Mr. Bali said about 400 Syrians had been released through this process, and added that Kurdish authorities were trying to repatriate other prisoners to their home countries. But that effort is facing strong headwinds.“Some countries showed more interest than others in extraditing their citizens,” said Nouri Mahmoud, a Kurdish spokesman. “European governments so far have been reluctant to reach out to us in order to extradite their citizens.”Khaled al-Ibrahim, a lawyer who represents defendants in a special terrorism court that Kurdish authorities call People’s Defense Court, defended in WhatsApp messages the justice that is being administered to the suspected Islamic State fighters.“Any defendant can be assigned a lawyer to take their case,” he said. “Verdicts come after court sessions and evidence presented. We don’t have the death sentence in the Northern Syria federation. We don’t torture or get confessions by force. Our prisons are correctional facilities.”Even as Kurdish authorities, American officials and relief organizations seek to address the Islamic State prisoners in custody, broader concerns remain about those fighters still at large.Some 40,000 fighters from more than 120 countries poured into the battles in Syria and Iraq over the past four years, American and other Western officials say. While thousands died on the battlefield, officials say many thousands more probably survived to slip away to conflicts in Libya, Yemen or the Philippines, or have gone into hiding in countries like Turkey. About 295 Americans are believed to have traveled to Iraq or Syria, or tried to, American officials said.Of more than 5,000 Europeans who joined those ranks, as many as 1,500 have returned home, including many women and children, and most of the rest are dead or still fighting, according to Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s top counterterrorism official.

Beginning in January 2017, when he first met Donald Trump, James Comey, then FBI director, carefully described each of his interactions with the new president in memos he shared with top deputies and lawyers within the agency. Comey said he wrote the memos because he thought the president might later lie about those interactions.Seven of the memos, running as long as four pages each, were released on Thursday night on the initiative of Republicans in Congress, who have accused Comey of leaking classified information by causing some of the material to be passed to the press. Although the memos undercut that accusation – most of them are stamped “unclassified” and others are slightly redacted – Trump publicized them with an unusual late-night tweet on Thursday claiming that they “show clearly that there was NO COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION”.Those might not be the conclusions that jump out for most readers. Here are six takeaways:Descriptions in the memos of key interactions with the president are consistent with descriptions Comey has given elsewhere, including in testimony before Congress and in his new book, A Higher Loyalty. In one memo, Comey describes a private dinner in which Trump said “I need loyalty”. In another memo, Comey describes a private meeting in which Trump asked him to “let go” of an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.Trump has flatly denied that either scene took place. “I hardly know the man,” he said of Comey in June 2017, denying he asked for loyalty. “I’m not going to say: ‘I want you to pledge allegiance.’ Who would do that?”In another denial, Trump tweeted in December 2017: “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!”The Comey memos, which are clearly contemporaneous accounts written with the even tone and careful eye of a practiced criminal investigator, seem to lend weight to Comey’s version of events, and indicate that it is Trump who is the liar.In January 2017, it fell to Comey to describe to the president allegations, summarized by former British spy Christopher Steele, that Trump had been with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. In five of the seven Comey memos, Trump discusses the allegations, which included a description of the prostitutes urinating.Here’s how Comey describes Trump talking about the allegations: “I said the Russians allegedly had tapes involving him and prostitutes at the presidential suite at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow from about 2013. He interjected: ‘There were no prostitutes; there were never prostitutes.’ He then said something about him being the kind of guy who didn’t need to ‘go there’ and laughed (which I understood to be communicating that he didn’t need to pay for sex) …“At about this point, he turned to what he called the ‘golden showers thing’ and recounted much of what he had said previously on that topic … He said he thought maybe he should ask me to investigate the whole thing to prove it was a lie. I did not ask any questions. I replied that it was up to him, but that I wouldn’t want to create a narrative that we were investigating him, because we are not and I worried such a thing would be misconstrued.“The president brought up the ‘golden showers thing’ and said it really bothered him if his wife had any doubt about it … The president said ‘the hookers thing’ is nonsense but that Putin had told him ‘we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world’.“He then went on at great length, explaining that he has nothing to do with Russia … was not involved with hookers in Russia (Can you imagine me, hookers? I have a beautiful wife, and it has been very painful), is bringing a personal lawsuit against Christopher Steele, always advised people to assume they were being recorded in Russia, has accounts now from those who traveled with him to Miss Universe pageant [sic] that he didn’t do anything, etc.”Early in his administration, Trump was taken aback by the publication of details of phone calls he held with foreign heads of state and other leaks. The president and Comey had multiple bracing calls about the topic, according to the memos, in which Comey wants to go after the leakers and Trump suggests jailing reporters. “I explained that the FBI gathers intelligence in part to equip the president to make decisions,” Comey writes, “and if people run around telling the press what we do, that ability will be compromised. I said I was eager to find leakers and would like to nail one to the door as a message. I said something about it being difficult and he replied that we need to go after the reporters, and referred to the fact that 10 or 15 years ago we put them in jail to find out what they knew, and it worked. He mentioned Judy Miller by name. I explained that I was a fan of pursuing leaks aggressively but that going after reporters was tricky, for legal reasons and because [Department of Justice] tends to approach it conservatively. He replied by telling me to talk to ‘Sessions’ and see what we can do about being more aggressive. I told him I would speak to the attorney general …“The president then wrapped up our conversation by returning to the issue of finding leakers. I said something about the value of putting a head on a pike as a message. He replied by saying it may involve putting reporters in jail. ‘They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend and they are ready to talk.’ I laughed as I walked to the door Reince Priebus had opened.”The precision of observation in the Comey memos would seem to further bolster the former FBI director’s credibility in the he-said, he-said war with Trump. Of his private dinner with Trump in the White House Green room, Comey writes: “The conversation, which was pleasant at all times, was chaotic, with topics touched, left, then returned to later, making it very difficult to recount in a linear fashion …“At various times, he talked about the inauguration and crowd size, the campaign and his effective use of free media (‘earned media’), the extraordinary luxury of the White House (which he compared favorably to Mar-a-Lago), his many activities during the day and week, his young son’s height, the viciousness of the campaign (where I interjected about Adams and Jefferson; he said he had been given a book about it, which was upstairs), how he had not been mocking a handicapped reporter, had not assaulted any of the women who claimed he did (reviewing in detail several of the allegations), and many other things.In a 28 January 2017 memo describing his private dinner with the president, Comey writes that Trump had deep reservations about the judgment of his national security adviser, whom Trump would remove two weeks later. “He then went on to explain that he has serious reservations about Mike Flynn’s judgment and illustrated with a story from that day,” Comey writes. In the story, Trump tells British prime minister Theresa May that she had been the first foreign leader to call him after his inauguration, when Flynn interrupted to say that actually a different foreign leader, whose name is redacted from the memo, had called prior to May.”Trump then “confronted” Flynn and grew “heated” that he did not know about the earlier call, Comey writes, concluding: “In telling the story, the president pointed his fingers at his head and said: ‘The guy has serious judgment issues.’”Later, chief of staff Reince Priebus, whom the Trump administration offered as Comey’s White House liaison, asks Comey if Flynn was under surveillance. Comey replied that the direct question was not appropriate but then answered the question. The answer he gave was redacted. The president has often appeared indifferent to or incapable of mastering the details of policy. (On healthcare: “Nobody knew healthcare could be this complicated”; on North Korea: “After listening [to China’s Xi Jinping] for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy.”)But Comey, who has told interviewers he thinks Trump is of “above average intelligence”, describes a deep understanding on the part of the president of how he, Comey, had thrice taken the public stage during the election.“He knew the sequence of events extremely well, breaking them down in his lexicon into Comey One, Comey Two and Comey Three developments, and he walked through how he saw each played out during the campaign, in great detail.” Topics Donald Trump James Comey US politics news

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that it was extremely concerned after Australia’s government banned Chinese telecoms firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] from supplying equipment for the country’s planned 5G mobile network. Ministry spokesman Lu Kang made the comment at a daily news briefing in Beijing. Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Writing by Philip Wen; Editing by Darren SchuettlerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The offices of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox have been raided by officials from the European commission investigating a potential abuse of its dominant position in the broadcasting of major sports events.Following reports that the competition regulator had gained access to the company’s offices in Hammersmith, west London, a spokesman for the commission confirmed that a series of “unannounced inspections” had taken place at the offices of unnamed companies in several EU countries.A spokesman for Murdoch’s company confirmed: “Fox Networks Group (FNG) is cooperating fully with the EC inspection.” FNG is an operating unit of Fox, which distributes TV and cable channels and content around the world.A commission spokesman said of the raids on Tuesday: “The European commission can confirm that on 10 April its officials carried out unannounced inspections in several member states at the premises of companies active in the distribution of media rights and related rights pertaining to various sports events and/or their broadcasting. Unannounced inspections are a preliminary step into suspected anticompetitive practices.”The raids, during which documents and computer records were reportedly taken, had been prompted by concerns of the regulators in Brussels that Fox “may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices”.The entertainment giant is currently embroiled in a long-drawn-out takeover of Sky, during which it has fallen under intense scrutiny by regulators in London and Brussels. Fox has been trying to buy the 61% of Sky that it does not currently own.In January the UK’s competition and markets authority provisionally found that if the deal went ahead as planned, it would give the Murdoch family too much control over news providers in the UK. The regulator scrutinising the deal feared it could lead to the Murdoch family trust holding too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.Disney has offered to buy Sky News to help Murdoch seal his £11.7bn takeover of Sky by allaying fears he will control too much of the UK news media.That deal would pave the way for Disney’s proposed $66bn (£47bn) takeover of most of 21st Century Fox, including all of Sky.Sky had previously said it could close Sky News if Fox failed to gain regulatory clearance for its takeover bid.Politicians including the former Labour leader Ed Miliband, the Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable, and the Conservative MP Ken Clarke have been outspoken in criticising the deal and calling for it to be blocked.The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority aided the officials in their raid of the offices in west London, the commission said. The commission spokesman added: “The fact that the commission carries out such inspections does not mean that the companies are guilty of anticompetitive behaviour nor does it prejudge the outcome of the investigation itself.“The commission respects the rights of defence, in particular, the right of companies to be heard in antitrust proceedings.”There is no legal deadline to complete inquiries into anticompetitive conduct.While Fox’s takeover of Sky has fallen foul of the UK’s regulator, it was cleared unconditionally by Brussels last year. The commission found that there were no competition concerns in the proposed combination of Sky, the leading pay-TV operator in Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the UK and 21st Century Fox, which owns one of the six major Hollywood film studios, as well as a TV channel.Murdoch dropped his previous attempt to take control of Sky in 2010-11 through News Corp after the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World hit the headlines.As news of the raids emerged, shares in Fox fell more than 1%. Topics 21st Century Fox Rupert Murdoch Europe European commission European Union news

As part of his work for Turkey, Mr. Flynn’s company sought to persuade members of Congress that Mr. Gulen ought to be extradited. Mr. Flynn also commissioned a lengthy dossier titled “Fethullah Gulen: A Primer for Investigators,” which was written by Thomas Neer, a former F.B.I. agent.Mr. Mueller took over that aspect of the inquiry in 2017.A spokesman for Mr. Mueller declined to comment. A spokesman for federal prosecutors in Virginia did not respond to a message seeking comment.Many specifics of the Virginia investigation are unclear, but it could involve whether anyone associated with Mr. Flynn or his company failed to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the law requiring disclosures to the Justice Department about lobbying on behalf of foreign interests.Mr. Flynn admitted to prosecutors last year that he had repeatedly violated that law. He had said he wrote the op-ed at his own initiative, concealing that he did so at the direction of Turkey. On Tuesday, prosecutors on Mr. Mueller’s team wrote that Mr. Flynn’s op-ed “was valuable to the Republic of Turkey’s efforts to shape public opinion.”In 2017, Mr. Flynn and his business partner, Bijan Kian, filed additional lobbying disclosures acknowledging that the Gulen project “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.” They detailed payments to roughly a dozen other people and firms associated with the Gulen project.Prosecutors could also be investigating reports that Mr. Flynn discussed kidnapping the cleric as part of a plan to forcibly return him to Turkey. Mr. Flynn’s lawyer has denied his client considered kidnapping Mr. Gulen.

