WASHINGTON (AP) — Two groups of states are targeting Facebook and Google in separate antitrust probes, widening the scrutiny of Big Tech beyond sweeping federal and congressional investigations into their market dominance.Facebook and Google are two of the world’s largest and most ubiquitous tech companies. The billions who use their services for making social media posts, uploading videos or searching ads are targeted by the tech companies for their personal data — a prized asset that enhances the companies’ power. Regulators are examining whether the companies have used their market power to crimp competition, potentially raising prices and hurting consumers.ADVERTISEMENTDissatisfaction with what federal authorities have done so far may be pushing some states to band together to run their own investigations, possibly eyeing more aggressive sanctions. The Federal Trade Commission’s recent $5 billion fine against Facebook over privacy violations, for example, was criticized by consumer advocates and a number of public officials as being too lenient.“The states see it as part of their role to fill a vacuum,” said Jay Himes, an antitrust lawyer in New York. Himes, a former head of the antitrust bureau in the New York attorney general’s office, worked on the states’ antitrust case against Microsoft about 20 years ago.New York Attorney General Letitia James said Friday her probe will look into Facebook’s dominance and any resulting anticompetitive conduct.A separate group of state attorneys general is announcing Monday in Washington the launch of an investigation into “whether large tech companies have engaged in anticompetitive behavior that stifled competition, restricted access and harmed consumers,” an advisory from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday. The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, citing sources they didn’t identify, have reported that target will be Google.Both groups of state attorneys general include Democrats and Republicans. Joining James, a Democrat, in the Facebook investigation are the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and the District of Columbia.With some 2.4 billion users around the globe and a huge social media presence, Facebook has sparked outrage with a series of privacy scandals and its use by Russian operatives in the 2016 presidential campaign.“Even the largest social media platform in the world must follow the law and respect consumers,” James said.Critics worry that Facebook can squash competitors either by buying them or using its enormous resources to mimic services they offer. That ultimately could reduce viable alternatives for consumers looking, for instance, for comparable services that do less tracking for targeted advertising. Businesses, including mom and pop shops, might have to pay more for ads if they have fewer choices to reach consumers online.The U.S. Justice Department opened a sweeping antitrust investigation of big tech companies this summer, looking at whether their online platforms have hurt competition, suppressed innovation or otherwise harmed consumers. The Federal Trade Commission has been conducting its own competition probe of Big Tech, as has the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.The lawmaker leading that investigation, Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said Friday the states’ probe of Facebook is “completely appropriate.”“Facebook has proven time and time again that it cannot be trusted to regulate itself,” Cicilline said.The states have the power to make big changes to the tech industry — especially if enough of them band together, said Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, a group that advocates for the breakup of corporate monopolies. Though states have limited jurisdictions, he said, once a few of the bigger states get involved, changes can come that can affect most of the country.“You really have to break their power, and I think the states are more likely to do that than anyone else,” Stoller said in an interview.Facebook said it plans to “work constructively” with the state attorneys general and welcomes a conversation with policymakers about competition.“People have multiple choices for every one of the services we provide,” said Will Castleberry, a vice president of state and local policy. “We understand that if we stop innovating, people can easily leave our platform. This underscores the competition we face, not only in the U.S. but around the globe.”Google said it welcomes government oversight to make sure companies comply with the law. The company said it has already responded to many government agencies around the world on how it conducts its businesses and expects state attorneys general to ask similar questions.“We look forward to showing how we are investing in innovation, providing services that people want, and engaging in robust and fair competition,” Kent Walker, a senior vice president for global affairs, said in a blog post.Big Tech won’t be an easy target. Current interpretations of U.S. law against monopolies don’t obviously apply to companies offering inexpensive goods or free online services.Traditional antitrust law focuses on dominant businesses that harm consumers, typically through practices that raise prices for consumers. But many tech companies offer free products that are paid for by a largely invisible trade in the personal data gleaned from those services. Others like Amazon offer consistently low prices on a wide array of merchandise.___AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writers Kiley Armstrong and Tali Arbel in New York and Rachel Lerman in San Francisco contributed to this report.__

The news is generally reported piecemeal, with a focus on what just happened or the specifics of one story. The result is that the cumulative effect often escapes detection. Journalism tends to describe the fragments and not the pattern they make up, which for readers can be like watching a movie shot entirely in closeups. So it is with the travails of Donald J Trump. He is in so many kinds of legal hot water, and the explosive new stories tend to erase the earlier ones from view, just as his own transgressions tend to overshadow his earlier misconduct.Who talks of how grotesquely he groveled before Vladimir Putin and denied his own intelligence agencies’ conclusions in the long-ago, far-away world of July 2018 when so much has happened since? Who remembers the abrupt firing of the FBI director James Comey in the ancient days of May 2017, when the abrupt firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions on 7 November is so fresh? The Washington Post’s running list of lies (up to 5,000 in September) and the New York Times catalogue of people, places, and things he’s insulted on Twitter (548 as of Monday) are helpful.If you look at all his legal troubles together you see someone who is both reckless and lawless – which we knew – and perhaps in more trouble than has been noted. You might add to that list obscenely stupid, since he often seems to be the only one who believes his own lies, and since he and his children don’t seem to grasp that the scamming and cheating that got them through the dirty world of New York City real estate doesn’t work as well on the global stage.The current head of the federal government, the person who is supposed to somehow embody the rule of law, is in violation of a host of little laws and some major constitutional ones. USA Today reported in June 2016 that Trump and his businesses “have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. Just since he announced his candidacy a year ago, at least 70 new cases have been filed, about evenly divided between lawsuits filed by him and his companies and those filed against them. And the records review found at least 50 civil lawsuits remain open even as he moves toward claiming the nomination.” The paper charted 1,450 cases in which he or his businesses were defendants along with his bankruptcies and mentioned the Trump University fraud lawsuit, which he eventually settled for $25m, finalized quietly this April. Our president steals from poor people: that’s what that lawsuit is about.He has lived his life in a world without consequences – his father’s money smoothed the way for a life in which he made messes and others cleaned them up. He appears to be one of those people who was so rarely told that what he was saying was wrong, boorish, or inane that he has no sense of how he’s perceived or what people are thinking or, often, how things work. Feedback is what steers most of us straight, and power and privilege mean that you can avoid it if you want. When you’re a star they let you do stupid things, and he has done so many.Summer Zervos sued Trump for defamation for remarks he made about her in 2016, when he suggested her allegations that he groped her were lies; lawyers suggest that his greatest risk in the lawsuit is that he will perjure himself. Another lawsuit for incitement to riot and negligence is moving forward in the sixth circuit court, by three young protesters who were attacked at a Trump rally in March of 2016 after Trump yelled: “Get ‘em out of here.” His former chauffeur is suing for unpaid wages.The New York Times’ immense – in scale and in scope – report on the Trump family’s decades of cheating on taxes to the tune of half a billion dollars has gotten New York state tax officials to begin investigating the charges, and that, too, may lead to legal trouble. A New York business journal reports he may owe $400 million. There’s another lawsuit related to one of his charities, or rather “charities”, since they often seem to have benefitted Trump and his children. On 23 November, Reuters reported that the New York state attorney general, Barbara Underwood, could pursue claims “alleging breach of fiduciary duty, improper self-dealing, and misuse of assets belonging to the Donald J Trump Foundation. Underwood sued Trump and his adult children Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka on 14 June, after a 21-month probe that she said uncovered “extensive unlawful political coordination’ between the foundation and Trump’s campaign”.The emoluments clause of the constitution forbids elected officials from accepting gifts and payments from foreign governments, and Trump has been violating it all along, most notably with his hotel in the nation’s capital that is frequented by foreign emissaries apparently seeking to curry favor with him. An earlier lawsuit over violation of the emoluments clause was thrown out because the plaintiffs didn’t have standing, but the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia are moving forward with a suit that does have standing, and they won a fight to gain access to the pertinent documents this September. It will be the first emoluments case in US history to go to trial, NPR reports. The Daily Beast reported in February that the Trump hotel paid millions in fines on liens for stiffing contractors. Associates of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom the Trump administration has been defending for his role in the grisly murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, spent more than a quarter-million dollars at Trump’s New York hotel earlier this year, according to the Washington Post.All this trouble exists in addition to whatever the Mueller investigation will bring as allegations and charges and perhaps grounds for impeachment. On 29 November, the Mueller investigation seized tax records from the law offices of Trump’s Chicago lawyer, Ed Burke. Maybe the most important new possible charge, a law professor noted to me, emerges from the report in BuzzFeed that Trump planned to offer Putin a $50m condo if he succeeded in building a Trump Tower in Moscow, while he was running for the presidency. If true, it is a spectacular violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This 1977 law makes it “unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business”. Trump seems to have admitted he was doing exactly that and apparently thinks that justifying it aloud was good enough.Of course, Trump denied that he was doing business with Russia or in contact with Russian officials many times during the election and since. Paul Manafort was charged with lying to the Robert Mueller investigation last week, which seems, atop everything else, stunningly stupid (along with the witness tampering he was also caught doing). Didn’t he think that the legal team would notice if he lied to protect himself or Trump? Or are the circles he moves in so routinely dishonest that the habit is hard to break? Liars abound in Trump’s circle; Michael Cohen turned himself in for some more lies too, and his lies – about when discussions about the Trump Tower Moscow terminated – seem to have been told to protect the president. But it seems likely that for the first time in his life, nothing can protect Donald J Trump from the trouble he’s made, and the sheer scale of it is astonishing. Justice means there are consequences for your actions. Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions Topics Donald Trump Opinion Trump administration US politics Trump-Russia investigation comment

