What caused deadly outbreak at these hospitals

UPMC informed the Allegheny County Health Department, Pennsylvania Department of Health, and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that its independent testing led UPMC officials to believe the linens were the likely source of the outbreak, according to the emails.

The new emails reveal additional testing seeking to pinpoint the source of the outbreak.

An email sent May 5, 2016, by Jeff Miller, a field epidemiologist for the CDC, said that environmental samples were taken on February 21, 22 and April 21, 2016, at UPMC Presbyterian and Montefiore hospitals and Paris Co. laundry facilities. The testing was requested by UPMC and conducted by an independent contractor.

A whole genome sequencing report by an independent laboratory based on these specimens “[suggests] that fungi from Paris have been brought into the [Presbyterian University Hospital] laundry,” according to the report provided in the email.

“It is looking more likely than ever, that the linen vendor is the more likely potential source of mucor as you can see by the reports,” said an email sent by Allegheny County Health Department Chief Epidemiologist LuAnn Brink on June 21, 2016, in which she shared “notes from UPMC.” It is unknown who from UPMC sent Brink the notes. Mucor is a species of mucormycosis, which are fungal spores commonly found outdoors. However, they can cause a rare and sometimes fatal fungal infection in patients who are immunocompromised, according to the CDC.

A whole genome sequencing report compares environmental samples from which the DNA has been extracted and sequenced to show the fingerprint of the sample at a high resolution, according to Dr. Barun Mathema, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health who CNN contacted independently on Monday.

“Nobody is a 100% sure, if you read carefully, there will always be a bit of a wiggle room caveat,” said Mathema, who was not involved in testing the samples from Pittsburgh. In general, it is rare that epidemiological testing comes to an absolutely conclusive result because of variables that come into play when epidemiologists attempt to replicate the exact environment in which the case occurred.

Additional testing

This isn’t the first report to link the mold outbreak to hospital linens. In a separate, UPMC-contracted internal report, testing conducted on February 1, 2016 by hospital environmental specialists Andrew Streifel and Michael Buck found a heavy buildup of lint and mold near the Paris Co. linen facility vent through which unfiltered air dried the linens.

When Streifel and Buck went to the hospitals and tested linen from Paris Co., a cart of wet sheets delivered to the Montefiore laundry storage area bore “heavy fungal growth of Mucor and rhizopus,” according to their report, which was not made public until early 2017.

“Our hospitals are safe, and our ongoing monitoring and testing show no evidence of a mold outbreak. We and the nation’s top health regulators have found no definitive or unifying cause of the previous infections, which are known to occur on occasion at most major medical centers,” UPMC spokeswoman Allison Hydzik said in a statement to CNN when asked to respond to the contents of these emails.

UPMC “will address specific allegations in court and not in the media,” Hydzik said.

The Allegheny County Health Department provided CNN with the emails, which were incorrectly redacted to reveal more information than intended. The emails were provided in response to an open records request under the state’s Right to Know Law. The county records department withheld several other emails on the grounds of privacy for patients’ information.

“While we were made aware of all steps that UPMC was taking to identify potential sources, including looking at linens, there was no identification of the linens as the source of the outbreak. Similarly, as has already been stated by the department, ACHD was an observer in this process, not the regulatory agency looking into this,” Allegheny County Health Department spokeswoman Melissa Wade said in a statement to CNN when asked about the emails.

“Our products are safe. We have nothing to hide. We have followed and continue to follow protocols of the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council by providing hygienically clean linens to our customers,” Paris Co. CEO Dave Stern said in a statement to CNN when asked about the content of the emails.

CDC and state officials respond

In a phone interview this week, Sharon Watkins, director of the bureau of epidemiology for the Pennsylvania Department of Health said the mold investigation is continuing. At no time has the state or the CDC determined that linens were the most likely cause of the UPMC mold outbreak, she said.

“I don’t know why anyone would say that,” Watkins said, referring to the email that said “the linen vendor is the more likely potential source of mucor.”

UPMC is required to provide the Pennsylvania Department of Health with regular updates concerning the investigation, Pennsylvania Department of Health spokeswoman April Hutcheson said.

Since May 2016, the Pennsylvania health department has been “in constant consultation with the CDC on this issue, including epidemiological evaluation of new information, a site visit, and current review of system-wide UPMC data,” Hutcheson told CNN in a statement when asked about the emails.

“There is no evidence to indicate an ongoing outbreak at this time; however, the state health department is in the process of reviewing additional information as part of the ongoing investigation.”

The UPMC hospital system mold outbreak began in October 2014. By September 2015, four patients had died of fungal infections at UPMC Presbyterian and Montefiore hospitals. By that time, the transplant ICU at Presbyterian had temporarily closed.

In September 2015, while the Presbyterian transplant ICU was closed, the CDC investigated possible sources of the mold outbreak. The results of the investigation were published in the May 2016 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Investigators said that the fatal infections were not attributed to the mold-covered linens, but rather to ventilation that may have allowed dust and mold spores to enter the hospital rooms.

The CDC maintains that conclusion despite what the newly uncovered emails say, Skinner said. The CDC findings were not addressed in the recently released emails.

In May 2016, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf again requested the CDC consult with the state health department and UPMC because a fifth fungal infection recipient had been identified in the Presbyterian ICU, CDC spokesperson Tom Skinner told CNN when asked about the content of the emails. Wolf’s press secretary, J.J. Abbott, confirmed the request in an email to CNN.

That additional patient was Daniel Krieg, a kidney transplant patient who died in July 2016. UPMC medical reports show Krieg had fungal pneumonia and that fungal-infected sections of his left lung were removed. A CDC representative returned to UPMC on June 22, 2016, with officials from the state and county departments of health to discuss the outbreak and Krieg’s case, Skinner told CNN on Monday.

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

An agenda in the newly revealed emails said health officials were to discuss laundry processes at Presbyterian, Montefiore, and Shadyside hospitals at the June 22, 2016 CDC visit.

The day before that visit, an June 21, 2016, email sent by Brink also said that UPMC was working with the linen vendor to “improve their product.” The email also said the hospital system was “aggressively pursuing” an alternative linen solution for all transplant patients in the ICU at Presbyterian hospital.

UPMC said in a January 2016 statement that high-risk transplant patients would receive linens with a lower bacterial count going forward. Hospital linens are required to be “hygienically clean,” according to the Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council. (PDF) That means linens are not sterile, but in a clean state, free of pathogens in sufficient numbers to minimize risk of infection, and the clean textiles are not inadvertently contaminated before use, according to the CDC.

“Despite the lack of a definitive source, UPMC still went above and beyond state and federal recommendations in order to implement changes to protect our patients. One of the many changes includes the provision of specially treated bioburden-reduced linens to our highest risk transplant patients,” UPMC spokeswoman Hydzik told CNN previously.

How paralyzed man regained hand movements

The early stage research has been tested in a lab with just one patient so far, yet someday it may change the lives of many with spinal cord injuries, said lead author Abidemi Bolu Ajiboye, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University.

Even though the system would not become immediately available to patients, Ajiboye believes that all the technical hurdles can be overcome within five to 10 years. “We actually have a handle on everything that we need. There are no significant novel discoveries we need to make for the system,” he said.

Ajiboye said that what makes this achievement unique is not the technology, but the patient. Unlike any previous experiments, a man who is nearly completely paralyzed — or tetraplegic — regained his ability to reach and grasp by virtue of a neuroprosthetic.

Cycling accident

Bill Kochevar, a resident of Cleveland, injured his spinal cord in 2006 prior to enrolling in the study.

“It was a bicycling accident,” said Ajiboye, who explained that Kochevar, 53, was doing a 150-mile bicycle ride on a rainy day. “He was following a mail truck and the mail truck stopped and he ended up running into the back of the truck,” said Ajiboye. As a result, Kochevar has paralysis below the shoulders.

“So he can’t walk, he can’t move his arms, he can’t move his hands,” said Ajiboye.

While the American Spinal Injury Association classifies him at the most disabled level of paralysis, Kochevar is capable of both speaking and moving his head. Prior to enrolling in the study, he often used head tracking software technology that relied on him moving his head to move a cursor on a screen. “But he had no ability to do any sort of functional activities,” said Ajiboye.

Kochevar underwent two surgeries fitting him with the neuroprosthetic. The first operation on December 1, 2014, implanted the brain computer interface, or BCI, in the region of Kochevar brain that is responsible for hand movement, called the motor cortex.

The BCI is an electrode array which penetrates the brain between one to one and a half millimeters, said Ajiboye.

Next, Kochevar underwent a second surgery to implant 36 muscle stimulating electrodes into his upper and lower arm. Known as functional electrical stimulation or FES, these electrodes are key to restoring movement in his finger and thumb, wrist, elbow and shoulders.

The Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation Center, of which Ajiboye is a part, first developed electrical stimulation technology for reanimating paralyzed function nearly 30 years ago. As Ajiboye explained, the technology is similar to a pacemaker in that it applies electrical stimulation to the muscles in order to stir movement.

After the separate technologies were implanted, the researchers connected Kochevar’s brain-computer interface to the electrical stimulators in his arm. At this point, Kochevar began learning how to use his neuroprosthetic and that process started with a virtual arm.

“We had him watch the virtual arm move, he attempted to move his arm in the same way, and that elicited some patterns of cortical activity — some patterns of electrical neural activity,” said Ajiboye.

This electrical activity was recorded and based on this recording, Ajiboye and his colleagues created a “neural decoder” — an algorithm specific to Kochevar — that could translate the patterns of Kochevar’s recorded brain signals into commands for the electrodes in his arm.

“Then we had him use our algorithm to control the virtual arm on the screen just using his brain signals,” said Ajiboye. “Very early on he could hit the target with 95 to 100% accuracy.” This ‘virtual’ step in the process helped Ajiboye and his colleagues refine the algorithm.

“Then, finally, we basically do the same thing with his actual arm. We manually move his arm, and we have him imagine he’s doing it,” said Ajiboye. Kochevar is then able to move his arm on his own by thinking the command (and so generating once again the same brain pattern when he imagined moving his arm) and this is then actuated through electrical stimulation.

Essentially, the technology circumvents the spinal injury feeding the electrical stimulation of his brain through wires to the electrodes in his arm.

After mastering simple movements, Kochevar was tested on day-to-day tasks, including drinking a cup of coffee and feeding himself. In all of these, Kochevar was successful.

“There were no significant adverse events, the system is safe, so as far as the clinical trial endpoint goes, he has met those,” said Ajiboye.

“Now he has opted voluntarily to continue working as a participant in our study for at least another five years,” said Ajiboye. Kochevar hopes to experience the benefits of the technology for himself while also seeing it advance to the point of becoming available for other people with spinal cord injuries, according to Ajiboye.

CNN attempted to contact Kochevar for comment.

‘Encouraging’ results

A previous unrelated study showed paraplegic people with spinal cord injuries using brain-machine interfaces to gain control of their brain activity and stimulate movement in their legs. A separate study used a brain-spine interface to communicate nerve signals and helped paralyzed monkeys to regain movement.
According to Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh, the new study “shows the potential that [a brain-machine interface] can be used to reanimate a limb.” Schwartz was uninvolved with the current study.

While the “generated movements were somewhat rudimentary” with a rather limited range of action, “the attempt to use multiple degrees of freedom was encouraging,” said Schwartz.

“I liked the idea that movements were decoded first and then transformed to muscle activations,” he added. “For real movements in the real world, this transformation will be very difficult to calculate and that is where real science will be needed.”

In an editorial published alongside the study, Steve I. Perlmutter, an associate professor at University of Washington in Seattle, said the research is “groundbreaking as the first report of a person executing functional, multijoint movements of a paralysed limb with a motor neuroprosthetic. However, this treatment is not nearly ready for use outside the lab.”

Similar to Schwartz, Perlmutter noted that Kochevar’s movements were “rough and slow” and had limited range due to the necessary motorized device.

“Stimulation of nerves or the spinal cord, rather than muscles, and more sophisticated stimulation technology may provide substantial improvements,” wrote Perlmutter.