Two giant fines by US government agencies totaling $5.1bn could not derail Facebook’s financial juggernaut on Wednesday, as the company reported revenues of $16.9bn in the second quarter of 2019, exceeding analyst expectations.The social media company’s regulatory concerns are by no means over, however. Facebook also disclosed on Wednesday that the FTC informed it in June that it has opened an antitrust investigation into the company. This follows the Department of Justice’s announcement of a broad antitrust review of online platforms on Tuesday.The one-time costs of the two settlements depressed Facebook’s profits for the second quarter in a row – the company recorded a $3bn expense last quarter in anticipation of a major fine – but revenue growth remained strong, at 28% year-over-year.Facebook also saw continued strength in its key usage metrics, with 1.59bn daily active users and 2.41bn monthly active users, with both metrics seeing 8% growth year-over-year.Shares initially jumped in after-hours trading, capping off a day that saw the market reward Facebook for resolving the two outstanding investigations with a 1.14% gain.The earnings report came on a momentous day for the 15-year-old social media company as it settled investigations by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), both stemming from the Cambridge Analytica revelations that were first reported by the Observer.The FTC had investigated whether the data practices uncovered in that reporting violated a 2012 order barring Facebook from deceiving users about its privacy practices. The FTC’s inquiry found repeated violations of that order, in addition to “a new set of deceptive practices” related to data collection.Facebook agreed to pay $5bn and adopt new corporate procedures governing privacy, but did not admit wrongdoing.On a conference call with investors, the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, warned that the strictures of the settlement will “require significant investment” and slow the pace of product development. Zuckerberg said he was pleased that the settlements had provided the company with a “clearer path forward”, but did not address the newly disclosed antitrust investigation.Zuckerberg also reiterated his desire for government regulation of the internet. “Either the right regulations will get put into place or we expect frustration with our industry will increase,” he said.The chief financial officer, David Wehner, cautioned that he expects revenue growth to decelerate in the second half of 2019 due to “ad targeting headwinds”. He identified three primary impediments to Facebook’s ability to profit from ad targeting: privacy regulations such as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation; changes by operating systems to restrict ad targeting and data collection; and Facebook’s own product plans, which include a shift toward encrypted communications that will reduce the company’s ability to surveil users.The FTC fine is one of the largest in US regulatory history, and by far the largest ever levied by the FTC over a privacy violation. It amounts to approximately one month of revenues for the company. Two of the FTC’s five commissioners, both Democrats, lambasted the settlement as insufficient.The SEC alleged that Facebook violated securities laws when it failed to disclose Cambridge Analytica’s unauthorized acquisition of user data to investors in 2015, when it first learned of the matter. Facebook agreed to pay a $100m fine to settle the SEC’s complaint; as with the FTC case, it will not admit or deny the charges.“Advertisers remain dedicated to Facebook despite its problems,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a Facebook analyst for eMarketer. “Today’s FTC settlement doesn’t appear to have direct impact on Facebook’s business, but there is no reason to think that other regulatory or governmental investigations won’t have an impact in the future.” Topics Facebook Social networking Social media news

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch on Thursday asked the Federal Trade Commission to rekindle an antitrust investigation of Alphabet Inc’s Google, and President Donald Trump vowed to fight what he called political censorship by social media companies. FILE PHOTO: Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee Orrin Hatch (R-UT) speaks at the start of the House-Senate Conferees conference meeting on the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 13, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File PhotoHatch, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons recounting several news reports that identified complaints about Google’s anticompetitive conduct and privacy practices. Alphabet shares were little changed after the release of the letter. The company declined to comment. Trump, speaking at a campaign-style rally in Evansville, Indiana, said his administration was standing up for free-speech rights and warned that large social media companies could not be allowed to “control what we can and cannot see.” “You look at Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants and I made it clear that we as a country cannot tolerate political censorship, blacklisting and rigged search results,” Trump said. “We will not let large corporations silence conservative voices,” he added, noting that “it can go the other way some day too.” Lawmakers from both major parties and Google’s rivals have said this year they see an opening for increased regulation of large technology companies under the FTC’s new slate of commissioners. Google’s critics say that ongoing European antitrust action against the web search leader and this year’s data privacy scandal involving Facebook Inc and political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica demonstrate their concerns about the unchecked power of the tech heavyweights. About 90 percent of search engine queries in the United States flow through Google. Facebook and Twitter executives are expected to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Sept. 5 about their efforts to deter foreign campaigns from spreading misinformation online ahead November’s midterm elections. Lawmakers have criticized Alphabet for not scheduling a top executive, such as Chief Executive Larry Page, for the hearings. In 2013, the FTC closed a lengthy investigation of Google after finding insufficient evidence that consumers were harmed by how the company displayed search results from rivals. Trump accused Google’s search engine on Tuesday of promoting negative news articles and hiding “fair media” coverage of him. Trump’s economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, later said the White House was “taking a look” at Google, and that the administration would do “some investigation and some analysis,” without providing further details. Earlier this year, Representative Keith Ellison, a Democrat, and Representative Todd Rokita, a Republican, sent separate letters asking the FTC to probe Google. Simon, the new Republican chairman of the FTC, said in July the agency would keep a close eye on big tech companies that dominate the internet. An FTC representative was not immediately available for comment. FILE PHOTO: A man walks past the brand logo of Alphabet Inc's Google outside its office in Beijing, China, August 8, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File PhotoHatch, at event hosted by reviews website and Google rival Yelp Inc in May, said moves made by “an entrenched monopolist” deserve extra skepticism. “They may well be used, not to further consumer welfare, but to foreclose competitors,” he said, according to prepared remarks. Yelp, a local-search service, said in a statement that Hatch’s letter was “heartening to see” as it underscored the bipartisan plea for FTC scrutiny of Google. Reporting by Paresh Dave and Lisa Lambert; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington and Steve Holland in Evansville, Indiana; Editing by Richard Chang and Peter CooneyOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The United States, in fact, sought to stop Italy’s joining of the Silk Road.This week Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was “saddened” by the development. On Thursday, Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s deputy prime minister and the political leader of the Five Star Movement, met with National Security Adviser John R. Bolton at the White House.Mr. Di Maio told reporters that he assured the Americans that the China deal was purely about commerce and that Italy remained firmly in the political orbit of the United States, which has vastly more money invested in the country than China does.In the months before the deal, Mr. Di Maio repeatedly visited China, and nearly made a deal in November, Italian officials said. All along, the Italians said, they heard barely a peep from top officials in the United States, and by the time Mr. Bolton’s spokesman went public against the deal earlier this month, it was too late.A senior government official, speaking on background to discuss internal deliberations, said Washington would have engaged sooner if it had understood that Italy planned to officially join the new Silk Road, which it sees as a strategic threat.The official said the chaotic nature of Italian politics and the fact that visits to Beijing had become the norm for European leaders made it harder to discern what the Italians were up to.Indeed, already 16 central and eastern European countries, including 11 members of the European Union, have formal business relations with China.The Chinese have essentially bought the port of Piraeus, outside Athens. The new deal will now also allow it access to critical Italian ports, like Genoa and another in Trieste, which has a rail link reaching right into the heart of Central Europe.

