U.S. officials consider the commander of an elite Iranian military unit a terrorist supporter and the man ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and their Middle East allies.But many Iranians view Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the face of Tehran’s growing regional clout, as their best defense against foreign aggression.Gen....

MEXICO CITY — It has become a regular occurrence, particularly around the Easter holiday: scores or even hundreds of Central American migrants making their way north by foot and vehicle from southern Mexico. They include everyone from infants to the elderly, fleeing violence and poverty in their homelands.They travel in large groups — the current is one of the largest at about 1,200 participants — in part for protection against the kidnappers, muggers and rapists that stalk the migrant trail, but also to draw more attention to their plight. Some have the United States in mind, but many are only thinking as far as a new home in Mexico.Called “caravans,” most of the journeys, which date back at least five years, have moved forward with little fanfare, virtually unnoticed north of the border with the United States. But tweets by President Trump have suddenly turned the latest caravan into a major international incident and the most recent flash point in the politics of immigration in the United States.“Getting more dangerous,” the president tweeted on Sunday. “‘Caravans’ coming.”Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2018 On Monday, he warned that “our country is being stolen” by illegal immigration, blaming Democrats for weak border policies and urging Mexico to strengthen its border enforcement.“Mexico has the absolute power not to let these large ‘Caravans’ of people enter their country,” he said in a tweet.In interviews on Monday, the caravan’s organizers sounded frustrated, exhausted and dismayed.“We are not terrorists,” said Irineo Mujica, Mexico director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras — People Without Borders — a transnational advocacy group that is coordinating the current caravan and has organized others in recent years. He was speaking by phone from Matías Romero, a town in the state of Oaxaca in southwest Mexico where members of the caravan had spent the previous two nights, sleeping in a park.“We are not anarchists,” Mr. Mujica continued. “We try to help people to know their rights, things that we as human beings should be doing, try to advocate for human, sensible solutions.”Late Monday, Mexican immigration officials began negotiations with caravan organizers about how to deal with the migrants.ImageBorder Patrol agents apprehended illegal immigrants near the United States border with Mexico last week near McAllen, Tex.Credit...Loren Elliott/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAlex Mensing, project coordinator for Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said that the Mexican authorities had agreed to provide eligible migrants with humanitarian visas permitting them to remain in the country legally. Others would be provided with temporary transit passes, which usually last 20 days, allowing them to visit an immigration office and begin the process to legalize their status or travel to the United States border to apply for asylum or some other form of protection, Mr. Mensing said.Mexico’s Foreign Ministry and Interior Ministry, in a statement issued jointly late Monday, said the authorities had already deported 400 participants in the caravan since the event began more than a week ago, but confirmed that they were offering protections to the migrants “in cases where this is appropriate.”“Under no circumstances does the Mexican government promote irregular migration,” the statement said.Mr. Mensing said that processing details were still being worked out between government officials and the caravan organizers, but warned that should the process take too long, “it’s very possible that the caravan will reignite.”The migrant group left the southern Mexican border town of Tapachula on March 25, at that point numbering about 700. Most of the participants were from Honduras and many of them said they were fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries, organizers said. Some say they were inspired to flee Honduras following the violent suppression of political protests that erupted after last year’s presidential election.Over the past week, the group grew in size, to about 1,200 by the time it arrived in Matías Romero.But organizers said that contrary to the vision of a migrant onslaught on America conjured by Mr. Trump, most participants do not intend to travel as far as the border of the United States.“He’s trying to paint this as if we are trying to go to the border, and we’re going to storm the border,” Mr. Mujica said.Mr. Mensing added: “We’re definitely not looking for some kind of showdown.”In an interview Monday, before negotiations between the Mexican immigration authorities and the caravan organizers began, Mr. Mujica predicted that at most 10 percent to 15 percent of the participants would seek asylum at the American border.He said he expected many others to drop out along the way, especially if the caravan continued along its intended route through the state of Puebla and on to Mexico City, with some participants applying for asylum or other forms of protection in Mexico.In Puebla, Pueblo Sin Fronteras plans to hold workshops, led by volunteer lawyers, to teach migrants about options for legal protections in the region, including in Mexico and the United States.“We don’t promote going to the United States,” Mr. Mensing said. “It’s a challenging place to seek asylum.”In recent years, Mexico has become an increasingly attractive destination in its own right for Central Americans and others seeking sanctuary from economic hardship and violence in their home countries, even though advocates say the nation’s asylum program remains deeply flawed.“We are trying — as Mexicans, as Americans — to find solutions,” said Mr. Mujica, a Mexican-American who holds dual citizenship.In his Twitter posts on Sunday, Mr. Trump also asserted that many migrants trying to cross the border into the United States were seeking to “take advantage of” the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, that has provided protected status to hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought to the country as children. Mr. Trump announced last year that he was ending the program but was open to keeping it.On Monday, advisers said that the president was also alluding to a perception, supposedly held by many Central American migrants, that as part of efforts to salvage DACA, Congress may soon agree to legislation that would permit unauthorized immigrants to remain in the United States.But migrant-rights advocates, including coordinators of the latest caravan traversing Mexico, said these assertions were a White House invention.“It’s laughable!” Mr. Mujica said. “Most of the people don’t even know what DACA is. They know that it’s almost impossible to get into the United States. They know that they’re deporting everyone.”On Sunday, even Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs, Luis Videgaray, weighed in, apparently in response Mr. Trump’s tweets that accused Mexico of lax immigration enforcement.“Every day Mexico and the U.S. work together on migration throughout the region,” he said on Twitter. “Facts clearly reflect this. An inaccurate news report should not serve to question this strong cooperation. Upholding human dignity and rights is not at odds with the rule of law. Happy Easter.”

