Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s headlines. If you’d like to receive this briefing by email, sign up here.Federal agents have searched a mail distribution centre in Opa-locka, Florida, as the search narrows for a suspect in the investigation of 10 pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats and critics of Donald Trump. The homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, told Fox News she was “confident” the person responsible would be brought to justice. Blame game. The White House rejected suggestions that Trump had contributed to a charged political climate that could have inspired the bombing attempts. In a tweet, Trump instead blamed “the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media”. Trump critics. On Thursday the FBI was examining packages addressed to the former US vice-president Joe Biden and to the actor Robert De Niro, both of whom have publicly condemned the president. The Trump administration is planning to send at least 800 active duty troops to the border with Mexico, as the president seeks to inflame tensions over immigration in the run-up to the midterms. On the campaign trail, Trump has stoked his supporters’ fears over a migrant caravan approaching the US from Central America. On Thursday, the New York Times and Politico reported he was considering an executive action to bar migrants, including asylum seekers, from entering the US via the southern border. Honduras violence. More than 50 members of Congress have called on Trump to investigate “alarming” human rights conditions in Honduras, where the caravan began its journey. Border reality. Despite the president’s fear-mongering, illegal border crossings have declined dramatically in the 21st century. Life remains precarious for many residents of the Florida Panhandle in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, which struck the region with record 150mph winds two weeks ago and left at least 39 people dead. Jamiles Lartey reports from Port St Joe, one of the hardest-hit coastal towns, where some basic utilities are still months from being restored, but where residents say they are determined to rebuild. Climate change sceptic. Rick Scott, the Florida governor, has seen his early poll lead wiped out in his bid for the US senate seat held by the Democrat Bill Nelson. Many blame Scott’s diminishing popularity on his rollback of environmental protections. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has demanded Saudi Arabia reveal the whereabouts of the body of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi and identify an unnamed “local collaborator”, whom Saudi authorities claim disposed of the body after rolling it up in a rug. Exerting further pressure on his regional rival, Erdoğan said the 18 men arrested in Saudi Arabia over the murder “must know” who killed Khashoggi and where his body was taken. Moral high ground? Erdoğan’s critics have warned against giving him too much credit for his response to Khashoggi’s death, given the Turkish president is the world’s most prolific jailer of journalists. On the last day of the Guardian’s week of stories from Atlanta, Steve Fennessy visits Pinewood Atlanta Studios, a sprawling movie production facility that reflects Georgia’s rise as a filmmaking hothouse to rival Hollywood. The UK retail tycoon Sir Philip Green is facing multiple sexual harassment and bullying allegations in what has been described as a “British #MeToo scandal”. Green has categorically denied any unlawful behaviour. The world’s billionaires made more money in 2017 than in any previously recorded year, increasing their collective wealth by 20%, according to a report by the Swiss bank UBS. Scientists from the US Geological Survey have classified 18 US volcanoes as “very high threat” because of their activity and proximity to people, in the first such assessment since 2005. A group of women who sued Google for pay discrimination are advancing a class-action lawsuit that could affect more than 8,000 workers. Barbra Streisand’s musical rebuke to TrumpBarbra Streisand’s new album, Walls, is a return to form – and a well-manicured middle-finger to the 45th president of the United States, she tells Emma Brockes. “This is a dangerous time in this nation, this republic: a man who is corrupt and indecent and is assaulting our institutions. It’s really, really frightening.”How Simone Biles became a gymnastics superpowerThere has never been any doubt about Simon Biles’ dominance on the mat. But the 21-year-old’s recent role in the quick exit of a controversial new USA Gymnastics chief has proven just how much power she wields beyond the competition hall, writes Beau Dore.Is America ready for a wave of Bernie-inspired socialists?Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just one of a slew of leftwing Democrats running in the midterms. Whether they win in November or not, progressives say theirs is a long-term project, comparable to Goldwater conservatism. Adam Gabbatt reports.American political violence often serves the interests of the public authorities, even when it is perpetrated by private individuals. That is how to see the bombs sent to Barack Obama and other political opponents of Donald Trump, Andrew Gawthorpe argues. It is no surprise that this febrile atmosphere, in which any lie can be justified if it paints the president’s opponents as traitors, would lead to violence. A resurgent Mesut Özil has earned his spot in Unai Emery’s Arsenal line-up, while Fred is still waiting for a chance to prove himself at Jose Mourinho’s Man United. Those are just two of the 10 things to look out for at this weekend’s Premier League games.The NBA travel schedule is more punishing than that of any other professional sports league. So how does jet lag affect the teams, asks Ian McMahan.The US morning briefing is delivered by email every weekday. If you are not already receiving it, make sure to subscribe.We’d like to acknowledge our generous supporters who enable us to keep reporting on the critical stories. If you value what we do and would like to help, please make a contribution or become a supporter today. Thank you. Topics US pipe bomb packages US morning briefing Hurricane Michael Florida news

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

Igor Kosotorov wasn’t a serving member of the Russian army. But relatives of the 45-year-old grocery shop owner believe he is among scores of Russian citizens killed this month in an airstrike by a US-led coalition near Deir al-Zour, an oil-rich territory in eastern Syria.While the numbers remain unclear, a picture is emerging of some of those believed to have died; some were battle-hardened veterans of Moscow’s war in eastern Ukraine, inspired to travel to Syria by patriotism or a resurgent sense of Russian nationalism. Others were simply hoping for a lucrative payday.All were, according to multiple sources, employed by the Wagner Group, a shadowy Kremlin-linked private military contractor. Critics say Moscow uses mercenaries from Wagner to keep official military losses in Syria low. The official Russian army death toll in Syria last year was sixteen soldiers, although dozens of mercenaries are believed to have died.“Igor was a former army sniper. He went to Syria because he was a patriot. He believed that if we don’t stop Islamic State in Syria, then they will come to us, to Russia,” Nadezhda Kosotorova, his ex-wife, told the Guardian in a telephone interview from her home in Asbest, in the Urals region. “He told me that if he didn’t go, then the authorities would just send young kids, with almost no military experience.”She said she had remained close to Kosotorov after their divorce, but he had not told her who arranged his journey to Syria. News of his reported death reached her through informal channels. “I’m collecting information bit-by-bit from different sources trying to find out where the bodies of the dead might be,” she said. When asked why Russian authorities had not contacted her, she sighed. “This is a political game that I don’t understand,” she said.The airstrike marked the first time Russians had died at the hands of the US in Syria since the Kremlin entered the conflict on the side of President Bashar a-Assad in 2015, helping the regime to turn its fortunes around in the multi-front war. Mikhail Polynkov, a nationalist blogger, wrote in an online post that he had visited men injured in the attack at an unnamed hospital in Russia: “My sources told me 200 men had died from one unit alone.”But as the first reports of the deaths swirled last week on social media, the Kremlin stayed tight-lipped.Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said it was possible some Russian citizens were in Syria, but that the Kremlin only possessed information about Russian servicemen. Speaking on Thursday, Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, said reports of a death toll higher than five were “classic disinformation”.“In the conflict zones there are many citizens from all parts of the world, including Russia ... it is extremely difficult to monitor them and to check what they are doing,” Zakharova said.Aside from Kosotorov, at least nine men are believed to have travelled to Syria from Asbest and the surrounding region to fight with Wagner in recent months, according to reports.“They just threw them into battle like pigs,” said Yelena Matveyeva, the widow of Stanislav Matveyev, a 38-year-old mercenary from Asbest who is also believed to have died.“Wherever they sent them, they had no protection,” Matveyeva told RFE/RL in an interview. She said Russian authorities should acknowledge citizens who die fighting in Syria, and where possible, help to repatriate bodies. “There should be something in their memory, so that the wives won’t be ashamed of their husbands and their children can be proud.”Some 1,100 miles east from Moscow, Asbest, with a population of 70,000, is home to the world’s largest open-pit asbestos mine. Official average salaries are around 25,000 roubles (£314 pounds) a month, and residents are plagued by ill-health.In contrast, monthly salaries for Wagner employees in Syria range from 90,000 roubles (£1,132) for a rank-and-file combatant to 250,000 (£3,147) for a military specialist, said Ruslan Leviev, the founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an investigative group that researches Russian casualties in Syria.Critics said the Kremlin’s reluctance to acknowledge, let alone honour the Russians who died in the confrontation with US-led forces was in stark contrast to the hero’s funeral given last month to Roman Filipov, an air force pilot shot down over Syria.“One gets medals and honours, while others are buried quietly and forgotten about,” Nadezhda, another woman who claims her husband had died while fighting as a mercenary in Syria in October, told the Guardian in an online conversation.Other Russian citizens reported to have died in the February clash include Kirill Ananyev, a member of the radical leftist Other Russia party. “He went to Syria because he liked fighting – Russians are very capable of that,” said Alexander Averin, a spokesman for the movement.Despite the anger of relatives, some defend Putin’s reluctance to publicise the deaths.“The authorities have the right to hush up information in the interests of the country,” said Alexander Prokhanov, a nationalist writer who is believed to be close to high-ranking members of the Russian security services. “These people who died were warned before they went to Syria that they would not receive military honours if they perished there.” Topics Russia Syria Islamic State Europe Middle East and North Africa news

Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If you’re interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox.Trump’s Tabloid FriendAnother day, another high-profile witness in the Russia investigation. On Thursday, Stephen Colbert unpacked the news that David Pecker — the publisher of The National Enquirer and a close ally of President Trump — had admitted to prosecutors that he made hush-money payments to a Playboy model to shield Trump’s presidential campaign.Colbert found plenty of angles of attack.“Yes, Trump’s friend is named David Pecker. Go ahead and laugh — I know it’s funny — the idea of Donald Trump having a friend.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Trump may have paid off Stormy Daniels, but yesterday, court papers revealed that The Enquirer paid Karen McDougal for exclusive rights to her story about her affair with Trump, then they buried the story. It’s a practice in tabloid news known as catch and kill. Which is also what Eric and Don Jr. call a day at the zoo.” — STEPHEN COLBERTTrump Cancels a Holiday Party for the MediaThe White House announced on Thursday that it would cancel this year’s holiday party for members of the press.Some commentators have interpreted it as a swipe at the news media from the White House. But James Corden joked that maybe Team Trump just couldn’t find enough journalists interested in partying with them.“Now, does it technically count as canceling if nobody R.S.V.P.’d?” — JAMES CORDEN“Trump actually had a good excuse. He was like, ‘Why would I host a bunch of people who can’t stand me and want me out of office? If I wanted to do that, I’d spend the evening with Melania.’” — JAMES CORDEN“To me it makes sense for the president to cancel this party. I mean, what kind of party would this be? What would his toast be? ‘Welcome, enemies of the people?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Not only did he cancel the press party, he’s also very close to canceling the Republican Party as a whole.” — JIMMY KIMMEL‘The Law and Order Candidate’With Trump in hot water legally, Trevor Noah ran back tape of Trump and his allies proclaiming their commitment to the rule of law, from various moments throughout the campaign and his presidency. In one clip from 2016, Trump tells a crowd: “I am the law and order candidate!”Noah mocked Trump with an impersonation:“That’s right folks. I am the law and order candidate. As in: I will break the law, in order to become president.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Apple Edition)“Apple just announced that it will be building a brand-new, $1 billion campus in Austin, Tex. The project is part of Apple’s plan to create 20,000 new jobs. Now that’s great — maybe one of those 20,000 new employees can figure out how to make it so iTunes doesn’t ask me to update it every two hours.” — JAMES CORDEN“The fashion brand behind the red coat that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi wore after a meeting with President Trump announced that the coat will be added to their 2019 collection. While Chuck Schumer’s glasses will be added to the CVS readers’ carousel.” — SETH MEYERS“During a new Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, first lady Melania Trump was asked the moment she and Donald fell in love. Said Melania, ‘I’ll let you know.’” — SETH MEYERS“It is the holiday season and I read that every day 750,000 people visit Rockefeller Center. Yep, they spent three seconds looking at the tree and then three hours trying to leave.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingWho knew Jimmy Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo, was such a “Dancing With the Stars” devotee?“Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.”Also, Check This OutImage

10. Trump SuperPAC Funding: Related to the news about the inauguration inquiries was word that prosecutors are digging into the funding of a Trump SuperPAC, Rebuilding America Now, where Paul Manafort also played a role.Status: No public court activity yet, but Manafort aide Sam Patten is cooperating with investigators.11. Foreign Lobbying: Robert Mueller also handed off information he uncovered during the Manafort money laundering probe to prosecutors in New York. According to news reports, he referred questions about at least a trio of other lobbyists—Tony Podesta, Vin Weber, and Greg Craig—and whether they allegedly failed to appropriately register as foreign agents for work related to Ukraine. Podesta abruptly closed his eponymous lobbying firm last year, and Mueller had previously been interested in the work done by Mercury LLC, Weber’s firm, as well as the law firm Skadden Arps, where Craig worked until earlier this year. Skadden Arps also employed the Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with Rick Gates.Status: Rick Gates is cooperating with investigators.Status: Maria Butina has pleaded guilty and is cooperating.13. Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova: The alleged chief accountant of the Internet Research Agency was indicted separately earlier this fall by prosecutors in northern Virginia and the Justice Department’s unit that handles counterintelligence and espionage cases, not by Mueller’s special counsel office. Khusyaynova was charged with activity that went above and beyond the 2016 campaign, including efforts to meddle in this year’s midterms. Why she was prosecuted separately remains a puzzle.Status: Khusyaynova has been indicted.14. Turkish Influence: According to court documents, Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn contributed to two investigations beyond the Russia probe. While both were redacted in his court case, there are strong hints, including reporting by The New York Times, that one of those two cases includes a grand jury in northern Virginia focused on illegal influence by the Turkish government. According to the Times, “Prosecutors are examining Mr. Flynn’s former business partners and clients who financed a campaign against Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in Pennsylvania whom the Turkish government has accused of helping instigate a failed coup.” Flynn’s own sentencing documents allude to the fact that Flynn handed over voluminous records from his own businesses.Status: Michael Flynn’s plea agreement includes some details of the case. Flynn is cooperating with investigators.Investigations by New York City, New York State, & Other State Attorneys General15. Tax Case: In the wake of a New York Times investigation that found Donald Trump had apparently benefited from upwards of $400 million in tax schemes, city officials said they were investigating Trump’s tax payments, as did the New York State Tax Department. Longtime lawyer and Trump fixer Cohen also reported in his own court filing that he met with investigators from the New York Attorney General’s Office, although the court filings didn’t explain what the investigation entailed.

Donald Trump says he fears that an interview with the special counsel Robert Mueller would be a “perjury trap” – while pointing out that he could “run” the Russia investigation himself if he chose to.In a wide-ranging White House interview with the Reuters news agency on Monday, the US president expressed fears that investigators could compare his statements with those of others who have testified in the inquiry, such as the former FBI director James Comey, and that any discrepancies could be used against him.“Even if I’m telling the truth, that makes me a liar,” said Trump. “That’s no good.”But he also asserted his authority, as president, over the investigation. “I’ve decided to stay out. Now, I don’t have to stay out, as you know. I can go in and I could ... do whatever, said Trump. “I could run it if I want.”Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s legal team, has regularly warned that being interviewed by Mueller in the investigation, which is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election and allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, would be a perjury trap for the president.The statements came only hours after Trump renewed his attacks on Mueller in one of his regular morning Twitter storms. He described the former FBI director as “disgraced and discredited” and repeated claims that the investigation was a “Rigged Witch Hunt” while calling it “a National Disgrace”.In the Reuters interview, Trump also renewed criticisms of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, over the detainment of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor whom Turkey claims was involved in a coup attempt two years ago. “I think it’s very sad what Turkey is doing. I think they’re making a terrible mistake. There will be no concessions,” said Trump.The US has recently imposed tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum in an attempt to pressure Erdoğan to release the imprisoned American. Trump also said that Erdoğan had violated a deal reached in July under which Brunson would be released if the US could successfully pressure Israel to release Ebu Ozkan, a Turkish woman facing charges of aiding the fundamentalist group Hamas. Ozkan has since been released and Trump said that Erdoğan had not kept up his end of the bargain. Trump also indicated that he would “most likely” meet again with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. The two held a much vaunted summit in Singapore in June, which Trump has repeatedly hailed as a success although the North Korean regime has shown no indications that it would accede to American demands that it denuclearize.On domestic policy, Trump yet again criticized Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, for raising interest rates, saying he was “not thrilled”. It is unusual for a president to criticize the chairman of the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be independent of politics. However, Trump has criticized Powell, whom he nominated in 2017, several times in recent months. He said the US central bank should do more to help him to boost the economy.“We’re negotiating very powerfully and strongly with other nations. We’re going to win. But during this period of time I should be given some help by the Fed,” he said. Topics Donald Trump Trump-Russia investigation Trump administration Robert Mueller US politics Russia news

