Other tests of the impact of abortion on races are coming sooner. North of New York City, a Democrat running in a special House election this month, Pat Ryan, has made abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign, casting the race as another measure of the issue’s power this year.
“We have to step up and make sure our core freedoms are protected and defended,” said Mr. Ryan, the Ulster County executive in New York, who had closely watched the Kansas results.
Opponents of the Kansas referendum leaned into that “freedom” message, with advertising that cast the effort as nothing short of a government mandate — anathema to voters long mistrustful of too much intervention from Topeka and Washington — and sometimes without using the word “abortion” at all.
Some of the messaging was aimed at moderate, often suburban voters who have toggled between the parties in recent elections. Strategists in both parties agreed that abortion rights could be salient with those voters, particularly women, in the fall. Democrats also pointed to evidence that the issue may also drive up turnout among their base voters.
After the Supreme Court’s decision, Democrats registered to vote at a faster rate than Republicans in Kansas, according a memo from Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm. Mr. Bonier said his analysis found roughly 70 percent of Kansans who registered after the court’s decision were women.
Walorski, 58, was involved in a two-vehicle crash on Route 19 south of Route 119, according to the sheriff’s office. The driver of a northbound vehicle traveled left of the centerline and collided head-on with the sport-utility vehicle carrying Walorski and staffers Zachery Potts, 27, and Emma Thomson, 28. All three occupants in the southbound vehicle died of their injuries. Edith Schmucker, 56, was the sole occupant of the other vehicle. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — For years, bombastic far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ranted to his millions of followers that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, that children weren’t killed and that parents were crisis actors in an elaborate ruse to force gun control.
Under oath and facing a jury that could hit him with $150 million or more in damages for his false claims, Jones said Wednesday he now realizes that was irresponsible and believes that what happened in the deadliest school shooting in American history was “100% real.”
Jones’ public contrition came on the final day of testimony in a two-week defamation lawsuit against him and his Austin-based media company, Free Speech Systems, brought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis. Their son was a first grader who was among the 20 students and six teachers killed at the school in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012.
“I unintentionally took part in things that did hurt these people’s feelings,” said Jones, who also acknowledged raising conspiracy claims about other mass tragedies, from the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings to the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, “and I’m sorry for that.”
But an apology isn’t enough for Heslin and Lewis. They said Jones and the media empire he controls and used to spread his false assertions must be held accountable.
“Alex started this fight,” Heslin said, “and I’ll finish this fight.”
The parents testified Tuesday about a decade of trauma, inflicted first by the murder of their son and what followed: gun shots fired at a home, online and telephone threats, and harassment on the street by strangers, all fueled by Jones and his conspiracy theory spread to his followers via his website Infowars.
A forensic psychiatrist testified the parents suffer from “complex post-traumatic stress disorder” inflicted by ongoing trauma, similar to what might be experienced by a soldier at war or a child abuse victim.
At one point in her testimony, Lewis looked directly at Jones, who was sitting barely 10 feet away.
“It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this — that we have to implore you, to punish you — to get you to stop lying,” Lewis told Jones.
Courts in Texas and Connecticut have already found Jones liable for defamation for his portrayal of the Sandy Hook massacre as a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control.
Now, Heslin and Lewis are asking the jury in Austin for $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They will also ask the jury to assess additional punitive damages.
Jurors began considering damages Wednesday. Once they determine whether Jones should pay the parents compensation for defamation and emotional distress, it must then decide if he must also pay punitive damages. That portion will involve a separate mini-trial with Jones and economists testifying to his and his company’s net worth.
Jones’ attorney asked the jury to limit damages to $8 — one dollar for each of the compensation charges they are considering — and Jones himself said any award over $2 million “would sink us.”
At the end of Jones’ testimony, Mark Bankston, an attorney for the family, pulled a crumpled dollar bill out of his pocket, showed it to Jones, and put it down in front of the parents.
“The day Sandy Hook happened, Alex Jones planted a seed of misinformation that lasted a decade,” parents’ attorney Kyle Farrar told the jury in closing arguments. “And he just watered that seed over and over until it bore fruit: cruelty and money.”
During his testimony, Jones said he’s tried in the past to back off the hoax claims, but “they (the media) won’t let me take it back.”
Jones — who has been banned from major social media platforms for hate speech and abusive behavior — has portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights and complained that he’s been “typecast as someone that runs around talking about Sandy Hook, makes money off Sandy Hook, is obsessed by Sandy Hook.”
Eight days of testimony included videos of Jones and Infowars employees talking about the Sandy Hook conspiracy and even mocking Heslin’s description in a 2017 television interview that he’d held his dead son Jesse’s body “with a bullet hole through his head.” Heslin described that moment with his dead son to the jury.
Jones was the only witness to testify in his defense. And he came under withering attack from the plaintiffs attorneys under cross examination, as they reviewed Jones’ own video claims about Sandy Hook over the years, and accused him of lying and trying to hide evidence, including text messages and emails about Sandy Hook. It also included internal emails sent by an Infowars employee that said “this Sandy Hook stuff is killing us.”
At one point, Jones was told that his attorneys had mistakenly sent Bankston the last two years’ worth of texts from Jones’ cellphone.
And shortly after Jones declared “I don’t use email,” Jones was shown one that came from his address, and another one from an Infowars business officer telling Jones that the company had earned $800,000 gross in selling its products in a single day, which would amount to nearly $300 million in a year.
Jones has already tried to protect Free Speech Systems financially. The company filed for federal bankruptcy protection last week. Sandy Hook families have separately sued Jones over his financial claims, arguing that the company is trying to protect millions owned by Jones and his family through shell entities.
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Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber contributed to this report.
TAIPEI, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Suspected drones flew over outlying Taiwanese islands and hackers attacked its defence ministry website, authorities in Taipei said on Thursday, a day after a visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi that outraged China.
China was to begin a series of military exercises around Taiwan on Thursday in response to Pelosi’s visit, some of which were to take place within the island’s 12-nautical-mile sea and air territory, according to the defence ministry in Taipei.
That has never happened before and a senior ministry official described the potential move as “amounting to a sea and air blockade of Taiwan”.
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, said on Thursday its differences with the self-ruled island were an internal affair. read more
“Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable, lawful,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said.
China’s Xinhua news agency has said the exercises, involving live fire drills, will take place in six areas which ring Taiwan and will begin at 0400 GMT.
On Wednesday night, just hours after Pelosi left for South Korea, unidentified aircraft, probably drones, had flown above the area of the Kinmen islands, Taiwan’s defence ministry said. read more
Major General Chang Zone-sung of the army’s Kinmen Defense Command told Reuters that the drones came in a pair and flew into the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday night, at around 9 p.m. (1300 GMT). and 10 p.m.
“We immediately fired flares to issue warnings and to drive them away. After that, they turned around. They came into our restricted area and that’s why we dispersed them,” he said.
The heavily fortified Kinmen islands are just off the southeastern coast of China, near the city of Xiamen.
The defence ministry also said its website suffered cyber attacks and went offline temporarily late on Wednesday night, adding it was working closely with other authorities to enhance cyber security as tensions with China rise. read more
Pelosi, the highest-level U.S. visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese anger could not stop world leaders from travelling there.
China summoned the U.S. ambassador in Beijing and halted several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
Security in the area around the U.S. Embassy in Beijing remained unusually tight on Thursday as it has been throughout this week.
Although Chinese social media users have vented fury on Pelosi, there were no signs of significant protests or calls to boycott U.S. products.
‘WILL NOT ABANDON TAIWAN’
Taiwan scrambled jets on Wednesday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone, the island’s defence ministry said, adding that 22 of them crossed the median line separating the island from China. read more
Pelosi arrived with a congressional delegation on her unannounced but closely watched visit late on Tuesday, defying China’s repeated warnings and amid sharply deteriorating U.S.-Chinese relations.
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence – a red line for China. read more
“Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that’s the message we are bringing here today.”
