Greta Van Susteren talks to technology journalist Kara Swisher about cybersecurity and privacy.
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Category Archives: News
Worldwide news. News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called “hard news” to differentiate it from soft media
US Retail Sales Increase Strongly in July
U.S. retail sales rose more than expected in July as households boosted purchases of motor vehicles and clothing, suggesting the economy remained strong early in the third quarter.
The Commerce Department said on Wednesday retail sales increased 0.5 percent last month. But data for June was revised lower to show sales gaining 0.2 percent instead of the previously reported 0.5 percent rise.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales nudging up 0.1 percent in July. Retail sales in July increased 6.4 percent from a year ago.
Excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, retail sales advanced 0.5 percent last month after a downwardly revised 0.1 percent dip in June. These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.
Core retail sales were previously reported to have been unchanged in June. Consumer spending is being supported by a tightening labor market, which is steadily pushing up wages. Tax cuts and higher savings are also underpinning consumption.
July’s increase in core retail sales suggested the economy started the third quarter on solid footing after logging its best performance in nearly four years in the second quarter.
GDP surged at a 4.1 percent annualized rate in the April-June period, almost double the 2.2 percent pace in the first quarter. While the economy is unlikely to repeat the second quarter’s robust performance, growth in the July-September period is expected to top a 3.0 percent rate.
Auto sales rose 0.2 percent in July after edging up 0.1 percent in June. Receipts at service stations increased 0.8 percent. Sales at clothing stores rebounded 1.3 percent after declining 1.6 percent in June.
Online and mail-order retail sales increased 0.8 percent, likely boosted by Amazon’s “Prime Day” promotion. That followed a 0.7 percent rise in June. Americans spent more at restaurants and bars, lifting sales 1.3 percent.
But receipts at furniture stores fell 0.5 percent and sales at building material stores were unchanged last month. Spending at hobby, musical instrument and book stores declined further in July, falling 1.7 percent.
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US University Puts Electronic Assistants in All Student Housing
One American university is putting electronic voice-controlled assistants in every student housing room on campus.
Saint Louis University recently announced it will equip every student living space with Amazon’s Alexa system. The school in St. Louis, Missouri, will place about 2,300 Echo Dot “smart” devices in all student dorms and other university housing.
Officials said the university will be the first in the world to put the devices in every student living space. The devices and the Alexa service are being provided at no costs to students.
The Amazon Echo is a speaker with the ability to listen and “talk” to users and can perform some operations. The Alexa assistant competes with similar systems made by Google and Apple.
Devices linked to the systems have become increasingly popular in homes in recent years. They can be used for things like looking up information, playing music, ordering food or buying things on the internet. The devices can also complete actions in the home. These include turning lights on and off, and controlling systems for heating and cooling and security.
Amazon calls these different tasks Alexa can perform “skills.”
Amazon said in a website post that Saint Louis University chose the Alexa system after carrying out a test program. The program involved the Echo Dot and a device from a competing company. It said the students had a better reaction to the Alexa system.
The Echo Dots will include a special skill developed especially for Saint Louis University. It will provide information and answer questions about local school activities and campus life.
Next year, the university plans to add more personalized skills, such as providing information about classes and grades.
The university said it did not increase student tuition to pay for the project. Instead, officials said, it was financed through the school’s general fund, as well as partnerships with Amazon and n-Powered. The company, based in Los Angeles, California, helped develop the parts of the system that are related to Saint Louis University.
David Hakanson is Saint Louis University’s vice president and chief information officer. In announcing the project, he said it will fit well with students who are “highly driven to achieve success in and out of the classroom.”
He added: “Every minute we can save our students from having to search for the information they need online is another minute that they can spend focused on what matters most: their education.”
While the devices are being placed in every university housing space, students do not have to use them. For those wishing not to take part, the school suggests students just remove the devices from their rooms and put them away in a safe place.
Other universities have also experimented with voice-controlled assistants in student living areas.
A year ago, Arizona State University announced a program that provided Echo Dot devices to a special housing area for engineering students. In the program, all engineering students moving into the special housing community were given the choice of receiving an Echo Dot if they wanted one.
As is the case at Saint Louis University, Arizona State students are able to use the system to get the latest information on university programs and events. However, the Arizona students also have the chance to sign up for classes that teach subjects related specifically to creating new uses for Alexa devices.
Octavio Heredia is a director with Arizona State’s Fulton Schools of Engineering. He said he thinks it is a good idea for students to get as much experience as possible with the voice assistants to improve their development skills and prepare for future jobs.
“Once they are familiar with the devices, they are going to want to further develop their own skills and begin integrating that technology – the hardware and the skills – into other projects,” he said.
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Ilhan Omar Closer to Becoming First African Refugee in Congress
The foundation of Democrat Ilhan Omar’s historic primary election win to represent Minnesota’s 5th District in the U.S. Congress was built on a simple campaign message.
“I am a millennial with student debt,” the 35-year-old state lawmaker told an audience in a crowded auditorium at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs during a pre-election forum with two of her competitors, both of them older.
“And a renter,” she added, someone who isn’t ready, or can’t yet afford, to purchase a home.
It was a simple yet effective message by Omar, conveying that — despite her origins in Somalia and the hijab upon her head — she was just like the many younger, progressive and liberal voters she needed to court in the Congressional district she seeks to represent.
It was ultimately a winning message, both now… and two years ago when she first made history in her election (which her campaign says saw increased voter turnout by 37 percent) to the Minnesota state House of Representatives.
“Before Ilhan, I think a lot of us didn’t know what type of government we had, but now that she was elected, a lot of us started paying attention,” says 25-year-old Somali American Khalid Mohamed. “She represented us at the state level and we saw how productive she was.”
Mohamed is just one of the tens of thousands of Somali Americans who voted on this primary election day for Ilhan Omar, who is one step closer to making history as the first elected refugee from the African continent — and the second Muslim American woman — to join the body. She follows in the footsteps of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim American in Congress, who currently represents this Minneapolis Congressional District, but stepped down to pursue the state’s Attorney General’s office — an election which he too also won the same night as Omar.
“Around America it might seem odd that one of the whitest states in the country would be sending its second Muslim to Congress,” says University of Minnesota Professor Larry Jacobs. “But not so in Minnesota,” a state that is home to the largest number of Somali refugees in the United States. But Jacobs says their votes are only part of Ilhan’s success story.
“That is not enough to prevail in a district in which Somalis really numerically are not a large number and in this race were split with another Somali candidate,” Jacobs told VOA. “What Omar has been able to do for the second time now in a few years is build a broad coalition that includes progressives who agree with her Bernie Sanders light agenda and people who believe the Democratic Party needs to become more diverse and welcome in new voices.”
New voices that have new — and old — challenges to face.
