Apple’s 5G iPhone will come to market in 2020, a source with knowledge of Apple’s plans says.Apple plans to use Intel’s 8161 5G modem chip in its 2020 phones. Intel hopes to fabricate the 8161 using its 10-nanometer process, which increases transistor density for more speed and efficiency. If everything goes as planned, Intel will be the sole provider of iPhone modems.Intel has been working on a precursor to the 8161 called the 8060, which will be used for prototyping and testing the 5G iPhone.Apple, our source says, has been unhappy with Intel lately. The most likely reason relates to the challenge of solving heat dissipation issues caused by the 8060 modem chip.Many wireless carriers, including Verizon and AT&T in the U.S., will initially rely on millimeter-wave spectrum (between 28 gigahertz and 39 Ghz) to connect the first 5G phones. But millimeter-wave signal requires some heavy lifting from the modem chips and RF chains, our source explains. This causes the release of higher-than-normal levels of thermal energy inside the phone–so much so that the heat can be felt on the outside of the phone.The problem also affects battery life. Heat generated by a device component is always converted from electricity stored in the battery.Our source says Apple’s current issues with Intel are not serious enough to cause Apple to reopen conversations with Qualcomm about supplying 5G modems. Qualcomm’s X50 modem has also created heat dissipation problems for other smartphone OEMs developing smartphones that support millimeter wave 5G.Apple has held conversations with another chip maker, MediaTek about potentially supplying 5G modem chips, but our source believes that is a distant “Plan B.” MediaTek is said to be working on a 5G modem, but the company typically develops modem platforms for lower-priced devices, not for flagship smartphones. Our source believes Apple and Intel have ample time to correct problems in the Intel modem platform.By 2015, Apple had begun working with Intel to supply modems for the iPhone, and this year’s line of iPhones was the first to use Intel modems exclusively.Apple chose not to comment for this story.The 5G onslaught beginsThe wireless industry’s first wave of 5G handsets will debut at the Mobile World Congress show next February. Android phones from such manufacturers as Oppo, Huawei, and Xiaomi will contain 5G modem chips made by Qualcomm.AT&T has been pressuring handset suppliers to work out technical issues in the first 5G modem chips so that it can bring 5G phones to market in the U.S. in 2019, our source said. Qualcomm has said it has managed the heat dissipation issues in its modems.Apple’s decision to wait until 2020 to release a 5G iPhone is a sensible one, and not surprising. The 5G standard was finalized only this year, and the number of 5G base stations available in major markets will remain limited next year.Where 5G does work, it will be fast. Some users will get multiple-gigabits-per-second download speeds. But in 2019, the actual must-have use cases, at least for smartphone users, will likely still not be well-defined. 2019 will be the year of the 5G marketing extravaganza–the year when the wireless carriers try to make the technology look desirable, even necessary. This is what happens every time a new wireless standard begins making its way into the market.As one T-Mobile executive put it, 5G’s killer app in 2019 may be lighting up the “5G” icon on the screens of new phones.

Former Rudy Giuliani fixer Lev Parnas made a series of dramatic new claims Wednesday about President Donald Trump, Trump administration officials, and the overall effort to pressure Ukraine that led to Trump’s impeachment. And now, the question is whether he can back them up.In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Parnas claimed that President Trump knew “exactly what was going on” with his and Giuliani’s effort to get the Ukrainian government to announce investigations that would help Trump politically: “He was aware of all my movements.”Parnas also made assertions about what happened during various moments in the scandal. For instance, he said he conveyed a “harsh” message to an aide to Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting, threatening payback if no investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter materialized. When he got no response, Parnas said, Trump canceled Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Zelensky’s inauguration.He also said that various Trump administration officials, from Pence to Attorney General William Barr, were in on the plot — though these assertions especially haven’t been corroborated. About the only person who was out of the loop, according to Parnas, was Robert F. Hyde, the Republican congressional candidate who was thrust into the news Tuesday, when texts he’d sent to Parnas that suggested he was having Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch surveilled were made public. Parnas said, though, that Hyde was a “weird” character who was probably making everything up.Parnas was indicted for campaign finance violations in October, and his legal jeopardy appears to have motivated this break with Trump’s team. Parnas got permission from the judge in his case to turn over documents prosecutors obtained to House impeachment investigators, and now he’s gone public. His motivations for doing all this are a bit murky, but he seems to be angling for either a cooperation agreement with prosecutors or a grant of congressional immunity (neither of which is particularly likely).So since Parnas has a history of being a slippery character, it’s probably best to treat his claims as unverified until they are corroborated, for instance with his documents. But here’s a rundown of what he’s saying now and what it means for the larger narrative of the Trump-Ukraine scandal. None of it is great for Trump’s claims that Giuliani was acting on his own — again, if Parnas is on the level.The biggest point Parnas kept making in his interview with Maddow was a broad one — that Trump “knew exactly what was going on.” Asked what was “the main inaccuracy or main lie” Trump’s team is telling about the scandal, here was Parnas’s response:That the president didn’t know what was going on. President Trump knew exactly what was going on. He was aware of all my movements. He — I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president. Maddow followed up by citing Trump’s statement that he didn’t know Parnas or Parnas’s colleague Igor Fruman. “He lied,” Parnas said. He elaborated: I mean, we’re not friends. I mean, when you say friends, I mean, me and him didn’t watch football games together, we didn’t eat hot dogs. But he knew exactly who we were. He knew exactly who I was especially because I interacted with him at a lot of events. I had a lot of one-on-one conversations with him at gatherings. Or they have special, like, these roundtables, where there are only six people at the table. We have several of those. And basically, I mean, I was with Rudy more than — I mean, four or five days out of the week. I mean, I was in constant contact with him. So — and I was with Rudy when he would speak to the president, plenty of times. I mean, so it’s just ludicrous. So Parnas clearly isn’t saying he had a close relationship with Trump. But, he says, they saw each other at many events, including in small group settings (Parnas and Fruman donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates in 2018). Also, Parnas said, he was always around Rudy Giuliani, including when Giuliani was speaking to Trump.Indeed, it certainly seems plausible based on how Trump operates that the president was being regularly updated on, if not outright directing, Giuliani’s actions in Ukraine. So it makes sense that Trump would know that Giuliani had two associates who would open doors for him and arrange meetings in Ukraine: Parnas and Fruman. Still, with Trump’s communications with Giuliani occurring either over the phone or in person and therefore not leaving a record, it is tougher to prove what exactly he knew or was directing.There were, however, some aspects of the saga about which Parnas got more specific. 1) Pence’s canceled trip to Kyiv: We’ve known for some time that, on May 12, Parnas and his colleague Igor Fruman visited Kyiv and had a meeting with an adviser to Zelensky, Serhiy Shefir.Then the following day, on May 13, the White House contacted Pence’s office to say that President Trump had decided Pence would not be attending Zelensky’s inauguration. That’s according to the testimony of Pence aide Jennifer Williams (though Pence’s chief of staff has claimed the trip was canceled because the inauguration’s date wasn’t yet final).Parnas offered new information that — if true — would flesh out what happened. After Giuliani met with Trump, Parnas said, Giuliani instructed him to give Shefir a message “in a very harsh way.” The message was that if Zelensky didn’t comply with investigating the Bidens, then “all aid” to Ukraine would stop, the US-Ukraine relationship would “sour,” and “nobody would show up to Zelensky’s inauguration.”So, Parnas says, he met with Shefir and delivered that message. But Shefir went silent afterward, and stopped responding to Parnas’s messages. So, Parnas says, he called Giuliani back “and said ‘No go’, and I remember Rudy going, ‘Okay, they’ll see.’”So this is an alleged explanation for why Pence’s trip got canceled. Zelensky’s aide didn’t agree to the quid pro quo, Parnas told Giuliani, and Giuliani told Trump — so that was the end for Pence’s trip to the inauguration. (A less impressive delegation of US officials led by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry ended up attending.)2) Trump’s canceled trip to Poland: The background is that, in late August — after news had broken that Trump was blocking hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine — Trump canceled a planned trip to Poland, where he was supposed to meet President Zelensky. Trump claimed he canceled the trip to monitor Hurricane Dorian.Vice President Pence and other officials went instead, and Pence met Zelensky. Ambassador Gordon Sondland has testified that during this trip, he told a Zelensky adviser that the aid depended on an announcement of investigations (though he claims he simply assumed this was the case and that no one higher up in Trump’s administration had told him so). Now Parnas is claiming that Trump used the hurricane as an “excuse” to cancel the trip, and that the true reason was that he was “angry” that Zelensky wouldn’t comply. (Asked how he knew this, Parnas said, “I spoke to Rudy.”) Parnas also claims that Pence was instructed “to discuss this” — to discuss the investigations with Zelensky — “on Trump’s behalf.” He doesn’t really explain how he knows this but says that National Security Adviser John Bolton would know what happened.3) A deal with Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash: For months now, one murky question about this scandal related to the role of Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who was indicted by the US in 2014 and has been stuck in Austria and trying to stop his extradition to the US ever since.As part of Giuliani’s search for Biden dirt — and for a lucrative Ukrainian client — he met with Firtash’s representatives in May and June of last year, the Washington Post reports. Eventually, two conservative lawyers working with Giuliani and Parnas — Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova — landed a contract in which they were paid about $1 million for four months of work for Firtash. Parnas himself was paid large sums by Firtash associates as part of that arrangement, too. Toensing and diGenova landed a meeting with Attorney General Barr at the Justice Department where they pleaded Firtash’s case, apparently without success. Meanwhile, Firtash’s lawyers got a former Ukrainian official, Viktor Shokin, to issue an affidavit, making claims of corrupt actions by Joe Biden as vice president.Parnas now says this was no coincidence. The deal was that Firtash would help provide information on the Bidens and other information Trump could find useful politically, and in exchange, Giuliani’s associates would try to get his charges dropped.“It was all connected. I mean, it was all — at the end of the day, it was all — the agenda was to make sure that the Ukrainians announced the Biden investigation,” Parnas said.Indeed, handwritten notes by Parnas contained in the House’s document release seem to confirm this. Written on a notepad for the Ritz-Carlton Vienna (the hotel where Firtash reportedly lives), Parnas’s notes freely intermingle references to getting Biden investigated and Firtash’s legal situation. We still don’t know the full story of what went on, but it looks ugly.Less corroborated were some claims by Parnas about other Trump administration officials: Vice President Pence and Attorney General Barr.Parnas said Pence was “100 percent” in on the plan to pressure Ukraine, and that “he couldn’t have not known.” And he said Barr “had to have known everything.”But asked for specifics, he was cagey. For instance, when asked specifically if Pence knew why his trip to the inauguration was being canceled, Parnas answered broadly rather than specifically: “I’m going to use a famous quote by Mr. Sondland, everybody was in the loop.”And for Barr, Parnas claimed that he “was involved in lots of conversations that Joe diGenova” had with Barr. And that he also said Giuliani had conversations with Barr “in front of me” (apparently over the phone).Yet then, asked specifically if Giuliani told Barr about the scheme to get Biden investigated, Parnas similarly retreats to a general claim: that Barr “had to have known everything.” MADDOW: Do you know if Rudy Giuliani was ever in contact with Mr. Barr, specifically about the fact that he was trying to get Ukraine to announce these investigations into Joe Biden? PARNAS: Oh, absolutely. MADDOW: Mr. Barr knew about it? PARNAS: Mr. Barr had to have known everything. I mean, it’s impossible. He added that Barr was “best friends” with Giuliani, diGenova, Toensing, and declared: “Barr was basically on the team.” There remain questions about Barr’s role in this whole affair. Notably, Trump repeatedly told Zelensky on the phone in their infamous July 25 call that he should get in touch with Barr (in addition to Giuliani) regarding investigating the Bidens. But for now, Parnas’s claims about him are broad and uncorroborated. (A Justice Department spokesperson told Maddow in a statement that Parnas’s claims about Barr were “100 percent false.”)Finally, one of the most disturbing parts of the recent Parnas document dump is a set of claims by Robert F. Hyde, a Trump donor and Republican congressional candidate, suggesting he had people in Ukraine surveilling Yovanovitch. “If you want her out they need to make contact with security forces,” Hyde even offered.This certainly sounds bad, but it’s far from clear that Hyde actually had the capabilities to do this. He owned a landscaping company in Connecticut and has no known ties to Ukraine. Furthermore, he has a history of bizarre behavior (he was taken into police custody last year after an incident at the Trump National Doral Miami). So this could have been an empty attempt at braggadocio — delusions of grandeur.And indeed, when Maddow asked Parnas about Hyde, Parnas laughed through his answers, suggesting Hyde should not at all be taken seriously. Parnas called Hyde “a weird individual” who hung out at the Trump hotel and was always drunk (“I’ve never seen him not drunk”). Parnas added that Hyde seemed “off the wall” and that, as the messages continued, he was warned by a Trump Super PAC official to “stay away from him.”“I didn’t believe Mr. Hyde, no,” Parnas said. Will you help keep Vox free for all? Millions of people rely on Vox to understand how the policy decisions made in Washington, from health care to unemployment to housing, could impact their lives. Our work is well-sourced, research-driven, and in-depth. And that kind of work takes resources. Even after the economy recovers, advertising alone will never be enough to support it. If you have already made a contribution to Vox, thank you. If you haven’t, help us keep our journalism free for everyone by making a financial contribution today, from as little as $3.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is defending an infamous press conference performance in which he acknowledged a quid pro quo between President Donald Trump and Ukraine and claimed that the U.S. does that “all the time.” On Tuesday, Mulvaney attempted to shift his past remarks at a Wall Street Journal event, stating that he meant politics and foreign policy are intertwined. “Politics can and should influence foreign policy,” he told associate editor John Bussey. “You may have one foreign policy you’re running on, I may have a different one. Whoever wins gets to set that foreign policy.” — Capital Journal (@WSJPolitics) December 10, 2019 Only that’s not the extent of what was conveyed during Mulvaney’s October briefing. While addressing reporters, he said that American military aid to Ukraine was held up over the summer because Trump was concerned about whether it would be properly spent, and “corruption that related to the [Democratic National Committee] server.” The latter point references a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine perpetrated the 2016 hacking of Democratic Party emails. The U.S. intelligence community has made clear that it believes Russia was responsible. When ABC News’ Jonathan Karl noted that he had described a quid pro quo, Mulvaney said, “We do that all the time with foreign policy.” “Get over it,” he added. “There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy. ... That is going to happen. Elections have consequences.” Mulvaney walked back the remarks in a subsequent statement, asserting, “There was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.” The matter has become the focal point of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry of Trump, which was spurred by a whistleblower complaint about his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A rough transcript of the discussion shows Trump pressed Zelensky repeatedly to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son based on unsubstantiated corruption allegations while the nearly $400 million in funds was being temporarily withheld. On Tuesday, Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced articles of impeachment against Trump for abuse of power in soliciting a probe of his political rival, and for obstructing Congress’ investigation of the matter. Download Calling all HuffPost superfans! Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter Join HuffPost

