Good morning everyone! Happy Wednesday to you!

Joining today's show are Mike Barnicle, Jon Meacham, Kasie Hunt, Michael Steele, Michael Schmidt, Phil Gordon, Gen. Michael Hayden, Mark Halperin, Chuck Todd, Bob Costas, Ben Anderson, Bianna Golodryga, Hugh Hewitt, David Axelrod, Sara Eisen and more
Watch Donald Trump Go Full Nativist In Presidential Campaign Launch.
During a lengthy Tuesday morning announcement that he would seek the Republican presidential nomination, real estate mogul Donald Trump claimed that undocumented immigrants from Mexico are “rapists” who “are bringing drugs” to the U.S. He also indicated that he would build a “great wall” on the southern U.S. border and that he would dismantle President Barack Obama’s 2012 executive action that has shielded hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

Trump is the 12th Republican to enter the 2016 race thus far.

“When do we beat Mexico at the border?” Trump asked the crowd at his announcement at his namesake Trump Tower in New York City. “They are not our friend, believe me…The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems…When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. They are not sending you. They are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs and they are bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”

“Some, I assume are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we are getting,” Trump continued. “They are not sending us the right people. It’s coming all over South and Latin America and it’s coming probably from the Middle East. But we don’t know because we have no protection and we have no competence. We don’t know what is happening and it has got to stop and it has to stop fast.” Watch it:
Trump also indicated that he would build a “great, great wall on the southern border” and that he would undo the president’s executive action known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Trump’s claim that undocumented immigrants are rapists stem from a nativist argument often peddled by anti-immigrant activists and politicians. For example, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who’s introduced several pieces of legislation aimed at restricting immigration, has dedicated an entire webpage to undocumented immigrants who have killed American citizens. But as the American Immigration Council found in a report, the crime rates in the United States fell as the size of the immigrant population increased dramatically. What’s more, as the AIC report found, the decline in crime rates also occurred in southern border cities and other cities with large immigrant populations like San Diego, El Paso, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami.

Trump has a history of making extravagant claims against certain kinds of immigrants. Notably, he once advocated for European-only immigration. But when Trump met with undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country by their parents as young children in 2013, he softened his stance and told them that their stories had convinced him.

It seems particularly surprising that Trump would criticize immigrants as a hotelier and especially at Trump Tower. In 1990, Trump was sued for hiring and underpaying at least 200 undocumented workers to raze a building that previously stood where Trump Tower is located at now.

'Apprentice' goes black during White House run.
0616-the-apprentice-01
The Apprentice' will be put on ice during Donald Trump's presidential run ... TMZ has learned. Sources connected with Trump tell us, Season 15 will not air. The networks cannot give one candidate disproportionate airtime. 
Our Donald sources say no one will take Trump's place on the show ... it's simply going off the air until his campaign runs its course. The last season of "Celebrity Apprentice" saw a rise in ratings from the previous season, and NBC announced in February they were renewing for another season.

2 shocking polls show a Democratic challenger picking up steam against Hillary Clinton. Two new polls show presidential candidate Hillary Clinton might not have the cakewalk to the Democratic nomination that political observers almost universally expect.

A Suffolk University poll of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire finds the former secretary of state Clinton garnering 41% of the vote. Fellow Democratic presidential candidate and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is surprisingly close in second place, grabbing 31%.

"Don't underestimate the power of the progressive nerve network," David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said in a statement. "It is alive, far reaching, and it is translating into political muscle in the New Hampshire Democratic primary."

The Suffolk poll is the second of the Granite State in a matter of days that displays Clinton in vulnerable position as a front-runner. In a Morning Consult poll released last weekend, Clinton led Sanders by just 12 points.

Since Sanders jumped into the presidential race in late April, his candidacy has gained momentum through grassroots support from the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party. In the Suffolk poll, self-identified liberal Democratic voters split 39-39 between Clinton and Sanders. Self-identified moderate Democrats chose Clinton by a 20-point margin.

There's also a significant gender gap. Democratic women swung 47-28 for Clinton, but she actually trailed Sanders by 3 points among Democratic men.

Clinton's advisers have continually said they expect a competitive primary process. But Sanders became the surprising favored alternative: In a May poll from Bloomberg/St. Anselm College, Sanders trailed Clinton by 44 points among Democrats.

The poll also shows that New Hampshire Democrats harbor some concerns about Clinton as a general-election candidate. Pluralities of Democratic voters say three recurring topics in the news — her handling of the terror attack on the US mission in Benghazi, her usage of a private email server as secretary of state, and the Clinton Foundation's acceptance of donations from foreign governments — will ultimately hurt her in the general election.

For all of the potential signs of trouble in New Hampshire, though, Clinton does not appear to be facing similar tightening in other primary states. The Morning Consult poll gives her 40-plus-point leads in both Iowa and South Carolina. Suffolk’s poll was conducted from June 11-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4%.

