The Hong Kong protests, Cori Gauff at Wimbledon, Pride in New York and the Fourth of July celebrations – the last seven days, as captured by the world’s best photojournalists.

After a few days, though, Mr. Moro changed strategies. He started to question the authenticity of the messages, which, in his opinion, could have been tampered with. During a Senate hearing on June 19, in an apparent attempt to confuse either us or himself, he tried out both explanations at the same time: If a certain message “is authentic,” he said, “even if it is authentic, the content is absolutely legal. There is no problem with that kind of statement. If that message is totally authentic. Like I said: I cannot remember three years ago if I sent a message of that nature.”(By the way, my favorite excerpt from the leaked material is an exchange between Mr. Moro and Mr. Dallagnol. In the message, Mr. Dallagnol informs Mr. Moro that he has submitted a petition as a strategic move but that it is “not essential.” Mr. Moro, Mr. Dallagnol says, should “feel free, needless to say, to deny” the request. I admire the politeness of the prosecutor here, who doesn’t want to seem too pushy and even offers the judge the choice of ruling freely, this time.)In addition to the legal collaboration of Mr. Moro, the texts also reveal other offenses, such as the fact that the prosecutors discussed strategies to prevent Mr. da Silva from giving interviews from jail before the elections, since this could help the Worker’s Party candidate, Fernando Haddad.All in all, the leaks reveal an immoral judge, who teamed up with electorally-motivated prosecutors, in order to arrest and convict individuals that they already considered guilty. Their only question was how best to do it.The shocking content of these exchanges could give defense lawyers new grounds on which to appeal convictions. Last year, Mr. da Silva’s lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court and demanded a retrial, making the argument that Mr. Moro had failed to be impartial; the leaked messages have now been added to the petition, strengthening their case.The Brazilian Bar Association has called for the suspension of those involved in the scandal, saying, in a written statement, that “The gravity of the facts cannot be disregarded, requiring a full, unbiased and impartial investigation.” But almost a month has passed since The Intercept’s first reports. Effectively nothing has been done.And incredible as it may seem, Sergio Moro is still our justice minister.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Thursday aggressively pressed their bank and tax fraud case against Paul Manafort, presenting testimony and documents to try to prove U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman deceived his lead bookkeeper and a bank about his finances. On the trial’s third day, the prosecution pivoted away from describing Manafort’s lavish lifestyle, focusing instead on the nitty-gritty details of actions they believe underpin the charges against him of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors have attempted to portray Manafort as a tax cheat and a liar who hid much of the $60 million he earned from political work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine by stashing it in undisclosed overseas accounts. Manafort, 69, is facing 18 charges in the first trial stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all the charges in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington. Manafort’s lead bookkeeper Heather Washkuhn, who managed the books of his personal and business finances, testified that she thought she had complete knowledge of his financial affairs but that she was unaware of his holdings outside of the United States. Washkuhn, managing director of the accounting firm Nigro Karlin Segal Feldstein & Bolno, said Manafort was “very detail-oriented” and “approved every penny” the firm paid from his personal account. Prosecutors presented evidence that Manafort emailed a doctored profit-and-loss statement to a Chicago bank from which he was seeking a loan. They showed jurors an email from Washkuhn to the bank showing that, through Nov. 20, 2016, his business had a net loss of $1,116,497. They then displayed another email they said Manafort sent to an executive at the bank with a profit-and-loss statement for September 2016 attached. The document stated that Manafort’s consulting firm had a net income of $3,011,952. Washkuhn said she did not produce that document. The email from Manafort could potentially undercut his defense strategy. Since the trial started on Tuesday, his lawyers have sought to lay the blame for any financial irregularities on his business partner Rick Gates and went so far as to accuse him of embezzling money from Manafort’s firm. Defense attorney Thomas Zehnle avoided asking about the questionable document when his turn came to cross-examine Washkuhn. Taking long pauses to check his notes in between questions, he pressed Washkuhn on whether Gates was the primary go-to guy for Manafort’s financial affairs. “Mr. Gates would deal with DMP items,” she replied, referring to Manafort’s consulting firm. “But Mr. Manafort was the approval source.” Washkuhn also testified that she was in the dark about a laundry list of corporate entities that the government says Manafort used when he wired funds to pay expenses. Vendors who provided goods to the Manafort family testified Wednesday and Thursday that they often received overseas wire transfer payments from companies such as Peranova Holdings Limited, Global Highway Limited and Lucicle Consultants Limited. Washkuhn said she had no idea any of those entities were owned or controlled by Manafort. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives for arraignment on a third superseding indictment against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of witness tampering, at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S. June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File PhotoMueller has pursued a 14-month investigation of Russia’s role in the election and potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow, though none of the charges against Manafort involve that issue. Greg Andres, a member of Mueller’s team, confirmed on Thursday that the prosecution will call Manafort’s former business partner Gates as a witness, a day after prosecutors suggested they might not. “We have every intention of calling him as a witness,” Andres said. Gates pleaded guilty to making false statements after being indicted by Mueller, and is cooperating with Mueller’s probe. As part of his guilty plea, Gates acknowledged routinely dealing with accountants in the preparation of Manafort’s tax returns and misleading them with false information, although he said he did so with Manafort’s knowledge. Manafort routed millions of dollars to the United States by putting it in real estate, and spending it on expensive suits, cars and home renovations, according to prosecution witnesses. Prosecutors said Manafort evaded taxes through this scheme. Five of the 18 counts he faces relate to filing false tax returns. On Thursday, the jury heard from Joel Maxwell of a Florida-based company that installs lighting, audio visual equipment and automation systems for homes that did work for Manafort. Maxwell testified that some of the Manafort invoices shown to him from prosecutors appeared to be have been forged. Michael Regolizio, of a landscaping firm in the Hamptons on New York’s Long Island, also testified that a Manafort invoice was phony, listing an incorrect address and an altered version of his company’s name. Regolizio said he was paid about $450,000 between 2010 and 2014 for work for Manafort, and that the money was paid via a money transfer from Cyprus. Slideshow (4 Images)It was unclear who created the invoices or how they were used. Mueller has indicted or secured guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies. Trump has called Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt and on Tuesday called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end it. Reporting by Nathan Layne and Sarah N. Lynch in Alexandria, Virginia; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Karen Freifeld; Writing by Warren Strobel; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCoolOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

NT: Going back to the food analogy, because I think it maybe makes an analogy for politics. What if it wasn’t vegetarianism to veganism but it was eating cookies, to eating donuts, to eating evermore extreme unhealthy foods? Where does your sense of like, wait, that’s not what people should be doing and we’re leading people down that path, where does that kick in?SW: In general, we don’t want it to be necessarily us saying, we don’t think people should be eating donuts, right. It’s not our place to be doing that. That’s why we started using the surveys and the satisfaction that we got back from the users. Our goal is to think about how we build a systematic, scalable way of getting feedback from our users, figuring that out and based on that building an algorithmic system to be able to enforce that. And what we saw from our users is they were saying they were not satisfied after they saw this clickbait-y content.NT: You’ve just hired 10,000 people to help with some of these issues. What is the balance between what the humans will do and what the machines will do? Because it’s kind of rare for Google—10,000 people is a lot of people.SW: Yeah 10,000 people’s a lot of people, but we do need those people. About a year ago today, we started working on making sure we were removing violent extremist content. And what we started doing for the first time last year was using machines to find this content. So we built a classifier to identify the content and lo and behold, the machines found a lot more content than we had found. Once we started doing this machine classifier, the machines were finding a lot more classifiers.NT: And they’re looking for abuse, jihadism?SW: There could be a whole set of content that violates our policies. But once they started finding this content, we’re like wow, we need people to review this. And so those people start reviewing the content to make sure, is this content violating the policies or not? Then we ask are the machines