Brexit and trade have been the focus of the summit for Johnson, who held bilateral meetings today with both Trump and European Council President Donald Tusk to discuss them. To the former, Johnson called for the removal of “very considerable barriers” barring British goods such as pork pies and U.K. bell peppers from being exported to the U.S. market. To the latter, he warned that the only way to prevent a no-deal Brexit, on which Tusk said he will not cooperate, is to remove the Irish backstop, a provision in the current Brexit deal, negotiated by his predecessor, Theresa May, that would maintain an open border on the island of Ireland by keeping Britain closely tied to EU rules and regulations (Johnson has dismissed the backstop as “antidemocratic”).The transatlantic divisions between European leaders and the Trump administration offer a preview of the balancing act that British foreign policy will need to navigate in a post-Brexit world. On Iran, Britain has remained firmly aligned with Germany and France in defense of the 2014 nuclear deal and in opposition of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine it through the reimposition of crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime. Still, Britain also announced last month that it would join a U.S.-led mission in the Gulf following the seizure of one of its tankers by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. Though the British government insisted that the move doesn’t constitute a shift in its position on Iran, Germany and France notably decided not to follow suit, citing opposition to Washington’s strategy of “maximum pressure” on Iran.On trade, Britain is in a similarly difficult position. With just two months left before it leaves the EU and all the trading relationships that membership to the bloc affords, London is desperate to begin striking its own deals—starting with the United States. But a free-trade deal with the U.S. won’t be easy, and Washington is likely to expect any number of concessions from British officials on both the trade and foreign-policy fronts. Without significant leverage at its disposal, Britain is unlikely to be able to negotiate with the U.S. on an equal footing.Trump has so far taken a shine to Johnson, whom he endorsed to succeed former Prime Minister Theresa May ahead of his state visit to Britain earlier this year. In the days following Johnson’s ascendance, Trump boasted about his British counterpart being called “Britain’s Trump,” and the two have since held several phone calls to discuss issues including Brexit (of which Trump is a vocal supporter) and trade. “He’s the right man for the job,” Trump said of Johnson in their first meeting since Johnson took over as prime minister.

Conservative MP Boris Johnson walks through his garden at his home near Oxford, Britain, October 3, 2018. REUTERS/Toby MelvilleLONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s Boris Johnson said the Brexit withdrawal agreement with Brussels was “vassal state stuff” that would not protect Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and said he would vote against it when it comes before parliament. Earlier on Tuesday Prime Minister Theresa May’s government said it had agreed a draft text of the Brexit withdrawal agreement with Brussels, which May will present to her senior ministers on Wednesday. Johnson, who quit as foreign secretary over May’s handling of Brexit, said he had not seen the full details but it had been widely trailed. “It is vassal state stuff,” he said. “It is utterly unacceptable to anyone who believes in democracy. “For the first time since partition Dublin under these proposals will have more say in some aspects of the government of Northern Ireland than London. I don’t see how you can support it.” Reporting by Kate Holton and Andrew MacAskillOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A faith healer who tended to pop stars and presidents in Brazil – and became an international celebrity after appearing on a show hosted by Oprah Winfrey – will face trial on allegations of rape and sexual abuse, a judge ruled on Wednesday.João Teixeira de Faria, known as “John of God”, was arrested in December, and faces accusations from dozens of women, who allege he sexually abused them while they were seeking spiritual guidance and treatment.On Wednesday, Rosângela Rodrigues dos Santos, a judge in Abadiânia, the small town in central Brazil where Faria’s spiritual center is located, accepted the charges brought against him by four women, and said he must face trial.Prosecutors allege that Faria raped two of the women, and used fraudulent means to sexually abuse the other two.Faria, who became internationally famous when Winfrey broadcast a report on his psychic healing methods in 2013, has said he is innocent, and denied the accusations.The first accusation was made on a TV Globo programme in December by a Dutch choreographer, Zahira Maus, who said Faria sexually assaulted her. Globo TV spent three months investigating the story and interviewed a dozen other women who said they had been abused by the healer.Faria’s fame has been boosted by supposedly miraculous surgeries he claims to have performed with his hands and without anesthesia.Winfrey said in a statement that she visited Faria’s center in 2012 to explore his controversial healing methods for an episode of Oprah’s Next Chapter that aired the following year, she said.“I empathize with the women now coming forward and hope justice is served,” she said.Prosecutors are still investigating other allegations against Faria, which could see the list of accusers grow. His lawyer, Alberto Zacharias Toron, said his client had not yet been notified of the court’s decision.“We’re calm and believe justice will be served,” he said. Topics Brazil Americas Rape and sexual assault news

But Ms. Harris plainly does not want to revive the issue as a matter of policy today.Returning to Iowa for the first time since she vaulted into the top tier of the race, and made no mention of the former vice president in her stump speech, instead unveiling a new line of attack on President Trump.“We have a predator living in the White House,” she told Democrats in Indianola.Mr. Biden was similarly disinclined to focus on the issue on Thursday. After the parade, he delivered an Independence Day-themed speech in Marshalltown. Reading from prepared remarks in a teleprompter, Mr. Biden hailed America, summoned the words of past presidents and flayed the incumbent.Recalling that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had crowed that Western liberalism was becoming obsolete, Mr. Biden prompted groans in a friendly crowd when he noted that Mr. Trump thought Mr. Putin was alluding to California-style progressive politics.“Not a joke,” Mr. Biden said, “our president doesn’t understand the difference between liberals as opposed to conservatives in our political context and liberal as opposed to autocratic systems of government.”Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris were hardly the only Democrats in Iowa for July 4. Former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas joined Mr. Biden for the parade in Independence, which was filled with fire trucks, beauty queens and a few supporters of Mr. Trump who shouted their enthusiasm for the president when volunteers for Democrats chanted their candidates’ names.Biden supporters distributed Tootsie Rolls and Dubble Bubble, and Mr. Biden sweated through his polo shirt as he wandered from side to side of a parade in the blue-collar eastern Iowa village.When he eyed three women sporting Biden lapel stickers and standing in the bed of a truck on the side of the parade route, he jokingly yelled: “Don’t jump, I need you!” That was shortly before he cradled a 4-month-old baby and pretended to walk away from the infant’s mother.