Sen. Lindsey Graham Pretend-Shoots Sen. Bernie Sanders with Shotgun.
A partial transcript of an MSNBC segment in which Sen. Lindsey Graham teaches Kasie Hunt how to skeet shoot:
GRAHAM: "I'm gonna get you motivated to want to kill the clay pigeon..."
...
GRAHAM: "Alright, do a Bernie Sanders."
SKEET OPERATOR: "Alright."
GRAHAM: "Pull!"
(SOUND OF GUNSHOT)
GRAHAM: "Sorry about that, Bernie!"
(LAUGHTER)
Baseball Gets A Rude Welcome To The Age Of Cyber Espionage.
Federal investigators are trying to determine whether someone at the Cardinals organization broke into the computer system of the Houston Astros.
In recent years, it’s become clear that sports has entered its Age of Data, with dueling analytics departments vying for breakthroughs and proprietary metrics increasingly shaping how teams are built. And perhaps there’s no better confirmation of that trend than the inevitable bombshell on Tuesday: The FBI is investigating the St. Louis Cardinals over allegations that they stole data from the Houston Astros in a computer-hacking scheme.

According to The New York Times, the FBI found evidence that Cardinals team officials broke into the Astros’ “Ground Control” information network by using the old passwords of Jeff Luhnow, currently Houston’s general manager and formerly the vice president of scouting and player development for St. Louis. Investigators told the Times that the breach compromised Houston’s internal data regarding player evaluation — both scouting and statistical in nature — and potential transactions. (Part of the same database was leaked last June as well.).
It was, in essence, the first known case of corporate espionage between sports teams. In some ways, it’s surprising that it took so long for such an incident to surface in the supercompetitive world of sports. During the 1980s and ’90s, the rise of computing — and, consequently, data collection and analysis — led to a rapid proliferation of industrial espionage cases in the business world. (It’s estimated now that the number of corporate hacking incursions doubles every year.) Just as the digital age offered far easier, more systematic methods of data storage than ever before, it also made information theft an efficient means of gaining a competitive advantage.

Baseball has had its own long history of dishonesty, from sign-stealing to doctoring the ball. (“If you’re not cheating,” former Chicago Cubs first baseman Mark Grace once said, “you’re not trying hard enough.”) And it’s not uncommon for team officials (and players) to switch franchises, presumably taking whatever knowledge they acquired at their old job with them when they go. According to Baseball-Reference’s historical database, 28 percent of all top-level baseball executives — general managers, scouting directors and farm directors — held the job for multiple teams over their careers.

That’s why it’s a little hard to believe that, as the FBI suggested, the motive here was “retaliation” against Luhnow for leaving the Cardinals and starting a new database system with the Astros. Because it’s so widely acknowledged that everyone’s front-office lifespan is mind-bogglingly short, comings and goings between front offices are almost always matters of business, not fuel for personal vendettas.

It is easy, however, to understand the story as the latest step a team is willing to take to gain an edge. While the Astros weren’t the earliest adopters of sabermetrics, there’s plenty of evidence that they’re in the current vanguard of advanced statistical thinking.1 In other words, if you were going to begin spying on MLB teams for their proprietary data, Houston might be the one to start with.

If this scandal deepens, the Cardinals may well see the legitimacy of their recent accomplishments questioned, much like the New England Patriots in the wake of Spygate (and, subsequently, Deflate-gate).

St. Louis won three National League pennants and two World Series with Luhnow in its front office, and the team also has the best record in baseball since he departed. Over that span, the Cardinals have exceeded expectations, beating their projected wins by the fifth-largest margin of any team in baseball. In that department, they’re not outliers like the Patriots are at avoiding fumbles, for instance, but it will be interesting to watch how much their transactions and personnel decisions will be scrutinized for signs that they used the hacked data to their advantage.

In the meantime, this might be the opening salvo in baseball’s era of cyber espionage — a fate that, in retrospect, seems like an inevitable consequence of the game’s widespread adoption of data analysis over the past decade and a half.

White House fence jumper gets 17 monthsWhite House fence jumper, Omar Gonzalez, who made it all the way into the White House last September said Tuesday in court that "I never meant to harm anyone."

Gonzalez addressed the Court and expressed remorse for his actions and his intent to commit to his treatment that he started in jail.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty to two federal charges; one count of unlawful entry and one count of assaulting officers. He was sentenced to 17 months in jail and 36 months of supervised release. Gonzalez will receive credit of time served starting from Sept. 20. Fines were waived because of Gonzalez's inability to pay a fine.

The special conditions for his release will be that he is no longer allowed to have firearms, knives or machetes. He also is required to complete a psychological evaluation from a United States Secret Service psychologist and required to allow the USSS access to his medical records.

Gonzalez also cannot enter the District of Columbia during his supervision unless he is scheduled to appear in court.

Judge Rosemary Collyer gave a strong recommendation to the Bureau of Prisons to allow Mr. Gonzalez to serve his sentence in California where his father resides, telling the court: "Mr. Gonzalez I need you to be released in California. That is where you want to be. I need you to get probation and medical care there." Gonzalez scheduled to be released in December.

'Game of Thrones' Finale Sets Ratings RecordHBO’s Game of Thrones continues to grow in popularity, with Sunday’s fifth-season finale drawing the show’s largest audience ever — despite going up against the NBA Finals in most of the country.

According to Nielsen “live plus same-day” estimates, Thrones averaged 8.1 million viewers, up 13 percent from both the previous week (7.14 million) and last year’s finale (7.09 million). The previous series high for the show came with its fifth-season premiere in April, which drew about 8 million.

Sunday’s ratings growth is a continuation of a trend that has seen a show once considered “niche” become cable’s second most popular program, behind only AMC’s The Walking Dead.