doing a good job? When the machines don’t do a good job and the humans can say that, we can say, let’s change the algorithm based on what the humans just learned and the data. What’s actually removed and what’s actually good or stays is not violating the policy will then get fed back to the machines so that machines can get smarter.NT: So, the humans are training the machines who will eventually replace all the humans?SW: Well, I think we’ll always need humans. Even right now, in the violent extremism, we now remove 98 percent of the content with machines. But we need humans to review it and to make sure that that’s being done correctly. And the other place we really need humans are the experts. The people who can say, we understand what is happening here, we’re an expert in this area, we can tell you how your policies should be written, the kind of content you should look for.NT: Let’s talk a little bit about comments, because that’s a place where there’s interesting balance. So Jigsaw, part of Google, has developed software to identify toxicity in comments and determine whether this is a toxic comment or not a toxic comment. Instagram has done something similar where they, using the same process of humans training machines, they have identified what is a nice comment and what is an un-nice comment. Instagram has decided to optimize for nice comments. What is your philosophy on how to sort comments and how to use the new technology to do sentiment analysis of comments?SW: The first thing we’ve been focused on with comments is making sure that we’re removing comments that have inappropriate terms, that we think are harassing in some way. And we have the philosophy that what we do is we actually queue them for the creator to review and to decide, do they want to have these comments on their site or not? And so, again, we are using machines so that the creator can make that decision a lot faster. And we have seen a drop in the number of flagged comments.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (0293.HK) and the owner of Hong Kong’s luxury Peninsula hotel became the latest companies to highlight the impact of recent protests on their business, as an escalating cycle of violence clouds the outlook for the city. FILE PHOTO - Demonstrators gather as Hong Kong police fire tear gas in Hardcourt Road, Admiralty, in Hong Kong, China, August 5, 2019. REUTERS/Eloisa LopezMillions have taken to Hong Kong streets in anti-government protests that have intensified since mid-June, at times forcing banks, stores, shopping malls, restaurants and even government buildings to close as the demonstrations degenerated into violent clashes between police and activists. Hong Kong’s flagship airline, Cathay Pacific, said on Wednesday the protests reduced inbound passenger traffic in July and travelers were weighing on forward bookings, as it reported it swung to a half-year profit. Thousands of protesters descended on the Chinese-ruled city’s airport in July, where some chanted “free Hong Kong” and others handed out flyers explaining the city’s crisis to tourists. Protesters plan to rally at the airport again this weekend, potentially causing further disruptions after a strike on Monday saw more than 200 flights canceled. The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Ltd (0045.HK), owner of the opulent Peninsula hotel in the bustling shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui, said it too was worried about the impact of the protests on tourist arrivals as well as the broader economy. “We are concerned about the effect this political uncertainty may have on our results, especially given the proportion of our income which is earned in Hong Kong,” said Clement Kwok, CEO of the hotel group, in an earnings statement on Wednesday. In June, Hong Kong-based cosmetic and healthcare products chain operator Bonjour Holdings Ltd (0653.HK) issued a profit warning which it partly blamed on the protests. What started as an angry response to a now-suspended extradition bill, which would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial, now includes demands for greater democracy and the resignation of Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam. Hong Kong retail sales, a key part of the city’s economy, felt a growing impact in June from the mass protests, falling 6.7% from a year earlier in the biggest decline since February. Many businesses in Hong Kong are already facing strains from China’s economic slowdown, a weak Chinese yuan and fallout from the Sino-U.S. trade war. Tourism to Hong Kong, especially from mainland China, has dropped markedly, weighing on hotel occupancy rates. Britain, Japan, Singapore and Australia have issued travel alerts following the violent protests. Reporting By Anne Marie Roantree and Donny Kwok; editing by Gopakumar WarrierOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The 1960s counterculture had the peace symbol, 1980s rave culture had the smiley face, and now 2019 has its own ubiquitous logo: the extinction symbol, signifying the mass movement against climate breakdown and destruction of the natural world.Following the recent, successful actions of Extinction Rebellion (XR) in London, across the UK and globally, the extinction symbol has been everywhere: on coloured flags and banners, on clothes, spraypainted on to buildings (such as Shell’s London headquarters). People even lay down and arranged their bodies in its shape. It has appeared as far afield as Ghana, New Zealand and Hong Kong. It has featured in artworks and tattoos. It has arrived.Like all successful logos, the extinction symbol is beautifully simple and thus eminently reproducible. The circle, signifying the planet, draws on that peace-symbol heritage (and makes it badge-friendly); the “X” could be read as signifying “extinction”; while the horizontal lines suggest a stylised hourglass, and distinguish it from similar logos, such as that of the X-Men, saying that time is running out.Where the symbol has come from is something of a mystery. Its origins predate Extinction Rebellion, explains Charlie Waterhouse, a graphic designer whose firm, This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll, assists with XR’s art group. “It was done by somebody that we know only as ‘Symbol Man’. I don’t think he wants anybody to know who he is.” We know he is an artist based in east London. He has a Twitter presence and a website. Approached by email, he signs off as “Goldfrog ESP”. He declines an interview, but, on the symbol’s global presence, he comments: “It’s interesting to see all of the various creative ways in which people are using it. I’m just pleased that it can be of help to highlight the severity of the extinction crisis.”In a recent interview for the website Eco Hustler, ESP spoke of prior involvement with the UK anti-roads movement and a background in sculpture and printmaking. “I was making protest art about the declines of various individual species for a while,” he said. “But it felt quite inconsequential in relation to the scale of the problem. I gradually realised that the issue was so big that I couldn’t do this alone, and therefore it needed something simple that anybody could easily replicate. At the start of 2011 I was just randomly sketching designs and as soon as I drew the symbol I knew what it was.”Having offered the use of the symbol to major environmental groups and received little response, ESP began putting posters and tiles of the symbol on walls around east London himself. XR contacted ESP last year. On his website, ESP makes the extinction symbol freely available to those who wish to use it, but makes it clear that it has always been an anti-consumerist project. “No extinction-symbol merchandise exists, and it never will do.” True to that spirit, this week’s XR protests included “art stations” where people could print the logo on to their own items, rather than buying new ones. Of course, there is the danger that the extinction symbol’s meaning is co-opted and distorted by others, much as the peace symbol mutated from anti-nuclear activism to a general code for flower power, ultimately ending up on haute couture fashion items. But if it plays a part in saving the planet, that will be the least of anyone’s worries. Topics Design Shortcuts Extinction Rebellion features

Mr. Manafort’s work running the campaign is the backdrop to his federal bank and tax fraud trial in Northern Virginia. Prosecutors are not addressing that work. But as they present evidence that he was growing desperate for money, the question of why Mr. Manafort, now 69, agreed to an unpaid job for Mr. Trump has become increasingly tantalizing.While his trial is unlikely to reveal the answer, there is evidence that Mr. Manafort saw Mr. Trump’s campaign as a potential loss leader — an upfront freebie that he could use to boost his stature and eventually parlay into more work for foreign clients. After working decades earlier for Bob Dole, George Bush, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, Mr. Manafort viewed the Trump campaign as a chance to return to prominence on the biggest stage in American politics, his associates said.Mr. Manafort’s memo made its way to Mr. Trump through a mutual friend, Thomas J. Barrack Jr., who described Mr. Manafort to the candidate as “the most experienced and lethal of managers” and “a killer.” For the notoriously stingy Mr. Trump, the price was right. And he liked the fact that he and Mr. Manafort lived in the same Trump-owned Manhattan high rise. He once quipped that it was great to have a campaign chairman who paid him money, and not the other way around, campaign officials said.Running a winning presidential campaign is a surefire path to a White House job. But Mr. Manafort told people he had no interest in working in the Trump administration. “My dad is Trump’s right-hand man right now and will be through November,” Mr. Manafort’s daughter, Andrea Manafort Shand, wrote in a text message that was publicly disclosed after her phone had been hacked. “But he won’t accept any position in the White House.”But Mr. Manafort recognized that his work with the Trump campaign was worth something. In April 2016, just days after becoming a Trump campaign strategist, he tried to use his positive news media coverage as leverage in a debt dispute with a Russian oligarch, Oleg V. Deripaska.