“The algorithms for this type of brain computer interface are very important, but there are many other factors that are also critical, including the ability to measure brain signals reliably for long periods of time,” Perlmutter said in an email. He added another critical issue is execution of movement.

Hurdles that all motor neuroprostheses must overcome have yet to be addressed, noted Perlmutter, including “development of devices that are small enough, robust enough, and cheap enough to be fully mobile and widely available.”

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

Ajiboye acknowledges the need for smaller technologies. Still, he said, his new study differs from previous work done in the field. Although other labs have worked with non-human primates or partially paralyzed participants, his study helped someone who is completely paralyzed.

“This is an exponentially harder problem,” said Ajiboye. “Our study is the first in the world, to my knowledge, to take someone paralyzed and give him the ability to both reach and grasp objects… so that he can regain the ability to perform functional activities of daily living.”

One other way the new study differs from previous research is Ajiboye and his colleagues built their neuroprosthetic from separate technologies, each of which had already been proven viable. This translates to the entire system, when refined, more easily gaining approval and becoming available to patients.

“The goal is to do much more than a cool science experiment,” said Ajiboye.

Gorsuch path unclear; filibuster, nuclear option loom

But the exact math behind breaking a filibuster or changing the Senate rules did not yet appear to add up as of Tuesday evening.

Senior Democrats predicted their caucus will ban together to block Gorsuch on a key procedural vote expected next Thursday. And they held out hope that not all Republicans would back McConnell’s use of the nuclear option, a controversial rule change that would lower the threshold for overcoming a filibuster for Supreme Court nominees from 60 to 51 and allow them to confirm Gorsuch on a partly line vote.

“I don’t want to change the rules of the Senate, and I hope we’re not confronted with that choice,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of several GOP moderates Democrats think might vote against the nuclear option. In an interview with CNN, Collins stopped short of saying whether she would vote for the rule change.

But Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the GOP whip, predicted enough Republicans would vote together to approve the nuclear option.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that but if the Democrats force our hand, then we’ll be prepared to do what we need to do to confirm the judge,” Cornyn said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who actively whipped members of his caucus on the issue, said Gorsuch didn’t “impress” Democrats during his confirmation hearings and faces “an uphill climb” to get to 60 votes. Only a handful of Democrats appeared to be even contemplating advancing Gorsuch, although some Democrats thought the number might climb as the vote nears.

“I’m going to base my decision on him, input from Montanans, and what his opinions are,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, who is under immense pressure from fellow lawmakers and outside interest groups. The second-term senator is running for re-election in a state President Donald Trump easily won in November.

Tester said he hoped the Republicans would not use the nuclear option because it would make the Senate more like the House — where majority party can rule without much input from the minority party — but insisted that issue would not weigh into his decision.

The status of the Democratic filibuster

Republicans are struggling to come up with the eight Democrats needed to join them in breaking the filibuster.

Only two Democrats — Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — have signaled they would oppose the filibuster, but even those two senators have hesitated to be definitive about it.

The Republican National Committee targeted 12 Democrats from mostly states that Trump won, urging them through paid ad campaigns to support an up-or-down vote on Gorsuch — code for opposing the filibuster.

However, several of those senators, like Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, have said they’ll join the filibuster and won’t support Gorsuch.

Republicans are still waiting to hear from some of the targeted Democrats, like Tester, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, all of who have been mum this week on where they’re leaning.

Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado has also stayed silent. He introduced Gorsuch, who’s from his home state, at his hearing last week but said he was doing so out of tradition and wasn’t necessarily telegraphing his support.

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who also hasn’t announced his decision, said Monday on MSNBC that he doesn’t think Gorsuch will get the 60 votes he needs to end the filibuster.

While unlikely, Democrats are hoping their filibuster will result in Republicans deciding against using the nuclear option and instead put forth a different nominee.

“If the nominee cannot earn the support of 60 Senators, the answer is not to break precedent by fundamentally and permanently changing the rules and traditions of the Senate, the answer is to change the nominee,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

According to CNN’s latest whip count, 26 Democrats are on the record planning to join the filibuster. That’s a little more than half of the Democratic caucus. More are expected to announce their decision in the coming days.

But the real number to focus on is eight — the number of Democrats needed to vote against the filibuster.

And so far there are only two maybes, and its not immediately clear whom the remaining six would be.

Republicans threaten controversial nuclear option

While Republicans can win at the end of the day using the nuclear option, it’s not a choice they’re particularly thrilled to make.

It was a controversial move when Harry Reid lowered the filibuster threshold in 2013 for cabinet nominees, and it would be just as controversial for Republicans do so now.

Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said they don’t “have a choice.”

“It’s very unfortunate. I think it turns our stomach,” the first term Republican told reporters Tuesday, adding that he’s uneasy with the idea of setting a new precedent. “Once it’s been used once, it’s going to be used time and time again.”

Rounds expressed concern that it could ultimately be used to impact legislation, in addition to presidential nominees, and he thinks Democrats are privately wanting the rules change so that Republicans can shoulder some of the drama that Democrats stirred up in 2013.

“I think it hurt the Democrats when they did it, and I think they’d like to share that with Republicans in the future,” he argued.

When asked whether he’d support the nuclear option, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, said he hopes it doesn’t get to that point and questioned “whether long term it makes any sense at all.”

“If we keep doing that, you eventually end up being very much like the House and historically that’s not a good thing for the Senate according to what the Founding Fathers wanted,” he added.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, said he was playing it “straight and narrow right now” on whether he was leaning in favor of the nuclear option or against it. But he added: “I think his confirmation is an absolutely necessity.”

What happens next

The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet next Monday to vote on Gorsuch and send him to the full Senate with a final confirmation vote expected Friday evening, according to a GOP leadership aide who explained the anticipated schedule for next week.

On Tuesday, McConnell would move to end floor debate on Gorsuch. This would set up the key procedural vote Thursday morning when the chamber’s 52 Republicans hope to get at least eight Democrats to join them in defeating a filibuster of the judge.

If the filibuster is not defeated, McConnell would then move immediately on the nuclear option, which would need a simple majority of those present and voting to succeed. Vice President Mike Pence is expected to be in the chamber if he is needed to break a tie.

If Republicans hold together and the nuclear option passes, the Senate would vote again to break the filibuster of Gorsuch, this time needing just 51 votes to do so.

After that, Senate rules allow for up to 30 hours of what’s called “post-cloture” debate time. That would set up a final confirmation vote for Gorsuch sometime Friday evening. He would only need a simple majority on that final vote.

Meet the major players in the Trump-Russia saga

It is just the latest development in the ever-evolving saga about alleged Russian tampering in the 2016 presidential election. CNN has compiled a list of the growing and diverse cast characters at the start of a critical week of hearings for Senate investigators looking into Russia’s actions and its possible ties to Trump associates.

Several US lawmakers and agency heads have emerged as visible, and at times controversial, figures in the investigations into connections between individuals in Trump’s orbit and Russian hacking of Democratic Party groups including the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign adviser John Podesta.

Mike Rogers — Late last year, Rogers was simultaneously a candidate to be promoted to Director of National Intelligence under President-elect Trump and on the hot seat to be fired as director of the National Security Agency by then-President Barack Obama. Eventually, Rogers remained in his role as the director of the NSA under Trump and now finds himself among those agency heads testifying before Congress as an authority on cybersecurity as it relates to hacks by suspect Russian-relate groups.

Rogers played a key role in last week’s House hearing with Comey when he joined the FBI director in refuting Trump’s claim that Obama had had his phones tapped during the campaign. He in particular batted down the notion that the Obama administration requested that the British eavesdrop on Trump, an unfounded assertion made on Fox News cited by the Trump White House.

Sally Yates — A holdover from the Obama administration, the most memorable moment of Yates’ short tenure as acting Attorney General may have been her firing in the early days of the Trump administration after she refused to implement the President’s orders barring travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Yates also briefed Trump’s White House counsel on former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, communications that ultimately led to Flynn’s resignation. Her scheduled testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on ties between Russian agents and Trump campaign officials was abruptly cancelled by committee Chairman Devin Nunes. The White House rejected allegations that it had sought to prevent Yates from testifying.
James Clapper — The director of national intelligence under Obama has never been shy in offering criticism of Trump, clashing with him over the latter’s public disparagement of intelligence officers, wiretapping allegations and views on Russian hacking. Clapper, along with Comey and then-CIA Director John Brennan, briefed Trump on Russian hacking during the election campaign just hours after the President-elect doubled down on his dismissal of the threat as an artificial and politically driven controversy, calling it a “witch hunt.” He has also had been invited to testify by Congress.

Members of Congress

Devin Nunes — The man charged with leading the House’s investigation into possible connections between Trump associates and Russia’s hacking of the 2016 election has been a particular focus of controversy in recent weeks. Nunes worked on Trump’s transition team, publically supported Flynn just hours before his resignation as national security adviser and downplaying Trump’s wiretapping allegations against Obama by suggesting they shouldn’t be taken literally.

Nunes particularly provoked Democrats after he disclosed evidence to the press and White House — before informing Democrats on his committee — that the Trump team’s communications may have been picked up in “incidental” collections by US surveillance of conversations with foreign nationals who were being lawfully monitored. That was seen as a move to bolster Trump’s claims of having been wiretapped. The news Monday that Nunes met his source on White House grounds the day before he briefed Trump sparked the latest round of partisan fighting and has left investigators unable to continue right now. Now, Nunes is facing calls to step down as chairman amid questions as to whether he can conduct an impartial investigation. He told CNN Tuesday morning, however, that he was “moving forward” with the investigation.

Adam Schiff — The Democratic “yin” to Nunes’ Republican “yang,” Schiff is his party’s most senior member on the House Intelligence Committee and has been one of the most visible lawmakers on the Russia investigation. Though the committee has historically been one of the more discreet on Capitol Hill, Schiff hasn’t held back his criticism of Trump or, increasingly, the committee chairman. On Monday, Schiff called on Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation in a stunning split between the two top investigators of a committee with a reputation for bipartisanship. Schiff has repeatedly maintained he’s seen additional evidence that is more than circumstantial proof of collusion between Trump aides and Russian entities.

Elijah Cummings — The representative from Maryland is the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Cummings was one of the first lawmakers to call for an investigation into Russian meddling in the US election. Cummings wrote a letter to committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz in November 2016 calling for a bipartisan commission, similar to the one that investigated the 9/11 attacks, and the Democratic effort to have an independent investigation is only gathering steam as the acrimony on Capitol Hill rises.

Cummings has also gone beyond calls for Nunes to recuse himself, suggesting he be investigated after his comments disclosing the surveillance that may have picked up conversation of Trump associates. And he has also sharply denounced Flynn, brandishing emails that show the former national security adviser was paid by Russian entities for a trip there during the campaign, raising legal and regulatory questions.

Richard Burr NC Senate

Richard Burr NC Senate

Richard Burr NC Senate

Richard Burr — The North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee is leading a separate investigation into Russian efforts to tamper with the US election. So far it has been a low-key process, as he’s stayed out of the limelight while interviewing witnesses in private. Some of that will change Thursday, when the Senate Intelligence Committee hosts its first public hearing for its Russia investigation.

Trump associates

Investigations by the FBI and congressional committees have included several aides to the Trump campaign and their communication with key foreign entities and, in some cases, Russian operatives. Others have cropped up in headlines because of their dealings with the longtime US adversary. Several of these individuals have volunteered to testify before House and Senate Intelligence Committees in recent days to clear up questions about their actions and associations.

Michael Flynn — Flynn has courted controversy since before he became an early supporter of Trump’s campaign. In 2014, he was pushed out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in Obama’s Pentagon. Flynn said it was because he raised alarm bells on Islamic terrorism, but four US officials serving at time told CNN it was because of his contentious management style.

