Image copyright
Chris Hondros

Image caption

The Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Epstein died

Two prison guards have been suspended and a warden temporarily reassigned at the New York City jail where Jeffrey Epstein died of suspected suicide.

It comes after the FBI opened an investigation into the death of Epstein, who was facing prosecution for sex trafficking when he was found dead.

The suspension, ordered by Attorney General William Barr, came a day after he criticised the jail’s “failure”.

The circumstance surrounding the financier’s death has raised questions.

It remains unclear why Epstein was taken off suicide watch after an attempted suicide last month. He also was supposed to have been checked in on by a guard every 30 minutes.

Before his downfall, Epstein had previously counted many prominent rich and powerful people, including Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as friends.

What did the Department of Justice say?

In a statement, Mr Barr “directed the Bureau of Prisons to temporarily assign” warden Lamine N’Diaye to a regional office, pending a full investigation.

He will be replaced by James Petrucci, the warden of the federal prison in Otisville, New York.

Image copyright
Reuters

Image caption

Epstein faced up to 45 years in jail if convicted

Two other staff members who were assigned to Epsteins’ unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) have also been placed on leave.

“Additional actions may be taken as the circumstances warrant,” the statement added.

On Tuesday, a union official for workers at the jail told the Washington Post that one of the guards on Epstein’s unit on Saturday – when he died – was not a regular correctional officer, but rather another form of prison employee who was directed to operate as a guard due to staffing shortages.

Both guards working on his unit were working overtime shifts, but it’s unclear whether they were doing so voluntarily.

The union representing federal prison guards, the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prison Locals, said in a statement after Epstein’s death that many guards are forced to work overtime.

In a statement provided to BBC News, the organisation’s president Eric Young said prison employees who are not correctional officers – such as teachers, nurses, clerical workers – are often made to guard inmates due to a process known as “augmentation”.

What has Trump said?

President Donald Trump told reporters in New Jersey on Tuesday: “I want a full investigation, and that’s what I absolutely am demanding.

“That’s what our attorney general, our great attorney general, is doing. He’s doing a full investigation.”

He also defended his decision to retweet conspiracy theory that suggested that the Clinton family had Epstein killed.

“He’s a very highly respected conservative pundit,” Mr Trump said of comedian Terrence K Williams, who wrote the original post.

“He’s a big Trump fan. And that was a retweet. That wasn’t from me… So I think I was fine.”

Media caption‘Any co-conspirators should not rest easy’

The order comes one day after Mr Barr said he was “frankly angry to learn of the MCC’s failure to adequately secure this prisoner.”

He added: “We will get to the bottom of what happened and there will be accountability.”

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49323327

President Trump said Tuesday that he’s learned the Chinese government is sending its military to the Hong Kong border amid mounting clashes between riot police and pro-democracy protesters.

“Our Intelligence has informed us that the Chinese Government is moving troops to the Border with Hong Kong,” the president tweeted. “Everyone should be calm and safe!”

For more than two months, Hong Kong has seen mass protests urging democratic reforms and an investigation into police conduct.

The demonstrations, in turn, have raised concerns among U.S. officials about how far China might go to clamp down. “The United States, and all the freedom-loving nations around the world, must stand ready to swiftly move to defend freedom if China escalates the conflict in Hong Kong,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters in New Jersey on Tuesday, Trump said, “The Hong Kong thing is a very tough situation.”

“Very tough,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. But I’m sure it’ll work out. I hope it works out for everybody, including China, by the way.”

The president also tweeted that some people are “blaming” him for the events in Hong Kong, though it was unclear what criticism he was referring to.

“Many are blaming me, and the United States, for the problems going on in Hong Kong. I can’t imagine why?” the president tweeted.

Earlier Tuesday, demonstrators shut down operations at Hong Kong’s airport for the second straight day, flooding the main terminal. Officers armed with pepper spray and batons confronted the protesters, who used luggage carts to barricade entrances to the building.

HONG KONG PROTESTERS CLASH WITH RIOT POLICE ARMED WITH PEPPER SPRAY AT AIRPORT

Authorities were forced to cancel all remaining flights at one of the busiest airports in the world from 4:30 p.m. local time, just one day after protesters were able to successfully shut down all operations.

Protesters are demanding that Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam step down and pull legislation that would allow the government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China, where they would likely face torture or unfair politically charged trials. Recent demonstrations have called for an independent inquiry into the city’s police and its alleged abuse of power.

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Lam said Tuesday that dialogue would begin only when the violence stopped. She reiterated her support for the police and said they have had to make on-the-spot decisions under difficult circumstances, using “the lowest level of force.”

Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-china-is-moving-troops-to-hong-kong-border-as-police-clash-with-protesters

“It looks like he doesn’t want the price of iPhones going up into Christmas,” Bass said on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley ” Tuesday. “The Chinese are going to read this as a key weakness.”

China meanwhile, has not publicly backed off. It announced last week that it would not resume buying U.S. agricultural products, despite assurances otherwise by Xi to Trump at the June G-20 summit. It also has retaliated with its own tariffs on U.S. goods and set off more worries about the trade war on Friday by letting its currency weaken.

John Rutledge, chief investment officer of global principal investment house Safanad, said the trade war is causing pain on both sides. In China, Rutledge said Xi is feeling pressure to show strength in the trade war, while Washington is grappling with mounting political pressure and costs to consumers.

But that can change quickly, Rutledge said, depending on which of Trump’s trade advisors have his ear at the moment.

“There’s a battle of the bands among advisors — this may be just a tick up as the rational group prevailed,” Rutledge said, referring to White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whom he calls “market thinkers” in opposition to trade hawk and advisor Peter Navarro.

Still, Rutledge said its nearly impossible to predict the White House’s next move and investors should take this as “one day and one data point.”

“We shouldn’t extrapolate or draw a trend, since it might get revered,” Rutledge said.

The president’s top priorities — a strong stock market and a tough China trade deal — have been at odds. Uncertainty around the trade war has weighed on financial markets. Stocks saw their worst day of the year on Aug. 5 after China let its currency weaken below 7 yuan to the dollar and made its announcement about U.S. farm products.

“The White House is now delaying the tariffs and removing some items. Did some acronym called the SPX cause someone to blink?,” David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates, said in a tweet.