TransferGo, a remittance company, is another fintech upstart that plans to offer crypto trading to customers. CEO Daumantas Dvilinskas says users were asking for ways to buy digital assets—about 4,000 people pre-registered for the service in just a few hours. The London-based firm, which announced today that it raised an additional $10 million from venture capital investors, will soon allow customers to buy and sell bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, litecoin, and bitcoin cash.Although crypto services have proven effective in attracting a new generation of customers, bigger financial firms are wary. Earlier this year, Merrill Lynch barred customers and financial advisers who make transactions for them from buying bitcoin. Goldman Sachs is gearing up to provide crypto services for its institutional clients by means of financial derivatives, but still isn’t ready to handle bitcoin itself. A sticking point for crypto exchanges has often been partnering with banks to take deposits.There are reasons to be cautious. Crypto tokens have been prone to theft, and regulations for the industry are far from fully formed. It makes sense that smaller, newer firms are willing to take more risks, while entrenched companies act conservatively because they feel they have more to lose.At the same time, the ranks of startups offering financial services has multiplied. For payment and remittance companies, the trick is figuring out how to make money as competition increases. Some are seemingly throwing new products against the wall to see what sticks. In doing so, they’ve demonstrated that companies can offer a lot of bank-like services without quite becoming a bank.TransferGo and Revolut, for example, had existing businesses before going crypto. Six-year-old TransferGo says it has transferred £1 billion ($1.35 billion) so far, with the amount of transfers doubling year over year. The company doesn’t have plans to become a bank, but is in talks with Lithuanian regulators for an e-money license, which allows companies to provide cash deposits and withdrawal services, as well as to perform direct debit and credit transfers. Down the road it may add things like overdraft and travel insurance.TransferGo is still relatively small, with 600,000 customers, and says it’s attracting about 1,000 new users each day. The company started in the UK and has expanded into Poland, Germany, and the Nordics, and its CEO noted that the remittance business is growing especially quickly in Poland and Ukraine. It is experimenting with Ripple’s distributed-ledger technology to see if it can further cut costs and speed up transfers.If the experience of other digital financial firms is any guide, crypto can help attract a lot of new customers. And this may be a good bet whether bitcoin soars or sinks: Casinos, after all, tend to make more money than gamblers.

Two Virginia police officers who worked for different agencies were fired this week after an anti-fascist group linked them to white nationalist organizations.The first case involved Sgt. Robert A. Stamm of the Virginia Division of Capitol Police, who had been assigned to protests calling on Gov. Ralph Northam to resign over a racist yearbook photo that surfaced in February.Anti-Fascists of the Seven Hills, which said it was based in Richmond, Va., wrote online in February that Sergeant Stamm came to its attention because he had a large Band-Aid covering his neck while patrolling. The group found photos on social media of Sergeant Stamm with tattoos, flags and banners that used white supremacist symbols and images, it said in a blog post.It also said he was linked to the Asatru Folk Assembly, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as an extremist group that invokes pre-Christian Nordic spirituality. In 2015, the F.B.I. foiled a plot by men it described as followers of an extremist variant of the Asatru faith to attack black churches and synagogues in the Chesterfield area.Sergeant Stamm was suspended after the group published its post. On Wednesday, Col. Anthony S. Pike, the Capitol Police chief, announced in a statement that Sergeant Stamm had been “separated from his employment.” He did not explain what had led to the firing.In Facebook messages on Thursday night, Mr. Stamm said that he was discriminated against for his Asatru religion.“My religion is not politics, it is faith,” he wrote. “My constitutional rights were violated. Period.”In the second case, Daniel Morley, a school resource officer with the Chesterfield County Police Department, was fired Thursday following an investigation into allegations that he was affiliated with the group Identity Evropa, also known as the American Identity Movement. Members of that group helped plan the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.Antifa Seven Hills had identified Mr. Morley as a “pledge coordinator” for the group, which recruits on college campuses and elsewhere. Antifa said that Mr. Morley was responsible “for guiding new applicants through the vetting process” and had been a member since 2017.Mr. Morley was suspended in March while the department investigated the claims. Col. Jeffrey S. Katz, the police chief, wrote on social media on Thursday that investigators had authenticated the online postings and activities.“The views espoused by and attributed to Mr. Morley violate county and departmental policy and our organizational values; his continued employment is antithetical to the expectations of our personnel and those we serve,” he wrote.The anti-fascist group also alleged that Mr. Stamm and Mr. Morley knew each other, and in March it posted what it said was a photo of the two together.Efforts to Mr. Morley on Thursday night were unsuccessful.

