Mark Zuckerberg has apologized for what he calls a “breach of trust” regarding the exploitation of as many as 87 million users’ data by Cambridge Analytica. Questions are swirling in Washington as the CEO of Facebook prepares to testify before Congress. But, whether the hearings will bring about real change around privacy rights remains to be seen. Tina Trinh reports.
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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
Air France Strike Sees 30 Percent of Flights Cancelled
Some 30 percent of Air France flights were cancelled Saturday as strikes over pay rises appear to be intensifying.
And that’s just part of France’s travel troubles this month. Most French trains will screech to a halt as a strike over President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reforms resumes Saturday night – a strike that is set to last through Monday.
Screens at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport showed red “cancelled” notes next to multiple flights Saturday, as families around France and Europe headed off on spring vacations.
The one-day Air France walkout is affecting international and domestic travel, notably a quarter of flights at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports. Air France is urging passengers to check the status of their flights before coming to the airport and offering to change tickets for free.
It’s the fifth Air France strike since February, and the number of cancelled flights is rising. Unions this week announced more strikes this month to coincide with national rail walkouts.
Air France unions want 6 percent pay raises after years of salary freezes. Air France is offering 1 percent raises, saying anything higher will hurt its turnaround efforts.
The strikes have been costing Air France some 20 million euros ($24.6 million) a day and have hurt its share price.
Meanwhile, the SNCF national railway announced that 80 percent of high speed trains and two-thirds of regional trains will be canceled starting Saturday night as unions stage another two-day walkout.
About a quarter of Eurostar trains to London will be cancelled, and no trains were expected to run at all to Switzerland, Spain or Italy.
It’s part of three months of rolling train strikes seen as the biggest challenge to Macron since he took office last year. Rail unions are angry at plans by Macron’s government to abolish a generous benefits system that gives train workers jobs for life.
Both the government and unions are holding firm despite continuing negotiations. France prides itself on its railways, seen as a pillar of public service.
Macron argues that the special status for train workers is no longer tenable in a globalized and increasingly automated economy. It’s part of his broader plans to overhaul the French economy to make it more competitive.
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Teacher Strikes Spread Across the US
Following the success of West Virginia teachers in securing a pay raise, educators in Oklahoma and Kentucky are walking out of their classrooms, demanding that lawmakers increase education spending in their states. Arizona teachers may soon follow suit. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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US Raises the Stakes with Tough Sanctions on Russian Oligarchs
The White House has announced sanctions against 38 Russian individuals and companies, saying it is standing up to ongoing “malign activity” by the Russian government against Western democracies in Crimea, Ukraine, Syria and around the world. Russia denies any wrongdoing. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington on a move that may deepen the divide between Washington and Moscow.
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Congressman Displays His Loaded Gun Over Coffee to Make a Point
A South Carolina congressman pulled out his own loaded handgun during a meeting with constituents Friday to make a point that guns are dangerous only in the hands of criminals.
Republican U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman placed the .38-caliber gun on a table during the “coffee with constituents” meeting at a Rock Hill restaurant, news outlets reported.
“I’m not going to be a Gabby Giffords,” Norman said, referring to the former Arizona congresswoman who was shot outside a grocery store during a constituent gathering in 2011.
Giffords’ husband, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, said in a statement that Norman is “no Gabby Giffords” and noted that his wife has dedicated her life to ending gun violence.
“Americans are increasingly faced with a stark choice: leaders like Gabby, who work hard together to find solutions to problems, or extremists like the NRA and Congressman Norman, who rely on intimidation tactics and perpetuating fear,” Kelly said.
Norman said he’ll display his gun at future constituent meetings.
“I’m tired of these liberals jumping on the guns themselves as if they are the cause of the problem,” Norman told The Post and Courier. “Guns are not the problem.”
School teacher Lori Carter of Charlotte, North Carolina, said she thought the move was contradictory because Norman didn’t know if someone there had mental health issues.
“What was to prevent me from leaning across the table to take that gun?” she said.
This story was written by the Associated Press.
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Muslim-American Advocates Hail New York Police Surveillance Settlement
Muslim-American advocacy organizations are hailing a legal settlement with New York City police over the department’s surveillance of the community, saying the agreement sends a message that simply being Muslim is not a crime.
The settlement, announced Thursday by lawyers for New York City, the New York Police Department and the Muslim community, resolves a 2012 lawsuit brought by Muslim groups. The suit challenged the lawfulness of a program New York police created after the attacks of September 11, 2001, to gather intelligence on Muslims.
Under the terms of the settlement, the New York Police Department confirmed that it has dismantled the unit responsible for carrying out the intelligence-gathering operation and agreed not to conduct suspicionless surveillance based on religion or ethnicity.
Victory for American Muslims
Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy organization that initially filed the lawsuit, hailed the settlement as a victory for American Muslims.
“Today’s settlement sends a message to all law enforcement: Simply being Muslim is not a basis for surveillance,” Khera said during a press call with reporters.
Omar Farah, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a progressive legal advocacy organization that later joined the lawsuit, agreed that the settlement bears the same message.
“Attempting to predict criminality on the basis of race or religion is repugnant and it never works — except to humiliate and criminalize targeted communities,” Farah said.
Years of spying, not one lead
Muslim Advocates filed the lawsuit after the Associated Press revealed in a series of investigative reports in 2011 and 2012 how the New York Police Department infiltrated Muslim groups and put informants in mosques in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
As part of the counterterror program, the police monitored at least 20 mosques, 14 restaurants, 11 retail stores, two grade schools and two Muslim student associations in New Jersey, Khera said.
