By Updated Sept. 14, 2017 10:19 a.m. ET BEIRUT—Islamic State militants stranded in the Syrian desert for two weeks have reached their destination in eastern Syria, opposition activists said, after the U.S.-led coalition heeded Russia’s request to cease airstrikes on the convoy’s route. The convoy of buses traveled across Syria as part of a controversial deal brokered in August by the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah that allowed 600 people—Islamic State fighters and their families—to withdraw from the Lebanese border in southwestern Syria and head toward its border... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In

Princess Michael of Kent has apologised after wearing a blackamoor brooch to the Queen’s Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, attended by Prince Harry’s fiancee Meghan Markle, who is of mixed race by virtue of her white father and African American mother. The royal, who is married to the Queen’s cousin, was photographed wearing the brooch depicting a black figure on her coat as she arrived for the annual gathering on Wednesday. She was later criticised online for wearing “racist jewellery”.Markle is understood to have met Princess Michael of Kent at the lunch, but it is not known if she was wearing the brooch at the time. A spokesman for the princess said: “The brooch was a gift and has been worn many times before. Princess Michael is very sorry and distressed that it has caused offence.”It is not the first time the princess has been accused of racism. In 2004, she reportedly instructed African American customers in a New York restaurant to “go back to the colonies” in an argument about noise. The princess, whose father was an SS officer, denied the incident a few months later in an interview with ITV, saying: “I even pretended years ago to be an African, a half-caste African, but because of my light eyes I did not get away with it, but I dyed my hair black.“I had this adventure with these absolutely adorable, special people and to call me racist: it’s a knife through the heart because I really love these people.” Topics Monarchy Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Race news

Good morning.(Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.)John Chiang, California’s bespectacled treasurer, is a finance man.His two decades in public office have been all taxes, budgets, bonds and pensions.It’s a resume that Mr. Chiang, a Democrat, hopes will persuade voters that he is the governor California needs as it wrestles with a housing crisis and gaping income equality.He’ll need to outshine two bold-name rivals in the 2018 race: Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor, and Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles.Mr. Chiang, 55, grew up in a suburb of Chicago, the son of immigrants from Taiwan.He studied finance at the University of South Florida and law at Georgetown University, before relocating to the Los Angeles area in 1987, where he lives today.Since then, he has climbed methodically up the ranks of state politics, from political staffer to tax official to controller to treasurer.Still, Mr. Chiang is not widely known. (On that note, it’s pronounced Chung).To remedy that he embarked this summer, camper in tow, on a yearlong tour of all 58 California counties.We caught up with Mr. Chiang by phone. Some excerpts:Q. How do you see California’s role under the Trump administration?A. Well, California will have to continue to lead. One of my campaign themes is that we will take a different road. We’re not going to take a road to the past. We’re not going to go back to the divisions, the arguments about who is important. We recognize that our diversity is part of our fabric.What distinguishes you Newsom and Villaraigosa?If you look at the record, who’s getting it done. We get the job done.During the last financial crisis, I was the Democrat who challenged the governor, who challenged the Legislature when they were passing unbalanced budgets.Or today, challenging President Trump when he talks about reducing access to health care. We supported budget change language so that we could protect community clinics that serve one in every seven Californians.Are Asian-Americans underrepresented in California politics?I think in a lot of local communities they are. Part of this is like the maturation of many communities. Individuals come to this country and at the beginning they’re trying to build stability in their lives. So I think the focus is on “How do I get to work?” or “How do I even get work?”How do you describe your style?Friendly and effective.What’s your biggest professional regret?Can I give a personal regret?Sure.My dad did all the right things. He was an immigrant, and I wish before he passed away that he didn’t have to undergo all the stress that he did, whether it’s bigotry, whether it’s health issues, whether it’s economic issues. Good, hard-working middle class people just face life’s struggles. So when you have good people, you just wish that life could be easier.This interview has been edited and condensed.California Online(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)ImageA homeless man in San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood.CreditSandy Huffaker for The New York Times• As San Diego grapples with a hepatitis A outbreak, the mayor announced a plan to house the homeless in large industrial tents. [San Diego Union-Tribune]• Anaheim declared a public health and safety emergency over its growing homeless crisis. [Orange County Register]• Five Marines were in critical condition after an amphibious assault vehicle caught fire at Camp Pendleton. [San Diego Union-Tribune]ImageBen Shapiro speaking at an event in Pasadena in August.CreditColin Young-Wolff/Invision, via Associated Press• U.C. Berkeley is bracing for a speech by Ben Shapiro. He supports small government, religious liberty and free-market economics. That makes him a “fascist.” [Opinion | The New York Times]• Milo Yiannopoulos and Stephen K. Bannon are also set to visit Berkeley. Faculty members are calling for a boycott of classes. [Daily Californian]• The Los Angeles school board president was charged with multiple felonies in connection with donations to his campaign. [Los Angeles Times]Image“I’m beginning to learn to live with imperfection,” said Todd Marinovich, who entered the national spotlight as a high school standout and later encountered addiction problems.CreditMichael Ares for The New York Times• Todd Marinovich, the former U.S.C. star, is playing football again — at age 48. This month, he played his first game since age 15 that he claims was not in the midst of drug or alcohol use. [The New York Times]• After decades of trying to move out of their dilapidated stadium, the Oakland Athletics announced plans for a new one near a community college. Now they have to convince the neighborhood. [East Bay Times]• “I never expect to be the one that everybody understands or likes,” Angelina Jolie said. “And that’s O.K., because I know who I am, and the kids know who I am.” [The New York Times]ImageFestival goers commonly get around by bike at Burning Man, held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.CreditJim Urquhart/Reuters• One of Burning Man’s principles is “leave no trace.” Yet thousands of bicycles were abandoned after the arts festival in the Nevada desert. [SF Weekly]• “The house I bought for $130,000 in 1983 is now worth a fortune, and that’s a big problem for California.” [Opinion | Los Angeles Times]• A house in Sunnyvale sold for $782,000 more than the asking price. [The Mercury News]And Finally ...ImageThe marquee at Town & Country Hotel in San Diego has been turned over to whimsy.CreditHaley AsturiasThe Town & Country Hotel in San Diego has been using its marquee lately for messages that have nothing to do with selling rooms.They’ve included:• “Welcome archery conference. Free ear piercing.”• “There’s no way everybody was kung fu fighting.”• “Cat puns freak meowt. I am not kitten.”ImageCreditHaley AsturiasStephanie Hinckley, the hotel’s marketing director, said they adopted the whimsical approach back in the spring.“We had used that marquee for years as just, ‘Hey, we’ve got this great special in the restaurant,’ or ‘We’ve got this excellent room rate.’” she said. “And we thought, ‘We’re kind of missing the boat and we’re not having much fun as we could.’”The marquee, visible from nearby Interstate 8, has presumably been eliciting chuckles from passing motorists. Pictures of the messages have been popping up on social media.The latest actually sounds like fun: “Hokey pokey convention. Come in and turn yourself around.”California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected] California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a third-generation Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Los Osos. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

