And where does the build firmware flashing take place?When Makiyama says "there is no way that the licensing entity or the intelligence agencies could scrutinize millions of lines of code...", I think he misses the point that they have to offer a human-readable version of their codebase for it to even be desirable for purchase. This implies code being not only readable, but also compact enough that it is maintainable. Security concerns are automatic given this and source being open, even if for a small American organization. It's not like, you know, the code they are selling is in Chinese (it might be now, but they would prepare it in the event of a transfer).But the real kicker here is: hardware would likely still be assembled in China. That means firmware would also likely be installed in China. Which further means source builds/compiles would DEFINITELY be handled in China - because there is no offline trustworthy way of ensuring integrity in a binary made by "Fruggle from Menlo Park" actually being flashed in a Shenzen warehouse. Unless you're matching against the Cloud in an Alice-Bob scheme, such as what Google does with Google Play-supported Android builds - OEMs customize AOSP using Google's toolchain, Google gets OEM's source back and "secures" it with airtight, home-calling-enabled Alice signings, which produces a signed binary OEMs are FORCED to flash as otherwise phones wouldn't play nice with Bob, the Playstore. And Bob is essential in today's Android phones if they are to sell (ironically, outside of China).Without compelling reason for Huwaei to flash Fruggle's verbatim binary, they just don't - they decompile and inject whatever, they make the hardware, it will eat any package signed by whatever they want.Another example of this would be root CAs but that example isn't as practical to this 5G, firmware/hardware-related topic.

So why does Apple have to be the only ones called-out about it on Slashdot?No one is claiming Apple is alone here, but the fact that everyone else does it too doesn't give Apple a free pass. And perhaps you've forgotten all those stories about Google and their China-friendly search engine? As for Hollywood... well, that's outside of what Slashdot normally reports on (thank goodness).China isnâ(TM)t exactly unique in that regard. There are plenty of things that Apple couldnâ(TM)t show, especially on TV, in the U.S., too.Oh, please. The US and nearly every other country has restrictions on what can be broadcast over the air, typically adjusted for sensitivities to cultural norms. That's hardly the same as what China has been doing, which is literally blackmailing companies who choose to air any unfavorable content, even outside their jurisdiction, by punitive measures on other aspects of their business in China.Any Hollywood studio that make a movie critical of China would likely find themselves with no access to the Chinese market for years in direct retaliation. The Chinese government has even designated specific actors "persona non-grata" if dare say anything unfavorable, like supporting the Hong Kong "riots", or wishing for a "Free Tibet". BTW, notice how Hollywood has quietly dropped that little crusade?To be fair to Apple and Hollywood, China is certainly placing them in a no-win situation. Apple, with it's enormous ties to China, is in an even trickier position than most other companies. Hollywood can only be denied a market, while Apple could lose access to their factories and manufacturing capabilities. But then again, one could argue that this is the bed they made many years ago when choosing to do business with a totalitarian state for the sake of cheap labor.

