Two to three inches of rainfall is flooding roads from San Diego County to Arizona, even stranding some people in Southern California overnight due to flash flooding.
Eleven states from California to Wisconsin are under flood, snow and wind alerts as this storm slowly moves east.
Heavy rain is falling in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona Wednesday morning. Flash flood warnings were even issued in California and Arizona.
In the higher elevations, snow is falling Wednesday morning from the Sierra Nevada mountains in California to Montana.
By Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the storm will reach the Great Lakes and northern Plains, bringing heavy rain from Minneapolis to Chicago.
The southern Plains, from Oklahoma to Arkansas and into Tennessee, may also get hit by heavy rain as the southern part of the storm moves east Thursday. Some areas could see up to four inches.
Meanwhile, the north will see snow from the Dakotas to northern Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
A winter storm warning was issued for northern Minnesota where up to nine inches of snow could fall. No major accumulation is expected for the Twin Cities.
The heaviest snow will be in the Rockies with 2 feet possible in southwestern Colorado. Snow is also possible in the mountains outside of Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Northern Nevada, where some areas could also see up to 16 inches.
GUADALAJARA, JALISCO (20/JUL/2015).- Revisa lo más importante del 20 de julio en México en este resumen de noticias publicadas a través de los sitios web de los medios que conforman los Periódicos Asociados en Red.
A partir de este lunes, la Ciudad de México cuenta con un nuevo servicio de transportación turística cuyo objetivo es robustecer la oferta de dicho rubro de la capital.
COAHUILA
Desmantelan antena de radiocomunicación clandestina
La Comisión Estatal de Seguridad dio a conocer el descubrimiento y desmantelamiento de una antena de repetición, presuntamente utilizada por miembros de la delincuencia organizada y que daba servicio a las regiones Norte, Cinco Manantiales y algunos municipios de la Carbonífera.
GUERRERO
Peña Nieto critica soluciones populistas a problemas del país
En su cumpleaños número 49, el Presidente Enrique Peña Nieto criticó a quienes plantean soluciones simplistas y populistas a los problemas sociales y económicos que enfrenta el país, porque en el fondo -dijo- esos planteamientos entrañan una enorme irresponsabilidad.
Un choque a pedradas, tubazos y golpes entre dos grupos antagónicos de transportistas dejó un saldo de al menos 10 personas heridas e igual número de vehículos incendiados y vandalizados en pleno zócalo de Chilpancingo.
El gobernador electo de Michoacán, Silvano Aureoles Conejo, se reunió con el general Pedro Felipe Gurrola Ramírez, mando especial para la seguridad en el estado, con el propósito de conocer ”detalles” sobre el ataque armado que sufrieron habitantes de Ostula en Aquila, donde murió un niño de 12 años y hay cuatro lesionados más, entre ellos una niña de 6 años.
Con expresiones de amor por la tierra a la que representan, los oaxaqueños llenaron cada instante de algarabía en la rotonda de las Azucenas del Auditorio Guelaguetza, en donde cada visitante se llevó un pedazo de Oaxaca en esta primera edición del Lunes del Cerro 2015.
On Friday, under international pressure to act, Mr. Bolsonaro ordered a military operation to help put out the fires, and vowed that his government would take a “zero tolerance” approach to enforcing environmental laws.
Ibama workers said in their letter that they welcomed that move but worried that it would amount to an empty promise if it is not backed by a “permanent, continuous, strategic and effective enforcement mechanism.” Absent that, they added, “the rates of destruction of the Amazon rainforest will not diminish.”
Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration has bristled at international criticism over the fires, arguing that Brazil has done more than many other countries to preserve its forests.
The Ibama employees warned that failing to double down on conservation efforts would pose a bigger threat to economic growth.
“Respecting environmental protection laws matters especially to the Brazilian economy, which relies heavily on the export of commodities,” they wrote. “The global clamor for the protection of the Brazilian Amazon and the risk that the country could face economic sanctions targeting its exports make that all the more relevant.”
A company that is a major buyer of Brazilian leather warned that it might cancel purchases because of concerns over the relationship between agribusiness and the fires devastating the Amazon.
This buyer, VF Corporation, includes well-known international brands like Timberland, The North Face, Eagle Creek, Dickies, Vans, Kipling and others. Brazil’s leather goods trade organization, C.I.C.B., wrote to Brazil’s minister of the environment, Ricardo Salles, on Tuesday, informing him of the warning.
José Fernando Bello, the president of C.I.C.B., wrote, “The need to contain damages to the country’s image in the international market, in connection to Amazon issues, is undeniable.”
El ministro Giuffra anunció la disolución del contrato en RPP Noticias. | Fuente: RPP
El ministro de Transportes y Comunicaciones, Bruno Giuffra, anunció en RPP Noticias un acuerdo para resolver el contrato de la construcción del Aeropuerto Internacional de Chinchero por mutuo disenso con el consorcio Kuntur Wasi . La obra no parará tras la decisión. El Estado iniciará el movimiento de tierras mientras se licita el terminal aéreo.
“Se ha acordado ir por la ruta del mutuo disenso. Tenemos que mirar adelante y llegar a un acuerdo con Kuntur Wasi. Nosotros avanzaremos con la parte inicial de la obra pública para el movimiento de tierras”, explicó Giuffra en Ampliación de Noticias.
¿Qué significa la decisión del Gobierno?
1. El consorcio Kuntur Wasi no participará en la construcción y operación del Aeropuerto Internacional de Chinchero (AIC)
2. En el menor plazo posible se iniciará el movimiento de tierras para la construcción del AIC. El movimiento de tierras se realizará bajo la modalidad de licitación de obra pública.
3. Mientras dure la etapa de Movimiento de Tierras, el gobierno estudiará la modalidad óptima para la construcción (obra civil) y operación del AIC, no retrasando de esta manera la ejecución de este proyecto.
El contrato se firmó el 4 de julio de 2014 por el Gobierno de Ollanta Humala. Le siguió una adenda en noviembre de 2016 donde el Estado asumiría US$ 265 millones de la construcción. Cuestionamientos a la obra, incluido uno de la Contraloría, propiciaron la renuncia de Martín Vizcarra al MTC el 22 de mayo.