The Trump administration’s justification for killing Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top military commander, has subtly shifted since last Thursday. But the implications of that shift have profound implications in terms of the legality of an American action that has dramatically ratcheted up tensions in the Middle East.Shortly after Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Iraq last Thursday, the Department of Defense issued a statement arguing that the strike was justified as a self-defense measure.“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the statement said. “This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”That claim was echoed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who went on CNN on Friday and cited intelligence indicating Soleimani’s continued existence posed an “imminent” threat that put “dozens if not hundreds of American lives at risk.”“This was an intelligence-based assessment that drove our decision-making process,” Pompeo said.But four days later, Pompeo has stopped talking about intelligence of an “imminent threat” to justify the strike. Now, he’s mainly relying on the talking point that Soleimani had American blood on his hands and therefore had to go.During a news conference on Tuesday, Pompeo was asked to share some specifics about the threat Soleimani posed. He responded by talking about Soleimani’s alleged role in an attack in Iraq that left an American contractor dead last month. “We know what happened at the end of last year in December, ultimately leading to the death of an American,” Pompeo said. “So, if you are looking for imminence, look no further than the days that led up to the strike that was taken against Soleimani.” REPORTER: Can you be specific about the imminent threat that Soleimani posed?POMPEO: "We know what happened at the end of last year & ultimately led to the death of an American. If you are looking for immanence, look no further than the days that led up to the strike." pic.twitter.com/yhqyNToZxd— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2020 But as Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) alluded to on Twitter in response to Pompeo’s comments, news reports and vague claims about Soleimani’s possible role in future attacks is not the same thing as an “imminent threat.”“The administration appears to be completely abandoning their previous claim that the killing was ordered to prevent specific attacks about which they had intelligence,” Beyer wrote.The shift from what Pompeo said last Friday to what he said on Tuesday — a change that first became noticeable during a string of TV appearances on Sunday in which he tried to distance himself from the “imminent threat” talking point — has been echoed by the president himself.During a radio interview with Rush Limbaugh on Monday, Trump said Soleimani “should have been taken out a long time ago” — a claim at tension with the idea that he posed an immediate threat. OLD: There was an imminent threatNEW: Soleimani should've been taken out a long time ago pic.twitter.com/8cdeIczXNN— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2020 This matters. The Trump administration has to establish that it had the legal authority to kill Soleimani. It could try to do that in a variety of ways, such as arguing that his killing was lawful under the terms of one of the Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs), which Congress has given the executive branch over the years to do things like fight the Iraq War and go after terrorists groups like al-Qaeda.But that could be a difficult case to make, since Soleimani is an Iranian (not Iraqi) military commander and not a member of al-Qaeda. So instead, the administration decided to use the legal justification that they were acting in self-defense and that Soleimani posed an “imminent threat.” But some have questioned whether Soleimani actually posed an imminent threat. If he didn’t, that would poke a major hole in their argument that the strike was legally justified.“Many of the people who have shaped our legal understanding of ‘imminent’ over the years understood it to mean that the threat was unfolding right now and there’s no time to do anything other than to kill the person,” Heather Hurlburt, a national security expert at the think tank New America, explained to my colleague Sean Illing. “The Soleimani killing doesn’t appear to meet that threshold.”While Trump has made it clear in recent days that he doesn’t feel particularly constrained by either domestic or international law, questions about the legality of the Soleimani strike aren’t just academic — they could be hugely meaningful if the Iranian government follows through on its threats to retaliate against American interests.As Hulbert explained, “it will be unfortunate if there are Iranian attacks that target Americans and we want other countries to help protect us and other countries say they’re not comfortable because we engaged in this illegal provocative act.”While Trumpworld’s talking points have shifted, they remain unsettled. Later Tuesday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper held a news conference during which he referred to intelligence indicating Soleimani was mere “days” away from masterminding an attack when he was killed — the exact sort of justification Pompeo has been distancing himself from. Even though Pompeo has distanced himself from it, Esper is still pushing the "imminent threat" talking point. He claims intelligence indicated Soleimani was planning an attack that was only "days" away. pic.twitter.com/8DAkNRH8C1— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2020 But during a White House media event a short time later, Trump responded to a question regarding what he know about the threat Soleimani presented before the strike by immediately bringing up past attacks.“Number one, I knew the past. His past was horrible,” Trump said. “We had an attack very recently that he was in charge of ... they were planning something, and you’re going to be hearing about, or at least various people in Congress are going to be hearing about it tomorrow.” REPORTER: What can you tell us about what you knew about the threat Soleimani presented prior to ordering the attack? TRUMP: "I knew the past. His past was horrible ... we saved a lot of lives by terminating his life. A lot of lives saved ... they were planning something." pic.twitter.com/BvNPneUBIX— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2020 As Trump alluded to, the White House is scheduled to brief congressional leaders about the Soleimani strike on Wednesday. But Democratic lawmakers were unimpressed with the entirely classified formal notification about the strike that the Trump administration sent to Congress last Saturday, right around the same time Pompeo started moving the goalposts about the “imminent threat.”House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that the notification “raises more questions than it answers” and “compounds our many concerns, and suggests that the Congress and the American people are being left in the dark about our national security.”The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.

On a sticky tropical afternoon in August, U.S. Marines unfurled an American flag at Guadalcanal, a southwest Pacific outpost that was the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the Pacific campaign in World War II.This stretch of ocean, dotted by thousands of islands and home to important shipping lanes and fisheries, is again in strategic calculations as China modernizes its military to project power far from its shores—threatening the dominance of the U.S. and its allies....

"A newly uncovered form of ransomwareis going after Windows and Linux systems," reports ZDNet, "in what appears to be a targeted campaign."Named Tycoon after references in the code, this ransomware has been active since December 2019 and looks to be the work of cyber criminals who are highly selective in their targeting. The malware also uses an uncommon deployment technique that helps stay hidden on compromised networks. The main targets of Tycoon are organisations in the education and software industries. Tycoon has been uncovered and detailed by researchers at BlackBerry working with security analysts at KPMG. It's an unusual form of ransomware because it's written in Java, deployed as a trojanised Java Runtime Environment and is compiled in a Java image file (Jimage) to hide the malicious intentions... [T]he first stage of Tycoon ransomware attacks is less uncommon, with the initial intrusion coming via insecure internet-facing Remote Desktop Protocol servers. This is a common attack vector for malware campaigns and it often exploits servers with weak or previously compromised passwords. Once inside the network, the attackers maintain persistence by using Image File Execution Options (IFEO) injection settings that more often provide developers with the ability to debug software. The attackers also use privileges to disable anti-malware software using ProcessHacker in order to stop removal of their attack... After execution, the ransomware encrypts the network with files encrypted by Tycoon given extensions including .redrum, .grinch and .thanos — and the attackers demand a ransom in exchange for the decryption key. The attackers ask for payment in bitcoin and claim the price depends on how quickly the victim gets in touch via email. The fact the campaign is still ongoing suggests that those behind it are finding success extorting payments from victims.

The US Department of Defense announced today that an American airstrike in Baghdad killed Qasem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force. This triggered a spike in oil and gold prices, and set World War III trending on Twitter.Who was Soleimani? And why does he matter?There are competing perspectives, with sharply differing points of view.The US believes Soleimani was a terrorist, akin to Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al Baghdadi of ISIS. But even within the US, there is acknowledgement of Soleimani’s status and role in Iran.Soleimani, who masterminded Iran’s regional strategy for more than 20 years, was described by Middle East watchers as “like a Middle East viceroy.” He led Iranian overseas operations, building military and political alliances that allowed Iran to wield greater clout in the region. Last year, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei awarded Soleimani the country’s highest military honor. Khamenei vowed “severe retaliation” for Soleimani’s killing.Veteran diplomats said the US assassination of Soleimani could be described as the equivalent of a foreign force taking out the current head of US Central Command. Indeed, Soleimani’s status in his country may be more accurately likened to that of General Colin Powell, one of America’s most highly regarded military strategists in modern times.Soleimani has been described as “the equivalent of the J.S.O.C. commander, the C.I.A. director and Iran’s real foreign minister,” in a reference to the acronym for the United States’ Joint Special Operations Command.Even so, the Pentagon said “General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.” It pointed out that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is a “US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” and added that Soleimani and his Quds Force “were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.”Republican senator Lindsey Graham, an ally of president Donald Trump’s, said that Soleimani “had American blood on his hands.” Nikki Haley, Trump’s former UN ambassador, said Soleimani was “an arch terrorist.” Leading members of the Democratic Party didn’t disagree about Soleimani’s record, but questioned the wisdom of taking him out.Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, said that “Soleimani was responsible for unthinkable violence and world is better off without him.” Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential candidate, said “no American will mourn Solemani’s passing.” He added, however, that taking his life would probably have significant consequences: “President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”

BIRMINGHAM, England—British Prime Minister Theresa May’s archrival Boris Johnson laid out a challenge to her leadership, touting his credentials to become the U.K.’s next leader amid a deep rift within the Conservative Party over the government’s approach to Brexit.At the annual conference of the Conservative Party, to which both Mr. Johnson and Mrs. May belong, Mr. Johnson repeatedly attacked the prime minister’s plan for quitting the European Union....