The Guardian has collaborated with the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University in Washington on a new series which aims to look beyond the daily news, focusing instead on people confronting racist power and organizing to lay the foundation for an antiracist world.Ibram X Kendi, the director of the ARPC, is the contributing series editor. He says the series will aim to “step back from the news cycle and offer essays and reporting that are reflective rather than reactionary, ambitious rather than restrained, looking forward as we look back, treating as they diagnose”. The times when all seem lost are the times when we most need to see the people and ideas trailblazing the way out of the muck. This series provides the hope and direction essential for change. It previews the future, or what future generations, perhaps, will most adore about what we began in our racial era. Check out the Antiracism and America series here.Beto O’Rourke is “neither a bold progressive nor a distinguished legislator”, according to Zaid Jilani at Current Affairs.“While the Democratic base is coalescing around single-payer healthcare and free college, O’Rourke sponsored neither House bill. During his time in Congress, he never joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He has been, however, a member of the New Democratic Caucus, the group organized to carry on the ideas of Clintonite policies.”Jilani says that for all the talk and excitement about an O’Rourke presidential bid, he is not the man to challenge Donald Trump.The Nation has put together a handy list of charitable organizations people can donate to this holiday season. Black Voters Matter Fund, which helped mobilize black voters in the south ahead of the midterm elections, and Survived and Punished, which works to change laws which punish women for defending themselves from violent partners, are just two of the worthy groups named.We’re going to pause the Resistance Now weekly update for a little while. We may revive the newsletter in 2019, when the Democratic party will face a tussle for its future. If you enjoy the Guardian’s coverage, please consider making a year-end contribution to help us reach our $1m goal. Thank you. Topics Activism The Resistance Now Protest Democrats Race features

[Read how Mr. Manafort’s sentence compares to other white-collar criminals.]Judge Jackson tends to be relatively lenient on convicted criminals who appear before her. In the five years that ended in 2017, she handed down an average prison sentence of 32 months, below the Washington district’s average of 46 months and the nationwide average of 47 months, according to court data maintained by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.But she also has gone out of her way to make clear that being well connected earns no chits in her court. “She knows who commits white-collar crime,” said Heather Shaner, a Washington lawyer who represented an embezzler in her court. “And she thinks it’s perfectly fine to punish them if they commit a crime and hold them to a higher standard because they have the education, and because they have the wealth.”The prospect that Mr. Trump could pardon Mr. Manafort has hung over the proceedings for many months. Late last year, Mr. Trump said that he “wouldn’t take it off the table.” More recently, he said, “I don’t even discuss it.”Asked again after Wednesday’s sentencing, Mr. Trump said: “I have not even given it a thought, as of this moment. It’s not something that’s right now on my mind.” He added, “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,” saying “certainly, on a human basis, it’s a very sad thing.”He said again that the special counsel’s investigation was “a hoax.” In remarks that appeared aimed at the president, Mr. Downing said outside the courthouse that “two courts have ruled no evidence of any collusion with the Russians.”In fact, Judge Jackson and Judge Ellis simply noted that the evidence against Mr. Manafort was not related to Russia’s election meddling.The new charges filed in New York, in an indictment secured by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., were apparently meant to ensure that Mr. Manafort would be punished even if he was pardoned. They were rooted in the same financial fraud that led to Mr. Manafort’s downfall in federal courthouses. He is charged with falsifying business records to obtain millions of dollars in loans from two banks.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Thursday aggressively pressed their bank and tax fraud case against Paul Manafort, presenting testimony and documents to try to prove U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman deceived his lead bookkeeper and a bank about his finances. On the trial’s third day, the prosecution pivoted away from describing Manafort’s lavish lifestyle, focusing instead on the nitty-gritty details of actions they believe underpin the charges against him of bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Prosecutors have attempted to portray Manafort as a tax cheat and a liar who hid much of the $60 million he earned from political work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine by stashing it in undisclosed overseas accounts. Manafort, 69, is facing 18 charges in the first trial stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all the charges in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington. Manafort’s lead bookkeeper Heather Washkuhn, who managed the books of his personal and business finances, testified that she thought she had complete knowledge of his financial affairs but that she was unaware of his holdings outside of the United States. Washkuhn, managing director of the accounting firm Nigro Karlin Segal Feldstein & Bolno, said Manafort was “very detail-oriented” and “approved every penny” the firm paid from his personal account. Prosecutors presented evidence that Manafort emailed a doctored profit-and-loss statement to a Chicago bank from which he was seeking a loan. They showed jurors an email from Washkuhn to the bank showing that, through Nov. 20, 2016, his business had a net loss of $1,116,497. They then displayed another email they said Manafort sent to an executive at the bank with a profit-and-loss statement for September 2016 attached. The document stated that Manafort’s consulting firm had a net income of $3,011,952. Washkuhn said she did not produce that document. The email from Manafort could potentially undercut his defense strategy. Since the trial started on Tuesday, his lawyers have sought to lay the blame for any financial irregularities on his business partner Rick Gates and went so far as to accuse him of embezzling money from Manafort’s firm. Defense attorney Thomas Zehnle avoided asking about the questionable document when his turn came to cross-examine Washkuhn. Taking long pauses to check his notes in between questions, he pressed Washkuhn on whether Gates was the primary go-to guy for Manafort’s financial affairs. “Mr. Gates would deal with DMP items,” she replied, referring to Manafort’s consulting firm. “But Mr. Manafort was the approval source.” Washkuhn also testified that she was in the dark about a laundry list of corporate entities that the government says Manafort used when he wired funds to pay expenses. Vendors who provided goods to the Manafort family testified Wednesday and Thursday that they often received overseas wire transfer payments from companies such as Peranova Holdings Limited, Global Highway Limited and Lucicle Consultants Limited. Washkuhn said she had no idea any of those entities were owned or controlled by Manafort. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives for arraignment on a third superseding indictment against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of witness tampering, at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S. June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File PhotoMueller has pursued a 14-month investigation of Russia’s role in the election and potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow, though none of the charges against Manafort involve that issue. Greg Andres, a member of Mueller’s team, confirmed on Thursday that the prosecution will call Manafort’s former business partner Gates as a witness, a day after prosecutors suggested they might not. “We have every intention of calling him as a witness,” Andres said. Gates pleaded guilty to making false statements after being indicted by Mueller, and is cooperating with Mueller’s probe. As part of his guilty plea, Gates acknowledged routinely dealing with accountants in the preparation of Manafort’s tax returns and misleading them with false information, although he said he did so with Manafort’s knowledge. Manafort routed millions of dollars to the United States by putting it in real estate, and spending it on expensive suits, cars and home renovations, according to prosecution witnesses. Prosecutors said Manafort evaded taxes through this scheme. Five of the 18 counts he faces relate to filing false tax returns. On Thursday, the jury heard from Joel Maxwell of a Florida-based company that installs lighting, audio visual equipment and automation systems for homes that did work for Manafort. Maxwell testified that some of the Manafort invoices shown to him from prosecutors appeared to be have been forged. Michael Regolizio, of a landscaping firm in the Hamptons on New York’s Long Island, also testified that a Manafort invoice was phony, listing an incorrect address and an altered version of his company’s name. Regolizio said he was paid about $450,000 between 2010 and 2014 for work for Manafort, and that the money was paid via a money transfer from Cyprus. Slideshow (4 Images)It was unclear who created the invoices or how they were used. Mueller has indicted or secured guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies. Trump has called Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt and on Tuesday called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end it. Reporting by Nathan Layne and Sarah N. Lynch in Alexandria, Virginia; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Karen Freifeld; Writing by Warren Strobel; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCoolOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The U.K.’s exit from the European Union may have already pushed the U.K. into a technical recession, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.In a gloomy set of new forecasts, Niesr predicted that, even assuming a smooth exit in October, the nation will grow 1% in 2019 and 1% in 2020. There’s an around a one-in-four chance that the economy is already shrinking, the think tank said.The outlook worsens if there a no-deal Brexit, with Niesr seeing the possibility of a “severe” downturn in the event of a disorderly departure. Even if an “orderly” no deal exit is secured, Niesr says the economy will stagnate next year, with inflation accelerating to 4.1% as the pound drops about 10%.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - An accountant for U.S. President Donald Trump’s one-time campaign chairman Paul Manafort admitted in trial testimony on Friday that she helped backdate documents and falsify financial records at Manafort and his business partner’s request to reduce his tax burden and help him qualify for loans. Cynthia Laporta, who prepared Manafort’s tax returns starting in 2014, told a jury in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, that she was testifying under an immunity agreement with the government to avoid being prosecuted as Manafort was charged with bank fraud and tax fraud. One member of the jury nodded in apparent agreement when U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis cut off the prosecution’s questioning to ask her if she was afraid of being prosecuted herself. “Correct,” answered Laporta, explaining that she went along with accounting maneuvers suggested by Manafort and his longtime business associate Rick Gates because she did not want to create problems for her firm or lose a top client. “I very much regret it,” Laporta said on the trial’s fourth day as prosecutors build their case that Manafort hid tens of millions of dollars he earned working for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine to evade taxes. Laporta, the 14th witness to testify for the prosecution, was the most damaging yet for Manafort in the first trial arising from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Related CoverageManafort accountant tells court tax treatment of loan was wrongManafort accountant, at trial, says money transfers raised concernsManafort has pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of bank and tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts, charges that largely pre-date the five months Manafort worked for Trump, some of them as campaign chairman. Once the jury had been dismissed for the day, Ellis gave defense lawyers a green light for detailed cross examination of Laporta on Monday. “You are not limited in your cross examination of her,” Ellis said. Both Laporta and fellow accountant Philip Ayliff, her predecessor who handled Manafort’s tax filings at the firm KWC, testified that they had no knowledge that Manafort controlled foreign bank accounts. The government has provided trial evidence of Manafort controlling a web of overseas accounts in Cyprus and elsewhere. Such accounts must be reported to tax authorities if they contain $10,000 or more. Laporta also detailed multiple examples in which Manafort and Gates sought to doctor financial records. One instance involved classifying revenue from a Cyprus-based company as a loan to lower his taxable income, Laporta testified. “It’s hard-hitting testimony that creates an uphill battle for the defense, but that’s what cross examination is for,” said Andrew Boutros, a former federal prosecutor who is now a white collar defense lawyer. “I don’t know if there is enough to convict him right now, but they’re laying the groundwork for it.” A conviction would give momentum to Mueller’s probe, in which 32 people and three companies have been indicted or pleaded guilty. Trump, angered by any questions about the legitimacy of his election win, has called Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt and wants it to be shut down. FILE PHOTO: Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives for arraignment on a third superseding indictment against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of witness tampering, at U.S. District Court in Washington, U.S., June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstAfter spending the first two days of the trial laying out Manafort’s lavish spending, the prosecution is now digging into how he accounted for the more than $60 million he made in Ukraine and his efforts to allegedly mislead banks to get loans once the income from Ukraine dropped off precipitously in 2014. Manafort’s attorneys have signaled they will seek to blame Gates, who was Trump’s deputy campaign chairman in 2016. Gates pleaded guilty in February and is expected to testify against Manafort, possibly next week. Prosecutor Uzo Asonye focused some of his questioning on money transfers from a Cyprus-based company called Telmar Investments Ltd, which records showed had paid Manafort’s firm more than $5 million for consulting work. That income posed a problem for Manafort when it came time to prepare his business tax returns in September 2015, Laporta testified. She said Gates told her in a conference call the income level “was too high” and proposed reclassifying a portion of it as a loan. Laporta said she knew it was “inappropriate” but agreed to alter the records to show that Manafort’s firm received a $900,000 loan from Telmar in 2014, a change that would save Manafort nearly a half million dollars in taxes, Laporta said. Manafort signed an agreement to account for that loan that was backdated, according to Laporta and an exhibit shown to the jury. Slideshow (2 Images)Trial consultant Roy Futterman, who is following the trial but not involved in it, said, “The prosecution is doing a very good job of keeping a brisk pace, putting witnesses on for short direct examinations, keeping it lively and keeping very tight messages for each witness.” Manafort’s attorneys do not seem to have scored a lot of points on cross-examination, Futterman said, but added that the witnesses who have testified so far are not “the main targets.” Earlier on Friday prosecutors asked Ayliff about Manafort’s accounting of a $1.5 million transfer in 2012 from Peranova Holdings Ltd as a loan, even as records showed that no interest or principal was paid on it in subsequent years. Peranova is one of numerous Cypriot entities that prosecutors have said Manafort controlled. Ayliff testified that KWC did not know Manafort controlled Peranova, and that if the transfer was a payment related to his consulting work in Ukraine it would have been treated as income - not as a loan - on his tax returns. Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Nathan Layne in Alexandria, Virginia; additional reporting by Karen Freifeld and Susan Heavey; Writing by Warren Strobel; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCoolOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