The monitoring included video surveillance of mosques, photographing of license plates, community mapping, and infiltration of mosques, student associations and businesses, she said.
Khera said the surveillance did not produce a single investigative lead.
“This was not lawful policing but just blatant discrimination against innocent Americans,” she said.
The settlement came after an appeals court in 2015 struck down a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit, prompting New York City to initiate talks with the plaintiffs.
Farhaj Hassan, a U.S. Army reservist and the lead plaintiff in the case, said the settlement was a victory for the United States.
“We believe the legal rulings and settlement in this case will endure as part of a broader effort to hold this country to account for its stated commitment and its obligation to uphold religious liberty and equality,” Hassan said.
This story was written by VOA’s Masood Farivar.
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Justice Department Considers Joining Harvard Affirmative Action Case
The U.S. Justice Department said Friday it might formally enter a lawsuit accusing Harvard University of discriminating against Asian-American applicants as the agency probes its admissions policies for potential civil rights violations.
The department disclosed its plan in a brief urging a federal judge in Boston to not allow the Ivy League school to file pretrial court papers and documents provisionally under seal.
Harvard had cited the need to protect the privacy of applicants and students as well as the inner workings of its admissions process, arguing that various documents should be initially filed under seal pending the judge’s review.
Privacy protections
The Justice Department said it opposed Harvard’s request, joining Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), the group behind the case, which has urged the disclosure of “powerful” evidence showing Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
“Harvard College is responsible for protecting the confidential and highly sensitive personal information that prospective students — none of whom asked to be involved in this dispute — entrust to us every year in their applications,” Harvard spokeswoman Rachael Dane said in a statement.
“We are committed to safeguarding their privacy while also ensuring that the public has the access that it is entitled to under the law,” Dane said.
William Consovoy, a lawyer for SFFA, declined to comment.
Supreme Court ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled universities may use affirmative action to help minority applicants get into college. Conservatives have said such programs can hurt white people and Asian-Americans.
The Justice Department under Republican President Donald Trump has been investigating a complaint by more than 60 Asian-American organizations which say Harvard’s policies are discriminatory because they limit the acceptance of Asian-Americans.
“The public funds Harvard at a cost of millions of dollars each year, and thus has a paramount interest in any proof of these allegations, Harvard’s responses to them, and the Court’s resolution of this dispute,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in Friday’s filing.
The department said that while it had obtained much of the case’s evidence through its own separate probe, it wanted to review the court records as it considers whether to file a “statement of interest” arguing a position in the case. A hearing before U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs is scheduled for Tuesday.
Harvard says its admissions policies comply with U.S. laws and that it has worked to increase the financial aid it offers to ensure economic, as well as racial, diversity in its classes.
Scandal-hit U.S. Republican Congressman Farenthold Steps Down
Republican U.S. Representative Blake Farenthold of Texas, accused by a female former aide of sexual harassment, abruptly resigned from Congress on Friday after admitting to allowing an unprofessional culture to flourish in his Capitol Hill office.
“While I planned on serving out the remainder of my term in Congress, I know in my heart it’s time for me to move along and look for new ways to serve,” the 56-year-old congressman who represented Corpus Christi in the U.S. House of Representatives said in a social media video statement.
Former radio show host
While Farenthold has denied the sexual harassment accusation, the former conservative radio show host said in December he would not seek re-election. He made that announcement a week after the House ethics committee said it was investigating him over allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation involving a female former staff member.
“I had no idea how to run a congressional office, and as a result, I allowed a workplace culture to take root in my office that was too permissive and decidedly unprofessional,” Farenthold said in December.
The ethics committee said it was also looking into whether Farenthold had made inappropriate statements to other members of his staff.
His resignation took effect on Friday afternoon. Farenthold, who began serving in Congress in 2011, is the latest of several U.S. lawmakers who have stepped down or not sought re-election after being accused of sexual harassment.
Sexual harassment claim settled
Politico reported in December that the congressional Office of Compliance had paid $84,000 from a public fund on behalf of Farenthold for a sexual harassment claim.
In 2014, his former communications director, Lauren Greene, filed a lawsuit accusing him of creating a hostile work environment, gender discrimination and retaliation, court documents showed.
The two reached a confidential mediated agreement in 2015, according to a statement from Farenthold’s office that denied any wrongdoing by him.
Reuters has been unable to verify the allegations against Farenthold.
This story was written by Reuters.
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Trump Administration Mulls Stiffer Rules for Auto Imports
The Trump administration is considering ways to require imported automobiles to meet stricter environmental standards in order to protect U.S. carmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Responding to the story, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump “will promote free, fair and reciprocal trade practices to grow the U.S. economy and continue to [bring] jobs and manufacturers back to the U.S.”
Citing unnamed senior administration and industry officials, the Journal said Trump had asked several agencies to pursue plans to use existing laws to subject foreign-made cars to stiff emission standards.
It appears such nontariff barriers could have a greater potential effect proportionately on European automakers, which collectively import a greater percentage of cars from plants outside the U.S., according to sales figures from Autodata.
In comparison, Japanese and Korean brands made about 70 percent of the vehicles they sold last year in the United States at North American plants. European brands built only 30 percent in North America.
The White House initiative was still in the planning stage, with officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency working to craft a legal justification for the policy, the paper said. It said there were hurdles to its implementation, including opposition from some in the administration.