Slight, urbane and with a doctorate in economics, Grace Meng seems an unlikely candidate to take on the might of the Chinese state.Until last month she was living in expatriate obscurity in the French city of Lyon, where her husband, Meng Hongwei, served as the first Chinese head of Interpol – apparently a great source of national pride. Then, on a routine visit home in September, he vanished. He sent her a short message: “Wait for my call,” followed by an emoji of a knife, then silence. His call never came.Within two weeks Grace Meng was catapulted on to front pages worldwide, accusing Beijing of persecution after Chinese authorities admitted her husband had been detained and was under investigation for corruption. She insists he is innocent, and says the charges are a vendetta driven by rivals in the security ministry, where he held the post of vice-minister while serving at Interpol. The case has cast a spotlight on China’s authoritarian system, and the government’s willingness to disregard international norms and borders in its pursuit of domestic goals.For decades, Meng Hongwei helped run the security system that eventually swept him up. But when his turn came there was one crucial difference from the vast majority of the families torn apart by opaque charges and arbitrary detentions. In France, his wife felt far enough beyond Beijing’s reach to speak out.“It’s not justice,” she said, in an interview in Lyon where she slipped between English and her native Mandarin. “I can tell you this because I am sitting here [in France]; other people can’t tell the truth.“I think the anti-corruption campaign in China has already been damaged. It has become a way of attacking people who are your enemy,” she said, rejecting any claims of graft.Grace Meng is also frustrated that the organisation her husband once headed is moving on so fast. This week Interpol will hold a general assembly where members will vote for his replacement, without investigating his disappearance or whether a curt resignation note submitted by Beijing had been written under coercion. “The most basic responsibility of my husband Mr Meng, and everyone who works at Interpol, is to guard everyone’s safety … This is the reason they exist,” she said.Her husband’s abrupt disappearance from such a high-profile position produced headlines worldwide, with readers fascinated by how the head of an organisation set up to police the world could himself vanish. It was nearly two weeks after his last message – and only after his wife filed a missing persons report with French police and Interpol sent a formal request to China for information – that Beijing finally admitted Meng Hongwei was under investigation. Grace Meng’s decision to speak out about her husband’s detention is unusual. Critics inside China risk being rounded up, but the increasingly authoritarian government has long looked to silence those beyond its borders as well. Some have been seized far outside China’s legal jurisdiction and returned home by force; others are silenced by fear that criticism could rebound on loved ones who are still in China.Mindful of the risks, French authorities have put Grace Meng under 24-hour police protection. The location of the Observer’s interview was changed at the last minute for security reasons. She does not wish to pose for photographs that show her face and is keeping key details of her identity, including her Mandarin name, secret.The main reason she is speaking out, she says, is the couple’s two young sons. “Becoming a mother made me very brave,” she said, in an interview in which she was generally composed but became tearful when she spoke about her boys. “Because of them I have the courage to stand up, so that when our children grow up they won’t face this kind of China – where children suddenly can’t find their father, wife has lost her husband.”She refused to comment on whether the family had sought political asylum in France, but acknowledged they were unlikely to return home soon. “The whole world knows what the situation is like in China, and anyone can imagine what will happen if I and my children go back to China.”Chinese dissidents may see a certain bitter irony in her quest for justice. As vice-minister of security, Meng Hongwei sat near the apex of a system which ripped apart families the way hers has now been torn. And while he presided over Interpol, it issued a flurry of “red notices” for the arrest of dissidents from countries including China and Russia.His wife said he was a technocrat who dealt with practical aspects of policing, from the coastguard to traffic violations. He followed the organisation’s rules meticulously, she said.Whatever the truth or otherwise of the allegations against him, the nature of his detention means he will be deprived of due process, said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. It also means there will be no chance of finding justice for those he might have mistreated. “Don’t expect Meng ever to be held accountable for the countless people, including rights activists, whose arbitrary detention, torture and mistreatment he oversaw in China’s ministry of public security,” she wrote in the Washington Post.Meng’s disappearance and his wife’s willingness to talk about it have refocused attention on President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown, seen as both a populist move to tackle a cause of dissatisfaction among Chinese citizens, and an effective way to tighten his grip on power.Meng Hongwei’s abrupt removal is likely to slow China’s recent initiative to secure leadership roles in international organisations, but Beijing appears to have prioritised the corruption crackdown – and perhaps the message that no one is too senior or too distant to be targeted.His disappearance also raised questions about the mission of Interpol, an organisation set up to police the world that apparently cannot or does not want to pursue the disappearance of its own president.Grace Meng says the organisation has not been in touch with her since her husband disappeared. She has sent it a threat of legal action over its failure in its duty to protect the family, and twice asked for an appointment with top officials, but had no response.One of her questions is why Interpol has not tried to verify her husband’s resignation letter. “In my husband’s case, we don’t know who wrote his resignation,” she said.Her position is backed by a former secretary general of 14 years’ standing, who condemned the organisation on Twitter for incompetence. Interpol “improperly validated a potentially involuntary resignation”, Ronald Noble, who ran the organisation from 2000 to 2014, said. “The secretary general had no authority to accept it. [Meng Hongwei] remains president because Secretary General [Jurgen] Stock failed to insist that China prove that the resignation was voluntary.”Grace Meng is still telling her children that their father is on a long business trip, but knows the longer the absence stretches on, the harder it is to feign normality. “They recently asked ‘when will daddy come back?’, which for me is very painful and difficult. They are very perceptive, and they have sensed that there are some special circumstances.”As delegates gather for their assembly, she implored them to remember their mission to bring greater safety to the world. Their former president needed it now, she said. “Trust Mr Meng, he always guarded the reputation of Interpol,” she added. Topics The Observer Asia Pacific Human rights features

Even so, an indictment during Mr. Trump’s presidency remains extremely unlikely, at least in a case where a trial remains viable after he leaves office. Mr. Mueller and the attorney general overseeing him would almost surely calculate that the costs to the nation would exceed the benefits of bringing charges during the president’s term, and therefore urge the grand jury to hold off on taking the final step until Mr. Trump’s presidential tenure has ended.This doesn’t mean, however, that a criminal investigation of Mr. Trump’s possible wrongdoing is pointless. To the contrary. For one thing, a grand jury would be well within its rights to examine the evidence while it’s fresh in order to determine whether to bring charges against Mr. Trump after he leaves office (or perhaps to issue an indictment that would remain sealed until then). And even if Mr. Mueller chooses not to bring charges, he might have good reason to report any wrongdoing to Congress for its consideration (and to the public, assuming classified information is not an issue).Most important, we should keep in mind that Mr. Mueller was hired to lead a counterintelligence investigation. His primary charge is to ascertain the nature and extent of the threat to the United States election system and any “links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” including, but not limited to, Mr. Trump himself. His principal function, in other words, is forward-looking and preventive, not punitive.As president, Mr. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he won’t, or can’t, deal forcefully with what Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, has described as Russia’s “ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.” Is Mr. Trump beholden to Russian officials in some way? Or is there another explanation?It’s far more important for Mr. Mueller to get to the bottom of these questions — about the president’s capacity to perform his solemn constitutional duties on behalf of the nation — than to assess whether Mr. Trump did or did not satisfy the elements of any particular criminal offense back in 2016.Perhaps Mr. Trump will become the first president to face criminal charges. Perhaps not. But that’s the least of it. We’d be wise to shift our attention from the unlikely possibility of a trial to the much more important matter of what the Mueller investigation might tell us about Mr. Trump’s relationships with Russia and whether they compromise his ability to protect and defend the nation.Marty Lederman teaches constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center and has twice served in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

