Papua New Guinea has literally rolled out the red carpet for Chinese president Xi Jinping who arrived in Port Moresby ahead of the Apec Leaders Forum this weekend.Xi, the first Chinese leader to take part in a state visit to the nation, touched down on Friday, days before other leaders are due to arrive for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.After leaving the airport, the Chinese president was driven along the new “Independence Boulevard” outside PNG’s parliament – a road that was funded by a Chinese loan. At the end he was met by a military band and traditional dancers dressed in parrot feathers, possum pelts and seashell necklaces. Across the capital, images of Xi beamed down from massive billboards and the streets were lined with high school students, some waving Chinese flags.Xi is in town to open the road and a school – also funded by Beijing – and meet with Pacific island leaders ahead of the Apec summit this weekend, which will be attended by other world leaders including Mike Pence, Justin Trudeau, Rodrigo Duterte, Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern.The summit is being hosted in PNG, the poorest member of the Apec bloc, with Australia and China contributing significantly toward the summit. Both countries are vying for influence in the Pacific and Apec has developed into a tug-of-war for regional influence between Australia and China, a fight some commentators think Xi has already won.PNG has already signed up to Beijing’s trillion-dollar “Belt and Road Initiative” that seeks to enhance sea and land trade routes between the Middle Kingdom and Eurasia.Prominent PNG writer and activist Martyn Namorong described the summit as “XiPEC” and Jonathan Pryke, from Sydney thinktank the Lowy Institute, said Apec was going to be “the China show”.“I’ve heard he’s the guest of government,” Pryke told the Guardian ahead of the summit. “He’s staying in PNG and he’s hosting a meeting with the Pacific island leaders on the sideline of the leaders meeting and I imagine there will be a lot of big announcements – more investment, more aid.”In an opinion piece published ahead of the visit, Xi vowed to “lend fresh impetus to our common development” and “expand practical co-operation with Pacific Island countries in trade and investment.”Donald Trump is skipping the two-day Apec meeting, sending Pence – who is flying in from the Australian city of Cairns for one day – in his place.The lead-up to the summit has been marked by scandal. The prime minister came under attack after it was revealed that the Papua New Guinea government had bought 40 Maseratis and three luxury Bentleys to ferry leaders around, despite the country suffering from a polio outbreak and dramatic increases in tuberculosis and malaria cases, as well as funding shortages for health and education.Prime Minister Peter O’Neill bristled when asked about this ahead of the summit, snapping at journalists: “Did you ask the same question in Vietnam when they had the 400 plus Audis?”“I think it is just an overrated discussion. I’m not going to give it the credibility or credit it deserves,” he said.O’Neill also faced calls to resign this week, after the Guardian revealed that a company he owned secured a $32.86m government contract to build bridges in the country in a process that may have violated anticorruption guidelines. The prime minister denies all wrongdoing. Topics Papua New Guinea Xi Jinping Asia Pacific China news

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.) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would block the U.S. from sharing intelligence with countries that use technology from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in their fifth-generation (5G) networks."The United States shouldn't be sharing valuable intelligence information with countries that allow an intelligence-gathering arm of the Chinese Communist Party to operate freely within their borders," the senator said in a statement after introducing the less-than-two-page bill."I urge our allies around the world to carefully consider the consequences of dealing with Huawei to their national interests."The bill comes as the Trump administration has stepped up efforts get Huawei out the U.S. and to dissuade allies from relying on hardware and software from the company, which it has called a national security threat because of ties to the Beijing ruling party.The Department of Commerce placed Huawei on its blacklist in May, preventing U.S. firms from conducting business with the telecommunications giant unless they obtain a specific license.It subsequently issued a temporary license to extend by 90 days the time before the group is fully added to the entity list, a license that has been extended twice more as the Trump administration grapples with how to address Huawei, which already has important deals with many U.S. companies.On the international front, the administration has urged allies not to use Huawei technology in their 5G wireless networks.In September, the U.S. signed an agreement with Polish officials to cooperate on 5G technology in an effort to box Huawei out of Poland's new network.The United Kingdom is currently debating whether to use Huawei equipment when upgrading its telecom network, and the U.S. is reportedly urging London not to.

Enlarge this image House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is ending her weeks-long hold on the articles of impeachment, which will trigger the start of the Senate impeachment process. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption toggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is ending her weeks-long hold on the articles of impeachment, which will trigger the start of the Senate impeachment process. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Updated at 3:49 p.m. ETHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says she plans to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week, despite her ongoing concerns over how Republicans plan to conduct the Senate trial.Pelosi plans to move ahead by transmitting the articles and naming impeachment managers who will present the House case in the Senate trial. She said in a letter to House Democrats that she would consult with the caucus on Tuesday about next steps."In an impeachment trial, every Senator takes an oath to 'do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.' Every Senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the President or the Constitution," Pelosi said in the letter.Asked by reporters on Capitol Hill whether she thought the Senate trial would be "fair," she said no. Loading... Before opening arguments, the Senate still needs to pass a resolution on the trial rules and send a summons to President Trump.The White House would then respond to the summons, paving the way for the opening of the public trial. The president's legal team was still taking shape in recent days.Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters Friday that White House counsel Pat Cipollone will take the lead, with two deputies from the counsel's office and Trump's private attorney Jay Sekulow also taking part. "We're ready for it," Conway said of a Senate trial. "And our defense team will go on offense also. This will be our first and best chance to lay out the president's case as well."Sekulow, who led Trump's defense in the Russia investigation, spent all day Friday at the White House, according to a person familiar with his schedule. It's not clear who else will be part of Trump's impeachment defense team, but during the Clinton impeachment, the president was represented by a large team that included both White House lawyers and private attorneys.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has so far refused to reveal the details of how he plans to manage the trial, including how long it will take to start the trial after Pelosi releases the articles. McConnell has been working closely with Cipollone and other White House staffers on trial strategy and met with Trump earlier this week. McConnell also announced earlier this week that Senate Republicans have the votes to approve rules for the trial without the help of Democrats, but he gave few specifics about what those rules would include.McConnell has said he plans to follow the general outline established in the 1999 trial of President Bill Clinton. Those rules, which were approved unanimously in the Senate, gave the House impeachment managers and the president's lawyers each 24 hours of floor time to argue their case. Senators then had 16 hours to ask questions — all before they could vote on calling new witnesses or submitting new evidence into the record. Trump Impeachment Inquiry McConnell Will Move Ahead With Impeachment Trial Rules Without Democrats' Support "The Senate has a unanimous bipartisan precedent for when to handle midtrial questions such as witnesses — in the middle of the trial," McConnell said Monday. "That was good enough for President Clinton, so it ought to be good enough for President Trump. Fair is fair."Democrats say the Clinton comparison does not apply to Trump. At the time, senators were considering re-calling witnesses who had already testified in the House. Democrats now want to call four witnesses, including former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, whom the White House blocked from participating in the House investigation. Trump Impeachment Inquiry Pelosi Signals An End To Her Hold On Articles Of Impeachment Pelosi rejects that argument."Feebly, feebly, the majority leader has said this is just like Clinton," Pelosi told reporters on Thursday. "It's exactly not like Clinton in that he won't do a bipartisan agreement on how to proceed. So, that's very important. But it's not incidental to say but for the documentation and witnesses."Some Republicans, like Sen. Susan Collins, have suggested that they may be open to calling a limited number of witnesses in the Senate. Speaking to reporters in her home state of Maine, Collins said Friday that she is working with a small group of other Republicans on a potential plan for witnesses."I am hopeful that we can reach an agreement on how to proceed with the trial that will allow the opportunity for both the House and the president's counsel if they choose to do so," Collins said. She did not provide further details on whom she is working with or which witnesses they are considering.

