The head of Venezuela’s national assembly, Juan Guaidó, has asked for a meeting with the US military for “strategic and operational planning” in the power struggle between the Guaidó camp and the government of Nicolás Maduro.In a letter to the head of US Southern Command (SouthCom), Guaidó’s representative in Washingon, Carlos Vecchio, pointed to worsening conditions in Venezuela as the standoff continues and “the impact of the presence of uninvited foreign forces that place our country and others at risk”.Vecchio wrote: “We welcome strategic and operational planning so that we may fulfill our constitutional obligation to the Venezuelan people in order to alleviate their suffering and restore our democracy.”The formal request for a meeting between SouthCom commander, Adm Craig Faller, and “appropriate members of the Guaidó administration” is the closest the Guaidó camp has come to requesting US military intervention to help oust Maduro, since a 30 April uprising failed to draw significant backing from the country’s generals.SouthCom’s headquarters in Florida did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Vecchio letter. Faller said in a tweet last week that he was willing to meet the “legitimate” Venezuelan government to discuss “how we can support the future role of those [Venezuelan army] leaders who make the right decision, put the Venezuela people first and restore constitutional order”.Guiadó told supporters at a rally in Caracas on Saturday that he would send Vecchio to meet SouthCom “to be able to establish a direct and far-reaching relationship in terms of cooperation”.The national assembly is debating a possible return to a cold war agreement, Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, known as the Rio pact, which would provide a possible legal basis for intervention. Venezuela and other left-leaning Latin American states pulled out of the pact in 2012. The US and much of western Europe and Latin America recognise Guaidó as Venezuela’s head of state on the grounds that Maduro’s re-election last year was rigged. Maduro’s allies include Russia, Cuba and China.“I think that the [Guaidó camp] are more willing to entertain the idea or at least to look at what the options might be. And it might not be an invasion. [It could be] send an aircraft carrier or send more naval assets or send more advisers and things to Colombia and Brazil,” said Adam Isacson, director for defence oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America.“Just about everybody who supports a military option in Venezuela – which I don’t – their hope is that they can just rattle the sabers really loudly and really close to Venezuela, and that alone would cause enough division in the Venezuelan military that the military would pull away from Maduro.” Topics Venezuela Juan Guaidó US military Americas news

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.When President Trump gave his State of the Union address Tuesday evening, he talked about how he directed the military strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force. Trump said, our message to the terrorists is clear - you will never escape American justice; if you attack our citizens, you forfeit your life. But Soleimani was a general, one of Iran's most powerful leaders, and killing a foreign government official outside wartime has been barred by the 1907 Hague Convention, and assassination is banned by a presidential executive order issued by President Ford.The killing of Soleimani has opened a new frontier in assassination, according to my guest Adam Entous, who - with Evan Osnos - wrote an article in the current issue of The New Yorker titled "Qassem Suleimani And How Nations Decide To Kill" (ph). Entous covers intelligence, national security and foreign affairs for The New Yorker. Later, we'll talk about the profile of Hunter Biden that Entous wrote last July in The New Yorker.Adam Entous, welcome to FRESH AIR. Trump has really bragged about killing Soleimani. Even this week in the State of the Union address, he called Soleimani a ruthless butcher, a monster and said, our precision strike ended his ruthless reign of terror. Would you compare Trump's, like, really bragging about this with how Israel has handled some of its strikes against leaders who Israel saw as terrorists?ADAM ENTOUS: Well, that's one of the most strange things about this. Usually when Israel conducts an operation like this and, frankly, when the United States conducts an operation like this, the goal is to cover one's tracks. Usually it's done covertly. You use the CIA or secret organization to conduct the strikes; you don't brag about it when you do it. And the reason you choose to do it in this more discreet way is because you want to reduce the chances of retaliation if it's unclear who did it or if it's not being thrust in the face of the political leader that just lost somebody so that they don't feel the political pressure domestically to respond.And what was so strange about this decision that Trump took was to do it overtly, to do it through the Pentagon, not using the CIA, and then so openly talking about it. It was designed to really intimidate the Iranians, and it was designed maybe for political purposes in the United States. He wants to be seen as somebody who is extremely tough, that uses the military in this kind of very aggressive way. And, you know, this is a decision that took people in the business by surprise, that he chose to do this route.GROSS: You talked to a lot of people for your article about the killing of Soleimani. Did any of the diplomats or government people in Israel or the U.S. and former diplomats as well - did any of them think that that we're actually closer to war with Iran now?ENTOUS: Well, I mean, I think the - one of the takeaways of the killing of Soleimani was that there was an effort last year where Trump appeared very interested in getting into negotiations with Iran to try to avoid the risk of, you know, having to get pulled deeper into the region and have to send more forces to the region, which Trump has said he wants to avoid. And so the killing of Soleimani - what does it do to the prospects of those talks?Now, the Israelis - Bibi Netanyahu in particular, the Israeli prime minister, was very concerned that Trump was planning on entering such an engagement with his counterpart in Iran. And they were, frankly, freaked out about it. They wanted desperately for those talks not to start because they wanted to keep pressure on the Iranians.So the killing of Soleimani in many ways helps - helped, you know, kind of further Bibi Netanyahu's objective of at least reducing the chances of that type of engagement in the near term. That is one of the things that, you know, was sort of the benefits that Bibi Netanyahu got out of this.GROSS: Yeah, Israel had been pretty quiet about the U.S. killing of Soleimani, but you say that behind the scenes Netanyahu is very happy about it.ENTOUS: Yeah. I mean, I met with one Israeli official who told me not even 99.9%, 100% ecstatic about it. Netanyahu was extremely concerned throughout 2019 that Trump was not retaliating to Iranian provocations. The Israelis wanted the United States to get in on this.The Israelis had been fighting Soleimani, largely in Syria, for several years and had been largely successful in those operations against him. And that campaign that the Israelis were waging had just crossed the border in mid-2019, and the Israelis now had followed Soleimani and his forces into Iraq. And it launched strikes against his forces in Iraq starting