Facial recognition is becoming more pervasive in consumer products and law enforcement, backed by increasingly powerful machine-learning technology. But a test of commercial facial-analysis services from IBM and Microsoft raises concerns that the systems scrutinizing our features are significantly less accurate for people with black skin.Researchers tested features of Microsoft and IBM’s face-analysis services that are supposed to identify the gender of people in photos. The companies’ algorithms proved near perfect at identifying the gender of men with lighter skin, but frequently erred when analyzing images of women with dark skin.The skewed accuracy appears to be due to underrepresentation of darker skin tones in the training data used to create the face-analysis algorithms.The disparity is the latest example in a growing collection of bloopers from AI systems that seem to have picked up societal biases around certain groups. Google’s photo-organizing service still censors the search terms “gorilla” and “monkey” after an incident nearly three years ago in which algorithms tagged black people as gorillas, for example. The question of how to ensure machine-learning systems deployed in consumer products, commercial systems, and government programs has become a major topic of discussion in the field of AI.A 2016 report from Georgetown described wide, largely unregulated deployment of facial recognition by the FBI, as well local and state police forces, and evidence the systems in use were less accurate for African-Americans.In the new study, researchers Joy Buolamwini of MIT’s Media Lab, and Timnit Gebru, a Stanford grad student currently working as a researcher at Microsoft, fed the facial-recognition systems 1,270 photos of parliamentarians from Europe and Africa. The photos were chosen to represent a broad spectrum of human skin tones, using a classification system from dermatology called the Fitzpatrick scale. The research will be presented at the FAT* conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency in algorithmic systems later this month.The image collection was used to test commercial cloud services that look for faces in photos from Microsoft, IBM, and Face++, a division of Beijing-based startup Megvii. The researchers’ analysis focused on the gender detection feature of the three services.All three services worked better on male faces than female faces, and on lighter faces than darker faces. All the companies’ services had particular trouble recognizing that photos of women with darker skin tones were in fact women.When asked to analyze the lightest male faces in the image set, Microsoft’s service correctly identified them as men every time. IBM’s algorithms had an error rate of 0.3 percent.When asked to analyze darker female faces, Microsoft’s service had an error rate of 21 percent. IBM and Mevii’s Face++ both had 35 percent error rates.In a statement, Microsoft said it had taken steps to improve the accuracy of its facial-recognition technology, andwas investing in improving its training datasets. “We believe the fairness of AI technologies is a critical issue for the industry and one that Microsoft takes very seriously,” the statement said. The company declined to answer questions about whether its face-analysis service had previously been tested for performance on different skin tone groups.An IBM spokesperson said the company will deploy a new version of its service later this month. The company incorporated the audit’s findings into a planned upgrade effort, and created its own dataset to test accuracy on different skin tones. An IBM white paper says tests using that new dataset found the improved gender-detection service has an error rate of 3.5 percent on darker female faces. That’s still worse than the 0.3 percent for lighter male faces, but one-tenth the error rate in the study. Megvii did not respond to a request for comment.

Yazidi survivors groups have embraced a decision by the community’s elders to allow children who are the result of rape by members of Islamic State to return with their Yazidi mothers to their homelands in Iraq.The landmark ruling by the Yazidi Supreme Spiritual Council has cleared the way for hundreds of women to return from Syria, or Europe, with children that were born to them while captives of the terrorist group.Until the decision made this week, women who refused to be separated from their children had been exiled by their own community, with many forced into detention camps in north-east Syria. Only those who had agreed to surrender newborns or infants had been allowed to return to their families in northern Iraq.The decision is likely to directly affect many hundreds of women, who were enslaved by Isis, and routinely raped by the organisation’s members, who declared them to be “godless” and “devil worshippers”. The enslavement took place from August 2014, when the Yazidi heartland near the Sinjar mountains was over-run by the extremists who launched an attempted genocide against the 550,000 strong community, killing at least 5,000 men and capturing many thousands of women and girls.The shift in policy declared that what had happened to the Yazidi women had been “out of their control”. It said elders had been sent to north-east Syria to look for Yazidi women housed in two large detention camps, with a view to bringing them back to Iraq with their children.Searches will also start in orphanages across Iraq, where hundreds of Yazidi women handed over their babies in order to be allowed to return to their families. Other infants were handed directly to families who informally adopted them, some pretending that the children were their own.Pari Ibrahim, executive director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, said the ruling had been long sought and warmly welcomed by women who had been subjected to the double trauma of rape and captivity, then forced separation, often from the only thing that had sustained them.“Here you have women who were in captivity living in hell, and the only thing that was giving them love was their child,” she said. “Then that was taken away from them.“I am very happy. This is the result of pressure from a lot of different organisations and reflection from within the community itself. There has been talk among the families about many aspects; the innocence of a child, the acceptance within our community for others. For a long time, this subject was not even up for discussion. You have to accept the perpetrator’s blood in your community. This is the way they see it.”On Friday, elders moved to clarify the status of children whose fathers were Isis fighters, insisting that while they could live with their mothers in Yazidi communities, they would not be accepted as Yazidis themselves.“We are a peaceful religion, and we are very tolerant toward humanity and we accept these children who are fathered by Muslims only as humans and based on the norms that our religion has toward humanity,” said Bahzad Sleman Saffu, a member of the Yazidi Supreme Spiritual Council. “But not as Yazidis since our religious [law] doesn’t allow that.“No one can convert to Yazidism. The children of the Yazidi victims are born from a Muslim father, and our religious rules can’t accept them as Yazidis. However, their mothers are a member of our community who have been subjected to rape and atrocities, and they are still accepted as a member of our community.“Under Iraqi law children should be registered under the religion of their fathers, and the fathers of these children is unknown. That is why we renewed our request from the international community to take these women to Europe and western countries to register these children under their mothers’ names.”The move has been welcomed by the UN and NGOs which have demanded global protections be given to minorities displaced and enslaved by the Isis rampage.“Yazidi women who were taken captive by Isis fighters who later gave birth to children from rape have told me how painful it was for them to give their children to orphanages or to the fighters’ families before they were able to return home to their community,” said Belkis Wille, senior Iraq researcher for Human Rights Watch. “They felt pressured to do so because they feared their children born through rape were not welcome back home. This declaration was long needed.”Juliette Touma, regional communications chief for Unicef, said: “Unicef welcomes the position of Yazidi heads of communities. It is in line with our position that a child is a child. Regardless of the alleged affiliation or alleged military role of a child’s family, children should receive the utmost care and all the assistance they need.” Topics Iraq Middle East and North Africa Islamic State Syria news