"There's a free and fair competition element here, there's a security element, there's a data-privacy element, and there's a sort of geopolitics of Chinese influence as well - the influence of the Chinese Communist Party," Bob Seely, a member of the foreign affairs committee, told the BBC.

According to the lawsuit, the fathers were separated from their children for more than two months, and the federal government gave little, if any, information regarding the location and safety of the children.The families “suffered, and continue to suffer, physical, mental, and emotional harm,” the lawsuit states. More than a year after they were reunited, the lawsuit says the children exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. One of the plaintiffs, who is referred to in the lawsuit by the pseudonym Abel, described his ordeal in a statement released by the Southern Poverty Law Center.“We came looking for safety, and instead, we were caged like animals. [My son] was taken from me and I had no idea what was happening to him. When I learned that he was abused by other boys, I was sick with grief. No one deserves this cruelty,” Abel said.

Senator Lindsey Graham has said Department of Justice officials have created a “process” enabling Rudy Giuliani to provide them with “information from Ukraine”, for further investigation.Graham, a top ally of Donald Trump who was part of the successful vote to acquit him in his impeachment trial last week, cautioned that this information from the president’s personal lawyer “could be Russian propaganda”.“The Department of Justice is receiving information coming out of the Ukraine from Rudy,” Graham said, explaining that the US attorney general, William Barr, “told me that they’ve created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it’s verified”.Giuliani was deeply implicated in Trump’s efforts to get Ukrainian officials to help his 2020 re-election bid – the matter at the heart of the impeachment trial. Trump was impeached in the Democratic-led House after withholding military assistance, as well as a White House meeting, while calling for Ukraine announcing investigations into potential 2020 rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.Trump also wanted Ukraine to announce an investigation into the conspiracy theory that Ukrainian actors, not Russians, meddled in the 2016 election.Almost immediately after Trump was acquitted by the Republican-led Senate last week, Republicans returned to investigating the unsubstantiated corruption allegations against the Bidens. There is no evidence of wrongdoing.“Rudy Giuliani is a well-known man. He’s a crime fighter. He’s loyal to the president,” Graham also said. “He’s a good lawyer. But what I’m trying to say – to the president and anybody else – that the Russians are still up to it.”In Graham’s interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, he revealed that his conversation with Barr took place earlier on Sunday morning. He also spoke with the Senate intelligence committee chair, Richard Burr. Both “told me: ‘Take very cautiously anything coming out of the Ukraine against anybody.’“After talking to the attorney general and the intelligence chairman that any documents coming out of the Ukraine against any American, Republican or Democrat, need to be looked at by the intelligence services, who has expertise I don’t, because Russia is playing us all like a fiddle.”Graham said “no” when asked if the justice department had been ordered to investigate the Bidens.Graham also said the possibility of conflicts of interest involving the Bidens should be examined, but once again emphasized caution, saying: “When it comes to documents coming out of the Ukraine, to Republicans and Democrats, be very cautious turning … anything over you got over to the intel community.“I’m telling Rudy, you think you got the goods? Don’t give it to me, because what do we know? We know that the Russian disinformation campaign was used against President Trump,” Graham also said. “They hacked into the DNC system. Not the Ukrainians, and they’re on the ground all over the world trying to affect democracy all over the world.”“Who’s paying Rudy Giuliani?” host Margaret Brennan asked.“ I don’t know,” Graham said. “Here’s my message to Rudy: if you’ve got something coming from the Ukraine, turn it over to the intelligence people, the Department of Justice, to any Democrat.”Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Twitter this morning, Giuliani alluded to “two smoking gun documents” in a post urging people to subscribe to his podcast. Topics Rudy Giuliani Ukraine Donald Trump news