His reputation for outspokenness and criticizing Washington figures led to raised eyebrows inside the Beltway when Trump tapped him as national security adviser. His tenure in any case didn’t last long, as he resigned after acknowledging that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador in Washington, Sergey Kislyak. He had initially denied that they had discussed sanctions recently imposed by the Obama administration. It is illegal for unauthorized private citizens to negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of the US, though the FBI has said that it has no intention of bringing charges against Flynn. At the time, Flynn did not hold a public office in the US government which technically qualifies him as a private citizen

His financial ties with Russia and other foreign countries have also attracted attention, including the emails obtained by Cummings showing that he was paid by a state-run Russian TV outlet from which he had originally denied receiving funds.

Paul Manafort — A Republican strategist and longtime Washington operator, Manafort joined Trump’s campaign team last spring and was elevated after campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was fired in June. But with just under three months to go until the presidential election, Manafort resigned amid questions over his campaign role and extensive lobbying history overseas, particularly in Ukraine, where he represented pro-Russian interests.
Manafort’s connections to Russia faced fresh scrutiny last month after current and former US officials told CNN that high-level Trump campaign advisers, including Manafort, regularly communicated with Russians known to US intelligence. Manafort called the allegation “100% not true” and said he didn’t “remember talking to any Russian officials, ever.”

Jared Kushner — The 36-year-old businessman-turned-political operative played a crucial role in his father-in-law’s presidential campaign and has carved out a role for himself as one of Trump’s key White House aides. After amassing billions of dollars in properties over his decade in the New York real estate market, he now finds himself frequently assisting the President in matters of foreign policy.

That has led to questions in certain arenas, including a recently disclosed meeting he held in December with a Russian banker appointed by President Vladimir Putin. The White House maintains that Kushner met with the banker in his role as a Trump adviser while the bank said it met with Kushner as a private developer.

Kushner has volunteered to testify before senators because of his role in arranging meetings between top campaign advisers and Kislyak, the Russian ambassador.

Carter Page — Page worked for seven years as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, which his biography said took him to London, New York and Moscow for three years in the mid-2000s, before Trump last year listed him as a foreign policy adviser in response to a question from The Washington Post.

Page has regularly espoused views at odds with much of the foreign policy community in Washington, in particular questioning the US approach toward Russia and called for warmer relations between the two countries.

His reported meeting with Kislyak during the Republican convention in Cleveland is one of his interactions with Russian officials that has caught the attention of the FBI. Page has denied any wrongdoing and volunteered Friday to speak to the House Intelligence Committee about his role in Trump’s campaign. Page, who the White House has said was only loosely connected to the Trump campaign, emphasized last week that he was not a campaign insider.

J.D. Gordon — A former Pentagon spokesman under Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, Gordon contributed to a variety of media outlets before working as a national security adviser to the Trump campaign.

Gordon disclosed earlier this month that he was among the Trump advisers who had met with Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. Gordon told CNN that he told Kislyak that he would like to improve relations with Russia. Gordon added that at no time did any inappropriate chatter come up about colluding with the Russians to aid the Trump campaign.
Roger Stone — The eccentric former Trump adviser and self-described, master of political dark arts has been labeled as the “dirty trickster” of delegate fights. He has worked with the campaigns of Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

Stone repeatedly claimed throughout the final months of the 2016 campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew of the group’s forthcoming document dumps, which disseminated the materials hacked from the Democrats. Later, Stone walked back those tweets. His attorney told CNN on Friday that he is willing to speak to the House Intelligence Committee — preferably in public — but maintains he has done nothing wrong. Wikileaks also denies any connection with Stone.

Roger Stone also has been forced to defend contacts with hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter. While Stone said his messages to the hacker alias are of no consequence, he is the first person in Trump’s orbit to have acknowledged any contact with a hacker — not to mention one that claimed responsibility for hacking the DNC.
Michael Cohen — Trump’s personal lawyer has been a staunch defender of his client, often serving as a media surrogate during the campaign. During a CNN interview in February, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Artemenko said he had discussed a pro-Russian peace plan for Ukraine with Cohen over dinner in January. Ukraine would vehemently oppose the idea that the White House would consider formalizing Russian control of Crimea. Cohen told CNN that they never discussed a peace plan and the White House has flatly denied any knowledge of the proposal.

Foreign connections

Connections between Trump campaign aides and notable foreigners have fueled suspicions of possible coordination with Russia. Specifically, the US officials told CNN last week that it has information that indicates Trump associates communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Sergey Kislyak — The Russian ambassador to the US is seemingly ubiquitous around town, having gained extensive experience during a career spanning both the Soviet and Russian Federation eras. Not only did the veteran diplomat meet multiple times with Flynn, drawing scrutiny, but his meetings with then-Sen. Jeff Sessions led to the attorney general recusing himself from any potential investigations.

Kislyak has also held several meetings — or at least photo-ops — with Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (who has joined the calls for Nunes to recuse himself) claimed to have never met with Kislyak, but a photo surfaced showing the two individuals in the same room. Current and former US intelligence officials TELL CNN that Kislyak is a top spy and recruiter of spies, an accusation that Russian officials have dismissed.

Julian Assange — The founder of Wikileaks, the self-styled “radical transparency” organization with the stated goal of exposing the secrets of the powerful, Assange has cast a wide, blurry shadow over the center of US politics from his seclusion in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he remains holed up to avoid facing sexual assault charges in Sweden and a potential extradition to the United States.

Assange spearheaded the release of nearly 20,000 internal DNC emails last July, which US intelligence bodies unanimously concluded were hacked by the Russians. WikiLeaks also began to serially release emails from Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, in October. WikiLeaks has denied that Russia was the source for its disclosures, and the Russian government has emphatically denied any connection with the theft as well.
Guccifer 2.0 — The hacker otherwise known as “Guccifer 2.0” burst into the national conversation after claiming responsibility for a hack of the Democratic National Committee last year. US officials believe with “high confidence” that “Guccifer 2.0” was actually a front for Russian military intelligence and was part of the effort to influence America’s elections.

Roger Stone has been forced to defend contacts with the online persona via Twitter. While Stone said his messages to the hacker alias are of no consequence, he is the first person in Trump’s orbit to have acknowledged any contact with a hacker — not to mention one that claimed responsibility for hacking the DNC.

Christopher Steele — A former officer with MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, Steele compiled a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations related to Trump’s personal and business ties to Russia before he became president. Steele initially had been hired by a Washington research firm working on behalf of Trump’s political opponents — initially in the Republican primary and then later Democrats.

The FBI obtained a version of Steele’s dossier last summer and investigators compared it to some of their own work related to Russia’s attempts to influence the US election.

His file contained claims that Russian operatives had compromising personal and financial information about Trump. Trump has consistently denied the claims, dismissing them as “phony” in January, though Schiff and others drew on some of them in the Comey-Rogers hearing last week. US investigators said they have corroborated some of the communications in the dossier, but CNN has not been able to verify many of the specific allegations in the documents.

CNN’s Dylan Byers, Marshall Cohen, Thomas Frank, Jeremy Diamond, Barbara Starr, Pamela Brown, Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Gloria Borger and Manu Raju contributed to this report.

Dishonesty all around on Gorsuch

In an op-ed for The Arizona Republic, Sen. Jeff Flake declared, “Even President Obama’s two Supreme Court nominees were recognized for their ability to do the job and confirmed without incident.” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas quoted The Wall Street Journal when he tweeted, “Never in U.S. history have we had a successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats of using “obstructionist tactics” to thwart the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Their hypocrisy is palpable.

In referencing President Barack Obama’s “two” Supreme Court nominees, Flake is conveniently forgetting to tell his readers that Obama made three nominations to the Supreme Court, not two: Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, whom the Senate confirmed, and Judge Merrick Garland, whom Senate Republicans refused to consider even though Obama had almost a year left in his term.

Cornyn surely knows that Senate Republicans effectively engaged in a partisan filibuster of Garland’s nomination by refusing even to hold hearings.

And McConnell must recognize that he himself led “obstructionist tactics” to prevent Garland, as Obama’s nominee, from joining the court.

Regardless of the “alternative facts” the Republicans are peddling, we should all understand the GOP’s tactics last year in opposing Garland for what they were: a blatant power grab that ultimately worked.

For their part, Democratic senators who are opposing Gorsuch are not immune from this affliction. There is no principled reason to oppose Gorsuch beyond politics. On any objective measure he is qualified for the job. If Justice Antonin Scalia had passed away this past February, after President Donald Trump took office, then there would be little justification for Democrats to filibuster Gorsuch’s nomination. The Republicans’ brazen action last year on Obama’s nominee clouds the current debate.
Both sides should acknowledge what is really going on: Republicans refused to consider Garland for purely political reasons; Democrats are going to filibuster Gorsuch for similarly partisan justifications.
This state of affairs shows that the Supreme Court confirmation process is broken. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself recognized, some Republican senators who voted to confirm her in 1993 “today wouldn’t touch me with a 10-foot pole.” The Senate voted to confirm Ginsburg by a 96-3 vote. That kind of bipartisanship on Supreme Court nominees is unfathomable today.

What can we do to fix the problem? For one, senators on both sides need to start telling the truth about their real motivations. Republicans should not hide behind a false claim that the Senate treated Obama’s nominees fairly.

Democrats should acknowledge that their filibuster of Gorsuch is directly related to the Republicans’ failure to consider Garland. Actually telling the truth — which should not be so unfathomable — will help voters discern whether to trust the current incumbents come the next election. Senators’ actions should have consequences, but it is difficult for average Americans to evaluate their senator’s activities without honest and accurate information.

In addition, Senate Republicans and the Trump White House should offer Democrats an olive branch. Perhaps it is an agreement to consider only names from a pre-approved list that the Democrats provide for the next vacancy. Maybe Republicans would agree to give Garland a vote if a liberal such as Ginsburg steps down. Or perhaps there is something else that would cause both sides to stand down.

And both because they are in the majority and because they were at fault last year by being so political with the Garland nomination to the Supreme Court, Republicans should be the first actors in a ceasefire. Although the confirmation process was already breaking down somewhat before last year, McConnell pushed it over the edge by refusing to consider Obama’s choice with almost a full year left in the presidential term.

Good leaders know how to compromise for the good of the country. McConnell should show his leadership skills. Both sides are obscuring their real motives for their partisan actions. Neither side’s spin is good for the country.

To get that message across to the Senate, let’s tell our representatives they must acknowledge what they are really doing and force them to account for their political power grabs. It would be the first step in fixing a truly broken process.