The Game of Thrones finale also set Twitter ablaze, landing atop the Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings weekly top 10 series list with 436,000 event-related Tweets that were seen by a unique audience of 5.1 million people. That was more than twice as many as the next closest series on the list, ABC’s The Bachelorette (2.09 million) and ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars (1.92 million).

Jeb Bush Slow Jams the News on 'Tonight' With Jimmy FallonA day after announcing his intention to make a run for the White House, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush "slow jammed the news" with Jimmy Fallon, playfully rebuffing a "Fifty Shades of Grey" joke and saying he is anxious to start talking about the issues.
"I'm looking forward to hitting the campaign trail and discussing the issues that are important to all Americans — and having spirited debates with my fellow Republicans about how to solve them," Bush said during an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."

Bush said his record of cutting taxes, passing a school choice system in Florida and creating an estimated 1.3 million jobs as governor qualifies him for the nation's highest office. Bush on Monday officially kicked off his 2016 presidential run after months of speculation.

"We face an important election in 2016," Bush said on the show. "Whoever we choose will be tasked with changing the course of our country and whipping America back into shape."

When Fallon made a crack referencing the steamy book "Fifty Shades of Grey," Bush responded, "Jimmy, I think I speak for all Americans when I say, 'Eww.'"

On immigration, Bush said, "Well, Jimmy, we're a nation of immigrants, and I believe everyone should have the chance to achieve the American Dream." He drew cheers when he repeated the line in Spanish.

"Whoa, woah, woah, hold the telefono," Fallon quipped. "I know you just got back from Miami, but I didn't think I was interviewing Governor Pitbull," referring to the Miami rap artist.

Bush discussed his wife, his Paleo Diet and shared a coquito cocktail with Fallon, but when discussing his vision for the country focused on the economy.

Asked how he would convince younger audience members to vote for him, Bush said, "I think we need high sustained economic growth where they can get jobs, that's what I think." Asked what he would say to audience members 60 years old and older, Bush repeated the line but added, "to them I would just say it louder," drawing laughs.

In announcing his candidacy Monday at Miami Dade University, Bush criticized what he called the "phone-it-in foreign policy of President Barack Obama and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, and said the presidency "should not be passed on from one liberal to the next."

Asked by Fallon about comparisons people could make to Bush's brother, President George W. Bush, and father, President George H.W. Bush, Jeb Bush said he has to make his own agenda.

"It's complicated 'cause I love them a lot, I know I've got to distinguish myself, that's what campaigns are about," Bush said. "My dad is the most perfect man I've ever met, he's the greatest man alive … it's impossible to even worry about that, there's no comparison."

And my brother I would say is a significantly better artist than I am," Bush said. "I'm still doing stick drawings. He can actually paint, he's phenomenal — and I'm a whole lot younger and a lot better looking."

The Boston Globe reported about Hillary (Clinton) that Hillary Clinton plays it safe, needs to add some spark.
Hillary Clinton addressed an audience Monday in Manchester, N.H.
It’s the enigma of Hillary Clinton.

Near the conclusion of a dinner speech composed mostly of political platitudes ploddingly proffered, she tells a story that brings tears to your eyes.

It’s about her mother, Dorothy Howell, who at 8 was abandoned by her divorced parents and sent to live with grandparents so absurdly strict that Howell struck out on her own as a young teenager.

In a childhood rendered uncertain by family dysfunction, she came to rely on the kindness of strangers: “A first-grade teacher who saw she had no food for lunch, and without embarrassing her, brought extra food to share. The woman whose house she cleaned and children she took care of, agreeing to let her go to high school if she could get her chores done.”

Much of her own work, Clinton said, has been motivated by a belief that sometimes a little help, a little caring, can make a huge difference. While Warren has repeatedly vowed that she won’t run for president herself, she ought to reconsider.

It was a moment that felt real. Alas for Clinton, other parts of her Monday speech were so treacly that what they conveyed was not genuineness but artificiality.

An example: To hear Clinton tell it, she accepted Barack Obama’s generous offer to be his secretary of state — a political dream job, particularly for a defeated candidate hoping to stay relevant — out of simple love of country.

“I want to put that love of our country right at the center of my campaign and right at the center of my presidency,” she continued. (Stop the presses!)

Clinton is hardly alone in peddling patriotic cotton candy on the stump. Rare is the politician who will admit to being motivated by anything beyond altruistic impulse. Ambition? Power? A place in history?

Heaven forbid!

And, oddly, she does tend to be viewed in white and black: As a saintly Joan of Arc by her ardent supporters, as a scheming charlatan by her determined detractors.

Neither perspective acknowledges human — or Clinton — complexity.

In the run-up to her last presidential campaign, a mutual acquaintance arranged for me to have an off-the-record meeting with her. The Clinton I saw that day was open, funny, shrewd, keenly intelligent, and very likable. That is, the kind of figure her Senate colleagues seemed to see and appreciate.

But that appealing private Clinton is distinctly different from the cautious, constrained, stick-to-the-script candidate you see on the campaign trail.

That’s doubly odd given her abilities. Along with Jeb Bush and John Kasich, Clinton is one of a half handful of hopefuls it’s easy to imagine as president. She has the qualifications; she’s better schooled in foreign policy than any of her rivals, and it’s hard think of anyone with a broader understanding of domestic policy.