Iran does not seek confrontation with Britain amid a row over seized tanker ships, foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday in a message directed at the presumed incoming prime minister, Boris Johnson.“It is very important for Boris Johnson as he enters 10 Downing Street to understand that Iran does not seek confrontation, that Iran wants normal relations based on mutual respect,” Zarif told reporters in Managua.Zarif was responding to a question about whether he had a message for Johnson, the favourite to be named the new leader of the Tory party on Tuesday, who would then take over from Theresa May as prime minister on Wednesday.Britain has demanded that Iran release a UK-flagged tanker seized in the Gulf on Friday.That came two weeks after British authorities seized an Iranian tanker off Gibraltar on suspicion of it breaching sanctions against Syria.Zarif claimed that move by Britain was orchestrated by the US President Donald Trump who blasted on Monday the Islamic republic as the world’s top “state of terror”.Zarif said: “It was clear from the very beginning that the United Kingdom was doing the bidding for the Trump administration.”“What the Brits did and what the Gibraltar authorities did in the Strait of Gibraltar was a violation of international law. It was piracy.”British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said at the weekend that London wanted to “de-escalate” tensions with Iran but insisted that the Grace 1 tanker was seized because it was carrying oil, against EU sanctions, to Syria.Zarif described those allegations as “unfounded” and accused the British of acting “holier than the pope” in applying rules the “EU itself would not do”.“Everybody understands that starting a conflict may be easy, but ending it would be impossible,” he said.Hunt told the House of Commons on Monday that he would seek to “put together a European-led maritime protection mission” for Gulf shipping.Zarif arrived in Nicaragua on Sunday following a meeting in Venezuela of the Non-Aligned Movement.Like Iran, the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua are subject to US sanctions. Topics Iran Boris Johnson Middle East and North Africa

The White House communications director, Hope Hicks, acknowledged to a House intelligence panel that she has occasionally told “white lies” for Donald Trump but has not lied about anything relevant to the Russia investigation, according to those present for Hicks’ closed-door testimony.Hicks was interviewed for nine hours on Tuesday by the panel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and contact between Trump’s campaign and Russia. One of Trump’s closest aides, Hicks was his spokeswoman during the 2016 presidential campaign and is now White House communications director.The top Democrat on the intelligence panel, Adam Schiff of California, said after the meeting was over that Hicks answered questions about her role in Trump’s campaign and answered some questions about the transition period between the election and the inauguration. But she would not answer any questions about events since Trump took the oath of office, similar to some other White House officials who have spoken to the committee. Schiff said Hicks did not assert any type of executive privilege, but just said she had been advised not to answer.Hicks did answer a question about whether she had ever lied for her boss, saying she had told “white lies” for Trump on occasion, according to a person familiar with the testimony. The person, who declined to be named because the committee’s interviews are not public, said Hicks told the panel she had not lied about anything substantive.Republican Tom Rooney of Florida, a member of the intelligence panel who was in the interview, said Hicks’ answer was completely unrelated to the Russia investigation.“When specifically asked whether or not she was instructed to lie by the president, or the candidate, with regard to Russia, the investigation or our investigation, the answer to that question was no,” Rooney said. “And that’s our jurisdiction. Not whether or not he asked her to cancel a meeting for him, or something like that.”While the investigation is focused on Russian interference during the campaign, House investigators also had questions about her time in the White House, including her role in drafting a statement responding to news reports about a 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russians. That statement has been of particular interest to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating matters related to the Russian meddling and potential obstruction of an ongoing federal inquiry.The White House has said the president was involved in drafting the statement after news of the meeting broke last summer. The statement said the meeting primarily concerned a Russian adoption program, though emails released later showed that Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, enthusiastically agreed to the sit-down with a Russian lawyer and others after he was promised dirt on Trump’s presidential rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hicks was with the president on Air Force One while they were writing the initial statement.“All of our questions about what went into that statement went unanswered,” Schiff said.As the interview wore on, Hicks and her lawyer relented on one area of questioning – the transition period between the election and the inauguration. She initially refused to answer all those questions, but Schiff said it became clear to the House lawmakers that she had answered questions about that time period in a separate interview with the Senate intelligence panel. That committee is also investigating the meddling and spoke to Hicks several months ago.After House lawmakers argued that she should treat the two committees equally, Hicks and her lawyer conferred with the White House, Schiff said. She then began to answer some questions related to the transition. Schiff said Democrats had asked for a subpoena after she refused to answer questions, but Republicans had declined to issue one.That marks a difference from the GOP response to former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who also refused to answer questions, including about the transition. Republicans subpoenaed him during his interview in January when he declined to answer, but Bannon has yet to fully cooperate, despite a return visit to the panel two weeks ago. The House is now considering whether to hold Bannon in contempt.Rooney, who is one of the Republicans leading the Russia investigation, said he didn’t think Hicks should be subpoenaed, saying she was “very forthright and open to the questions that we’ve had”.Hicks arrived shortly after 10am through a rear entrance to the committee’s interview space and did not answer questions shouted from reporters. In the hours before Hicks’ arrival, Trump tweeted several times, quoting cable news commentators who said they hadn’t seen evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. One tweet encouraged investigations of Clinton. And a closing tweet simply said, “WITCH HUNT!”Asked about Hicks’ refusal to answer some questions, the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said on Tuesday that “we are cooperating because as the president has said repeatedly there is no collusion, and we’re going to continue to cooperate, and hopefully they’ll wrap this up soon”. Topics Trump-Russia investigation Trump administration Donald Trump Russia US politics House of Representatives news

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Tuesday briefly joined Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to become the second $1 trillion publicly listed U.S. company after its stock price more than doubled in a year as it grew rapidly in retail and cloud computing. Its shares traded as high as $2,050.50 before easing a little to end the session at $2,039.51, up 1.3 percent and just short of the milestone level of $2,050.2677. If the online retailer’s shares keep up their recent pace, it would be a matter of when, not if, Amazon’s stock market valuation eclipses that of iPhone maker Apple, which reached $1 trillion on Aug. 2. Apple took almost 38 years as a public company to achieve the trillion dollar milestone, while Amazon got there in 21 years. While Apple’s iPhone and other devices remain popular and its revenues are growing, it is not keeping up with Amazon’s blistering sales growth. Amazon has impressed investors by diversifying into virtually every corner of the retail industry, altering how consumers buy products and putting big pressure on many brick-and-mortar stores. “It says a lot about Amazon and its ever-increasing dominance of segments of the retailing world as well as the web services business,” said Peter Tuz, President Of Chase Investment Counsel In Charlottesville, Virginia. “They have a tiny share of the worldwide retail sales market so there’s a lot left to capture there.” (Graphic: Amazon vs. Apple: reut.rs/2PwtdRg) The Amazon.com logo and stock price information is seen on screens at the Nasdaq Market Site in New York City, New York, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Mike SegarAmazon also provides video streaming services and bought upscale supermarket Whole Foods. And its cloud computing services for companies have become its main profit driver. “Amazon’s a little bit more dynamic than Apple because the iPhone has become more mature. Amazon’s cloud business is an extra growth driver that Apple doesn’t have,” said Daniel Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta who describes Amazon’s cloud services as its “crown jewel.” In the second quarter the unit accounted for 55 percent of Amazon’s operating income and 20 percent of total revenue, according to Morgan. Apple started trading in December 1980 but its stock did not truly start to take flight for another 25 years, spurred by the iPhone, the breakthrough device that left competitors in the dust. Amazon - founded as an online book-retailer in Chief Executive Jeff Bezos’ garage in 1994 - started trading on May 15, 1997 at $1.50 on a split-adjusted basis. By October 2009 it had risen to $100 and the stock hit $1,000 for the first time on May 30, 2017. It has held above that level since Oct. 27, 2017. Just 10 months later, on Aug. 30, Amazon shares hit $2,000 for the first time, just $50 per share away from giving the company a $1 trillion market value. Slideshow (4 Images)(Graphic: Analyst Price Targets: reut.rs/2NHwHQq) The stock is up 74.5 percent year to date. In comparison, Apple has risen about 35.0percent in 2018. Analysts expect Apple’s revenue to jump 14.9 percent in its fiscal year ending in September, according to Thomson Reuters data, a hefty rise but still far short of Amazon’s expected revenue growth of 32 percent for 2018. Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York and Noel Randewich in San Francisco; additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Susan Thomas and Phil BerlowitzOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: There is one President Trump tweet in particular about Michael Flynn that is raising a lot of questions. Here's the full post from his Twitter account on Saturday. It reads, quote, "I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice president and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide," exclamation point - end quote.NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson is here to help us decipher this tweet and give us an update on special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation. Hi, Carrie.CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.KELLY: So that tweet I read has got people talking again about obstruction of justice. Explain why.JOHNSON: Well, that tweet seemed to suggest that the president knew when Flynn was forced out of the White House in February that he lied to the FBI. But nobody else seemed to know that at that point in the year. Donald Trump's personal lawyer John Dowd stepped up over the weekend to take blame or responsibility for the tweet. He says he's the one who wrote it, not the president.But it's raising a lot of questions about the extent of Trump's knowledge and his role that could pose some legal and political problems. Legally, did the president know that Mike Flynn lied when he asked Jim Comey to go easy on Mike Flynn? If so, that could factor into the obstruction of justice investigation. And politically, why did the president or the rest of the people in the White House keep Mike Flynn around so long if he misled the FBI just days after the inauguration?KELLY: Well, whoever wrote that tweet, the president has not stopped talking about Michael Flynn. He was talking about him once again this morning right as he was boarding Marine One for a trip out to Utah. Let's hear that.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I feel badly for General Flynn. I feel very badly. He's led a very strong life, and I feel very badly.KELLY: Meanwhile, Carrie, Flynn, we know, has agreed to cooperate with Mueller's investigation. Do we know how closely he is cooperating?JOHNSON: We don't know yet. Legal experts are still teasing out what exactly that plea deal means. We do know that one of the unnamed advisers in those court documents was presidential son-in-law White House adviser Jared Kushner. Kushner says he's cooperating with investigators. In fact he sat down with the special counsel team last month to talk about Mike Flynn.KELLY: What does that tell us about Kushner and his status then? I mean, if he is in some legal jeopardy himself possibly here, why would he agree to talk to the FBI and the special counsel?JOHNSON: I've been puzzling over that. I've been talking with lawyers involved in some of these high-profile investigations, and they say that Kushner and his lawyer may have determined that the risk for charges on the Logan Act is very low. Remember; the Logan Act's a federal law that makes it a crime for unauthorized people to negotiate with foreign governments.KELLY: But it's never been used to prosecute, right?JOHNSON: It's a couple hundred years old, never used. So Kushner and his lawyer may have determined his main legal exposure here involves failure to disclose and the risk of false statements. And that approach, you might want to go in and explain yourself to the special counsel, look like you're part of the solution, not part of the problem.KELLY: Meanwhile, one thing the White House has been at pains to stress is that these documents charging Flynn that were made public last week - they do not refer to President Trump personally. There is some new information about President Trump personally that you're reporting on today, though.JOHNSON: Yeah. We're reporting that Diana Denman, who was a Texas delegate at last year's Republican convention working on behalf of Senator Ted Cruz, is doing some interviews with congressional investigators this week. They want to ask her how the Republican platform changed last year with respect to support for Ukraine.Denman says the Trump foreign policy aide J.D. Gordon told her at the convention he was asking on behalf of the campaign when he tried to water down this Ukraine language. She says he called New York and told her he talked with Donald Trump himself.J.D. Gordon has told our colleague Ryan Lucas that he's disputing Denman's account that Gordon was the detail man, not the president of the United States. And Gordon said he didn't want to get into a he-said, she-said. But the special counsel and the FBI will have access to those phone records, and they're going to be able to tell with whom J.D. Gordon talked last year at the convention about this Ukraine business.KELLY: OK, so this is complicated - yet more names to keep track of in the Russian investigation. But the significance here, Carrie, would be whether Trump may have personally been involved with changing the GOP platform and what they might tell us about communications between the Trump campaign and Russia.JOHNSON: Exactly. And to be fair, J.D. Gordon says President Trump was on the record as a candidate last year that he did not want to start World War III, and he did not want to get into a major fight about Ukraine. So this position wouldn't be in contradiction to that.KELLY: That's NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Thanks, Carrie.JOHNSON: You're welcome.Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Bitcoin is going from bad to worse.A selloff that started last week picked up speed Tuesday, sending the price of the digital currency sliding. The latest plunge leaves bitcoin about 78% from its all-time high of roughly $19,800 in December. On Monday, the price fell below $5,000 for the first time since October 2017. Bitcoin fell about...

LONDON (Reuters) - The chances of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal are significant, a lawmaker from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party said on Wednesday, signaling its support for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s tough Brexit approach. Jeffrey Donaldson, a senior lawmaker in the DUP which props up the Conservative government, said the party agreed with Johnson that the only way to get a Brexit deal through parliament was to drop the so-called Irish backstop. “I think given the response of the Irish government in particular, who I believe are key to this issue of addressing UK concerns about the backstop, I think the prospect of a no deal is significant,” he told BBC radio. Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Guy FaulconbridgeOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Hundreds of indigenous women occupied a building of Brazil's health ministry in the capital, Brasília, on Monday to protest against the policies of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.The group of some 300 protesters demanded better healthcare for indigenous people, especially women, and condemned proposed changes to how these services are delivered.The Bolsonaro government wants to make towns and cities responsible for providing medical services to indigenous people, and community leaders fear local authorities lack the infrastructure and specialised units required.The federal government is currently in charge of healthcare, and indigenous communities are visited by specially trained professionals.The protesters, who are in the city for the first March of Indigenous Women, sang and danced inside and outside the building of the Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health, known as Sesai."We've been left abandoned. They treat indigenous people like animals," 43-year-old Teresa Cristina Kezonazokere told Correio Braziliense newspaper (in Portuguese).The demonstration ended almost 10 hours later, when Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said he would talk to some of their leaders. There were no reports of violence.Organisers say the event in Brasília aims to highlight the role of women in indigenous communities. On Wednesday, some 1,500 indigenous women from 110 ethnic groups are expected to join a protest to defend rights they say are under threat under Mr Bolsonaro."We don't have to accept the destruction of our rights," said indigenous leader Sônia Guajajara.'We fight for the right to exist'The president has promised to integrate indigenous people into the rest of the population and repeatedly questioned the existence of their protected reserves, which are rights guaranteed in the country's constitution.Mr Bolsonaro, who supports policies that favour development over conservation, says the indigenous territories are too big in relation to the number of people who live there and has promised to open some of them to agriculture and mining. Brazil's unlikely president 'Football pitch' of Amazon forest lost every minute More than 800,000 indigenous people live in 450 demarcated indigenous territories across Brazil - which cover about 12% of land. Most are located in the Amazon region and some people live totally isolated.Critics say Mr Bolsonaro's positions have encouraged illegal mining and invasions of reserves. Last month, an indigenous leader was stabbed to death, reportedly by heavily armed gold miners who had invaded a remote indigenous territory.Meanwhile, deforestation in the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, soared more than 88% in June compared with the same month a year ago, according to data from Brazil's National Space Research Institute, Inpe.But Mr Bolsonaro, who took office in January, has accused the institute of lying about the scale of the deforestation, and earlier this month sacked its head, Ricardo Galvão. The president and his ministers have also criticised the country's indigenous rights agency, Funai, and its environmental protection body, Ibama.All pictures subject to copyright.