The EPA and the Commerce Department, which the newspaper said was also involved in the effort, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. Neither did representatives for Ford, General Motors or Fiat Chrysler.
This story was written by Reuters.
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Trump Dismisses Fears of Trade War With China as Threats Ramp Up
U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration said Friday that the United States was not engaged in a trade war with China, even as Trump threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of Chinese goods and Beijing warned it was willing to fight back.
“This is just a proposed idea, which will be vetted by USTR [the U.S. trade representative], and then open for public comment, so nothing has happened, nothing has been executed,” said White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow amid growing concerns about escalating rhetoric between Washington and Beijing.
The economic adviser said Beijing’s theft of intellectual property was “at the root” of U.S. concerns and added “we can’t allow them [China] to steal our technology, because when they steal our technology, they are stealing the guts of the American future.”
Leaders have good relationship
The adviser stressed Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have a good relationship, and “ongoing talks may solve a lot of problems, but we are serious. I just really underscore this, we are serious.”
The White House blamed China for trade practices it said were illegal and unfair.
“China created this problem, and the president is trying to put pressure on them to fix this, and take back some of the terrible actions that they’ve had in the last several decades,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a briefing on Friday.
The U.S. and China are in routine contact, but “this is a negotiation period, that’s why it doesn’t happen immediately, and there’s a process, and we’re going through that process,” said Sanders.
China offers warning
Meanwhile, Beijing showed no intention of backing down.
“China is already fully prepared. If the United States announces an additional $100 billion list of tariffs, we will not hesitate to immediately make a fierce counterstrike. We are not ruling out any options,” said China’s Commerce Ministry spokesman, Gao Feng.
“Under these conditions, it’s even more impossible for both sides to conduct any negotiations on this issue,” Gao added.
In a Twitter post Friday morning, Trump continued to protest China’s trade practices and the World Trade Organization:
On Thursday, Trump announced he had instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider whether tariffs on another $100 billion of Chinese goods would be appropriate after China issued a list of U.S. goods, including soybeans and small aircraft, worth $50 billion for possible tariff hikes. The United States had proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods earlier this week.
Last month, after a monthslong investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the U.S. trade representative determined that China had repeatedly engaged in unfair trade practices to obtain America’s intellectual property and pressure technology transfer from U.S. companies to Chinese entities.
Tariffs a tactic?
Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, told VOA it was unclear when and whether the threatened tariffs would be imposed.
“It seems likely the tariffs are being used as a negotiating tactic to try to get concessions from the Chinese side in terms of market access for U.S. firms and protection of its intellectual property, so there’s still a possibility that these tariffs will never come into force,” he noted.
While it was not a surprising the White House pushed back against China’s retaliatory threats, some experts were surprised by how swiftly it did, according to Riley Walters, Asia economy and technology policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
Walters cautioned it was a risky move to use tariff threats as a negotiating tactic because it can affect lives and income of Americans.
Expect more rhetoric
If the tariffs go into effect, “what it could mean is both increasing cost for American consumers, but also an uncompetitive edge for American exporters to China. If you are a soybean producer, and if your goods go up 25 percent in China, then you are less price competitive than other exporters to China of soybeans,” Walters said.
Walters expects more rhetoric between the White House and China in the coming weeks. Evans-Pritchard predicted that if the USTR published another list of goods worth $100 billion to be subjected to tariffs, China would respond with the same measures.
“Once we started talking about $150 billion — which would be what’s on the cards, given the $50 billion existing tariffs plus $100 billion proposed — basically that is all of China’s goods imported from the U.S. So it will start looking elsewhere to retaliate,” Evans-Pritchard said.
This story was written by VOA’s Peggy Chang. Jingxun Li of VOA’s Mandarin service contributed to this report.
Trade War Fears Send US Stocks Down Again
U.S. stocks plunged again Friday over increasing concerns about a trade war between the United States and China.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 572 points by the close, shedding 2.3 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped nearly 2.2 percent, while the NASDAQ fell nearly 2.3 percent at the end of trading.
Earlier Friday, President Donald Trump continued to protest China’s trade practices after threatening China on Thursday with increased tariffs on $100 billion worth of additional goods.
In a twitter post Friday, Trump said, “China, which is a great economic power, is considered a Developing Nation within the World Trade Organization. They therefore get tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S. Does anybody think this is fair. We were badly represented. The WTO is unfair to U.S.”
China’s commerce ministry said in a statement Friday that if Washington persisted in what Beijing described as protectionism, China would “dedicate itself to the end and at any cost and will definitely fight back firmly.”
Since the start of this week, the United States and China have been engaging in a tit-for-tat trade spat.
Early in the week, the United States proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. China then said it would impose tariff hikes on $50 billion worth of U.S. goods, including soybeans and small aircraft. On Thursday, Trump announced he had instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider whether tariffs on another $100 billion worth of Chinese goods would be appropriate.
‘China created this problem’
The White House blamed China on Friday for trade practices it said were illegal and unfair.
“China created this problem, and the president is trying to put pressure on them to fix this, and take back some of the terrible actions that they’ve had in the last several decades,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during the daily briefing Friday.
Despite Trump’s threats for more sanctions, he has insisted the U.S. is not engaged in a trade dispute with the Asian nation.
U.S. stocks also were affected this past Monday by Trump’s new verbal attack on giant online retailer Amazon.
Since Trump started his criticism of Amazon, the company has lost more than $37 billion in market value.