With a little candor, some spontaneity, a dash of Joe Biden’s tell-it-like-it-is impulse, she could be a captivating candidate. Instead, she’s conducting a classic frontrunner’s campaign, rhetorically focused on the general election, even while intent on finessing any issues that might give her Democratic rivals an opening.

Her campaign isn’t about her political aspirations, she avers, but rather the hopes and dreams of everyday American families. But, so far at least, her basic message reduces to this: Your real choice is me or one of the Republicans.

Perhaps that’s all it will take. After all, this time around, there’s not a political pied piper like Obama to lure the faithful away with a more mesmerizing tune.

It’s Clinton or the long shots, which allows her to play the short odds.

That’s what nine out of 10 politicians would do. And yet, given her potential, Clinton is selling herself short.

In the Middle East, the way we were; it seems harmless enough to be curious about a Middle East long gone, but it's an overplayed theme.
View of Giza pyramids in Egypt, illustration by Eugene Damblans from French paper 'Le Pelerin', 1933 [Getty]
I have many friends and family from the Middle East who are regularly writing, posting or reminiscing about the past. It's a grand nostalgia project, "those were the days", a love affair with past epochs, from a wistfulness for early 20th century Levantine culture to longing for some kind of lost Arab unity. Social media has also permitted what lingers in the mind to flourish without limit.

The past lives on in the Middle East as if there were no tomorrow. The region breeds nostalgia, it's in the very air: music about unrequited love, the smell of the hookah, cafes in Cairo, melancholic songs, and photographs of cities in eras gone by. This indulgence takes place more among those living abroad who can afford to dream and not deal with the infernal traffic or the more infernal Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It seems harmless enough to be curious about a Middle East long gone, and it is certainly very interesting to see what places once looked like.

However, the heritage of the Middle East is an overplayed theme. No visiting politician passes through the region without praising the pyramids, Islamic civilisation, or Khalil Gibran - and the locals nod their heads passively in agreement. Nostalgia imbues the airwaves and the minds of the people, whether sad French ballads that Lebanese hum while stuck in traffic in Kaslik, or the deeper drones of "Tarab", the magical hypnotic songs of classical Arabic music.

Meanwhile, the real Middle East is ranging somewhere between Mad Max and a very bad horror movie (bereft of an ending). The gap between the melancholia for the past and the troubled and dangerous present has become somewhat obscene. Those who can afford to escape to the past are doing so because the present is so ugly and difficult. But, the people in the region have no choice but to live the choking dust and threat and anxiety of war every day.

Can one really blame people for wishing for or merely contemplating other eras? Some of those epochs were indeed quite decent, whether the social tolerance of the Levantine ports, or the powerful civilisation of a much older era, as represented, for example, by the House of Wisdom in 8th century Baghdad. This is fine if it had a link to today. Otherwise, those who can afford to escape to the past are doing so because the present is so ugly and difficult. But, the people in the region have no choice but to live the choking dust and threat and anxiety of war every day. Furthermore, the longing for the past is illusory. The past is gone not to return, and any future positive developments are not likely to have much to do with it.

Unaffordable indulgence
In the abstract, one can retrieve its better aspects and apply them; however, given the profound demographic, environmental and political challenges facing the Middle East today, the future will almost necessarily be very different, a paradigm leap, from where we are today or where we were in 1950, 1920 or 700 AD. A fixation on the past is also an unaffordable indulgence. The problems of the Middle East today have to do with deaths on the roads, pollution, socioeconomic exhaustion, and the dangerous politics of exclusivity.

None of these challenges can be fixed by a look back at photos of Bethlehem, 1930, or by listening to a song by Dalida. Instead, a rather sober and difficult work of cleanup of what is in one's face, ugly as it may be, is required. Many young people know this - it's their future - but their elders are not yet providing them with the alternatives. Can one have it both ways, look back to heritage as well as forward to building a future? Only if the past is pure fodder for invention of the future. Otherwise, the mind will reside in the safe zone of nostalgia, safely away from the ugliness of today, and in the consequent inaction.

Today's obsessions
It is important to remember that what we now see as the past was once unexpectedly fresh, new and even shocking in its time. The appearance of Islam in Arabia in the 7th century was a large revolution of thought and spirit that then spread to create a civilisation. Today's obsessions with the past cannot claim that capacity. Only looking forward bravely will generate the necessary shifts.

"Better be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie," goes the proverb from another land of nostalgia, Russia. Better to face the tough present than delve in the land of illusion.
The Middle East is in desperate straits, and the future of the region won't have a lot to do with the past. Those who care for it know that, and whether in-country or out, may be better to support the drive to the future rather than the nostalgic gaze on the past. Maybe for every post or article looking back, they should contribute $50 to UNHCR to care for the millions of refugees in the region today.

There's another long-standing adage about the region: "Too much history too little geography"; Henry Ford contributed an antidote when he said: "History is more or less bunk ... and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." Now, that's something to contemplate while the shisha smoke curls wistfully away, vanishing into thin air. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

California balcony collapse kills at least 6 people. A 21st-birthday party thrown by a group of visiting Irish college students turned tragic early Tuesday when the fifth-floor balcony they were crammed onto collapsed with a sharp crack, spilling them about 50 feet onto the pavement. Six people were killed and seven seriously injured. Officials were working to figure out why the small balcony broke loose from the stucco apartment building a couple of blocks from the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. But one structural engineer said it may have been overloaded if, as city officials said, it was holding 13 people.