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring it under its control. The United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned China against using the visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
“Sadly, Taiwan has been prevented from participating in global meetings, most recently the World Health Organization, because of objections by the Chinese Communist Party,” Pelosi said in statement issued after her departure.
“While they may prevent Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from travelling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing democracy, to highlight its many successes and to reaffirm our commitment to continued collaboration,” Pelosi added. read more
The US Senate delivered near-unanimous bipartisan approval to Nato membership for Finland and Sweden on Wednesday, calling expansion of the western defensive bloc a “slam-dunk” for US national security and a day of reckoning for Vladimir Putin.
The 95-1 vote for the candidacy of two European countries that, until Russia’s war against Ukraine, had long avoided military alliances took a crucial step toward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its 73-year-old pact of mutual defense among the United States and democratic allies in Europe.
Joe Biden, who has been the principal player rallying global economic and material support for Ukraine, has sought quick entry for the two previously non-militarily aligned northern European countries.
Approval from all member countries – currently, 30 – is required. The candidacies of Finland and Sweden have won ratification from more than half of the Nato member countries in the roughly three months since the two applied.
“It sends a warning shot to tyrants around the world who believe free democracies are just up for grabs,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, before the vote.
“Russia’s unprovoked invasion has changed the way we think about world security,” she added.
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who visited Kyiv earlier this year, urged unanimous approval. Speaking to the Senate, McConnell cited Finland’s and Sweden’s well-funded, modernizing militaries and their experience working with US forces and weapons systems, calling the decision a “slam-dunk for national security” of the United States.
“Their accession will make Nato stronger and America more secure. If any senator is looking for a defensible excuse to vote no, I wish them good luck,” McConnell said.
Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who often aligns his positions with those of the most ardent supporters of Donald Trump, has been one of the few to speak in opposition. Hawley took the Senate floor to call European security alliances a distraction from what he called the United States’ chief rival – China, not Russia.
“We can do more in Europe … devote more resources, more firepower … or do what we need to do to deter Asia and China. We cannot do both,” Hawley said, calling his a “classic nationalist approach” to foreign policy.
US state and defense department officials consider the two countries net “security providers”, strengthening Nato’s defense posture in the Baltics in particular. Finland is expected to exceed Nato’s 2% GDP defense spending target in 2022, and Sweden has committed to meet the 2% goal.
Sweden and Finland applied in May, setting aside their longtime stance of military non-alignment. It was a major shift of security arrangements for the two countries after neighboring Russia launched its war on Ukraine in late February. Biden encouraged their joining and welcomed the two countries’ government heads to the White House in May.
The US and its European allies have rallied with newfound partnership in the face of the Russian president’s aggression, strengthening the alliance formed after the second world war.
“Enlarging Nato is exactly the opposite of what Putin envisioned when he ordered his tanks to invade Ukraine,” Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign relations committee, said on Wednesday, adding that the west could not allow Russia to “launch invasions of countries”.
Biden sent the protocols to the Senate for review in July, launching a notably speedy process in the typically divided and slower-moving chamber.
Each member government in Nato must give its approval for any new member to join. The process ran into unexpected trouble when Turkey raised concerns over adding Sweden and Finland, accusing the two of being soft on banned Turkish Kurdish exile groups. Turkey’s objections still threaten the two countries’ membership.
For a year, U.S. officials have been saying that taking out a terrorist threat in Afghanistan with no American troops on the ground would be difficult but not impossible. Over the weekend, the U.S. did just that, killing Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri with a CIA drone strike.
Other high-profile airstrikes in the past had inadvertently killed innocent civilians. In this case, the U.S. appears to have carefully chosen to use a type of Hellfire missile that greatly minimized the chance of other casualties. Although officials have not publicly confirmed which variant of the Hellfire was used, experts and others familiar with counter-terrorism operations said a likely option was the highly secret Hellfire R9X — known by various nicknames, including the “knife bomb” or the “flying Ginsu.”
That potential use of the R9X, said Klon Kitchen, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former intelligence analyst, suggests that the U.S. wanted to kill Zawahiri with “limited likelihood of collateral death and destruction and for other relevant political reasons.”
A look at the Hellfire, and how Zawahiri likely was killed:
What is a Hellfire missile?
Originally designed as an antitank missile in the 1980s, the Hellfire has been used by military and intelligence agencies over the last two decades to strike targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
The precision-guided missiles can be mounted on helicopters and unmanned drones and are used widely in combat around the world. More than 100,000 Hellfire missiles have been sold to the U.S. and other countries, according to Ryan Brobst, an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
Experts say Ayman Zawahiri’s death won’t affect Al Qaeda’s operations, but it raises questions about the group’s links to the Taliban.
“It can do enough damage to destroy most targets such as vehicles and buildings while not doing enough damage to level city blocks and cause significant civilian casualties,” Brobst said.
The U.S. military has routinely used Hellfire missiles to kill high-value targets, including a senior Al Qaeda leader in Syria last year and Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.
What killed Zawahiri?
The U.S. had multiple options for the attack. It could have used a traditional Hellfire, a bomb dropped from a manned aircraft or a far more risky assault by ground forces. U.S. Navy SEALs, for example, flew into Pakistan on helicopters and took out Osama bin Laden in a raid.
In this case, the CIA opted for a drone strike. And while the CIA generally doesn’t confirm its counter-terrorism missions and closely guards information about strikes it conducts, U.S. government officials have said that two Hellfire missiles were fired at the balcony of the building where Zawahiri was living in Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Online images of the building show damage to the balcony, where the U.S. says Zawahiri was, but the rest of the house is standing and not badly damaged.
Unlike other models of the Hellfire, the R9X doesn’t carry an explosive payload. Instead, it has a series of six rotating blades that emerge on its final approach to a target, Kitchen said. “One of their utilities is in opening up vehicles and other obstructions to get to the target without having to use an explosive warhead,” he said.
At Al Qaeda, Ayman Zawahiri brought tactics and organizational skills needed to forge militants into a network of cells in countries around the world.
Avoiding civilian casualties
U.S. officials and experts made clear this week that avoiding civilian casualties was a crucial element in the choice of weapon.
Less than a year ago, a U.S. drone strike using a more conventional Hellfire missile struck a white Toyota Corolla sedan in a Kabul neighborhood and killed 10 civilians around and near the car, including seven children. In the midst of the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, American forces believed there were explosives in the car and that it posed an imminent threat to troops on the ground. It was, military leaders said, a “tragic mistake.”
One former U.S. official said the likely choice of an R9X is an example of the Biden administration’s effort to find ways to minimize collateral damage and prevent the loss of innocent life. That missile is a very accurate weapon that strikes in a very small area, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss counter-terrorism operations.
An administration official said Monday that the U.S. investigated the construction of the house where Zawahiri was staying in order to ensure that the operation could be done without threatening the structural integrity of the building and also minimizing the risks of killing civilians, including members of his family who were in other parts of the house.
As U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, efforts against a diminished Al Qaeda are in flux. Officials say the terrorist group could threaten the U.S. again.
The choice of missile is ultimately one part of reducing the possibility of killing civilians or causing other collateral damage.
“I would say this is by far a lower-risk option,” said Tom Karako, an expert on missile defense at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Using the Hellfire, he said, “reflects a high degree of caution as opposed to a riskiness.”
Is the U.S. providing Ukraine with drones that can fire Hellfire missiles?
No. While the U.S. has delivered billions of dollars in military assistance to help Ukraine fight invading Russian troops, it is wary of providing weapons that could fire deep into Russia, potentially escalating the conflict or drawing the U.S. into the war.
As a result, the U.S. so far has not provided Hellfire missiles or drones that could fire them. Instead, the U.S. has delivered smaller, so-called kamikaze drones, such as the Switchblade and Phoenix Ghost, which, instead of firing missiles, explode when they hit a target.
“This level of government overreach — literally interfering in the decisions a physician and patient make together — has resonated with people in Kansas,” she said. “It’s a scary moment to think that you or your loved one might be in a situation where it’s not up to you or your provider what care you can get and instead it’s up to the government and what they think you deserve.”
