The U.S. attorney also filed criminal charges against Viky Bohra. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment to the newspaper about the fact that no other family members were criminally charged.“Vik Bohra deeply regrets this conduct, accepts full responsibility, and intends to promptly repay the funds,” lawyer Peter Offenbecher said in a statement. An attorney for Laksha Bohra declined to comment. Gotham Bohra could not be reached.Laksha Bohra, the SEC’s civil complaint alleged, ignored reminders from Amazon not to divulge confidential financial information or to illegally trade in the company’s securities based on her knowledge about the company’s financial position.Between 2016 and 2018, Viky and Gotham Bohra “regularly” traded in Amazon securities based on confidential insider information from Laksha Bohra, the complaint said.While vacationing in Europe in 2018, for example, Laksha Bohra logged into Amazon’s network to view the company’s preliminary first-quarter earnings statements. The same day, Viky and Gotham Bohra purchased options to buy Amazon shares at a specified price, the complaint alleged. The shares rose after the earnings report — by 3.6% in one day, netting the Bohras nearly $600,000 in profit on the stock trades.Amazon declined to respond to questions about how it prevents insider trading, or whether officials were aware of the alleged acts by Laksha Bohra when the company suspended her employment in October 2018.

While the US suffers an overdose epidemic, much of the rest of the world misses out on vital painkillers.90% of all the morphine on the planet is consumed by the world's richest 10%, according to a commission set up by medical journal The Lancet – so what's behind the global pain divide?You can listen to The Inquiry: Are We Missing a Bigger Opioid Crisis? on the BBC World Service, or download the programme podcast, to find out more.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claims to have information of interest to those leading the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, but is refusing to share those insights until a judge rules on a case involving the powers of the legislative and executive branches.Bolton was involved in “many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed,” according to a letter to House attorneys Bolton’s lawyer Charles Cooper sent Friday. But Bolton will not testify until the completion of a lawsuit filed in October asking a judge to rule on whether witnesses should abide by the testimony requests of lawmakers or White House directives not to testify. That lawsuit was brought by Bolton’s former deputy Charles Kupperman after he was subpoenaed by lawmakers. The White House argued Kupperman could not be compelled to testify, claiming he had “constitutional immunity.” The future of the lawsuit is uncertain given that the leaders of the inquiry have withdrawn Kupperman’s subpoena, and have asked the judge who was to hear the case to dismiss it. House leaders also chose not to subpoena Bolton after he missed his scheduled testimony Thursday. Responding to the letter from Cooper, Democratic lawmakers argued the suit would slow the pace of the inquiry unnecessarily, and suggested the White House’s claim of immunity could become an article of impeachment.“We regret Mr. Bolton’s decision not to appear voluntarily, but we have no interest in allowing the administration to play rope-a-dope with us in the courts for months,” a House Intelligence Committee official told Politico. “Rather, the White House instruction that he not appear will add to the evidence of the president’s obstruction of Congress.”Despite the lack of clarity around the future of the court case, another high-profile witness hopes to join the lawsuit. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, asked to join Kupperman’s suit on Friday, arguing he was also being pulled in opposite directions and needed legal guidance. The House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Mulvaney earlier this week. The White House quickly told him he, too, was protected by constitutional immunity, and that he didn’t have to testify. Mulvaney skipped his deposition on Friday morning. House lawmakers would very much like to hear from Bolton and Mulvaney because they both have potentially uniquely revelatory stories to tell — both men have firsthand knowledge of Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival, and both have been mentioned numerous times by witnesses who have testified thus far. Bolton, for instance, was party to a meeting between top US and Ukrainian officials in early July described in testimony by former National Security Council official Fiona Hill. According to Hill, Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland “blurted out” that Mulvaney had agreed to arrange a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky if the Ukrainians launched investigations into “the energy sector,” which Hill took as a reference to Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company for which former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter had been a board member. Hill said Bolton ended the meeting abruptly following that statement and that he told her, “you go and tell [National Security Council lawyer John] Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this.”Bolton was also on the July 25 call Trump had with Zelensky during which the US president asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate the Bidens. Mulvaney is of interest not just because of the arrangement Hill testified he was a part of, but because of congressional approved military aid that was withheld from Ukraine.In an addendum to his sworn testimony submitted earlier this week, Sondland said he told Ukrainian officials that if they wanted nearly $400 million in security assistance from the US, they’d have to make a public statement that they were opening the requested investigations. Other witnesses have said Mulvaney authorized that hold, and the acting chief of staff himself suggested he had a role in it being withheld during an October press conference.This testimony has House Democrats curious about what Mulvaney and Bolton could add to the investigation. And while the request to dismiss the lawsuit would seem to indicate neither man will testify, another lawsuit could be used to compel their attendance. House Democrats have said Kupperman, Bolton, and any other official who feels torn between the directives of the legislative and executive branches abide by whatever courts decide on a separate case involving former White House counsel Don McGahn.That suit also investigates the question of whether current and former White House officials have immunity from testifying, and unlike Kupperman’s lawsuit, has been before the courts for some time. While the Kupperman case could take months — or longer — to resolve, a ruling in the McGahn case could come before the end of November. Democrats have said they do not want a drawn out impeachment inquiry, and that they hope to resolve it by December. Should they win the McGahn case, they believe they would have a legal basis to argue Kupperman and others must appear. Cooper, the lawyer for both Kupperman and Bolton, however, disagrees. He has argued that his clients differ from McGahn because they have intimate knowledge of national security and foreign affairs, and encouraged lawmakers to subpoena both men if they want to hear from them.“If the House chooses not to pursue through subpoena the testimony of Dr. Kupperman and Ambassador Bolton,” Cooper wrote, “Let the record be clear: that is the House’s decision.”This debate may not ultimately be overly significant. House lawmakers already have a fairly detailed picture of what occurred thanks to other witnesses. It is true hearing from Mulvaney, Bolton, and Kupperman could give the inquiry’s leaders added momentum as they move into the public phase of their investigations. And it is true that if Bolton has important information lawmakers currently lack, his testimony could open new avenues of inquiry. But the Democratic leaders of the inquiry have made it clear they plan to proceed with or without this testimony. With it, they say, they would have more evidence of quid pro quo on the part of the president. Without it, they say they have evidence the president attempted to obstruct a congressional investigation. And both those things could be used as articles of impeachment.