It’s no secret that the past decade has seen a strong resurgence of the far right across Europe and North America. A new (or, arguably, very old) strain of xenophobic populism has contributed to Brexit, Trump’s presidency and the rhetoric of leaders like the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has promised to defend his “Christian homeland”.To say that these extremists have become emboldened would be an understatement; in fact, they are empowered, as in they are literally being elected into power.The international view of Canada tends to be that we are mostly untouched by this frightening trend. This is also how we see ourselves as a quasi-socialist paradise, with socialised medicine, anti-hate legislation and sensible gun laws. But if the past month and a half has proven anything, it’s that beneath our progressive veneer is an insidious undercurrent of violence.On 23 April, 25-year-old Alek Minassian deliberately drove a van onto a crowded Toronto sidewalk, killing 10 pedestrians, it is alleged. Shortly before the attack, Minassian apparently made a Facebook post declaring that the “incel rebellion” had begun. Immediately after the attack – while details about the alleged perpetrator were as yet unknown and there were still bodies on the ground – prominent white nationalist Faith Goldy was on the scene declaring it to be a “terrorist attack” by a “Middle Eastern” man. Goldy is formerly of Rebel Media, a far right Canadian outlet with an especial devotion to Islamophobia. Goldy and Rebel Media are representative of a growing far right scene in Canada, one that includes violently xenophobic groups such as La Meute and misogynistic MRA organisations such as Men’s Rights Edmonton and CAFE.Just a few weeks after the Toronto van attack, the New York Times ran a profile on Canadian academic-cum-pop-philosopher Jordan Peterson. Peterson’s star has been on the rise ever since he opposed a bill meant to protect the rights of trans people. Peterson, in a gross misrepresentation of the bill which has since passed into law, said it was an attack on free speech because it would force him to use people’s preferred pronouns. Peterson was asked by the New York Times to comment on the van attack; his response was to declare that the suspect, Minassian, was “angry at God because women were rejecting him.” The “cure” for this, according to Peterson, is “enforced monogamy” – his further comments appeared to suggest he agrees with Ross Douthat that the “redistribution of sex” is the only way to placate violent, entitled young men.At first glance, it might seem surprising that Peterson and Goldy come from a country that prides itself on diversity, tolerance and gee-golly-gosh niceness. But the truth is that the unrest we’re currently experiencing is as Canadian as maple syrup.White Canadians have long grappled with the question of who, exactly, we are. At the time of the country’s confederation, in 1867, we viewed ourselves as a child of Mother Britain, a colonial outpost that aimed to be more British than the British. This still applies, to some extent – Canada is a member of the Commonwealth, the government uses the British parliamentary system and the Queen is still on the dollar notes. These days, though, we’re more used to being represented, both at home and abroad, as America’s foil, a photographic negative rather than an image in its own right. On some level, this makes sense. America is a world superpower with an outsized reputation, and Canada has a bad case of little siblingitis. On another, more realistic level, it’s as if France could only ever describe its culture in terms of how very utterly not-Britain it is. Even our constitution seems like a polite middle finger to the US Declaration of Independence: where they champion life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we speak of peace, order and good government. If America is messy and loud, we are determined to be quiet and nice. And yet all too often our niceness isn’t much more than surface-deep.In many ways, Canada is indeed a progressive country, and our legislation – like the trans rights bill that Peterson so despised – arguably shows a continued commitment to creating an equitable society. At the same time, the idea that we’re already a tolerant, liberal country is often a stumbling block for Canadians. We do not like the suggestion that we still have work to do – although you don’t have to look much further than our government’s treatment of indigenous people to understand that we have a long way to go before the reality of Canada catches up with our perception of it. Because most Canadians already have a fixed idea of how good our country is, we tend to be sensitive to even the mildest criticism. If someone points out that we’ve said or done something bigoted, the reflexive response is “but I couldn’t possibly have, because I’m not a bigot; I’m not wrong, you’re wrong.”This cognitive dissonance between who we think we are and who we actually are is fertile ground for people such as Peterson, who provide quick answers in lieu of productive soul-searching. According to him, the real problem is “identity politics”, which are wielded by “social justice warriors” who want to destroy free speech.The result of all this is the radicalisation of a population of young, white, male Canadians. Some of these men are genuinely alarmed by the rise of so-called “liberal values”, but many of them will tell you that they believe in tolerance and equity; they’ll tell you that, in fact, these values are so abundant in our country that the tide has turned and their rights that are now being threatened. Some of these men will indulge in violent fantasies about how to restore the rights they imagine they’ve lost; sometimes, more often than we’d like to admit, that violence will spill over from fantasy to reality. And yet almost every single one of them will insist that they are, at their core, nice guys.It’s possible that Canada could someday become the diverse utopia it imagines itself to be, but before that happens we will need to take a long, hard look at where we are now. If we don’t like what we see, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Topics Canada Opinion The far right Freedom of speech Americas comment

Last July, as Donald Trump was conducting a US supreme court search that Brett Kavanaugh would later gushingly praise for its “careful attention,” Mitch McConnell sent a private warning to the White House. The Senate majority leader urged the president to choose someone other than Kavanaugh because the federal appeals court judge had too long a public record dating back to his days as a top assistant to Grand Inquisitor Kenneth Starr.It is possible that McConnell was also concerned about something personal on Kavanaugh’s record in addition to his paper trail from the George W Bush White House. But Trump, whose idea of a “listening tour” is to watch recordings of his own rallies, turned a deaf ear to McConnell’s plea. The selling point for Trump may have been Kavanaugh’s extreme belief that a president (even one who watches Fox News all day) is far too busy to be questioned by an outside investigation.Now the nomination is teetering on the precipice after Christine Blasey Ford went public Sunday with her allegation that a drunk Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a 15-year-old at a high-school party. As for McConnell, whose political career has been a portrait in cynicism, he now faces a choice between trying to save Kavanaugh and trying to save his suddenly imperiled Senate majority. Assuming it comes off as scheduled, next Monday’s Kavanaugh-versus-Ford hearing could shape the fall elections. Led by a shameless president with a less than upright Jimmy Carter-esque sexual history, the pyrotechnics surrounding the Capitol Hill confrontation could make the ordeal of Anita Hill