Turnout for the primary also soared above usual levels Tuesday, and in some counties was closer to the participation usually seen in a presidential election. More than 900,000 people voted, with 59 percent voting to reject the amendment.
The in-person early vote, which tends to favor Democrats, was nearly 250 percent higher than the last primary midterm election in 2018, when both Democrats and Republicans had competitive governors’ races, while the number of mail-in ballots was more than double.
The “no” campaign also outperformed in fairly conservative areas — like in Shawnee County in the eastern part of the state — coming in several points ahead of President Joe Biden’s results there in 2020.
At abortion rights groups’ campaign watch party in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, supporters cheered, cried, jumped and hugged each other tightly as new waves of votes were counted in their favor. Teens with purple hair wearing cutoffs mingled with older men and women in suits in a hotel ballroom. One woman cradled a doll of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she watched the results.
“Abortion isn’t a partisan issue — that’s a trap people fall into,” Ashley All, the spokesperson for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, told POLITICO. “That’s just not the way most Americans or most Kansans think about the issue.”
The results were also hailed by abortion rights groups around the country that see the defeat of the Kansas referendum as a blueprint for future efforts in cities and states across the country. The vote also countered the narrative that the abortion issue is a bigger motivator for conservative voters, and may signal a warning to Republican lawmakers across the country that the Roe decision may generate considerable backlash over the coming months and years.
“Reproductive freedom is a winning issue, now and in November,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement. “Anti-choice lawmakers take note: The voters have spoken, and they will turn out at the ballot box to oppose efforts to restrict reproductive freedom.”
The decision means abortion clinics in the state can continue to serve not only Kansans but also patients from Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and other states that have banned the procedure after Roe fell, many of whom have traveled to Kansas in recent weeks. The anti-abortion campaign seized on this trend, warning in ads that the state would become an “abortion destination” like California if the amendment failed.
Value Them Both, the umbrella group of anti-abortion advocates who pushed for the amendment, called the decision a “temporary setback.”
“Our dedicated fight to value women and babies is far from over,” they said in a statement Tuesday night. “We will be back.”
The referendum’s result particularly shocked the state because the pro-amendment campaign had some structural advantages heading into Tuesday, and they were ahead in recent polls.
Not only is Kansas a solidly red state that twice voted for President Donald Trump, but also the supermajority Republican legislature decided to schedule the vote for the primary instead of the general election. Turnout is usually far lower in August and favors Republicans, who have more competitive primaries than Democrats in Kansas. And many college students, who trend more progressive, are away for the summer.
Student activists working to defeat the amendment said they were all more motivated by what they saw as an underhanded effort to suppress their votes.
“It was very intentional, and I think young people have taken note of that and have realized that there are political structures in place to put us down,” said Donovan Dillon, a University of Kansas sophomore who helped lead the country-western-themed Vote Neigh campaign against the amendment. “When I reached out to friends and asked, ‘Do you want to come canvas this weekend?’ everyone’s been all hands on deck — even friends who haven’t been involved politically before.”
The “Value Them Both” amendment was rocket fuel for the usually sleepy primary election. Hundreds of volunteers from around the country converged on the state to knock on hundreds of thousands of doors. Both sides raised and spent millions of dollars on ads, mailers, phone banking and other outreach — much of it from the Catholic Church on the anti-abortion side and Planned Parenthood on the abortion rights side.
But while the state served as proxy war for the groups fighting over abortion rights nationally in a post-Roe America, the campaigns also had a distinctly Kansas flavor.
Outside the state capital in Topeka on Saturday, people protesting against the amendment waved posters covered in sunflowers while speakers on the capitol steps invoked the state motto “Ad astra per aspera” — to the stars through adversity. Local businesses down the street showed Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz urging her fellow Kansans to vote no.
The final days leading up to the vote were also marked by tension and confusion.
Some lawn signs for the “Value Them Both” campaign had NO spray painted over them in black capital letters. Catholic churches — the main funders of the anti-abortion campaign — have also been vandalized, while abortion rights demonstrators have been threatened with arrest.
On Saturday, a group of anti-abortion advocates marched up and down the sidewalks of Lawrence — a progressive college town — yelling “Don’t kill babies” at passersby.
On Sunday, an 18-year-old anti-abortion canvasser who came from Texas to volunteer with the group Students for Life said she was physically assaulted by a resident while knocking on doors in the Kansas City suburb of Leawood. She filed a police report and posted a video that doesn’t show the incident itself but shows the resident yelling and giving her the finger afterward.
On Monday, several residents alerted the state’s ACLU chapter that they received a deceptive robotext from an unknown number suggesting that a “yes” vote would protect abortion access.
“Women in Kansas are losing their choice on reproductive rights,” the messages read, according to screenshots shared with POLITICO. “Voting YES on the amendment will give women a choice.”
Former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius received the texts and said in a statement that she was not surprised by the tactic.
“The anti-choice movement has been lying to the voters of Kansas for decades,” she said. “This act of desperation won’t stop the voters of Kansas from protecting their constitutional rights and freedom.”
Many voters told POLITICO the debate has also pitted family members against one another.
Asked about the “Vote Yes” sign in his front yard, Olathe resident David Schaffer said that it belonged to his daughter and that he vehemently disagrees.
“She can do what she wants. She’s a grown adult,” he said. “But I say, if we turn it over to the legislature, I don’t get no say anymore — none. And that’s what this is doing.”
One of his neighbors, Edianna Yantis, told POLITICO her “Vote Yes” was recently stolen from her front yard and she suspected her son, who had been trying to convince her to vote no.
“He said, ‘Mom, I don’t like abortion but this means they’re going to take all abortion away.’ I told him, ‘You need to do your research,’ but he says he has,” she said with a sad smile.
Ultimately, despite the state’s conservative leanings, voters saw the amendment as a bridge too far.
And while younger voters in the state lean more progressive, the defeat of the proposal was also fueled by older Kansans like Barbara Lawson, who remembers life before Roev. Wade.
When canvassers with Kansans for Constitutional Freedom came to her door on Monday to urge her to vote against the amendment, Lawson shared that she had a baby when she was 17 years old after being raped.
“I don’t know if I would have [had an abortion] because I had no choice — abortion was illegal. It was very hard,” she said. “Now I fear they’re going to restrict all abortions again and we’re going to be left back in the Dark Ages.”
Leading up to Tuesday’s contest, there were signs that voters’ views on abortion were more nuanced than their partisan leanings. A July poll, for example, found that a third of voters favored no restrictions on abortion, while only 9 percent said they preferred a total ban. And a 2021 survey conducted by Fort Hays State University found that over 50 percent of Kansans agreed with the statement: “The Kansas government should not place any regulations on the circumstances under which women can get abortions.”
“People make a lot of assumptions about Kansas,” said Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), the sole Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, who flipped a previously red district in 2018. “People here care about their community and care about things being fair.”
TAIPEI, Aug 3 (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan on Wednesday after touting its democracy and pledging American solidarity during her brief visit, adding that Chinese anger cannot stop world leaders from travelling to the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.
China demonstrated its outrage over the highest-level U.S. visit to the island in 25 years with a burst of military activity in surrounding waters, summoning the U.S. ambassador in Beijing and halting several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
Some of China’s planned military exercises were to take place within Taiwan’s 12 nautical mile sea and air territory, according to Taiwan’s defence ministry, an unprecedented move that a senior defence official described to reporters as “amounting to a sea and air blockade of Taiwan”.
Taiwan scrambled jets on Wednesday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft in its air defence zone, the island’s defence ministry said, adding that 22 of them crossed the median line separating the island from China. read more
Pelosi arrived with a congressional delegation on her unannounced but closely watched visit late on Tuesday, defying China’s repeated warnings, on a trip that she said demonstrated unwavering U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s democracy. read more
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence – a red line for China. read more
“Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that’s the message we are bringing here today,” Pelosi said during her roughly 19-hour visit.