One thing that makes smartwatches increasingly valuable is their inclusion of biosensors, little modules that keep tabs on what's happening with your body, whether you're an athlete running a marathon or somebody who just decided to get up off the couch. And one of the most useful health metrics a smartwatch can track is your heart rate. Apple knows this, and, as part of an effort to make the Apple Watch a more alluring accessory for iPhone owners, the company is focusing intently on building advanced heart-rate monitoring into its best-selling wearable.A software update rolling out today will include an optional app for Apple Watch Series 4 that takes ECG (electrocardiogram) readings through the new device's specially designed sensors. That same software update will allow older Apple Watches without the redesigned sensors to detect irregular heart rhythms. Both of these enhancements are supposed to help wearers identify signs of atrial fibrillation, a condition identified by a rapid or irregular heartbeat that can lead to serious heart complications.Apple made a splash when it announced these features at its annual hardware event in September, partly because the ECG app had been cleared by the FDA (which, it's worth keeping in mind, is different from FDA approval). But, even if you don't have the latest hardware and can't take advantage of the ECG app, there are plenty of heart-rate tracking features to dive into on the Apple Watch. It's a lot; here's a short guide.Let's start with the basics: the ECG app and notifications around irregular heart rate rhythms are rolling out as a part of a watchOS update for Apple Watch. The latest software is watchOS 5.1.2. Apple Watch updates can take an extremely long time for such a little gadget—you may wait more than an hour—and at the time of publication, I hadn't installed the update myself yet. My experience with the ECG app was on a loaner watch Apple provided. But hopefully, the update process has improved.The ECG app will only work on Apple Watch Series 4. That's because that watch has electrodes built into the back of the watch, as well as electrical heart sensors in the watch's crown. Older Apple Watches don't have this.All Apple Watches, however, do have the same optical heart rate sensors. That means that, with this latest software update, Apple Watch Series 1 and later watches will attempt to track irregular heart rhythms, and therefore will potentially be able detect atrial fibrillation.Before you start using the ECG app on the Apple Watch Series 4, you'll have to first go through the onboarding process in the Apple Health app on iPhone. Same with setting up notifications for possible signs of Afib. It requires scooting back and forth between the iPhone's Watch app, the iPhone's Health app, and the Apple Watch itself. But once the setup is done, you shouldn't have to go through it again.Apple has made a point to say (many times) that the ECG app is not a diagnostic tool; and that it's really not supposed to be used just for kicks. You're supposed to give it a go when you're feeling symptoms like a rapid or skipped heartbeat. Or, you can use it when you get a notification that the watch has detected an especially high or low heart rate, or some other irregularity.That said, taking an ECG reading is straightforward. You open the ECG app on the Apple Watch, rest your watch-equipped arm somewhere, and press the index finger of your opposite hand against the Apple Watch's crown for 30 seconds. Occasionally, it might say recording stopped due to a poor reading, which happened to me a couple times when the watch's underside wasn't flat against my wrist—so make sure the back of the watch is in full contact with your wrist. The app then shows results right on the watch; for example, it might say it detected a sinus rhythm, which means your heart is beating in a uniform pattern. It also shares the findings with your iPhone's Health app.So far, in the time that I've been wearing the loaner Apple Watch with the latest software, I haven't received an irregular heart rhythm notification. And there's really no way to "test" whether it's accurate if I don't have the problem it's looking for. Using the ECG app is an active experience. You open the app on Apple Watch and take that 30-second reading. The irregular heart rhythm detection, on the other hand, is a passive thing; you'll only get a notification if the watch detects a problem after taking multiple background readings.One of the key features to look for on any wrist-based tracker is its ability to measure your spikes in heart rate during intense exercise activities. The Apple Watch has done this since the product's origin, though over time, the company has tweaked the way the device tracks your heart rate during periods of exercise.The Apple Watch can't diagnose you with anything. It's supposed to point you toward meaningful data and maybe encourage you to act if there are signs something may be wrong.For example, with the rollout of watchOS 4 in 2017, the Apple Watch starting showing a "Workout Recovery Rate" after an exercise session. This bit of data lets you know how quickly your heart returns to its regular resting rate after a workout. You'll have to actually record the workout on the watch (using the green Workout app) in order to see your recovery rate, though. After that, it's not easy to find. After ending the workout, you have to scroll down through the workout summary and tap on the tiny heart icon, which brings you to the Heart Rate app. Your recovery rate can be found there.Over the last few years, Apple has also upped the watch's sampling rate—its frequency of heart-rate measurements, which are taken automatically in the background as you go about your business. A software update in September 2016 changed the all-day sample rate from once every ten minutes to once every five minutes. Apple won't share specifics on how the sample rate during exercise routines has changed in this watchOS update, but fitness wearables are often designed to sample heart rate most frequently when you indicate that you're exercising.The Apple Watch will also show you your resting heart rate, although my understanding is that Apple's approach is different from heart rate monitors that are designed to be worn overnight. That's the thing about Apple Watch, and one of my biggest quibbles with it: Because its battery only lasts between a day and a day and a half, it's not really meant for tracking your sleep. You can't get an overnight or a first-thing-in-the-morning heart rate reading if your watch is on the charging pad atop your nightstand.Instead, the watch will sample your heart rate once you're wearing it, and continue to measure it until it has sampled enough to algorithmically determine a resting heart rate reading. Sometimes this means it won't appear until after you've worked out or arrived at work.Even if you're not interacting with your Apple Watch's heart rate features directly, the Watch is periodically taking those background readings. It will record your average resting rate as well as your walking average heart rate. In watchOS 4, it also started recording heart rate variability, or any variation in the time between heartbeats, a few times a day.And if you just want to check out your current heartbeat from time to time, or compare it to a reading from a pulse oximeter in a doctor's office like I did recently for fun, you can do that by tapping on the heart rate app (a gray app with the red outline of a heart) on the Watch.If you're really interested in diving into the Apple Watch's heart rate tracking features, plan to spend a lot of time in the Health app and the Activity app, both on the iPhone. This is where all the health data from the watch eventually goes, and there are just limitations around how much granular data you can view on a tiny little wrist computer.The easiest way to get there in the Health app is to open the app and go to the Health Data tab, next to the Today tab, on the bottom of the app screen. Then go to Heart (third menu option) and you can see your heart rate data by category and also by hour, day, week, month, and year.On the Watch itself you can see what your heart rate was during an exercise session that occurred that day. But reviewing your heart rate from a historical workout session is a bit more complicated. For that, you'll have to go to the Activity app on your iPhone; select the day; scroll down to Workouts, tap on that; and there you'll see a graph of your heart rate during that particular activity.The Apple Watch (and really, any smartwatch or wrist wearable that's sold directly to consumers) comes with so many health-tracking caveats that there are too many to list here.SHOP HAPPYGet Gadget Lab's picks of the best holiday deals this season. Headphones, laptops, TVs, oh my!The most important thing to remember is that the Apple Watch can't diagnose you with anything; it's supposed to point you toward meaningful data and maybe encourage you to act if there are signs something may be wrong. The Watch alone can't tell you if you have Afib. In fact, as you take an ECG reading, the app displays a warning the whole time "Note: Apple Watch never checks for heart attacks."Sure, there have been scattered stories about Apple Watch notifications alerting people to an abnormally high heart rate and saving lives. But you shouldn't rely on just the Apple Watch or any smartwatch if you're seriously concerned about your heart health.WIRED's own Robbie Gonzalez has written a great explanation of the level of preclinical research that went into the Apple Watch's ECG app and irregular heartbeat detection features. Again, these are really more about recording data that can be shared with a physician then they are about alerting you on the spot.With all that said, the Apple Watch is still pushing the boundaries on what your basic wrist-worn wearable can do. And it's these kinds of health-tracking features that might make someone who once scoffed at the idea of a smartwatch actually consider one now.A sleeping Tesla driver highlights autopilot's biggest flawPHOTOS: Giving animals the proper portrait treatmentThe WIRED Guide to online shopping (and digital retail)Inside the pricey war to influence your Instagram feedThe music obsessives who tape your favorite concertsHungry for even more deep dives on your next favorite topic? Sign up for the Backchannel newsletter

Apple uses a lot of aluminum in its products. Unfortunately, the way aluminum is produced hasn’t changed much in the last 100+ years. It’s pretty dirty, releasing greenhouses gases into the air. Aluminum is one of eight materials that Apple is focused on to find cleaner, greener ways of production.Today Apple says it’s partnering with the aluminum producer Alcoa and the smelting tech company Rio Tinto to develop a new way of producing aluminum that releases oxygen, not carbon dioxide. The three companies, along with the governments of Canada and Quebec are investing a combined $144 million in the R&D, which is being done near Alcoa’s headquarters in Pittsburg. Apple’s share is $10.1 million (U.S.). The governments are investing about $47 million (U.S.).Alcoa and Rio Tinto believe the new method will be done and packaged in 2024. At that point the two will begin licensing the tech to other aluminum producers, and, presumably, Alcoa will begin using it on a wide scale itself.Justin Trudeau [Screenshot: Elysis]The whole thing is fairly typical of how Apple plays in major green initiatives. It often acts as the catalyst that gets the conversations going; brings the right people, organizations, and money together; and then invests its own money to accelerate the development of green technologies. Finally, Apple promises to be the end customer of the product, in this case, green aluminum. It is using the same approach to build the solar and wind farms it needs to power its data centers.The product was announced Thursday at an event in Quebec attended by Canada PM Justin Trudeau.