Hartley Sawyer, who played Ralph Dibny, aka Elongated Man, on “The Flash,” has been fired from the TV series after a slew of old racist and misogynistic tweets emerged in the last few weeks. The tweets, dredged up by people on Twitter last month, appear to be from 2009 to 2014 ― before Sawyer joined The CW series. Sawyer has since deleted his Twitter account, but screenshots remain. “Out at dinner and just exposed myself as a racist, again,” reads one tweet. Others say he would beat a wife if he had one, and describe cutting off homeless women’s breasts. A person who found some of the tweets said they included some that were “fatphobic.” a collection of @HartleySawyer's misogynistic, racist, fatphobic, etc. tweets (sorry if there's duplicates) pic.twitter.com/Kv0afDbiP1— steph (@themirrorin6x17) May 30, 2020 Hartley Sawyer, you have been exposed... pic.twitter.com/ig5VBXoZmK— Skai Jackson (@skaijackson) June 5, 2020 The CW, Warner Bros. TV, Berlanti Productions and executive producer Eric Wallace told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement that the remarks are intolerable. “We do not tolerate derogatory remarks that target any race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation," the statement said. "Such remarks are antithetical to our values and polices, which strive and evolve to promote a safe, inclusive and productive environment for our workforce.” Sawyer issued an apology on Instagram after the tweets surfaced, writing: “I am incredibly sorry, ashamed and disappointed in myself for my ignorance back then. I want to be very clear: this is not reflective of what I think or who I am now.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hartley Sawyer (@hartleysawyer) on May 30, 2020 at 11:59am PDT “The Flash” showrunner Eric Wallace said after Sawyer’s firing that the tweets “broke my heart and made me mad as hell.” “They’re indicative of the larger problem in our country,” Wallace said in a statement Monday. “Because at present, our country still accepts and protects the continual harassment ―unconscious or otherwise ― terrorizing and brutalizing of Black and Brown people, which is far too often fatal. That’s why our country is standing up once again and shouting, ‘Enough!’ and taking to the streets to bring about active change.” My statement regarding Hartley Sawyer and THE FLASH. pic.twitter.com/hni0MxOWZU— Eric Wallace (@ewrote) June 8, 2020 Wallace went on to say that he’s committed to bringing “permanent change to the work environment” on the set of “The Flash.” “Systemic and institutional white privilege is not equality,” he wrote, adding: “The only way for you to be free is for all of us to be free.” RELATED... Minneapolis Agrees To Ban Police Chokeholds After George Floyd's Death Civil Rights Groups Sue Trump, Barr After Violent Dispersal Of Protesters Outside White House The Police Have Shown Their True Colors Ruby Rose Speaks Out About Shocking 'Batwoman' Exit And We're Still Confused Download Calling all HuffPost superfans! Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter Join HuffPost

A pandemic is spreading around the world, challenging global health systems and national preparedness. About the only thing the novel coronavirus is not disrupting is conflict between the U.S. and Iran, as the top U.S. general in the Middle East signaled Friday that the airstrikes on Iranian proxy militias in Iraq are likely to not be the last. On Thursday night, U.S. warplanes struck what Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie described as five “advanced conventional” weapons storage sites in Iraq kept by the Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah. Kataib Hezbollah’s Iraqi leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was killed by the same U.S. drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian external security chief Qassem Soleimani. McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, for the first time called the group responsible for this week’s rocket attack on Iraq’s Camp Taji that killed two U.S. service members, Army Spc. Juan Miguel Mendez Covarrubias and Air Force Staff Sgt. Marshal D. Roberts. While McKenzie testified on Thursday that the Soleimani assassination restored a “rough form of deterrence” against Iran itself, McKenzie indicated on Friday that Iran’s proxy forces—for 15 years, Iran’s preferred, deniable mechanism to kill and maim U.S. forces—are unlikely to cease attacks on the U.S. in Iraq. “The threat remains very high. Tensions have not gone down,” McKenzie told reporters at the Pentagon early on Friday. Iran’s decision not to respond conventionally after launching ballistic missiles at U.S. positions in January—and shooting down a civilian airliner by accident—provides only what McKenzie called an “illusion of normality.” For all the Trump administration has said about restoring deterrence by killing Soleimani, McKenzie indicated that the major impact two months after the loss of the Iranian general was that “it’s harder for them to make effective decisions, it’s harder for them to convey their will to their proxies… None of their core objectives have changed, it’s their ability to execute.”McKenzie said that the five weapons depots struck were nowhere near the entirety of Kataib Hezbollah’s arsenal. “Plenty” of additional caches exist and may become U.S. targets, he added, should Iran-backed militias, as expected, continue targeting U.S. forces in Iraq. McKenzie telegraphed that Americans should expect “continued engagement [from the militias] we’re just going to have to deal with in the theater going forward.”Asked why the U.S. didn’t hit all Kataib Hezbollah’s weapons sites, McKenzie answered, “restraint.” That was a reference to the anger that Iraqis have felt over becoming a battleground for the U.S. and Iran— something that has jeopardized the future of U.S. forces there. “We have to respect, to some degree, the government of Iraq’s wishes,” McKenzie said— although he stopped short of saying the Iraqis were consulted prior to the strike. Iraq, like everywhere else, is struggling with COVID-19. Eight deaths have been attributed to the pandemic. Hospital systems battered by decades of war have to balance bed space for the public health emergency and the wounded from war. While McKenzie did not detail Iraqi casualties from the Thursday strike, the Iraqi military said the U.S. killed three Iraqi army commandos, two federal policemen and a civilian, as well as wounding five Popular Mobilization Unit militiamen—something that showed the deep ties between the Iranian-backed militias and the Iraqi security forces that the U.S. sponsors. The Iraqi presidency on Friday called the U.S. strike a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, much as it called the Soleimani slaying. “The presidency of the Republic denounces the foreign bombing that targeted many locations inside Iraq, including the Karbala airport under construction, and led to the martyrdom and wounding of members of the Iraqi security forces and civilians,” it said in a statement. The presidency had earlier denounced the militia strike on Camp Taji.“We’re a post-conflict state. Our resources are stressed. Oil prices are down,” an Iraqi official explained to The Daily Beast. “We have to contend with coronavirus. The last thing we want to deal with is an escalation in a proxy war.” Yet the U.S. remains in an escalatory posture. For the first time since 2012, the military has two aircraft carrier strike groups in the region, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Harry S Truman. Plus McKenzie said batteries of the Patriot anti-missile system are continuing to stream into Iraq, despite representing another source of tension with the Iraqi government. While Navy aircraft can launch from the carriers to strike militia targets, the heavy hardware is more responsive to a state like Iran than to its low-level proxy forces in Iraq. The actual mission of the U.S. in Iraq, to prevent a resurgence of the so-called Islamic State, seems like an afterthought, despite two Marine Raiders dying in an intense fight against ISIS this week.McKenzie appeared to acknowledge the stress. The Patriots don’t protect against rocket fire, and there aren’t enough counter-rocket systems to safeguard every position hosting U.S. forces in Iraq, he said. But McKenzie reiterated what he told a Senate panel on Thursday: As long as the Trump administration continues its Maximum Pressure campaign on Iran, Iran will seek to break it through violence, including proxy violence. Thursday’s strikes were supposed to be a “clear, unambiguous signal that we will not tolerate this behavior in the future.”Ilan Goldenberg, a senior Pentagon and State Department Middle East official during the Obama administration, said this week’s attacks displayed “mindblowing stupidity” from the Americans, the Iranians, and the Iranian-backed militias. He questioned the carrier and Patriot deployments as overkill and warned that coronavirus posed a far greater threat to all involved.“This is a moment for deescalation and to focus on things like regional diplomacy. In the midst of a global pandemic, borders don’t matter,” said Goldenberg, now with the Center for a New American Security. “We should be having Iraqis, Saudis, Iranians, and Americans sitting down to talk about how you manage this... All of our major resources need to go to thinking through that global emergency, not going to the Middle East.”