A long-time China critic, especially on human rights, and a political ally of U.S. President Joe Biden, Pelosi met with a former Tiananmen activist, a Hong Kong bookseller who had been detained by China and a Taiwanese activist recently released by China.
The last U.S. House speaker to go to Taiwan was Newt Gingrich in 1997. Pelosi’s visit comes amid sharply deteriorating U.S.-Chinese relations. During the past quarter century, China has become a far more powerful economic, military and geopolitical force.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring it under its control. The United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned China against using the visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
“Sadly, Taiwan has been prevented from participating in global meetings, most recently the World Health Organization, because of objections by the Chinese Communist Party,” Pelosi said in statement issued after her departure.
“While they may prevent Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from travelling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing democracy, to highlight its many successes and to reaffirm our commitment to continued collaboration,” Pelosi added. read more
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U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks with Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu before boarding a plane at Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan August 3, 2022. Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Handout via REUTERS
She later arrived in South Korea, according to local media.
China’s customs department announced a suspension of imports of citrus fruits and certain fish – chilled white striped hairtail and frozen horse mackerel – from Taiwan, while its commerce ministry banned export of natural sand to Taiwan.
Fury on the mainland over Pelosi’s defiance of Beijing was evident in Chinese social media, with one blogger railing: “this old she-devil, she actually dares to come!” Pelosi is 82. read more
MILITARY DRILLS
China’s military announced joint air and sea drills near Taiwan and test launches of conventional missiles in the sea east of the island, with Chinese state news agency Xinhua describing live-fire drills and other exercises around Taiwan from Thursday to Sunday.
China’s foreign ministry said Pelosi’s visit damages peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, harms the political foundation of U.S.-Chinese relations and infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the potential for Pelosi’s visit with counterpart Wang Yi during a G20 meeting in Bali last month, and said any such trip would be entirely Pelosi’s decision and independent of the Biden administration, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday. read more
The State Department confirmed that China delivered a formal protest to U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns in Beijing, and that Burns reiterated U.S. readiness to work with China to prevent escalation and keep lines of communication open.
The United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend itself. China views visits by U.S. officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island’s future.
Taiwan’s military increased its alertness level. Its defence ministry said China was attempting to threaten key ports and cities with drills in the surrounding waters.
“We can see China’s ambition: to make the Taiwan Strait non-international waters, as well as making the entire area west of the first island chain in the western pacific its sphere of influence,” a senior Taiwan official familiar with its security planning told Reuters.
Foreign ministers of the G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States, as well as the European Union – in a statement urged China to resolve the Taiwan matter peacefully and expressed concern over China’s “threatening actions,” particularly live-fire exercises and “economic coercion.” They added that it is “normal and routine” for legislators to travel internationally. read more
Mark Finchem, a prominent 2020 election denier and an Arizona state legislator, has won the Republican secretary of state primary, NBC News projects.
With 99% percent of the expected vote in, Finchem, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, had 40% of the vote. State Rep. Shawnna Bolick, another 2020 election denier, had 19% of the vote, while businessman Beau Lane got 25%.
With his win, Finchem, who continues to falsely claim that President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election in the state, gets one step closer to being the top elections official in Arizona, a crucial swing state where efforts by Trump allies to overturn the last presidential election have persisted in the years since the race.
If elected, Finchem would, as the official who oversees the state office administering the 2024 presidential election, have the power to possibly affect the outcome of the race. Experts say that scenario could contribute to an even more robust effort to overturn a presidential election. Trump is weighing another bid in 2024.
Finchem advances to the general election against the winner of a Democratic race that is still undecided between Adrian Fontes, the former Maricopa County recorder, and state Rep. Reginald Bolding.
Finchem, a member of the Arizona Legislature, is among the most outspoken state lawmakers insisting that Trump won the 2020 election.Trump endorsed Finchem last year, saying in a statement that “Mark was willing to say what few others had the courage to say” about the 2020 race.
At a January rally in Florence, Arizona, Finchem, standing alongside the former president, said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we know it and they know it — Donald Trump won.” Trump held another rally with Finchem, as well as other Arizona Republican candidates, in July, where Finchem and others repeated similarly false claims.
Neither Finchem nor his campaign has responded to multiple emails and phone calls from NBC News requesting a response to questions about his claims about the 2020 election.
As a state legislator, Finchem has introduced several election-related bills, including one that would make all ballots public records, searchable in an online database.
Finchem also introduced several resolutions seeking to decertify the results of the 2020 election in three major Arizona counties, as well as a bill that would give the Legislature the power to reject election results. He supported a partisan review of Maricopa County’s election results, even though the review reaffirmed Biden’s victory.
Finchem is a member of the pro-Trump America First Secretary of State Coalition, which includes election-denying secretary of state candidates in several other swing states, including Jim Marchant (the Republican nominee in Nevada), Kristina Karamo (the Republican nominee in Michigan) and Jody Hice (who lost his race in May in Georgia to Brad Raffensperger). All four of the states are ones in which Biden scored his narrowest victories in 2020.
Biden beat Trump in Arizona by about 10,500 votes, and none of the many lawsuits or audits over the results in the state uncovered any widespread fraud.
With his primary victory, Finchem becomes the sixth Republican secretary of state candidate who denies the results of the 2020 election to advance to the general election, according to States United Action, a nonpartisan group that tracks secretary of state, attorney general and governors’ races.
The other five are Michigan’s Karamo (who was endorsed by the state GOP in April to be the party’s candidate), Nevada’s Marchant, Diego Morales in Indiana, Wes Allen in Alabama, and Audrey Trujillo in New Mexico. According to the group, Finchem was, as of July 28, among at least 20 election deniers who ran for secretary of state in 16 states across the U.S. Also among them are Mike Brown in Kansas and Tamborine Borrelli in Washington, who both lost their primaries Tuesday night.
If Finchem wins in November, he would, as Arizona’s secretary of state, have the power over the next two years to not only transform how elections are run — in ways some experts say could help possible candidate Trump — but to also tip the scale in a close race, the way Trump asked Raffensperger to do in 2020.
Meanwhile, NBC News projected that former prosecutor Abraham Hamadeh, another Trump-endorsed election denier, won in Arizona’s crowded Republican attorney general primary. He will go up against Democrat Kris Mayes in November. Attorney General Mark Brnovich ran for Senate but lost a primary against Blake Masters, NBC News projects.
In addition, Republican Kari Lake was in a tight race for the state’s Republican primary for governor Tuesday. It’s possible Arizona could have election deniers in place in its three top state roles — a trio of positions that oversees, administers, defends and certifies elections and election results.
Arizona’s Democratic incumbent Katie Hobbs will be the Democratic nominee for governor after winning her primary Tuesday.
The Georgia Department of Revenue has announced that residents can now claim embryos as dependents on their state taxes, garnering $3,000 for each unborn child.
The announcement comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June – removing an abortion procedure as a federal right and deferring to state laws that have widely varied throughout the country.
Monday’s move also aligns with the state’s stance on reproductive rights. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that “Georgia’s prohibition on abortions after detectable human heartbeat is rational.” And the state’s Living Infants and Fairness Equality Act defines a “natural person” as “any human being including an un-born child.”
Heartbeats can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, often before people know they are pregnant, according to Healthline.
Georgia’s revenue department said in a statement that a taxpayer who “has an unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat” after July 20 can claim a dependent or dependents on 2022 taxes.
The statement reads: “In light of the June 24, 2022, U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the July 20, 2022, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Sistersong v. Kemp, the Department will recognize any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat … as eligible for the Georgia individual income tax dependent exemption.
“Similar to any other deduction claimed on an income tax return, relevant medical records or other supporting documentation shall be provided to support the dependent deduction claimed if requested by the Department.”
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones testified Wednesday that he now understands it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax and that he now believes it was “100% real.”
Speaking a day after the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was killed in the 2012 attack testified about the suffering, death threats and harassment they’ve endured because of what Jones has trumpeted on his media platforms, the Infowars host told a Texas courtroom that he definitely thinks the attack happened.
