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2 Cabinet members
A second member of the Cabinet of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned earlier this week over the prosecution of a Montreal engineering company accused of bribery and corruption. The country’s attorney general and Treasury Board president have both stepped down, along with Trudeau’s principal secretary. Trudeau is said to have pressured his officials to reach a negotiated settlement with the company, SNC-Lavalin, which was accused of sending millions of dollars to the family of Moammar Gadhafi in exchange for government contracts in Libya. [NPR]
800 orangutans
A billion-dollar dam project in a rainforest in Indonesia could pose an existential threat to the rarest orangutan species in the world, called the Tapanuli orangutan. There are only 800 of the animals in the wild. The dam would “put the orangutans on a firm path to extinction,” said a scientist who was an expert witness in a legal case against the project. [BBC]
8 percentage points
Among the candidates in the large 2020 Democratic presidential field thus far, Kamala Harris appears to have gained the biggest boost from a campaign launch. She gained 8 percentage points in the polls between the week prior to her candidacy announcement and the week after, my colleague Nathaniel Rakich writes. Bernie Sanders saw a 6-point bump, while Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar saw about 2 points each. [FiveThirtyEight]
$195,000 at Trump’s hotel
After the announcement of its “megamerger” with Sprint, T-Mobile executives began heavily patronizing President Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C. The executives have booked at least 52 nights at the hotel since the announcement, and the company disclosed that it had spent $195,000 there on “meeting space, catering, business center services, audio/visual equipment rental [and] lodging.” [The Washington Post]
$946 million down payment
The Pentagon has awarded Lockheed Martin a $946 million down payment for the installation of a $15 billion missile defense system in Saudi Arabia that will include 44 THAAD missile launchers. It’s part of the broader $110 billion arms deal that the Trump administration made with Saudi Arabia in 2017. [Reuters]
21 years old
Kylie Jenner, 21, is now the youngest “self-made” billionaire ever and the youngest billionaire in the world, according to Forbes, which keeps close tabs on such things. She hit that mark even faster than did Mark Zuckerberg, who was 23 when he became a billionaire. Jenner’s fortune is thanks to Kylie Cosmetics, her makeup company, and its popular lip kits. [Forbes]
From ABC News:
News headlines today: Mar. 5, 2019
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