Defeat doesn't entail only the physical caliphate, the official said when asked what defeat might mean. "We mean defeat of networks" of ISIS, including ongoing sources of additional financial revenue, those who provide them weapons and people who provide them with places to hide, the official said.There may be tens of thousands involved in the effort, something the intelligence community has alluded to in congressional testimony.Separately, in just one indication of Iran's growing influence inside Iraq, Brig. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, has traveled to Iraq as many as 20 times in the last three to four years, according to a senior US diplomatic official. The US has not asked for Soleimani to be arrested but has brought to the Iraqi government's attention his apparent freedom of movement.Soleimani is on Treasury Department and UN Security Council watch lists for those allegedly involved in terrorism.The official described "aggressive" instances of Iranian militias intimidating Iraqi towns and villages, and moving into specific areas to do "the bidding of Iran."JUST WATCHEDThe last survivors of ISIS' caliphateReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHThe last survivors of ISIS' caliphate 02:50US officials are tracking increased efforts by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, as well as businesses and individuals, to bolster their influence and ability to engage in activities that will get them additional revenue in the wake of oil sanctions being reimposed November 4.Activities include smuggling drugs, weapons and Iranian oil, which is illegally relabeled as Iraqi and shipped out of the country. The oil shipments so far are small and are not believed to be state-sanctioned. Iran appears to be trying to create "an armed political wing" inside Iraq with portions both under and not under central Iraqi control, the diplomatic official said. As for Trump's comments about keeping US troops in Iraq to "keep an eye" on Iran, the official said it was not a mission for the US in Iraq and there was "probably not much" the US could do to keep an eye on Iran from inside Iraq.

The US government’s top internal watchdog has determined that the Trump administration broke the law when it withheld military aid to Ukraine last year after Congress had approved its disbursal.Coming on the very day the Senate is swearing in the judge in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, the finding could potentially bolster Democrats’ case that the president should be convicted in its impeachment trial next week.In a legal opinion released Thursday, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) decision to keep $400 million in Pentagon assistance to Ukraine for a “policy reason” in violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.That law was designed to “prevent the President and other government officials from unilaterally substituting their own funding decisions for those of the Congress,” according to the House Budget Committee. Trump has admitted to putting a hold on the money, but his reasoning has changed. Initially he said he didn’t want to give Ukraine the funds until it dealt with its corruption problem, even though the Pentagon said Kyiv had made enough reforms to warrant the money. Then he said he wanted to wait until European nations also contributed to Ukraine so it wasn’t just the US footing the bill.But Bill Taylor, the former top US diplomat in Ukraine, said during the House Democrat-led impeachment inquiry last year that the president likely paused the money to compel Ukraine to open an investigation into Joe Biden’s family. That’s the center of the now-infamous quid pro quo: Kyiv helps damage Trump’s political opponent, and then Ukraine gets the money. The administration did eventually release the money last September, after the outlines of the scandal had become public.Taking all of this into account, the watchdog concluded that “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.” Therefore, the report notes, the OMB violated the law. This decision has angered and animated Senate Democrats who will now push harder for more documents and witnesses in the impeachment trial. The “opinion is forceful and it is unambiguous: When President Trump froze congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine, he did so in violation of the law and the Constitution,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the vice chair of the chamber’s appropriations committee.Which means that Senate Democrats likely feel their case is stronger headed into the impeachment trial next week. The question, though, is if it will actually change anything.The White House has already refuted the report’s conclusions, accusing the GAO of “overreach.” And OMB spokesperson Rachel Semmel said her agency “uses its apportionment authority to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent consistent with the President’s priorities and with the law.”The anger in these statements makes sense, especially since both the White House and OMB are being accused of something serious. But they also have the space to be indignant because they can be confident the report isn’t likely to change anything.Importantly, nothing major will likely happen on the legal front. Some ethics group will probably sue the administration over this, and the GAO might even do so as it has before, but it’s unlikely to lead to much. It’s possible, though, that the White House will fire staff at OMB or even acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who also heads that office.The White House may still not change its procedures. Last November, an OMB lawyer said the executive branch didn’t have to abide by GAO rulings. “When an agency of the legislative branch interprets a law differently than the executive branch, the executive branch is not bound by its views,” Mark Paoletta, the OMB’s general counsel, wrote in a memo last November.The most probable outcome, then, is that this report will serve as fodder for the president’s opponents who want to see him removed. It bolsters the case against him that he did something illegal — for his own political gain — and therefore must be booted from office. But the Senate is controlled by Republicans, which means even this new information is unlikely to lead to the president’s conviction. Speaking about the GAO report on how Trump withheld funds to Ukraine, @SpeakerPelosi says, "The OMB, the White House -- im saying -- broke the law." Pelosi says the report reinforces the need for documents and witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial. pic.twitter.com/gZZyeQwfsW— Oliver Willis (@owillis) January 16, 2020 So the GAO report is another good data point to support the case that the president’s actions were corrupt and illegal, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing will change.If that’s not a depressing state of affairs about America’s democracy, I don’t know what is. Will you help keep Vox free for all? Millions of people rely on Vox to understand how the policy decisions made in Washington, from health care to unemployment to housing, could impact their lives. Our work is well-sourced, research-driven, and in-depth. And that kind of work takes resources. Even after the economy recovers, advertising alone will never be enough to support it. If you have already made a contribution to Vox, thank you. If you haven’t, help us keep our journalism free for everyone by making a financial contribution today, from as little as $3.

closeVideoTom Homan: 'Trump understands the immigration issue better than any president I worked for'Former Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan calls out the Obama administration's immigration policy record after the final presidential debate on 'Fox & Friends.'Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Tuesday that it released 250 immigrants with criminal histories in response to a coronavirus-related order issued by the Central District of California.The news came a week after U.S. Judge Terry Hatter demanded the agency either release or deport detainees at the Adelanto ICE processing center in Southern California in order to halt the spread of coronavirus infections. ICE claims that "despite requests to transfer detainees to alternative locations," it ended up releasing 250 from the facility, which is run by a federal contractor. Those released had histories of a variety of crimes, including assualt with a deadly weapon, driving under the influence, "lewd/lascivious acts with a child," child cruelty, illegal re-entry after removal, and other offenses.ICE’s Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Tony H. Pham slammed the order as a danger to public safety and accused the court of overstepping its authority.“While opponents who continuously seek to discredit the agency might otherwise mislead the public to believe that those in detention pose no risk to public safety, nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “ICE has complied with this overreaching court order; however, the public should know that the ruling undoubtedly places them at greater risk.”Tuesday's news touched on a broader trend in which U.S. prisons released inmates to prevent infections. According to the Los Angeles Times, the state has already expedited the release of thousands of prisoners, including a woman convicted of murder. And in New York City, at least dozens of released criminals went on to commit new crimes, with at least 50 landing themselves back in jail, according to the New York Post.According to ICE, more than 85% of the roughly 730 migrants at Adelanto had pending criminal charges or convictions. The recent release left the processing center with a population of 465, slightly below the 475 previously requested by Hatter. At least 162 had tested positive for the virus, according to Business Insider.ICE maintains that it follows "an aggressive inspections program for its detention centers" and followed Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for containing the virus. More specifically, it restricted intake at Adelanto and conducted ongoing testing at the facility. "As an added precautionary measure for communities," ICE's press release read, "no detainee was released until officials established a high degree of certainty that they did not pose a COVID-19 public health risk."Government attorneys had argued in favor of keeping as many as 1,052 immigrants in the facility, citing World Health Organization (WHO) guidance that detainees should social distance with 39 inches between them, which is half the amount recommended by the CDC. But noting the administration's withdrawal from the WHO, Hatter said: "The government's reliance on the WHO, therefore, is disingenuous."Hatter also argued that the "case involves human lives whose reasonable safety is entitled to be enforced and protected by the court pursuant to the United States Constitution."The Trump administration has long butted heads with California over its immigration policies, suing the entire state in 2018 over its sanctuary law. In February, ICE reported that 411 inmates that were previously released had been rearrested and booked into Orange County Jail on additional charges, which included domestic violence, identity theft, and driving under the influence.