Silvia Biswas, who lives on the floor below, said noise from the party was so loud, she opened her window and yelled to keep it down. When she later was awakened by what felt like an earthquake, she looked out the window and saw bodies, including a motionless young woman on the street.

"I wouldn't have screamed at them if I had known they were going to die," she said.

Five of the dead were 21-year-olds from Ireland who were in the country on J-1 visas that enable young people to work and travel in the U.S. over the summer, while the sixth victim was from California, authorities said.

The accident brought an outpouring of grief in Ireland from the prime minister on down, with the country's consul general in San Francisco calling it a "national tragedy."

Police had received a complaint about a loud party in the apartment about an hour before the accident but had not yet arrived when the metal-rail balcony gave way just after 12:30 a.m., spokesman Byron White said. It landed on the fourth-floor balcony just beneath it, leaving the pavement strewn with rubble and the red plastic cups that are practically standard at college parties.

The dead were identified as Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park, California; and Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller and Eimear Walsh, all from Ireland. The Irish students attended various colleges in Dublin. Some worked at San Francisco's Pier 39. Walsh and Burke were hostesses at Haza Zen, a Japanese restaurant at Pier 39, said restaurant owner Alvin Louie.

"They were great young kids, very enthusiastic, full of energy," Louis said. "We're all devastated."

The U.S. government's J-1 program brings 100,000 college students to the country every year, many landing jobs at resorts, summer camps and other attractions. About 700 of them whom are working and playing in the San Francisco Bay Area this summer, according to Ireland's Consul General Philip Grant.

Sinead Loftus, 21, who attends Trinity College Dublin and is living this summer in a different apartment in Berkeley, said Berkeley is "the Irish hub."

"It's student-friendly, it's warm and it's a lot cheaper than San Francisco," she said.

Investigators will look at things such as whether the balcony was built to code, whether it was overloaded and whether rain or other weather weakened it, said Kevin Moore, chairman of the structural standards committee of the Structural Engineers Association of California.

Balconies are exposed to the elements, "so deterioration can play a part," Moore said. Weather, "overloading, inadequate design, all these things come up in the investigations." Berkeley spokesman Matthai Chakko said that officials have not measured the balcony to find out how big it was and how much weight it was built to bear based on the 60-pound-per-square-foot standard in place when the building went up. The city's requirement for balconies has since been raised to 100 pounds.

Chakko said there is no city requirement to post a weight restriction for balconies in apartments.

The exact dimensions of the balcony that failed were not released. Estimates varied, with Mayor Tom Bates saying city officials thought it was about 9½ feet by 5 feet, while Grace Kang, a structural engineer and spokeswoman for Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center at Berkeley, said it looked to her to be 4 by 6 feet, or 24 square feet.

The larger estimate would mean the balcony should hold 2,850 pounds, while Kang's estimate would be half that. Kang said it appeared small for 13 people.

"They were packed like sardines, and then they were moving," Kang said. When people are moving it "may further exacerbate" the strain.

The Library Gardens apartment complex, completed in 2007, is in a lively part of downtown Berkeley close to the campus and is a popular place for students to live. Several tenants reached by telephone said it is well-maintained.

The building is owned by BlackRock, the largest asset-management fund in the U.S., according to city officials, and managed by Greystar Management, whose website says it operates more than 400,000 units in the U.S. and abroad.

In a statement, Greystar extended condolences to the victims' families and added: "The safety of our residents is our highest priority and we will be working with an independent structural engineer and local authorities to determine the cause of the accident."

On the closed street below, a shrine was growing: flowers, a pack of cigarettes, a school banner and condolence notes. Victims' relatives were expected to begin arriving from Ireland on Tuesday night.

"My heart breaks for the parents who lost children this morning, and I can only imagine the fear in the hearts of other parents whose children are in California this summer as they seek to contact them now," Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers in Dublin. Associated Press writers Paul Elias, Ellen Knickmeyer and Lisa Leff in San Francisco, Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Bob Seavey in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Search teams hindered by cool, rainy weather combed through woods for an 11th day trying to track down two escaped murderers on Tuesday as one official raised doubts the escapees relied solely on a now-jailed prison worker to help them get away after their breakout.

More than 800 law enforcement officers who are searching for convicts David Sweat and Richard Matt shifted their focus eastward along Route 374 leading from the village of Dannemora, home of the Clinton Correctional Facility, in far northern New York.

State police said Tuesday the manhunt will be expanded beyond where it's been most intense, 16 square miles of woods, fields and swamps around a road where search dogs caught the scent of both men and searchers found evidence indicating they may have spent time there.

Clinton County Sheriff David Favro said rain has been washing away any scent dogs might find and interfering with thermal imaging devices being used to detect body heat.

Matt and Sweat escaped June 6 from the maximum-security prison near the Canadian border.

Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole in the killing of a sheriff's deputy. Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.

Meanwhile, the prison worker charged with helping the killers flee by providing them with hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools was visited in jail Tuesday by her husband, also a prison worker.

Favro described Joyce Mitchell as "composed" during the morning visit with her husband, Lyle Mitchell.

