Ex-AG Barr’s memoir set to be released in March, publisher says
NEW YORK — Former Attorney General William Barr has a memoir coming out March 8 titled “One Damn Thing After Another” and billed by his publisher as a “vivid and forthright book” of his time serving two “drastically different” presidents — Donald Trump and George H.W. Bush.
“Barr takes readers behind the scenes during seminal moments of the Bush administration in the 1990s, from the LA riots to Pan Am 103 and Iran Contra,” William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced Tuesday. “With the Trump administration, Barr faced an unrelenting barrage of issues, such as Russiagate, the opioid epidemic, Chinese espionage, big tech, the COVID outbreak, civil unrest, the first impeachment, and the 2020 election fallout.”
The title of the long-rumored book refers to an expression Barr had heard about the nature of the job of attorney general.
Barr, now 71, served under Bush from 1991-93 and under Trump from 201920. Barr had initially been one of Trump’s most ardent allies and was accused of being willing to sacrifice the independence of the Justice Department on behalf of the president.
One of his most controversial actions involved special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of ties between Russian officials and Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.
Before the full report was made public, Barr framed the results in a manner favorable to Trump, even though Mueller pointedly said he couldn’t exonerate the president of obstruction of justice.
But Barr parted with Trump a month after the 2020 election when he told The Associated Press that the DOJ had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Barr stepped down shortly before Christmas in 2020.
After the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election results, Barr issued a statement in which he condemned Trump for “orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress.”
Christian flag case: Supreme Court justices seemed to have little doubt Tuesday that Boston was wrong to refuse to fly a banner described as a Christian flag outside City Hall.
Arguments at the high court appeared to unite justices on the left and right in favor of Harold Shurtleff, a conservative activist. Shurtleff wanted to fly a white banner with a red cross on a blue background in the upper left corner, called the Christian flag.
There are three flagpoles outside City Hall that fly the U.S., Massachusetts and Boston flags. Occasionally, the city takes down its own pennant and temporarily hoists another flag.
Although Boston had approved 284 consecutive applications — most involving the flags of other nations — a city official turned away Shurtleff and his Camp Constitution because he said he wanted to fly the Christian flag.
The Biden administration and the American Civil Liberties Union are among a wide array of parties on Shurtleff ’s side.
Boston has indicated it would change its policy if it loses the case to take more control of what flags can fly. Lockdown parties: British
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday denied misleading Parliament about lockdown-breaching parties, and confirmed he has given an account of events to an inquiry probing alleged violations of coronavirus rules by the government.
Senior ministers in Johnson’s Conservative government said they believed him — but added the prime minister would have to resign if he is proven to have lied. A growing number of lawmakers from Johnson’s Conservative Party expressed discontent with their leader, as pressure to oust him with a no-confidence vote grew.
Senior civil servant Sue Gray is investigating a string of alleged rule-flouting government parties that have sparked calls for Johnson’s resignation, including a May 2020 staff party in the garden of the prime minister’s Downing Street residence.
Johnson has urged his
opponents to wait for Gray’s verdict, though experts say there is a good chance it will neither exonerate him nor conclude he broke the law. Animal outbreak: Hong Kong authorities said Tuesday that they will kill about 2,000 small animals, including hamsters, after several tested positive for the coronavirus at a pet store where an employee was also infected.
The city will also stop the sale of hamsters and the import of small mammals, according to officials from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. The pet shop employee tested positive for the delta variant Monday, and several hamsters imported from the Netherlands at the store tested positive as well.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, animals do not appear to play a significant role in spreading the coronavirus.
Chinese outbreak: Chinese state media say parcels mailed from overseas may have spread the omicron variant of the coronavirus in Beijing and elsewhere, despite doubts among overseas health experts that the virus can be transmitted via packaging.
The State Post Bureau said it has ordered stronger measures to ventilate and disinfect sites where items mailed from overseas are handled. Postal workers must wear protective equipment, receive booster shots and undergo regular testing, it said on its website.
International packages must be isolated, cleaned and held for a waiting period to ensure they are free from the virus, it said.
Global health experts say the virus mainly spreads through respiratory droplets when infected people breathe, speak, cough and sneeze.
The World Health Organization says coronaviruses “need a live animal or
human host to multiply and survive and cannot multiply on the surface of food packages.”
World’s oldest man dies:
Saturnino de la Fuente, a Spaniard described by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest man, died Tuesday at the age of 112 years and 341 days, the records agency said.
De la Fuente died at home in León, a city in northwest Spain, it said.
Guinness World Records named De la Fuente as the world’s oldest man in September, when he was 112 years and 211 days. It said he was born Feb. 11, 1909.
De la Fuente was a cobbler by trade and started working in a shoe factory at age 13, Spain’s state-run news agency EFE reported.
He survived the Spanish flu pandemic that broke out in 1918 and with his wife, Antonina, had seven daughters and one son, followed by 14 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, it said.