in July 2019.And that increased the pressure, increased the tension. And the groups that the Israelis were striking, the Iranian-backed groups in Iraq that the Israelis were striking, threatened to retaliate against U.S. forces in Iraq, and that's exactly what they did. So the Israeli strikes were against some of these groups. These groups said that they would respond by attacking U.S. bases, and in October, they started doing that. And that led to the drumbeat which created the tense situation that - and the attacks on the bases that resulted in a U.S. casualty in December, which prompted the escalation that took place.GROSS: One of the things that the Trump administration did last year was to put the Revolutionary Guard, which includes the Quds Force which was headed by Soleimani - to put them on the terrorist list. So that - did that open up the door to taking out Soleimani?ENTOUS: One of the officials I spoke to thought that that kind of opened the aperture for targeting the group. Others, lawyers, told me otherwise, that it, you know, really was - it's more of a symbolic decision. And certainly you can understand why it suggests that, you know, you can justify killing a leader in those groups based on that decision to put them on the terror list, that it provides additional justification for why you might do it but that, in the end, you know, the lawyers in the administration decided that, based on the intelligence they were seeing, that they were justified in doing what both the Israelis and previous U.S. administrations hadn't done, that they were - justified killing Soleimani based on intelligence that suggested that he was plotting new attacks.GROSS: Did you learn anything new about the intelligence?ENTOUS: Soleimani was always, you know, in the middle of plotting new attacks. Most of those attacks, though, until recently, weren't against Americans. That began to change in October. I mean, my conversations with both Democrats and Republicans who were briefed on the intelligence suggest that, yes, there was intelligence showing that, generally speaking, he was looking at escalating attacks on U.S. targets, potentially embassies in the region that might be easier for his forces and his proxies to reach.The level of immediacy is - something that I got a sense from the people I talked to, is less clear. And the implication is, is that, you know, they were eager to kill Soleimani, and the intelligence was a convenient way to justify doing so.GROSS: You know, your article in The New Yorker is subtitled "A New Frontier In Assassinations." What is new about the assassination of Soleimani?ENTOUS: What's new is killing somebody who's a member of a government. Now, Israel is in a state of war with several of its neighbors and is - you know, justifies its killings on the grounds that it - and it's in a state of war, so these government officials are fair game. The U.S. is not in a declared war with Iran. And for the U.S. to then go and kill a government official was going in a direction that previous administrations had avoided going into. Certainly, like, during conflicts, such as the conflict with Libya during the Obama administration, there were individuals as part of that operation in the government that were targeted, in the military, commanders that were targeted.What's different in this case is we we're not - we are not at war, technically, with Iran. And so to kill a member of the government, in the view of many former officials that I spoke to, was something that was just never contemplated, both by the Bush and by the Obama administrations, even though they saw Soleimani as a threat to U.S. personnel in the region.GROSS: Assassination is outlawed. I mean, you can't assassinate people legally. So when did assassination become illegal, both in terms of international law and in terms of American precedent?ENTOUS: So assassination has been banned for decades under international law. And in the 1970s, Gerald Ford issued an executive order which said that no U.S. government employee shall engage in or conspire to engage in political assassination. That was what made the ban effective for the CIA, which had conducted in the past - or attempted to conduct - targeted killings against American enemies.So going forward, it becomes much more difficult for the CIA to conduct these kinds of operations. And there is a pullback from conducting them that starts in the '70s and really continues until the 9/11 attacks.GROSS: So is targeted killing a linguistic way of getting around assassination?ENTOUS: As part of the interviews for the story, I spoke to John Brennan, who was in charge of some of these operations under the Obama administration. He explained that, you know, you can get a lawyer to say that something is legal, and that doesn't mean that it is. So different administrations, different lawyers interpret these rules, these executive orders in different ways. And that's what's happened over the years.There's been a consistency in the way it's been interpreted after 9/11, that the targets have been members of terrorist organizations. But the Trump administration lawyers, when they looked at the Soleimani case, decided that he could legitimately be killed because of his involvement in alleged planning and plotting against U.S. forces.GROSS: Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Adam Entous. He writes for The New Yorker. He reports on intelligence, national security and foreign policy. His latest piece is called "Qassem Suleimani And How Nations Decide To Kill: A New Frontier In Assassinations." We'll be back after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is Adam Entous. He reports on intelligence, national security and foreign policy for The New Yorker. His latest piece is called "Qassem Suleimani And How Nations Decide To Kill: A New Frontier In Assassination."You report on a story that shows that Israel almost killed Soleimani back in 2008. He wasn't the prime target that they were going after. The prime target was Imad Mughniyeh, who was the architect of military strategy for Hezbollah, the armed force in Lebanon that's backed with money and weapons by Iran and is one of the enemies of Israel. So how did this targeting of Mughniyeh almost end up killing Soleimani?ENTOUS: Well, that's a - it's an interesting, you know, backstory. What happened was, is the - you know, Israel and the United States both saw Mughniyeh as a threat. He was involved in the 1980s, in particular, with some very large-scale, deadly bombings that killed American officials, killed CIA officials and killed Israelis who were part of a force that was in southern Lebanon in the 1980s. And so there was a great deal of interest, particularly in Mossad, to go and find him and kill him.And it became an especially high priority for the Israelis after the 2006 war in Lebanon. They were concerned that Mughniyeh was working to re-arm the group for the next round of fighting, and they wanted to see if they could kill him before he succeeded in that effort. The problem was, Mughniyeh was invisible, almost. He was very difficult for the Israelis and the Americans to find. His tradecraft was renowned. You know, he, you know, just seemed to leave no trace.But the Mossad got lucky, and they had an agent who was in Lebanon that had access to the inner sanctum, the leadership of Hezbollah, and, as part of that access, was able to gain access to Mughniyeh's cellphone. That allowed Mossad to track his cellphone. And once they started tracking him, they realized that he was traveling to Damascus area, where