“Right now I am well equipped to organize against an administration that is using the politics of fear to further their divisive and destructive policies at a time when our nation is at a dangerous crossroads,” Omar explained to the crowd during the candidate forum. She is the Democrat’s Assistant Minority leader in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and has spoken out against family separations at the U.S. border. She is also a critic of the Trump administration’s so-called “Muslim Ban.”
Khalid Mohamed agrees with Omar’s policy positions, and hopes her personal experience coming from a Kenyan refugee camp will shape the ongoing debate in Congress over U.S. immigration policy.
“As a refugee,” says Mohamed, “she had experienced the struggles of being a refugee, and the vetting process, and something Donald Trump has not understood quite well.”
“In my last race I talked about what that win would mean for that eight year old girl in that refugee camp,” Ilhan Omar emotionally explained to the jubilant crowd gathered for her primary election night victory party, acknowledging her improbable journey from Kenyan refugee camp to the doorstep of the U.S. Capitol. “And today, I still think about her. I think about the hope and optimism, of all those 8 year olds out of the country. And around the world.”
Many in Minnesota’s Somali Muslim American community are refugees like her, and Omar’s election represents an opportunity to change public perceptions — and misperceptions — about their circumstances, and their faith.
“Often our community are deemed as not very supportive of in terms of gender, especially towards females or women,” says 25-year-old voter Khalid Mohamed. “It would show the world and everyone in the state of Minnesota, that we often uplift and encourage Somali women, Muslim women, to run for offices… to be part of the democracy that we have here in America… to participate and also to vote. It will showcase that often the media portrays us that we oppress our women as a Muslim community – we always tell them what to do and they don’t have a freedom – but that would totally tell a different narrative today.”
Mohamed also believes that Omar’s election sends a message of hope to not just a larger religious community, but an entire continent.
“For her to be the first African born congresswomen, I think it’s a big deal on the continent,” he said. “It sends a message to everyone from Africa… that you might be a refugee, you might have come here as an immigrant, but you have rights, and you can be whoever you want as long as you put the work in.”
Work that begins for Omar after a November general election that she is also likely to win, as the district she seeks to represent heavily favors Democratic candidates.
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Key Midwestern US States Pick Candidates for November Election
The races for U.S. political offices became further defined Tuesday with the latest round of primary elections setting up congressional battles in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
In Wisconsin, Republicans chose state lawmaker Leah Vukmir to go up against Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, who is trying to earn a second term in office.
Vukmir has the support of President Donald Trump, who just ahead of Tuesday’s primaries also voiced approval for Governor Scott Walker in his re-election campaign. Democrat Tony Evers won the Democratic primary to face Walker in November.
Republican voters chose Bryan Steil, a former aide to House Speaker Paul Ryan, as their candidate to replace Ryan when he retires at the end of the current term. Steil will face Democratic candidate Randy Bryce to represent the congressional district in a suburb of Milwaukee.
Democrats seem to be particularly energized in Wisconsin, where Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win in 32 years, although by one percentage point, in the 2016 elections.
In the November election, all 435 House of Representatives seats, 35 of 100 Senate seats, and 36 of 50 governors’ offices will be up for election. Democrats must win 23 seats in the House and two seats in the Senate to gain control of those chambers.
In Minnesota, former Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has been critical of Trump, saw his campaign to reclaim his old job end Tuesday as the one-time favorite in the race lost the Republican primary to county commissioner Jeff Johnson. Democrats chose Congressman Tim Walz as their candidate for governor.
Rep. Keith Ellison won the Democratic nomination for Minnesota’s attorney general on Tuesday after his campaign was rocked by recent allegations of domestic violence.
Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress, and in the race to fill the seat he is vacating Democrats picked state representative Ilhan Omar, the nation’s first Somali-American legislator as their candidate. She will go up against Republican Jennifer Zielinski for a seat Democrats have held since 1960.
Senator Tina Smith won the Democratic primary to seek her first full term after taking office to replace fellow Democrat Al Franked who resigned in December amid multiple allegations of unwanted sexual touching. Smith will face Republican state senator Karin Housley.
Primary contests were also held in the heavily Democratic northeastern states of Vermont and Connecticut.
Democrats selected Christine Hallquist as their nominee for governor in Vermont as he tries to become the nation’s first transgender governor. She will face Republican incumbent Phil Scott, who has strong support in his re-election bid.
And Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran for president in 2016, won the Democratic primary for his seat, but is expected to turn down that nomination and continue as an independent.
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How To Tell if Art is Real or Fake? Ask Scientists at the Met
How do you know if a piece of art is real or fake? Ask a scientist. At New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, chemistry, physics and geology are all playing a part in the detective work of determining whether a work of art is original or a forgery. Now teens are learning the tricks of that trade as well. Tina Trinh has more.
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Turkey Boosts Tariffs Amid US Feud
Turkey on Wednesday announced tariff hikes on a range of U.S. goods in the latest back-and-forth move amid a deteriorating relationship between the two countries.
The extra tariffs apply to imports of vehicles, alcohol, coal, rice and cosmetics.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Twitter the increases were being done “within the framework of the principle of reciprocity in retaliation for the conscious economic attacks by the United States.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accusing the United States of waging a targeted economic war on his country, and on Tuesday he proposed a boycott of U.S. electronic goods.
“If they have the iPhone, there is Samsung elsewhere. In our own country we have Vestel,” said Erdogan.
Asked how U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration would react to any such Turkish boycott, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders replied during Tuesday afternoon’s briefing, “I certainly don’t have a policy announcement on that at this point.”
Trump administration sources say further sanctions against Turkey are under active consideration. But Sanders declined to say how the U.S. government plans to apply more pressure on Ankara, which repeatedly has ignored calls from Trump and others to free Christian pastor Andrew Brunson.
Turkey accuses Brunson of espionage and is holding him under house arrest pending his trial.
The chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Turkey, Jeffrey Hovenier, visited Brunson on Tuesday and called for his case — and those of others detained in Turkey — to be resolved “without delay” and in a “fair and transparent manner.”
National Security Adviser John Bolton met at the White House on Monday with Turkish ambassador Serdar Kilic, but the discussion reportedly did not result in any substantive progress.
Trump, who has called Brunson’s detention a “total disgrace,” last Friday doubled tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum exports in order to increase pressure on Erdogan.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Turkey’s ministers of Justice and Interior in response to the continued detention of the pastor, who has lived in the country for 20 years and heads an evangelical congregation of about two dozen people in the port city of Izmir.
The escalating dispute between the two countries has exacerbated Turkey’s economic crisis, pushing the lira to record lows. The Turkish currency has lost about 40 percent of its value this year against the U.S. dollar.