The movement against faulty artificial intelligence began with a discovery made by MIT Media Lab computer scientist and doctoral candidate Joy Buolamwini. Buolamwini, who went viral after testifying in front of the U.S. Congress in 2019 (which included a back and forth with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), accidentally stumbled on the racial and gender biases baked into mass-marketed AI software while completing an art project for a class at MIT. Only when Buolamwini, who is black, put on a white mask would the major facial recognition software she was using pick up on her face. She went on to test several other facial recognition systems to find that the issue was not a glitch, but standard. From there, the idea of algorithmic justice, or the ability to have recourse against algorithmic discrimination, sprung forth. Coded Bias, a new documentary by director Shalini Kantayya, tracks the primarily woman-led movement against this strange new form of discrimination, and thankfully, both Buolamwini and Kantayya are able to see how the problem with AI isn’t about representation—in fact, being “recognized” by this software is usually worse than being ignored by it. That’s because everything from Facebook’s to Google’s to Amazon’s to the FBI’s and U.K. police’s software is liable to falsely ID people as undesirable consumers, delinquent tenants, lacking job candidates, likely recidivists, or wanted criminals. Often, these facial recognition systems ID with a strong bias against black people of all genders, women of all races, and gender non-conforming people. It becomes obvious, then, that the software is made primarily by and for white men. Where Coded Bias seems to land is on the need for strong federal regulations for AI, especially facial recognition software. But it’s unclear if the regulatory model would be sufficient, since it would need to be strongly enforced by an independent body that doesn’t stand to gain from letting shady products slide. In the documentary, the Food and Drug Administration is brought up as a desirable analogue, but the FDA has famously let harmful drugs and food items pass through (like the diabetes drug Troglitazone, which regulators in the U.K. took off the market in 1997, but the FDA only removed in 2000) while delaying the approval of crucial, life-saving interventions, like AIDS/HIV medication. Coded Bias also follows Buolamwini as she meets with a tenants organizing group in Brownsville, Brooklyn, made up mostly of black women who are fighting their landlords’ move to put in a facial recognition building access system alongside the key-fob system that is already in place. In this building, the primarily black and brown tenants are already being tracked by surveillance systems once they’re inside, and cited for any behaviors that building management doesn’t like. This Brownsville Big Brother situation brings up the phenomenon of how the most liberty-denying technologies come to the most marginalized communities first, where poor black people serve as guinea pigs—you could even say regulatory bodies, literally—for new technology. The tenants fight back, with both elders and young residents coming together with Buolamwini to challenge incursions on their privacy and freedom.But, as the documentary makes clear, even with small-scale community interventions like these, the U.S. is no better off than China, which famously engages in almost ubiquitous surveillance of its citizens with the “social credit” system that scores—and thus rewards or punishes—citizens based on their public actions. In fact, one researcher points out, the only difference between China and the U.S. on surveillance is that China is actually transparent about its scoring system. In the U.S., we also give citizens and residents “social credit” scores, it’s just that those scores are typically hidden from us. If you have trouble getting a mortgage or car insurance, that’s because of how various private companies and even the government have tracked and scored you. If you can’t manage to get interviews for jobs that you’re clearly qualified for, it may be because human resources departments are using biased AI to screen résumés (when Amazon employed it, women were excluded and only men were hired). If you’re on a watchlist even though you’ve never been convicted of any crime or engaged in any violent behaviors, that’s because some algorithm or tracking system gave you a score.It’s these revelations that make it curious as to why Coded Bias lands on our very imperfect judicial system as recourse for surveillance capitalism. Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff, who wrote the very robust The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, and originated the phrase itself, is not mentioned or interviewed in the documentary. But her idea of the “behavioral futures market” rigorously demonstrates the way in which predictive policing, and thus the expansion of police powers even under police reform frameworks, is guaranteed by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the big data that feeds into it, which are all in turn bolstered by capitalism itself. Coded Bias might have benefited from infusing Buolamwini’s perspective on algorithmic justice with Zuboff’s on surveillance capitalism. “Buolamwini does receive backlash from Amazon when a VP incompetently seeks to discredit her work in response to critique she leverages against the company…”Coded Bias is hyper-focused on Buolamwini as a leader and evangelist in the algorithmic justice space, and as a result, does not question an approach that is rooted in improving company conduct rather than challenging the very foundation of the Googles and IBMs of the world (and especially, of the U.S.). Buolamwini does receive backlash from Amazon when a VP incompetently seeks to discredit her work in response to critique she leverages against the company, but IBM, on the other hand, has absorbed some of her critiques and repackaged them into diversity and inclusion efforts. Is the absorption and partnership with corporate technology companies the point? We never know, because director Shalini Kantayya never asks Buolamwini directly about it. Kantayya might have also given more space to the ideas touched on by some of the other experts in the film, including mathematician Cathy O’Neil, data journalist Meredith Broussard, and Information Studies and African-American Studies scholar Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble. Instead, Coded Bias seems fairly trained on shaping Buolamwini as a movement leader, flanked by other brilliant women. It’s this branding that obscures the core of Buolamwini and many others’ mission to keep corporations from deciding our futures.

Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China, said on Saturday that the recall was “heavy handed.” The United States should not be surprised as Latin American governments push back against American requests, he added, when President Trump has continued to alienate the people of Latin America.“Trump has openly and systematically offended Latin American countries and their people,” Mr. Guajardo wrote in an email. “He labels us as rapists and criminals, has never traveled to the region as president, has deported and separated families, and threatened to cut all sort of aid. China comes with an offer of friendship and economic development (albeit one that I don’t think will pan out). Why the surprise?”The United States has yet to fill some ambassador posts in the region, including those in Mexico and Panama, Mr. Guajardo noted, whereas China has assigned ambassadors in all Latin American nations with which it has diplomatic relations.“Save a few countries in Latin America, the region as a whole has a historical preference for the U.S. as the main ally,” he said. “This changed when Trump assumed the presidency. It was his call, his choice, to turn away from the region.”China has grown more strident over the issue of Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen, a strong critic of Beijing, became president of Taiwan in May 2016. Chinese officials have worked to erase any recognition by corporations of Taiwan’s sovereignty. For example, they successfully pressured international airlines this summer, including those in the United States, to list just “Taipei,” a city designation, in their booking systems rather than phrases that included “Taiwan,” as was the case for decades.Last month, Ms. Tsai made state visits to Belize and Paraguay to try to strengthen ties with those nations.

Enlarge this image Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, on Capitol Hill in May 2017. A former IT staffer who worked for Wasserman Schultz pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of lying on a loan application. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, on Capitol Hill in May 2017. A former IT staffer who worked for Wasserman Schultz pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of lying on a loan application. Jacquelyn Martin/AP A former IT specialist for congressional Democrats who has figured prominently in right-wing conspiracy theories pleaded guilty Tuesday to making false statements on a loan application. Nevertheless, federal prosecutors said they found no evidence that he stole government secrets, as many conservatives, including President Trump, have suggested.Imran Awan — who worked for former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other Democratic lawmakers — was arrested a year ago at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and charged with bank fraud.Since then, right-wing websites such as The Daily Caller and commentators on Fox News have pushed a narrative that Awan, a Pakistani immigrant, used his job as a cover for stealing government secrets. In tweets, Trump referred to him as "the Pakistani mystery man" and vaguely suggested that he was tied to the hacking of the DNC's email servers.However, Awan's guilty plea on Tuesday was unrelated to his work as an IT consultant.Awan's attorney, Christopher Gowen, said his client acknowledged that in December 2016, he had submitted an online loan application listing a property in his wife's name as her primary residence. It was instead a rental property.Gowan said Awan's misrepresentation was "wrong" and aimed at speeding the loan approval so that he could send money to his ailing father in Pakistan.As The Washington Post notes, "the agreement included an unusual passage that described the scope of the investigation and cleared Awan of a litany of conspiracy theories promulgated on Internet blogs, picked up by right-leaning news sites and fanned by Trump on Twitter.""The Government has uncovered no evidence that your client violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems," prosecutors noted in the plea agreement signed Tuesday."Particularly, the Government has found no evidence that your client illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information," it said.The plea deal said the government had conducted "a thorough investigation of those allegations. Including interviewing approximately 40 witnesses."The investigation was led by Trump-nominated U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu, according to the Post.Awan's attorney said in a statement that his client had been the target of "political persecution.""There has never been any missing server, smashed hard drives, blackmailed members of Congress, or breach of classified information," he said in the statement, according to the Post. "Yet Fox News and its media children continued to peddle a story in perfect coordination with House Republicans and the President."