he visited two apartments - one that was where his mistress lived, and another one where he had meetings with other security officials. And they - Mossad decided that they would try to - to try to kill him there, at the second apartment.They had a problem, though. You know, access to Syria - Israel famously has access to Syria, but it's hard for them to operate there. It's a very difficult environment for Mossad. And so they thought if they brought the CIA in - and they knew the CIA was keenly interested in killing Mughniyeh. It had been for decades.And so it decided to bring in the CIA because it knew that the U.S. had an embassy in Damascus and that the CIA would be able to use the personnel in the embassy and shipments that go to that embassy to bring in supplies for the operation. And so that's the reason why Mossad decided to bring the CIA in on the operation.GROSS: And when Mughniyeh emerged from his vehicle and Israel was about to take him out, two other leaders were with him. One of them was Soleimani. Who was the other?ENTOUS: There was - there were - it was a big surprise. Mossad was obviously tracking the phone of Mughniyeh, so they knew that he was going to the park - to the apartment. But they didn't know that these two other wanted figures that Israelis also wanted were heading to the apartment to meet him. One of them was Soleimani, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force.The other one was Muhammad Suleiman. Muhammad Suleiman was a top adviser to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, and had advised the country on building chemical and nuclear capabilities. And there was a reactor that he was responsible for building, a nuclear reactor, that the Israelis had taken out the year before.So these three men ended up at the location where the killing was supposed to take place. The deal that was is that Olmert, the prime minister - Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, had made an agreement, a secret agreement, with George W. Bush, the president of the United States, that there would only be one person killed in this operation.The CIA was only authorized to kill Mughniyeh. The other two officials, which they didn't know were going to be there, were both state officials. Soleimani was a Iranian military officer. And in the case of Suleiman, Muhammad Suleiman, he was a Syrian government and military officer. And so both of them were off limits.And Ehud Olmert happened to be - by coincidence 'cause they didn't know when this operation was going to happen - he happened to be on his airplane flying back from a state visit to Berlin. He had a satellite phone with him. But the Mossad officers who were in charge of the operation, they only had a limited amount of time to make a decision. They could have basically called Olmert and asked for permission to kill the three of them, but the CIA station chief, the head CIA representative in Israel, was in the operation center, and he only was authorized to participate in the killing of one person, and that was Mughniyeh.So if they had tried to kill all three of them, the CIA station chief would have been required to seek permission from Washington. There just wasn't the time to get the permission that was necessary. It's unclear if they would have gotten the permission.And Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, later told the commander of the operation the next morning that if there was a way that he had to sneak out of the room away from the CIA officer and called him and said - do I have permission to kill all three of them? - Olmert told them that he would have immediately given them permission to kill them all.GROSS: Even though that would've broken his agreement with George W. Bush.ENTOUS: Yeah. He wanted - he thought that - and I think he probably is - was right about this - that, you know, Bush would've forgiven him for having done it. And it never happened because the Mossad officer, No. 1, didn't have that much time. And they were very concerned about doing anything that would jeopardize the relationship that they were building with the CIA.This is not a relationship of trust over decades. This is actually a relationship of distrust between these two services. And Olmert and the head of Mossad at the time, Meir Dagan, were working very hard to try to build trust because the Israelis knew that they were facing what they saw as an existential threat that they wanted the Americans to help with, which was the nuclear program in Iran.GROSS: So Israel ended up taking out Mughniyeh because after the meeting, he emerged alone, and they had just enough time to kill him without killing the other two.ENTOUS: That's right. The other two left the meeting before Mughniyeh. And they watched them get into their car. They had set up cameras in an apartment that was rented by the CIA nearby that had views of the street so they could see all of this unfolding. And the two other potential targets that were not authorized, they get into the car; they drive away.Ten minutes, 15 minutes later, Mughniyeh comes out of his apartment, and he walks by the kill zone, they call it. This is the section behind this SUV that was brought there by Mossad agents. He walks into the kill zone, and then the button is pushed in Tel Aviv, which detonates the explosive which was in the tire - the rear - spare tire of the vehicle. There has not been a Hezbollah response to the killing of Mughniyeh. So many of the details of the operation have remained a secret until now.GROSS: My guest is Adam Entous. His new article in The New Yorker, written with Evan Osnos, is titled "Qassem Suleimani And How Nations Decide To Kill." After we take a short break, Entous will talk about his profile of Hunter Biden. Two Senate committees just announced they're reviewing potential conflicts of interest posed by Hunter's business activities while his father was vice president. And David Bianculli will review the new CBS crime drama "Tommy," starring Edie Falco as the new police chief for the LAPD. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF CHANO DOMINGUEZ'S "NARDIS")GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.Let's get back to my interview with Adam Entous, who covers intelligence, national security and foreign affairs for The New Yorker. In this part of the interview, we talked about Hunter Biden. Entous profiled Hunter Biden last July, reporting on his business dealings and tumultuous personal life. In December, Entous wrote about the efforts of Rudy Giuliani and Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine's former prosecutor general, to smear Joe Biden. Our interview was recorded yesterday, before the Senate acquitted President Trump.Later, the Republican heads of two Senate committees announced that they're reviewing potential conflicts of interest posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden during the time his father was vice president. The committees have requested travel records to find out whether Hunter used government-sponsored travel to help conduct private business in China and Ukraine.How did you start writing about Hunter Biden and Ukraine?ENTOUS: So my editors were - there were a lot of stories that were circulating, particularly on Breitbart and Fox News that were making some of these allegations about the involvement of Hunter Biden on the board of this Ukrainian gas company called Burisma. You know, I said, hey, let me poke around; let me see if there's any there there.It kind of morphed into a story that told about his business activities and