With record-breaking wildfires carving up the American west this summer, firefighters have become the rarest of civil servants: the kind almost universally lauded as heroes. Reinforcements dropped into California’s firefight from as far away as Australia and American Samoa to bolster strained state and federal crews, reaching a high point of 14,000 firefighters on the ground.Yet other crews have pulled into the fires’ path with a less grandiose purpose: to save only select addresses. These are the private firefighters of the rich or otherwise well-insured: private crews hired by insurance companies to minimize damages and keep policyholders’ homes from going up in smoke.“This year to date has been busier than any prior years to date,” David Torgerson, the president of the firefighting company Wildfire Defense Systems in Bozeman, Montana, told the Guardian in an email, “and we are expecting to respond to [more] wildfires this year than any prior year.”This year’s wildfire season has produced the largest burn in California’s history and, in the northern part of the state, an awe-inspiring “firenado”. As scientists say that “megafires” are the new normal, climate change capitalism is finding an increasing number of customers. This echoes a global trend: cottage industries have sprung up to serve those who can afford to be a bit more protected and comfortable while the weather grows more cataclysmic. The uber-wealthy have bought estates in New Zealand (to the point that the country is in the midst of passing legislation to stymie foreign buyers) and luxe underground bunkers in Kansas and elsewhere to escape civic or natural collapse.In western states, the wildfire-evacuated masses have huddled in Best Westerns or on gymnasium floors and are often locked in insurance-claim limbo, while the affluent check into five-star luxury hotels – usually reimbursable by their insurance – confident that their homes are being looked after.Ronald DeKoven is a New York attorney, English barrister, and a tech entrepreneur, regularly flying to London or Singapore, where his startup MyLawyer is headquartered. In 2011, he and his wife, Linda, bought an estate with three guesthouses in the center of a 30-acre Napa Valley vineyard. It was meant as a second home, but after falling in love with wine country, the couple moved in permanently.Last year, one of his workers texted to report that a blaze, which would eventually become the catastrophic wine country fire, had started just down the road. Within minutes of the text, he and Linda sped away to a friend’s. “We put our shoes on and grabbed coats and left,” he says. “We probably were the first to leave this area. Given that I’ve practiced law for 50 years, you might say I’m cautious.” An insurance crew showed up to remove any combustibles around the house and spray fire retardant around the property’s edges. Meanwhile, the DeKovens checked in at the tony Clift Hotel in San Francisco. Their insurance company, Pure, explained over the phone to the couple that the company would prepay the hotel bills.After a night at the Clift, the DeKovens moved to Four Seasons hotels in Silicon Valley and then San Francisco for three weeks. “Needless to say the bills were high,” DeKoven says. “It was just paid through Pure.”While many other evacuees were locked in months of bureaucracy with insurance carriers, the DeKovens sailed through the recovery process. When they returned to their stone-and-stucco estate – which escaped the fire – Pure had already filtered the air to get rid of the heavy smoke smell. Pure sent out a team to test for carcinogenic dust in the house, detecting some in the main house’s attic. DeKoven hired their general contractor to vacuum the dust in hazmat suits and replace the insulation – a nearly $50,000 job that Pure prepaid with a check in the mail.“I found it astonishing they would be so focused on our best interest,” DeKoven said. Insurance is a suddenly sexy conversation topic in California, and DeKoven has been handing out his adjusters’ name like some others pass around the name of their skilled masseuse.AIG, the publicly traded insurance carrier, rolled out pre-emptive wildfire protection in 2005 to their Private Client Group, which the company says serves 40% of the Forbes 400 richest Americans. They were followed by competitors in so-called high net-worth insurance – Chubb, Pure and Nationwide Private Client, the types of companies who also typically offer insurance for such rarefied concerns as yachts and employment claims made by domestic help. Such coverage tends to keep out the hoi polloi, costing from thousands to tens of thousands or even six figures in annual premiums. Pure typically offers insurance to homes valued at more than $1m.Insurance crews don’t battle back flames like the government-contracted ones do. Their services happen before and after a fire passes. Generally, when a policy is purchased, a risk assessor surveys the property for fire risks. Clients of some plans receive texts about evacuations and the paths fires are taking. When fires are encroaching, crews stop by to cart away flammable objects or brush from around the house that could catch fire from an ember, and sometimes install temporary sprinklers. They might spray flame retardant around a property’s perimeter, and seal vents to keep out drifting embers and smoke. In more dangerous spots, they might spray a house down with fire-retardant gel and even extinguish a spot fire.To argue against this two-tiered response is to argue against capitalism itself, suggest industry insiders. “Insurance is a capitalist system, by and large, with for-profit companies,” said Amy Bach, the executive director of United Policyholders, a not-for-profit that educates insurance consumers. “So they’re always going to try to compete with each other and offer enhanced value to their higher-end customers who will pay the higher prices.”Yet Bach added a note of regret, saying she would prefer wildfire fighting “not being a class system, where first class gets a full meal, and in coach you get peanuts”. The high-end insurers market to the exceptionalism of their clients – “families who have more to protect,” as Pure’s website reads. Chubb’s site features a 72-year-old named Gerry in Ventura, California, who escaped the Thomas Fire last year, and contrasts his story with the relative misfortune of his neighbors: “Not only was Gerry treated first class every step of the way, as Chubb clients, he says he and his wife were the only two in their development able to rebuild.”Still, insurance-dispatched crews are now trickling down to companies with more middle-class clientele. For instance, for the past two years, USAA, a kind of insurance exchange for members of the military and their families, has offered the service to 1.4m properties in western states. USAA has no home value requirement; they’ll send firefighters out to your “modest cabin”, said a representative.The head of one privately held firefighting company, Wildfire Defense Systems of Bozeman, Montana, argued against charges of elitism. Its president, David Torgerson, said that 90% of the policyholders’ homes are the average local market price, and that despite the exclusive image of private firefighting, the service is also offered by several mainstream insurers. He also said that private firefighting can redound to the public good, as more resources on the ground “contributes to the overall effort”. Crews could theoretically pitch in when called upon by incident command.Even so, when a fire hits, insurance firefighting crews are “treated like civilians, basically”, said Scott McLean, a spokesman for CalFire, the California firefighting agency. They must get permission from the incident command to proceed into evacuation zones or pass roadblocks, and must leave if ordered to. Private crews do not play a role in the official fire response, he wrote in an email: “It is just another external situation that [incident command] has to deal with.”Eliza Kerr has lived on the edge of Yosemite national park for two decades, rock-climbing and leading yoga and backpacking retreats through her not-for-profit, Balanced Rock, when not treating clients with ayurvedic medicine. She’s aware that her love of California’s natural grandeur puts her squarely in the fire zone. Still, she’s betting on the long term. “Yosemite’s been my home for a long time,” she says. “It’s part of the vision.” In fact, she has decided to increase her ties to the area, and is making good on her dream to build a retreat guest residence and a yoga studio amid the scrubby brush overlooking the Merced river.The buildings were in mid-construction when the Ferguson fire evacuation order hit in mid-July. Kerr was away on a surfing trip in Indonesia at the time, but Chubb’s firefighting crew sprayed retardant around the property’s edge, sealed attic vents, and soaked the all-wood deck with water. They called her husband, who was still in California, with daily updates.Though these measures lent her peace of mind, Kerr ultimately thanks official state crews for saving her property. “I want to give huge credit and kudos to the local firefighters,” she said. As she heard it, they intentionally burned off vegetation up to her property line, stopping the incoming fire in its tracks. Her dream of a yoga retreat in the middle of wildfire country is safe – for now. Topics Wildfires This land is your land Natural disasters and extreme weather Climate change California Montana features

“DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon,” Mr. Trump said. In fact, the program applies only to immigrants who arrived in the United States before 2007.Later, surrounded by children on the South Lawn of the White House for the annual Easter egg roll festivities, Mr. Trump again put the blame on Democrats, who he said had abandoned the “Dreamers,” as the undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and have benefited from DACA are sometimes called.“The Democrats have really let them down, they’ve really let them down,” Mr. Trump said in response to a question shouted by a reporter, as young children crowded around him at a picnic table where he was signing their artwork. “They had this great opportunity, and Democrats have really let them down — it’s a shame.”“Now people are taking advantage of DACA,” Mr. Trump went on. “It should have never happened.”The president was venting about the failure of bipartisan talks to enshrine DACA’s protections in law. The negotiations became necessary after Mr. Trump moved last fall to end the program, which had been created unilaterally by President Barack Obama.Those deliberations have gone nowhere despite Mr. Trump’s stated willingness to provide a path to citizenship for nearly two million undocumented immigrants who could be considered eligible for the program. Democrats offered last month to provide $25 billion for the border wall that Mr. Trump advocates, in exchange for such an extension, but White House officials rejected the deal, demanding additional measures to curb legal and illegal immigration.Democrats said Monday he was deliberately misrepresenting the issue.“Instead of working productively to find a bipartisan solution for Dreamers, the president is attempting to rewrite history with a dangerous, anti-immigrant gaslighting campaign aimed at confusing the American people, slandering the DACA program and disparaging asylum seekers,” said Representative Michelle Lujan Grisham, Democrat of New Mexico and the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Iran originally claimed the crash was not caused by any military action. However, by Saturday morning, Iranian officials admitted the plane was shot down after it “took the flying posture and altitude of an enemy target.” Iranian officials called the act the result of “human error,” and President Hassan Rouhani apologized in a statement on Twitter, writing, “The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake. My thoughts and prayers go to all the mourning families. I offer my sincerest condolences.”The admission followed Thursday reports by the US and Canada that their intelligence agencies had found a missile was responsible for the crash.“We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday afternoon. “The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. It may well have been unintentional.” Trudeau declined to elaborate on the evidence, but said that these developments confirmed “the need to have an in-depth investigation into this matter.” And shortly after Trudeau’s address, the New York Times published a video showing the airliner being hit by what appeared to be a missile. Despite the statements by the US and Canada — as well as the Times’ release of the video — Iran continued to deny that a missile felled the plane. Iranian officials accused the US of “spreading lies.”Now, however, the country’s leaders have reversed course, leading Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to demand the Iranian government “bring those responsible to justice, return of the bodies of the deceased, pay compensations, issue official apologies through diplomatic channels.”Zelensky also said Ukrainians “expect that Iran assures its readiness to have a full and open investigation.”Rouhani promised Saturday that these steps will be taken, writing in a statement, “Further investigation is needed to identify all the causes and roots of this tragedy and prosecute the perpetrators of this unforgivable mistake.”The Iranian leader also promised military procedures would be changed “to make sure such a disaster is never repeated.” Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, a 3.5-year-old Boeing 737-800, departed Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport at 6:12 am local time after sitting on the runway for roughly an hour. Two minutes after takeoff, a “fatal accident occurred to the aircraft,” according to the National Bureau of Air Accidents Investigation of Ukraine. The plane crashed in farmland near Shahedshahr, a town about 30 miles southwest of Tehran and about 10 miles northwest of the airport. All 176 people — 167 passengers and nine crew members — on board died. There were 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians (two passengers and the nine crew members), 10 Swedish nationals, four Afghans, three Germans, and three British nationals on board, according to Ukraine’s foreign minister. Ukraine International Airlines has published a list of the victims on its website. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directed Ukrainian prosecutors to begin a criminal inquiry into the crash, and said he’s sending “a team of experts” to Iran to help with “the investigation, identification and repatriation of the bodies of Ukrainians killed in the plane crash.” The plane’s “black box” (which records instrument readings and pilot conversations) has been recovered and is in Iran’s possession, but is said to be damaged. Trudeau said Thursday that Iran wants to keep it in Iran, but that Iranian officials have said they would share information with Ukrainian investigators. Iran has also invited the US National Transportation Safety Board to assist with the investigation. The plane had last been routinely serviced on January 6, and there was no indication that anything was wrong before the plane took off, according to airline officials. Ukrainian International Airlines has suspended its scheduled flights between Kyiv and Tehran “until further notice.” Other airline carriers, including Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines, have followed suit, either cancelling or rerouting flights heading to or through Tehran, according to Reuters. Iran has admitted it shot down the plane accidentally. When the airline carriers’ suspensions of flights to and through Tehran will be liftedUpdates to this article have ended — the latest on the crash and US-Iran relations can be found here.

When another economic stimulus package was being discussed among lawmakers in April, there was a desire to push forward the rollout of 5G. WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains why. Photo: Getty Images (Originally published April 1, 2020) Byand June 25, 2020 11:34 am ET Trump administration officials have talked about inserting the federal government deep into the private sector to stiffen global competition against Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. The ideas, discussed intermittently with U.S. tech giants, private-equity firms and veteran telecom executives, include prodding large U.S. technology companies like Cisco Systems Inc. to acquire European companies Ericsson AB or Nokia Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. In more than one case, they said, the company... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership View Membership Options

President Trump warned Iran in a series of tweets Saturday that if the country strikes any Americans or American assets in retaliation for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the U.S. has chosen 52 Iranian sites to target. “Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD,” Trump said. The president’s comments came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “the U.S. remains committed to de-escalation” with Iran. Trump, whose threats against Tehran on Saturday seemed to be a far cry from his claim immediately after the airstrike that he simply wanted to “stop a war,” also defended his decision to kill Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. He said the top Iranian general “had just killed an American, & badly wounded many others, not to mention all of the people he had killed over his lifetime, including recently hundreds of Iranian protesters.”“He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations,” Trump wrote. Hours after his first tweetstorm, he issued another taunt noting that the U.S. “just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment.” “We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way...and without hesitation!”The president has said Soleimani was preparing “imminent” attacks on American interests, and administration officials on Friday told lawmakers at a classified briefing that Iran had plans to kill “hundreds” of Americans, though they offered no details on these plots. Critics of the move have largely agreed with the assessment that Soleimani was a a foe to the U.S. but have questioned the timing of the killing—ahead of Trump’s impeachment trial and amid his 2020 re-election campaign— and his decision to order the airstrike without congressional approval.