China’s Commerce Ministry said Vice Premier Liu He had a phone call with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lightizer and Mnuchin. Trade talks are set to continue in two weeks. According to Chinese news outlet CGTN, the call for the world’s two largest economies to meet again on trade came from Lighthizer, not China.

So far, the pain felt by the stock market has not been that exaggerated. At its low point for this sell-off, the S&P 500 was down only a little more than 6% from its high.

“These developments are modestly positive, especially compared to the recent torrent of negative news, but we caution against viewing the tariff delay as anything more than an attempt to partially shield the American consumer heading into the holiday season,” Isaac Boltansky of Compass Point Research wrote in a note to clients. “We continue to believe that a broad deal will not emerge prior to the 2020 election.”

Trump, himself, accused China last week of trying to wait out the 2020 election for a trade deal.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/trump-just-blinked-giving-china-a-possible-edge-in-trade-war-jim-chanos-others-say.html

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that being president will personally cost him billions of dollars, due in part to the lawyers he has had to hire to defend him in various lawsuits.

“This thing is costing me a fortune, being president,” Trump said during a speech at the Shell Petrochemical plant in Monaca, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.

“Somebody said ‘Oh, he rented a room to a man from Saudi Arabia for $500,’” Trump said, in reference to reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and members of his delegation booked multiple nights in a Trump hotel.

“What about the $5 billion that I’ll lose?” Trump asked, noting his high cost of lawyers “cause everyday they sue me for something.”

“It’s probably costing me from $3 to $5 billion for the privilege of being — and I couldn’t care less—I don’t care. You know if you’re wealthy, it doesn’t matter. I just want to do a great job,” Trump added.

These figures are virtually impossible to check; the president has not released his tax returns publicly, and has been found in the past to exaggerate his own wealth.

Trump also took aim at President Barack Obama. “I got sued on a thing called ’emoluments,’” Trump said. “Now nobody looks at Obama getting $60 million for a book. That’s okay, even though nobody in history ever got that much money for a book…But with me, it’s everything.”

Barack Obama and Michelle Obama signed a joint book deal for $65 million in 2017, after Obama had left office. The emoluments clause applies to federal officeholders, not private citizens.

Speaking to a room full of factory workers in a state that he narrowly carried in 2016, Trump joked about how easy re-election would be if he “got a fair press.”

“Can you imagine if I got a fair press? I mean we’re leading without it,” Trump said. “The election would be over. Have they ever called of an election before? Just said ‘Look, let’s go, go on, four more years.”




Trump then made light of creating a joke twitter hashtag that he said would disturb reporters, telling the crowd if “you really want to drive them crazy, go to #ThirdTerm, #FourthTerm.”

Although the Shell Plant was an official White House event, not a campaign event, Trump launched his usual trail attack against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is running for president and has recently surged in primary polls.

“We will have to hit ‘Pocahontas’ again if she does win,” Trump said, using his favored nicknames for both the Massachusetts senator and Democratic front-runner Vice President Joe Biden, whom he refers to as “Sleepy Joe.”

The White House has looked to showcase the massive construction project the president was there to tour will serve as a symbol of the Trump economy in a key swing state. When complete, the facility is projected to employ about 500 workers manufacturing plastic pellets made from ethane, a byproduct of fracking, that can be turned into a range of plastic goods, from food packaging to car parts.

The visit gave Trump an opportunity to get back on the offensive after a week of defending his divisive rhetoric and approach to gun control policy following mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.

Shell began preparing the site for construction in 2015 and officially started construction in November 2017.

Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/08/13/its-probably-costing-me-from-dollar3-billion-to-dollar5-billion/23792910/

Residents of Nenoksa, the village closest to the incident, were told to leave on a special train that would be sent to their community, TV29, a local news outlet, reported on Tuesday. It attributed the move to events at the nearby base from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Wednesday, but did not elaborate on those events or explain the time frame.

The civil authorities in a nearby city, Severodvinsk, said in a statement to Interfax that the population of the village had been advised to be out of the area by Wednesday because of unspecified “planned activities” at the military testing range.

“The leadership of the Nenoksa testing range informed us of planned activities of the military authorities,” the statement said. “In this connection, it was advised that residents of Nenoksa depart the territory of the village from Aug. 14.”

There was no indication when it might be safe for them to return.

Later on Tuesday, however, a report on Interfax suggested that the evacuation might have been called off. It quoted an anonymous official in the Severodvinsk city administration as saying, “Yes, indeed, they informed us the military had canceled tomorrow’s activities.”

President Vladimir V. Putin boasted last year that Russia was testing a cruise missile that would be propelled by a small nuclear reactor, in addition to carrying a nuclear warhead, flying a path too unpredictable to be intercepted. Western analysts called the missile “Skyfall,” and on Monday, President Trump tweeted that the accident last week was a Skyfall exploding.

The Russian authorities have not said that the new type of weapon was linked to the accident. But they have acknowledged that radioactive material and a reactor were involved in the incident at a missile testing range.

Russian statements about the intensity of the radiation release have been contradictory. Scientists with the Russian Federal Nuclear Agency said on Sunday that radiation levels had climbed briefly to twice the background level in Severodvinsk, about 25 miles from the test site.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/world/europe/russia-nuclear-explosion-accident.html

Beijing will regard protesters as crossing a red line in causing the suspension of flights at Hong Kong International Airport. In a limited but highly public manner, the function and power of the Chinese state has ground to a halt.

President Xi Jinping and his minions believe that the current situation, one in which flights have been suspended for the past two days, cannot continue. That’s not so much a result of the damage to Hong Kong’s economy or the disruption these protests are causing to passengers. It’s because the protests are visibly undercutting the Chinese Communist Party’s supreme authority.

For the standing committee in Beijing, that undercutting is utterly intolerable.

This is not to say that China wants to use military force to crush the “Umbrella” protest movement. Beijing knows that the visual of Peoples Liberation Army soldiers bashing young protesters into submission would be disastrous for the regime’s international reputation. It would be seen, possibly, as a second Tiananmen Square atrocity.

While vicious authoritarianism is the defining hallmark of the Chinese Communist Party, Beijing needs to provide a credible pretense to the contrary. That pretense is crucial if Xi is to succeed in expanding his Belt and Road economic initiative. Ultimately designed to supplant the U.S.-led democratic international order, Belt and Road involves generous Chinese investments abroad in return for Chinese market dominance and feudal political fealty.