WASHINGTON — The partial government shutdown is inflicting far greater damage on the United States economy than previously estimated, the White House acknowledged on Tuesday, as President Trump’s economists doubled projections of how much economic growth is being lost each week the standoff with Democrats continues.The revised estimates from the Council of Economic Advisers show that the shutdown, now in its fourth week, is beginning to have real economic consequences. The analysis, and other projections from outside the White House, suggests that the shutdown has already weighed significantly on growth and could ultimately push the United States economy into a contraction.While Vice President Mike Pence previously played down the shutdown’s effects amid a “roaring” economy, White House officials are now cautioning Mr. Trump about the toll it could take on a sustained economic expansion. Mr. Trump, who has hitched his political success to the economy, also faces other economic headwinds, including slowing global growth, a trade war with China and the waning effects of a $1.5 trillion tax cut.To blunt the shutdown’s effects, the administration on Tuesday called tens of thousands of employees back to work, without pay, to process tax returns, ensure flight safety and inspect food and drugs. But some people involved in the shutdown discussions in the White House have privately said they anticipate that Mr. Trump will grow anxious about the economic impact in the coming days, accelerating an end to the stalemate. Others close to the president believe Mr. Trump has leverage and are encouraging him to stand by his demands.For now, the White House shows no signs of being ready to relent, and Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, continued to blame Democrats for the economic damage.“Congress needs to look at the harms that we’re talking about,” Mr. Hassett said, “and address them.”Mr. Hassett said on Tuesday that the administration now calculates that the shutdown reduces quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percentage points for every week that it lasts — the cumulative effect of lost work from contractors and furloughed federal employees who are not getting paid and who are investing and spending less as a result. That means that the economy has already lost nearly half a percentage point of growth from the four-week shutdown. (Last year, economic growth for the first quarter totaled 2.2 percent.)ImageKevin Hassett, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said on Tuesday that one of his furloughed staff members had begun driving for Uber to make ends meet.CreditSamuel Corum for The New York TimesMr. Hassett, attempting to illustrate the pain caused by the shutdown, said on Tuesday that one of his furloughed staff members had begun driving for Uber to make ends meet.Mr. Trump has demanded that Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, include $5.7 billion for a border wall in any measure to fund the government. Democrats have refused and, along with some Republicans, have tried to persuade the president to reopen the government and negotiate border security afterward. The House has passed several bills to fund parts of the government, including the Internal Revenue Service, that are not related to border security. Senate Republicans have declined to schedule votes on those bills.On Tuesday, in an effort to try to splinter the Democrats’ opposition, the White House invited several House Democrats from districts Mr. Trump won to discuss a path forward. None showed up.The impasse has left 800,000 federal employees furloughed or working without pay, along with throwing thousands of government contractors at least temporarily off the job.Mr. Hassett said it was possible that the damage could grow. He also said much of the damage should be repaired once the shutdown ends and workers get back pay. But he acknowledged that the shutdown could permanently reduce growth expectations if businesses and markets begin to expect that Congress and the president will repeat the experience again and again.Some economists have begun to warn that such a situation is likely and that economic confidence could be undermined as businesses, consumers and investors lose faith in the ability of political leaders to find agreement on issues like raising the federal debt limit and approving trade deals.That lack of confidence could snowball into a self-inflicted economic contraction on the heels of what appears to have been the nation’s strongest year of growth since the 2008 financial crisis. Financial markets are already highly volatile amid concerns about the trade fight with China, slowing global growth and signs of weakness in American housing and manufacturing sectors.“The economy could easily stall in the first quarter, and then the question is what happens in the second” if the shutdown persists, said Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “The longer it goes on, the longer it takes to recover.”If the shutdown continues through the end of March, Mr. Shepherdson said in a research note, he would expect the economy to shrink in the first quarter. While federal workers are likely to receive back pay once the furlough ends, most government contractors will not, and the longer spending is depressed, the higher the risk that the businesses they run or patronize will fail, Mr. Shepherdson said.The shutdown “is threatening to derail this economic expansion,” Bernard Baumohl, the chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group, said in a research note on Tuesday. Its effect on federal workers’ spending plans is particularly worrisome for the automotive and housing markets, which were already showing signs of trouble before the shutdown, he said.On Tuesday, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey showed weakening manufacturing activity in the United States, the latest in a line of similar warnings. Economists at JPMorgan Chase called the data an early indication of additional slowing in the sector, adding that the shutdown was probably hurting business sentiment.Michael L. Corbat, the chief executive of Citigroup, told analysts on Monday that “right now, we see the biggest risk in the global economy as one of talking ourselves into a recession.”ImageVolunteers handing out food to federal workers in Alexandria, Va., on Saturday.CreditLexey Swall for The New York TimesWith no end in sight, federal workers appear ready to seek alternate employment before things get worse.The online jobs site Indeed analyzed job search behavior from mid-December through mid-January for workers at some affected federal agencies, including the I.R.S. and Transportation Security Administration. It found clicks on job listings rose at least 17 percent for each of those worker groups over that period, a sign that employees affected by the shutdown “are searching for jobs more right now than they usually do at this time of year,” said Martha Gimbel, Indeed’s director of economic research.“With the shutdown occurring in a tight labor market, many workers have other options, and they seem to be trying to take advantage of them,” Ms. Gimbel said. “If the shutdown leads to a loss of talent for the federal government, it could be harder for it to compete for new hires in a labor market this tight.”That might already be happening inside the White House. Mr. Hassett said on Tuesday that a prospective new hire had told the council that he might turn down the job he had been offered out of graduate school because the government is unable to bring him onto the payroll.

The Iranian presence in Syria is deeply troubling to Israel.Israel’s air force has repeatedly attacked targets in Syria that it sees as a strategic threat. Among them are weapons storehouses for Iran and Hezbollah; convoys carrying arms from Iran to Syria and Hezbollah; bases for Shiite militias from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps; and Syrian air bases used to house Iranian aerial vehicles.The Israelis also discovered that weapons factories were being set up in facilities of the Scientific Studies and Research Center for the benefit of Mr. Assad’s forces, Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stationed in Syria.Last September, Israel attacked and destroyed most of the weapons factory in Masyaf where Mr. Asbar was a senior manager. This summer, though, the Iranians began to rebuild it, this time underground. In the meantime, production machines had been transferred elsewhere for storage. But Israel destroyed many of those in a missile strike on July 23.Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center has long been a focus of Western intelligence agencies and is subject to financial sanctions in the United States and France. Before the civil war, it operated Syria’s main manufacturing and storage sites for chemical weapons, many of which have since been destroyed or abandoned. It employed around 10,000 people developing and producing missiles, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.Israel’s hand has often been discerned in attacks on Syrian weapons production. In 2007, an explosion at a warhead production line at the Scientific Studies and Research Center facility in Al Safir killed 15 Syrians and a number of Iranians. Syria concluded it was the work of Israeli saboteurs.Israel did not claim responsibility. It never does. But the Mossad has a long history of assassinating scientists developing weaponry seen as a threat.In the late 1950s, a group of German scientists and engineers who had worked on Hitler’s rocket program began building missiles for Egypt, setting off a panic in Israel and helping bring about David Ben-Gurion’s retirement from politics. The Mossad tried repeatedly to kill the scientists before recruiting agents inside the project who helped bring it to a halt.