Since the U.S. pulled out of the deal (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) in 2018, despite certifying that Iran was in compliance with its terms, the United States’ European allies, China, and Russia have sought to keep the agreement on life support. Trump today called on them to pull the plug.“The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality,” he said. “They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal, or JCPOA, and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place.”As Trump knows, a deal typically involves something for both sides; otherwise it’s merely a surrender. It isn’t clear what benefits to Iran Trump would tolerate, though he said that “we must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential.”But the combination of American withdrawal from the Iran deal, Soleimani’s killing, and new economic sanctions that Trump announced in his speech make the prospect of good-faith negotiations less, rather than more, likely. Although Soleimani’s loss is bad for Tehran and sanctions will hurt, Iran is already reeling from existing sanctions, and returns are diminishing.Nor, despite Soleimani’s death and the so-far-muted retaliation against the U.S., is there any indication that Iran will pull back from its regional operations in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, which Trump demanded today that it stop.“By removing Soleimani, we have sent a powerful message to terrorists,” Trump said. “If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our people.” Perhaps this is true, but perhaps it also misunderstands the psychology of American opponents. Soleimani spoke wistfully of someday being martyred, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in March that he hoped Soleimani would one day die a martyr, while adding, “Of course, not anytime soon.”Trump has made a habit of provoking near-crises, accepting the status quo ante, and then declaring victory—a sequence that occurred in negotiations with North Korea and in trade talks with China. Now we can add tensions with Iran to that list. David A. Grahamis a staff writer atThe Atlantic.Connect Facebook Twitter

America’s allies had a hard enough time dealing with the go-it-alone policies of the George W. Bush administration, epitomized by the Iraq invasion of 2003.But now those same allies, first and foremost in Europe and the Middle East, find themselves challenged by a go-it-alone American president in Donald Trump, who is often about as unpredictable with and independent of his own senior aides’ counsel as he is toward America’s oldest and closest friends.That uncomfortable new world struck again like a two-by-four between the eyes when Mr. Trump ordered the killing by drone strike last week of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani – considered second only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in terms of power and prestige in Iran – after his arrival at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.The deadly strike, which reportedly divided the president’s national security staff and Pentagon officials, stunned allies and was seized upon by adversaries relishing any opportunity to highlight a “rogue” United States.“It is obvious,” a smiling Ma Zhaoxu, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, told U.N. journalists Tuesday, “that this unilateral action by the United States violated the basic norms of international relations.” For Biden, a VP search fraught with significanceThe strike infuriated Iraq, which deemed it a violation of its national sovereignty. It left unconsulted European allies scrambling to protect forces deployed to Iraq to help train Iraqi military forces and fight ISIS.And it left them wondering if they have on their hands an American president who feels unbound by international law and the rules of warfare described in the Geneva Convention – especially while Mr. Trump was threatening to bomb Iranian cultural sites if Tehran retaliated over General Soleimani’s death.Iran did retaliate early Wednesday, sending at least a dozen ballistic missiles from its territory crashing down on two Iraqi bases housing some of the 5,500 U.S. troops in Iraq. No casualties were reported, and there was some indication – for example, the use of guided ballistic missiles, which are less erratic than rockets – that Iran intended its retaliatory strike as a warning and a matter of pride for domestic consumption, and sought to avoid any American deaths that would increase the likelihood of additional hostilities with the U.S.President Trump addressed the nation from the White House Wednesday morning, saying no American or Iraqi casualties resulted from Iran’s missile strikes, and stating that he would not order any further military action in response at this time.However he did announce new sanctions on Iran – signaling a return to his preferred means of pressuring what he repeatedly referred to as the Iranian “regime” – and he called on America’s NATO allies to become more deeply engaged in the Middle East.Beyond Europe, the Soleimani strike left befuddled Mideast allies wondering if Mr. Trump had carried out another of his one-off actions – albeit a more spectacular and potentially consequential one – or if the U.S. is signaling a renewed commitment to the region for them to rely on.“This order to take out Soleimani reinforces with potentially disastrous consequences that this president is the only decision-maker, and that actions that matter very much not just to the United States but to the world are taken with complete unpredictability and aren’t in any way channeled through a normal interagency process or any consultation of allies,” says Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.“Our closest allies can’t deal with the surprise and the unpredictability and the lack in so many cases of anything that looks like a plan,” she adds. “And so one consequence is that they are increasingly unwilling to contribute to U.S. operations and missions.”Mr. Trump’s call Wednesday for NATO to put more skin in the game in the Middle East seems likely to fall on deaf ears.Ms. Conley points to an existing reluctance among allies to join the U.S. in the region – for example last year as part of an effort to protect oil tankers that were being targeted in the Strait of Hormuz. The British finally came aboard the operation, she adds, but they later hinted at a disconcerting confusion around the effort and a lack of clarity over just what the mission was.On Tuesday Germany, Canada, Croatia, and other NATO allies of the U.S. began moving troops out of Iraq that have been deployed there to assist in training Iraqi forces to fight ISIS. In addition, NATO announced that it was temporarily suspending the counter-ISIS training mission, with European allies warning that the Islamic State would be the only winner if rising U.S.-Iran tensions diverted attention from counterterrorism efforts.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday he was dispatching Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale to Brussels this week to consult with European partners, but some viewed the move as too little, too late. “It’s something, but this is where the gravity of the situation requires the secretary of state or the secretary of defense,” says Ms. Conley. “Our allies want to know where this is going, but right now no one does,” she adds. “I assume even [Pompeo] doesn’t know where the president will be taking this.”On the other hand, some analysts found that Mr. Trump’s statement Wednesday, with heavy use of the word “regime” to describe the Iranian government, was only shades removed from an articulation of a regime-change policy – and had Secretary Pompeo written all over it.Still, the lack of any reliable sense of where Mr. Trump is going with regards to Iran has left regional allies to guess what might be coming next and to pursue new initiatives of their own – including efforts to reach out to Iran and secure some regional accommodation based on a U.S. disengagement from the region.“After the Soleimani strike, we’re standing at an interesting fork in the road,” says Ilan Berman, a Middle East specialist and vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington. “Our allies in the region are watching very closely: Does this turn out to be just a one-off where the president will take what we’re hearing from the Iraqis [about demanding the departure of all foreign troops from Iraq] and pick up our marbles and go home,” he says.Or, he adds, “does the U.S. show a little patience, wait for the outrage [over the Soleimani strike] to abate, and then undertake some serious conversations with Beirut and Baghdad … that remove any doubt and confirm that America is not going anywhere?”For some analysts, the Soleimani strike as well as Mr. Trump’s statement Wednesday suggesting an enduring commitment to the region – among other things, his reiteration of longtime U.S. policy to deny Iran a nuclear weapon – may reassure allies about U.S. involvement. Yet some anticipate regional allies in turn making demands of the U.S. that end up pushing all of Mr. Trump’s ungrateful-allies buttons.“The president is going to hear the complaints and what regional allies need, and he’s going to get tired of hearing ask, ask, ask, and not more of what [allies] plan to contribute,” says Kirsten Fontenrose, former senior director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, and now director of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Security Initiative.Still, she says she expects to see more from the U.S. – everything from stepped up diplomacy to more materiel and counter-cyberattack cooperation – “heading out to the region.” Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. “What kind of ally would we be,” Ms. Fontenrose says, “if we didn’t plan for the possible?”To read the rest of the Monitor’s coverage of the U.S.-Iran clash, please click here.

