U.S. President Donald Trump is set to visit Baltimore, the eastern U.S., majority-black city he recently called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.”
Trump will be in Baltimore on Thursday to address Republican congressional leaders attending an annual retreat.
Several protests are planned to coincide with his visit. Activist groups are planning to protest “racism, white supremacy, war, bigotry and climate change,” organizers told The Baltimore Sun.
Trump has denied charges of racism regarding his attacks on the city and U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who is a native of Baltimore.
“There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know, that Elijah Cummings has done a terrible job for the people of his district, and of Baltimore itself,” he tweeted in July.
The U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (IS) was announced five years ago. Despite defeating the terror group militarily, some experts believe IS still poses a major threat to global security. Sirwan Kajjo reports from Washington.
What is a Push Poll?
After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush encouraged a reeling nation to light candles in honor of the victims.
Elaine Greene and two friends joined the hordes in a candlelight vigil, but not before she stopped to grab an old flag that was behind her Maine home’s front door.
With tears in her eyes, she raised the flag tentatively.
Motorists honked their approval.
The simple act has played out weekly ever since, through snow and ice, sickness and health, over 18 years. And it’s playing out for a final time Wednesday.
Dubbed the “Freeport flag ladies,” the trio is reluctantly giving in to age and ending the Main Street tradition. Greene is the youngest at 74 and battles Crohn’s disease. Carmen Footer, 77, recently recovered from open heart surgery. JoAnn Miller, 83, has foot problems.
“It was up to me to call it, and I called it,” Greene said.
Greene described their calling as a mission of love, gratitude and patriotism, and it went far beyond waving their flags on a street corner near L.L. Bean. They mailed care packages to military personnel deployed overseas in the war on terrorism. They greeted military personnel at airports. They visited the wounded. And they attended funerals.
They saw people at their worst while dealing with loss. And they witnessed how tragedy can also bring out the best in many people, Greene said.
Over the years, their work became their lives. They appeared alongside presidents. They spoke to schoolchildren. The home that the three share is full of patriotic memorabilia and letters from military personnel. It’s been years since they dressed in anything other than red, white and blue.
Greene, whose glasses are red, white and blue, said she wouldn’t change a thing. After all, she said, the flag waving was the answer to a prayer.
After 9/11, she knew the nation had come under an attack unlike anything since Pearl Harbor. She said she wanted to do something to help, and something told her to grab that flag behind the door.
She remains in awe that a simple gesture grew into something big.
“You can either bring a light into the room, or walk into a room that’s dark and keep it dark,” she said. “I prefer to bring a light into the room. It takes only but a little match to do that. You don’t have to have a great big idea. You just have to be sincere.”
Facing growing competition from less expensive smartphone providers, Apple introduced its new versions of its iconic iPhone Tuesday at its annual product launch event in California. Along with their latest upgrades and new offerings, Apple also caught the attention of both consumers and critics for something they didn’t do. VOA’s Richard Green has more on the tech giant’s newest strategy
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shuffled his Cabinet on Wednesday, adding two women and the son of a former leader to freshen his image but maintaining continuity on U.S.-oriented trade and security policies.
Abe, the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s postwar history, kept key positions in the hands of close allies at a time when he is locked in a bitter trade dispute with South Korea and as he tries to fine-tune a trade deal with Washington.
Taro Kono, who had been foreign minister, was appointed defense minister, while Toshimitsu Motegi, minister in charge of economic policy, is now foreign minister. Finance Minister Taro Aso kept his job.
Yet with just two years left on his party leadership, Abe also sought to add some new faces and keep potential challengers close.
Getting the greatest attention was the new environment minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, the 38-year-old son of popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He was the only appointment in his 30s in a lineup dominated by men in their 50s and older.
Expectations in the Japanese public have been high for years that the younger Koizumi is destined to be Japan’s leader. Koizumi has tended to keep a distance from Abe, although both hold the conservative pro-U.S. policies of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Abe told reporters that he was proud of his choices as people, mostly veterans, who will tackle reforms to keep Japan competitive in the “new era” of globalization.
On Koizumi, he said: “I have big hopes he will take up challenges with innovative ideas fitting of someone from the younger generation.”
Yu Uchiyama, professor of political science at the University of Tokyo, said the appointments, besides Koizumi, showed Abe chose those who were very close to him.
“Abe wanted the popular Koizumi under his control,” Uchiyama said. “This is a big step for Koizumi toward becoming future prime minister, but he will also be tested for the first time in a major way.”
Also in the limelight are two new female ministers, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Hashimoto, a former Olympian speedskater who was appointed minister in charge of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Women in the Cabinet tend to get attention in Japan, which is criticized as lagging in promoting females in both the private sector and politics.
The nationally circulated Asahi newspaper said the Cabinet appointments showed Abe was building his successors but, at the same time, having candidates competing with each other in an effort to maintain his influence.
“A strategy to create a post-Abe fight,” a front-page headline said.
By rewarding various politicians with posts, Abe has avoided a “lame duck” syndrome, in which he would be powerless during what’s remaining of his party leadership, said political analyst Masatoshi Honda.
Until he came to power in 2012, Japan tended to have a “revolving door” of one leader toppled after another, partly because of recurring corruption scandals. Abe also served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007.
It was a sobering moment this July 1 in Gillette, Wyoming, when two of the largest coal mines in the country closed in midshift.
Melissa Peterson Worden was one of about 600 people who lost their jobs that day, when the nation’s sixth-largest coal mining company, Blackjewel, abruptly went out of business.