In an effort nearly a year in the making, Amazon employees are taking a public stand. They want their company to reckon with what they believe to be the most pressing problem facing the world: climate change.A group of employee stockholders have signed their names to a resolution, which will be voted on at the upcoming annual shareholder meeting next year. They are requesting that Amazon prepare a report describing exactly how it is planning for disruptions posed by climate change, and how it will reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.In total, 28 employees put their names on the document. It’s a first-of-its-kind stand from employees of one of the world’s most powerful companies–a group of dissenters using the leverage provided to them via their stock options. And according to the people behind resolution, it was the best and perhaps only way to get Amazon’s attention.According to Eliza Pan, a program manager at Amazon’s offices in Seattle, the proposal is “a formal mechanism that brings this issue directly to the board of directors.” Within the company, she says, the number of Amazonians who consider climate change to be an urgent issue is growing. “We have 12 years left to dramatically reduce our emissions,” says Pan, “to prevent basically total and dramatic change of our climate.” By drafting a resolution, she adds, it’s the employees utilizing the leverage they have. “Employees have power within companies,” she adds.Getting the company’s attentionIt began with an overall realization that the best way to attack this problem is to go directly to top brass. At Amazon, employees are part of many email listservs that discuss various issues and topics–both Amazon-related and not. Climate change is a popular one, something many employees have connected about via these email groups. Through this initial digital contact, a loosely organized group of employees began to meet and discuss ways they could bring the overarching issue to the company as a whole. For Pan, it was necessary to do something beyond climate education. She wanted to do something that illustrated the urgency. “We need top-level attention on this issue in order to act,” she says.According to Emily Cunningham, another co-signer and a user-experience designer at Amazon, over the last year she, Pan, and others have been meeting informally and discussing the best avenues to get the climate change conversation started. They were unable to bring it up at the last shareholder meeting because they were too late to submit something to the agenda. But some employees were emboldened by another resolution brought to the board: One based on the NFL’s “Rooney rule” that would require Amazon to systematically consider more diverse board member applicants.The diversity resolution was introduced by external shareholders, and some Amazon executives initially fought against it. Internally, employees were upset at the company’s resistance to a rule that simply required Amazon to interview–not hire–more diverse candidates. Despite the company’s initial refusal, people on the inside fought to get the proposal passed. Ultimately, Amazon changed its views and adopted the new rule.For the climate change-focused Amazonians, this strategy presented a helpful blueprint. The idea was brought to the group, explains Cunningham: “Why don’t we do our own resolution? That could be a really great way to reach employees internally.” It would also, she says, be a way “for us to have a dialog with the larger public as well.”While drafting the document, they decided to focus primarily on how pressing the problem of climate change is–and the impact it’s already having on the company. It lists a series of extreme weather occurrences that led to both physical destruction and company losses. For example: June 2016: An AWS data center in Sydney, Australia, went down during severe weather, which broke rainfall records. August 2018: Forest fire smoke enveloped Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, where workers wore face masks to protect their health. November 2018: A tornado in Baltimore smashed an Amazon fulfillment center, ruined its merchandise, and killed two workers. These bullet points highlight how the issue isn’t merely ethereal or political; it’s tangible and pressing. “From a purely cynical, self-interested standpoint,” explains Cunningham, “Amazon would benefit from a climate change plan.” The companies that don’t have something in place will likely face dire consequences. Without understanding and preparing for what’s on the horizon, she goes on, “your whole supply chain could be disrupted.”Beyond the list of past disasters, the proposal leaves the ball in Amazon’s court. “All our resolution is asking for is a report,” says Pan, that describes what the company is doing to deal with impending climate change. Beyond that, “we leave it up to the board.”Reached for comment, Amazon offered the following statement from Kara Hurst, its director of worldwide sustainability:“We have set a goal to power our global infrastructure with 100% renewable energy and are investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency innovations. To date, we have solar energy systems at 25 fulfillment centers with plans to reach 50 by 2020, and have completed over 30 other wind and solar projects across the U.S. We’re continuously working to optimize our transportation network and develop innovative technologies that lower our environmental impact. We have joined numerous industry partnerships to support action on climate change and to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. We’re also reducing waste by developing packaging innovations that have eliminated more than 244,000 tons of packaging materials, avoiding the use of more than 500 million shipping boxes. We’re committed to improving recycling for our customers and communities in which we operate, and recently invested $10 million in the Closed Loop Fund.”A new and growing movementDissenting at such a large company is difficult to say the least. Employees are expected to walk a delicate tightrope, representing the usually progressive values of their companies while being dissuaded from talking publicly about anything that happens on the inside. For these Amazon workers to come forward in such a manner is almost unheard of.Cunningham even penned a letter to her colleagues that she sent to various internal email groups explaining her decision. “I wrote it almost like a love letter to other Amazonians,” she said. “I wrote why I spoke with the New York Times on record … and I got overwhelmingly positive responses.” The overall reaction, she says, is clear. “People had been feeling disheartened by companies, governments not taking the action we need to take.”The message is resonating at Amazon. When first announced, the proposal had a little over a dozen co-signers. After going public, many more have expressed interest–and 28 people in total have signed the resolution.This follows a distinct trend happening at other tech companies, too. More tech workers are realizing their internal problems can best be solved by protesting loudly. Google employees recently walked out of their offices around the world to make executives respond to the company’s sexual harassment policies. Hundreds of Microsoft employees signed a petition demanding the company end its contracts with ICE.For these Amazonians, they’re happy to see the growing movement, but they want to focus on the task at hand. In a follow-up email, Pan wrote to me, “We are organizing around climate change–that is our goal.” She goes on, “I and others felt encouraged by employees at Microsoft, Google, and other tech companies who are taking a public stance on issues important to them.”This could become a more widespread trend. “Personally, I would like us tech workers to inspire each other not only for our public success in delivering innovative products, but also for our public actions on matters of moral import,” says Pan.With the resolution submitted, and the meeting on the horizon, the employees will now wait and see. With the success of the past diversity measure, they’re hopeful to get some executive response. Ultimately, they just want the company to realize how dire the situation is. “It’s all hands on deck,” says Cunningham. “We’re in the middle of an environmental crisis right now.”

