closeVideoFox News Flash top headlines for Oct. 22Fox News Flash top headlines for Oct. 22 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.comThe country's top prosecutor probing Big Tech left the door open to breaking up the biggest names in Silicon Valley.Makan Delrahim, head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, said Tuesday that breaking up companies such as Google, Facebook or Amazon is "perfectly on the table" while speaking at the WSJ Tech Live summit.The Journal reports that Delrahim laid out a "worst-case scenario" for Big Tech as the Justice Department's wide-ranging antitrust review, which began over the summer, continues.“There’s no question consumers have benefited from technology. There’s no question we have a lot more conveniences at our disposal. The big question is: Are companies abusing the market power that they have gained,” Delrahim said.VideoDelrahim reportedly summed up his operating philosophy a few moments later, saying: “Big is not bad. Big behaving badly is bad.”Notably, Delrahim said it was not his job to be worried about whether breaking up America's biggest tech firms would help China to gain market shares.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt have all made that nationalist appeal in defense of Silicon Valley."Consideration of national champions is inappropriate," Delrahim said.

State attorneys general and federal investigators gathered Monday with public policy and antitrust experts to explore the legal grounds on which they could build an antitrust case against social media giant Facebook Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has emerged as a lead figure in investigations of Facebook by more than 40 attorneys general, organized the event at her office. A spokesman for Ms. James declined to discuss it with The Wall Street Journal.Representatives...

In December, Andrew Finch, the Antitrust Division’s principal deputy assistant attorney general, contended that “consumers often benefit from concentration” and dismissed calls to break up or regulate tech platforms as “drastic.”The division dresses up its actions in the rhetoric of humility. In a June 2018 address, Barry Nigro, a deputy assistant attorney general at the Antitrust Division, said that when enforcing antitrust law, “First, we should do no harm,” and warned, “we should be wary of trying to prescribe the correct path forward.”Yet, as the Justice Department’s top antitrust enforcers proclaim humility and practice restraint when it comes to monopolies, they do not extend this courtesy to elected officials. Cities and states seeking to structure markets through the democratic process can expect hectoring, not humility, from the department.The Justice Department has, to the benefit of Uber and Lyft, interfered with municipal efforts to improve the lives of ride-hailing drivers. These drivers, on average, earn less than the local minimum wage in many places. In November 2017, the Department of Justice (as well as the Federal Trade Commission) filed a brief against Seattle’s law granting collective bargaining rights to ride-hailing drivers.The Justice Department has also weighed in on the legality and wisdom of state rules on, for example, the practice of law. In a statement of interest in a case challenging a Florida bar’s rule, the Antitrust Division paid tribute to “new competition from mobile platforms that can profoundly change an industry.” This type of free-standing policy lecture voices a hostility to democratic market structuring and is outside the division’s statutory duty to police corporate cartels, mergers and monopolies.When trying to understand the Trump administration’s position on tech monopolists, ignore Mr. Trump’s tweets and look to what his antitrust enforcers do and say. Mr. Trump’s antitrust chief is hindering the ability of federal, state and local governments and the public to tame the power of tech giants. Instead of this deference to corporate power and condescension to our elected representatives, the department should be confronting monopolies in tech and elsewhere and respecting the policy choices of state and local officials.Matthew Buck is a reporter-researcher with the Open Markets Institute. From 2017 to 2018, he worked as a paralegal specialist in the Antitrust Division's Criminal I Section, helping to investigate criminal cartel activity. Sandeep Vaheesan is legal director of the Open Markets Institute.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

A GOP House candidate in California has repeatedly tweeted conspiracy theories regarding the novel coronavirus, a fast-spreading flu-like disease that has spurred a wave of online misinformation.The tweets, from Republican hopeful Joanne Wright, underline how widespread coronavirus-related conspiracy theories have become as even politicians tout debunked claims linking the disease to governments and public figures. Wright has tweeted multiple times over the last few weeks about the coronavirus, suggesting the virus may be manmade or even connected to prominent Democrats, the Los Angeles Times first reported.In one tweet, from Feb. 28, Wright questioned whether Microsoft founder Bill Gates is connected to the virus, a conspiracy theory that has made its way from the fringes of the online ecosystem to the center. She also tied the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, to Democratic mega-donor George Soros and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. "Doesn’t @BillGates finance research at the Wuhan lab where the Corona virus was being created?" Wright tweeted, earning hundreds of retweets and likes. "Isn’t @georgesoros a good friend of Gates? Isn’t it always when @HillaryClinton tweets that fire and brimstone hits us? Check Gates Foundation and Clinton Foundation for stock sells." The day before, responding to a tweet espousing a largely debunked theory on the origins of the virus from Sen. Tom CottonTom Bryant CottonCOVID outbreak threatens GOP's Supreme Court plans This week: Coronavirus complicates Senate's Supreme Court fight Tom Cotton: 'No doubt' coronavirus won't stop confirmation of SCOTUS nominee MORE (R-Ark.), Wright tweeted, "The Corona virus is a man made virus created in a Wuhan laboratory. Ask @BillGates who financed it." Wright did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Twitter does not explicitly ban coronavirus-related conspiracy theories, but it does seek to prioritize credible information about the disease as people search for information on its powerful platform. A search for "coronavirus" brings up a link to a COVID-19 fact sheet created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Searching "Joanne Wright coronavirus" on Twitter brings up a warning that reads "Know your facts" and links to the CDC.Multiple lawmakers and Trump administration officials have contributed to a number of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus since it first began to spread several weeks ago. Cotton, for instance, has publicly questioned the disease's origins and suggested it was linked to a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan, China. "We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,” Cotton said on Fox News in February. Public health experts have dismissed the possibility that it was manmade. The World Health Organization and CDC have been working closely with the top social media companies to amplify authoritative information about the little-understood disease as it spreads across the globe. And Silicon Valley giants have implemented their own policies to deal with the wave of misinformation.Facebook has been cracking down on coronavirus misinformation across its services. Last week, it announced it would ban coronavirus-related ads if they touted bunk cures or attempted to "create a sense of urgency" about a virus that has already caused panic.Over the weekend, leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said the current risk of coronavirus to the American public is low.Fauci said 15 to 20 percent of those who contract the coronavirus will need advanced medical care. He said the virus feels like a bad flu or cold, and the people at highest risk of death — the elderly and people with underlying health conditions — are the same populations that are likeliest to die from the flu. Cook Political Report currently rates California's 34th District as solidly Democratic for incumbent Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D). Updated 10:43 P.M.