But for the Chinese communists, no concern matters nearly as much as the well understood supremacy of the state’s authority. The principle must be enshrined, Beijing believes, in order to prevent any future resistance against the state.

Hence why Beijing’s escalating threats to use force in Hong Kong cannot be discounted. If protesters continue to shut down Hong Kong International Airport, Xi will deploy the military to crush them.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/hong-kong-international-airport-seizure-almost-certainly-means-a-chinese-military-response

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Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/trump-says-he-delayed-tariffs-because-of-concerns-over-christmas-shopping-season.html

President TrumpDonald John TrumpSecurity analyst calls Trump’s language on Hong Kong protests ‘inappropriate’ Americans’ opinions about China hit record low: survey Pentagon watchdog says it is officially reviewing billion ‘war cloud’ contract MORE has a problem with suburban voters — and it could have profound consequences for his chances of reelection next year.

An NBC News analysis Monday noted that Trump has been “underwater” with suburban voters in five out of six NBC News–Wall Street Journal polls conducted this year.

That finding comports with other surveys that show Trump performing poorly with some of the key voting blocs that populate the nation’s suburbs, notably white women and white college graduates. 

Those dynamics make Trump’s path to reelection a steep one, experts say.

“We are a long way off from November 2020, but my general sense is that it is going to be very tough for him to reverse the Democratic trends in the suburbs,” said Terry Madonna, a professor of public affairs and a polling expert at Franklin & Marshall College in the electorally crucial state of Pennsylvania.

Trump won the Keystone State by about 44,000 votes in 2016 — less than 1 percentage point. He rolled up similarly narrow margins of victory in Michigan and Wisconsin, two other states that had been thought to form a reliably Democratic “blue wall.”

The margins were so narrow that any shift in the suburbs could swing those states back into the Democratic column, even if Trump were to retain the enthusiasm of his base.

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said the movement in the suburbs means “there are a number of places where it will simply boost the Democratic share of the vote. In places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, that could be critical to offsetting the working class and rural vote [for Trump].”

Most Republican strategists acknowledge the problem exists, but there are divergent opinions as to its cause.

Some argue there had been a gradual move away from the GOP among suburban voters even before Trump rose to prominence.

The consensus is that those voters, even if fiscally conservative, may have been put off by some of the more socially conservative views expressed by Republican candidates.

The 2013 GOP “autopsy” report that followed former President Obama’s defeat of GOP nominee Mitt RomneyWillard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyThe Memo: Suburbs spell trouble for Trump US ambassador to Germany calls out journalists who blocked him on Twitter GOP senators press Google on reports it developed a smart speaker with Huawei MORE the previous year, for example, asserted that “the Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. … Devastatingly, we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”

Trump’s 2016 win — a shock to many within his own party — looked like a rebuke to such ideas and a validation of his “red-meat” appeal to the white working-class conservative base. 

But as his reelection looms, some GOP strategists believe his style and combative approach are having a destructive effect on his chances, and on the broader electoral hopes of his party. 

GOP strategist Liz Mair noted her own experience traveling to different states where “one of the things I notice a lot is that there is an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. People are tired. People feel like Donald Trump the reality TV star was fine when we had ‘The Apprentice’ one or two hours a week. But now it’s 24/7, week after week.”

Mair added, based on anecdotal evidence, that in their day-to-day lives “a lot of suburban women feel they have quite a lot piled on, and they just don’t need the extra dose of daily drama” that Trump injects.

Other Republicans worry about the impact of particular policies with moderate suburban voters. 

Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee, asserted that the separation of parents from their children at the southern border was “viewed extremely negatively” by the voters in question.

Trump loyalists say this is all unfair. They point to how wrong the conventional wisdom was in 2016, when the first-time candidate swept aside 16 more experienced rivals to win the GOP nomination, and then defeated Democratic nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonThe Memo: Suburbs spell trouble for Trump Campaign aide: Trump asking questions shared by ‘millions of Americans’ with Epstein conspiracy theory Iowa Democratic official: Trump tariffs starting to hurt his standing in the state MORE against the odds.

The president and those close to him also believe that the strength of the economy will be a key asset with suburban voters as he seeks a second term.

To be sure, much will also depend on whom the Democrats choose as their nominee. 

But there is no real doubt that there are serious signs of erosion for Trump and his party in the suburbs.

Exit polls in 2016 showed Trump winning suburban voters by 4 points over Clinton. In the 2018 midterm elections, those voters split evenly between Republicans and Democrats. 

In 2016, Trump won white college graduates by 3 points — 48 percent to 45 percent. In 2018, that group went for Democrats over Republicans by 8 points, 53 percent to 45 percent.

Clinton won white college-educated women by 7 points in 2016. Two years later in the midterms, her party expanded that advantage to 20 points. 

“The evidence was crystal clear in 2018 that there was a significant shift in the suburbs,” Murray, the Monmouth University expert, asserted. 

Trump allies argue that it will be different once his name is again on the ballot. 

But the evidence to support that thesis is scant. In a Quinnipiac University poll conducted late last month, 57 percent of white college graduates said they would “definitely not” vote for Trump next year, while only 30 percent said they definitely would. A further 12 percent said they would “consider” voting from him. 

In the most recent of the NBC News–Wall Street Journal polls, conducted last month, he was 3 points underwater with suburban voters as a whole. 

Virtually no one expects Trump’s tone or political persona to change — love it or hate it. But that makes it difficult to see any plausible way he can drive up his numbers in the suburbs.

His best chance, according to some GOP strategists, is to hope for an equally unpalatable Democratic opponent. 

“A lot of this does depend on what the Democrats do. They have an infinite capacity to botch this,” said Mair. “They better be careful.”

But one thing’s for sure: Virtually everyone is in agreement that the suburbs will be a crucial battleground. 

“You just can’t rule out the pivotal role that the suburbs are likely to play,” said Madonna. 

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trump’s presidency.

Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/457176-the-memo-suburbs-spell-trouble-for-trump

Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre was once spotted partying on a yacht in the French Riviera for Naomi Campbell’s birthday in 2001.

New photos have emerged showing the fresh-faced 17-year-old wearing a crop top and shiny pants alongside Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime girlfriend who allegedly recruited Giuffre as the financier’s sex slave.