It’s been a tough few days for bitcoin. On Sunday, the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail was hacked, which caused the price of bitcoin to tumble. Prices fell again on Wednesday after a study found bitcoin’s huge spike last year (the currency reached nearly $20,000) might have been the result of strategic price manipulation.Despite all the bad news, bitcoin still has its believers, including Steve Bannon. In an interview with the New York Times, the former White House strategist said that he has a “good stake” in bitcoin and is interested in working with entrepreneurs and countries interested in creating their own cryptocurrencies. Bannon may also have ambitions to create a currency of his own. Earlier this year, in a meeting at Harvard University, he apparently discussed creating a new digital currency called “deplorables coin”.Bannon says he isn’t interested in cryptocurrencies solely for the financial potential; he sees decentralized money as a key component of his political mission. Cryptocurrency is “disruptive populism, it takes control back from central authorities”, said Bannon. “It was pretty obvious to me that unless you got somehow control over your currency, all these political movements were going to be beholden to who controlled the currency … control of the currency, is control of everything.”The deplorables coin’s name references the time Hillary Clinton called half of Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables” during the 2016 election. Clinton later said she regretted it; it had handed Trump “a political gift”.White nationalists were interested in the political potential of cryptocurrency long before bitcoin entered the mainstream. In 2014 Andrew Auernheimer, a neo-Nazi who goes by the name “weev”, wrote on his blog: “I heartily encourage you to consider cryptocurrency, including bitcoin.” And in March 2017 Richard Spencer declared on Twitter that “Bitcoin is the currency of the alt-right.” A number of neo-Nazis have also been pushed into cryptocurrency because they have been barred by traditional payment platforms. Shortly after the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year, Apple and PayPal disabled payment support for websites that support hate groups.Bitcoin is the most well-known digital currency, although white nationalists are beginning to gravitate towards Monero, which Wired recently called “the dark web’s favorite currency”. Monero, which claims to be more untraceable and secure than bitcoin, has, for example, been enthusiastically promoted by white nationalist podcaster Christopher Cantwell. Cantwell is offering 10% subscriptions to his site if you pay in Monero.Despite recent dips in cryptocurrency prices, their astronomical rise last year made a lot of white nationalists, including weev, very rich indeed. In his interview, Bannon didn’t say how much money he has made from cryptocurrency, but one imagines he’s got more than enough to start minting baskets of digital deplorables. Topics Steve Bannon Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies E-commerce Currencies news

By June 2, 2020 7:00 am ET ESKILSTUNA, Sweden—The Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive effort to cripple China’s Huawei Technologies Co. has presented Ericsson AB the opportunity to lead the rollout of 5G technology around the world. The Swedish company is emerging as the steadiest player in the $80-billion-a-year cellular-equipment industry, telecommunications executives and analysts say, because it makes a technically advanced product that one rival, Nokia Corp., was late to develop and that Huawei may not be able to make in the future because... To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership View Membership Options

His name is Johan. He drank a bottle of milk and played with a purple ball as he waited for the immigration judge, The Associated Press reported.John W. Richardson, the judge at the Phoenix courthouse, said he was "embarrassed to ask" if the defendant understood the proceedings. "I don't know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law," he told Johan's attorney.The boy had been separated from his father, who left the United States for their country of Honduras under the impression that his son would go with him, Johan's lawyer said.Johan is one of several immigrant children who have had to appear in court without their parents present. National Reuniting Families Separated At The Border Proves Complicated Among the defendants were a Guatemalan boy dressed in a vest and tie who "simply put five fingers up" when asked his age, and an acquiescent 7-year-old girl in a pink bow and dress, the AP reported.The clock is ticking for the Trump administration to reunify children who were separated from their parents near the southern border. U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw set a deadline of July 10 for children under the age of 5. For older children, it's July 26. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that government personnel are using DNA samples to verify family relations. Some parents are also being moved closer to their children in an attempt to meet the deadline, Azar said according to Reuters. Still, the Trump administration has asked the judge for more time, while saying it is working "diligently" and with "immense resources" to comply. It also announced that it extended the period of time for which migrant families can be detained.Undocumented children are not guaranteed court-appointed lawyers. A panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled earlier this year that "it is not established law that alien minors are categorically entitled to government-funded, court-appointed counsel."That means they have "almost no chance" of winning a complicated asylum case, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. "They are allowed to remain here less than 10 percent of the time."The hearing in Phoenix comes after nationwide protests of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy. In Boston, Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished and replaced "with something that reflects our morality." National Trump Administration: Migrant Families Can Be Detained For More Than 20 Days Vice President Pence defended the law enforcement agency on Friday through Twitter. "Calls to abolish ICE are not just outrageous – they are irresponsible. Abolishing ICE would mean more illegal immigration... Abolishing ICE would mean more violent crime..."In a separate incident last month, an immigration lawyer in Kansas City accused an ICE officer of shoving her into the ground as she was reuniting a 3-year-old boy with a family member. "He turned around and pushed us out the door and shut the door and locked it," she said at a press conference according to The Kansas City Star. "That's when... I fell and I rolled my ankle and caused the fracture in my right foot." "We take any allegations against ICE personnel very seriously and are looking into the matter," ICE said in a statement.Young Johan, at the end of the hearing, was handed a voluntary departure order so that he can be flown to Honduras and into the arms of his family.