"Our government was very concerned about the prospect of Huawei providing the Solomons with its sole internet access connection, because that does create an opportunity for an intelligence organisation to monitor all of the communications traffic coming in and out of the island," he told the BBC.

Pham, the Yang volunteer, works as a data scientist developing chatbots—software that mimics human conversation—that will eventually replace call-center workers. Automation, Pham told me, is “something that we need to address, and … a lot of candidates don't.”John Michael Haas, a 32-year-old Orange Theory instructor from Fort Worth, Texas, told me that he first heard Yang on the comedian Joe Rogan’s popular podcast back in February. (This is one of the more common ways voters discover Yang: through his interviews on podcasts and YouTube channels, or conversations on the massive online discussion forum Reddit. His fans call it being Yanged). “It was the UBI that hooked me first,” Haas said. A thousand dollars a month would have helped his mother immeasurably while she was taking care of his sick grandparents, Haas explained, and it would make it easier for him and his wife to start a family. “UBI is a good way to fix a lot of the issues that face this country,” he said. “That’s going to be [Yang’s] biggest legacy for this primary.”Yang’s warnings about the threat that automation poses to America’s workforce have been called into question by economists, many of whom argue that trade—not automation—is more responsible for the decline in U.S. factory work. Critics have also challenged his campaign’s seriousness. Last month, a video of the candidate gleefully squirting whipped cream into his kneeling supporters’ open mouths inspired some in the Twitter commentariat to label him a “frat boy.” But Yang’s supporters said all they saw in the clip was a normal person experiencing the sheer human delight of a full can of Reddi-wip. He is so unpolished in the way that other politicians aren’t, Haas remembered thinking when he saw it for the first time.If Yang’s supporters see Sanders as a model for what his campaign’s success would look like, it could be because there’s overlap between the two candidates’ fan bases, despite their differences in policy and experience. More Bernie fans consider Yang to be their second-choice candidate than do fans of the other front-runners, according to recent polling from Morning Consult. Sixteen percent of self-described potential Sanders voters said they were keeping an eye on Yang too, according to an Ipsos/FiveThirtyEight poll from earlier this fall. In the same poll, some 57 percent of Yang backers reported they’re also considering Sanders.Pham’s fiance, Eric Huynh, who also discovered Yang on The Joe Rogan Experience, was a Sanders backer in 2016. Now he wants Yang. “Some people like supporting the underdog,” Huynh told me at trivia night with a shrug, “the candidates who have the more interesting ideas or out-there ideas, but are really trying to break into the top tier.”That Yang’s campaign has lasted this long already, attracting voters from various political factions, suggests that his ideas have at least some level of staying power. “I know what you're thinking, America. How am I still on this stage with them?” Yang said with a smile during his closing statement during Thursday’s debate, for which he was the last candidate to qualify. “Our campaign is growing all the time because we are laser-focused on solving the real problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.”As the primary wears on, the bar to qualify for debates will only get higher, and the first elections of the primary are coming in just over a month, which will likely significantly winnow the field. But regardless of whether his candidacy survives, his supporters are betting, with every dollar they donate and person they’re able to Yang, that his message will. Elaine Godfreyis a staff writer atThe Atlantic, where she covers politics.Connect Twitter

From “Insecure”’s 20-something women to the Muslim-American star of “Ramy,” Sunday’s Emmy line-up is an unprecedented showcase for people of color.But the television industry needs to take concrete action on pledges to nurture nonwhite writers and directors to ensure that the 2020 awards ceremony is not just a blip triggered by a summer of protests over systemic racism in the United States, observers say.“I’m sure the last thing the [Academy of Television Arts & Sciences] wanted was to have an ‘Emmys so white’ controversy in the middle of all that,” said Eric Deggans, TV critic for National Public Radio and author of the 2012 book “Race Baiter.” “So I’m not surprised they paid special attention to the work of Black performers.”Record Emmy nominations for people of color included nods for Kerry Washington (“Little Fires Everywhere” and “American Son”), Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”), Billy Porter (“Pose”), Regina King (“Watchmen”), Issa Rae (“Insecure”), and Sterling K. Brown (“This is Us” and “Watchmen”).“Watchmen,” the superhero alternative reality drama infused with racial themes, led nominations with 26 nods. With Amy Coney Barrett, a once-fringe legal philosophy goes mainstreamNominations open doors for other Black, Asian, and Latino creatives, and shape perceptions beyond the world of entertainment, said Rashad Robinson, president of social justice organization Color of Change.“What these awards represent is the industry’s way of creating a system of letting people in, of creating access to jobs and opportunities,” Mr. Robinson said. “It dictates the stories we get to see in the world about who we are, and that has deep implications on the unwritten rules about how we are treated in hospitals, by judges, and at schools.”The Emmy nominees came from shows that were made before America began a painful cultural reckoning over racism this summer.More are on their way, including documentary “Driving While Black;” “Woke,” about a Black cartoonist who has an encounter with police; abolitionist drama “The Good Lord Bird;” and “Enslaved,” about the history of the slave trade.Mr. Robinson said that exciting as it is to see Black artists and stories break through, more structural changes – such as inclusion riders, diversity in writers rooms, and fully rounded characters – are needed to ensure lasting change.“It’s not enough to care. It’s not enough to be aware,” he said. “We have to have people willing to act and to make real changes.”Mr. Deggans noted that Latino talent is still largely overlooked at the Emmys, even though Latinos form America’s second largest ethnic group after whites.“It’s regrettable that so much of the recognition fell on Black performers and there wasn’t a little bit more in regard to Latino people especially,” said Mr. Deggans, noting that shows like “Gentefied,” “Vida,” and “One Day at a Time” were largely overlooked.“The cause of Latinx representation in Hollywood is a little further back – where Black people were, say, 10 years ago,” Mr. Deggans added. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. The Emmy Awards will be handed out on Sunday at a virtual ceremony televised on ABC.This story was reported by Reuters.