WASHINGTON ― As Democrats demand explanations on how Republicans can push forward with a Supreme Court nomination with the election just weeks away, Republicans have a different question: Why wouldn’t they? Republicans generally and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in particular made filling the federal judiciary with as many conservative judges as possible a priority years ago. They even made then-candidate Donald Trump agree to this as a condition of their support in 2016. Today, with Trump in danger of losing reelection in six weeks and Republicans in danger of losing their Senate majority, many in the party see this as a now-or-possibly-never opportunity. “They could have this very good thing if they act now. If they wait, they may not. So, act now,” said Amanda Carpenter, once a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Terry Sullivan, a GOP consultant who ran Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said that focusing on the high court also takes the attention off of other things. “My sense is that every smart political operative knows that if this election is about coronavirus or Trump, Republicans will lose big. And the absolute best way to change the narrative and distract the media and liberals is make it about this.” Beyond the obvious benefits of moving quickly is the danger that even if Trump were to win on Nov. 3, the fact that he would never again need Republican support or face the voters could make him an uncontrollable wild card. “The Republican Party has to confirm this judge now…. If Trump wins reelection, all his appointments to the courts, the Cabinet or otherwise will adhere to the Bill Barr loyalty standard,” said Rick Tyler, who worked on Cruz’s 2016 presidential bid. He added that he wouldn’t put it past Trump to nominate his own daughter. “Why not put a true loyalist on the court? Actually, Ivanka would be the perfect pick.” Installing young judges, pre-screened and pre-approved by the conservative Federalist Society, has been common ground between social conservatives who want to see abortion rights overturned and the business community that wants to limit the government’s ability to impose safety and environmental regulations. While past Republican presidents and nominees have been seen as tacitly agreeing with those goals, conservatives ― particularly politically engaged evangelical Christians ― did not trust Trump, given his background of supporting Democrats and his checkered personal history. In May 2016, Trump released a list of conservative judges and promised he would choose from it when filling Supreme Court vacancies ― an unprecedented quid pro quo that evangelical Christians embraced. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images Donald Trump greets Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as the president arrives to deliver the State of the Union address on Feb. 4, 2020. Trump's promise to name conservative judges secured his support from Republican leaders in 2016. Trump has continued to tout his adherence to that list, which has been twice updated, to woo conservatives in his reelection bid. But that need to placate evangelicals or other conservatives evaporates after Nov. 3, regardless of the outcome. With no more elections ahead of him, Trump could well choose whomever he wants, whether he has won a second term or is facing two months of lame-duck status. “While Republicans understand that getting another conservative justice on the court under a [Joe] Biden presidency is not possible, they also understand that it is equally unlikely under an unrestrained Trump second term,” Tyler said. Carpenter said a bigger impetus for McConnell to move before the election is that public opinion will be unforgiving if, should Republicans lose both the White House and the Senate, they push forward with a nominee anyway in the lame-duck session. “The optics of, potentially, a defeated president and handful of beaten senators using their last votes to shove through a judge on a narrow party-line vote would damage the credibility of the court for generations,” she said. Norman Ornstein, a scholar with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute who in recent years has become a harsh critic of the Republican Party, said Trump and the party’s rush to fill the seat has a much simpler and much more craven purpose: to make sure there is a strong Republican majority in the event of a contested election. “He wants to get this done and take his victory lap, and have a clear majority for any election disputes,” Ornstein said of McConnell. “The latter point is a real danger here, of a ‘legal’ coup.” RELATED... Sen. Susan Collins Says She'll Vote No On Trump's SCOTUS Nominee Before Election Day Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Hometown To Name A Major Building After Her How A Supreme Court Vacancy Could Spell The End Of Legal Abortion Download Calling all HuffPost superfans! 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Ras Baraka, the current mayor of Newark, was one of those critics. But he has since reconciled with Mr. Booker, and the two have united around a message of progress sparked by Mr. Booker and brought across the finish line by Mr. Baraka (his re-election slogan last year was “Touchdown!”).“If you make your bones here, there is no place out there that can stop you in this country,” Mr. Baraka said, referring to Newark. “I usually tell people he got us on the field, and we took the ball and got us in the end zone. But if you can’t get in the game, you don’t get to win the championship. Senator Booker got us in the game.”Election 2020 ›Latest UpdatesUpdated Oct. 10, 2020, 2:31 p.m. ETTrump addresses supporters gathered at the White House in first public event since virus infection.Trump, anxious to prove he is healthy, adds rallies in Pennsylvania and Iowa next week.Cindy McCain praises Biden’s work with her husband in a new ad targeting moderates.Amid the crowd on a surprisingly hot April afternoon, Mr. Booker basked in the city’s renewal, as evidenced by the street vendors lining the park and the long shadows cast by skyscrapers, both venerable ones and new glass towers bearing the logos of Fortune 500 companies.“When this city took a chance on me as their mayor, the chief executive of this city, I didn’t wait to bring people together,” Mr. Booker said. He continued: “We got people to invest here. We opened new businesses, created thousands of new jobs — and after 60 years of decline, Newark is growing again.”Mr. Booker began his campaign for president with a video from the streets of the city he still calls home, and his campaign swings feature the near ubiquitous campaign line of “I got my degree at Stanford but my Ph.D. on the streets of Newark.” But he ratcheted up his focus on Newark in the weeks before the rally.In a recent campaign swing through New Hampshire, Mr. Booker recalled his much-publicized battle with Conan O’Brien, who as host of “The Tonight Show” in 2009 joked that a better health care plan for citizens of Newark “would consist of a bus ticket out of Newark.” Mr. Booker responded by recording a video “banning” Mr. O’Brien from the city’s international airport. The tiff played out for weeks on social media and late-night shows, before Hillary Clinton stepped in to broker a peace deal.Mr. Booker, who critics sometimes charge chased fame more than his mayoral duties, paints the whole affair as a clever bit of earned publicity for his struggling city.