El Gobierno puso fin a la controversia sobre el aeropuerto. | Fuente: Andina
El ministro anunció que el consorcio Kuntur Wasi ya no construirá el aeropuerto de Chinchero. | Fuente: Andina
Yet, on Monday — after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court — Thomas finally articulated his approach to stare decisis, the principle that courts should generally follow the rules announced in past decisions.
Though Thomas dresses up his concurring opinion in Gamble with a few paragraphs that seem to soften his conclusion, the rule he ultimately articulates would give his court free reign to burn down any decision that five of its members do not like. It’s the kind of judicial arson one might expect from a justice who, after spending much of his career writing lone dissents that had little impact on his colleagues, now thinks he may have the votes to do things his way.
“When faced with a demonstrably erroneous precedent, my rule is simple,” Thomas writes. “We should not follow it.” That may seem like a workable rule — how bad does a decision have to be before it is “demonstrably erroneous?” — but bear in mind that this rule comes from a man who has serious doubts about child labor laws.
There are many reasons why courts typically adhere to stare decisis. Stability in the law is an important virtue, for one thing. Legislatures will pass laws, companies will make investments, and individuals will shape their actions based on their assessment of existing precedents. If those precedents can be wiped away on a whim, all of this planning will be for naught. And many crucial investments may never happen because investors cannot plan for an uncertain future.
Stare decisis also helps depoliticize the law. When the Supreme Court’s political center of gravity changes — as it has shifted to the right under President Donald Trump — it’s tempting for the new majority to declare themselves victors and start pillaging old precedents they do not like. If power shifts again, the new majority might be equally tempted to retaliate, burning their vanquished foe’s decisions to the ground. That’s not just a recipe for instability, it’s a recipe for the kind of politics that turns Supreme Court nominations into existential fights between the two major political parties. Moreover, it’s a recipe for a court that strips power from the elected branches and claims it for itself.
But, perhaps most significantly, stare decisis is about modesty. Consider, for one moment, the fact that many provisions of the Constitution live in a state of ambiguity.
There is significant historical evidence, moreover, that many of these provisions were intentionally written to be ambiguous — either because the framers hoped that the courts would be able to transform vague principles into actionable rules, or because political compromises and the fear of a looming election prevented a supermajority of Congress from agreeing on clearer language.
As NYU law professor William Nelson wrote in a seminal book, “the debates on the Fourteenth Amendment were, in essence, debates about high politics and fundamental principles.” But they “did not reduce the vague, open-ended, and sometimes clashing principles used by the debaters to precise, carefully bounded legal doctrine.”
It is arrogant in the extreme, in other words, for a judge to assume that they alone have determined the one true meaning of a legal text as vague as the Constitution. The only way for the law to have any stability whatsoever is for judges to accept that the men and women who came before them typically acted in good faith to read difficult-to-interpret language. And the work of those men and women should not be idly cast aside simply because the current crop of justices think that they could do it better.
And yet, that’s more or less what Thomas says should happen in his Gamble opinion.
“By applying demonstrably erroneous precedent instead of the relevant law’s text—as the Court is particularly prone to do when expanding federal power or crafting new individual rights—the Court exercises ‘force’ and ‘will,’ two attributes the People did not give it,” Thomas writes. Instead, he would have his court, “restore our stare decisis jurisprudence to ensure that we exercise ‘mer[e] judgment,’ which can be achieved through adherence to the correct, original meaning of the laws we are charged with applying.”
Again, all of this rhetoric may seem reasonable in the abstract. But remember that it comes from a man who’s suggested that that decisions upholding a ban on whites-only lunch counters “drifted far from the original understanding of the” Constitution. Now, ask yourself if you want him to have an unchecked power to decide which decisions are “demonstrably erroneous?”
The Gamble case itself involves an unfortunate doctrine which the Supreme Court upholds as firmly grounded in precedent. The Fifth Amendment provides that no one shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Yet the court’s “separate sovereigns” doctrine creates a massive hole in the Double Jeopardy Clause. Though the federal government may not prosecute someone twice for the same crime, and neither may any state, a state may prosecute someone and then the feds may do so again.
“Even in constitutional cases, a departure from precedent ‘demands special justification,’” Justice Samuel Alito writes for a majority of the Supreme Court. And that “means that something more than ‘ambiguous historical evidence’ is required before we will ‘flatly overrule a number of major decisions of this Court.’” Alito then spends the bulk of his opinion picking apart citations to very treatises and even older British judicial decisions, to show that they offer no clear basis for dismantling the separate sovereigns doctrine.
Notably, while Thomas used this case as a vehicle to rail against stare decisis, he also joined Alito’s opinion. Apparently a case involving a man unjustly punished twice for the same crime isn’t the kind of case “expanding federal power or crafting new individual rights” that gets under Thomas’ skin.
There are a few lines in Alito’s opinion that should trouble court-watchers who are hoping that the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority doesn’t share Thomas’ desire to light a whole range of precedents on fire. At one point, for example, Alito writes that “the strength of the case for adhering to [past] decisions grows in proportion to their ‘antiquity’” — suggesting that Alito may be perfectly happy to overrule newer decisions. There’s also an unconvincing passage where Alito defends the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which invigorated the Second Amendment based on historical evidence that is at least as ambiguous as the evidence raised in Gamble.
But Alito’s opinion is, at its heart, a statement that precedents are powerful and they shouldn’t be disregarded lightly. That’s a statement liberals should welcome from this Supreme Court — and it is very different than what Thomas says in his concurring opinion.
Un fuerte sismo producido el domingo por la noche en Arequipa causó la muerte de al menos nueve personas, según informó el Gobierno Regional de Arequipa.
Según el Instituto Geofísico del Perú (IGP), el movimiento telúrico más fuerte ocurrió a las 21:58 p.m. fue de 5,3 grados en la escala de Richter, ocho kilómetros de profundidad, y tuvo su epicentro en Maca, un distrito de Caylloma.