The Trump administration has attempted to block a key witness from testifying in the impeachment inquiry by claiming “constitutional immunity.” And that witness — former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman — has asked a judge to rule whether his testimony can proceed as planned. Kupperman made the request in a lawsuit filed Friday; he was set to testify before lawmakers on Monday, after being subpoenaed. The House Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry have been calling key witnesses related to President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine at a rapid clip and the Trump administration has tried — and largely failed — to derail these testimonies. The administration had not previously invoked constitutional immunity, and the decision in Kupperman’s lawsuit could be precedent-setting at a moment in which officials are increasingly caught between directives from the executive and legislative branches that are, as Kupperman’s lawyer said in a statement, “competing and irreconcilable.”“Plaintiff obviously cannot satisfy the competing demands of both the legislative and executive branches, and he is aware of no controlling judicial authority definitively establishing which branch’s command should prevail,” the suit reads.The White House has said it will not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. Kupperman has said White House lawyers told him not to comply with the subpoena. Thus far, these executive branch efforts to slow the pace of the investigation have been unsuccessful; one session was postponed after the US ambassador to the EU hesitated to come before Congress under pressure from the president. That ambassador eventually testified; other officials have ignored the White House’s wishes.Kupperman’s suit could bring new clarity to the question of what government officials should do when given competing instructions from Congress and the White House. Should the judge rule Kupperman is protected by constitutional immunity, the Trump administration would have a powerful new way to shield officials from congressional subpoenas; however, should the opposite ruling be handed down, lawmakers could become more forceful in compelling testimony and could have more supporting evidence for the argument Trump is trying to obstruct Congress. The claim of constitutional immunity goes a step beyond that of “executive privilege,” a concept Trump has used in previous attempts to bar some high-ranking officials from giving testimony. Executive privilege can excuse people from discussing specific occurrences within the White House; constitutional immunity can excuse those same people from having to testify at all. The lawsuit comes at a critical time for the impeachment inquiry. Many witnesses have already appeared before Congress and have painted a fuller picture of Trump’s desire to have Ukraine investigate the family of former Vice President Joe Biden. But in the days to come, lawmakers hope to interview a number of officials who they believe can provide even more information. Trump, on the other hand, could use a win following a Friday decision in Washington, DC, district court that rejected the Republican argument that the impeachment inquiry is invalid because the House has yet to issue a formal resolution about it.Not only was the inquiry ruled valid, but Judge Beryl Howell ordered the administration to provide the House Judiciary Committee material from the Mueller report investigation that had previously been kept secret. Despite the White House’s attempts to stop its employees from participating in the inquiry, depositions continue apace. Proceedings were briefly postponed this week to mark the passing of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who had been chair of the House Oversight Committee. They resumed on Saturday with Philip Reeker, acting assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, who will testify behind closed doors. Next week, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director for European affairs at the National Security Council, and Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, are both expected to appear. Tim Morrison, senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council, is scheduled to discuss who may have been listening in on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that led to the whistleblower complaint that triggered the impeachment inquiry.Morrison was referred to several times during explosive testimony last week by Bill Taylor, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, who suggested that Trump attempted to engage in a quid pro quo exchange of military aid for a foreign investigation into the affairs of the Biden family. As Vox’s Alex Ward wrote, it was the most damning account to date on whether Trump attempted to withhold $391 million in military aid to Ukraine for his own political and personal gain: The ambassador reportedly said that Trump made the aid contingent on the new Ukrainian government publicly announcing it would reopen an anti-corruption probe into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, once sat on the board of. Taylor said Trump also wanted Kyiv to investigate a long-debunked 2016 election conspiracy theory: that a Democratic National Committee server was whisked away to Ukraine to hide the fact that the country interfered in that vote, not Russia. It’s not out of the ordinary for the US to dangle incentives to get what it wants from another country. The problem, as Taylor’s testimony makes clear, is that Trump used his power to get Ukraine to help his reelection efforts by hurting his political rival. The procession of testimonies from a range of current and former officials could soon include John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. Bolton was relieved of his duties last month. Now a private citizen, Bolton would not be constrained by the White House’s efforts to limit witness testimony unless the constitutional immunity the administration claimed over Kupperman — also a former official — is found to be valid.And as Vox’s Andrew Prokop wrote this week, “Given his high-level White House access, his unimpeachable Republican credentials, and his falling-out with Trump, Bolton’s testimony could be explosive.”

As an inmate who was moved from the federal lockup in downtown Manhattan—where I got to know both Paul Manafort and Jeffrey Epstein—to Rikers Island just three months ago, I have a pretty fair idea what Harvey Weinstein is in for.I suspect the shock of being found guily of rape in the third degree and sexual assault in the first degree Monday and immediately cuffed and taken into custody by court officers is what led to the heart palpitations that caused the ambulance transporting him to Rikers to be diverted to the prison ward of Bellevue Hospital. Weinstein, who’d avoided any time behind bars until now, should steel himself; there are more shocks to come once he recovers from his post-conviction fit of the vapors. When I left the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) for Rikers, I was handcuffed, shackled at the ankles, and placed in a tiny, claustrophobic plastic cubicle in the back of a Ford van to bump and bruise my way to the inmate island. He should hope he’s tied to his seat and not given a rough ride like I was. Intake at Rikers is not fun. Initially, the process seems civilized: I suspect Weinstein will see a doctor quickly, and even be screened for what meds he might need during his stay. Rikers really is attentive to inmate medical needs, in my experience. After that, his celebrity profile may spare him from the shared holding facility where arrestees might sit and wait for hours or days. When I suffered this indignity, one man whose walker resembled Weinstein’s complained of having been left in that holding cell for over a day, the result of his needing to be housed in the hospital unit. Watching him hobble over to the partially open urinal to relieve himself was not a pretty sight. He was in distress. And it wasn’t fake.After intake, Weinstein—who has a hired a “prison consultant” to advise him on how to handle life on the inside even as his lawyers fight to get him out on bail ahead of his sentencing and to appeal his conviction—is expected to end up in in a private cell in the NIC (North Infirmary Command) facility for infirm inmates, in the building that houses up to 263 patients "who require extreme protective custody because of their notoriety or nature of their cases, or for inmates with HIV or AIDS-related conditions."If he leaves the NIC, there’s no chance that he’ll be placed in general population. Instead, the felled mogul would likely end up in the protective custody unit, which, coincidentally, was situated right next to where I was housed initially.Protective custody at Rikers is not as bad as what Jeffrey Epstein or Michael Avenatti experienced at MCC federal, where it housed many of the worst-behaved prisoners. On the island, the PC unit is comprised mostly of sex offenders, gay men, trans people, and snitches, along with infamous gangbangers and the occasional high-profile inmate. The chosen few are locked in their own unit at all times with the exception of rec time, when they can go to the yard for an hour with the general population early in the morning.Weinstein would still have his own cell there, that he would be locked into at night (usually from 9:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.) and for at least some of the day. He would be fed in the unit (as opposed to most other inmates, who walk to the cafeteria), which means he’d be eating lukewarm-at-best food that is decidedly subpar with respect to quantity and quality. I found myself eating meals I would never have touched on the outside simply to fill my belly.Inside of MCC and the Tombs—the notorious downtown Manhattan jail—an inmate could live comfortably enough without commissary items. But not so much at Rikers. I bought a ton of trail mix to have something healthy to fill in with.While at Rikers, Weinstein will have a lot of time to think about his life — past, present and future. He’d better have people to bring him reading material; in my 18 days at Rikers, I do not remember one inmate ever going to the library. Personally, I was deprived of my reading glasses and simply could not see well enough to read. So to make a request in that arena would have been a waste of breath.While calls for rec and medical were sparsely attended, key time (when inmates received their methadone) saw the unit virtually empty out. There were a lot of heroin addicts on Rikers Island. With respect to recreational drugs in the jail, I was invited to smoke pot in the bathroom within 30 minutes of my arrival. And inmates hunted around to see who’d been prescribed Lyrica, hoping to score a few tabs that they would then crush and snort to get high.With respect to his safety, Weinstein should manage to avoid physical intimidation. While there might be a few predators in protective custody, officers are on the lookout for that kind of activity. One CO whom I befriended told me that when he drew duty in that unit, the officer was diligent in his effort to prevent predators from preying on weak individuals. And of course, when you spend most of your time alone in a single cell, nobody can get near you to exercise that predation.Like Epstein, Weinstein might go into a depression and end up in a suicide cell where, as I understand it, one inmate watches many suicidal brothers with the help of an attending officer. The one-on-one approach used in federal facilities is not the program at Rikers. There’s no indication that Weinstein is a suicidal man. But that could change after he faces the realities of incarceration on Rikers Island. Rikers isn’t the Ritz, and Weinstein is in for a rude awakening.