Holocaust survivor has tough words on immigration

‘);$vidEndSlate.removeClass(‘video__end-slate–inactive’).addClass(‘video__end-slate–active’);}};CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === true) ? true : false;var configObj = {thumb: ‘none’,video: ‘us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr’,width: ‘100%’,height: ‘100%’,section: ‘domestic’,profile: ‘expansion’,network: ‘cnn’,markupId: ‘large-media_0’,adsection: ‘const-video-leaf’,frameWidth: ‘100%’,frameHeight: ‘100%’,posterImageOverride: {“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-small-11.jpg”}}},autoStartVideo = false,callbackObj,containerEl,currentVideoCollection = [{“videoCMSUrl”:”/videos/us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr”,”videoId”:”us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-reset-nr-sot.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-reset-nr-sot.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-reset-nr-sot.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/waters-im-a-strong-black-woman-orig-mobile-tc.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/waters-im-a-strong-black-woman-orig-mobile-tc.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/waters-im-a-strong-black-woman-orig-mobile-tc.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-comments-panel-spars-sot-update.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-comments-panel-spars-sot-update.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-comments-panel-spars-sot-update.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/ford-michigan-donald-trump-mark-fields-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/ford-michigan-donald-trump-mark-fields-cnnmoney.cnnmoney”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/ford-michigan-donald-trump-mark-fields-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-fox-and-friends-cnnmoneu.fox-news/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-fox-and-friends-cnnmoneu.fox-news”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-fox-and-friends-cnnmoneu.fox-news/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/adele-might-quit-touring-orig-vstan.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/adele-might-quit-touring-orig-vstan.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/adele-might-quit-touring-orig-vstan.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/is-facebook-turning-into-snapchat-cnnmoney.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/is-facebook-turning-into-snapchat-cnnmoney.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/is-facebook-turning-into-snapchat-cnnmoney.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/recreational-marijuana-las-vegas-strip-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/recreational-marijuana-las-vegas-strip-cnnmoney.cnnmoney”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/recreational-marijuana-las-vegas-strip-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/steve-mnuchin-lego-batman-controversy-es-sot.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/steve-mnuchin-lego-batman-controversy-es-sot.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/steve-mnuchin-lego-batman-controversy-es-sot.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/27/bulletproof-clothing.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/27/bulletproof-clothing.cnnmoney”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/27/bulletproof-clothing.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/republicans-seek-unity-democrats-health-care-change-orig-llr.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/26/republicans-seek-unity-democrats-health-care-change-orig-llr.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/republicans-seek-unity-democrats-health-care-change-orig-llr.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/24/ripcord-robot-ai-scan-sort-digitize-paper-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/24/ripcord-robot-ai-scan-sort-digitize-paper-cnnmoney.cnnmoney”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/24/ripcord-robot-ai-scan-sort-digitize-paper-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/electronics-ban-the-scene-at-the-airport-cnnmoney.cnn-money/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/26/electronics-ban-the-scene-at-the-airport-cnnmoney.cnn-money”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/electronics-ban-the-scene-at-the-airport-cnnmoney.cnn-money/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/25/alexis-ohanian-serena-williams.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/25/alexis-ohanian-serena-williams.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/25/alexis-ohanian-serena-williams.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},{“videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/17/lamborghini-suv-off-road.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/17/lamborghini-suv-off-road.cnn”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/17/lamborghini-suv-off-road.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”}],currentVideoCollectionId = ”,isLivePlayer = false,moveToNextTimeout,mutePlayerEnabled = false,nextVideoId = ”,nextVideoUrl = ”,turnOnFlashMessaging = false,videoPinner,videoEndSlateImpl;if (CNN.autoPlayVideoExist === false) {autoStartVideo = true;if (autoStartVideo === true) {if (turnOnFlashMessaging === true) {autoStartVideo = false;containerEl = jQuery(document.getElementById(configObj.markupId));CNN.VideoPlayer.showFlashSlate(containerEl);} else {CNN.autoPlayVideoExist = true;}}}configObj.autostart = autoStartVideo;CNN.VideoPlayer.setPlayerProperties(configObj.markupId, autoStartVideo, isLivePlayer, mutePlayerEnabled);CNN.VideoPlayer.setFirstVideoInCollection(currentVideoCollection, configObj.markupId);var embedLinkHandler = {},videoPinner,embedCodeCopy;function onVideoCarouselItemClicked(evt) {‘use strict’;var videoId,articleElem,videoPlayer,thumbImageElem,thumbImageLargeSource,overrides = {videoCollection: this.videoCollection,autostart: false},shouldStartVideo = false,playerInstance;try {articleElem = jQuery(evt.currentTarget).find(‘article’);thumbImageElem = jQuery(articleElem).find(‘.media__image’);videoId = articleElem.data().videoId;if (CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibraryName(configObj.markupId) === ‘fave’) {playerInstance = FAVE.player.getInstance(configObj.markupId);if (CNN.Utils.existsObject(playerInstance) &&typeof playerInstance.getVideoData === ‘function’ &&playerInstance.getVideoData().id !== videoId) {/* Remove videoobject metadata script.If the user click other than initial loaded video */jQuery(articleElem).closest(‘.cn-carousel-medium-strip’).parent().find(‘script[name=”metaScript”]’).remove();playerInstance.play(videoId, overrides);}} else {videoPlayer = CNNVIDEOAPI.CNNVideoManager.getInstance().getPlayerByContainer(configObj.markupId);if (videoPlayer && videoPlayer.videoInstance) {/** if videoPlayer.videoInstance.cvp is null that means it’s not initialized yet so* pass in the thumbnail, too.*/if (!videoPlayer.videoInstance.cvp) {if (typeof thumbImageElem !== ‘undefined’ && thumbImageElem !== null) {thumbImageLargeSource = thumbImageElem.data() && thumbImageElem.data().srcLarge ? thumbImageElem.data().srcLarge : ‘none’;}overrides.thumb = thumbImageLargeSource ? thumbImageLargeSource : ‘none’;shouldStartVideo = true;}if (videoPlayer.videoInstance.config) {if (videoPlayer.videoInstance.config.video !== videoId) {/* Remove videoobject metadata script.If the user click other than initial loaded video */jQuery(articleElem).closest(‘.cn-carousel-medium-strip’).parent().find(‘script[name=”metaScript”]’).remove();CNNVIDEOAPI.CNNVideoManager.getInstance().playVideo(configObj.markupId, videoId, overrides);}/* Video player isn’t autoplay, so init itif (shouldStartVideo && this.carouselClickAutostartsVideo) {try {videoPlayer.videoInstance.start();} catch (startError) {console.log(“error in initializing video player” + startError);}}*/}}}} catch (error) {console.log(“error in initializing video player” + error);}}function setInitialVideoEmbed() {}function initialize(){var carousel = jQuery(document.getElementById(‘cn-current_video_collection’)).find(‘.js-owl-carousel’),owl;if (carousel) {carousel.find(‘.cn__column.carousel__content__item’).find(‘a’).removeAttr(‘href’);jQuery(carousel).on(‘click’, ‘.cn__column.carousel__content__item’, onVideoCarouselItemClicked);}}if (CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibraryName(configObj.markupId) === ‘videoLoader’) {window.CNNVideoAPILoadCompleteHandlers = window.CNNVideoAPILoadCompleteHandlers ? window.CNNVideoAPILoadCompleteHandlers : [];window.CNNVideoAPILoadCompleteHandlers.push(initialize);window.CNNVideoAPILoadCompleteHandlers.push(setInitialVideoEmbed);} else {initialize();}CNN.INJECTOR.executeFeature(‘videx’).done(function () {var initMeta = {id:”us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr”, isEmbeddable: “no”};CNN.Videx.EmbedButton.updateCode(initMeta);}).fail(function () {throw ‘Unable to fetch the videx bundle.’;});function updateCurrentlyPlaying(videoId) {var videoCollectionId = ‘current_video_collection’,videocardContents = getCurrentVideoCardContents(videoId),carousel = jQuery(document.getElementById(‘cn-current_video_collection’)).find(‘.js-owl-carousel’),domain = CNN.Host.domain || (document.location.protocol + ‘//’ + document.location.hostname),owl,$owlFirstItem,$owlPrevItem,showDetailsSpanContent = ”,gigyaShareElement,showIndex,whatsappShareElement,$carouselContentItems = jQuery(‘.carousel__content__item’, document.getElementById(‘cn-current_video_collection’));gigyaShareElement = jQuery(‘div.js-gigya-sharebar’);if (typeof gigyaShareElement !== ‘undefined’) {jQuery(gigyaShareElement).attr(‘data-title’, videocardContents.headlinePlainText || ”);jQuery(gigyaShareElement).attr(‘data-description’, videocardContents.descriptionPlainText || ”);jQuery(gigyaShareElement).attr(‘data-link’, domain + videocardContents.url || ”);jQuery(gigyaShareElement).attr(‘data-image-src’, videocardContents.media.elementContents.imageUrl || ”);}whatsappShareElement = jQuery(‘div.share-bar-whatsapp-container’);if (typeof whatsappShareElement !== ‘undefined’) {jQuery(whatsappShareElement).attr(‘data-title’, videocardContents.headlinePlainText || ”);jQuery(whatsappShareElement).attr(‘data-storyurl’, domain + videocardContents.url || ”);}if (carousel && currentVideoCollectionContainsId(videoId)) {owl = carousel.data(‘owl.carousel’) || {};showIndex = getCurrentVideoIndex(videoId);if (typeof owl.to === ‘function’) {owl.to(showIndex);}$owlPrevItem = CNN.Utils.exists(owl.$element) ? owl.$element.find(‘.cd.cd–active’) : $carouselContentItems.find(‘.cd.cd–active’);$owlPrevItem.removeClass(‘cd–active’);$owlPrevItem.find(‘.media__over-text’).remove();$owlPrevItem.find(‘.media__icon’).show();$owlFirstItem = CNN.Utils.exists(owl._items) ? jQuery(owl._items[showIndex]) : $carouselContentItems.eq(showIndex);$owlFirstItem.find(‘.cd’).addClass(‘cd–active’);$owlFirstItem.find(‘.media a:first-child’).append(‘