his very, in some cases, questionable business choices, but also the broader story of his, you know, struggles with alcohol and drugs and how that, frankly, contributed to some of these problems that his father and he are now facing.GROSS: How did the story get started that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, got a former Ukrainian prosecutor removed from office because the prosecutor was investigating corruption in Burisma, the energy company in which Hunter Biden served on the board of directors? That's the Republican narrative. There is no evidence to back that up. There's no evidence that Biden was trying to cover up for his son and prevent an investigation into Burisma; it's actually the opposite way around, according to your sources.ENTOUS: Yeah. So it kind of starts in kind of two parts. The original stories, which were covered by the mainstream press - The Wall Street Journal, New York Times - when Hunter Biden was given this very lucrative seat on the board of Burisma. When that takes place in 2014, you know, there are stories that are written at the time, you know, about the questions raised about the decision of Hunter Biden to take the seat on the board because of his father's role in trying to get Ukraine to combat corruption and the perception that that could create a conflict of interest. So that - you know, that's a story that's been bubbling.Starting in 2014, what happens is, is that a conservative researcher who's very close to Steve Bannon, Peter Schweizer, he writes a book that comes out in 2018, which points at those 2014-2015 articles about the questionable choice of Hunter Biden and, frankly, Joe Biden and his son playing this role. And then what happens is, is that Biden, as part of his efforts, the vice president, in trying to get Ukraine to combat corruption, he is urged by his team to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to remove a prosecutor, Shokin - Viktor Shokin - because he was not investigating corruption and, in particular, was not investigating this company, Burisma.GROSS: So one of the things that furthered what became the Republican narrative, Joe Biden got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired because the Ukrainian prosecutor was looking into corruption in Burisma, the company on which Hunter Biden served on the board of directors. This book that helped further that narrative was written by Peter Schweizer, who is the co-founder, with Steve Bannon, of the Government Accountability Institute, which is funded in part or perhaps largely funded by Rebekah Mercer, part of the Mercer family, which funds a lot of right-wing causes.You've read the book, and you've done a lot of investigation. How much of this book is actually based on fact? How much of it do you think is really misleading?ENTOUS: Well, I think that the chronology is largely accurate. But what I was amazed at was, you know, obviously Peter Schweitzer was not able to really talk to anybody. I don't know how hard he tried to talk to people. But, for example, there's a moment when, just before Hunter joins the board of Burisma, there is a visit to the White House by Hunter's business partner Devon Archer.And in the book, it's described as a moment when Hunter and Devon Archer, who are going to be on the board of Burisma, he's suggesting, because of the timing of the visit - it was right before the announcement that they were joining the board. He was suggesting, Schweizer was suggesting that the meeting obviously was about talking to Joe Biden about their role that they were going to play at this Ukrainian company.So as part of my reporting, I spoke to Devon Archer. Archer explained that actually it was that Hunter had heard that his son, his young son, had a school project, and he was designing a model of the White House. And what happened was, is that Hunter, at the last minute, arranged for Archer's son to come to the White House so he could look around the White House and make a better school model for - you know, a cardboard model of the White House.And so it was interpreted in the most nefarious way, without any evidence or having done any interviews, by Schweizer when, in fact, it was a completely benign - had nothing to do with Burisma. It was purely kind of a nice gesture between friends for Archer's son. And to me, it was sort of the classic example of where you can construct a narrative based on chronology, but unless you really talk to people, you really might be misinterpreting things, which is what happened in this case.And the book is littered with examples like that, where Schweizer is making the most nefarious interpretations of what, when you actually talk to people, you realize are actually benign moments.GROSS: So how influential was this book?ENTOUS: Well, it certainly was influential in right-wing media. I mean, Fox gave it a lot of airtime. Breitbart printed a lot of stories based on parts of the book. As we saw with "Clinton Cash," one of the things that...GROSS: Another book written by Peter Schweizer.ENTOUS: Correct. What we saw is, is that the strategy that Bannon and Schweizer have is to take these investigations, if you want to call it that, and find a way to get the narrative to jump from the right-wing press into the mainstream press; in other words, try to get reporters from mainstream news organizations - The New York Times, for example, The Washington Post, you know, mainstream television - get them to run the story.And that's basically what was happening. There was an attempt to try to do that in the first half of 2019. Giuliani was working that one very hard. I had many conversations with him - Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer who was investigating this and wanted the mainstream press to write stories about Hunter Biden and his, you know, potential conflicts and, you know, the notion that Joe Biden somehow abused his office, even though there's no evidence to back that up. And so he was basically trying to push the story for the first six months of the year, trying to get it into the mainstream press.GROSS: So he was trying to sell you on that story?ENTOUS: He was trying to sell me. He was trying to sell everybody, frankly, on that story to try to get them to write stories about it.GROSS: But your conclusion is that there's no credible evidence that Biden sought the removal of the Ukrainian prosecutor in order to protect his son.ENTOUS: Yeah, absolutely. I saw no evidence of that. I think the questions about Hunter Biden's wisdom in taking this board seat, given his father's role in Ukraine, that's a legitimate subject of scrutiny. But the notion that his father, you know, used his office in order to protect his son, I saw evidence that suggests the opposite.Joe Biden, really, frankly - and this is not necessarily to his credit - took a position that whatever his son did was none of his business and nobody should ask him about it. So he sort of gave his son, you know, the freedom to do whatever he wanted and didn't really want to know anything about it.And when people at the embassy, at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, were asking him to intervene in this case to try to get Shokin fired, because he was not investing in the company that employed his son, Joe Biden did what the embassy staff asked him to do, which is get this guy fired, which ends up obviously coming back and being twisted by the right-wing to make it look like he was trying to protect his son.GROSS: OK. If you're just joining us, my guest is Adam Entous. He writes for The New Yorker covering intelligence, national security and foreign policy. His latest piece is titled "Qassem Suleimani And How Nations Decide To Kill: A New Frontier In Assassination." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF SLOWBERN'S "WHEN WAR WAS KING")GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is New Yorker reporter Adam Entous.So you did a long profile of Hunter Biden, and the profile reveals that he's had a lot of problems in his life. He's been in and out of rehab for alcohol addiction, and he's had, like, problematic business dealings. Beyond serving on the Burisma board, he's - he was in one business dealing that lost a lot of money. He bought a $1.5 million home, didn't have the money for a down payment, so paid 110% mortgage. I never even heard of such a thing.But all those troubles - and there's more, I mean, including a paternity suit that he denied being the father, and a DNA test revealed that he is the father. So you've got all these troubles in his life, but that doesn't mean that Joe Biden did something corrupt.ENTOUS: No. I mean, I think in many ways, if you kind of look at the history of the family, you know, Hunter was a breadwinner in the family. He was the one that was supposed to make money. Beau, his older brother, you know, who dies of a brain tumor, you know, he is - goes kind of in the - follows his father into politics.And, you know, his father was famously - you know, didn't have a lot of money, and neither did Beau. And Hunter, you know, steps in and pays, for example, for Beau's law school debts. You know, he's basically making money in order to, you know, help the overall family. And he's struggling with addiction, with alcohol and later with a crack addiction.And so he's making some of these decisions on business under pressure - right? - to get money and also, you know, impaired, I think, by these addictions. And, you know, he doesn't talk to his father about any of these things because the rule in the family was you don't mix - you know, his business decisions are his, and it doesn't involve his dad. So they had a system that they wouldn't discuss these matters. And so he was making his decisions largely on his own and obviously made some poor decisions along the way.GROSS: What was the reaction of Biden's staff to Hunter Biden serving on Burisma?ENTOUS: Generally speaking, they were displeased. Some of them were quite concerned. The issue was, is they didn't want to raise the matter with Joe Biden. You know, they knew that anything involving the family was sort of - they understood it to be sort of off limits. Joe Biden had made it clear to his staff over the years that things that involved their son - his sons were not things that he - that they should discuss with him. And so they rarely raised it, and that's what happened in this case. So even though there was considerable concern, both on Biden's staff but also at the White House and at the State Department, about some of the business activities of Hunter, they didn't feel that they could raise it.And there is only one example that I know of where it was raised. And when it was raised with Joe Biden, the official who did raise it didn't say to Joe, you know, you should tell your son to get off the board; he just wanted to, you know, let Joe Biden know that during an upcoming visit to Ukraine, he might be asked embarrassing questions about his son's role at the company. It was more of a heads-up rather than a recommendation that Hunter be removed from that - agree to step down from the board.So, you know, there was a self-censorship that was going on within the circle around Joe Biden that I think in the end did not serve him or Hunter Biden particularly well.GROSS: I'm wondering how you thought about this when you were writing your piece, your long profile of Hunter Biden. Talking about Hunter Biden and talking about the problems he had, in a way it amplifies the Republican strategy of putting the spotlight on Hunter Biden and his problems and connecting Joe Biden to that. So what was your approach to writing about Hunter Biden while at the same time trying to not play into the Republican narrative of smearing Joe Biden through his son Hunter?ENTOUS: Yeah. Frankly, that was a really difficult balancing act. You know, I wanted No. 1. I just wanted to be fair and accurate in telling the story, you know. I wanted to be able to shoot down the conspiracy theories that I thought were false.But at the same time, I wanted to tell the story that I thought was true, which was that you had a person here who was really struggling - who was struggling in his personal life, was struggling with things that I think a lot of people can relate to and made a lot of decisions that maybe weren't thought through. And I could explain what's real and what's not and do it in a way that hopefully made you understand who this person was and that he was a real human being, you know, rather than a caricature.But it was, you know, very difficult. You know, I didn't want to give him a pass for his mistakes. You know, and so - I wanted to come across as, you know, very evenhanded and tough at times, but at the same time, you know, not buying into the conspiracies that were being pushed and to make clear that those - when those were false, that I could call those to be false.GROSS: Do you find that people tell you that they don't know what's true anymore, that they hear both sides and like who knows what's right? And, like, at The New Yorker, like, everything you write, everything the New Yorker publishes is so fact-checked. But still, are people reading and saying, well, that's what you reported, but I don't know what's true because I've heard the other side, too?ENTOUS: Yeah. No, I'm - you know, again, maybe I'm naive, but the - you know, I have friends who are Trump supporters. And when I was working on this Hunter Biden story, you know, occasionally, I get a call from one of them. And they would ask me what I thought.And, you know, I would say exactly what I told you, which is, you know, that, you know, clearly there were some strange, you know, maybe not good decisions that were being made in terms of, you know, the business activities that he was involved in, but that I don't think that there's any evidence - in fact, the evidence is the contrary, that Joe Biden tried to protect his son.And they just wouldn't - you know, these friends wouldn't believe me. And, you know, they were more trusting of what Devin Nunez, the House Intelligence Committee - Republican ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee is saying. And he's repeating these allegations. And they're hearing it repeated on Fox.And I think, you know, people aren't sure - aren't sure what to believe. Like you said, I mean, we do - you know, we do aggressive fact-checking on these stories to make sure that they're true. And this is an incredibly complicated story. And so that makes it so much easier to sell conspiracy theories.And so, you know, what's - again, what - the thing that just really bothers me is, you know, senators who know and members of Congress who know that what they're saying is false, they're repeating the false allegation because they don't care. They just want to score political points. And so they're continuing to do this.And to me, it just - you know, we're becoming so polarized, you know. You - you know, the people who, you know, either only believe what they hear on Fox or they, you know, take an opposite view. And it's scary to think of how, you know, people just assume that there are no facts anymore when there are facts.GROSS: Well, Adam Entous, thank you for your reporting. And thank you for coming on our show.ENTOUS: It was a pleasure. Thank you.GROSS: Adam Entous' profile of Hunter Biden was published in The New Yorker last July. His article in the current issue is titled "Qassem Suleimani And How Nations Decide to Kill." After we take a short break, David Bianculli will review the new crime drama "Tommy" starring Edie Falco. It premieres tonight on CBS. This is FRESH AIR.