Enlarge this image A judge said she is puzzled by some of the legal positions taken by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and doesn't know when she might schedule his trial. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP A judge said she is puzzled by some of the legal positions taken by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and doesn't know when she might schedule his trial. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort may not be headed for trial on money laundering and conspiracy charges until late autumn. The judge in his case expressed puzzlement over some of the legal positions he has taken.Lawyers for Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller have turned over thousands of pages of material to Manafort and his former business partner Richard Gates, a process that prosecutors said is continuing. But at least part of the holdup in the case is Manafort's own making, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said."I'm not exactly sure when the trial date might be," Berman Jackson said at an hourlong status conference on Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C. National Security The Russia Investigations: Bannon Comes In From The Cold, Trump Wavers On Mueller The prospect of several more months' worth of legal process might mean that Manafort's case might not go before a jury until the 2018 midterm elections are heating up. That could be unwelcome news for Republican allies of President Trump defending their majorities in the House and Senate.One area of confusion is a separate, civil lawsuit Manafort filed against the special counsel and the Justice Department earlier this month. The lawsuit accuses the government team of overstepping its authority under federal regulations by charging Manafort with crimes that long predate allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. A Justice Department spokeswoman has called that lawsuit "frivolous." Analysis How The Fusion GPS Founder's Testimony Fits In The Russia Saga On Tuesday, Berman Jackson said she would not express an opinion one way or another about the merits of the civil case. Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told the judge he would file by early February a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, on the grounds that any effort to invalidate Manafort's criminal indictment should be considered by the same judge hearing his criminal case — not a separate judge, in a separate civil court proceeding."I'm not going to comment on the record about the legitimacy of the civil action because the matter isn't before me," the judge said. "This is a rather unique situation."Then Berman Jackson asked Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, whether he agreed that both disputes should be handled by the same judge. Downing said he needed to confer with his colleague and "we'll have an answer in a couple days." Downing said that the civil claim did not seek to throw out the criminal indictment, an assertion the judge challenged."I'm not entirely sure how you can say what you just said," she told the lawyer.Downing said he didn't have the civil lawsuit in front of him, so he would reserve comment. National Security The Russia Investigations: 4 Big Storylines To Watch In 2018 Berman Jackson also asked Downing about the delay in finalizing the conditions of Manafort's bond. Manafort was indicted in October."What are we waiting for?" the judge asked.Berman Jackson also had some pointed words for Gates, who created a video played at a public event intended to help fill the coffers of his legal defense fund. The judge pointed out that reporters had been invited to the event, and a lobbyist there had criticized the special counsel as "desperate" to win convictions.The judge had earlier imposed a gag order on both sides in the case, to avoid contaminating the jury pool in Washington. "It's really important for the defendants to use some common sense," she said, "and consult with counsel" when in doubt. "If the press is invited to an event ... I also think that's a pretty big red flag."

Enlarge this image Sen. Kamala Harris is dropping out of the 2020 presidential race after her support and funding fell in recent months. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Mario Tama/Getty Images Sen. Kamala Harris is dropping out of the 2020 presidential race after her support and funding fell in recent months. Mario Tama/Getty Images Updated at 3:25 p.m. ET California Sen. Kamala Harris is dropping out of the presidential race, citing a lack of funds. She informed her campaign staff of the decision on a conference call and later sent an email to supporters, in which she wrote "my campaign for president simply doesn't have the financial resources we need to continue." Harris' departure, two months before voting and caucusing begin in the presidential contest, marks an abrupt end to a campaign that, for much of the winter and spring, looked like that of a top-tier presidential contender."I've taken stock, and I've looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days, I have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life," Harris said in a video announcing her decision. "As the campaign has gone on, it has become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete."Harris kicked off her campaign in front of 20,000 supporters in Oakland, Calif., and consistently drew large crowds in Iowa, South Carolina, and other early primary states. She was among the top tier of candidates in both polling and fundraising and briefly surged toward the very top of the field shortly after the first presidential debate, when she confronted former Vice President Joe Biden about his early opposition to federal busing policies.But that exchange was a high-water mark of sorts for her campaign, and as Harris dropped in the polls over the summer and fall, she had to lay off campaign staff and all but shutter operations in New Hampshire, and she struggled to raise money from donors. Harris, who came from behind in the polls in her runs for both San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, tried to stay in the race by focusing her efforts on Iowa but ultimately ended her bid exactly two months before the caucuses there. Amid a crowded field filled with both moderate and progressive candidates, Harris struggled to carve out her own policy lane. She shifted positions several times on a defining issue for Democrats: health care. Harris initially backed the total elimination of private health insurance, only to later roll out a health care plan that allowed private plans as long as they met government standards.Harris backtracked in several other high-profile moments, including her criticism of Biden's anti-busing stances as a senator. She later admitted that her views of the federal government's role in setting local policies was essentially the same as Biden's. Still, Harris was one of only seven candidates to qualify for December's debate. At the moment, nine days before the deadline, no other nonwhite candidate has qualified for the debate stage. That means that after a historically diverse field of candidates entered the Democratic primary race, the next debate is likely to consist of all white candidates. Politics Pete Buttigieg Spent His Younger Days Pushing Democrats Off Middle Ground Politics Here Are The Presidential Candidates Women Have Been Donating To Trump Impeachment Inquiry Schiff Impeachment Report Expected Tuesday After Republicans' Defense Of Trump