Also on board the yacht in Saint-Tropez was Campbell, who was celebrating her 31st birthday in a bikini top, and her then-boyfriend Flavio Briatore, an Italian businessman.

There’s no evidence that anyone at the party knew who Giuffre was or about Epstein’s alleged pedophile behavior.

A rep for Campbell denied she was friends with Epstein and said he had been invited to the party by Briatore, The Sun reported.

Virginia Giuffre, now Roberts (center), with Prince Andrew and Maxwell inside his London home

Giuffre, now Roberts, was wearing a similar outfit in a photograph showing her posing next to Prince Andrew and Maxwell at the prince’s London home.

The British royal — who is smiling and has his hand around the teen’s waist — is among the slew of men Giuffre claims she slept with at the behest of Epstein and Maxwell. He and the others have denied the allegations.

The pic was among thousands of pages of court documents unsealed last week as part of Giuffre’s settled defamation lawsuit against Maxwell.

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2019/08/13/jeffrey-epsteins-sex-slave-seen-at-naomi-campbells-birthday-party-in-2001/

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) – A man whose truck was being impounded suddenly grabbed a rifle and opened fire,

killing a California Highway Patrol officer and wounding two others before he was killed

, authorities said.

Other drivers ran for cover and two people were slightly injured as dozens of bullets flew shortly after 5:30 p.m. Monday just off a freeway in Riverside, east of Los Angeles.

“We don’t know his motive for this crime,” Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz said. Investigators were still gathering evidence at the scene Tuesday morning.

KABC-TV reported that a man identified the shooter as his son, Aaron Luther, 49, of neighboring Beaumont.

A CHP officer was doing paperwork to impound the pickup truck when the man reached in, grabbed a rifle and fatally wounded the officer, authorities said.

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Cellphone video captures deadly officer-involved shooting in Riverside

The officer was identified as Andre Moye, Jr.

“I am devastated by the tragedy that unfolded earlier in Riverside. Tonight, I mourn the loss of one of our own,” CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley said in a tweet.

Family members said Moye was 33 and had been with the CHP for about four years.

“He was so kind,” his stepmother, Debbie Howard, told KTVU-TV. “You’re not going to hear one bad word about him. He loved this job.”

Two other CHP officers were wounded, one critically, as officers from several agencies fought the man.

“It was a long and horrific gun battle,” the chief said.

Dennis Luther of Riverside said he watched the shootout on television.

“It’s hard. I love him. And I’m sorry for the policeman,” he told KABC-TV. “I’m devastated. I just can’t believe it.”

Luther said his son served prison time for attempted murder but was released more than a decade ago. He says he doesn’t know what his son was doing with a gun as a felon, which is illegal.

After his truck was impounded, Aaron Luther called his wife to pick him up, his father said.

When she arrived, the tow truck was there.

“She said she heard ‘pop, pop, pop’ … gunfire, and then a bullet went through the windshield of her car,” Luther said of his son’s wife.

The father said his son recently seemed depressed, was having knee pain and marital problems but was devoted to his two children and a stepchild.

“He lived for his kids. That’s what motivated him,” Luther said. “So I don’t know what overcame him. I mean, I wish I did know.”

Two people received superficial injuries and “they’re going to be OK.” Parker said.

Jennifer Moctezuma, 31, of Moreno Valley told the Los Angeles Times that she was driving home with her 6-year-old twins when a bullet flew through her front windshield.

Charles Childress, 56, a retired Marine from Moreno Valley, was in the car behind her.

He led the family as they crawled to the bottom of a bridge to hide and none were harmed, the Times reported.

“He’s my hero,” Moctezuma said.

Authorities did not immediately say what prompted the officer to stop and impound the truck. Investigators didn’t immediately know where the gunman came from or where he was headed, Diaz said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered flags at half-staff Tuesday in the state Capitol.

“Our hearts ache over the tragic loss,” Newsom said on Twitter.

After the shooting, dozens of law enforcement officers gathered outside of the hospital in nearby Moreno Valley. Snipers were posted on the roof as a precaution.

Dozens lined up and saluted as the officer’s flag-draped body was removed from the hospital and placed in a hearse. Motorcycle officers then led a procession as the hearse was driven to the county coroner’s office.

Source Article from https://www.10news.com/news/gunmans-motive-unknown-in-deadly-riverside-shootout

The argument comes as other presidential contenders, including South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have criticized the increased politicization of the Supreme Court. But unlike arguments made by other candidates, the critique quietly put forward by Gillibrand was delivered directly to the justices.

The brief itself apparently alludes to the court-reform proposals, warning that the court is “not well,” and wondering whether it can “heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics,'” citing language from a recent Quinnipiac University poll, which found a majority of voters supported court restructuring.

Democratic proposals to reform the court have included expanding the size of the panel as well as shifting the way the judges are selected.

Besides Buttigieg and Gillibrand, candidates Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke have signaled an openness to adding justices to the court. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the race’s two leaders, have said they oppose such an expansion, however. Sanders, though, has floated support for term limits or instituting a system in which justices are rotated to appeals courts.

Court reform efforts gained new traction following the contentious confirmation hearings of Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year, which prompted liberal activists to urge Democratic lawmakers to address the court’s newly reliable conservative majority.

The senators’ brief spends considerable time on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

The NRA “promoted the confirmation (and perhaps selection) of nominees to the court who, it believed, would ‘break the tie in Second Amendment cases,'” the brief says, citing an NRA television ad from last fall that said, “President Trump chose Brett Kavanaugh to break the tie.”

“Out in the real world, Americans are murdered each day with firearms in classrooms or movie theaters or churches or city streets, and a generation of preschoolers is being trained in active-shooter fire drills,” the brief says. “In the cloistered confines of this Court, and notwithstanding the public imperatives of these massacres, the NRA and its allies brashly presume, in word and deed, that they have a friendly audience for their ‘project.'”

Neither the NRA nor the Federalist Society responded to a request for comment. Whitehouse, who took the lead on the filing, said in a statement that the “brief lays out what is increasingly clear to many Americans: a majority of the Supreme Court is acting as if it has been captured by special interests. The Court is encircled by anonymously funded organizations seeking partisan political gain, not adherence to law.”

