WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday picked budget director Mick Mulvaney to be his next chief of staff, ending a chaotic search for a new chief of staff that had been inching forward with the feel of an unfolding reality TV show.
Trump tweeted that Mulvaney “will be named Acting White House Chief of Staff, replacing General John Kelly, who has served our Country with distinction.”
“Mick has done an outstanding job while in the Administration,” Trump posted. “I look forward to working with him in this new capacity as we continue to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! John will be staying until the end of the year. He is a GREAT PATRIOT and I want to personally thank him for his service!”
Though deemed an “acting” chief of staff, Mulvaney’s term will be open-ended, according to a senior White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. The position does not require confirmation.
NEW YORK — Facebook’s privacy controls have broken down yet again, this time through a software flaw affecting nearly 7 million users who had photos exposed to a much wider audience than intended.
The bug disclosed Friday gave hundreds of apps unauthorized access to photos that could in theory include images that would embarrass some of the affected users. They also included photos people may have uploaded but hadn’t yet posted, perhaps because they had changed their mind.
It’s not yet known whether anyone actually saw the photos, but the revelation of the now-fixed problem served as another reminder of just how much data Facebook has on its 2.27 billion users, as well has how frequently these slipups are recurring.
The bug is the latest in a series of privacy lapses that continue to crop up, despite Facebook’s repeated pledges to batten down its hatches and do a better job preventing unauthorized access to the pictures, thoughts and other personal information its users intend so share only with friends and family.
WASHINGTON — The special counsel’s office pushed back Friday at the suggestion that the FBI acted improperly in its interview of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying he agreed on his own to meet with federal agents and did not need a warning that it was against the law to lie to them.
The filing from special counsel Robert Mueller comes four days before Flynn gets sentenced on a charge of lying to the FBI about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States. It responds to a sentencing memorandum filed earlier this week by Flynn’s lawyers that said the FBI did not warn him that it illegal to lie. It also suggested that agents discouraged him from having a lawyer present.
But prosecutors with Mueller’s office rejected those arguments. They said Flynn had lied several times to White House officials about his dialogue with ambassador Sergey Kislyak and simply repeated those falsehoods when approached by the FBI on Jan. 24, 2017.
From Associated Press