One-click purchases, Alexa, and now AI-powered cashier-less convenience stores: Amazon has long been setting standards that others rush to compete with. So it’s no wonder that the Amazon Go convenience store, which uses cameras and image recognition to track and ring up all the items people take off shelves, has been met with a frenzy of startup rivals. Now one of them, Standard Cognition, has gone beyond cool demos and announced a deal to deploy the technology in stores with a major partner.The deal is with Paltac Corporation, the biggest supplier to drugstore-style shops in Japan. It begins modestly, with a single pilot store in the city of Sendai, about four hours north of Tokyo, set to open in early 2019. Then it ramps up fast: The plan is to outfit over 3,000 stores in time for the Tokyo Olympics in July 2020. “The government is pushing its stores and its companies to put their best digital foot forward for the Olympics,” says Michael Suswal, Standard Cognition’s COO and one of the Bay Area startup’s seven cofounders.Partnering with Paltac, which supplies most of Japan’s small retail industry, allows Standard Cognition to reach a diverse market. “Drugstores are a fractured ecosystem in Japan . . . The biggest chains have like 2,000 locations and most of the chains are in the hundreds,” says Suswal.With cameras only in the ceiling, there’s essentially nothing to see in the setup. [Photo: courtesy of Standard Cognition]The startup uses cameras to track what people pick up, and it automatically bills them as they leave the store. Like Amazon Go and other rivals, Standard Cognition can also see if people put an item back on the shelf, and will take it off the bill. The system uses only ceiling-mounted cameras, with no sensors on the shelves, which cuts complexity, according to Suswal.“In a store the size of Amazon Go, it would use about 25 cameras,” he says. The inaugural Amazon Go store in Seattle, measuring about 1,800 square feet, requires hundreds of camera arrays, according to the New York Times. It also uses weight sensors on its shelves.Standard Cognition, which has raised $11.2 million to date, is also working with other, unnamed retailers, in stores ranging from 150 to 54,000 square feet, Suswal says. The average Whole Foods covers about 40,000 square feet.The startup’s rivals have also been talking with unnamed retailers or have teased deals they cannot yet reveal. One other computer-vision-based company, New Zealand’s Imagr, has revealed a pilot project with grocery chain Foodstuffs in a store outside Auckland. But Imagr’s system is a bit different. It mounts the image-recognition cameras directly on the shopping cart to track everything that goes in, or out. Other startups, including Accel Robotics and Caper Lab, are using a similar system, but neither have announced retail deployments.Related: Amazon will open a second automated store in Seattle—and this one is much biggerStandard Cognition promises to scan the whole store, tracking items whether they go in the cart, into baskets, into hands, or into pockets. As far as Fast Company can determine, none of its camera-only rivals—including AiFi, Aipoly, and Trigo Vision—have announced deals to put their tech in retail stores yet. “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them,” says IDC retail analyst Bob Eastman about such startups.Microsoft may join the partyThe wildcard, or perhaps wild elephant, in all this is Microsoft. In June, Reuters reported that the tech titan is developing its own automated store technology—another potential challenge to the startups. Microsoft, which recently announced a partnership with Walmart, has not commented on the report.Related: Amazon Go’s auto-checkout challengers are piling up–meet one of the most ambitiousIn addition to Paltac, Standard Cognition has deals with three other large companies that it won’t yet name: a second in Japan, one in the US, and one in the UK. The appetite for this technology in Japan is not surprising, says Andrew Murphy, managing partner at Loup Ventures. “There’s more convenience stores per capita, and they’re more familiar buying destinations in Japan,” he says. The country is also facing a labor shortage as its population ages and shrinks. So automation is less a way to put checkers out of jobs than to replace jobs that humans can’t fill.Loup has investigated almost all the players in the fully automated checkout space, says Murphy, but it hasn’t invested in any yet. Still, the venture capital firm sounds bullish for the long term, forecasting that automation could take over 35 percent of retail, including all convenience stores, in the next 20 to 30 years.That’s longer than some people may think, he says, but the process is already underway. “I think that automated retail is going to hit its stride in five to 10 years,” he says. “Not less than that, not more than that.”