Prosecutors say Joyce Mitchell, a prison tailoring shop instructor who befriended the inmates, had agreed to be the getaway driver but backed out because she still loved her husband and felt guilty for participating.

District Attorney Andrew Wylie said Monday that there was no evidence the men had a Plan B once Mitchell backed out, and no vehicles have been reported stolen in the area. That has led searchers to believe the men are still near the prison.

But Favro said Tuesday that while he has "no concrete information," he doesn't believe the escapees would have counted only on Mitchell for the success of their "elaborate, well-thought-out escape plan."

"My theory - my theory only - is that she was Plan B," he said. "I would have viewed her as baggage, almost, for them to be able to escape into freedom because she's leaving behind a family and a husband."

He said investigators won't be certain until the fugitives are caught.

But Favro said, "I find it difficult to believe right from Day 1 that they would go through that - probably took some time to really map together - and they would get out on the hopes that a civilian worker that they found would assist them in actually getting away."

Mitchell was charged Friday with supplying contraband, including a punch and a screwdriver, to the two inmates. She has pleaded not guilty. She has been suspended without pay from her $57,000-a-year job overseeing inmates who sew clothes and learn to repair sewing machines.

Authorities say the convicts used power tools to cut through the backs of their adjacent cells, broke through a brick wall and then cut into a steam pipe and slithered through it, finally emerging outside the prison walls through a manhole. Wylie says they apparently used tools stored by prison contractors, taking care to return them to their toolboxes after each night's work.

In Broome County, where Sweat and his cousin killed a deputy in 2002, Sheriff David Harder said his office has been investigating since Sweat broke out of prison, contacting his family and associates and committing about 50 officers to the case. Sweat was "a kind of survivalist," who was caught in the woods in New York's Southern Tier five days after that killing after somebody came forward with information, he said.

Accused Prison Employee Joyce Mitchell's Husband Emerges Amid Search for Convicts. The husband of the prison employee who has been accused of aiding two escaped convicts has appeared publicly for the first time since the murderers broke out of an upstate New York maximum-security prison 11 days ago. Lyle Mitchell was pictured today as he left the office of his wife Joyce’s attorney. He would not answer any questions about the case. He has not been accused of having any role in the prisoners’ escape, though sources tell ABC News investigators are looking into the possibility that he was an unknowing target in the alleged plot.

Law enforcement sources say investigators are looking into allegations Joyce Mitchell may have helped convicted killers David Sweat and Richard Matt escape because she believed they would help kill her husband and run away with her. Prosecutors will not comment.
PHOTO: Lyle Mitchell, the husband of prison employee Joyce Mitchell, was pictured as he left his wifes attorneys office on June 16, 2015.
Her attorney would not comment on any specifics of the case but said to reporters she was “distraught.”
"Let's just say that she's very upset," attorney Stephen Johnston said Monday.
Mitchell, 51, is charged with a felony count of promoting prison contraband and a misdemeanor count of criminal facilitation for allegedly helping the inmates escape from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, June 6. She entered a plea of not guilty last week.
What is incredible about this issue is that Joyce Mitchell is going to be headed to prison for many years and these other two people that were helped by her, are out free. This is an incredible situation.

Clinton confidante Blumenthal testifies before House Benghazi panel. A long time advisor and confidant to the Clinton family, Sidney Blumenthal, testified in a closed session Tuesday before the House Select Committee on Benghazi after the committee received nearly 120 new pages of emails Blumenthal exchanged with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

"Sidney Blumenthal produced to the Committee nearly 60 new emails regarding Libya and Benghazi," the panel's chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said. "I think it's noteworthy that no committee of Congress that has previously looked in to Benghazi or Libya uncovered these memos and I will leave it to you to figure out if whether there was a failure to produce on the former secretary's part of there was a failure to produce on the Department of State's behalf."

Gowdy said the emails were never released to the public, and if the top Democrat on the panel, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, approves, the emails will be released and added to Clinton's public email record. Otherwise, he added, they will be released after the required five days passes.

The State Department pointed out a "possible" discrepancy between what the committee requested and what Blumenthal handed over -- he may have given documents referencing Libya, while the department handed over those specifically referencing Benghazi. The department maintains that they have not seen what Blumenthal handed over so they cannot say for sure whether there is a discrepancy in records.

"The Department is working diligently to publish to its public website all of the emails received from former Secretary Clinton through the FOIA process," said State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach. "We provided the Committee with a subset of documents that matched its request and will continue to work with them going forward. Secretary Kerry has been clear that the State Department will be both transparent and thorough in its obligations to the public on this matter."

The emails are part of a collection of nearly 55,000 pages of messages from Clinton's private email account that she turned over to the State Department for review and release. The agency has been ordered by a U.S. district court judge to release the emails on a rolling basis, and some of those emails have been turned over to the House committee investigating the attack. The New York Times published nearly 350 pages of the emails last month.

Blumenthal's testimony came less than a week after Clinton held the first big rally of her 2016 presidential bid.

Cummings said Blumenthal's appearance before the panel was an example of how the GOP-led committee "has strayed far from investigating the Benghazi attacks and is now focused like a laser on attacking Secretary Clinton in her run for president," according to the Associated Press..