Another friend-of-the-court brief, limited to the case’s legal issues, was signed by 139 members of the House of Representatives, including Reps. Seth Moulton and Tim Ryan, who are also running for the Democratic nomination.

Gillibrand, who has gone after the NRA throughout her presidential campaign, has come under scrutiny for her past views that were sympathetic to the gun lobby. In 2008, while representing upstate New York in Congress, Gillibrand signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to overturn a Washington handgun ban, which the court ultimately did.

The NRA has made public a 2008 letter from Gillibrand to the NRA’s then-executive director which she expresses her support for “the work that the NRA does to protect gun owners rights.”

Gillibrand has said she regrets her past positions. She told CBS last year that it was “something that I’m embarrassed about and I’m ashamed of.”

The legal dispute, which is expected to be argued in the winter or spring, is looming over conversations about new regulations on firearms and ammunition. It has been nearly a decade since the top court last heard a major Second Amendment case.

The case was brought by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association and challenged New York City rules that barred transporting firearms to gun ranges outside the city limits. New York won the legal fight before two lower courts, including a panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But after the Supreme Court agreed to review the Second Circuit decision, New York amended the challenged rules in order to give the challengers “everything they want, ” according to New York’s corporation counsel, Zachary Carter. Because New York voluntarily amended the disputed laws and regulations, the case should no longer be reviewed by the justices, New York argues.

The rifle association is asking the court to move forward with arguments in the case because of the significant Second Amendment issue at play, even if New York’s rules no longer apply. Paul Clement, who is representing the group, wrote in a brief that New York “has not even tried to hide the fact that its paramount goal is to evade the prospect of a binding unfavorable decision.”

The lawmakers’ brief cites previous arguments from Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee. Roberts, a conservative, is known to be protective of the court’s public image. The brief quotes from Roberts’ dissent in the 2015 landmark gay rights case Obergefell v. Hodges, which upheld the right of gay couples to marry, in which Roberts declared that the court “is not a legislature.”

The brief notes that the Republican-appointed justices have formed the majority in 78 cases between 2005 and 2018, 73 of which “concerned interests important to the big funders, corporate influencers, and political base of the Republican Party.”

“Obviously, the Court is not standing back in dispassionate form and ‘calling balls and strikes’ when it is laying the groundwork for future policy changes or soliciting opportunities to change policy,” the brief says, citing the baseball metaphor Roberts famously employed during his own Senate confirmation hearings. “That should be unacceptable in the context of separated powers.”

The justices are set to decide on whether the case still merits review in October.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/gillibrand-slams-the-nra-federalist-society-in-supreme-court-filing.html

There’s an old John Mulaney bit that’s made the rounds on Twitter today. The comic relays getting chastised by a network executive for writing a joke with the word “midget.”

“He said, ‘You can’t use midget. Midget is as bad as the N-word,'” Mulaney recounts. “First off, no. No, it’s not. Do you know how I know it’s not? Because we’re using the word midget, and we’re not using the N-word. When comparing the badness of two words and you can’t say one of the words, that’s the worst one.”

It’s a good bit, and apparently one that CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has unfortunately never seen before. The buff Cuomo brother has come under fire for a filmed tirade of him lambasting a heckler deriding him as a “Fredo.” The anchor called it as bad as the N-word, and CNN has stood behind him for defending himself “when he was verbally attacked with the use of an ethnic slur in an orchestrated setup.”

CNN haters have rightly criticized the absurd idea that this reference to the dopey Godfather brother was intended to impugn Cuomo’s Italian ethnicity rather than his follies. But lost here is the more important lesson of CNN’s defense: Public figures in a private capacity deserve not to be heckled or threatened in civil society, especially in front of their children.

Based on the available reporting, the video seems to have been prompted by a right-wing troll who accosted Cuomo at a Shelter Island bar while the anchor was on vacation. The unidentified man, who presumably staged the encounter, then sent the video to a right-wing YouTube channel.

It’s wrong to aggressively confront a public figure in a private capacity, especially if it’s with the sole intention of filming a provocation. It’s one thing to politely voice a concern or complaint with someone if they seem willing to engage with a stranger in their personal time. It’s entirely another to harass them while they’re on a family vacation.

We saw how the Left treated Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson, and we were all outraged, weren’t we? If Cuomo was with his wife, or worse, with his children, then he had every right to stand up for himself. No, he should not have escalated the conflict with violent rhetoric. No, he should not have couched his defense of himself with a bogus spin on “Fredo” being as bad as the N-word. But Cuomo was right to be livid and he had every right to punch back.

Late last year, Tucker Carlson’s daughter was viciously harassed in a country club by a left-wing troll represented by Michael Avenatti. Many in the media uncritically reiterated the aggressor’s claims that Carlson’s rightful pushback was “assault.” Then, when antifa protestors stormed Carlson’s home, the same CNN journalists who claimed that “we may never really know what happened” with regards to Jussie Smollett’s hate crime hoax equivocated and nitpicked about the attack, implying that a rightly enraged Carlson was intentionally lying about it.

Bad faith actors outright excused the attack.

Time and time again in the past two years, we’ve seen Trump administration members such as Ivanka Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders harassed or even chased out of restaurants. Illiberal leftists didn’t just defend such incivility. They did so with the full knowledge that these encounters occurred in private, apolitical places in front of the subjects’ children.

Don’t stoop to their level.

Cuomo’s rhetorical self-defense may have gone overboard in the heat of the moment. But he deserves some leniency, given the circumstances. Whatever gripes you may have with public figures, they deserve a private life and the same respect with which you would treat any other stranger within civil society.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/dont-heckle-people-in-their-private-lives-not-even-chris-cuomo

[Read how the protests have put Hong Kong on a collision course with the Communist Party.]

They have since morphed into calls for more direct elections, a call for Mrs. Lam to resign and an investigation of the police, among other demands.

Beijing, which views the unrest as a direct challenge to its authority, has warned the protesters to stop and has leaned on Hong Kong’s political and business elite to close ranks behind Mrs. Lam, a career civil servant.

Much of the pressure on the business community has focused in recent days on Cathay Pacific, one of the territory’s best-known international brands. The Chinese government has forced it to bar staffers who support or participate in the protests from doing any work involving flights to mainland China.

