointed, saddened even, but I don't feel betrayed. Obama has governed like the centrist he told us and showed us he is, from his early flip-flops on FISA to his Goldman Sachs-friendly bailout policies to compromising on the job-creation parts of his economic stimulus to his tepid backing of a healthcare reform public option. It's going to take hard work by activists on all of those fronts to push him to better solutions.

 Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't stress, once again, that the president faced only bad choices in making this decision, thanks to the incompetence of the Bush-Cheney administration. Every day Dick Cheney becomes more despicable, most recently allowing his handmaidens John Harris and Jim Vandehei from Politico to transcribe his raspy, hateful utterances trashing the president on the eve of this crucial national security announcement. "Here's a guy, without much experience, who travels around the world apologizing," Cheney told his stenographers. He even accused Obama of giving "aid and comfort" to al-Qaida, which is, I believe, the definition of treason. Classy. The former vice-president is as deranged as the Birthers who used monkey imagery in a Washington Times ad to label Obama a "usurper." But he's Obama's best friend, because he reminds the left that as disappointing as this president is, on so many, many fronts, he's not Cheney. Small comfort tonight, but it's something. ||||| A novel way to argue for war

 George W. Bush was able to successfully prosecute the Iraq war because, against all reason and much longer than necessary, he believed in it. Barack Obama may be able to successfully prosecute the war in Afghanistan because he, too, believes in it. Faith alone cannot win a war, but without it defeat is certain.

 The question regarding Obama and Afghanistan was always whether he could be a wartime president. This is not the sort of presidency anything in his past prepared him for. It means finally owning a war that will claim the lives of many more Americans -- and, given the history of these things, risk his presidency. Korea defeated Truman, Vietnam doomed Johnson and Iraq put a dunce cap on Bush.

 Tonight Obama showed a steely resolve, a rhetorical determination that has been lacking up to now. Since taking office, he has poked at the Afghanistan problem, turned it over and over in his mind, called meeting after meetings -- three months and nine meetings of policy review. His body language was that of a man in a fix, a groom about to marry against his better judgment. Can’t I have some more time?

 Not tonight, though. He recited the arguments against a troop buildup and gave his responses. He told the American people why he felt the war was worth fighting -- why, in fact, it had to be fought. He put himself at the head of the column and told us where he was marching us and when he would take us home. It was all good stuff, well written and spoken with conviction.

 I don’t think it will work. I don’t think we can prevail in Afghanistan -- not with another 30,000 troops. It would take more than that -- and more time than we will give it. We are a nation that’s tired of war, and Afghanistan is so far way. We are slipping, though fatigue into a kind of isolationist stupor.

 I hope Obama succeeds. But if he does nothing else, he showed that it is possible to urge a nation to war by using reason and logic, facts and figures -- and not by waving the bloody shirt of patriotic fibs. George Bush had faith in his war but not in the American people. Obama seems to have faith in both. |||||


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Ringing Bells had in mid-February this year planned to deliver 25 lakh units of Freedom 251 before June 30. (source: IANS) Ringing Bells had in mid-February this year planned to deliver 25 lakh units of Freedom 251 before June 30. (source: IANS)

 The world’s cheapest smartphone at Rs 251 (less than $4) is here, finally. Its makers, the Noida-based startup Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, say they have made it possible despite allegations from various quarters that such a phone would not see the light of the day. Even an FIR was lodged against the company.

 According to Ringing Bells’ Founder and CEO Mohit Goel — sitting comfortably in his Sector 62 office here, the company has been able to keep its promise to consumers.

 “We are ready with nearly two lakh ‘Freedom 251’ handsets. We will start delivery from June 30,” Goel said, adding that once he is done with this first phase of delivery (of two lakh phones), he will open registration again for those who wish to buy the handset.

 The company had in mid-February this year planned to deliver 25 lakh handsets before June 30. However, it received over seven crore registrations before its payment gateway crashed within three days.

 “We learned from our mistakes and decided to go silent till we come out with the product. Now we have a 4-inch, dual-SIM phone ready for delivery. I feel vindicated,” he said in one breath.

 According to Goel, he is facing a loss of Rs 140-Rs 150 per unit, but hopes to make profit on volumes. “We will have a loss, but I am happy that the dream of connecting rural and poor Indians as part of the ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ initiatives has been fulfilled with ‘Freedom 251’,” Goel said.

 The 3G device has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory and supports external memory cards of up to 32GB. No device was, however, given to IANS. Only a photograph was allowed to be taken.

 The company has offered an 8MP primary camera with flash, a 3.2MP front camera for selfie and a 1,800 mAh battery. It runs on Android 5.1 (Lollipop). The phone is available in two colours — black and white — with centrally aligned rear camera and branding on the back panel. It has a speaker just alongside the branding.

 The device displays the Indian Tricolour when you switch it on. The company has incorporated all the basic Google apps in the handset. “Our devices are completely ‘Make in India’ and were manufactured at our Haridwar-based manufacturing unit. We plan to sell two lakh devices every month,” he said.

 The company is also planning to launch a 32-inch high-definition LED television — also called “Freedom” — in the first week of July.

 “These will be the cheapest television sets in India and will be available for less than Rs 10,000. Within two days, the delivery would be made and we will sell them online,” Goel said, adding that the company currently has one lakh such pieces in stock.

 In comparison, the cost of 32-inch HD LED TV sets normally begins from Rs 13,000.

 Ringing Bells launched “Freedom 251” in February in the presence of veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi. It distributed some “prototypes” of the product to the media which turned out to be handsets from another domestic handset maker Adcom.

 However, the company maintained that the device had been developed “with immense support” from the government.

 “Our humble beginning to provide a high-tech gadget that will benefit all in the hinterland and bridge the huge gap that clearly exists between the metros and semi-urban/rural areas is in keeping with the government’s initiatives,” Ringing Bells President Ashok Chadha had earlier said.

 Doubts were raised over Ringing Bells’ handset after some experts said no phone could be manufactured for less than Rs 2,000.

 For all the latest Technology News, download Indian Express App ||||| We’re still not convinced it’s not an elaborate scam, but the Freedom 251 – known globally as the “$4 smartphone” – will begin shipping to customers soon. At least that’s what the CEO of the company that sells the device is promising.

 When Ringing Bells, an obscure company based in Noida, announced it would sell a real smartphone for just Rs. 251, consumers and media were almost universally skeptical. And rightly so, seeing that the “prototype” Freedom 251 units that Ringing Bells showed to the press were actually Adcom Ikon 4 units disguised with corrector fluid…

 Despite skepticism – and a police investigation – Ringing Bells pushed on with its plan and eventually gathered a whopping 70 million registrations for the device. The company said it would deliver the first 2.5 million units by the end of June.

 CEO Mohit Goel told IANS that Ringing Bells will only be able to deliver a fraction of what it promised – about 200,000 units will ship out starting on June 30.

 Goel said Ringing Bells would open a second phase of registrations for the Freedom 251 after it ships the first 200,000 units. It isn’t clear why the company needs another registration round, given the massive number of registrations it received back in February.

 Despite not yet delivering on his initial promises, Goel considers that he already proved critics wrong:

 “We learned from our mistakes and decided to go silent till we come out with the product. Now we have a 4-inch, dual-SIM phone ready for delivery. I feel vindicated,” he said.

 Ringing Bell plans to sell around 200,000 Freedom 251 every month, despite taking a Rs. 140-150 loss per unit. The company said it would partner with third-party developers to preload apps on the device, and, rather counterintuitively, hopes that it would reduce its losses once it ramps up shipments.

 Mohit Goel’s dreams go beyond giving away smartphones. The Ringing Bell CEO said the company would introduce the cheapest television sets in India next month. But they won’t be as cheap as the Freedom 251 – Ringing Bells’ HD LCD TV set will reportedly cost Rs. 10,000.

 Has anyone here ordered the Freedom 251? Do you believe it’s actually real? |||||

– Smartphones going for about $4 are said to be shipping this week in India, and the manufacturing company's head says he's pleased that they're finally coming out, even though the company will take a loss on each phone, the Guardian reports. Ringing Bells originally said it would ship 2.5 million units of its Freedom 251 phone—a 3G Android with a 4-inch screen, 8GB of storage, an 8MP main camera, and a 3.2MP selfie camera—by the end of June, per Android Authority, but now CEO Mohit Goel tells the Indian Express that's been dropped down to 200,000 shipped out by June 30, with more soon to come. There had been much skepticism over whether the phones actually existed. "We learned from our mistakes and decided to go silent till we [came] out with the product," Goel says. "Now we have a … dual-SIM phone ready for delivery. I feel vindicated." Talk of the phone has raised disbelieving eyebrows since it was announced: In February, Ars Technica called the whole deal "awfully shady," noting that initial previews of the phone showed an unattractive, cheap-looking unit that appeared to be another company's phone "rebranded" with white correcting fluid. The Guardian notes that Ringing Bells is losing about $2.20 per smartphone, but Goel tells the Express he hopes to recoup profits in volume. "We will have a loss, but I am happy that the dream of connecting rural and poor Indians as part of the 'Digital India' and 'Make in India' initiatives has been fulfilled with Freedom 251," he says. Also reportedly to be released from Ringing Bells within the next month or so: a 32-inch high-def LED TV that retails for less than $150.