Wrapping up a two-day trip to India, President Trump declined Tuesday to condemn India’s controversial new citizenship law, which discriminates against Muslims, and downplayed the threat from the coronavirus, which now has spread to 34 countries, claiming it’s “very well under control in our country.”At a news conference in New Delhi, the normally opinionated president appeared visibly uncomfortable and tentative at times as he tried to deflect thorny questions about India’s religious violence and the guilty verdict for former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein on rape charges. When asked about the verdict and whether justice was served, Trump, who has faced numerous sexual misconduct allegations, instead discussed Weinstein in personal and political terms, claiming that Michelle Obama “loved him” and that Weinstein wanted Hillary Clinton to win in 2016.“I was never a fan of Harvey Weinstein,” Trump said. “He said he was going to work hard to defeat me in the election. How did that work out?”Asked by a reporter to deliver a message to “women in America who are still afraid to come forward and share their stories of sexual harassment and assault,” Trump, an avid watcher of TV news, claimed he had not paid close attention to the trial while he was in India. Weinstein was convicted of rape and a felony sex crime Monday in New York.“I don’t know the actual results,” Trump said. “From the standpoint of women, I think it was a great thing and it sends a very strong message.”Trump was also asked numerous times about the swift spread of the coronavirus, which has panicked the world and roiled financial markets. Medical authorities have confirmed more than 80,000 cases around the world, and more than 2,700 deaths. Trump tried to downplay the threat, claiming it’s “very well under control in our country” and that people infected in the United States “are getting better. They’re all getting better.” His comments appeared at odds with a warning Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Americans should brace for the likelihood that the coronavirus will hit the United States and could cause major disruptions in travel, schools and commerce. “We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that this is going to be bad,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on a conference call.“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen,” she said. The CDC has confirmed 53 coronavirus patients in the United States. There is no known cure or vaccine.Saying he didn’t want to say anything to overshadow his “fantastic” trip to India, Trump declined to criticize Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new citizenship law, which excludes Muslims and has helped fuel a new wave of communal violence. Ten people have been reported killed, and dozens injured, in Muslim-majority neighborhoods north of the capital since Sunday. The clashes between protesters in favor of the law and those against it quickly took on religious overtones, with Hindu and Muslim mobs fighting each other. The law passed by India’s parliament last year prioritizes citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians while excluding Muslims.Trump, asked several times about Modi’s support for the new law, praised the Indian leader.“He wants people to have religious freedom,” Trump insisted. “They have really worked hard on religious freedom.”Trump appeared to back Modi’s concern that the majority-Hindu country is being overrun by Muslims.“He told me, I guess they have 200 plus, 200 million Muslims in India, and a fairly short while ago, they had 14 million,” Trump said. India had about 35 million Muslims in 1951, according to the first census after independence, or about 9.8% of the population. The 201 million Muslims today are 14.2% of the population. Later, Trump was asked again about the citizenship law. “I don’t want to discuss that, and hopefully they’re going to make the right decision for the people,” he said.The question was awkward for Trump, who has drawn criticism for his own anti-immigrant policies, including his travel ban. During the 2016 campaign, Trump suggested barring all Muslims from entering the country. After he took office, he issued an executive order banning visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries, but that was overturned by federal courts. A later version was upheld and was expanded this month to impose varying visa restrictions on nationals from 13 countries, including several that are not Muslim-majority. Trump defended the restrictions again Tuesday while insisting they are not intended to single out Muslims.The 45-minute news conference, at the ITC Maruya Hotel, followed a day of meetings and statements intended to show the close relationship between Washington and New Delhi. Trump then attended a state banquet before boarding Air Force One for his flight home. Though the sides failed to reach a comprehensive trade deal, Trump claimed victory on smaller agreements to increase trade and expand cooperation in other areas, including efforts to control opioid abuse.For Trump, a massive public rally Monday at a new cricket stadium in Ahmedabad — complete with elaborate dancing, Bollywood stars and deafening applause — clearly was the highlight of his visit. “When I look at 125,000 seats and that was an incredible scene,” he said Tuesday. “It was an incredible thing. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”Stokols reported from New Delhi and Bierman from Washington.

“Somebody here’s thinking, Ohhhh, Cory Booker’s going to talk about looove,” Booker told the crowd in North Liberty. “Is this about who has the best 15-point plan? No. I think I do. But no. This election is about which leaders—plural—can inspire us again to see each other’s hope and promise.” Though this gushy, gauzy stuff might seem to be out of step with the crush-the-opposition partisanship of the moment, the people who were signing cards commiting to caucus for him—”Look at that stack!” he said when he saw the size of the pile—seemed to have eaten it up, saying they were just looking for someone to be kind.County chairs and local politicians kept coming out for him, even into last week. “He has the strongest message,” Tim Horrigan, a New Hampshire state representative who endorsed Booker on Thursday morning, told me late last week. “He’s totally the antithesis of Trump and also somebody who could heal the damage that Trump has done.” Bryce Smith, the chair of the Dallas County, Texas, Democrats, who endorsed Booker at the end of December, told me that he personally had been won over by how Booker seems to “ooze his love for everyone,” and that he believed a “silent momentum” of elected officials and activists could help Booker win on caucus night.Booker tried to make the case that his candidacy would bring what Democratic primary voters have been looking for all along: unity. Enthusiasm. Energy. Youthfulness. The high black turnout that might actually be the deciding factor in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan.But to Booker’s frustration, a party that likes to see itself as representing America’s multicultural future is being dominated by candidates who are mostly old, white, rich, and male—making it impossible for the candidate best positioned to beat Donald Trump to break through. “Yes, we could lose this election,” Booker told me last week. “We need to elect the right person that can excite record turnouts, really have a wave election. I’m very concerned about it. Yes, I’m absolutely concerned about it.”What comes next for Booker and his team? Booker built an extensive operation in Iowa. Those organizers are now up for grabs. Meanwhile, Booker himself immediately moves to the top of potential-running-mate lists; he’s possibly the only man who would make the shortlist if one of the male candidates becomes the presidential nominee—and he’d be a natural running mate for either Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar.Booker’s supporters are also up for grabs. Many I’ve spoken with seem inclined to gravitate toward Warren, though some like Buttigieg as well. In a race that’s heading into the final three weeks in a four-way tie, his supporters could make the difference here in Iowa, and be an important element in determining the nominee.“Don’t make this Iowa-caucus decision out of fear,” he said at his last events. “Make it out of faith.” Edward-Isaac Dovereis a staff writer atThe Atlantic.

Enlarge this image Protesters of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh protest while wearing costumes from The Handmaid's Tale during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP Protesters of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh protest while wearing costumes from The Handmaid's Tale during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Wednesday was Day 2 of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh and it gave members of the Senate Judiciary Committee a chance to question the Trump nominee publicly and one-on-one. There were more protests, and much talk of precedent.Here are some of the highlights:1. More protestsJust like on Tuesday, there were sporadic interruptions of the hearing throughout the day by protesters in the Hart Building hearing room. The protests became so frequent at times that they began to seem a part of the ambiance. U.S. Capitol Police quickly and sometimes roughly moved the protesters out of the room before many of them could be clearly heard. Politics WATCH LIVE: Kavanaugh Defends Controversial Abortion, Gun-Control Dissents "What a bunch of dumbbells," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was overheard saying.At least one of the protesters was dressed as a character from television's The Handmaid's Tale, in a crimson robe and white bonnet, shouting, "Stop Kavanaugh. Our bodies, our choice," as she was dragged out. Another activist shouted "disabled people have human rights." Capitol Police reported 73 arrests Wednesday. Politics Kavanaugh Hearings, Day 1: Protesters Focus On Roe; Attempted Handshake Goes Viral At the start of the hearing Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, accused Democrats of coordinating with protesters, which Democrats deny. President Trump weighed in on the protests, too. In an interview Wednesday, Trump lashed out at the demonstrators, saying, "I think it's embarrassing for the country to allow protesters. You don't even know what side the protesters are on." Trump said, "In the old days, we used to throw them out. Today, I guess they just keep screaming."2. Kavanaugh on hiring women law clerksThe judge has made more than one mention of his mother, Martha Kavanaugh, who he said introduced him to law. She was a prosecutor and later a state circuit court judge in Montgomery County, Md. On Wednesday, Kavanaugh said his mother showed him "the importance of women's equality." Her example and a newspaper article citing the scarcity of female clerks on the Supreme Court inspired him to hire three women as clerks when he became a federal appeals court judge in 2006. Enlarge this image Judge Brett Kavanaugh parents, Martha Kavanaugh and Everett Edward Kavanaugh, look on as he testifies during the second day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearings Wednesday. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images Judge Brett Kavanaugh parents, Martha Kavanaugh and Everett Edward Kavanaugh, look on as he testifies during the second day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearings Wednesday. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images "I've been very aggressive in hiring the best" clerks, Kavanaugh said, and understanding that "the best include women." Kavanaugh said he has hired 25 women clerks, of whom 21 have gone on to serve as clerks on the Supreme Court, calling them "an awesome group." If confirmed, he said he would continue the practice.Kavanaugh was also asked about his association with former Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, who resigned late last year after several women, including former law clerks, accused him of inappropriate touching and forcing them to view pornography in his chambers.Kavanaugh, who clerked for Kozinski in the early 1990s, called the revelation "a gut punch." He said he spoke with Kozinski "not often," after his clerkship, although he did work with him and 11 others on a book on judicial precedent. Kavanaugh said, "No woman should be subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace, ever, including in the judiciary, especially in the judiciary."3. Precedents, and "precedent on precedent" Enlarge this image Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh thumbs through a well-worn, pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the second day of his confirmation hearings Wednesday. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh thumbs through a well-worn, pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the second day of his confirmation hearings Wednesday. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Maybe it was the book he co-authored on the topic, but Kavanaugh spent a lot of time Wednesday talking about precedents, and how they guide his judicial thinking. Much of that discussion centered on Roe v. Wade, in which the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. Kavanaugh said Roe "was settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court." Responding to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kavanaugh also spoke about a subsequent Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe but also narrowed its scope. Casey, Kavanaugh said, was "precedent on precedent." Politics Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings To Focus On 6 Hot-Button Issues What that indicates about how Kavanaugh might rule on, say, a state law restricting abortion access is unclear.Kavanaugh also cited precedent in answers to questions ranging from his position against a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant who sought an abortion (Kavanaugh was dissenting, in the minority), to his opinion in a case involving the National Labor Relations Board, in which he voted to reverse the board's decision that undocumented workers qualified as employees and could vote in an election to form a union (again dissenting, in the minority). Politics Brett Kavanaugh Investigated A President, Then Voiced Concerns About Doing Just That Kavanaugh said precedent is part of the stability and predictability of the American legal system. He also said precedent contributes to the independence of judges and the ability of people and organizations to rely on judicial opinions in ordering their affairs.But Kavanaugh allowed that the high court reverses its own precedents from time to time. He pointed to one such reversal — Brown v. Board of Education, which ended the "separate but equal" doctrine — as "the single greatest moment in Supreme Court history."He also cited the notion of precedent as controlling what he was willing to discuss with senators during his confirmation hearings. Kavanaugh said his predecessors, including current members of the Supreme Court, when they had been nominees would not answer questions about how they would rule or even if they would take up various "hypothetical cases," including whether the president must comply with a subpoena, or could pardon himself. Pointing to this past practice, Kavanaugh refused to engage on such questions Wednesday when posed by lawmakers.4. If memory serves ...In a tense exchange before the close of the day's hearing, California Sen. Kamala Harris asked Kavanaugh a direct question about whether he had talked about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference with anyone at Kasowitz Benson Torres, a law firm where President Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, is a partner.Kavanaugh hesitated."Be sure about your answer, sir," said Harris, who served as California's attorney general before being elected to the Senate in 2016.What followed was a back and forth in which Harris struggled to get a definitive response from Kavanaugh while the nominee seemed to be trying to circumscribe his answer, suggesting that he did not remember and asking for the name of a specific person in the firm with whom he may have spoken.As Politico notes: "Harris offered no further context for her line of questioning with Kavanaugh, which suggested that he may have discussed an investigation affecting Trump with Trump-connected lawyers but lacked any solid proof. The only explanation for the back-and-forth came from a Democratic aide speaking on condition of anonymity, who said Wednesday night that some in the party 'have reason to believe that a conversation happened and are continuing to pursue it.'" It was a long day for all involved, with Kavanaugh being questioned for some 11 hours. And Thursday they're back at it for a second round.