There are more women over 50 in the U.S. than ever before, according to Census Bureau data. And they are healthier, working longer and have more income.Our gender editor, Jessica Bennett, looks at the power those women wield. To name names (and ages): In Congress, Donna Shalala, above, 77; Maxine Waters, 80; Nancy Pelosi, 78. Elsewhere, Susan Zirinsky, 66, will take over CBS News in March, and Glenn Close, 71, just won a Golden Globe for best actress. Rod Rosenstein’s departure: The deputy attorney general, who has been overseeing the Russia investigation, is expected to leave the Justice Department after President Trump’s choice to run the department is confirmed.Turkey snubs John Bolton: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to meet the U.S. national security adviser on Tuesday, saying he had made a “grave mistake” in demanding that Turkey protect America’s Kurdish allies in Syria.Free to vote again: As many as 1.5 million former felons in Florida have had their voting rights restored, as a ballot measure approved in November went into effect.Jazmine Barnes killing: The main suspect in the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old girl from the Houston area has been charged with capital murder. Another man has been charged in the case.Mario Batali accusations: Three sexual assault investigations against the celebrity chef have been closed because of a lack of evidence.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Friday declined to say whether he's ever raised investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during talks with Chinese officials.During a combative exchange with CNN's Jim Sciutto, Navarro slammed the network's reporting that President Trump spoke about Biden's political prospects during a June call with Chinese President Xi Jinping without denying its accuracy.Asked multiple times if he had ever personally broached the idea of investigating Biden during his conversations with China, Navarro refused to answer directly."I will never talk about what happens inside the White House. Not confirm or deny, because that’s the slippery slope," Navarro said during the exchange.Asked again later in the interview whether he'd spoken about Biden, Navarro pivoted to criticize the anonymous sources in CNN's reporting."Have you ever given me a source that’s other than anonymous for any of this crap?" Navarro said. "That’s what I want to know."Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro refuses to answer when CNN's Jim Sciutto asks if he's ever raised Biden with the Chinese."I will never talk about what happens inside the White House. Okay? Not confirm or deny. Because that’s the slippery slope." pic.twitter.com/XQRu2pAjAb— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 4, 2019Trump, who is already facing an impeachment inquiry for urging the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden and Hunter Biden, his son, told reporters on Thursday that he believed China should investigate the Bidens.CNN reported later in the day that Trump spoke about the political prospects of Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenDemocrats need to change messaging on abortion Donald Trump is a (tax) loser, just like a lot of other people Long-shot Espy campaign sees national boost in weeks before election MORE (D-Mass.), both polling at the top of the 2020 Democratic field, during the call with Xi, and that Trump said he would remain silent on Hong Kong protests amid trade talks.The Trump administration has been locked in a lengthy trade war with China with negotiations stalling in recent months.The president's comments, paired with CNN's reporting, have led to calls from some Democrats to release a transcript of Trump's call with Xi."How is it that a U.S. president going forward is ever going to be able to have a candid conversation with a foreign leader about any sensitive matter if the jackals are always wanting to get things revealed," Navarro said Friday. "You guys want every transcript revealed of everything."He added that the president had a right to put the transcripts of his calls with world leaders on a secure server intended for national security matters, citing the prevalence of leaks coming from the White House.Navarro's response is likely to deepen Democrats' calls for documents from the White House as part of their impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his office for personal gain. Texts released by three House committees late Thursday showed that State Department officials told a Ukrainian adviser that a White House meeting would be contingent on the country investigating matters related to the Bidens and the 2016 election.

The third presidential debate for the 2020 Democratic primary election will take place on Thursday, September 12, at 8-11 pm ET, in Houston, Texas. It will air on ABC.The DNC set stricter criteria for qualification this time around, so unlike the first two debates, this debate is only a one-night event featuring 10 candidates. The lineup is: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, and Julián Castro.Because of the tighter criteria, this debate is also noteworthy because it’s the first time all of the major candidates will be on stage together. In the past two debates, because participants were randomly assigned to one of the two nights, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren were never on the stage together. The two have had longstanding policy disagreements, so viewers will be watching to see whether they clash at all on stage on Thursday. Read more about what to expect in the debate here, and follow below for all of Vox’s coverage of the debate. After Vox’s Tara Golshan reviews the third Democratic debate, Vox’s Matthew Yglesias explains how Joe Biden wins even when he loses. Looking for a quick way to keep up with the never-ending news cycle? Host Sean Rameswaram will guide you through the most important stories at the end of each day.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

All around me in this Seattle corner shop, people are grabbing items off the shelves, shoving them into bags or pockets, and bolting for the door. It would feel like well-mannered looting if not for the hi-tech gates where shoppers have to swipe in with their smartphones.This is the first day that Amazon’s new checkout-less convenience store, Amazon Go, is open to the public, and shopping is even easier than online. There is no tedious clicking or scrolling, no banner ads to negotiate nor passwords to remember. Simply present the Amazon Go app at the gates and start shopping.The range is typical of a 7-Eleven: a few essential groceries and toiletries but mostly snacks, breakfast items, sandwiches and salads. After a shopper walks through the gate, a bank of cameras and other sensors in the ceiling tracks her progress through the store. When an item is picked up, the same cameras recognise it and add it to the visitor’s virtual shopping cart. Ten minutes after the shopper walks out the door, the app charges a credit card and provides a digital receipt. A bank of cameras and other sensors in the ceiling tracks shoppers through the store. Photograph: Mark Harris/The GuardianOn day one, the system was in full working order. I tried picking up and replacing a salad or two, then quickly slipped a box of tissues into my bag. The shop was not fooled. The app came up with the correct total, and even told me exactly how long I had spent inside, to the nearest second. That speed and convenience is what Amazon Go’s Just Walk Out Shopping is all about, says the company. It was easy to identify the company’s employees, who have had access to the experimental shop for over a year. They rushed in, grabbed what they needed and were out again in less than 30 seconds. Some first-time users were still getting used to the technology, however. “It was strange just walking out,” said Paul Hamilton, visiting Seattle from Slough, in the UK. “Even though I knew how it worked, I wanted to look for checkout.”“This feels like the beginning of something really big,” said Abrar Ali, who had popped into Amazon Go to pick up lunch for his job at a telecoms company in the Seattle suburbs. “It’s at the cutting edge of AI and machine learning and I wanted to experience it for myself.” The implications for retail staffing are ominous. Cashier is the second-most-common job in the US, and self-checkout machines are far less common here than they are in Europe or Japan. Amazon has not announced any plans to open other Amazon Go shops, but job listings suggest that a roll-out beyond Seattle is possible. Photograph: Mark Harris/The GuardianAtsushi Ueda, an engineer with Hitachi in Tokyo, eyed the Amazon Go shop in a professional capacity. “It was very smooth, very easy,” he said. “We don’t have anything like this in Japan yet but we’re trying.”Over the past year, Amazon has made a big push into bricks and mortar retail, buying the high-end supermarket Whole Foods and restructuring its Amazon Fresh grocery service to include kerbside pickup as well as home delivery. It also has more than a dozen physical book stores across the US. Amazon has not announced any plans to open other Amazon Go shops, but job listings suggest that a rollout beyond Seattle is possible. In December, Amazon advertised for a real estate manager to develop a strategic real estate plan and conduct field tours of potential locations for Amazon Go, with travel required. However, Amazon Go’s hi-tech solution is unlikely to work everywhere. A bank of four self-serve checkouts cost about $125,000 each and Amazon Go’s serious computing power and hi-tech sensors are likely to cost significantly more. Amazon Go might be economic on the ground floor of Amazon’s offices, where developers earn six-figure salaries. But you will probably still have to remember your wallet at most corner shops for a few more years yet.