“It is the thing they said would never happen,” Worden said. “And it happened.”
Blackjewel had applied for bankruptcy protection that morning. But the company couldn’t get funding to keep the mines running while courts sorted out its finances. So the mines closed that afternoon. They haven’t opened since.
Blackjewel’s bankruptcy underscores the paradigm shift taking place in the electric power industry. In just the last decade or so, more than half of the nation’s 530 coal-fired power plants have shut down or announced plans to do so as cheaper, cleaner alternatives have moved in, according to the Sierra Club.
Coal Industry’s Decline Hits Nation’s Largest Producer video player.
While the downturn in the coal industry has hit hard in the Eastern U.S. region of Appalachia, Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal producer by far. The state dug more than 316 million tons of coal in 2017, more than all seven states of Appalachia combined.
Companies with mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin were thought to have “jewels in their balance sheets,” said Robert Godby, director of the University of Wyoming’s Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy, “because the Powder River Basin was so profitable.”
“But that’s changed in a few short years,” he added. “The tide has just turned so quickly that it’s caught a lot of people off guard.”
Rock bottom prices
Even as the coal industry faltered elsewhere, the Powder River Basin thought it would weather the downturn.
Coal is so easy to mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the local joke goes, that all you need is a golf club. Huge seams lie just below the surface.
The mines are massive. Seven of the 10 largest mines in the country are here. Dump trucks the size of houses carry 400 tons of coal at a time through terraced craters carved out of the grasslands.
The huge economies of scale meant coal from these mines was among the cheapest in the country. The state supplies 40% of the nation’s coal, fueling power plants from Georgia to Oregon.
Coal’s backers blame the Obama administration environmental regulations for closing plants that have kept the lights on for generations.
But experts say the decline has more to do with the rapid rise of cheaper natural gas since the mid-2000s. And the plunging cost of solar and wind power in just the last few years is helping renewable energy further cut into coal’s market.
That’s forcing a reckoning in places like Gillette, Wyoming, the de facto capital of the Powder River basin.
Change comes to the ‘energy capital’
Mining is “kind-of a family thing” for Rory Wallet.
His father, stepfather and sister all have worked in the coal mines around Gillette, he said. His grandfather was a phosphate miner before that.
“It’s a wonderful way to make a living. A decent, livable living,” he said. “I’ve got four kids, so it’s a great way to keep them insured and keep food on the table and keep a good home over their head.”
But Wallet lost his job in the Blackjewel bankruptcy.
“We’re struggling,” he said. “The big one for us is the house payment.”
He’s kept up his spirits and those of hundreds of others with a Facebook page that’s become a de facto support group for former Blackjewel workers.
Mining is a high paying job with good benefits that doesn’t require higher education. When mining jobs dry up, experts say, it’s hard to find a substitute.
That poses a problem for Gillette, population 30,000. The city bills itself as the “Energy Capital of the Nation.”
While Gillette and Wyoming are profiting from oil and gas development, those industries tend to boom and bust. Coal has been a relatively steady source of tax revenue for decades.
“Coal has built the city as you see it,” said Gillette Mayor Louise Carter-King.
Gillette has weathered previous downturns. But the mayor sees the coal industry is on a downward trajectory.
“That’s why it’s important that we diversify,” she said.
The carbon prize
The city and the state have a lot riding on an experimental project called the Integrated Test Center attached to a coal-fired power plant just outside town. The $15 million facility allows researchers to plug directly into the plant’s exhaust and study ways to capture the planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Many experts consider carbon capture essential to fighting climate change. The world’s existing power plants, factories, vehicles and other fossil fuel-burning infrastructure are already on track to produce enough carbon dioxide to push the planet into catastrophic warming, scientists say.
While coal plants are closing in the United States and Europe, the rest of the world is building or planning to build hundreds more.
Carbon capture technology is not yet commercially viable, however, and is years away at best.
Next year, the center will be one of two sites hosting the $20 million Carbon XPRIZE. The other site is in Alberta, Canada. Teams from around the world will compete to find the best way to turn the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions into profitable products, such as building materials or chemicals.
Whether they win or lose, Carter-King hopes some of the teams competing for the prize will set up shop in Gillette permanently.
In the meantime, Rory Wallet said recent events have shaken his faith in coal — but not much.
“I’d lie if I said it didn’t,” he said. However, he added, “I plan on hanging on. If I don’t get a coal job immediately I’ll keep looking in the basin. They’re always available.”
Miners are a family, he said, and “it’s something I love doing.”
But there is a growing sense in Gillette that, after keeping the lights on for decades, coal will not be there forever.
The big question is, what’s next?
“The United States is saying, ‘What do you have for us now?’“ Melissa Peterson Worden said. “And we have to come up with a better answer than, ‘If you don’t like coal, don’t turn your lights on.’ We can’t be those people anymore.”
Britain is getting set for a general election likely to be held in November, as the political crisis over the country’s exit from the European Union deepens.
The British parliament was officially suspended or “prorogued” in the early hours of Tuesday, just weeks before the country is due to crash out of the European Union. Opposition lawmakers have branded the move a coup by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and have vowed to take him to court if he refuses to request a Brexit extension from the European Union.
Britain is scheduled to leave the bloc Oct. 31, although legislation passed last week by opposition MPs seeks to force the prime minister to ask Brussels for an extension to the Brexit process if no exit deal can be reached.
Britain on Election Footing as Crisis Pits Parliament v Prime Minister video player.
The political stalemate must be broken soon, says Stephen Booth, acting director of the Open Europe policy group in London.