(Reuters) - Apple Inc shares (AAPL.O) rose 4.4% on Wednesday, after the company calmed Wall Street nerves with an improvement in sales in China and as several brokerages predicted a boost from its services business and the launch of new iPhones in the second half of 2019. FILE PHOTO: The logo of Apple company is seen outside an Apple store in Bordeaux, France, March 22, 2019. REUTERS/Regis DuvignauIf the gains hold, Apple would be within touching distance of again topping $1 trillion in market value, just shy of the world’s most valuable company, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O). Apple had 4.53 billion shares outstanding at the end of last quarter. In the earnings report after markets closed on Tuesday, Apple said services revenue rose 12.6% to $11.5 billion in the three months to June, offsetting a 12% fall in global iPhone sales to just under $26 billion. “We were especially pleased with the double-digit increase in Services driven by strong growth from the App Store in China,” Chief Executive Tim Cook told a conference call after the results. JP Morgan analyst Samik Chatterjee, who rates the stock ‘Overweight’, said he believed Apple’s transformation of the services business and a strong product cycle are strong reasons to own its shares. At least 11 of the 43 brokerages who rate Apple shares raised their price targets for the stock, with Citigroup raising it by $45 to $250. The median of current recommendations is $217. “We’re encouraged as Apple continues to recover from a difficult start to the fiscal year,” Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a note. However, they said iPhone remains a sustained drag heading into a more incremental fall launch cycle. In mainland China, Cook said the overall number of Apple device users had grown in the fiscal third quarter, driving a more a rise in services sales by the company in the world’s second largest economy. Concerns about a slowdown in China, where iPhone sales continue to decline, have helped keep Apple’s share price below last year’s highs. But it is still up 50% in value from lows hit in a market sell-off at the end of last year. “If there is a China slowdown, clearly no one told Tim about it,” Evercore analyst Amit Daryanani wrote in a note. Reporting by Tanvi Mehta and Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick GrahamOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Just about every major tech company and startup is talking about privacy these days—and it’s about time. For over two decades, most consumers have given their online privacy about as much thought as they do to the same Starbucks drink they order day after day. But if any good has come from all the major data breaches and privacy scandals of the past few years, it’s been that people are becoming more aware of how much their online privacy matters.The other major trend in tech that companies can’t shut up about in 2019 is services. They encompass any product that a company sells you as a subscription: Think Spotify, Netflix, Office 365, paid cloud storage plans like Dropbox, and much more. The industry loves services because they’re a guaranteed recurring revenue stream that a company can count on to boost its bottom line.The tech company that has talked the most about services this year is Apple. For decades, it’s relied on selling shiny new devices to customers year after year. But in recent years, the rate people upgrade their smartphones at has lengthened, from an average of 22.7 months in 2016 to 24.7 months in 2018. That two-month increase might not seem like that much to you or me. But for Apple, which is used to selling tens of millions of iPhones a quarter, any slowdown can drastically hurt its bottom line.Which is why Apple is playing up services so much right now. This year wasn’t even three months old when Apple announced no fewer than three new subscription services: Apple News+, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade. Those are in addition to the company’s existing Apple Music and iCloud subscription services. It is these five services, Apple hopes, that will spur its growth in the future as some of its old-reliable hardware lines continue to stagnate.But though Apple is the tech company that talks the most about privacy and talks the most about services, it has yet to offer the number one privacy service everyone needs: a VPN. Here’s why it should do just that.Many people find VPNs confusingEarlier this year, I argued that the single most important thing you could do to protect your online privacy is to use a Virtual Private Network, or VPN. VPNs encrypt the network data (the websites you visit and the data you send) on your devices so that others–such as your ISP or someone snooping on a public Wi-Fi network you’re using–can’t read it.Unless you use a VPN, your internet service provider can see every website you visit. And from this web history, it can deduce a virtually unlimited amount of specifics about you, including—but not limited to—how you like to spend your free time, whether you are pregnant, if you have any health conditions, your religious and political affiliations, what time you go to bed, where you go out to eat, and more. Furthermore, ISPs can now legally sell most of the information they collect about you too, meaning your right to privacy in your own home and on your own computer is nonexistent.Unless you use a VPN, that is. The problem with VPNs, however, is that for the average internet user, they can be confusing on multiple levels. First, there are dozens upon dozens of VPN services on the market, and each one offers something different, such as the length of time it preserves logs of your activities, where its servers are located, and how much bandwidth per month you’re allowed. All this information is important. Yet, few consumers know what makes a good logs policy or why server location is important, so it’s hard to make an informed decision on which VPN to choose.VPNs also vary widely when it comes to price. Some cost as little as a few dollars a year, while you could pay $100 a year for others. Then there are also VPN companies that offer up to 90% off the annual price if you sign a three-year agreement. This makes it hard to judge the worth of a VPN based on price alone.Setting up a VPN on your PC, smartphone, and tablet can also be wildly different experiences depending on what service and devices you use. And the onboarding process of most VPNs is moderately complex at best. Sometimes there’s an installer, sometimes you set up the VPN manually in your system’s settings, and sometimes the VPN takes the form of a mobile app you need to launch on your smartphone or tablet.Finally, it’s very hard to know if a VPN service provider is trustworthy. Anyone can set up a VPN service overnight with a few servers and a website. And just because that VPN service says they don’t keep records of your IP address or web browsing doesn’t mean that’s actually the case. There’s really no way to tell if any VPN provider is truly abiding by the policies it proclaims.Apple is already selling privacy as a serviceThe complexity of choosing a VPN and difficulty of setting up a service on all your devices leaves the gate wide open for some trusted company to swoop in and offer a VPN service that “just works” with close to zero setup.That company should be Apple. It has a long history of making convoluted, “techie” things easy to use. Think of the iTunes Music Store in 2003, which made finding and purchasing high-quality music online dead easy. Or the company’s FileVault technology, which made encrypting your entire hard drive as simple as clicking a button. Or even Apple’s original iSync solution, also from 2003, which made keeping your calendars, contacts, and other info updated across devices dummy-proof—something unheard of back then.At one point, all these things were needlessly complex, until Apple came in and made them so approachable that even newbies could take advantage of them in seconds. This is what Apple needs to do for the VPN, so its mainstream customers can keep more of their online privacy in their own hands.The obvious existing bundle this VPN could slip into would be iCloud. Apple could offer an “iCloud VPN” service to all paid iCloud subscribers. And because Apple controls all the hardware and operating systems of the devices it makes, its VPN setup could be dead simple: if you’re signed into iCloud on your device, iCloud VPN is set up, running, and protecting your browsing activity from outsiders without you having to click a single button.An iCloud VPN isn’t a far-fetched idea. After all, this June at WWDC, Apple did unveil a “privacy as a service” product called HomeKit Secure Video. The feature works with select third-party home security cameras and stores footage recorded by those cameras in an end-to-end encrypted format on the user’s iCloud Drive, the storage space you get with an iCloud subscription. No one but you–not Apple or the security camera company—can see this stored video.Up to 10 days of HomeKit Secure Video recordings don’t count against a user’s normal iCloud storage limits if they are subscribers to the 200GB iCloud plan or higher. And subscribers to a 2TB iCloud storage plan can use up to five cameras with HomeKit Secure Video.HomeKit Secure Video immediately made an iCloud subscription much more appealing to the relatively small number of people who use smart home security cameras—thus increasing the chances Apple would lure in new subscribers. That group of people is also probably just a fraction of the number of users who want, and would benefit from, a dead simple, trusted VPN service.One small step for AppleIf Apple doesn’t bundle an iCloud VPN service with a current iCloud subscription plan, it could sell it as a separate service. Either way, such a privacy-as-a-service subscription now seems like a natural—almost inevitable—Apple product.A year ago, I wrote that when you buy an Apple product, you’re buying privacy. There is now no doubt that Apple considers itself the privacy company—this 2019 ad campaign proves that. Apple’s embrace of services in 2019—with no fewer than five paid subscription services—also shows that it is no longer treating services as an afterthought.So the next step is for Apple to plug the privacy hole that most computer users still leave wide open. An easy-to-use, Apple-branded VPN would go a long way toward proving that the company will help users protect their data in ways regulators and other tech giants won’t. It would show that Tim Cook is serious when he says that Apple believes that “privacy is a fundamental human right.”And, of course, such a service would likely bring in a ton of cold, hard-recurring subscription cash for Apple, which I’m sure the company values almost as much as it does our privacy.

Conveniently, the trio of white nationalist regimes that I’ve discussed so far—Rhodesia, Nazi Germany, and the Confederacy—feature similar fan-fictionalization DNA:1. Valorization. Whatever the actual historical fate of the states, their “fans” transform them into places of triumph—or, at least, tragic tales of paradise lost.2. Centralization. In all cases, “fans” place the whiteness of the people at the center of their fictionalized triumph. That is, the whiteness defines the triumph and paradise.3. Kinship. “Fans” manufacture a kinship connection to the fictional triumphant state via their common whiteness.In 1, we should note that details of what actually happened in history (who won wars, etc.) are less important than the ideals. For example, “fans” love Rhodesia not because of any specific event but because it was an audacious pro-white state that was in armed conflict with black people. Similarly, certain defenders of Confederate monuments in the US speak of the virtues of its political and military leaders. Slavery, the issue that defined the Civil War (and underlies most salient political conversations), receives fan fictional short shrift. In the minds of "fans," slavery might be relevant, but less so than the legacy of Robert E. Lee, an awesome dude who was totally misunderstood.Items 2 and 3 are where the nationalistic elements emerge. Whether from Alaska or Alabama, “fans” find more solidarity with a hypothetical Rhodesian than an actual African American. But these relationships are built out of magic. The connection between that Rhode Islander parked at the edge of a liberal college campus and a hypothetical Rhodesian is whiteness alone—not culture or history. Only the whiteness. Same for all the young men on the internet who, after a few hours on the white supremacist website Stormfront, are experts on their phantom Viking heritage.This cult of whiteness, its essentiality and omnipotence, is the straw that stirs and spreads the nationalist pixie dust. And it is in the conjuring of this identity that the expansive imagination of fan fiction really emerges. Whiteness is akin to the Force in Star Wars: Only some people can lay claim to it, and it grants those people super powers.Elaborations on this idea now invoke a fairy tale genetics that far surpasses the X-Men in absurdity, including the milk chugging ritual as a signal of advanced (white) mutant powers. The argument goes something like this: The ability to break down the milk sugar lactose into adulthood—a trait called lactase persistence, which is prevalent in certain geographical human populations—is a marker of European ancestry, a sign of whiteness, and a symbol of superiority. The ritual might only be racist and corny if it wasn’t also embarrassingly wrong—lactase persistence evolved independently in sub-Saharan Africa.But, again, this is fan fiction we’re talking about. It’s not supposed to be true.Or is it?Fictional spins on historical figures and events can be a lot of fun. We read Harriet Tubman, Demon Slayer because we’re curious how the author managed to fuse a historical figure to demon slaying. We don’t expect to learn new things about the the actual life of Harriet Tubman. And yeah, fiction can entertain and teach, but it is crucial that the reader understand the difference between the history and the fantasy.White nationalism applies fantastical details to historical source material but forgets that it is fiction. In doing so, it has become among the most destructive, democracy-corroding movements in existence, and a threat to national security. To equate white nationalism to fan fiction is not to trivialize it, but rather to understand why it is so virulent. It isn’t borne from a common culinary history, nor shared music, language, or politics. It’s a brand of fan fiction we call Us versus Them, and it lives in the darkest parts of our imagination.High drama: A cannabis biotech firm roils small growersLunar mysteries that science still needs to solveAre super automatic espresso machines worth it?The best algorithms don't recognize black faces equallyThese hackers made an app that kills to prove a point🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers, running gear (including shoes and socks), and best headphones.📩 Get even more of our inside scoops with our weekly Backchannel newsletter