Facebook’s massively lucrative advertising model relies on tracking its one billion users---as well as the billions on WhatsApp and Instagram---across the web and smartphone apps, collecting data on which sites and apps they visit, where they shop, what they like, and combining all that information into comprehensive user profiles. Facebook has maintained that collecting all this data allows the company to serve ads that are more relevant to users’ interests. Privacy advocates have argued that the company isn’t transparent enough about what data it has and what it does with it. As a result, most people don’t understand the massive trade-off they are making with their information when they sign up for the “free” site.On Thursday, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, the country’s antitrust regulator, ruled that Facebook was exploiting consumers by requiring them to agree to this kind of data collection in order to have an account, and has prohibited the practice going forward.“Facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook user accounts,” FCO president Andreas Mundt said in a statement announcing the decision.“We disagree with their conclusions and intend to appeal so that people in Germany continue to benefit fully from all our services,” Facebook wrote in a blog post responding to the ruling. The company has one month to appeal. If it fails, Facebook would have to change how it processes data internally for German users, and could only combine the data into a single profile for a Facebook account with that user's explicit consent.“When there is a lack of competition, users accepting terms of service are often not truly consenting. The consent is a fiction.”Lina Khan, Open Markets“This is significant,” says Lina Khan, an antitrust expert affiliated with Columbia Law School and the think tank Open Markets. She notes that authorities haven’t done a good job of articulating why privacy is an antitrust issue. Here, the German regulator makes it clear. “The FCO’s theory is that Facebook’s dominance is what allows it to impose on users contractual terms that require them to allow Facebook to track them all over,” Khan says. “When there is a lack of competition, users accepting terms of service are often not truly consenting. The consent is a fiction.”According to the FCO, Facebook had 32 million monthly active users in Germany at the end of last year, amounting to a market share of more than 80 percent. The regulator argues this dominance gives it jurisdiction to oversee the company’s data collection practices.“As a dominant company Facebook is subject to special obligations under competition law. In the operation of its business model the company must take into account that Facebook users practically cannot switch to other social networks,” said Mundt. “The only choice the user has is either to accept the comprehensive combination of data or to refrain from using the social network. In such a difficult situation the user’s choice cannot be referred to as voluntary consent.”The FCO further argues that Facebook used its vast data collection to build up its market dominance, creating a feedback loop wherein people have no choice but to use the site and allow it to track them, which makes the site even more dominant and entrenches its privacy violations.“The Bundeskartellamt [FCO] underestimates the fierce competition we face in Germany, misinterprets our compliance with GDPR and undermines the mechanisms European law provides for ensuring consistent data protection standards across the EU,” Facebook wrote in response to the ruling. They cite Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube as direct competitors, hoping to illustrate that there isn’t lack of competition, and therefore the FCO has no standing to apply rules based on Facebook’s dominance. “Popularity,” they write, “is not dominance.”The FCO disagreed, explaining that Snapchat, YouTube, and Twitter serve totally different functions from Facebook, and therefore can’t be seen as viable alternatives to the service.Antitrust regulators used to consider data and privacy outside their purview. The old philosophy held that antitrust was concerned with price, and if a product was free then consumers couldn’t be harmed, says Maurice Stucke, antitrust expert and law professor at the University of Tennessee. “What we’re seeing now is those myths are being largely discredited.”

“No other president,” it concludes, “has flouted the Constitution and power of Congress to conduct oversight to this extent.” In singling out Trump’s defiance, Democrats compare him unfavorably to Nixon, who, despite infamously refusing to hand over tapes from the White House’s secret recording system, instructed his staff to cooperate voluntarily with the impeachment inquiry that ultimately led to his resignation.The Democrats’ focus on obstruction is neither new nor surprising. Immediately after launching the impeachment probe, the party made a crucial decision to largely abandon its attempts to compel the production of documents and witnesses from the administration through the courts; instead, they simply responded to each ignored subpoena by warning Trump and his aides that the refusal could be grounds for an obstruction charge. The move was an early sign that Democrats intended to move quicker than former Special Counsel Robert Mueller did in his two-year investigation into Russian interference in 2016 and would not allow the Trump administration to essentially run out the clock by forcing Democrats into court fights that would drag impeachment close to, or beyond, the 2020 election.The report devotes dozens of pages to documenting each instance in which the administration withheld a requested document or blocked a witness from testifying. It also delivers on Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s promise to include, as part of its obstruction case, Trump’s attacks—verbally and via Twitter—on the officials who testified against him, which Schiff had characterized as witness intimidation.Of course, Democrats also pointed out that the administration’s blockade did not succeed: Several current and former officials in the White House and the State Department cooperated with the inquiry despite the administration’s instructions not to, and their collective accounts, in private depositions, documents, and public testimony, provide the basis for nearly 300 pages outlining the Democrats’ core case against Trump.The House and Senate will vote separately on individual articles of impeachment, and Democrats will try to appeal to Republicans by arguing, as they write in their report, that if left unanswered, Trump’s obstruction “risks doing grave harm to the institution of Congress, the balance of power between our branches of government, and the Constitutional order.” Still, Republicans have offered little indication that they are any more inclined to support an obstruction charge against Trump than they are to convict him based on his conduct toward Ukraine.The likelihood of an obstruction impeachment charge is the culmination of a confrontation between two branches of government that began as soon as Democrats won control of the House in the midterm elections 13 months ago. Battles between Congress and the executive branch over proper legislative oversight go back to the beginning of the republic, but Trump turned a common skirmish into an all-out war by refusing at the outset to cooperate with any House investigations into either his own personal conduct or his administration’s policies. Indeed, Democrats are still weighing whether to expand their impeachment push to include articles specifically pegged to Trump’s obstruction of congressional oversight dating back to the beginning of the year, long before the Ukraine scandal erupted.The president’s defiance of Congress has always been at the top of its list of grievances, just as his possible obstruction of justice was a focus of Mueller’s investigation as well. So while few could have predicted the precise circumstances that have put the Democratic House majority on the brink of impeaching this Republican president, the fact that their rap sheet will likely include a charge of obstruction may have been inevitable from the start. Russell Bermanis a staff writer atThe Atlantic, where he covers politics.Connect Twitter