Tres de las muertes se registraron en el distrito de Achoma y las otras seis en Yanque (Caylloma). Además de las víctimas mortales, 40 personas han resultado heridas.
Entre las personas que perdieron la vida se encuentran una de 70 años y otra de 80, además de una menor de entre 9 y 10 años y un turista.
También se registraron sismos más leves por la madrugada del lunes, en la misma localidad a la 1:36 a.m., con una magnitud de 3,7 grados, y otro a las 5:35 a.m., de 3,6 grados.
La gobernadora Yamila Osorio señaló que las cifras de los daños podrían ser mayores y que esta información está siendo recabada por las autoridades locales.
Agregó que se espera la llegada de ayuda humanitaria de la capital pues los recursos de la región no son suficientes para atender la emergencia, acontecida en plena celebración del aniversario de Arequipa.
“Creemos que los daños son mucho más graves de lo que nos han informado. La noche nos ha dificultado poder brindar cifras más exactas”, dijo Osorio a Canal N, tras apelar a campañas de solidaridad para mitigar los efectos del desastre.
Ya salieron muy temprano, a las 4 am., módulos de vivienda hacia la zona. (…). Hemos coordinado con el jefe de Indeci (Instituto de Defensa Civil) para que también vaya trasladando los almacenes de la zona sur de regiones vecinas, porque necesitamos muchísimo apoyo. Los primeros reportes dicen que nuestros almacenes no van a ser suficientes para esta tragedia”, indicó a RPP.
El sismo generó la obstrucción de las vías que conectan a Chivay, capital de la provincia de Caylloma. En los alrededores se presentaron deslizamientos en los cerros y se obstaculizó el paso vehicular, asimismo se ha pedido que se restrinjan los viajes a Caylloma y se ha obstruido el acceso al Cañón del Colca.
Aunque las cifras proporcionadas por el gobierno regional indican que alrededor de 80 viviendas quedaron inhabitables, el subprefecto del distrito de Achoma, Fabio Mamani, informó a diario Correo que, solo en su localidad, de las 300 viviendas existentes, todas se encuentran en dichas condiciones.
Reports that British Ambassador Kim Darroch privately dissed the president’s team as “dysfunctional” and “inept” in leaked cables back to the British foreign ministry have set off a diplomatic spat. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
Kim Darroch is known as a garrulous and popular figure who rarely lets his diplomatic mask slip in public at his famously lavish parties.
When British Ambassador Kim Darroch went to the White House days after Donald Trump was inaugurated, the new U.S. president greeted him warmly, noting that he’d watched Darroch being interviewed on Fox News.
“You’re going to be a TV star!” Trump told Darroch.
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It was a jovial moment, according to two people Darroch told about the encounter, and it was one reason that the British envoy — in public and private — has described Trump as “charming.”
But new reports that Darroch privately dissed Trump’s team as “dysfunctional” and “inept” in leaked cables back to the British foreign ministry have set off a diplomatic spat and soured Trump on the diplomat. The president has spent two days obsessively tweeting about Darroch, claiming he doesn’t even know him, that the Brit is a “very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool” and — most astoundingly — insisting the U.S. will no longer deal with Darroch.
Yet in Washington, Darroch is widely liked and well-connected in U.S. government circles, having cultivated close ties to some of the president’s top aides, whom he regularly has seen in business and social settings. The ambassador to the U.S. since early 2016, he is a garrulous figure who rarely lets his diplomatic mask slip in public. He also throws famously lavish parties in his stately residence next to the massive British Embassy and always has a fun toast to make.
Trump aides and confidants who have attended his soirees include White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Darroch and his embassy even hosted a September 2017 engagement party for Katie Walsh, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, and her beau Mike Shields, which several Trump aides, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, attended. Matthew Whitaker celebrated the new year during his brief stint as acting attorney general at the British Embassy, where Darroch oversaw the festivities.
Now, almost overnight, the ambassador risks going from bipartisan Washington convener to ostracized foreigner at Trump’s direction. The fallout reflects how quickly Trump can turn on a top ally’s envoy — and insist that Washington turn with him. It’s also another example of Trump’s willingness to shatter diplomatic norms with the United Kingdom, which claims a “special relationship” with the United States.
“It drags one of the most important U.S. relationships internationally through the mud at the very highest levels,” said Jeff Rathke, a former Foreign Service officer and Europe analyst who has served in multiple administrations. “Even if it is temporarily satisfying for President Trump in some way, it is bad for the relationship because it undermines confidence and trust.”
The irony, said one person close to the Trump administration who’s been to Darroch’s parties, is that “a lot of folks from the White House actually say the exact same things” about the internal dynamics there. “They were probably saying those things to him.”
The fracas started Sunday, when the Daily Mail published a story detailing the contents of secret cables that Darroch had sent to London offering his analysis and views on the Trump administration starting in 2017. According to the British news outlet, Darroch described internal divisions in the White House as “knife fights,” warned Trump could lead the U.S. to war with Iran and described the administration overall as “chaotic,” predicting it would not become “less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.”
Darroch wrote that Trump “radiates insecurity” and has “no filter.” But he also warned officials in London: “Do not write him off.”
On Monday, Trump lashed out: “I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him.” By Tuesday, Trump seemed even more angry, tweeting: “The wacky Ambassador that the U.K. foisted upon the United States is not someone we are thrilled with, a very stupid guy…. I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool.”
On both occasions, Trump also used his tweets to attack outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May, who he said had failed to take his advice on how to negotiate Brexit with the EU. “She went her own foolish way-was unable to get it done,” Trump wrote.
So far, the British government has stood up for Darroch, noting that it’s his duty as a diplomat to offer “honest, unvarnished” analysis to his superiors back home. “Sir Kim Darroch continues to have the Prime Minister’s full support,” a U.K. spokesman said.
And the State Department has said it will still work with Darroch — for now.
“We will continue to deal with all accredited individuals until we get any further guidance from the White House or the president, which we will, of course, abide by the president’s direction,” spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said during a news conference, describing the U.S.-U.K. relationship as “bigger than any individual” and “bigger than any government.”