seem restrained and dignified in comparison. Already, Donald Trump Jr, a son who loyally emulates his father with every crude gesture, has posted on Instagram a humorless joke ridiculing Ford’s accusations. The confirmation of Kavanaugh under these ugly circumstances would represent a victory for Trump – and virtually no one else in the Republican Party. With Kavanaugh on the supreme court for its opening session in October, the president would be blessed with a justice almost certain to support him if Trump decided to defy a subpoena from Robert Mueller. Already, the talking points that loyal Republicans were parroting on the Sunday morning shows sound like they were written during insensitivity training. On Fox News Sunday, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy complained about the anonymous “lady in the letter” who claimed that when “Judge Kavanaugh was a teenager, he allegedly made sexual advances against her at a party.”Now Ford is no longer anonymous. And an alleged attack that caused Ford to worry that Kavanaugh “might inadvertently kill me” is a far cry from Kennedy’s vague references to “sexual advances.” Once Republicans thought that they could politically exploit the votes of red-state Democratic senators who opposed Kavanaugh. Now vulnerable Senate Democrats like Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota) and Claire McCaskill (Missouri) have a convincing non-ideological explanation for voting against the nominee. Not only would McConnell’s scorched-earth battle for Kavanaugh unite the 49 Senate Democrats, but it would also put beleaguered Republican incumbents like Nevada’s Dean Heller and even the fiercely ideological Ted Cruz in Texas in an uncomfortable position. Then there is Republican House member Martha McSally, who is running for the Arizona Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake. McSally, who once called the Access Hollywood tape “disgusting,” had to embrace Trump to survive a vicious right-wing primary challenge last month. Now she will face an even trickier decision on the campaign trail after describing the charges against Kavanaugh as a “very serious allegation.” Do Republicans in tight Senate races like McSally stand with the president and McConnell in stouthearted defense of an accused sexual predator or do they risk the wrath of Trump voters by abandoning Kavanaugh in his desperate hours? McConnell is boxed. The more he fights for Kavanaugh, the more he risks alienating women voters in November. Already, political analyst Nate Silver gives the Democrats a 30% chance of winning back the Senate, despite a political map tilted towards the Republicans like a rigged roulette wheel. If the Republicans go too far in defaming Ford, they risk the greatest gender-based political uprising since the suffragette movement. But the situation is equally dispiriting for McConnell if Kavanaugh withdraws or loses on the Senate floor. Trying to jam through the next name on the Federalist Society’s list in a post-election session would also arouse united opposition from the Democrats who remember that McConnell refused to grant Merrick Garland even a hearing in the election year of 2016. Waiting for a new Senate in 2019 would mean that pro-abortion-rights Republican senators like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are more likely to be skittish about their own 2020 reelection prospects. Too many pundits have hailed McConnell’s supposed political genius as he pursued a right-wing agenda while offering fealty to a president he obviously scorns. With Brett Kavanaugh, McConnell finally may be paying the price for his craven willingness to truckle to Trump. Topics Brett Kavanaugh Opinion US supreme court Law (US) comment

CARACAS (Reuters) - Socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused the Trump administration on Thursday of seeking to assassinate him, as relations strain between the ideologically opposed nations. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro attends an event with workers in Caracas, Venezuela October 11, 2018. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS Asked about Maduro’s comments, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council said: “U.S. policy preference for a peaceful, orderly return to democracy in Venezuela remains unchanged.” Venezuela’s opposition says Maduro lobs ludicrous accusations at enemies to deflect from his own incompetence. Almost 2 million Venezuelans have fled the ailing oil-rich nation since 2015, driven out by brutal food and medicine shortages, hyperinflation, and violent crime. Washington has imposed sanctions on Venezuela, denouncing Maduro as a dictator who has quashed human rights and triggered an economic meltdown. The White House accused Maduro’s government on Wednesday of involvement in the death of a jailed Venezuelan politician whom authorities say killed himself but whom opposition parties say was murdered. Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, said in a televised broadcast on Thursday night the United States had asked the government in neighboring Colombia to kill him. “They have given the order from the White House that Maduro be killed,” said Maduro, flanked by workers. He vowed that “they will not even touch a single hair of mine.” Maduro did not give an explanation for his accusations and did not provide any evidence. Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for further information. Maduro contends that he is the victim of an “economic war” led by U.S.-backed adversaries. He denies limiting political freedoms, insisting that Washington-supported opposition leaders have plotted assassination attempts and sought to overthrow him through violent street protests. Reporting by Corina Pons; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Sandra Maler and Paul TaitOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) - The charred remains of 14 more people have been found in and around a Northern California town overrun by flames from a massive wildfire, officials said on Saturday, raising the death toll to at least 23. The bodies were recovered in and around Paradise, a mountain community some 90 miles (145 km) north of Sacramento that has been left devastated by the Camp Fire, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Scott Maclean said. Maclean said no details were immediately available about the circumstances of the deaths and that the victims’ badly burned condition would make identification difficult. The Camp Fire burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in Paradise, more structures than any other California wildfire on record, and the death toll, which could still rise, also makes it one of the deadliest. Only the Griffith Park Fire in 1933 and Tunnel Fire in 1991 have claimed more lives. Several of the bodies discovered earlier this week were found in or near burned out cars, police have said. The flames descended on Paradise so fast that many people were forced to abandon their vehicles and run for their lives down the sole road through the mountain town. An additional 35 people have been reported missing and three firefighters have been injured. It was not immediately clear if any of the missing were among those found dead. As of Saturday afternoon, the Camp Fire had blackened more than 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares) at the edge of the Plumas National Forest. Crews had cut containment lines around about 20 percent of the blaze. Related CoverageMalibu burning: Kardashians, Lady Gaga, Cher fear for homesUtility stocks plummet as California wildfires spreadAbout 500 miles (800 km) to the south, the Woolsey Fire burning in the foothills above Malibu doubled in size over Friday night into Saturday, threatening thousands of homes after triggering mandatory evacuation orders for a quarter million people in the upscale beach