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. How a pandemic exposed – and may help fix – inequalities in education"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.

closeVideoImpeachment question: Where is the line between a policy disagreement and abuse of power?Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, member of President Donald Trump's legal team, answers a question at the Senate trial of President Trump.Republican senators are sounding more optimistic they have the votes to soon end the impeachment trial of President Trump and shut down a wildcard phase of calling witnesses.Despite Democrats’ drumbeat on the need to call witnesses like former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Republicans have signaled there’s growing momentum to shut down the trial sometime after the question phase concludes Thursday night -- though exactly how that plays out is an open question.“I think, by that time, people will have heard enough,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told "Fox News @ Night." “They will have learned what they need to know about this case. And the plan is for Friday to vote. And the momentum is moving to say we've heard enough. Let's move to final judgment.”JUSTICE ROBERTS BLOCKS SEN. PAUL FROM NAMING WHISTLEBLOWER, SOURCE SAYS – AND PAUL MAY FORCE THE ISSUESen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., was optimistic impeachment could end as soon as late Friday if the witness vote fails and senators move to acquit the president.“Obviously, I think we’re going to push to finish Friday,” Rounds said Wednesday night after the dinner break with his caucus.Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., also cautiously upbeat, said if the witness votes fails, he’d like to see the Senate move swiftly toward an acquittal. Video“My personal preference would be let's move quickly to close it out. But, that will probably be a group decision,” Thune said.On Friday, senators will take the fateful vote on whether to continue the trial by subpoenaing witnesses and documents. After the trial begins at 1 p.m., the House managers and White House lawyers will have four hours, equally divided, to debate the merits of bringing Bolton and others to testify.Democrats would need at least four Republicans to join with them to get 51 votes needed to pass.Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he believes there are at least three Republicans who are seriously considering witnesses. “We need more,” he acknowledged Thursday.GOP Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the three senators who have consistently signaled a willingness to join with Democrats."The fate of much of the future of how this republic conducts itself is on the shoulders of four Republicans," said Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.Video"A trial without truth, without key evidence, without witnesses and documents would render the president's acquittal meaningless," Schumer added. "A giant asterisk next to it, because the trial was so rigged in his favor."If the vote on witnesses fails Friday, there’s little else governing the next steps of the trial, except that the floor would be open to motions. Schumer declined to say what motions he’d seek, except that “the minority has rights and we’ll exercise those rights.”Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have first dibs on next steps and can put forth his initial proposal on how he’d like to end the trial. An up-or-down vote on acquittal could take place on Saturday.Republicans hammered the case that if they open the door to witnesses, the Senate could become a circus. Deposing witnesses and potentially heading to court if Trump exerts executive privilege would just prolong the inevitable acquittal of the president, they argue. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has continually warned that if Democrats get Bolton, the GOP has the votes to haul in other witnesses Democrats don't want to see, including Hunter Biden.Opening up the witness phase would be the like “wild west” with votes on who and what would be subpoenaed, Thune said.“It's completely unknown territory. And there's a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability about what might happen next," he said.With swing state Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona saying they are ready to shut down the trial, Republicans have been increasingly talking about ending the proceedings.“It’s time to vote,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said.

Natasha Noel was selected as one of the BBC's 100 Women for 2019. She overcame childhood abuse to become a successful yoga and wellness coach. The body positivity influencer uses social media to talk about tough subjects, including her own her traumatic childhood and the death of her mother. She says that she has always had a complicated relationship with her body throughout her life. But when she started practising yoga, she found a new love for herself and her body. Video by BBC Marathi's Janhavee Moole and Piyush Nagpal

Johnson helped set the tone of British euroskepticism as a journalist, gave it moderate respectability as a politician, and then played an instrumental role, if not the instrumental role, in its eventual triumph. He has come to dominate our national life here in Britain. He is loved and loathed, a source of fun and fury, but he is everywhere, and always Boris, the clown who cannot be contained or stopped, whose rise to the pinnacle of British life was somehow inevitable.It is perhaps for these reasons that the news of Johnson’s sudden deterioration came as such a jolt to so many, unnerving even those implacably opposed to him. The feeling seemed to be: If COVID-19 can lay Johnson low, what about me? I received messages from old friends I’d assumed to be hostile asking about his condition. Johnson’s lightness, his positivity, seemed to be missing. Maybe his relentlessly positive outlook contributed to the scale of the crisis, perhaps not, but there was a feeling that at least he offered some kind of hope.The response to his hospitalization pointed to his national appeal. Does he allow people to pretend everything will be okay? To take the risks they want, to behave irresponsibly or irrationally? Robbed of the reassurance he offered, did the country panic just a little bit? With Brexit, he rejected the “doomsters and the gloomsters” and convinced people—once during the referendum, and again in December’s general election—to take a leap into the unknown. This time, his tentative leadership and reluctance to impose tougher restrictions look to have made the crisis worse, but his poll ratings nevertheless jumped.What has always been so curious in writing about Johnson is the sense of destiny that has attached itself to him through his life. From the moment I can remember Johnson bursting into the public consciousness on Have I Got News for You, Britain’s biggest TV political-satire show, his future rise was a matter of national discussion. That he would one day become prime minister was commonly accepted. Yet there was always a darker side to the speculation—that upon reaching the top, he would either burn bright or explode in public view, perhaps both. Even his family and friends were concerned that his premiership would be a disaster.Most of those I spoke with before he became prime minister thought Brexit would be this disaster, yet his term has been marked by extraordinary success, politically at least. This was a man who constantly flirted with danger, who indeed appeared to be drawn to it, but who—until the coronavirus crisis—was barely touched by it.The pandemic may yet prove to be this calamity. Perhaps history or the electorate will judge him for not taking it seriously enough, for acting too slowly or too reluctantly. At first, there had been a glint in his eye, a smirking irony in his repetition of the government’s hand-washing message. Then when the news emerged that he’d contracted the virus, it seemed little more than an inconvenience with a whiff of farce thrown in, even as most of the country were experiencing the national lockdown. How had the prime minister, his chief medical officer, and his health secretary allowed themselves to be infected at the same time? Was it indicative of his lack of seriousness—and the country’s? There was even comedy about this moment too, reflected in the memes and jokes circulating on the nation’s phones. His sudden deterioration came just as things in the country at large were getting worse. Johnson had not been laid low saving the day like Horatio Nelson, leading Britain through its modern-day Battle of Trafalgar. Instead, he appeared to be living the crisis itself.