Erdogan has called on Turks to exchange their dollars for lira in order to shore up the domestic currency.
In a joint statement Tuesday, Turkish business groups called on the government to institute tighter monetary policy in order to combat the currency crisis. They also said Turkey should work to resolve the situation with the United States diplomatically while also improving relations with another major trading partner, the European Union.
The Turkish central bank has pledged to take “all necessary measures” to stabilize the country’s economy to make sure the banks have all the money they need. But world stock traders were dismayed the bank did not raise interest rates, which is what many economists believe is necessary to ease the crisis.
The United States and Turkey also have diverging interests over Syria, which is enmeshed in a protracted civil war.
The differences are drawing Turkey closer to Russia, they key adversary of NATO but a country supplying more than half of Turkey’s gas.
Turkey has agreed to buy S-400 surface-to-air missiles from Russia, an unprecedented move by a NATO member, which has raised objections from members of both parties of the U.S. Congress and the Trump administration.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, voiced support for Turkey during a joint news conference with his Turkish counterpart in Ankara on Tuesday, stating both countries plan to switch from dollars to national currencies for their mutual trade.
“We view the policy of sanctions as unlawful and illegitimate, driven mostly by a desire to dominate everywhere and in everything, dictate policies and call shots in international affairs,” said Lavrov, predicting “such a policy can’t be a basis for normal dialogue and can’t last long.
Lavrov, alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, also declared, “We are at a turning point, without exaggeration, in world history” from dominance by a single power toward a multipolar environment.
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Modi Says India will Send Manned Flight into Space By 2022
India will send a manned flight into space by 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Wednesday as part of India’s independence day celebrations.
He said India will become the fourth country after Russia, the United States and China to achieve the feat and its astronaut could be a man or a woman. The space capsule that will transport India’s astronauts was tested a few days earlier.
Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian to travel in space, aboard a Soviet rocket in 1984. As part of its own space program, India successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars in 2014.
India won independence from British colonialists in 1947. Modi’s 80-minute speech, broadcast live from the historic Red Fort in New Delhi, comes months before national elections.
Modi listed his government’s achievements in the past four years in reforming the country’s economy, reducing poverty and corruption. He announced a health insurance scheme for 500 million poor people providing a cover of 500,000 rupees ($7,150) per family a year.
He said India will become a growth engine for the world economy as the “sleeping elephant” has started to run on the back of structural economic reforms.
He said its economy was seen as fragile before 2014 but was now attracting investment. India is the sixth largest economy in the world and Modi said international institutions see India as giving strength to the world economy for the next three decades.
He said the structural reforms like a national tax replacing various national and local taxes, bankruptcy and insolvency laws, and a crackdown on corruption have helped transform the economy.
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NZ Teachers Strike for First Time in 20 years, Challenge Government’s Fiscal Plan
New Zealand school teachers went on strike on Wednesday for the first time in more than 20 years, challenging the Labor government’s plans to balance promised fiscal responsibility against growing demands to increase public sector salaries.
The government’s first budget in May was stretched to fulfill its promise to juggle investing in much-needed infrastructure with a self-imposed rule to pay down debt and insulate the economy from potential shocks.
Almost 30,000 primary school teachers did not turn up to work on Wednesday and held protests across the country, leaving parents of children aged 5 to 13 at public schools scrambling to find childcare.
“Teachers and principals voted for a full day strike…to send a strong message to the Government that the current collective agreement offers from the Ministry of Education would not fix the crisis in teaching,” said Louise Green, lead negotiator at NZEI, the union that represents teachers, in a statement.
NZEI said it has asked for a 16 percent pay increase for teachers over two years, whereas the government has offered between 6.1 and 14.7 percent pay rises, depending on experience, over three years.
“Our view is that we need to have those discussions around the negotiating table but…there isn’t an endless amount that we have available to us in order to meet those expectations,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at her weekly news conference on Monday.
The action comes in the wake of a one-day nationwide nurses’ strike in July and a series of smaller actions by government workers, challenging Ardern’s center-left government, which ended almost a decade of center-right National Party rule in October.
The stand-off with its traditional union support base comes nine months after Labor formed a coalition government, promising to pour money into social services and rein in inequality, which has increased despite years of strong growth.
Wage growth has remained sluggish in the island nation for years, despite soaring housing costs, which labour groups and economists say has left workers struggling despite robust growth.
The government is also struggling with gloomy business confidence, which has sunk to decade lows and contributed to a surprise signal from the central bank on Thursday that it planned to keep rates on hold into 2020 and saw downside risks to its growth forecasts.
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Indian Rupee Falls to All-time Low Against Dollar
The Indian rupee fell to an all-time low Tuesday against the U.S. dollar amid worries that Turkey’s growing financial crisis could spread to other developing-world economies.
Indian Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chander Garg told reporters that there was “nothing at this stage to worry” about after the rupee reached 70.1 to the dollar earlier in the day. He said the dip resulted from “external factors.”
The rupee ended the day at 69.93 per dollar, down 110 paise or 1.6 percent. It was the currency’s biggest one-day drop in five years. The rupee has lost about 8 percent of its value this year.
Garg said the country had sufficient foreign exchange reserves to weather the downturn.
Turkey’s central bank has been unable to stop a sharp plunge in the lira, pushing the value of the dollar higher and driving down emerging-market currencies from South Africa to Mexico.
Rajnish Kumar, chairman of the State Bank of India, said he believed the rupee would stabilize at around 69-70 to the dollar, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
Turkey’s economy has been troubled for years, but the latest crisis was set off by worries over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s economic policies and a trade dispute with the United States. Turkey’s government has so far refused to raise interest rates to prop up the currency, fearing a political backlash if it causes the economy to slow.
The falling rupee, which will make Indian exports cheaper on overseas markets, was welcomed by one of India’s top industrialists.
“With this boost to India’s export competitiveness could we now convince global companies that it’s time to switch to India for world-scale, export-focused manufacturing?” Anand Mahindra, the executive chairman of the Mahindra Group, said on Twitter. Mahindra’s interests range from cars to construction equipment to insurance.
India’s manufacturing economy has long been overshadowed by China’s.
Tesla Appoints Independent Directors to Weigh Any Deal
Tesla’s board named a special committee of three directors on Tuesday to evaluate possibly taking the electric carmaker private, although it said it had yet to see a firm offer from the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk.
The Silicon Valley billionaire last week said on Twitter he wants to take Tesla private at $420 a share, valuing it at $72 billion, and that funding was “secured.”
That earlier tweet triggered investor lawsuits and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into the accuracy of his statement, according to multiple media reports.
Musk on Monday gave his most detailed vision of how a take-private deal could work, but shares ended flat, indicating investor skepticism.
The shares were last down 1 percent at $352.88 on Tuesday.