Two federal courts on Friday prevented the Trump administration from implementing a rule that would have created new barriers to low-income immigrants seeking to enter the US. But the rule, which has been anticipated for months, has already stoked fear in immigrant communities that court rulings are unlikely to quell. The rule, published in August by the Department of Homeland Security and originally scheduled to go into effect October 15, would establish a test to determine whether an immigrant applying to enter the US, extend their visa, or convert their temporary immigration status is likely to end up depending on public benefits. Immigration officials would have much more leeway to turn away those who are “likely to be a public charge” based on an evaluation of 20 factors, ranging from the use of certain public benefits programs — including food stamps, Section 8 housing vouchers, and Medicaid — to English language proficiency. Researchers estimated that it could have affected more than 382,000 people.Eight federal courts are currently reviewing legal challenges to the public charge rule, and on Friday, three in California, New York, and Washington blocked the rule from going into effect nationwide — for now. (Their decisions might not hold once the Trump administration appeals as expected.)US District Judge George Daniels called the rule “repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility,” writing in his opinion that there was “zero precedent” for the administration’s attempt to redefine who can’t come to the US through the public charge stipulation.“Immigrants have always come to this country seeking a better life for themselves and their posterity,” he wrote. “With or without help, most succeed.”Trump, however, has laid out a very different vision of immigrants’ prospects upon their arrival in the US. He has justified the rule as a means of ensuring that immigrants are “financially self-sufficient” and to “protect benefits for American citizens.”“I am tired of seeing our taxpayer paying for people to come into the country and immediately go onto welfare and various other things,” Trump said when announcing the rule. “So I think we’re doing it right.”Friday’s court rulings rejected the ideas behind these policies with the strongest possible language. But whether or not they are upheld on appeal, the rule has had a chilling effect already: Noncitizens have been needlessly dropping their public benefits at alarming rates for fear that they will face immigration consequences.Many immigrants aren’t eligible for public benefits and not all public benefits are available to noncitizens. In the majority of cases, the best advice for immigrants is to keep using the programs to which they’re entitled, even if the rule eventually goes into effect, Doug Rand, a former White House official who worked on immigration policy in the Obama administration, said.But for many immigrants who have already decided to drop their benefits, that advice is coming too late. The publicity surrounding the rule — and particularly more sweeping early drafts — has already accomplished what the Trump administration wanted: Immigrants are being driven away from public benefits. Even if the rule never goes into effect, in that sense, it’s already succeeded.The rule fits in with one of the broader ideas guiding Trump’s immigration policy: that immigrants take advantage of public assistance without offering the US anything in return. It would enact the philosophy that acting US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli once described, amending Emma Lazarus’s famous poem on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet.”It also will make getting into the US much harder for immigrants sponsored by family members, the phenomenon Trump has excoriated as “chain migration.”The rule was only one of several policies the Trump administration has enacted to dramatically shift which immigrants are legally able to come to the United States. Trump issued a proclamation earlier this month barring immigrants who do not have health insurance and cannot afford to pay medical care costs from getting visas of almost any kind to enter the US.He issued another executive order in September allowing states that do not have the resources to support refugees in becoming “self-sufficient and free from long-term dependence on public assistance” to turn them away. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development also proposed a rule in May that would allow the agency to evict families in which at least one person is an unauthorized immigrant from public housing — an estimated 108,000 people. But while the Trump administration paints immigrants as abusing public benefits, immigrants are actually “less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native-born Americans,” according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. In 2016, the average per capita value of public benefits consumed by immigrants was $3,718, as compared to $6,081 among native-born Americans. They were slightly more likely to get cash assistance, SNAP benefits and Medicaid, but far less likely to use Medicare and Social Security.“The rhetoric around the use of public benefits programs is largely smoke and mirrors,” Erin Quinn​, a senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said in an interview. “It’s feeding a rhetoric that immigrants are draining our public services when in fact these immigrants don’t even have access to those services and also galvanizing fear in immigrant communities.”The US has been able to reject prospective immigrants who are likely to become a “public charge” — dependent on the government for support — since 1882, but since World War II, few immigrants were turned away using that criteria. In 1999, the Clinton administration issued guidance that said only cash benefits, which very few immigrants use, would be considered in making the determination.The Trump administration sought to define “public charge” much more broadly, giving immigration officials at US Citizenship and Immigration Services and US Customs and Border Protection a laundry list of factors to consider. And it would allow individual immigration officials to implement this complicated, 217-page regulation as they see fit.The rule would give individual, low-level officials much more vetting power than they have now, and inject a lot of uncertainty into the green card process. It could have a significant impact on who is allowed to enter and remain in the US as a lawful permanent resident.But the final version of the regulation is much less stringent than earlier versions that were leaked to the public (including one to Vox). Those drafts would have allowed immigration officials to consider immigrants’ use of a long list of federal public benefits programs, including CHIP and Head Start, the federal early childhood education program. It also would have looked at any programs used by an immigrant’s household — meaning that immigrants could be penalized if they sought benefits for their children instead of themselves. Early reports raised the alarm about how the rule targeted immigrants on public benefits. The Trump administration got hundreds of thousands of comments about it. And immigrants started dropping out of those programs, worried that their chances of getting a green card or citizenship would be affected.An Urban Institute study found that, based on a survey of about 2,000 adults in immigrant families, 13.7 percent of them said that they or one of their relatives chose not to use non-cash benefits programs in 2018 as a result of reports about the rule. Eventually, the rule could lead up to 4.7 million people to withdraw from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) alone, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Los Angeles Times reported that some immigrants with children enrolled in special education programs withdrew them from school and that refugees and asylum seekers dropped out of food assistance programs. Quinn said that her organization has found that immigrants are also avoiding applying for asylum and citizenship, even though the final version of the rule does not affect either process.“The rule has falsely created an impression that undocumented immigrants and temporary residents are gobbling up public benefits, which they’re not because they’re generally not eligible,” Rand said. “And it has scared those who are eligible, who are primarily permanent residents with green cards, legal immigrants, into unenrolling from programs they are perfectly eligible to take advantage of under the law.” Some federal programs are eligible to all immigrants regardless of status, including the National School Lunch Program; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and Head Start. Some immigrants can also become eligible for Social Security benefits and Medicare in old age.But “means-tested welfare programs” — federal public benefits for those in poverty including Medicaid, CHIP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) — are primarily reserved for naturalized and US-born citizens, green card holders, refugees, and asylees.Unauthorized immigrants and most people with temporary immigration status, such as employment-based visas, are ineligible, and green card holders have to wait for five years before becoming eligible (although some states give them access earlier). All of this means that relatively few immigrants would end up being penalized, under the final version of the rule, for using public assistance. But the rule has already been effective in dissuading many immigrants from continuing to access the public benefits they need. Reporting about the potentially drastic effects of the rule, and advocacy groups’ decision to condemn it, all helped spread the word. Most immigrants will face no consequences for keeping their benefits, Rand said. But advocates and attorneys are reluctant to make any such blanket statements for fear of being responsible for giving bad advice, particularly if the rule does go into eventually go into effect. “Unfortunately, I think a lot of the damage has already been done through the rhetoric and the media cycles around the various proposals,” Quinn said. “The erratic policymaking of this administration means that many are afraid of hanging their hat on any legal outcomes that comes out of the litigation or even the fact that the rule isn’t yet in effect.”DHS’s cost-benefit analysis of the rule is premised on the fact that many people will unnecessarily unenroll from public benefits or refrain from enrolling from such programs in the future, Rand said. The economic gains the department cited in its analysis are almost entirely attributable to the anticipated reduction in “transfer payments,” or government payments to public benefits recipients.“In other words, the ‘chilling effect’ isn’t a second-order consequence of the rule; according to DHS, it’s practically the only thing that makes the rule economically beneficial,” Rand said.Friday’s district court rulings argue that the public charge rule conflicts with how federal immigration law has been interpreted for two decades and appears to ignore the tens of thousands of public comments that opposed it. “Defendants do not articulate why they are changing the public charge definition, why this new definition is needed now, or why the definition set forth in the Rule—which has absolutely no support in the history of U.S. immigration law—is reasonable,” Judge Daniels wrote in his opinion. The administration is likely to appeal federal court decisions imminently, so this isn’t the end of the road for the legal battle over the rule. There’s also a companion rule at the State Department, introduced on October 10 and almost identical to the one at DHS that was blocked on Friday, that an agency spokesperson confirmed is still scheduled to go into effect October 15. If it stands, it affects a much broader population — about 13 million visa and green card applicants annually, Rand said. That means that, barring any court orders in the next few days, immigrants can be denied new visas or green cards at consulates abroad under the Trump administration’s 20-factor public charge test. The rollout of this could be messy, given that the State Department has yet to issue any guidance on how to implement the rule for its consular officers charged with evaluating applicants.Immigration lawyers are skeptical, however, that the State Department’s rule can be implemented so long as the parallel one at DHS is blocked. “You would hope that after three separate federal judges declared that the administration’s definition of public charge is a violation of the law, the State Department wouldn’t move forward with the rule,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council, said. “But that’s what they’re doing.”