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Consumer Groups: Facebook’s Facial Recognition Violates Privacy Rights
Facebook violates its users’ privacy rights through the use of its facial recognition software, according to consumer groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Their complaint to the federal government focuses on the use of Facebook software that identifies people in photographs that are uploaded to its site.
A complaint filed Friday by a coalition of consumer organizations with Federal Trade Commission said the social media giant “routinely scans photos for biometric facial matches without the consent of the image subject.”
The complaint says the company tries to improve its facial recognition prowess by deceptively encouraging users the participate in the process of identifying people in photographs.
“This unwanted, unnecessary, and dangerous identification of individuals undermines user privacy, ignores the explicit preferences of Facebook users, and is contrary to law in several state and many parts of the world.”
The groups maintain there is little users can do to prevent images of their faces from being in a social media system like Facebook’s. They contend facial scanning can be abused by authoritarian governments, a key argument considering Facebook may be required to provide user information to governments.
The complaint is the latest in a string of privacy-related issues the FTC is already investigating, including charges it allowed the personal information of 87 million users to be improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, the British consulting firm which was hired by U.S. President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Until Thursday, Facebook had not said how many accounts had been harvested by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has also been hesitant to explain how the company’s product might have been used by Russian-supported entities to affect the U.S. presidential election outcome.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify next week before two congressional committees.
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Facebook: Up to 2.7 Million EU Users Affected by Data-Mining
The European Union said Friday Facebook has told it that up to 2.7 million people in the 28-nation bloc may have been victim of improper data sharing involving political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica.
EU spokesman Christian Wigand said EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova will have a telephone call with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg early next week to address the massive data leaks.
The EU and Facebook will be looking at what changes the social media giant needs to make to better protect users and how the U.S. company must adapt to new EU data protection rules.
Wigand said that EU data protection authorities will discuss over the coming days “a strong coordinated approach” on how to deal with the Facebook investigation.
Separately, Italy’s competition authority opened an investigation Friday into Facebook for allegedly misleading practices following revelations that the social network sold users’ data without consent.
Authority chairman Giovanni Pitruzzella told Sky News24 that the investigation will focus on Facebook’s claims on its home page that the service is free, without revealing that it makes money off users’ data.
The investigation comes as Italian consumer advocate group Codacons prepares a U.S. class action against Facebook on behalf of Italians whose data was mined by Cambridge Analytica. Codacons said just 57 Italians downloaded the Cambridge Analytica app, but that an estimated 214,000 Italians could be affected because the data mined extended to also the users’ friends.
A top Facebook privacy official is scheduled to meet with the authority later this month.
This story was earlier corrected to show that the EU call will take place with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg not with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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As Trump Tweets, Amazon Seeks to Expand its Business Empire
Amazon is spending millions of dollars on lobbying as the global online retailer seeks to expand its reach into a swath of industries that President Donald Trump’s broadsides haven’t come close to hitting.
Trump’s attacks over the last week targeted what Amazon is best known for: rapidly shipping just about any product you can imagine to your door. But the company CEO Jeff Bezos founded more than two decades ago is now a sprawling empire that sells groceries in brick-and-mortar stores, hosts the online services of other companies and federal offices in a network of data centers, and even recently branched into health care.
Amazon relies on a nearly 30-member in-house lobbying team that’s four times as large as it was three years ago as well as outside firms to influence the lawmakers and federal regulators who can help determine its success. The outside roster includes a retired congressman from Washington state who was a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee when he stepped down.
Overall, Amazon spent $15.6 million on lobbying in 2017.
“Amazon is just not on an even playing field,” Trump told reporters Thursday aboard Air Force One. “They have a tremendous lobbying effort, in addition to having The Washington Post, which is as far as I’m concerned another lobbyist. But they have a big lobbying effort, one of the biggest, frankly, one of the biggest.”
Bezos owns the Post. He and the newspaper have previously declared that Bezos isn’t involved in any journalistic decisions.
Earlier in the week, Trump alleged that Amazon is bilking the U.S. Postal Service for being its “delivery boy,” a doubtful claim about a contract that’s actually been judged profitable for the post office. And he has charged that Amazon pays “little or no taxes,” a claim that may have merit. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said in February that Amazon “has built its business model on tax avoidance.” Amazon reported $5.6 billion of U.S. profits in 2017 “and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on it,” according to Gardner.
The company declined to comment on Trump’s remarks and did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its lobbying operations.
Amazon has grown rapidly since it launched in 1995 as a site that sold books. It has changed the way people buy paper towels, diapers or just about anything else. And its ambitions go far beyond online shopping: its Alexa voice assistant is in tablets, cars and its Echo devices; it runs the Whole Foods grocery chain; the company produces movies and TV shows and it designs its own brands of furniture and clothing.
The company is in the midst of launching an independent business with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway that is seeking to lower health care costs for employees at the three companies. Given the three players’ outsize influence the alliance has the potential to shake up how Americans shop for health care and the initiative sent a shudder through the industry when it was announced in January.
Amazon Web Services is angling for a much larger share of the federal government’s market for cloud computing, which allows massive amounts of data to be stored and managed on remote servers. The CIA signed a $600 million deal with Amazon in 2013 to build a system to share secure data across the U.S. intelligence community.
A partner of Amazon Web Services, the Virginia-based Rean Cloud LLC, in February scored what appeared to be a lucrative cloud computing contract from the Pentagon. But the contract, initially projected to be worth as much as $950 million, was scaled back to $65 million after Amazon’s competitors complained about the award.
