Walmart has removed a controversial T-shirt with a simple message — "Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED" — from its website, after the Radio Television Digital News Association sent the largest retailer in the U.S. a note flagging the shirt's message.

As RTDNA said, the shirt was being sold by Walmart with a company called Teespring acting as a third-party seller. The retailer removed the shirt within one day of being notified.

A Walmart spokesperson says the shirt "clearly violates our policy," adding that the company is reviewing all of the products it sells from Teespring.

Politically, this is significant for several reasons.
First, Ross is involved in deals concerning maritime freight, an industry – at least insofar as the U.S. is concerned – he is responsible for regulating as commerce secretary.

Second, he is tasked with administering the “America First” trade policies Trump promised to his voters – yet at the same time, he profits from Russian competition on the energy market.

And third, Navigator’s business partner Sibur is controlled by multiple oligarchs close to Putin who have Western sanctions in place against themselves or their companies.

The connection is also problematic considering that hardly any other issue has dogged Trump’s presidency as much as his alleged contacts to the Russian government, particularly in the run-up to the election. A special counsel is currently investigating whether Moscow illegally supported Trump during his campaign. The first charges have already been filed and the first arrests made, including that of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

Free housing, food, transport and access to the internet should be given to British citizens in a massive expansion of the welfare state, according to a report warning the rapid advance of technology will lead to job losses.

Former senior government official Jonathan Portes and Professor Henrietta Moore, director of University College London’s Institute for Global Prosperity make the call for a raft of new “universal basic services” using the same principles as the NHS. They estimate it would cost about £42bn, which could be funded by changes to the tax system.

The recommendations include doubling Britain’s existing social housing stock with funding to build 1.5m new homes, which would be offered for free to those in most need. A food service would provide one third of meals for 2.2m households deemed to experience food insecurity each year, while free bus passes would be made available to everyone, rather than just the over-60s.

The proposals also include access to basic phone services, the internet, and the cost of the BBC licence fee being paid for by the state.

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Executive Summary
There are significant questions as to whether President Trump obstructed justice. We do not yet know all the relevant facts, and any final determination must await further investigation, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But the public record contains substantial evidence that President Trump attempted to impede the investigations
of Michael Flynn and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, including by firing FBI Director James Comey. There is also a question as to whether President Trump conspired to obstruct justice with senior members of his administration although the public facts regarding conspiracy are less well developed.

Attempts to stop an investigation represent a common form of obstruction. Demanding the loyalty of an individual involved in an investigation, requesting that individual’s help to end the investigation, and then ultimately firing that person to accomplish that goal are the type of acts that have frequently resulted in obstruction convictions, as we detail. In addition, to the extent conduct could be characterized as threatening, intimidating, or corruptly persuading witnesses, that too may provide additional grounds for obstruction charges.

While those defending the president may claim that expressing a “hope” that an investigation will end is too vague to constitute obstruction, we show that such language is
sufficient to do so. In that regard, it is material that former FBI Director James Comey interpreted the president’s “hope” that he would drop the investigation into Flynn as an
instruction to drop the case. That Comey ignored that instruction is beside the point under applicable law. We also note that potentially misleading conduct and possible cover
-up attempts could serve as further evidence of obstruction. Here, such actions may include fabricating an initial justification for firing Comey, directing Donald Trump Jr.’s inaccurate statements about the purpose of his meeting with a Russian lawyer during the president’s campaign, tweeting that Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations,” despite having “no idea” whether such tapes existed, and repeatedly denouncing the validity of the investigations.

Bossert, back from a trip to Puerto Rico earlier in the week, says it's "still an urgent situation," but that the administration has "a strong ground game in place on the island with military leadership":

"I hope to turn the corner on our public communications ... I recommend that [this weekend] we use the general theme of supporting the governor and standing with the people of Puerto Rico to get them food, water, shelter and emergency medical care."

"Monday and Tuesday we can pivot hopefully to a theme of stabilizing as we address temporary housing and sustaining the flow of commodities and basic government services, including temporary power. After that we focus on restoration of basic services throughout next week and next weekend."

"Then we start a theme of recovery planning for the bright future that lies ahead for Puerto Rico. Planned hits, tweets, tv bookings and other work will limit the need for reactionary efforts."

"The storm caused these problems, not our response to it. We have pushed about as much stuff and people through a tiny hole in as short a timeframe as possible."

In particular, a single state’s decision to weaken or eliminate its essential health benefit standards could weaken or effectively eliminate the ACA’s guarantee of protection against catastrophic costs for people with coverage through large employer plans in every state. [1] The two affected protections are the ACA’s ban on annual and lifetime limits, as well as the ACA’s requirement that insurance plans cap enrollees’ annual out-of-pocket spending. Both of these provisions aim to ensure that seriously ill people can access needed health care services while continuing to meet their other financial needs.

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In particular, a single state’s decision to weaken or eliminate its essential health benefit standards could weaken or effectively eliminate the ACA’s guarantee of protection against catastrophic costs for people with coverage through large employer plans in every state. [1] The two affected protections are the ACA’s ban on annual and lifetime limits, as well as the ACA’s requirement that insurance plans cap enrollees’ annual out-of-pocket spending. Both of these provisions aim to ensure that seriously ill people can access needed health care services while continuing to meet their other financial needs.

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Under current law, allowing large employer plans this type of flexibility has limited impact since all states’ essential health benefit definitions are required to meet basic federal standards. But if each state could set its own definition of essential health benefits, as states would be allowed to do under the MacArthur Amendment, the consequences of allowing this flexibility would be significant.

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Suppose that even one state secured a waiver that allowed it to drop maternity services, mental health services, or prescription drugs from the definition of essential health benefits—a plausible scenario since these services were
commonly not covered in individual market plans prior to the ACA and since waivers would be easy to obtain. In this case, a large employer plan that wanted to impose an annual or lifetime on limit on these services could simply adopt that state’s definition of essential health benefits. Likewise, a large employer plan that did not want to limit enrollees’ out-of-pocket spending with respect to these services could also take this approach. In a more extreme, but still plausible, scenario in which even one state elected to completely eliminate its essential health benefit standards, the requirement to provide these protections would effectively disappear entirely for large employer plans nationwide.