Musk said Monday he had held talks with a Saudi sovereign fund on a buyout that would take Tesla off the Nasdaq exchange – an extraordinary move for what is now the United States’ most valuable automaker. Tesla has a market capitalization of $60 billion, bigger than Detroit rivals General Motors Co or Ford Motor Co, who produce far more cars.
The company said in the statement the special committee has the authority to take any action on behalf of the board to evaluate and negotiate a potential transaction and alternatives to any transaction proposed by Musk.
Tuesday’s announcement means three members of Tesla’s board will now weigh whether it is advisable – or even feasible – to pursue what could be the biggest-ever go-private deal, and they are doing so before receiving a formal proposal from the CEO.
“The special committee has not yet received a formal proposal from Mr. Musk regarding any Going Private Transaction,” the company said in a public filing with U.S. securities regulators, the first it has made since Musk’s tweets last week.
Asked about the outcome of the special committee, analyst Chaim Siegel at Elazar Advisors said, “This is not easy. Anything is possible from pulling something together to nothing. I hope nothing – so the stock can trade and benefit from the earnings inflection,” he said, referring to a promise by Musk the company would turn profitable later this year.
A blogging, tweeting CEO
Musk has yet to convince Wall Street analysts and investors that he can find the billions needed to complete the deal. Tesla’s handling of Musk’s proposal and its failure to promptly file a formal disclosure, meanwhile, have raised governance concerns and sparked questions about how companies use social media.
Musk first tweeted he planned to go private and that funding was “secured” last week, sending Tesla shares soaring 11 percent, but investors have appeared skeptical about the details he has provided since.
He blogged on Monday that recent talks with a Saudi sovereign wealth fund gave him confidence funding was nailed down, but that he was still talking with the fund and other investors. He tweeted later he was working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Silver Lake as financial advisers, though a source said the private equity firm was working in an unpaid, informal capacity and also not discussing participating as an investor.
Goldman had not been formally tapped as a financial adviser by Musk when he revealed plans last week to take the automaker private and said he had secured the funding for the transaction, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Goldman did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
“Despite Elon Musk’s frustration with being a public company, I think there are more advantages to remaining public,” said CFRA analyst Efraim Levy, citing cheaper access to capital and media exposure due to interest in a public company.
Three-member panel
Tesla said the committee consists only of independent directors: Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm and Linda Johnson Rice.
But corporate governance and shareholder voting advisers Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services said they do not consider Buss an independent director, due to his connections to a solar panel business the company bought two years ago.
Buss was chief financial officer of solar panel installer SolarCity for two years before retiring when Tesla paid $2.6 billion for the sales and installation firm in 2016. It was Tesla’s last big deal and was criticized by some on Wall Street because the company, founded by two of Musk’s cousins, had seen its business shrink before the takeover.
Denholm, the first woman on Tesla’s board, is chief operations officer of telecom firm Telstra and the ex-CFO of network gear maker Juniper Networks.
Rice, the first African-American and second woman to join the board, is CEO of Johnson Publishing Company and Chairman Emeritus of EBONY Media Holdings, the parent of EBONY and Jet brands, according to Tesla’s website.
Tesla’s other board members include Musk; his brother Kimbal Musk; Twenty-First Century Fox’s CEO James Murdoch; Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Partners; and Ira Ehrenpreis, founder of venture capital firm DBL Partners.
One director, Steve Jurvetson, is currently on leave of absence following allegations of sexual harassment.
Tesla’s board said on Aug. 8 that Musk had held talks with the directors in the previous week on taking the company private.
Latham and Watkins LLP has been retained by the committee as its legal counsel. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati will be legal counsel for Tesla itself.
Democratic West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Resigns Hours After Impeachment
A Democratic Supreme Court justice in the U.S. state of West Virginia said hours after she was impeached Tuesday that she was retiring, triggering a special election for her replacement and denying the Republican governor a chance to name her successor.
The citizens of West Virginia now “will be afforded their constitutional right to elect my successor in November,” Justice Robin Davis said as she announced her departure at the state capital.
Davis announced her resignation after being impeached for committing wrongful acts, including spending $500,000 on office renovations.
The House of Delegates voted Monday to impeach all four remaining justices over spending issues. They will be brought to trial in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, as is the House.
Davis said their impeachment was a travesty of justice and a brazen attempt by one branch of government to seize control over another.
Justice Menis Ketchum retired earlier this year. Any of the three remaining justices who are considering resigning must do so by the Tuesday deadline in order for their replacements to be decided in a November special election. Gov. Jim Justice will appoint replacements who will serve until the election.
All four justices were impeached for failing to control expenses and for not maintaining policies over matters involving state vehicles, working lunches and the use of office computers at home.
Trump Blames Attorney General, Fired FBI Agent for Russia Probe
U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed new attacks Tuesday on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and fired FBI agent Peter Strzok, blaming them for the investigation of Russian links to his 2016 U.S. presidential campaign that has consumed his presidency.
The U.S. leader said on Twitter, “If we had a real Attorney General, this Witch Hunt would never have been started! Looking at the wrong people.”
Trump’s attack on the country’s top law enforcement official came days after he described Sessions as “scared stiff” and “missing in action.”
Trump has long been critical of Sessions but has stopped short of firing Sessions for recusing himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal investigation into whether Trump associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, and whether Trump, as president, has obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.
Under Justice Department rules, Sessions was required to remove himself from overseeing Mueller’s operation because of conflicts of interest, Sessions’ own 2016 contacts with Russia’s then-ambassador to Washington and his staunch support of Trump’s presidential candidacy.
Trump also assailed Strzok, who was a key investigator in Mueller’s probe until Mueller removed him when text messages Strzok wrote disparaging Trump were uncovered. The FBI fired him last week, although an earlier Justice Department inspector general’s report had concluded there was no evidence that Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, the woman with whom he was corresponding, acted on their anti-Trump views to try to stop Trump’s election.
Trump tweeted, “Fired FBI Agent Peter Strzok is a fraud, as is the rigged investigation he started. There was no Collusion or Obstruction with Russia, and everybody, including the Democrats, know it.”
Trump claimed, without elaboration, “The only Collusion and Obstruction was by Crooked Hillary, the Democrats and the DNC!” using his favorite pejorative for his 2016 challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
He added, “Strzok started the illegal Rigged Witch Hunt – why isn’t this so-called ‘probe’ ended immediately? Why aren’t these angry and conflicted Democrats instead looking at Crooked Hillary?”
On Monday, Trump praised Strzok’s dismissal from the FBI after a 22-year career, tweeting, “Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI – finally.”
Last month, Strzok told a House of Representatives hearing that the anti-Trump text messages he exchanged with Page reflected his personal opinions and that he had never let his beliefs interfere with his work for the FBI.