Ms. Harris’s campaign has also raised eyebrows for a reluctance to engage presidential forums related to black voters.Ms. Harris, for instance, has yet to agree to attend the Black Economic Alliance’s presidential forum on black wealth in South Carolina, though Mr. Booker and other presidential contenders have said yes. She The People, the advocacy group for women of color that hosted a presidential forum in Houston last week, announced a lineup that originally included almost every top presidential candidate besides Ms. Harris. “You have to ask her campaign,” said the group’s founder, Aimee Allison, when asked about the absence.Ms. Harris later reversed her decision and participated in the event.Mr. Booker, who has spent years cultivating support from influential black leaders like the Rev. Al Sharpton, has also been reaching out to black pastors and the faith community. In South Carolina he has visited six churches since announcing his candidacy, and he spoke at the National Baptist Convention winter meeting last year.Both campaigns are also counting on deep relationships within the Congressional Black Caucus, where they are the only two members who are senators. Though Mr. Booker has been a more frequent presence at the group’s Wednesday lunches, according to two former congressional aides, both candidates have been active in the caucus, and are counting on eventual support. So far, only members from each candidate’s home state have offered direct endorsements.In South Carolina, the choice facing black voters was evident at a town hall held by Mr. Booker in Denmark, a small rural town not often visited by candidates.Benjamin Jones, 69, said he liked both candidates and was looking to hear about policies that would address racial inequalities, particularly in criminal justice reform.“I’m still shopping around,” Mr. Jones said after the two-plus hour speech, panel and town-hall event. “But, I think a lot of black people want to know, like Janet Jackson says, ‘What have you done for me lately?’”

Most importantly, developers who build services on top of the network must be told in no uncertain terms, that their communication is, by design, INSECURE. Just like with any other means of Internet access, everyone should expects their packets to be visible to others, and should also be prepared for some level of tampering. This is how all of the Internet works, and our expectations should be no different for cellular. Once this is understood, we're back to solving problems in the Internet world, which are still very difficult, but are much more familiar.That would defeat the purpose of telling developers (and users) that the network is secure so that they make their applications insecure allowing ubiquitous surveillance. It is not enough that the network is insecure; people also need to believe it is secure.

In just systems of representative politics, the representatives represent people. All the people. Not just the people with the right bloodlines, as in an aristocracy; not just the people of a certain religion, as in a theocracy; and not artificial lines drawn on a map with no regard for the number of people therein, as in the US Senate. History is littered with bad political systems. They are not hard to identify. They all, in some way, apportion political power to a small group that does not fairly represent the interests of all the people. We are supposed to be moving past these narrow, unfair systems. That’s the whole point of political progress. But America is having a very hard time weaning itself off of the sweet, sweet teat of plutocracy.If you allow money to directly buy political representation in a nation with severe economic inequality, then political power will tend to represent the interests of a small group of wealthy people. The fact that this observation is obvious and unremarkable has not stopped us from falling completely into its trap. It is not really accurate to say that the people of America chose this system; rather, it was chosen for them, by people wealthy enough to build and maintain a political and social superstructure comprehensive enough to train, nurture, appoint and confirm a group of supreme court justices who would one day rule that corporate political spending is the same thing as free speech. You have to admire the shamelessness necessary to pull this off in the face of, you know, 2,500 years of post-Platonic political philosophy. Yet here we are. Not only have we allowed a smaller and smaller sliver of people to accumulate all the wealth, but we have also arranged our allegedly democratic political system in such a way that they can purchase all the power. Well done, everyone! It’s not just a national problem. It’s right in your home town.Still, any crowing by progressives about this minor speed bump in the path of capital is a bit too pat. The head tax that Amazon defeated would have cost the company more than $10m per year. They spent $1.5m on this election to pick up one or two seats. That is not a meaningful defeat for a company this powerful – it is a data point. At these prices, Amazon could happily spend, say, $7.5m on the next election and still come out ahead in terms of the financial risk they face from the left. The corporate thought process does not dictate that the company should now slink away chastened. It dictates that the company should spend more next time. Elections happen all the time, but the system remains stacked in Amazon’s favor. Progressives will always have to expend vast amounts of energy organizing thousands and thousands of people to act in concert to maintain their tenuous hold on power. All corporations have to do is write a check. At this unequal work rate, one side is bound to get tired before the other.An unfortunate truth is that political spending is a great investment. The best, perhaps. Stocks and bonds might only earn you 10%, but gaining control of the levers of government power can multiply your investment unimaginably. That is true for companies avoiding local taxes in the cities where they’re headquartered, and it is even more true the higher up you go in the government hierarchy. After every election cycle, we are treated to news stories portraying the (ever higher) amount of money spent on the races as a staggering sum. But that betrays a lack of perspective. The total cost of the 2016 national elections – meaning the race for the White House as well as all of Congress – was $6.5bn. For a group that exercises total control over a federal budget of more than $4tn, that’s a real bargain. While we commoners gape slack-jawed at nine zeroes in the spending column, business interests know that there are several more zeroes to be recouped on the other side of the elections. As long as this basic math holds true – and as long as our laws allow it – money will control politics. And since the return on investment is so grand, spending will only keep increasing. This is the raw logic of capitalism that can never be overcome as long as our set of rules stays as it is. So yes, we will have to drastically change our campaign finance laws if we want to begin to overcome the gravitational pull of wealth warping our democracy. But if we ever want to get serious about that dream of a political system that represents everyone, we will have to do something more definitive: take all the money away from the rich. Hamilton Nolan is a writer based in New York City

China is preparing to launch an antitrust probe into Google, looking into allegations it has leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating systemto stifle competition,reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. From the report:

Australia's attempts to rebuild relationship with Beijing run into troubleHuang described the idea that his donations in Australia and political connections in China were "threatening (Australia's) national security" as "ridiculous." "My words and actions are fully in accordance with Australia's foreign policies and laws," he said.But Huang has become a controversial figure in Australia in recent years. Former Labor senator Sam Dastyari was forced to resign in December 2017 over hisclose relationship with the businessman. There were even allegations by local media that Dastyari had told Huanghis phone might have been tappedby Australian intelligence services.In the scathing and lengthy Global Times interview, Huang said Australia had "the innate characteristics of a giant baby" when asked about the cause of the problems between Beijing and Canberra."This is an objective fact and it does not mean Australia has to feel inferior. The growth of a giant baby takes time, and Australia still has a long way to go," he said. Relations between Beijing and Canberra soured in December 2017 after the Australian government introduced a package of foreign interference laws, amid growing concerns over China's influence on politics, academia and media in the country. Huang said that "every Chinese" person in Australia could face scrutiny from Australia's intelligence services."What I did not expect is that a system that boasts democracy and rule of law would allow some people from its intelligence agency to punish a permanent resident with groundless accusations," he said.