Enlarge this image Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old leader of a global protest against inaction on climate change, marched at a rally in New York City Friday. Around the world, millions of other people joined her. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP hide caption toggle caption Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old leader of a global protest against inaction on climate change, marched at a rally in New York City Friday. Around the world, millions of other people joined her. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP Updated at 3 p.m. ETMillions of young people raised their voices at protests around the world Friday in a massive display meant to demand urgent action on climate change. Scores of students missed school to take part, some joined by teachers and parents.Some of the first rallies began in Australia, and then spread from Pacific islands to India and Turkey and across Europe, as students kicked off what organizers were calling a Global Climate Strike.In the U.S., where more than 800 marches were planned, thousands of young people are absent from classrooms so they can carry signs, march and shout slogans calling for a new approach to energy and emissions. "I'd rather go protest about the Earth and how something's going wrong than sit in my classroom and act like nothing's happening," high school student Harshita Ray tells member station WOSU in Columbus, Ohio.Instead of being at Olentangy Liberty High School, Ray joined other students for a demonstration at the Ohio Statehouse, filling the steps in front of the building and spilling out over its plaza. Enlarge this image Thousands of students gathered and marched in Boston. Meredith Nierman/WGBH hide caption toggle caption Meredith Nierman/WGBH Thousands of students gathered and marched in Boston. Meredith Nierman/WGBH Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who sparked what has become a global movement of Friday school strikes over climate change, is attending a large rally and march in Lower Manhattan.At a rally in San Francisco, Makayla Neyon, 16, told member station KQED: "I really just hope that we bring attention to the fact that our freakin' Earth is endangered ... so that my generation and my future generation can have a planet to live on."The protesters are marching to demand that government and businesses commit to a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. On its website, Global Climate Strike calls for a swift transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.Thunberg has been in the U.S. for more than a week, urging leaders to take responsibility for the environment and building momentum toward Friday's demonstrations. She recently told NPR that even with the new support, her focus remains on changing the future — for the better. Enlarge this image The Global Climate Strike drew scores of protesters around the world Friday, as young people answered a call from activist Greta Thunberg to demand action on climate change. Here, a protester attends a rally in Edinburgh, Scotland. Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images The Global Climate Strike drew scores of protesters around the world Friday, as young people answered a call from activist Greta Thunberg to demand action on climate change. Here, a protester attends a rally in Edinburgh, Scotland. Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Enlarge this image Protesters march during a Fridays for Future rally against climate change in Johannesburg, South Africa. Michele Spatari/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Michele Spatari/AFP/Getty Images Protesters march during a Fridays for Future rally against climate change in Johannesburg, South Africa. Michele Spatari/AFP/Getty Images "Even though this movement has become huge and there have been millions of children and young people who have been school striking for the climate," Thunberg says, "the emission curve is still not reducing ... and of course that is all that matters."Friday's massive march to New York City's Battery Park included 12-year-old Alexa Keys, who carried a handmade sign of the planet with the message, "Climate Change Needs to Change.""I've never been to a march before," she told NPR's Jeff Brady. "And I think this is just amazing, that this many people gathered to protest something" on a global level, said Keys, who traveled from Warwick, N.Y., with her mother for the rally. Enlarge this image Climate protesters from D.C., Maryland and Virginia converged on the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Tyrone Turner/WAMU hide caption toggle caption Tyrone Turner/WAMU Climate protesters from D.C., Maryland and Virginia converged on the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Tyrone Turner/WAMU In Harrisburg, Pa., member station WITF reports that Natasha Sood, a medical student at Penn State, told a crowd on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol: "Act as if your survival is at stake because it is! Act as if your future is at stake because it is! Act as if your kid's life is at stake because it is! Act as if your health is at stake because it is!" The protests began in the U.S. hours after massive rallies kicked off in many European countries, from Denmark and Poland to France and the U.K.In Germany, hundreds of thousands of marchers took to the streets in cities such as Munich, Hanover, Hamburg and Freiburg. And on the same day as the protests, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government agreed to a landmark $60 billion package designed to cut Germany's greenhouse gas emissions."Chanting, 'The time is now' for action on climate change, thousands of people gathered at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, forcing police to close access to the monument due to overcrowding," NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from Berlin. "Thousands more gathered in Warsaw and Prague. In Finland, crowds of demonstrators in costumes protested outside Parliament in Helsinki. One man dressed as Santa Claus held a sign declaring, 'My house is on fire.' " Environment Greta Thunberg To U.S.: 'You Have A Moral Responsibility' On Climate Change The protests come ahead of the U.N. Climate Action Summit that begins Monday in New York. In March, a similar demonstration inspired by Thunberg drew crowds around the world, including thousands of young students who skipped school to attend.The global movement has taken root in many countries, as young people reflect on the current condition of the world — and how their lives might be shaped by the consequences of allowing global average temperatures to keep rising. On Friday, the voices included children from Abuja, Nigeria.In Athens, waves of people gathered outside the Greek Parliament, with some of them holding signs that read, "Raise your voice, not the sea level." Enlarge this image People take part in a demonstration in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens. Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images People take part in a demonstration in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens. Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images In Islamabad, protesters braved a heat wave to cheer on the minister for climate change, Malik Amin Aslam, who promised to fight for the planet."They gathered in the late afternoon, in a nod to already unseasonably hot weather affecting the country, considered one of the world's most vulnerable to climate change impact," NPR's Diaa Hadid reports. "Protesters included teenagers in school uniforms, scouts, Red Cross volunteers and a contingent of transgender women, including a woman who raised a placard reading, 'Make The Planet Green Again.' "Eman Ghani, 15, said she is protesting because she's angry that political leaders were complacent to the risks of global warming."It's mad; the people who should be bringing change in the world are not," she said. "The old people who have power are not using their power, and the young people who don't have it can only speak up."Organizers say more than 300,000 people gathered at more than 100 rallies in cities around Australia, most notably in Melbourne, where an estimated 100,000 turned out, and Sydney, which reportedly saw 80,000 attend. Tens of thousands more are said to have marched in the capital, Canberra, as well as Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.The numbers of participants could not be immediately verified.In Sydney, 18-year-old Moemoana came from Wollongong to protest on behalf of her native Samoa, one of thousands of low-lying islands around the world that are particularly threatened by rising sea levels due to climate change."The Pacific Islands are meters above sea level because of climate change and it's a scary future for our islands," she was quoted by The Guardian Australia as saying. "We want to urge people to take some action."Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas — both major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is in the U.S. for a state dinner with President Trump, has been criticized for not including the U.N. Climate Action Summit on his itinerary.At least 2,000 companies in Australia gave employees time off to attend the rallies, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Meanwhile, the country's acting prime minister, Michael McCormack, speaking in Melbourne, called the rallies "just a disruption" and expressed displeasure with students attending the protests. Enlarge this image Protesters throw a large globe in Sydney. Rallies held across Australia are part of a global day of action demanding action on the climate crisis. Brook Mitchell/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Brook Mitchell/Getty Images Protesters throw a large globe in Sydney. Rallies held across Australia are part of a global day of action demanding action on the climate crisis. Brook Mitchell/Getty Images "These sorts of rallies should be held on a weekend where it doesn't actually disrupt business, it doesn't disrupt schools, it doesn't disrupt universities," McCormack told reporters, according to The Associated Press.In Kirabati, a Pacific island chain that experts fear could be inundated by sea level rise in the next 25 years, protesters carried signs that read: "We are not sinking, we are fighting."Some 200 young activists marched to the Ministry of Environment in Bangkok, where they dropped to the ground in mock death to demand that the government declare a climate emergency."We're young, but we're not dumb. We know it's happening. We need change. We demand better," 11-year-old Ralyn "Lilly" Satidtanasarn told The Bangkok Post. Enlarge this image Children shout slogans as they participate in a climate strike in New Delhi. Laurène Becquart/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Laurène Becquart/AFP/Getty Images Children shout slogans as they participate in a climate strike in New Delhi. Laurène Becquart/AFP/Getty Images In India, dozens of students and activists rallied in the capital, New Delhi, outside the country's Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, carrying banners that read "Eco, not ego!" and chanting, "I want to breathe clean."Thunberg has motivated millions of people to think more deeply about climate change and its future effects. And despite her young age, she makes her argument in blunt terms, seeking to cut through the entropy that has hovered around climate issues for years."You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children," Thunberg told the grown-ups at a U.N. climate change conference in Poland last year, when she was just 15.NPR's News Desk intern Paolo Zialcita contributed to this report.