Article:
When chef Mario Batali stepped away from his business empire this past winter, after nine women made accusations against him, it may have surprised his fans, but it did not come as a shock to many of the people who'd worked for him, or served him at The Spotted Pig, a New York City restaurant he'd invested in and frequently visited. The Spotted Pig is owned by a friend of Batali's named Ken Friedman and its chef April Bloomfield. Over the last six months we've talked to dozens of people who worked there, or in Mario Batali's restaurants. And tonight some of them are speaking out -- we want to warn you, in sometimes graphic detail -- about what they experienced or witnessed in a work environment where they say putting up with incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault were required if you wanted to keep your job.

 The Spotted Pig, a New York City restaurant Mario Batali frequently visited CBS News

 Trish Nelson: He would ask to wrestle with me. He would try to grab me. He's a monster.

 Anderson Cooper: Really? A monster?

 Trish Nelson: I think Mario Batali's a monster. He has been lauded as this incredible chef and this leader. But behind the scenes he's hurtful and he does not respect women.

 Anderson Cooper: And you're saying this based on your personal experience.

 Trish Nelson: Yes. Yeah.

 Trish Nelson was a waitress at The Spotted Pig, who frequently served Mario Batali.

 Batali is one of the biggest stars in cooking. He owns 26 restaurants and has appeared on television for years, as a gregarious and friendly master Italian chef.

 Trish Nelson: We called him the Red Menace.

 Anderson Cooper: Why?

 Trish Nelson: Because it was a warning. The Red Menace is here. You know, like, pull all of your bits in, Mario's in town.

 Natalie Saibel: He came to party and have a good time. And make passes at the female wait staff and make inappropriate comments. Grab people. He--

 Anderson Cooper: That happened more than once?

 Jamie Seet: Yeah--

 Natalie Saibel: It happened a lot.

 Jamie Seet: Yeah.

 Anderson Cooper: That was common?

 Both: Yeah.

 Natalie Saibel was a waitress, and Jamie Seet a manager at The Spotted Pig.

 Jamie Seet: He grabbed my breasts.

 Anderson Cooper: Were you serving him?

 Jamie Seet: Yeah, and he kind of reached around and--

 Seet says she complained about Batali to one of the restaurant's co-owners Ken Friedman.

 Jamie Seet: And I said, 'Ken, Mario just grabbed my boobs,' and he's like, 'oh, don't worry about it, it's just Mario." And I'm like ok.

 Mario Batali was an investor in The Spotted Pig, and a close friend of Ken Friedman.

 Ken Friedman (Newsclip): What I do for a living is basically I throw parties every night.

 Ken Friedman, co-owner of The Spotted Pig

 When Friedman opened the New York restaurant 14 years ago, he wanted a place that catered to celebrities. Batali and other A-list stars would frequently hang out in a private party room on the third floor.

 Anderson Cooper: What was the allure of the third floor of The Spotted Pig for celebrities?

 Trish Nelson: You could smoke cigarettes, you could smoke pot, you could do drugs, you could have sex if you wanted to, I mean, there were no boundaries.

 Dozens of employees told us that lack of boundaries meant a workplace where Ken Friedman and Mario Batali did whatever they wanted, and there was no one to complain to. Many told us that emotional abuse and intimidation were common.

 Anderson Cooper: Did you ever see Ken in a rage?

 Trish Nelson: On a daily basis.

 Anderson Cooper: What kinda things would he say?

 Trish Nelson: He would berate you-- belittle you, make you feel like you were nothing.

 Erin Fein, who bartended at The Spotted Pig for two years says Friedman's abuse wasn't just verbal. She says he sexually assaulted her in his car outside the restaurant in September of 2014. This is the first time she's spoken publicly about it.

 Erin Fein: He lunged forward, he grabbed my face, he started kissing me very sort of sloppily. He pulled up my shirt. He put his hands on me. And I felt frozen.

 Fein says she managed to get out of the car, and Friedman told her not to tell anyone what happened.

 Erin Fein: It was terrible and not what I wanted. But-- you know, he didn't ask.

 Hours later Friedman sent Fein these three emails, asking her for "sexy" pictures.

 Erin Fein: "Send sexy pix tonight. I'll delete." And I was just really shocked by that. I worried about what would happen if I didn't respond.

 Anderson Cooper: You worried if you didn't respond, what, that he might retaliate?

 Erin Fein: (SIGH) It was not a good option for me to not have this job. So I thought the best move would be, you know, don't respond and just let's pretend like this never happened.

 A spokesman for Ken Friedman says he "vehemently denies any non-consensual activity" and says Erin Fein "never issued a complaint" and continued to want to work for him.

 Editors Note: Below, in full, is Ken Friedman's statement in response to 60 Minutes' story (or click here)

 Editor's Note: Erin Fein, a former bartender at The Spotted Pig, spoke with 60 Minutes about her experience with Ken Friedman and why she says she continued to work for him in the video below

 Erin Fein on her time with Ken Friedman

 But Fein wasn't the only employee who received requests for sexy pictures from the boss. These text messages were sent to Carla Rza Betts the same night she says Friedman tried to kiss her in 2010. Rza Betts was an executive in charge of selecting wines for all Friedman's restaurants, but she says he was often demeaning to her.

 Carla Rza Betts: Ken came up. And I was leaning down to put something away. And he, I had a low-cut dress on. And he said, "Oh, I understand why you need to wear push-up bras. I see the stretch marks on your breasts." And I stood up. It's amazing there's this much emotion connected to it still. I stood up and I was furious. And I was like, "Carla, don't punch a boss. Don't punch your boss. Keep your job, 'cause you love this job."

 Anderson Cooper: Why do you think he said that to you?

 Carla Rza Betts: It is a pure use of power to manipulate somebody into not feeling like they have any power.

 It was that feeling of powerlessness they say that kept nearly all these women from speaking out until recently. Ken Friedman and chef April Bloomfield own seven restaurants together and have employed hundreds of people over the past 14 years, but they didn't have a full-time human resources department until 2017.

 Anderson Cooper: So there was no chain of command to go to?

 Carla Rza Betts: Uh-uh, nope, and I didn't go to April, because I didn't trust her with this either.

 Anderson Cooper: Did you feel, as a female co-owner of the company, that April Bloomfield had your back?

 Carla Rza Betts: No. I know other people went to April, and she did nothing to make them feel safe.

 Carla Rza Betts was an executive in charge of selecting wines for all Ken Friedman's restaurants. She says Friedman was often demeaning to her CBS News

 Other staff say Bloomfield may not have known the extent of the harassment. She declined our request for an interview but in a statement says "I am in the final stages of severing my partnership with Ken Friedman. I deeply regret not doing more to protect my staff, who relied on me."

 Many of the women we spoke with say they feared being fired if they complained to Ken Friedman, and say he would sometimes blackball former employees.

 Manager Jaime Seet says Freidman was so angry when she was leaving his company that he contacted the new restaurant where she had just been hired.

 Jamie Seet: The director of operations of that restaurant called me and he said, "I'm so sorry. We're rescinding your job offer." And I said, "Does this have anything to do with Ken Friedman?" And he was like, "Yes.

 Trish Nelson finally quit in October of 2012 the day after she says Ken Friedman sexually assaulted her in his car.

 Trish Nelson: We got into the car and he lunged to kiss me. He's a 6'4" man and so your pretty overpowered, and I just felt panic. I felt panic… because I never thought that was going to happen to me. I thought that I was respected.

 Ken Friedman and Mario Batali also declined our requests for interviews. In a statement, Friedman says in part "over the past several months I have focused… on my own personal decisions and my mistakes for which I have apologized."

 Finding the courage to come forward

 Mario Batali says in a statement, "My past behavior has been deeply inappropriate and I am sincerely remorseful for my actions."

 In December he was removed from his television show, and is leaving the company he founded.

 Woman: I had thought about it a lot.

 But earlier this year, another woman came forward to us, with an incident she says occurred all the way back in 2005. She asked us to conceal her identity because she says she was concerned about future job prospects.

 Woman: Who wants to be defined by the worst day of their life?