“Clearly we are gearing up for a general election at some time or other, probably in November now. And I think increasingly everything is going to be framed in those terms. Which is one of the reasons why (opposition Labour leader) Jeremy Corbyn and the anti no-deal MPs are quite keen to see Boris Johnson sent to Brussels in a humiliating fashion to ask for an extension,” Booth said.
Johnson says Brexit will happen
Boris Johnson joined lessons at a London primary school Tuesday, announcing new investment in education widely seen as a warmup for an election campaign.
“I think we will get a deal (with the EU). But if absolutely necessary we will come out with no deal,” the prime minister told reporters.
Opposition MPs have warned they will take Johnson to court if he refuses to ask for an extension. The government is looking for an escape route, says analyst Booth.
“One is simply refusing to comply and seeing what happens in terms of any court cases or legal action that might happen,” he said.
Parliament suspended
For now Parliament has been silenced, much to the indignation of opposition lawmakers.
At 2 a.m. Tuesday several MPs interrupted the suspension ceremony by trying to physically restrain the speaker from leaving his chair. Others held up protest banners and shouted “Shame on you!” at ruling Conservative MPs.
The government will likely frame any election campaign as the people versus an intransigent parliament trying to overturn the Brexit referendum, says Catherine Barnard, professor of European Union Law at the University of Cambridge.
“There’s a real irony about this of course because in the referendum a lot of people said they voted leave because they wanted to take back control to the Westminster parliament. And now what we’re seeing, the narrative that’s being developed, is direct democracy through referendum versus representative democracy through MPs,” Barnard says.
In Brussels, the European Union Tuesday began appointing a new team of commissioners. Even if Britain asks for an extension, some EU members could veto it, Booth says.
“We’ve heard certain noises from particularly the French government, and I think that is indicative of a growing frustration in the European Union of sort of, ‘We are open to an extension but what is the plan?’”
In Ireland, there are fears that any border checks resulting from Brexit could spark a return to sectarian violence. Such concerns were underlined Monday as dissident Republicans attacked police with petrol bombs in Londonderry, a reminder that the implications of Brexit go far beyond the theatrics of Westminster.
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, who helped launch China’s online retailing boom, stepped down as chairman of the world’s biggest e-commerce company Tuesday at a time when its fast-changing industry faces uncertainty amid a U.S.-Chinese tariff war.
Ma, one of China’s wealthiest and best-known entrepreneurs, gave up his post on his 55th birthday as part of a succession announced a year ago. He will stay on as a member of the Alibaba Partnership, a 36-member group with the right to nominate a majority of the company’s board of directors.
Ma, a former English teacher, founded Alibaba in 1999 to connect Chinese exporters to American retailers.
The company has shifted focus to serving China’s growing consumer market and expanded into online banking, entertainment and cloud computing. Domestic businesses accounted for 66% of its $16.7 billion in revenue in the quarter ending in June.
Chinese retailing faces uncertainty amid a tariff war that has raised the cost of U.S. imports.
Growth in online sales decelerated to 17.8% in the first half of 2019 amid slowing Chinese economic growth, down from 2018’s full-year rate of 23.9%.
Alibaba says its revenue rose 42% over a year earlier in the quarter ending in June to $16.7 billion and profit rose 145% to $3.1 billion. Still, that was off slightly from 2018’s full-year revenue growth of 51%.
The total amount of goods sold across Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms rose 25% last year to $853 billion. By comparison, the biggest U.S. e-commerce company, Amazon.com Inc., reported total sales of $277 billion.
Alibaba’s deputy chairman, Joe Tsai, told reporters in May the company is “on the right side” of issues in U.S.-Chinese trade talks. Tsai said Alibaba stands to benefit from Beijing’s promise to increase imports and a growing consumer market.
Alibaba is one of a group of companies including Tencent Holding Ltd., a games and social media giant, search engine Baidu.com Inc. and e-commerce rival JD.com that have revolutionized shopping, entertainment and consumer services in China.
Alibaba was founded at a time when few Chinese were online. As internet use spread, the company expanded into consumer-focused retailing and services. Few Chinese used credit cards, so Alibaba created the Alipay online payments system.
Ma, known in Chinese as Ma Yun, appears regularly on television. At an annual Alibaba employee festival in Hanzhou, he has sung pop songs in costumes that have included blond wigs and leather jackets. He pokes fun at his own appearance, saying his oversize head and angular features make him look like the alien in director Steven Spielberg’s movie “E.T. The Extraterrestrial.”
The company’s $25 billion initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014 was the biggest to date by a Chinese company.
The Hurun Report, which follows China’s wealth, estimates Ma’s fortune at $38 billion.
In 2015, Ma bought the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s biggest English-language newspaper.
Ma’s successor as chairman is CEO Daniel Zhang, a former accountant and 12-year veteran of Alibaba. He previously was president of its consumer-focused Tmall.com business unit.
Alibaba’s e-commerce business spans platforms including business-to-business Alibaba.com, which links foreign buyers with Chinese suppliers of goods from furniture to medical technology, and Tmall, with online shops for popular brands.
Alipay became a freestanding financial company, Ant Financial, in 2014. Alibaba also set up its own film studio and invested in logistics and delivery services.
Ma faced controversy when it disclosed in 2011 that Alibaba transferred control over Alipay to a company he controlled without immediately informing shareholders including Yahoo Inc. and Japan’s Softback.
Alibaba said the move was required to comply with Chinese regulations, but some financial analysts said the company was paid too little for a valuable asset. The dispute was later resolved by Alibaba, Yahoo and Softbank.