“Especially since I’ve met the parents. It’s 100% real,” Jones said at his trial to determine how much he and his media company, Free Speech Systems, owe for defaming Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis. Their son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 students and six educators who were killed in the attack in Newtown, Connecticut, which was the deadliest school shooting in American history.
Alex Jones walks into the courtroom in front of Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, the parents of 6-year-old Sand Hook shooting victim Jesse Lewis, at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin, Texas, July 28, 2022.
BRIANA SANCHEZ/POOL
But Heslin and Lewis said Tuesday that an apology wouldn’t suffice and that Jones needed to be held accountable for repeatedly spreading falsehoods about the attack. They are seeking at least $150 million.
Jones told the jury that any compensation above $2 million “will sink us,” but added: “Ï think it’s appropriate for whatever you decide what you want to do.”
Testimony concluded around midday and closing arguments are expected to begin Wednesday afternoon.
Jones is the only person testifying in his own defense. His attorney asked him if he now understands it was “absolutely irresponsible” to push the false claims that the massacre didn’t happen and no one died.
Jones said he does, but added, “They (the media) won’t let me take it back.”
He also complained that he’s been “typecast as someone that runs around talking about Sandy Hook, makes money off Sandy Hook, is obsessed by Sandy Hook.”
Under a withering cross-examination from attorney Mark Bankston, Jones acknowledged his history of raising conspiracy claims regarding other mass tragedies, from the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings to the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida.
Bankston then went after Jones’ credibility, showing an Infowars video clip from last week when a host – not Jones – claimed the trial was rigged and featuring a photo of the judge in flames. Then came another clip of Jones asking if the jury was selected from a group of people “who don’t know what planet” they live on. Jones said he didn’t mean that part literally.
Bankston said Jones hadn’t complied with court orders to provide text message and emails for pretrial evidence gathering. Jones said, “I don’t use email,” then was showed one gathered from another source that came from his email address. He replied: “I must have dictated that.”
At one point, Bankston informed Jones that his attorneys had mistakenly sent Bankston the last two years’ worth of texts from Jones’ cellphone.
The attorney also showed the court an email from an Infowars business officer informing Jones that the company had earned $800,000 gross in selling its products in a single day, which would amount to nearly $300 million in a year. Jones said that was the company’s best day in sales.
Jones’ testimony came a day after Heslin and Lewis told the courtroom in Austin, where Jones and his companies are based, that Jones and the false hoax claims he and Infowars pushed made their lives a “living hell” of death threats, online abuse and harassment.
They led a day of charged testimony Tuesday that included the judge scolding the bombastic Jones for not being truthful with some of what he said under oath.
In a gripping exchange, Lewis spoke directly to Jones, who was sitting about 10 feet away. Earlier that day, Jones was on his broadcast program telling his audience that Heslin is “slow” and being manipulated by bad people.
“I am a mother first and foremost and I know you are a father. My son existed,” Lewis said to Jones. “I am not deep state … I know you know that … And yet you’re going to leave this courthouse and say it again on your show.”
At one point, Lewis asked Jones: “Do you think I’m an actor?”
“No, I don’t think you’re an actor,” Jones responded before the judge admonished him to be quiet until called to testify.
Heslin and Lewis are among several Sandy Hook families who have filed lawsuits alleging that the Sandy Hook hoax claims pushed by Jones have led to years of abuse by him and his followers.
“What was said about me and Sandy Hook itself resonates around the world,” Heslin said. “As time went on, I truly realized how dangerous it was.”
Jones skipped Heslin’s Tuesday morning testimony while he was on his show – a move Heslin dismissed as “cowardly” – but arrived in the courtroom for part of Scarlett Lewis’ testimony. He was accompanied by several private security guards.
“Today is very important to me and it’s been a long time coming … to face Alex Jones for what he said and did to me. To restore the honor and legacy of my son,” Heslin said when Jones wasn’t there.
Heslin told the jury about holding his son with a bullet hole through his head, even describing the extent of the damage to his son’s body. A key segment of the case is a 2017 Infowars broadcast that said Heslin didn’t hold his son.
In 2017, Heslin went on television, he told CBS News, to directly address the Sandy Hook deniers. “I lost my son. I buried my son. I held my son with a bullet hole through his head,” he said.
After which, the harassment only got worse, Heslin said.
“I’ve had many death threats,” Heslin told CBS News in 2018. “People say, ‘You should be the ones with a bullet hole in your head.'”
The jury was shown a school picture of a smiling Jesse taken two weeks before he was killed. The parents didn’t receive the photo until after the shooting. They described how Jesse was known for telling classmates to “run!” which likely saved lives.
Jones later took the stand Tuesday and was initially combative with the judge, who had asked him to answer his own attorney’s question. Jones testified he had long wanted to apologize to the plaintiffs.
Later, the judge sent the jury out of the room and strongly scolded Jones for telling the jury he had complied with pretrial evidence gathering even though he didn’t and that he is bankrupt, which has not been determined. The plaintiffs’ attorneys were furious about Jones mentioning he is bankrupt, which they worry will taint the jury’s decisions about damages.
“This is not your show,” Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told Jones. “Your beliefs do not make something true. You are under oath.”
Last September, the judge admonished Jones in her default judgment over his failure to turn over documents requested by the Sandy Hook families. A court in Connecticut issued a similar default judgment against Jones for the same reasons in a separate lawsuit brought by other Sandy Hook parents.
At stake in the trial is how much Jones will pay. The parents have asked the jury to award $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury will then consider whether Jones and his company will pay punitive damages.
Jones has already tried to protect Free Speech Systems financially. The company filed for federal bankruptcy protection last week. Sandy Hook families have separately sued Jones over his financial claims, arguing that the company is trying to protect millions owned by Jones and his family through shell entities.
After a week of anger and criticism from veterans groups and advocates, including the comedian Jon Stewart, Senate Republicans finally agreed to pass a bill that expands healthcare and benefits to veterans exposed to toxins.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this situation where people who have already given so much had to fight so hard to get so little,” said Stewart, who joined veterans to push for the bill. “I hope we learned a lesson.”
Known as the Pact Act, the bill passed in the Senate on Tuesday night in an 86-11 vote.
It will provide assistance to veterans who were exposed to harmful chemicals during their service, such as Agent Orange during the Vietnam war, or toxins from pits used to burn military waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Department of Defense estimates that about 3.5 million service members could have been exposed to burn pits in the Middle East. Such chemicals can cause respiratory illnesses and cancer to those exposed, medical experts said.
Currently veterans have had to prove that illnesses were connected to their service, and the Department of Veterans Affairs did not consider exposure to toxins a service-related condition. The department has denied about 75% of veterans’ burn pit claims.
The Pact Act passed the House last month and had support from a majority of Republican senators until last week, when a coalition of them held up the bill’s passage. The senators said they no longer supported the bill after Democrats announced they reached a deal on a major tax and climate bill on Wednesday.
Veteran advocates sharply denounced the Republicans’ U-turn. Stewart called them “stab-vets-in-the-back senators”. Protests erupted outside the Capitol.
On Tuesday night, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, announced that he and his Republican counterpart, the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, had reached a deal on the bill. At a news conference, McConnell said Republicans’ objections were part of the “legislative process”.
“These kind of back and forths happen all the time in the legislative process, you’ve observed that over the years,” he said. “I think in the end, the veterans service organizations will be pleased with the final result.”
Joe Biden praised the bill’s passage, saying: “We should all take pride in this moment.” In his most recent State of the Union address earlier this year, the US president mentioned that his son Beau, who served a year-long tour of Iraq and later died of brain cancer, could have been a victim of burn pit toxins.
“The Pact Act will be the biggest expansion of [veterans affairs] healthcare in decades,” Biden tweeted. “We’ll never be able to repay the debt we owe to those who have worn the uniform, but today, Congress delivered on a promise to our veterans and their families.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — For a year, U.S. officials have been saying that taking out a terrorist threat in Afghanistan with no American troops on the ground would be difficult but not impossible. Last weekend, the U.S. did just that — killing al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri with a CIA drone strike.