 She was working in Batali's restaurant Babbo when she says he invited her to The Spotted Pig for a party. She says she remembers sitting with Batali alone at a small table on the second floor drinking white wine.

 Woman: It gets completely foggy for me. And this is-- part of the messy, scary part for me, there is a part where it-- it all disappears. I remember a moment where I was on his lap, kissing him. Like, he was kissing me. And then I remember throwing up-- in a toilet. And that is all.

 She says she woke up around dawn in a room on the third floor of the building.

 Woman: I woke up by myself on the floor, I don't know where I am, of an empty room, wooden floor. I see broken bottles. The first thing I think is, "I've been drugged." That was the first thing I thought is, "I've been-- I've been assaulted."

 Woman: My right leg was very deeply wounded, like, scratched, like, deep scratches.

 Woman: I didn't think I had been raped. I didn't feel any kind of trauma ...

 Anderson Cooper: Internally, you didn't feel--

 Woman: I didn't feel any trauma internally. But I also did find-- I looked on my skirt-- There were two areas. It looked like DNA.

 Anderson Cooper: Semen.

 Woman: Semen.

 Mario Batali

 She says she had to go into work, and hours later was back at Batali's restaurant Babbo when he called in.

 Woman: I said, "What happened?"

 Anderson Cooper: You asked him that.

 Woman: Yeah, I asked him. "What-- what happened last night," And he just was silent, wouldn't talk to me.

 After her shift she says she called a crisis hotline and went to a hospital for an examination. Four people confirmed to us that she told them what happened at the time, one of whom accompanied her to the hospital. She says she also went to speak with a detective at the New York Police Department's Special Victims Division.

 Woman: They tried getting me to file a report. They tried, they tried. But I-- you know, a young actress, no resources, no money. I couldn't. I-- I couldn't do it.

 Because she declined to file a police report, the rape kit taken at the hospital was never processed, and hospital records have been expunged. She still has few answers as to how she ended up blacked out and alone on the third floor of The Spotted Pig.

 Anderson Cooper: You believe he broke the law with you?

 Woman: Yes, and that's why I called the crisis hotline, because I knew something very wrong happened to me.

 Mario Batali issued a statement that says, "I vehemently deny the allegation that I sexually assaulted this woman."

 Editors Note: Below, in full, is Mario Batali's statement in response to 60 Minutes' story (or click here)

 But three years later, there was another incident in that third-floor party room. Manager Jamie Seet told us what she saw, and three other employees, who were also there, confirmed her account.

 Jamie Seet: We were in the third floor of the restaurant, and there are cameras. And there had been a party. And it dwindled down to two people, Mario and then this woman.

 Seet says she was counting the evening's receipts in the office and watched on a video monitor as Mario Batali began to reach his hand up between the legs of the woman.

 Jamie Seet: She was-- you know, she looked like this. So that to me looks like someone is unconscious.

 Anderson Cooper: And he actually-- You saw him pull up his chair and start to touch her?

 Jamie Seet: Uh-huh.

 Anderson Cooper: Sexually?

 Jamie Seet: Yes.

 Anderson Cooper: When you saw that on the monitor, what did you think?

 Jamie Seet: You know he crossed a line. A huge, a huge line, as of-- to doing-- assaulting someone that's unconscious.

 Jamie Seet: So we all went out there, and we-- we stopped what was going on. "Hey Mario. How are you doing? Let's get you a cab." Just-- you know, we were saying something just to snap him out of this.

 Seet and others say a number of employees later watched the video of what happened, and say Ken Friedman was told about it as well.

 The "lawless" restaurant industry

 Anderson Cooper: You have no doubt you saw Mario Batali--

 Jamie Seet: No doubt. Absolutely--

 Anderson Cooper: --sexually assaulting an unconscious or semi-conscious woman.

 Jamie Seet: Yeah, no doubt at all, and to this day I'm-- I feel ashamed that I never called the police.

 We spoke to the attorney for the woman, who at the time was an up-and-coming chef. She declined our request for an interview.

 Trish Nelson and all the women we spoke to say they are speaking out about The Spotted Pig because what happened to them is all too common they say in the restaurant industry.

 Trish Nelson: Doing this over 20 years there isn't one place that I haven't had this kind of an experience.

 Anderson Cooper: There's not one restaurant you've worked in that you haven't had some sort of harassment?

 Trish Nelson: Exactly. It's pervasive throughout the entire industry.

 Anderson Cooper: You would like -- what happened to you and others to have an impact around the country?

 Trish Nelson: Yes. I would love for women to be able to feel like they finally have a voice. They can say 'no' and not lose their jobs.

 The New York Police Department confirms to 60 Minutes that there is an ongoing criminal investigation into Mario Batali.

 Produced by Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados. Associate producer, Lucy Boyd. ||||| Mario Batali is under criminal investigation for allegations of sexual misconduct. The New York Police Department tells 60 Minutes that it has an ongoing investigation into the celebrity chef for potentially criminal behavior.

 NYPD tells Eater that it’s looking at the assault allegations raised in the 60 Minutes report. Update: The Daily News reports that police are also looking into another, similar incident.

 The 60 Minutes segment on Sunday took a look at several allegations against Batali, which first became public in a December Eater investigation. Anderson Cooper speaks with women who worked at the Spotted Pig, where Batali was an investor and allegedly groped staffers as a diner there.

 The CBS newsmagazine show also spoke with an anonymous former Babbo employee who alleges Batali assaulted her in 2005 — claiming that she woke up after a party at the Spotted Pig with a “very deeply wounded” leg and something that looked like semen on her skirt. She later called a crisis hotline and went to a hospital to be examined, but ultimately, she chose not to file a police report. Batali denied the incident.

 Police are also investigating another case after the victim reported the crime in March, according to the Daily News. She told NYPD that she had been drinking at Babbo in January 2004 and then blacked out; when she awakened, Batali was having sex with her, the complain said. She believes she was drugged. That investigation is also ongoing.

 Batali stepped away from his Italian restaurant empire in late 2017 after allegations that he inappropriately touched women over the course of his decades-long career. At the time, he admitted that “much of the behavior described does, in fact, match up with ways I have acted.”

 Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group issued a statement saying that the other partners did not know about the allegations made public on Sunday night, calling them “chilling and deeply disturbing.” The company also noted that the terms of Batali’s divestment from two dozen restaurants across the country will finalize on July 1.

 This post has been updated to include a statement from B&B, new information from NYPD, and a newly reported incident. ||||| The allegation were eerily similar to the one revealed in an interview aired Sunday, when another woman told CBS' Anderson Cooper that Batali drugged and raped her in 2005, in his West Village restaurant Spotted Pig. |||||Summary:

– Justice may be served to a celebrity chef accused of sexual misconduct: Mario Batali, who stepped away from his restaurant empire last year amid allegations of misconduct, is now under criminal investigation by the NYPD, Eater reports. The department confirmed the investigation to CBS' 60 Minutes, which aired a report Sunday on disturbing allegations that at least one woman was drugged and assaulted at the Spotted Pig, a New York restaurant where Batali is an investor and frequent guest. Numerous female employees said they were harassed and grabbed by Batali and restaurant owner Ken Friedman, and one woman said she blacked out after dining with Batali and woke up alone in a room on the third floor of the Spotted Pig building with a badly scratched leg and what appeared to be semen on her skirt. The woman—an employee at Batali's Babbo restaurant at the time of the alleged 2005 assault—told Anderson Cooper that when she went to work and asked him what happened the previous night, "he just was silent, wouldn't talk to me." She said she called a crisis hotline but didn't end up filing a police report. Police sources tell the New York Daily News that a woman filed a police report after a very similar alleged incident in 2004. The sources say the woman told police she blacked out while drinking with Batali in Babbo and woke up to find him having sex with her. In a statement, Batali said he "vehemently" denied the assault allegation aired on 60 Minutes, though he added that he is "sincerely remorseful" for "deeply inappropriate" conduct in the past and he is not attempting a professional comeback.


Here is a news article: President Barack Obama paid tribute at a Veterans Day ceremony Sunday at Arlington National Cemetery to "the heroes over the generations who have served this country of ours with distinction."

 President Barack Obama presents a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery during a Veterans Day ceremony in Arlington, Va., Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012. He is accompanied by Maj. Gen.... (Associated Press)

 President Barack Obama presents a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery during a Veterans Day ceremony in Arlington, Va., Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Associated Press)

 Early morning sun lights headstones at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Va., as the country commemorates Veterans Day, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012. President Barack Obama is expected to place a wreath... (Associated Press)

 He said the wreath he laid earlier at Tomb of the Unknowns was intended to "remember every service member who has ever worn our nation's uniform."