Corporate governance specialists have questioned the Alibaba Partnership, which gives Ma and a group of executives more control over the company than shareholders.
Ma has said that ensures Alibaba focuses on long-term development instead of responding to pressure from financial markets.
The prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia Saturday has prompted hopes that Moscow and Kyiv are ready for serious talks to end a more than five-year war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine — a Moscow-fomented conflict that’s claimed more than 13,000 lives.
As the exchange unfolded, which included the release by Russia of 24 sailors captured in a naval clash last November, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted, “Russia and Ukraine just swapped large numbers of prisoners. Very good news, perhaps a first giant step to peace. Congratulations to both countries!”
That view was shared by the man who engineered the swap, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who hailed the exchange as “the first step to end the war.” And various other Western leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron, joined the chorus lauding the exchange of 70 prisoners in all as a positive move.
For the families of those exchanged, there was relief.
Russia had threatened to incarcerate the sailors for up to six years, saying their patrol boats had trespassed into Russian territory by crossing its borders to enter the Sea of Azov, just off Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
Ukraine and other countries that don’t recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea say the sailors were in international waters, and an international maritime court ordered Moscow to free the men, an instruction ignored until Saturday.
Others among the 35 Ukrainian detainees had been held for years, including Oleg Sentsov, a filmmaker who was serving a 20-year sentence in an Arctic penal colony on charges of “terrorism.”
On their arrival at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport, where they were greeted by relatives and Zelenskiy, there was euphoria.
“Hell has ended. Everyone is alive, and that is the main thing,” said Vyacheslav Zinchenko, one of the sailors.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not greet in Moscow the 35 Russians released by Kyiv.
Since his surprise election earlier this year, Zelenskiy, a political novice and former television comic, has been urging Putin to join a new round of peace talks involving Trump and other Western leaders.
In a video statement released in July to coincide with a one-day EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv, Zelenskiy appealed to Putin directly.
“We need to talk. We do. Let’s do it,” he said, looking directly into the camera.
Last month, it was announced the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany would meet to discuss the Donbas conflict. But in an interview in July with VOA’s Ukrainian Service, Kurt Volker, U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations, cautioned against optimism.
“Unfortunately, we’ve really not heard much news from Russia. They are still saying that everything is Ukraine’s responsibility, that Ukraine needs to negotiate with the two so-called separatist ‘People’s Republic’ that they created in Ukraine,” he said, referring to the Kremlin-backed, self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
‘Sinister’ exchange
While some are seizing on the prisoner exchange as the possible start of something new, for others it has triggered worries that Putin is using Ukraine to toy with the West. Skeptics argue that Putin isn’t serious about ending a conflict of his own making and has every reason to nurture it as a way to disrupt Ukraine and continue to punish the country for its popular Maidan uprising in 2014, which forced Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin ally, out of power.
They highlight the imbalance in the prisoner swap — seeing Putin’s approach to it as displaying a sinister cynicism. While the released Ukrainians had been held on trumped-up charges, their Russian and pro-Moscow separatist counterparts weren’t innocent. They included Volodymyr Tsemakh, who commanded a Russian separatist air defense unit close to where Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, enroute to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, was shot down in 2014, killing all 298 people onboard.
The Dutch government has been left fuming, saying it “seriously regrets that under pressure from the Russian Federation, Tsemakh was included in this prisoner swap.”
Ukrainian politicians had pleaded with Zelenskiy not to release Tsemakh, but his freedom apparently was the price the Ukrainian leader was forced to pay for the prisoner exchange.
Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the Netherlands was “deeply disappointed” by the release, but added Ukraine had delayed the prisoner exchange to let Dutch investigators question Tsemakh before he was freed.
According to Marcel Van Herpen, author of the book “Putin’s Wars,” and a director at the Cicero Foundation research group, Tsemakh’s release could be a complicating factor for the MH17 trial, which starts in March 2020 in The Hague.
“Of course we are all happy they and the others are free,” tweeted self-exiled Russian dissident Garry Kasparov. “But this is not justice. Putin takes innocent hostages to use as bargaining chips. He is rewarded and praised for exchanging them for Russian spies & criminals, encouraging further terrorist acts.”
Kasparov and other skeptics worry that amid heightened talk of efforts to normalize relations with Putin, the West will fall into the pattern of giving ground to Putin.
“New talk of a ‘peace process’ is a joke when Putin could end the conflict instantly, just as he began it. ‘Use force, then negotiate’ works well for him,” Kasparov tweeted.
Michael Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, is cautious about interpreting “this as a step toward ending the war.” He noted, “August was one of the bloodiest months in the Donbas in a long time. More importantly, no country is incentivizing Putin to “de-escalate.” Other analysts fear the swap makes Russia appear reasonable when it was the aggressor state.
Willem Aldershoff, a former senior EU diplomat, worries that Western leaders keen for a reset in relations with Moscow will “be less confrontational with Putin” and “will use this ‘new Russian flexibility’ to pressure Zelenskiy to make compromises that aren’t in Ukraine’s best interests.
A lawyer for Michael Flynn accused federal prosecutors of misconduct on Tuesday as a judge set a December sentencing hearing for President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser.
The arguments from Flynn attorney Sidney Powell were the latest in a series of aggressive attacks on the foundations of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. They represented yet another step in Flynn’s evolution from a model cooperator he was the first and only White House official to cut a deal with prosecutors to a defendant whose newly combative and unremorseful stance may cost him a chance at the probation sentence prosecutors had previously recommended.