Legal experts took President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to task on Thursday after he suggested the Supreme Court should rule Trump’s impeachment over the Ukraine scandal as “unconstitutional.” The former New York mayor argued on Twitter that such a move would “prevent a precedent from forming which would allow the House to overstep its bounds and impeach for policy differences or political leverage.” “If this impeachment is not declared illegal it would remove the constitutional limitation of crimes on the power to impeach,” Giuliani continued. “It would allow the House to impeach for policy differences or political leverage.” But his case was swiftly shot down. The Supreme Court should step in and rule this impeachment unconstitutional, to prevent a precedent from forming which would allow the House to overstep its bounds and impeach for policy differences or political leverage.— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 9, 2020 House Democrats have put our constitutional government in grave danger by attempting to rewrite the carefully calibrated separation of powers under our Constitution & usurping powers not granted to the House.— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 9, 2020 Democrats have brought Alexander Hamilton’s nightmare of an entirely partisan impeachment to fruition and are making a mockery of fair proceedings.— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 9, 2020 If this impeachment is not declared illegal it would remove the constitutional limitation of crimes on the power to impeach. It would allow the House to impeach for policy differences or political leverage.— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 9, 2020 It would prevent a future president to raise any challenge to the most illegal, overbroad subpoena from any of the multitude of congressional committees and sub-committees. Anytime Congress disagrees, it could charge abuse of power.— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 9, 2020 Josh Chafetz, a Cornell law professor and expert on impeachment, described Giuliani’s argument as “some quality gibberish.” “I honestly don’t know whether it would be worse if he believed this was the sort of thing that might happen, or if he was just cynically making it up for ... I dunno, reasons,” Chafetz responded, also challenging Giuliani to “file whatever sort of paperwork you think would be necessary to put this process in motion.” this is some quality gibberish right here https://t.co/QkbelrG8be— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) January 9, 2020 I honestly don't know whether it would be worse if he believed this was the sort of thing that might happen, or if he was just cynically making it up for ... I dunno, reasons.— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) January 9, 2020 But I tell you what, @RudyGiuliani: You're the president's "lawyer," right? So why don't you file whatever sort of paperwork you think would be necessary to put this process in motion at the Supreme Court.Be creative! I haven't heard much about the writ of scire facias lately!— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) January 9, 2020 Neal Katyal, a former acting U.S. solicitor general who as a private lawyer frequently argues cases in the Supreme Court, described Giuliani’s tweet as “just about as good of a legal argument as everything else” he says. This is just about as good of a legal argument as everything else Giuliani says. Back in the world of legal reality, the Supreme Court resoundingly and unanimously concluded in US v Nixon that it had no role to play in impeachments whatsoever. https://t.co/meheUeDsnK— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) January 9, 2020 Former federal prosecutors Renato Mariotti and Elie Honig also chimed in: Impeachment is literally written in the constitution, which gives the House the “sole power” of impeachment.— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 9, 2020 You’re all talk and you know you’re making crap up. If not, go ahead and bring a lawsuit. Back up your talk. (You won’t because you know any federal court would throw out your suit and find the impeachment legitimate).— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) January 9, 2020 As did University of Iowa law professor Andy Grewal, who responded with a simple “lol.” lol https://t.co/ApeC5r7ZID— Andy Grewal (@AndyGrewal) January 9, 2020 Others also dismantled Giuliani’s rationale: No, its not the job of the supreme court to be the final arbiter. That is ridiculous. Its upon the senate to check the house and they will do so. https://t.co/lK83BLw6yb— Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) January 9, 2020 I'm no SCOTUS scholar, but I am pretty sure it doesn't work that way. https://t.co/ckul6lNyLl— Joshua Rhett Miller (@joshuarhett) January 9, 2020 shorter Rudy: the Supreme Court should rule the Constitution unconstitutional https://t.co/NYti2ouC7U— Johnny McNulty Is 35 This Year & Can Be President (@JohnnyMcNulty) January 9, 2020 That's Not How Any Of This Works Dot GIF https://t.co/HeVGHNhQPy— johntdrake (@johntdrake) January 9, 2020 https://t.co/f47R6j7hHi pic.twitter.com/K1hkCBoEmE— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) January 9, 2020 The gross misunderstanding of the most basic Supreme Court jurisdiction and procedure here should really be grounds for disbarment https://t.co/20NiyYoEZf— Fiddler (@cFidd) January 9, 2020 Impeachment is literally part of the Constitution, you dunce.— William LeGate 🧢 (@williamlegate) January 9, 2020 Why don't we just get rid of the constitution, and the Congress and the Supreme Court for that matter.— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) January 9, 2020 Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5: "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment."https://t.co/LPuOqObEavHave you ever considered talking with a competent constitutional lawyer before you tweet, Mr. Mayor? https://t.co/zdFciTpHW6— Alex Howard (@digiphile) January 9, 2020 RELATED... 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*« IDEAS AND ARGUMENTS »(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty)1. “Bureaucrats are not viewed by most people as terribly sympathetic victims, but if you shoot these messengers, you end up wounding citizens.”The Government Accountability Office released a decision on whether the Trump administration violated the law by freezing millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine: “We conclude that OMB violated the ICA,” the report stated.“In a reality-based world, this would at least be embarrassing for the president,” David Graham writes. That, of course, doesn’t appear to be the case.+ Did President Trump unwittingly stumble into a foreign-policy … triumph? Read our London-based writer Tom McTague’s analysis.2. “There’s only one deal, and that is the California deal.”That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, to our campaign reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, when asked about the Green New Deal.Listen to their full interview on the latest episode of Radio Atlantic.3. “Twitter is both leaderless and influential, little used and widely reviled.”When #NeverWarren began to trend, others using the hashtag to denounce the hashtag merely ended up contributing to its popularity. How the episode unfolded online is yet another example of how Twitter may be ruinous for the American left, Robinson Meyer writes.4. “To fully escape his fringe status, Yang needs to make voters comfortable with the idea of him as commander in chief.”Andrew Yang isn’t looking so fringe anymore. But how is his campaign plotting to push him from “$1,000-a-month guy” to “Situation Room guy?” Isaac reports from Burlington, Iowa: The Yang doctrine, as he spelled it out for me, consists of a basic three-point test for military intervention: “first, a clear, vital national interest at stake or the ability to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. Second, a defined timeline for our troops to be there, so we can look them in the eye and say, ‘You will be brought home at this date.’ And No. 3 is that we have buy-in from our allies and partners.” Read the rest.*« WEEKEND READ »(David Kasnic)The Effort to Rehabilitate Domestic AbusersThe “Duluth model” of rehabilitation for domestic batterers is based on the idea that abuse isn’t an individual problem—it’s a societal one, stemming from the patriarchy. Does it work?Matt Wolfe reported on one man’s journey through the program: Andrew Lisdahl was mad. His wife, Gretchen, had smoked a cigarette, a habit he detested. They fought, and Gretchen spent the night at a friend’s house. The next day, Andrew drank a bottle of tequila and hitched a ride to the stained-glass studio where Gretchen, an artist, gave lessons. When Andrew found her, he grabbed her left hand and tried to remove her wedding ring, but Gretchen fought him off. As Andrew stumbled away, he took Gretchen’s car keys and phone. After work, Gretchen’s father drove her back home to retrieve her things. Inside, Andrew had been passed out on the couch, but he woke up and yelled at Gretchen, “Get the fuck out!” When she didn’t, he grabbed her by the hair, dragged her into the living room, threw her on the carpet, kicked her in the chest, and pinned her to the ground. As Gretchen’s father approached the house, Andrew let her go and she was able to escape. Read the rest.* Today’s newsletter was written by Christian Paz, a Politics fellow. It was edited by Shan Wang, who oversees newsletters. You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments, or send a note to [email protected]. Your support makes our journalism possible. Subscribe here. Shan Wangis a senior editor atThe Atlantic, where she oversees newsletters.Connect Twitter

SEATTLE -- Amazon has introduced new palm recognition technology in a pair of Seattle stores and sees a broader potential audience in stadiums, offices and other gated or secured locations.“And it’s contactless, which we think customers will appreciate, especially in current times,” Kumar wrote in a blog post Tuesday.Like the human fingerprint, every palm is unique. Unlike fingerprints, the palm is not used for broader identification purposes because more body specific information is needed. Any palm image proffered for use is never stored on the Amazon One device, the company said, for security reasons.The data is encrypted in a secured sector of the cloud that was custom built by Amazon, and customers can also delete their Amazon One-related data permanently at any time.The company expects to roll out Amazon One as an option in other Amazon stores in the coming months, which could mean Whole Foods Market grocery stores. But Amazon believes the technology is applicable in a myriad of secured locations.“We believe Amazon One has broad applicability beyond our retail stores, so we also plan to offer the service to third parties like retailers, stadiums, and office buildings so that more people can benefit from this ease and convenience in more places,” Kumar wrote. "Interested third parties can reach out through the email address provided on our Amazon One website.”For now, the technology is being used only at two Amazon Go stores. Amazon Go is the company's first cashier-less supermarket, introduced earlier this year, where shoppers can grab milk or eggs and walk out without waiting in line or ever opening their wallets.People can sign up for an Amazon One account with a mobile phone number and credit card. An Amazon account isn't necessary.