It’s not surprising that California has emerged as Donald Trump’s nemesis on immigration. The Golden State, which has some of the most protective laws for immigrants in the US, also has the highest share of foreign-born residents of any state. But there are also powerful economic reasons for California to advocate for immigrants.Immigrants own roughly a third of private businesses in California, according to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday. Compared to the rest of the country, the state has the greatest percentage of immigrant business owners; South Dakota, where immigrants own 3% of firms, comes in last. (For the full table, scroll to the bottom of the post.)The study shows how lopsided immigrants’ contributions are across the US—and sheds some light on why states align the way they do on the immigration debate. The paper, written by Sari Pekkala Kerr and William Kerr, analyzed 2007 and 2012 data from a national business owner survey. They used it to build a profile of immigrant-owned private firms with employees: They are generally smaller, and hire fewer people. Crucially, they are also more likely to survive than their native-owned counterparts.States with large shares of immigrant residents also have large shares of immigrant business owners. But immigrants play an outsized role in business—and particularly in starting new companies. Below is the list of the top 10 states with the biggest share of new firms started by immigrants in 2012 (those that were 5-years-old or less.) In every one of those states, immigrants accounted for a significantly bigger proportion of new businesses than they did of the overall population in 2010.The states with the smallest shares of immigrant entrepreneurs were, as expected, those with relatively few immigrants. In most of those places, too, immigrants started more new firms than the size of their population would seem to warrant.The immigrant business sector in those states remains quite small, though. That provides little incentive for elected leaders to go out of their way to be immigrant-friendly. Out of the 10 states least dependent on immigrant-owned businesses, eight passed more policies that hurt immigrants than benefitted them between 2005 and 2012, based on a 2015 analysis of state laws during that period. In contrast, nine of the 10 most dependent states passed more beneficial policies than punitive ones.To be sure, the contributions of immigrant business owners are but one factor in the knotty immigration debate, which also includes undocumented workers, the cost of public services, and nationalistic sentiments. Texas, for example, has a sizable chunk of immigrant-owned firms—20%—but that didn’t stop leaders there from passing a law last year that harshly punishes jurisdictions with “sanctuary” policies to protect immigrants. The state went to Trump during the 2016 presidential election.But Texas still has a smaller share of foreign-born residents and entrepreneurs than California. If immigrants were to become a larger part of its population—and economy—they might help tilt the political balance in the state. Immigrant-bashing by political leaders could make that scenario more likely.That’s what happened in once solidly-red California. A 1994 ballot measure that barred immigrants from receiving public services, Proposition 187, alienated immigrants and drove them to vote against Republicans.

closeVideoTrump is committed to America's safety, not appeasing Iran radicals: Sarah SandersSarah Sanders, former White House Press Secretary, says the big take away from President Trump's speech on Iran is that America will not be pushed aroundUNITED NATIONS -- The tensions between the U.S. and Iran spilled into United Nations headquarters Thursday, as member nations sparred over the series of escalations that brought the Middle East close to a new military conflict this week.A Security Council meeting originally called to discuss the U.N. Charter morphed into an hourslong debate featuring dozens of countries sounding off on the conflict -- including several U.S. adversaries who used the forum to take shots at the Trump administration.US SAYS SOLEIMANI KILLING WAS 'SELF-DEFENSE' AHEAD OF TENSE UN MEETING“At present the United States’ unilateral military adventurism has led to the tensing of the situation in the Middle East Gulf region,” Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun said.“How is the council silent vis-a-vis the U.S. assassination crime against Iranian and Iraqi leaders that were fighting ISIS and Nusra front in Syria and Iraq?” Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari said.The session had been set up before the U.S. killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a strike in Baghdad last week. But with the strike, and the resultant Iranian missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Mideast tensions took center stage.The U.S. took out Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Forces, days after Iranian-backed militia supporters stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Administration officials have said that the strike was conducted to deter imminent attacks on U.S. interests.“This decision was not taken lightly,” U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft said at the U.N. “For years Iran and Iranian-supported militias in the region have threatened the lives of Americans and shown unyielding contempt for the authority of the United Nations.”Earlier, in a letter to the president of the council, she said the actions were “in the exercise of its inherent right of self-defense.”Iran responded to the attack on Tuesday by firing ballistic missiles at bases in Iraq that house U.S. troops -- but there were no U.S. or Iraqi casualties. President Trump said Wednesday that the regime “appears to be standing down” but that the U.S. would impose economic sanctions “until Iran changes its behavior."TRUMP SAYS IRAN 'APPEARS TO BE STANDING DOWN,' MISSILE STRIKES RESULTED IN NO CASUALTIESIran was scheduled to be one of the speakers at the U.N. meeting later Thursday, although Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif would not be attending after he said the U.S. denied him a visa.The Iranian ambassador said in a letter Wednesday that its response was “measured and proportionate.”“Seriously warning about any further military adventurism against it, Iran declares that it is determined to continue to, vigorously and in accordance with applicable international law, defend its people, sovereignty and territorial integrity against any aggression,” the letter added.VideoA number of other members at the U.N. also took aim at the U.S. for its reported decision to deny Zarif a visa. Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya called it an example of the U.S.’ “violation and noncompliance of international law.” Nebenzya also decried what he called “extrajudicial reprisals against an official of a sovereign state.”But many others stuck to more general calls for peace, appeals for de-escalation and testaments to the importance of the multilateral system.“War is never inevitable; it is a matter of choice, and often it is a product of easy miscalculations,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his remarks.Craft, meanwhile, had in her letter affirmed the U.S. desire for peace and said that the U.S. “stand[s] ready to engage without preconditions in serious negotiations with Iran, with the goal of preventing further endangerment of international peace and security or escalation by the Iranian regime.”However, in her remarks to the council, she also warned that Trump would act “decisively” in the case U.S. troops or interests are threatened.“President Trump has made it clear his highest and most solemn duty is the defense of our nation and of its citizens and so we will act decisively in the exercise of our inherent right of self-defense to protect Americans when necessary, as is recognized under the Charter,” she said.Fox News' Ben Evansky contributed to this report.