Even as U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan set a Dec. 18 sentencing date for Flynn, Powell made clear that she considered the case far from resolved. Though she said she was not seeking to have Flynn’s guilty plea thrown out, she contended the “entire prosecution should be dismissed because of egregious government misconduct.”
“There is far more at stake here than sentencing,” Powell said. She later accused the government of “being too busy working on what they wanted to accomplish in convicting Mr. Flynn” to seek truth or justice.
Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack, a member of Mueller’s team, strongly denied the accusations and said the government had given Flynn’s team more than 22,000 pages of documents. He said the information Powell was seeking either had no bearing on the case against Flynn, or was material that Flynn had been made aware of before pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Asked by Sullivan if the government stands by its recommendation that Flynn should be spared prison time for his cooperation, Van Grack said the government would file new documents on that question _ suggesting prosecutors may reverse course and ask for him to spend at least some time behind bars.
If the Dec. 18 sentencing date holds, it will be his second sentencing hearing on that exact date in as many years.
Flynn was supposed to be sentenced last December for lying to the FBI about his December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. But that sentencing hearing was abruptly cut short after Flynn asked that he be allowed to continue cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of earning credit toward a lighter punishment.
Flynn changed lawyers and hired a new legal team led by Powell, a conservative commentator and former federal prosecutor who has been an outspoken critic of Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
In court Tuesday, she unloaded on Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
She accused Peter Strzok, one of the two FBI agents who interviewed Flynn at the White House about his interactions with the ambassador, of being “impaired” by bias. She said she had not received copies of Strzok’s derogatory text messages about Trump that led to his removal from Mueller’s team and ultimately his firing from the FBI.
But Van Grack said Flynn was told before his first guilty plea in December 2017 that the communications existed and went ahead with the plea anyway.
Powell also said the government had not produced evidence that she said could demonstrate that Flynn was not an agent of the Russian government. But Van Grack noted that that allegation was never part of the case.
“The government has not alleged in any filing in this court or before the court that the defendant is an agent of Russia,” he said. “That is not part of the case.”
Instead, he added, the prosecution is all about whether Flynn lied to the FBI during a January 2017 interview at the White House about having discussed sanctions with Kislyak.
Mueller’s investigation, which produced charges against a half dozen Trump aides and associates, ended last spring with a report to the Justice Department. The report did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but did identify multiple instances in which the president sought to influence the investigation.
An Iranian female soccer fan has died after setting herself on fire outside a court after learning she may have to serve a six-month sentence for trying to enter a soccer stadium, a semi-official news agency reported Tuesday.
The tragic death immediately drew an outcry among some soccer stars and known figures in Iran, where women are banned from soccer stadiums, though they are allowed at some other sports, such as volleyball.
Sahar Khodayari died at a Tehran hospital on Monday, according to the Shafaghna news agency. The 30-year-old was known as the “Blue Girl” on social media for the colors of her favorite Iranian soccer team, Esteghlal.
She set herself on fire last week, reportedly after learning she may have to go to prison for trying to enter a stadium in March to watch an Esteghlal match. She was pretending to be a man and wore a blue hairpiece and a long overcoat when the police stopped her.
Khodayari, who had graduated in computer sciences, then spent three nights in jail before being released pending the court case. No verdict had been delivered in her case so far.
Esteghlal issued a statement, offering condolences to Khodayari’s family.
Former Bayern Munich midfielder Ali Karimi – who played 127 matches for Iran and has been a vocal advocate of ending the ban on women – urged Iranians in a tweet to boycott soccer stadiums to protest Khodayari’s death.
Iranian-Armenian soccer player Andranik “Ando” Teymourian, the first Christian to be the captain of Iran’s national squad and also an Esteghlal player, said in a tweet that one of Tehran’s major soccer stadiums will be named after Khodayari, “once, in the future.”
The minister of information and communications technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, described the death as a “bitter incident.” Female lawmaker Parvaneh Salahshouri called Khodayari “Iran’s Girl” and tweeted: “We are all responsible.”
Malawi has crowned Ms. and Mr. Albinism during the country’s first ever beauty pageant for albinos, held in the capital Lilongwe. The Association of People with Albinism organized the event as part of efforts to destroy myths which have led to albino attacks in Malawi and other African countries. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe.
Barcelona could cut deaths from air pollution and improve quality of life by implementing in full a plan to calm traffic and free up space for residents, researchers said Monday.
The compact Spanish city is home to more than 1.6 million people and is plagued by contaminants and noise largely due to heavy density of traffic, as well as lack of greenery.
A study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), published in the journal Environment International, found the city of Barcelona could prevent 667 premature deaths every year if it created 503 “superblocks” as first proposed.
The superblocks — which keep cars out of designated areas in the city and develop public space in streets — have been complex to roll out, with only six put in place so far.
“What we want to show with this study is that we have to go back and put the citizen at the center of … urban plans, because the health impacts are quite considerable,” said lead author and ISGlobal researcher Natalie Mueller.
As a city with the highest traffic density in Europe, Barcelona also needed to make it easier for people to commute in from the wider metropolitan area by public transport, she added.
The projected reduction in deaths from the superblocks plan would be achieved mainly as a result of a 24% decrease in air pollution from nitrogen oxide (NO2), along with lower traffic noise and urban heat, the study said.
Data released Friday from the Barcelona Public Health Agency showed air pollution accounted for 351 premature deaths in the city in 2018, around the same as in 2017.
Motor vehicles generated the main pollutant, with almost half the city’s population regularly exposed to NO2 levels above the safe limit set by the World Health Organization, the city council said.