There has never been an hour in the history of the American republic like it. On Tuesday, separated by 230 miles and 60 minutes, in two courts, in two cases brought by two different prosecutors, a US president’s former longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his ex-campaign manager, Paul Manafort, were found to be crooks: guilty of bank fraud, tax evasion and paying off a porn star and a Playboy model in violation of federal campaign-finance law. Then again, there has never been a president like Donald Trump.Mr Trump is a self-aggrandising liar whose desire for riches, infamy and adoration appears insatiable. The father of the US constitution, James Madison, once said that if men were angels they would not need government. But what if government itself is possessed by a character like Mr Trump? That is the threat the work of the special counsel Robert Mueller has been uncovering. Mr Mueller had his best day on Tuesday. Both Cohen and Manafort had been in Mr Mueller’s sights. Both were convicted on eight counts, although Mr Mueller had handed over Cohen to the New York attorney’s office to prosecute. It is not the end of the story for Manafort, who is scheduled to go on trial in Washington DC in September over his work in Ukraine. Neither has Cohen finished. In court he admitted under oath that he broke the law at the direction of the president. Cohen has a reason to cooperate with Mr Mueller – he can reduce his sentence if he assists in further investigations. No wonder Mr Trump took to Twitter recommending that his followers not hire Cohen.We are now entering a critical and dangerous period of the Trump presidency. Until now Mr Trump has been a mostly performative autocrat. He has encouraged the idea that he will lock up opponents, but he has not done so. Mr Trump attacks the “fake news” media but he has not sent thugs to smash printing presses. Yet the net is closing in on Mr Trump and his family. Mr Trump could spike Mr Mueller’s guns by pardoning all those found guilty – though that move might itself constitute grounds for impeachment.It is clear that the president wants his justice department to dismantle the Mueller investigation. This month, his legal adviser Rudy Giuliani threatened to “unload” on Mr Mueller “like a ton of bricks” if the investigation isn’t wrapped up soon. But this is a risky strategy ahead of midterm Congressional elections, when the Democrats stand a decent chance of retaking the House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate. A misstep by Mr Trump could electrify the Democrat base. If the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, they could rehire Mr Mueller as a “congressional” special prosecutor should the president fire him.Mr Trump’s reshaping of the courts means that if the battlefield moves from the legislative to judicial arena, then the odds move in the president’s favour. Mr Trump will not voluntarily be interviewed by Mr Mueller’s team. He is daring the special prosecutor to issue a subpoena to force him to comply. If the judiciary is asked to intervene to force the president to testify, it is doubtful that the special counsel would prevail in the end. This would be especially true if Mr Trump’s supreme court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, were on the bench. He has suggested that a sitting president should not be indicted and questioned whether the head of the executive can be investigated by a special prosecutor.US institutions were not designed to protect the public from a leader like Mr Trump. Principled politicians, judges and lawyers are needed to dig deep in the face of much resistance. The Watergate investigation took two years to play out. It brought down a president and sent dozens to prison. Mr Mueller has been going for 15 months. Watergate showed that the system could cope and that not even a president was above the law. Mr Mueller needs to be shielded to prove that the system can work as well as it did then. Topics Donald Trump Opinion Robert Mueller Paul Manafort Michael Cohen US politics Law (US) US constitution and civil liberties editorials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States in July 2019 will end a special status given to about 59,000 Haitian immigrants that protects them from deportation after a devastating 2010 earthquake, senior Trump administration officials said on Monday. FILE PHOTO: A Flag from Haiti is pictured in a local store as a woman walks under rain at the neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York, U.S. May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo The decision by acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke gives Haitians 18 months to return to their impoverished Caribbean country or legalize their status in the United States. Former President Barack Obama’s administration granted Haitian nationals in the United States so-called Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for 18 months after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in January 2010, killing more than 300,000 people. The Obama administration extended the status several times after the initial designation. Duke decided to terminate the special status after a U.S. review of the conditions in Haiti found the country had made considerable progress, a senior official with President Donald Trump’s administration told a briefing. “It was assessed overall that the extraordinary but temporary conditions that served as the basis of Haiti’s most recent designation has sufficiently improved such that they no longer prevent nationals of Haiti from returning safely,” the official said. In May, then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly extended the status for Haitians for six months through January 2018. At the time, Kelly told reporters that TPS “is not meant to be an open-ended law but a temporary law.” The decision to end TPS for Haitians is part of Trump’s broader efforts to tighten restrictions on immigration, and comes despite calls from even some fellow Republicans to continue the relief. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida published an opinion piece in the Miami Herald on Friday urging the administration to renew Haiti’s TPS designation for another 18 months, citing ongoing natural disasters, health epidemics and security issues since the 2010 quake. Duke in September ended protected status for citizens of Sudan as of 2018, but extended it for citizens of South Sudan through mid-2019. This month, Duke decided to end the status for Nicaraguan immigrants, but extended the program for Honduran immigrants until July 2018.. Thousands of Nicaraguans and Hondurans received the special status in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America. The Washington Post reported that Kelly pressured Duke to end the program for Hondurans, but Duke denied the reports. Reporting by Eric Beech and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Eric WalshOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A 72-hour strike by Brazilian oil workers halted refineries and rigs on Wednesday, union leaders said, a new blow to President Michel Temer on the heels of a trucker protest that has strangled Latin America’s largest economy for over a week. The strike by workers demanding changes at state-led oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA is the latest challenge for the company known as Petrobras, whose shares have tumbled nearly 30 percent in two weeks over fears that political interference would unwind recent investor-focused policies. The economic and political storm has shaken the lame duck Temer government ahead of October elections and rattled nerves about the path forward for Petrobras, Latin America’s biggest oil producer. It has also raised the specter of protests spreading to more sectors as Brazilians vent frustration with the unpopular government and an uneven economic recovery. With truckers protesting over high diesel prices, government sources told Reuters on Tuesday that Temer had been considering scrapping a market-based fuel pricing policy at Petrobras. But by Wednesday morning the president’s office issued a statement saying he would preserve the policy. The oil sector strike included workers on at least 25 of the 46 oil rigs Petrobras operates in the lucrative Campos basin, responsible for nearly half of Brazil’s petroleum production. FUP, Brazil’s largest oil workers’ union, said that seven of those rigs were paralyzed. Petrobras did not respond to requests for confirmation. Petrobras said before the strike that the disruptions would not have an immediate major impact on its output or overall operations. Brazil produces about 2.1 million barrels of oil per day. Related CoverageBrazil commodities exports still lag as truckers protest unwindsBrazil's poultry industry could take years to recover from strike -ministerAccording to a source close to the company, Petrobras has a significant stock of fuel on hand, especially as the 10-day trucker protest prevented significant amounts of fuel from leaving refineries. The truckers’ roadblocks and resulting fuel shortages have halted major industries and hammered exports of everything from beef and soybeans to coffee and cars. Steelmaker Cia Siderúrgica Nacional SA, Brazil’s second-largest iron ore exporter, declared force majeure for its mining products due to disrupted supplies of diesel, explosives and food to it mines. The 10-day trucker protest left major cities running short on food, gasoline and medical supplies, and officials warned it would take days to restore supply lines. The automakers industry lobby Anfavea said car assembly plants halted since Friday will start up again on Monday. Public Security Minister Raul Jungmann said the numbers of roadblocks that exceeded 1,000 at the height of the strike had fallen to under 200 by Wednesday night. “Brazil is returning to normal,” he said at a news conference