In the key exchange between Strzok and Page, she texted him that Trump is “not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok replied, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”
Mueller’s investigation is now in its 15th month.
He has secured guilty pleas from several Trump associates, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and ex-foreign affairs adviser George Papadopoulos, both of whom pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about their contacts with Russia.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is currently on trial for bank and tax fraud in connection with his lobbying efforts for Ukraine that predated his work on Trump’s campaign.
Trump Calls Ex-aide a ‘Dog’ Who Deserved to Be Fired
U.S. President Donald Trump resumed his attacks Tuesday on a former adviser, Omarosa Manigault Newman, calling her a “dog” who deserved to be fired.
In a Twitter comment, the U.S. leader praised his chief of staff, John Kelly, for dismissing her late last year. She was a long-time contestant on Trump’s one-time reality television show, “The Apprentice,” before Trump named her to a $179,700-a-year White House position, noting that she “only said GREAT things about me.”
“When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out,” Trump tweeted. “Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!”
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign filed for arbitration against Manigault Newman, claiming she violated a non-disclosure agreement she signed by writing a new book, “Unhinged,” that is highly critical of Trump and his White House operations. It was published Tuesday.
While promoting her book, Manigault Newman, who was the highest-ranking African-American serving in the White House, has released audio tapes the last two days she recorded in the White House, one of Kelly firing her and a second of Trump seeming surprised that she had been ousted.
Trump’s newest attack on her came a day after he described her as “Wacky Omarosa” and said she “was vicious, but not smart.”
“Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time,” Trump tweeted Monday. “She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. I would rarely see her but heard really bad things. Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me – until she got fired!…”
Later, he half-apologized for his comments about her.
“While I know it’s ‘not presidential’ to take on a lowlife like Omarosa,” he said, “and while I would rather not be doing so, this is a modern day form of communication and I know the Fake News Media will be working overtime to make even Wacky Omarosa look legitimate as possible. Sorry!”
Trump’s Monday tweets about Manigault Newman came a couple hours after she played an audio recording of a conversation she had with Trump seeming to show that the president was surprised that Kelly had fired her last December.
“Omarosa, what’s going on?” Trump said on the brief recording aired on NBC’s “Today” show. Manigault Newman said the phone call occurred the day after Kelly ousted her. “I just saw on the news that you’re thinking about leaving. What happened?” Trump said.
“General Kelly came to me and said that you guys wanted me to leave,” Manigault Newman replied.
But Trump said, “No. Nobody even told me about it. You know, they run a big operation, but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know that. (expletive).”
“I don’t love you leaving at all,” he added, while not doing anything to block her dismissal.
On Sunday, Manigault Newman released a recording of Kelly firing her in the Situation Room, the supposedly secure inner sanctum of the White House where U.S. presidents discuss crucial national security issues and aides are supposed to leave electronic devices outside.
As he fired her, according to the recording, Kelly told Manigault Newman, “I think it’s important to understand that if we make this a friendly departure, we can all be, you know, you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation. And then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future, relative to your reputation.”
Manigault Newman claims that she was offered a $15,000-a-month retainer as she left the White House to not criticize Trump or Vice President Mike Pence and their wives, but that she turned it down. She says she has other tapes she secretly made at the White House.
Trump’s spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said Sunday, “The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room shows a blatant disregard for our national security — and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee.”
The Republican Party tweeted: “Omarosa is … ‘Unbelievable.’ ‘Not credible.’ ‘Unethical.’”
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World’s First Commercial 3D-Printed Concrete Homes Planned
The world will soon have its first batch of commercially available 3D-printed concrete homes. A consortium of the Dutch municipality of Eindhoven, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and three private firms has joined forces to build five of these unique homes in the hub city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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Tesla’s Slow Disclosure Raises Governance, Social Media Concerns
Tesla’s handling of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s proposal to take the carmaker private and its failure to promptly file a formal disclosure has raised governance concerns and sparked questions about how companies use social media.
Musk stunned investors last Tuesday by announcing on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private in a potential $72 billion transaction and that “funding” had been “secured.”
Tesla’s shares closed up 11 percent before retrenching after the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had asked Tesla why Musk announced his plans on Twitter and whether his statement was truthful.
Musk provided no details of his funding until Monday, when he said in a blog on Tesla’s website that he was in discussions with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and other potential backers but that financing was not yet nailed down.
Musk said his tweet and blogs were issued in his personal capacity as a private bidder for Tesla’s stock. A Tesla spokesman pointed Reuters to Musk’s blog in response to a request for comment.
Putting aside whether Musk misled anyone, the unorthodox manner in which he announced the news and Tesla’s failure to promptly clarify the situation with a regulatory filing is a corporate governance lapse that raises questions about how companies use social media to release market-moving news, securities lawyers said.
“Management buyouts or other take-private transactions already suffer from serious information asymmetry between management and public shareholders,” said Gabriel Rauterberg, a University of Michigan law professor.
SEC rules typically require companies to file an 8-K form within four business days of a significant corporate event.
While several securities lawyers said Musk’s tweets alone did not trigger this obligation, such a filing would be prudent given the unusual circumstances, David Axelrod, a partner at law firm Ballard Spahr LLP, said.
“An 8-K would provide some more details, it would say what stage negotiations are in, and provide more information than 53 characters in a tweet,” he added.
Full and fair disclosure
SEC guidelines published in 2013 allow companies and their executives to use social media to distribute material information, provided investors have been alerted that this is a possibility. Tesla did this in a 2013 filing.
But such disclosures have to be full and fair, meaning the information is complete and accessible by all investors at the same time, a bar that Musk’s tweets may not have met.
“Twitter is not designed to provide full and fair disclosure. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t, but in a series of 20 to 30 characters I’m not sure you’re getting full disclosure,” said Zachary Fallon, a former SEC attorney and principal at law firm Blakemore Fallon.
The SEC declined to comment Monday.
Securities lawyers said there was also a question mark over whether Musk selectively disclosed information on the possible terms of the deal when he subsequently replied to followers, two of whom claim in their handles to be investors.
Those tweets were not immediately visible to all followers of Musk’s main feed until he retweeted them.
History of Twitter use
The 47-year-old billionaire’s history of joking about Tesla and using twitter to bait his critics also appears to have undermined trust in Musk’s feed as a reliable source of company information, with many investors initially believing Tuesday’s tweet was a prank.
In his blog, Musk said he made the announcement on Twitter to ensure all investors were aware of his plan before speaking with the company’s largest shareholders.
But his claim to have done so as a private person presents a potential conflict of interest, said Nimish Patel, a lawyer with Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.