On Tuesday afternoon, Rupert Hogg, the airline’s chief executive, warned employees against participating in Tuesday’s airport demonstration because it was not sanctioned by the government.

“It is important that you do not support or participate in this protest,” Mr. Hogg said in an internal email. “Again, we would be concerned about your safety if this protest becomes disorderly or violent.” Cathay also said on Tuesday that it had suspended an officer for misusing company information the day before.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/world/asia/hong-kong-airport-protest.html

One of the two people monitoring Jeffrey Epstein in the hours before his death was not a properly trained prison guard, it has been reported.

As attorney general William Barr condemned “serious irregularities” at the jail where he was being held on bail, and the world waited news of details of an autopsy amid huge speculation and frenzied conspiracy theories, it emerged the 66-year-old disgraced financier had not been checked for several hours before he was found dead in his cell.

Epstein, who was last month arrested and accused of orchestrating a sex trafficking network involving girls as young as 14, had not been on suicide watch at the time of his death.

Regulations did call for him to be checked every 30 minutes, however. These rules were put into place after the man who was once a friend of multiple powerful men and celebrities, was was last month found unconscious on the floor of his cell with marks on his neck, an episode officials were investigating as possible suicide attempt or assault.

The New York Times said only one of the two people who were monitoring Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York City, was a “fully-fledged correctional officer”.

“We are now learning of serious irregularities at this facility that are deeply concerning and demand a thorough investigation,” said Mr Barr, who ordered two separate investigations into what happened.

“We will get to the bottom of what happened. There will be accountability.”

Speaking at a national policing conference in New Orleans on Monday morning, Mr Barr insisted that despite Epstein being found dead a day after new details were unsealed of the allegations against him, investigators would continue to probe the backdrop of those claims. Many of the numerous women to have accused Epstein of abuse, accusations he had most recently denied, had voiced regret they would now not get justice.

“Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein,” said Mr Barr. “ Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. The victims deserve justice and they will get it.”

The New York City medical examiner said an autopsy had been completed on Epstein on Sunday, but that a determination on the cause of his death was still pending. 

In the hours after the financier’s death on Saturday morning, Donald Trump, who was once one of Epstein’s friends or associate and in 2002 told a journalist he was “a terrific guy”, retweeted a conspiracy theory posted by a conservative comedian suggesting – without merit – Bill Clinton and his family were behind the prison death.

Epstein was arrested on July 6 and pleaded not guilty to federal charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls as young as 14, from at least 2002 to 2005.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Source Article from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jeffrey-epstein-suicide-death-guard-not-qualified-conspiracy-theory-autopsy-results-latest-a9055136.html

The United States Trade Representative office said Tuesday certain items were being removed from the new China tariff list because of “health, safety, national security and other factors” while tariffs on other items would be delayed until December 15.

The products in the group that will have tariffs delayed include “cell phones, laptop computers, video game consoles, certain toys, computer monitors, and certain items of footwear and clothing,” the USTR said.

Last month, President Donald Trump announced a new round of tariffs of 10% on $300 billion of Chinese imports that eluded duties in the earlier round announced in May. The USTR published a list of products in May that may be subject to an addition 10% tariff and that list is now being edited to avoid health and security factors. 

The new round of tariffs specifically took aim at retailers so the news of certain footwear and apparel tariffs being delayed has eased pressure on some of the major retailers that have suffered in recent weeks. Nike, Kohl’s, Nordstrom and other retailers were also trading higher.

Delays on centerpiece technology items like cellphones and laptops is also lifting pressure off of tech stocks and distributors of technology items. Apple shares traded nearly 5% higher on the news and Best Buy soared more than 8%. 

The USTR added that it will conduct an “exclusion process for products subject to additional tariff.”

Separately, China’s Commerce Ministry said Vice Premier Liu had a phone call with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lightizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. China said they agreed to another call in two weeks.

The next round of trade talks were expected to take place in September, after the tariffs went into place.

Markets rallied on the new tariff news. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 500 points, while the S&P 500 was 1.5% higher and the Nasdaq rose 1.9%. 

Uncertainty around the trade war has weighed on the markets, causing stocks to have their worst day of the year on August 5, when China let its currency weaken, crossing the 7 yuan-per-dollar threshold and said it would halt imports of agricultural goods from the U.S. 

Here’s the full statement from the USTR:

USTR Announces Next Steps on Proposed 10 Percent Tariff on Imports from China

Washington, DC – The United States Trade Representative (USTR) today announced the next steps in the process of imposing an additional tariff of 10 percent on approximately $300 billion of Chinese imports.

On May 17, 2019, USTR published a list of products imported from China that would be potentially subject to an additional 10 percent tariff. This new tariff will go into effect on September 1 as announced by President Trump on August 1.

Certain products are being removed from the tariff list based on health, safety, national security and other factors and will not face additional tariffs of 10 percent.

Further, as part of USTR’s public comment and hearing process, it was determined that the tariff should be delayed to December 15 for certain articles. Products in this group include, for example, cell phones, laptop computers, video game consoles, certain toys, computer monitors, and certain items of footwear and clothing.

USTR intends to conduct an exclusion process for products subject to the additional tariff.

The USTR will publish on its website today, and in the Federal Register as soon as possible, additional details and lists of the tariff lines affected by this announcement.

Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated cellphones were being removed from list. They are part of the delay.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/ustr-removes-some-items-from-list-of-new-china-tariffs-citing-health-safety-national-security.html

Thousands of people have attended the funerals of five Russian nuclear engineers killed by an explosion as they tested a new rocket engine, a tragedy that caused a large increase of radiation and raised questions about a secretive weapons programme.

The engineers were laid to rest on Monday in Sarov, which hosts Russia’s main nuclear weapons research centre, where they worked.

Flags flew at half-staff in the city 370km east of capital Moscow that has been a base for Russia’s nuclear weapons programme since the late 1940s. The coffins were displayed at Sarov’s main square before being driven to a cemetery.

Russia‘s defence ministry initially reported that the explosion at the navy’s testing range killed two people and injured six others.


But over the weekend, the state-controlled Rosatom nuclear energy company said the blast also killed five of its workers and injured three others. The final toll remains unknown.

Rosatom said the explosion occurred while the engineers were testing a “nuclear isotope power source” for a rocket engine.

The company said the victims were on a sea platform testing a rocket engine and were thrown into the sea by the explosion.