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Big tech platforms — Amazon, Facebook, Google — control a large and growing share of our commerce and communications, and the scope and degree of their dominance poses real hazards. A bipartisan consensus has formed around this idea. Senator Elizabeth Warren has charged tech giants with using their heft to “snuff out competition,” and even Senator Ted Cruz — usually a foe of government regulation — recently warned of their “unprecedented” size and power. While the potential tools for redressing the harms vary, a growing chorus is calling for the use of antitrust law.But the decision in a case currently before the Supreme Court could block off that path, by effectively shielding big tech platforms from serious antitrust scrutiny. On Monday the Court heard Ohio v. American Express, a case centering on a technical but critical question about how to analyze harmful conduct by firms that serve multiple groups of users. Though the case concerns the credit card industry, it could have sweeping ramifications for the way in which antitrust law gets applied generally, especially with regards to the tech giants.The case was first brought by the Justice Department against American Express, Visa, and Mastercard for imposing anticompetitive restrictions on merchants. The credit card industry is a classic case of oligopoly. Despite involving millions of merchants and hundreds of millions of cardholders, the credit card business is controlled by four firms. Merchants who need payment networks lack any real bargaining power and have been stuck paying high rates to the oligopoly — steeper costs that ultimately get passed on to consumers.ImageBy imposing conditions on retailers that accept Amex cards, retailers were told they could not ask their own customers to use, other credit cards, over an American Express card.Credit...Shaun Egan/The Image Bank, via Getty ImagesAs one might expect, the credit card companies use their power to block competition. American Express did this by imposing conditions on retailers that accept Amex cards. Retailers were told they could not ask their own customers to use, say, a Discover card, over an American Express card, even if Discover would be a cheaper option. Discover could provide a merchant like The Home Depot better terms than American Express — but, because of American Express’s restrictions, The Home Depot had no way of reflecting Discover’s lower rates to cardholders, thereby keeping Discover’s competitive advantage from translating into greater market share. This meant card networks had no reason to compete when serving merchants, keeping prices high.The district court ruled that American Express’s “anti-steering” provisions stifled price competition and violated the antitrust laws (Mastercard and Visa settled with the government before trial). But when American Express appealed, the Second Circuit reversed, relying on a new concept to create a special set of rules. The concept is that players in “two-sided” markets are unique because they serve different sets of customers in distinct but related markets, effectively facilitating transactions. American Express, for example, charges both merchants who accept its cards and consumers who use them. Using this concept, the Second Circuit held that the government would have to show that any price increases for merchants also harmed cardholders, or at least didn’t benefit them. In effect, the court introduced a dramatically new rule, making it much more difficult to win important antitrust cases and to stop anticompetitive behavior.The case is now at the Supreme Court. If affirmed, the Second Circuit decision would create de facto antitrust immunity for the most powerful companies in the economy. Since internet technologies have enabled the growth of platform companies that serve multiple groups of users, firms like Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Uber are set to be prime beneficiaries of the Second Circuit’s warped analysis. Amazon, for example, could claim status as a two-sided platform because it connects buyers and sellers of goods; Google because it facilitates a market between advertisers and search users. (An industry trade group representing the tech platforms filed an amicus brief in support of American Express.) Indeed, the reason that the tech giants are lining up behind the Second Circuit’s approach is that — if ratified — it would make it vastly more difficult to use antitrust laws against them.The fact that the tech platforms could effectively be shielded from antitrust is troubling because, in several respects, these firms enjoy dominant market positions that makes antitrust scrutiny of their conduct especially important. By virtue of providing increasingly critical services, tech giants wield immense leverage over the sellers and buyers that rely on their platforms. This power is ripe for abuse. If the Supreme Court ratifies the Second Circuit’s approach, platforms will be able to engage in anticompetitive activity with one set of users, so long as they can plausibly claim that harmful conduct enabled them to benefit another group. Say, for example, that Uber prohibited its drivers from also serving rivals like Lyft, suppressing driver income. Under the current approach, these exclusive agreements would likely violate antitrust law. But under the Second Circuit’s analysis, the case would go nowhere unless plaintiffs could show that this practice also harmed riders.This danger is compounded by the slipperiness of the concept underlying this analysis: the idea of a “two-sided” market. While reports paid for by the credit card industry introduce “two-sided” markets as a novel concept that requires special analysis, markets serving different groups of users have been around for centuries. They include, for example, grain futures exchanges (connecting farmers and buyers of farm products), banking (linking depositors and borrowers) and newspapers (serving advertisers and readers). For decades, courts have recognized that anticompetitive conduct imposed by a newspaper on readers, for example, is no less illegal if it can be shown to benefit advertisers.Indeed, almost all markets can be understood as having two sides. Firms ranging from airlines to meatpackers could reasonably argue that they meet the definition of “two-sided,” thereby securing less stringent review.Oral argument on Monday gave little new insight into how the vote breakdown might fall. Justice Neil Gorsuch pushed an aggressively pro-monopoly line of questions, while Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan were skeptical of arguments offered by American Express. While Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. spoke little, his views may prove decisive. He has criticized unwieldy antitrust standards in the past — a problem that would get much worse if the court rules for American Express.Unless the Supreme Court rejects the Second Circuit’s approach, it will risk immunizing dominant platforms from effective antitrust review, at the very moment when they most need it.