The laboratory, in a squat, beige building on the outskirts of Moscow, has an unremarkable name: Scientific Research Institute No 2, or NII-2 for short. Most evenings, a few lights are visible through the windows, framed by a couple of scrawny trees.The lab’s precise function is a state secret. But numerous former Russian intelligence officers – some retired and some defectors – have confirmed that the building is home to the Kremlin’s infamous poisons factory, established in 1921 on the orders of Vladimir Lenin. Western intelligence experts believe its efforts were originally directed at using poisons en masse on the battlefield. The KGB concluded that the substances worked better on individuals.It is too early to say whether the nerve agent used against Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury last Sunday originated in Moscow. Scientists at a UK government facility in nearby Porton Down are carrying out tests to determine chemical “attribution”. There will be a footprint.If the agent was a rare, bespoke toxin, this would be highly suggestive of state involvement, one former Foreign Office official said. The official pointed out that the Soviet Union and Russia had a history of using poisons against alleged traitors, most famously killing Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 with a radioactive cup of green tea.The most comprehensive account of what was referred to in Soviet official documents as Lab X comes from Pavel Sudoplatov, Stalin’s former spy chief. Sudaplatov wrote about the lab and its director, Prof Grigory Mairanovsky, in his 1994 memoir Special Tasks. It is a body-strewn account.According to Sudaplatov, Maironovsky would inject people with poison under the guise of a routine medical checkup. The victims included Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who died mysteriously in Soviet custody, as well as Ukrainian nationalists and potential defectors. Soviet leaders gave the orders for execution. Sudaplatov covered up the operation afterwards.The KGB was still silencing enemies during the late Soviet period. Oleg Kalugin, a KGB general, admitted that Lab X supplied the poison used to kill Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident murdered in London in 1978 with a ricin-tipped umbrella. The Bulgarians carried out the operation. It was justified on the grounds that Markov was allegedly a British spy.Yuri Shvets, a KGB colonel who later settled in the US, described a visit to the top-secret lab in the 1980s. He had come to pick up a truth-telling drug to use on an American source. The technical operations directorate of the KGB had to approve any use. Shvets wrote that the lab manufactured a wide variety of substances, including poisons, narcotics and psychotropic substances.Shvets left with a vial of SP-117 – concentrated alcohol to be dropped into a champagne glass. He noted that if the drug – used to make a subject rapidly drunk – was number 117 then then KGB’s toxic arsenal probably contained at least another 116 potions. He nicknamed the “small, portly” lab worker who briefed him on the chemical effects Aesculapius, after the Greek god of medicine.The lab fascinated Soviet leaders, including the last one, Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1988 Gorbachev asked for a briefing. The KGB refused.Details of its secret operations leaked out after the breakup of the USSR. There is no up-to-date information about the lab’s current work. Intelligence sources think its function is largely similar to that in KGB times.In the Litvinenko operation, polonium was produced at another state-controlled facility, in in the town of Sarov, a UK public inquiry was told in 2015. It is believed the Moscow lab converted the isotope into a form where it could be taken safely to London. The polonium dropped into Litvinenko’s teapot may have been carried in gelatin-coated micro-pellets.When the FSB’s current “scientific institute” was built on an impregnable and isolated site, locals assumed it was to treat wounded soldiers from the Soviet war in Afghanistan. That wasn’t the case. Putin-era possible victims of its activities include Russian investigative journalists, Chechen rebels and Ukraine’s former pro-western president Viktor Yushchenko, who was poisoned with something like dioxin.Sudaplatov’s telltale book would be impossible to write or publish in today’s Russia, where the price for spilling secrets is known. The ageing spy boss was convinced that no special operation could remain secret forever. If the attempted murder of Skripal was indeed a state plot, at some point, possibly decades from now, the full details are likely to emerge. “This is one of the great lessons of the breakdown of the Soviet Union and Communist party rule,” Sudaplatov wrote. “Once the dam is broken, the flood of secret information is uncontrollable.” Topics Russia Sergei Skripal Europe Chemical weapons features

TROY, N.Y. — [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.]Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s first stop on her newly announced presidential campaign was close to home — so close that it naturally invited questions about her unequivocal promise, just three months earlier, not to run for president as she sought re-election to represent this state.Ms. Gillibrand, a Democrat, deflected.“As I said then, I was solely focused on winning our midterms, creating transparency and accountability over this White House,” Ms. Gillibrand said on Wednesday.“I continue to fight for New Yorkers as I’ve always done,” said Ms. Gillibrand, the state’s junior senator. “But I believe the urgency of this moment now is we have to take on President Trump and what he is doing.”Ms. Gillibrand has won little support in early polls, but she is a formidable fund-raiser who has long been talked about as a presidential contender.Her first day on the trail, at a diner just a few miles from her home, offered a mix of the achievements she is likely to rely on and the challenges she will face — and the often inextricable links between the two — as she seeks to distinguish herself in what is sure to be a dense field of Democratic hopefuls.One of Ms. Gillibrand’s signature causes, for example, is her work fighting sexual harassment, and she emphasized her admiration for female leaders on Wednesday. But that work has also inspired some of her fiercest critics, in people who saw her calls for the resignation of the former Senator Al Franken — he was accused by eight women of sexual harassment — as self-interested posturing.Ms. Gillibrand, 52, has also emphasized her independence from special interests. But both Democrats and Republicans have tarred her as an opportunist who shed her support from Wall Street and the National Rifle Association when it suited her ambitions.“Look at my heart,” Ms. Gillibrand said when asked about her evolving stances. “I think it’s important to know when you’re wrong, and to do what’s right.”Ms. Gillibrand also said for the first time that she was uninterested in having a political action committee devoted to her bid. “I don’t think we should have individual super PACs, and I don’t want one,” she said.On Mr. Franken, Ms. Gillibrand — who pushed for anti-harassment legislation years before the #MeToo movement gained widespread attention in 2017 — brushed off reports that donors were rejecting her bid because of her denunciation of him.“It’s sad for many people,” she said of Mr. Franken’s fall. But “my job was not to stay silent. If some wealthy individuals, that makes them angry, that’s on them.”Ms. Gillibrand’s remarks were virtually identical to those she gave Tuesday on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” when she declared her candidacy. She called herself a “young mom” who would fight for other people’s children, and who believed in the need to combat institutional racism and the moneyed drug and insurance companies.“This is going to be a very different campaign,” Ms. Gillibrand said on Wednesday, “Because we’re willing to take on those systems of power that do not want Americans to have that opportunity.”Those promises are also favorite talking points of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has also announced her intention to run for president and has carved out space as an enemy of the financial industry. Asked what would make her candidacy different from other Democrats’, Ms. Gillibrand emphasized her background as an upstate lawmaker — her campaign headquarters will be in Troy — who had won broad support across the state in previous campaigns.The reception for Ms. Gillibrand at the diner was warm, with longtime friends and neighbors eating in nearby booths. (Before Ms. Gillibrand’s appearance, two men eating at the counter declined to speak to a reporter, saying they were Republicans; they left by the time she sat down.)Patricia Carley, 68, and Christine Fronhofer, 45, said they had moved their breakfast there specifically to meet Ms. Gillibrand.Ms. Fronhofer, a stay-at-home mother, said she was excited that Ms. Gillibrand could bring a mother’s perspective to the presidency.For others, Ms. Gillibrand’s shifting promises — whether on guns or on her plans to run for president — were disqualifying.“How do you know?” said Stephen Purificato, 57, an independent sales representative. “She was for gun rights in the state and now she backs the governor to take our gun rights away.”