But the polls also make clear that Trump’s party is paying a heavy price for his decision to so closely align Republicans with the priorities and resentments of the constituencies most uneasy with what America is becoming. The numbers vary, but Trump rarely attracts even one-third of adults younger than 35. Trump lost minority voters by more than 50 percentage points in 2016 and usually draws support from only about one-fourth of them now. (Still, some Democrats worry he might slightly nudge up his support from 2016 among Black and Latino men.) Among the growing group of adults unaffiliated with any religious tradition, Pew found Biden winning more than seven in 10 voters.The sharpest movement away from the GOP in the Trump era has come among well-educated white Americans. Until 2016, no Democrat had ever won white voters with a college degree in either the media exit polls (tracing back to the 1970s), or the University of Michigan’s American National Election Studies surveys (extending back to 1952). In 2016, the exit polls showed Trump narrowly carrying these voters, but some other data sources, including the ANES, gave Clinton the edge. Two years later, the midterm exit polls for House races showed Democrats winning college-educated white women comfortably, but losing the men narrowly, putting the party at 53 percent with college-educated white voters overall.Most of the new polls over the past two weeks show Biden with much higher support: From 57 to 61 percent of college-educated white voters support him. Those numbers are unprecedented—as is Biden’s lead among both college-educated white men and women. As recently as the GOP midterm sweeps of 2010 and 2014, Democrats won only about one-third of college-educated white men. Given these patterns, the tendency of Democrats since 2000 to run better among white Americans with a college education than those without one—what I’ve called “the class inversion”—is on track to reach its all-time peak.Trump’s appeals to cultural conservatives have compounded his difficulties with those well-educated white voters, GOP strategists I’ve spoken with acknowledge. Tom Davis, a former Republican representative from suburban northern Virginia, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee during his years in the House, told me there’s an audience of suburban white voters “who are disgusted” with the violence during recent protests and the calls to defund the police. But overall, he believes, Trump’s arguments are backfiring. “They’re overplaying this with a blunt force that is not the way to appeal to college-educated people that like to feel they are open-minded and open to diversity,” said Davis, now a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Holland & Knight.Nick Gourevitch, a Democratic pollster, agrees. “White-grievance politics reinforces the battle lines of the last three years,” he told me. Which side that helps, he said, depends on whether you believe those battle lines are good or bad for Trump. “I’ve always felt that those battle lines are not good for him and that he doesn’t win with them,” Gourevitch continued. “I don’t think there is any real evidence that this is gaining him anybody other than the people who like him to begin with.”

Rockets, many carrying tons of TNT, would rain on Israel; drones armed with payloads would crash into crucial facilities, military and civilian. During the Second Lebanon War, in 2006, the rate of such fire reached between 200 and 300 projectiles a day. Today, it might reach as high as 4,000. The majority of the weapons in Hezbollah’s arsenal are standoff missiles with fixed trajectories that can be tracked and intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome system. But Iron Dome is 90 percent effective on average, meaning that for every 100 rockets, 10 get through, and the seven operational batteries are incapable of covering the entire country. All of Israel, from Metulla in the north to the southern port city of Eilat, would be in range of enemy fire.But precision-guided missiles, growing numbers of which are in Iranian arsenals, pose a far deadlier threat. Directed by joysticks, many can change destinations mid-flight. The David’s Sling system, developed in conjunction with the United States, can stop them—in theory, because it has never been tested in combat. And each of its interceptors costs $1 million. Even if it is not physically razed, Israel can be bled economically.First, though, it would be paralyzed. If rockets fall near Ben-Gurion Airport, as during Israel’s 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza, it will close to international traffic. Israel’s ports, through which a major portion of its food and essential supplies are imported, may also shut down, and its electrical grids could be severed. Iran has honed its hacking tools in recent years and Israel, though a world leader in cyberdefense, cannot entirely protect its vital utilities. Millions of Israelis would huddle in bomb shelters. Hundreds of thousands would be evacuated from border areas that terrorists are trying to infiltrate. The restaurants and hotels would empty, along with the offices of the high-tech companies of the start-up nation. The hospitals, many of them resorting to underground facilities, would quickly be overwhelmed, even before the skies darken with the toxic fumes of blazing chemical factories and oil refineries.Israel would, of course, respond. Its planes and artillery would return fire, and the IDF would mobilize. More than twice the size of the French and British armies combined—at least on paper—the IDF can call up, equip, and deploy tens of thousands of seasoned reservists in less than 24 hours. But where would it send them? Most of the rockets would be launched from southern Lebanon, where the launchers are embedded in some 200 villages. Others would be fired from Gaza, where Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both backed by Iran, have at least 10,000 rockets. But longer-range missiles, including the deadly Shahab-3, would reach Israel from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran itself. This presents a daunting challenge to the Israeli Air Force, which does not possess strategic bombers capable of reaching Iran and must grapple with the advanced Russian anti-aircraft weapons situated in Syria. Israeli ground troops would be forced to move into Lebanon and Gaza, house-to-house, while special forces would be dispatched deep within Syria and Iraq. Israel’s own conventional missiles could devastate Iranian targets.

SAN DIEGO -- A Trump administration immigration policy that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. courts was blocked and then reinstated by a court in the matter of hours, creating chaos at border crossings, courtrooms and legal offices.A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put the policy on hold midday Friday, delivering a setback to a policy that has become one of President Donald Trump's signature efforts to restrict immigration.But by the end of the day, the court allowed the program to go back into effect after the Justice Department argued that its suspension will prompt migrants to overrun the border and endanger national security. The White House argued that the suspension of the policy would overwhelm the nation's immigration system, damage relations with the government of Mexico and increase the risk of outbreak from the new coronavirus.Customs and Border Protection closed one border crossing leading into El Paso after the initial decision. Government attorneys said immigration lawyers had begun demanding that asylum seekers be allowed in the United States, with one insisting that 1,000 people be allowed to enter at one location.The program was instituted last year and has sent about 60,000 asylum seekers back to Mexico. Immigration lawyers and advocates say the program is a humanitarian disaster, subjecting migrants to violence, kidnapping and extortion in dangerous Mexican border cities. Hundreds more have been living in squalid encampments just across the border.The immediate response by immigrants and their lawyers to the initial decision Friday reflects the growing frustration on the part of asylum seekers who have been waiting for months in areas of Mexico that even the U.S. State Department urges people not to visit because of crime and kidnapping.Representatives from the group Human Rights First hand-delivered a copy of the decision Friday to CBP officers at a bridge connecting Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Lawyers were hoping to get their clients before U.S. immigration court judges.Blocking the program has become a top priority for immigrant advocates. Maya Ivars, an attorney for Al Otro Lado, a LA-based legal advocacy group, said volunteer lawyers from around the country booked flights to San Diego after the policy was blocked.A Venezuelan mother showed up at a border crossing in Tijuana with her 1-year-old son Friday after an attorney assisting her on her asylum bid texted her about the policy being halted. She came immediately to the border to ask border inspectors that she be allowed in the U.S., arriving with about a dozen families — about 30 people total -- around the same time the court suspended its own order.A government official told an attorney for the group to wait at the turnstile gates to the U.S.Liliana González, 32, got a phone call from an attorney Friday that the policy was halted and that she should pack her belongings. Her husband and three children, ages 13, 6 and 4, packed their bags and a suitcase and checked out of their migrant shelter.Friday’s developments caused whiplash.“It’s somewhat confusing,” Gonzalez said. “You believe, you don’t believe. Let’s see what God says. Let’s see what the law says.”The family fled gang threats in El Salvador and has been living in Tijuana for a year, waiting more than seven months just to file an initial claim. Their first court hearing in San Diego was Feb. 18.The decision interrupted some court cases. Immigration Judge Philip Law in San Diego delayed a final hearing on a Honduran man's asylum case to April 17 after a government attorney couldn’t answer his questions about the effect of ruling. The attorney said she asked her supervisor how to address the ruling and that he didn’t know what to do either.In El Paso, an administrator came to tell a judge of the ruling as he heard the case of a Central American mother and her partner. The couple cried when they learned they could get into the U.S. with restrictions. The couple and their two young children were put into government detention to wait for the next steps in their case.“Do you guys understand that?” Judge Nathan Herbert asked through an interpreter. “There was a pretty significant change in the law in the middle of your testimony.”The three-judge panel told the government to file written arguments by the end of Monday and for the plaintiffs to respond by the end of Tuesday.ACLU attorney Judy Rabinovitz called the suspension of Friday's order "a temporary step."“We will continue working to permanently end this unspeakably cruel policy,” she said.Christopher Landau, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said in a court filing that halting the policy creates "substantial risk of immediate chaos on the border."The ambassador said the policy is critical to deterring “uncontrolled of third-country migrants through Mexico to the United States” and that halting it would encourage more asylum-seekers to come and “obliterate the substantial progress that both countries have made over the last year.”The “Remain in Mexico” policy, known officially as "Migrant Protection Protocols," took effect in January 2019 in San Diego and gradually spread across the southern border. About 60,000 people have been sent back to wait for hearings, and officials believe it is a big reason why illegal border crossings plummeted about 80% from a 13-year high in May.Asylum has been granted in less than 1% of the roughly 35,000 Remain in Mexico cases that have been decided. Only 5% are represented by attorneys, many of whom are reluctant to visit clients in Mexico.Judge William Fletcher, writing the majority, sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups who argued the policy violates international treaty obligations against sending people back to a country where they are likely to be persecuted or tortured.Fletcher agreed the government set the bar too high for asylum-seekers to persuade officers that they should be exempt from the policy and didn't provide enough time for them to prepare for interviews or consult lawyers.Fletcher quoted at length asylum-seekers who reported being assaulted and victimized in Mexico, saying it was “enough — indeed, far more than enough” to undercut the government's arguments.Fletcher was joined by Judge Richard Paez, who were both appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton. Judge Ferdinand Fernandez, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, dissented.The appeals court in San Francisco also decided to keep another major Trump policy on hold, one that denies asylum to anyone who enters the U.S. illegally from Mexico.The chaotic day at the border comes at a time when the Trump administration has won a series of favorable rulings in the court to allow its hard-line immigration policies to remain in effect. There's also an intense fight over the use of injunctions like the one that briefly put the Remain in Mexico policy on hold.The Supreme Court has allowed Trump to divert Defense Department money to border wall construction, backed rules disqualifying more people from green cards if they use government benefits and upheld a travel ban affecting several Muslim-majority countries.———Associated Press Writer Cedar Attansio contributed to this report from El Paso, Texas.