Now Playing

‘);if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone) {$owlFirstItem.find(‘.media__icon’).hide();}}CNN.Videx.Metadata.init({dateCreated: videocardContents.dateCreated,descriptionText: videocardContents.descriptionText,duration: videocardContents.duration,sourceLink: videocardContents.sourceLink,sourceName: videocardContents.sourceName,title: videocardContents.headlineText},{videoCollectionDivId: ‘cn-10epjk8’,videoDescriptionDivId: ‘js-video_description-10epjk8’,videoDurationDivId: ‘js-video_duration-10epjk8’,videoTitleDivId: ‘js-leaf-video_headline-10epjk8’,videoSourceDivId: ‘js-video_sourceName-10epjk8’});if (CNN.Utils.exists(videocardContents.showName)) {if (CNN.Utils.exists(videocardContents.showUrl)) {showDetailsSpanContent = ‘‘ + videocardContents.showName + ‘ | ‘;} else {showDetailsSpanContent = videocardContents.showName + ‘ | ‘;}}fastdom.measure(function getShowInfo() {var $show = jQuery(‘.metadata__show’),$isShowDetailsSpanExists = $show.find(‘span’).hasClass(‘metadata–show__name’),$showName = jQuery(‘.metadata–show__name’);fastdom.mutate(function updateShowInfo() {if (!$isShowDetailsSpanExists) {$show.prepend(‘‘ + showDetailsSpanContent + ‘‘);} else {$showName.html(showDetailsSpanContent);}});});if (typeof (history) !== ‘undefined’ && typeof (history.replaceState) !== ‘undefined’) {history.replaceState(”, ”, videocardContents.url);document.title = videocardContents.headlineText ? videocardContents.headlineText : ”;}}function getCurrentVideoCardContents(currentVideoId) {var containerContents = [{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:””,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Sacramento resident Bernard Marks, a Holocaust survivor, had some pointed words for Sheriff Scott Jones and acting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan during a contentious immigration forum.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Sacramento resident Bernard Marks, a Holocaust survivor, had some pointed words for Sheriff Scott Jones and acting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan during a contentious immigration forum.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Holocaust survivor has tough words for sheriff”,”headlinePlainText”:”Holocaust survivor has tough words for sheriff”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”Holocaust survivor bernard marks forum”,”imageAlt”:”Holocaust survivor bernard marks forum”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329115343-holocaust-survivor-bernard-marks-forum-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true}},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/videos/us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr”,”videoId”:”us/2017/03/29/holocaust-survivor-exchange-immigration-forum-sot.kovr”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”8:20 AM ET, Wed March 29, 2017″,”sourceName”:”KOVR”,”sourceLink”:”http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and correspondent April Ryan have a moment of relief one day after a \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/28/politics/sean-spicer-russian-dressing/index.html\”>tense exchange\u003c/a>.”,””],”descriptionPlainText”:”White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and correspondent April Ryan have a moment of relief one day after a tense exchange.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Spicer, reporter all smiles day after clash”,”headlinePlainText”:”Spicer, reporter all smiles day after clash”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:””,”imageAlt”:””,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329112951-mobapp-aprilryan-seanspicer-split-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:34″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:”2 h”,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-reset-nr-sot.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-reset-nr-sot.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-reset-nr-sot.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”3:01 PM ET, Wed March 29, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Rep. Maxine Waters responds to Bill O’Reilly’s comments about her hair style.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Rep. Maxine Waters responds to Bill O’Reilly’s comments about her hair style.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Rep. Maxine Waters fires back at O’Reilly “,”headlinePlainText”:”Rep. Maxine Waters fires back at O’Reilly “,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:””,”imageAlt”:””,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”0:56″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:”3 h”,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/waters-im-a-strong-black-woman-orig-mobile-tc.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/waters-im-a-strong-black-woman-orig-mobile-tc.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/waters-im-a-strong-black-woman-orig-mobile-tc.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”9:57 AM ET, Wed March 29, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:””,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“During CNN Tonight with \u003ca href=\”http://www.cnn.com/profiles/don-lemon-profile\”>Don Lemon\u003c/a>, commentators spar over the heated confrontation between White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and reporter April Ryan.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”During CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, commentators spar over the heated confrontation between White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and reporter April Ryan.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”CNN panelists spar over Sean Spicer comment”,”headlinePlainText”:”CNN panelists spar over Sean Spicer comment”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”angela rye ctn”,”imageAlt”:”angela rye ctn”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170329002304-angela-rye-ctn-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:57″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-comments-panel-spars-sot-update.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-comments-panel-spars-sot-update.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/sean-spicer-april-ryan-comments-panel-spars-sot-update.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”10:07 AM ET, Wed March 29, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”showName”:”CNN Tonight”,”showUrl”:”/shows/cnn-tonight”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“President Trump and Ford had a volatile relationship before the election. Since then, the automaker’s hiring plans have changed, prompting praise from the president.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”President Trump and Ford had a volatile relationship before the election. Since then, the automaker’s hiring plans have changed, prompting praise from the president.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Trump’s evolving relationship with Ford”,”headlinePlainText”:”Trump’s evolving relationship with Ford”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”Donald Trump”,”imageAlt”:”Donald Trump”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328200632-donald-trump-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:28″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/ford-michigan-donald-trump-mark-fields-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/29/ford-michigan-donald-trump-mark-fields-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/29/ford-michigan-donald-trump-mark-fields-cnnmoney.cnnmoney”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”7:32 AM ET, Wed March 29, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNNMoney”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.money.cnn.com”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“The Fox News host came under fire on Twitter after making remarks that were regarded as racist and sexist about Representative Waters’ hair.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”The Fox News host came under fire on Twitter after making remarks that were regarded as racist and sexist about Representative Waters’ hair.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”O’Reilly under fire for Rep. Waters comments”,”headlinePlainText”:”O’Reilly under fire for Rep. Waters comments”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:””,”imageAlt”:””,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328114020-bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:05″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-fox-and-friends-cnnmoneu.fox-news/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-fox-and-friends-cnnmoneu.fox-news/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/bill-oreilly-maxine-waters-fox-and-friends-cnnmoneu.fox-news”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”3:04 PM ET, Tue March 28, 2017″,”sourceName”:”Fox News”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.money.cnn.com”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“British pop singer Adele told fans that she may not be touring anymore during a concert in Auckland, New Zealand.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”British pop singer Adele told fans that she may not be touring anymore during a concert in Auckland, New Zealand.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Adele tells fans tour may be her last”,”headlinePlainText”:”Adele tells fans tour may be her last”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 15: Singer Adele performs on stage at The O2 Arena on March 15, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)”,”imageAlt”:”LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 15: Singer Adele performs on stage at The O2 Arena on March 15, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328113616-adele-o2-arena-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”0:50″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/adele-might-quit-touring-orig-vstan.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/adele-might-quit-touring-orig-vstan.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/adele-might-quit-touring-orig-vstan.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”11:15 AM ET, Tue March 28, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Facebook’s latest products imitate key features of Snapchat including filters, stories, and disappearing messages.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Facebook’s latest products imitate key features of Snapchat including filters, stories, and disappearing messages.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Is Facebook turning into Snapchat?”,”headlinePlainText”:”Is Facebook turning into Snapchat?”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”The Snapchat Inc. application (app) is seen on an on an Apple Inc. iPhone 5s displayed for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015. Snapchat Inc. is raising money that could value the company at as much as $19 billion. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images”,”imageAlt”:”The Snapchat Inc. application (app) is seen on an on an Apple Inc. iPhone 5s displayed for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015. Snapchat Inc. is raising money that could value the company at as much as $19 billion. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328131545-snapchat-v-facebook-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”0:58″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/is-facebook-turning-into-snapchat-cnnmoney.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/is-facebook-turning-into-snapchat-cnnmoney.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/is-facebook-turning-into-snapchat-cnnmoney.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”1:12 PM ET, Tue March 28, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://money.cnn.com/”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Las Vegas may be known as Sin City, but you won’t find this newly legalized sin on the Strip: recreational marijuana. CNNMoney explains why.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Las Vegas may be known as Sin City, but you won’t find this newly legalized sin on the Strip: recreational marijuana. CNNMoney explains why.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”You won’t find this vice on the Vegas Strip”,”headlinePlainText”:”You won’t find this vice on the Vegas Strip”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:””,”imageAlt”:””,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-large-169.png”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-small-169.png”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-medium-plus-169.png”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-large-169.png”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-exlarge-169.png”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-super-169.png”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-full-169.png”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170328082643-las-vegas-strip-casinos-small-11.png”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”2:40″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/recreational-marijuana-las-vegas-strip-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/recreational-marijuana-las-vegas-strip-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/recreational-marijuana-las-vegas-strip-cnnmoney.cnnmoney”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”8:24 AM ET, Tue March 28, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNNMoney”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.money.cnn.com”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden says Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin violated his ethics clause when he appeared to promote \”The Lego Batman Movie,\” a film for which he was an executive producer, during a recent interview.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden says Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin violated his ethics clause when he appeared to promote \”The Lego Batman Movie,\” a film for which he was an executive producer, during a recent interview.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Steve Mnuchin under fire for Lego movie plug”,”headlinePlainText”:”Steve Mnuchin under fire for Lego movie plug”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin waits after a meeting with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on Capitol Hill December 8, 2016 in Washington, DC. / AFP / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)”,”imageAlt”:”Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin waits after a meeting with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) on Capitol Hill December 8, 2016 in Washington, DC. / AFP / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170119084834-01-steven-mnuchin-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:14″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/steve-mnuchin-lego-batman-controversy-es-sot.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/28/steve-mnuchin-lego-batman-controversy-es-sot.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/28/steve-mnuchin-lego-batman-controversy-es-sot.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”4:20 AM ET, Tue March 28, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”showName”:”Early Start”,”showUrl”:”/shows/early-start”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“For 25 years Miguel Caballero has been outfitting world leaders in his fashionable bulletproof clothing.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”For 25 years Miguel Caballero has been outfitting world leaders in his fashionable bulletproof clothing.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Presidents wear these bulletproof clothes”,”headlinePlainText”:”Presidents wear these bulletproof clothes”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”bulletproof clothing_00000000.jpg”,”imageAlt”:”bulletproof clothing_00000000″,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170327172538-bulletproof-clothing-00000000-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”2:29″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/27/bulletproof-clothing.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/27/bulletproof-clothing.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/27/bulletproof-clothing.cnnmoney”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”5:12 PM ET, Mon March 27, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNNMoney”,”sourceLink”:””,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Republican lawmakers say it’s time to come together with Democrats to successfully reform health care.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Republican lawmakers say it’s time to come together with Democrats to successfully reform health care.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Republicans calling for unity with Democrats”,”headlinePlainText”:”Republicans calling for unity with Democrats”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”Inside the Capitol, the idea of changing the US measure of inflation is getting more attention.”,”imageAlt”:”Inside the Capitol, the idea of changing the US measure of inflation is getting more attention.”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121213105958-cap-hill-beauty-shot-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:31″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/republicans-seek-unity-democrats-health-care-change-orig-llr.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/republicans-seek-unity-democrats-health-care-change-orig-llr.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/26/republicans-seek-unity-democrats-health-care-change-orig-llr.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”3:16 PM ET, Sun March 26, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Ripcord is a new company, backed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, that has created a robot to sort, scan, and digitize papers for businesses.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Ripcord is a new company, backed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, that has created a robot to sort, scan, and digitize papers for businesses.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”This robot could help companies go paperless”,”headlinePlainText”:”This robot could help companies go paperless”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:””,”imageAlt”:””,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324192813-ripcord-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:07″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/24/ripcord-robot-ai-scan-sort-digitize-paper-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/24/ripcord-robot-ai-scan-sort-digitize-paper-cnnmoney.cnnmoney/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/24/ripcord-robot-ai-scan-sort-digitize-paper-cnnmoney.cnnmoney”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”7:17 PM ET, Fri March 24, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNNMoney”,”sourceLink”:”http://money.cnn.com/”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Travelers in Istanbul, Turkey, flying to the US or the UK have started having to check large electronics.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Travelers in Istanbul, Turkey, flying to the US or the UK have started having to check large electronics.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Electronics ban: The scene at the airport”,”headlinePlainText”:”Electronics ban: The scene at the airport”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”A picture taken on 24 March 2016, in a Brucargo building in Steenokkerzeelas shows one of the luggages collected from the planes which were on the tarmac at the time of the attacks, two days after a triple bomb attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, hit Brussels’ airport and the Maelbeek – Maalbeek metro station, killing 31 people and wounding 270 others.Brussels is on maximum security alert with soldiers in camouflage standing guard outside embassies and government offices and underground rail services cut between 7:00 pm and 7:00 am, as Belgian authorities face growing pressure to do more to tackle the Islamic State menace threatening the continent, even as they scrambled to track down two more men over the attacks on Brussels airport and the metro. / AFP / BELGA / LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ / Belgium OUT (Photo credit should read LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ/AFP/Getty Images)”,”imageAlt”:”A picture taken on 24 March 2016, in a Brucargo building in Steenokkerzeelas shows one of the luggages collected from the planes which were on the tarmac at the time of the attacks, two days after a triple bomb attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, hit Brussels’ airport and the Maelbeek – Maalbeek metro station, killing 31 people and wounding 270 others.Brussels is on maximum security alert with soldiers in camouflage standing guard outside embassies and government offices and underground rail services cut between 7:00 pm and 7:00 am, as Belgian authorities face growing pressure to do more to tackle the Islamic State menace threatening the continent, even as they scrambled to track down two more men over the attacks on Brussels airport and the metro. / AFP / BELGA / LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ / Belgium OUT (Photo credit should read LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ/AFP/Getty Images)”,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170326181519-airport-ban-on-luggage-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”0:55″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/electronics-ban-the-scene-at-the-airport-cnnmoney.cnn-money/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/26/electronics-ban-the-scene-at-the-airport-cnnmoney.cnn-money/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/26/electronics-ban-the-scene-at-the-airport-cnnmoney.cnn-money”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”6:10 PM ET, Sun March 26, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN Money”,”sourceLink”:”http://money.cnn.com/”,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Reddit Co-founder Alexis Ohanian tells CNNTech’s Laurie Segall why fiancee Serena Williams humbles him.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Reddit Co-founder Alexis Ohanian tells CNNTech’s Laurie Segall why fiancee Serena Williams humbles him.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Alexis Ohanian: Serena Williams humbles me”,”headlinePlainText”:”Alexis Ohanian: Serena Williams humbles me”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:””,”imageAlt”:””,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170324201458-alexis-serena-thumbnail-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”0:49″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/25/alexis-ohanian-serena-williams.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/25/alexis-ohanian-serena-williams.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/25/alexis-ohanian-serena-williams.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”8:14 PM ET, Fri March 24, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:””,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”},{“branding”:””,”cardContents”:{“auxiliaryText”:””,”bannerText”:[],”bannerHasATag”:false,”bannerPosition”:””,”brandingLink”:””,”brandingImageUrl”:””,”brandingTextHead”:””,”brandingTextSub”:””,”cardSectionName”:”cnnmoney”,”contentType”:””,”cta”:”share”,”descriptionText”:[“Lamborghini has a new addition to its line-up of super cars: an SUV. CNNMoney’s Peter Valdes-Dapena spoke with Lamborghini CEO Stefano Domenicali about the brand’s first SUV, the Urus.”],”descriptionPlainText”:”Lamborghini has a new addition to its line-up of super cars: an SUV. CNNMoney’s Peter Valdes-Dapena spoke with Lamborghini CEO Stefano Domenicali about the brand’s first SUV, the Urus.”,”headlinePostText”:””,”headlinePreText”:””,”headlineText”:”Lamborghini heads off-road”,”headlinePlainText”:”Lamborghini heads off-road”,”iconImageUrl”:””,”iconType”:”video”,”isMobileBannerText”:false,”kickerText”:””,”maximizedBannerSize”:[],”media”:{“contentType”:”image”,”type”:”element”,”cutFormat”:”16:9″,”elementContents”:{“caption”:”lamborghini suv off road_00003504.jpg”,”imageAlt”:”lamborghini suv off road_00003504″,”imageUrl”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-large-169.jpg”,”label”:””,”galleryTitle”:””,”head”:””,”cuts”:{“mini”:{“height”:124,”width”:220,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-small-169.jpg”},”xsmall”:{“height”:173,”width”:307,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-medium-plus-169.jpg”},”small”:{“height”:259,”width”:460,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-large-169.jpg”},”medium”:{“height”:438,”width”:780,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-exlarge-169.jpg”},”large”:{“height”:619,”width”:1100,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-super-169.jpg”},”full16x9″:{“height”:900,”width”:1600,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-full-169.jpg”},”mini1x1″:{“height”:120,”width”:120,”type”:”jpg”,”uri”:”//i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170317165307-lamborghini-suv-off-road-00003504-small-11.jpg”}},”responsiveImage”:true},”duration”:”1:45″},”noFollow”:false,”overMediaText”:””,”sectionUri”:””,”showSocialSharebar”:false,”shortUrl”:””,”statusText”:””,”statusColor”:””,”targetType”:””,”timestampDisplay”:””,”timestampUtc”:””,”lastModifiedText”:””,”lastModifiedState”:””,”type”:”card”,”url”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2017/03/17/lamborghini-suv-off-road.cnn/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”,”width”:””,”height”:””,”videoCMSUri”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2017/03/17/lamborghini-suv-off-road.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2017/03/17/lamborghini-suv-off-road.cnn”,”adSection”:”const-video-leaf”,”dateCreated”:”4:48 PM ET, Fri March 17, 2017″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:””,”videoCollectionUrl”:”/video/playlists/stories-worth-watching/”},”contentType”:”video”,”maximizedBanner”:false,”type”:”card”}],cardContents,i;for (i = 0; i 0) {for (i = 0; i 0) {for (i = 0; i 0) {for (i = 0; i 0) {nextPlay = currentVideoCollection[getNextVideoIndex(currentVideoId)].videoId;if (nextPlay === undefined || nextPlay === null) {nextPlay = currentVideoCollection[0].videoId;}moveToNextTimeout = setTimeout(function () {overrides = {videoCollection: currentVideoCollection,autostart: true};if (CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibraryName(configObj.markupId) === ‘fave’) {FAVE.player.getInstance(configObj.markupId).play(nextPlay, overrides);} else {CNNVIDEOAPI.CNNVideoManager.getInstance().playVideo(configObj.markupId, nextPlay, overrides);}}, nextVideoPlayTimeout);}}var decorateVideoApi = function(){/* if this happens before the video API loads it gets deleted. */CNN.VideoPlayer.showSpinner = function showSpinner(containerId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {jQuery(document.getElementById((‘spinner_’ + containerId).replace(‘#’, ”))).show();}};CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner = function hideSpinner(containerId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {jQuery(document.getElementById((‘spinner_’ + containerId).replace(‘#’, ”))).hide();}};CNN.VideoPlayer.hideThumbnail = function hideThumbnail(containerId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {jQuery(document.getElementById(containerId + ‘–thumbnail’)).hide();}};};callbackObj = {onPlayerReady: function (containerId) {CNN.INJECTOR.getNameSpaceFeature(‘CNN.VideoPlayer.showSpinner’).fail(decorateVideoApi);var containerClassId;CNN.VideoPlayer.reportLoadTime(containerId);CNN.VideoPlayer.handleAdOnCVPVisibilityChange(containerId, CNN.pageVis.isDocumentVisible());if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {containerClassId = ‘#’ + containerId;if (jQuery(containerClassId).parents(‘.js-pg-rail-tall__head’).length > 0) {videoPinner = new CNN.VideoPinner(containerClassId);videoPinner.setIsVideoCollection(true);videoPinner.init();} else {CNN.VideoPlayer.hideThumbnail(containerId);}}},onContentEntryLoad: function(containerId, playerId, contentid, isQueue) {CNN.VideoPlayer.showSpinner(containerId);CNN.VideoPlayer.isFirstVideoInCollection(containerId, contentid);},onAdPlay: function (containerId, cvpId, token, mode, id, duration, blockId, adType) {clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);if (blockId === 0) {(new Image()).src = “//traffic.outbrain.com/network/trackpxl?advid=814&action=view”;}CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);videoPinner.handleOnVideoPlay();videoPinner.animateDown();}}},onContentPlay: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {/** When the video content starts playing, the companion ad* layout (if it was set when the ad played) should switch* back to epic ad layout. onContentPlay calls updateCompanionLayout* with ‘restoreEpicAds’ layout to make this switch and removes FW* with ‘removeFreewheel’ so you don’t see double ads. If a user* clicks another video midway, onContentBegin will add FW back*/if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘removeFreewheel’);CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘restoreEpicAds’);}clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);CNN.VideoPlayer.hideSpinner(containerId);var idx,playerInstance,prevVideoId = (window.jsmd && window.jsmd.v && (window.jsmd.v.eVar18 || window.jsmd.v.eVar4)) || ”;if (CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibraryName(configObj.markupId) === ‘fave’) {playerInstance = FAVE.player.getInstance(containerId);} else {playerInstance = containerId && window.cnnVideoManager.getPlayerByContainer(containerId).videoInstance.cvp || null;}if (playerInstance && typeof playerInstance.reportAnalytics === ‘function’) {if (prevVideoId.length === 0 && document.referrer && document.referrer.search(/\/videos\//) >= 0) {prevVideoId = document.referrer.replace(/^(?:http|https)\:\/\/[^\/]\/videos\/(.+\.\w+)(?:\/video\/playlists\/.*)?$/, ‘/video/$1’);if (prevVideoId === document.referrer) {prevVideoId = ”;}}if (jQuery.isArray(currentVideoCollection) && currentVideoCollection.length > 0) {idx = getNextVideoIndex(contentId);nextVideoId = currentVideoCollection[idx].videoId;nextVideoUrl = currentVideoCollection[idx].videoUrl;currentVideoCollectionId = (window.jsmd && window.jsmd.v && window.jsmd.v.eVar60) || nextVideoUrl.replace(/^.+\/video\/playlists\/(.+)\//, ‘$1’);}playerInstance.reportAnalytics(‘videoPageData’, {videoCollection: currentVideoCollectionId,videoBranding: CNN.omniture.branding_content_page,templateType: CNN.omniture.template_type,nextVideo: nextVideoId,previousVideo: prevVideoId,referrerType: ”,referrerUrl: document.referrer});}if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);videoPinner.handleOnVideoPlay();videoPinner.animateDown();}}},onContentReplayRequest: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(true);var $endSlate = jQuery(document.getElementById(containerId)).parent().find(‘.js-video__end-slate’).eq(0);if ($endSlate.length > 0) {$endSlate.removeClass(‘video__end-slate–active’).addClass(‘video__end-slate–inactive’);}}}},onContentMetadata: function (containerId, playerId, metadata, contentId, duration, width, height) {if (CNN.Utils.exists(metadata)) {try {if (CNN.VideoPlayer.getLibraryName(containerId) === ‘fave’) {CNN.Videx.EmbedButton.updateCode(metadata);} else {CNN.Videx.EmbedButton.updateCode(JSON.parse(metadata));}} catch (e) {console.log(‘Invalid video metadata JSON.’);}}},onContentBegin: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {CNN.VideoPlayer.reverseAutoMute(containerId);CNN.VideoPlayer.isFirstVideoInCollection(containerId, contentId);/** Before the video ad starts, the freewheel companion ad* html needs to be placed on the page so that it can be* triggered by Freewheel to display the companion ad.* onContentBegin triggers updateCompanionLayout which* handles the logic to switch from epic to companion ads*/if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘removeEpicAds’);CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘restoreFreewheel’);}clearTimeout(moveToNextTimeout);fastdom.mutate(function () {CNN.share.reloadShareBar();});updateCurrentlyPlaying(contentId);jQuery(document).triggerVideoContentStarted();},onContentComplete: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {navigateToNextVideo(contentId);},onContentEnd: function (containerId, cvpId, contentId) {/** When the video content ends playing, remove the epic ad* and prepare the freewheel companion ad for the next video*/if (CNN.companion && typeof CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout === ‘function’) {CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘removeEpicAds’);CNN.companion.updateCompanionLayout(‘restoreFreewheel’);}navigateToNextVideo(contentId);if (Modernizr && !Modernizr.phone && !Modernizr.mobile && !Modernizr.tablet) {if (typeof videoPinner !== ‘undefined’ && videoPinner !== null) {videoPinner.setIsPlaying(false);}}},onCVPVisibilityChange: function (containerId, cvpId, visible) {CNN.VideoPlayer.handleAdOnCVPVisibilityChange(containerId, visible);}};if (typeof configObj.context !== ‘string’ || configObj.context.length