As a socialist on the Seattle City Council, Kshama Sawant may be the most powerful local foe of the city’s largest private employer, Amazon. She helped pass a $15-an-hour minimum wage law that has cost the company dearly. She was also a staunch supporter of an ordinance to force large companies to pay a $275-per-employee annual “head tax” to fund public housing and homeless services. The City Council passed that too, but then repealed it a month later. To the delight of her left-wing base, Sawant cast one of two dissenting votes and called Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos “our enemy.”Before last Tuesday’s city election, Amazon sought its revenge by pouring massive contributions into council races. But its efforts to support the business-friendly candidate running against Sawant apparently failed to deliver.When voting ended Tuesday, small-business advocate and LGBTQ community leader Egan Orion held a small lead. But as mail-in ballots continued to be counted into the weekend, Sawant took over the lead, with 51.57% of the vote to Orion’s 47.95%, and she claimed victory at a news conference on Saturday. In 2013, Sawant overcame a 7-point initial margin to win her first two-year term.Amazon, which employs about 50,000 people in the Seattle metro area, spent a record $1.5 million on City Council races through a political action committee managed by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. It was the largest chunk of the more than $4 million that companies invested in the seven races.The Seattle Times described Amazon’s spending as a “money bomb.” Its impact remains to be seen. One possibility is that the spending backfired and stirred sympathy for targeted candidates. Even Orion said at his election night party that he was frustrated by “completely unnecessary” corporate donations, adding that if he won, he didn’t want “the shadow of Amazon” hanging over him.Starbucks, another of the city’s corporate giants, exercised more subtle influence, donating far less money while voicing support for change on the nine-member council, said Joni Balter, a Seattle political analyst. On Monday, employees stood in front of outlets handing out free coffee in paper cups marked “Vote Nov. 5" as a company spokesman spoke to television reporters. Jeanne Brooks, bakery sourcing manager at Starbucks’ headquarters in Seattle, gave out free coffee to remind voters to cast their ballots in the city’s Nov. 5 election.(Richard Read / Los Angeles Times) “They didn’t make it completely about money; they made it about coffee and ‘vote for change,’” Balter said. “It was a far more deft kind of PR move.”Amazon is viewed warily by many Seattle residents, who see the corporate giant as a force behind the city’s rising cost of living and growing income inequality. The scale of the company’s sudden entrance into local politics is unprecedented, given its contributions of about $130,000 to City Council candidates in 2015.Sawant, with scathing rhetoric and a doctorate in economics, frequently slams big business and its local and global influence, denouncing corporate greed and the national two-party system. In 2013, she campaigned on a pledge to raise the minimum wage, beating Richard Conlin, a four-term incumbent.She helped make Seattle the first big city to adopt the $15-an-hour minimum, which Amazon extended to all of its employees nationwide. The “head tax” initiative she helped lead in 2017 would have cost Amazon more than $10 million a year.As the legislation progressed, Amazon managers said they would halt plans for a new downtown building and reconsider another one under construction, jeopardizing 7,000 or more jobs. Sawant endured humiliation when a rally she held outside company headquarters was crashed by iron workers in hard hats who drowned her out, shouting, “No head tax, no head tax!”At her election night party Tuesday, Sawant said, “We are going to have to continue to fight to make sure every vote of disenfranchised people gets to count.”

Many of those arriving are fleeing violence or poverty and travel north through Mexico until they reach the US border. Upon arrival, they must pass a "credible fear" interview to seek asylum in the US, which most do.

Sen. Kamala Harris, following a sharp decline in recent polls, is dropping out of the 2020 race. Harris, once seen as one of the most promising presidential candidates in the Democratic field, struggled to identify a distinct message, and had trouble connecting with voters as a result. She announced her decision via a Medium post on Tuesday, after telling staff earlier in the day. “I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life,” Harris wrote. “My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue. ... In good faith, I can’t tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward if I don’t believe I do.”Harris had been a rumored presidential contender ever since she was elected to the Senate in 2016, and announced her candidacy to great fanfare during an Oakland rally this past January. She had a history-making record in political office, as the first black woman and the first Asian American woman to be San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general. As part of her campaign, she sought to highlight the contributions of women of color to the Democratic Party and boost other minority candidates, an effort she says she plans to continue focusing on. To my supporters, it is with deep regret—but also with deep gratitude—that I am suspending my campaign today. 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.https://t.co/92Hk7DHHbR— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) December 3, 2019 “Our campaign uniquely spoke to the experiences of Black women and people of color — and their importance to the success and future of this party,” she wrote. “Our campaign demanded no one should be taken for granted by any political party.”Harris was strongest on the debate stage when discussing those issues; she enjoyed a surge over the summer after her stunning confrontation of Biden over his previous opposition to federally mandated busing — and her personal connection to the topic — during the June debate. Her campaign, however, appears not have been prepared to navigate that momentary success, according to a New York Times report. This fall, she fielded criticism about its muddled strategy, abrupt firings of staffers, and unwillingness to fully confront her record as a prosecutor. On top of that, fundraising was proving to be a growing challenge for Harris, who brought in $11.6 million in the third quarter of 2019 compared to $24.6 million raised by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and $19 million raised by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. In spite of the latest declines, Harris’s decision to drop out is somewhat surprising since she’s still polling ahead of most of the Democratic field and has qualified for the next debate later this month. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Harris was firmly in the second tier of candidates when she decided to end her campaign. She was polling behind frontrunners including former Vice President Joe Biden but ahead of many others who are still in the race, including Sens. Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar. Still, her recent numbers, which put her at 3.4 percent on average, pale compared to the 15 percent polling high she once hit.These declines, it seems, mirrored the disarray within her campaign, which opted to shift an overwhelming swath of resources to Iowa, where Harris was still meeting with voters over Thanksgiving. Though Harris had sought to build a broad coalition of voters, something she succeeded at during her Senate run, experts have said her unclear ideological positioning has prevented her from establishing a specific lane of support. Harris, who is viewed as more moderate than multiple leading candidates, has also tried to court progressive voters — with limited success.One example: She backed Medicare-for-all, but then released a plan that doesn’t go quite as far as that of Sanders or Warren in eliminating private insurance. Additionally, Harris’s prosecutorial record has prompted critiques from liberals who argue that her approach toward issues such as truancy and wrongful convictions aren’t as progressive as she’s tried to frame them.“She’s in a no person’s land,” San Jose State University political science professor Larry Gerston previously told Vox. “She is to the right of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, she’s to the left of Pete Buttigieg.” With the benefit of hindsight, Harris had a big opening to compete with Biden or Buttigieg for center-left/electability voters. She made a decision to try to build a base with the left first, which was naturally suspicious of her biography and had high-profile options already.— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) December 3, 2019 Harris’s initial bet on bringing the party together had also yet to come to fruition, in part because of how crowded the field has been — and how her competitors have been able to hang onto their core contingencies of support. Harris had focused significant efforts on winning over more African American voters, especially in the crucial early primary state of South Carolina, but Biden has managed to keep a solid base of voters there. Harris’s policies, too, were criticized for their lack of a clear focus, though several centered heavily on improving wages and economic mobility for the middle class. Her landmark proposal, the LIFT Act, would give middle-class households a monthly cash payment amounting to as much as $3,000 per year for single people and $6,000 per year for married couples. Other proposals aimed to increase wages for teachers and public defenders. Harris also made gender equity a key prong of her political platform, pushing proposals that sought to curb restrictive state abortion laws, establish a federal paid family leave program and penalize companies that don’t address internal wage gaps. Harris’s plan to require states that have violated Roe v. Wade to obtain federal approval before adopting new abortion laws has garnered support from several other 2020 candidates.The peak of Harris’s campaign came in mid-June when she took on Biden over the issue of using busing to desegregate schools. During a Democratic debate, she pressed him on his work alongside segregationists and opposition to busing. The problem was, her subsequent debate performances and policy roll-outs weren’t quite consistent enough to sustain this enthusiasm. As a result, Harris saw her poll numbers continue to slide in the months since, coupled with media reports of internal turmoil on her campaign. Before her run for the presidency, Harris was well-known for her role on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioning Trump administration officials including Bill Barr and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Her Senate term extends through 2022, when she’ll be up for reelection once again in California. As a Morning Consult poll found, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have the most to gain in support from Harris’s departure. A proportion of Harris backers have listed Biden and Warren as their second choice, while a smaller fraction have picked Sen. Bernie Sanders.