 In a speech at the Memorial Amphitheater, he said America will never forget the sacrifice made by its veterans and their families.

 "No ceremony or parade, no hug or handshake is enough to truly honor that service," the president said, adding that the country must commit every day "to serving you as well as you've served us."

 He spoke of the Sept. 11 generation, "who stepped forward when the Towers fell, and in the years since have stepped into history, writing one of the greatest chapters in military service our country has ever known. You've toppled a dictator and battled an insurgency in Iraq. You pushed back the Taliban and decimated al-Qaida in Afghanistan. You delivered justice to Osama bin Laden."

 Obama also said this was the first Veterans Day in a decade with no American troops fighting and dying in Iraq, and that a decade of war in Afghanistan is coming to a close.

 Over the next few years, he said, more than 1 million service members will make the transition to civilian life. "As they come home, it falls to us, their fellow citizens, to be there for them and their families, not just now but always."

 Later, the president and his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, greeted families in the cemetery's Section 60, home to graves of service members killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. ||||| During a Sunday morning visit to Arlington National Cemetery, President Barack Obama told the nation’s veterans that “we must do more” to support them when they return home.

 “Today, a proud nation expresses our gratitude, but we do so mindful that no ceremony or parade, no hug or handshake is enough to truly honor that service,” Obama said during the Veterans Day observance. “We must commit, this day and every day, to serving you as well as you served us.”

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 The president focused his remarks on the veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a group that will top one million in the next few years.

 “This is the first Veterans Day in a decade in which there are no American troops fighting and dying in Iraq; 33,000 of our troops have now returned from Afghanistan and the transition there is under way,” he said. “As they come home, it falls to us, their fellow citizens, to be there for them and their family.”

 Obama also noted the delayed claims process for benefits and pressed for urgent help and faster treatment, especially for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

 “No veteran should have to wait months or years for the benefits you’ve earned, so we will continue to attack the claims backlog,” he said. “We won’t let up.”

 Obama placed a wreath at Arlington’s Tomb of the Unknowns. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Speaking at the final resting spot of thousands of America's servicemembers, President Obama paid tribute to Veterans Day today with a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and a vow to do more to take care of those who have served. "No ceremony or parade, no hug or handshake is enough to truly honor that service," Obama said, adding that a grateful nation must commit "to serving you as well as you've served us." Obama spoke with an eye on veterans of more recent wars, notes Politico, particularly the September 11th generation, "who stepped forward when the Towers fell, and in the years since have stepped into history, writing one of the greatest chapters in military service our country has ever known." Vowing to tackle a backlog in veterans' benefits, he said, "as they come home, it falls to us, their fellow citizens, to be there for them and their families, not just now but always."


Here is a news article: As the heart of the United States braces for a wicked cold snap next week, there's also chilling news coming out of the journal PLoS ONE. On Wednesday, neuroscientists from the United Kingdom reported that cold is contagious. Yes, just looking at someone who's shivering or experiencing frigid temperatures can cause parts of your own body to become colder.

 For the study, the researchers had 36 participants sit in a temperature-controlled room and watch videos of actors placing one of their hands in either visibly steaming water, ice water, or neutral still water. Each subject watched ten total videos, four each featuring warm and cold water with different actors who used either their left or right hand, as well as two control videos. All of the videos lasted two minutes.

 Throughout the process, the researchers closely monitored subjects' heart rates and hand temperatures. While watching the warm and neutral videos did not produce any changes in subjects' hand temperature, watching the cold videos caused a small, but unmistakable drop. The temperature of subjects' right hands fell by an average of 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature of their left hands fell 0.4 degrees. There was no change in heart rate.

 Why didn't the warm videos prompt a warming effect? The authors suggest that the warmth of the water, as indicated by the steam, may not have been as visible. On the other hand, the ice water was clearly frigid. They also note a prior review which showed that it's easier to elicit a decrease in skin temperature than an increase.

 The current study presents further support and adds a physical condition to emotional contagion, the tendency for two individuals to mimic each other's expressions and emotional states. Emotional contagion is thought to be mediated by mirror neurons, brain cells that fire both when an animal peforms a certain action or observes that action. The study also broadly substantiates an extreme case of human temperature fluctuation documented in 1920 by scientist J.A. Hadfield, who worked with a patient who was able to selectively adjust their right and left hand temperature by as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit through suggestions of heat or cold.

 Source: Cooper EA, Garlick J, Featherstone E, Voon V, Singer T, et al. (2014) You Turn Me Cold: Evidence for Temperature Contagion. PLoS ONE 9(12): e116126. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0116126 ||||| Feeling cold is contagious, scientists find

 Just looking at somebody shivering is enough to make us feel cold, new University of Sussex research has found.

 Volunteers who watched videos of people putting their hands in cold water found their own body temperature drop significantly.

 The research by scientists in the Brighton and Sussex Medical School shows that humans are susceptible to ‘temperature contagion’.

 Neuropsychiatrist Dr Neil Harrison, who led the research, suggests that such unconscious physiological changes may help us empathise with one another and live in communities.

 He said: “Mimicking another person is believed to help us create an internal model of their physiological state which we can use to better understand their motivations and how they are feeling.”

 “Humans are profoundly social creatures and much of humans' success results from our ability to work together in complex communities - this would be hard to do if we were not able to rapidly empathise with each other and predict one another's thoughts, feelings and motivations.”

 For the research, which was published in the journal PLOS ONE, 36 participants each watched eight videos of actors putting their hands in either visibly warm or cold water. At the same time, the temperature of their own hands was measured. Their hands were significantly colder when watching the ‘cold’ videos. However, the ‘warm’ videos did not cause a change.

 Dr Harrison explains: “We think that this is probably because the warm videos were less potent - the only cues that the water was warm was steam at the beginning of the videos and the pink colour of the actor's hand (whereas blocks of ice were clearly visible throughout the duration of the cold video).

 “There is also some evidence to suggest that people may be more sensitive to others appearing cold than hot.”

 Dr Harrison worked on the project with Sussex colleagues Ella Cooper and Professor Hugo Critchley, who is Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, and scientists in Cambridge, London and Germany.

 Notes for editors

 University of Sussex Press Office contacts: James Hakner and Jacqui Bealing. 01273 678888 / press@sussex.ac.uk

 The journal article You Turn Me Cold: Evidence for Temperature Contagion can be accessed on the PLOS ONE website.

 Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) is a partnership between the universities of Sussex and Brighton and the NHS. ||||| Have you ever sat in a public space and realized that you didn’t quite notice how cold it was until those around you began reaching for their sweaters? While it may be true that you were always cold and just didn’t acknowledge it until you saw others do so, a recent study from England suggests the physical sensation of feeling cold is actually contagious.

 In a recent study, a team of British neurologists pondered whether simply looking at someone shivering could cause you to experience similar body temperature shifts. Although it’s been observed that activities such as laughter or yawning can be contagious, science had no clear answer as to whether "non-emotional" experiences could produce similar effects. To investigate, they recruited 36 participants to sit in a temperature-controlled room, Real Clear Science reported. The participants were asked to watch two-minute-long videos of actors placing one of their hands in either steaming water, ice water, or lukewarm water. As this was happening, the researchers monitored the participants’ heart rate and hand temperatures.

 Results showed that watching a video of an individual experiencing cold caused a slight, yet undeniable temperature drop in the participants’ hands. The temperature of the right hand fell by an average of around 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit, while the temperature of the left hand fell an average of 0.4 degrees.

 Although the cold videos produced changes in the viewers’ body temperatures, it had no effect on their heart rate. Researchers also noted that both the hot and lukewarm videos produced no changes in the viewers.

 Emotional Contagions

 It’s believed that this reaction to cold may be an emotional contagion. According to a 1993 paper published by the American Psychological Society, an emotional contagion is “the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person’s, and consequently, to converge emotionally. Other activities believed to also be emotional contagions are loneliness, laughter, and even stress.

 “People seem to be capable of mimicking other people’s facial, vocal, and postural expressions with stunning rapidity,” wrote the authors. “As a consequence, they are able to feel themselves into those other emotional lives at a surprising extent.”

 “Current theories suggest that we do this to better understand how another person is feeling — and help us empathize with them — if you like by creating an internal model of how the other person is feeling,” lead researcher Dr. Neil Harrison told Medical Daily in an email.

 The phenomena can be explained by “mirror neurons,” which, according to Harrison are known to fire when we perform an action or observe a similar action in others.

 What does this mean? Well, for one, it may mean that you’re more observant and sensitive to the emotions of others than you may have originally believed. Harrison also believes that his study can help to provide insight into how humans understand other people’s emotions and motivations.