closeVideoSen. Risch on missile strike: Had Iran taken lives in that attack we’d be in a very different place right nowSenate Foreign Relations Committee chairman James Risch reacts to the Iran briefing and missile attacks targeting U.S. military and coalition forces in Iraq on ‘America’s Newsroom.’The Trump administration's intelligence briefing on Iran was "absolutely" about the threat posed by Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch, R-Idaho, said Thursday.Risch told "America's Newsroom" that Wednesday's controversial 75-minute-long briefing was led by five of the "best people the administration has.""It was good. It was in-depth. It was clear. I fully understand that there's a partisan divide on this and, of course, that we have two or three [people] on our side [who came out of] it also disagree[ing]...But, for different reasons," he stated.PENCE RESPONDS TO GOP SEN. LEE'S CRITICISM OF IRAN INTEL BRIEFING: SOLEIMANI STRIKE PREVENTED 'IMMINENT ATTACK'Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was one of those GOP members who were upset, telling reporters that it was the "worst military briefing" he had ever seen. Lee notably claimed that one administration official had warned lawmakers during the "lame" and "insane" meeting that Congress shouldn't debate whether additional military action against Iran would be appropriate."The president has three things available to him: he's got his inherent Article II constitutional authorities, he has the War Powers Act, and he has the 2002 declaration of the use of power in Iraq, which this specifically covered," Risch told hosts Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith.Video"Mike [Lee] feels strongly that the point at which the president can use power should be handled differently," he said, noting that the Utah senator was "specifically" frustrated no one would give him a definition of when the U.S. is at war and when the U.S. is going to war."That is, unfortunately, it isn't a bright line," Risch added."I think that the question that Mike Lee is arguing is at what point can the president do this? And, that's again an oversimplification. But, it is a complex question and one that deserves debate," he stated.VideoRisch said that while he "really hopes we're in a time of de-escalation," Iran "knew what the red line was" and had been escalating [tensions] for the last year."He added that Trump's actions were taken "intentionally to restore deterrence against Iran because they've been pushing the envelope.""Had they taken American lives in that attack [Tuesday night], we'd be in a very different place than we are right now and Heaven help us all," Risch concluded.

Enlarge this image Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) attends a ceremony with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in November. The Saudi crown prince was in the UAE for talks that were expected to focus on the war in Yemen and tensions with Iran. Mohamed Al Hammadi/AP hide caption toggle caption Mohamed Al Hammadi/AP Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) attends a ceremony with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in November. The Saudi crown prince was in the UAE for talks that were expected to focus on the war in Yemen and tensions with Iran. Mohamed Al Hammadi/AP The U.S. killing of senior Iranian military commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani left many of America's allies in the Middle East confused and nervous. That includes Saudi Arabia, the top regional rival of Iran.The Saudi-U.S. relationship has become particularly close since President Trump took office. It could prove to be a double-edged sword for the kingdom, analysts say, as Iran contemplates its next moves. Iran and Saudi Arabia have long battled for regional dominance, and the U.S. has supported the Saudi-led war in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi forces.Trump made a speech Wednesday that seemed intended to avert a war with Iran. There had been signs Saudi Arabia and Iran were already trying to ease tensions. But that was before the U.S. killed Soleimani and Iran fired missiles at bases housing U.S. troops in retaliation. Loading... "The Saudis are in a very tough spot, almost entirely of the Americans' making," says Henry Rome, an Iran analyst at the Eurasia Group, a global political risk consultancy.Following the assassination of Soleimani, the Saudi kingdom dispatched its deputy defense minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, to meet with Trump on Monday. The White House did not announce the meeting — word of it only became public when Khalid tweeted about it. He said he discussed "bilateral cooperation, including efforts to confront regional and international challenges."Rome does not think Iran is likely to attack Saudi Arabia directly — but said Iran might try to target U.S. facilities in Saudi Arabia."Where the Saudi concern lies is if this [Iranian and U.S. reciprocal retaliation] escalates very significantly, that Iran would start to look at countries that are allied with the U.S. or provide bases or other assistance to the U.S. as potential targets," says Rome.He points to a recent incident that caused alarm. In September, a main installation and an oil field at the giant state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, were hit by a series of explosions. Saudi Arabia's military said the attack from cruise missiles and drones was "unquestionably" sponsored by Iran. The hit temporarily disabled part of the country's oil industry, laying bare vulnerabilities in its defenses.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Saudi Arabia and declared the assault an "act of war" by Iran.Rome says the kingdom was surprised there was no military response from the Trump administration after the oil attack."I think it became very clear to the leadership in Riyadh that Washington does not have its back from a military point of view and that they need to urgently try another avenue," he says.That avenue was diplomacy. After the attack on Saudi oil, the kingdom focused on trying to de-escalate tension in the Persian Gulf region, according to Emily Hawthorne, a Middle East specialist at Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence company."We have seen the Saudis back away from what was once a pretty sharply confrontational stance against Iran," Hawthorne says. "We've seen them move more toward beginning to probe the idea of seeking a dialogue with Iran."The Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately provide comment to NPR on possible dialogue with Iran.Hawthorne says Riyadh "craves" stability, not just for the kingdom's physical security, but also because it will help court foreign investment — a critical component of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's efforts to wean Saudi Arabia off its oil dependency.Hawthorne says Saudi Arabia is following the example of its Gulf neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, which will host Expo 2020, a world's fair, next fall and wants to make sure it goes off without a hitch. She says the UAE has started a dialogue with Iranian officials. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have national safety as a priority, she says."The Arab Gulf states are closest allies of the United States, but they can't control exactly how the U.S. is conducting its policy against Iran," she says.She says Saudi Arabia's efforts toward a Saudi-Iranian detente are in a very early stage and being mediated by other countries, such as Pakistan and Iraq.In fact, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told parliament last Sunday that he was mediating between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He said Soleimani had been bringing a message from Iran for the Saudis on the day he was killed in Baghdad.Pompeo threw cold water on any notion that Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission. "Is there any history that would indicate that it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman, this diplomat of great order, Qassem Soleimani, had traveled to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace mission?" he said on Tuesday. "We know that wasn't true."The Trump administration has said it conducted the drone strike against Soleimani to prevent planned attacks against Americans.Trita Parsi, an executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says there have been tangible signs that Saudi Arabia was serious about cooling tensions with Iranian proxies, such as the Yemeni rebels known as the Houthis."We saw an 80% reduction in Saudi airstrikes on Yemen. We saw talks between the Houthis and the Saudis, which led to an exchange of more than 100 prisoners of war," he says. "And now we apparently also saw that there were messages being sent between ... the Saudis and Iran." Politics Trump Says Iran Is 'Standing Down,' Vows To Continue Pressure In his televised speech Wednesday, Trump said that Iran's attacks earlier in the day in Iraq did not harm any Americans and that the country appears "to be standing down."If tensions do de-escalate, the analysts agree, there's still a chance that attempts for a detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia can resume.