Chaos is a constant in the Trump administration, but this week there are signs of a far rarer impulse: panic. The indications come in Trump’s demeanor, including the listless speech; a combative, brief press availability with Zelensky at the UN this morning; and a rambling, stream-of-semi-consciousness press availability this afternoon. They also manifest in his actions, with the White House suddenly scrambling to release documents that it had spent weeks zealously defending. This is not strategic withdrawal, but a wholesale rout. Trump is probably right to be shaken. No matter how many administration officials try to spin an impeachment inquiry as somehow constituting good news for Trump, it’s not persuasive, even if the president is never impeached, much less convicted.Though such moments are rare, this is not the first instance of panic in Trump’s political career. Each time has seemed like a moment of peril, and after each he has engineered a comeback. The first came in October 2016, after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasted about sexually assaulting women. Republican officials began pressuring Trump to drop out of the race, and his running mate, Mike Pence, even considered attempting to depose him, my colleague McKay Coppins reported. Trump appeared on television and apologized, showing unusual contrition. Within days, however, he’d gone back on the offensive, aided in part by WikiLeaks’ release of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.A second came in May 2017. Trump had impulsively fired FBI Director James Comey, apparently expecting that Democrats, who were furious over Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, would back him. Instead, he set off a furious political backlash, culminating in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment. Trump was apoplectic. “Oh my God,” he said. “This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.” But Trump weathered that, too.Months later, he panicked again after his response to a white-supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump initially condemned “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many sides.” Reeling from the backlash, Trump then offered a stronger statement condemning white supremacists, then flipped back, insisting there were “very fine people” marching with the white supremacists. This furor eventually calmed as well, though not without doing some permanent damage to Trump’s reputation.There have been other moments of panic—in January 2018, around the release of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, or the December 2018–January 2019 government shutdown. These were all times when control of the news cycle, consistently Trump’s most powerful political skill, has slipped from his grasp. In that regard, this moment could be even more dangerous. As I wrote yesterday, impeachment inquiries are unpredictable, protean things, prone to spinning off in unexpected directions. The president’s mastery of the news cycle is predicated in part on his control of what gets released and when, a power that seems to be slipping from his grasp at the moment.But these past cases also demonstrate Trump’s remarkable resilience. Each crisis saps his standing a little, but he has repeatedly managed to pull himself out of a free fall in situations that would probably have toppled a less agile politician. The Ukraine crisis will be the greatest test yet of his abilities. David A. Grahamis a staff writer atThe Atlantic, where he covers U.S. politics and global news.