Should Al Franken really have fallen on his sword, resigning his Senate seat in December 2017 following a spate of minor sexual impropriety accusations, and mounting pressure from his colleagues? Seven US senators who once thought yes now think no – the Vermont senator Patrick Leahy calls it one of the “biggest mistakes” of his 45-year career. Franken, who no longer has a career and thus plenty of time to cultivate regrets, has come to believe that “differentiating different kinds of behavior is important”.So believes the masterful investigative reporter Jane Mayer too, and she returns to The Case of Al Franken in the latest New Yorker. To cut to the chase: “Almost NOTHING His Main Accuser Said checks out,” as Mayer tweeted about the piece. The accuser in question is Leeann Tweeden, the conservative talkshow host pictured with Franken in a 2006 United Service Organizations (USO) tour photo, she asleep, he leering, outstretched hands a millimeter or so from her chest.Mayer, a dogged unearther of facts, subjects Tweeden’s account of Franken’s supposed harassment to forensic analysis – she even gets her hands on the metadata from the camera – interviewing dozens of people who were on the scene, who worked with Franken, and who were in the know about the orchestration of the photo’s release. She uncovers a series of misstatements, implausibilities, and (no surprise) intimations of a political hit job – names like Roger Stone, Alex Jones and Sean Hannity hover in the background. Tweeden was herself a Trump supporter and a “birther” who’d publicly demanded to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate.Those who think no sexual accusation made by a woman can possibly be untrue, even those by birthers targeting Democrats, will probably remain unimpressed by the new information Mayer reveals. For my part, I find myself wondering what would happen if all the less famous men and women accused of similarly ambiguous crimes– ribaldry gone awry, creeping people out in vaguely sexual ways – had their own Jane Mayers to investigate.As someone who’s written about #MeToo and campus sexual assault, I’m on the receiving end of plenty of such stories (an increasing number of which are from women, by the way). I’m frequently left frustrated and often livid at the absurdity of the accusations and the summary justice that follows. One case that particularly rankled, involving Harris Fogel, formerly a tenured professor of photography at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, actually has some interesting similarities to Franken’s. Though he is hardly as well-known as the former comedian-senator, Fogel’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Like Franken, Fogel was a dispenser of social kisses. He may also have had a “naturally outgoing and joking manner”, according to his lawsuit, that was – given the current state of heterosexual rancor – likewise mistaken for sexual predation.At a photography education conference in Las Vegas in March 2016, Fogel spotted an acquaintance, Jennifer Little, in the conference hotel lobby. Little is a tenured photography professor at a California university, and they’d known each other for several years. Little had asked Fogel for job advice and reference letters in the past. It was daytime. He greeted her with a kiss.In December 2017, 20 months later, came the allegation: Little contacted the Title IX coordinator at UArts, where Fogel taught, asserting that the hotel lobby kiss had been forcible and nonconsensual, though she hadn’t complained about it to Fogel at the time. Indeed, they proceeded to attend various functions together; Little even posted some of Fogel’s conference photos of her on her Facebook page.As in Franken’s case, there was soon a second allegation, filed the day after Little’s. This complainant was an aspiring photographer named Anne-Laure Autin, who’d also met Fogel in March 2016, at a different photography conference in Houston. Fogel had been assigned to give Autin a 20-minute informal critique of her portfolio, which took place in the public setting of a hotel ballroom. Afterward, he handed her some literature about the UArts photography program, and reached in his jacket pocket to pull out his business card. Except the card he pulled out wasn’t his business card, it was his hotel-room keycard, which was similar in size. He said: “Here is my business card – oops – my room key.” They both laughed.Although Autin seems to have initially regarded Fogel’s remark as a joke, she later discussed the incident with Little, who was also at the conference, and who disclosed that Fogel had “forced himself physically on her” a few weeks earlier at the previous conference.In receipt of two complaints against Fogel, the university launched an investigation, and in January 2018 – despite the fact that Fogel disputed Little’s account, and the only corroboration of her story was the other complainant, and the two women had clearly conferred on their complaints – determined Fogel had “forcibly” kissed Little and harassed Autin.After 22 years of employment, Fogel was summarily terminated by UArts’ board of trustees without so much as a hearing or a chance for Fogel to respond to the investigator’s report.I suppose most people reading this will be thinking: “There has to be more to it than that!” Well, yes, there were vague allegations that Fogel had engaged in “typical male verbal flirting behavior”, which isn’t the kind of thing that can really be disproven. It also reeks of gender bias. Or perhaps, as might be said of Franken too, the outcome was “political” – Fogel’s lawsuit suggests that he was deemed an obstructionist by his superiors. Who knows? Academic politics are said to be the most vicious kind, though they are vicious all over.To be clear, the details given here on Fogel’s case are the facts alleged in his lawsuit (which a federal judge recently ruled may proceed). I have not independently confirmed or disproved them. That would take the talents of a Jane Mayer, equipped with a New Yorker expense account. However, I’m enough of a crack reporter to note that it was exactly three days after Franken announced he was resigning that Jennifer Little contacted the UArts title IX coordinator, whose subsequent investigation was conducted as the Franken drama was playing out in the national news.Sure, there were plenty of other high-profile cases that winter, though typically not over such trivial stuff. Were Fogel’s accusers tuned into the Franken story? Was the investigator, who, Fogel’s lawsuit alleges, didn’t bother to investigate any potentially exculpatory evidence? In short: did the Franken resignation help lower the bar on what now constitutes harassment and assault?I myself thought at the time that if Franken had actually groped women during photo ops, as was alleged, he was right to resign – jokey photos are one thing, ass-grabbing is another. Mayer’s reporting leaves me less sure – is an arm around someone’s waist really a sexual incursion? But in late 2017, we were all pretty on edge, I think, combing our pasts for dormant memories of assaults and affronts, and there were so many stories – too many to make sense of. It was an off-with-their-heads moment, and for a while that felt great.But there were also opportunists “telling their truths”. There was failed distinction-making and political expediency, and the impossibility of sorting motives from facts. That’s what’s starting to get unraveled now, in deep reporting like Mayer’s, as well as in the courts. Campus findings based on “victim-centric” approaches to sexual misconduct are increasingly being overturned by judges, and employers who were over-hasty with the axe are being forced into settlements.The fallout isn’t going to be pretty, especially as the accused, when permitted, air their side of the story. It’s certainly not going to be unifying. And I suspect there’s plenty more fallout to come. Laura Kipnis is the author of Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus (available in the UK from Verso) Topics #MeToo movement Opinion Al Franken US Congress comment