Chairman of Benghazi panel says Clinton friend did not write Benghazi memos. The chairman of a House panel investigating the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya, says that a longtime confidant of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton did not write any of the numerous memos he forwarded to Clinton while she served as secretary of state.

Nearly all the memos forwarded by Sidney Blumenthal to Clinton came from a single source, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said late Tuesday.

Both Gowdy and Blumenthal agreed that Blumenthal shed little light on the Benghazi attack, but Gowdy called the all-day session interrupted by lunch and floor votes "productive" and informative. Blumenthal, however, said his appearance "was for one reason and one reason only, and that reason is politics."

Rather than offer original analysis, Blumenthal was "simply and merely a conduit of someone who may have had business interests in Libya," Gowdy said after Blumenthal spent nearly nine hours at the Capitol as Gowdy's committee met in closed session.

Blumenthal, who has never been to Libya and is not an expert on the country, "has absolutely no idea if (information included in the memos) is credible or not," Gowdy said.

Blumenthal, meeting with reporters after his testimony ended, said the memos were written by a former high-ranking CIA official, adding that he passed them on to Clinton as a friend.

Blumenthal and Gowdy declined to name the author of the memos, but emails released last month show at least one memo written by former CIA official Tyler Drumheller.

The evening after the September 2012 Benghazi attack, Blumenthal forwarded to Clinton an analysis of the situation from Drumheller which purported to contain information from "sources with direct access to the Libyan National Transitional Council as well as the highest levels of European governments as well as Western intelligence and security services."

The memo said a top Libyan official, Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, had told close associates that the Benghazi attack was carried out by the militant group Ansar al-Sharia and that Libyan security officials believed the group "took advantage of cover provided by" demonstrations against an Internet video seen as insulting to the Prophet Mohammed to conduct it.

Blumenthal said he "explained the facts" about his correspondence with Clinton to the committee and "dispelled some myths recklessly disseminated" by some committee members.

"I answered every question," Blumenthal said, adding that he "shed no light on events in Benghazi" because he has no firsthand knowledge and never worked for the Obama administration.

Earlier Tuesday, Gowdy complained about delays in receiving emails between Clinton and Blumenthal, noting that the committee received roughly 60 new emails totaling 120 pages from Blumenthal last week.

Committee Democrats called the delay understandable after Gowdy and majority Republicans expanded the panel's scope from a probe of the September 2012 attacks that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, to a broader examination of U.S. policy toward Libya.

Democrats cited a May 29 letter from Gowdy to Blumenthal seeking "any and all documents and communications" sent to or received by Blumenthal related to Libya, "but not limited to Benghazi and Tripoli." The letter also asks for information on weapons found in, imported to or removed from Libya. Gowdy made similar, broad requests in a March subpoena issued to the State Department.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the GOP was continuing to "move the goalposts in terms of what they're asking for from the State Department."

Rep. Darrell Issa kicked out of Sidney Blumenthal’s Benghazi deposition by Rep. Trey Gowdy.
I must assume it is because (Darrell) Issa should not have been in those meetings but (Trey) Gowdy is seen throwing up his arms in what could be deemed as dismay after that exchange.

Bob Costas reacts to FBI investigation into Cardinals. Emmy award-winning broadcaster Bob Costas tells Newschannel 5 there isn't enough information yet to draw conclusions on the FBI investigation into the St. Louis Cardinals.
The FBI is investigating whether the St. Louis Cardinals hacked into the computer system of the Houston Astros.

Costas said it could be particularly damaging to the organization because of the perception they have around baseball.

"But if the worst comes out of this," he said, "then it will be a little bit worse than it might be for some other organizations because of the image that the Cardinals have of doing things not only successfully but doing things in an above board way that their fan base feels good about."

"This will be a tough pill to swallow, if underline, capital letters "IF," something significant comes out of it," Costas said. "But as we speak right now it's all speculation. We know there is an investigation, where that investigation will lead could be anywhere from a relatively benign conclusion to a damning conclusion or anything in between."

He said the story speaks to an overall change in in the way teams are operated. "I do think this is a significant story because more and more analytics in sports are becoming more sophisticated. It isn't just something that some cigar chopping scout scribbled on the back of a scorecard. There are very sophisticated systems that these teams have in place, Jeff Luhnow and the Astros are among the most sophisticated in all of baseball, so the incentive to gather this information is there."

He also said that this sort of activity will probably continue in the future.

"So if this is some sort of baseball espionage this may be the first time we've seen this but it won't be the last time we see this in sports," he said.

The Next VICE looks like an amazing story that is absolutely 'heartbreaking' and is entitled, Afghanistan After Us & La HaineBen Anderson is on the show now whom is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, and author of the 2012 book No Worse Enemy that chronicles his experiences in the war-torn southern provinces of Afghanistan.
This is an outcome of a product of us invading that country. The leader of this band of fighters that are kids is a 53 year old Grandmother that lives in that village. View the preview of the Episode 313 which airs on HBO this week on friday night.

VICE is a dynamic news show now in its third season. A partnership between HBO and the new media company that bears the show's name, VICE won last year's Emmy® award for Outstanding Informational Series or Special.

Always unorthodox and at times irreverent, VICE takes viewers around the globe as its correspondents cover stories often overlooked by traditional media outlets. Reporting on today's most pressing issues, VICE uses an immersive documentary style to bring a unique perspective to the events shaping the future.