The US military has issued an order to immediately begin restricting soldiers' use of GPS tracking apps in areas deemed to be sensitive or dangerous.Troops in "operational areas" such as warzones or overseas US bases can now be required to disable their electronic devices' geolocation services.GPS tracking, which is present on most phones and smartwatches, enables fitness tracking and even dating apps.The move comes after a fitness app revealed US troop movements in Syria.The Pentagon had launched a review of GPS trackers and apps earlier this year after fitness tracker Strava released a global map of users.The Global Heat Map showed what appeared to be Western soldiers either running or cycling in Helmand, Afghanistan and Tanf, Syria, on frontline bases.Fitness app exposes military bases"The rapidly evolving market of devices, applications, and services with geolocation capabilities... presents significant risk to Department of Defense (DoD) personnel both on and off duty, and to our military operations globally," the order says."These geolocation capabilities can expose personal information, locations, routines, and numbers of DoD personnel, and potentially create unintended security consequences and increased risk to the joint force and mission."The order stops short of banning smart devices and fitness tracking electronics themselves, but allows commanders to determine when they can be used."It goes back to making sure we're not giving the enemy an unfair advantage and we're not showcasing the exact location of our troops worldwide," Pentagon spokesman Col Rob Manning told reporters on Monday.Areas where they could be restricted include military outposts being used against the so-called Islamic State in Syria.The Pentagon headquarters in Virginia would not be considered "operational", a military spokeswoman told Nextgov.com."The goal of this policy is to focus more on the features instead of the devices," Pentagon spokeswoman Maj Audricia Harris told the website."Next thing you know there might be contact [lenses] with the same capability, so we want to focus on the feature and not the actual medium."A spokeswoman for Fitbit, which makes wearable fitness trackers, told the Associated Press on Monday that the company is "committed to protecting consumer privacy and keeping data safe"."Unlike a smartphone, location data is not collected by Fitbit unless a user gives us access to the data, and users can always remove our access."This is the second order affecting electronic devices released in recent months by the defence department.In May, the Pentagon issued new guidelines for the use of phones inside its Virginia headquarters.That memo called for staff to leave phones in storage containers outside areas of the building where sensitive or classified matters are discussed, but did not completely ban the devices all together.

(This Jan 29 story has been corrected in paragraph 10 to remove reference to top creditors, which erroneously included banks that act as trustees on bond indentures with no direct credit exposure) By Subrat Patnaik (Reuters) - Utility owner PG&E Corp filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday in anticipation of liabilities from California wildfires, including a catastrophic 2018 blaze that killed 86 people. PG&E, which provides electricity and natural gas to 16 million customers in northern and central California and employs 24,000 people, vowed to keep the lights on as it grapples with fire-related costs it estimates at more than $30 billion. “The power and gas will stay on ... We are not ‘going out of business,’ and there will be no disruption in the services you expect from us,” interim Chief Executive John Simon said in a letter to customers. The San Francisco-based owner of the biggest U.S. power utility warned in November it could face significant liability in excess of its insurance coverage if its equipment was found to have caused the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, last year. The blaze broke out on Nov. 8, killing at least 86 people in the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. State investigators had earlier cleared PG&E of liability in a 2017 wildfire in California’s wine country, but the company still faces dozens of lawsuits from owners of homes and businesses that burned during that and other 2017 fires. FILE PHOTO: PG&E crew work on power lines to repair damage caused by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 21, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File PhotoReinsurance company Munich Re called November’s Camp Fire the world’s most expensive natural disaster of 2018 and pegged overall losses at $16.5 billion. Filing for bankruptcy would shield PG&E from claims, giving it time to figure out next steps. PG&E is seeking court approval for $5.5 billion in debtor-in-possession financing from J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, and other banks, it said. The sum is roughly equal to PG&E’s annual spending. PG&E listed assets of $71.39 billion and liabilities of $51.69 billion as of Sept. 30 in the voluntary Chapter 11 document filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. It carries a debt load of more than $18 billion. Company advisers expect that it may take up to two years to emerge from bankruptcy. PG&E shares, which lost three-quarters of its value from its 52-week high before the Camp Fire, were up 6 percent at $12.74 in morning trading. PG&E subsidiary Pacific Gas and Electric Company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. BlueMountain Capital Management LLC said it would propose a slate of board directors by Feb. 21, and urged stakeholders to support change at the company. The hedge fund could potentially be in line to sit on an equity committee that a bankruptcy judge appoints. Slideshow (2 Images)PG&E must also contend with worried suppliers. Federal energy regulators said on Friday they had joint jurisdiction with a bankruptcy court over requests to cancel or renegotiate power contracts by PG&E. The was a win for power producers that supply PG&E with solar and wind power, including NextEra Energy Inc. Last year, lawmakers gave PG&E permission to raise rates to cover wildfire losses from 2017. But elected officials have shown little appetite for new rate hikes or other maneuvers to prevent a bankruptcy filing. Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru and Jim Christie in San Francisco; Writing by Nick Zieminski; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Meredith MazzilliOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Firefighters battle a wildfire near Santa Rosa, California, U.S., October 14, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart TPX IMAGES OF THE DAYSACRAMENTO, Calif./NEW YORK (Reuters) - The deadliest and most destructive California wildfires in a century caused insurers more than $11.4 billion in losses, the state’s insurance regulator said Monday. The total amount of insured losses for the November Camp Fire, which destroyed most of the town of Paradise in northern California, jumped 25 percent since December, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara told reporters during a media event. More than 13,000 insured homes and businesses were destroyed out of more than 46,000 claims reported by insurers. The figures are “unprecedented,” Lara said. “These are massive numbers for us.” Lara said. The November wildfires, combined with other blazes in the state drove total 2018 insured losses to $12.4 billion. A total of 89 people died in the Camp Fire and thousands were left homeless. Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California and Suzanne Barlyn in New York; Editing by James DalgleishOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

“This will not be a mission to build a new wall,” Mr. Brown wrote in a letter to Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, and Jim Mattis, who was secretary of defense at the time.“It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life,” Mr. Brown wrote, adding, “There is no massive wave of migrants pouring into California. Overall immigrant apprehensions on the border last year were as low as they’ve been in nearly 50 years.”Mr. Newsom and Mr. Brown are both Democrats. So is Governor Grisham of New Mexico, though the predecessor whose deployment decision she reversed was a Republican.Before the April deployment, there were about 250 National Guard troops serving in California, and 55 of them were stationed at the border. Under federal law, the troops are paid by the federal government but are under the control of the governor. It was not clear whether federal financing for the troops would continue after Mr. Newsom’s redirection order.Mr. Brown’s letter authorizing the deployment was largely seen at the time as a denunciation of President Trump’s immigration policies, but many activists and elected officials in the state sharply criticized Mr. Brown for agreeing to any guard deployment at all.Last summer, Kevin De León, who was then the State Senate leader, urged Mr. Brown to “not be complicit” in the administration’s hard-line immigration priorities, which he called “driven by racial animus.” Mr. De Leon, a Democrat, drafted the state law limiting coordination between local authorities and immigration enforcement agents, known colloquially as the “sanctuary state” law, which Mr. Brown signed in 2017.