President Donald Trump just did what Democrats seeking his impeachment are accusing him of doing, this time on camera: He called for Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. In fact, he escalated it — demanding that China investigate the Bidens as well.The diatribe, delivered in Thursday comments to reporters at the White House, begins after a reporter asks Trump what he wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to do after their now-infamous July 25 phone call. In response, the president reiterates his demand for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens — and tacks on a request for the Chinese government to do the same:I would think that if they were honest about it, they’d start a major investigation into the Bidens. It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens ... and by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens. Because what happened to China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.The Ukraine stuff alone here is terrible for Trump. The White House has claimed that the call to Ukraine was about expressing concerns about corruption there; now Trump seems to be openly admitting that his call was really just about his desire for the Ukrainians to go after Biden. But the China thing takes it to a whole new level.It’s a reference to Trump’s false belief that Hunter Biden made $1.5 billion from Chinese interests after going on a trip to the country with his father. It’s a theory that has its origins in the conservative press fever swamp, but one that Trump seems to believe pretty firmly.A reporter then followed up on Trump’s China comments by asking him whether he made a private request to Chinese President Xi Jinping to open a Biden investigation in the way that he has with Zelensky. Trump essentially says it’s a good idea.“It’s certainly something we can start thinking about, because I’m sure that President Xi does not like being under that kind of scrutiny where billions of dollars [are] taken out of his country,” Trump says. It’s not clear what “that kind of scrutiny” means, or whether this is some kind of veiled threat to disrupt Chinese business dealings if the country doesn’t investigate Biden. That read is possible in context of other comments Trump made this morning about trade negotiations: Trump at 10:37:24 a.m., talking about trade negotiations: "I have a lot of options on China, but if they don't do what we want, we have tremendous power."Trump at 10:37:54 a.m., asked about Ukraine probe: "Likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens."— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) October 3, 2019 Regardless of what Trump meant by “scrutiny,” though, what’s undeniable is that he is openly encouraging not one, but two, foreign leaders to open investigations into one of his chief political rivals in the 2020 election.This calls back to Trump’s infamous comment from 2016 soliciting Russian interference — “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” — but it’s actually considerably worse.The core of the argument for impeachment is that Trump is inappropriately wielding the power of the presidency to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election. That is literally what he did Thursday, with not one but two different foreign leaders, on camera and in front of reporters.The president’s theory seems to be that he can get away with this if he’s brazen enough because it won’t generate the same level of outrage as if it’s done in secret and covered up. He’s run this playbook before with some success — like the time he admitted in a televised interview that he fired FBI Director James Comey to stymie the Russia investigation and then got away with it. Maybe this time will be different.In its sixth episode on the impeachment scandal, our podcast explains how Ukraine finds itself at the center of the American political drama, yet President Trump is the least of the country’s worries.Looking for a quick way to keep up with the never-ending news cycle? Host Sean Rameswaram will guide you through the most important stories at the end of each day.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

On the ground in Uganda, our reporters uncovered how Chinese telecom giant Huawei is providing surveillance tools that African governments use to stifle dissent. Video: Clément Bürge. Photo: Sumy Sadurni for The Wall Street Journal By Oct. 11, 2019 1:26 pm ET LONDON—The European Union has identified a series of specific security threats posed by foreign vendors of telecommunications equipment, significantly heightening the bloc’s scrutiny of suppliers like Huawei Technologies Co., according to officials familiar with the matter and a privately circulated risk assessment prepared by European governments. Earlier in the week, the EU released a public report warning that hostile states or state-backed actors posed a security threat to new 5G mobile networks being rolled out around... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday urged a federal appeals court to block New York prosecutors from obtaining eight years of his tax returns, arguing that he was immune from criminal investigation as a sitting president. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., October 10, 2019. REUTERS/Leah MillisIn a filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, Trump said there was “broad bipartisan agreement, for decades if not centuries, that a sitting president cannot be subjected to criminal process.” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, a Democrat, in August subpoenaed Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns from 2011 to 2018 and other records from the president’s longtime accounting firm Mazars USA. In a separate filing on Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the court must block Vance from getting the tax returns until they have made a “heightened and particularized showing of need for the documents’ production.” Though the Justice Department stopped short of saying Vance could not get the returns under any circumstances, it said it was “unlikely” he could demonstrate an immediate need for them because the U.S. Constitution bars states from prosecuting a sitting president. “Recognition of these principles does not place the president above the law; it merely postpones initiation of any potential criminal prosecution until his term of office ends,” the department said. A spokesman for Vance’s office declined to comment. Vance’s subpoena was part of a criminal probe into the Republican president and his family business. The scope of that probe is not publicly known. Trump sued Vance’s office in Manhattan federal court to block the subpoena. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero threw out Trump’s lawsuit on Monday, calling his claim that he was immune from investigation “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” The 2nd Circuit has put Marrero’s order on hold, and is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Oct. 23. Vance’s investigation comes amid an impeachment inquiry and investigations into Trump’s finances by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Separately on Friday, a federal appeals court in Washington backed an effort by a House Oversight Committee to obtain Trump’s financial records from Mazars. Two other House committees are seeking to obtain Trump’s financial records from Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. The 2nd Circuit is currently considering a lawsuit by Trump to block them from getting those records, which do not include his tax returns. The impeachment inquiry focuses on the president’s request in a July phone call for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic former vice president Joe Biden, a top contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Tom BrownOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