Soleimani was respected and feared, seen as either the evil mastermind behind policies of death and destruction or the genius architect of Iran’s expansionist policies. He was also hated, not only by Sunnis who suffered at the hands of his proxy militias in Syria and Iraq, but also by fellow Shias, including some in Iraq and Iran, where he helped uphold a repressive system and was seen as the man responsible for Iran’s role in costly wars abroad. He was not simply on a mission to undo the unsatisfying score of the Iran-Iraq war and make up for the conflict’s devastating death toll and the humiliation it served his country; he had become the mission, the upholder of the Islamic revolution, keeping it alive for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Soleimani was also key to defeating the Islamic State, but this served very specific purposes for the Iranian commander.)More recently, in Iraq, he was instrumental in the violent crackdown against protests that had erupted in October. The protesters’ ire targeted not only the corruption and mismanagement of their own politicians, but Iran’s role in both, as well as its overbearing control over the country through proxy Shiite militias loyal to Tehran. “We in Iran know how to deal with protesters,” Soleimani had reportedly told Iraqi officials in October. “This happened in Iran and we got it under control.” Though Iraqis have continued to take to the streets, more than 500 of them have been killed. Demonstrations in Iran were also brutally crushed—more than 1,000 died in the crackdown there, according to Iranian officials.In Lebanon too, protests that began in October were initially focused on corruption, mismanagement, and sectarianism, but quickly took on an anti-Iran undertone. The Shiite militia and political party Hezbollah, a key ally and proxy of Iran since the ’80s, had become all-powerful in politics, a part of the establishment, and therefore was also a target of the protesters’ anger. It responded by sending thugs, or at least allowing them to repeatedly face off with protesters using bats and sticks. Notably, Soleimani had reportedly just flown into Baghdad from Beirut.Antipathy toward Iran and its role in the politics of multiple Middle East countries had long been building, predating these latest protests. But the multi-front explosion of popular anger toward Tehran and its proxies, especially from within Shiite communities in Lebanon and Iraq, was perhaps the most complex challenge that Soleimani had faced so far. The recent protests, in fact, explain the relief many feel in Beirut and Baghdad, in Damascus and Sana’a—blaming Soleimani himself for what had befallen their country or community.At times, it did indeed feel as though Soleimani was omnipresent. His decades-long career spanned the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war and his role propping up Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad; he flew to the country regularly to oversee a devastating war that has left more than half a million people dead. He was also blamed by the U.S. for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers following the invasion of Iraq, and he helped organize Hezbollah’s efforts against Israel in the 2006 war in Lebanon.

CAIRO - (Reuters) - The head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, killed in a U.S. strike in Iraq on Friday, was planning an imminent attack on U.S. facilities and workers in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and other countries, a senior U.S. official on Iran said. Brian Hook, the U.S. Special representative for Iran, told Al Arabiya TV that the attack was going to kill hundreds of Americans. Reporting by Alaa Swilam; Editing by Jon BoyleOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The Trump administration’s top official overseeing Iran policy met with a representative of a controversial Iranian dissident group weeks after a U.S. strike killed Iran’s top military leader.Brian Hook, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, met on January 31 with Robert G. Joseph, a former senior State official who now represents the National Council of Resistance of Iran, according to a foreign agent filing that Joseph submitted to the Justice Department this week. The NCRI is the political arm of the People's Mujahedin of Iran—commonly known by Farsi acronym, MEK—a group that seeks regime change in Iran and was on the U.S. government’s official list of foreign terrorist organizations until 2012.Joseph’s meeting with Hook came just a few weeks after a U.S. airstrike killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top military commander. The MEK had long seen Soleimani as one of Iran’s foremost villains. In a blog post hailing his death, the NCRI described him as “an infamous symbol of the regime’s intimidation and murder.” Soleimani was “directly responsible for killing some of my MEK people,” Rudy Giuliani, a long-time ally of the group, told The Daily Beast in January. “We don't like him very much.”Yet, in the wake of that strike, Pompeo circulated a memo barring American officials from meeting with representatives of the MEK, citing its controversial history—it allegedly played a role in the assassination of three U.S. Army officers and three more civilian contractors—and poor public standing in Iran.Neither Hook nor the State Department press office responded to requests for additional information on the meeting. Joseph also did not respond to a request for comment.The meeting with Hook was one of three of U.S. government contacts reported in Joseph’s semi-annual filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, but the only one that took place after the Soleimani strike. Joseph also reported meeting with Hook in September, and the following month with Tim Morrison, a former White House National Security Council official who oversaw policy in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Morrison declined to comment on the meeting.Joseph’s FARA filing does not include any details on what was discussed at each of those meetings. In general, he told the Justice Department, he worked to “provide advice to NCRI officials on a range of issues, including: how best to counter false narratives about NCRI; how to improve the reach and effectiveness of the NCRI work on Iran's sponsorship ofterrorism, regional aggression and its nuclear program; and how to advance the cause of building a free and democratic Iran.”Joseph also “provid[ed] advice to strengthen the protection and security of former Iranian refugee residents from the former U.S. military camp at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq, who are now residing outside Tirana, Albania,” according to his Justice Department filing.The NCRI is headquartered in Paris and staffed by Iranian expatriates and exiles, many of whom have faced brutal treatment by the Iranian regime. The group’s website describes it as the MEK’s “umbrella coalition.”The MEK has long worked to ingratiate itself with key U.S. policymakers, chiefly foreign policy hawks who share a distrust of the Iranian regime. It has forged ties with a number of officials who have served in or advised the Trump administration, including Giuliani and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.Pompeo himself spoke at an event that included MEK representatives last year. But in January, after Soleimani was killed, he cautioned diplomats against engaging with either the MEK or the NCRI. “Direct U.S. government engagement with these groups could prove counterproductive to our policy goal of seeking a comprehensive deal with the Iranian regime that addresses its destabilizing behavior,” Pompeo wrote in a memo sent to every U.S. embassy.Days later, State appeared to walk back those comments. It sent a cable to U.S. diplomats, as reported by The Daily Beast at the time, that did not mention the MEK or the NCRI by name, but left the door open to engagement with the groups. It simply advised U.S. officials to “use good judgement” in taking such meetings.“Posts should welcome opportunities to meet with and learn from members of the Iranian diaspora community,” advised the cable, which explicitly superseded Pompeo’s memo. “After 40 years of repression and violence at the hands of the Ayatollahs, the Iranian people’s pride in their history has not diminished nor has their resolve to celebrate it in the face of the Islamic republic’s abuses.”Joseph is a longtime NCRI ally, and signed up to lobby directly for the group in January 2019. He told DOJ at the time that he planned to “interact with Albanian officials, U.S. Embassy, State Department staff, White House, and any other U.S. personnel as required, as well as UN officials.” He’s being paid $15,000 per month for his services.Prior to his private sector work, Joseph oversaw nuclear nonproliferation and arms control policies as a senior official in George W. Bush’s State Department. He took a hard line on Iran in that position, according to contemporaneous reports.More recently, at an NCRI event in March 2019, Joseph expressed his hope that Tehran’s government would soon fall. “The efforts that are being made by...many in this room, I am confident, will result in the rebirth of the great Persian nation and light replacing the darkness,” he said. “The darkness that is brought to us by the brutal, repressive dictatorship of the Mullahs.”—with additional reporting by Erin Banco

U.S. Braces for Iran’s ‘Counterpunch’ After Slaying of Soleimani‘REAL JEOPARDY’The consequences may not come quickly or directly. But they could be enormous.Christopher DickeyWorld News EditorAdam RawnsleyErin BancoNational Security ReporterUpdated Jan. 07, 2020 4:03PM ET / Published Jan. 03, 2020 12:18AM ET BEAST INSIDE“Some will celebrate, some will mourn, some will seek revenge,” said an Iraqi official as word spread in Baghdad on Thursday night that the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani had been killed in an American airstrike. But there is little question, the official added, that U.S. relations with Baghdad are in “real jeopardy.”The consequences may not come quickly or directly. But they could be enormous. At their most dire, this strike may be the beginning of a much wider war in the Middle East—perhaps even the all-out war with Iran that Trump has said he wants to avoid.In a tweet early Friday, Trump sounded a bellicose note: “Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation!”