 “Much of human communication occurs rapidly and without language — understanding how we are able to 'automatically' pick up on how other people are feeling, their motivations, etc., will help us better understand the complexity of human communication,” he said.

 Harrison’s not alone in his belief that by gaining a better understanding of our ability to “catch” emotional contagions, we may be more equipped to understand and even advance in other area of interpersonal communication. “Such understanding may help increase understanding of group behaviors that have shaped history, whether they be Adolf Hitler fanning hatred to his listeners, Martin Luther King spreading a message of love, or the ways in which crowds behave,” concluded the researchers in the APS paper.

 Source: Cooper EA, Garlick J, Featherstone E, Voon V, et al. You Turn Me Cold: Evidence for Temperature Contagion. PLOS One. 2014. ||||| Participants rated the videos showing hands immersed in cold water as being significantly cooler than hands immersed in warm water, F (1,34) = 256.67, p<0.001. Participants' own hands also showed a significant temperature-dependent effect: hands were significantly colder when observing cold vs. warm videos F (1,34) = 13.83, p = 0.001 with post-hoc t-test demonstrating a significant reduction in participants' own left (t (35) = −3.54, p = 0.001) and right (t (35) = −2.33, p = 0.026) hand temperature during observation of cold videos but no change to warm videos (p>0.1). There was however no evidence of left-right mirroring of these temperature effects p>0.1). Sensitivity to temperature contagion was also predicted by inter-individual differences in self-report empathy.

 Thirty-six healthy participants (age; 22.9±3.1 yrs) each observed, then rated, eight purpose-made videos (3 min duration) that depicted actors with either their right or left hand in visibly warm (warm videos) or cold water (cold videos). Four control videos with the actors' hand in front of the water were also shown. Temperature of participant observers' right and left hands was concurrently measured using a thermistor within a Wheatstone bridge with a theoretical temperature sensitivity of <0.0001°C. Temperature data were analysed in a repeated measures ANOVA (temperature × actor's hand × observer's hand).

 To investigate emotional contagion in the domain of body temperature we measured the left and right hand temperature of thirty-six healthy volunteers while viewing videos of two actors placing their right or left hand in warm or cold water. We predicted: 1) that viewing another's hand in warm/cold water in the absence of any emotional cues would be associated with congruent temperature changes in the viewer's hand. 2) That viewed changes in the right hand would be associated with congruent (contagious) temperature changes in the viewer's left hand (reflectional symmetry). 3) That these temperature changes would occur in the absence of more general measures of arousal e.g. change in heart rate. 4) That contagion of another's peripheral temperature change would be greater in participants with high emotional empathy as measured through psychological trait questionnaires.

 To date however, no study has asked whether sharing of autonomic physiological responses also extends to peripheral skin temperature. All homeothermic animals including humans rigidly regulate their core body temperature through a variety of involuntary thermoregulatory responses, such as shivering and non-shivering thermogenesis, cutaneous vasomotor responses, sweating, piloerection and panting [32] . Of these, sympathetically mediated changes in peripheral skin blood-flow (manifest as a change in peripheral temperature), is the most acutely sensitive to environmental temperature change [33] . However, changes in peripheral body temperature are additionally linked to changes in emotional state [11] , [12] , e.g. hot, clammy hands in anxiety or facial flushing in embarrassment, and can be modulated by mental imagery, hypnotic suggestion [34] and disruption of the sense of body ownership using the rubber hand illusion [35] and illusory self-identification with an avatar [64] . Together these findings suggest sensitivity of peripheral body temperature to top-down cognitive processes and a complimentary role in social communication.

 Subsequently, a huge number of human functional imaging studies have provided empirical support for such shared networks in the domain of feeling and emotional states. Most have been performed in the domain of pain and show an overlapping anterior insula and anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) network underlying both the first-hand experience of pain as well as its observation in others [19] , [20] for meta-analyses see [21] , [22] . Such shared neuronal networks of empathy have also been observed in the domain of neutral touch [23] – [25] as well as pleasant and unpleasant touch [26] , [27] disgust and taste [28] , [29] as well as positive affect such as joy or reward [30] , [31] . In sum, multiple studies have found evidence for our human capacity to share affective states with each other, be it at the level of motor mimicry, autonomic or the neuronal activity.

 Until a decade ago, neuroscientific approaches to the study of empathy were lacking. However, with the discovery of mirror neurons within the premotor cortex, which respond during both performance and observation of a conspecific performing the same action, a potential neural mechanism mediating how we understand other people's actions and intentions was proposed [15] , [16] . Shortly after the formulation of such action–perception models of motor behavior to imitation [17] , they were extended to the domain of emotions with the first empathy models [18] suggested that perception of another's emotional state should automatically activate a similar representation within the viewer together with associated autonomic and somatic responses.

 Though somatically mediated motor signals have traditionally dominated research in this field, recent evidence has demonstrated that effects of emotion contagion can be observed for facial temperature [52] and have even been observed at the level of hormones [9] . Thus, observing a familiar person or a stranger undergoing a Trier Stress test increases cortisol levels not only in the stressed person but also passive observers watching the scene through a one-way mirror or TV screen. Similarly, evidence for contagion effects have also been observed at the level of the autonomic nervous system in the domain of facial flushing, pupil size and skin temperature. For example, pupillary signals have demonstrated a role in signalling the intensity of sadness [6] , [10] and skin temperature the experience of anger [11] , [12] . Perceptual sensitivity to another's pupil size during sadness has also been shown to predict inter-individual differences in empathy [6] . Similar to somatic motor responses, autonomic contagion has also been described during social exchange. For example, during psychotherapy heart rates of therapists and their clients tend to speed up and slow down together [13] . Pupil size has also been demonstrated to decrease during both the experience [14] and observation of sadness in others [10] . However, whether such contagious effects generalize across different axes of the autonomic nervous system is currently unknown.

 Following de Vignemont and Singer we define empathy as occurring if: ‘(i) one is in an affective state; (ii) this state is isomorphic to another person's affective state; (iii) this state is elicited by the observation or imagination of another person's affective state; (iv) one knows that the other person is the source of one's own affective state' [8] . In contrast we define the narrower concept of emotional contagion as sharing of affect (points i, ii and iii above) in the absence of an awareness that the other is the source of one's own affective state (point iv above).

 Adaptive social behavior is dependent on the efficient communication of affective and motivational signals between individuals that together facilitate understanding of others' mental and emotional states. In humans, perception of these signals is associated with a marked tendency to mimic, which is well described for emotional facial expressions [1] , body postures [2] , gesticulations [3] and elements of speech [4] . This tendency, which typically occurs without conscious intent, has been proposed to facilitate emotional understanding across individuals. Empirical data demonstrating correlations between tendency to mimic emotional facial expressions and self-report measures of empathy [5] , [6] support the encapsulation of mimicry within the broader concept of empathy [7] .

 BEES and Davis IRI total empathy score as well as the Davis sub-scores were then used in a step-wise multiple regression analysis in SPSS21 to investigate whether inter-individual differences in empathy predicted contagion of another's temperature change. Temperature contagion was defined as an individual's mean increase in temperature to all warm videos minus their mean decrease in temperature to all cool videos (averaged across both left and right hands).

 Subjects completed two questionnaires: the Mehrabian Balanced Emotional Empathy Score (BEES) [36] and the Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) [37] , [38] . The BEES contains 30 items e.g. “It upsets me to see someone being mistreated” rated on a 9-point agree/disagree scale and provides a well-validated measure of emotional empathy. The IRI contains 28 items rated on a 5-point does/does not describe me well scale. It provides a composite measure of dispositional empathy as well as sub-scales of Perspective Taking (PT) "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective", Empathic Concern (EC) “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me”, Personal Distress (PD) "Being in a tense emotional situation scares me” and Fantasy Scales (FS) "When I am reading an interesting story or novel, I imagine how I would feel if the events in the story were happening to me”.

 Left and right hand temperature recordings were first corrected for minor fluctuations in room temperature by subtracting ambient temperature recordings at the equivalent time-point then de-trended to remove linear drifts across the experimental session. The container-filling phase (40 s), plus the subsequent 10 s (and equivalent pre-video playback period in the control condition) was used to measure video specific baseline temperature recordings. Video induced changes in participants' own hand temperature over the remaining 130 s were then calculated in 10 s epochs by subtracting baseline temperature from ambient corrected left and right hand temperatures. Data were then averaged within subjects to obtain a mean response to each video type e.g. warm/neutral/cool and left/right observed hand then analysed in second level repeated measures ANOVAs using SPSS 21. Video induced changes in heart rate were analysed in an equivalent manner.