city as well as other communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The fire has destroyed at least 177 homes and other structures with a full count still under way, and has now charred more than 83,000 acres as of late Saturday, officials said in a release. “Our firefighters have been facing some extreme, tough fire conditions that they said that they’ve never seen in their lives,” said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby. He said crews hoped to take advantage of a lull on Saturday in the fierce Santa Ana winds driving the flames, but that gusts could return on Sunday. All 13,000 residents of Malibu, which is 30 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, were told to get out on Friday. Two bodies were discovered in the community on Saturday but it was too early to determine if they died from the Woolsey fire or another cause, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said. Firefighters took advantage of a lull in winds on Saturday to build containment lines around five percent of the conflagration but warned that gusts were expected to pick up again on Sunday. A destroyed home is seen as the Woolsey Fire continues to burn in Malibu, California, U.S. November 10, 2018. REUTERS/Eric ThayerThe Woolsey Fire broke out on Thursday in Ventura County near Los Angeles and quickly jumped the 101 Freeway, a major north-south artery, in several places. On Friday, it crossed the Santa Monica Mountains toward Malibu, where flames driven by wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour (80 kph) raced down hillsides and through canyons toward multi-million dollar homes. Early on Saturday, flames approached Malibu’s Pepperdine University, a private residential college with 7,700 students, where many remained sheltered on the main campus. School officials told the students that they have been assured by fire officials that the university’s buildings were built to withstand fire. Among those forced to flee the Malibu area were celebrities including Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian, who said on Twitter that flames had damaged the home she shares in nearby Calabasas with Kanye West. In Ventura County, most of the town of Thousand Oaks was ordered evacuated, adding to the anguish days after a gunman killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at a bar. President Donald Trump, weighing in on the emergency during a trip to France, said early on Saturday that “gross mismanagement of forests” was to blame. “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” he wrote in a Twitter post. Trump, a Republican, has previously blamed California officials for fires and threatened to withhold funding, saying the state should do more to remove rotten trees and other debris that fuel blazes. Slideshow (28 Images)State officials have blamed climate change and say many of the burn areas have been in federally-managed lands. “Our focus is on the Californians impacted by these fires and the first responders and firefighters working around the clock to save lives and property - not on the President’s inane and uninformed tweets,” said Evan Westrub, a spokesman for California Governor Jerry Brown. Reporting by Stephen Lam in Paradise; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Marguerita Choy and Daniel WallisOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The huge cost of a no-deal Brexit was laid bare on Wednesday as the government announced plans to set aside an extra £2.1bn for preparations including stockpiling of medicines, an extra 500 border officials and a public awareness campaign about disruption.Boris Johnson is ramping up the funding for a no-deal Brexit on 31 October though he claims that reaching a deal with the EU is his preference.The move, announced by Sajid Javid, the chancellor, is designed to show Brussels that the UK is ready and willing to countenance leaving without a deal in three months’ time.Javid will provide a new immediate cash boost of £1.1bn and make a further £1bn available if necessary, taking the total allocation of spending this year alone up to £6.3bn.From that cash injection about £344m will go to border operations; another 500 officers will be added to the 500 already promised this year. The aim is to improve processing of passport applications, increase training for customs staff to help businesses with declarations, and improve readiness for transport disruption around Kent ports.Another £434m will go towards ensuring continuity of vital medicines and medical products, covering freight capacity, warehousing and stockpiling, while £108m will be spent on helping businesses understand the challenges they face.Around £138m is allocated to a new public awareness campaign involving advertising, consular help for Brits living abroad and support for local areas, including Northern Ireland.Labour branded the spending an “appalling waste of tax-payers’ cash, all for the sake of Boris Johnson’s drive towards a totally avoidable no deal”, especially as the majority of MPs had made clear their intention to block an exit without a withdrawal agreement.John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said: “This government could have ruled out no deal, and spent these billions on our schools, hospitals, and people.“Labour is a party for the whole of the UK, so we’ll do all we can to block a no-deal, crash-out Brexit, and we’ll deliver a transformative economic policy that delivers for the many, not the few.”Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, vowed to scrutinise the spending. “Just because Boris Johnson is making it sound like he’s fighting a war, with seven-days-a-week meetings in Whitehall, that is not licence to spend taxpayers’ money like water, throwing good money after bad.“It is of course responsible for a government to be prepared for an emergency. But this is an emergency of the government’s own making – boring though it may be that taxpayers’ money could be spent on essential public services. There isn’t much headroom. There is a bit more than there was but not much. And I don’t think his spending pledges add up.”She also cast doubt on how 500 additional border officials could be recruited and trained properly within the next three months. A Treasury source said the border officials would be a mix of existing staff retrained and redeployed on no-deal Brexit duties and new recruits.Insiders have told the Guardian that in previous planning for a no deal in March, HMRC forecast that around 5,500 extra staff would be needed, with the majority in “customer compliance”. Insiders warned that those working on surveillance and smuggling needed years of training.There were internal arguments that more staff were needed considering that before the single market there were 100,000 staff dealing with all aspects of customs, passport checks, immigration controls and regulatory standards. While the government has said it will not be imposing any customs or checks such as food standards on the border in a no-deal Brexit, it is planning to impose tariffs which will require extra staff.A cabinet source said the government was unleashing more spending because of concerns that businesses were not taking the threat of a no-deal Brexit seriously enough, after that possibility had been averted on 29 March.The business lobby group the CBI warned this week that neither the UK nor the EU was ready for a no-deal Brexit on 31 October, saying “some aspects cannot be mitigated”.The Institute for Goverment also issued a report on Monday saying there was “no such thing as a managed no deal” and that the hard Brexiters predictions of a “clean break” from the EU would not materialise.However, Johnson has sought to make clear he will not accept the current withdrawal agreement from the EU with its “undemocratic backstop”. He is gearing up to blame Brussels for a no-deal