where he accused owners of transport companies of taking part in what he called a “lockout.” The companies have been slapped with 272 million reais ($73 million) in fines. An oil worker points to a patch on his shirt that reads: "We are not for sale", near the entrance to Petrobras Alberto Pasqualini Refinery, in Canoas, Brazil May 30, 2018. REUTERS/Diego VaraMoody’s Investor Service warned that it will take weeks for operations to return to normal in sectors from meatpackers and automakers to airlines and retail. FUP union said workers did not show up to work on Wednesday at 10 refineries stretching from Manaus in the Amazon to Rio de Janeiro in the southeast. They also walked off the job at plants handling lubricants, nitrogen and shale gas, as well as in the ports of Suape and Paranagua. The oil strike was declared illegal by Brazil’s top labor court late Tuesday, after Petrobras argued it was about politics rather than labor issues. FUP leader Jose Maria Rangel said by phone that the union “will not be intimidated” by judicial decisions, and called the three-day strike a “warning.” “Our members have already approved us declaring a strike without a fixed end date,” the union said, without providing details on when any longer stoppage may take place. Unions representing oil workers said they were demanding the resignation of Petrobras’ chief executive, Pedro Parente. They also want the end of the market-based fuel pricing policy and other changes made at Petrobras since Temer took power in 2016. Petrobras said on Wednesday that board member José Alberto de Paula Torres Lima had resigned, citing “personal reasons.” He was one of three board members recruited by an outside agency and added to the board in April in an effort to establish its independence. Petrobras did not respond to questions about his departure. Slideshow (28 Images)Parente, on a Tuesday conference call with analysts, said Petrobras was taking action so that any strike would have minimal or no impact on production and operations. The company flexed its muscles a bit by announcing on Wednesday that it would raise gasoline prices at refineries by 0.7 percent starting Thursday. Reporting by Marta Nogueira and Brad Brooks; Additional reporting by Gram Slattery in Sao Paulo and Alexandra Alper in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by Brad Haynes, Rosalba O'Brien and Leslie AdlerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

PUERTO ORDAZ, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela’s Pemon, an indigenous people living along the border with Brazil, are determined to allow into the embattled country any foreign aid that may arrive, even if that means a showdown with Venezuelan security forces and the government of President Nicolas Maduro. FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Gran Sabana, the high plain, in Canaima National Park located in the south-east of Venezuela in Bolivar State close to the borders with Brazil and Guyana, Jan. 13, 2005. REUTERS/Jorge Silva REUTERS/File PhotoAmid a hyperinflationary economic collapse that has caused malnutrition and the exodus of millions of people, humanitarian aid has become a flashpoint in an intensifying political crisis. Opposition leader Juan Guaido said last week a global coalition that includes the United States was sending food and medicine to collection points in Colombia, Brazil and an undisclosed Caribbean island before delivering the aid into Venezuela. Brazil has joined the United states as well as most countries in Latin America and Europe in recognizing Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate interim leader, arguing that Maduro was re-elected in a fraudulent May 2018 vote. But Maduro denies there is even a crisis, saying it is part of a U.S.-directed plot to undermine and overthrow his government. Six leaders of the Pemon community residing in the “Gran Sabana” (or “Great Savannah”) municipality bordering Brazil told Reuters that the population’s pressing needs should trump any politicization of humanitarian aid. The Gran Sabana, a grassy plain dotted with immense tabletop mountains in the southern state of Bolivar, is home to the only paved border crossing between Venezuela and Brazil. “We are physically prepared - without weapons - and willing to open the border to receive the humanitarian aid,” Gran Sabana Mayor Emilio Gonzalez told Reuters. “Neither the National Guard not the government can stop this.” Indigenous communities boast a greater degree of autonomy than others in Venezuela. The Bolivar governor and military chief for the region of Guayana, which comprises the states of Bolivar and Amazonas, were not immediately available for comment. “We are the natives of Gran Sabana and we will not allow some generals from outside to decide for us,” said Jorge Perez, the region’s councilman for indigenous communities. “We are the legitimate authorities.” Perez said he conducts daily visits to the local hospital where patients and doctors alike despaired over the lack of medicine. “For any emergency, they are taking us to Brazil - it’s embarrassing; the hospital of Boa Vista is full of Venezuelan patients,” he said. Boa Vista, the capital of the Brazilian border state of Roraima, has received tens of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing turmoil in recent years. Mount Roraima, standing at over 2,800-meters (9,200-feet) high and straddling the border, is sacred ground for the Pemons and a spiritual symbol for many Venezuelans. Mayor Gonzalez said authorities in Brazil had not yet informed him of a precise date for the arrival of aid at the border. A Brazilian government spokeswoman declined to comment on the issue of aid, but confirmed ground transportation into Gran Sabana was possible. Venezuela’s opposition has so far only publicly announced the arrival of aid in the Colombian border town of Cucuta, where it is now being stockpiled as Venezuelan authorities have made it clear they will not allow it to enter the country. Pemon leaders said they had already demonstrated their willingness to confront the Venezuelan military over aid after troops with metal barriers blocked the road between the town of Santa Elena de Uairen and the Brazilian border. The Pemon community, which numbers more than 10,000 in Venezuela, has a history of skirmishes with the military over issues ranging from gasoline cuts to informal mining. The military was trying to capture a colonel, they said, who had disavowed Maduro and was trying to help coordinate the arrival of aid, adding that he managed to cross the border into Brazil. FILE PHOTO: People bathe on the Tec river as they are on the road to Mount Roraima, near Venezuela's border with Brazil, Jan. 13, 2015. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File PhotoThe Pemon removed the barriers and had a standoff with the military until the troops agreed to withdraw, they said. “If humanitarian aid arrives and is prevented from entering, we will suspend the entry of government trucks too,” said Angel Paez, a Pemon leader from the Akurimo territory of Gran Sabana. “If there aren’t for the people, then there won’t be for the government.” Reporting by Maria Ramirez in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela; additional Reporting by Marcela Teixeira in Sao Paulo ; writing by Sarah Marsh in Caracas, editing by G CrosseOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc said on Wednesday that new rules and product changes aimed at protecting users’ privacy would slow its revenue growth into next year and significantly raise expenses, taking the shine off quarterly revenue results that beat expectations. The outlook was the latest twist in a day of contrasting news for the world’s largest social media company. Facebook earlier agreed to pay $5 billion to settle a U.S. Federal Trade Commission data privacy probe but then disclosed that the regulator was now investigating it for anti-competitive behavior. The settlement, which lawmakers and privacy experts criticized as a “slap on the wrist” for a company whose revenues last year topped $55 billion, suggested that Facebook had moved past a major regulatory challenge that has dogged it over the last year. But Facebook’s chief financial officer, Dave Wehner, warned that operational changes required by the settlement would be costly. In addition, he said, revenue will be hurt by new limits on usage of consumer data being set by governments around the world and by tech companies on whose systems Facebook relies. He did not elaborate. The guidance demonstrates the lasting effects of Facebook’s failure over the last decade to adequately secure some users’ personal information and inform users how its business partners were accessing the data. Still, Facebook said the second straight quarter of above-expectations revenue showed that its namesake app is producing growth even as users gravitate toward newer, more private features whose popularity has outstripped their usage among advertisers. Second-quarter revenue rose to $16.9 billion from $13.2 billion a year ago, beating analysts’ average estimate of $16.5 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Shares of Facebook, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, rose 0.87% after hours to $206.44 after whipsawing amid the results and guidance. The shares