 The 10 Volt range and 16 bit resolution of the CED 1401 data acquisition devise coupled with the 30-fold gain of the CED 1902 amplifier enabled us to achieve a theoretical temperature sensitivity in the order of 0.00002°C that was near linear over the physiological temperature range of interest (20–40°C). (Equations 3–5, Fig. 3D ). Finally, we calibrated the high-sensitivity temperature gauge against a digital thermometer (Kane-May 8004 digital thermometer) recording four points over the physiological temperature range 22–35°C. This demonstrated a linear relationship between voltage and temperature change (R2 = 0.98, p = 0.001, Temperature °C = 21.087× Voltage (V) +20.059 ( Fig. 3E ). To ensure that results were not influenced by potential differences in the sensitivity of the two finger thermistors half the participants had thermistor 1 attached to the left hand and thermistor 2 to the right hand and vice versa.

 A ) Graphical illustration of the structure of each of the three Wheatstone bridges each built using a 10 kΩ thermistor and three additional 10 kΩ thermistors. B ) Resistance properties of the thermistors illustrating a near linear response over physiological temperature range of interest (20–40°C). C ) Rate of change in resistance for the thermistors across the physiological temperature range. D ) Theoretical temperature resolution of the temperature gauge across the physiological temperature range. E ) Calibration of the temperature gauge.

 Each 10 kΩ thermistor (EPCOS NTC B57861S103F40) was connected to a custom Wheatstone bridge built using three additional 10 kΩ (+/− 1%) resisters balanced with a rheostat ( Fig. 3A ). Each of the three Wheatstone bridges were then connected to a CED 1902 low noise, high-gain isolated pre-amplifier via 8-pin DIN plugs. Amplified potential differences were then passed to the CED 1401 data acquisition interface as described above. The thermistors used (Resistance (R 0 ) = 10 kΩ, B25/100 (beta) = 3988K at a rated temperature (T 0 ) = 25°C) had a near linear resistance change (Equation 1, Fig. 3B ) and rate of change of resistance (dR/dT) (Equation 2, Fig. 3C ) over the physiological temperature range of interest (20–40°C).

 Graphic illustrating the experimental setup. Thermistors were attached to the participants' left and right hands with a third thermistor used to record ambient temperature. All three thermistors were connected to Wheatstone bridges (labelled Thermistor transducer) with the output passed to a CED 1902 signal amplifier. Output from the CED 1902 and the Pulse oxymeter (attached to the left hand) were fed into a CED Power 1401 data acquisition interface and the digitized output recorded in a PC running Spike2. A second PC running cogent in Matlab presented all of the task stimuli and passed a timing pulse to the CED Power 1401 to ensure accurate temporal alignment of the data.

 All testing was performed in a dedicated testing room kept at a constant temperature of 21°C. Participant's right and left hand temperature and heart rate, as well as ambient room temperature, were recorded throughout the study. Minute (3×2 mm) thermistors were attached to the palmar distal phalanges on the fourth finger of each hand to measure temperature change. Convection and conductive heat transfer to the environment was minimised by attaching the thermistors with micropore tape and placing participant's hands palm upwards on cushions throughout video playback. Ambient temperature was recorded throughout using a third thermistor suspended 20–30 cm in front of the hands. To minimise muscle movement related temperature change participants were asked to keep their hands as still as possible during video payback and use the index finger of both hands to input responses once the video had finished playing. Heart rate was simultaneously monitored using a pulse oxymeter (Nonin 8600; Nonin Medical) attached to each participant's left small finger.

 The study adopted a randomised within-subject design, with each participant viewing all ten of the videos in counter-balanced order. After each video participants gave subjective ratings for both the observed water temperature (“How Hot or Cold is the Water?”) and the temperature of the actor's hand (“How Hot or Cold is the Actor's Hand?”) using a keyboard controlled visual analogue scale ranging from ‘Very Cold’ (far left) through ‘Neutral’ (centre) to ‘Very Hot’ (far right). Each video was separated by a 60 second inter-trial interval. The task was written and presented, and behavioural responses logged via a desktop computer running Cogent software on a Matlab platform (Mathwork, Nantick MA). See Fig. 1 for study timeline.

 The experimental timeline along the bottom shows video playback, red bars represent playback of warm, blue cold and beige control videos. The graph on the top left shows an example of single participants left (black) and right (green) hand temperature responses to a single illustrative cold video. The orange line illustrates changes in ambient temperature. The pictures on the top right show snap shots from the warm, cold and neutral videos.

 Ten custom temperature stimuli videos were produced. Each video began with one of two actors (one male, one female) sitting in front of a transparent container partially filled with water. In four of the videos the actor then gradually added hot water from a steaming kettle into the container, checking the temperature of the water every few seconds with one hand. One video showed the male actor placing his right hand in the water and one his left. The other two videos showed the same procedure with the female actor. Four additional videos showed each actor filling the container with a bag of ice then testing the cold water with his/her left or right hand. The first 40 s of each video showed the actor cautiously filling the semi-filled transparent container with water from a steaming kettle or ice from a bag and intermittently testing the water temperature with his or her hand. The remainder of the videos used in subsequent analyses focused exclusively on the actor's hand placed in the water. These sections of the videos showed the water and the actor's hand only with no facial or other body movement cues that may communicate emotional state. Two additional control videos (each of 120 s duration) showed the same combination of factors i.e. bowl of water and actors hand, however in these videos no hot water/ice was added to the water and the actor's hand was held in front of the water container. One control video showed the female actor's left hand and the other the male actors' right hand (screen-shots illustrated in Fig. 1 ).

 Thirty-eight healthy participants with normal or corrected to normal vision were recruited via advertisement on the UCL psychology online research website. Two participants were subsequently excluded from the analysis of temperature responses due to technical failure and 14 from the heart rate analysis due to battery failure. Thus a total of 36 participants (13 males, mean 22.9±3.1 years) were included in analysis of temperature response and 22 (8 males, mean 22.9±3.5 years) in the combined analyses of heart rate and temperature responses. Written informed consent was obtained in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki (Helsinki 1991) and the procedures were approved by the joint Ethics Committee of the National Hospital and Institute of Neurology, London.

 Finally we investigated whether self-reported empathy scores predicted an individual's contagion of another's observed temperature. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that both the BEES and the Empathic Concern (EC) sub-scale of the Davis IRI (but not the other Davis sub-scales) significantly predicted contagion of observed temperature changes (F (2,35) = 6.82, p<0.003) with an adjusted R 2 = 0.25. Exploration of the factors within this model demonstrated a nuanced relationship between empathy and contagion of another's temperature change; specifically in this model the BEES (which provides a single composite measures of empathy) negatively predicted temperature contagion (t (35) = −3.68, p = 0.001, β = −0.92) while the EC sub-scale of the Davis (which selectively measures empathic concern) positively predicted temperature contagion (t (35) = 2.79, p = 0.009, β = 0.69) ( Fig. 5 ).

 Repeated measures ANOVA with factors observed temperature (warm, cool), observed hand (left, right) and participants own hand (left, right) demonstrated a significant main effect of observed temperature on participants' own hand temperature F (1,35) = 13.83, p = 0.001, with post-hoc t-test demonstrating a significant reduction in participants' own left (t (35) = −3.54, p = 0.001) and right (t (35) = −2.33, p = 0.026) hand temperature during observation of cool videos but no change to warm videos (p>0.1) ( Fig. 4B ). We also observed a significant main effect of participant hand (F (1,35) = 4.78, p = 0.036) and a significant participant hand × observed temperature interaction (F (1,35) = 13.49, p = 0.001). Post-hoc t-tests showed that this was driven by a significantly greater reduction in left versus right hand temperature when viewing cool videos (paired t (35) = −3.80, p = 0.001) demonstrating greater sensitivity of participants left hand to observed changes in temperature. Importantly, we did not observe significant observed × own hand or temperature × observed × own hand interactions (p>0.1) suggesting that induced changes in temperature were not influenced by laterality of the observed hand. Finally, there was no change in participants' own left or right hand temperature when they observed the neutral videos (p>0.1) (data illustrated in Fig. 4B ).

 A ) Participants mean subjective ratings for the observed water temperature (“How Hot or Cold is the Water?”) and temperature of the actor's hand (“How Hot or Cold is the Actor's Hand?”) reported using a keyboard controlled visual analogue scale ranging from ‘Very Cold’ (far left) through ‘Neutral’ (centre) to ‘Very Hot’ (far right). B ) Participants mean temperature change for their right (right leaning diagonals) and left (left leaning diagonals) when viewing warm (red) cold (blue) and neutral (grey) stimuli. Bold diagonals denote congruent responses (e.g. participants' left hand response when viewing left hand stimuli) and non-bold diagonals incongruent responses (e.g. e.g. participants' left hand response when viewing right hand stimuli). C ) Mean time course response to viewing all warm videos for the left (red) and right (orange) hand displayed in 10 s epochs. D ) Mean time course response to viewing all cold videos for the left (dark blue) and right (light blue) hand displayed in 10 s epochs.