A third US federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore a programme letting young undocumented immigrants stay in the country.US District of Columbia judge John Bates said the move to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) scheme was "virtually unexplained".Judge Bates has given the administration 90 days to justify the move before his ruling is implemented. The move follows similar decisions from judges in New York and San Francisco.US President Donald Trump rescinded the Obama-era Daca programme, which protects some 800,000 people in the country, in September and had said he wanted to scrap it from March this year.The scheme is currently closed to new entrants but existing members may renew their benefits while the programme remains in place as legal challenges play out.Judge Bates ruled that the decision to cancel the scheme was "arbitrary and capricious" because the administration had "failed adequately to explain its conclusion that the programme was unlawful".Two other federal judges also recently ordered the Trump administration to process Daca renewal applications under the same terms that applied before the president's September order.But it is the first time a federal judge has ruled that applications by individuals who did not previously receive protection under the scheme must be processed. Mr Trump has said the programme is being misused by a growing number of illegal migrants and accused Mexico of being lax about border security.He called on Republicans in Congress to pass "tough" new anti-immigration legislation. What is this immigration debate all about? Supreme Court snubs Trump appeal over immigrants The scheme was created in 2012 by then President Barack Obama to shield children of undocumented immigrants from deportation.It also provided work and study permits for those it covered.In order to qualify for Daca, applicants under the age of 30 were required to submit personal information to the Department of Homeland Security, including addresses and phone numbers.They had to pass an FBI background check, have a clean criminal background and either be in school, have recently graduated or have been honourably discharged from the military.In exchange, the US government agreed to defer any action on their immigration status for a period of two years.The majority of "dreamers" are from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The United Statescarried out a secret cyber operation against Iran in the wake of the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities, which Washington and Riyadh blame on Tehran, two U.S. officials have told. From the report:

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s top security body said on Friday the United States would be held accountable for killing Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, saying Washington’s action was its worst mistake in the region, Iranian media reported. “The U.S. regime will be responsible for the consequences of this criminal adventurism,” the Supreme National Security Council said in a statement carried by media outlets. “This was the biggest U.S. strategic blunder in the West Asia region, and America will not easily escape its consequences.” Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Edmund BlairOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Unless you are not paying your own electric bill, it is just not economical to mine BTC even before this. There wasn't enough RTI to pay for the hardware last time I ran the numbers. Even the USB based ASIC miners are not going to break even for years, and that's assuming you don't have hardware failures to pay for. This stuff breaks down too, even if you keep it cool (but that costs a LOT of money in some places). I suppose you could "lottery mine" for fun, hoping you get picked for the payout and collect the whole reward, but that's like playing the slots in Vegas, you will lose money overall. However, mining for shares, isn't going to pay. Run the numbers, It's a horrid business, way too much cost in equipment and operating costs, and unless you go into mining in a HUGE way, you will lose money just mining. If only electricity was free.... Like it is in Venezuela, where mining is huge business but illegal. You are not allowed to use *excessive* amounts of power (So they move the mining setups around regularly so they don't get caught) and doing business requires local currency (or somebody who's willing to ignore the law and trade you BTC for stuff. Not to mention the internet connection you will need....

Venezuela is set to raise its minimum wage by 40%, in a move expected to worsen already high levels of inflation.The country is suffering from an economic crisis in which shortages of food and medicine are common.Venezuela's economy has been hit by falling oil revenue and the plummeting value of the Bolivar.President Nicolas Maduro announced the wage increase in his end-of-year address.He said the move would "protect workers" from what he called an economic war on the socialist nation by the United States and others. Earlier this year, the US imposed sanctions on President Maduro, labelling him "a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people".The year has been marred by widespread protests and violence in Venezuela, culminating in the creation of a constituent assembly of Mr Maduro's supporters.What has Venezuela's constituent assembly achieved?It was set up to rewrite the nation's constitution, but quickly assumed many powers of the opposition-led parliament.Speaking on television next to a Venezuelan flag, Mr Maduro described the pay increase as "good news". But there are fears the move will simply push inflation rates up faster. The opposition-led congress said that in the past year, prices had already risen by almost 1400%.President Maduro, however, spent most of his speech blaming outside influences for Venezuela's problems, saying nations like the United States were attacking its currency and sabotaging its oil industry.

The assassination of Qasem Soleimani has plunged Iran and the United States into their most serious confrontation since the hostage crisis in 1979.President Donald Trump's decision to kill Soleimani removes one of the most obdurate and effective enemies of the US, and delivers a blow to the heart of the Islamic republic of Iran. It is also a dangerous escalation in a region that was already tense and full of violence.The killing at Baghdad airport has increased tensions sharply, creating fears of a slide into an all-out war. That is no certainty. Neither the Americans nor the Iranians want one. But the crisis brought on by the killing of Soleimani - and a senior Iraqi ally - amplifies the chances of a bloody miscalculation. Iran has sworn vengeance. That threat has to be taken seriously. Soleimani was at the core of the regime, and a talisman for Iran's hardliners. They will want to get even, perhaps more than that. Despite arms embargoes, Iran has developed a modern arsenal of rockets and missiles. But if it wanted to use them against US forces as part of a reprisal, Iran would risk making matters worse.An act of war to answer that of the US - for example attacking US ships in the Gulf - would risk provoking a devastating response. Iran's oil refineries are on the coast and would be easy targets for the vast firepower the US has in and around the Gulf.When Iran retaliates, it is likely to follow Soleimani's own indirect tactics: so-called asymmetric warfare, spurning an attack through the front door for one through a side window. Why the US had Soleimani in its sights Why kill Soleimani now and what happens next? Soleimani cultivated a range of well-armed militias, which give Iran options short of a head-to-head confrontation with the Americans which it would only lose. The Americans will now be looking at their most vulnerable deployments in the Middle East. One is the small force in Syria.A big question is why the Americans chose now to kill Soleimani.He had been a thorn in their sides since at least the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. He made sure Iraqi Shias raised, trained and equipped militias which became effective and ruthless fighters against the US and its allies. Your questions: Will Soleimani killing spark war? A brief history of US-Iran relations The Americans and their allies in Israel and the West have tracked Soleimani closely for years. It's likely that he has been in their sights before. The fact that this time the Americans pulled the trigger suggests that President Trump believes the reward is worth the risk, that the Iranian regime has been so weakened by isolation, economic sanctions and recent demonstrations that it will rage but not offer a serious strategic threat. But it is not at all clear whether the assassination fits into a coherent US strategy, and such an assumption could be dangerous and wrong. Soleimani was a colossal figure inside Iran. He was its strategic mastermind. Perhaps he left a plan of steps to take if he were killed. This assassination at the start of a new year and a new decade might turn into another Middle Eastern milestone, touching off another sequence of bloody events. To begin with, the Iranian regime must now be planning its answer to his death, to show that the position Soleimani spent so long creating outside its borders in the Middle East can be defended.