For his part, Darroch worked as usual on Tuesday from his embassy office on Massachusetts Avenue,. He also went to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.). However, he did not join a meeting between Liam Fox, a top British trade official, and Ivanka Trump, the president’s adviser and daughter. Fox had said he would apologize for the leak during the meeting.
Darroch, who did not respond to a request for comment, has spent decades as a diplomat, holding top positions such as national security adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron before coming to Washington. He’s done tours in Tokyo and Rome, and dealt with Middle Eastern and Adriatic issues, according to his embassy biography.
His appointment to the ambassador post in Washington is something of a career capstone — the position is considered the most prestigious ambassadorship in the U.K. foreign service and often goes to senior diplomats in the final years of their career.
The 65-year-old was born in Northern England and attended Durham University. He studied zoology but joined the U.K.’s diplomatic ranks in 1977. He is referred to as “Sir Kim” because of his appointment as a “Knight Commander” in 2008.
Some former officials and analysts believe what made Darroch a target for whoever leaked his critical memos is the ambassador’s extensive experience with European Union issues. He spent many years dealing with U.K.-EU relations, including having served as Britain’s representative to the regional bloc in Brussels. During a party in Washington months after the British voted to leave the EU, Darroch remarked wryly that his EU experience was “obviously time well spent.”
The belief in some corners is that the leaks of the cables were orchestrated by supporters of Brexit who want to make sure that the next British ambassador in the United States is on their side. Others suspect Russia may be behind the leaks similar to the way Moscow is accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails.
Sally Quinn, a journalist who’s attended parties at the British Embassy, said what Darroch wrote in the cables reflects what most foreign ambassadors in Washington also privately think.
“What Kim Darroch said is what all the ambassadors or most of them think, even the ones who particularly cozy up to the Trump people” like ambassadors from Middle Eastern countries, Quinn said. “They’re just lucky that their reports have not been hacked.”
Darroch has always been respectful to Trump administration officials in private, according to people who know him. At parties he has hosted, he would note how honored he was to have senior officials from the Trump administration attending, and they would return the bonhomie.
“Oh, we love the British — go Brexit!” one senior Trump administration official told Darroch at a small private dinner last year, prompting the British ambassador to laugh.
Darroch’s dilemma has now become an issue in the British Conservative Party’s internal race to replace May as prime minister. That contest is down to front-runner Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and a Brexit advocate, and Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary who supported remaining in the EU during the 2016 referendum.
Hunt on Tuesday tweeted support for Darroch, whom he said was simply doing his job by sending honest analysis to London.
“Allies need to treat each other with respect as @theresa_may has always done with you,” he wrote, addressing Trump. “Ambassadors are appointed by the UK government and if I become PM our Ambassador stays.”
Johnson has stressed that he has a “good relationship” with the White House, avoiding addressing Trump’s comments directly. But Nigel Farage, a fellow Brexiteer whom Trump has suggested should be the British ambassador in Washington, bulldozed into the controversy. “Kim Darroch is totally unsuitable for the job and the sooner he is gone the better,” Farage tweeted.
Despite Darroch’s positive reputation in the foreign policy establishment, some observers pointed out that the insights he offered in his memos weren’t all that original.
“You could have pulled it from pages of The New York Times,” said a senior Conservative British lawmaker, who asked not to be named. In fact, Trump’s “overreaction” arguably proved correct Darroch’s assessment about the volatility of his administration, the lawmaker added.
Robin Niblett, director of the London-based Chatham House think tank, said Trump’s assault may be an opportunistic attempt to gain “leverage” over the next British prime minister.
“In essence, it’s, ‘You will need to buy back my love,’” Niblett said. “There’s plenty of issues on which the U.S. wants to influence U.K. foreign policy going forward: Iran sanctions, [the Chinese tech firm] Huawei and a U.S.-U.K. trade deal.”
Darroch was expected to leave his post, and possibly retire, in January 2020. The fortuitous timing could give the next prime minister a chance to possibly sit tight and quietly move him on without appearing to have caved to Trump.
If Johnson wins the prime minister’s slot, he might recall the envoy. But if for whatever reason Darroch is allowed to stay and Trump follows through on his threat to bar U.S. officials from dealing with him, Darroch could find his final days as a diplomat rather lonely.
The dust up is already affecting his ability to socialize. On Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter confirmed the White House had disinvited Darroch from a dinner on Monday night in honor of the visiting emir of Qatar.
Charlie Cooper contributed to this report from London.
Developments in the Robert Mueller probe – which hit a milestone Wednesday with the sentencing of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen – have congressional Democrats openly revisiting the possibility of impeachment or even future prosecution of the president.
On the former, top Democrats in recent days have gone so far as to say the campaign finance violations Cohen claims President Trump directed amount to an “impeachable offense.” Some lawmakers swiftly raised the issue of the president’s culpability after Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison.
Yet key Democrats also have sought to make the distinction that it’s not clear whether the alleged offenses are so serious yet as to justify impeachment.
“I think what these indictments and filings show is that the president was at the center of … several massive frauds against the American people,” incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. But he clarified, “You don’t necessarily launch an impeachment against the president because he committed an impeachable offense.”
Figures like Nadler are sure to face rising pressure from the liberal base, and influential activists like Tom Steyer, to pursue impeachment proceedings in the new Congress.
The president fired a warning shot in an interview with Reuters, maintaining he’s done nothing wrong.
“I’m not concerned [about impeachment], no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened,” he told Reuters.
The impeachment debate has focused on an evolving set of alleged or suspected offenses since the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller. First, there was the suspicion of collusion between Russia and Trump campaign associates. Then, Democrats monitored the investigation’s turn to look at possible obstruction of justice. Most recently, they’ve seized on allegations made by Cohen – and echoed by federal prosecutors – that Trump ordered Cohen to make hush-money payments to two women going into the 2016 presidential campaign.
Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in connection with those payments, among numerous counts for which he was sentenced Wednesday.