From January 2020, Barcelona will implement low-emission zones on weekdays, keeping 125,000 vehicles out of the city.
The city council will also declare a climate emergency including a package of urgent measures to cut down on private vehicle use and boost public transport, among other actions.
It has already extended cycle paths and upgraded its shared bike scheme, while shrinking on-street parking.
‘Courage’ needed
Barcelona City Hall told the Thomson Reuters Foundation it aimed to start drafting plans for three new superblocks shortly, as well as launching public consultations for others.
The ISGlobal study found that, besides reducing deaths, a full roll-out of the superblocks project would increase life expectancy by almost 200 days on average per inhabitant, and generate an annual economic saving of 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion).
The superblocks have sparked opposition in some local areas, notably among small traders who fear they could deter customers.
But Mueller said the concept was similar to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, which was initially unpopular but quickly accepted once people realized the benefits.
“Even if they don’t see it in the beginning, often in the end they are quite happy,” she said, noting the need for “courage” in public policy making.
The American Medical Association on Monday urged Americans to stop using electronic cigarettes of any sort until scientists have a better handle on the cause of 450 lung illnesses and at least five deaths related to the use of the products.
The AMA, one of the nation’s most influential physician groups, also called on doctors to inform patients about the dangers of e-cigarettes, including toxins and carcinogens, and swiftly report any suspected cases of lung illness associated with e-cigarette use to their state or local health department.
The recommendation followed advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday for people to consider not using e-cigarette products while it investigates the cause of the spate of severe lung illnesses associated with vaping.
Many, but not all, of the cases have involved those who used the devices to vaporize oils containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis.
CDC officials said some laboratories have identified vitamin E acetate in product samples and are investigating that as a possible cause of the illnesses.
Public health experts have not found any evidence of infectious diseases and believe the lung illnesses are probably associated with a chemical exposure.
Megan Constantino, 36, from St. Petersburg, Florida, quit vaping six days ago after hearing reports of the illnesses and deaths related to vaping.
“It scared me into quitting,” she said.
Like many users of vaping pens, Constantino picked up the device after quitting cigarette smoking three years ago, and said, “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
She added, “I threw the last cartridge away. I took a picture of it and I literally cried.”
Constantino said many people who vape have been “on pins and needles” for the investigation results, and she is concerned that the reports of a link to vaping THC may give people an excuse to ignore the warnings.
E-cigarettes are generally thought to be safer than traditional cigarettes, which kill up to half of all lifetime users, the World Health Organization says. But the long-term health effects of vaping are largely unknown.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has faced mounting pressure to curb a huge spike in teenage use of e-cigarettes, a trend that coincided with the rising popularity of Juul e-cigarettes.
“We must not stand by while e-cigarettes continue to go unregulated. We urge the FDA to speed up the regulation of e-cigarettes and remove all unregulated products from the market,” AMA president Dr. Patrice Harris, said in a statement.
Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, which advocates for cigarette smokers to switch to nicotine-based vaping devices, said the AMA should be “ashamed of themselves for playing politics with people’s health and protecting the profits of drug dealers.”
He criticized the AMA for “fearmongering about nicotine vaping products” while not mentioning “the very real risks of vaping illicit THC products.”
Juul Labs declined to comment. Altria Group Inc owns a 35 percent stake in Juul.
Britain’s parliament has for the second time rejected Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to hold early elections in an attempt to break the Brexit deadlock.
Johnson had lobbied for snap elections on October 15 in an effort to win a parliamentary majority to approve his Brexit plans ahead of an EU summit of the continent’s leaders.
Following Tuesday’s vote, Johnson carried out his controversial suspension of parliament for five weeks, until the queen gives her annual address to parliament outlining the government’s legislative plans for the upcoming year.
Parliament’s rejection of a new election came hours after Britain’s Queen Elizabeth gave her approval to legislation seeking to block Johnson from carrying out a no-deal Brexit, his plan to take the country out of the European Union on October 31 without spelling out the terms of the split.
Johnson insisted Monday that Brexit would take place in October despite the new law, which was passed by parliament last week, but did not say how he would accomplish that.
The prime minister has few options left to carry out Brexit by the end of October, including persuading EU leaders to reach a new deal at the October summit or convincing lawmakers to back no deal.
In another sign of acrimony, parliament members Monday passed a motion demanding the government publish all documents relating to its efforts to prepare for a “no deal” Brexit.
Before Johnson took office in July, parliament three times rejected Brexit plans advanced by former Prime Minister Teresa May. Lawmakers in the House of Commons, however, have been unable to reach an agreement on British trade practices with the EU after it leaves the 28-nation bloc and how to deal with cross-border passage between Britain’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.
Johnson’s no-deal Brexit plans have been opposed by a majority of parliamentarians, including 21 Conservative lawmakers, among them Winston Churchill’s grandson, who worked to thwart the Tory prime minister. Johnson booted them from the Conservative party.
Americans are addicted to snacks, and food experts are paying closer attention to what that might mean for health and obesity.
Eating habits in the U.S. have changed significantly in recent decades, and packaged bars, chips and sweets have spread into every corner of life. In the late 1970s, about 40 percent of American adults said they didn’t have any snacks during the day. By 2007, that figure was just 10 percent.
To get a better handle on the implications of differing eating patterns, U.S. health officials are reviewing scientific research on how eating frequency affects health, including weight gain and obesity. The analysis is intended to gauge the broader spectrum of possibilities, including fasting. But snacking, grazing and “mini meals” are likely to be among the factors considered, given how they have upended the three-meals-a-day model.