The controversial Iowa Republican congressman Steve King has been ousted in Tuesday’s primary, losing his re-election race to the state senator Randy Feenstra.King had faced the re-election fight of his life. The nine-term conservative congressman, who was repeatedly reprimanded by leaders in his own party for racist rhetoric and interactions with white nationalists, found himself in a nightmare situation for an incumbent congressman.He had been stripped of his committee assignments, abandoned by more mainstream Republicans and chastised by party leadership. He had even lost support from prominent conservatives in Iowa.Feenstra declared victory on Tuesday evening, promising he would deliver “results for the families, farmers and communities of Iowa”.King on Tuesday faced four Republican primary challengers, including Feenstra. Several of King’s former supporters had thrown their weight behind Feenstra.For years, King was a source of headaches for Republican party leadership.He has tied immigrant children to being drug mules, questioned whether minorities have contributed anything valuable to western civilization and displayed a Confederate flag on his desk. He has wondered why it is offensive to be called a white nationalist. He has also associated with far-right figures including the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and once argued to a far-right Austrian publication that elites were trying to reduce the white population and increase minorities.Even the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, suggested that King seek other careers.In November, Feenstra will face his Democratic opponent, who is hardly a shoo-in. In the last five presidential elections, Iowa’s fourth congressional district has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee only once – in 2008 for Barack Obama.Iowa’s vote was held alongside a host of other primary contests on Tuesday that tested the nation’s ability to run elections while balancing a pandemic and sweeping social unrest.Joe Biden, the de-facto Democratic presidential candidate, was on the verge of formally securing the nomination after winning hundreds more delegates in Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Dakota.Other victories of the night included Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader – who won an easy nomination in the Democratic primary in Maryland’s fifth district, a seat he has held for 40 years – and Yvette Herrell, who won the Republican primary in New Mexico’s second district. Topics US elections 2020 Iowa Republicans US Congress House of Representatives news

A millennial mayor with a difficult last name. [Mispronunciations of “Buttigieg.”] And, a knack for languages. [“Good morning, America” in several languages.] Pete Buttigieg is in the race for the White House. “I am running for president of the United States.” So, who is he? Buttigieg, also known as — “Mayor Pete” — is the mayor of South Bend, Ind. He got the job when he was just 29 and quickly moved to reverse the city’s economic decline. “Our hometown is not dead.” While serving as mayor, Buttigieg took a leave of absence for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He came out as gay while seeking re-election, and he won. So, what are his priorities? Ideologically he’s a progressive, but he hasn’t unveiled specific policies just yet. Instead, Buttigieg is focusing on big ideas. “You know, our party has this tendency to lead with the policies. First, we’ve got to explain our values.” He wants to abolish the electoral college, establish single-payer health care and expand the Supreme Court. “Yeah, but it’s not just about throwing more justices on the court. What I think we need to do is some kind of structural reform that makes the court less political.” He’s also pushing for the religious left to make a comeback. “No one party has a monopoly on faith.” And, he thinks it’s time for a younger voice in politics. “I mean, my face is my message. A lot of this is simply the idea that we need generational change.” So, what’s his dynamic with President Trump? Buttigieg is no fan of the Trump administration, especially Vice President Mike Pence, an opponent of same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination laws. “And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand, that if you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.” And Trump has yet to say or tweet anything about “Mayor Pete.” So, what are his chances? Buttigieg made a name for himself when this appearance on CNN went viral. “Do you think Vice President Pence would be a better or worse president than President Trump?” “Ugh.” And, it’s paying off. Buttigieg raised $7 million for his 2020 bid in the first quarter, enough to qualify for the first Democratic debates in June. But the question is whether this relative newcomer to the national stage can keep up his momentum throughout the long primary season.