US President Donald Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort has been jailed for 43 more months on charges stemming from the Russia investigation.It comes a week after the 69-year-old was given a 47-month prison sentence for fraud in a separate case.The latest sentencing arises from two conspiracy charges Manafort pleaded guilty to last year.Speaking from a wheelchair, he told the federal court in Washington DC that he wanted to apologise for his actions.In a separate development, Wednesday also saw Manafort charged in New York with residential mortgage fraud and other crimes.President Trump has the power to pardon his former aide for the federal crimes - but not for the charges brought in New York."I do feel badly for Paul Manafort, that I can tell you," Mr Trump told reporters after the sentencing on Wednesday.Asked if he was planning to pardon Manafort, the president answered: "I have not even given it a thought, as of this moment. It's not something that's right now on my mind." Both cases for which Manafort has been convicted stem from an inquiry into alleged Russian election meddling in the 2016 US elections.None of Manafort's charges, however, relates to allegations of collusion with Russia. Mr Trump has always denied the charge, describing the inquiry as a "witch hunt". Trump feels 'very bad' for jailed Manafort Trump's high-rolling campaign boss The Trump-Russia saga in 250 words Manafort's jail term is the longest handed down since the inquiry began.On Wednesday, US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Manafort to a total of 73 months, of which 30 were to run concurrently with last week's sentence.Before sentencing, the judge said it was "hard to overstate" the number of lies and the amount of fraud involved."The defendant is not public enemy number one," she said. "But he is not a victim either."In the courtroom, Manafort said: "I am sorry for what I have done and for all the activities that have gotten us here today."This case has taken everything from me already - my properties, my cash, my life insurance, trust accounts for my children and grandchildren, and even more."Manafort pleaded guilty last September to two felony counts - conspiracy against the US and conspiracy to obstruct justice - related to his lobbying.He also agreed to co-operate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in a deal for a possible lighter sentence.However, just two months later that plea deal collapsed as investigators said Manafort had repeatedly lied to the government.Last week, a judge in Alexandria, Virginia, sentenced Manafort to nearly four years for hiding millions of dollars of income earned by his consulting work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.That sentence was far shorter than that recommended by Mr Mueller, who had sought a minimum of 19 years.Do white-collar criminals get lighter sentences?Last August, a jury convicted him of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to declare a foreign bank account.The judge, however, declared a mistrial on 10 other fraud-related charges.As well as the prison term, Manafort was ordered to pay $24m (£18m) in restitution and a $50,000 fine. Who's who in the Russia-Trump inquiry? Trump's biggest headache might not be Mueller Manafort served for three months as Trump's campaign chairman until August 2016, when he was forced to resign over his previous work in Ukraine.He was the first former Trump aide to be arrested in the special counsel investigation, in October 2017.Manafort's legal team had previously said he suffered from debilitating foot pain resulting from gout as a result of his incarceration.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong court on Tuesday found nine leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy “Occupy” movement guilty of public nuisance during the mass protests, in a landmark verdict as freedoms in the city ruled by mainland China come under strain. Scores of supporters applauded the defendants, who included a law professor, two legislators and former student activists, after a trial that critics said highlighted the decline of political freedoms in the former British colony. Law professor Benny Tai, 54, retired sociologist Chan Kin-man, 60, and retired pastor Chu Yiu-ming, 75 were found guilty of conspiracy to commit public nuisance over their leading role in planning and mobilizing supporters during the 79-day protest. The trio had pleaded not guilty to all charges, which carry a maximum jail term of seven years each. The judge did not immediately hand down sentences, and the defendants have not said if they planned to appeal. “I am determined to fight for Hong Kong with one last effort, and to walk with Hong Kong people one step further,” Chu said in a passionate final speech in court, despite being in poor health. “We have no regrets ... we have not given up,” he said, moving some witnesses to tears, and spurring sustained applause from supporters. Outside the court, some punched their fists in the air and shouted, “We want universal suffrage.” Others sobbed as supporters called them “fearless and invincible”. The concept of civil disobedience is “recognized in Hong Kong”, Justice Johnny Chan said in a summary of his judgment, but it was not a defense against a criminal charge. “The offense of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance does not have the undesirable effect of curtailing or suppressing civil disobedience at its formation stage or suppressing human rights as the defendants contended,” it read. Since the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997, critics say Beijing has reneged on its commitment to maintain Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and freedoms under a co-called “one country, two systems” arrangement. Pro-China supporters hold a Chinese national flag and a picture of Occupy Central founders Benny Tai and Chu Yiu-ming, outside the court in Hong Kong, China April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone SiuChris Patten, Hong Kong’s last colonial governor, called the verdict “appallingly divisive”, and a “vengeful pursuit” of past political events. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing that criticizing the verdict as indicative of shrinking freedoms in the city was “illogical and baseless”. The central government supported the move “to punish, according to law, the main ... plotters of the illegal Occupy (movement),” Lu added. In the nearly five years since the Occupy protests, democracy activists, diplomats and business leaders have expressed grave concern over what they call Beijing’s tightening grip on the city’s freedoms. Pro-democracy lawmakers have been kicked out of the legislature, a pro-independence party banned, and democracy advocates jailed and barred from contesting local elections. The six other defendants were pro-democracy legislators Tanya Chan and Shiu Ka-chun, two former student leaders Eason Chung and Tommy Cheung, activist Raphael Wong, and veteran democrat Lee Wing-tat. They were each found guilty of at least one public nuisance charge. All nine were accused of inciting and mobilizing protesters during the demonstrations that sought to pressure Beijing to allow full democracy. Hundreds of thousands of people blocked major roads in several parts of the global financial hub for 79 straight days in late 2014, in one of the boldest populist challenges against Beijing in decades. The demonstrators were finally cleared away by police, having won no concessions. Tai, Chan and Chu were the main conspirators who planned the protests a year in advance, said David Leung, the director of