Bridgegate: Prison for Christie allies

Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority, was sentenced to 24 months in prison on Wednesday, and Bridget Anne Kelly, former deputy chief of staff in Christie’s office, was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Both also received a year of supervised release, 500 hours of community service, and fines.

In her sentencing of Baroni, Judge Susan Wigenton called the crimes “an outrageous abuse of power.” During Kelly’s sentencing, Wigenton said the case “culminates another unfortunate chapter in the history of New Jersey.

“It is very clear to me that the culture in Trenton was, if you aren’t with us, you’re against us,” Wigenton said.

The sentences came months after Baroni and Kelly were found guilty on seven counts in November, including conspiracy, fraud and civil rights deprivation.

“I let the people in Fort Lee down,” Baroni said in federal court in Newark.

Kelly’s voice was shaking and cracked several times as she spoke in court Wednesday afternoon.

“I never intended to harm anyone,” she said. “I accept full responsibility for the tone of my emails and text messages.”

Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni were convicted in November 2016.

Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni were convicted in November 2016.

Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni were convicted in November 2016.

The charges stemmed from the abrupt closure of local traffic lanes on the George Washington Bridge, one of the world’s busiest bridges, for four days in September 2013. The lane closures on the bridge, which connects Manhattan with Fort Lee, New Jersey, caused severe traffic delays that endangered citizens and posed a public safety risk, court documents state.

Prosecutors alleged the lane closures were part of a deliberate effort to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, who did not endorse Republican incumbent Christie in his 2013 re-election bid.

The prosecution had recommended both Baroni and Kelly serve near the bottom of or just below the federal guidelines of 37 to 46 months in prison, according to court documents. In court, prosecutors agreed with the defense to lower Baroni’s recommended sentence to 24 to 30 months.

William Fitzpatrick, acting US Attorney of New Jersey, praised the court and said the sentences were fair and reasonable in a news conference afterward.

In separate statements, defense attorneys for Baroni and Kelly said they plan to appeal the case. Kelly, in a short statement, said the “fight is far from over.”

“I will not allow myself to be the scapegoat in this case, and I look very much forward to the appeal,” she said.

Christie was not charged with a crime in relation to Bridgegate. After the defendants were found guilty, he released a statement saying he was “saddened” by the case and repeated once again that he had no knowledge of the plot to close the lanes.

Still, the scandal tainted what had been one of the most popular governorships in America and later helped sink Christie’s fledgling presidential campaign.