“If you’re speaking on behalf of the company using resources like Twitter and the company website, while at the same time saying you’re a private individual expressing your own personal views, you are being inconsistent and creating confusion for investors. And when there’s confusion, the SEC is likely going to get involved,” he added.
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Trump Signs Defense Policy Bill with Watered-down China Measures
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $716 billion defense policy bill on Monday that authorizes military spending and includes watered-down controls on U.S. government contracts with China’s ZTE and Huawei Technologies.
Trump signed the law at the U.S. Army’s Fort Drum base in upstate New York on his way back to Washington after a 12-day working vacation at his golf club in New Jersey. The bill was named for one of Trump’s political critics, the ailing U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona, but he did not mention McCain’s name.
McCain said in a statement he was “humbled” the bill was named after him, adding that it will address “a growing array of threats.”
Trump later made a reference to McCain at a political fundraiser in Utica, New York, knocking him – as Trump does repeatedly – for voting against a bill to repeal parts of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform law last year.
Even though Trump said the bill “is the most significant investment in our military and our war-fighters in modern history,” Obama’s first three defense budgets were larger, when adjusted for inflation, according to Todd Harrison at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Weak on China
Some lawmakers wanted to use the bill to reinstate tough sanctions on ZTE to punish the company for illegally shipping products to Iran and North Korea, but the restrictions included in the final National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, that passed Congress were weaker than earlier versions of the bill.
Trump has lifted an earlier ban on U.S. companies selling to ZTE, allowing China’s second-largest telecommunications equipment maker to resume business and putting him at odds with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
Leaders of U.S. intelligence agencies have said they are concerned that ZTE, Huawei Technologies and some other Chinese companies are beholden to the Chinese government or Communist Party, raising the risk of espionage.
The White House opposed putting stronger measures against the companies in the bill, and the measures were softened before lawmakers held their final vote.
The NDAA does strengthen the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews proposed foreign investments to weigh whether they threaten national security.
That measure was seen as targeting China.
Separately, the NDAA authorizes spending $7.6 billion for 77 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, made by Lockheed Martin.
The bill also directs the Secretary of Defense to study whether Turkey’s planned deployment of the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system will risk the security of several U.S.-made weapons used by Turkey, including the F-35 jet. The mandate to produce a study came after an earlier version proposed to bar the delivery of F-35s to Turkey.
Prior to the ceremony Trump watched an air assault demonstration by U.S. troops at Fort Drum.
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US Rests Case Against Former Trump Aide Manafort
Prosecutors on Monday rested their tax evasion and bank fraud case against Paul Manafort, a longtime Washington operator and President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman.
The case now goes to Manafort’s defense team, which is expected to lay the blame for wrongdoing with Rick Gates, the former Manafort protege who says the two committed crimes together. Defense attorneys have called Gates a liar, philanderer and embezzler as they’ve sought to undermine his testimony.
The trial is the first to emerge from Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election, but neither Manafort nor Gates have been charged in connection with their Trump campaign work.
Still, the proceedings have drawn international attention — as well as Trump’s — for what the case reveals about people in the combative president’s orbit as Mueller examines the same circles for any election interference or obstruction.
Trump has distanced himself from Manafort, who was chairman of the campaign from May to August 2016 — with Gates at his side. Gates struck a plea deal with prosecutors and provided much of the drama of the trial so far.
The government says Manafort hid around $16 million in income from the IRS between 2010 and 2014 by disguising money he earned advising politicians in Ukraine as loans and hiding it in foreign banks. Then, after his money in Ukraine dried up, they allege he defrauded banks by lying about his income on loan applications.
Gates said he helped Manafort commit crimes in an effort to protect Manafort’s finances. Defense attorneys called Gates a liar interested in avoiding jail time under a plea deal. Gates was forced to admit embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort and an extramarital affair.
The prosecution has introduced a trove of documentary evidence as they’ve sought to prove Manafort defrauded banks and concealed millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts from the IRS. Along the way, they’ve not only faced an aggressive defense team but tongue-lashings from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who presides over the case. The admittedly impatient judge has pushed the government to speed up its case.
Before prosecutor Greg Andres told Ellis the government rested its case on Monday afternoon, the court heard testimony from a bank executive who said he found several red flags with Manafort’s finances while he was being considered for around $16 million in bank loans.
James Brennan, a vice president at Federal Savings Bank, says Manafort failed to disclose mortgages on his loan application. He said he also found several “inconsistencies” in the amount of income Manafort reported for his business.
That information led senior executives to reject one of the loans. But Brennan said Federal Savings Bank chairman Stephen Calk overruled that decision.
“It closed because Mr. Calk wanted it to close,” Brennan said.
Other witnesses have said Calk pushed the loans through because he wanted a plum post in the Trump administration.
Brennan said the Chicago-based bank lost $11.8 million because it had to write off a significant portion of two loans it made to Manafort. He said they were the two largest loans the bank had made when they were issued in late 2016 and early 2017.
On Friday, proceedings were halted for hours by mysterious backstage discussions between the judge and attorneys for both sides. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III recessed the trial without explanation after huddling with his bailiff and attorneys from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office and Manafort’s lawyers for more than 20 minutes.
At one point on Friday, Ellis left the courtroom and headed toward the jury room. After bringing court back into session, he reminded jurors several times that they weren’t to discuss the tax evasion and bank fraud case at all. That included telling them to not even comment on the attire of any witnesses.
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Trump’s Harley Boycott Call Roils Wisconsin Primary
President Donald Trump’s call for a boycott of Harley-Davidson motorcycles forced Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans to either criticize the president or stick with the Milwaukee-based company just ahead of Tuesday’s primary where Trump allegiance has been a central focus.
Trump on Sunday tweeted it was “great” that “many” Harley owners planned to boycott the company if manufacturing moves overseas, continuing a steel tariff dispute he’s had since June with the company.
Walker, Wisconsin’s most prominent Harley owner who faces a tough re-election bid in November, issued a statement that did not directly address the boycott call.
“I want Harley Davidson to prosper here in the state of Wisconsin,” Walker said. “And one of the best ways for that to happen is to do what the president has called for and that is to get to no tariffs.”
Trump’s attacks on Harley have put Walker in a tough spot politically as he runs for a third term in November. Eight Democrats were running in Tuesday’s primary for a chance to take on Walker who is seeking a third term.
“By attacking Wisconsin workers to cover for failed economic policy President Trump took a page right out of Scott Walker’s playbook,” said Mahlon Mitchell, one of the eight candidates and the head of the state firefighters union. He has more backing from labor unions than any other candidate.
Another Democratic candidate, Kelda Roys, accused Walker of “cowering before Trump” and the president’s “attempts to destroy an iconic Wisconsin business.”
Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is also up for re-election in November, was more forceful than Walker in her reaction to the Trump tweet.