At the very least, neither the coronavirus crisis nor the supposed wage effects can justify a categorical ban that applies to virtually all immigrants seeking permanent residency, regardless of their circumstances and regardless of whether the individuals in question pose any kind of public-health or economic risk.Trump’s new immigration restriction is also a dangerous constitutional-power grab. Like Trump’s earlier, more limited “travel bans,” the new policy relies on 8 U.S.C. Section 1182(f), which gives the president the power to bar entry into the U.S. by any foreign national he deems “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” In Trump v. Hawaii, the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that upheld Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority nations, Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion interpreted this language as giving the president virtually unconstrained power to exclude any foreigners for any reason, so long as he claims—even without evidence—that their entry might harm American “interests.”Trump v. Hawaii did not consider the possibility that this view of Section 1182 violates the “nondelegation” doctrine: the principle that Congress cannot delegate sweeping lawmaking power to the executive. In last year’s ruling in Gundy v. United States, both liberal and conservative justices indicated the real limits on that delegation of power. In a dissenting opinion joined by two other conservatives, Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasized that the Constitution does not allow the president to exercise “the power to adopt generally applicable rules of conduct governing future actions by private persons.” Only Congress may do that. Justice Elena Kagan’s plurality opinion for the Court held that Congress may not give the president “‘unguided’ and ‘unchecked’ authority” to determine the scope of a law, especially when violations carry criminal penalties. Trump’s use of Section 1182 to impose a sweeping ban on immigration pretty obviously makes “generally applicable rules of conduct” for private parties—many millions of them. The recent extension and expansion of the policy applies these rules to even more people. Just as clearly, the idea that the president can exclude any potential immigrant for any reason, subject to the imposition of criminal penalties for violators, is a case of “‘unguided’ and ‘unchecked’ authority,” if anything is.If we are serious about nondelegation limits on presidential power—as conservatives, in particular, claim we should be—then the courts must either strike down Section 1182(f) or rethink the broad interpretation of the law adopted in Trump v. Hawaii. For its part, Congress should consider repealing Section 1182, or at least imposing tighter limits on its scope. Unless and until that happens, Trump’s green-card and employment-visa bans will remain dangerous precedents for future presidents.We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected]. Ilya Sominis Professor of Law at George Mason University, and author ofFree to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.

Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has given a ringing endorsement to Boris Johnson and Brexit, offering a pointer as to which European capitals are likely to be friendliest to post-Brexit Britain.Orbán said Johnson and Donald Trump were “the most courageous, the most dynamic and the most ready to effect change” of all the politicians in the world today. The admiration is mutual: it emerged this week that Tim Montgomerie, a former aide of Johnson, said he expected Britain and Hungary to forge a “special relationship” after Brexit, and praised Orbán’s thinking on the “limits of liberalism”.Most European leaders have expressed their dismay at Brexit, but Orbán, who believes Europe is “under attack” from Muslim migrants and has claimed the Jewish Hungarian-American philanthropist and financier George Soros has a plot to destroy Europe, said he is a fan.“They have opened this vast door of opportunities for themselves. I’m sure there is a success story that will be written there,” said Orbán, during his annual press conference in Budapest on Thursday. He implied that if Hungary had the same financial, diplomatic and military strength as Britain, it may also have considered leaving the bloc.His comments came as Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, warned in a speech in Sweden that failure to seal a deal on trade over the next 11 months would damage the UK more than the 27 remaining member states.“Yes, the UK represents 9% of all EU27 trade. But more significantly, the EU27 accounts for 43% of all UK exports and 50% of its imports,” Barnier said. “So, it is clear that if we fail to reach a deal, it will be more harmful for the UK than for the EU27.”Also on Thursday, Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenković, warned that negotiations over access to British waters for the EU fishing fleet had the potential to end in a repeat of the cod wars of the 1970s, when the UK was forced to deploy the Royal Navy to deal with outbreaks of violence on the seas.Speaking as his country assumed the six-month presidency of the EU council , Plenković said he “never thought Brexit was a very bright idea”. Viktor Orbán at a conference on persecuted Christians in Budapest. He is a proponent of the far-right conspiracy theory of the ‘Great Replacement’. Photograph: Zsolt Szigetváry/EPAOrbán, however, criticised European leaders who thought Brussels held the cards in the negotiations and called on Europe to be “generous” during the next 11 months. “I think the EU misunderstands the situation, because they believe that a good relationship with UK is the Brits’ interest, but it is our interest too, the other members of the EU,” he said.He paid a lengthy tribute to Johnson’s election victory last month. “The whole world was against him: the liberal leftist media, the global Soros network and all the tools of the pro-remain EU, but just because he and the British people believe in democracy, they’ve done it,” said Orbán.The Hungarian prime minister has been in power since 2010, and in 2018 he won a third consecutive term. His government is in trouble with Brussels over corruption and rule of law issues, and has spent the past five years campaigning relentlessly on the supposed threat to “Christian Europe” from migration.Orbán has promoted conspiracy theories, usually with antisemitic undertones, about the overarching influence of George Soros in Hungary and across Europe, and has also tapped into another far-right conspiracy theory, that of the “great replacement”.He has built a fence along the country’s border with Serbia, and his government has been accused by human rights groups of starving migrants by denying them food in the transit zones where they must process asylum claims.While all this has been criticised by rights groups and many European politicians, Montgomerie, a former journalist who was hired as a senior adviser to Johnson last September, praised the Hungarian government’s ideology, saying there was a lot for Britain to learn from Orbán, and promising close relations with the country after Brexit.“Budapest and Hungary have been home, I think, for an awful lot of interesting early thinking on the limits of liberalism, and I think we are seeing that in the UK as well. So I hope there will be a special relationship with Hungary amongst other states,” said Montgomerie, in a speech to a thinktank in Budapest last month, comments that were posted online and first uncovered by Buzzfeed News earlier this week.On Thursday No 10 described Montgomerie as a “former adviser” without giving a reason for his departure.