But Trump has adamantly denied legal culpability in those transactions, tweeting that they did not amount to illicit campaign contributions – and even if they did, it would amount to a civil case.
“Lawyer’s liability if he made a mistake, not me … Cohen just trying to get his sentence reduced,” Trump tweeted.
“I don’t think they have a violation of the law,” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani also said.
But top Democrats are now citing all three of these areas – suspicion of Russia collusion, obstruction of justice and campaign finance violations – as subjects to explore in the new year.
The political and logistical challenge for Democrats considering impeachment will remain even after the party takes control of the House in January: Republicans control the Senate, and it takes a two-thirds majority in that chamber to convict an impeached president.
Nadler, speaking on MSNBC last week, cited that hurdle in arguing that the House would need to have convincing evidence of serious offenses to proceed with impeachment.
At the same time, Democrats are looking at easing the path to potentially prosecute Trump in the future.
Nadler acknowledged that, while he disagrees with the finding, the Justice Department is bound by an opinion that a sitting president can’t be indicted for crimes – so he is considering introducing legislation that would effectively extend the statute of limitations so a sitting president could be prosecuted for potential offenses after leaving office.
The legislation specifically would put the statute of limitations on hold while a president is in office.
“You should not have a system where a president, anybody, is above the law,” he said.
Giuliani told Politico that such a move would “violate the spirit if not the letter of the constitutional protection against ex post facto legislation” – or punitive legislation that applies retroactively.
The guilty plea Thursday of a woman accused of infiltrating the National Rifle Association on behalf of the Russian government has thrust the powerful conservative group into an uncomfortable spotlight as the organization appears to be facing declining donations and signs its fearsome political influence may be waning.
Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Russia, admitting that she worked for more than two years to forge relationships with conservative activists and leading Republicans in the United States.
One of Butina’s main targets was the NRA — a group she identified in a 2015 memo as an organization that “had influence over” the Republican Party, according to court filings. Her relationships with the group, she wrote, could be used as the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication to the next presidential administration.
Later that year, she helped organize a delegation of top NRA leaders to visit Moscow, arranging for them to meet Russian government officials, and she attended the group’s annual conventions as an honored guest.
Butina and Alexander Torshin, a former Russian government official who helped direct her activities, then used their NRA connections to get access to GOP presidential candidates, according to court filings.
Butina’s case exposed how Russia saw the NRA as a key pathway to influencing American politics to the Kremlin’s benefit. And it has intensified questions about what the gun rights group knew of the Russian effort to shape U.S. policy and whether it faces ongoing legal scrutiny.
The NRA’s interactions with Butina and Torshin came as the group embarked on an unprecedented spending spree to help elect Donald Trump president.
NRA spending on the 2016 elections surged in every category, with its political action committee and political nonprofit arm together shelling out $54.4 million. The bulk of the money — $30 million — went to efforts supporting Trump. That is triple the amount the group devoted to electing Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race.
Two years later, the group’s standing appears to have shifted amid robust challenges from student activists, lawmakers and, most recently, an anti- gun-violence campaign led by medical professionals.
The group’s spending on federal races in 2018 plummeted to roughly $9 million. In a rare move, some Republican candidates running in competitive, suburban House districts returned or did not deposit donations from the NRA.
Election-related spending reflects just one aspect of the NRA’s political influence, and the group remains an active lobbying and grass-roots force.
In 2017, the NRA’s political nonprofit arm, which is separate from its charitable arm and its PAC, spent more money than it took in for the second year in a row, according to tax filings and an independent financial audit obtained by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Contributions from donors to that group declined in 2017, tax records show. That entity also saw a decline in revenue from membership dues in 2017 compared with 2016, the audit shows.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers have questioned whether the group’s spending spike in 2016 was tied to its Russian connections.
The NRA has denied those allegations, saying it followed campaign finance laws that make it illegal for foreign citizens to fund political efforts in the United States.
In a letter to Wyden earlier this year, NRA general counsel John C. Frazer wrote that the group received just about $2,500 in 2015 and 2016 from 25 people with Russian addresses who paid ∞standard membership dues and magazine subscription fees.
“Our review of records has found no foreign donations in connection with a United States election, either directly or through a conduit,” Frazer wrote.
Ann Ravel, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, said the Butina case underscores the risk of foreign actors seeking to influence U.S. elections through politically active groups whose finances are difficult to trace.
“They’ve got so many varied ways to give that money circuitously,” said Ravel, a Democrat. “You can’t know the derivation of the money, so it is extremely easy for foreign actors, foreign governments, foreign entities — like Butina and others — to give money.”
Butina cultivated ties with NRA leaders at a time when the conservative movement broadly was growing increasingly intrigued by Russia.
Social conservatives admired Russia’s hard-line stance on gay rights. Nationalist conservatives were attracted to Putin’s insistence that Russia’s issues were of little concern to the United States. Foreign policy conservatives saw Putin as a natural ally in the fight against Islamist terrorism.
Torshin, who penned a 2010 Russian-language booklet that echoed NRA rhetoric to support the expansion of gun rights in his country, was introduced to Keene at the NRA’s annual meeting that year by a conservative Nashville lawyer named G. Kline Preston IV, who had done business in Russia for years.
Preston said this week that he had no regrets about making the connection and saw nothing wrong with Butina’s activities.
“I don’t know what their goals were, but if the goal was to improve U.S.-Russia relations, I don’t see what the problem is,” said Preston, who said he has not been interviewed by U.S. authorities about the relationship.
He said he always believed Butina was acting as a private citizen. But, he added, “the question becomes, okay, perhaps she was working at the behest of the Russian government. But if it’s a commercial arm of a foreign government that’s trying to expand ties with another country, is that wrong?”
In 2013, Butina and Torshin hosted a small group of gun enthusiasts led by Keene at the annual meeting of a gun rights group Butina founded in Moscow, records about the event show. The following year, Butina arrived in the United States for the first time to attend an NRA meeting in Indianapolis.