“You can’t run our economy with tweets,” Baldwin tweeted to Trump. “Wisconsin businesses like @harleydavidson need better trade deals, not tweets and trade wars.”
Former U.S. Marine Kevin Nicholson and state Sen. Leah Vukmir were running in the Republican primary for chance to take on Baldwin. Both were running as strong Trump supporters, but the president has not endorsed in the race.
Nicholson said on WTMJ radio Monday he was against a Harley-Davidson boycott but also supported Trump’s approach to trade. He also pushed back against Baldwin on Twitter.
“We do need better trade deals, not the ones engineered by you and other members of the political class,” Nicholson tweeted at Baldwin. “We must bring trade partners back to the table and do away with tariffs. You don’t fight for WI and you don’t understand our economy.”
Vukmir, who won the endorsement of the Wisconsin Republican Party, was making a final campaign swing in southeast Wisconsin, including a stop with retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan. She did not address Trump’s boycott call in a statement calling Harley “a point of pride not only for our state, but also our nation.”
“I trust they will not abandon their Wisconsin roots, and the best way for that to happen is to get rid of tariffs like the president is working to do,” Vukmir said.
In July, Harley-Davidson said it expects new tariffs to cost the company as much as $100 million annually.
A spokesman for Harley-Davidson declined to comment both Sunday and Monday.
Polls have shown the Senate race to be a dead heat. State Superintendent Tony Evers had a double-digit lead in the Democratic gubernatorial primary based on polls in the months leading up to the election.
But others in the race who had raised enough to advertise on television — including Mitchell and Roys — were hoping for a late swing in their favor, particularly among younger voters.
Whoever wins the Democratic primary will enter the final three months of the race at a financial disadvantage to Walker. He had $4.8 million cash on hand in August, while the top tier Democrats were likely to be tapped out after spending on the primary.
The Wisconsin Democratic Party and the Democratic Governors Association have been raising money and building infrastructure in preparation for Wednesday, to help the winner of the primary get a fast start against Walker.
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How to Find and Delete Where Google Knows You’ve Been
Even if you have “Location History” off, Google often stores your precise location. Here’s how to delete those markers and some best-effort practices that keep your location as private as possible.
But there’s no panacea, because simply connecting to the internet on any device flags an IP address that can be geographically mapped. Smartphones also connect to cell towers, so your carrier knows your general location at all times.
To prevent further tracking
For any device:
Fire up your browser and go to myactivity.google.com. (You’ll need to be logged into Google) On the upper left drop-down menu, go to “Activity Controls.” Turn off both “Web & App Activity” and “Location History.” That should prevent precise location markers from being stored to your Google account.
Google will warn you that some of its services won’t work as well with these settings off. In particular, neither the Google Assistant, a digital concierge, nor the Google Home smart speaker will be particularly useful.
On iOS:
If you use Google Maps, adjust your location setting to “While Using” the app; this will prevent the app from accessing your location when it’s not active. Go to Settings Privacy Location Services and from there select Google Maps to make the adjustment.
In the Safari web browser, consider using a search engine other than Google. Under Settings Safari Search Engine, you can find other options like Bing or DuckDuckGo. You can turn location off while browsing by going to Settings Privacy Location Services Safari Websites, and turn this to “Never.” (This still won’t prevent advertisers from knowing your rough location based on IP address on any website).
You can also turn Location Services off to the device almost completely from Settings Privacy Location Services. Both Google Maps and Apple Maps will still work, but they won’t know where you are on the map and won’t be able to give you directions. Emergency responders will still be able to find you if the need arises.
On Android:
Under the main settings icon click on “Security & location.” Scroll down to the “Privacy” heading. Tap “Location.” You can toggle it off for the entire device.
Use “App-level permissions” to turn off access to various apps. Unlike the iPhone, there is no setting for “While Using.” You cannot turn off Google Play services, which supplies your location to other apps if you leave that service on.
Sign in as a “guest” on your Android device by swiping down from top and tapping the downward-facing caret, then again on the torso icon. Be aware of which services you sign in on, like Chrome.
You can also change search engines even in Chrome.
To delete past location tracking:
For any device:
On the page myactivity.google.com, look for any entry that has a location pin icon beside the word “details.” Clicking on that pops up a window that includes a link that sometimes says “From your current location.” Clicking on it will open Google Maps, which will display where you were at the time.
You can delete it from this popup by clicking on the navigation icon with the three stacked dots and then “Delete.”
Some items will be grouped in unexpected places, such as topic names, google.com, Search, or Maps. You have to delete them item by item. You can wholesale delete all items in date ranges or by service, but will end up taking out more than just location markers.
‘Unite the Right’ Doesn’t Live Up to the Hype
The people who attended dueling rallies in the nation’s capital Saturday and Sunday came to be heard, although their messages were vastly different.
About two dozen white supremacists, some shielding their faces behind masks and unfurled American flags, rallied in a park across the street from the White House Sunday afternoon but the event ended under rainy skies before the official 5:30 p.m. start time.
Jason Kessler, the man who organized the event in support of “white civil rights,” expected between 100 and 400 people to attend, according to the permit he received from the National Park Service.
“I’m O.K. with sharing this country with people from around the world,” Kessler said, speaking from a platform before the rally’s official start time, “but if you bring in too many people at once, it’s not the same country anymore and that’s what they’re doing and that’s why a lot of white people feel aggrieved.”
Kessler also said he is not a white nationalist. Journalists were kept away from the rally site and could not directly interview the participants.
Kessler and his group of protesters arrived at and departed Lafayette Park under police protection. They were far outnumbered by anti-hate protesters at a counter rally. A heavy law enforcement presence, and a temporary metal fence, kept the opposing groups away from each other.
Marcia Gaysue, a web content manager from nearby Silver Spring, Maryland, who joined the counter-protests, said she felt uneasy about being in the same vicinity as white supremacists.
“You hear about it but to actually be here, see, experience it, is something I can’t describe. It’s mind-boggling to think that in 2018, we’re still doing this,” said Gaysue.
“Being black in America is a very difficult thing at the moment so I wanted to be out here…I feel like sitting at home is not really going to do anything.”
Leah Sink-Barth, the wife of a U.S. military officer and stay-at-home mother of two teenagers, also attended the counter-protest and referred to Kessler and his group as a “bunch of Nazis.”
“I’m scared for my friends that are immigrants, I’m scared for my black friends, my brown friends,” said Sink-Barth. “I just felt, as a white woman, that I wanted to show my solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. And I just wanted to show my brothers and sisters my support because I don’t know their struggle on a daily basis. And if I can come down and show that people are supporting them, that we are against fascism and xenophobia, racism, then at least I did something as a human being.”