But polls suggest many anti-Brexit Conservatives are sticking by Mr. Johnson, not out of love and admiration for him as much as fear and loathing for his opponent, Mr. Corbyn.“We have a choice of one of two prime ministers, either Boris, or Jeremy Corbyn,” said Christopher Wyke, 64, a Conservative who lives and works in the City of London, the financial district, and who himself supports Brexit. “If you vote for anybody but the Conservatives, you risk getting Corbyn, so there’s no choice. Even people who are Remainers, they still don’t want Corbyn. He’d be infinitely more dangerous.”And the Liberal Democrats have alienated some voters who might otherwise be amenable to their centrist economic policies by taking a stark position on Brexit: revoking it altogether, without a public vote.Even anti-Brexit Labourites are no longer a shoo-in to vote against the Conservatives.Gordon Nardell, the Labour candidate, broke off from the party activists outside the tube station last week to knock on some doors alone. The first answer seemed to startle him: a middle-aged man who said he was a longtime Labour supporter and backed Remain in 2016, but now wanted Mr. Johnson to get Brexit done.“The vote was to leave, so you know, recognize the vote,” the man said. “To me, once you vote, that’s it — you either accept it, or if you don’t accept it, democracy means nothing.”

He may dislike the president, but he also hates the idea of impeachment. “I think that hurts the country, economically as well as psychologically,” he said. He has not made up his mind in the House race, awaiting further information and research into the candidates.But others are much more convinced. On Matthews’s main street, Dr. Margie Divish, a physician, stepped aside from the busy entrance of Renfrow’s Hardware to express her thoughts in a near whisper out of earshot of other shoppers. “I am very happy this happened,” she said of the Cohen and Manafort developments, because of the possibility they move Mr. Trump closer to impeachment.But at the same time she feared that if Democrats take the House and move to remove the president, it will further inflame a divided country. “Oh, I’d love to have him impeached,” she said, “but I’m really just afraid of some of his supporters. We’ve already seen how well Trump can fan the flames of resentment among people who feel they’ve been left behind.”Many voters of both parties said the political climate was so polarized they had stopped watching the news and hesitated to express themselves on social media and in family gatherings for fear of angry responses. A retired nurse who said she had “grown up a Republican all my life’’ added that she strongly disliked Mr. Trump and hoped for his impeachment. She would only give her first name, Linda, for fear of being attacked over her views.Sinead Dignon, 29, a stay-at-home mother, said: “I hate Trump. I think he’s corrupt. I think he’s a narcissist. Should I keep going?”But she was no fan of progressive Democratic priorities like government-paid universal health care, either. “Both parties have just gone down the tubes,’’ she said. She turned to her 14-month-old daughter and offered, “Do you want to be president?”

BRUSSELS -- The European Union’s antitrust watchdog said Friday that it has launched an investigation into a loan of 400 million euros ($440 million) from the Italian government to national airline Alitalia to establish whether the money is illegal state aid.The watchdog, the European Commission, said in a statement that the aim is to assess if the “loan granted to Alitalia constitutes state aid and whether it complies with the rules on state aid to companies in difficulty.”The European Commission said it launched the probe after receiving a number of complaints about the loan. No details were provided about those who complained or what their suspicions might be.Under EU rules, government financial aid to struggling companies can be considered legal if it is made on terms that a private firm would have accepted under market conditions.In 2018, the commission launched a separate investigation into a €900 million bridge loan that Rome granted to Alitalia, also to ascertain whether it was state aid. That probe continues.