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido waves after a meeting at the European Union headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil Febbruary 28, 2019. REUTERS/Ueslei MarcelinoBUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Paraguay President Mario Abdo said by tweet on Thursday that Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido will visit the country on Friday, as Guaido tries to drum up support in the region and put pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro to step down. Reporting by Hugh BronsteinOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The Brazilian government has been urged to step up punishments for environmental crimes after the deadliest mining disaster in decades.The torrent of mud and iron ore tailings that engulfed the community of Brumadinho on Friday continues to inflict a toll on residents, river systems and freshwater species.Rescue teams had by Monday recovered 60 bodies near the site, which is operated by Vale, one of the world’s biggest mining companies, but hundreds of people are still missing. Many were eating lunch or resting in a hotel when the tailings dam collapsed and swept them away in a tide of orange sludge.It is the second such calamity to strike a Vale facility in the state of Minas Gerais in less than four years. In 2015, 19 people were killed when a tailings dam burst at an iron ore mine in Mariana that the Brazilian company co-owned with the London-listed BHP Group.The amount of slurry this time is 75% lower, at 13 million cubic metres, but now, as then, the ecological damage is spreading far beyond the immediate area and could potentially persist for many years with grave consequences for local communities, wildlife and the national economy.Over the weekend, TV and social networks were filled with images of emergency workers in helicopters trying to pull people out of the mud. Now many posts have switched to the impact on fish, frogs and other freshwater species.“Rio Paraopeba has started to die,” noted one grim tweet with a video clip of oxygen-deprived fish leaping out of the turbid water and flapping their last on the land.The level of toxicity in the tailings is not yet clear, but iron oxide can choke river sand and poison the surrounding vegetation. It can also compact the soil, preventing new growth of plants on land. Three years after the previous disaster, water from the affected Doce River is still legally unfit for human consumption in 90% of monitoring stations.A second and bigger impact is the amplification by previous manmade environmental problems. The torrent of water stirred up the heavy metals buried in the sediment on the bottom of the river. This is a huge problem in the state of Minas Gerais, which has a long history of poorly regulated resource extraction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is working on a series of reports on the ecological impact of the previous tailings dam collapse in Mariana.The immediate threat is to the 280km (174 miles) of Paraopeba River. Vale insists the problem will not spread to the São Francisco basin, but conservationists remain concerned. In this region, 64% of fish species are found nowhere else on Earth, according to the IUCN. Even before the contamination, 10% were already classified as vulnerable, including Simpsonichthys picturatus and Brycon orthotaenia. January is the end of the spawning season, which means the deluge affected fry and small fish in important species for fisheries, such as croakers, curimbatás and surubins.The slurry is expected to reach the hydropower plant at Retiro Baixo by Thursday, where the authorities hope it can be controlled in the reservoir without spreading down to the estuary and into the ocean, as happened in the case of the Mariana disaster. Hydropower generation and water supplies are likely to be affected for years.The costs have yet to be calculated. After the previous calamity, Vale and Billiton paid $1bn into land and river recuperation efforts and more in an out-of-court settlement to affected communities. Fishing is still prohibited so stocks can recover and a dam remains disrupted. A separate lawsuit in now under way in UK courts.Campaigners say it is essential to tighten regulations and punish those involved. “Good environmental regulation isn’t about adding costs to development, it’s about safeguarding people and avoiding massive clean-up costs like the ones we are now seeing,” said Stewart Maginnis, the director of the nature-based solutions group in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.Part of the problem is short-termism. A safer alternative to tailings dams is dry stacking of mining waste. This process – which removes water from the slurry so it can be stored in a stable condition – has been used successfully in many other countries. In Brazil, a 2016 test of dry stacking in Pau Branco iron-ore mine found it was safer, better for water-recycling and required less monitoring and maintenance. Over the 20-year life of a mine, it was also far more cost-efficient. But the extra initial investment of $5-$10m appears to have put off many Brazilian mine owners, who are more used to taking advantage of the country’s abundant rivers.Brazil has the most abundant water resources in the world, but they are tapped with often reckless abandon and inadequate regulation. Less than one in five of the country’s 24,092 dams come under the supervision of the 2010 dam safety law, 42 are unauthorised and 570 have no responsible operator, according to the Folha de São Paulo newspaper. With a mere 154 inspectors for such a vast country, only 3% of Brazil’s dams were inspected last year, it said.The problems date back decades, but the risks look set to grow. The new administration of the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has neutered the environment ministry and pledged to ease the licensing system for new projects.Despite the latest calamity, Augusto Heleno, the head of the national security office, insisted the fast-track approval process would go ahead. “Making the process more flexible means having very strict rules, but allowing certain works that depend on licensing to happen. It does not mean loosening environmental licensing. On the contrary, licensing has to be done well, but it can not be delayed without fair grounds,” he said.Campaigners say this should now be unthinkable. “It would be offensive to victims of Mariana and Brumadinho if they fulfil that promise,” said Carlos Rittl, who heads the Climate Observatory umbrella group of environmental NGOs.Public fury is forcing some ministers to shift rhetorical tack. “At this moment, what we need is to make a regulation that ensures, firstly, that best dam practices are implemented, while economic questions stay in second place,” environment minister Ricardo Salles told local TV on Monday.Environmental crimes are often punished with small fines that often go unpaid. As a result, campaigners say transgressions build into “time-bombs” that can explode, as was the case in Brumadinho. To avoid this, they say those responsible should be imprisoned.“This cannot be called an ‘accident’ under any circumstances,” said Malu Ribeiro, the founder of the NGO SOS Mata Atlantica. “Such environmental crimes should be punished with the legal rigour that society expects.”Vale’s chief executive, Fabio Schvartsman, said in a television interview on Sunday that he did everything the law required. “I’m not a mining technician,” he said. “I followed the technicians’ advice and you see what happened. It didn’t work. We are 100% within all the standards, and that didn’t do it.”Police have so far arrested five people, including three mining staff. “We have to investigate and punish, but really punish,” Brazil’s vice-president Hamilton Mourão told reporters. “We have to preserve our planet in every possible way, because if not we’ll have to live on Mars.” Topics Brazil Mining Americas Jair Bolsonaro features

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States imposed new sanctions on six Venezuelan security officials and revoked the visas of dozens of associates and their families with ties to President Nicolas Maduro, in the latest move to pile pressure on him to step down. The U.S. Treasury said the six current or former security officials controlled groups that blocked humanitarian aid from reaching people in Venezuela last weekend from neighboring countries Colombia and Brazil. “We are sanctioning members of Maduro’s security forces in response to the reprehensible violence, tragic deaths, and unconscionable torching of food and medicine destined for sick and starving Venezuelans,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. The United States “will continue to target Maduro loyalists prolonging the suffering of the victims of this man-made humanitarian crisis,” Mnuchin added. Separately, the U.S. envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, said the United States had revoked visas of “dozens more” Venezuelans, although declined to elaborate, saying U.S. laws prevented him from discussing details about visas. “We continue to look at close associates of Maduro, who with their families have visas to the United States,” Abrams said at a news conference. Friday’s action is the second set of sanctions by the United States this week. On Monday, Washington targeted four Venezuelan state governors allied with Maduro and called on allies to freeze the assets of state-owned oil company PDVSA. U.S. sanctions block any assets the individuals control in the United States and bars U.S. entities from doing any business or financial transactions with them. The Trump administration and dozens of other countries have recognized opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president. Guaido, head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, has invoked constitutional provisions to assume an interim presidency, arguing that Maduro’s re-election last year was fraudulent. Guaido has since been recognized by most Western nations as the rightful leader of Venezuela. Maduro still controls the military, state institutions and oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, which provides 90 percent of the country’s export revenue. A Venezuelan flag waves above the corporate logo of Banesco bank at one of their office complexes in Caracas, Venezuela May 2, 2018. REUTERS/Marco BelloRussia has accused the United States of preparing to intervene militarily in Venezuela and this week, along with China, blocked a U.S. bid to get the U.N. Security Council to take action on Venezuela. Abrams said he was in talks with Russia on Venezuela. Both Moscow and Beijing were unlikely to provide additional financial support to Maduro’s government although they continued to give him diplomatic and political cover, he said. “We have made the argument, unsuccessfully to date, to both Russia and China that they are not helping themselves,” Abrams said. “If they are concerned ... about the recovery of money they have lent or invested, a bankrupt Venezuelan economy will never be able to repay those amounts, only a Venezuela in recovery will be able to do so.” Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Grant McCoolOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A dog named Kingston is back with his family 101 days after he jumped out of their truck as they fled a devastating northern California wildfire.The 12-year-old Akita was reunited Monday with the Ballejos family, who fled the town of Paradise late last year, the Sacramento television station KXTV reported.“When I found out, [it] just about brought me to tears,” said Gabriel Ballejos, Kingston’s owner. “I’m so proud of him. I can’t believe it. He’s a true survivor, and it’s a testament to the American spirit.”Ballejos said they never lost hope and kept posting flyers and contacting shelters.“Every night I would ask my dad and tell him that we needed to go look for him,” said Ballejos’s daughter, Maleah.The family got a call after an animal rescue volunteer, Ben Lepe, trapped Kingston on Sunday and took him to Friends of Camp Fire Cats, a local rescue group. The volunteers saw a missing dog message on Facebook and contacted the family.Lepe said the large dog had been spotted on surveillance cameras and that he set up a trap big enough for it on Saturday.“When I went to check it on Sunday, there he was,” Lepe said. “It was awesome to see him and know he would be fed and warm.”Family members believe Kingston survived by eating skunks, because he hunted them before the fire and smelled of skunk when they picked him up.The town of Paradise was leveled by an 8 November blaze that killed 85 people and destroyed nearly 15,000 homes in the area.Angel Herrera, of Friends of Camp Fire Cats, said the group has rescued more than 200 lost pets since the fire and still sets traps.“If we had the resources, we could trap 50 animals every single night,” she said. Topics California Wildfires Dogs Animals Pets Natural disasters and extreme weather news

(This Jan 29 story has been corrected in paragraph 10 to remove reference to top creditors, which erroneously included banks that act as trustees on bond indentures with no direct credit exposure) By Subrat Patnaik (Reuters) - Utility owner PG&E Corp filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday in anticipation of liabilities from California wildfires, including a catastrophic 2018 blaze that killed 86 people. PG&E, which provides electricity and natural gas to 16 million customers in northern and central California and employs 24,000 people, vowed to keep the lights on as it grapples with fire-related costs it estimates at more than $30 billion. “The power and gas will stay on ... We are not ‘going out of business,’ and there will be no disruption in the services you expect from us,” interim Chief Executive John Simon said in a letter to customers. The San Francisco-based owner of the biggest U.S. power utility warned in November it could face significant liability in excess of its insurance coverage if its equipment was found to have caused the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, last year. The blaze broke out on Nov. 8, killing at least 86 people in the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. State investigators had earlier cleared PG&E of liability in a 2017 wildfire in California’s wine country, but the company still faces dozens of lawsuits from owners of homes and businesses that burned during that and other 2017 fires. FILE PHOTO: PG&E crew work on power lines to repair damage caused by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 21, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File PhotoReinsurance company Munich Re called November’s Camp Fire the world’s most expensive natural disaster of 2018 and pegged overall losses at $16.5 billion. Filing for bankruptcy would shield PG&E from claims, giving it time to figure out next steps. PG&E is seeking court approval for $5.5 billion in debtor-in-possession financing from J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, and other banks, it said. The sum is roughly equal to PG&E’s annual spending. PG&E listed assets of $71.39 billion and liabilities of $51.69 billion as of Sept. 30 in the voluntary Chapter 11 document filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. It carries a debt load of more than $18 billion. Company advisers expect that it may take up to two years to emerge from bankruptcy. PG&E shares, which lost three-quarters of its value from its 52-week high before the Camp Fire, were up 6 percent at $12.74 in morning trading. PG&E subsidiary Pacific Gas and Electric Company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. BlueMountain Capital Management LLC said it would propose a slate of board directors by Feb. 21, and urged stakeholders to support change at the company. The hedge fund could potentially be in line to sit on an equity committee that a bankruptcy judge appoints. Slideshow (2 Images)PG&E must also contend with worried suppliers. Federal energy regulators said on Friday they had joint jurisdiction with a bankruptcy court over requests to cancel or renegotiate power contracts by PG&E. The was a win for power producers that supply PG&E with solar and wind power, including NextEra Energy Inc. Last year, lawmakers gave PG&E permission to raise rates to cover wildfire losses from 2017. But elected officials have shown little appetite for new rate hikes or other maneuvers to prevent a bankruptcy filing. Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru and Jim Christie in San Francisco; Writing by Nick Zieminski; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Meredith MazzilliOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The moral case for reparations is undeniable. The United States is a country built in large part off the labor of black slaves. Their coerced labor was turned into capital. That capital was appropriated by planters, filled the coffers of merchants, and fueled industrialists. Meanwhile, the descendants of slaves were stuck of the lowest rung of an incredibly violent and exploitative society.Even after the tremendous gains of the Civil Rights movement and the election of a generation of black leaders, black Americans have to settle for the worst schools, the worst health care, the worst jobs, and the worst end of the worst justice system in the democratic world. Yet at the same time, they’re told by politicians – white and black, Democrat and Republican – that their woes are the product of a “culture of poverty”, that they need to just “pull up their pants” and try a little harder.Far from there being talk of redress for slavery, black Americans have been portrayed as “welfare cheats”, dependent on government and unwilling to change their ways.In this context, the discussion of reparations, sparked by Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2014 essay “The Case for Reparations” and revived in the early days of the 2020 Democratic primary, is welcome. It’s good that the distribution of wealth is being discussed as a way to fight racism, rather than merely battles over representation or interpersonal biases.But reparations can’t adequately address racial inequality, can’t be effectively administered, and there is still no mass base of black Americans pushing for it. We have more effective and popular ways to finally turn America into an egalitarian democracy.Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have embraced the rhetoric of reparations. But both of them seem to just mean they back policies that will disproportionately help black Americans, like tax credits or aid to the victim of housing discrimination. Warren refuses to say she supports direct cash transfers to the descendants of US slaves, but does say it’s time for a “full-blown conversation about reparations”, including HR 40.Booker does something similar, he proposes “baby bonds” for every child to address the racial wealth gap, and calls that a “form of reparations”. (It isn’t.) Sanders says the universal programs he’s popularized will help disproportionately marginalized groups but has avoided the reparation rhetoric of other candidates.His stance is an admirable one, in part because his political brand is based on being straightforward and offering comprehensible solutions to American workers. Supporting a committee just to discuss an issue, or calling policies that aren’t reparations “reparations”, is the opposite of that approach.Though he’s careful to not say any of the other candidates are a better option for black Americans than Sanders, Coates questions whether Sanders and his staff “understand the illness which they think they can treat through class-exclusive solutions”.I think they do, and that what they’re proposing instead represents something radical — a third Reconstruction to finally finish the job of creating democracy in America. The first Reconstruction, which followed the American civil war, was an attempt to use the power of the federal government and the victorious Union army to smash the remnants of planter power and create a new order in the south.Congressional efforts by radical Republicans took on Lincoln’s reactionary successor Andrew Johnson and created the conditions for the newly freed to assert voting rights and win public office. Wealth was redistributed, public schools were erected, and an incredible democratic experiment thrived. A black civil society and politics was created, showing the latent power of those who had been denounced as inferior for