The Trump administration said Wednesday that the United States will soon bolster its year-long campaign to topple socialist Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro with even harsher measures against a Venezuelan government already effectively facing a U.S. embargo. “We have given direction to the entire whole of government ― not just to the Treasury Department, but to the whole of government ― to use all of the tools at their disposal to further create and stress upon Maduro and his cronies and in support of democratic efforts of a transition in Venezuela,” a senior Trump administration official said on a conference call with reporters. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, repeatedly declined to elaborate on what steps the administration might take. “There’s a lot of tools and a lot of targets at our disposal, and we plan to use as many of them as necessary in order to fulfill our goal of an end to this dictatorship and a democratic transition in Venezuela,” the official said, adding that any actions the United States takes will be announced in the next 30 days. ASSOCIATED PRESS Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday as the U.S. promised to take even stronger actions against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The call with reporters was the latest attempt to convince Venezuela’s opposition and the public that the White House remains committed to the campaign against Maduro after President Donald Trump’s decision to skip a Miami rally in support of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó last weekend set off a round of speculation that the White House had lost interest in the fight. Trump invited Guaidó, the Venezuelan National Assembly leader the U.S. and nearly 60 other nations recognize as the country’s legitimate leader, to the State of the Union address on Tuesday. He also scheduled a Wednesday afternoon meeting with Guaidó at the White House, where the senior official said that Trump plans to reassure him that regime change in Venezuela remains a priority. Trump made a show of recognizing Guaidó during Tuesday’s address, referring to him as “Mr. President” and telling him to return to Venezuela with the message that “all Americans are united with the Venezuelan people in their righteous struggle for freedom.” “Maduro’s grip of tyranny will be smashed and broken,” Trump said. Trump has obsessed over bringing down Maduro since taking office in 2017, and his Tuesday night pronouncement that Maduro’s end was imminent echoed his promise last February that a “new day” would soon dawn in Venezuela, made just weeks after the United States became the first of nearly 60 countries to recognize Guaidó’s self-declaration as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The move followed May 2018 elections in which Maduro claimed victory but that the U.S., European Union and United Nations refused to recognize, and occurred in the midst of an economic collapse in Venezuela that has sparked an international refugee crisis. Since then, the White House has crafted and implemented an aggressive regime-change strategy that has relied primarily on increasingly harsh economic sanctions on Maduro, government officials and pillars of the Venezuelan economy ― including the effective embargo the U.S. put in place last August. The strategy is being led by a cadre of veteran hard-liners on U.S.-Latin America policy, including senior White House adviser Mauricio Claver-Carone. A longtime lobbyist focused on Cuba, he has served as a prominent voice for Washington and South Florida’s hard-line, pro-embargo communities for nearly two decades. Claver-Carone has established the sort of aggressive strategy on Venezuela long desired by those who see Venezuela and Maduro as puppets of Cuba’s Communist government. But the strategy has come under increasingly loud criticism from Latin America experts and foreign policy officials in Washington, especially as Maduro has remained in office and the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has worsened. “It’s maximum pressure for the sake of maximum pressure,” Mark Feierstein, who oversaw Latin America policy on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, told HuffPost in January. “There’s no strategy behind it.” The Trump administration has also faced criticism for pursuing damaging economic sanctions without taking steps to alleviate Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis — repeatedly refusing, for example, to offer temporary protected status to Venezuelan migrants to the United States. Still others have criticized Trump’s White House for following the sort of well-worn “maximum pressure” strategy that has failed to achieve its ostensible aims in Cuba for nearly six decades. Trump, though, may draw inspiration from the reaction to Tuesday’s speech, during which his recognition of Guaidó and pledge to oust Maduro marked one of the only instances when Democrats, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, stood to applaud. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who, along with other progressive lawmakers, has bucked both Trump and Democratic leadership on Venezuela, remained seated during that portion of the speech. No, I did not stand for @jguaido. I have spoken against American intervention and urged us to support Pope Francis’ efforts for mediation in restoring peace, human rights, humanitarian aid, and fair elections. https://t.co/obktkrJM7l— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) February 5, 2020 Matt Duss, a foreign policy adviser to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, also criticized Pelosi and other cheering Democrats, insinuating that they had only helped legitimize Trump’s regime change approach in Venezuela. (Sanders has called Maduro “a vicious tyrant” but opposes Trump’s use of sanctions and threats of military action in Venezuela.) Pathetic that Pelosi is standing to applaud a year of failed Venezuela regime change policy.— Matt Duss (@mattduss) February 5, 2020 The only thing that Trump's Venezuela regime change policy achieved is giving Russia an opportunity to screw with the US in our own hemisphere. That's what they were applauding.— Matt Duss (@mattduss) February 5, 2020 The senior Trump administration official attempted to spin the reaction to the speech in Trump’s favor on the call with reporters, saying that after the press had tried to write Guaidó’s “political obituary” after Trump chose to remain at Mar-a-Lago during the Miami rally, “the only obituary that was written last night at the State of the Union was [for] the skeptics who continue to question our commitment.” (Notably, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement on the State of the Union did not mention Venezuela, despite its focus on foreign policy and Guaidó’s attendance at the address.) The triumphant tone ― even as the White House appears no closer to achieving its stated goal of ousting Maduro, and even as Venezuela remains mired in a crisis ― made clear yet again that the Trump administration has no plans to alter or recalibrate its strategy. It will instead continue to cling to the notion that its strategy in Venezuela simply hasn’t had enough time to work. “In the 12 months since President Trump recognized [Guaidó], we have accomplished more and put more pressure on Maduro than in the previous 12 years, frankly,” the senior official said. “We’re halfway through our maximum pressure campaign, and we’re only moving in one direction. And that is forward.” RELATED... U.S. Condemns Move By Venezuela's Ruling Party To Seize Congress House Progressives Blast Trump For Embrace Of Right-Wing Bolivian Leaders Trump Administration Targets Several More Countries In Expanded Travel Ban Download Calling all HuffPost superfans! Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter Join HuffPost Voting Made Easy Register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot today Register now