The House has launched an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump over what Democrats consider an abuse of power and an attempted quid pro quo by pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate his political rivals in exchange for releasing U.S. military aid.The House Oversight, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees are leading the investigation, questioning a long list of witnesses who have confirmed an attempted quid pro quo and provided information that has led investigators to ask more questions about Trump’s actions.As the investigation progresses, the list of people involved in the scandal grows longer, and the roles that they played become more intertwined. This is a running list of who’s who in the Ukraine story, why they matter and how they fit into the congressional investigation surrounding them. The president is facing an impeachment inquiry in the House after reports emerged that he asked foreign leaders to investigate his political rivals in exchange for security aid, which would amount to an illegal quid pro quo and an abuse of power.Trump called the Ukrainian president on July 25 and asked him to do a “favor” by investigating 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. He also requested that his Ukrainian counterpart investigate a cybersecurity firm that had found out Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers in 2016.The president, who said Ukrainian officials should meet with his personal attorney, was simultaneously withholding nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine. Trump has defended the call and does not see it as a quid pro quo.The investigation comes just months after the release of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election specifically to benefit Trump and that there were several instances in which Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.Zelensky is a former comedian and actor who was elected president of Ukraine in April. He was at the receiving end of Trump’s July 25 call, in which the U.S. president asked him to do a favor and investigate his political rival.In the call, Zelensky promised Trump he would look at Joe Biden and his son for instances of corruption in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president later said there was “no blackmail” in his call with Trump but stressed that he did not want to be involved in U.S. politics or elections.In addition to allegations that the release of the military aid to Ukraine was contingent on investigating the Bidens, Trump is also accused of making a meeting between him and Zelensky contingent on such investigations.Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the House’s impeachment inquiry into Trump on Sept. 24 after a whistleblower anonymously came forward about allegations that the president was abusing his office by pressuring Ukraine to interfere in U.S. elections.A growing list of Democrats had called for an impeachment inquiry after the April release of Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The speaker of the House had long argued that an attempt to impeach Trump would only further divide the country and distract Democrats from trying to take back the Senate and White House.The House voted Oct. 31 along party lines to adopt a resolution that formalizes the impeachment inquiry. Pelosi said the resolution “establishes the procedure for hearings that are open to the American people, authorizes the disclosure of deposition transcripts, outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and sets forth due process rights for the President and his Counsel.”Pelosi has virtually appointed Schiff (D-Calif.) to lead the House impeachment inquiry and investigate the whistleblower’s complaint. The Intelligence Committee chairman said “shaking down a foreign leader” is an impeachable offense and that White House stonewalling of the impeachment inquiry would be considered obstruction of justice.Schiff was previously working with the whistleblower’s attorneys to set up a time for the anonymous intelligence official to potentially testify before the committee, something Republicans are still demanding. But the congressman eventually said that the House does not need to risk unmasking the whistleblower by having him testify because enough witnesses have already corroborated the complaint’s allegations.Trump has ramped up his attacks on Schiff since the launch of the impeachment inquiry, accusing the congressman of treason. House Republicans angered by the inquiry tried to censure Schiff on allegations of “certain misleading conduct,” but the chamber’s Democratic majority blocked the measure.Joe Biden’s name is at the center of Trump’s and his allies’ communications with Ukrainian leaders, with the president pressuring Zelensky in the July 25 call to investigate the former vice president and 2020 political rival ahead of the U.S. elections.Trump made unsubstantiated allegations that Biden used his official capacity as vice president during the Obama administration to block an investigation into Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings while his son was a board member, saying he withheld $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine didn’t fire then-prosecutor Viktor Shokin.There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, who have both repeatedly denied the allegations. Biden and others in the Obama administration have said they joined Western leaders’ calls for dismissing Shokin because he allegedly neglected to prosecute corruption cases, including those involving Burisma. Hunter Biden has also been accused by Trump of engaging in corrupt practices in Ukraine. Joe Biden’s son was hired by Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky to serve on the company’s board in 2014, when his father was vice president of the U.S. and was overseeing diplomatic relations with Kyiv. The company paid Biden as much as $50,000 a month for serving on its board of directors.Ukraine’s current prosecutor general has said that the government is auditing all the cases that were closed or dismissed by former prosecutors, including 15 cases linked to Zlochevsky and related to potential money laundering and abuse of office. Zlochevsky used to head the Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.Hunter Biden said that he never discussed Burisma with his father, and there has been no evidence of wrongdoing related to his work with the company.The whistleblower is an unnamed U.S. intelligence officer who filed a complaint Aug. 12 alleging several White House officials told the person that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call to investigate the Bidens ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections.The whistleblower also alleged the White House tried to cover up the exchange by hiding the call’s transcript in a codeword-protected server meant only for highly classified documents. The complaint was released Sept. 26. Trump has repeatedly demanded to know who the whistleblower is and has suggested anyone who provided the information that’s in the complaint be punished the way “we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason.” The remarks led Democrats and attorneys for the whistleblower to fear for the person’s safety.As Republicans demand to have the whistleblower testify, the intelligence official’s attorney said Nov. 3 that his client is willing to respond to GOP questions “in writing, under oath & penalty of perjury.”Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire gave Atkinson the whistleblower complaint after receiving it from the person who submitted it.After reviewing the complaint, Atkinson wrote an Aug. 26 letter to Maguire describing the complaint as “credible” and of “urgent concern.” He also said that Maguire was legally required to give the complaint to congressional intelligence committees within seven days.The New York Times reported Nov. 12 that Trump had discussed firing Atkinson from his post because of the inspector general’s decision to label the whistleblower complaint credible and making sure it was shared with Congress. Presidents have the authority to remove inspectors general but are only supposed to do so in instances of misconduct or a failure to fulfill duties.Maguire testified before the House Intelligence Committee about the complaint he received from the whistleblower. He said he initially withheld the complaint from Congress because his attorneys said Trump was not part of the intelligence community.At the direction of inspector general Atkinson, Maguire eventually gave the complaint to the committee, which then declassified it for the public to read. Maguire defended the whistleblower’s decision to file a complaint, calling it “unique” and “unprecedented.”Pompeo, a former CIA chief, was on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky in which the U.S. president tried get foreign help to win the 2020 election.Pompeo’s name was not directly mentioned in the whistleblower complaint, but Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani admitted multiple times that the State Department helped set up the meetings between Giuliani and top Zelensky aides. Pompeo also oversaw the abrupt removal in May of Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.The House subpoenaed Pompeo for documents related to the impeachment inquiry, though the secretary has refused to comply and accused Democrats of intimidating his department. The secretary of state vehemently denied witnessing an attempted quid pro quo by Trump.Perry, the former governor of Texas, became relevant to the Ukraine investigation earlier in October when Axios reported that during a conference call with House Republicans, Trump said Perry was the one who arranged his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, a call that has become the heart of the impeachment inquiry.The energy secretary also told The Wall Street Journal in October that Trump told him to communicate with lawyer Rudy Giuliani about the president’s concerns about corruption in Ukraine.Perry notified Trump of his plan to resign as energy secretary by the end of the year. The House subpoenaed Perry for documents related to the impeachment inquiry, but the energy secretary has refused to comply. An Energy Department spokeswoman said Nov. 1 that Perry would not appear for his Nov. 6 closed-door hearing, but would consider testifying in a public session.Pence has worked to distance himself from the Ukraine scandal after a report alleging that the vice president met Sept. 1 with Ukrainian President Zelensky to tell him that the U.S. was not going to release military aid unless Ukraine was more willing to combat corruption.Pence told reporters after meeting the Ukrainian president that the two did not discuss Joe Biden, whom Trump had asked Zelensky to investigate in a July phone call. The vice president instead said he spoke about Trump’s wanting to end corruption in Ukraine and about the U.S. military aid for the country.The House asked Pence to hand over documents related to Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, though the vice president’s spokesperson dismissed the new demand.Bolton was Trump’s national security adviser until his resignation earlier this year, and he reportedly grew so concerned about Giuliani’s shadow diplomacy that he ordered top Russia adviser Fiona Hill to warn White House attorneys about the behavior of Trump’s personal lawyer, whom he called “a hand grenade.”Hill, who reported to Bolton, told lawmakers that she notified her boss of Giuliani’s foreign policy back-channel with Ukraine. A State Department Foreign Service officer who was previously the special adviser for Ukraine negotiations testified to the House Oct. 30 that Bolton cautioned him Giuliani “was a key voice with the president on Ukraine.” The House had invited Bolton to testify in the impeachment investigation on Nov. 7. Bolton’s lawyer said his client would not appear voluntarily but would show up if a court rules that House subpoenas to testify take precedent over White House orders to not testify.Giuliani appears to be the driving force behind Trump’s pursuit of a quid quo pro with Ukraine, becoming a shadow diplomat to the country despite only being the president’s personal attorney.The former New York mayor has had direct communication with Ukrainian officials for some time, and he said he went to the country initially to undermine the beginnings of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and protect now-imprisoned Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.Giuliani has pushed the unsubstantiated allegations that Hunter Biden was involved in Ukrainian corruption, and that Joe Biden pushed for a prosecutor’s firing in order to block an investigation into such corruption. The attorney met with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukraine’s president, just days after Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky.The president’s personal attorney has repeatedly gone on cable news to rant about Ukraine conspiracy theories, often revealing new compromising information in those interviews. The House has subpoenaed Giuliani in the impeachment investigation, though he has said he would not comply.Mulvaney put himself and the White House in a corner when he admitted on camera in October that the president engaged in an attempted quid pro quo with Ukraine by withholding military aid in order to get the country to investigate Trump’s political rivals, saying: “That’s why we held up the money.”The acting chief of staff dug a deeper hole while trying to explain why Trump was attempting to hold the Group of Seven international summit at his private resort in Florida, saying: The president “still considers himself to be in the hospitality business.” The comment further painted Trump as a president using the power of his office to further his business and personal interests.Mulvaney has so far denied any rumors he might resign, and later denied acknowledging a quid pro quo despite the admission being on live television. Robert Blair, Mulvaney’s top aide who was on Trump’s July call with Ukraine, refused to testify before the House as requested on Nov. 4. The House asked Mulvaney to testify on Nov. 9, but he refused to comply.Barr was in charge of overseeing the release of the special counsel’s report on the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. In a summary of Trump’s July phone call to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president also asked Zelensky to talk to Barr as part of the attorney general’s review of that investigation.The Justice Department said its Criminal Division reviewed Trump’s call and decided not to investigate him for committing a potential campaign finance violation when he asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden.The House has said it expects Barr to testify in the impeachment inquiry, though the attorney general has remained mum on his involvement.Lutsenko was Ukraine’s top prosecutor from 2016 under the country’s previous president, Petro Poroshenko, and was Giuliani’s initial point of contact in persuading Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.He was fired in August by current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Ukrainian authorities said earlier in October that they had opened a criminal investigation into him over allegedly abusing his power in dealings with politicians.The former prosecutor was also involved in Marie Yovanovitch’s ouster in May, falsely accusing the ambassador of interfering with the 2016 U.S. elections by giving him a “do not prosecute” list and blocking Ukraine from giving evidence of corruption in the election. He later admitted that he was the one who requested the “do not prosecute” list.Lutsenko initially took a hard stance against energy company Burisma but eventually closed all investigations into the company and owner Mykola Zlochevsky. During the time he was communicating with Giuliani earlier this year, Lutsenko tried to revive scrutiny of Burisma but stressed that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, who had been on the company’s board.Shokin was Ukraine’s top prosecutor in 2015 under the country’s previous president, Petro Poroshenko, and allegedly faced criticism during his time in office for refusing to prosecute corruption by high-level officials. He was ousted in March 2016 and replaced by Yuriy Lutsenko.Joe Biden was responsible for dealing with Ukraine relations as vice president in the Obama administration and, alongside other world leaders, encouraged Poroshenko to fire Shokin for not prosecuting instances of corruption by the political elite.Trump has used Biden’s interaction with Ukraine to make unsubstantiated allegations that the former vice president pushed for Shokin’s ouster to benefit a Ukrainian energy company paying his son Hunter Biden.Parnas and Fruman are Soviet-born American businessmen who helped Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine, where they also had business interests regarding an energy company. Parnas and Fruman were also allegedly involved in the removal of Marie Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine.The two were indicted on charges of making campaign contributions to a Trump-aligned super PAC using straw donors last year. They were arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia earlier in October while waiting to board an international flight, just hours before having lunch with Giuliani.Giuliani was paid $500,000 last year for consulting work he did for Fraud Guarantee, the Florida-based company run by Parnas. The payment occurred while Parnas was helping Giuliani find dirt in Ukraine against Joe Biden, though Trump’s personal attorney stressed that the payment was not connected to his work on behalf of the president.Parnas’ lawyer said Nov. 4 that his client was prepared to cooperate with the House’s requests for records and testimony in the impeachment inquiry and alleged Nov. 11 that the businessman himself directly told Ukrainian officials that military aid was contingent on the Biden investigation. Parnas had previously refused to speak with impeachment investigators while being represented under a different lawyer. His stance changed after Trump openly denied knowing Parnas at the time of the businessman’s arrest.Yermak is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s close friend, personal aide and chief international negotiator. Yermak met with Giuliani in Spain a week after Trump’s call with Zelensky, in which he urged the newly elected leader to speak with Giuliani to set up meetings with Ukrainian officials.Several U.S. officials said the meeting between Giuliani and Yermak was a “direct follow-up” to the Trump-Zelensky call, according to the whistleblower complaint.Gordon Sondland admitted in revised testimony released Nov. 5 that he told Yermak the U.S. would not release military aid to Ukraine unless the country publicly committed to investigating the Bidens.Brechbuhl was appointed in May 2018 as counselor of the State Department by his friend and former U.S. Military Academy classmate Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state. The whistleblower complaint and ambassador George Kent alleged Brechbuhl listened in on Trump’s call to Ukraine, though the State Department denies it.Yovanovitch testified to the House that Brechbuhl was in charge of handling her removal but that he refused to meet with her when she came back to Washington.House Democrats sent a subpoena earlier in October requesting that Brechbuhl provide a closed-door deposition on Nov. 6 after he declined to voluntarily appear for an interview. The subpoena came the same day Democrats also subpoenaed Office of Management and Budget officials Russell Vought and Michael Duffey. Brechbuhl still has not testified.Volker was the State Department special envoy to Ukraine until he resigned Sept. 27 after his name’s mention in the whistleblower complaint.According to the complaint, Volker set up the meeting between Giuliani and Andriy Yermak, and tried to advise Ukrainian officials on how to work with Trump and his personal attorney.Volker was the first witness that the House called in the impeachment investigation, in which he testified he was not “fully in the loop” of Trump’s call with Ukraine. But text messages between him and two other diplomats that Volker provided to Congress contradict the former ambassador’s story, as the texts showed clear concern over Trump’s withholding of military aid until Ukraine promised to investigate his political rivals.The House on Nov. 5 released transcripts of Volker’s deposition, in which he said Ukrainian officials “asked to be connected” to Giuliani as a direct backdoor channel to Trump. Volker also testified he personally told Giuliani that Yuriy Lutsenko, the source of many of the conspiracy theories he was pushing, was “not credible.”Volker will publicly testify in the impeachment inquiry on Nov. 19.Read Kurt Volker’s private testimony here.Taylor was the chargé d’affaires for Ukraine after resigning as its U.S. ambassador. Taylor gave explosive testimony before House members in October confirming there was a quid pro quo demand in Trump’s July 25 call to Ukraine.The acting ambassador was one of three diplomats who discussed the Ukraine talks in text messages released by the three House committees. Taylor was the only one in the group text with Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland to outwardly disapprove of Trump’s withholding of military aid to Ukraine in order to get the country to interfere in U.S. elections.Trump’s response to Taylor’s testimony was to compare the impeachment inquiry to a “lynching” and label all “Never Trumpers” as “human scum.” Many Senate Republicans questioned Taylor’s integrity despite his reputation as a highly respected diplomat who also served under President George W. Bush.The House released transcripts Nov. 6 of Taylor’s private testimony, in which he said it was his “clear understanding” that the U.S. would not release military aid unless Ukraine committed to an investigation into Biden. Taylor publicly testified Nov. 13 alongside George Kent, stressing his concerns about the safety of Ukraine and the country’s relationship with the U.S.Read Bill Taylor’s private testimony here.Sondland, a Republican donor and hotel owner, had no foreign policy experience when Trump hired him as the U.S. ambassador to the European Union in June 2018. Sondland is involved in Trump’s scheme to pressure Ukraine into investigating the Bidens.The ambassador was one of the three diplomats in the group text that Bill Taylor talked to impeachment investigators about. In a Sept. 9 text, Taylor expressed dismay to Sondland about Trump involving the State Department in his attempted quid pro quo, to which the EU ambassador responded by dismissing Taylor’s concerns.Sondland initially testified to impeachment investigators that he couldn’t recall having any discussions about the Bidens, or taking part in encouraging an investigation into them. But after depositions from Taylor and Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman contradicted Sondland’s testimony, the diplomat significantly amended his story in an update released Nov. 5. He acknowledged he told top Ukrainian aide Andriy Yermak that U.S. military aid to the country was contingent on Ukraine publicly committing to investigate the Bidens, and that he knew it was illegal.Sondland was expected to publicly testify in the impeachment inquiry Nov. 20.Read Gordon Sondland’s private testimony here.Yovanovitch was removed in May from her post as ambassador in Kyiv after complaints by Republicans and by Yuriy Lutsenko that she was undermining efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals.The firing came after Yovanovitch insisted that Giuliani’s requests for Ukraine to conduct certain investigations be relayed through the proper foreign policy channels. Trump disparaged the former ambassador during his phone call with Ukraine, calling her “bad news” and saying she’s “going to go through some things.”Yovanovitch was the third witness to appear publicly, testifying Nov. 15 how Trump is the one who opened the door for corruption in Ukraine rather than trying to stop it, and how the president is largely responsible for the smear campaign that left her feeling threatened.Read Marie Yovanovitch’s private testimony here.Hill was Trump’s top Russia policy adviser with the National Security Council until she resigned in July. She was cited in the text messages between Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker and Bill Taylor that were provided to House impeachment investigators.Hill spoke with House members on Oct. 14 in a closed-door session. She told lawmakers that she considered Sondland a national security risk as the U.S. ambassador to the European Union because of his inexperience, according to The New York Times.Hill was allegedly told as early as May that there was a pressure campaign by Sondland and Giuliani concerning newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, NBC News reported on Oct. 28. Hill then reportedly briefed her boss, then-national security adviser John Bolton, about the shadow diplomacy he later described as a kind of “drug deal.”Hill was scheduled to publicly testify in the impeachment inquiry on Nov. 21.Read Fiona Hill’s private testimony here.Vindman is currently the top Ukraine expert for the National Security Council and the first witness with firsthand knowledge of Trump’s July 25 phone call to testify in the House’s impeachment investigation. Many Republicans previously dismissed the whistleblower’s allegations because the anonymous intelligence officer admitted to not being a direct witness to the call with Ukraine.Vindman, who reported to Fiona Hill until her resignation, privately testified to lawmakers on Oct. 29 that he heard Trump’s call with Zelensky in real time and twice reported it internally to the NSC’s lead counsel John Eisenberg because he felt it was his duty to share his concerns about the attempted quid pro quo. He also said the White House’s summary of the phone call had key omissions that do not change the basic contents of the call but raise questions about its handling. Several Trump allies have questioned Vindman’s patriotism solely based on the fact that the Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient came to the U.S. from Ukraine as a child. Trump also dismissed Vindman’s testimony, calling him a “Never Trumper witness,” though several Republican lawmakers defended the veteran’s reputation.Vindman will publicly testify in the impeachment inquiry on Nov. 19 alongside Pence aide Jennifer Williams.Read Alexander Vindman’s private testimony here.Eisenberg was a key player in handling the White House transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine. The National Security Council lawyer was involved in moving the phone call’s transcript into a server meant for highly classified information.Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified to lawmakers that he twice brought his concerns about the call to the NSC’s lead counsel, presumably Eisenberg. Tim Morrison, the NSC’s former Russia expert, said he also contacted the agency’s legal office about the call out of concern regarding potential leaks to the public. Fiona Hill told lawmakers that she too brought her concerns with Eisenberg.The House issued a subpoena to Eisenberg to appear before lawmakers on Nov. 4, but the counsel did not show up.Morrison served as one of the top Russia experts for the National Security Council until he resigned Oct. 30. He was one of the several officials to raise concerns about Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the president’s political rivals. The former NSC official told lawmakers in Oct. 31 testimony that he contacted then-NSC adviser John Bolton and the agency’s lawyers about Trump’s call out of concern regarding potential leaks about it to the public. Morrison also said he first alerted diplomat Bill Taylor to concerns over the president’s call, telling him that Trump did not want to provide any security assistance at all to Ukraine. He reportedly had a “sinking feeling” when he first heard of the call from Gordon Sondland.According to the transcript of his private testimony released Nov. 16, Morrison told impeachment investigators that Sondland informed Ukrainian officials that a White House meeting and U.S. military aid were contingent on the country’s government publicly announcing an investigation into the Bidens. He also said Sondland was acting on direct orders from Trump.Morrison is scheduled to publicly testify in the impeachment inquiry on Nov. 19 alongside Volker.Read Tim Morrison’s private testimony here.McKinley was a U.S. ambassador to several countries and Pompeo’s top adviser from November 2018 until his resignation Sept. 30. As senior adviser, he was the conduit between ambassadors in the Foreign Service and the State Department’s top officials.McKinley testified Oct. 16 as part of the House impeachment investigation. He said that he resigned because of both the State Department’s unwillingness to defend its ambassadors who are “caught up in the impeachment inquiry” and because of what he said was “the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political interests.”The adviser asked the State Department to put out a statement of support for Yovanovitch in response to Trump’s comments disparaging her, but the recommendation was declined. That decision led McKinley to give his resignation.Read Michael McKinley’s private testimony here.GEORGE KENT ― DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRSKent is a top U.S. diplomat who has served as the State Department’s deputy secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs since September 2018. He worked under Yovanovitch while he was deputy chief of mission in Ukraine and said he learned of Trump’s call with Ukraine through Ambassador Taylor.The State Department official privately testified Oct. 15 in the House impeachment investigation, in which he criticized Giuliani for his disparaging comments toward Yovanovitch that eventually led to her removal as ambassador to Ukraine.He also testified that he was shut out from all Ukraine-related decisions after a May 23 meeting with Trump organized by Mulvaney, and that Volker, Sondland and Perry took over. The meeting, according to Kent, was about how to move forward with Ukraine after Zelensky was inaugurated just three days earlier.Kent publicly testified alongside ambassador Bill Taylor on Nov. 13, where he stressed both his concern over the state of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, as well as his concern over Giuliani’s shadow diplomacy.Read George Kent’s private testimony here.Croft oversaw Ukraine relations for the National Security Council from July 2017 to July 2018, working under Fiona Hill. During her time at the NSC, the Foreign Service officer said she received multiple phone calls from lobbyist Robert Livingston, a former top Republican congressman from Louisiana, telling her that Yovanovitch should be fired.Croft privately testified Oct. 30 in the House impeachment investigation, in which she said she was asked in May to become ambassador Volker’s adviser in Ukraine. She alleged that she was aware Volker was communicating with Giuliani but that those conversations were separate from her work.The former NSC official also said she participated in a July 18 call in which an Office of Management and Budget official said that military aid for Ukraine was being suspended “at the direction of the president.”Read Catherine Croft’s private testimony here.Anderson served in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv from 2014 to 2017 and worked closely with Yovanovitch. He was Volker’s adviser for Ukraine from August 2017 to July 2019, holding the position until Croft took over.The State Department official testified Oct. 30 in the House impeachment investigation, in which he talked about concerns over Giuliani’s shadow diplomacy in Ukraine and his campaign to paint Zelensky’s government as Trump’s enemy.Anderson also alleged that he accompanied Volker to a June 13 meeting with Bolton, where the then-national security adviser cautioned that Giuliani was a “key voice” with Trump on Ukraine, “which could be an obstacle to increased White House engagement.”Read Christopher Anderson’s private testimony here.Kupperman was the deputy national security adviser under Bolton until September. The House considers him a key witness in the impeachment investigation, and earlier subpoenaed him to testify before Congress.He filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to decide whether a House subpoena has more power than a White House order. The White House has ordered Kupperman not to comply with the subpoena, but the former Bolton deputy has said he will appear before lawmakers if the judge rules in favor of the House.The House eventually withdrew its subpoena for Kupperman as it asks the judge to dismiss his lawsuit. It’s unclear whether Kupperman has withdrawn or will withdraw his lawsuit in response to the withdrawn subpoena.Bolton has also said he would testify if the judge says he must comply with the subpoena.LAURA COOPER ― DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE AND EURASIACooper is the top Pentagon official overseeing U.S. policy for Ukraine, Russia and Eurasia. Since the summer, she pushed within the agency for the military aid to Ukraine to be released and argued that withholding it was not in the national security interests of the U.S.The Pentagon also reportedly warned the White House that the agency would not be able to spend all of the security assistance by the end of the fiscal year, on Sept. 30, if it were not released by Aug. 6, which would have put the Defense Department at risk of violating the Impoundment Control Act. It was reported Sept. 12 that the freeze on the assistance was lifted.Cooper privately testified Oct. 23 in the House’s impeachment investigation. She will appear Nov. 20 to publicly testify in the inquiry, along with Sondland and Undersecretary of State David Hale.Read Laura Cooper’s private testimony here.Hale is the third-ranking official at the State Department and has served as ambassador to several countries in the Middle East since joining the Foreign Service in 1984.As one of the most senior State Department officials, his private testimony to the House on Nov. 6 was meant to help lawmakers better understand why higher authorities in the department did not protect Marie Yovanovitch when she was being disparaged and eventually recalled as ambassador to Ukraine.According to The Associated Press, Hale allegedly told lawmakers that the department believed publicly defending Yovanovitch would hurt efforts to lift the freeze on military aid to Ukraine and that senior officials were concerned about Giuliani’s reaction.Hale is scheduled to publicly testify in the impeachment inquiry on Nov. 20.Williams, a special adviser to the vice president for Europe and Russia affairs and a career foreign service officer, listened in on Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky. She testified that Trump insisting that Ukraine conduct politically sensitive investigations “struck me as unusual and inappropriate.”The House released the transcript of Williams’ Nov. 7 private deposition, in which she also said she heard Zelensky mention Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company Hunter Biden used to serve on as a board member. The White House transcript of the call did not include Zelensky bringing up Burisma, which Trump alleged Joe Biden inappropriately favored while working against corruption in Ukraine during his vice presidency.Pence was originally expected to attend Zelensky’s inauguration, but was ordered to skip it. Williams testified that she understood the order to have come directly from Trump.Williams will publicly testify in the impeachment investigation on Nov. 19 alongside Vindman.Read Jennifer Williams’ private testimony here.Holmes, a career diplomat since 2002, became relevant to the House’s impeachment investigation after Bill Taylor mentioned in his Nov. 13 public testimony that an aide of his overheard Gordon Sondland on the phone with Trump telling the president that Ukraine will cooperate in investigating the Bidens. That aide was later discovered to be Holmes.Holmes privately testified Nov. 15 with impeachment investigators, in which he confirmed he overheard a phone call between Trump and Sondland on July 26, the day after Trump’s now-infamous call with Zelensky. Holmes reportedly said he could hear Trump asking Sondland if Zelensky will conduct an investigation into the Bidens, to which Sondland responded, “He’s gonna do it.” Sondland also told Trump that Zelensky would do “anything you ask him to,” according to Holmes, who was meeting with Sondland at a restaurant in Kyiv at the time of the call. The testimony by Taylor’s aide appears to contradict Sondland’s previous sworn private testimony about his interactions with the president, as the EU ambassador did not mention the July 26 phone call in his deposition. Sondland is publicly testifying in the impeachment investigation on Nov. 20. JOHN SOLOMON ― FORMER COLUMNIST AT THE HILL Solomon was a right-wing columnist at The Hill until he announced his resignation from the political news outlet in September. Many of the allegations and conspiracy theories that Trump and his allies cited in their defense to pressure Ukraine in investigating the Bidens gained traction because of Solomon, who is also a Fox News regular and now a contributor.The former columnist is currently receiving backlash for straying from journalistic ethics and following questionable sources for a right-wing narrative, most recently regarding stories about corruption and Ukraine.Solomon shared a copy of a March 26 story pre-publication about a Ukrainian anti-corruption organization with Lev Parnas, one of Giuliani’s business associates who is now involved in the impeachment investigation. One of Solomon’s main sources in his Ukraine series was Yuriy Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general widely accused of being corrupt and largely responsible for the ouster of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.Solomon was shifted from the role of reporter to “opinion contributor” after staff members at The Hill sent a memo to management complaining about his stories pushing unsubstantiated conspiracies, though Solomon claimed he requested the change.Solomon’s stories showed how right-wing conspiracies easily reach the president of the United States — by moving up the partisan media pipeline and into shows on Fox News that Trump watches religiously.This article has been updated throughout. RELATED COVERAGE House Impeachment Investigators Call On John Bolton To Testify Trump Witness To Testify Bolton Cautioned Him About Giuliani And Ukraine White House Official Who Listened To Trump Call Says Readout Had Key Omissions: Report