 Repeated measures ANOVAs with factors temperature (warm, cool) and observed hand (left, right) confirmed that our experimental manipulation significantly modulated participants' ratings of both the water and actors hand temperature, with both rated as appearing significantly warmer in the warm compared to cool conditions F (1,34) = 449.25, p<0.001 and F (1,34) = 256.67, p<0.001 respectively. There was no significant main effect of observed hand (left, right) or observed hand by temperature interaction for either rating demonstrating that the perceived temperature was equivalent for left and right hand video stimuli in both warm and cool conditions. We therefore collapsed ratings for observed (left, right) hand and repeated the ANOVAs including the neutral condition (warm, neutral, cool). This again confirmed that stimulus type (warm, neutral, cool) significantly affected ratings of the observed temperature for both the water and hand; F (1,34) = 305.79, p<0.001 and F (1,34) = 201.16, p<0.001 respectively. Post-hoc paired-sample t-tests confirmed significant differences (all p<0.001) between each pair of stimuli ( Fig. 4A ).

 Discussion

 Here we aimed to investigate emotional contagion in the domain of body temperature by showing healthy volunteers video clips of actors with their hands in warm or cold water while simultaneously recording their own right and left hand temperature. We show that healthy participants exhibit contagion of another's hand temperature even in the absence of visible emotional or facial cues. This temperature contagion was particularly prominent for cool stimuli and was more marked for the observers' left hand. However, it should be noted that ice cubes were clearly visible throughout the cool condition but steam visible only at the beginning of the warm videos which may have contributed to this finding. We found no interaction between the laterality of the hand observed and experiencing the change in temperature arguing against common rotational or mirror symmetry effects described in naturalistic social interactions [7]; though note that viewed hands were oriented perpendicular to their own. Interestingly, self-report measures of empathy additionally predicted inter-individual differences in sensitivity to temperature contagion. This demonstration of contagion of observed body temperature extends the range of human mimetic responses to another axis of the autonomic nervous system. It also lends empirical support to extension of perception-action mechanisms to non-volitional, non-emotional responses exclusively mediated by the autonomic nervous system [9], [10].

 Maintaining a stable internal thermal environment is critical to the life-preserving actions of bioactive proteins, such as enzymes and ion channels. As a consequence, core body temperature is rigidly regulated by the brains of all homeothermic animals including humans through a variety of involuntary thermoregulatory responses, such as shivering and non-shivering thermogenesis, cutaneous vasomotor responses, sweating, piloerection and panting [32]. In response to a reduction in environmental temperature skin temperature falls rapidly and triggers firing of strategically located COOL-sensitive neurons [39]. Feed-forward thermal afferent information is then relayed via the external lateral parabrachial nucleus (LPBel) to the hypothalamic thermoregulatory centre in the preoptic area (POA) resulting in an inhibition of its tonic discharge. This ultimately results in disinhibition of sympathetic premotor neurons within the rostral medullary raphe (rMR) orchestrating cutaneous vasoconstriction, tachycardia, skeletal muscle shivering [32], [40] and non-shivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue [12].

 Interestingly, different effectors mechanisms are associated with partially separable central control systems [41], expressed physiologically as a greater sensitivity of vasoconstrictive responses to temperature change [33]. This difference in central control mechanism may also underpin why, in our current study, we saw isolated changes in hand temperature (likely mediated by a direct POA-rMR pathway) but not heart rate (mediated by an intermediate projection to the dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH)) [32]. WARM sensitive neurons projecting via the dorsal parabrachial nucleus (LPBd) play a similar role in orchestrating cutaneous vasodilation and tachycardia in response to environmental warming [42].

 In addition to bottom-up feed-forward pathways triggered by changes in skin temperature, thermoregulatory responses are also sensitive to top-down influences for example though visual imagery, temperature biofeedback and hypnotic suggestion [43]. This was first highlighted by Hadfield in 1920 in a case report of a patient who was able to selectively increase and decrease their right and left hand temperature by almost 3°C through suggestions of heat or cold [44]. Subsequently, similar selective increases and decreases in left and right hand temperature have been demonstrated in response to hypnotic suggestion in adults [45] and children [46] as well as biofeedback [47], [48], instructed imagery [49] or combinations of these techniques [50], [51]. More recently, synchronous changes in facial temperature have also been reported in mothers observing their child at play [52]. A review of these studies [43] has highlighted that temperature decreases are typically easier to elicit and of greater magnitude than temperature increases, and occur in the absence of heart rate change, as we observed. These top-down influences on thermoregulatory responses have also been exploited clinically in the treatment of Raynauld's syndrome [53], [54], though large inter-individual variability in ability to regulate finger temperature has limited its more widespread clinical adoption [55].

 Direct cooling of the hand has been shown to increase blood flow (an indirect measure of neuronal activity) within the posterior insula [56], a region proposed to provide a cortical representation of all visceral afferent input [57], [58]. Whether similar increases in insula activity are also associated with temperature changes observed in a conspecific is currently unknown, though the wealth of fMRI studies showing shared empathic in other domains would predict that they would. In this regard, it is also instructive to note that in monkeys many POA thermosensitive neurons are additionally affected by non-thermal emotional stimuli such as rewards or aversive stimuli [59] suggesting that hypothalamic POA-rMR effector pathways may be recruited by top-down cognitive processes.

 Insight into the mechanism underlying temperature contagion may also be usefully informed by studies of disrupted body ownership induced either experimentally using the rubber hand illusion [35] or in the clinical disorder cold-type complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) [60]. In both of these conditions unilateral disruption of body ownership is associated with a localised reduction in body temperature suggesting that the conscious sense of our physical self and its physiological regulation are linked. During experimental induction of the rubber hand illusion activity changes are observed within insula cortex as well as premotor and intraparietal cortex [61] suggesting a potential role for the insula in reported temperature changes. In CRPS patients (a neurological disorder associated with pain, abnormal temperature regulation and often dystonia in a single limb) changes in limb temperature were reported dependent upon its location in space [60]. For example, when the affected (cool) limb was moved across the midline its temperature spontaneously increased with a converse effect described for the healthy limb. On the basis of these findings the authors argued for a space-based rather than somatotopic frame of reference with descending projections from parietal cortex onto brainstem autonomic centres hypothesised as the mechanism through which changes in the spatial location of the limb result in associated temperature change. It is thus possible that inter-personal comparator processes within the intraparietal junction play a similar role in temperature contagion.

 Finally, in contrast to our prediction of a simple relationship between sensitivity to temperature contagion and empathy score we found a more nuanced relationship. Specifically, an inverse relationship between BEES emotional empathy score and sensitivity to temperature contagion. i.e. those individual who scored highest on the BEES showed the least sensitivity to temperature contagion. However, when we included both the BEES and the Davis IRI (including subscores) into a stepwise linear regression analysis we showed that though BEES continued to show a negative relationship to temperature contagion the empathic concern subscale of the IRI showed a positive relationship. The basis for these findings is currently unclear, though may relate to subtle differences in the concepts captured by the BEES and EC scales. For example, though we showed a tight positive correlation between BEES and EC scores (R2 = 0.65, p<0.001) across participants it was participants with relatively high EC compared to BEES scores that showed the greatest propensity to temperature contagion. Alternately this finding may relate to the nature of our experimental stimuli in which we were careful not to show discernable emotional cues. It would be important for future studies to clarify the precise nature of the relationship between individual differences in emotion contagion, empathic distress and concern particularly to such low-level contagion phenomena.

 To conclude, here we show that healthy individuals are sensitive to observable signals of another's peripheral body temperature and further show contagion of their temperature, particularly in the context of cold. Inter-individual differences in temperature contagion are marked and show a complex relationship to inter-individual difference in empathy. Interestingly, abnormal temperature regulation is also observed in disorders of social cognition such as autism [62] and Schizophenia [63] suggesting interest in measuring temperature contagion in these populations. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Struggling to keep warm this winter? You may want to avoid other people who look cold: A new study published in PLOS ONE suggests humans experience "temperature contagion." Subjects saw their own temperatures sink after watching videos of people putting their hands in chilly water, per a press release from the University of Sussex. Their left hands became colder by an average of 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit, while their right hands' temperatures dropped by an average of 0.1 degrees, Real Clear Science reports. The researchers classified that temperature change as "significant." Such sympathetic coldness could be an adaptive trait, says lead researcher Dr. Neil Harrison. "Humans are profoundly social creatures, and much of humans' success results from our ability to work together in complex communities," he explains. "This would be hard to do if we were not able to rapidly empathize with each other and predict one another's thoughts, feelings, and motivations." When the 36 subjects saw videos of people putting their hands in warm water, however, the subjects' body temperatures stayed the same—perhaps because the cold was more evident than the heat in the videos, Harrison notes. The "cold" clips showed blocks of ice throughout, whereas the "hot" ones only briefly showed steam at their start. "There is also some evidence to suggest that people may be more sensitive to others appearing cold than hot," he points out. Yawning is among other contagious behaviors, as Medical Daily notes—and even dogs are susceptible.