The filing could give new ammunition to Mr. Manafort’s defense team, which has argued that prosecutors overreached in accusing Mr. Manafort of lying because they were too eager to believe Mr. Gates. Lawyers for Mr. Manafort have repeatedly contended that Mr. Gates, who has been cooperating with Mr. Mueller’s team for the past year, is not a credible witness. Mr. Gates pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and conspiracy and is assisting the special counsel in hopes of a lighter sentence.The subject in dispute was unclear from the filing, but one issue that prosecutors have said that Mr. Manafort lied about was whether he ordered Mr. Gates to give Trump campaign polling data to Mr. Kilimnik before the election. Court records suggest that prosecutors relied heavily on Mr. Gates for evidence of data transfers.Mr. Manafort pleaded guilty last September to two conspiracy counts and, like a number of former Trump aides, agreed to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation. But after a lengthy closed hearing on Feb. 13, Judge Jackson agreed with prosecutors that Mr. Manafort had breached his plea agreement by lying to them about three matters, including his relationship with Mr. Kilimnik.That ruling could influence the severity of the punishment Mr. Manafort receives as a result of two prosecutions by the special counsel’s office. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7 by Judge T.S. Ellis III of United States District Court in Northern Virginia for eight counts involving financial fraud. Judge Jackson will sentence him for the two conspiracy crimes six days later. The combined sentences could mean that Mr. Manafort, 69, spends the rest of his life in prison.Like other court filings discussing Mr. Manafort’s interactions with Mr. Kilimnik, the latest one, filed before Judge Jackson, was heavily redacted to protect active federal investigations. Even so, it makes clear that the prosecutors were trying to defend Mr. Gates’s credibility while at the same time correcting the record on which Judge Jackson relied in determining that Mr. Manafort had lied to them.

A second whistleblower has come forward with information — some of it reportedly firsthand — about President Donald Trump’s conduct regarding Ukraine.On Sunday morning, attorneys representing the original whistleblower confirmed a New York Times report from earlier in the weekend, telling ABC News they now represented a second intelligence official who had spoken to the inspector general.This whistleblower has “more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower,” according to the Times, a claim that attorney Mark Zaid confirmed to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Sunday. That substantiation could bolster the credibility of the initial complaint that triggered the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether Trump solicited election interference from Ukraine.The first whistleblower’s complaint, which was released in redacted form to the public in late September, alleged that on a July 25 phone call Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to push for investigations into potential 2020 rival Joe Biden.One of Trump’s lines of attack against the first whistleblower’s complaint is that it is predicated upon secondhand knowledge. (That argument is only partially accurate: the whistleblower did rely on information from several other officials to compile information in his complaint, but he also did have at least some “direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct,” according to the office of the inspector general for the intelligence community.) If the second whistleblower has more firsthand information, it would make allegations of misconduct stronger still. IC WHISTLEBLOWER UPDATE: I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General. No further comment at this time. https://t.co/05b5aAVm2G— Andrew P. Bakaj (@AndrewBakaj) October 6, 2019 The second whistleblower is one of the officials that intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson interviewed to corroborate claims made in the initial complaint, according to the Times. Federal law would protect the whistleblower from retaliation, since he’s cooperating with the inspector general.A second whistleblower with more intimate familiarity with the events could bolster the allegations against Trump amid pushback from the president and his allies. But it’s important to remember that key allegations from the first whistleblower have already been confirmed by the White House itself and text messages released by the State Department. Many of the allegations of the first whistleblower, a CIA officer who was for a time detailed to the National Security Council, have been confirmed as more and more information about Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine has been released.The readout that the White House released of Trump’s call with Zelensky corroborated the central claim made in the whistleblower complaint: that Trump asked Zelensky to investigate Biden, effectively using the office of the presidency for personal political gain and attempting to lure a foreign country into meddling in American electoral politics.Vox’s Aaron Rupar broke down the details in an explainer: [The first whistleblower’s] account of the call uncannily matches the memo about it released by the White House. According to the memo, after Trump congratulated Zelensky on his win and criticized other European countries who have “done almost nothing for you,” he asked the new Ukrainian president to “do us a favor” and brought up his desired investigations into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe that concluded Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf — and also asked for an investigation into Biden. Not only was the whistleblower correct about the broad outlines of the Trump-Zelensky call, but he had particular details right. For instance, the complaint alleges that Trump pressured Zelensky to “meet or speak with two people the President named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, [his personal lawyer Rudy] Giuliani and Attorney General [William] Barr, to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem.” That allegation is confirmed by the White House’s memo. And the White House has also confirmed the accuracy of the whistleblower’s complaint that that there was an apparent cover-up of what happened on the call. The White House admitted in September that it had placed the transcript of the call in a highly classified system and has failed to convincingly explain why it went to unusual lengths to suppress the transcript. And on top of all this, text messages released by House Democrats on Thursday revealed more evidence of a Trump campaign to pressure Ukraine into intervening in the 2020 election in exchange for political or policy favors from the administration.Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains: The texts are ugly. They reveal that top State Department diplomats worked with the president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to try to get Ukraine to commit to politicized investigations demanded by President Trump into the gas company Hunter Biden served on the board of — Burisma — as well as into Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election. Trump has been trying to drum up phony scandals on both topics, to hurt Biden’s presidential run and discredit the Mueller investigation. The texts reveal that the pressure campaign was presented this July as a quid pro quo — if Ukraine committed to these investigations, the US would agree to a White House meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky. For weeks, these State officials tried to get Zelensky to publicly announce he was conducting these investigations, in exchange for the meeting — but Zelensky apparently refused. (The Bidens are never mentioned by name in these texts, “Burisma” is used instead, but Trump was not so careful when talking to Zelensky on the phone in July.) ... The texts get even uglier in late August and early September. That’s when Trump’s decision to hold up $400 million in military aid for Ukraine entered the discussion. One State diplomat, Bill Taylor, twice raised concerns that this was connected to Trump’s demands for investigations and with US politics. And, twice, Ambassador Gordon Sondland responded by urging him to talk on the phone rather than by text message. The text messages lend more credence to the allegation that Trump has sought to pressure Ukraine into interfering in the 2020 election. A second whistleblower could make the stack of growing evidence even stronger.