Next week the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will unveil the current time on its Doomsday Clock, meant to convey the nuclear dangers facing the world. The closer the clock is to midnight, the greater the existential threat. If the stand-off between Iran and Donald Trump persists, or takes a frightening turn for the worse, then the clock’s hands may be closer to the bell tolling than they have ever been. This would mean the danger to the planet was judged greater than at any time since the first H-bomb tests.The drumbeat of war reverberates around the Middle East. On Tuesday, Britain, France and Germany said that they had been “left with no choice” but to trigger a dispute mechanism in the six-nation nuclear deal with Iran after Tehran declared, in the aftermath of the US assassination of its top general, that it would no longer observe the pact’s “operational restrictions”. Iran’s president then warned that European soldiers in the Middle East “could be in danger”, a clear indication that if the continent stood with Mr Trump then its forces could expect to be treated as enemy combatants.Europe, including Britain, must not follow the folly of President Trump’s strategy. Last year he pulled out of the nuclear deal saying it was not working when it was. He then gambled that crippling economic sanctions would bring down Tehran’s regime. That has not paid off. Rather Iran has lashed out with a series of audacious strikes against Sunni Arab rivals and western targets. It began slowly walking away from the nuclear deal. The Iranian regime’s downing of an airline, and then lying about its responsibility for that tragic error, has elicited, rightly, public fury. It is hard to tell whether this anger will be channelled into a wider movement that threatens the regime. Mr Trump now appears to be recklessly speeding towards war with Iran. Europe needs to apply a brake.At the heart of the 2015 nuclear pact was a simple quid pro quo: Iran agreed to constraints and inspections in exchange for the financial benefits of sanctions relief. It is important to note that the European move opens a 30-day window for talks to see if differences can be bridged. If still unresolved then the matter could be brought before the United Nations’ security council, raising the spectre of the return of sanctions lifted under the deal. Mr Trump might relish the prospect of Iran being dragged before the UN. He should not. Without a ladder to climb down, Tehran may go for broke. If Iran resumes the parts of its nuclear programme it mothballed, or, even worse, if it ends international inspections, the world could see Iran racing to get a bomb. It is ironic that such a dilemma, when faced five years ago, led to the Iranian nuclear deal.Richard Goldberg, a former Trump adviser, made it clear the US president is unlikely to forgive an isolated Britain, especially one desperately looking for a trade deal, if it takes a stance over Iran at odds with America. Boris Johnson has sought to flatter by promoting a “Trump deal” with Iran. There is a logic to this even if it looks like rewarding belligerence. Analysts say Mr Trump campaigned to bring US troops home and that is what the Iranian regime wants too. Could the price be Iran giving up its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal along with sanctions being lifted? To get Iran back to the negotiating table would require clipping the wings of US hawks. Under the current circumstances the chances for talks are slim. But if the old deal cannot be rebuilt or a new one struck, then the choice will be to allow Iran to get the bomb or to bomb Iran. Then we will be very close to midnight.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s onetime presidential campaign chairman who was convicted as part of the special counsel’s Russia investigation, has been released from federal prison to serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement due to concerns about the coronavirus, his lawyer said Wednesday.Manafort, 71, was let out Wednesday morning from FCI Loretto, a low-security prison in Pennsylvania, according to his attorney, Todd Blanche. Manafort, jailed since June 2018, had been serving more than seven years in prison following his conviction.ADVERTISEMENTHis release comes as prison advocates and congressional leaders have been pressing the Justice Department for weeks to release at-risk inmates before a potential outbreak in the system. They argue that the public health guidance to stay 6 feet (1.8 meters) away from other people is nearly impossible behind bars.ADVERTISEMENTBut Manafort did not meet qualifications set by the Bureau of Prisons for potential release in the pandemic. Under the bureau’s guidelines, priority is supposed to be given to those inmates who have served half of their sentence or inmates with 18 months or less left and who served at least 25% of their time. The bureau has discretion about who can be released.His lawyers had asked the Bureau of Prisons to release him to home confinement, arguing that he was at high risk for coronavirus because of his age and preexisting medical conditions. Manafort was hospitalized in December with a heart-related condition, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press at the time. They were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.Other high-profile inmates such as Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and lawyer Michael Avenatti, who rose to fame representing porn star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against Trump, have been told they are getting out. Kathy Hawk Sawyer, a senior adviser at the Bureau of Prisons who formerly led the agency, said in an interview in late April that to “suggest that we are only identifying high profile white collar inmates for home confinement, is absurd.”A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman said more than 2,400 inmates have been moved to home confinement since March 26, when Barr first issued a home confinement memo, and more than 1,200 others have been approved and are in the pipeline to be released. But prisons officials will not give out any demographic information.The bureau has given contradictory and confusing guidance how it is deciding who is released to home confinement in an effort to combat the virus, changing requirements, setting up inmates for release and backing off and refusing to explain how it decides who gets out and when.Attorney General William Barr ordered the agenc y in March and April to increase the use of home confinement and expedite the release of eligible high-risk inmates, beginning at three prisons identified as coronavirus hot spots. There are no confirmed coronavirus cases at FCI Loretto.As of Tuesday, 2,818 federal inmates and 262 BOP staff members had positive test results for COVID-19 at federal prisons across the country. Fifty inmates had died.Manafort was among the first people to be charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which examined possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election campaign.Manafort, who was prosecuted in two federal courts, was convicted by a jury in federal court in Virginia in 2018 and later pleaded guilty in Washington. He was sentenced last March and was immediately hit with state charges in New York after prosecutors accused him of giving false information on a mortgage loan application. A New York judge threw out state mortgage fraud charges, ruling that the criminal case was too similar to one that already landed Manafort in prison. Prosecutors have pledged to appeal. While Manafort had not served long enough to be eligible for release under the guidelines, the Bureau of Prisons decided to use its discretion to release him because of his “age and vulnerability of the inmate due to underlying health issues,” a person familiar with the matter said. The agency had the “discretion to deviate from the sentencing thresholds under certain circumstances” and has done so in other cases.Officials at the bureau, which is part of the Justice Departmen t, made the decision on Manafort, and no one from the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington was involved, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Manafort’s release was first reported by ABC News.___Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed to this report.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced a bill Tuesday aimed at barring the United States from sharing intelligence with any countries that permit Huawei to operate their 5G networks.“Huawei is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party to spy on and infiltrate other nations. Our allies must choose: Adopt Huawei and lose access to U.S. intelligence, or remain our trusted partner,” Banks said in a statement.The legislation comes after the Department of Commerce placed the Chinese telecommunications giant on its blacklist last spring, preventing U.S. firms from working with Huawei without first obtaining a permit.Proponents of the new bill — which include Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — argue that it's a necessary step to prevent the Chinese government from spying on the country, saying the company poses a risk to U.S. national security.Cheney, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, also called on the United Kingdom to refrain from doing business with the telecommunications company, arguing it could strain relations between Washington and London.“Huawei is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and its efforts to infiltrate 5G are nefarious at their core. Allowing Huawei into the U.K.’s 5G networks would pose a national security threat that could not be mitigated or contained. Such a decision would necessarily have negative consequences for the U.S./U.K. relationship in many areas, including trade and intelligence cooperation,” she said in a statement in support of the measure."I hope that the U.K. unites with the U.S. and other allies against the threat from Huawei," she added. "However, the U.S. must always be prepared to protect its national security interests.”The United Kingdom is expected to announce whether it will use Huawei in its 5G networks in coming weeks. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) recently introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