Rosatom director Alexei Likhachev praised the victims as “true heroes” and “pride of our country”.




The Russian government said on Tuesday that radiation levels around the site in Severodvinsk were up to 16 times higher than the norm, confirming widespread speculation.

“In six of the eight points in Severodvinsk, an excess gamma radiation dose rate at 4 to 16 times the background values was detected,” federal environment watchdog Roshydromet said in a statement, referring to the incident last Thursday.

Local authorities in Severodvinsk, a city of 183,000, had already reported a brief spike in radiation levels after the explosion, but said it did not pose any health hazards.

That statement from Severodvinsk’s administration came just as the defence ministry insisted that no radiation had been released, a claim that drew comparisons to Soviet-era attempts to cover up catastrophes.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Moscow, said more questions were being raised about what exactly happened last Thursday.

“Only now, five days later, it is becoming known that the radiation levels near the test site had gone up 16 times more than normal. The highest concentration was measured at a local kindergarten,” Vaessen said.

“Authorities have been extremely tightlipped about the accident, which is feeding speculation and conspiracy theories. Many people here remember what happened in 1986 when the Chernobyl accident occurred in neighbouring Ukraine. Of course this is of a very different scale, but the same sort of information blackout happened at that time,” Vaessen added.

Spooked residents rushed to buy iodide, which can help limit the damage from exposure to radiation.

Following the explosion, Russian authorities also closed part of Dvina Bay on the White Sea to shipping for a month, in what could be an attempt to prevent outsiders from seeing an operation to recover the missile debris.

‘Skyfall’

Russian environmental groups have urged the government to release details of the radioactive leak, but officials offered no further details.

Neither the defence ministry nor Rosatom mentioned the type of rocket that exploded during the test, saying only that it had liquid propellant.


But Rosatom’s mention of a “nuclear isotope power source” led some Russian media to conclude it was the Burevestnik (Petrel), a nuclear-powered cruise missile first revealed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2018 during his state of the nation address along with other doomsday weapons.

Experts have also linked the blast to the 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, known by NATO as SSC-X-9 Skyfall.

President Donald Trump weighed in on Monday on the blast, tweeting, “The United States is learning much from the failed missile explosion in Russia. We have similar, though more advanced, technology. The Russian ‘Skyfall’ explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!”

The US and the Soviet Union pondered nuclear-powered missiles in the 1960s, but they abandoned those projects as too unstable and dangerous.

While presenting the new missile, Putin claimed it will have an unlimited range, allowing it to circle the globe unnoticed, bypassing the enemy’s missile defence assets to strike undetected.

The president claimed the missile had successfully undergone the first tests, but observers were sceptical, arguing that such a weapon could be very difficult to handle and harmful to the environment.

Source Article from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/russian-nuclear-engineers-buried-skyfall-nuclear-blast-190813025930755.html

The Republican Party has long been panned by its detractors as the party of big money and big donors — but donation patterns have changed measurably under President Trump, a Fox News analysis of campaign finance data shows.

Sixty-one percent of money raised directly by the Trump campaign this election cycle came from small donors (donations under $200), according to Federal Election Commission figures.

2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TRACKER

That is similar to the proportion Trump raised during the 2016 election cycle, when 65 percent of donations were under $200. And this is dramatically higher than previous Republican nominees. Mitt Romney raised 26 percent of his direct contributions from small donations in 2012, and John McCain raised 25 percent from small donations in 2008.

Campaign finance analysts say the data indicates grassroots enthusiasm for Trump’s populist message.

“Democrats have traditionally been the party that has benefited the most from cultivating a small donor base,” Alex Baumgart, individual contributions researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, which runs the donation database OpenSecrets.com, told Fox News.

“It’s pretty clear from the numbers that Trump has done a lot to change that dynamic — the populist edge he’s brought to campaigning is clearly something that is resonating with small donors on the right.”

Conservative activists say Trump has changed the party.

“The Republican Party today is a vastly different party than it was five years ago,” said Michael Johns, a co-founder of the national Tea Party movement and a former White House speechwriter to President George H.W. Bush.

Johns said Trump’s focus on trade and other policies reflects that shift.

‘The populist edge he’s brought to campaigning is clearly something that is resonating with small donors on the right.’

— Alex Baumgart, Center for Responsive Politics

“The American people are demanding a secure border, demanding an end to the exploitative and unfair trade policies… and demanding an end to an unresponsive swamp culture,” Johns said, asserting that first the Tea Party, and then Trump, expanded the base to “today’s blue-collar and working Americans.”

NEW YORKERS MOCK DE BLASIO IN IOWA

Political scientists say that income data indicates a shift toward middle-income supporters, as well.

“Historically, there has been a very strong, positive correlation with income and Republican voting over the past several decades, but that went away in 2016,” Anthony Fowler, a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago who studies campaign finance, told Fox News.

Democratic presidential candidates also improved their grassroots fundraising compared with previous cycles. Among the 20 Democrats who made the debate stage this year, 51 percent of individual contributions were from small donors. That’s up from 26 percent for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and 43 percent for then-President Barack Obama in 2012.

Those figures vary significantly from candidate to candidate, however, with Sen. Cory Booker getting just 21 percent from small donors, former Vice President Joe Biden getting 38 percent and Sen. Kamala Harris getting 41 percent. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg has 49 percent from small donors, with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard at 61 percent, tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 67 percent, and Sen. Bernie Sanders at 77 percent (the most).

In last place is New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who got 9 percent of his individual contributions from small donors.

Fowler said studies show getting money from big donors is not necessarily bad.

“If there are any concerns that politicians behave differently because they’re getting donations from rich people, corporate interests, etc., we haven’t found much evidence in support of those concerns,” he said.

The above numbers tell the story of donations made directly to the campaigns, but some contributions are more complicated — like money raised through “political action committees,” or PACs. President Trump, for instance, works with two PACs — the “Trump Make America Great Again Committee” and “Trump Victory.” Money raised through those groups is then split between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, which promotes Trump independently.

The Trump PACs get 47 percent of their contributions from small donations.

With Trump PACs included, small donations given for Trump total $115,697,683 for the 2020 election cycle, and large donations total $117,457,166.

“While Trump has collected lots of small checks, he’s also still pulling in the major checks and big contributions,” Baumgart said.