Lobbying disclosure records filed with the House and Senate show Amazon is engaged on a wide variety of other issues, from trade to transportation to telecommunications. The company also lobbied lawmakers and federal agencies on the testing and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. Amazon has been exploring the use of drones for deliveries, but current federal rules restrict flying beyond the operator’s line of sight.
The $15.6 million Amazon spent on lobbying last year was $2.6 million more than in 2016, according to the disclosure records. The bulk of the money — $12.8 million — went for Amazon’s in-house lobbying team. The nearly 30-member unit is led by Brian Huseman, who worked previously as chief of staff at the Federal Trade Commission and a Justice Department trial attorney.
As most large corporations do, Amazon also employs outside lobbying firms — as many as 14 in 2017.
In Amazon’s corner is former Washington congressman Norm Dicks of the firm Van Ness Feldman. Dicks was serving as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee when he ended his 36-year congressional career in 2013. He represented the company on information technology matters and “issues related to cloud computing usage by the federal government,” according to the records, which show Van Ness Feldman earned $160,000 from Amazon last year.
Amazon brought aboard four new firms in 2017, according to the records. Newcomers Ballard Partners, BGR Government Affairs, Brownstein Hyatt, and McGuireWoods Consulting lobbied for Amazon on transportation, taxes, drones and other issues.
This story was written by the Associated Press.
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March Jobs Report: Another Big Month for Hiring?
Did March provide another month of blowout hiring? Was pay growth healthy?
When the government issues its monthly jobs report Friday, those two questions will be the most closely watched barometers.
Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 185,000 jobs in March and that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.1 percent to a fresh 17-year low of 4 percent, according to data provider FactSet.
The government will issue the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.
In February, employers added a blockbuster 313,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in 18 months. Over the past six months, the average monthly gain has been 205,000, up from an average of 176,000 in the previous six months. Hiring at that pace could help nudge the unemployment rate below 4 percent in the coming months.
Hiring defies expectations
The surging pace of hiring has defied expectations that the low unemployment rate meant employers would struggle to fill positions, which, in turn, would restrain job growth. Job gains had slowed for most of 2017. But hiring accelerated starting in October, an unusual boost for an economy already in its ninth year of recovery.
In fact, the recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession has become the second-longest expansion since the 1850s, when economists began tracking recessions and recoveries. Still, the expansion has been puzzlingly slow, with economic growth averaging just 2.2 percent a year, about a percentage point below the historical average. But its durability has been broadly beneficial.
For example, a rising number of working-age Americans have begun looking for a job and finding one, reversing a trend from the first few years after the recession when many of the unemployed grew discouraged and stopped looking for work.
The proportion of adults in their prime working years, defined as ages 25 to 54, who are either working or looking for work jumped to 82.2 percent in February, up one-half of 1 percentage point from a year earlier. That’s still below the pre-recession level, which suggests that steady economic growth could continue to pull more job-seekers off the sidelines.
Will wages rise, too?
An increasing need to compete for workers may also finally be lifting wages in some sectors. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier, the sharpest such increase in eight years. That unexpected surge triggered a plunge in financial markets, with investors fearing that accelerating wage growth might lead the Federal Reserve to step up its pace of interest rate hikes to control inflation.
But pay growth slipped in February to a year-over-year pace of 2.6 percent, suggesting that employers are still avoiding giving broad pay raises to their workers. The influx of new workers, which gives employers more hiring options than a 4.1 percent unemployment rate might otherwise suggest, may also be holding back wage growth.
Though the economy likely slowed in the first three months of this year, the healthy pace of hiring indicates that employers anticipate solid customer demand for the rest of the year. Macroeconomic Advisers, a consulting firm, forecasts that the economy grew at just a 1.4 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter — less than half the 2.9 percent annual pace of the October-December quarter.
But the firm expects growth to rebound to a decent 3.1 percent annual pace in the current April-June quarter.
Other reports indicate that growing optimism among businesses and consumers should help propel the economy in the months ahead.
Businesses have stepped up their spending on manufactured goods, helping lift factory output.
And last month, factories expanded at a healthy pace after having grown in February at the fastest rate since 2004, according to a private survey. Government data showed that orders for long-lasting factory goods, including industrial machinery, metals and autos, surged in February.
Americans have spent less at retail chains in the past two months, after shopping at a healthy pace during the winter holiday season. With consumer confidence near the highest point in two decades, however, consumer spending is likely to rebound in the coming months.
This story was written by the Associated Press.
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Smartphone Technology Helps Mental Health Patients
About 1 percent of the world’s population lives with the mental condition called bipolar disorder, characterized by swings between elevated and depressed moods. In most cases, timely interaction with psychotherapists, family and friends can alleviate the symptoms. Researchers in Denmark say modern technology can help by keeping track of a patient’s symptoms and summoning help quickly when needed. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Trump, White House Defend Action on China Trade
The Trump administration says China is responsible for a trade war with the United States because of its long-term unfair practices. A senior White House economic adviser said Thursday no measures have been enacted, but the situation cannot continue. U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States and China will have a “fantastic relationship” once they straighten out their trade issues. But analysts warn that raising tariffs is not good for the global economy. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Facebook: Public Data of Most Users Probably Has Been Scraped
Facebook’s acknowledgement that the personal data of most of its 2.2 billion members has probably been scraped by “malicious actors” is the latest example of the social network’s failure to protect its users’ data.