Findings could potentially be reflected in the government’s updated dietary guidelines next year, though any definitive recommendations are unlikely.
For public health officials, part of the challenge is that snacking is a broad term that can mean a 100-calorie apple or a 500-calorie Frappuccino. How people adjust what they eat the rest of the day also varies. Snacks may help reduce hunger and overeating at meals, but they can also just push up the total calories someone consumes.
While there’s nothing wrong with snacks per se, they have become much more accessible. It also has become more socially acceptable to snack more places: at work meetings and while walking, driving or shopping for clothes.
“We live in a 24/7 food culture now,” said Dana Hunnes, a senior dietitian at UCLA Medical Center.
To encourage better choices as global obesity rates climb, public health officials have increasingly considered government interventions, including “junk food” taxes.
In Mexico, which has among the highest obesity rates in the world, special taxes on sugary drinks and other foods including some snacks and candies went into effect in 2014.
Last week, a study in the medical journal BMJ said taxing sugary snacks in the United Kingdom could have a bigger impact on obesity rates than a tax on sugary drinks that went into effect last year. While sugary drinks account for 2 percent of average calories in the United Kingdom, sugary snacks like cakes and cookies account for 12 percent, the study said.
Complicating matters, snack options are also continuing to broaden beyond the standard chips and cookies.
“Manufacturers have tried to tap into Americans’ concern for health,” said Paula Johnson, curator of food history at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Beyond nutrition, health officials should also consider what emotional or mental health benefits might be lost when people move away from meals, said Sophie Egan, who writes about American food culture. Meals can be a time for socially connectivity, she said, while snacks are usually eaten alone. She also noted the growth in snacking may be fueled by the stress of busier lives.
“Who knows how much food is a Band-Aid for those issues,” Egan said.
For their part, food companies have moved to capitalize on Americans’ love of snacks and stretched the definition of the word. Dunkin Donuts’ former CEO has said the chain’s sandwiches should be considered snacks, not lunch. When Hershey bought a meat jerky company, the candy company said it wanted to expand its offerings across the ”snacking continuum ” to include more nutritious options.
Health experts’ recommendations on snacking vary. Children may need more snacks and to eat more frequently. For adults, many dietitians saying what works for one person might not for another.
Hunnes, the UCLA dietitian, recommends sticking to minimally processed options like fruit or nuts when snacking. But she acknowledged the advice could sound like it’s coming from an ivory tower, given the prevalence of packaged snacks.
“They’re just there, and they have a great shelf life,” she said.
Small-scale farmers in Ghana are using drones for crop surveillance in a bid to increase yields and incomes. Farmers’ cooperatives embrace the technology as a step toward efficiency. Some however, feel the technology is too expensive and may shut out poor farmers. Sarah Kimani has the story from Accra.
Jacqueline Stewart has been named host of Turner Classic Movies’ silent movie program “Silent Sunday Nights,” making her the network’s first African American host in its 25 year history.
TCM on Monday announced the hiring of Stewart, a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago who has specialized in the racial politics of film preservation. She will make her TCM debut on Sunday.
“I hope that as a host at TCM that my presence there will interest a greater diversity of viewers to see what there is to watch,” Stewart said in an interview. “If my presence on TCM gets people interested in film history, especially young people of color, to look at a body of work that they might not think would resonate with them, that’s really important.”
For years after the network’s founding in 1994, Robert Osborne was the sole host on TCM. In 2003, Ben Mankiewicz joined the network. But only recently has TCM expanded the number of personalities that introduce and give context to the classic films that air on its commercial-less network. Last year, Alicia Malone became the first female host on TCM. Also added in recent years were “Noir Alley” hosts Eddie Muller and Dave Karger.
Pola Changnon, senior vice president of marketing, studio production and talent for TCM, says that as TCM has expanded its operations to include an annual film festival and classic movie-themed cruise, the network has needed “a deeper bench” of talent. Changnon said Stewart’s deep knowledge of film history and her engaging way of talking about it made her a natural fit.
“For us, it’s a chance to learn from her, too,” said Changnon. “With classic movies, there are certain assumptions about who got to tell the stories and who was featured in these movies. With Jacqueline’s guidance, we’re going to do more to attend to the Oscar Micheauxs of the world.”
Among the first films Stewart will host on TCM will be 1920’s “Symbol of the Unconquered” by Micheaux, the pioneering African American filmmaker. Also planned is 1912’s “Cleopatra” by the Helen Gardner Picture Players. Gardner was the first actor, male or female, to create her own production company in the U.S.
Stewart, a Chicago native, has dedicated her research toward expanding an understanding and appreciation of film history outside of the largely white lens it is often seen through _ something TCM has sometimes been criticized for contributing to. She has served on the National Film Preservation Board where she is chair of its diversity task force.
Stewart’s 2005 book “Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity” told the often overlooked history of the first black filmmakers. Her South Side Home Movie Project collected an archive of more than 300 home movies from families in the Chicago neighborhood as a way of intimately capturing local African American history.
“It’s important for all viewers of TCM to recognize that expertise comes in many different forms, many different colors,” said Stewart. “I’m especially excited about the kinds of conversations that can emerge because of the unique perspective that I can bring as a host.”
Officials in northern Burkina Faso say at least 29 people were killed in two separate incidents Sunday.
Government spokesman Remis Dandjinou said, in a statement, at least 15 people were killed when a truck carrying people and goods “rode over an improvised explosive device in the Barsalogho area.”