This spring, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua posted a roughly two-minute video titled “Once Upon a Virus” on social media, including on official Chinese government accounts. The video is in English and features Lego-like figures. One of the Statue of Liberty, representing America, and a warrior Lego representing China, with what looks like medical workers decked out in PPE, behind it. The video attempts to summarize a pandemic, with the Chinese Legos acting responsibly (“It’s airborne,” the warrior says) and the Statue of Liberty Lego downplaying said warnings (“It will magically go away in April”) as she starts to get sick. The video ends with the Statue of Liberty figure red-faced, in a mask, hooked up to an IV. The video had at least 2 million views on Twitter, according to the Hollywood Reporter, a website that is blocked in China. This was meant for an audience — in April 2020, perhaps a still locked down and disillusioned one — overseas.The well-produced propaganda caught the notice of China watchers. It was satire, and a bit more skillful than the country’s more traditional — and usually clunkier — attempts at disinformation. It was, above all, a reminder of what China wants to accomplish with any of its influence operations: advance China.The same goes for China’s motivations when it comes to meddling in the United States — and what that might mean for the 2020 presidential election.But just because US officials are calling out China and Iran alongside Russia doesn’t mean those two countries are following Russia’s script. “I would expect each country to follow a different playbook, just because they have different approaches to foreign policy,” Darrell M. West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, told me. “And China and Iran already know that everybody’s watching how Russia does it. I don’t think they just want to repeat that.”Russia’s main strategy is to sow discord and division, and diminish faith in democracy. It also favors President Donald Trump, partly because he helps advance the first two goals, and because of his oft-stated desire to improve relations between Washington and Moscow. China and Iran are more averse to chaos in the US, and are much more focused on pushing their own national objectives. They want different things from the United States, Emerson T. Brooking, a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, told me. For China, that might mean promoting its Covid-19 narrative, or getting the US to shut up about Hong Kong protests. For Iran, that could mean promoting criticism of Israel or US sanctions policy.All three countries have different capabilities. China might not use online trolls in the way Russia or even Iran does because it has other, far more effective tools — economic, technological — that could achieve those aims. And, of course, interference may go beyond disinformation or influence campaigns. There is the threat of hacking or cyber intrusions of politicians, or campaigns, or even election infrastructure. There is also a concern over how individuals with ties to foreign governments might use money in politics. And there’s probably something else, because as one analyst told me, what the US doesn’t want to be doing is fighting the last war. It also doesn’t mean Russia, China, and Iran are equal threats, or that they’re all similarly invested in any 2020 outcome. The ODNI, in its assessment, gave an overview of each country’s likely political preferences. But there’s been some skepticism that China and Iran are as active as Russia is this election cycle; Democrats, in particular, have accused the Trump administration of trying to group all three countries together, creating a false equivalence when it comes to the 2020 election threat.A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower complaint also alleges that the administration tried to downplay the Russia threat because it upsets Trump, and that National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien pressured the department to elevate China and Iran activities to the level of Russia’s, even though that didn’t fit with the actual intelligence data available.So what should Americans make of the Iran and China threat in 2020? Here’s a look at what we know — and a lot of what we don’t — about what foreign adversaries not named Russia may be doing in 2020, and beyond. Meddling in US elections is nothing new for Moscow. The Soviet Union did it throughout the Cold War. But in 2016, Russia carried out an influence operation that successfully exploited social media and United States’ political dysfunction, rattling the American body politic then and even today.Here are the highlights: Russians trolls amplified hyperpartisan or misleading news on US social media through the Internet Research Agency, an operation funded by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Operatives linked to Russian military intelligence hacked the Democratic National Committee, dumping the information through WikiLeaks to try to stoke divisions within the Democratic Party and disparage the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. Russians with ties to the Kremlin made overtures to the Trump campaign, which came under federal investigation. Special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy between the campaign and Russians, though he documented numerous links. A bipartisan Senate report also explored those ties, and documented many interactions between Trump campaign operatives and figures with connections to Russian intelligence. Russians also probed election systems in all 50 states, entering voter and registration databases. There is no evidence any votes were changed, though another bipartisan Senate report found that in some instances, the Russians could have if they wanted to.Russia is still pushing disinformation through social media and has reportedly attempted to hack campaigns associated with both Democrats and Republicans. The Kremlin is also filtering pro-Russia narratives through Ukrainian politicians to undermine Biden and the Democrats, talking points that are being regurgitated by Trump and GOP allies. The ODNI has said that Russia “is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden.” Taken together, Moscow’s tactics create chaos and distrust in US institutions and democracy, exacerbating America’s partisan divides like a finger pressed to a bruise.Based on what’s known publicly, China and Iran are echoing some of those strategies. They’re spreading disinformation. They reportedly targeted campaigns and political entities. But China and Iran want different things when it comes to America.Russia wants to disrupt and destabilize and confuse people on how to see the world. Iran and China would like the world to see things their way. At least right now, China, in particular, sees a lot more value in building itself up than in tearing America apart.“For China and Iran, ultimately, their interests are not served by an American political system that is chaotic, unable to think long-term, make strategic decisions about their relationships with either of those two countries,” Priscilla Moriuchi, an expert on state-sponsored cyber operations and fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, said. This is not to say that China and Iran are cool with the United States as is. But China doesn’t want a chaotic world, Brookings’s West told me. It wants stability. So if it’s going to meddle in the 2020 election, it’s not out to cause Russian-style pandemonium. And what about who China and Iran want to win? The ODNI report says Russia wants to denigrate Biden, but says Iran and China have particular preferences when it comes to the 2020 election. US intelligence assess China “prefers that President Trump – whom Beijing sees as unpredictable – does not win reelection.” But the ODNI doesn’t say that China is necessarily tipping the scales for Biden. Instead, China’s operations are mostly focused on deflecting criticism of China. As for Iran, the ODNI says it seeks to “undermine President Trump” and democratic institutions, saying it’s mostly focused on online and anti-US propaganda.This has created a sense that Russia is on one side and China and Iran are on the other — one for Trump, two for Biden. But this is the wrong way to look at it, experts told me. It muddles the actual efforts and objectives of each of these actors. “It’s certainly true that different US adversaries might have different preferences for the outcome of the election,” Brooking, of the Atlantic Council, told me. “But they don’t go about executing their goals the same way.”Preference can be challenging to assess. It can change. It might not be all that strong. Most critically, it does not necessarily mean a country is directly intervening or taking dramatic action to help or hurt a particular candidate. “There’s a big difference between specific actions taken by a foreign power to interfere in the election and disrupt it and actively undermine the integrity of it, versus preference,” Carrie Cordero, a national and cybersecurity expert at the Center for a New American Security, told me. This is a US presidential election; Beijing has a preference, but so do Brussels and Mexico City and Tokyo. Allies and adversaries alike are going to have an idea of an outcome they’d like to see based on their own foreign policy, national security, and economic interests. As Cordero said, that’s not the same thing as “taking specific actions using their intelligence services, using their military, cyber capability to actively affect the outcome of our election.”In August 2019, Twitter and Facebook took down accounts linked to China. Twitter, removing nearly 1,000 accounts, called it a “significant state-backed information operation” that sought to sow discord around the Hong Kong protests. At the time, protests in Hong Kong against an extradition bill had transformed into a massive pro-democracy movement, a direct threat to China. So China pushed back, using social media accounts to spin the demonstrations as violent, and its participants as terrorists and rioters.When it comes to Chinese disinformation campaigns, that’s where they’ve mostly been focused: on issues and places close to Beijing. Hong Kong, of course. And Taiwan, where China actively tried to spread disinformation in the January presidential elections.Covid-19 — and the US-China tensions over the virus — has helped accelerate the arrival of more overt Chinese propaganda in the US. “This was prompted in part by US’s own attempt to rebrand the coronavirus as the ‘China virus,’” Brooking told me. “But it is not clear that China is really interested in turning a lot of this apparatus to privilege one candidate or another in the presidential election.”So far, China hasn’t really shown itself to be interested in that kind of disruption, James Andrew Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told me. Instead, he said, China is “more interested in getting the US off their back.”“With China, it’s to benefit China,” Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center and author of How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict, told me. “It’s about promoting a positive image of China, of their coronavirus response, of the political situation in China. It’s about putting forth that Chinese worldview.”So while China does touch on US politics, Renée DiResta, a research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory who’s studied influence operations, wrote in an email, “there is not much evidence of a ‘Russia-style’ extended influence campaign to interfere in US society or elections.”When China does try to comment directly on US politics, it tends to pivot around issues Beijing cares about — China’s handling of the coronavirus compared to the US, or when Chinese officials used the George Floyd protests to attempt to call out the US’s hypocrisy on Hong Kong and criticism of China for its human rights abuses.The results, though, can sometimes seem a little inelegant. China tightly controls information at home through traditional and state-run media, and on social media through pro-Chinese Communist Party social media posters known as the “50 Cent Army.” So sometimes it all seems a little over-the-top when directed abroad. China also occasionally reveals its blind spots on the nuances of American politics. For example, Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, tried to tweet in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters, but wrote “all lives matter.”But Moriuchi, at the Belfer Center, cautioned against the notion that this somehow means China is the JV team to Russia’s varsity, because, again, they’re essentially playing two different games. Russia is trying to disrupt the 2020 election and see what kind of disorder it can create. Beijing is playing the long game.Russia is an adversary, but Moscow can’t directly challenge the US’s economic dominance, or its position in global hegemony. Trying to bolster the Russian political system in the US wouldn’t be as useful in weakening US democracy as, for instance, amplifying doubts about mail-in voting. (And that wouldn’t be the case where Russia does have more influence, in, say, Belarus.) Russia’s disruption tactics are a kind of asymmetric warfare against a larger power. It’s low tech and not all that costly, but America’s homegrown political dysfunction has made it seem wildly effective. This isn’t the case for China. China is challenging the US for global hegemony. “China — the Chinese Communist Party — believes it is in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in July. China does want to manipulate the American political system to help achieve those ends. It just has a lot more capabilities than Russia does.“It’s certainly true that if China wanted, they could have extraordinary impact on this social media space,” Brooking said. “But the Chinese also don’t need to do that.” They’re the second-largest economy in the world, he added. “They have so many levers of influence and power, which don’t rely on creating sock puppet accounts and botnets.”China is carefully, and strategically, expanding its influence in the US in ways that might not fit with our perception of “meddling.” And if China doesn’t like what the US or others are saying about its policies, it doesn’t necessarily need to rely on a fake Facebook page.“The Chinese don’t want you to say what we did in Hong Kong was bad, and they use market pressure and money and influence operations to push that China’s great: ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,’” CSIS’s Lewis said. This also prompts certain industries or institutions to self-censor, tiptoeing around sensitive issues to avoid displeasing China. But China can also more directly use its economic prowess, enticing Wall Street or Hollywood with investment or funding think tanks and universities that may push more Beijing-friendly talking points. There are also legitimate concerns about what China is doing with its technology. China uses apps like WeChat to spread pro-Chinese messaging, including to the Chinese diaspora around the world, and the government almost certainly uses it as a surveillance tool. The same goes for concerns about censorship and/or data tracking on Chinese-owned apps like TikTok.And then there are the hacking operations meant to gather intelligence — that is, to spy. FBI Director Wray said in that same July speech that the US opens a counterintelligence case against China every 10 hours; of the FBI’s 5,000 counterintelligence cases, about half involve China. Microsoft said this week that China has attempted to hack political campaigns, specifically the email accounts of Biden’s campaign staffers and one former Trump administration official. It has also targeted people at think tanks, according to the New York Times. China has hacked campaigns before, including probing internal documents of the John McCain and Barack Obama campaigns in 2008.“Most of the activity we’ve seen out of China has been what we might call cyber espionage,” Josephine Wolff, assistant professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told me. “China does not have a track record of stealing a lot of information and then releasing it publicly. That’s not to say they couldn’t do it — or they would never do it.”So China is probing campaigns like the Russians (and Iranians), but what it will do with that information is a lot less clear. In 2016, Russia released stolen information through WikiLeaks, which was far more dramatic and influential than just quietly collecting information for its own use. China, we know, has these cyber capabilities, but so far it hasn’t tried to dump any information to alter the presidential race.And while these kinds of cyber intrusion and other forms of intelligence gathering are not exactly good or desirable for the US, they’re also not all that surprising — it would be kind of weird if foreign adversaries like China weren’t trying to collect data and information on campaigns — because someone is going to win, and that will be the US administration China must deal with. The Trump administration’s hard line against China — and its attempts to deflect blame for Covid-19 — has perhaps hurt the credibility of its warnings when it comes to China. Add to that the whistleblower complaint suggesting the White House is trying to inflate the China threat.But many experts and analysts I spoke to said that China has the capabilities to sway US politics; it all depends on how it wants to use them.“There’s no question China’s the most technologically sophisticated for influence campaigns that reach beyond just elections,” Corri Zoli, associate teaching professor and director of research for the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, told me. What this means for 2020 specifically is much harder to parse, particularly based on the information that’s publicly available. But experts said when it comes to China, it is very focused on the long-term goal of eclipsing the United States, and so Beijing is more methodical and sophisticated in its approach. This makes China extremely risk-averse when it comes to its foreign policy or national security objectives. “They tend to do some test and see, and these kinds of marginal and incremental changes,” Moriuchi said of China. She said this election cycle may be like a testing ground for some of the influence operations China may want to pursue in the future: “what is helping them accomplish their goals, what’s working, what’s not.”If China wants greater world influence, Iran wants regional influence. “They want to center Iran as leader of the wider Islamic world. And they want to assail Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Brooking said. “They’re also extremely critical of Israel. And they cast themselves as the principal defender and resistor against US global hegemony.” Because of this, it can also make it a little easier to spot Iranian disinformation. “In virtually all of the propaganda, the fake websites, the bot accounts and sock puppets are promoting one of these narratives,” he added. “So it’s really not that hard to figure out the sort of propaganda that’s in Iran’s corner.” That doesn’t mean Iran isn’t trying, though. Last fall, Facebook took down some Iranian-linked pages, including a site called BLM News. According to Facebook, “the Page admins and account owners typically posted about political issues including topics like race relations in the US, criticism of US and Israel’s policy on Iran, the Black Lives Matter movement, African-American culture and the Iranian foreign policy.“This kind of odd mixing of topics — US sanctions policy, say, next to criminal justice reform — can be a little, well, obvious. That’s not to say it can’t, or doesn’t, move any minds, but it’s a bit harder for most people (hopefully) to buy that it’s really just a US Facebook group.Iranian operatives also use other methods to try to promote their worldview — like posing as journalists or activists to try to steal sensitive information from lawmakers, academics, or contractors, and, in some cases, trying to plant favorable stories in the foreign press.And Iran definitely has cyber capabilities. But Zoli said, overall, they’re not sophisticated enough to have a truly enormous impact. “They don’t have the capabilities and they haven’t thought through a really multi-pronged strategy. They’re not going after, you know, these ancillary institutional sites to try to have a big impact on political decision-making.” Iran is probing Trump campaign officials and former administration officials, and this is something they’ve been doing for months. However, according to Microsoft, the Iranians have had limited success in actually gaining access. Iran is most likely trying to gain access to information about Trump officials’ plans for the US, though whether it will use any information (assuming it can access it) and release it publicly is less clear. Plus, the stakes are a bit higher for Iran. The US’s ability to retaliate could be pretty damaging to Tehran, considering the Trump administration is already engaged in a maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian government.Election interference operations are not unique to the United States, or 2020. The US, like other democracies, is more vulnerable to influence operations because it is an open society with freedom of speech. Foreign actors can more easily enter our ecosystem.Right now, America’s ecosystem is bitterly divided. A lot of misinformation — from Covid-19 conspiracy theories to QAnon — is homegrown. Which means Russia or China or Iran or anyone else doesn’t have to do much since so much is made in the US.And let’s be real: Plenty of other countries — even those who’d fall into the US ally camp — are using social media to spread state propaganda, or messaging that favors their foreign policy goals. Saudi Arabia-linked accounts have spread pro-Trump messaging on Twitter. During the George Floyd protests, Turkey tried to link Syrian Kurds to antifa. Whether this stuff really works isn’t the point; it doesn’t require a lot of resources, it’s not all that complicated, and right now, getting taken down by Twitter or Facebook is a fairly low cost.Other modes of election interference — like the hacking of politicians or election infrastructure — are much more sinister threats. But again, if the online disinformation works, Russia or anyone else doesn’t actually have to change any votes. If the specter of a rigged election is there, that may be good enough. Understanding this is really the best defense for Americans. Zoli told me she sees the ODNI document as educational, not so much for what it tells us about what our adversaries are up to, but as a way to “raise the public’s awareness that these election interferences are common and consistent. And you need to be kind of on guard about them. And you need to harden your approach to them.”And that has happened post-2016. Social media companies have gotten better at identifying these malign accounts. Campaigns and politicians are more aware that their random emails can become sex-trafficking conspiracies, and they’ve hardened their systems, too.The Trump administration’s handling of election interference has raised questions, including the decision to stop giving in-person intelligence briefings to Congress and the recent whistleblower complaint. But law enforcement has learned from 2016, too, and has undertaken more robust efforts to protect the US from interference.There’s still way more to be done. Election security bills have languished in the GOP-controlled Senate. Adversaries are adapting new strategies, which means something may happen that the US doesn’t expect. If Russia taught the world, or America, anything in 2016, it’s that election interference is not going away. “This is our future,” West, of the Brookings Institution, said. “Because what Russia taught the rest of the world in 2016 was how easy it was to affect American elections.”Help keep Vox free for allMillions turn to Vox each month to understand what’s happening in the news, from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is, quite possibly, the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources. Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers, your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work. If you have already contributed, thank you. If you haven’t, please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world: Contribute today from as little as $3.