Andrew Yang has become the top recipient of Asian American donations among the Democratic presidential candidates.Yang received about $1.42 million from the Asian American community in the third quarter, according to filings with Federal Election Commission analyzed by AAPI Data, a policy and demographic research organization. It's a jump from the first quarter, when Yang placed fifth, drawing $119,440.Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder of AAPI Data, said in an interview that Yang, a technology entrepreneur who founded Venture for America, a nonprofit that promotes job creation, is in a "virtuous cycle" as his name recognition has grown since the first quarter, further fueling his campaign."People have seen him as more viable. Therefore, they're more likely to contribute to his campaign, and the cycle continues," Ramakrishnan said. "The fundraising has helped him qualify for the debates and also be taken more seriously as a candidate."According AAPI Data's analysis, former Vice President Joe Biden remains second among Asian American donors, drawing $846,000, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts moved from the fifth to third, with $738,000. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey was at the top in the first quarter, but he is now fifth in Asian American contributions, with $393,000.The Morning RundownGet a head start on the morning's top stories.But the Asian American donor population may not perfectly reflect the group's voting population, said Christine Chen, executive director of APIAVote, a nonpartisan civic engagement nonprofit. She said the donor community tends to be less diverse than the overall Asian American and Pacific Islander group, or AAPI, with the lion's share of donors traditionally made up of Chinese American and Indian American contributors."The AAPI population is comprised of diverse economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but the donor population oftentimes reflects folks of certain socioeconomic status," she said. "This is changing, but, overall, the AAPI donor population is less diverse than the actual AAPI voting population."Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politicsFor example, in California, the state with the racial group's largest population, a joint survey of Democratic favorability among eligible AAPI voters conducted by AAPI Data and the Public Religion Research Institute indicated that 22 percent found Yang favorable, while 41 percent "haven't heard enough" about him. In comparison, 45 percent found Biden favorable.Donors are motivated by a variety of factors, such as candidates' ideological preferences, their own policy preferences and the degree to which they feel inspired by or close to a candidate, Ramakrishnan said. But a key driving force is contributors' perception of a candidate's viability.While Yang's perceived likelihood of winning has risen, Booker is experiencing the opposite, appearing less viable over time, making it more difficult to draw contributions not just from Asian Americans but also from the larger donor population, Ramakrishnan said.Yang hasn't taken Asian American support for granted, Ramakrishnan said. He was one of just three presidential hopefuls who showed for the first Asian American and Pacific Islander Democratic Presidential Forum, where he not only made news for crowd-surfing but also talked candidly about the bullying he dealt with in his youth as the son of Taiwanese immigrants.Ramakrishnan said many Asian Americans have held well-attended fundraisers for Yang. Ultimately, Yang "has showed up to events and fundraisers to deepen his level of awareness and maybe get financial support," he said.On Thursday, the campaigns of Yang and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., both announced that they had surpassed their previous fundraising records in the fourth quarter. Biden also announced that he had his best fundraising quarter to date.

I’m an immigrant—and I’m not alone. Padma Lakshmi opens each episode of her new Hulu series Taste the Nation with that mantra, and it’s one that’s powering the food author and TV host during the Trump administration’s all-out war on immigrants, from the “Muslim ban” and separating children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border to the recent suspension of immigrant-worker visas through 2021. “I find this disconnect between the policies that are made in Washington and how they actually affect people on the ground,” says Lakshmi. “I think it should be a requirement for each of these lawmakers deciding on immigration policy to embed themselves in these communities and see what life is like, and see if these people pose as much of a threat as they think they do.” With each episode of Taste the Nation, Lakshmi has done just that—planting herself within a community to learn more about its inhabitants through their food. Whether it’s Mexican-American folks at the border or South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee, the descendants of West-African slaves, Lakshmi’s mission is to shed light on the real things that make America great. The Top Chef host and bestselling food author was drawn to this pursuit by none other than Trump, whose xenophobic policies run contra to everything she holds dear, having immigrated to the U.S. from India at the age of 4. She currently serves as an ACLU ambassador for immigrants’ and women’s rights, and is the co-founder of The Endometriosis Foundation of America, having been diagnosed with the disease at 36. “My role is to say, hey, we really need to pay attention to this—whether it’s the rights of immigrants (or the glorious food they bring to this country), or women’s health, or women’s reproductive rights,” she says. The Daily Beast spoke with Lakshmi about the state of the restaurant industry amid the pandemic, whether restaurants should reopen, and why white chefs need to give credit where it’s due. Taste the Nation is one of the first of these shows to feature a woman of color as its host. What does that mean to you to have reached this summit in a food world that is so dominated by white men? I’ve been wanting this for a long time. But to be fair, there is Samin Nosrat who hosts Salt Fat Acid Heat, so I’m not the first. For a show of this kind I am, I guess. It feels great. I started twenty years ago, and this is a long time coming. I’ve been waiting to create my own show and it’s a game-changer to do your own material. Sexism is so baked into the food world. It’s always baffled me, as someone who enjoys food, how it’s run by white men given that women have historically done more cooking. That’s how the patriarchy works, man. It’s the most male-dominated white industry you can find. Even though the professional food world is the second biggest private employer in this country, it is very white-male dominated. But so is every profession, right? The immigrant experience is front and center in Taste the Nation. Was that focus inspired by Trump’s anti-immigrant stance and the xenophobic atmosphere he’s fostered? It was totally because of that. Shortly after the election, I started getting really involved with immigrant rights and immigrant issues with the ACLU, because within what felt like days of his presidency, he institute the Muslim ban. And forced separation at the border existed before but not in this way, and not as widely, or as intensely, or as cruelly. If you look at who donates to his campaign, it’s also the private prison system. The show is a direct result of my work with the ACLU on immigrant issues, but I’ve been thinking about these things for a long time. These are the kinds of foods that I’m interested in, because to me, they’re the most exciting corridors of the American culinary scene. Was it informed by your own immigrant experience? It’s easy to feel like an outsider as a person of color in America. I always felt like an outsider looking in. There was a club that had an invisible membership that I couldn’t unlock, and I think most immigrant kids feel that way, and most people of color feel that way. But I got tired of people talking about what “real” American food is. “Real” American food is what Americans are really eating, and that’s not meatloaf and mashed potatoes. They may eat that too but it’s actually tacos, shawarma, General Tso’s chicken, pad thai, burritos, poke, hummus. That’s not American! You want to know what’s really American? What Native Americans traditionally ate, and that’s “The Three Sisters” dish, which contains corn, squash, and beans. That’s what’s indigenous to North America. In the El Paso episode, we meet a Syrian-American restaurant owner who claims to love Mexicans yet supports Trump. How do you reconcile those two things? And does it then feel futile to try to reach someone like that? To me, Maynard Haddad is indicative of millions of people across this country who separate their political views from their daily personal and professional lives. Like, “I’m against immigration but of course I like Lee sitting across the cubicle from me from China.” Well, Lee is going to be sent home because his H-1B visa is going to be revoked, and the only way you can stop that is by not voting for Trump! There’s such a disconnect, and it’s also very complex. People are layered and compartmentalize their lives. In that moment obviously I disagree with him, and obviously every bone in my body wanted me to say, “That is hogwash! How can you vote Republican?” But that man has been sitting in that rocking chair in that very spot for 63 years, so nothing I say to him will change his worldview in one afternoon. And had I attempted to take him to task, I would have gotten a lot less from him. He is who he is and it’s not my job to change his mind. It’s my job to show the audience at home that you know these people, you walk among them, and we all have our versions of Maynard Haddad in our community. “Well, Lee is going to be sent home because his H-1B visa is going to be revoked, and the only way you can stop that is by not voting for Trump!”The guiding principle seems to be that food brings us together. Was the show influenced by the late Anthony Bourdain at all, who also held tightly to that principle? Tony was a friend and I’m more influenced by Tony’s writing, actually. That show that he did for years and years was a show based on him and his personality, and nobody else can do that show, and I don’t want to do that show. This is not a journalistic experience, this is my view of the world, and that’s the perspective of a woman of color working in—and living in—a white man’s world. I’m also a mother, and in my show we talk about family because to me family and food are very connected. You’re not going to see me swashbuckling all over the world biting the heads off chickens because that’s not who I am. Twenty years ago, I did a travel and food show called Planet Food, which is probably more similar to Tony’s show—except with better hair. And I say that with all the love, admiration, attachment, and affection to Tony. I’m curious what changes you feel should be made in the food world to combat racism, because there is this classic image—and it’s a troubling one—of a white chef commanding a kitchen filled with people of color doing the grunt work. That’s the case in 90 percent of the restaurants in New York City. I think we should start early. We should reach out to schools that are predominately African-American and encourage the students to go into the culinary arts and even expose them to the fact that that could be a career. I think culinary schools in this country should teach African-American cuisine, because that is actually an American tradition rather than the same six sauces you learn that are from 300 years ago in France. And I think that all these powerful white chefs at Michelin-starred restaurants should seek out young men and women who are African-American—but also other ethnicities—and they should mentor them rather than just another white guy. Go out of your way and realize, “I want someone different working under me,” because those people are going to make your food more inspired and interesting. When you see what New American cuisine is in this country, it’s usually some white chef doing Frenchified food but with bells and whistles from different cultures, like sumac, or turmeric, or yuzu, but never really giving the culture that that food comes from any credit. Your ingredients aren’t innovative. They’ve been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. You’re just discovering them now. Right. There’s the Alison Roman conundrum where you have these white chefs “introducing” these “exotic” foods to Western palettes. It makes you wonder why Western audiences need these white avatars to hold their hand along this culinary journey of sorts. I think that makes it easier for them. You don’t have to do the work of taking that extra step and embracing someone from a different culture. People think they need these ambassadors and you know what? I don’t think they do. They really don’t. I’m not saying that you can’t write about or cook food and ingredients from other cultures—if I said that I’d be a hypocrite—what I’m saying is, you have to give credit where credit is due. All it takes is a few lines before the recipe in a newspaper article, magazine or cookbook of: “I love yuzu. I first discovered it at my favorite sushi joint X, and they told me it was a Japanese citrus fruit, they showed me the bottle, and then I got a bottle, and pretty soon I wasn’t just using it in my Japanese raw fish preparation, I was using it in salad dressing.” That’s all you need. Nobody is telling you to stay in your lane. I’m saying the world is a delicious place full of different and exciting flavors, and we should all be able to enjoy and sample all of those flavors regardless of where we come from or the color of our skin. But I’m saying that you have to give credit where it’s due. And that’s what Taste the Nation is about: going to the source. We have entered Phase 2 in New York City with the restaurants reopening with outdoor seating. Do you feel it’s safe? And what safeguards should restaurants be taking right now?You know, I’m not a restaurateur or chef—and never worked in that capacity in a restaurant—so I think I’m going to leave it to the experts, because there’s been a lot of misinformation and I don’t want to add to that noise. There are a lot of chefs that are working to create a body of protocols for chefs to use. You have to use your own sense about it. The problem is, you don’t know how safe anybody else is, and how diligent they are about their quarantining or how close they’re getting to other people or if they’re wearing masks, and that’s a problem. It’s going to be a big adjustment. I don’t think we can go from 0-100 right away. We need to take baby steps. We can’t undo all the hard work we’ve done over these last three months in getting the numbers down, and you see that already happening in over half the states in the country. I’m working with the James Beard Foundation to help the restaurant industry, so if people want to learn more about how they can help restaurants they can go to https://www.jamesbeard.org/openforgood. You said you’re not a restaurateur but I’m curious if you’d one day want to open a restaurant? Is that a dream of yours? No. [Laughs] I know too much about the restaurant business. The margins are too slim and…I don’t want to work that hard. I worked hard on Taste the Nation, which is a very personal project for me and I’m so happy to do television and my writing. I consider myself a food writer first and foremost, and I know what I’m good at. I’m good at writing books and doing TV shows, and I do not want to run a restaurant at all. [Laughs]