Both are from modestly sized cities in Indiana. Both were baptised Catholic but came to embrace other branches of Christianity. Both found inspiration in former president John F Kennedy as they launched political careers of their own.The parallels between Mike Pence and Pete Buttigieg stop there.The Republican vice-president, 59, who is opposed to gay marriage, and the 37-year-old Democratic presidential candidate, who is married to a man, have found themselves at opposite ends of a debate about homosexuality, religion and tolerance.They have also become avatars of a struggle between the Christian right, which has long sought to claim a monopoly on morality, and a resurgent Christian left preaching inclusiveness and social justice. For Indiana, and America, they offer radically different readings of the Bible and how it should inform 21st-century politics.Should Buttigieg – who raised $7m in the first quarter, raced up the polls and formally launches his White House campaign on Sunday – fall short in the primary but be chosen as the eventual nominee’s running mate, the world views would collide in a blockbuster vice-presidential debate between two “Hoosiers”, as Indianans are known.“If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said by way of a preview at a recent LGBT event, where even atheists were impressed. “And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: that if you’ve got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”Both men are products of America’s church-heavy heartland. Early Indiana attracted French Jesuit missionaries, Quakers and German, Irish and eastern European Catholics. “The southern immigrants who moulded Hoosier society brought a deep, fundamentalist faith, a passion for fiery oratory, and a mistrust of authority,” records the state museum in the capital, Indianapolis. “Evangelical Protestantism profoundly shaped their conservative outlook, and thus shaped Indiana attitudes and politics.”Pence’s Irish Catholic grandfather came through Ellis Island, moved to Chicago and worked as a bus driver for 40 years. The family revered Kennedy, America’s first Irish-Catholic president, and voted Democratic. Born in Columbus, Pence and his brothers were altar boys at their Catholic church and went to its affiliated school.But later, when he was at university, Pence came to yearn for a greater intimacy with God. He found it in evangelical Christianity. Charles Hiltunen, 57, who was a fellow law student, recalled: “I think it was the spirit that grabbed him in the evangelical setting. He’s very energetic and lives the Word and I think that fulfilled his appetite. He still has his roots in the Catholic faith, but I think that’s his energy.”Pence is the only one of six siblings no longer part of the Catholic church. The Rev Clement Davis, the priest at the Columbus church where Pence was baptised, has said this transition disappointed his mother. “You could see Nancy just shake her head about it,” he told the New York Times in 2016. “She was disappointed. She had hoped he could find his way back to the church.”This week at the church, Patrick McKinney, 51, a construction project manager whose wife planned one of Pence’s children’s weddings, expressed support for the vice-president’s views about gay marriage.“The natural part of marriage is bringing children into the world,” he said. “It can’t be replicated with the same sex. This is not being critical of other people: God loves us all the same.”As a born again Christian, Pence carved a reputation as one of the most socially conservative congressmen, then governors, in the country. His selection by Donald Trump as running mate is now seen by many as a political masterstroke that helped reassure and mobilise sceptical Christian evangelicals to support the unconventional Republican nominee.Pence has remained ostentatiously loyal – some say obsequious – even as his boss tramples on norms, hurls profane and vulgar insults and faces accusations that he authorised hush money payments to a pornographic actor and Playboy model during the 2016 campaign. Pence’s motive in continuing to defend Trump’s profoundly un-Christian behaviour remains one of the great enigmas of the age.The vice-president’s friends and supporters find no contradiction. Mike Murphy, a Republican politician and strategist in Indiana, said: “He has a blind devotion to the idea God has a plan for everybody. The fact Donald Trump asked him to be his running mate, he thinks, is part of God’s plan and not violating his Christian faith at all. I’m sure he thinks he is mitigating Trump to some extent.”Hiltunen, a principal at the lobbying firm Sextons Creek, suggests Trump and Pence’s odd couple relationship is mutually beneficial.“I’ve heard people say he’s a hypocrite but I actually think it makes him even stronger that he is able to work in that environment. If you see the president before Mike Pence and you see him now, you can see that he has had some kind of impact on him. Maybe he sees it as a work in progress … He is the exact opposite and maybe that’s why it works.”In Indiana and beyond, progressives take an altogether different view. Many say Pence has made a career out of attacking LGBT rights and has led Christian evangelicals into becoming apologists for the most destructive president of modern times. No one is more puzzled about his continued defence of Trump’s un-Christian conduct than Buttigieg.In a February interview with the Guardian in South Bend, where he has been mayor since 2012, he said: “There are two competing accounts of what this means. One is that it means, push come to shove, he can abandon his religious and moral principles for political reasons and just team up with this guy who at least theoretically goes against everything he stands for.“The other theory that’s been floated is that he has some bizarre theological sense of destiny that even this is part of some divine calling, that for some weird reason God wants him to team up with a corrupt, philandering megalomaniac for the greater good of the kingdom. I don’t know which of those is more worrisome. I don’t know which of those is true.”Buttigieg presents a very different vision of Christianity. Bidding to become America’s youngest and first openly gay president, he has spoken as freely about his faith as he has about his sexuality, further distinguishing himself in a party that, he argues, has lost touch with its religious traditions and ceded too much territory to Republicans.“The scripture is about protecting the stranger, the prisoner, the poor person, and that idea of welcome,” he said at a CNN town hall. “That’s what I get in the gospel when I’m in church.”Buttigieg’s father, a Maltese immigrant, was a Jesuit who became a secular intellectual, while his mother identified as Anglican. Their son, who has Kennedy’s inaugural address framed above his desk, went to a Catholic school but did not have a religious awakening until he reached Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. Returning to South Bend, he found his spiritual home in the Episcopal church.Buttigieg married his husband, Chasten, in a church service last year. He has said he believes the marriage moved him closer to God. More than half a century since Martin Luther King Jr’s faith-driven push for civil rights, the military veteran appears willing to scramble fault lines and take on the Christian right on its own terms.Fate ensured that Governor Pence and Mayor Buttigieg’s paths would cross in Indiana and over four years the pair had cordial dealings on economic development, touring factories together and reportedly exchanging texts. Pence lavished Buttigieg with praise, calling him “energetic, innovative, forward-looking, creative”. Buttigieg even presented Pence with a South Bend promotional T-shirt that said “I (heart) SB”.In an interview with CNBC this week, Pence said they had a “great working relationship” and seemed dismayed by the mayor’s recent characterisation of his religious beliefs.“He knows better,” Pence said. “He knows me.”Hiltunen recalled: “They respected each other and actually liked each other. I think Pete came out once and said, ‘Mike Pence is a great guy.’ He got beat up for it. It’s not only the Christian roots, it’s the Hoosier roots. Indiana is a very small place, whether you’re from Columbus or South Bend. Everybody’s a step removed from one another.”But Buttigieg did condemn Pence’s controversial support for legislation that made it easier for religious conservatives to refuse service to gay couples, citing it as a factor in his decision to come out in 2015. And since entering the presidential race, Buttigieg has sharpened his rhetoric and become less conciliatory towards the Pence.He told the Guardian earlier this year: “The bottom line with him is he really believes all this stuff and he’s said so. I don’t know if he believes in evolution. I think he believes people decide to be gay. He’s written down that cigarettes don’t kill. Science and evidence are just not a big part of how he comes at the world.“He was not a very effective governor. I’m on my third Republican governor now and the other two, his predecessor and his successor, were considered effective enough that they also commanded grudging respect from Democrats. With Pence it’s kind of the reverse.”Buttigieg acknowledged: “We did work together on some things. I wrote in my book about an economic development initiative that I teamed up with them on that I thought was very good policy but, for the most part, even Republicans didn’t have a lot of respect for the office once they saw how it was run on his watch.”Old friends of Pence defend his record as governor and insist they do not recognise the popular image of him as a zealous, homophobic puritan who might have wandered out of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. They describe him as a midwestern pragmatist, laud his sense of humor and are eager to point out that, when Pence’s son married, the best man, named Henry, was gay.Curt Smith, president of the Indiana Family Institute and an opponent of same-sex marriage, said of Buttigieg: “I wish he would stop attacking the vice-president’s faith. I think that’s dangerous. But I welcome this conversation about the so-called Christian left.“It’s not a very active force in American public life and I think he could make a major contribution to the discourse in our country … I’d love to open the scriptures and do moral reasoning with people on the other side of the aisle. There hasn’t been anyone to talk to for a very long time.”Christians of all political stripes coexist in Columbus, which is Pence’s birthplace, a celebrated playground for modernist architects about to host its second gay pride festival.Pence family friend Chris Donica, 44, a sales assistant working on the pretty main street, said: “There are a lot of Christian values in this town. I lived in Sweden for a while and it was too liberal: there were a lot of things, like nudity on the beach, I would never see here. God comes first here and Mike Pence has very good Christian values. Once he says he’s going to do something, he follows through with it.”Don Graf, 82, a retired businessman out walking with his wife of 60 years, said: “The Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman. I’m not aware of any church that condones gay marriage. Any Bible-based church would not be in favour of it because it’s biblically unsound.”Should Buttigieg become president, however, Graf said he would have to accept the idea of a first gentleman in the White House. “I wouldn’t like it but the Bible says you have to support whoever is in office.”In Viewpoint Books, titles including A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, a satirical book about Pence’s pet rabbit having a gay romance, are on display. Beth Stroh, 62, the owner, said: “I think different faithful people probably have a different God in mind and I am more welcoming to the less judgmental and more loving God, so my personal view would be more aligned with Pete.”It is no surprise, she added, that amid the country’s current echo chambers, people interpret the Bible in different ways. “In 2019 we tend to find alignments that are comforting for us and there is perhaps less willingness to look at other views. That’s part of the polarisation we’ve all identified as happening. People like to find their place and then find support for that position.”Across Indiana, many Christians hope Buttigieg will prompt new conversations and mutual understanding. Jon Hodge, 30, area coordinator of the National Network of Youth Ministries, said: “There is a really interesting sense in the church that if somebody’s a Republican they’ve been told they’re not Christian, and the same is true on the other side: if somebody’s a Democrat, they’re not Christian.“We as a church need to be about reconciliation. We need to reconcile our differences with each other. Jesus came to Earth to reconcile but sin had entered the world and created the divide. If we in the church can’t reconcile, there’s no hope.”Others reject labels that create a false equivalence and urge a focus on the moral centre. The Rev Dr William Barber, a pastor in North Carolina and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, said in a phone call: “The left versus right categorisation is not biblical. It is not a theological frame. There is no text in the Bible that talks about somebody being on the left or being on the right. That is not even orthodox Christianity.“The overwhelming concern of God is how you treat the poor, how you treat the sick, how you treat the immigrant, how you treat women, how you treat children. So when you look at that from a theological standpoint, you then look at policy and you say, ‘Now, how does this politician’s policies line up with the overwhelming concerns of God as it relates to scripture?’”Barber said he was encouraged by racial justice, poverty and other issues gaining greater prominence.“We have needed a moral narrative shift for a long time because the so-called extremists hijacked the moral discussion and the only times we would talk about morality was when it pertained to women’s right to choose, prayer and LGBT issues. That is a far too limited moral conversation, particularly when you look at the real depths of moral concern of the public square in the scriptures and in the life of Jesus and in the life of the prophets.” Topics Pete Buttigieg Mike Pence US politics US elections 2020 Republicans Democrats Indiana features