A second intelligence official is reportedly considering filing a whistleblower complaint about Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine as the Democrats’ impeachment investigation into the president and his administration continues to escalate.The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, also failed to meet a subpoena deadline to turn over documents related to the investigation, as House Democrats broadened their subpoena request to the White House, demanding documents after the executive branch ignored requests to provide them voluntarily.At the heart of the impeachment inquiry is a whistleblower complaint outlining Trump’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to launch a corruption investigation against the former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Trump has since publicly urged Ukraine, and China, to investigate Biden, without citing any evidence of any wrongdoing.The second official considering filing a whistleblower complaint about the president’s dealings with Ukraine has more direct information about the events in question than the initial whistleblower and was interviewed by an intelligence watchdog to corroborate the first report, the New York Times reported late Friday, citing two anonymous sources.Elsewhere, the Washington Post reported accounts of a number of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders, citing an anonymous former White House official. The paper said in one of his first calls with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Trump fawned over him, and in a call with the former UK prime minister Theresa May, Trump questioned British intelligence’s conclusion that Putin’s government was behind an attempt to kill a former Russian spy on British soil with a nerve agent.Trump on Saturday hit out at both papers.The president has defended his open calls for foreign governments to investigate a political rival by repeating that there was “no quid pro quo”. Text messages between US diplomats and an assistant to Zelenskiy released this week reveal that this was not the understanding of US diplomats dealing with Ukraine.In a tweet on Thursday, Trump said the presidency gave him “an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!”Speaking to reporters in Greece on Saturday, the secretary of state, Pompeo, did not reference Trump’s admitted desire for Ukraine to investigate Biden, but said the investigation the US sought was related to Ukraine’s possible interference in the 2016 US election.On Wednesday, Pompeo admitted he had been on a controversial July call with Zelenskiy in which the president pressured Ukraine, according to a reconstructed transcript released by the White House.Three congressional committees subpoenaed Pompeo after the state department failed to produce documents related to the Ukraine inquiry.He also missed a Friday deadline to turn over documents to the committees, which have scheduled depositions for five state department officials who have been mentioned in relation to the inquiry.In Greece, Pompeo said the state department responded to the subpoenas on Friday night, but did not say what the response was. “We’ll obviously do the things we are required to do by law,” Pompeo said, adding that these inquiries have “harassed and abused” state department employees.In an effort to shed light on these dealings, House Democrats subpoenaed the White House demanding documents related to Ukraine on Friday night. They have also formally requested documents from the vice-president, Mike Pence, who had a meeting with Zelenskiy on 1 September.Few congressional Republicans or commentators have spoken against Trump after the president urged two foreign governments, Ukraine and China, to investigate a political rival this week.Among those that have are Senator Mitt Romney, of Utah, who said Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and China were “wrong” and “appalling”.Trump’s tweets on Saturday targeted Romney saying: “Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him my conversation was a congenial and very appropriate one.”Meanwhile, the representative Will Hurd, of Texas, criticized Trump’s suggestion that China should investigate the Bidens, but said there needed to be a full investigation of the Ukraine conversation, in an interview with CNN.“I think some of these things are indeed damning, however I want to make sure we get through this entire investigation before coming to some kind of conclusion,” Hurd said. “I think this is serious stuff. These are serious matters. This has long term implications on our foreign policy.” Topics Trump administration Donald Trump Trump impeachment inquiry Ukraine US politics news