Not to mention its seeming inability to even identify the problem until the company was embroiled in scandal.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg told reporters Wednesday that Facebook is shutting down a feature that let people search for Facebook users by phone number or email address. Although that was useful for people who wanted to find others on Facebook, it turns out that unscrupulous types also figured out years ago that they could use it identify individuals and collect data off their profiles.
The scrapers were at it long enough, Zuckerberg said, that “at some point during the last several years, someone has probably accessed your public information in this way.”
The only way to be safe would have been for users to deliberately turn off that search feature several years ago. Facebook had it turned on by default.
Several investigations
“I think Facebook has not been clear enough with how to use its privacy settings,” said Jamie Winterton, director of strategy for Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative. “That, to me, was the failure.”
The breach was a stunning admission for a company already reeling from allegations that the political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica inappropriately accessed data on as many as 87 million Facebook users to influence elections.
Over the past few weeks, the scandal has mushroomed into investigations across continents, including a probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Zuckerberg himself will be questioned by Congress for the first time Tuesday.
“The FTC looked the other way for years when consumer groups told them Facebook was violating its 2011 deal to better protect its users. But now the Cambridge Analytica scandal has awoken the FTC from its long digital privacy slumber,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Washington-based privacy nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy.
Problem found after Cambridge Analytica
Neither Zuckerberg nor his company has identified those who carried out the data scraping. Outside experts believe they could have been identity thieves, scam artists or shady data brokers assembling marketing profiles.
Zuckerberg said the company detected the problem in a data-privacy audit started after the Cambridge Analytica disclosures, but didn’t say why the company hadn’t noticed it — or fixed it — earlier.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday on when it discovered the data scraping.
In his call with reporters Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the company had tried “rate limiting” the searches. This restricted how many searches someone can conduct at one time from a particular IP address, a numeric designation that identifies a device’s location on the internet. But Zuckerberg said the scrapers circumvented that defense by cycling through multiple IP addresses.
Public information useful
The scraped information was limited to what a user had chosen to make public — which, depending on a person’s privacy settings, could be a lot — as well as what Facebook requires people to share. That includes full name, profile picture and listings of school or workplace networks.
But hackers and scam artists could then use that information, and combine it with other data in circulation, to pull hoaxes on people, plant malware on their computers or commit other mischief.
Having access to such a massive amount of data could also pose national security risks, Winterton said.
A foreign entity could conceivably use such information to influence elections or stir up discord, exactly what Russia is alleged to have done, using Facebook and other social media, in the 2016 presidential elections.
Oversharing
Privacy advocates have long been critical of Facebook’s penchant for pushing people to share more and more information, often through pro-sharing default options.
While the company offers detailed privacy controls — users can turn off ad targeting, for example, or face recognition, and post updates that no one else sees — many people never change their settings, and often don’t even know how to.
The company has tried to simplify its settings multiple times over the years, most recently this week.
Winterton said that for individual Facebook users, worrying about this data scraping won’t do much good, after all, the data is already out there. But she said it might be a good time to “reflect on what we are sharing and how we are sharing it and whether we need to.”
“Just because someone asks us information, it doesn’t mean we have to give it to them if we are not comfortable,” she said.
She added that while she no longer has a Facebook account, when she did she put her birth year as 1912 and her hometown as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Neither is true.
This story was written by the Associated Press
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Going Off Script, Trump Bashes Immigration at Tax-Cut Event
Tossing his “boring” prepared remarks into the air, President Donald Trump on Thursday unleashed a fierce denunciation of the nation’s immigration policies, calling for tougher border security while repeating his unsubstantiated claim that “millions” of people voted illegally in California.
Trump was in West Virginia to showcase the benefits of Republican tax cuts, but he detoured to talk about his immigration and trade plans. He linked immigration with the rise of violent gangs like MS-13 and suggested anew that there had been widespread fraud in the 2016 election that cost him a loss in the popular vote.
“In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that,” Trump said. “They always like to say, ‘Oh, that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people. And it’s very hard because the state guards their records. They don’t want us” to see them.
While there have been isolated cases of voter fraud in the U.S., past studies have found it to be exceptionally rare. Earlier this year, the White House disbanded a controversial voter fraud commission amid infighting and lawsuits as state officials refused to cooperate.
Pushing back
In recent weeks, Trump has been pushing back more against the restraints of the office to offer more unvarnished opinions and take policy moves that some aides were trying to forestall.
“This was going to be my remarks. They would have taken about two minutes,” Trump said as he tossed his script into the air. “This is boring. We have to tell it like it is.”
As he has done before, Trump conjured images of violence and suffering when he described the perils of illegal immigration, though statistics show that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens do. He dubbed MS-13 gang members “thugs” and said his administration’s crackdown on the group was “like a war.”
“MS-13 is emblematic of evil, and we’re getting them out by the hundreds,” said Trump, who sat on stage at a long table in a gym draped in American flags and decorated with signs that read “USA open for business.” “This is the kind of stuff and crap we are allowing in our country, and we can’t do it anymore.”
Invoking the lines of his June 2015 campaign kickoff speech, in which he suggested that some Mexican immigrants were rapists, the president appeared to claim that a caravan of migrants that had been working its way north through Mexico toward the United States was besieged with violence.
“Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower when I opened? Everybody said, ‘Oh, he was so tough,’ and I used the word ‘rape,’ ” he said. “And yesterday it came out where this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that.”
It was not clear what Trump was referring to. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Trump wasn’t talking about the caravan but rather about extreme victimization of those making the journey north with smugglers in general.