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday night that the Trump administration’s strictest asylum policy to date is illegal.A rule put in place in 2019 prohibited immigrants from claiming asylum in the United States if they did not first try to claim it in a country they passed through on their way to the U.S. border.U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly of Washington, D.C., ruled in favor of immigrant nonprofits and asylum-seekers who argued that the rule known as the "third-country asylum rule," which was jointly published by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, violated the Immigration and Nationality Act.Kelly, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Donald Trump in 2017, agreed that in adopting the policy, the administration did not abide by the federal Administrative Procedure Act, or APA, which requires that Americans be given enough time and opportunity to weigh in on such rule changes.The Immigration and Nationality Act, the judge argued, generally allows anyone who has made it to U.S. soil to apply for asylum, with some exceptions, including for those with criminal records."There are many circumstances in which courts appropriately defer to the national security judgments of the Executive," Kelly wrote. "But determining the scope of an APA exception is not one of them."Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.The judge noted that the Supreme Court had blocked an earlier injunction against the rule until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed overturning the rule.An attorney for the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, which represented the plaintiffs, lauded the decision. "The court recognized that the Trump administration unlawfully skipped steps mandated by Congress to ensure transparency in its failed attempt to make an end-run around asylum protections," said Julie Veroff.Download the NBC News app for breaking news and alertsTuesday night's move, a major blow to the administration's toughest asylum policy, comes on the heels of the Supreme Court's decision June 18 to uphold the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed nearly 800,000 young people, known as Dreamers, to avoid deportation.The third-country rule appeared to be aimed at Central American migrants who claimed they were fleeing gang violence. Trump has vowed to halt the migrants' treks, including so-called caravans, through Mexico.The rule has essentially forced asylum-seeking migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to first seek it from Mexico before asking the United States for help."This decision invalidates Trump's 'asylum ban' at the southern border," former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, an MSNBC legal analyst, said Tuesday night on Twitter.Katyal, who said he was a party to the plaintiffs' challenge, said the ruling would take effect immediately.On Twitter, immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council called the decision "a fantastic victory."The impact might not be felt immediately along the U.S.-Mexico border. Kelly wrote that "recent pandemic-related administrative action appears to have effectively closed the southern border indefinitely to aliens seeking asylum."Last week, a federal judge in Los Angeles ordered the release of children held in the country's three family detention centers because of the danger posed by the coronavirus pandemic.The Trump administration did record a win last week when the Supreme Court ruled that some asylum-seekers can be fast-tracked for deportation.

TORONTO -- Two of Canada’s three major telecommunication companies announced Tuesday they’ve decided not to use Chinese tech giant Huawei for their next-generation 5G wireless network. Bell Canada announced that Sweden-based Ericsson will be its supplier and Telus Corp. later announced that it had also selected Ericsson and Nokia. Rogers already has a longstanding partnership with Ericsson. Canada and its security agencies have been studying whether to use equipment from Huawei as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology. 5G is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to facilitate medical devices, self-driving cars and other technology. Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies, but has long been seen as a front for spying by China’s military and its highly skilled security services. The U.S. has urged Canada to exclude Huawei equipment from their next-generation wireless networks as they claim Huawei is legally beholden to the Chinese regime. The United States and Australia have banned Huawei, citing concerns it is an organ of Chinese military intelligence — a charge the company denies. “We look forward to the federal government completing its 5G review and making an evidence-based decision about Huawei’s role in helping build Canada’s next-generation wireless networks,” Huawei spokesman Alykhan Velshi said in an email. The Canadian government is studying the use of Huawei as Canada and China are locked in a political dispute. China’s imprisonment of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor is widely seen as retaliation for the arrest in Canada of Huawei senior executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant. A Canadian judge ruled last week the U.S. extradition case against a senior Huawei executive can proceed to the next stage.

Nakamoto described how new bitcoins coins could be created through a process called mining, which requires powerful computers that solve complex math problems. Months after the white paper published, Nakamoto mined the first block of bitcoin, which generated 50 bitcoins. Little is known about the creator. Nakamoto is a pseudonym — and even a decade later, it's still unclear who exactly that is.But the publication of the paper was a groundbreaking moment. According to Maya Kumar, an executive who oversees the UK and Ireland operations at Luno, an app that helps users buy bitcoin, it paved the way for the next phase in the evolution of money."The invention of bitcoin and the underlying blockchain [that supports it] has allowed us all to reimagine money," Kumar told CNN Business. "We are seeing a new parallel financial system being built in real time."Bitcoin relies on cryptography, which uses hidden codes to communicate. Users can make transactions directly under pseudonyms, taking away power from banks and governments, and it is not controlled by a central authority. For bitcoin, each problem takes about 10 minutes to solve and creates a predetermined number of coins. The number that is awarded for solving each problem dwindles as time goes on. Nakamoto's system only allows a fixed number of coins to be created — there's a limit of 21 million bitcoins that can ever be generated. Bitcoin rang in its 10th birthday with continued volatility.Eiland Glover, the CEO of coin company Kowala, said this fixed number will limit bitcoin's future."There can only ever be so many bitcoin supplied so if demand grows and you have a limited number, there's deflation and volatility," Glover said.His company and others are attempting to create more stable coins that are tied to the US dollar — a move he believes will make the value of the coins less volatile. Glover calls Nakamoto's white paper "the most essential foundational paper" but he notes how people have been trying to improve it. Bitcoin'searly adopterssometimes tried to make clandestine and illegal transactions. Over time, it gained broader adoption.In 2014, Overstock became the first major US retailer to accept bitcoin. Companies such as Expedia and Microsoft followed, and now even Starbucks wants to find a way to let customers use bitcoin to pay for their caffeine fixes.Bitcoin is far from the only cryptocurrency available. From ether and litecoin to even cryptokitties, there are more than 1,500 options. But bitcoin is the oldest, biggest and most popular. Although supply and demand play a role in its volatility, so does hype from news coverage. For example, the news of a cryptocurrency exchange hack can cause prices to drop, while the potential of tighter regulation leads to a boost. But bitcoin's growing popularity and entrance into the mainstream suggest the coin isn't going anywhere anytime soon, according to multiple experts. Stability is needed for any digital currency to succeed. For now, we'll see how bitcoin evolves as a teen.