PARIS (Reuters) - French police are investigating the disappearance of Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei, who was reported missing after traveling from France to his native China, while his wife has been placed under police protection after receiving threats. Meng’s wife contacted police in Lyon, the French city where the international police agency is based, after not hearing from him since Sept. 25, and after receiving threats by phone and on social media, France’s interior ministry said. A person familiar with the investigation said the initial working assumption was that Meng had antagonized Chinese authorities in some way and had been detained as a result. “France is puzzled about the situation of Interpol’s president and concerned about the threats made to his wife,” the ministry said, adding that it was in contact with China. Meng’s wife, who has remained in Lyon with their children according to police sources, was receiving protection, it said. It was not clear why Meng, 64, who was named Interpol’s president two years ago, had traveled to China, which has not commented officially on his disappearance. China’s Ministry of Public Security did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment and there was no mention of him in official media on Saturday. There have been several cases in recent years of senior Chinese officials vanishing without explanation, only for the government to announce weeks or even months later that they have been put under investigation, often for suspected corruption. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post quoted an unnamed source as saying Meng had been taken for questioning as soon as he landed in China, but it was not clear why. French police are investigating what is officially termed in France a “worrying disappearance”. Interpol, which groups 192 countries and which is usually focused on finding people who are missing or wanted, said in a statement from its secretary general, Juergen Stock, that it had asked China for clarification. “Interpol has requested through official law enforcement channels clarification from China’s authorities on the status of Interpol President Meng Hongwei,” Stock, who is in charge Interpol’s day-to-day running, said on Saturday. Roderic Broadhurst, a professor of criminology at Australian National University, said Meng’s disappearance would be “pretty disconcerting” for people in international bodies that work with China, and could ultimately damage China’s efforts to develop cooperative legal assistance measures with other countries. “It is bizarre,” Broadhurst said on Saturday, adding that China was likely to “brush off” any political damage that it would cause to Beijing’s involvement in international bodies. “It’s a price that might have to be paid, but I guess they would see that as a cost worth bearing,” Broadhurst said. Presidents of Interpol are seconded from their national administrations and remain in their home post while representing the international policing body. Meng is listed on the website of China’s Ministry of Public Security as a vice-minister, but lost his seat on its Communist Party Committee in April, the South China Morning Post reported. Meng has almost 40 years’ experience in criminal justice and policing, and has overseen matters related to legal institutions, narcotics control and counter-terrorism, according to Interpol’s website. Interpol staff can carry special passports to help speed deployment in emergency situations but that would not have given Meng any specific rights or immunity in his home country. FILE PHOTO: INTERPOL President Meng Hongwei poses during a visit to the headquarters of International Police Organisation in Lyon, France, May 8, 2018. Jeff Pachoud/Pool via ReutersWhen Meng was named Interpol’s president in Nov. 2016, human rights groups expressed concern that Beijing might try to leverage his position to pursue dissidents abroad. Beijing has in the past pressed countries to arrest and deport to China citizens it accuses of crimes, from corruption to terrorism. At the time, Amnesty International called Meng’s appointment “at odds with Interpol’s mandate to work in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Reporting by Catherine Lagrange in Lyon, Richard Lough, Simon Carraud, Sarah White and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris, Mark Hosenball in London, Yawen Chen and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Richard Balmforth/Raju Gopalakrishnan/Alexander SmithOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A British film-maker has been killed while working alongside Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in Syria, his friends and Kurdish activists have said.Mehmet Aksoy, 32, from London, was not fighting but working as a press officer for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) when the military base in which he was stationed was hit by a surprise attack on Tuesday morning.Aksoy, a Turkish Kurd who moved to Britain with his family 22 years ago, is believed to be the fifth British citizen killed while volunteering with the US-led militia spearheading the battle against Isis in Syria.Friends confirmed his death on Tuesday night as about 300 British Kurds, including his parents, held a twilight vigil at the Kurdish Community Centre in north London.“Mehmet never fought – that was never his plan,” friend Aladdin Sinayic, 38, from London, told the Guardian. “He told me just before he left that there are better ways he could fight Isis than with a gun. He said there are many great fighters offering their lives to defeat Isis but they are not visible to the world. He wanted to tell their stories and show the world what the Kurds are doing in Syria.”It is understood that Aksoy travelled to Syria on 22 July without telling his parents, who own an off-licence in Luton. He spent the next three months filming the battle for Raqqa, publishing his material on social media and other websites. His job was also to liaise with journalists in Britain and around the world covering the conflict.Friends described him as a “passionate” and “loving” man who had devoted his life to supporting the Kurdish struggle for greater rights in the Middle East. “He had wanted to go for a long time but stayed at home for the sake of his mother,” Sinayic said.“He talked to her a lot about how he dreamed of moving to Kurdistan and I think she was scared for him but understood why he had to go. She told me today that she has lost her best friend.”Aksoy’s family were too upset to comment.Mark Campbell, a close friend and member of the Kurdish Solidarity Campaign, said: “Mehmet was the most beautiful of souls who was loved by all who had the fortune to meet him, he enriched all of our lives and was utterly dedicated to telling the story of the Kurdish people’s profound struggle for justice and freedom in Turkey and Syria. He inspired and encouraged others to do the same and was my personal single greatest inspiration.”It is understood that Aksoy was standing outside the Kurdish militia’s media centre when a small group of jihadis drove up to the base, believed to be some 12 miles (20km) behind the frontline at Raqqa, in pickup trucks and shot five guards at the main gate.They then drove inside the compound and opened fire, killing Aksoy where he stood as well as a female Kurdish journalist beside him. YPG fighters fought back, killing all the attackers.The Foreign Office have been contacted for comment.Aksoy was born in February 1985 in the town of Malatya, southern Turkey, friends said. When he was 10 his parents moved him to London where he went to school.After completing his A-levels he did a bachelors degree in media studies before taking a masters degree in film-making at Goldsmith’s, University of London. In his 20s he co-founded the London Kurdish film festival while working as editor for the rights website The Kurdish Question.“The Kurdish movement was everything to him,” said a friend of Aksoy. “I spoke to him a few weeks after he arrived in Syria and he told me he didn’t think he had ever felt happier. He was so excited about his idea to make a documentary about democratic confederalism and the socialist-feminist revolution that’s happening there. He said he had so many plans. I’ve lost my best friend, but the Kurds have lost a great brain.”While in Syria, Aksoy went by the nom de guerre “Firaz Dag”. Friends said he took the name Firaz from his uncle who was killed in Turkey in the 1990s as a guerrilla fighter with the PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades.“Mehmet grew up with stories about revolutionary Kurds,” said a friend. “His uncle was a big inspiration to him.”An FCO spokesperson said: “The UK has advised for some time against all travel to Syria. As all UK consular services are suspended in Syria, it is extremely difficult to confirm the whereabouts and status of British nationals in the country.”This article was amended on 06 December 2018 to remove a personal detail. Topics Syria Turkey Islamic State Kurds Middle East and North Africa news