Trump also defended his proposed tariff plan, which many of his fellow Republicans fear will start a trade war with China. He criticized West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat who has expressed openness to working with the White House, for opposing the GOP tax plan. He praised local West Virginia politicians running for office and reminisced about his 2016 electoral victory in the Mountain State.
All of that overshadowed any time spent promoting the tax plan.
Positive feedback
While Trump went off script, the attendees — an assemblage of state politicians, local business owners, workers and families — stayed dutifully on task, talking about how the tax cuts had helped them.
Jessica Hodge tearfully told Trump: “I just want to say thank you for the tax cuts. This is a big deal for our family.”
U.S. Representative Evan Jenkins, a Republican, said that “West Virginians understand your policies are working” and that Trump was “welcome to come back anytime.”
This story was written by the Associated Press.
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Venezuela Cuts Commercial Ties With Panama Officials, Firms
Venezuela said on Thursday it was halting commercial relations with Panamanian officials and companies, including regional airline Copa, for alleged involvement in money laundering, prompting Panama to recall its ambassador.
The resolution names Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and nearly two dozen Cabinet ministers and top-ranking officials, adding that Panama’s financial system had been used by Venezuelan nationals involved in acts of corruption.
Venezuela said the individuals named in the resolution “present an imminent risk to the [Venezuelan] financial system, the stability of commerce in the country, and the sovereignty and economic independence of the Venezuelan people.”
The statement came a week after Panama declared President Nicolas Maduro and about 50 Venezuelan nationals as “high risk” for laundering money and financing terrorism.
Caracas did not detail whether the move would halt the operations of Copa in Venezuela, which is one of the crisis-stricken country’s few providers of international flights following a sharp reduction in airline services.
Copa’s website showed its planned Panama City-Caracas flight later Thursday was canceled. Copa flights Friday between the two cities were listed as scheduled.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Panama’s Varela, in brief comments to reporters Thursday, described the Venezuelan announcement as nonsensical.
“We have not heard anything about breaking relations but rather about a set of supposed sanctions, it’s gibberish,” Varela said.
The South American country has been hit with sanctions by Canada, the United States and a number of other countries over issues ranging from human rights violations to corruption and drug trafficking.
Maduro says the country is victim of an “economic war” led by his adversaries with the help of Washington, and says the sanctions are part of foreign countries’ efforts to undermine his government.
This story was written by Reuters.
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Trump: US Will Weigh Tariffs on Another $100B Worth of Chinese Goods; China Responds
The trade war rhetoric between the United States and China escalated Friday with President Donald threatening tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of Chinese goods and Beijing warning it will fight the United States “at any cost.”
Trump said Thursday he had instructed the U.S. trade representative to consider the additional tariffs after China issued a list of U.S. goods, including soybeans and small aircraft, worth $50 billion for possible tariff hikes. The United States had proposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods earlier this week.
China’s commerce ministry said in its statement Friday that if Washington persisted in what Beijing describes as protectionism, China would “dedicate itself to the end and at any cost and will definitely fight back firmly.”
WATCH: Trump, White House Defend Action on China Trade
U.S. stock futures dropped on Trump’s latest trade directive. Dow futures fell and were down about 400 points in after-hours trading.
Financial markets have swung wildly over the past few days in response to fears of escalating trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
“Rather than remedy its misconduct, China has chosen to harm our farmers and manufacturers,” Trump said.
Since the start of this week, the United States and China have been engaging in a tit-for-tat trade spat. On Monday, in response to earlier tariffs on steel and aluminum imposed by the Trump administration, China started tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, including fruits, nuts, pork, wine, steel and aluminum.
Later on the same day, the USTR proposed to increase tariffs on 1,300 imported goods from China, mostly aerospace, medical and information technology products.
Less than 12 hours later, China said it would impose retaliatory duties of 25 percent on 106 politically sensitive American goods, including soybeans, automobiles and aircraft.
The proposed U.S. list is now entering a “public notice and comment process, including a hearing,” the USTR said. After this process is completed, the USTR will issue a final determination on the products subject to the additional duties.
China’s commerce ministry said the question of when the measures would go into effect would depend on when the U.S. tariffs became active.
China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, told reporters on Wednesday, “Negotiation would still be our preference, but it takes two to tango. We will see what the U.S. will do.”
A senior U.S. official told Reuters late Thursday that the United States was willing to negotiate with China on trade, but only if talks were serious, as previous attempts produced little progress.
No formal negotiating sessions have been set, but there have been “ongoing communications with the Chinese on trade,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the Trump administration’s trade strategy.
Some information for this report came from Reuters and the Associated Press.
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Chinese Viewpoints on US-China Trade Dispute
The trade dispute rumbling between China and the U.S. has raised the possibility consumers in Beijing may end up paying higher prices for American beef, liquor and tobacco if Beijing goes ahead with hikes on tariffs for such products.
Below are thoughts shared with The Associated Press by a few Beijing residents.
The investor
Yang Shumei, 29, a freelance worker from southwestern China’s Guangxi province: “I think this [the threat of a trade war] does influence my life and other areas to a certain extent. I invest in stock markets, and shares have fallen sharply as the risk is high.”
The optimist
Feng Weifeng, 36, a salesman from Beijing: “I believe imposing extra tariffs from both sides is just a temporary measure and a win-win situation is the trend.”
The price-sensitive buyer
Wang Xiaoyu, 20, student from Beijing, Higher prices “Will definitely influence my decisions. For daily necessities, mobile phones or electrical products, I am more likely to choose domestic brands or choose products with prices the same as those of U.S.-made products before the price hike.”