It wasn’t Donald Trump who released the promised military aid to Ukraine, but the State Department, after lawyers determined that the White House freeze on the funds was illegal, several sources have told Bloomberg. Trump has claimed he released the aid on September 11. But five sources told Bloomberg that $141 million of the money was actually authorized to be released several days earlier after lawyers determined that the White House Office of Management and Budget and, therefore, the president, had no legal standing to block the funds. The decision was outlined in a classified memo to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to Bloomberg. The information severely undercuts Trump’s insistence that there was no quid pro quo for military aid when he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July phone call to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Trump has pointed to the fact that he released the aid before a probe was begun. But Bloomberg now reports that Trump was no longer in control of disbursement when the money was released. Officials have testified before House lawmakers that the aid — amounting to a total of some $400 million — was linked to Zelensky bowing to Trump’s demands. The New York Times has reported that Zelensky had already scheduled an interview on CNN in September to announce the launch of the investigation — even though he was opposed to it — in order to obtain the much needed funding. When the money was released, Zelensky quickly dropped the CNN appearance and did not begin a probe, according to the Times. The OMB — headed by Mick Mulvaney, who is also the acting White House chief of staff — continues to argue that distribution of the funds, which had been approved by Congress, was up to the agency. “At no point was this pause inappropriate, let alone illegal,” OMB spokeswoman Rachel Semmel told Bloomberg Saturday. Officials supporting Ukraine feared that if the money was not disbursed by September 30, the end of the fiscal year, it would likely no longer be available. Trump has claimed he was the one who decided to release the money after a plea from Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor testified that it was the legal offices at the both the State and Defense departments that decided they were “going to move forward with this assistance — OMB notwithstanding.” “I don’t know if they’ve ever done that before,” Taylor said. “This was a big decision for them.” Mulvaney has emerged in testimony as a key player in Trump’s strategy to involve Ukraine in American politics by pressing the nation to launch an investigation into the president’s rival, which would likely impact the 2020 election. Last month Mulvaney said at a press conference that the military aid was part of a quid pro quo for Ukraine’s investigation, and that such negotiations are done all the time. “Get over it,” he told reporters. But such foreign policy negotiations are supposed to benefit the nation — and not to mobilize a foreign power to help a president win an American election. 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

What “A Higher Loyalty” does give readers are some near-cinematic accounts of what Comey was thinking when, as he’s previously said, Trump demanded loyalty from him during a one-on-one dinner at the White House; when Trump pressured him to let go of the investigation into his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn; and when the president asked what Comey could do to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation.ImageThere are some methodical explanations in these pages of the reasoning behind the momentous decisions Comey made regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails during the 2016 campaign — explanations that attest to his nonpartisan and well-intentioned efforts to protect the independence of the F.B.I., but that will leave at least some readers still questioning the judgment calls he made, including the different approaches he took in handling the bureau’s investigation into Clinton (which was made public) and its investigation into the Trump campaign (which was handled with traditional F.B.I. secrecy).“A Higher Loyalty” also provides sharp sketches of key players in three presidential administrations. Comey draws a scathing portrait of Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal adviser David S. Addington, who spearheaded the arguments of many hard-liners in the George W. Bush White House; Comey describes their point of view: “The war on terrorism justified stretching, if not breaking, the written law.” He depicts Bush national security adviser and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as uninterested in having a detailed policy discussion of interrogation policy and the question of torture. He takes Barack Obama’s attorney general Loretta Lynch to task for asking him to refer to the Clinton email case as a “matter,” not an “investigation.” (Comey tartly notes that “the F.B.I. didn’t do ‘matters.’”) And he compares Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to Alberto R. Gonzales, who served in the same position under Bush, writing that both were “overwhelmed and overmatched by the job,” but “Sessions lacked the kindness Gonzales radiated.”Comey is what Saul Bellow called a “first-class noticer.” He notices, for instance, “the soft white pouches under” Trump’s “expressionless blue eyes”; coyly observes that the president’s hands are smaller than his own “but did not seem unusually so”; and points out that he never saw Trump laugh — a sign, Comey suspects, of his “deep insecurity, his inability to be vulnerable or to risk himself by appreciating the humor of others, which, on reflection, is really very sad in a leader, and a little scary in a president.”During his Senate testimony last June, Comey was boy-scout polite (“Lordy, I hope there are tapes”) and somewhat elliptical in explaining why he decided to write detailed memos after each of his encounters with Trump (something he did not do with Presidents Obama or Bush), talking gingerly about “the nature of the person I was interacting with.” Here, however, Comey is blunt about what he thinks of the president, comparing Trump’s demand for loyalty over dinner to “Sammy the Bull’s Cosa Nostra induction ceremony — with Trump, in the role of the family boss, asking me if I have what it takes to be a ‘made man.’”Throughout his tenure in the Bush and Obama administrations (he served as deputy attorney general under Bush, and was selected to lead the F.B.I. by Obama in 2013), Comey was known for his fierce, go-it-alone independence, and Trump’s behavior catalyzed his worst fears — that the president symbolically wanted the leaders of the law enforcement and national security agencies to come “forward and kiss the great man’s ring.” Comey was feeling unnerved from the moment he met Trump. In his recent book “Fire and Fury,” Michael Wolff wrote that Trump “invariably thought people found him irresistible,” and felt sure, early on, that “he could woo and flatter the F.B.I. director into positive feeling for him, if not outright submission” (in what the reader takes as yet another instance of the president’s inability to process reality or step beyond his own narcissistic delusions).After he failed to get that submission and the Russia cloud continued to hover, Trump fired Comey; the following day he told Russian officials during a meeting in the Oval Office that firing the F.B.I. director — whom he called “a real nut job” — relieved “great pressure” on him. A week later, the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Democrats accused Republicans of selective amnesia on Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, testified under oath that she “did not hear” Trump use the term “shithole” to describe African countries.New Jersey senator Cory Booker angrily criticized Nielsen’s comments, telling her: “Your silence and your amnesia is complicity.”“It was a meeting of 12 people. There was cross-talk,” she had explained at a congressional hearing, but she didn’t “dispute the president was using tough language”.Under persistent questioning, Nielsen said she didn’t recall the specific language used by Trump.“What I was struck with frankly, as I’m sure you were as well, was just the general profanity used in the room by almost everyone.”Nielsen’s comments came five days after the president ignited what the Republican senator Lindsey Graham termed an “s-storm” with his Oval Office remarks.The White House has not substantively disputed accounts of the episode, in which Trump is said to have used “shithole” to describe African countries of origin for potential immigrants to the US. The revelations, semi-denials and continuing comments have cast a pall over the White House’s legislative agenda, brought the country closer to the brink of a government shutdown and sparked international outrage.And with the midterm elections approaching, there are fresh fears among Republicans who were already anxious over the political climate going into November and over Trump’s unpredictable actions.Administration officials and lawmakers spent the holiday weekend debating the precise presidential vulgarity used, and moved to cast last Thursday’s White House meeting as a salty affair, with expletives flying in all directions.The White House said Trump had no intention of apologizing.“The president hasn’t said he didn’t use strong language, and this is an important issue,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said. “He’s passionate about it, he’s not going to apologize for trying to fix our immigration system.”There is internal debate in the West Wing over whether Trump said “shithole” or “shithouse”.One person who attended the meeting told aides they heard the latter expletive, while others recalled the president saying the more widely reported “shithole”, according to a person briefed on the meeting but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.Trump has not clarified to aides what he said, but told reporters Sunday night in Florida that comments attributed to him “weren’t made”. Topics Donald Trump Cory Booker Democrats Republicans news