Article:
US president says: ‘We’ve got a lot of killers’ when asked about Russian leader, sparking stern response from Florida senator Rubio

 Donald Trump has once again defended Vladimir Putin against accusations that he is a killer, telling Fox News: “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”

 The US president appeared to place the US and Russia on the same moral plane in an interview broadcast before the Super Bowl kicked off in Houston, Texas. Asked by the host, Bill O’Reilly, if he respected Putin, Trump replied: “I do respect Putin.

 “Will I get along with him? I have no idea. It’s very possible I won’t.”

 O’Reilly said: “He’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.”

 “There are a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”

 Travel ban: Trump casts 'blame' on judge and courts for hypothetical attack Read more

 Trump’s respect for and willingness to work with Putin was a familiar theme during an election that the US intelligence agencies believe their Russian counterparts sought to influence on Trump’s behalf.

 Such claims prompted a split between Trump and the intelligence community that has not yet healed.

 The two presidents spoke by phone last weekend, a conversation reportedly much smoother than calls with leaders of allies such as Australia. A summit meeting has been mooted by both governments.

 It has previously been suggested to Trump that Putin is a killer. In December 2015, the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told Trump: “He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.”

 Trump replied: “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing too, Joe.”

 The same week, Trump told ABC News: “In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that. I don’t know that he has.

 “If he has killed reporters I think that’s terrible. But this isn’t like somebody that’s stood with a gun and he’s taken the blame or he’s admitted that he’s killed. He’s always denied it.

 “It’s never been proven that he’s killed anybody, so you know you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country. He has not been proven that he’s killed reporters.”

 After O’Reilly said he did not “know of any government leaders that are killers”, Trump turned to the Iraq war, seeming to equate George W Bush with Putin, though he did not name the former president.

 “Take a look at what we’ve done too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he said, adding, falsely, that he had opposed invasion. “I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.”

 “A lot of mistakes,” Trump continued, “OK, but a lot of people were killed. So a lot of killers around, believe me.”

 On Monday the Kremlin said it wanted an apology from Fox News over O’Reilly’s “unacceptable” comments. “We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting and, honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on a conference call.

 According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 36 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 1992, 23 since Putin first became president in 2000. Most famously, Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in 2006 while investigating torture in Chechnya.

 Trump has said he accepts reports that Russia was behind hacks against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, but rejected the notion that he could not have won the White House without Russian help. Investigations into links between Trump aides and Russian actors are ongoing.

 The Arizona senator, John McCain, a fierce opponent of lifting sanctions on Russia, a prospect with which Trump has flirted, has said the Russian president is “a murderer and a thug”.

 ‘I love Trump. He’s doing what he said.’ President’s supporters keep the faith Read more

 On Sunday the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, issued a mild rebuke to Trump. Asked what his response would have been if Barack Obama had compared the US to Russia under Putin, he said Putin was a “former KGB agent and a thug”.

 “I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does,” he said.

 “I’m not going to critique the president’s every utterance, but I do think that America is exceptional, America is different, we don’t operate in any way the way the Russians do. There’s a clear distinction here that all Americans understand and I would not have characterised it that way.”

 Marco Rubio, senator for Florida and an opponent in the presidential primary, was harsher. “When has a Democratic political activist been poisoned by the GOP or vice versa?” he said in a tweet. “We are not the same as Putin.”

 Trump also answered a question from O’Reilly about his oft-stated but never evidenced belief that his defeat by a margin of nearly 3 million in the popular vote had been caused by massive voter fraud.

 Trump's courtiers bring chaotic and capricious style to White House Read more

 “When you see … people who are not citizens and they are [on] the registration rolls … it’s a really bad situation,” Fox quoted Trump as saying.

 Trump also said he was willing to work with Kiev and Moscow to resolve the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, after a telephone call with the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, on Saturday.

 The call was the first direct contact between the two leaders since the inauguration of Trump, whose aim to improve relations with the Kremlin has alarmed Kiev while the nearly three-year-old conflict remains unresolved.

 It followed fresh artillery attacks in the Donbass region of Ukraine, which broke a lull in shelling at a frontline hotspot that had raised hopes the conflict’s worst escalation in months was waning.

 “We will work with Ukraine, Russia and all other parties involved to help them restore peace along the border,” Trump said in a White House statement after talking to Poroshenko. ||||| This conversation will be deleted and this account cannot message you until you message them again.

 The conversation will be deleted and you will not be able to participate in this group. ||||| President Trump is sticking with his argument that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 presidential election, amid calls for him to provide proof and questions about whether he’ll indeed have an official probe into the issue.

 “Many people have come out and said I am right,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly to be aired Sunday before the NFL Super Bowl.

 Watch the O'Reilly Super Bowl LI interview with Trump at 4 pm ET Sunday on Fox Sports. Tune in for more of the interview on "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday and Tuesday at 8 pm ET on Fox News Channel.

 Trump didn’t directly answer a question about whether he, in fact, has evidence -- but suggested that he has seen voter-registration records that suggest widespread voter fraud.

 “We can be babies, but you take a look at the registration,” Trump said. “You have illegals, you have dead people, you have this. It’s really a bad situation.”

 Trump became president by winning the Electoral College vote but did not win the popular vote. And losing that vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by an estimated 3 million ballots has been a continuing source of contention with him.

 Last month, Trump suggested he would ask for a “major investigation” through the Justice Department. And he purportedly was considering signing an executive order to start the process. But the administration has not taken any public action on the issue in roughly the past 10 days.

 Also on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he doesn’t want to spend federal money to investigate Trump’s allegation.

 Trump also said in the Fox interview that he has "respect" for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that respect does not mean they'll get along.

 "I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not,” he said. “And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world -- that’s a good thing. … Will I get along with him? I have no idea."

 Pressed about Putin's history of violence, Trump said: "There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent? ||||| CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share President Donald Trump went on record saying he respects Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a recent interview. Time

 President Donald Trump speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, on Feb. 3, 2017. The Trump administration imposed sanctions on 13 people and a dozen companies in response to Iran's recent ballistic missile test. (Photo: Evan Vucci, AP)

 President Trump is reiterating his desire to improve relations with Russia and dismissing concerns that Vladimir Putin is a “killer,” in a Fox News interview set to air Sunday before the Super Bowl.

 Fox News released excerpts of the interview Saturday in which host Bill O’Reilly asks the president why he’s so respectful of Putin.

 "Putin’s is a killer," O'Reilly said in the interview.

 "There are a lot of killers," Trump responded. "Got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country's so innocent?"

 The president’s relationship with Russia and Putin have been under close scrutiny for months. Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign dogged Trump throughout his election and transition, as intelligence agencies delivered increasingly urgent assessments of Russian efforts to hack emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and advisers of Trump rival Hillary Clinton.

 The excerpts drew condemnation from some conservatives, including the Wall Street Journal’s deputy editorial page editor, who tweeted that “Trump puts US on moral par with Putin's Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this.”

 Trump puts US on moral par with Putin's Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this. https://t.co/LrP8ycG1Y9 — Bret Stephens (@StephensWSJ) February 5, 2017

 The president also said he doesn't know if he'll get along with Putin, but believes Russian assistance in fighting radical Islamic terrorism would be valuable.

 The full interview airs at 4 p.m. ET on local Fox stations.

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2k8UVo3 |||||Summary:

– President Trump tells Fox News that he does indeed respect Vladimir Putin, even though he agreed with Bill O'Reilly's assessment that the Russian leader is a "killer." Said Trump: "There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?" As he has in the past, Trump argued that it makes sense to get along with Moscow to help the fight against ISIS. And as for Putin, "Will I get along with him? I have no idea." Fox released an excerpt as part of a pre-Super Bowl interview that will air at 4pm Eastern. The "innocent" line has triggered a quick backlash, with USA Today picking up on this tweet from Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens: "Trump puts US on moral par with Putin's Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this." The Guardian notes that Trump has expressed the sentiment before: When MSNBC's Joe Scarborough told Trump that Putin kills journalists, he replied: “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.”