The anti-tariffs student
Liu Boshu, 18, a student from central China’s Zhengzhou, in Henan province: “Actually I’m against the measures from either side. Because trade barriers like this will harm both countries in the long term.”
Mueller’s Russia Probe Shows it Pays to Cooperate
George Papadopoulos, taken by surprise by FBI agents at an airport last summer, now tweets smiling beach selfies with a Mykonos hashtag. Rick Gates, for weeks on home confinement with electronic monitoring, gets rapid approval for a family vacation and shaves down his potential prison time. Michael Flynn, once the target of a grand jury investigation, flies cross-country to stump for a California congressional candidate and books a speaking event in New York.
The message is unmistakable: It pays to cooperate with the government.
That’s an age-old truism in any criminal investigation, but it’s especially notable in a case as pressing and high profile as special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, where deals afforded to cooperators have raised speculation about incriminating information they’re providing.
The perks of cooperation have manifested themselves in freer travel, lenient punishment prospects and even public comments by defendants that might have been unthinkable months ago. They form a counterpoint to the experiences of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman who has refused to cooperate and faces decades in prison, and send a message to others entangled in the Mueller probe that they too could receive favorable treatment if they agree to work with investigators.
“There’s no question that it’s in the government’s interest to take what steps they can to show that cooperating is in the interest of the defendant,” said Daniel Petalas, a former federal prosecutor. “A basic principle of plea bargaining is that you have to make it worth it to the defendant to admit liability in a criminal matter.”
The latest example came Tuesday when Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in prison for lying to the FBI. Though his plea deal didn’t explicitly require cooperation, the charge he pleaded guilty to carries a maximum five-year sentence and it’s likely the attorney, whose wife is pregnant in London, risked a longer punishment if convicted at trial. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said some incarceration was necessary to deter others from lying to investigators.
To be sure, defendants who admit guilt are stained with criminal convictions, forego liberties including the right to vote, put their jobs and reputation at risk — and can still wind up with tough sentences. Given that uncertainty and stress, it’s common practice for prosecutors looking to induce cooperation to make concessions, such as dismissing charges or agreeing to recommend a lighter sentence, especially for someone they think can help them build a case against a higher-value target.
“There is a societal interest, frankly, in having people cooperate with prosecutors because often the government only can know what’s happened based on documentary evidence and witnesses that it speaks with,” said Sharon McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor in New York. “But insiders who can give insight into conversations and planning and things like that are crucial to being able to make cases.”
There’s nothing new about cutting deals, including for violent mobsters, but the tactics have drawn renewed scrutiny especially in conservative legal circles. Former Manhattan federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote last month in the National Review that Mueller was breaching Justice Department protocols by offering Gates, Manafort’s co-defendant and a key Trump campaign aide, a “penny-ante plea deal” instead of requiring him to plead to the most serious charges he faced.
Gates was initially charged in October in a 12-count indictment and faced well over a decade in prison, but he pleaded guilty in February to just two charges and now faces fewer than six years — or less, depending on the extent of his cooperation. He spent months on home confinement as a potential flight risk, repeatedly requesting — and generally receiving — permission to attend children’s sporting events and Christmas parties in the area.
The home confinement condition was lifted in January, and days after his plea, he received a judge’s permission and the government’s blessing to ditch the electronic monitoring and to travel freely between his Virginia home and Washington. He also got approval for a family trip to Boston for spring break, though that plan was aborted after he said threatening comments were posted online.
“Everybody who practices in federal court knows you’re going to get more leeway from prosecutors on bail if your client is cooperating,” said Duke University law professor Samuel Buell.
Meanwhile, Papadopoulos’s carefree tweets, including smiling snapshots of his wife on his lap and beside him at the beach, are a far cry from the frowning mug shot taken after his arrest at Dulles Airport last summer. Accused of lying to the FBI, and facing the possibility of a years-long sentence, he pleaded guilty in a secret court hearing and agreed to cooperate. Since then, he’s resurfaced with a Twitter profile of more than 7,300 followers.
Mueller’s team includes lawyers with deep experience in organized crime and financial fraud cases, which frequently require flipping witnesses and sometimes involve aggressive maneuvering. Andrew Weissmann, one of the Gates prosecutors, for instance, in 2003 indicted the wife of Enron’s chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow. The move was interpreted as designed in part to encourage Fastow himself to plead guilty and cooperate, which he ultimately did.
Still, prosecutors understand that juries may look askance at sweetheart plea deals, especially with those who’ve been publicly demonized, and that defense lawyers may subject cooperators to bruising cross-examinations.
“Prosecutors are going to be cognizant that there are always going to be credibility issues with cooperators,” said former prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg, “but these are very experienced prosecutors and they’re making a decision that, on balance, they’re getting something in return.”
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After Scandals, Colorado Lawmakers Study Misconduct Policy
As the Colorado Legislature grapples with sexual misconduct allegations, lawmakers are set to receive recommended changes to the workplace harassment policy.
Lawmakers hope to use an outside report being presented Thursday as a blueprint for a new policy.
Five Colorado lawmakers have been accused of misconduct. One was expelled and a second survived an expulsion vote.
Colorado’s policy considers allegations, investigations and punishment confidential and off-limits to the public. It’s up to the accuser whether to release his or her complaint. It defines offensive conduct, but leaves it up to chamber leaders to decide what punishment, if any, to mete out.
Legislators vow to have an updated policy in hand before the 2018 session ends in May.
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