Brexit if they refuse to take the backstop out of the deal.In the next 48 hours, David Frost, Johnson’s most senior EU adviser and Brexit negotiator, will go to Brussels to deliver in person the message to officials that the UK will leave without a deal unless the bloc abolishes the Irish backstop.Javid, a former remain voter, who has said he stands ready to support a no-deal Brexit, said: “With 92 days until the UK leaves the European Union it’s vital that we intensify our planning to ensure we are ready. We want to get a good deal that abolishes the anti-democratic backstop. But if we can’t get a good deal we’ll have to leave without one. This additional £2.1bn will ensure we are ready to leave on 31 October – deal or no deal.”MPs have started their summer recess from parliament but a number of Conservatives are taking time out to consider how to stop a no-deal Brexit or whether they can even remain as members of their party if Johnson decides to pursue a deliberate path of leaving without a deal.Phillip Lee, the Tory MP for Bracknell, told the podcast On The House that he was “increasingly feeling politically homeless” and he was “going to spend the summer thinking a lot”. Margot James, another Conservative former minister, told the Guardian last week she could not campaign for a no-deal Brexit at an election, while others such as Philip Hammond, and Dominic Grieve, have signalled that they could vote to collapse a government intent on a no deal.Johnson is facing extremely tight parliamentary arithmetic to gain approval in the Commons for a no-deal Brexit. He has a majority of two with the DUP that would fall to one if the party lost the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection on Thursday.The prime minister’s senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, has told senior staff that No 10 was prepared to use “any means necessary” to secure Brexit on 31 October, and that Johnson has not ruled out suspending parliament to try to force it through.There has been speculation that Johnson could call an election if parliament reached another impasse, although he has repeatedly said he would not do that before Brexit. He is expected to announce more spending on the NHS and details of a hospital upgrade programme within the coming days and has been repeating a campaign pledge about 20,000 extra police at every opportunity.Speaking to a newly established national policing board on Wednesday, Johnson said the creation of the board was an “absolutely crucial development” for dealing with knife crime.He said: “We need to be getting crime down. We’ve done very well in some respects but too many crime types have been going in the wrong direction.“And we can crack it. The answer is, I think, that you need strong, visible policing. Saj [the chancellor] is going to provide the money. And we will get it done in the course of the next three years.” Topics Brexit Boris Johnson Sajid Javid John McDonnell Conservatives Ireland HMRC news

The price of bitcoin peaked in mid-December 2017. Since then, it’s lost roughly 80% of its value. Of course, this isn’t the first time the cryptocurrency went ice cold.The previous “crypto winter,” between December 2013 and February 2015, also saw bitcoin shed 80% of its value. In fact, the value destruction during these two episodes ended up at almost exactly the same spot (in relative terms) at the same point past the peak—that is, 440-odd days after the all-time high.If you think that the bitcoin price will follow a similar trajectory as before—for whatever reason—then history suggests patience is needed: It took bitcoin two years from its trough in early 2015 to return to its previous peak above $1,000. Bitcoin’s most recent trough was in mid-December 2018, so investors who bought at the top, when bitcoin hit $20,000, may have to wait until Christmas 2020 to recoup their losses. Are you willing to take that bet?A version of this originally appeared as part of Private Key, a twice-weekly feature about crypto, blockchain, and decentralized economies for Quartz members. Sign up to become a member, which includes a seven-day free trial.

Enlarge this image President Donald Trump says he will order the Department of Justice to look into whether the Trump campaign was watched "for political purposes." Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Alex Wong/Getty Images President Donald Trump says he will order the Department of Justice to look into whether the Trump campaign was watched "for political purposes." Alex Wong/Getty Images President Trump says that, on Monday, he will order an investigation into whether the FBI and the Department of Justice "infiltrated or surveilled" his campaign "for political purposes," potentially setting up a showdown between the president and his intelligence and law enforcement agencies."I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" Trump tweeted, after a string of other tweets denigrating the special counsel's investigation into Russian election interference.The White House did not immediately provide guidance on what exactly Trump meant in terms of actions to be taken on Monday. The Department of Justice responded by integrating the president's request into an investigation that's already underway within the department, but it's unclear whether that will satisfy the president. National Security A Year Into The Job, 3 Big Lessons About Special Counsel Robert Mueller The Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is investigating the surveillance practices by the FBI and DOJ related to the Russia investigation. That probe began after Republican lawmakers alleged that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was improperly targeted for surveillance in the early days of the Russia investigation.After Trump's tweets on Sunday, the Justice Department formally asked the inspector general to expand its review to include tactics used against Trump campaign aides and advisers."If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action," said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.Trump's tweet came towards the end of a weekend that was dominated with talk about confidential sources. Reports emerged on Friday that a man who met with Trump campaign aides on multiple occasions in 2016 was an FBI informant.Trump has grown frustrated with the Justice Department for refusing to turn over to congressional Republicans documents related to the informant. But intelligence officials say turning over the documents would put the source at risk, according to The Washington Post. National Security Justice Department's Internal Watchdog To Review Alleged Surveillance Abuses Politics: Fact Check FACT CHECK: Sessions Vows To Probe FISA Abuse, But Trump's Patience Appears Thin In addition on Sunday, Trump continued to attack the credibility of Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation into Russian election interference, calling the probe "the world's most expensive witch hunt."The president's outside lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told NPR that Mueller's office has told the president's legal team that the part of the investigation involving the president—both the question of obstruction and collusion—would conclude by Sept. 1 if the much-debated interview with Trump takes place by mid-July.On Sunday, legal experts wondered how the Trump-appointed heads of the FBI and DOJ would respond to his demand for an investigation into the probe looking at his campaign if the Justice Department's accommodation ends up not being enough.Benjamin Wittes, a senior governance fellow at the Brookings Institution and the editor-in-chief of Lawfare, posted a tweet that called Trump's move "a nakedly corrupt attempt" to derail the investigation and predicted that forcing a probe would prompt both Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign.