Parliament voted to pass the government’s new withdrawal agreement bill at its second reading on Friday. After almost a year of Commons struggle, Boris Johnson is now dominant and can “get Brexit done”. Once Britain ratifies the article 50 withdrawal agreement that Mr Johnson renegotiated with the EU in October, it will be over to the European parliament to do the same. Mr Johnson will take this country out of the EU at the end of next month.The psychological impact of breaking common ties with the continent, forged over four decades, will be profound; not least for Labour, which since the late 1980s has been a party that argued the European project was, on balance, good for this country. On that issue it was right. Given the social market model of the EU, the continent could stand up to the forces of the globalised market in a way that a single nation could not. It was also an appealing geopolitical project where trade unions are social partners, citizens have fundamental rights that can be defended, and states can act collectively to defend their shared interests.On Friday six Labour MPs rebelled and voted for Mr Johnson’s deal. Another 32 Labour MPs abstained. While the Labour party ought to accept that the tragedy of Brexit will happen, it should not accept the prime minister’s terms at face value. Mr Johnson’s new bill prohibits extending the UK’s transition period beyond the end of next year. A complex free trade agreement between the UK and EU is supposed to be worked out during this time. This is a ridiculous position given that such deals can take up to a decade to complete. The best one can hope for in 2020 is a “bare bones” UK-EU deal. The UK is determined to end freedom of movement. That means UK access to the single market will be very limited. This is stupid economics, but clever politics. It gives the prime minister leeway to push for a small-state, deregulated Britain and forces his opponents in Labour to appear like Brexit blockers as they try, rightly, to curb Mr Johnson’s worst excesses. During this essential act of opposition, Labour must avoid being cast as remainers – or rejoiners.Whoever ends up leading the opposition should take a leaf out of the book of 19th-century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. It was said that he “discerned the Conservative working man in the inarticulate mass of the English populace, as the sculptor perceives the angel imprisoned in a block of marble”. The next Labour leader must be able to take a hammer and chisel to the party’s Brexit policy to shape it around the social needs and economic instincts of those, usually the poorest, in society who will be hit hardest by departing the EU. Labour cannot shackle itself to Mr Johnson’s hard Brexit. To do so would in effect be offering up the party’s wrists so Tory handcuffs can be applied.Mr Johnson’s majority is also a weakness. The toxic partisanship of the previous parliament was to some degree fuelled by close competition for power, not just different opinions over the role and scope of government. In time the Labour party ought to seize the chance to capitalise on discontent with Mr Johnson on any number of topics. For a few years, Labour will not have to address questions about how to reconcile competing public goods or how to deal with limited resources. The Tories will have to answer these questions, and make hard choices. The next Labour leader’s task is to exploit the difficult terrain created by leaving the EU to transform British society. Will this be easy? No. But it will be necessary. Topics Labour Opinion House of Commons Boris Johnson Brexit Conservatives European Union Europe editorials

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court issued an order Monday allowing the Trump administration to begin enforcing new limits on immigrants who are considered likely to become overly dependent on government benefit programs.The court voted 5-4. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said they would have left a lower court ruling in place that blocked enforcement while a legal challenge works its way through the courts.The Department of Homeland Security announced in August that it would expand the definition of "public charge," to be applied to people whose immigration to the United States could be denied because of a concern that they would primarily depend on the government for their income.In the past, that was largely based on an assessment that an immigrant would be dependent upon cash benefits. But the Trump administration proposed to broaden the definition to include noncash benefits, such as Medicaid, supplemental nutrition and federal housing assistance.Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.Anyone who would be likely to require that broader range of help for more than 12 months in any three-year period would be swept into the expanded definition.But in response to a lawsuit filed by New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New York City and immigrant aid groups, a federal judge in New York imposed a nationwide injunction, blocking the government from enforcing the broader rule. Congress never meant to consider the kind of time limit the government proposed, the judge said, and the test has always been whether an immigrant would become primarily dependent on cash benefits.The government has long had authority to block immigrants who were likely to become public charges, but the term has never been formally defined. The DHS proposed to fill that void, adding noncash benefits and such factors as age, financial resources, employment history, education and health.The acting deputy secretary of the DHS, Ken Cuccinelli, said the proposed rules would reinforce "the ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, ensuring that immigrants are able to support themselves and become successful here in America."Two federal appeals courts — the 9th Circuit in the West and the 4th Circuit in the Mid-Atlantic — declined to block the new rule. They noted that the law allows designating someone as inadmissible if "in the opinion of" the secretary of Homeland Security, that person would be "likely at any time to become a public charge," which the courts said gives the government broad authority.The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to lift the nationwide injunction imposed by the New York trial judge, given that two appeals courts have come to the opposite conclusion. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said Monday that district court judges have been issuing nationwide injunctions much more often.They called on their colleagues to review the practice, which they said has spread "chaos for the litigants, the government, the courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions."But the challengers of the public charge rule urged the justices to keep the stay in place.They said lifting it now, while the legal battle is still being waged, "would inject confusion and uncertainty" to the immigration system and could deter millions of noncitizens from applying for public benefits.

...And you'd be shocked how many people in LA are bilingual. They speak English and will use it as a common language.rsilvergun... your reasoning is a prime example of one of the many pitfalls that besiege non iberian/hispanic companies when they come to LatAm...I am Venzuelan and still live in venezuela. I've got 286/300 in my ToEFL way back when*.So I am well aware of what people in LatAm (me included) can and can not do.A great percentage of the folks in Brazil will overestimate their capacity to Speak Spanish (mostly because their capacity to listen and comprehend Spanish is awesome in most if not all cases). And the

In response to the House of Representatives voting along party lines to make the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump official, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said on Sunday morning that while he believes the process has been “unfair” he hasn’t “closed the door completely” on approving articles of impeachment.During an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Cole took the position nearly all Republicans on Capitol Hill have embraced, claiming that the president pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals does not rise to the level of impeachment. Meet the Press host Chuck Todd went on to ask Cole if there was a possible “middle ground” that Democrats could have pursued in terms of condemning the Ukraine scandal, wondering aloud if perhaps censuring Trump “would be a more appropriate way to go.”“Look, if I were the Democrats, I would've chosen that,” the Oklahoma Republican replied. “But again, that’s up to them as to how they want to proceed. Personally, you know, I don't see anything here that I'm likely to have censured the president for. So again, fair enough. I think, I think they've made the decision they want to go for the whole ball of wax and it's not going to work.”Asked about Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI), a congressman who left the Republican Party after he voiced his support for impeachment, Cole went on to say that while he regards Amash as a friend he just “profoundly disagrees with him on this issue.”“I think he’s wrong,” he added. “Look, if I believed everything the Democrats are saying, I would still say this isn't an impeachable offense.”The NBC News anchor concluded the interview by asking Cole if after he’s had a chance to read all the depositions in the inquiry if there was a chance he could possibly change his mind.“Have you closed the door completely to an article of impeachment?” Todd asked.“No,” Cole replied. “Well, you never close the door completely to anything like this.”“But again, we just adopted a process that every single Republican said was unfair,” he continued. “We didn’t do the Clinton process or the Nixon process. So, I mean, I think the way the Democrats have handled this has sort of pushed Republicans together, whether they intended to or not. Now, am I open to listening? Of course. But all I know is that everything so far that's been presented behind closed doors, every Republican that has heard it did not vote this impeachment process.”

The security minister, Ben Wallace, has said he would not put officials’ lives at risk to rescue UK citizens who went to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State, insisting “actions have consequences”.“I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to go looking for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.He was speaking on Thursday after it was revealed Shamima Begum, one of three pupils from Bethnal Green, east London, who left to join Isis four years ago, told the Times she wanted to return to the UK. Speaking from a refugee camp in north-east Syria, Begum, who is nine months pregnant with her third child, told the newspaper: “All I want to do is come home to Britain.”Her other two children have died from illness and malnutrition, with Begum saying she believed the third would be “taken care of – health-wise at least – in the UK”.Wallace said that as a British citizen, Begum had a right to return home, but anyone who joined Isis should expect to be investigated, interviewed and “at the very least prosecuted” on their return.There are currently no British diplomats in Syria because of security risks. If Begum wanted to return to the UK, she would have “to make her way to Turkey or Iraq to consular services there”, he added.Questioned on whether the fact that Begum was 15 when she ran away might generate sympathy from the Home Office, Wallace said: “People know what they’re getting into.“This is a terrorist group, one of the worst ever in the world, that butchers people and has been responsible for the deaths of dozens of British citizens.”One of the other two schoolgirls from Bethnal Green academy who flew from Gatwick to Istanbul on 17 February 2015, Kadiza Sultana, is reported to have died in an airstrike on Raqqa, the former capital of Isis’s territory.All three had married foreign Isis fighters. Begum, who said she did not regret her decision and seeing a severed head in a bin “didn’t faze me at all”, married a Dutch Muslim convert 10 days after her arrival in Syria.Two days ago, a new counter-terrorism act, which will raise the maximum penalty for some terrorism offences to 15 years’ imprisonment, was given royal assent.Sir Peter Fahy, a former chief constable of Greater Manchester police, told Today: “The biggest challenge if she did come back will be how the police will keep her safe and how she wouldn’t be some sort of lightning rod for both Islamic and far-right extremists.“If she still holds those views, that’s clearly going to be an enormous challenge and you can understand why the government is not particularly interested in facilitating her return.”Commenting on the wider issue of foreign fighters a Whitehall source said: “There are no easy answers. You do not just have foreign fighters – you have foreign fighters’ relatives, widows, spouses and of course children, and children who may not have any connection with British citizens.“How are those children protected and looked after? It has not yet been fully worked through. This is all quite fresh and people are still working through what is the best thing to do.“We cannot declare they are stateless, but we also said if they can be tried effectively where they are, that is good. There is no requirement for a British citizen to return to the UK if they can face justice where they are and the crimes were committed [there].“That does not apply of course to non-combatants. We have got to make sure that if they do return to Britain, and it has not been possible to prove they were involved in fighting, they may be ideologically damaged by this. That is going to take some resource. We are trying to rehabilitate people – adults will be in a different position to children because we will not have other reasons to detain people, so they are not a threat to themselves or other people.”Theresa May’s official spokesman said: “Anyone who has travelled to Syria for whatever reason has put themselves in considerable danger but also potentially poses a very serious national security risk to the UK.“Any British citizen who does return from taking part in the conflict must be in no doubt they will be questioned investigated and potentially prosecuted. Decisions on how people are dealt with are made on a case by case basis to ensure the most appropriate action is taken. Whatever the circumstances of an individual case we have to and we will protect the public.”Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said: “At the time, when Shamima Begum and two other girls disappeared and it was feared they were heading for Syria via Turkey, I made representations to the then home secretary, Theresa May, and the head of counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan police.“I appealed to them to work with the Turkish authorities to prevent the girls from crossing the border into Syria. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the UK authorities, the girls did get into Syria and, as subsequent reports suggest, they joined IS [Isis].“If it is the case that Shamima Begum is trying to return to the UK, it is now a matter for the UK police, security services and the Foreign Office, who will rightly need to consider public safety and our national security in cases such as these.” Topics UK security and counter-terrorism Counter-terrorism policy Islamic State Syria Iraq London Middle East and North Africa news

Byand Jan. 3, 2020 5:30 am ET TAIPEI—Taiwan is toughening laws, fostering memes and partnering with the likes of Facebook to fight back against China’s attempts to influence its coming election. The island democracy has been subjected to political pressure from Beijing for decades. Its Jan. 11 election to pick a president and members of the legislature has been widely regarded as a prime target for Chinese online interference and disinformation—and as a potential test bed for a similar campaign by Beijing aimed at the U.S. presidential election later... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership View Membership Options

In December 2018, weeks after the Democrats’ conquest of the House, the soon-to-be speaker arrived for a White House meeting with Donald Trump. The subject was a government shutdown but the subtext was a showdown between the most powerful woman in American politics and the president of the United States.In the extraordinary, televised exchange that followed, Trump sought to undermine Nancy Pelosi, whom he repeatedly addressed as “Nancy”, by reminding his audience in the Oval Office – and those watching at home – that she had yet to secure the 218 votes needed to reclaim the speakership and was “in a situation where it’s not easy for her to talk right now”.Her response was sharp and sure. “Mr President, please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting.”It was the first test of a new power dynamic in Washington and when it ended, there was little disagreement over who had won.Pelosi emerged from the White House wearing a now-famous burnt-orange coat, sunglasses and the triumphant smile of a woman who has never forgotten the advice imparted to her by the late Louisiana congresswoman Lindy Boggs: “Darlin’, know thy power and use it.” Nancy Pelosi gets under the president’s skin in a meeting in the White House cabinet room on 17 October. Photograph: White House/ReutersThat 15-minute Oval Office meeting marked the beginning of a struggle between Pelosi and Trump that culminated last week in the president’s impeachment by the House of Representatives for “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Pelosi, dressed in funeral black, banged down her speaker’s gavel to finalize the vote, binding together their legacies for all time.It was not how Pelosi, who once said Trump was “not worth” impeaching, had hoped to end a year that began with her historic, second ascension to the speakership. Pelosi, the first – and only – woman ever to serve as Speaker of the House, would rather be remembered for legislative accomplishments – the Affordable Care Act above all – than for impeachment. But Trump, Pelosi said, left her “no choice”. She quoted Thomas Paine: “The times have found us.”In the wake of Trump’s impeachment, however, Democrats believe there was perhaps no leader better suited to the times.“She is, thank God, the exact right person in the right place at the right time,” said Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary and CIA director and a California native who’s known Pelosi for decades. “I’m not sure anybody else would have had the experience or capability to be able to do what she has done.”“Donald Trump really has met his match with Nancy,” Panetta added.Her grace under fire as speaker has earned comparisons to Sam Rayburn, the country’s longest-serving speaker, who died in 1961. One Democrat called her an “as good or better” legislative leader than Lyndon Johnson, who was a Senate majority leader before he was president.And when the question is asked whether a female presidential candidate can beat Trump in 2020, the Democrats point to Pelosi, who “does it every single day”.Even Senator Lindsey Graham, one ofTrump’s fiercest defenders these days, is impressed. In an interview with CNN decrying the impeachment process, the South Carolina senator called it “quite a feat” that she was able to advance bipartisan legislation even as efforts to remove Trump cleaved the House – and the nation.*** The women of the 116th Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, center front row, pose for a group photo on Capitol Hill in Washington. Photograph: Susan Walsh/APIn the last year, Pelosi has guided her factious congressional caucus through the choppy waters of Trump’s presidency. Like a political grandmaster of three-dimensional chess she quelled an insurrection to reclaim the gavel, engineered the end of the longest government shutdown in US history, and impeached the president, all while averting another shutdown and negotiating with the White House on a trade deal with Canada and Mexico.“We got a lot done this year in spite of impeachment,” said congressman Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, who unsuccessfully challenged Pelosi for Democratic leader in 2016. He said it was a testament to the “skillful way” Pelosi has led the House.Pelosi learned her tactics from her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, a Democratic mayor of Baltimore and former congressman. From her family home in Baltimore’s Little Italy she learned the skills that make Pelosi, by her own account, a “master legislator:” how to count votes, dole out favors and strike “back-room” deals.But her leadership training came later, as the stay-at-home mother of five children. “If the five of us couldn’t rattle her, Donald Trump isn’t going to,” said Christine Pelosi, Pelosi’s daughter and the author of The Nancy Pelosi Way: Advice on Success, Leadership, and Politics from America’s Most Powerful Woman.The Democratic 2020 candidates could learn from watching her mother stand up to Trump, she said, because “the next president of the United States has to be at least as good and certainly as solid as Nancy Pelosi”.Pelosi brought her life’s lessons to bear during her legislative career, particularly during the early years of the Obama administration when she helped usher the Affordable Care Act, a landmark healthcare law, climate change legislation and a massive economic stimulus package to mitigate the fallout from the financial crisis. It’s also how she returned to speaker in 2019. Nancy Pelosi gestures to a stack of bills the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives under her leadership has sent to the Senate in 2019. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA“Her second time as speaker is the culmination of all of her strengths – mastering the legislative process, counting votes, uniting a caucus with many factions, looking two steps ahead,” said Stacy Kerr, a former senior adviser to Pelosi. But her return to power was not guaranteed after the 2018 midterms swept a historic class of women and people of color to power. Opposition came mostly from incoming freshman Democrats in conservative districts who had made campaign vows not to support her for speaker. The fight to displace Pelosi was largely centered on appeals for new leadership and generational change – but no candidate ever emerged to challenge her. Pelosi won handily – and now presides over the most diverse and most female Democratic majority in history.“Those folks who thought that Nancy wasn’t up to the job way back when, they are all silent now,” said congressman Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York. “She has been the absolute master conductor.”***Nationally, Pelosi is an unpopular and polarizing figure. Republicans have spent years – and many millions of dollars – turning her into a villain on the right and a political liability on the left, particularly among moderate Democrats in swing districts.But Pelosi has reemerged in the Trump era as a political and cultural icon of the left.An image of Pelosi, lips pursed in an arch smile, eyes locked on Trump, applauding during the 2019 State of the Union address ripped across social media as the ultimate “clapback”.In October, Trump tweeted a photo that was supposed to show Pelosi’s “unhinged meltdown” during a White House meeting – the speaker at a table of mostly men, literally standing up to Trump. But her supporters saw instead a symbol of female power and Pelosi made the picture the background photo on her Twitter page. This image of Pelosi, lips pursed in an arch smiled, eyes locked on Trump, applauding during the 2019 State of the Union address ripped across social media as the ultimate “clapback”. Photograph: Doug Mills/The New York Times/Pool via GettyThere was another revealing moment this month, when a reporter for the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, asked: “Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?” She turned to face him directly, her voice quivering but forceful. “I don’t hate anyone,” she said sharply, adding: “Don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”These snapshots of Pelosi’s power have drawn admirers from unexpected quarters. Lara Trump, who is married to Trump’s son, Eric, recently praised Pelosi’s “tenacity” and remarked on her ability to “put down and throw down whenever she needs to”.Her steeliness has enraged Trump, who has a long history of lashing out at powerful women. But his taunts became increasingly vindictive and personal in the months leading up to his impeachment. In October he assailed her “unhinged meltdown” and pressed the ill-suited nickname, “Nervous Nancy”. This month he claimed bizarrely that Pelosi’s teeth were “falling out”. And in a six-page letter to Pelosi he accused her of lying when she says she prays for him, unless her prayers are meant “in the negative sense”.“It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!” he wrote.The Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise, the House minority whip, said impeachment “will be a stain on Nancy Pelosi’s legacy as speaker” that overshadows her legislative record.“It’s clear this is only about carrying out a personal vendetta against the president and that’s not why you use the power of impeachment,” he said. “That’s an abuse of power.”*** Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi arrives at the U.S. Capitol and walks to her office on December 18, 2019 in Washington, DC. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesPelosi’s role in the third presidential impeachment trial is not quite finished. She must send the articles of impeachment to the Senate and appoint managers to present the House’s case in a trial next year – though she has suggested she may delay doing so.A top priority next year will be protecting her House majority, especially vulnerable members who may have risked their re-election on supporting impeachment.“We fully intend to win,” she said recently, of the November elections.

Democrat Cory Booker dropped out of the presidential race Monday, ending a campaign whose message of unity and love failed to resonate in a political era marked by chaos and anxiety.He sought to frame himself as an uplifting figure who emphasized his bipartisan work record. That didn't land in a Democratic primary that has often rewarded candidates who promised voters they were tough-minded fighters who could take on President Donald Trump.His departure now leaves a field that was once the most diverse in history with just one remaining African American candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who is struggling to register in the polls amid a late entry into the race.Since launching his campaign last February, Mr. Booker, a U.S. senator from New Jersey, struggled to raise the type of money required to support a White House bid. He was at the back of the pack in most surveys and failed to meet the polling requirements needed to participate in Tuesday's debate. Mr. Booker also missed last month's debate and exits the race polling in low single digits in the early primary states and nationwide.In an email to supporters, Mr. Booker said that he "got into this race to win" and that his failure to make the debates prevented him from raising raise the money required for victory. Nobel politics: Do Thunberg and Trump have something in common?"Our campaign has reached the point where we need more money to scale up and continue building a campaign that can win – money we don’t have, and money that is harder to raise because I won’t be on the next debate stage and because the urgent business of impeachment will rightly be keeping me in Washington," he said.For African Americans, Mr. Booker's exit is more meaningful than just being one less option to consider."It means that we don’t count," said Helen Moore, a member of the Detroit-based Keep the Vote-No Takeover grassroots organization. "Now, we can’t look forward to any black candidate being considered from now until it’s time to vote. They are completely out of the picture."Mr. Booker had warned that the looming impeachment trial of President Donald Trump would deal a "big, big blow" to his campaign by pulling him away from Iowa in the final weeks before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses. He hinted at the challenges facing his campaign last week in an interview on The Associated Press' "Ground Game" podcast."If we can’t raise more money in this final stretch, we won’t be able to do the things that other campaigns with more money can do to show presence," he said.In his email to supporters, Mr. Booker pledged to do "everything in my power to elect the eventual Democratic nominee for president," though his campaign says he has no immediate plans to endorse a candidate in the primary.It’s a humbling finish for someone who was once lauded by Oprah Winfrey as the "rock star mayor" who helped lead the renewal of Newark, New Jersey. During his seven years in City Hall, Mr. Booker was known for his headline-grabbing feats of local do-goodery, including running into a burning building to save a woman, and his early fluency with social media, which brought him 1.4 million followers on Twitter when the platform was little used in politics. His rhetorical skills and Ivy League background often brought comparisons to former President Barack Obama, and he'd been discussed as a potential presidential contender since his arrival in the Senate in 2013.Now, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has mastered the art of the selfie on social media. Another former mayor, Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, is seen as the freshest face in the field. Former Vice President Joe Biden has built a strong base of support with black voters. And Mr. Booker’s message of hope and love seemed to fall flat during an era characterized perhaps most strongly by Democratic fury over the actions of the Trump administration.An early focus on building out a strong and seasoned campaign operation in Iowa and South Carolina may have hampered his campaign in the long run, as the resources he spent early on staff there left him working with a tight budget in the later stages of the primary, when many of his opponents were going on air with television ads. That meant that even later in the campaign, after he had collected some of the top endorsements in Iowa and visited South Carolina almost more than any other candidate, a significant portion of the electorate in both states either said they were unfamiliar with his campaign or viewed him unfavorably.On the stump, Mr. Booker emphasized his Midwestern connections – often referencing the nearly 80 family members he has still living in Iowa when he campaigned there – and delivered an exhortation to voters to use "radical love" to overcome what he considered Mr. Trump's hate. But he rarely drew a contrast with his opponents on the trail, even when asked directly, and even some of Mr. Booker's supporters worried his message on Mr. Trump wasn't sharp enough to go up against a Republican president known for dragging his opponents into the mud.Mr. Booker struggled to land on a message that would resonate with voters. He's long been seen as a progressive Democrat in the Senate, pushing for criminal justice reform and marijuana legalization. And on the campaign trail, he proposed establishing a $1,000 savings account for every child born in the U.S. to help close the racial wealth gap.He was among the first candidates to release a gun control plan, and at the time it was the most ambitious in the field, as it included a gun licensing program that would have been seen as political suicide just a decade before. He also released an early criminal justice reform plan that focused heavily on addressing sentencing disparities for drug crimes.Mr. Booker's seat is up for a vote this year, and he will run for reelection to the Senate. A handful of candidates has launched campaigns for the seat, but Mr. Booker is expected to have an easy path to reelection. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. Mr. Booker’s exit from the presidential race comes three days after spiritual guru and bestselling author Marianne Williamson ended her campaign, citing a lack of voter support. This further narrows the once two dozen-strong field, which now stands at 12 candidates.This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writer Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.

Taro Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. (Taro U.S.A.) has been charged for conspiring to fix prices, allocate customers, and rig bids for generic drugs, the Department of Justice announced today. A two-count felony charge was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, charging Taro U.S.A. with participating in two criminal antitrust conspiracies, each with a competing manufacturer of generic drugs and various executives. The Antitrust Division also announced a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) resolving the charges against Taro U.S.A., under which the company agreed to pay a $205,653,218 criminal penalty and admitted that its sales affected by the charged conspiracies exceeded $500 million. Under the DPA, Taro U.S.A. has agreed to cooperate fully with the Antitrust Division’s ongoing criminal investigation. As part of the agreement, the parties will file a joint motion, which is subject to approval by the Court, to defer for the term of the DPA any prosecution and trial of the charges filed against the defendant.“Taro Pharmaceuticals U.S.A.’s unlawful conspiracies to raise the prices of critical drugs robbed consumers at pharmacy counters across America,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “Today’s resolution marks another important step toward ensuring that competitively priced generic drugs are available to the millions of American consumers who rely on them.” “During these difficult times, it is more important than ever that our pharmaceutical companies conduct business with the well-being of the consumer in mind,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Steven Stuller, U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General. “When generic drug companies conspire to artificially increase prices, they do so to the detriment of many who depend on these medications to maintain good health. Along with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and our partners at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the USPS Office of Inspector General will remain committed to investigating those who would engage in this type of harmful conduct.”“Today’s announcement demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to working with our partners to combat price-fixing and antitrust violations that ultimately harm the American public,” said Timothy R. Slater, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “We will continue to pursue these investigations to call attention to this criminal activity in order to ultimately ensure a competitive market and access to generic drugs.” “The charges filed today in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania are indicative of my Office’s ongoing efforts to investigate and charge companies and executives who fix the prices of generic pharmaceuticals,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain. “We and our partners at the Antitrust Division and other federal law enforcement agencies remain heavily focused on price-fixing and illegal market allocation in generic drugs. These charges and the related deferred prosecution agreement, subject to approval by the court, are yet another important accomplishment in that area.”In the deferred prosecution agreement, Taro U.S.A. admitted to participating in two charged conspiracies between 2013 and 2015. Specifically, Count One charges Taro U.S.A. for its role in a conspiracy with Sandoz Inc., former Taro U.S.A. Vice President of Sales and Marketing Ara Aprahamian, and other individuals, from at least as early as March 2013 and continuing until at least December 2015. Count Two charges Taro U.S.A. for its role in a second conspiracy with a generic drug company based in Pennsylvania and other individuals, from at least as early as May 2013 and continuing until at least December 2015. According to the charge and DPA, Taro U.S.A. and its co-conspirators agreed to fix prices, allocate customers, and rig bids for numerous generic drugs, including medications used to prevent and control seizures and treat bipolar disorder, pain and arthritis, and various skin conditions. This is the tenth case to be filed in the Antitrust Division’s ongoing investigation into the generic pharmaceutical industry. To date, five of the six companies charged - including Taro U.S.A's co-conspirator Sandoz Inc. - have admitted to their roles in antitrust consipriacies and resolved through DPAs under which they've collectively agreed to pay over $426 million in criminal penalties. In addition, four executives have been charged for their roles in fixing prices of generic drugs. Former Taro U.S.A. executive Ara Aprahamian was indicted in February 2020 and is awaiting trial. The other three executives have pleaded guilty, including a former senior executive at Sandoz Inc.The charged offense carries a statutory maximum penalty of a $100 million fine per count for corporations, and the maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by victims if either amount is greater than $100 million. This case is the result of an ongoing federal antitrust investigation into price fixing, market allocation, bid rigging, and other anticompetitive conduct in the generic pharmaceutical industry, which is being conducted by the Antitrust Division with the assistance of the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, the FBI’s Washington and Philadelphia Field Offices, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Anyone with information on price fixing, market allocation, bid rigging, or other anticompetitive conduct related to the pharmaceutical industry should contact the Antitrust Division’s Citizen Complaint Center at 1-888-647-3258 or visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html.

Enlarge this image Afghan security personnel take position on the top of a building where insurgents were hiding in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on Monday. The day before, militants attacked a prison holding many ISIS members. Rahmat Gul/AP hide caption toggle caption Rahmat Gul/AP Afghan security personnel take position on the top of a building where insurgents were hiding in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on Monday. The day before, militants attacked a prison holding many ISIS members. Rahmat Gul/AP Afghan forces have retaken control of a prison in eastern Afghanistan, a day after it came under an attack by ISIS militants.A suicide bomber drove a car loaded with bombs into the prison's main gate, exploding it. ISIS fighters moved in through the gap, firing on prison guards.Attaullah Khogyani, the provincial governor's spokesman, told The Associated Press that 29 people had died, including civilians, prisoners, guards and Afghan forces. Another 50 or more people were wounded, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Fawad Aman told Reuters. The prison holds mainly ISIS and Taliban militants. Khogyani said that about 1,000 prisoners who had escaped during the attack had been found across the city by security forces. It's not clear how many remain at large.ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. World Taliban Call Cease-Fire In Afghanistan For Muslim Holiday Though Afghan troops retook the prison on Monday, fighting has spilled onto the streets. Gunfire could be heard in residential buildings nearby, the AP reports. The prison is located in Jalalabad — an area from which ISIS was thought to have been pushed out several months ago, NPR's Diaa Hadid reports. The normally busy city was put under curfew on Sunday, Reuters reports.The attack occurred amid a three-day nationwide ceasefire that began on Friday between Taliban and Afghan forces during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. It's the third ceasefire the Taliban have called in the past two years.Afghanistan is facing multiple challenges: Its government forces battle the Taliban, while ISIS continues to fight in the country even as it has been eliminated elsewhere.The United States signed a peace deal with the Taliban earlier this year, and U.S. and NATO forces are beginning their withdrawal.

NEW YORK -- More companies could begin making an easy-to-use version of an opioid overdose antidote under a deal announced Thursday by New York's attorney general.Under the agreement, Emergent BioSolutions will no longer enforce a contract that had allowed it to be the only company to develop a nasal spray version of the drug nalmefene for use as an antidote in a nasal spray.The attorney general's office said the new agreement came after it found that Adapt Pharma, which has since been bought by Rockville, Maryland-based Emergent, had the exclusive rights to sell the drug using Aptar Pharma's nasal spray technology. The drug is still in the pipeline and is not on the market, though.“Given the tragic, devastating effects of the opioid crisis, and the urgent need for additional drugs for the emergency treatment of opioid overdoses, my office will do whatever possible to ensure that there are no unnecessary impediments to the development of additional life-saving opioid overdose reversal drugs,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a written statement.The agreement with James's office does not affect Narcan, a spray version of the drug naloxone now sold by Emergent. That from is popular for police, firefighters and others to use to try to revive people who are overdosing. It is not subject to an exclusivity agreement on the spray technology.Narcan retails for about $140 for two doses, but the company sells that amount to first responders for $75.More than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000 have been linked to opioids, a class of drugs that includes heroin, fentanyl, and prescription painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin.Companies would still need Food and Drug Administration approval before their products could be on the market.There is at least one effort to introduce a generic version of a naloxone nasal spray. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, announced a grant in 2018 for a nonprofit drug company to develop one.———This story has been updated to correct that the drug at the center of the agreement is a spray version of nalmefene that is under development, not naloxone. It also clarifies that Narcan is sold to first responders for a lower-than-retail price.

Amazon is the Voldemort of book events—”our friends in Seattle,” the ominous euphemism goes. The Seattle-based company is famous and feared for its dual qualities of relentlessness and opacity. But what’s more important is how those qualities work in dangerous concert with a third pillar: Amazon’s data collection.Amazon’s power in books extends way beyond its ability to sell them super cheap and super fast. This year, a little over 40% of the print books sold in the US moved through the site, according to estimates from Bookstat, which tracks US online book retail. (NPD, which tracks 85% of US trade print sales, declined to provide data broken out by retailer.) In the US, Amazon dominates ebook sales and hosts hundreds of thousands of self-published ebooks on its platforms, many exclusively. It looms over the audiobook scene, in retail as well as production, and is one of the biggest marketplaces for used books in the US. Amazon also makes its own books—more than 1,500 last year.All that power comes with great data, which Amazon’s publishing arm is well positioned to exploit in the interest of making books tailored exactly to what people want—down to which page characters should meet on or how many lines of dialogue they should exchange. Though Amazon declined to comment specifically on whether it uses data to shape or determine the content of its own books, the company acknowledged that authors are recruited for their past sales (as is common in traditional publishing).“Amazon Publishing titles are thoughtfully acquired by our team—made up of publishing-industry veterans and long-time Amazonians—with many factors taken into consideration,” says Amazon Publishing publisher Mikyla Bruder, “including the acquiring editor’s enthusiasm, the strength of the story, quality of the writing, editorial fit for our list, and author backlist/comparable titles’ sales track.”Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, first released in 2007, is a data-collection device that doubles as reading material. Kindle knows the minutiae of how people read: what they highlight, the fonts they prefer, where in a book they lose interest, what kind of books they finish quickly, and which books gets skimmed rather than read all the way through.A year after the Kindle came out, Amazon acquired Audible. Audiobooks have been a rare bright spot in the publishing industry, with double-digit growth in total sales for the past few years. Audible now touts itself as the “world’s largest seller and producer of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment,” and its site has around 450,000 audio programs. As a seller, it has virtually no competition, though companies are beginning to wise up to that fact: In January, Google started offering audiobooks in its Play store, and in August, Walmart announced a partnership with Kobo, a Canadian digital book retailer, to offer audiobook subscriptions cheaper than Audible’s.Like Kindle, Audible is a trove of data. Its app knows when you drop off and stop listening; when you speed up, perhaps because the reading is too slow; when you rewind, maybe because the reading is too fast or the content is too confusing; what passages you bookmark; and what time you put your books on “sleep.”In 2013, Amazon bought still another massive dataset: Goodreads. The popular social network for readers today gives Amazon access to 80 million profiles on book preferences, which it could theoretically layer on top of actual reading behavior. Goodreads users obsessively record what they’re reading and when, as well as what books they want to read but haven’t. They also leave text-heavy reviews, ripe for data-mining. And they make friends, giving Amazon granular data on reader networks and relationships.All of that data is linked through Amazon accounts, which have detailed information about what and how people buy.With its self-publishing arm, Amazon has created a system that enforces still more data collection. It hosts hundreds of thousands of self-published authors through Kindle Direct Publishing, though the exact number is hard to know. Amazon is the reason that self-published writers, particularly in romance and fantasy, have been able to make a living without having to enter the arduous lottery of getting plucked by a publisher.But in return for royalty rates much higher than the industry standard, Amazon keeps its authors close. It heavily promotes books from self-published authors that agree to be exclusive with Amazon. But authors are paid out of a collective fund of money set by the company, based on the number of pages read from their books out of all pages read through two Amazon reading subscriptions. Historically, Amazon has been slow to address the rampant scamming invited by this system, though it occasionally steps in to implement sweeping automatic bans or penalties that can also hurt genuine authors.While often leaving its authors out in the cold, Amazon is forever strengthening its get-to-know-you machine on the backs of their efforts. The more hours people spend reading these books that cost Amazon next to nothing, the better the data. The better the data, the better the site’s recommendations. The better the recommendations, the better the product: Amazon itself.Amazon isn’t always shy about what it does with its data. The company puts out a weekly list called Amazon Charts, which highlights bestsellers alongside something called “most read”—not what people buy, but what digital books they actually open, because Amazon knows when people do that. Amazon’s brick-and-mortar bookstores have a “page turner” shelf, advertised as books that readers have finished in three or fewer days on Kindle. At a May event in Newark, New Jersey, Audible honored top audiobook narrators with dinner and a ceremony. Super-fans of the narrators were invited, too, their enthusiasm gleaned from listener behavior.Amazon could easily use all of its data for its own publishing efforts. In terms of awards and accolades, Amazon Publishing hasn’t reached the level of mainstream fame or critical success as the company’s movie and TV studio. But on Amazon.com, it’s certainly making a mark.Books from Amazon Publishing imprints are overwhelmingly downloaded as ebooks via Kindle. Which has a curious side effect: The New York Times, the most prestigious and arguably most important of the US bestseller lists, doesn’t count them. Whether pointedly directed at Amazon or not, the Times doesn’t count “e-books available exclusively from a single vendor.” (“We include sales that we are able to confirm according to our standards,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, communications vice president for the Times, writes by email, though she declined to elaborate.) The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal do include Amazon ebooks on their bestseller lists.This opacity in how Amazon’s books are actually doing could give Amazon an advantage. To publishers, Amazon’s lack of books on the New York Times bestseller lists may seem like clear evidence of its failure as a publisher. Meanwhile, over on Amazon.com, books from Amazon Publishing’s imprints regularly take up three or four spaces the week’s Top 20 bestselling fiction books list. In a recent week, it was six. What seems to outsiders like a flopped experiment could really be data collection for something altogether different.Book lovers tend to focus on the fact that the book apocalypse—that is, the wholesale replacement of print books with ebooks—has largely failed to materialize. But to the extent that books have transitioned to digital, the flow is almost entirely through Amazon. With its data and power, the company could make books designed specifically to keep people reading and buying, and with its impressively wide-reaching marketing strength, it could get those books in front of hundreds of millions of people with credit cards.After all, there’s precedent. Netflix, which also has access to vast troves of data on its customers’ most granular consumption habits, has used data to inform its productions; one director even said he took notes from its algorithms. So maybe Amazon is irreparably altering popular American culture by creating a new landscape of literature driven by data and algorithms, using notes from its own statistical model-cum-editor. Or maybe it isn’t. But there should be no doubt whatsoever that it could.

One measure of special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutorial success in 2018 is the list of former top Donald Trump aides brought to justice: Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, a jury convicted Paul Manafort, a judge berated Michael Flynn.Another measure is the tally of new defendants that Mueller’s team charged (34), the number of new guilty pleas he netted (five) and the amount of money he clawed back through tax fraud cases ($48m).Yet another measure might judge Mueller’s pace compared with previous independent prosecutors. “I would refer to it as a lightning pace,” said Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former US attorney. “In a case of this complexity which has international implications, aspects relying on the intelligence community, complicated cyber components – to indict that many people that quickly is really impressive work.”But there’s perhaps a more powerful way to measure Mueller’s progress in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and links between Moscow and the Trump campaign; that’s by noticing how the targets of his investigation have changed their postures over the course of 2018, from defiance to docility – or in the case of Trump himself, from defiance to extreme, hyperventilating defiance.The distance Mueller has traveled over the last year can be measured in the orders of magnitude by which Trump’s criminal associates’ bombastic sense of their own impunity has been deflated, as the president’s attacks on the special counsel have grown increasingly shrill.Manafort went from tough-guy talk about “the battle to prove our innocence” to accepting a plea deal with Mueller, later broken. Cohen went from “taking a bullet” for Trump to telling Mueller everything.Trump’s lead spokesman, Rudy Giuliani, has made a gradual transition in his defense of the president from “there was no collusion” to “collusion is not a crime”.The slow, steady pressure from Mueller’s investigation has forced a group of fast-talkers accustomed to saying anything – “Lock her up!” – to fall momentarily dumb, or at least to modulate their speech.And no public figure has undergone a more dramatic shift than Trump himself. Throughout 2018, Trump repeatedly erupted on the topic of Mueller, but three outbursts were notably impassioned, possibly indicating key achievements by Mueller – or areas where the president thought the special counsel was too close for comfort.One came in April, after federal agents raided Cohen’s office and residences. One came in August, just before cooperation deals with the longtime Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg and longtime Trump friend David Pecker were announced. And one came after the election, when a slew of developments landed, from the exposure of Trump’s Moscow project to the sentencing of Cohen to prison to Flynn’s public dressing-down.“It’s a disgrace, it’s frankly a real disgrace,” Trump said on camera after the Cohen raids. “It’s an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.”Trump was right to be concerned. Evidence collected in the raids appears to have cracked wide open a case involving hush payments by Trump to the porn star Stormy Daniels and former model Karen McDougal. Those payments have been assessed in court to be federal felonies. And recordings seized in the same raid appear to have spawned entire new fields of inquiry including an investigation of Trump’s inaugural committee.Lisa K Griffin, law professor at Duke University, said the Cohen raid appeared to be a watershed moment in the investigation, for the fuel it gave to Mueller but also to separate US attorney’s offices.“In hindsight it may appear that the most significant day in all of this was the day that federal agents executed search warrants on Michael Cohen’s office and home,” Griffin said, “because it continues to appear that there are many threads to both the southern district of New York and the special counsel’s investigation, that were generated by what they seized because of the longstanding relationship between Mr Cohen and the president.”In prosecuting the hush payments, Mueller overcame an effort by Trump to hide one secret about how the 2016 election was won. But Mueller in 2018 continued to fill in the blanks of an even bigger secret, one that Trump tried with equal effort to suppress.In February and again in July, Mueller unsealed indictments that described a coordinated Russian hacking and election-tampering effort conceived as early as 2014 and carried out using stolen US identities, camouflaged IP addresses and phishing scams, as well as physical spying inside the United States.Trump had long questioned a Russian role in the election-relating hacking, and he kept it up after the second indictment was unveiled, when the US president found himself alongside the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at a summit in Helsinki. “I have great confidence in my intelligence people,” Trump said, “but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”Yet it seemed that Mueller had hit his mark. Upon his return to the United States, Trump escalated his attacks on the special counsel, tweeting: “This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further.”What followed was a bad August for Trump – and strong one for Mueller, who simultaneously on 21 August revealed Cohen’s guilty plea and saw a jury convict Manafort on eight fraud counts. Then Mueller unveiled the cooperation agreements with Pecker and Weisselberg, who together know more about Trump’s businesses and private affairs than perhaps anyone apart from Trump himself.In the continuing tug-of-war between the president and the prosecutor, the public appears to be siding with Mueller. A CNN-SSRS poll in early December found that respondents approved of the job Mueller was doing by a margin of 43-40, while Trump’s approval has been at least 10 points underwater in the poll since Mueller was appointed in May 2017. Trump had a 39-52 approval rating in December, the poll found.In the year ahead, it appears that Flynn and Manafort will be sentenced, and further indictments against Trump-world figures are expected to be handed down. Mueller is expected to reveal whether he discovered evidence of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and he might deliver a report on his investigation of alleged obstruction of justice by the president.One year ago, the top question on the minds of many experienced observers was whether Trump would seek to fire Mueller. In the past seven weeks, the attorney general has been dismissed and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, has been stripped of some of his power to oversee the special counsel.But Mueller is still in place, on the threshold of 2019, which might be his biggest year yet. Topics Trump-Russia investigation Robert Mueller Donald Trump Michael Cohen Paul Manafort Michael Flynn analysis

In pledging a “new golden age” for Britain, Boris Johnson has become the third Tory prime minister to promise a break with his party’s Thatcherite past. First came David Cameron, who undertook to deliver a green and compassionate Conservatism. Next was Theresa May, with her pledges to tackle Britain’s “burning injustices”. Now Johnson has celebrated his election victory by claiming to herald the dawn of a new, blue-collar conservatism that will “unite and level up”.If Cameron and May teach us anything, it is that the rhetoric of one-nation Conservatism provides an easy feint for a toxic and divisive governing agenda. Cameron set in train a decade of spending cuts that have left public services ravaged and that eroded any semblance of a decent safety net, while delivering expensive tax cuts that have disproportionately benefited the affluent. May doubled down on austerity, introduced a hostile environment that resulted in people who have lived legally in Britain for decades wrongly deported and, instead of adopting a unifying approach to Brexit, embraced the firmest of red lines in order to keep the Eurosceptics in her party on side. Johnson’s electoral success is partly the result of running against the record of his predecessors, though he was a senior member of May’s government. If we are to believe his election pitch, this is a government that will unite the country by getting Brexit done, close the stark geographical inequalities by investing in the north and the Midlands and revitalise the nation’s schools and hospitals.The big difference is not ideological: Johnson’s leadership of the Vote Leave campaign and his record in May’s government have shown he is just as comfortable in resorting to xenophobic dog whistles and cosying up to the fanatically Eurosceptic flank of his party as the price of power. It is the size of his majority that means he faces far less of a party management problem than May or Cameron and has earned the right to set his own direction. Some of the constituencies that have been hardest hit by austerity and that stand to lose the most from a hard Brexit have turned blue for the first time in decades, giving Johnson a fresh political imperative to soften May’s approach to cuts and Brexit.There is nothing about his first week that suggests he will take the opportunity to do so. On Brexit, the withdrawal bill has been stripped of several measures: protection for workers’ rights; the requirement for parliamentary approval on the government’s negotiating objectives on the future relationship with the EU; and, most shamefully, legal protections for refugee children reunited with family members in the UK. There is a clear choice between accepting alignment with EU regulation or going down the path of an economically calamitous Brexit that risks destabilising the Northern Ireland peace process. Yet in insisting there will be “no alignment” to EU rules after the transition period, Johnson continues to deny this trade-off exists and his bill outlaws any extension to this beyond next December, despite the fact this is not enough time to negotiate a comprehensive trade deal. If he carries on in this vein, Britain is heading for, at best, a bare-bones agreement that will result in a border in the Irish Sea and will bring harsh economic costs in terms of jobs and widening regional inequalities.His domestic agenda stops far short of reversing the pernicious spending cuts of the last decade. Cameron and May have run the NHS into the ground; the last two months have seen its worst-ever performance on waiting times for A&E care and cancer treatment. The extra money pledged is the bare minimum required and will not solve the NHS’s long-term staffing crisis. The government’s plans to increase school funding after a decade of cuts will benefit those serving disadvantaged communities far less than those in wealthier areas. The focus on longer sentencing to fight crime flies in the face of all the evidence about how to make communities safer, while cuts to policing, the Crown Prosecution Service and prisons have let crime fester.Under Cameron and May, many low-income families with children lost thousands of pounds a year in tax credits. On this, the Queen’s speech was silent. So the shocking rates of homelessness and child poverty in one of the world’s richest countries will continue to rise. There are no signs of Johnson using his sizable majority to confront the big challenges Britain faces head on: how to care for our ageing society; how to improve the educational and social transition to adulthood for young people who do not go to university; how to step up our action on the climate crisis in order to have any hope of preventing catastrophic levels of global heating.Instead, the Queen’s speech hinted at measures to strengthen the government vis-a-vis the courts and parliament. Majority Westminster governments are already overmighty, with too few checks or balances. Yet Johnson is threatening to reform the judicial review process that limits the power of government bodies to act unlawfully. It is judicial review that resulted in employment tribunal fees, the Home Office’s extortionate fees for children to claim their right to citizenship and the racially discriminatory right to rent policy being ruled unlawful. This sends an alarming signal about Johnson’s future intention to comply with equality and human rights legislation.Everything Johnson has done and said so far suggests that his claims to represent a new-one nation Toryism are nothing more than the baseless rhetoric we have come to expect from Conservative prime ministers. It is an ominous sign of what might be to come.

Outrage has continued to grow in India over the gang-rape and murder of a 27-year-old woman, with protesters taking to the streets and politicians calling for the offenders to be “lynched”.Demonstrations spread to cities including Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata and MPs spoke out in parliament following the discovery last week of the woman’s burned body in Hyderabad.Four men now in police custody are alleged to have deflated the vet’sscooter tyres in order to leave her stranded then approached her appearing to offer to help. It is alleged she was dragged to an abandoned area by the roadside where she was gang-raped, asphyxiated to death and her body set alight and dumped.“This act has brought shame to the entire country, it has hurt everyone,” said the defence minister, Rajnath Singh, speaking out against what he called a “heinous crime”.Violent crimes against women have been in the spotlight in India since 2012, when the fatal gang rape of a young woman aboard a moving bus in Delhi prompted hundreds of thousands to take to the streets to demand stricter rape laws.Protesters on Monday demanded a fast-track investigation in the Hyderabad case, with anger mounting both on the streets and in parliament.Jaya Bachchan, an MP and former Bollywood actor who has been a vocal proponent of women’s rights, was among those who spoke out. “I know it sounds harsh, but these kind of people should be brought out in public and lynched,” she said in parliament.She demanded to know how the Indian government planned to improve safety for women in India and protect them against sexual violence. Last week multiple rapes and murders were reported, including the gang-rape and murder of a lawyer in Jharkhand and the rape and murder of a six-year-old child in Rajasthan.“The people want the government to give a proper and definite answer,” said Bachchan.Outrage over the 2012 Delhi rape prompted thousands of women to take to the streets and spurred quick action on legislation, doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalising voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. Indian MPs also voted to lower to 16 from 18 the age at which a person can be tried as an adult for heinous crimes.Protesters on Monday demanded more stringent laws to protect women in India.In the eastern city of Kolkata, where protests were held throughout the day, college student Bandana Mondal said it was becoming difficult to sit back and watch silently.“It is time to hit the road and seek faster punishment for the offenders. The process of law appears slow and there is hardly any deterrent,” she said.In Hyderabad, which has seen the largest of the protests, student activists linked to prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party asked for capital punishment. Police in the city had used force on Saturday to disperse hundreds of protesters after they tried to storm into a police station where the four accused were held.At a demonstration in Delhi, student Aditi Purohit said that she was so angry and frustrated that she had left her classes and come out. “If they [the accused] were in front of me, I would have killed them,” she saidSexual violence against women remains rife in India and it is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman, according to a 2018 survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.Campaigners say the government has failed in checking the rising crimes against women. Jyoti Badekar, a womens rights activist from Mumbai, said the lack of female police staff is one of the factors fuelling the problem.Police in the country registered 33,658 cases of rape in 2017, according to the most recent available official records – an average of 92 a day - but the real figure is believed to be far higher as many women in India do not go to the police out of fear.Tens of thousands of cases also remain stuck in courts, often hindering victims and their families as they navigate the slow and cumbersome legal system. Figures for 2017 reveal that courts opened 18,300 cases related to rape but more than 127,800 more remained pending at the end of the year.“It’s very frustrating for the victim. You keep on going to court, and even after evidence is over, they take a long time to pass the judgement,” women’s rights lawyer Flavia Agnes told Reuters. Topics India South and Central Asia Rape and sexual assault Women's rights and gender equality news

Facebook and eBay have removed hundreds of fake product reviews that were flagged by the United Kingdom's antitrust regulator.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in a news release that the two companies had signed on to an effort to "identify, investigate and respond to fake and misleading reviews."At the present time, Facebook has banned 24 users and eBay has banned 140 over the false reviews, according to the CMA."Fake reviews are really damaging to shoppers and businesses alike. Millions of people base their shopping decisions on reviews, and if these are misleading or untrue, then shoppers could end up being misled into buying something that isn’t right for them — leaving businesses who play by the rules missing out," CMA chief Andrea Coscelli said."We’re pleased that Facebook and eBay are doing the right thing by committing to tackle this problem and helping to keep their sites free from posts selling fake reviews," she added.Facebook and eBay did not immediately return requests for comment from The Hill on Wednesday.In the news release, CMA officials stressed that there was no evidence that the companies were aware of the now-banned users or the fake reviews before being alerted to the issue by CMA."The CMA is not alleging that Facebook or eBay are intentionally allowing this content to appear on their websites and is pleased that both companies have fully co-operated," read the news release."This CMA action is part of a wider programme of work tackling fake and misleading online reviews, which will include looking into the role of review sites," it continued.

Enlarge this image Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, agreed to forfeit real estate in a plea deal he made last month. Jose Luis Magana/AP hide caption toggle caption Jose Luis Magana/AP Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, agreed to forfeit real estate in a plea deal he made last month. Jose Luis Magana/AP Special Counsel Robert Mueller has moved to seize former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's condo in Trump Tower in New York.According to a court filing from Friday, the seizure is expected take place on or after Oct. 20. The prosecutors said the federal government would "take full and exclusive custody and control" as part of a broader forfeiture, and Manafort signed the document. The move follows a plea deal that Manafort made last month. As NPR's Carrie Johnson and Ryan Lucas reported, he pleaded guilty two felonies rather than face trial on charges related to his lobbying work for Ukraine and alleged witness tampering. He agreed to cooperate "in any and all matters" that prosecutors deemed relevant. In a separate case, in August, Manafort had been found guilty on eight out of 18 counts of financial crimes by a federal jury in Virginia. He has not yet been sentenced in either case.The special counsel had accused Manafort with laundering millions and evading taxes on income from his work as a lobbyist for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Prosecutors said his money funded a lavish lifestyle, and that he "cheated the United States out of over $15 million in taxes." National Security Paul Manafort Pleads Guilty, Agrees To Cooperate With Mueller's Russia Probe In addition to the condo, the government plans to seize other properties from Manafort — including a luxury estate in the Hamptons and locations in New York — as well as funds from three bank accounts and a life insurance policy, according to the court filing.Trump Tower is one of the Trump Organization's signature buildings, a place where President Trump's campaign began in 2015. At 1,509 square feet, Manafort's condo is currently worth nearly $3 million, according to real estate website Zillow.

WASHINGTON — Even as President Donald Trump awaits a trial in the Senate, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani is moving full speed ahead with new allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, the very individuals targeted by Trump in events that triggered his impeachment.In recent weeks, Giuliani — himself under federal investigation for his Ukraine activities — has cryptically teased what he calls new “proof” buttressing charges about Biden and purported corruption during the Obama administration, attempting to flip the script by contending that Democrats, not the president, are the ones guilty of obstruction and collusion with a foreign power to influence elections.The allegations point to four Ukrainian would-be whistleblowers he says Yovanovitch silenced through visa denials, and include two multibillion-dollar schemes he says he’s uncovered and that Yovanovitch and the Obama administration conspired to cover up.In tweets and interviews, the former New York City mayor has been intentionally vague about both the allegations and his newfound proof, while vowing to eventually reveal it to the Department of Justice and a trio of senators.“All in good time,” Giuliani told NBC News via text message when asked when he’d produce the evidence.But documents obtained by NBC News, interviews with people familiar with Giuliani’s activities and a review of his public comments show he’s relying almost entirely on assertions by Ukrainians whose credibility is questionable at best. In some cases, the allegations have already been thoroughly debunked.Giuliani’s allegations have found a receptive audience in Trump, who says Giuliani will “make a report” to Attorney General William Barr about his “good information.” In the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham and two other Republican chairmen are seeking interviews with Ukrainians and Americans with purported knowledge about what Giuliani alleges. That has created the prospect that even as the Senate holds a trial on whether to remove Trump from office, Senate Republicans could counter-program the trial by carrying out their own publicized probe into Biden and his son Hunter and alleged Ukrainian meddling in 2016.Here's a look at what’s known and unknown about Giuliani’s new allegations:$5.3 billion in squandered U.S. cashGiuliani’s first allegation centers on $5.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars he says were mishandled and even “laundered” during the Obama administration on Biden’s and Yovanovitch’s watch.On Twitter, Giuliani cited documents from Ukrainian auditors he says show “much of the $5.3B in U.S. aid” was misused and “given to the embassy’s favored NGOs” — nongovernmental organizations. He says the U.S. Embassy “directed the police not to investigate.”The United States has never given $5.3 billion to Ukraine. Even Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. assistance, has never received more than $3.8 billion in a given year.A 2017 report from Ukraine’s Accounts Chamber, the parliamentary auditing agency, and reviewed by NBC News does mention $5.3 billion in U.S.-funded “international technical projects” during the last full year of the Obama administration but not all the money was from the United States. Although the report concludes the funding wasn’t well-directed toward Ukraine’s top economic priorities, there’s no suggestion of intentional misconduct and no reference to laundering.Giuliani hasn’t explained his claim that the U.S. urged Ukraine’s police not to investigate. But his reference in the same tweet to “favored NGOs” offers a window into his emerging claim.For months, Giuliani has alleged that an anti-corruption nonprofit in Ukraine called AntAc colluded with the Democratic Party to dig up dirt on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. AntAc received funding both from the U.S. and from a philanthropy founded by billionaire George Soros, a fact Giuliani’s associates have used to fuel conspiracy theories.Download the NBC News app for full coverage of Trump's impeachmentGiuliani worked closely with John Solomon, a former columnist for The Hill newspaper, on articles about alleged Ukrainian election-meddling, including a column in March that said the U.S. Embassy pressured Ukraine to drop an investigation into AntAc.The column included a letter from George Kent, then the No. 2 in the embassy, to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office that said the U.S. was confident its money was being well spent on anti-corruption activities in Ukraine and that a probe into AntAc based on its receipt of U.S. funding was “misplaced.” At the time Kent sent the letter, Yovanovitch wasn’t yet the ambassador.Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.Kent, in his testimony in the impeachment hearings, said that the effort by the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, one of Giuliani’s key witnesses, to investigate AntAc was “completely without merit.”$7.5 billion in laundered Ukrainian fundsSince his investigative trip to Ukraine and eastern Europe this month, Giuliani has been teasing a revelation he says is coming about another scheme, this one worth $7.5 billion.It involves a claim that former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who plundered the country's assets before being ousted, had laundered $7.5 billion through an elaborate conspiracy involving Franklin Templeton, a U.S. investment firm, which purchased Ukrainian bonds nearing that amount starting a decade ago. They were later sold.No proof has been produced publicly. A Franklin Templeton spokeswoman said the allegations are “not logical and entirely false,” pointing out that the money went from the firm to Ukraine’s government — the exact opposite of what’s alleged.The unproven allegations have been peddled for years by Lutsenko and more recently by Ukrainian lawmaker and former journalist Oleksandr Dubinsky. Giuliani met with both men while in Europe this month.After his meeting with Giuliani in Kyiv, Dubinsky posted a video to social media in which he said he’d told Giuliani about the alleged scheme. A spokeswoman for Lutsenko told Ukrainian media he had also told Giuliani that Yovanovitch had blocked him from investigating the stolen funds.“She was OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and that’s not the only thing she was doing. She at minimum enabled Ukrainian collusion,” Giuliani wrote this month on Twitter.Yovanovitch declined through an attorney to comment on Giuliani’s allegations. But the Franklin Templeton theory dovetails with Giuliani’s repeated assertions that Yovanovitch “perjured herself” in her impeachment testimony.Lutsenko says when he was prosecutor general, Yovanovitch impeded his efforts to obtain Justice Department help in investigating money laundering and Yanukovych’s graft. Yovanovitch testified he wasn’t serious about those aims and just wanted high-profile meetings with the U.S. attorney general and the FBI director.Yovanovitch testified she encouraged Lutsenko to meet with the FBI’s legal attaché at the embassy, the normal process for requesting law enforcement cooperation between countries, but that Lutsenko “didn’t want to share that information.”Not so, Lutsenko said alongside Giuliani in an interview this month with One America News Network, the far-right television outlet that traveled with Giuliani to Ukraine. He held up a letter he sent in 2017 to the legal attaché about the Franklin Templeton allegations, as evidence that Yovanovitch perjured herself by saying he never contacted the attaché.A former senior U.S. official said the letter in question was spurious and offered no proof that any of the money was in the U.S., and that because the legal attaché works for the Justice Department, it’s possible Yovanovitch wouldn’t have even known about it.At the same time, Giuliani has been tweeting about connections between Franklin Templeton and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who ran the impeachment investigation.Giuliani has echoed suggestions by Lutsenko that Schiff stood to benefit because he had a financial interest in Franklin Templeton. Schiff’s public financial disclosure shows he owns some of the firm’s mutual funds along with other various similar investments. There’s no evidence Schiff had any involvement in or knowledge of the firm’s purchase of Ukrainian bonds years ago.Visas blocked for Ukrainian whistleblowersGiuliani says he has four witnesses ready to testify that Yovanovitch “personally turned down their visas because they were going to come here and give evidence either against Biden or against the Democratic Party.” He said he also now has “documentary proof.”It’s unclear why any of the individuals would need to travel to the U.S. to provide evidence about corruption, or whether Giuliani perhaps hoped to arrange meetings between them and Trump as he sought to deliver dirt about the president’s opponents.Giuliani hasn’t disclosed a list of the four individuals or described the proof. But the likely list can be gleaned from other assertions he and his associates have made about Ukrainians unable to get visas to come to the U.S.The first is former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who preceded Lutsenko. Trump and Giuliani allege Biden bribed Ukraine with $1 billion in U.S. aid in 2016 to fire Shokin so as to shut down investigations into Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company whose board Hunter Biden joined.While in Europe, Giuliani also interviewed Shokin, who told him and One America News that at Biden’s demand, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko pressured him to wind down the investigation into Burisma. But it’s never been clear that Shokin was actively investigating Burisma in the first place, and critics say Shokin was in fact leveraging the threat of opening a Burisma investigation to solicit bribes.Yovanovitch and other U.S. officials deposed in the impeachment inquiry testified that pushing Ukraine to replace Shokin was official U.S. policy, precisely because he was seen as failing to sufficiently investigate corruption.Documents given to Giuliani by Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach and obtained by NBC News show Giuliani has also been absorbing allegations that under Yovanovitch, the U.S. Embassy was acting as a puppet master for Ukraine’s recently formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU.The documents circulated by Derkach, who was trained at a KGB school in Moscow, include emails between NABU officials and U.S. embassy officials in 2017. Derkach had said they show the NABU “leaked” information to the U.S. about ongoing criminal cases, including investigations into Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch who founded Burisma.Giuliani has acknowledged that in January he tried and failed to get the Trump administration to grant Shokin a U.S. visa.In her impeachment testimony, Yovanovitch says she didn’t block the visa for Shokin, but concurred when State Department consular officials suggested withholding a visa because of his “known corrupt activities.” She says she notified Washington of the decision and that senior State Department officials stood behind it even as Giuliani was pressuring the White House to overrule them.Giuliani says that’s another example of perjury by Yovanovitch. He says he now has State Department records showing the reason stated for the denial was that Shokin had undergone an operation two years earlier “and hadn’t recovered yet.”Giuliani didn’t explain that unusual claim, which would not normally preclude a visa, and hasn’t produced the records. But Yovanovitch in her testimony suggested Shokin had lied in his visa application by saying he was coming to visit family, not provide evidence about corruption, as he now claims.A State Department spokeswoman didn’t respond to requests for comment about Shokin’s visa application or Giuliani’s claim.A second Ukrainian likely on Giuliani’s list is Andriy Telizhenko, the former Ukrainian diplomat who says he witnessed the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington collude with the Democratic National Committee in 2016. Telizhenko traveled to Ukraine with Giuliani on his trip and told NBC News he now can’t return because his visa is being blocked by “Soros people” with influence over the U.S. Embassy.A third Ukrainian who says his visa was blocked is Mykhaylo Okhendovsky, who chaired Ukraine’s Central Election Commission until the Parliament fired him last year.In an interview alongside Giuliani, Okhendovsky told One America News that Kent, the former deputy under Yovanovitch at the U.S. Embassy, tried to block his visa. He said when he appealed to Yovanovitch, she brushed him off. Okhendovsky says while he now holds a U.S. visa, he’s been told it won’t be renewed once it expires.The fourth Ukrainian appears to be Kostiantyn Kulyk, a former prosecutor who compiled a dossier about Hunter Biden. Giuliani says in a One America News segment that Kulyk made a formal application to come to the U.S. to divulge what he knows, but that the U.S. Embassy hasn’t responded.

Fiona Hill, the president’s former top adviser on Russia and Europe, testified privately before House investigators. She was expected to say that she and other Trump officials strongly objected to the removal of Marie Yovanovitch as the ambassador to Ukraine.Ms. Hill viewed that dismissal as an egregious abuse of the system by allies of President Trump who were seeking to push aside a perceived obstacle to their own foreign policy goals, according to a person familiar with her account.Ms. Hill, who left her job on the National Security Council just days before the July 25 phone call between Mr. Trump and Ukraine’s president, was the first person who worked in the White House to be interviewed by House investigators.Ms. Hill, like other witnesses in the impeachment investigation, testified privately — meaning it will take time to see a verbatim version of what she told investigators, if we see it at all. My colleague Nick Fandos, who was on Capitol Hill today, explained to me why Democrats are doing so much out of public view:The Democrats are trying to collect as much information as possible as quickly as possible. Big made-for-TV hearings are a chaotic and clunky way to try to build a body of evidence. They allow witnesses to line up their stories in advance and could easily backfire on Democrats trying to build a public narrative in real time. Most congressional veterans would tell you that from a fact-finding point of view, you are better off following the Watergate model: Investigate in private first, then choreograph a series of public hearings that recreate for the public what the investigation found. Republicans, nevertheless, are accusing Democrats of impeaching a president in secret.Democrats believe that two witnesses — Ms. Hill and Gordon Sondland, the Trump donor-turned-ambassador who inserted himself into Ukraine policy — are critical to understanding the July 25 call Mr. Trump had with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. I talked to Julian Barnes, who covers national security and the C.I.A., about the larger story.Julian, what did Ms. Hill’s testimony tell us about the impeachment investigation?What Ms. Hill likely helped outline today was the difference between our official foreign policy and the real foreign policy. Fiona Hill is the National Security Council official who, until her departure this summer, was supposed to be in charge of Ukraine policy and advise the president on it. But what we will likely learn from her appearance is that she was largely cut out of it. There’s this other foreign policy going on, directed by other people like Gordon Sondland, who were working on parts of this Ukraine policy that she never knew about. Why is it important that Ms. Hill wasn’t the one handling Ukraine policy?Mr. Sondland is the American ambassador to the European Union. On the books, he should have nothing to do with Ukraine. Ukraine is not part of the E.U. But in reality, he was tasked by Mr. Trump to work on Ukraine policy. He was deep in the mix of forming Ukraine policy, pushing the Ukrainians on what Mr. Trump was after.So if Ms. Hill and Mr. Sondland were working on the same project — Ukraine policy — from competing lanes, how might that affect their testimony?

SEATTLE—It’s hard to miss the Amazonians downtown here. “They want cheap, and they travel in packs,” said Seattle celebrity chef Tom Douglas of the young techies who fill the 10-seat tables at his Brave Horse Tavern for lunch. Then they come back for happy hour.They wear color-coded ID badges signaling how long they’ve worked for Amazon.com...