have recouped most of the losses sparked a year ago on concerns of slowing usage and the costs of improving privacy. For the quarter, Facebook reported 2.7 billion monthly users and 2.1 billion daily users across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, both figures about the same as last quarter. “News regarding FTC and data privacy, along with antitrust investigations and additional headline risks [are] likely to continue to hang over the stock, but it looks like the platform still remains a very popular destination for the users,” Morningstar analyst Ali Mogharabi said in an email to Reuters. Facebook has faced questions for the past three years from regulators and users worldwide over how services designed to share news and events with friends and family have become platforms for spreading misinformation about politics and health. It also suffered data breaches, prompting investigations in several countries. The FTC inquiry settled on Wednesday stemmed from allegations that Facebook allowed information belonging to 87 million users to be inappropriately shared with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook, which had set aside $3 billion in the first quarter for the settlement, said it took a $2 billion charge in the second quarter to account for the remainder. The deal, which is subject to court approval, also requires Facebook to document for the FTC any privacy-related decisions about new products. It must establish a privacy committee on its board, and executives must regularly attest to the company’s proper handling of user content. Wehner said the settlement would require “significant investment” in hiring and technology. The newly disclosed antitrust probe, which Facebook said it learned of from the FTC last month, shows that other regulatory hurdles remain. Reuters and other news agencies reported in June that the FTC was gearing up to investigate complaints about the massive market power of Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google. But Facebook on Wednesday suggested it may also be in the crosshairs of the Justice Department, acknowledging in a statement the agency’s announcement a day earlier of an antitrust review of large internet companies. The Justice Department did not specify targets, and Facebook declined to elaborate. Facebook has expanded programs and promises in response to political pressure on several issues, including policing objectionable content. FILE PHOTO: Attendees walk past a Facebook logo during Facebook Inc's F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, U.S., April 30, 2019. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo Costs jumped 66% compared to a year ago, to nearly $12.3 billion, as Facebook continues to ramp up such initiatives. The FTC payment in part cut second-quarter profit to $2.6 billion, compared with $5.1 billion a year earlier. Excluding the settlement and a $1.1 billion one-time tax expense, earnings would have been $1.99 per share, Facebook said. The expectations for its ad business and cost forecasts could hurt profit margins, particularly in the fourth quarter, Facebook said. Reporting by Paresh Dave in San Francisco and Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

(Here’s the sign-up, if you don’t already get California Today by email.)It’s Monday, and the news over the weekend was dominated by the horrifying violence in New Zealand.The massacre at two mosques — in which at least 50 people were killed, apparently by a white nationalist who posted a racist manifesto online — was the latest somber reminder that violence against specific religious or ethnic communities has been persistent throughout history, though it takes different forms. Recently, my colleague Simon Romero wrote about new efforts to remember the lynchings of people of Mexican descent throughout the American West. In doing so, advocates say, we may be able to better avoid repeating them. He wrote about such killings that took place in California: An Anglo mob in Bakersfield went on a killing spree in 1877. Their victims: five men of Mexican descent.About 100 men, some wielding axes, broke into the county courthouse and overpowered the jailer. In their rampage they snatched the men from the jail, held an impromptu trial with mob members as jurors, declared them guilty of horse theft and hanged them on the courthouse lawn.The case was just one of thousands of lynchings of men, women and children of Mexican descent, a period of racist terror lasting from the mid-19th century until the 1920s. Lynchings of Mexicans, many of whom were American citizens, often faded into history, attracting less attention than the horrific mob violence targeting African-Americans around the United States.But descendants of lynching victims and historians are now campaigning to publicly remember these episodes in an effort to cast scrutiny on the atrocities and draw parallels at a time of resurgent anti-Hispanic hate crimes. California was second only to Texas in the grim ranking of mob killings of people of Mexican descent, according to the historians William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb.Many of California’s lynchings of Mexicans took place during the Gold Rush from 1848 to 1855, when Anglos chafed at having to compete with Mexicans for mining claims. Never mind that California was part of Mexico just a few years earlier; after the Mexican-American War, the United States annexed California and other Mexican lands that form what is now the American Southwest.Example of such lynchings in California abound.A mob accused Carlos Esclava of theft and hanged him in Mokelumne Hill in 1852 before a crowd of 800. Also in 1852, an especially bloody year for mob violence against Mexicans, a so-called vigilance committee in Santa Cruz hanged Domingo Hernandez after he was accused of theft. In 1853, an unidentified Mexican was hanged at Angel’s Camp for giving aid to an “outlaw” — Joaquin Murrieta, the Sonoran forty-niner known as the Robin Hood of the West.Lynchings of people of Mexican descent continued in California through the 1890s. By then, episodes like the Bakersfield killings of 1877 had provoked claims of racism against Mexicans.“Several Mexicans or native Californians raided a station or two, in the Vasquez style, and five of them were subsequently arrested and lodged in jail,” said The Lyon County Times of Silver City, Nev., one of several newspapers around the West to report on the Bakersfield lynchings.The victims of the Bakersfield lynch mob were not lost to history. They were identified as Antonio Maron, Francisco Encinas, Miguel Elias, Fermin Eideo and Bessena Ruiz.Here’s what else we’re following(We often link to sites that limit access for nonsubscribers. We appreciate your reading Times stories, but we’d also encourage you to support local news if you can.)Image“Getting In: Gaining Admission to Your College of Choice,” a book that Rick Singer wrote with a colleague in 2014. • Meet William Singer, known as Rick, the so-called pied piper of the college admissions scandal. His message was confident and concise: He knew the secret to getting into college. [The New York Times]• Even for students who have the means and the help to spend years preparing for college, an honest application process is nerve-racking and filled with uncertainty. [The New York Times]• Hundreds of school staff members, including library workers, in Oakland schools will get layoff notices as district leaders say they have been forced to trim the budget. It’s still unclear, however, how many jobs will be cut; the notices are a necessary preliminary step. [The San Francisco Chronicle]• “I just saw the writing on the wall.” As living costs and taxes in the Bay Area continue to rise, conservatives are fleeing for other states, like Texas and Arizona. That’s making Democrats’ stronghold on Sacramento even stronger. [The Mercury News]• With iPhone sales starting to show signs of fatigue, Apple is making a billion-dollar bet on entertainment, taking on the likes of Netflix and HBO. [The New York Times]• U.S.C.’s athletic director, Lynn Swann, said he’s in it for the long haul. But given the scandals that have plagued the department, a Los Angeles Times columnist writes, that seems like a long shot. [The Los Angeles Times]• Canyons and hillsides throughout Southern California are still in full “super bloom.” But the flip side of the stunning display is the crowds. In Lake Elsinore, “Disneyland-size” crowds have created a public safety crisis. And on Sunday night, city officials shut down access to poppy fields in Walker Canyon entirely. [The Press-Enterprise]More California stories• Dick Dale, the king of surf guitar, has died at 81. He was born Richard Monsour in Boston and was influenced by the musical traditions of his Lebanese father and Eastern European mother. [The New York Times]• A luxury housing developer is in talks to try to lure the Los Angeles Angels from Anaheim to Long Beach. But the talks, observers say, are still very much just that and significant hurdles remain. [The Long Beach Post]• The Painted Lady butterfly migration continues to captivate Southern Californians. [The New York Times]• Sorry, Lakers fans. The team — led by the great LeBron James — keeps finding new ways to lose. [The New York Times]And Finally …The rise of journaling apps may be helpful for a lot of reasons: You can better organize your thoughts, you can sign up for prompts and thought exercises, and you don’t have to worry about anybody snooping. (Well, anybody besides the app itself.)But journals have also led to serendipitous moments of connection like the one Sarah Williamson, an author and illustrator, wrote about here.Some of her sketchbooks from her early 20s turned up in the possession of a man named Will in Los Angeles. He asked her if she wanted them back. And although Ms. Williamson initially found the drawings a bit embarrassing, she’s come to value them as mementos from a formative time in her life.Now, she just has to figure out how to get Will a pecan pie.California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected] Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