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration placed new restrictions on U.S. exports of defense equipment and certain high-technology products to Hong Kong on Monday, in response to a new Chinese law aimed at tightening Beijing’s control over the territory.The administration determined in late May that Hong Kong no longer had significant autonomy under Chinese rule, and promised to begin stripping away Hong Kong’s privileged status with the United States if Beijing continued to crack down on civil liberties in Hong Kong.Chinese lawmakers approved a national security law on Tuesday that could drastically curb protests and other criticisms of the Chinese government, infringing on an arrangement that has made Hong Kong, which China ceded to Britain in 1842 and which ceased being a British colony in 1997, autonomous in many respects.In separate statements on Monday, the State Department said that it would end exports of U.S. military equipment to Hong Kong, while the Commerce Department said that Hong Kong would now be subject to the same types of controls on certain technology exports that apply to China. Those controls block American companies from selling certain types of sensitive, high-technology products that could threaten national security to China, Russia and other countries deemed to be a security risk.The effect of the new restrictions announced Monday appears to be relatively limited in scope, given the small volume of trade the United States does with Hong Kong. Hong Kong represented just 2.2 percent of American exports in 2018, with defense and high-technology items making up a sliver of that.But the export limitations announced Monday could have larger implications for some multinational companies, including some semiconductor firms, who now will be barred from sending products or sharing certain high-tech information with the territory. Some multinational companies that chose Hong Kong as a base for doing business with China have begun considering moves to other locations, including Singapore.Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesman, on Tuesday criticized the American response to the Hong Kong security legislation. “The U.S. wants to use the so-called sanctions to obstruct China’s legislative process, to safeguard national security in Hong Kong — such an attempt stands no chance of success,” he said. “Regarding the wrong moves by the U.S. side, China will take necessary retaliatory measures to resolutely safeguard our national interests.”The Trump administration has previously said it would end an extradition treaty with Hong Kong and curtail some other commercial relations as a result of China’s new security law. It said it would cancel visas for thousands of Chinese graduate students and researchers with ties to the Chinese military, and threatened to place sanctions on Chinese government officials and financial institutions involved in promulgating the security law.But the Trump administration has stopped short of broader financial sanctions, which could be crippling for Chinese companies and the U.S.-China economic relationship, including President Trump’s Phase 1 trade deal.In a statement, Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, said that China’s new security law undermined the territory’s autonomy and increased the risk that delicate American technology would be diverted to China’s military or security forces.Mr. Ross said that further actions to eliminate Hong Kong’s differential treatment were “also being evaluated.”“We urge Beijing to immediately reverse course and fulfill the promises it has made to the people of Hong Kong and the world,” he added.“It gives us no pleasure to take this action,” Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, said in a separate statement. “But given Beijing now treats Hong Kong as ‘One Country, One System,’ so must we.”Halting American high-tech exports to Hong Kong is not a new idea, as some American security experts have warned for years that China may be using purchases through Hong Kong to obtain products of military value that are prohibited for sale directly to mainland China. But Edward Yau, Hong Kong’s secretary of commerce and economic development, said in an interview in his office in Hong Kong last year that the city has very tight controls on any re-export of high-tech gear that is subject to export controls by the United States or any other country.Mr. Yau said at the time that the Hong Kong government was strongly opposed to any American move to apply export controls to Hong Kong, saying that Hong Kong retains a separate system in many ways from the mainland and has a history of close cooperation with the United States.Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing.

Sen. Cory BookerCory Anthony BookerTrump pick noncommittal on recusing from election-related cases Debate is Harris's turn at bat, but will she score? Booker calls Pence 'a formidable debater' ahead of VP debate MORE (D-N.J.) on Friday introduced a bill banning the use of facial recognition technology in public housing, mirroring legislation proposed in the House in July.The No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act would block the tech from being installed in housing units that receive funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).“Using facial recognition technology in public housing without fully understanding its flaws and privacy implications seriously harms our most vulnerable communities,” Booker, a 2020 presidential candidate, said in a statement.“Facial recognition technology has been repeatedly shown to be incomplete and inaccurate, regularly targeting and misidentifying women and people of color. We need better safeguards and more research before we test this emerging technology on those who live in public housing and risk their privacy, safety, and peace of mind.”Facial recognition technology, which scans faces for the purposes of identifying individuals, has received increasing scrutiny over the past few months.Civil rights groups have expressed concerns that the technology expands unwarranted surveillance and highlighted studies that have found certain products misidentify women and people of color at higher rates.There is currently no federal law dictating when, how, where or why facial recognition technology can be used.Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pledged they will work up legislation that would limit, or even impose a temporary ban on, facial recognition technology.The House version of the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act, introduced by Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Ayanna PressleyAyanna PressleyBlack Boston jogger stopped by ICE agents, prompting outcry from local officials: 'Outrageous' Ocasio-Cortez claps back at Pence calling her 'AOC' during debate 'The squad' responds to Twitter warning for posts threatening bodily harm MORE (D-Mass.) and Rashida TlaibRashida Harbi TlaibKamala Harris's facial expressions during debate go viral 'The squad' responds to Twitter warning for posts threatening bodily harm Only the misinformed want to abolish ICE MORE (D-Mich.), has been referred to the House Financial Services Committee.Booker's is the second bill introduced on the issue in the Senate this year. Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Roy BluntRoy Dean BluntGOP vows quick confirmation of Trump's Supreme Court pick amid coronavirus turmoil This week: Coronavirus complicates Senate's Supreme Court fight Schumer demands Senate coronavirus testing program after Trump diagnosis MORE (R-Mo.) earlier this year introduced a bill to regulate the commercial use of facial recognition technology.Several local and state governments have taken it into their own hands to curtail or ban facial recognition technology, including California, Oregon and New Hampshire, where law enforcement has been barred from using it.