public prosecutions, adding that they caused “unreasonable” public disruptions. Slideshow (11 Images)About 87 percent of roughly 1,200 protesters polled during the demonstrations said they had participated to “protect Hong Kong’s liberty”, a public opinion poll by the Chinese University of Hong Kong cited in court showed. But in his 268-page judgment, Chan said, “It is naive to suggest that a concession to introduce the form of universal suffrage ... could be made by the government overnight with a click of the fingers.” Reporting by James Pomfret and Jessie Pang, additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Clarence FernandezOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - China reiterated on Monday its support for Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, and its police, and called on Hong Kong people to oppose violence following another weekend of clashes between protesters and police in the city. Hong Kong bore the scars on Monday of its eighth straight weekend of violent protests, with hard hats, umbrellas and water bottles littering some central streets. Huge crowds have taken to the streets to protest against a now-suspended extradition bill that would have allowed criminal suspects in Hong Kong to be sent to China to face trial in Communist Party-controlled courts. The protests have at times paralyzed parts of the financial district, shut government offices and disrupted business operations across the city. Officials have also warned about the impact of the unrest on Hong Kong’s economy. Beijing has stood by the city’s leader Lam, and the Chinese government’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, which has cabinet-level authority over the former British colony, reiterated that support at a news conference in Beijing. “The central government firmly supports Carrie Lam leading the Hong Kong government’s administration according to law, firmly supports the Hong Kong police strictly enforcing rule of law,” Yang Guang, a spokesman for the office, told the news conference. “We especially appreciate and empathize with Hong Kong police forces and their families for the huge pressure they are bearing,” he said. The most important thing was for Hong Kong to handle the unrest according to the law, Yang said, blaming “irresponsible people” in the West for stirring up trouble in a bid to “contain China’s development”. Such efforts would fail, he said. The briefing was the first held by the office specifically to address the Hong Kong protests, and a moderator at times chided journalists who shouted out questions, telling them not to interrupt. Yang, asked under what conditions the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could intervene, referred, as other officials have done, to Hong Kong’s mini constitution, known as the Basic Law, which states that the Hong Kong government can ask the PLA garrison in the city to help maintain order. Yang said Hong Kong’s government and society needed to find more effective ways to help young people address concerns over housing, employment and other issues, although officials did not announce any specific measures to address the unrest. Police officers line up during a protest against what the activists see as excessive police force against protesters during previous demonstrations, near China's Liaison Office, Hong Kong, China July 28, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su The protests are the most serious political crisis in Hong Kong since it returned to China 22 years ago. They also pose the greatest popular challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012. Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that promised wide-ranging freedoms denied to citizens in mainland China. Many fear Beijing is increasingly chipping away at those freedoms. The past weekend saw more clashes between protesters and police, who again fired rubber bullets and tear gas as the demonstrations grow increasingly violent. Police sought to defend China’s main representative office in Hong Kong from protesters on Sunday for the second consecutive weekend, with the building near the heart of the city fortified with barricades. Police said they had arrested at least 49 people over Sunday’s protests for offences including unauthorized assembly and possession of offensive weapons. What began as a movement to oppose the extradition law has taken on broader demands. They include Lam’s resignation, calls for full democracy, and an independent inquiry into what some say has been excessive force used by police against protesters. Lam has refused to accede to any of the demands. The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said on Monday that, according to a recent survey, international businesses were pessimistic about the short-term prospects for the city due to escalating violence and political deadlock. Respondents reported a deepening perception within their companies and among overseas customers that Hong Kong had become less safe and a riskier place in which to conduct business, it said. A series of protests are planned over coming weeks and the outlook is increasingly uncertain. Slideshow (11 Images)Labour Party lawmaker Fernando Cheung, who has tried to mediate between activists and police, told Reuters Lam needed to heed demands to withdraw the extradition bill and set up an independent commission, among other requests. “Short of that, we would only be spiraling down toward even more violence, death, a curfew and even PLA interference,” Cheung said. Reporting by Anne Marie Roantree and Sijia Jiang; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert BirselOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

She also sent letters to banks noting that Mr. Manafort anticipated a $2.4 million payment by November 2016 for work in Ukraine. In fact, his Ukraine work for Mr. Yanukovych — whom prosecutors called Mr. Manafort’s “golden goose” — had ended at least a year earlier. Other financial records showed that Mr. Manafort’s company, DMP International, finished 2016 nearly $1.2 million in debt.In other efforts to help Mr. Manafort, Ms. Laporta testified that she backed up his assertion that he was using his Manhattan condominium as a second home so that he could qualify for a lower mortgage interest rate from banks, even though records showed he had been renting the property on Airbnb to generate more cash.Mr. Gates, who pleaded guilty this year to financial fraud and lying to federal authorities, is crucial to the outcome of the trial. Mr. Manafort’s lawyers are hoping to show that Mr. Gates is the real culprit and that Mr. Manafort is guilty of no more than negligence for not paying greater attention to Mr. Gates and other employees.Like some of the other roughly dozen witnesses who have testified for the prosecution, Ms. Laporta seemed to treat Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates as one person. At one point on Friday, she referred to both of them as “the client.” But other witnesses, including Heather Washkuhn, Mr. Manafort’s bookkeeper, testified this week that while he relied on Mr. Gates, Mr. Manafort kept track of “every penny” of his finances.Besides Ms. Laporta, four other witnesses have been given limited grants of immunity to testify against Mr. Manafort. Mr. Manafort’s lawyers are expected to delve into exactly what led Ms. Laporta, a veteran accountant who said she earned about $400,000 a year, to cooperate with prosecutors. But they have already signaled that Mr. Gates will be their main point of attack.Ms. Laporta’s testimony was especially helpful to prosecutors because she was able to crystallize financial transactions that were otherwise befuddling, even to courtroom spectators steeped in the case. Short and soft-spoken, Ms. Laporta did not hide her suspicions that Mr. Manafort’s financial records had been doctored.She clearly explained, for instance, why Mr. Gates asked — and she agreed — that she characterize $900,000 that had been previously reported as income as a loan to DMP International, which Mr. Manafort and his wife owned. Otherwise, Mr. Gates told her in a phone call, the tax bill was “too high” and Mr. Manafort “did not have that money.”But since loans are not taxable, she said the change “resulted in a tax amount due that could be paid by Mr. Manafort.”