Amid the impeachment furor, don’t lose sight of the renewed importance of protecting the integrity of the 2020 election.The difference between Richard Nixon’s abuse of power (trying to get dirt on political opponents to help with his 1972 re-election, and then covering it up) and Donald Trump’s abuse (trying to get Ukraine’s president to get dirt on a political opponent to help with his 2020 reelection, and then covering it up) isn’t just that Nixon’s involved a botched robbery at the Watergate while Trump’s involves a foreign nation.It’s that Nixon’s abuse of power was discovered during his second term, after he was re-elected. He was still a dangerous crook, but by that time he had no reason to inflict still more damage on American democracy.Trump’s abuse has been uncovered 14 months before the 2020 election, at a time when he still has every incentive to do whatever he can to win.If special counsel Robert Mueller had found concrete evidence that Trump asked Vladimir Putin for help in digging up dirt on Hillary Clinton in 2016, that would have been the “smoking gun” that could have ended the Trump presidency.Now Trump is revealed to have asked Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, for dirt on Joe Biden in the 2020 election, who’s to say he isn’t also soliciting Vladimir Putin’s help this time around?The Washington Post reports that Trump told two Russian officials in a 2017 meeting in the Oval Office he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the US election because the US did the same in other countries. This prompted White House officials to limit access to Trump’s remarks.Trump is in a better position to make such deals than he was in 2016 because as president he’s got a pile of US military aid and international loans and grants that could make a foreign rulers’ life very comfortable, or, if withheld, exceedingly difficult.As we’ve learned, Trump uses whatever leverage he can get, for personal gain. That’s the art of the deal.Who can we count on to protect our election process in 2020?Certainly not William Barr. We’ve seen the transcript of Trump’s phone call where he urges Zelenskiy to work with the attorney general to investigate Biden – even telling Zelenskiy Barr will follow up with his own call.We also know Barr’s justice department decided Trump had not acted illegally, and told the acting director of national intelligence to keep the whistleblower complaint from Congress.This is the same attorney general, not incidentally, who said Mueller’s report had cleared the Trump campaign of conspiring with Russia when in fact Mueller had found that the campaign welcomed Russia’s help, and who said Mueller had absolved Trump of obstructing justice when Mueller specifically declined to decide the matter.Barr is not working for the United States. He’s working for Trump, just like Rudy Giuliani and all the other lapdogs, toadies and sycophants.Fortunately, some government appointees still understand their responsibilities. We’re indebted to the anonymous intelligence officer who complained about Trump’s calls to the president of Ukraine, and to Michael Atkinson, inspector general of the intelligence community, who deemed the complaint of “urgent concern”.But if the 2020 election is going to be – and to be seen as – legitimate, the nation will need many more whistleblowers and officials with integrity.All of us will need to be vigilant.Over the last two and a half years, Trump has shown himself willing to trample any aspect of our democracy that gets in his way – attacking the media, using the presidency for personal profit, packing the federal courts, verbally attacking judges, blasting the head of the Federal Reserve, spending money in ways Congress did not authorize, and subverting the separation of powers.He believes he’s invincible. He’s now daring our entire constitutional and political system to stop him.The real value of the formal impeachment now under way is to put Trump on notice that he can’t necessarily get away with abusing his presidential power to win re-election. He will still try, of course. But at least a line has been drawn. And now everyone is watching.Regardless of how the impeachment turns out, Trump’s predation can be constrained as long as his presidency can be ended with the 2020 election. If that election is distorted, and if this man is re-elected, all bets are off. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. He is also a columnist for Guardian US Topics Donald Trump Opinion Trump administration Trump impeachment inquiry US elections 2020 US politics Republicans Democrats comment

President Donald Trump offered a vague threat to pull California's federal aid for combating dangerous wildfires on Sunday, sparking a response from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom as the pair traded barbs through the day."The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management," Trump tweeted early Sunday. "I told him from the first day we met that he must 'clean' his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him. Must also do burns and cut fire stoppers. Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states."It's unclear what fires Trump was referred to as the blazes that have ravaged California in recent weeks did not burn down any forests.Newsom on Sunday fired back, pointing to Trump's years-long denial of climate change and its environmental effects."You don’t believe in climate change," Newsom tweeted. "You are excused from this conversation."Trump revisited the subject later Sunday afternoon, speaking to reporters on the White House South Lawn. Sunday was the first time Trump made significant mention of the California wildfires since the large-scale Kincade Fire broke out late last month."You've got fires eating away at California every year because management is so bad," Trump said. "The governor doesn't know; he's like a child, he doesn't know what he's doing. And I've been telling them this for two years. They've got to take care of it. Every year it's always California, it's rarely somebody else or someplace else."Trump has repeatedly taken aim at California since taking office nearly three years ago, often over environmental issues. He has previously criticized the state for not properly "raking" the forest floors to help prevent fires and threatened to cut off Federal Emergency Management aid. Experts have pointed to climate change-related reasons for the uptick in wildfire frequency and strength in recent years.Newsom last month praised the federal government's efforts in assisting with wildfire management."I have nothing but good things to say about the federal government’s support," Newsom said, per the Los Angeles Times. "In fact, the Homeland Security acting director proactively called me two days ago to check in ... Hats off to them."

“Brexit and Trump were inextricably linked in 2016, and they are inextricably linked today,” Steve Bannon told me. “Johnson foreshadows a big Trump win. Working-class people are tired of their ‘betters’ in New York, London, Brussels telling them how to live and what to do. Corbyn the socialist program, not Corbyn the man, got crushed. If Democrats don’t take the lesson, Trump is headed for a Reagan-like ’84 victory.”I still think Trump can be beaten, but not from way out left and not without recognition that, as Hugo Dixon, a leader of the now defeated fight for a second British referendum, put it: “There is a crisis of liberalism because we have not found a way to connect to the lives of people in the small towns of the postindustrial wasteland whose traditional culture has been torn away.”Johnson, even with his 80-seat majority, has problems. His victory reconciled the irreconcilable. His moneyed coterie wants to turn Britain into free-market Singapore on the Thames. His new working-class constituency wants rule-Britannia greatness combined with state-funded support. That’s a delicate balancing act. The breakup of Britain has become more likely. The strong Scottish National Party showing portends a possible second Scottish referendum on independence.This time I would bet on the Scots bidding farewell to little England. And then there’s the small matter of what Brexit actually means. Johnson will need all his luck with that.As my readers know, I am a passionate European patriot who sees the union as the greatest achievement of the second half of the 20th century, and Britain’s exit as an appalling act of self-harm. But I also believe in democracy. Johnson took the decision back to the people and won. His victory must be respected. The fight for freedom, pluralism, the rule of law, human rights, a free press, independent judiciaries, breathable air, peace, decency and humanity continues — and has only become more critical now that Britain has marginalized itself irreversibly in a fit of nationalist delusion.

Flames, gear and risks of photographing California wildfiresBy MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZNovember 4, 2019 GMTSANTA PAULA, Calif. (AP) — It’s ironic, but momentarily forgetting some of my safety gear ended up saving my life.It happened as I drove late Thursday into the heart of a wildfire that had erupted near the city of Santa Paula, a two-hour drive west of Los Angeles. This was one of the dozens of blazes that have been springing up daily in Northern and Southern California the last couple weeks, an indication that we are now in the middle of wildfire season.Dressed in flame-resistant clothes, heavy boots and carrying my two cameras, I spent a few minutes walking around and surveying the scene before starting to shoot photos. To get the best shots, you first need to fully understand a situation, everything from where firefighters are working to the winds.ADVERTISEMENTAfter a few minutes, I realized I had forgotten my helmet and fire shelter, essentially a tarp that can be deployed to cover and protect your body if you can’t escape flames.So I began walking back to my car, and a few minutes later two large burning branches crashed in the exact place where I had been standing.I have been covering wildfires since I began working with The Associated Press in 2002, and have had other near-death experiences. Still, the close call this week was so unnerving that I called my editor and a fellow photographer to make sure both had my wife’s phone number. If something happened to me, they could tell her.Unlike many states that limit access, in many situations California law allows journalists to get as close as they want to the flames. This allows us to capture stunning images of the ferocious burning that in seconds can incinerate houses and kill people, but that access comes with risks.I always tell my wife about the dangers, but I don’t talk about them with my sons, ages 17 and 15. I don’t want them to worry, and I do take many precautions. I’ve had wildfire training, I have high-quality protective gear and I carry only two cameras, part of staying light on my feet to move as conditions change.When friends ask what it’s like to cover wildfires, the first thing I say is that there is nothing glamorous. It’s smoky, it’s hellishly hot and it’s dangerous. I can’t even say that I “like” covering them. Instead, like others on the AP’s photo team, I see doing this as a duty to show the world what is happening.I’m no expert on climate change, but with each passing year I’m more convinced that climatic shifts are driving the fires to new levels. They are more frequent, more intense and more unpredictable.ADVERTISEMENTIf there is anything to be optimistic about, it’s that firefighters seem to be getting better at fighting the blazes. They also conduct themselves with a clear sense of mission. At the fire where I was nearly crushed by torched branches, at one point I watched four firefighters boldly take on a giant wave of flames.I don’t know if this year’s fire season will be more or less severe than previous years; If the last few weeks are any indication, we may be in for a rough couple of months. Whatever happens, my teammates and I will be ready.____Follow Sanchez: www.twitter.com/MarcioSanchez06

The F.B.I. collected four memos from Mr. Comey’s house in Virginia in June 2017, and he told agents he had written two others but did not have them. The F.B.I. eventually recovered seven memos in total, which were later turned over to Mr. Mueller. Congress made the memos public in April 2018, and Mr. Comey wrote about them in a book published last year.Mr. Comey showed copies of a memo to a friend, Daniel C. Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School, Mr. Richman has confirmed. “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter,” Mr. Comey testified to Congress in June 2017. “I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”Mr. Trump’s request to Mr. Comey that the F.B.I. end an investigation into Michael T. Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser, was revealed in a New York Times article that cited one of the memos. The Justice Department announced the appointment of a special counsel the next day.“Confidential” is the lowest of the three classification levels established by an executive order that regulates the handling of government information deemed sensitive. The highest level, “top secret,” is applied to information whose unauthorized disclosure could be expected to cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security. Leaks of “secret” information would cause “serious damage” and of “confidential” information, mere “damage.”