‘Time for some traffic problems’

Emails and text messages released in January 2014 formed the basis of the charges. In one email, Kelly told former Port Authority official David Wildstein, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

Kelly later said her messages contained “sarcasm and humor,” and she said that a day before sending the email, she had told Christie about traffic problems resulting from a study.

Baroni and Kelly’s actions cost the Port Authority $14,314.04, according to court documents, including the cost of hours misspent by Port Authority personnel and the expense of a traffic study that was ruined by the closure.

Baroni testified he believed the closures were part of a legitimate traffic study, an explanation that had been relayed to him by Wildstein, the accused mastermind of the incident. Wildstein, Christie’s high school classmate and longtime ally, pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud on federally funded property and one civil rights violation.
David Wildstein, left, and Gov. Chris Christie were longtime political allies.

David Wildstein, left, and Gov. Chris Christie were longtime political allies.

David Wildstein, left, and Gov. Chris Christie were longtime political allies.

The prosecution recommended the court sentence Baroni and Kelly to serve time in prison, not only because they were found guilty but also because prosecutors believe a prison sentence would send “a clear and unmistakable message.”

The court documents state, “When dealing with public corruption, only imprisonment can effectively promote general deterrence.”

“As both Baroni and Kelly surely understood given their lengthy tenures in New Jersey government, crimes committed by public officials are particularly insidious because they destroy the community’s faith in its own public institutions,” the documents state.

In all, four Christie-associated political figures have been convicted of criminal charges in relation to Bridgegate, including Baroni, Kelly, Wildstein, and former Port Authority Chairman David Samson.

CNN’s Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, Noah Gray and Tom Kludt contributed to this report.

American climate refugees: Tragedy of a village built on ice

Their bodies are buried in the cemetery, I’m sure of it. I’ve seen the obituaries.

But neither man is dead.

No one in Shishmaref dies, I’m told — not really.

It’s about 9 a.m. as I trudge through the snow, past the cemetery and to a neighboring house. The sky is frozen in pre-dawn twilight. The sun won’t rise for hours.

An elder answers the door and welcomes me into a living room that smells of sourdough and coffee. On the shelves, above a big-screen TV: dozens of figurines carved from walrus ivory, a tradition in this 560-person Inupiat village. How meta, I think. Walrus ivory carved back into the shape of a walrus, as if the animal were reincarnated from its own tusks.

Even walruses have a second life here, apparently.

The man offers me a seat and a coffee mug.

I’m here to ask him about Esau.

Yes, one of the men in the cemetery.

But also the 19-year-old born with the same name — the hoodie-wearing kid with the faint mustache. The one, among many, who’s trying to imagine another future for this village.

A future away from this island.

The blue house

Shelton and Clara Kokeok live in a blue house at the edge of the village.

Shelton and Clara Kokeok live in a blue house at the edge of the village.

Shelton and Clara Kokeok live in a blue house at the edge of the village.

Everyone knows Shishmaref isn’t expected to last long.

Residents of this barrier island, located just south of the Arctic Circle, some 600 miles from Anchorage and only 100 miles from Russia, have been saying so for years.

To understand it, visit the tiny blue house at the edge of the land.

It’s the edge of the Earth, really. And it’s also the house where Norman grew up.

Norman, the second man in the cemetery.

Inside, an old woman sits in a wheelchair and an old man peers through the kitchen window at the Chukchi Sea. A cassette-radio buzzes with headlines from God-knows-where, but the man, Norman’s father, isn’t listening. Shelton Kokeok, a 72-year-old with palm-sized ears and a face that tragedy has worn into a grouper’s frown, is focused on the ocean. He scans it in a state of unease; creases etch his forehead. Shelton, who once was a light-hearted man, and whose kind eyes and infectious smile still hint at happier times, will be nervous until the water is frozen cement-hard. Today, in mid-December, it is the texture of a snow cone.

“It’s not really solid yet,” he tells me, forlorn. “Young ice, fresh ice, you know?”

These aren’t bored-old-man concerns.

The ice is disappearing.

And then there’s what happened to his son, Norman.

First, the ice.

Here, and across the Arctic, sea ice is forming later and thawing earlier.

That ice protects Shishmaref’s coast from erosion. Without it, punishing storms grab hunks of the land and pull it out to sea, shrinking and destabilizing the island.

Look at where the coast was in 2004 — and where it’s expected to be in 2053.

Shelton’s blue house is right on the edge of the receding coastline.

He worries it could fall in.

That happened to one of his neighbors.

A house fell off the edge of the land in 2006. The Kokeok home is shown in the background.

A house fell off the edge of the land in 2006. The Kokeok home is shown in the background.

A house fell off the edge of the land in 2006. The Kokeok home is shown in the background.

As the world warms — thanks largely to the 1,200 metric tons of carbon dioxide we humans are pumping into the atmosphere each second — the ice is disappearing. The planet has warmed about 1 degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, when people started burning fossil fuels for heat and electricity, creating a blanket of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. But scientists say the Arctic, the far-north, is warming twice as fast as the rest of Earth.

“I miss that cold, cold weather,” says Hazel Fernandez. I meet her in a community hall; she’d rather be fishing on the ice but says it’s still too thin. “It’s too weird. It’s too warm.”

Outside, thermometers show temperatures in the mid-20s Fahrenheit, or about minus 4 Celsius. That’s freakishly warm for December, everyone tells me. I’m wearing two coats and ski pants, and residents of Shishmaref seem to find that hilarious. This isn’t cold, they say. Their sealskin hats and mittens, the fur-lined hooded parkas — those mostly stay at home.

Fernandez, in her early 60s, fondly remembers temperatures of 30- and 40-below Fahrenheit.

But mean air surface temperatures increased more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic region between 1960 and 2011, according to the US National Snow & Ice Data Center. Arctic sea ice, measured since 1979, was at a monthly record low in January. And the September sea ice minimum is decreasing at a rate of 13.3% per decade.

The scientific consensus is that human pollution is driving these changes.

But it’s not the science or the charts that matter most to Shelton.

It’s not his blue house, either, perched precariously on the edge.

It’s his son, Norman.

It’s that day: June 2, 2007.

The day Norman fell through the ice and died.

Esau

The stories about Esau are easy to unearth.

Like people here, they never truly die.

“What was Esau like?” I ask the elder whose home is next to the white crosses and the cemetery, in the heart of this village of wooden homes and metal-sided buildings, a place where the winter landscape is an infinity of white, where there’s no running water or sewage service, where a shower costs $3.50 at the holiday rate, a 12-pack of Sprite $12.75. Most people prefer to live off the land, hunting seal, walrus and ptarmigan and fishing tomcod as their ancestors did.

The elder replies in a tone that is airy and patient, a voice measured through time.

Esau Weyiouanna was something of a renegade in Shishmaref, he tells me. He was an individual in a place that prides itself on community — an opinionated, outspoken man in a village where many would prefer to blend with the environment. In a photo that hangs on a friend’s wall today, Esau wears purple-and-green plaid and Napoleon-Dynamite bifocals, a knowing, understanding smile on his lips. His eyebrows are angled and inquisitive, like an owl’s.

The local church in Shishmaref, Alaska.

The local church in Shishmaref, Alaska.

The local church in Shishmaref, Alaska.

Allow the elder to share one story.

Decades ago, the Christian church decided to ban some of the village’s Inupiat traditions, which had been passed from one generation to the next for centuries, if not longer. The church believed some of these traditions defied the will of God and were incompatible with its teachings. Dancing, in particular, was banned. Children of Shishmaref no longer could gather with drums made of stretched walrus stomach to move their bodies in the same artful patterns their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents always had, the elder tells me.

Esau was the rare man who could see both sides of this dispute, the kind of man who straddled worlds both modern and ancient. He served on the church board, the elder says. But he also loved the Inupiat cultural traditions — particularly the dance. So he took a stand. Esau danced boldly and in public, the elder tells me, to remind the community of the value of culture.

Today, the elder says, children are taught this dance in the local school.

This portal to the past remains open because of Esau.

Renegade, reborn

Decades later, and nearing death, Esau tried to ensure his story would continue.

He walked up to a pregnant woman and touched her stomach.

How am I doing in there? he asked.

It was a startling question, but up here in a world of ice, where no one really dies, or not for long, the meaning was clear to the mother. She knew Esau’s body soon would be laid to rest in the cemetery, and that he would be reincarnated as the child still growing inside her.

Esau Weyiouanna was declared dead on October 29, 1997.

On November 16, the woman’s child was born.

The family, following tradition, named him Esau.

Esau Sinnok.

A village renegade, reborn.

Norman

Shelton and Clara Kokeok, with a photo of their deceased son, Norman, who fell through the ice in 2007.

Shelton and Clara Kokeok, with a photo of their deceased son, Norman, who fell through the ice in 2007.

Shelton and Clara Kokeok, with a photo of their deceased son, Norman, who fell through the ice in 2007.

Elders say the ice should have been safe that day in 2007.

Norman had been on a hunting trip and was heading back into town in the early morning of late spring, when lower latitudes would still be shrouded in darkness but when this village sees nearly eternal sunshine, the tilt of the Earth making it possible to hunt through the night.

Village elders and family members tell me he was crossing a narrow part of the lagoon that separates Shishmaref and its barrier island from mainland Alaska. It may sound strange to drive a snowmobile across ice-covered water in June. But elders tell me the ice should have been frozen solid that time of year — that there was no indication Norman would be in danger.

Now, everyone is less trusting.

Some haven’t gone hunting on the ice since.

Norman’s death was particularly hard on his father, Shelton, who keeps a photo of the young man, wearing a buzz cut and Reno-911 mustache, on his coffee table, facing the door for all to see. Norman was a second-chance child, one he taught to hunt seal and follow traditions Inupiat people had followed here for at least four centuries, if not many more. Yet, from birth, the boy had an air of tragedy about him, even if no one in the family dared say so aloud.

It was in the name: Norman.

Norman was named after Shelton’s brother, who died in a plane crash.

The tragedy brought Shelton together with Clara, who was married to his brother.

In the wake of the accident, the two mourners decided to marry. Love was at the heart of it, to be sure, but Shelton also felt a sense of duty — duty to occupy the loving, supportive station his brother had left vacant in Clara’s life.

When one man leaves, another stands in his place.

‘Like an old soul’

Esau Sinnok, 19, was adopted by his aunt, Bessi Sinnok.

Esau Sinnok, 19, was adopted by his aunt, Bessi Sinnok.

Esau Sinnok, 19, was adopted by his aunt, Bessi Sinnok.

The boy always seemed to possess knowledge from another life.

As a toddler, Esau Sinnok spouted off phrases in Inupiaq, the local language, even though no one had taught him to do so. Then, as a young boy, Esau was traveling with his birth mother across the empty landscape that surrounds Shishmaref. “That’s where I used to camp,” he told her. It was the very spot where his namesake, Esau Weyiouanna, used to stay.

It was as if the renegade elder were speaking through the boy.

A voice carried on the wind from one generation to the next.

People in the village treat it this way.

For many, it’s not just that young Esau reminds them of his namesake. It’s that Esau is the namesake elder, returned from the grave and walking among them. They sometimes call him “father” or “brother” or “cousin,” referencing their relationships with the elder who passed away.

Esau inherited the elder’s respected status, too. “He’s like an old soul,” says his adoptive mother, Bessi Sinnok. “He’s very outspoken, like his namesake. His namesake was very respected by lots of people and because of that he had already earned respect as he was growing up.”

Teenage Esau never knew this when he was young. Bessi Sinnok told me the village hid the history from him. She wanted her son to form his own identity.

Yet she watched as the elder’s personality seemed to emerge from the boy. Esau, who was nearly mute as a child, they say, bookish and reserved, grew to be an outspoken and free-thinking young man, much like the elder Esau — and much to the surprise of his family.

Two events helped encourage the shift.

One was a storm in 2006.

Esau remembers the waves crashing over his grandparent’s roof.

The small blue house at the edge of the land once seemed like it might stand forever.

After the storm, he tells me, “We thought the house would collapse.”