Fourteen people were killed when a food convoy of trucks came under attack in Sanmatenga province, according to the spokesman.
The French news agency AFP reports that locals sources said many of the dead in the convoy were the drivers of the vehicles carrying provisions for people displaced by fighting.
“Military reinforcements have been deployed and a thorough search in under way,” said Dandjinou.
Millions of people in Burkina Faso are facing an unprecedented humanitarian emergency because of growing hunger, instability and displacement, the World Food Program warned recently.
The United Nations reports escalating fighting, some fueled by ethnic and religious beliefs, has forced more than 237,000 people to flee their homes.
Jihadists have frequently launched attacks on Burkina’s military.
A former French colony, Burkina Faso in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Hong Kong is an inseparable part of China and any form of secessionism “will be crushed,” state media said on Monday, a day after demonstrators rallied at the U.S. consulate to ask for help in bringing democracy to city.
The China Daily newspaper said Sunday’s rally in Hong Kong was proof that foreign forces were behind the protests, which began in mid-June, and warned that demonstrators should “stop trying the patience of the central government”.
Chinese officials have accused foreign forces of trying to hurt Beijing by creating chaos in Hong Kong over a hugely unpopular extradition bill that would have allowed suspects to be tried in Communist Party-controlled courts.
Anger over the bill grew into sometimes violent protests calling for more freedoms for Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam formally scrapped the bill last week as part of concessions aimed at ending the protests.
“Hong Kong is an inseparable part of China – and that is the bottom line no one should challenge, not the demonstrators, not the foreign forces playing their dirty games,” the China Daily said in an editorial.
“The demonstrations in Hong Kong are not about rights or democracy. They are a result of foreign interference. Lest the central government’s restraint be misconstrued as weakness, let it be clear secessionism in any form will be crushed,” it said.
State news agency Xinhua said in a separate commentary that the rule of law needed to be manifested and that Hong Kong could pay a larger and heavier penalty should the current situation continue.
Nissan Motor Co’s nominating committee will discuss Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa’s resignation and possible successors at a meeting on Monday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Saikawa has expressed his desire to resign from the troubled automaker and is not “clinging to his chair”, the source said, declining to be identified because the information has not been made public.
The Nikkei newspaper earlier reported that Saikawa told reporters on Monday he wanted to “pass the baton” to the next generation as soon as possible. The executive has come under pressure since admitting last week to being improperly compensated.
A charity ship run by humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean spent a rainy Sunday searching open waters for a fragile rubber boat overloaded with migrants before finally plucking 50 people to safety not far off Libya’s coast.
The Norwegian-flagged Ocean Viking, which is operated jointly by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, sent its own boats to pick up a pregnant woman close to full term, 12 minors and 37 men, all from sub-Saharan Africa.
“God bless you!” one of the men told the rescuers as they passed life vests to the wet and barefoot passengers.
At least two people feeling ill collapsed upon arrival on the Ocean Viking, while three others were soaked in fuel and two were suffering from mild hypothermia. The operation was witnessed by an Associated Press journalist aboard the ship, which found the migrant boat some 14 nautical miles (16 statute miles) from Libya.
The rescue occurred 14 hours after the Ocean Viking as well as Libyan, Italian and Maltese authorities, the United Nations’ refugee agency and Moonbird, a humanitarian observation plane, received an email by Alarm Phone, a hotline for migrants. It was an urgent call seeking help for the rubber boat carrying 50 people without a working engine.
The Ocean Viking, which was already in the Libyan search and rescue zone of the central Mediterranean, informed all authorities that it was beginning an active search for the migrant boat. Throughout the morning, the charity ship chased several objects spotted on the horizon, including what turned out to be a floating palm leaf tangled with fishing gear and an empty small fishing boat.
Throughout the morning, the ship tried to contact Libyan officials without success. The AP journalist witnessed at least three phone calls to the Libyan Joint Rescue and Coordination Center that went unanswered.
The blue rubber boat jammed with the migrants was finally spotted on the horizon near a fishing boat at 1:30 p.m. The fishing boat did not respond to radio contact by the Ocean Viking, which then launched its rescue boats.
At 2:30 p.m., the Libyan Coastguard finally answered the phone and the Ocean Viking reported that its crew was in the process of rescuing the migrants.
A European Union plane taking part in the Operation Sophia anti-human trafficking operation flew over the Ocean Viking, the migrant boat and the fishing boat multiple times shortly before the people were rescued.
As required by maritime law, the ship asked Libyan authorities responsible for rescue coordination in that part of the Mediterranean to provide a place of safety to disembark the rescued migrants, but it also made the same request to Italian and Maltese officials. There was no immediate response.
International migration and human rights bodies say Libya is not a place of safety, and Doctors Without Borders does not consider any North African country safe for disembarkation of the migrants.
But for more than a year, migrant rescues performed by non-governmental groups have frequently led to sometimes weeks-long standoffs trying to get European authorities to allow migrants to be landed.
World War II veteran Henry Ochsner, who landed on the beach at Normandy on D-Day and later received the French government’s highest honor for his service, has died. He was 96.
Family friend Dennis Anderson says Ochsner died Saturday at his home in California City of complications from cancer and old age.
As part of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division — known as the “Screaming Eagles” — Ochsner also fought at the Battle of the Bulge.
In 2017 Ochsner and nine other veterans were awarded France’s National Order of the Legion of Honor during a ceremony at Los Angeles National Cemetery.
Ochsner married Violet Jenson in 1947. He is survived by his wife, their four daughters and two granddaughters. Funeral plans are pending.