Brazil’s latest pick for education minister has been forced to resign after just five days following reports that he repeatedly lied about his qualifications, the most recent in a series of embarrassing blows for the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.Carlos Decotelli, an economist and former navy man, stepped down yesterday after Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas Foundation business school publicly refuted his claims he had worked there as a teacher.It proved to be the final straw for Bolsonaro, after the same school had accused Decotelli of plagiarism on his master’s dissertation, and an Argentinian and a German university disproved that he had completed a PhD and a postdoctorate.In an interview with CNN Brasil, Decotelli attributed his resignation to “fake facts” divulged by the school.Decotelli’s appointment had apparently pleased Bolsonaro’s military allies. But the UOL news site reported that he even exaggerated about the length and prestige of his naval career. His resignation was widely ridiculed on social media.“Will Decotelli put on his curriculum that he was education minister?” Matheus Leone, a political scientist, questioned in a tweet.“It’s shameful,” said Marcos Castro, a geography professor at Federal University of Amazonas in Manaus.Other users questioned why Decotelli – who would have been Bolsonaro’s first black minister – was forced out while other prominent white ministers alleged to have lied about their qualifications remained in government.His resignation comes a fortnight after the former education minister Abraham Weintraub, the target of investigations for racism and online defamatory attacks, quit and flew to Miami, which many saw as a move to avoid charges in Brazil.“Despite everything, I found Decotelli’s term better than Weintraub’s,” tweeted JP Gadêlha, a reality TV star.A court is investigating how Weintraub, commonly described as “Brazil’s worst-ever minister” by critics, managed to enter the country and circumvent Covid-19 quarantine restrictions.Education experts meanwhile lamented Decotelli’s stint as another blow to Brazil’s education ministry which they say has been “paralyzed” since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019.“We are a year and a half without an education minister,” said Priscila Cruz, co-founder and executive president of civil society organization All for Education. “It’s unforgivable.” Topics Brazil Jair Bolsonaro Americas news

One of television’s best-known families returned on Tuesday without its matriarch, as the character of feisty Roseanne Conner was killed off through an accidental opioid overdose.Comedy series The Conners, featuring all the main characters in the blue-collar family except for its star and creator, Roseanne Barr, had its premiere on ABC, five months after Roseanne was cancelled following a racist tweet by Barr.Audiences had last seen Roseanne Conner hiding an opioid addiction stemming from knee pain and about to undergo long-delayed, costly surgery.But her demise was a plot twist Barr was unhappy with, saying in a statement that the manner of her death “lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show”.In the first episode of The Conners, the family is shown struggling to come to terms with the death of Roseanne from what is first thought to be a heart attack but is later revealed to be an overdose. They find she had been hiding painkillers around the house, and getting them from a circle of friends who shared medication to avoid costs.The original Roseanne ran from 1988 to 1997 and was praised for its realistic portrayal of working-class life.The revival in March, in which Barr was a supporter of Donald Trump, was ABC’s biggest hit, drawing an average 18 million viewers per episode.The opioid theme at the centre of The Conners is topical. Addiction to opioids – mostly prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl – has reached epidemic proportions in the US. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in more than 49,000 deaths last year.ABC cancelled Roseanne in May after Barr sparked a furore with a tweet that compared black former Obama administration Valerie Jarrett to an ape. Barr apologised and said the tweet was political, not racist, in its nature. But she agreed to step away from the show she created and have no financial or creative involvement in The Conners.Executive producer Bruce Rasmussen said the makers of The Conners had thought carefully about how to write out Roseanne’s character. “You don’t want to be flip about how you do this,” Rasmussen told Variety in an interview last week. “A lot of people cared about these characters and it’s separate from whatever feelings they had about the person and her political views and the things she said.” Topics Roseanne Barr

So what’s next? Aaron Zelin, a veteran researcher of jihadist groups, told us that another ISIS surge and land grab is unlikely in the near term. Instead, ISIS will probably retain its core in Iraq especially, but in Syria as well—as Zelin noted, the group is comfortable underground in its territory and has survived this way before—with connections to supporters and affiliates around the globe. From there, it can bide its time, pursuing a long-term vision that its leaders have called a “generational strategy,” Zelin said. “They see this as a battle of attrition, and that eventually they’re going to wear everyone out. They’re not rigid in their thinking, and they’re willing to evolve.”The raid that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took place over a weekend. Defense Secretary Mark Esper hailed his death as a “major victory in the enduring defeat ISIS mission”; Trump declared that the world was a “much safer place” as a result.But when U.S. officials returned to work on Monday, there did not appear to be any consensus on what would come next for ISIS following Baghdadi’s death.One U.S. government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, told us that views of ISIS’s future fell broadly into two camps. Some saw an organization in chaos and ripe for succession struggles, with its leader killed, thousands of its fighters imprisoned, and its communications hampered by the constant fear of U.S. surveillance or spies. Others argued that although Baghdadi was dead, ISIS had a succession plan in place and a bureaucracy still functioning well enough to implement it. Jason Blazakis, who worked on counterterrorism at the State Department for more than a decade and remains in touch with U.S. officials, confirmed these two general competing views within government.The first view suggests a grim future for ISIS. Maybe its fighters could still hide out across Iraq and Syria, and maybe some adherents could still stage attacks and assassinations. But the difficulty of coordinating actions among cells in the face of continuing military pressure would mean that they could never again mass forces as they did when they entered Mosul, Iraq in 2014; moreover, if they did, they would make themselves a target—one that the international community would not ignore this time. Otherwise, though, they might operate more like a dangerous criminal movement—capable of murders, robbery, and extortion, but something that local security forces could deal with.This is perhaps one example of ISIS’s weakness: Fewer than 200 suspected ISIS prisoners in northeastern Syria managed to escape in the chaos that followed Turkey’s incursion into the area this fall. Despite Baghdadi’s call, before he died, for mass prison breaks, ISIS has been unable to take full advantage of the moment; most of the roughly 10,000 suspected members held in northeastern Syria remain behind bars. “They clearly don’t have the capability,” the U.S. official said. “This isn’t even hard. This isn’t hijacking a plane.”