Earlier in the day, before the protests began, the white nationalists gathered at a metro station in Northern Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., to travel into the nation’s capital. They were jeered by counter-protesters as they exited the metro stop at the end of their short trip before marching to the site of their rally near the White House.
One of the Unite the Right marchers shook a U.S. flag at the heckling counter-protesters and said, “America, baby, America.”
The white nationalist event, called Unite the Right II, came one year after the first Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacists, neo-Nazis and members of other hate groups, marched across the University of Virginia campus and clashed with counter-demonstrators in the city. A self-described Nazi is accused of ramming his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing a 32-year-old woman named Heather Heyer.
“I would prefer that we didn’t have any identity politics. I would prefer that we could not see race at all,” rally organizer Kessler said at Sunday’s rally. “[But] no one [is] advocating for white people and that’s got to change.”
Counter-protesters screamed and threw water bottles at a man and woman leaving Sunday’s rally wearing Trump 2020 t-shirts. When someone in the crowd told them to get out of his city, the woman answered with a smile, “It’s my city, too.”
A French tourist who happened to come across Sunday’s protests says his impression of the United States has recently changed.
“America is great already, there are plenty of things that are good,” said Arnaud Fourcans. “At the moment it seems like things are going backwards. And that’s not the way I used to see America earlier.”
Counter-protester Jesse Belsky came dressed for a luau, which is a traditional Hawaiian party that typically features entertainment. He saw his outfit as a way to mock the white supremacists who carried tiki torches in Charlottesville last year. Belsky said he’s “disappointed, saddened and concerned” about the current political and social climate in the United States.
“I hope we can make a strong left turn towards civility and moderation and democracy,” Belsky said, “and, you know, find our better selves and be better than we are right now.”
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Erdogan Claims Lira Plunge a ‘Political Plot’ Against Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, embroiled in a bitter dispute with the U.S., a NATO ally, contended Sunday the plunging value of his country’s lira currency amounted to a “political plot” against Turkey.
Erdogan, speaking to political supporters in the Black Sea resort of Trabzon, said, “The aim of the operation is to make Turkey surrender in all areas, from finance to politics. We are once again facing a political, underhand plot. With God’s permission we will overcome this.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has feuded with Erdogan over several issues, including the detention of an American pastor in Turkey, whom Turkey has held since 2016 and accused of espionage. Turkey last month released the evangelical preacher from a prison, but is still detaining him under house arrest pending his trial, despite the demands of the U.S.
With the dispute intensifying, Trump on Friday doubled steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, sending the beleaguered lira plunging 16 percent, part of a 40 percent plummet for the currency this year. In early Asian trading Monday, the lira fell to a record low of 7.06 against the dollar.
“What is the reason for all this storm in a tea cup?” Erdogan said. “There is no economic reason for this … This is called carrying out an operation against Turkey.”
Erdogan renewed his call for Turks to sell dollars and buy lira to boost the currency, while telling business owners to not stockpile the American currency.
“I am specifically addressing our manufacturers: Do not rush to the banks to buy dollars,” he said. “Do not take a stance saying, ‘We are bankrupt, we are done, we should guarantee ourselves.’ If you do that, that would be wrong. You should know that to keep this nation standing is … also the manufacturers’ duty.”
Erdogan signaled he was not looking to offer concessions to the United States, or financial markets.
“We will give our answer, by shifting to new markets, new partnerships and new alliances,” said Erdogan, who in recent years has built closer ties with countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. “Some close the doors and some others open new ones.”
He indicated Turkey’s relationship with Washington was imperiled.
“We can only say ‘good-bye’ to anyone who sacrifices its strategic partnership and a half century alliance with a country of 81 million for the sake of relations with terror groups,” he said. “You dare to sacrifice 81-million Turkey for a priest who is linked to terror groups?”
American pastor Andrew Brunson, if convicted, faces a jail term of 35 years. Trump has described his detention as a “total disgrace” and urged Erdogan to free him immediately.
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Trump, His Advisers Want Russia Probe to End
U.S. President Donald Trump has continued his social media assault on Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible links between the Russian government and those associated with Trump’s 2016 campaign. Trump and his advisers want the inquiry to end. Marcus Harton has more.
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Omarosa Says she Secretly Taped her Firing, Plays Audio
Former presidential adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman said Sunday she secretly recorded conversations she had in the White House, including her firing by chief of staff John Kelly in the high-security Situation Room. It was a highly unusual admission, which immediately drew fire from allies of the president.
Parts of her conversation with Kelly were played on the air during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to promote her new book, “Unhinged,” which will be released next week.
In it, she paints a damning picture of President Donald Trump, including claiming without evidence that tapes exist of him using the N-word as he filmed his “The Apprentice” reality series, on which she co-starred.
Manigault Newman said in the book that she had not personally heard the recording. But she told Chuck Todd on Sunday that, after the book had closed, she was able to hear a recording of Trump during a trip to Los Angeles.
“I heard his voice as clear as you and I are sitting here,” she said on the show.
But the other recording she discussed Sunday could prove equally explosive.
“Who in their right mind thinks it’s appropriate to secretly record the White House chief of staff in the Situation Room?” tweeted Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee.
The Situation Room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, and staff are not permitted to bring in cell phones or other recording devices.
In the recording played on air, and which Manigault Newman quotes in the book, Kelly can be heard saying she can look at her time at the White House as a year of “service to the nation” and referring to potential “difficulty in the future relative to your reputation.”
Manigault Newman said she viewed the comment as a “threat” and defended her decision to covertly record it and other White House conversations, describing it as a form of protection.
“If I didn’t have these recordings, no one in America would believe me,” she said.
The White House did not immediately respond to the tape, but has tried to discredit the book. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called it “riddled with lies and false accusations” and Trump on Saturday labeled Manigault Newman a “lowlife.”
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also questioned Manigault Newman’s credibility in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“The first time I ever heard Omarosa suggest those awful things about this president are in this book,” she said, noting Manigault Newman “is somebody who gave a glowing appraisal of Donald Trump the businessman, the star of the ‘The Apprentice,’ the candidate and, indeed, the president of the United States.”
Conway said that, in her more than two years working with Trump, she has never heard him use a racial slur about anyone.
Manigault Newman had indeed been a staunch defender of the president for years, including pushing back, as the highest-profile African-American in the White House, on accusations that he was racist.
But Manigault Newman now says she was “used” by Trump for years, calling him a “con” who “has been masquerading as someone who is actually open to engaging with diverse communities” and is “truly a racist.”
“I was complicit with this White House deceiving this nation,” she said. “I had a blind spot where it came to Donald Trump.”
On the anniversary of the deadly gathering of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, Manigault Newman told Todd that Trump uses race to “stir up his base” and doesn’t have the ability to bring the country together “because he puts himself over country every day.”