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)Good morning. The prospect of dirtier cars in the U.S., an interview cut short in China, and a policy change from the pope. Here’s what you need to know:ImageCreditJim Wilson/The New York Times• The Trump administration released a proposal to drastically weaken Obama-era rules that would have sharply increased auto fuel efficiency and therefore reduced greenhouse gas emissions from one of the world’s largest producers.A mix of state governments, environmentalists and consumer groups is fighting the plan.And even the automakers who had complained about the expense of raising fuel efficiency plan to lobby for changes, fearing that legal challenges could leave them in limbo, or split the domestic market into more and less stringent sectors.The administration sought to emphasize that lighter, more efficient cars would be more dangerous in crashes, but experts dispute that._____• The trillion-dollar company. In 1997, Apple was on the verge of running out of cash. Two decades later, the company is unimaginably flush, reaching a market capitalization of $1 trillion. That’s just $200 billion shy of Australia’s entire annual economic output.The company was propelled to planetary dominance by the vision of its late co-founder, Steve Jobs, and by smash-hit products like the iPod and then the iPhone. Above, Mr. Jobs’s successor, Tim Cook.But let’s not forget cheap global labor — much of it in China, now embroiled in a trade war with the U.S. that could affect Apple’s supply chain.And, as one analyst put it, “The question going forward is: Can Apple continue to innovate?”_____• “A culture of death is spreading across Kashmir.”Our reporter found resentment of India at every corner in the disputed territory, neighbors turning against neighbors.Imran Khan, Pakistan’s presumed new prime minister, says he wants to end the nuclear-tipped struggle with India over control of the predominantly Muslim region.But Kashmiris are smoldering with anger as India veers increasingly into Hindu nationalism and brings down an iron fist on separatists, who are lionized by many._____• President Trump wants to talk. He is eager to sit down for an interview with investigators for the special counsel Robert Mueller, several people familiar with the matter told our reporters, even though his lawyers advise against it. Mr. Trump is confident that he can exonerate himself of any suspicions that he colluded with Russia in the 2016 election or obstructed justice.And the tax and money-laundering trial of Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, above, is shining a light on a lucrative Washington sideline: that of American consultants doing the bidding of foreign clients.Such lobbying was on full display with the Chinese tech giant ZTE, which hired Washington guns to beat back U.S. sanctions._____ • “It’s illegal for you to come to my home. I have my freedom of speech!”Sun Wenguang, a veteran Chinese rights activist in his 80s, protested as police officers burst into his home during a live TV interview with Voice of America Mandarin. The telephone line soon went dead, and Mr. Sun could not be reached again.“This is the status quo of human rights in China,” the host said.But the #MeToo phenomenon is proving resilient: Two monks accused a powerful Buddhist official, the Venerable Xuecheng, of sexually harassing at least two female disciples.In denying the allegations, the official has been helped by China’s state censorship apparatus, which is scrubbing any mention of the matter._____Business• Starbucks, under pressure from new competitors in China, announced a partnership with the tech giant Alibaba aimed at streamlining deliveries.• The Bank of England raised interest rates to their highest levels in nearly a decade, seeking to tamp down inflation and prepare for Britain’s exit from the E.U.• ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest — and only truly global — steel maker, saw its profits rise to $1.9 billion in the second quarter, as U.S. tariffs drove up prices.• U.S. stocks were mixed. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.In the News • Unacceptable in all cases: Pope Francis declared the death penalty “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” a categorical revision of Roman Catholic teaching that could put pressure on Catholic lawmakers and politicians around the world. [The New York Times]• In Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who seized power from President Robert Mugabe in a coup last year after serving as his enforcer for decades, took a clear lead in the presidential election, which has been shadowed by suspicions of fraud and some violence. [The New York Times]• Gone: Minutes after the Fields Medal — the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in mathematics — was awarded to a former refugee, the golden prize was stolen in Brazil. (Among the three other winners was the Australian Akshay Venkatesh.) [The New York Times]• A court in the Maldives cleared two men in the disappearance of a dissident journalist, an outcome that the country’s opposition leader condemned. The missing journalist, Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, had criticized the authoritarian government and the spread of radical Islam in the small island nation. [The New York Times]• Test tampering: A news investigation found that Tokyo Medical University lowered women’s scores on entrance exams to suppress their enrollment. [The Yomiuri Shimbun]• A South Korean pastor was arrested in Seoul amid accusations that she stranded 400 followers in Fiji, where they had been subjected to violent rituals. [The Guardian]• “Excessive”: A Chinese provincial government criticized a local effort to make cremation universal for the dead, during which thousands of coffins were destroyed and at least one corpse was exhumed. [The New York Times]Smarter LivingTips for a more fulfilling life.• Recipe of the day: This simple preparation keeps salmon’s richness in check with jalapeño.• How to revive a friendship.• Don’t let your phone ruin your vacation.Noteworthy• Markets, elephants and temples are the mainstays of Chiang Mai, the 700-year-old city in Thailand’s north. But now there are new draws: contemporary art and chic hotels, plus ambitious upstart restaurants and a buzzing bar district.• Matti, a socially awkward stick figure in a Finnish cartoon series, is becoming a kind of hero to China’s introverts. “As an anthropophobic, I love this series so much,” a college student in Shenzen says.• Good dog? An experiment involving 34 dogs of various breeds tested whether they would push through a door to “save” their owners. The results were … mixed. Watch the video here.Back StoryIf anyone could prove that age is nothing but a number, it was Maggie Kuhn.The activist and founder of the Gray Panthers, an American advocacy organization for the elderly, was born on this day in Buffalo in 1905.In 1970, after working for the Presbyterian Church in New York for a quarter of a century, Miss Kuhn retired, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 65.As a result, she worked with fellow retirees to start a group that would be called the Gray Panthers (a reference to the Black Panthers), which worked to bridge the gap between the young and the old and addressed other social issues.Miss Kuhn remained involved with the organization until her death at age 89 in 1995.“I’m an old woman,” she told The Times in 1972. “I have gray hair, many wrinkles and arthritis in both hands. And I celebrate my freedom from bureaucratic restraints that once held me.”She embraced her age and was unapologetic about it.On her 85th birthday, she told a group of seniors in Vermont in 1991: “I made a sacred vow that I would do something outrageous, at least once a week.”Claire Moses wrote today’s Back Story._____Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. You can also receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights. And our Australia bureau chief offers a weekly letter adding analysis and conversations with readers. Browse our full range of Times newsletters here.What would you like to see here? Contact us at [email protected].