On the ground in Uganda, our reporters uncovered how Chinese telecom giant Huawei is providing surveillance tools that African governments use to stifle dissent. Video: Clément Bürge. Photo: Sumy Sadurni for The Wall Street Journal By Oct. 11, 2019 1:26 pm ET LONDON—The European Union has identified a series of specific security threats posed by foreign vendors of telecommunications equipment, significantly heightening the bloc’s scrutiny of suppliers like Huawei Technologies Co., according to officials familiar with the matter and a privately circulated risk assessment prepared by European governments. Earlier in the week, the EU released a public report warning that hostile states or state-backed actors posed a security threat to new 5G mobile networks being rolled out around... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In

In late 2017, President Donald Trump asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson a simple question: can you make a problem go away? Trump’s problem was an indicted Turkish-Iranian gold trader named Reza Zarrab. More precisely, the problem was Zarrab’s lawyer, the president’s close friend Rudy Giuliani.Investigators suspected Zarrab was working on behalf of the Turkish government’s state-owned bank Halkbank as part of a massive scheme to funnel billions of dollars into Iran in contravention of American economic sanctions. They wanted Zarrab to spill what he knew. Giuliani was in a panic.Trump bluntly asked Tillerson to pressure the Department of Justice into ending its investigation of Zarrab. Tillerson flatly refused, even raising his concerns about the criminality of Trump’s request with then-Chief of Staff John Kelly. And yet, faced with a clear order to obstruct a federal investigation, neither Tillerson nor Kelly took any steps to report Trump’s request.Zarrab’s case wasn’t even the first time Trump tried to push Tillerson into breaking the law for Trump’s own benefit. Speaking with Bob Schieffer last year, Tillerson said, “So often, the president would say ‘Here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it,’ and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law, it violates treaty, you know, and he just, he got really frustrated when we’d have those conversations.”Since the earliest days of his presidency, Trump has attempted to circumvent and weaken the policymaking and legal frameworks that provide accountability to federal acts. And no pillar of the federal government has received more of Trump’s concentrated disdain than the State Department, once the American government’s most venerable institution. Trump’s wildcat-style diplomacy collided with the State Department almost immediately—and as Trump has succeeded in hobbling State, so has he hobbled the most effective checks on his self-dealing and corruption. Career FSOs, some with more than 20 years of professional service navigating the pitfalls and traps of international diplomacy, are speaking out against Trump’s brash, just-wing-it brand of diplomatic negotiations. They remark with concern that Trump’s persecution of his own diplomats saps our pool of talented officers while weakening American messaging abroad. “I watched the administration lurch even further these past two years toward a worldview characterized by bigotry, fear and small-minded chauvinism,” wrote 11-year Foreign Service veteran Bethany Milton in a New York Times op-ed explaining her sudden resignation. “What of the administration’s policies is there left to defend to foreign audiences?” Milton isn’t alone in her defeatism. Long-time diplomat Chuck Park wrote in The Washington Post that he could “no longer justify being a part of Trump’s ‘complacent state.’ Others have followed suit. As a result, the once prestigious Foreign Service has atrophied both within and without: in 2010, nearly 23,000 Americans took the Foreign Service Officer Test. By 2018, fewer than 9,000 applied. Nowhere is the collapse of the State Department more visible than in the rise of the Trumpian “pseudo-diplomat,” normally a close Trump friend or family member with no formal government job, dispatched in secret to conduct opaque “negotiations” with a raft of questionable foreign leaders. Since 2017, a greater share of key diplomatic efforts are undertaken not by trained envoys bound by State Department regulations, but by amateurs more willing to give the president his way. Rudy Giuliani’s shady attempt to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine fits the bill. So does Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s much-mocked attempts to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and solve American immigration standoffs with Latin American nations. At the United Nations General Assembly last month, America’s most visible diplomat wasn’t U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Craft—it was on-again-off-again foreign adviser Ivanka Trump, who had already caused controversy after trying to elbow her way into a high-level G20 discussion between French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of Britain, Canada and the International Monetary Fund. It didn’t go well. None of Trump’s rogue diplomacy would be possible without a Secretary of State willing to allow dangerously unaccountable individuals to pursue their often contradictory goals. In Secretary Mike Pompeo, Trump finally found a yes-man par excellence. Pompeo proved his loyalty early, working alongside Trump to protect Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman from the consequences of murdering and dismembering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. More recently, he’s refused to cooperate with the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, and he also failed to raise any red flags during Trump’s impeachable conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Instead of leaning on the full force of the State Department to bring forth the truth of Khashoggi’s murder, Trump demanded silence from Pompeo and career diplomats. Instead of a meaningful investigation led by career civil servants and the American intelligence community, Trump dispatched Kushner—again, outside of normal diplomatic accountability channels—to privately calm the Saudis.“Impeachment increasingly looks like the only viable remedy to such an advanced public cancer.”Once the driver of American foreign policy, senior State Department officials now learn of conversations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un or Russian President Vladimir Putin through Trump’s public “Twitter diplomacy.” Former Secretary Tillerson didn’t even know he’d been fired until he skimmed the president’s social media accounts. Freed from the protocols and restrictions of official foreign policy by a complacent Pompeo and enablers in the Senate, Trump is now free to dispatch his vast network of supplicants in pursuit of self-dealing on a truly global scale.The collapse of America’s Department of State is a global tragedy, the full cost of which we may not see for a decade. Trump has no intention of stopping his end-run around State—on the contrary, State’s newfound weakness represents one of Trump’s few measurable personal victories as president. He takes no small glee in acknowledging that those who stood against him are gone, and his personal diplomatic corps—Giuliani, the Trump children, various Eastern European go-betweens—stands unchallenged on the international stage.There is still a chance for American institutions to stop the decay from Trump’s wanton corruption. On Thursday morning, two of Rudy Giuliani’s top associates were arrested for campaign-finance violations related to Giuliani’s opaque, Trump-directed Ukraine dealings. There are even signs Republican lawmakers are growing concerned at Giuliani’s inability to explain his role in the White House. Impeachment increasingly looks like the only viable remedy to such an advanced public cancer.In 2017, Giuliani and Trump found themselves stymied by Rex Tillerson and John Kelly as they tried to make the Reza Zarrab case disappear. Now the opposition figures have been purged. Giuliani and Trump stand astride the ruins of America’s foreign policy and intelligence gathering institutions. The Senate has a choice: hold Trump and his band of foreign policy brigands accountable, or preside over the death of American soft power abroad. This is our last opportunity to make the right choice.