The NRA treated Butina and Torshin like important visiting dignitaries, according to the pair’s social media accounts. Butina was welcomed to a special luncheon for women who support the group, as a personal guest of former NRA president Sandra Froman. Butina gushed on Twitter that she was given the “rare privilege” of ringing the NRA’s “Liberty Bell” at an event for donors who had given $1 million or more to the group. Later, she was given a tour of the group’s highly secure headquarters in Fairfax County, according to Butina’s social media posts.
The access gave Butina opportunity to brush shoulders with high-profile Republican politicians who spoke at the NRA’s meetings, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and then- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
When NRA leaders planned a visit to Moscow in December 2015, Butina and Torshin were eager to show the Americans the same kind of hospitality they were afforded, according to a person familiar with testimony Butina gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee in April.
She and Torshin also discussed “the importance of a political program” as part of the trip, according to Butina’s plea agreement.
Included in the group was Keene, as well as Pete Brownell, the group’s vice president, who would take over as president in 2016, according to documents provided to Congress. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke attended as well, later disclosing in Wisconsin records that his travel had been funded by Butina’s group. Major NRA donors Arnold Goldschlager and Joseph Gregory were in attendance, as well.
The sometimes lavish December 2015 festivities included a visit to the famed Bolshoi Ballet, a Russian gun-manufacturing company and the private offices of the Russian Foreign Ministry for a meeting with the country’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov.
The group also met with Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy prime minister who had been hit with sanctions by the United States after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
Attendance at the meeting with Lavrov was limited to just seven people, documents provided to Congress show.
In a statement, Lavrov’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told The Post earlier this year that the meeting came at the request of the Americans, as part of the ministry’s “traditional interaction” with large civic organizations.
“The declared topic of the meeting was aspects of the bilateral relationship and international questions,” she said, noting that Americans are often particularly focused on Middle East policy.
After the Americans left Russia, Butina reiterated to Torshin the goal of the trip: “We should let them express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later,” she wrote to him, according to court documents.
Butina and Torshin’s efforts to use the NRA as a springboard to broader influence in the Republican Party was evident in the run-up to the NRA’s 2016 annual meeting in Louisville, where Trump was scheduled to speak.
About 10 days before the event, an American Republican operative named Paul Erickson emailed a campaign aide to Trump. Erickson, who was romantically involved with Butina, wrote that his involvement with the NRA had placed him in a position “to slowly begin cultivating a back channel to President Putin’s Kremlin,” according to a copy of the email read to The Post.
“The Kremlin believes the only possibility of a true reset in this relationship would be a new Republican White House,” he continued. He suggested thatduring the NRA convention, Trump meet Torshin, whom he described as “President Putin’s emissary on this front,” as a “first contact.” He wrote that Trump could then visit the Kremlin before the election.
“Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,” Erickson wrote.
Erickson has not been charged with any wrongdoing. His attorney, William Hurd, called him “a good American” who “has never done anything to hurt our country and never would.”
The Trump campaign declined Erickson’s offer. But Butina told the Senate Intelligence Committee that when she and Torshin joined Keene to celebrate his birthday, they discovered they had selected the same restaurant where Trump Jr. was dining with NRA members.
According to a person familiar with her testimony, the Russian agent spoke briefly with the candidate’s son, discussing hunting in Russia. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee that their conversation was “brief, a few minutes.”
Asked what they discussed, Trump Jr. said simply of Torshin, “I believe he’s a gun enthusiast.”
Alice Crites, Spencer S. Hsu, Tom Jackman and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
His autocratic tendencies are well-known. His sudden absence from public view prompted fierce speculation and rumour. One headline suggested that he was “brain-dead”.
The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s whereabouts remain unknown. But after a lost weekend, Donald Trump bounced back into the spotlight on Monday determined to prove that he is not only healthy but working very, very hard.
“The people that know me and know the history of our Country say that I am the hardest working President in history,” Trump had tweeted on Sunday, apparently stung by a New York Times report that said he spent all morning watching TV and clocks into the Oval Office around noon. “I don’t know about that, but I am a hard worker and have probably gotten more done in the first 3 1/2 years than any President in history. The Fake News hates it!”
Trump’s aides fell into line with a Pyongyang-like lockstep. Mark Meadows, the new White House chief of staff, told the New York Post he got a call from Trump at 3.19am. “I can tell you that the biggest concern I have as a new chief of staff is making sure he gets some time to get a quick bite to eat,” he said.
It was the Gordon Gekko argument from the 1987 film Wall Street: “Lunch is for wimps.”
Kayleigh McEnany, the new White House press secretary, duly quoted Meadows on Fox News and added: “Make no mistake about it, it’s why I watch this president get up early in the morning and work until late into the evening to ensure to that end America’s workers get paid and American lives are protected.”
Yet like Kim, Trump was nowhere to be seen over a weekend that included his wife Melania’s 50th birthday and a barrage of angry tweets. Some wondered if he had retreated to a hermit-like existence following bleach-gate, his bizarre riff last Thursday musing aloud that disinfectant could be injected into coronavirus patients.
The sorry episode generated open-mouthed disbelief and derision around the world. Coronavirus task force members were said to be stunned. For White House aides and Republican allies, it was reportedly the straw that broke the camel’s back: these daily briefings had become a political liability that could cost Trump the presidential election.
So there was no briefing on Saturday, nor on Sunday. The official White House guidance said there would be on Monday. At 9.41am, Trump, whose very self-conception is based on what he sees reflected back through the media, tweeted: “There has never been, in the history of our Country, a more vicious or hostile Lamestream Media than there is right now, even in the midst of a National Emergency, the Invisible Enemy!”
At 10.52am, the briefing was abruptly cancelled without explanation. But at 1.32pm, it was officially back on again, scheduled for the rose garden at 5pm. As a poet once wrote, “Who is in charge of the clattering train?”
It turned out the rose garden was decked out with a red carpet and US national flags. Corporate chief executives gave remarks. Trump did not advise anyone to inject disinfectant into their veins, nor did he berate some hapless journalist as “a third rate reporter”, but it could hardly be described as the long-yearned for “pivot” to a presidential mien.