“What really sets Trump apart from other Republicans in the past is the fundraising machine that he has created,” he added. “He’s a natural campaigner who has been actively running for reelection since his inauguration. Consequently, the campaign has been able to capitalize on this by fundraising off the back of the numerous political battles that have taken place since then.”

Trump’s unprecedented decision to fundraise ever since the last election makes it less likely he’ll be outspent as the election goes forward; in 2016, Trump was outspent nearly 2-to-1.

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Since the time that Democratic candidates started fundraising in 2019, all Democrats combined have pulled in more donations than Trump ($209 million compared with $106 million that Trump secured in 2019).

But because of his early start, $233 million has gone to Trump and his PACs for 2020, more than all Democratic rivals combined.

Michael Johns says he hopes the shift in where donations are coming from signals the Republican Party is becoming “the party of working people.”

“We need to call greater attention to how liberal Democrats have mismanaged our largest cities and let down urban voters. … We do this well and we can start to see a complete revolutionary shift, including solidifying the Republican Party as the party of working people.”

Maxim Lott is Executive Producer of Stossel TV and creator of ElectionBettingOdds.com. He can be reached on Twitter at @MaximLott

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/small-dollar-donations-trump-gop

Children of mainly Latino immigrant parents hold signs in support of them and other individuals swept up during an immigration raid at a food processing plant in Mississippi.

Rogelio V. Solis/AP


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Rogelio V. Solis/AP

Children of mainly Latino immigrant parents hold signs in support of them and other individuals swept up during an immigration raid at a food processing plant in Mississippi.

Rogelio V. Solis/AP

The Mississippi ICE raids swept up nearly 700 undocumented workers from several food processing plants last week. Among those stripped away from their jobs and arrested was Angel Lopez’s father.

“These past few days have just been hard because I’ve had to stay strong for my family,” he says.

The 15-year-old and his two younger brothers were all born in the U.S. Their parents entered the country illegally from Guatemala 18 years ago and settled in Mississippi.

Since their father’s arrest, the Lopez family has not been able to get in contact with him. The only information received are vague whereabouts, such as he’s in Louisiana.

“I’ve just been mad about the whole thing really,” Lopez says. “Cause the El Paso shooting had just happened a week ago and then why would you give an order like that for the raids that just happened like that? When people are still grieving?”

Federal authorities say these arrests shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Department of Homeland Security says the operation had been anticipated for months, the timing is just unfortunate.

Mike Hurst, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi., says the raids are meant to enforce law and order.

“While we do welcome folks from other countries, they have to follow our laws,” he says. “They have to abide by our rules. They have to come here legally or they shouldn’t come here at all.”

He warns that employers who “use illegal aliens for a competitive advantage or to make a quick buck — if we find that you have violated federal criminal law, we are coming after you.”

A white cross stands outside St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Carthage, Miss. The church has opened its doors to people in need of legal advice, hot meals or counseling

Debbie Elliott /NPR


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A white cross stands outside St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Carthage, Miss. The church has opened its doors to people in need of legal advice, hot meals or counseling

Debbie Elliott /NPR

In light of the number of families affected by the raids, St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Carthage has opened its doors to people in need of legal advice, hot meals or counseling lead by a social worker or child psychologist. Lopez’s family, fearing their father’s deportation, has looked to the church for guidance and support.

“My mom doesn’t know what to do at this point because my dad was the one bringing in everything for us,” Lopez says. “And seeing the way things are now, she’s confused of what to do. Because she has to take care of her autistic son. And she has to provide for me and my brother.”

Inside, the church is noticeably more empty than usual.

Father Odel Medina estimates at least 100 families from the 800-person parish are being affected. Some members are back after being released, others, however, still have not been heard from.

“The system sees numbers,” Medina says. “I know the people by name. I know that they are hard workers, they are people of faith, they are family people, community people. They were not at Walmart killing somebody else, they were working.”

Evelyn is a 20-year-old born in Miss. to parents who are originally from Guatemala. She asked not to disclose her last name because her father was also arrested. Her already traumatized family fears they may face further repercussions.

Evelyn describes a community left battling paranoia.

“[This] has everybody worried and scared because now they don’t want to come out the house. They don’t want to go get anything now, even go to the store,” Evelyn says.

Her 10-year-old brother, Darby, was coming home during his first week back to school. He fights back tears while explaining how he discovered that his father wasn’t home.

“And it was like the second day … and I came back because I was knocking on the door. Nobody answered.”

Church members at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Carthage, Miss., kneel in collective prayer at a somber service over the weekend.

Debbie Elliott /NPR


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Debbie Elliott /NPR

Church members at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Carthage, Miss., kneel in collective prayer at a somber service over the weekend.

Debbie Elliott /NPR

Darby eventually found his mother hiding inside a car with other relatives. She had been running late for work and therefore avoided an arrest. Now she’s afraid of returning back to her job.

Evelyn says it took them days to find out her dad is being held in a detention center located in Natchez, Miss., only three hours away from Carthage.

Her family has also come to the church to seek answers from lawyers, who have organized across several towns hit by the ICE raids, setting up makeshift legal clinics.

Attorney Amelia McGowan with the Miss. Center for Justice says in general, there are few immigration lawyers practicing in Miss. who will work for free. But after news hit about the ICE raids, several hundred lawyers around the country signed up to help the state’s devastated families.

“Many of these cases are going to be very long,” she says. They might take years to finish. And so we want to make sure that we have a sustainable network in place to really support people through the entire process.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/08/13/750442128/families-affected-by-mississippi-ice-raids-scramble-to-find-support

A tourist gives her luggage to security guards as she tries to enter the departures gate during another demonstration by pro-democracy protesters at Hong Kong’s international airport on August 13. Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images

In the past year, Hong Kong International Airport handled 74.7 million passengers — an average of 205,000 people every day.

The airport sees 1,100 passenger and cargo flights daily between about 200 international destinations.

But for the second straight day, it has been thrown into chaos by protesters.

Passengers have attempted to break through demonstrator blockades at security gates — but many haven’t been able to get through.

“Members of the public are advised not to come to the airport,” the Hong Kong Airport Authority said in a statement. “The Airport Emergency Centre has been activated.”

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/hong-kong-protests-airport-chaos-intl-hnk/index.html