Of course, in a race likely to stretch over the next 18 months, early advantages can dissipate quickly. A strong poll or viral moment can prompt donors to give to new candidates, thereby growing their lists by huge numbers — so long as they are positioned to capitalize. Ms. Harris’s launch-day haul, for instance, rivaled that of Mr. Sanders in 2015.Ms. Dunn said she saw the initial rankings less as a predictor for the coming primary’s outcome and more as a revealing indicator of “who was able to use their 2017 and 2018 effectively to prepare for a presidential race.”Both Ms. Harris and Ms. Gillibrand landed on the leader board despite having not faced a competitive election in recent years. The two senators spent heavily to bulk up their small donor lists, investing in multimillion-dollar campaigns on Facebook in 2017 and 2018 to add email addresses to their supporter list and lure in new contributors.“It’s almost like growing vegetables,” said Tim Lim, a veteran Democratic digital strategist. “You have to be mindful. You have to be aware of major events. You have to be patient. But then, within six months or so, your investment will pay back.”While it is no surprise that Mr. Sanders is ahead with small digital donors — he is the only potential candidate to have a previous run for president included in the analysis — the sheer magnitude of his opening advantage is striking.Mr. Sanders had 369 days during his 2016 presidential campaign where he processed more online donations than Ms. Gillibrand did on her single best day in the Senate — the day after President Trump tweeted about her “begging” him for money — through the end of 2018, according to the data. (Ms. Gillibrand’s biggest days were notably smaller than those of her rivals with large bases of support.)The advantage that Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Rourke enjoy is not just the size of their lists but the exclusivity of their donors — the vast majority of whom (an estimated 87 percent for Mr. Sanders, 72 percent for Mr. O’Rourke) have not contributed to any other potential 2020 candidate. In contrast, less than half of Ms. Warren’s donors have given only to her among the potential 2020 field.

By Sept. 19, 2018 11:32 am ET Out in the middle of nowhere in Washington state, in an extreme land where temperatures surge over 100 degrees in the summer and drop well below zero in the winter, is a growing community of striking modern homes designed by some of Seattle’s best architects. These houses are mostly second homes, owned by Microsoft and Amazon executives, lawyers and other professionals, who trek some 200 miles east from Seattle across the Cascades to the Methow Valley, a 70-mile stretch that includes areas of pristine wilderness. The high-end... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership View Membership Options

Nebraska has carried out the first execution in the US using fentanyl, the opioid painkiller that killed Prince and has a central role in America’s overdose epidemic.The state put Carey Dean Moore, a double murderer, to death on Tuesday morning, the first execution there for 21 years. Nebraska voters had previously overturned a 2015 law abolishing capital punishment. A court challenge by a drug company seeking to block the execution over the use of its drugs, alongside fentanyl, in the lethal injection, had failed on Monday.Nebraska’s prison system on Tuesday used fentanyl, a synthetic opioid misused in more than 20,000 US overdose deaths a year, as one of four drugs combined to put Moore to death. The fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, was used alongside a sedative, a muscle relaxant, and potassium chloride to stop Moore’s heart.German pharmaceutical manufacturer Fresenius Kabi had failed to get a legal injunction against the use of two of its drugs in the fatal cocktail, arguing unsuccessfully that Nebraska obtained them illegally and their misuse could lead to a botched execution.Witnesses said that the execution on Tuesday was swift and without evident problems. Moore was brought into the death chamber shortly after 9am local time and, still standing, was asked if he wanted to say anything. Moore, who was on death row for 38 years over the killing of two cab drivers during a robbery in 1979, said he had nothing to add to a statement earlier this month in which he said he was “terribly sorry” for taking his 14 year-old brother, Donald, to commit the crime with him.He said: “As the older brother I should have led him in the right way to go instead of bringing him down.”Moore appealed for his brother’s parole to be lifted. He also drew attention to the plight of innocent men on death row. “Why must they remain there one day longer than all the years they have been there. I am guilty. They are not,” he said.In the execution chamber, Moore was strapped to a gurneyand turned his head toward the three people and a member of the clergy he invited as witnesses and several times mouthed “I love you”. He then closed his eyes, was seen to start breathing heavily and then coughing. Moore went still as his face turned purple.He was declared dead at 10.47am local time, Scott Frakes, director of the Nebraska department of correctional services, said.Nebraska’s governor, Pete Rickets, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team and an online brokerage firm, gave $300,000 to a 2016 campaign to restore capital punishment. “A vast majority of Nebraskans voted to retain the death penalty and it’s an obligation to carry out our laws,” said Ricketts before Moore’s execution.The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska failed in its attempts to block Moore’s death. Topics Capital punishment Nebraska Human rights Law (US) news