The other was the death of his uncle, Norman, the man who feel through the ice.

Esau was only 9.

“It really hurts,” Esau tells me. He’s now a 19-year-old college student with heavy eyes and mussy hair. “It really made me cry and wonder why he left so early. And there’s not a day that goes by that I do not think of him. He’s always on my mind. He’s always in my heart.”

‘Climate change is happening real fast’

Local meats, including seal, hang from drying racks in the village. Seal oil, made from blubber, is a staple.

Local meats, including seal, hang from drying racks in the village. Seal oil, made from blubber, is a staple.

Local meats, including seal, hang from drying racks in the village. Seal oil, made from blubber, is a staple.

A few years after Norman’s death, Esau moved into Shelton and Clara Kokeok’s blue house at the edge of the Earth. Esau tells me he wanted to help his grandparents with chores his uncle might have performed, which would have included things like getting ice for drinking water from the lake, washing clothes in the local “Washateria” and emptying the “honey bucket” toilet.

Shelton remembers telling his grandson how much the village had changed over the years, how the weather wasn’t cold like it used to be, how these storms seemed bigger now, how much of the land, including the neighbor’s house, had already disappeared — and how he might be next.

“When I built this house, there was still more ground out there,” Shelton says. “We’re right on the edge of the beach now … Climate change is happening real fast.”

But none of this made sense to Esau — not really — until his senior year of high school.

That’s when he took Ken Stenek’s science class.

Stenek, an affable, big-smiling guy with a wiry beard and a kettlebell figure, told the students about the greenhouse effect — how pollution, mostly from fossil fuels, hangs around in the atmosphere and acts like a blanket, heating the planet. They watched “An Inconvenient Truth,” the high-profile documentary featuring former Vice President Al Gore and a graph often called the “hockey stick.” That now-famous chart shows that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere haven’t been this high in hundreds of thousands of years.

Esau learned that a consensus of climate scientists — at least 97% — agree humans are causing rapid warming, and that continuing to pollute at current rates would be catastrophic, contributing to mass extinction, searing droughts, deadlier heat waves and more.

They also talked about the consequences for Shishmaref.

The “erosion” everyone in town was discussing?

That was related to the melting sea ice, the thawing of permafrost, the frequency of damaging storms. In short: By burning fossil fuels, people were helping destroy this village.

If you’d asked him the year before what he wanted to do with his professional life, Esau would have told you he wanted to be a petroleum engineer, like his brother. Good money, he’d say, unaware that extracting and burning fossil fuels like oil is contributing to the problem.

Now, however, Esau was learning the science.

He thought about his grandfather’s house.

His uncle’s death.

He believes that climate change had a hand in both.

‘Imminent’ threats

This education took him all the way to Paris.

Through Ken Stenek’s science class, Esau met researchers who were studying climate change and its consequences. And through those connections he became an Arctic Youth Ambassador, which is a program of two federal agencies and Alaska Geographic, a nonprofit. He learned that Shishmaref is not alone — that 31 villages in Alaska face “imminent” threats from erosion and other issues related to climate change, according to a Government Accountability Office report; and that 12 of them were exploring relocation options because of warming.

Esau started to wonder: Could Shishmaref actually survive the melting of the Arctic?

Was his village’s life nearing its end?

Or the start of a new beginning?

Those questions never occurred to Esau before, although they had been on the lips of older people in Shishmaref for years. They’re questions kept from young people, hoping to protect them, wanting them to grow up with a sense that the world is more certain than it is.

The Obama White House named Esau a Champion of Change for Climate Equity. He got to go to Washington. Then, he said, with help from the Sierra Club, an environmental group, he got to attend international climate change negotiations in Paris in December 2015. It was that meeting — which is often called “COP21,” since that’s simpler than “the 21st meeting of the conference of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change” — where world leaders agreed, after decades of failure, to work together to end the fossil fuel era.

The target: Limit global temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.

Basically, that means eliminating fossil fuels this century.

In Paris, hope filled the air — hope for a cleaner, safer future.

Esau, meanwhile, arrived in the French capital terrified.

It was just so different from Shishmaref.

“It felt a little claustrophobic to me, being in a big city for the first time,” he says. “It felt like I just can’t take a walk or go outside and walk without thinking of being threatened or beat up. When you walk around here, you don’t feel that. Everyone here is family. You get a sense of trust.” He was so afraid of Paris — its clustered buildings, sidewalks thick with people, streets clogged with smoking cars — that he did not dare leave the hotel without an escort.

The scale of the place got to him in other ways, too.

How much pollution are all these people creating?

How do you get all of them to change?

In a word: overwhelming.

Yet amid this chaos, Esau made another leap of understanding.

‘Before it completely erodes away’

Percy Nayokpuk owns one of two stores in town. "Climate change is happening," he says.

Percy Nayokpuk owns one of two stores in town. "Climate change is happening," he says.

Percy Nayokpuk owns one of two stores in town. “Climate change is happening,” he says.

Rae Bainteiti comes from Kiribati, a tropical island nation that could not be more geographically dissimilar from Shishmaref. Sun and sand vs. ice and snow. The two places are thousands of miles apart, separated by the vast Pacific Ocean and a half-world of latitude, with Shishmaref near the Arctic Circle and Kiribati near the equator. Yet when an interviewer sat Rae down with Esau in Paris, the two young men discussed the perils of a common threat.

Both may have to relocate because of climate change.

“My future generation of kids will be the last ones that will actually be on the island of Shishmaref before it completely erodes away,” Esau tells Rae in the Paris interview, which is posted on YouTube.

He looks directly at the other young man.

“It’s just really sad knowing that you probably have to relocate and migrate, too,” Esau says.

“Your country has to be stopped from melting so we don’t see water rising,” Rae replies.

The two share a laugh at the irony of the situation: As Arctic ice melts and oceans warm, sea levels around the world are rising. A host of locations, from Pacific islands like Kiribati to low-lying countries like Bangladesh and cities from New York to Shanghai will be threatened with coastal flooding — and possibly relocation, too — as people continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Already, Miami Beach, Florida, is installing pumps and raising street levels to try to hold the water back. That work is only the beginning of a $400-million-plus project. In 2016, the community of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, got a $48 million federal grant to relocate, in part because of rising seas. But this is the exception rather than the rule. Most local governments don’t have the money for infrastructure to hold rising tides back.

Experts say there are no programs — in the United States or internationally — designed specifically to plan and fund climate-driven relocations. Only a few moves have been funded with money designated for climate adaptation projects, said Elizabeth Ferris, research professor at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration.

“Governments are reluctant to think about planned relocations because everyone wants to stay where they are,” she told me. But “if it isn’t planned well, it just doesn’t work. It leaves people much worse off.”

“There’s no federal or state law — no institution in the United States — with a mandate for how are we going to manage relocation internally,” said Alice Thomas, the climate displacement program manager at Refugees International, a non-profit group. “It’s going to be enormously expensive. It’s going to be very vulnerable people … people who aren’t going to be able to cut their losses on their home when they can’t get flood insurance. Where will they go?”

In Shishmaref, the answer remains unclear.

Relocation

Local officials in Shishmaref discuss the possibility of climate relocation. They do not have the money to move.

Local officials in Shishmaref discuss the possibility of climate relocation. They do not have the money to move.

Local officials in Shishmaref discuss the possibility of climate relocation. They do not have the money to move.

August 2016.

Globally, it tied for the hottest month of the hottest year on record. In Shishmaref, residents went to the polls to decide whether they would relocate because of warming.

The answer: Yes, by a margin of 89 to 78, according to local officials.

But the August 16 vote did not solve Shishmaref’s trouble. Far from it.

Annie Weyiouanna, local coordinator for the Native Village of Shishmaref, tells me the tribe has no money to fund the move. And this isn’t the first time the village has held a relocation vote. They did so in 2002, as well. Nothing changed. No one in the village today is packing. And Weyiouanna has tried to stop using the word “relocation” — or uses it minimally, sometimes correcting herself — because she worries it will signal to funding agencies in the state and federal governments that the village will be gone soon and doesn’t need help with grants or infrastructure. The reality is that no one knows how long the village will be stuck.

Perhaps forever, some worry, or until the island is gone.

“They are not safe right now, and their lives are in danger because of the storms that are coming in,” said Robin Bronen, executive director of the Alaska Institute for Justice and a senior research scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She was referring to Shishmaref as well as Newtok and Kivalina, Alaska, which face similar circumstances. “(T)hey just need a large sum of money to get them to the places that they’ve chosen so they can be safe.”

Shishmaref has identified two potential sites for a new version of the community. Both are inland, meaning hunters and fishers would not be able to access the sea as easily. Some people in the community — particularly elders — believe the move threatens the tribe’s Inupiat identity.

Away from the coast, are they still the same people?

Why should they move when others are driving climate change?

Esau has wrestled with these questions, too. His grandparents, Shelton and Clara, the couple in the blue house at the edge of the Earth, who lost their son to the ice, do not want to leave. They want to stay in their home — in the community they know so well — no matter the risks.

Esau worries about them.

“If you ask the older generations like my grandfather, their views are totally different,” he tells me. “They want to stay on this island forever and ever. And I respect that decision. They’re my elders.

“But, to me, I think we have to relocate so that our future generations can still be alive.”

Norman, age 7

In the winter, the skies in Shishmaref appear to be frozen in twilight.

In the winter, the skies in Shishmaref appear to be frozen in twilight.

In the winter, the skies in Shishmaref appear to be frozen in twilight.

On my last day in Shishmaref, Esau and I paid his old science teacher a visit.

We found Ken Stenek in a cream-colored house with Christmas lights on the roofline. He lives on a part of the island where houses are newer. Some were moved from the side where Esau’s grandparents live, and where coastal erosion is more threatening.

Standing in his home, I couldn’t help but think about the cemetery.

About the two men — Esau and Norman — who are buried there.

Two young people, bearing those names, were standing in the room with me.

There was Esau Sinnok, standing in the entryway, of course.

But also Norman, sitting on the sofa in the living room.

Norman Stenek, age 7.

The boy was named after Esau’s uncle, the one who fell through the ice.

When I visited, young Norman seemed more interested in a tablet computer than a conversation with a random reporter, and I can’t blame him for that. Still, the encounter sticks with me.

It made me wonder: What will his life be like?

His name — Norman — carries a tragic legacy. The death in the plane crash. The fall through the ice. Will this 7-year-old live to see the rest of the village drown beneath the waves, too?

Will the same happen to millions of coastal residents during his lifetime?

And what about Esau?

Sometimes I think the weight of this tragedy falls on his young shoulders. His namesake was a local agitator and his uncle’s death drove him into activism. The strength of his voice — his power to command attention — has surprised a village where few care to stand out from the crowd. He speaks out against fossil fuels, saying that the world must rush to a future with 100% renewable, clean energy. It may be too late for Shishmaref, he says, but what about other communities in similar straits? How many people will pollution force from their homes?

“I don’t blame it on one person, or a group of people. It’s all our fault,” Esau tells me. “It’s not the 1940s anymore. We can’t use fossil fuels anymore to heat our homes and use for our energy.

“We can transition from dirty fossil fuels to renewable energies.”

But how much weight can a 19-year-old bear?

The rest of us must realize our role in this tragedy.

Responsibility for Shishmaref’s plight falls on those in the industrialized world who continue to pollute the atmosphere with carbon, knowing it will warm the climate, melt the ice and make it less likely Shishmaref will survive. It falls on the Trump administration, which has moved to defund and upend climate change initiatives instead of planning for a transition to cleaner power sources, like wind and solar. It falls on politicians who know the scope of the impending climate relocation crisis but have done little to make adequate plans or secure appropriate funding.

Shishmaref is part of America, even if it’s rarely treated that way.

It is a place where people never really die, where the cemetery on that hilltop in the center of the island is full of people like Norman and Esau who are kept alive by names and stories. The question now is whether villages, like people, can be reincarnated.

Can Shishmaref be reborn?

Sadly, it’s a question the village cannot answer on its own.