Seeing Spots: The nationwide measles outbreak has grown to 700 reported cases in 22 states, the Centers for Disease Control announced.

  About 500 of the cases are among people who were never vaccinated and roughly half are children five and under. About 400 of the cases have been found in New York City and its suburbs, mostly in Orthodox Jewish areas.

   This year’s outbreak is the largest since the disease was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000.

Give Us Your Fees: In a further effort to discourage asylum seekers at the southern border, President Trump has ordered that applicants be charged fees and that they be denied the right to work until their cases are decided.

  He also ordered that asylum cases should be adjudicated within 180 days even though there are already 800,000 pending cases.

  “The purpose of this memorandum is to strengthen asylum procedures to safeguard our system against rampant abuse of our asylum process,” Trump said in the memo.

  The nature of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers has changed in recent years. It used to be mostly single men and now it is families with children, most of them from Central America.

1099:The number of billion-dollar corporations that pay no federal tax and even get money back has grown under President Trump’s tax reform, The NY Times reports.

  From Amazon to Delta Airlines and Chevron, the Timescompiled a list of 30 profitable corporations that paid no federal income tax for 2018. Also on the list are Duke Energy, General Motors, Netflix, and IBM.

  A large part of tax reform was to reduce corporate taxes and bring both jobs and profits back to the US. But there were already plenty of corporations that paid less than the going rate or nothing and now there are more. Amazon said in a statement that it “pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the US and every country where we operate.”

  That’s the problem.

Exit:Deputy Attorney Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the Special Counsel investigation after former Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions recused himself, has announced his resignation from the Justice Department. Rosenstein had previously announced his departure but Attorney Gen. William Barr asked him to stay until the Special Counsel report was completed and released.

 Rosenstein has been both a hero and a heel in the Trump era. He defended the Mueller investigation, but also was the author of a memo Trump used to justify the firing of FBI Director James Comey, who had refused to bend to the President’s will. 

Not Dead: Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has appeared on a new video for the first time in five years, proving that he is still alive and in charge of the tattered extremist organization.

  In the video he’sleaning on a cushion with an assault rifle at his side trying to inspire his followers after the loss of the group’s territory in Iraq and Syria. “Our battle today is a battle of attrition, and we will prolong it for the enemy, and they must know that the jihad will continue until Judgment Day,” he said. 

From the Throne Room: Japan’s popular Emperor Akihito abdicated today in a short ceremony at the Imperial Palace, clearing the way for his son to ascend. Official duties had become too onerous for the 85-year-old emperor. 

  Japanese emperors were once regarded as living gods, but the popular Akihito brought humanity to the position.

  Dressed in a morning coat with his wife, Empress Michiko, just behind him, Akihito gave a televised speech in the Imperial Palace’s throne room. “Since ascending the throne 30 years ago, I have performed my duties as the emperor with a deep sense of trust in and respect for the people, and I consider myself fortunate to have been able to do so,” he said.

The Obit Page:Movie director John Singleton, who broke out at just age 23 with an Oscar nomination for his 1991 movie “Boyz N the Hood,” has died at age 51 after a stroke that left him in a coma.

  Just out of film school and with no professional directing experience, Singleton was the first black director nominated for an Oscar. His movie about young men  dealing with gang violence in South Central Los Angeles captured both critics and audiences.

  Singleton went on to direct other notable movies including “Rosewood” about the destruction of a black town by white rioters, and television dramas. But his first work was a landmark. The late critic Roger Ebert wrote,  “By the end of ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ I realized I had not simply seen a brilliant directorial debut, but an American film of enormous importance.”

Cover Girl: Sports Illustratedis publishing its annual swimsuit issue featuring a Somali-American model wearing a burkini, the full body-covering swimsuit for Muslim women. Next thing you know they’ll feature swimsuits made for swimming. 

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