Stung, perhaps, by a Washington Post analysis that found over the past three weeks of briefings Trump spent two hours on attacks, 45 minutes praising himself and his administration and just 4½ minutes expressing condolences for coronavirus victim, he read scripted remarks as usual before adding: “We do grieve.”
He went on to script a political attack ad against himself: “There has been so much unnecessary death in this country. It could have been stopped and it could have been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way. And the whole world is suffering because of it. 184 countries, at least.”
In his old self-promotional style, he boasted: “I built the greatest economy in the history of the world. I built it.”
Dr Deborah Birx outlined the taskforce’s new guidelines for state testing. Trump said the US has carried out 5.4m tests, more than double any other country. He did not mention how far it still lags behind per capita, nor how prominent task force member Dr Anthony Fauci has warned that testing levels need to at least be doubled before lockdown restrictions can be relaxed.
The president was told that at least one governor reports an increase in the improper use of disinfectants. He said: “I can’t imagine why. I can’t imagine why.”
Asked if he accepts responsibility for the sharp rise, he answered bluntly: “No, I don’t.”
Someone else wondered if Trump might try to change the date of the November election. “No, I would never change the date of the election,” he said. “November 3rd. It’s a good number.”
There was a memorably pointed question: “Does a president deserve another term after more Americans die in six weeks than the entire Vietnam war?”
Trump, who was reportedly warned about the coronavirus by US intelligence agencies more than a dozen times in January and February, replied: “We’ve lost a lot of people. But if you look at what original projections were … we’ve made a lot of good decisions.”
Another reporter inquired about Kim’s condition. “I do have a very good idea but I can’t talk about it now,” Trump teased, game show style. “I just wish him well … I hope he’s fine. I do know how he’s doing, relatively speaking. We will see, you’ll probably be hearing in the not too distant future.”
If only the victims of the coronavirus were afforded such presidential compassion. But empathy, like lunch, is for wimps.
Leonardo Fariña no para de escribir. Tuvo dos años de encierro carcelario para mirar su causa de punta a punta. Anotó todo aquello que recordaba y cada vez que tenía una duda llamaba a su abogada, Giselle Robles. Cuando declaró por primera vez el 8 de abril ante el juez Sebastián Casanello, Fariña llevó esos papeles, que le sirvieron como ayuda memoria, y luego los dejó en el juzgado. Esa fue la declaración que se filtró el pasado miércoles. Pero siguió escribiendo. El 12 de abril envió al juzgado una ampliación de su indagatoria hasta ahora desconocida y a la que tuvo acceso NOTICIAS. En ese manuscrito, el arrepentido de la “Ruta del dinero K” da más detalles sobre el universo de Lázaro Báez. “Durante mi estadía en Río Gallegos, el señor Báez y demás integrantes del grupo mostraban como el encargado de las cuestiones personales legales de Báez al Dr. Saldivia. No recuerdo si se llama Roberto o Ricardo”, describió Fariña.
Roberto Saldivia es un abogado patagónico muy conocido en el universo K. No sólo porque es uno de los apoderados legales de Báez sino también porque integró el primer directorio de Hotesur, la empresa controlante de Alto Calafate, el hotel de la familia Kirchner. “Hice referencia al Dr. Saldivia ya que puede tener documentación que sirva para el proceso y porque me consta la estrecha confianza con el señor Báez”, agregó el arrepentido.
Roberto Saldivia, el abogado de Báez mencionado por Fariña.
Inmuebles. Otro personaje que mencionó Fariña y que hasta ahora no había sido incluido en la causa que investiga el juez Casanello es Osvaldo “Bochi” Sanfelice. En su manuscrito Fariña recordó un encuentro que tuvo con él. “Cuando llegamos a la empresa la reunión inicial la tuve con Martín Báez, Claudio Bustos, el “Bochi” Sanfelice y Carlos Minozzi (dueño de Plus Carga). Con el paso del tiempo, Martín Báez me dijo que el “Bochi” era el encargado de la inteligencia de ellos (sic). No me consta que haya trabajado para los servicios pero sí que él era el encargado de la inteligencia para el grupo”, contó Fariña. Reveladoras aptitudes del socio de Máximo Kirchner.
Más adelante, el ex marido de Karina Jelinek agregó otras funciones del “Bochi”: “Era el administrador de los bienes inmuebles y de los campos de Báez y de Austral Agro. Esta persona tiene la documentación de las propiedades de Báez y de los campos de Austral Agro”, contó. Sobre los campos de Báez, dijo que sólo vio “algunos boletos de compraventa que se pagaron en dólares cash”. Y su relato sigue con detalles exquisitos. Fariña sabe que si da información buena y corroborable, tendrá un mejor trato en su pena. “Hay que pegarle para que deje de hablar”, deslizan los empleados más jocosos del juzgado Nº 7 de Comodoro Py.
“Austral Agro era una empresa que no tenía propiedades, no generaba ganancias (hasta que yo estuve) y estaban haciendo un proyecto experimental de plantaciones con semillas traídas de Canadá y USA. Esa empresa estaba a cargo de Leandro Báez. Lo que sí puedo asegurar es que el valor de patrimonio de la empresa no era coincidente con los valores de los boletos de compraventa. Y además había campos que no estaban incorporados al patrimonio, pero sí comprados por boleto”, detalló Fariña.
La carretera que conduce a Papallacta permanece cerrada luego de que amaneció con una capa de hielo provocada por una nevada. Así lo reportó esta mañana el ECU911 de Quito.
La Policía Nacional informó que la vía Pifo – Papallacta, al nororiente de Quito, se encuentra cerrada.
Conductores fueron testigos de la condición climática que generó una capa de aproximadamente 6 centímetros. Las autoridades recomendaron conducir con precaución, utilizar luces y reducir la velocidad hasta que la carretera sea despejada.
Según Mónica Valdiviezo, analista del Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (Inamhi), este acontecimiento se debe al ingreso de masas de aire frío desde el continente con niveles medios de la atmósfera, que al ponerse en contacto con la parte alta de la cordillera de los Andes, estas condiciones cambian.