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) sent shockwaves through the Democratic primary cycle on Tuesday by announcing her departure from the presidential race less than one year after officially entering it. “To my supporters, it is with deep regret—but also with deep gratitude—that I am suspending my campaign today,” the senator said in a statement posted to Medium. “But I want to be clear with you: I will keep fighting every day for what this campaign has been about. Justice for the People. All the people.”Although she had been faced with waning fundraising and poll numbers that had nosedived in recent months, there was a thought that she would keep pushing through the New Year in time to compete in the Iowa caucus. But that proved to be wishful thinking. The 55-year-old freshman senator’s splashy launch in Oakland in January, which drew more than 20,000 in attendance, turned both donors and opponents’ heads. At one point, President Donald Trump marveled at the crowd that had assembled to watch her kick off. But Harris found herself quickly tripped up by the same policy issue that has perplexed other presidential aspirants, with some Democrats arguing her health care fumble was the start of a broader downward spiral. Just days after her announcement, she told CNN’s Jake Tapper that she supported eliminating private insurance as a part of a Medicare for All plan. Her campaign scrambled to soften the blowback. But it struggled to settle on a plan that would satisfy the liberal wing of the party and those Democrats who feared that a single-player plan would be a killer in the general election. One source close to the campaign said that the “months-long” journey to settle on a plan sapped the campaign’s early momentum. Eventually, she introduced a proposal that transitioned gradually into a Medicare for All type system with options for supplemental private coverage. But the ten-year transition window she envisioned left some health care experts questioning whether the plan was politically viable. And in subsequent debates Harris struggled to defend her idea on the merits. It was, said one top party operative, “a symptom that she didn’t know what she was about.” Others saw a more problematic contributor to Harris’ fall: mainly that gender biases still manifested themselves in voter expectations and press coverage. The senator’s struggles have come as Mayor Pete Buttigieg has risen in the primary polls. And the contrasting directions of those two campaigns wasn’t lost on some. “It's not hard to argue that Kamala and the other women have been held to different standards,” said Christina Reynolds, vice president of communications for the group Emily’s List, which works to elect female candidates. “The campaign coverage has shown too often that men just need to have potential, while women must have met it.”But even Harris’ strongest attributes as a candidate—namely her record as California’s attorney general—were a matter of debate internally. Her record as a tough prosecutor put her at odds with a Democratic primary electorate angry about mass incarceration and the racial disparity in the judicial system. When attacked on that record in debates, she was tepid, opting to change the subject rather than explaining what had once been a signature issue. Looking back, campaign veterans said that Harris ultimately suffered from an inability, or unwillingness, to find a theme or cause that animated her run for office. “Her own lack of clarity resulted in a lack of clarity in the campaign,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist on Barack Obama’s two winning presidential races. “There was a tactical theory of the case but the message never congealed… [And] the thing about shifting messages is it creates issues about authenticity, and authenticity is the coin of the realm in presidential races.”The Harris campaign wasn’t always without promise or direction. As Axelrod noted, Harris had a prime opportunity to lay claim to frontrunner status early in the race after a stellar debate performance in which she took former Vice President Joe Biden to task for his comments and his record on the integration of busing when he was a senator in Delaware during the '70s. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said in that debate. “That little girl was me.”The line—which soon featured on campaign T-shirts and coffee mugs—vaulted her to the top tier of the race for the Democratic nomination. Soon, Harris had the second-highest number of endorsements from high-ranking Democrats of anyone in the field, trailing only Biden himself.But that momentum did not last. After peaking in the polls at 15 percent in June, her next debate performances were uneven—especially around health care—and as a result the campaign’s struggles became more and more evident. There was no pick up in the polls even as Harris tried out different issues for emphasis; at one point making a sustained push for Twitter to kick President Donald Trump off the platform. Operatives in the party privately mocked the impulsive nature of the operation, and donors began to question what the long-term strategy was for sustaining her candidacy. In her letter announcing that she was suspending her campaign, Harris noted that she was “not a billionaire” who could “fund my own campaign”—a not so subtle reference to the late primary entry of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Clearly money has become an issue,” Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) told The Daily Beast, stressing that in her view, Harris had hit her stride on the campaign trail in recent weeks. “It just became a situation where… this is as far as it could go financially.” Money wasn’t the only problem, however. A shifting set of strategies also hurt the Harris campaign. The first target was South Carolina, a state where the support of African American voters can make or break Democratic candidates. Despite making early gains in the first-in-the-South primary in July, she never managed to surpass Biden’s lead, particularly with African American voters, a loyal voting constituency in the Democratic Party. When it became clear that voters there were not warming to her as much as other candidates, she looked west to Iowa, a place where other rivals, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg already had vast and deep organizations. “I don’t think you can point to any one thing that led to this point in her campaign,” Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright, who is based in South Carolina, told The Daily Beast. “It was very much a learning experience for all.” Still, Harris reset much of her national operation to focus on the Hawkeye State, joking on occasion that she’s “moving” there.But the “put Iowa first” effort—that included putting dozens of additional full-time organizers on the ground and visiting the state each week in October—flatlined, leaving Democrats on the ground skeptical that she could turn the downward spiral around in time for the Feb. 3 caucus after plummeting to low single digits. In New Hampshire, the story was even grimmer. In recent weeks, Harris gutted nearly her entire operation there, as part of the related push to compete in Iowa and, the thinking went at the time, take that momentum to the first-in-the-nation primary. But multiple Democrats in the Granite State speculated that her campaign would have trouble catching up to rivals, including two neighboring senators, who have for months built out sizable teams dedicated to winning the primary in February.“She is talented and it wouldn’t shock me to see her on the national ticket. We haven’t heard the last of Kamala Harris,” said Axelrod. “But this was a troubled enterprise from the beginning because there was no clarity.” —With reporting by Scott Bixby.