Hosted by VICE Media founder Shane Smith, the series is executive produced by Bill Maher, Shane Smith, Eddy Moretti, VICE's chief creative officer, and BJ Levin, with CNN's Fareed Zakaria serving as consultant.

In the 2015 season, VICE investigates a broad range of topics, including climate change, the state of American policing, the movement of families fleeing gang violence in Central America, and new drug trafficking routes from South America to Africa.

This season also sees the addition of new award-winning correspondents to the show's roster. Along with Shane Smith, the 2015 lineup includes VICE Media co-founder Suroosh Alvi; conflict-zone journalist, documentary filmmaker and author Ben Anderson; Emmy®-nominated producer and correspondent Gianna Toboni; filmmaker and producer Vikram Gandhi; correspondent Isobel Yeung; and longtime VICE correspondent Thomas Morton.

VICE airs on Friday nights at 11:00 PM ET/PT immediately following 'Real Time with Bill Maher.'
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And, Golden State Warriors down Cavaliers to win NBA title. Former (Philadelphia) Sixer (76'ers) (Andre Iguodala) named the MVP of the entire series. The Golden State Warriors won their first NBA title since 1975, downing the Cavaliers 105-97 Tuesday night in Cleveland.

The Warriors won the NBA Finals four games to two, winning the last three contests.

"They were all in it just to win," rookie coach Steve Kerr said of his players. "This is an amazing group of guys."

The four-time NBA champion Warriors were led Tuesday by Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala, who each scored 25 points.

Iguodala, who started zero games during the regular season but was inserted into the first five during the Finals, was named MVP of the series.

"We are going to remember this for a long time," he said. 

Golden State's Draymond Green had a triple-double with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

The Warriors won the game by hitting seven more three-pointers -- a margin that was larger until J.R. Smith hit four late, long-range shots -- and forcing the Cavs into 19 turnovers.

LeBron James topped the Cavaliers with 32 points, 18 rebounds and nine assists. Smith had 19 points, 15 in the fourth quarter.


"Our guys did more than anyone could expect to put themselves and to put our organization in the situation (where they played for a title)," Cleveland head coach David Blatt, also in his first NBA season, said. "Not every story has a happy ending; it doesn't mean it's a bad story. This was not. This was a good story." The Warriors led 45-43 at halftime after Cleveland whittled away a 13-point deficit after the first period. James nearly had a double-double in the first 24 minutes, scoring 15 points and grabbing eight rebounds.

Golden State pounded on the Cavs early in the third and by the end of the period had a 12-point lead at 73-61. The Warriors went 13-0 during the NBA playoffs when they went into the fourth quarter with a lead.

The Warriors are one of three original NBA franchises still in existence. At first, they were based in Philadelphia, where they won the first NBA title in 1947 and one in 1956. Six years later they moved to the Bay Area when they were the San Francisco Warriors until 1971.

In 1975, the Warriors beat the Washington Bullets in the finals with four straight victories.

Like (Mike) Barnicle just said about the series, it was basically a 5 on 1 game in every game. Injuries decimated the Cleveland team and LeBron (James) still shined big time in them.

Andre Iguodala named Finals MVP after coming off bench to begin series. Golden State forward Andre Iguodala was named MVP of the NBA Finals following the Warriors' 105-97 clinching win Tuesday night, becoming the first player to garner the honor without starting every game.

Curry and Iguodala lead the Warriors to a championship
The Golden State Warriors snapped a 39-season title drought, defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. It also marks the first time the Finals MVP has shared a team with the regular-season MVP (Stephen Curry) since Magic Johnson claimed the Finals honor in 1980 while playing on a Los Angeles Lakers squad with regular-season MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

"This has been a long ride," Iguodala said. "It's been a great season."

Prior to this season, Iguodala had started 758 consecutive games. This year, he remained in a reserve role until Game 4 of the Finals, when he was substituted into the starting lineup for center Andrew Bogut.

The Warriors then won each of the final three games of the series, overcoming the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 6 to take the title.

Warriors Win With Small Ball

The Warriors went small on 41 percent of plays through the first three games of the series. After replacing Andrew Bogut with Andre Iguodala in the starting lineup in Game 4, the Warriors went small on 93 percent of plays. "He was great the entire series. But he saved this season for us," Warriors forward Draymond Green said. "I always say Andre's a pro's pro. He's a professional guy, and it showed, and that's why he's the MVP of this series, and that's why we're champions."

Iguodala finished the series with averages of 16.3 points, four assists and 5.8 rebounds. In Game 6, he scored 25 points and added five rebounds and five assists.

"My mind was working so many ways," Iguodala said. "Like, 'What's going to happen if you win? What's going to happen if you lose? How do you approach the game starting?' Do you come out firing? Do you let it just come to you?'

"For me, it was just playing my game. If you're feeling it, shoot it. If you feel like you can make a play for somebody else, make a play for somebody else."

Iguodala also had the responsibility of guarding LeBron James, just as 2014 Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard did. When Iguodala was on the floor, James shot 38.1 percent from the field.

"It's never 1-on-1, but I think his ability to play multiple positions for their team along with some of those other guys allowed their team to be so dynamic," James said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Oh and also, I forgot to mention yesterday how the Chicago Black Hawks won the Stanley Cup this season in the NHL.

Regardless of it all, Stay in touch!