“En la zona la temperatura es fría y al ingresar una masa de aire más fría, esta se pasó del estado gaseoso al sólido a lo que se le llama sublimación inversa”, indicó.
De acuerdo a las estadísticas del Inamhi, en septiembre de 2016 también se dio este acontecimiento.
Valdiviezo señaló que Ecuador es un país tropical cuyas condiciones cambian bruscamente. A la vez, descartó que estas alteraciones en el clima se den con frecuencia. “Por el momento no se va a repetir, todo depende de las condiciones, la atmósfera es dinámica”, sostuvo.
La Policía Nacional y Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas (MTOP) realizan la limpieza de la nieve a la subida a Papallacta, a la altura del km 20.
La analista informó a este medio que el Inamhi para estos acontecimientos hacen un análisis con imágenes satelitales para luego emitirlo a la Secretaría Nacional de Gestión de Riesgos (SNGR) y así proceder con las medidas de prevención. (I)
Colombo, Sri Lanka — President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has agreed to resign in the coming days, the speaker of Sri Lanka’s Parliament said on a tumultuous Saturday that also saw the prime minister say he would step down and the storming of both leaders’ residences by protesters angry over the nation’s severe economic crisis.
Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said in a televised statement that he informed Rajapaksa that parliamentary leaders had met and decided to request he leave office, and the president agreed. However Rajapaksa will remain until Wednesday to ensure a smooth transfer of power, Abeywardena added.
“He asked me to inform the country that he will make his resignation on Wednesday the 13th because there is a need to hand over power peacefully,” Abeywardena said.
Protesters storm in at the Sri Lankan president’s official residence, in Colombo, Sri Lanka , Saturday, July, 9, 2022. Protesters have broken into the Sri Lankan prime minister’s private residence and set it on fire, hours after he said he would resign when a new government is formed over a worsening economic crisis. It was the biggest day of demonstrations that also saw crowds storming the president’s home and office.
Eranga Jayawardena / AP
“Therefore there is no need for further disturbances in the country and I urge everyone for the sake of the country to maintain peace to enable a smooth transition,” the speaker continued.
Opposition lawmaker Rauff Hakeem said a consensus was reached for the speaker of Parliament to take over as temporary president and work on an interim government.
The announcement of the president’s resignation came hours after protesters swarmed into his fortified residence in Colombo. Video images showed jubilant crowds taking a dip in the garden pool. Some people lay on the home’s beds, while others made tea and issued statements from a conference room demanding the departure of both Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
It was not clear if Rajapaksa was there at the time, and government spokesman Mohan Samaranayake said he had no information about the president’s movements.
Protesters also broke into the prime minister’s private residence and set it on fire, Wickremesinghe’s office said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was there when the incursion happened.
Hours earlier Wickremesinghe had announced his own impending resignation, amid calls for him to quit. But he said he will not step down until a new government is formed, angering protesters who demanded his immediate departure.
A man picks up a tear gas canister to throw it away after police fired it to disperse the protesters in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, July 9, 2022. Sri Lanka’s prime minister agreed to resign on Saturday after party leaders in Parliament demanded both he and the embattled president step down on the day protesters stormed the president’s residence and office in a fury over a worsening economic crisis.
Amitha Thennakoon / AP
“Today in this country we have a fuel crisis, a food shortage, we have the head of the World Food Program coming here and we have several matters to discuss with the IMF,” Wickremesinghe said.. “Therefore, if this government leaves there should be another government.”
Wickremesinghe said he suggested to the president to have an all-party government, but didn’t say anything about Rajapaksa’s whereabouts. Opposition parties in Parliament were discussing the formation of a new government.
Rajapaksa appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister in May in the hope that the career politician would use his diplomacy and contacts to resuscitate a collapsed economy. But people’s patience wore thin as shortages of fuel, medicine and cooking gas only increased and oil reserves ran dry.
The country is relying on aid from India and other nations as leaders try to negotiate a bailout with the International Monetary Fund.
Months of demonstrations have all but dismantled the Rajapaksa political dynasty, which has ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades but is accused by protesters of dragging the country into chaos through poor management and alleged corruption. The president’s older brother resigned as prime minister in May after violent protests saw him seek safety at a naval base.
Thousands of protesters entered the capital from the suburbs Saturday after police lifted an overnight curfew denounced as illegal by lawyers and opposition politicians. With fuel supplies scarce, many crowded onto buses and trains while others made their way on bicycles and on foot.
At the president’s seaside office, security personnel tried in vain to stop protesters who pushed through fences to run across the lawns and inside the colonial-era building.
A man throws back a tear gas shell after it was fired by police to disperse the protesters in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, July 9, 2022. Sri Lankan protesters demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign forced their way into his official residence on Saturday.
Amitha Thennakoon / AP
At least 34 people including two police officers were hurt in scuffles. Two of the injured were in critical condition, while others sustained minor injuries, according to an official at the Colombo National Hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Privately owned Sirasa Television reported that at least six of its workers, including four reporters, were hospitalized after being beaten by police while covering the protest at the prime minister’s home.
Sri Lanka Medical Council, the country’s top professional body, warned that hospitals were running with minimum resources and would not be able to handle any mass casualties from the unrest.
Protest and religious leaders said Rajapaksa has lost his mandate and it is time for him to go.
“His claim that he was voted in by the Sinhala Buddhists is not valid now,” said Ven. Omalpe Sobitha, a prominent Buddhist leader. He urged Parliament to convene immediately to select an interim president.
Wickremesinghe said last month that the country’s economy had collapsed and that negotiations with the IMF were complex because Sri Lanka was now a bankrupt state.
Sri Lanka announced in April that it was suspending repayment of foreign loans due to a foreign currency shortage. Its total foreign debt amounts to $51 billion, of which it must repay $28 billion by the end of 2027.
U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung on Friday asked people to protest peacefully and called for the military and police “to grant peaceful protesters the space and security to do so.”
“Chaos & force will not fix the economy or bring the political stability that Sri Lankans need right now,” Chung tweeted.
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