closeVideoHannity: Biden Inc. has been exposedIt looks like panic may be setting in, putting Joe and Hunter Biden in all-out damage control.Sean Hannity took aim at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff Monday night, blasting him for his comments this weekend regarding contact with the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower."The Democrats politically motivated unconstitutional impeachment charade is unraveling before their eyes and even Adam - the cowardly, shifty - Schiff, he is backtracking tonight making a major admission that maybe the non-whistleblower whistleblower, who apparently his team coordinated with, well doesn't have to testify at all," Hannity said on his television program. "And that he should have been more clear about his secret contact and his office's contact with the non whistleblower whistleblower in the first place."WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES IT WILL NOT COMPLY WITH 'ILLEGITIMATE AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL' IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY"Gee replace Schiff with the name Trump. I wonder if the media would accept this crap," Hannity added.“I should have been much more clear,” Schiff said during an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation," admitting on Sunday that he should have been clearer about his contact with the whistleblower who filed a complaint about President Trump’s July phone call with the Ukrainian president.VideoHannity said, "I doubt the media would give Trump a pass with that flimsy answer," in response to Schiff's Sunday comments.The host called on Republicans to "go on the record" and say the transcript of the phone call does not "rise" to the level of impeachment."And maybe it's time for Republicans in the Senate and the House maybe they need to go on record with a very simple statement that that transcript does not in any way rise to any level of impeachable offense," Hannity said. "Let's get that on the table so that they can know ahead of time that this witch hunt not going to go on for three years like their last witch hunt went on."

Visa, Mastercard, others announce they will drop out of Facebook's Libra digital currency project.

Media player Media playback is unsupported on your device Video Why is Turkey bombing the Kurds in Syria? Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in northern Syria, as Turkish forces step up their cross-border offensive on Kurdish-held areas.International clamour has increased for Turkey to halt the attack. The BBC's Martin Patience explains what's behind the conflict.