The Brazilian reality TV star Rodrigo Alves has been removed from the Celebrity Big Brother house, Channel 5 said on Saturday.Alves, 35, had already been given a formal warning after he used racist language on the programme.Announcing his removal on Twitter, Channel 5 said: “After a further incident, Rodrigo has been removed from the Big Brother House and will not be returning.”Alves was previously reprimanded during an episode aired on 17 August in which he told Dan Osborne, a former star of The Only Way Is Essex, he was not attracted to him as he was “too white”.During the exchange, Alves twice used the N-word to describe his sexual preference.He was summoned to the diary room, where he was told his language had been unacceptable and that if he used it again he would be removed from the house immediately.Alves blamed being excited and drunk for his use of the racial slur and said he regretted having used it.The star, known as the “human Ken doll”, claims to have had plastic surgery costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to alter his appearance.The future of the reality show is uncertain after Channel 5’s programming chief said on Friday that it would not be broadcast next year.The programme’s ratings have fallen in recent years as shows such as ITV2’s Love Island have surged in popularity.Ben Frow told the Edinburgh TV festival: “I plan for a year without Big Brother. I never say never because the world is constantly changing, and I think it would be irresponsible to not keep all options open, but at the moment I’m planning for a year without Big Brother.”The US reality TV star Natalie Nunn became the first contestant to be evicted from the house in Friday’s episode.Frow also said he was “bloody furious” when the adult film actor Stormy Daniels pulled out of the current series.Daniels, who claims she had an affair with Donald Trump, travelled to the UK to participate in the series, but withdrew at the last minute. Topics Big Brother Channel 5 Reality TV Television Brazil Americas Television industry news

Paul Manafort, the former Donald Trump campaign chairman, was told by a judge on Wednesday that he is a liar and fraud who will spend a total of seven and a half years in prison.Wearing a dark suit and tie and sitting in a wheelchair because of gout, Manafort was sentenced in a Washington court to about three and a half years in addition to the nearly four years he received last week in Virginia, a punishment that many decried as too lenient.Less than an hour later, Manafort was charged with millions of dollars of fraud and conspiracy in New York state, where Trump would not have the power to pardon him.In Washington, US district judge Amy Berman Jackson gave Manafort a tongue-lashing over the web of deceit he spun to earn millions of dollars lobbying for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine, though she emphasised the case has no bearing on alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.The judge said pointedly: “Court is one of those places where facts still matter.”Manafort was once a high-flying lobbyist who served as a consultant to former Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. He worked for Trump’s election campaign for five months in 2016.In the Virginia case, he had been convicted in August last year by a jury for bank fraud, tax fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. In the Washington case, he pleaded guilty in September last year to conspiracy including money laundering and unregistered lobbying, and a second conspiracy count related to witness tampering. He then violated his cooperation agreement with Robert Mueller by lying to investigators.Though it did not seem his fall from grace could go much further, Manafort was forced to sit rigidly still and silent on Wednesday as Jackson read him the riot act in a packed courtroom. “It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the extraordinary amount of money involved,” she said.Manafort lied to Congress and to the American people, Jackson continued, and his motivation was “not to support a family, but to sustain a lifestyle that was ostentatiously opulent and extravagantly lavish – more houses than a family can enjoy, more suits than one man can wear”.Manafort’s defence team noted that none of Mueller’s charges against him related to the special counsel’s main brief: Russian interference in the 2016 election.“But for a short stint as a campaign manager in a presidential election, I don’t think we’d be here today,” Manafort lawyer Kevin Downing said. He added that there was “a media frenzy” and “everyone’s going nuts over this”.But Jackson dismissed this line or argument, and told Manafort there was no good explanation for the leniency he sought. “Saying ‘I’m sorry I got caught’ is not an inspiring plea for leniency,” she said. “The ‘no collusion’ refrain that runs through the entire defence memorandum is entirely unrelated to the matter in hand.”Manafort was criticised at last week’s hearing for failing to apologise for his crimes. This time, a humbled figure with greying hair, he said: “Let me be very clear: I accept responsibility for the actions that led me to be here today, and I want to apologise for all I contributed to the impacts on people and institutions.“While I cannot change the past, I can work to change the future. I want to say to you now, I am sorry for what I have done and for all of the activities that have gotten us here today. This case has taken everything from me already my properties, my cash, my life insurance, my trust accounts for my children and my grandchildren, and more.”He will soon turn 70, he noted, and is the primary caregiver for his 66-year-old wife. “She needs me and I need her. Please let my wife and I be together.”But earlier, for the government, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said Manafort had engaged in an extensive coverup that deceived the US government and the American public, hiding tens of millions of dollars in 30 foreign bank accounts, and continued to try to undermine the investigation even after he pleaded guilty.“Paul Manafort’s upbringing, his education, his means, his opportunities could have led him to be a leading example for this country,” Weissmann said. “At each juncture, though, Mr Manafort chose to take a different path.”Weissmann said that Manafort’s attempt to get witnesses to lie for him “is not reflective of somebody who has learned a harsh lesson. It is not a reflection of remorse. It is evidence that something is wrong with sort of a moral compass.”Jackson sentenced Manafort to more than six years in prison for the two conspiracy charges, though part of this will run concurrent with the sentence in the Virginia case. That means his total time behind bars will be about seven and a half years.This outcome prompted renewed criticism. Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, said: “Looking at the totality of what Paul Manafort did and the totality of the sentences imposed upon him, Paul Manafort caught a break. Manafort thumbed his nose at justice in this country.”Trump has not ruled out a presidential pardon for Manafort, and after last week’s sentencing said “I feel very badly” for his former aide.But also on Wednesday, Manafort was charged in a 16-count indictment in New York state, including mortgage fraud, falsifying business records and conspiracy. Trump would not be able to pardon Manafort on the state charges – which separates them from the federal cases for which Manafort has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. Topics Paul Manafort Trump-Russia investigation Washington DC Donald Trump news

Big tech companies and their top executives have been outspoken this year about immigration reform, net neutrality, and data privacy–but tax reform is by far the most important policy fight for them in 2017. And their lobbying filings show it.While most of the people who work at tech companies are not Trump supporters, the companies themselves could benefit hugely from the new tax code currently being proposed by the administration and GOP leadership in Congress.Tech companies like Apple and Microsoft have for a long time balked at the 35% corporate tax the current tax code requires them to pay on worldwide profits returned to the U.S. To avoid paying, the companies have parked as much of their profit as possible in overseas subsidiaries in countries like Bermuda and Ireland, where tax rates are low.The Big 5 tech companies–Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft–currently have a combined $457 billion held in overseas subsidiaries. Apple holds more profits overseas than any other company, with Microsoft not far behind.Zion Research Group estimates that U.S. companies in general have $2.8 trillion in profits parked in overseas affiliates.Donald Trump campaigned on a promise of reforming the tax code, and part of that promise was giving corporations a chance to bring their overseas cash hoards home at a greatly reduced tax rate. A little more than a year after the election of Trump, a GOP-led tax reform package making its way through Congress. The House version of the tax bill was approved November 16, and the Senate version is heading for a crucial showdown vote on the Senate floor.Both bills contain language on the “repatriation” of corporate cash back to the U.S. Specifically, the bills propose that all the overseas cash be automatically repatriated and taxed at a low rate. The Senate bill has that rate at 10% for profits held in cash. Companies would be credited for taxes already paid overseas on the profits, and would be allowed to pay the remaining over several years.This would be a great deal for U.S. companies like Apple and Microsoft, who abhor holding so much money so far from home where they can’t put it to work. The New York Times points out that the GOP plan would effectively reward U.S. multinationals’ long-term strategy of avoiding taxes by parking profits offshore.Going forward, the House and Senate tax plans would lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%. It would also relieve U.S. multinationals of the obligation to pay taxes on profits earned in other countries, requiring them to pay taxes on profits earned at home.As such, the big tech companies have amped up their lobbying efforts in the capital on tax policy. The Big 5 tech companies increased their lobbying spending in the third quarter of 2017 (the last reporting period) by a collective 24.3% compared to the same quarter in 2016. Microsoft alone had 81 lobbyists from 16 different firms (and Amazon had 64 lobbyists) working for them to influence Congress specifically on tax issues in the first three quarters of 2017, according to Public Citizen.Donald Trump likes to brag about the high-flying stock market in 2017; in truth the markets are high on the hope that the GOP can pass tax reform this year, including the repatriation deal. Zion Research Group estimates that S&P 500 companies could save a combined $570 billion if the GOP repatriation plan became law.Donald Trump and other Republicans appear to assume that the tech companies will dutifully use the repatriated money to set up new manufacturing facilities in the U.S., creating millions of jobs. But it hasn’t worked that way in the past. When George W. Bush signed into law a one-time tax amnesty for offshore profits in 2004, companies used the incoming cash mainly for things like executive bonuses and pay increases, share buybacks, and stockholder dividends. The exodus of tech manufacturing jobs to Asia continued apace.By and large, the manufacture of tech products isn’t likely to return to the U.S. The economics simply don’t make sense, and tax breaks alone aren’t going to change that.