PARIS (Reuters) - French police are investigating the disappearance of Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei, who was reported missing after traveling from France to his native China, while his wife has been placed under police protection after receiving threats. Meng’s wife contacted police in Lyon, the French city where the international police agency is based, after not hearing from him since Sept. 25, and after receiving threats by phone and on social media, France’s interior ministry said. A person familiar with the investigation said the initial working assumption was that Meng had antagonized Chinese authorities in some way and had been detained as a result. “France is puzzled about the situation of Interpol’s president and concerned about the threats made to his wife,” the ministry said, adding that it was in contact with China. Meng’s wife, who has remained in Lyon with their children according to police sources, was receiving protection, it said. It was not clear why Meng, 64, who was named Interpol’s president two years ago, had traveled to China, which has not commented officially on his disappearance. China’s Ministry of Public Security did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment and there was no mention of him in official media on Saturday. There have been several cases in recent years of senior Chinese officials vanishing without explanation, only for the government to announce weeks or even months later that they have been put under investigation, often for suspected corruption. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post quoted an unnamed source as saying Meng had been taken for questioning as soon as he landed in China, but it was not clear why. French police are investigating what is officially termed in France a “worrying disappearance”. Interpol, which groups 192 countries and which is usually focused on finding people who are missing or wanted, said in a statement from its secretary general, Juergen Stock, that it had asked China for clarification. “Interpol has requested through official law enforcement channels clarification from China’s authorities on the status of Interpol President Meng Hongwei,” Stock, who is in charge Interpol’s day-to-day running, said on Saturday. Roderic Broadhurst, a professor of criminology at Australian National University, said Meng’s disappearance would be “pretty disconcerting” for people in international bodies that work with China, and could ultimately damage China’s efforts to develop cooperative legal assistance measures with other countries. “It is bizarre,” Broadhurst said on Saturday, adding that China was likely to “brush off” any political damage that it would cause to Beijing’s involvement in international bodies. “It’s a price that might have to be paid, but I guess they would see that as a cost worth bearing,” Broadhurst said. Presidents of Interpol are seconded from their national administrations and remain in their home post while representing the international policing body. Meng is listed on the website of China’s Ministry of Public Security as a vice-minister, but lost his seat on its Communist Party Committee in April, the South China Morning Post reported. Meng has almost 40 years’ experience in criminal justice and policing, and has overseen matters related to legal institutions, narcotics control and counter-terrorism, according to Interpol’s website. Interpol staff can carry special passports to help speed deployment in emergency situations but that would not have given Meng any specific rights or immunity in his home country. FILE PHOTO: INTERPOL President Meng Hongwei poses during a visit to the headquarters of International Police Organisation in Lyon, France, May 8, 2018. Jeff Pachoud/Pool via ReutersWhen Meng was named Interpol’s president in Nov. 2016, human rights groups expressed concern that Beijing might try to leverage his position to pursue dissidents abroad. Beijing has in the past pressed countries to arrest and deport to China citizens it accuses of crimes, from corruption to terrorism. At the time, Amnesty International called Meng’s appointment “at odds with Interpol’s mandate to work in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Reporting by Catherine Lagrange in Lyon, Richard Lough, Simon Carraud, Sarah White and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris, Mark Hosenball in London, Yawen Chen and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Richard Balmforth/Raju Gopalakrishnan/Alexander SmithOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said he is “100 percent” certain that Christine Blasey Ford named the wrong person when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in testimony during his Supreme Court nomination hearings. “This is one of the reasons I chose him is because there is no one with a squeaky clean past like Brett Kavanaugh. He is an outstanding person and I’m very honored to have chosen him,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while flying to a campaign rally in Kansas. “We’re very honored that he was able to withstand this horrible, horrible attack by the Democrats.” Trump’s words echoed those of Ford who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she was “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh who sexually assaulted her in the upstairs bedroom of a home in a wealthy Washington suburb in 1982 when both of them were teenagers. A deeply divided U.S. Senate confirmed Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Saturday, as Republicans dismissed the sexual misconduct accusations and delivered a major victory to Trump. Trump watched the confirmation vote while flying on Air Force One to a political rally in Kansas, viewing the vote on large-screen television tuned to Fox News in a wood-paneled cabin. Trump flashed two thumbs up when the final vote was declared and aides on board applauded. He disputed predictions that women voters angry about Kavanaugh’s nomination could punish his party in the congressional elections on Nov. 6. Hundreds of protesters in and around the U.S. Capitol - many of whom were women - were arrested in the past week. Slideshow (2 Images)“Women were outraged at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, outraged,” Trump said. “It was a total misnomer because the women I feel were in many ways stronger than men in his favor.” Trump said the protesters were not genuine, but had been paid by liberal political donors and that his party would prevail in November when one-third of the Senate seats and all House seats will be up for election. “I think the Republicans are going to do incredibly well,” Trump said. Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Writing by Ginger Gibson, editing by Bill Berkrot and Alistair BellOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Ambulances and police vehicles ferried the dead and wounded to nearby hospitals, Amiri said, as security forces cordoned off the site and blocked the main road approaching the scene. Authorities also warned onlookers to stay away from the site of the explosion, where there is also a Shia mosque.A distraught man is carried away following the suicide attack in Kabul on Thursday.Both the Afghan capital and the wider country are beset with attacks on its military, police and civilian populations. ISIS and the Taliban have both carried out several attacks in the country this year, and they have also been fighting each other over territory, particularly in the east of the country. The Taliban earlier denied responsibility for the blasts. Earlier this week at least10 people were killedafter a suicide attacker detonated a bomb in an attack claimed by ISIS.That attack targeted an office of the National Directorate of Security, Rahimi said, near the US Embassy and other diplomatic missions. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack, saying that the government was determined to eliminate terrorist groups. "Terrorists always hide their defeat against our security forces by attacking mosques, religious places, and educational institutions, and killing our people, including women and children," Ghani wrote on Facebook. "Terrorist groups and their supporters should understand that by doing such crimes they cannot gain success. Day by day, our peoples' hate increases as everyone recognizes them."Afghan policemen in Kabul after the attack on Thursday. US Ambassador to Afghanistan John R. Bass said: "The United States continues to stand with all Afghans in their pursuit of peace, security, and prosperity.""This incident once again demonstrates the depravity of those who seek to undermine peace and stability in Afghanistan," he said. "We remain confident the Afghan government and people, supported by their friends and partners, will defeat those behind these terrible acts."Security personnel arrive at the site of the attack on Thursday. The United States has supported the Afghan government in its fight against ISIS, but has dramatically decreased the number of its troops this year.Human rights organization Amnesty International said the attack underscored the dangers faced by Afghan civilians and blasted European leaders for forcibly returning Afghan asylum-seekers to the country."With the Afghan capital hit once again, no one can credibly claim that Kabul safe. The European governments who insist on this dangerous fiction by forcibly returning Afghans are putting their lives in danger," Amnesty International South Asia Director Biraj Patnaik said.Patnaik added that it was one of the deadliest years on record in the country. A number of other attacks have targeted the city in recent months: October 20:Dozens of Afghans werekilled in two mosque attacks, claimed by ISIS.October 21:A suicide bombing near a military academytook another 15 lives, claimed by the Taliban.October 17: At least41 soldiers were killed in an attack on their base in eastern Afghanistan, claimed by the Taliban.September 13: A suicide bomberkilled three peoplein a blast outside a cricket stadium in Kabul.August 25: 20 people killedin an attack on a Shiite mosque, for which ISIS claims responsibility.

Judging by six sharply worded tweets starting at sunrise on Wednesday, Donald Trump is edging closer to taking irreversible action against a federal investigation that earlier this week sent FBI agents raiding the office of his longtime personal lawyer and trusted lieutenant, Michael Cohen.By 9am, as well as threatening missile strikes in Syria, Trump had blamed “bad blood with Russia” on the special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller, accused Mueller of a conflict of interest and characterized the atmosphere in the White House as “very calm and calculated”.While scattershot in their targets, the tweets together communicated a sense of heightened agitation that Trump has displayed for three days now, ever since agents seized documents from Cohen including records of six-figure payments made to two women who have claimed to have had affairs with Trump before the 2016 election. “Much of the bad blood with Russia is caused by the Fake & Corrupt Russia Investigation, headed up by the all Democrat loyalists, or people that worked for Obama,” Trump wrote in one tweet, which went on to criticize Mueller and his superior, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who are both in fact Republicans first appointed to federal posts by Republican presidents.“Mueller is most conflicted of all (except Rosenstein who signed FISA & Comey letter),” Trump continued. “No Collusion, so they go crazy!”“Fisa” refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which the FBI conducted surveillance during the presidential campaign of a Trump aide with Russia ties. The “Comey letter” refers to a May 2017 letter written by Rosenstein that recommended the firing of the former FBI director James Comey.The Mueller investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia has produced indictments of or pleas from 19 individuals, including Trump’s former campaign chairman and first national security adviser, as well as three companies based in Russia. The prosecutors have not brought any charges specifically related to collusion so far.Speaking to reporters on Wednesday shortly after announcing his retirement, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, said he had “gotten assurances” from “people inside the White House” that Trump would not fire either Mueller or Rosenstein. However, the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, refused to address those “assurances”. When asked about them, she tersely said: “I don’t have any personnel announcements.” Sanders had previously made the same statement earlier in the White House briefing when asked if Trump planned to fire Rosenstein.Speculation that Trump may be nearing action against Mueller was fueled by a New York Times report on Tuesday night saying that Trump had demanded Mueller’s firing as recently as December, only to be dissuaded by the White House counsel and other legal advisers.Perhaps more significantly, for Trump’s mood, the tweets also followed the publication of the first excerpts from an ABC News interview with James Comey in which the former FBI director reportedly compared Trump to a “mob boss”.Comey is preparing a media blitz in support of a book to be released next week that he has framed as a showdown with Trump. A source present at the ABC interview told Axios that Comey is “going to shock the president and his team”.It is not clear that the president could fire Mueller directly, despite a claim on Tuesday by Sanders, that Trump has that power. The president could, however, assign the task to a justice department official, although several possible candidates, perhaps including Rosenstein, would be likely to resign instead of carrying out the president’s order.The prospect of firing Mueller was openly mooted on Fox News, which the president watches avidly, in a Tuesday report musing on “what might happen if the president decides to pull the plug” on the special counsel.“The man who became famous for saying ‘you’re fired’ is facing what could be the most serious and consequential personnel decision of his life tonight,” the report said. Mueller is not a member of White House personnel, but rather a justice department appointment under a 1999 law passed by Congress. The lawyer who drafted that statute, Neal Katyal, now a professor at Georgetown University, wrote on Tuesday on Twitter that Trump’s firing Mueller “would come at enormous cost, not just to the Justice Department and the Rule of Law, but also to him personally. It should be the end of the Trump presidency.”Perhaps sensing the danger to their coalition, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have declined to echo Trump’s characterization of the special counsel investigation as a partisan “witch-hunt”.“It’s still my view that Mueller should be allowed to finish his job,” the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told the Guardian on Tuesday. “I think that’s the view of most people in Congress.”As he navigates this sensitive territory, Trump has recently lost the most experienced lawyer advising him on the matter, John Dowd, who resigned from the president’s legal team last month over a disagreement with the Trump about whether he should agree to be interviewed by Mueller.Trump reportedly favored speaking with Mueller, despite concerns harbored by his counsel that he would make a statement known by Mueller’s team to be false based on the large body of evidence they have collected, which includes interviews, emails sent by the presidential transition team and documents subpoenaed from the Trump Organization.None of that collection has so exercised the president as much as the raid on the office of Cohen, who for more than a decade has handled particularly sensitive matters for Trump and his children, including prospective real estate developments in Russia.In addition to documents relating to payments made to women, the raid sought documents pertaining to an Access Hollywood tape that emerged in October 2016 in which Trump boasted he could “grab” women “by the pussy”, the New York Times reported. There have been no previous reports of any Cohen role in the Access Hollywood episode, and the nature of prosecutors’ interest in the affair was unclear.Trump described a personal fight against Mueller in a tweet that might read differently if the president does in fact remove the special counsel.“No Collusion or Obstruction (other than I fight back), so now they do the Unthinkable, and RAID a lawyers office for information!” Trump wrote. “BAD!” Topics Trump-Russia investigation Robert Mueller US politics Donald Trump Trump administration Russia Michael Cohen news