Smartwatches are everywhere, and sales figures back up their increasing spread across the US. In 2018, sales in that market had increased more than 60 percent over the year before, according to the Verge. And like some other tech, the smartwatch is happening whether we like it or not. If you’re considering getting into the space, find a smartwatch that fits your needs.Most smartwatches depend to some degree on integrating with our smartphones for the best functionality, whether it’s pilfering GPS from it, alerting you to incoming messages from it, or complementing your apps in a variety of other ways. And in that sense, the smartwatch universe largely splits into the iPhone and the Android, so we’re giving you options from both.You’re a casual human being with everyday needs, like getting alerts, checking the time (and calendar), and looking good while doing so.Apple Watch Series 4, $379 on Amazon: If you own an iPhone, you only have one option, and it’s a good one. The iPhone-compatible Apple Watch flagship has all the goodies anyone could need (and more), like GPS and heart rate monitoring. For extra cash, you can equip it with cell service and use it like, well, a cellphone. Its last edition is a great option for many people’s needs and is selling right now for nearly half the price you’d pay for its successor. The Scouted NewsletterProduct recommendations that'll make your life better and tips to help you shop smarter.By Clicking "Subscribe" you agree to have read theTerms of UseandPrivacy PolicySamsung Galaxy Watch, $299 on Amazon: In the non-iPhone realm, we have standouts like Samsung Galaxy Watch, which works with Android and iOS smartphones. Obviously, if you sport a Samsung smartphone, this is your smartest bet for seamless integration.Fitness trackers are one thing — fitness smartwatches are another: They combine fitness necessities, from heart rate sensor to GPS tracking, into a smart wristwatch. You’re looking for something that can handle sweat, is rugged, and will report to you the data you need to improve your fitness. The best ones will allow you to work out without your phone. The Apple Watch Series 4 is another leader in this field for iPhone users. It’s got all the fitness features you need, and its heart rate monitoring has been enhanced for this latest edition.Garmin VivoActive 3, $214 on Amazon: GPS leader Garmin sells what many hardcore fitness enthusiasts consider a must. It runs its own operating system but will let you stream music through Bluetooth and track your run with GPS. Its apps cover preloaded workouts and it integrates with some third-party apps like Uber and AccuWeather. Most smartwatches are still on the bigger side but brands are doing their best to stylize these wrist computers to give you an aesthetically pleasing smart experience. Fossil Q Women's Gen 3 Venture Stainless Steel Smartwatch, $146 on Amazon: the Q Venture is a great example. It’s powered through Wear OS and includes Bluetooth and water resistance but isn’t equipped with GPS. And that’s okay. At $140, this watch is more for a party than a run. I like the simplicity and elegance of Fossil’s Explorist, too. It’s pricier than the Venture but gives you GPS for the added price. Samsung Galaxy Smartwatch in Rose Gold, $279 on Amazon: Another good example. It also promises days of on-time on a single charge so you won't be scrambling to find your next charging point.Get the smartwatch that fits your wrist and your needs, whether they’re sweaty, minimal, or extravagant — just be sure you don’t find yourself on the running trail without GPS.The Scouted NewsletterProduct recommendations that'll make your life better and tips to help you shop smarter.By Clicking "Subscribe" you agree to have read theTerms of UseandPrivacy PolicyScouted is internet shopping with a pulse. Follow us on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter for even more recommendations and exclusive content. Don’t forget to check out our coupon site to find more tech deals from Best Buy and Newegg. Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales.

One year ago this month, California’s wine country was ravaged by more than 20 major wildfires, one of which was the Tubbs fire, among the most destructive. By the time it was extinguished, more than 20 people had been killed and nearly 40,000 acres devastated. Photographer Justin Sullivan returned to Santa Rosa, the city most severely affected by the fire by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral.In an open letter published by the Dortmund-based German Language Association, signatories including the philosopher Rüdiger Safranski, novelist Peter Schneider, comedian Dieter Hallervorden and the former head of the country’s domestic intelligence Hans-Georg Maassen, hit back against calls for more gender-neutral generic nouns.In German, where nouns have either a male, female or neuter gender, words for mixed groups of people are traditionally based on the masculine form. If you are talking about a group of teachers, for example, you would say die Lehrer, not die Lehrerinnen.Feminist linguists have made various proposals to make the language more inclusive, either by typographic trickery, such as LehrerInnen, Lehrer(innen) or Lehrer*innen, or by replacing them with nouns that make the gender more invisible.In recent years, such proposals have been picked up by a number of academic institutions and municipal authorities: since January this year, officials in the city of Hanover no longer use the generic noun Lehrer in their correspondence, but the more neutral Lehrende, or “teaching ones”.The protest letter, headed “An end to gender nonsense!” and published shortly before International Women’s Day, argues that the distribution of gender to generic nouns in German is too arbitrary for there to be a systemic sexist bias. In German, lions are male while giraffes are female and horses neuter, the letter’s authors argue. “And no one has been bothered by the fact that everything feminine has for 1,000 years been based on the [neuter] word das Weib.”Further, the signatories dispute that masculine generic pronouns discourage women from entering certain professions: the fact that Germany’s constitution has 13 mentions of the “chancellor” in its masculine form “did not prevent the repeated rise of Angela Merkel to the post of chancellor”.The German authors’ reactionary call to arms contrasts markedly with France’s Académie Française recently abandoning its long-held resistance to the feminisation of job titles.Unlike France, Germany has no official central body tasked with arbitrating on linguistic matters: while Dortmund’s German Language Association boasts over 36,000 members, it is only one of several institutions that try to set standards on grammar and spelling.The association, which publishes an index of anglicisms that have entered the German language alongside German-language alternatives, has gained an increasingly conservative profile in recent years, leading one critic to dub it “Pegida for linguists”. Topics Germany Gender Europe news

LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin has experienced one of its worst annual price performances of its short 10-year-old life but also appears to have become more stable in the process. A bitcoin logo is seen at a facility of the Youth and Sports Ministry in Caracas, Venezuela February 23, 2018. REUTERS/Marco BelloVolatility of the original and biggest cryptocurrency has sunk to its lowest for nearly two years, with price swings falling lower than increasingly edgy U.S. stocks for more than two weeks in a row. Measured on a weekly basis, bitcoin volatility is set to fall to its lowest since the end of 2016, when the digital coin was still a niche asset yet to muscle its way into global focus. Volatility has been a major characteristic of the digital currency, which turned 10-years-old last week, throwing up major hurdles to its emergence as a mainstream asset class. Most mainstream institutional investors, skeptical about its ability to store value in any predictable way, have also stayed clear. At the same time, regulators across the globe have emphasized price instability when issuing warnings to retail investors dabbling in the cryptocurrency. Volatility has also prevented the spread of bitcoin as a method of payments, its intended purpose. Traders and investors are waiting for clarity on how regulators will treat bitcoin products such as exchange-traded funds, leading to them holding off on major purchases or sales. A fall in trading volumes over the last three months is also a key factor, said Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, CEO of BCB Group, a cryptocurrency prime broker. In contrast to bitcoin, volatility in the S&P 500 .SPX, has since late September climbed to near seven-month highs. Investors in U.S. stocks are worried over rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and global trade and protectionism. Bitcoin soared over 1,300 percent last year to a record high of almost $20,000 in December. This year it has slumped as much as 70 percent, before settling into a period of relative stability since September. On Tuesday it was trading at around $6,420. Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Alison WilliamsOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

In response, many opposition leaders called for an election boycott.Mr. Falcón ultimately decided to break with the rest of the opposition and run against Mr. Maduro.Mr. Maduro attributes the country’s problems to what he calls an economic war waged against Venezuela by the United States. But most economists place the blame on poor government management, corruption and broken policies, like tight controls over foreign exchange, an overvalued currency and price controls on goods.The government has responded to the crisis by providing people with boxes of food, including powdered milk and pasta, although most people say they arrive irregularly and do not contain nearly enough to sustain a household. The food boxes became both an incentive and a threat during the campaign, with many voters fearful that they could be cut off if they didn’t support the government.At many polling places on Sunday, people cast their vote and then visited a so-called Red Spot — named for the ruling Socialist Party’s color — set up nearby.At the Red Spot, voters presented the special identity card used to receive the food boxes and other services and gave their names to workers who were keeping lists of those who had voted. Workers at the Red Spots said that there was no effort to pressure voters or link a pro-Maduro vote to future food deliveries.Mr. Falcón accused the government of violating campaign rules through the use of these Red Spots.A woman waiting outside a polling station in a Caracas slum, La Vega, said she worked for a government agency and feared losing her job if she did not vote and report afterward at the Red Spot. The woman, who would not give her name out of fear of reprisals, also said that she felt compelled to vote for Mr. Maduro, even though she did not support him, because she was sure that government computers tracked people’s votes — a common notion here.

By Updated Sept. 19, 2018 2:51 pm ET European Union antitrust authorities have begun a preliminary investigation into Amazon.com Inc.’s treatment of other merchants that sell products using its platform, opening a new regulatory front against an American tech giant. EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Wednesday that investigators recently sent out questionnaires to merchants that sell through Amazon. The probe focuses on whether Amazon is gaining a competitive advantage from data it gathers on every transaction and from every merchant on its... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In

The rise of right-wing politicians like Fraser Anning, a senator who blamed Muslim immigration for the New Zealand attacks, and Pauline Hanson, who once wore a burqa in Parliament to protest Islam, has pushed racism into mainstream public discussion.“In the last few years, we have seen politicians state that people had a right to be bigots,” said Tim Soutphommasane, a former race commissioner in Australia and a professor at the University of Sydney. “There’s been a creeping normalization of far-right political ideas.”On a local level, two competing visions of Australia are essentially fighting for votes: the Australia longing for a nostalgic past, and the Australia trying to figure out the next phase of integration for a more globalized nation.Young political candidates like Kadira Pethiyagoda are at the forefront of potential change. Mr. Pethiyagoda, 39, who immigrated from Sri Lanka and served as an Australian diplomat, is running for the Labor Party in Melbourne.“Services are being cut, wages haven’t gone up, the cost of living is increasing. People are being squeezed,” he said. “Politicians are pointing to all these problems, trying to pretend the cause of this is only immigration.”As he campaigned by knocking on doors, some who answered said they, too, wanted more livable cities — with a focus on how to help everyone, newcomers included.“It just makes me feel confident that maybe somebody who understands the challenges that migrant families face can actually accurately represent our views and actions,” said Yvonne Maringa, 35, an English immigrant of Zimbabwean descent. “I think there’s a limited understanding still of migrant communities and their needs.”