Once upon a time, an aircraft pilot looking down toward the ground saw only the distant twinkling lights of homes and cities. But pilots have had an unfortunate high-tech worry for many years: powerful handheld laser pointers. These devices can produce a beam that’s both focused and powerful enough to reach a pilot’s line of sight, either directly—or, more typically—by reflecting within a cabin. Such a beam can temporarily blind or disorient the person guiding a plane.Because of this risk, authorities on the ground, the FAA, and electronics resellers have all issued warnings for these pointers. They’re regulated under the Federal Drug Administration’s purview, which assigns each laser product a class number from 1 to 4—from exceedingly safe to rather dangerous without special care and training.Amazon, for example, details a number of rules and limitations for third-party merchants relating to laser-based pointers, toys, stage lighting, and garden illumination. This includes barring the sale of higher-powered devices with lasers that fall into Class 3B and Class 4 under the FDA’s rules. Both classes of laser pose an “immediate skin hazard” and “immediate eye hazard” when viewed directly, while Class 4 can also pose the same threat from a reflected, or “indirect,” beam and “may also present a fire hazard.”Despite its caution with laser pointers and the like, and its prohibitions on more dangerous classes of those devices, Amazon allows the sale of a different kind of laser-based device: engravers and cutters. These devices use a focused beam of light to burn away materials like wood and acrylic, either to engrave a surface or cut through it. Putting out far higher power than a laser pointer, many of these devices offered on Amazon’s Marketplace clearly meet the definition of a Class 4 laser product, yet lack safety protocols in design and function. We found listings for hundreds of such devices.Amazon itself doesn’t sell any of these products. But the company allows merchants in its expansive and often criticized Marketplace program to list such items, even though its general guidelines for lasers would seem to ban them. The company isn’t alone in offering unsafe laser devices: We found similar devices, though in far less variety, from others sellers, including Alibaba, Newegg, and eBay, as well as sold directly by Walmart.We sent Amazon several representative product links in preparing this article, for cutters and engravers bearing such brand names as MySweety, SixDu, and Uttiny. In response, a spokesperson said, “All sellers are required to follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action, including potential removal of their account. The products in question have been removed.” (A blanket statement at the top of the company’s laser-policy page states: “Important: If you supply products for sale on Amazon, you must comply with all federal, state, and local laws and Amazon policies applicable to those products and product listings.”) The company didn’t provide additional detail about how it will handle similar products in the future.Laser cutters sold under a variety of unfamiliar brands often look identical to each other, or nearly so.A Walmart spokesperson had a similar response: “Our Prohibited Items policy requires that all products sold on our site meet any and all regulatory requirements.” Like Amazon, it removed the specific listings we asked about, but went further by saying its compliance team would look for similar products as part of its work.An eBay spokesperson told us that example products had been removed because they violated the company’s product safety policy and that it has “proactive measures in place” to deal with such items. Newegg didn’t reply to our query, but the product links we sent had disappeared on a later check. Alibaba was unable to provide us a response in time for publication.We also attempted to contact five of the merchants offering low-priced, unprotected laser cutters through Amazon Marketplace. At of this writing, none had responded to our inquiries.Despite the immediate removal by some of the largest ecommerce marketplaces in the world, hundreds of nearly identical models remain. Many items we found were clearly produced by a single company we were unable to identify and sold as private-label goods under different names. In many cases, the marketing images and text were identical or nearly so.Well-made laser cutters are safer than other tools that, in a worst-case scenario, can pose a hazard to their users, such as table saws. But they cost 10 to 100 times as much as these $150 to $200 laser devices. Whether a buyer orders a kit, which is exempted from certain FDA rules, or a completed unit, all of the least-expensive devices we found lack a fully protective enclosure or any enclosure at all. Simply getting one to work and firing it up a single time can be a risk to your health.In 2017, Phil Broughton, a certified laser safety officer and radiation safety officer who works at a major research university, wrote in a blog post, “The proliferation of laser LEDs powerful enough to do retinal injury available in quantities and at prices such that you can buy them by the pound, means we’ve got a future with steady employment for ophthalmologists.” On forums for users of laser cutters and engravers, stories about burns and near misses abound.Lasers, lasers everywhereAmazon lists hundreds of cutting products in this price range, which are subject to U.S. import and commercial regulations. Sellers provide typically little or no information about safety and risks. It’s a logical supposition that companies that haven’t properly labeled their products may not have filed necessary self-reported information with the FDA about meeting its safety standards.Amazon’s note to sellers of laser pointers and similar devices states, “Laser products in hazard classes IIIB [3B] and IV [4] are not authorized for sale by the FDA in the United States without a variance, which Amazon does not currently support.” Other online retailers and marketplaces have much more general policies that prohibit the sale of any goods that don’t meet product safety regulations.The persistent availability of cheap, uncertified laser cutters and engravers may be in part because they don’t present the public-safety risk of devices that can point at pilots or individuals far away and cause temporary vision problems or, close up, potentially permanent ones. Instead, the people who buy laser cutters use them in a home or place of work, limiting the risk to others—though anyone present while they’re in use is in the same danger as the operator. They’re more like hoverboards in that regard.Many laser cutters are sold in kit form, taking advantage of a loophole that turns the consumer into an “original equipment manufacturer” or OEM, and obviating FDA oversight of the seller, although the laser component still has to comply with certification and labeling, and even as part of a kit would ostensibly not meet Amazon and other retailers’ tests. It’s legal to build devices one uses on one’s own premises and own purposes that couldn’t be certified, but you’re also on the hook for the consequences, too. There’s no one else to sue but yourself. As Broughton told me, “It’s not illegal to have a laser. What you do with it gets you in trouble.”After our inquiry, Amazon removed this Uttiny laser engraver and others from its site. But other similar models remain.The FDA has the power to inspect and recall devices containing lasers. It could order a ban on importation of improperly labeled laser components as well as commercially packaged products. And Amazon has banned or restricted categories before, such as most hoverboards in 2015 after poor design and battery quality led to fires. The warnings the company offer sellers about laser pointers indicate its attention to those products.But cheap laser cutters, which have been on the market for years, have prompted no action. What could go wrong? Posters at a site for a popular low-end laser-cutter provide the answer: “I’m almost too embarrassed to admit it but I just got bit by my laser for the third time in about 3 weeks. I got careless and test fired the laser onto my finger.” “Shortly after getting my laser cutter, I stupidly stuck my hand in the path of the beam and my finger suffered an instant burn accompanied by the sound of bacon frying and the smell of burnt skin.” “I was so scared of it when I got it that I kept it in its box while using it and only viewed its progress with an old webcam!” The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), which regulates both medical and non-medical lasers, didn’t provide answers to a list of questions that a press officer asked for when I contacted the agency, nor did it respond to follow-up queries.Blue-light specialHomes and workplaces are rife with products that incorporate lasers, such as DVD players and laser printers. Safety decisions made by manufacturers and enforced by regulators ensure that they’re safe. These kinds of enclosed devices are labeled as Class 1 lasers under FDA definitions. They’re harmless, because you can’t look at the lasers inside and the focused, intense light produced can’t escape. (Other devices placed in Class 1, such as laser-based levelers or some low-power laser screen projectors, are too low power to cause harm even when viewing for extended periods unless you’re viewing through a magnifying lens, like binoculars.)It’s possible to make a laser cutter meet the same restrictions. I own a Glowforge cutter, from a line that starts at $2,500. It’s a modestly powered consumer unit with a 45-watt carbon-dioxide (CO2) tube that generates invisible infrared light. When in operation, it’s entirely sealed. There’s a lid with a glass top that filters out the light used in cutting as effectively as if one is wearing laser safety goggles designed for those frequencies. You can look at the laser’s effects while its cuts, including seeing it reflect off the material, while incurring no risk. You will get a temporary blind spot if you look too long, just as if you stared at a light source, and could develop a headache.The lid has an interlock, so opening it even slightly breaks the circuit and powers the laser down, keeping it within Class 1 rules. This interlock isn’t optional under FDA rules. I’ve stood in front of 1,000-watt lasers that cost an order of magnitude more or higher which have similar or more extensive safety features. They’re designed to be effectively as safe as a DVD burner.These devices are a lot of fun, useful for both hobbies and commerce. I’ve used mine to cut out wood letters I mount on a base and use with 100-year old letterpresses, make a demon-shaped bookstand for a cartoonist friend to take on a book tour, and produce prototypes of designs. Many people use laser cutters to make and sell earrings and other jewelry, leather products with custom engravings, or relief maps of a city meant for mounting on a wall.Glowforge isn’t alone in offering a lower-power laser seemingly designed within safety guidelines and with proper certifications listed. A number of companies offer enclosed, interlocked cutters with 40W to 80W lasers that cost in the mid to high thousands of dollars, including one sold under the familiar Dremel brand.Glowforge’s enclosure is designed to ensure there’s no gap through which reflected laser light could escape and to shut down the laser instantly the moment the lid is opened. The viewing glass filters the infrared laser light.I can understand the motivation for hobbyists to want to get a piece of this action while paying far less. Blue-light engravers output a few watts and can only cut very thin material. They’re more like a glorified automated wood-burning kit. They rely on diodes which are often the same as those used in Blu-Ray drives, but with more power pumped through them than their specs call for, leading to early burn out. They’re typically sold with no enclosure, just a metal framework or box that orients the laser pointing downwards. Some boxes may have a piece of filtered glass on a single side.Anything with more than a smidge of power or any openings in its enclosure is a Class 4 laser, because of dangers that are more than merely theoretical. You could burn yourself by sticking your hand in the laser’s beam; jar the unit and have its beam exposed where it wasn’t intended to go; or start a fire if you leave it unattended. (These risks exist for safer units, too, but enclosures and fans reduce the chance of accidents.)A reflection passed through an opening could land in an operator’s eye. While infrared light is more readily absorbed, blue light can reflect off a surprising range of materials that don’t seem glossy or mirror-like. Blue light is particularly injurious to vision, too. Infrared light emitted by CO2 tubes have higher rated power than the blue-light models you’ll find, but infrared light is also absorbed by the cornea, and doesn’t penetrate into the eye itself. The cornea can be damaged, but can heal or be surgically replaced. Blue light passes through the cornea and the eye focuses the light on the retina; a laser’s output, even at seemingly low power one of a few watts, can burn that tissue irreversibly.University laser safety officer Broughton adds a list of other concerns: With no ventilation or filter on cheap units, you fill the air with microparticulates, dangerous for those with asthma and not great for everyone else. A lack of manufacturing standards means the power output varies wildly, making such cutters hard to calibrate for personal or lab use. Using this equipment in an office or academic setting also requires someone who receives training like Broughton to remain in good standing with OSHA or local rules on workplace safety.And then there are the goggles. Some of the low-end laser-cutting products on Amazon, Alibaba, and other stores include goggles to filter out the laser frequencies. With a Class 1 device, these aren’t needed; with Class 3B and 4, they are an absolute necessity. Laser goggles need to be certified according to a global technical standard, which requires each pair of goggles is individually tested, and be targeted at the range of frequencies emitted by the laser they’re used with.At the price point where they’re included with a laser cutter or offered separately for as little as $10, there’s a high certainty that they weren’t tested that way and may not even be correct for the laser’s light frequencies. A firm that sells laser technology directly described in a 2014 post how it retests each set of goggles it orders in bulk. An entire batch failed, causing it to change how it bought such goggles.Broughton notes on his blog, “If I don’t trust the laser, why in the hell would you expect me to trust the glasses to be accurate either?”Power supplies are another problem area. Laser forum posters frequently discuss how many models are sold with improper grounding for U.S. outlets or have incorrectly assembled power supplies. That’s potentially a bigger source of danger than the exposed lasers. “Electrocution is the primary lethal matter,” says Broughton.Just reading the Amazon listings for some of these products may leave you feeling uneasy. A widely available model of laser cutter that has a similar power and style of tube to the one I use costs just above $400 and comes in a vast range of very similar models. It’s a popular choice due to cost, despite hobbyists knowing that it requires work just to bring it into service as well as make it even marginally safe, including adding a water pump for cooling the tube. It lacks an interlock that shuts the laser down and has gaps in its case. Even 4-star reviews sounds fairly negative: “My unit arrived with the orange plastic window cracked under 2 of the holding screws” and “The machine is big, heavy and (aside from a fan that looks like an afterthought) well built.” More significantly, as one poster on a forum devoted to hobbyists who work on this model noted, “More and more machines are delivered with deadly configuration on the grounding of the electronics.”One of the user-provided answers to a question on the Amazon product page for this model reveals perhaps too much:Q: What type of safety features does it have? A: You can turn the laser on and off with an extra button. Other than that there is not really any safety features.While Amazon has no specific rules relating to the sale of laser cutters and engravers through its site, the company’s general prohibition paired with the immediate removal of the products we asked about—blue-light and infrared lasers, kits and assembled units—would seem to indicate that there’s a problem that hasn’t been addressed.Hazardous to your healthAs popular as laser cutters have become, they’re still produced in small quantities compared to many laser-based devices, which might explain why there aren’t more reports of them causing problems for their users. But you can easily pull up the medical impact from damage caused with high-intensity laser pointers. That’s often because children or employees are victims or sufferers, requiring investigation and sometimes public reporting.Only a small percentage of incidents winds up in medical literature. And while it’s less likely someone would look directly into a cutting laser’s beam, that hardly makes them safer than laser pointers, especially given the higher intensity of the beam.As long as cheap laser cutters remain available via Amazon and other retailers, Broughton’s best advice is to report suspect hardware to the FDA, as the agency relies on manufacturer-submitted reports and is understaffed on prospectively finding violations. “You are welcome to report any bullshit laser you see to the FDA,” he says, noting that there’s a “Broughton file” at the CDRH of all the problem devices he’s reported to them. (Reporting them to Amazon and other sites that list them might not be a bad idea, too.)And if this article hasn’t scared you off this entire product category, I hope that it has at least made clear that nobody should buy a laser cutter that doesn’t abide by the FDA’s rules. If you’ve already purchased one from Amazon, eBay, or Walmart, the safest course of action is to stop using it immediately, unplug it, and ask for a refund from the outlet from which you purchased it, citing the retailer’s prohibited items policy.The restrictions the FDA put in place aren’t just bureaucracy; they’re a guide for those companies who are trying to do the right thing. Dan Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of Seattle-based Glowforge, which has reportedly shipped over 10,000 desktop-sized laser cutters, says his company invested significant time from the start in engineering towards the FDA regulations. He adds that they provide a clear way to build the company’s product safely.“I don’t know if CEOs often say, ‘Thank goodness for the regulators,'” says Shapiro. “But thank goodness for the regulators.”

The post-impeachment victory lap speech President Donald Trump delivered on Thursday from the White House has to be one of the most bonkers official events in presidential history.Speaking off the cuff, Trump began remarks by falsely claiming that the investigations into him predated his presidency, called the Russia investigation “bullshit,” and mocked a Purple Heart recipient who testified during the impeachment trial. He also complained Hillary Clinton was never prosecuted and referred to former leaders of the FBI as “scum.”That’s just a sampling of some of the topics Trump touched on during the more than hour-long speech he delivered the day after the Senate voted to acquit him on two articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump laments that Hillary Clinton wasn't prosecuted and calls the former leaders of the FBI "scum" pic.twitter.com/hittsDWoJD— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 Trump talked about the impeachment process — enshrined in the Constitution — as a tool Democrats used “to try to overthrow the government” and expressed no remorse about his actions that prompted Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings in the first place. “I call it a perfect call, because it was,” he said of his attempts to strong-arm the Ukrainian government to do political favors for him.Perhaps most significantly, the fact that the president feels emboldened to deliver such a speech is a bad omen for those hoping that this year’s campaign will be less of a mess than 2016 was.Trump heaped scorn on Democrats who played leading roles in the impeachment saga, including impeachment manager Adam Schiff (“a vicious, horrible person”), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (“I doubt she prays at all”), and former FBI Director James Comey (“that sleazebag”).And even though he was speaking to a room full of Republicans, Trump also repeatedly bashed Mitt Romney, the only Republican in the Senate to vote for his removal from office, describing him as “a guy that can’t stand the fact that he ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of the presidency.” Without saying his name, Trump criticizes Mitt Romney for "using religion as a crutch" and describes him as "a failed presidential candidate." pic.twitter.com/SiUkjFXQov— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 On the flip side of the coin, Trump singled out dozens of Republicans for praise. But his comments about a number of the women he mentioned objectified them.“I like the name ‘Lesko.’ I liked it. That’s how I picked it. I liked the name. I saw that face, I saw that everything,” Trump said of Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko.He made similar remarks about New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. “I thought, ‘she looks good, she looks like good talent,’ but I didn’t realize that when she opens that mouth, she was killing them.” Trump on @EliseStefanik: "I thought, 'she looks good, she looks like good talent,' but I didn't realize that when she opens that mouth, she was killing them." pic.twitter.com/KWxkqi3kGM— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 Trump also went on a bizarre, tongue-in-cheek rant about how most wives don’t love their husbands and wouldn’t be especially bothered if they were in the hospital — contrasting that state of affairs with the wife of Rep. Steve Scalise, noting she was despondent after her husband was shot during a congressional baseball practice in 2017. Trump jokes that most wives wouldn't care if their husbands were shot, but Steve Scalise's wife clearly did pic.twitter.com/pYCSKR9SVl— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 But it wasn’t only Republican women whom Trump talked about in this way. He also made a crude reference to former FBI agent Lisa Page’s appearance.“He’s probably trying to impress her, for obvious reasons,” Trump said, alluding to the text messages former FBI agent Peter Strzok and Page exchanged that are still at the center of conspiracy theories Trump has pushed about purported FBI bias. "He's probably trying to impress her, for obvious reasons" -- Trump makes a crude reference to Lisa Page's looks pic.twitter.com/i6iFo3YGj7— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 (Trump also offered some strange praise for Rep. Jim Jordan, saying he’s “obviously very proud of his body” and talking specifically about his ears.)Trump wrapped things up by apologizing to his family — not for anything he did, but for having to endure the impeachment process at all. “I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotted deal by some very evil and sick people,” he said. “And Ivanka is here, and my sons, and my whole family. And that includes Barron.” TRUMP: "I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotted deal by some very evil and sick people. And Ivanka is here, and my sons, and my whole family. And that includes Barron." pic.twitter.com/IfjR5RhBSc— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 Trump’s unapologetic attitude about everything was also apparent in an aside he made during his speech about the Access Hollywood tape in which he can be heard bragging about sexually assaulting women. He characterized the day the tape was published by the Washington Post in October 2016 as “my worst day” — not because of what he said, but because it jeopardized his chances of being elected the next month.One of the two articles of impeachment that Trump was acquitted on was abuse of power. But his White House speech indicated he has little remorse.“If this happened to President Obama, a lot of people would’ve been in jail for a long time already,” he said. Trump pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about Joe Biden’s alleged corrupt dealings in Ukraine, and — in an especially shameless moment — held his own family up as paragons of virtue when it comes to corruption. Trump gets a gold medal in the Shamelessness Olympics for claiming that Ivanka Trump is a shining example of how not to be corrupt pic.twitter.com/XNY9bjm077— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 At the end, Trump suggested that former law enforcement and intelligence community officials and Democrats who have tried to hold him accountable may be in for some rough days.“Let’s see what happens. It’s in the hands of some very talented people,” he said, alluding to Attorney General William Barr and Republican senators who have already indicated they plan to investigate the Bidens. “These are the crookedest, most dishonest, dirtiest people I’ve ever seen.” TRUMP: "They were going to try to overthrow the govt of the US, a duly-elected POTUS. And if I didn't fire Comey we would never have found this stuff out. B/c when I fired that sleazebag, all held broke out...let's see what happens. It's in the hands of some very talented people" pic.twitter.com/AkkE9YB5B7— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020 So if anyone was holding out hope that going through the impeachment process and receiving a bipartisan vote for his removal from office would chasten Trump, his victory lap speech should resolve any doubt: It did not. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case.Not only is Trump still Trump, but those who look back fondly on the days when presidents felt constrained by the rule of law can’t help but wonder how bad things will get.The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage. Will you help keep Vox free for all? Millions of people rely on Vox to understand how the policy decisions made in Washington, from health care to unemployment to housing, could impact their lives. Our work is well-sourced, research-driven, and in-depth. And that kind of work takes resources. Even after the economy recovers, advertising alone will never be enough to support it. If you have already made a contribution to Vox, thank you. If you haven’t, help us keep our journalism free for everyone by making a financial contribution today, from as little as $3.

Steve Isley sees no reason not to believe what Donald Trump has to say about Congress’s impeachment investigation.“The Democrats have been trying to impeach him ever since he got elected, so I’m not too wild about it,” said the retired construction worker. “So far I’m doubtful they have any evidence.”But even Isley, who is planning to vote for the president again next year and scorns all Democrats as “socialists”, is prepared to keep open the possibility that, as the first public hearings begin in Congress next week, the investigation might reveal wrongdoing by Trump that would make impeachment legitimate.“It’d have to be something along the lines of Nixon,” he said of the president who resigned over Watergate. “It’s not bad enough at this point.”Isley, who grew up on a Kansas farm, lives in Johnson county, a Kansas City suburb that flipped from supporting Trump in 2016 to unseat a Republican and elect Sharice Davids, a gay Native American, to Congress as a Democrat two years later.The swing in votes reflected a shift away from Trump in suburbs across America that would appear to complicate his re-election in 2020 if he’s unable to bolster support elsewhere, particularly in rural areas of swing states.The impeachment hearings unfolding in Washington, which will enter their public phase on Wednesday, look unlikely to help.The Republican leadership’s efforts to whip up outrage against the process as illegitimate, including a stunt where members of Congress stormed a room where witness depositions were being taken to claim Democrats were trying the president in secret, has again riled a hard core of Trump supporters to rally angrily in his defense.But there is also a part of the electorate that voted for him – less ideological Republican supporters and independents – who are prepared to see where the evidence leads. They have a more open mind than Trump campaign strategists would like.A Fox News poll showed nearly half of Americans favor impeaching the president and one-third of those opposed could change their minds if presented with new evidence.“I vote Republican or I don’t vote,” said Bill Harris, a business manager who supports Trump. “This is all political. Nancy Pelosi is out to get Trump. Anyone can see that. That’s Washington. But I do think he has questions to answer. We need to hear the evidence, hear the people who were there. I’m not against that.”Harris said he knows of others who voted for Trump whose doubts about the president have been stacking up and that if there is evidence of wrongdoing it would turn them away from him.“There are those who defend him no matter what and then there are those people who think he’s too unpredictable, too unstable. He’s done some good things on trade but I think there are a lot of Republicans like myself who have doubts and concerns. I wish he would keep his mouth shut,” he said.Then he added an afterthought.“It would be a mistake for the Democrats to remove him. They should let the election do that. If the Democrats have the evidence, the voters will make the decision,” he said.That is precisely what some Johnson county Democrats are counting on. The county won’t make much difference to the overall outcome of the presidential election as Kansas is a solidly Republican state. But it will be crucial in Davids’ fight for re-election and maintaining Democratic control of Congress, and it is reflective of the shift in other big city suburbs across the midwest, which will have an important say in who wins in 2020.Nancy Leiker, the chair of the Johnson county Democratic party, said impeachment is not the most important issue for most voters. That remains healthcare.“But I can’t help but think that as the investigation goes on and becomes more public, those numbers will change,” she said.Leiker said opposition to Trump has drawn more people into campaigning and Democrats think the impeachment hearings can only help.Cassie Woolworth, a contract IT analyst and single mother of three boys, was among those who largely ignored politics until Trump was elected.“My generation of women took their eye off the ball. We thought the battles were won,” she said. “When he got elected, I was so angry. I felt so defeated.”So Woolworth joined a local women’s branch of the Democratic Party and banged on doors to get Davids elected in 2018. She was also out campaigning in local elections last week.“You’re already seeing the independents here stepping back from the Republican party. I think it’s because Trump keeps speaking,” she said. Woolworth thinks the impeachment process will evolve into a political test for Republican members of Congress from midwestern states.“Once people have heard the evidence, they will be judged by voters over how they voted on impeachment,” she said.Some people will not take very much convincing.Kent Tyler, an artist who voted for George W Bush and then Barack Obama, regards Trump with disdain but is waiting to see what the impeachment hearings reveal.“Before I make up my mind, I want to see what will come to light. I think it’s very important,” he said. “I call myself a conservative Democrat. I used to be in the middle. Undeclared. Once Trump got into office, and he started doing his stuff, I switched to Democrat. Things need to be brought to light. I think the evidence is going to be very damaging.”Still Tyler worries about what the impact of the hearings on an already divided country.“So much hate has been made in America, I think it’s going to get very nasty,” he said. Topics Donald Trump US politics Democrats Republicans Trump impeachment inquiry features

Standing on stage with other candidates in his constituency, Boris Johnson hailed a "historic" result after winning a parliamentary majority to support his Brexit plans. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/Press Association/ZUMA Press Byand Updated Dec. 17, 2019 1:17 pm ET Boris Johnson’s big election victory this week drove another nail into the coffin of the brand of conservative politics Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher first rode to power four decades ago. As Mr. Johnson’s decisive win in a hotly contested national election illustrated, the conservative movement in the West now has become markedly more populist and nationalist, and appeals to a distinctly more working-class constituency. Fiscal restraint, once a cardinal tenet of conservatism, matters less; rewriting the rules that have... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership View Membership Options