Other high-profile airstrikes in the past had inadvertently killed innocent civilians. In this case, the U.S. carefully chose to use a type of Hellfire missile that greatly minimized the chance of other casualties. Although U.S. officials have not publicly confirmed which variant of the Hellfire was used, experts and others familiar with counterterrorism operations said a likely option was the highly secretive Hellfire R9X — know by various nicknames, including the “knife bomb” or the “flying Ginsu.”
That potential use of the R9X, said Klon Kitchen, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former intelligence analyst, suggests the U.S. wanted to kill al-Zawahri with “limited likelihood of collateral death and destruction and for other relevant political reasons.”
A look at the Hellfire, and how al-Zawahri likely was killed:
WHAT IS A HELLFIRE MISSILE?
Originally designed as an anti-tank missile in the 1980s, the Hellfire has been used by military and intelligence agencies over the last two decades to strike targets in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
The precision-guided missiles can be mounted on helicopters and unmanned drones and are used widely in combat around the world. More than 100,000 Hellfire missiles have been sold to the U.S. and other countries, according to Ryan Brobst, an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
“It can do enough damage to destroy most targets such as vehicles and buildings while not doing enough damage to level city blocks and cause significant civilian casualties,” Brobst said.
The U.S. military has routinely used Hellfire missiles to kill high-value targets, including a senior al-Qaida leader in Syria last year, and al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.
WHAT KILLED AL-ZAWAHRI?
The U.S. had multiple options for the attack. It could have used a traditional Hellfire, a bomb dropped from an manned aircraft, or a far more risky assault by ground forces. U.S. Navy SEALs, for example, flew into Pakistan on helicopters and took out Osama bin Laden in a raid.
In this case, the CIA opted for a drone strike. And while the CIA generally doesn’t confirm its counterterrorism missions and closely guards information about strikes it conducts, U.S. government officials have said that two Hellfire missiles were fired at the balcony of the building where al-Zawahri was living in Kabul.
Online images of the building show damage to the balcony, where the U.S. says al-Zawahri was, but the rest of the house is standing and not badly damaged.
Unlike other models of the Hellfire, the R9X doesn’t carry an explosive payload. Instead, it has a series of six rotating blades that emerge on its final approach to a target, Kitchen said. “One of their utilities is in opening up vehicles and other obstructions to get to the target without having to use an explosive warhead,” he said.
AVOIDING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
U.S. officials and experts made clear this week that avoiding civilian casualties was a crucial element in the choice of weapon.
Less than a year ago, a U.S. drone strike — using a more conventional Hellfire missile — struck a white Toyota Corolla sedan in a Kabul neighborhood and killed 10 civilians around and near the car, including seven children. In the midst of the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, American forces believed there were explosives in the car and that it posed an imminent threat to troops on the ground. It was, military leaders said, a “tragic mistake”
One former U.S. official said the likely choice of an R9X is an example of the administration’s effort to find ways to minimize collateral damage and prevent the loss of innocent life. That missile is a very accurate weapon that strikes in a very small area, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss counterterrorism operations.
An administration official said Monday that the U.S. investigated the construction of the house where al-Zawahri was staying in order to ensure that the operation could be done without threatening the structural integrity of the building and also minimizing the risks of killing civilians, including members of his family who were in other parts of the house.
The choice of missile is ultimately one part of reducing the possibility of killing civilians or causing other collateral damage.
“I would say this is by far a lower-risk option,” said Tom Karako, an expert on missile defense at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Using the Hellfire, he said, “reflects a high degree of caution as opposed to a riskiness.”
IS THE US PROVIDING UKRAINE WITH DRONES THAT CAN FIRE HELLFIRE MISSILES?
No. While the U.S. has delivered billions of dollars in military assistance to help Ukraine fight the invading Russian troops, it is wary of providing weapons that could fire deep into Russia, potentially escalating the conflict or drawing the U.S. into the war.
As a result, the U.S. so far has not provided Hellfire missiles or drones that could fire them. Instead, the U.S. has delivered smaller, so-called kamikaze drones, such as the Switchblade and Phoenix Ghost, which instead of firing missiles, explode when they hit a target.
TAIPEI, Aug 3 (Reuters) – China furiously condemned the highest-level U.S. visit to Taiwan in 25 years as House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the self-ruled island as “one of the freest societies in the world” and pledged American solidarity.
Beijing demonstrated its anger with Pelosi’s presence on an island that it says is part of China with a burst of military activity in surrounding waters, summoning the U.S. ambassador in Beijing and halting several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
Some of China’s planned military exercises will take place within Taiwan’s 12 nautical mile sea and air territory, according to Taiwan’s defence ministry, an unprecedented move a senior defence official described to reporters as “amounting to a sea and air blockade of Taiwan”.
Pelosi arrived with a congressional delegation on an unannounced visit late on Tuesday, defying China’s repeated warnings, in what she said shows unwavering U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s democracy.
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. read more
“Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that’s the message we are bringing here, today.”
Addressing parliament, Pelosi said new U.S. legislation aimed at strengthening the American chip industry to compete with China “offers greater opportunity for U.S.-Taiwan economic cooperation.”
“We thank you for your leadership. We want the world to recognise that,” Pelosi told Tsai, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence – a red line for China.
A long-time China critic, especially on human rights, Pelosi was set to meet later on Wednesday with a former Tiananmen activist, a Hong Kong bookseller who had been detained by China and a Taiwanese activist recently released by China, people familiar with the matter said.
The last U.S. house speaker to go to Taiwan was Newt Gingrich, in 1997. But Pelosi’s visit comes amid sharply deteriorating Sino-U.S. relations, and China has emerged as a far more powerful economic, military and geopolitical force during the past quarter century.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring it under its control. The United States warned China against using the visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
In retaliation, China’s customs department announced a suspension of imports of citrus fruits, chilled white striped hairtail and frozen horse mackerel from Taiwan, while its commerce ministry banned export of natural sand to Taiwan.
MILITARY DRILLS
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U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi attends a meeting with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen at the presidential office in Taipei, Taiwan August 3, 2022. Taiwan Presidential Office/Handout via REUTERS
Pelosi’s visit, which has been blasted in official Chinese news outlets, was the dominant topic on China’s heavily censored social media, with many users urging Beijing to invade the island in retaliation and expressing dismay that military action had not been taken to block her arrival. A live-tracker of her plane on China’s WeChat was watched by 22 million.
China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform crashed just before Pelosi’s landing, which Weibo blamed on overstretched broadband capacity, without mentioning Taiwan.
Shortly after Pelosi’s arrival, China’s military announced joint air and sea drills near Taiwan and test launches of conventional missiles in the sea east of the island, with Chinese state news agency Xinhua describing live-fire drills and other exercises around Taiwan from Thursday to Sunday.
China’s foreign ministry said Pelosi’s visit seriously damages peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, “has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Before Pelosi’s arrival, Chinese warplanes buzzed the line dividing the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese military said it was on high alert and will launch “targeted military operations” in response to Pelosi’s visit.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday after Pelosi’s arrival that the United States “is not going to be intimidated” by China’s threats or bellicose rhetoric and that there is no reason her visit should precipitate a crisis or conflict.
Kirby said China might engage in “economic coercion” toward Taiwan, adding that the impact on U.S.-China relations will depend on Beijing’s actions in coming days and weeks.
‘CHINA’S AMBITION’
The United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend itself. China views visits by U.S. officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island’s future.
Taiwan’s cabinet on Wednesday said the military has increased its alertness level. The island’s defence ministry said 21 Chinese aircraft entered its air defence identification zone on Tuesday, and that China was attempting to threaten key ports and cities with drills in the surrounding waters.
“The so-called drill areas are falling within the busiest international channels in the Indo-Pacific region,” a senior Taiwan official familiar with its security planning told Reuters on Wednesday.