An illuminated Google logo is seen inside an office building in Zurich, Switzerland December 5, 2018. Picture taken with a fisheye lens. REUTERS/Arnd WiegmannSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said on Monday it would shut down its Google+ social media service in April, four months ahead of schedule, after finding a software flaw for the second time this year that allowed partner apps to access its users’ private data. However, Google said in a blog post that it found no evidence that any other apps had accessed the data, such as name, email, gender and age, using the latest bug. It affected 52.5 million Google+ accounts, including those of some business customers, for six days after it was introduced last month, Google said. The disclosure comes a day before Chief Executive Sundar Pichai is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Congress about Google’s data collection practices. Some U.S. lawmakers from both major political parties have called for new privacy rules to better control Google, Facebook Inc (FB.O) and other large technology companies. In October, the company said it would shut down the consumer version Google+ in August 2019 because it would be too challenging to maintain the unpopular service. At the time, it said profile data from up to 500,000 users might have been exposed to partner apps by a bug that was present for more than two years. Apps that pull data from Google+ to personalize their own services with user authorization will lose access in 90 days, the company said. Developing Google+ for business customers would remain a focus, it added. Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Richard ChangOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

After a cameo-filled cold open featuring Alec Baldwin’s President Trump and Kate McKinnon’s Rudy Giuliani freaking out over impeachment, Saturday Night Live’s 45th season premiere took their send-up of impeachment-mania one step further, airing a 10-minute mock CNN Impeachment Town Hall. The panel, according to CNN’s Erin Burnett (Cecily Strong), served as an example of how the Democratic candidates have “united together and decided to handle impeachment the only way they know how: with a muddled, 10-person town hall debate.” There was SNL newcomer Bowen Yang—the first-ever cast member of Asian descent—as Andrew Yang, sporting a tight shirt and imitating the candidate’s lack of neck. “I’m literally giving free money to people and I’m still in sixth place!” he exclaimed. Another newbie, Chloe Fineman, appeared as Marianne Williamson—live via astro-projection from outer space. Then came the “actual candidates,” including Kate McKinnon’s Elizabeth Warren and—yes!—Larry David’s Bernie Sanders, who exclaimed, “Hello, everyone! I’m so excited to be back and ruin things a second time!” Host Woody Harrelson debuted his Joe Biden impersonation—ridiculous capped teeth and all. “There’s no need to worry anymore: Daddy’s here, America! I see you, I hear you, I sniff you, and I hug you from behind.” He added, “Now, as I ask anytime I walk into a room: Where am I? And what the hell is going on here?” And, last but certainly not least, the great Maya Rudolph cameoed as Kamala Harris. In her pitch-perfect tone, she exclaimed, “Now, Erin, that little girl you just introduced? That little girl is me. Just checking because, I’m not just that little girl. I’m also America’s cool aunt. A fun aunt. I call that a ‘Funt.’ The kind of Funt that will give you weed but then arrest you for having weed. Can I win the presidency? Probably not. Can I successfully seduce a much younger man? You better funting believe it.”

The Democratic presidential contender Andrew Yang insisted on Sunday the words of a new Saturday Night Live cast member who called him a “Jew chink” “should be taken in a slightly different light”.“There have been a number of reactions to my call for forgiving Shane Gillis,” Yang said on CNN's State of the Union. “I’ve experienced a lot of anti-Asian racism throughout my upbringing and it hurts. It’s something that’s very real. I do think anti-Asian racial epithets are not taken as seriously as slurs against other groups.”But, echoing a series of Tweets, the tech entrepreneur added: “At the same time, bigger picture: I believe that our country has become excessively punitive and vindictive about remarks that people find offensive or racist.“We need to try to move beyond that, if we can, particularly in a case where the person … [is] like a comedian whose words should be taken in a slightly different light.”Gillis was announced as a new member of the SNL cast this week, alongside Bowen Yang – a writer for the show who is now its first Asian cast member – and Chloe Fineman. Shortly after that, a freelance journalist uncovered footage of Gillis making racist and homophobic statements, including offensive remarks about Asian people, culture and food, on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast. A deluge of similar footage followed.Gillis’s comments about Yang were first reported by Vice. Discussing the Democratic presidential race on Luis J Gomez’s Real Ass Podcast, Gillis, 31, is heard initially referring to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.“That Jew chink?” Gillis says. “Commie Jew chink? Next, please, next. Gimme your next candidate, Dems. Jew chink, next. Actually, they are running a Jew chink: Chang, dude.”He adds: “Yang, or Chang?”By Sunday lunchtime, NBC and Saturday Night Live had not commented.Gillis issued a statement on Thursday, saying he was “a comedian who pushes boundaries”.“I sometimes miss,” he said. “If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses. I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.”On Saturday, Yang tweeted: “For the record, I do not think he should lose his job. We would benefit from being more forgiving rather than punitive. We are all human.”On Sunday, CNN host Jake Tapper also asked Yang about criticism that some of his own comments about being Asian American reinforce harmful stereotypes. During the debate in Houston this week, for example, the tech entrepreneur remarked: “I am Asian, so, I know a lot of doctors.”On CNN, he said: “The Asian American community is very diverse and certainly, I would never claim that my individual experience would speak to the depth and breadth of our community. At the same time, I think Americans are very smart, and they can actually see right through that kind of myth.“If anything, by poking fun at it, I’m making Americans reflect a little bit more on them.” Topics Race Saturday Night Live US elections 2020 Democrats news

For years, Facebook has made the pitch to customers that its wealth of user data — from birthdays to favorite television shows — allows it to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time. These capabilities helped Facebook, along with its rival Google, to take in most of the more than $100 billion in annual online ad spending.But Facebook’s access to the data that powers this revenue model may be starting to dry up. Last year, a new rule in the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation, forced internet companies to comply with stricter safeguards in handling user information. And as customers become more hesitant to share their own data, Facebook and other digital-media companies are moving to regain their trust through additional protections.Now, some of Facebook’s efforts to appease critics who complain of discriminatory practices may further chip away at the model.In the interview, Ms. Sandberg conceded that the changes could make advertising on Facebook less efficient for some customers who had used the targeting practices “in a very fair and nondiscriminatory way,” but added, “We believe that that was a cost well worth bearing.”Under the new approach, Facebook will require advertisers in the areas of housing, employment and credit to use a separate portal that will not include gender or age as targeting options. It will also preclude selecting an affinity group of people interested in a race, ethnicity or religion. The company has generally allowed advertisers seeking to reach members of a race or religion to aim at such affinity groups.The company will continue to allow advertisers in other areas to deliver ads on the basis of age, gender or any affinity groups.Even in the less sensitive areas, advertisers can’t exclude groups associated with race, religion or ethnicity from seeing ads. They can only affirmatively aim ads at them.