generations. This wasn’t a cash transfer, it was a revolution.With this backdrop, figures like the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass foresaw the emergence of “a party in the southern states among the poor”, and believed that instead of endless racial animosity, a conflict was brewing “between the wealthy slaveholder and the poor man”.It was a dream stomped out, not by the permanent racist psyche of white Americans, but by a brutal counterrevolution led by powerful southern elites and the terrorism of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.But some of the spirit stayed alive, from the multiracial organizing of the Knights of Labor to Populist leaders such as Tom Watson who challenged white and black farmers to “see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars all”.In time, a second Reconstruction emerged during the civil rights movement of the 1960s that finally won formal equality for black Americans and changed the United States for the better. It fell, however, short of Martin Luther King Jr’s hope of not just integrating the lunch counter, but making sure that there was “money to be able to buy a hamburger or a steak”. His route to fulfilling this dream was through a labor-based coalition and the fight for an expansive welfare state.But even if we agree this is important work must be finished, that we must have a new Reconstruction, why not include reparations as part of it? The first case is the technical difficulty of administrating such a program. When it comes to the necessary reparations for the victims of colonialism, we know how to identify those affected and administer redress. The state of France can pay the state of Haiti for its historic crimes, and the state of Haiti can use that wealth (or debt forgiveness) to help spur development that imperialism stunted.But what kind of bureaucratic process would be necessary to identify who gets to receive the reparations Coates supports? It can’t simply be race, because recent immigrants from Africa wouldn’t qualify, nor would the descendants of slaves held in former French or British colonies. Would we need a new bureau to establish ancestry? Is that overhead and the work it will involve for black Americans to prove that they qualify worth it compared to creating a universal program that will most help the marginalized anyway?Or consider this dilemma: money for reparations will come from government expenditure, of which around half is funded by income tax. Could we be in a situation where we’re asking, say, a black Jamaican descendent of slaves, or a poor Latino immigrant, to help fund a program that they can’t benefit from? Reparations wouldn’t be quite such a zero-sum game, but it would hard to shake the perception. Is this really the basis that we can build a majoritarian coalition?We have a real alternative: solidaristic policies that, unlike reparations, are actually the mass demands of African Americans.When polled, most black Americans agree that “our society should do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed” and that government should spend money to tackle poverty. The vanguard of American social democracy, they’re joined now by millions of others, commanding majorities that support Medicare for All, a jobs guarantee, free public education, and more.These are the types of measures that can unite the many against the tiny minority that benefits from their exploitation and continued racialized division.Are universal programs enough? No, we need to defend affirmative action from right-wing attack and there also needs to be a wider cultural reckoning with slavery. It is outrageous that we live in a former slave state in which there is not a single federal holiday celebrating emancipation. Juneteenth must be enshrined on that basis.It’s also reprehensible that children in American public schools are often given “lost cause” accounts of history that downplay the brutality of slavery or valorize those, like Confederate general Robert E Lee, who murdered to defend it. The education curriculum, by federal mandate, should as rigorously guide the study of slavery in our primary schools as Holocaust studies is guided in Germany. And of course, no statues of Confederate leaders, or those that served the rebel cause, should exist on public land.But even while we reckon with the history of racism and exploitation, we need to remember that we have a shared destiny. There is still much to do, but through generations of struggle, progress has been made. Racism might seem permanent, but it is an invention of man, not something always to be embedded in our psyches.HR 40 is a call for a conversation. But what we need more than ever is action. We’re closer than we’ve been in decades to creating the political coalition that can win power and create an egalitarian social democracy in the United States. Such a republic of freedom can’t be our final step, but it’s the necessary foundation for the world we desperately need, one without race, or class, where life outcomes aren’t left to accidents of birth. Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin magazine and a Guardian US columnist. He is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality Topics Race Opinion Slavery comment

The repercussions of the Mueller report continued to cascade through news shows on Tuesday. While Democrats view Barr’s summary as just the first step in examining Mueller’s findings, “as far Trump is concerned, this ends the saddest chapter in American history”, reported Trevor Noah on the Daily Show.“By the way, have you ever noticed that Trump is terrible at comforting victims unless it’s him?” Noah added. Trump tosses a roll of paper towels at a Hurricane Maria victim in Puerto Rico, “but with him, it’s like ‘the Mueller investigation was a terrible thing,’” Noah reassured in the president’s voice. “We’re going to do everything we can to get me back on my feet.”The president received support from his usual backers. On Fox News, Tucker Carlson demanded punishment for those responsible for the “Russian Collusion Hoax”, Laura Ingraham called for the exposure of people whose “fanatical hatred” for Trump threatened the country, and Sean Hannity promised to hold accountable all conspiracy theorists, propagandists and liars.Pump the brakes, Noah told Hannity. “If you got rid of all the conspiracy theorists, propagandists and liars, Fox News would just be a bunch of empty couches and a sexual harassment settlement.”Noah conceded that many people were wrong about Trump’s collusion allegations, but Fox News personalities “don’t get to say shit about conspiracy theories and political lies”. He rehashed some of their most egregious cases of fear-mongering: Ingraham’s website published stories that the Clintons murdered people, Carlson pushed the Obamacare death panels lie, and Hannity was “the worst of them all” for peddling the Seth Rich murder conspiracy.“So forget glass houses,” Noah concluded. “These people [are] in glass mansions with stone-powered AR-15s.”“Trump’s been on his own high ever since we got the Barr report of the Mueller report that said there’s nothing to report,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s Late Show. Which means that coverage of the investigation’s findings has been like “a weird game of telephone where you don’t know what the first guy said but the last guy stabs you in the ear”.Nevertheless, Trump has gloated in the non-findings presented in Barr’s summary, taking what many media outlets have called a “victory lap” or, in Colbert’s estimation, a “winning shamble”.“And I’ve got to say that being told that you’ve not been indicted for betraying your country is a pretty low bar for a victory lap,” he added.Colbert turned to the victory lap’s Exhibit A: a memo circulated by the White House that warned television producers against booking critics of the president. Barr may have cleared Trump of collusion charges, Colbert said, but “that’s ignoring that those people thought Trump was guilty because he acted super guilty. I mean, if it looks like a duck, and swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then how are they supposed to know that it’s just a deeply strange squirrel who strapped on a beak and some wings and went ‘Quack, quack, what makes you think I’m a duck, you traitor?’”The memo also urged cable TV producers to ask, when booking a commentator, “Does this guest warrant further appearances in our programming, given the outrageous and unsupported claims made in the past?”Colbert saw some merit in this question. “Yes, I think cable news should ban appearances by everyone who’s ever made an outrageous or unsupported claim. Mr President, you will be missed.”Over in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also looked into the Trump TV memo. A “Do Not Book” list to cable news producers is “such a Trumpy thing to do”, he said. “[Trump] thinks the worst thing you could do to someone is to keep them off television.”Kimmel was particularly miffed about the concern for “outrageous and unsupported” claims. “Outrageous and unsupported’ – this is from the people who insisted that this crowd was bigger than this crowd,” he said to a side-by-side comparison of Trump’s inauguration crowd to Obama’s visibly larger one.In other White House gloating news, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted out a “Mueller Madness” bracket on Tuesday, which pitted vocal critics of the president (including #3 seed Colbert) against each other, NCAA college basketball-style, for the title of most embarrassing.“Poor Sarah Sanders,” Kimmel remarked. “She has to constantly defend nonsense and now she’s finally got a chance to fire back and this is how she does it, with a wacky Mueller Madness bracket. As the president would say, Sad!”One Trump figure not on the media offensive? Vice-president Mike Pence, who instead gave a speech advocating for the proposed Space Force military branch. Poor Mike Pence – he probably thought he’d be president by now,” Kimmel observed. “Instead he’s arranging our meeting with Jesus on the moon.” Topics Late-night TV roundup Trevor Noah Stephen Colbert Jimmy Kimmel TV comedy Comedy US television news