The depth of American opposition to the UK granting the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei access to its 5G network has been underlined as the US secretary of state said the Chinese Communist party represented the central threat of our times, and had front-door access to Huawei systems.He said the US would try to work through its differences with the UK decision announced this week but stressed the US would never permit its national security information to go across networks in which it did not have confidence.Mike Pompeo, who is on a visit to London to meet Boris Johnson on the eve of the UK departure from the EU, was speaking alongside the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab.Asked if the US would reduce intelligence sharing with the UK due to the Huawei access to the UK network, Pompeo said: “We will never permit American international security information to go across a network that we don’t have trust and confidence in.“That’s the standard, whether it is a Microsoft system, it is the same whether it is a Ericsson, a Nokia system, that’s the standard if it is a Chinese system.“We will work with our UK counterparts, and I know the Australians, the New Zealanders, all others in the ‘five eyes’, will work together to ensure the systems are sufficiently secure and they are going to deliver the outcomes we need them to deliver, and that we have only a level of risk in the system that we find tolerable.“I’m sure that we will protect American information to that standard.”The tone of his remarks suggest the US regards the UK decision as an open negotiating point with room to still change. The US believes that with the decision also unpopular on the Conservative backbenches, in the months ahead it may in effect be nullified.But Pompeo warned that the Chinese Communist party did not have “a technical back door to Huawei. They have the front door.”He said the US had been making the case that having Huawei technology within the network was “very difficult to mitigate” and so was “not worth the candle”.“When you allow the information of your citizens or the national security information of your citizens to transit a network that the Chinese Communist party has a legal mandate to obtain it creates risk.”But Pompeo set the Huawei decision in the starkest context by saying the US now regards the Chinese Communist party as antithetical to US values and a bigger threat than terrorism.Speaking later on LBC, Pompeo said: “We view the intrusion of the Chinese Communist party into information technology systems as a very great risk, a national security risk as well as a core privacy risk. If your health records are on a system that belongs and is controlled by the Chinese Communist party that is probably not something you would probably choose in the first instance.”At the earlier event with Raab, he wished “Godspeed” to the UK’s departure from the EU, he underlined the tensions ahead by saying it was fantastic that the UK in future would be able to disalign from EU regulations, so making business with the US easier.His remarks underline the extent to which the UK will come under US pressure in trade negotiations to maximise its distance from the EU, even though this may mean a more limited UK-EU trade deal.Pompeo said: “The previous administration took the view that if the United Kingdom made this decision it would be at the back of the line. We intend to put the United Kingdom at the front of the line.”Both Raab and Pompeo held back from predicting that a deal could be agreed before the US presidential elections this November.Pressed to explain why the US had refused the UK government request to extradite Anne Sacoolas over the death of 19-year-old Harry Dunn last year, Pompeo simply said the case was an enormous tragedy and he was terribly sorry for the loss of a British citizen’s life.He said “the US would do everything possible to make that right in a way that protects the important relationship between the two countries”. He said he was still working on a good resolution to the disagreement, but did not go into any specifics. Nothing he said suggested he was going to comply with the UK extradition request.Raab rejected any suggestion that there could be a link between the Sacoolas extradition and the US requests for Prince Andrew to cooperate with the inquiry into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Raab said one of the points of the discussions with the US was to ensure that such an episode did not reoccur, including a review of the extradition system.Pompeo claimed the US policy of maximum economic sanctions on Iran was working, saying “the fewer dollars in the hands of the Ayatollah was a good thing”, describing Iran as the central threat to stability in the Middle East.Although Raab agreed there had been wholesale non-compliance of the nuclear deal by Iran, he said the UK still favoured staying inside the nuclear deal since it “wanted to leverage Iran back into some kind of diplomacy negotiation to get compliance”.He added: “If the JCPOA (the technical term for the nuclear deal) can be used to do that, that would be valuable.”The US left the deal in 2018, prompting Tehran to take a succession of steps away from it in an attempt to leverage European nations to do more to boost trade with Iran.Tehran now states it is free to take whatever steps it wishes to develop a civil nuclear power programme, but continues to allow the UN atomic inspectors to monitor and report on the Iranian programme.Throughout the one-hour joint conversation at the Policy Exchange thinktank Raab referred to the creases in the US-UK special relationship, but focused on the shared objectives and values that bind the special relationship. Topics Huawei Mike Pompeo Trump administration Dominic Raab Foreign policy news

The United States is worried about China’s engagement in Africa, and how it is jockeying to spread its diplomatic, military and trade influence across the continent. That much is evident from comments of top US officials, who have recently stated that China’s financing of roads and bridges “comes at a price,” and that it’s new base in Djibouti on the strategic Gulf of Aden corridor is aimed at asserting “power over world trade.”Yet instead of remaining quiet or furtive as has been tradition in the decades past, Chinese officials are increasingly responding to official American remarks, clarifying positions, defending their investments, and countering the narrative that its approach to Africa is purely based on “chopsticks mercantilism.” Through its diplomats and spokespeople, the Chinese say they are pursuing “shared interests” in Africa, arguing that Sino-Africa relations are based on “the vision of sincerity, real results, affinity, and good faith.” The propensity to comment on record also comes as China boosts efforts to improve its image globally besides sending senior officials to visit the continent regularly.“There is a Chinese saying, if one suspects his neighbor of stealing his ax, all the behaviors of that innocent neighbor appear suspicious to him.”The latest comment from Beijing came after US House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes said this week his committee will investigate China’s spreading influence in Africa. China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded: “There is a Chinese saying which goes “one’s mentality will determine how he perceives the world.” There is also another proverb that “if one suspects his neighbor of stealing his ax, all the behaviors of that innocent neighbor appear suspicious to him,” it refers to someone that harbors groundless suspicions in disregard of facts. We hope that relevant people in the United States can be more open-minded, and aboveboard and refrain from viewing normal cooperation with tinted glasses or interpreting other countries’ goodwill to pursue win-win outcomes with a hegemonic mindset.”Similarly, in early March, Chinese officials pushed back on former US secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s assertion that China was miring Africa in debt. Lin Songtian, China’s ambassador in South Africa, said Tillerson “regrettably” came to “teach African countries and people to be alert” of China, even though they were “mature enough to engage in partnerships” on their own.After allegations surfaced in late January that China bugged the African Union headquarters which it helped build, foreign minister Wang Yi described the claims as the works of people having “a feeling of sour grapes” about the achievements of China in Africa.The official response has also increased as China is blamed for propping up authoritarian regimes, encouraging dependency, underwriting vessels depleting African fish stocks, overseeing shoddy infrastructural projects, and focusing mainly on countries home to natural resources it needs. But Beijing, increasingly aware of this, is pushing back on this narrative, highlighting the deployment of peacekeepers in Mali and South Sudan, providing scholarships, besides its educational and technological transfer initiatives.As Zhou Yuxiao, China’s ambassador to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, recently said: “I have met the African leaders. They are all optimistic about our cooperation. … I have not found anyone distancing themselves from this partnership.”“Now there seems to be a different media strategy,” said Cobus Van Staden, a South African academic, speaking on the China in Africa podcast recently. For years, he argued, it was standard procedure for Chinese officials “to essentially go into a defensive crouch” whenever criticism was leveled in the Western or African press. But now, “they are a lot more aggressive and they are a lot more combative in kind of taking on and fighting or refuting points of criticism in the media.”