Last year, when the price of bitcoin rose 1,000%, you might have regretted not buying in. Now that it has fallen almost 40% so this year, perhaps you don’t have as many regrets. The murky trading and wrenching volatility of cryptocurrencies threaten their place as a fundamental plank of the future financial system, as proponents are pushing. Now, a group of famed economists and financial innovators have a plan to address those challenges by creating “the first non-anonymous blockchain-based digital currency,” called Saga (SGA).Think of it as a cryptocurrency without all the things that make regulators, central bankers, and, frankly, most people nervous—the extreme volatility, the ambiguous notion of value, the anonymity.Saga is being developed by The Saga Foundation, a Swiss non-profit created last year that is dedicated to developing new technologies in open and decentralized software. The advisory board includes Jacob Frenkel, the former Governor of the Bank of Israel and chairman of JPMorgan Chase International; economics Nobel laureate Myron Scholes, known for creating the Black-Scholes formula, the most well-known model for pricing options and derivatives; Dan Galai, a co-developer of VIX, the leading measure of financial market volatility; and Leo Melamed, the chairman emeritus of CME Group and pioneer in financial futures. Needless to say, the board knows a thing or two about how markets work.The Saga token’s purported stability is intended to make it useful as a unit of account and a means of exchange, rather than a tool of pure speculation. The wild price swings in many—most, really—cryptocurrencies make them unappealing as a means of payment, to say nothing of the strains the volatility has put on the exchanges where they trade.To ensure low volatility, Saga will employ methods from traditional finance. Saga will use a fractional reserve method (similar to what banks use) and deposit reserves in regulated banks. Saga will be essentially pegged to the IMF’s Special Drawing Right (SDR), an international reserve asset that’s comprised of a basket dominated by the US dollar and euro. Central banks also often keep the SDR in their official reserves.Saga’s money supply will be adjusted algorithmically according to the size of its economy: for example, when the economy expands, a smart contract increases the token supply, which will limit price rises. There will also be a price band to act as another check on volatility.Holders of Saga must complete “know your customer” and anti-money laundering requirements under Swiss law. This removes the anonymity aspect, considered a crucial element of cryptocurrencies based on the idea of a decentralized system that exists outside the control of governments and central banks. It’s worth noting that such identification measures are already widely used by existing crypto exchanges, and in many token sales.There is also some irony in a cryptocurrency backed by fractional reserves. This was anathema to the founding principles of bitcoin, the granddaddy of cryptocurrencies. Its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, encoded a message in the first bitcoin block ever mined, which says: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” That was not exactly a ringing endorsement of the traditional financial processes being touted by Saga’s distinguished crew.But a coin whose price doesn’t swing wildly—a so-called “stablecoin”—is something that has been pursued by the cryptorati for some time. The most high-profile example is Tether, a token whose makers claim is fully backed by dollar reserves, with each tether backed by one US dollar. There is about $2.3 billion worth of Tether circulating on global crypto-markets today, but no one is sure whether those cash reserves truly exist. Tether’s creators have fired an auditor it hired to verify its claims, raising further suspicions from the market.Saga joins a rush to create a legitimate stablecoin, including some backed by big-name Silicon Valley investors. They include Basecoin, which promises a price regulated by an “algorithmic central bank” and Dai token, whose value against the US dollar is set by a “decentralized autonomous organization”—a sort of mashup between algorithms and continuous shareholder voting. Both are backed by the blue-chip venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.Saga tokens can be bought starting in the fourth quarter of this year, the foundation’s website says, and can be purchased using ether or a bank transfer to one the banks holding Saga’s reserves. Here’s how it works with ether:Rather than doing an ICO, the usual method for issuing new coins in the crypto space, Saga has raised $30 million from investors at venture capital and hedge funds, including Mangrove Capital Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Saga Genesis is being offered as a voucher token to early supporters and investors.More broadly, the Saga Foundation wants to use blockchain to “re-examine governance paradigms” and come up with a new approach to how society exchanges value. If this sounds confusing, maybe this artsy video the foundation created can clear it up:Or maybe not.

Re-inventing the wheel sounds like oh, so much fun.No where near as fun as a world with only one vehicle platform run by only one company. I don't understand how Americans can at the same time hate monopolies providing their internet, but praise a world where the only shop is Amazon, the only restaurant is Taco Bell, and the only space agency is SpaceX.Not only should everyone the rest of the world re-invent the wheel (it's how you drive technology forward through competition and diverse ideas like how SpaceX got founded in the first place), but Boeing and ULA should pull their finger out and start heading this direction too.It reminds me of 3D printing. I could buy a PRUSA kit and put it together and be printing today or I could buy parts of Ebay, Amazon, and AliExpress and possibly be printing next month while running the risk of spending more and burning down my house. False equivalency. If SpaceX is Prusa, that doesn't make the ESA's efforts Ebay, Amazon or anything else cheap. Rather it make's the ESA's efforts a quality Prusa clone following the ideas of the platform, but maybe with a Volcano extruder, or a Bear frame. Just like how the alternative to SpaceX isn't always cheap and nasty, the alternative to Prusa isn't always to burn your house down. (Sidenote: If your Prusa printer is still stock from how it was delivered you haven't even begun to unlock some of 3D printing's potential).When you have reasonably priced mature technology available, USE IT!Or do R&D and produce something even better rather than enriching single companies giving them monopoly status and stagnating the development of technology.This post brought to you by someone who thought like me, deciding to develop yet other computer platform in an already busy market which inadvertently led to the commodification of the personal computer. I hope you're thankful to those people who don't think like you. Without them it's unlikely you'd be here posting right now.

Trump still doesn’t inspire the same level of cultish devotion among Republican officeholders as he does among Republican voters. Time and again during his political career, he has said or done something that has appalled, mortified, or scandalized GOP politicians: There was the Access Hollywood tape in October 2016. There was the week in May 2017 when he fired FBI Director James Comey, then shared classified material with Russian leaders. There was his obsequious appearance with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July 2018. Each time, the initial reaction has been horror and even condemnation from Republican officials, followed—within a few short days—by acquiescence and acceptance.This happened twice during the impeachment drama. In the early stages of the scandal, Republicans criticized Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Senator Lindsey Graham said he’d be very disturbed if Trump had engaged in a quid pro quo. But eventually the GOP settled down, and Graham now says the quid pro quo is perfectly fine.The second example arrived this week. After news of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, which confirmed the factual case alleged by House Democrats, Republican senators seemed to be reeling. Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, and is apparently very naive, predicted that as many as 10 Republicans would vote to hear witnesses. Reports said that McConnell didn’t have the votes to block witnesses. Now, of course, it seems obvious that witnesses are out, leaving things right where they were before the Bolton revelations.Why is it that these moments bend but never break Republican support? This is politics, and the simplest answer is probably political. Vulnerable senators like Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona are risking their seats by lining up behind Trump. Both face tough races in November. Gardner will likely run against the popular former governor John Hickenlooper. McSally lost an election last November, was appointed to fill another Senate seat, and is struggling against the Democratic challenger, Mark Kelly.Yet it’s not clear that going against Trump would help either Gardner or McSally, and the opposite is more likely. Candidates occasionally try to run away from presidents of their own party who are unpopular in their state, and it almost never works. Such a maneuver is unlikely to win over Democrats and moderates who dislike Trump—especially for first-termers like Gardner and McSally, who don’t have a long-standing relationship with voters—while it might alienate Republican voters the senators desperately need to hold.In 2010, for example, some moderate Democrats attempted to distance themselves from Barack Obama, and they were almost entirely swept out of office. Then again, other Democrats tried to stay close to Obama, and many of them were swept out of office too.