The American Museum of Natural History said Monday that it would no longer host an event at the museum by an outside organization that was to have honored President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, whose environmental policies have come under fire.The announcement followed days of criticism that a prominent institution dedicated to nature and science would serve as a platform to recognize someone who has proposed environmental deregulation and opening more of the Amazon rain forest to mining and agribusiness.The event was to have been held in May in the museum’s Hall of Ocean Life, a popular space for galas. The Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit organization that promotes business and cultural ties between the United States and Brazil, had rented the space.“With mutual respect for the work and goals of our individual organizations, we have jointly agreed that the museum is not the optimal location for the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce gala dinner,” the museum and the chamber said in a joint statement. “This traditional event will go forward at another location on the original date and time.”The museum acted quickly after discovering this month that President Bolsonaro would be receiving the Person of the Year award at the event. The roughly 1,000-person gala is an established, annual event, and has been held at the museum in prior years. Past recipients have included former President Bill Clinton and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.Among those who pushed the museum to cancel the gala was Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said he found holding the event at an institution that accepts city funding “really troubling.” Some staff members also signed an open letter to the museum’s president, Ellen V. Futter, saying that the event was “in direct conflict with the values of the museum.”At the end of last week the museum announced it was reviewing its decision to rent out its space for the gala. Backing out seemed inevitable when, over the weekend, the museum issued statements publicly thanking those who had raised concerns and saying that, “We want you to know that we understand and share your distress.”ImageThe museum on Central Park West is a popular spot for galas. Officials said they decided jointly with the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce to move the gala, scheduled for May 14, from the museum to another venue.CreditChristina Horsten/Picture Alliance, via Getty ImagesMuseum representatives did not expand on reasons for jointly agreeing to cancel the event. But in earlier statements the museum had said it was “deeply concerned about the stated policy aims of the current Brazilian administration.”It is unclear where the gala, scheduled for May 14, will take place. No one at the Chamber of Commerce could be reached for comment. According to its website, President Bolsonaro is being honored in “recognition of his strongly stated intention of fostering closer commercial and diplomatic ties between Brazil and the United States and his firm commitment to building a strong and durable partnership between the two nations.”It is also unclear what sort of financial hit, if any, the museum took for canceling the gala. The museum declined to specify how much money it had received or anticipated receiving for renting the space.The speed with which events unfolded was underlined by the fact that the chamber’s website continued on Monday evening to list the museum as the location for the gala.Outside social events can be lucrative for museums. But this latest outcry comes at a time when there are increasing questions about the kind of oversight museums should exercise over people and organizations who serve on their boards, give them money or, as in this case, rent their space.Traditionally, museums have argued that they do not apply ideological litmus tests to their donors or trustees, a position of principle, but also one that enabled often cash-challenged nonprofit institutions to accept financing from the widest spectrum of individuals.The natural history museum cited the principle a few years ago in defending its decision to offer a board seat to Rebekah Mercer, who is an influential donor to the museum and also to groups that deny climate change.Some museums, however, have recently taken a different stance. In several cases institutions have said they are reconsidering their associations with some members of the Sackler family because their company, Purdue Pharma, has been linked to the opioid crisis.

Diners and town halls. Iowa and New Hampshire. The Rachel Maddow Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.While some campaign stops for Democrats running for president are very familiar, others reflect how the rise of liberal media hosts, late-night comedians and “going viral” online could make all the difference in a tight race.Other guests on The Late Show, filmed before an audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York and broadcast at 11.35pm, have included Eric Holder, Cory Booker, John Kerry, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Julián Castro (who appeared with twin brother Joaquín) and Kamala Harris, all of whom have declared their candidacy or are said to be considering it. A recent CNN article was headlined: “Welcome to the Stephen Colbert primary.”Colbert, 54, who cut his teeth in improvisational comedy, has earned it. Future historians could do worse than watch the bitingly satirical take-downs of Donald Trump in his opening monologues. His edgy political wit has catapulted him past Jimmy Fallon in the late-night ratings and drawn interviewees including Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi.“Any Democratic candidate who thinks they can ignore Stephen Colbert might as well not run for president,” said Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. “Colbert once joked that the road to the White House runs through his show but it’s no joke; it is exactly so.”Colbert’s interviews are generally humorous with occasional probing questions. Farnsworth added: “Politicians have increasingly promoted their personalities in public. When you see how they interact on Twitter and YouTube, you see a heavy reliance on presenting themselves as a personality rather than discussing issues. These talkshows are a wonderful vehicle for getting a sense of who these people are in a way a stilted news conference never will.”Colbert is building on a long tradition. The first presidential candidate to appear on late-night TV was John F Kennedy, who featured on Tonight Starring Jack Paar in 1960, soon followed by his opponent Richard Nixon. Another Democrat aiming for the presidency, Bill Clinton, wore sunglasses and played Heartbreak Hotel on the tenor saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show.Others got a relatively easy ride on the talkshows of Jay Leno and David Letterman or had cameo roles on Saturday Night Live, including Trump himself in November 2015. And Comedy Central offered The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report (the same Colbert), two court jesters offering satire that many younger viewers found more refreshing than cable news.But cable news has a new lease of life in the Trump era, especially at prime time. On the right, there’s Sean Hannity on Fox News. On the left, Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Her menu of news and analysis with attitude – “We have a bunch of questions” – averaged the second-highest audience on cable news last year with 2.9 million viewers per night, according to Nielsen.Maddow scooped the first interview with Warren after the Massachusetts senator announced she was formally exploring a run for the White House. She asked Gillibrand pointed questions about her shifting policy positions. Last week she questioned Harris and the Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, another possible candidate. All seemingly regard Maddow’s show as a hotline to the anti-Trump resistance.Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist who was an adviser to the Al Gore and John Kerry presidential campaigns, said: “I think she’s terrific. She’s incisive, she’s smart, she has her own views on things and, by the way, she doesn’t disguise them: they’re right out in the open.”Robert Lichter, professor of communication at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, said: “With the Democratic party moving to the left, she’s positioned to become a kingmaker. She’s a highly respected liberal and can make or break a candidacy early on by exposing someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Candidates will try to aim through Colbert’s jokes and Maddow’s seriousness.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah has featured Booker and Gillibrand in recent months and the “no-bullshit” podcast Pod Save America also interviewed Gillibrand.David Litt, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama and author of Thanks, Obama, said: “It does require politicians to be a little more nimble and versatile because the talking points you fall back on on [Sunday TV politics talkshow] Meet the Press might not work when you’re being interviewed by a podcast or answering questions on Instagram or YouTube.”Litt, 32, usually catches Maddow’s show through clips on social media, which gives TV interviews a multiplier effect. “When I was at the Obama White House, we noticed when we did something with a less traditional media outlet, such as BuzzFeed or Between Two Ferns, the rest of the press still had to cover it … People are looking for authenticity and honesty and have less trust than ever in the traditional political press.” Topics US elections 2020 Democrats US politics Television Stephen Colbert Rachel Maddow features