“We can see China’s ambition: to make the Taiwan Strait non-international waters, as well as making the entire area west of the first island chain in the western pacific its sphere of influence,” the person said.
(This story corrects spelling of Tiananmen in 12th paragraph; this error also occurred earlier in the series)
The addition of 600,000 eligible voters in Washington State since the 2018 midterms appears to be helping turnout, with 135,000 more ballots returned this time, an increase of about a half of a percentage point, according to the secretary of state.
“Today, our delegation… came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan and we are proud of our enduring friendship,” Ms Pelosi said during her meeting with the Taiwanese president.
Meanwhile, the Taiwanese military has increased its alertness level as Chinese warships and aircraft “squeezed” the median line on Tuesday morning. The foreign ministry condemned Ms Pelosi’s trip as “playing with fire” and confirmed they will hold live fire exercises off the coast of Taiwan.
In an op-ed published in The Washington Post by Ms Pelosi, the speaker describes the visit as being “an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom”.
Ms Pelosi was also offered rare praise from GOP lawmakers for visiting in defiance of Chinese warnings.
The visit to Taiwan is the most senior by a US politician since then-House speaker Newt Gingrich went there in 1997.
‘They didn’t say anything when the men came,’ says Pelosi on Chinese aggression
US House speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to the Chinese reaction to her visit saying “they didn’t say anything when the men came,” making a reference to the visit by US senators earlier this year.
“They made a big fuss, because I am speaker, I guess. I don’t know if that was a reason or an excuse, because they didn’t say anything when the men came,” Ms Pelosi said while speaking alongside Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei.
‘We will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan,’ says Pelosi
Speaking at an event alongside Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, US House speaker Nancy Pelosi said we will “not abandon our commitment to Taiwan” and stressed on increased cooperation between the two countries.
“Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy,” she said in a short speech during a meeting with Taiwan’s president. “America’s determination to preserve democracy, here in Taiwan and around the world, remains ironclad.”
“Today, our delegation… came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan and we are proud of our enduring friendship,” Ms Pelosi said.
Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, that’s the message we bring in today.
In a press meet in Taipei, she later said that the US supports the status quo, but does not want anything to happen to Taiwan by force.
“We want Taiwan to always have freedom with security, we are not backing away from that,” she said.
US House of representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks next to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen
Chinese drills around island meant to destroy regional stability, says Taiwan defence ministry
Taiwan’s defence ministry has said that Chinese live-fire drills around the democratic island this week demonstrated Beijing’s intention to destroy regional peace and stability.
Taiwan has enhanced alertness levels and will react timely and appropriately to the drills, a defence ministry spokesman told reporters via a voice message.
Tsai thanks Pelosi for support, says Taiwan will not back down
Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen thanked visiting US House speaker Nancy Pelosi today for her concrete actions to support Taiwan at this critical moment and said the island will not back down in the face of heightened military threats.
Ms Tsai also told Ms Pelosi that she is one of Taiwan’s most devoted friends and thanked her for her unwavering support on the international stage.
She added that Taiwan is a reliable partner of the United States and will continue to work with the US to strengthen collaboration in security, economic development and supply chains.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi meets Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen
Why is Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan so contentious?
Beijing warned the United States that it was “playing with fire” if it allowed the speaker’s visit to take place, and even Joe Biden had cautioned against it.
So why is Ms Pelosi’s trip so controversial?
Taiwan, a self-governing democracy of approximately 23 million off the coast of China, has become a flashpoint in the growing geopolitical struggle between Washington and Beijing.
Taiwan has its own democratic political system, constitution, and military, and many Taiwanese consider the island to be a separate nation to China. But Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province that will eventually come under its control — by force if necessary.
Taiwan’s cabinet has said the military has increased its alertness level and authorities will make plans to ensure safety and stability around the island, after China announced a series of military exercises in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s arrival in Taipei.
Taiwan’s cabinet also said its citizens should feel reassured and that a national stabilisation fund for the stock market will closely watch the situation and react in a timely manner.
Nancy Pelosi explains why she gambled on big Taiwan trip
Ms Pelosi opened the opinion piece by noting that the Taiwan Relations Act was passed 43 years ago, calling it “one of the most important pillars of US foreign policy in the Asia Pacific”.
The speaker wrote that the legislation “set out America’s commitment to a democratic Taiwan, providing the framework for an economic and diplomatic relationship that would quickly flourish into a key partnership”.
ICMYI: Why even Republicans are supporting Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip
Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan for a controversial visit on Tuesday. While she was greeted by dignitaries and crowds of waiting onlookers in Taipei, her visit has prompted both praise and controversy in the US, China, and beyond.
Perhaps most unexpectedly, a group of 26 Senate Republicans have voiced their support for the House Speaker’s visit to Taiwan, despite China’s warnings that the trip would prompt “disastrous consequences.”
“For decades, members of the United States Congress, including previous Speakers of the House, have traveled to Taiwan,” the Senators said in a statement of support. “This travel is consistent with the United States’ One China policy to which we are committed. We are also committed now, more than ever, to all elements of the Taiwan Relations Act.”
Catch up on the politics surrounding the House Speaker’s trip to Taiwan.
EXPLAINER: Why Pelosi went to Taiwan, and why China’s angry
The reason her visit ratcheted up tension between China and the United States: China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and it views visits by foreign government officials as them recognizing the island’s sovereignty.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew into Taiwan on an Air Force passenger jet Tuesday, becoming the highest-ranking American official in 25 years to visit the self-ruled island claimed by China
Taiwan officials said that 21 Chinese military aircraft entered its air defence zone on Tuesday, 2 August, as Nancy Pelosi arrived on an historic visit.The House of Representatives Speaker’s trip is the first visit by a US speaker to the country since 1997.Ms Pelosi has been a vocal critic of Chinese leadership and previously said it is “important for us to show support for Taiwan”.“21 PLA aircraft entered Taiwan’s southwest [Air Defence Identification Zone] on August 2, 2022,” Taiwan’s defence ministry said.Click here to sign up for our newsletters.
Kansas voters on Tuesday rejected an amendment that would have gotten rid of abortion protections in the state’s constitution, the Associated Press reports.
Why it matters: It’s the first time since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that U.S. voters have cast ballots on abortion.
State of play: The amendment would have added language to the Kansas Constitution that said that “[b]ecause Kansans value both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.”
Kansas’ constitution guarantees the “equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which the state Supreme Court ruled in 2019 includes the right to abortion, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Our thought bubble: The race was one of the most watched in Tuesday’s primaries for the signals it may send about Republican and suburban women voters around abortion rights in key states in November, Axios managing politics editor Margaret Talev says.
What they’re saying: President Biden said in a statement late Tuesday the Kansas vote “makes it clear” that a “majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions.”
“Congress should listen to the will of the American people and restore the protections of Roe as federal law,” Biden said.
“While that is the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose, my Administration will continue to take meaningful action to protect women’s access to reproductive health care,” he added.
Don’t forget: Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia are the only four states that have amended their state constitutions to prohibit any protections for abortion rights.
Where abortion is on the ballot
In November, voters in California, Vermont, Kentucky and Montana will get to make decisions related to abortion.
A ballot initiative in Vermont would enact a state constitutional amendment declaring “an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy.”
Kentucky voters will vote on a measure that would ensure the state constitution does not “secure or protect a right to abortion, or require the funding of abortion.”
In California, voters will decide whether to enact an amendment that adds a “fundamental right to choose to have an abortion” to their state constitution.
In Montana, residents will decide on a state statute that would require medical care to be provided to “infants born alive” after an abortion by classifying them as a “legal person” with “the right to appropriate and reasonable medical care and treatment.”
What we’re watching: There are abortion-related measures that have not yet been certified that could potentially be added to the ballots later this year.
In Michigan, abortion rights advocates earlier this month submitted over 750,000 signatures for a ballot initiative that would create a state constitutional right to “reproductive freedom.”