LAUCHHAMMER, Germany — Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification that followed, more Germans are returning home to the East.Now, small towns in the former Communist half of the country are trying to lure new residents to counter an aging population, a shortage of skilled workers and stagnant economic growth.One of those to return is Sebastian Herz, who at the age of 16 followed what became a well-trodden path east to west. It was 1996, and opportunities in what had until recently been the Communist state of East Germany were drying up and he did not see a future.For the next 23 years he trained and worked as a carpenter in the West — marrying and prospering in some of Germany’s manufacturing hubs.In February, Herz decided to go home, and together with his wife and three children returned to this small town some 50 miles from the border with Poland. They moved into his grandparents’ former house, built in 1908.Herz is one of thousands of former East Germans who had left for the West and are now returning to their roots. It’s the reverse of a decadeslong trend that saw tens of thousands of workers leave in search of greater economic opportunity after the fall of the wall on Nov. 9, 1989.Indeed, 2017 was the first year after reunification that the East had more people arriving from the West than leaving, according to Germany’s Federal Institute for Population Research.It’s not like the place is flourishing, but Herz is OK with that.“The economy is really bad here, I have to say,” he said. “There are no craftsmen. And that's where we saw our chance.”The return of “Ossies” or easterners, as they were often referred to, couldn’t come at a better time. With an aging population, few skilled workers and slower economic growth than similar towns in the country’s west, small towns in the east of Germany are facing challenges.According to a study by the Institute for Economic Research, the population in what was once West Germany is 60 percent larger than it was before World War II, while East Germany’s is 15 percent smaller. What’s more, the East’s population of 13.9 million is roughly the same as it was in 1905 and is predicted to drop by 12 percent more in the next 15 years.Wages and productivity still lag behind the West, unemployment is 2 percent higher, and none of the companies on the DAX 30 German stock market index have their headquarters in the East.“It all takes too long. If I think about it, 30 years and we are still not where we should have been. That’s the problem, that’s why the people are frustrated,” said Hans-Georg Klaue, 71, whose three children all left Calau — some 25 miles southwest of Lauchhammer — to find work in the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall.“I always said it will take as long as the wall stood, 40 years, for real reunification to happen,” added Klaue, who lost his job after the wall came down and the region’s biggest employer, the mining industry, collapsed.The difference in fortunes between the East and the West has been one of the drivers behind a rise in popularity of the far-right political parties and movements in the East, experts say. Last month, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party, known as the AfD, won nearly a quarter of the vote in regional elections in the state of Thuringia, in what was East Germany. The party is polling around 14 percent nationally.“Democracy in the East after 1990 came for the vast majority of people with de-industrialization, job losses and deep existential insecurities in their lives,” explained Frank Richter, a member of the local state Parliament in the eastern state of Saxony, who demonstrated against the regime in East Germany before the fall of the wall.“The new right has succeeded in taking these experiences of loss, which can and must be described unemotionally, and constructing a great victim narrative,” he added.In an attempt to reverse their fortunes, many of the East’s small towns like Lauchhammer are actively recruiting returnees, as well as new residents from around Germany.Görlitz is offering prospective residents a free trial stay, while Cottbus offers consultations on the job market, support in finding schools and introductions to businesses in need of skilled workers.In Lauchhammer alone, recruitment efforts, including “returnee days” to show off the city to potential residents, have helped bring in more than 2,000 new residents since 2016. The motivations of these returnees are varied and include a lower cost of living and the desire to be near family.That was indeed one of Herz’s reasons for moving back to quiet Lauchhammer, around 90 miles south of Berlin, a sleepy city where there is little industry.But family wasn’t his only reason.“We specifically made the decision to set up a company here because we also wanted to create jobs,” added Herz, who said that two thirds of his class left for the West around the same time that he did.In Calau, around 65 miles southeast of Berlin, the collapse of the area’s major industry, coal mining, along with greater opportunity in the West, resulted in a 28 percent drop in population from 1989 to 2019. At the same time, the average age of the town increased to 49 from 35.“While the older workers are retiring, younger workers are not sufficiently available,” said Calau Mayor Werner Suchner. “We have too few trainees, too few skilled workers in various branches of the economy. So, what do we do? How can we support our economy? Where do we get workers from? That is the big question now.”A walk along the town’s cobblestoned sidewalks reveals how the city has gone to great lengths to become more attractive, and to attract young people. Most of the buildings and houses in this quaint town have been refurbished, and the town now puts on cultural events to interest younger residents.It set up a program offering people who want to return to the region help in finding jobs, housing and schools. A truck with the ad “Back to Calau” drives around Germany, hoping to attract new residents. The town was not able to provide information on the number of people who have returned as a result.Even with a strong will to improve their situation, these small eastern towns still face large structural problems. The lack of skilled workers has meant that businesses haven’t been able to grow as big or as fast as they would like. Herz, for example, had only one person respond to an employment ad. He hired him and said he’s a “perfect fit.” He also hopes to hire two apprentices soon.Despite the lingering problems, Herz said that unlike his parents’ generation, he feels like time has helped bridge the divide between those born in the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, and those from the West.“I simply feel like a German,” he said. “I do not say that I come from the East.”Endy Eckardt reported from Lauchhammer, and Rachel Elbaum from London.

The further whittling away of legal protections against discrimination was evident in several of the Court’s other cases this term. One was a little-noticed decision, Comcast v. National Association of African American–Owned Media, that formally ratcheted up the legal standard for proving racial discrimination in contracting.But the arguably more significant decisions came in cases for which the Supreme Court never heard oral arguments. The Court put on hold two lower-court decisions that loosened state restrictions on voting in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The plaintiffs challenging the voting restrictions argued that racial minorities, Black voters in particular, would be especially hurt by them because of the higher incidence of the coronavirus in Black communities, the higher death rates from the coronavirus in Black communities, and the voting restrictions’ disproportionately adverse effect on Black communities. In one case, a Wisconsin court extended the deadline for voting absentee; in the other, an Alabama court loosened some of the requirements for voting absentee. In both cases, the Supreme Court, by a 5–4 vote, with the conservatives in the majority, stayed the lower-court decisions, thus allowing states to enforce restrictive voting laws in the midst of a pandemic, making voters choose between risking their life and not voting at all.Finally, there was the Title VII decision. Here, too, the outcome was a major win for a progressive legal cause—LGBTQ equality. The Court ruled that an employer discriminates on the basis of sex, in violation of Title VII, when the employer discriminates against an employee because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The decision means that existing federal law forbids employers from discriminating against LGBTQ individuals.But the reasoning in the decision suggests that victory will be limited in significant ways in the near future. For example, the opinion went out of its way to suggest that another statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, might prevent Title VII from prohibiting discrimination by employers who have religious objections. Indeed, the author of the Title VII opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined an opinion in another case that concluded the Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows religious exemptions to another statute, the Affordable Care Act. In the Title VII, DACA, and Louisiana abortion cases, the outcomes appeared to be progressive while the reasoning signaled forthcoming wins for the conservative legal movement.In the remaining major cases—the presidential-immunity cases—conservatives won the outcomes they wanted even though the Court seemed to reject the Trump administration’s legal arguments. In both Trump v. Mazars and Trump v. Vance, the Court rejected the administration’s broadest attacks on subpoenas that sought the president’s financial records. The Court ruled out the possibility that a president’s personal financial records could never be subpoenaed while the president was in office. The Court also rejected the argument that subpoenas regarding the president are valid only if Congress or state prosecutors can make some heightened showing of need for them.