If at least 425,059 signatures are verified, the measure will appear on the ballot in the fall.
In Colorado, where abortion is protected under state law, a measure that is pending certification would add a state statute that prohibits “intentionally causing the death of a living human being at any time prior to, during, or after birth.”
Other states — Michigan, Colorado, New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Nevada and South Dakota — also have abortion-related measures that could appear in state ballots in 2023 or 2024.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with comment from President Biden.
The Senate voted Tuesday night to pass a long-sought bipartisan legislation to expand health care benefits for millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their military service, sending the bill to President Joe Biden to sign into law. The final vote was 86-11.
Passage of the bill marks the end of a lengthy fight to get the legislation through Congress, as veterans and their advocates had been demonstrating on Capitol Hill for days. Many veterans were allowed into the Senate gallery to watch the final vote on Tuesday evening.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced after reaching the deal with Republicans who had blocked the bill from advancing last week while they sought to add cost-controlling amendment votes to the package.
“I have some good news, the minority leader and I have come to an agreement to vote on the PACT Act this evening,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “I’m very optimistic that this bill will pass so our veterans across America can breathe a sigh of relief.”
The bill widely expands health care resources and benefits to those exposed to burn pits and could provide coverage for up to 3.5 million toxic-exposed veterans. It adds conditions related to burn pit and toxic exposure, including hypertension, to the Department of Veterans Affair’s list of illnesses that have been incurred or exacerbated during military service.
The legislation had been held up in the chamber since last week when more than two dozen Republicans, who previously supported the measure, temporarily blocked it from advancing.
Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, rallied fellow Republicans to hold up the legislation in exchange for amendment votes, specifically an amendment that would change an accounting provision. Toomey had previously said he wanted an amendment vote with a 50-vote threshold.
Tuesday’s final vote followed votes on three amendments with a 60-vote threshold. Toomey’s amendment, which would have made a change to a budget component of the legislation, failed as expected, in a vote of 47-48.
Last week’s surprise move by Republicans led to a swift backlash among veterans and veterans’ groups, including protests on the US Capitol steps over the weekend and early this week. Comedian and political activist Jon Stewart – a lead advocate for veterans on the issue – took individual GOP senators to task for holding up a bill that had garnered wide bipartisan support in earlier votes.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell defended his party’s handling of the legislation at a news conference on Tuesday.
“Look, these kind of back and forths happen all the time in the legislative process, you’ve observed that over the years,” he said. “I think in the end, the veterans service organizations will be pleased with the final result.”
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Tuesday.
CNN’s Manu Raju and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.
Voters were cast Tuesday in five states in some of the states that were battlegrounds in 2020 — and will be again in 2024. Kansas voters voted to preserve abortion access to for women Tuesday night, as abortion faced its first test at the ballot box since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
With former President Donald Trump’s influence looming large in some of Tuesday’s primaries, a CBS News poll released Tuesday showed that for Republicans, a Trump endorsement is a plus for that candidate, and even more so among Republicans who say they “always” vote in Republican primaries, most of whom identify as MAGA Republicans.
Arizona
In Arizona, former President Donald Trump has rallied for his allies in the Senate, governor and secretary of state races. Arizona was one of the key battleground states that went for President Joe Biden in 2020. After the election, some Republicans in the state tried to overturn the results, with a plan to send a slate of phony alternate electors who supported Trump to Congress for the Electoral College certification, rather than the electors won by President Biden.
In the Republican primary to take on Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in November, Trump has backed Blake Masters, who has a comfortable lead according to two polls ahead of the primary.
For governor, former TV news anchor Kari Lake and lawyer Karrin Taylor Robson are in a tight contest for the GOP nomination that repeats a dynamic between Trump and former Vice President MIke Pence. Trump has backed Lake, while Pence, along with term-limited sitting Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, have backed Taylor Robson. Last month, Trump and Pence held dueling rallies for Lake and Robson on the same day.
A where to vote sign points voters in the direction of the polling station as the sun beats down as Arizona voters go the polls to cast their ballots, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022, in Phoenix.
Ross D. Franklin / AP
Trump has also backed a challenger to state House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified in June at a House Jan. 6 committee public hearing. Bowers is term-limited out of that position but is running for state Senate. Days before the primary, the Arizona GOP voted to formally censure him for his testimony, a culmination of the frustrations many far-right members have with Bowers’ past refusal to support Trump-backed attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
This year, Bowers helped block a bill, introduced by Secretary of State candidate and current state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, to empower the legislature to choose its own electors, regardless of how the people voted. For his actions, the former president lashed out against him, calling the Speaker a “RINO coward,” and endorsed his opponent, former state Sen. David Farnsworth.
Missouri
CBS News projects that Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who has been leading the crowded field, wins the Republican nomination for the open Senate seat in Missouri. Eric Greitens, the former governor who resigned in 2018 and has faced allegations of domestic abuse, led early in the race, but an $11 million ad blitz by two anti-Greitens groups chipped it away.
On the eve of the primary, Trump issued a kind of split endorsement in the race, throwing his support behind “ERIC.” Both Eric Schmitt and Eric Greitens quickly claimed they’d won his backing.
In Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, CBS News projects incumbent Rep. Cori Bush, who unseated a longtime incumbent in 2020, will win her primary.
Meanwhile, three of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are facing Trump-backed primary challengers. Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social to urge Republican voters to “knock out impeachment slime.”
Michigan
In Michigan, Rep. Peter Meijer, a freshman Republican in a swing district centered around Grand Rapids, Mich., is in a tough race against John Gibbs, a former Trump-era Housing and Urban Development official.
In the race to take on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, CBS News projects Tudor Dixon will win the Republican nomination. Dixon, backed by Trump, had been seen by Republican strategists as the strongest candidate to take on Whitmer. Among the Republicans Dixon defeated was Ryan Kelley, who was arrested in June related to his participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Now we have the opportunity to truly hold Gretchen Whitmer accountable for the pain she has inflicted on every one of us in the past three years,” Dixon said at her election night watch party in Grand Rapids, Mich., referring to the lockdowns of schools imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Washington
And in Washington, the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the 3rd District and Dan Newhouse in the 4th District both face the risk of being shut out because of Trump-backed challengers.
Kansas
Kansas voted to preserve abortion access, voting “no” on the ability to amend the state constitution, marking the first time a state has voted on abortion, since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
Kansas Democratic Party Chairwoman Vicki Hiatt celebrated the win for abortion access, saying in a statement, “This outcome affirms what we know is true: Kansans want common sense leadership that will protect their right to keep politicians out of their health care decisions.”
In 2019, Kansas’ state Supreme Court ruled that the right to an abortion is protected in the state constitution’s bill of rights. Voters were deciding whether to allow the constitution to be amended in order to ban abortion rights.
A federal grand jury has subpoenaed former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone in its investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told ABC News.
The sources told ABC News that attorneys for Cipollone — like they did with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — are expected to engage in negotiations around any appearance, while weighing concerns regarding potential claims of executive privilege.
The move to subpoena Cipollone signals an even more dramatic escalation in the Justice Department’s investigation of the Jan. 6 attack than previously known, following appearances by senior members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s staff before the grand jury two weeks ago.
Officials with the Justice Department declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
A representative for Cipollone could not be reached for comment.
Last month, Cipollone spoke to the House Jan. 6 select committee for a lengthy closed-door interview, portions of which have been shown during two of the committee’s most recent public hearings.
Cipollone spoke to the committee on a number of topics, including how he wanted then-President Donald Trump to do more to quell the riot on the day of the attack, and how Cabinet secretaries contemplated convening a meeting to discuss Trump’s decision-making in the wake of the insurrection.
In videotaped testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, Cipollone made it clear that he wanted Trump to intervene sooner while the attack was underway.
“I was pretty clear there needed to be an immediate and forceful response, statement, public statement, that people need to leave the Capitol now,” Cipollone said.
Committee members also questioned Cipollone regarding discussions among members of Trump’s Cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment to possibly remove Trump from office in advance of President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
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