closeVideoState Department urges US citizens to leave Iraq immediately in wake of Soleimani killingIran vows revenge for U.S. killing of top general; reaction and analysis from Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane.Appearing on "America's Newsroom" with host Sandra Smith, Keane said that President Trump's strategy is effective because it's a departure from the Obama administration's "appeasement policy." He said that Iran-backed attacks on Americans were a "red line" for Trump and he responded when such attacks occurred in Iraq.POMPEO ON QASSEM SOLEIMANI STRIKE: IRAN NOW UNDERSTANDS TRUMP WILL TAKE 'DECISIVE' ACTION"After all, the Iranians have been escalating for 18 months in the Middle East to create a crisis so that pressure is put on the United States to stop the sanctions," he said. "And they've been disrupting oil. They attacked...the largest oil fields in the world, the Persian Gulf tankers disruption, et cetera. They shot down a U.S. drone and we did not retaliate.""But the president showed restraint and he put a red line out there, Sandra. He said, 'Look it, if you kill Americans I'm going to respond.' And, when that took place, this president responded," Keane stated, adding that Soleimani was "about to do it again," meeting in Iraq with a deputy commander of an Iran-backed militia.VideoIn an earlier interview on "Fox & Friends," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that the administration's moves on the chessboard would eventually lead to "success and stability" in the Middle East.Keane agreed with Pompeo saying that this is "our best chance" to create that success and stability.He told Smith that the president "looked at" the Obama administration's dealings with Iran – including the now-dissolved Iran Nuclear Deal – and said, "'No, we are not continuing down that path.'""In concert with our allies," he continued, "strategically, the policy decision was [that] we are going to confront Iran. Not with bullets; we are going to do is economically and diplomatically. And, that is what has so frustrated this regime."Keane said keeping up the maximum pressure campaign is the best course of action for the U.S. now."I believe this is the only path we can get to curbing their aggressive and malign behavior that's been going on for 40 years. All other attempts have failed. This is the best shot we've got to stop this aggression."

Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday at the New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, after she contributed to a story that suggested his longtime lawyer and fixer might cooperate with federal investigators.“The New York Times and a third rate reporter named Maggie Habberman [sic] known as a Crooked H[illary Clinton] flunkie who I don’t speak to and have nothing to do with, are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will ‘flip,’” Trump wrote.In a subsequent tweet, the president corrected his spelling.Haberman responded on Twitter, writing: “When I was reporting this story, I said to one person who’s observed the Cohen-Trump relationship that Trump has been abusive to him. The person replied, ‘He’s abusive to everybody.’”Last week, federal agents seized business records, emails and other documents during raids of Cohen’s office, hotel room and home. The material retrieved reportedly included documents related to a payment Cohen made in 2016 to silence a pornographic film actor, Stormy Daniels, from going public about an alleged affair with Trump. A payment made to a Playboy model who also claims to have had an affair with Trump, Karen McDougal, was also at issue. Trump denies the affairs and has called the raids a “witch hunt” perpetrated by his own justice department. The Cohen raid was reportedly the result of a referral to New York authorities by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and alleged collusion between Trump aides and Moscow. Trump has denied collusion and obstruction of justice.Haberman, who has been called the “Trump whisperer” for her deeply sourced reporting on the president, was part of a team that this week won a Pulitzer prize for national reporting. The Pulitzer was awarded jointly with the Washington Post for “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the president-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration”. In the Cohen story – which was published on the front page of the Times under the headline “Punching Bag For President Now Has Clout” – Haberman, Sharon LaFraniere and Danny Hakim report that the attorney, who is known for his unflinchingly loyalty to Trump, could face devastating legal fees if not criminal charges, a reality that may sway him to work with federal agents.The article quotes Sam Nunberg, a former aide to Trump who worked with Cohen, and most recently went on a bizarre media blitz in which he insisted he would defy subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller. Days later Nunberg reversed course and appeared for his scheduled grand jury appearance. “Ironically, Michael now holds the leverage over Trump,” Nunberg told the Times, adding that Trump had long taken Cohen “for granted”. Trump departs Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on Saturday, en route to play golf. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters“Whenever anyone complains to me about Trump screwing them over, my reflexive response is that person has nothing to complain about compared to Michael,” Nunberg said. Trump appeared to refer to Nunberg in his second tweet of the morning: “They use non-existent ‘sources’ and a drunk/drugged up loser who hates Michael, a fine person with a wonderful family. Michael is a businessman for his own account/lawyer who I have always liked & respected.“Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!”Cohen told Vanity Fair in September he would “take a bullet” for his boss. He apparently attempted to apologize to Melania Trump about the pain he caused by making the $130,000 payment to Daniels, whose birth name is Stephanie Clifford. The president spent Saturday morning at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, while his wife flew to Houston to attend the funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush. Photographers captured Trump looking at his phone.

Now the notion of Iranian control of these cities hardly beggars the strategic imagination. The Iran-Iraq War has lasted three decades longer than history supposed, and the machinations of Soleimani have been largely responsible for its outcome now looking favorable to Iran. (The other contribution to this outcome was the botched occupation of Iraq by the United States.) Because the Iraqi side of the war against the Islamic State was fought in part by Iranian-backed militias, Soleimani in 2015 could appear in the city of Tikrit while supervising a take-back operation. The power of that image to an Iranian audience that remembered the sorrows of the 1980s cannot be overstated—the most recognizable Iranian general striding confidently through Saddam’s hometown! If the 1980s were the Iranian Revolution’s nadir, Soleimani’s role was to revive the revolution and lead it for another 20 years.Everything else—war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen; support for Bashar al-Assad, via Hezbollah—has been a contribution to this larger struggle to expand Iran’s influence into its Sunni Arab periphery, and to do so on the cheap (with proxies) against Sunni adversaries often backed by big-spending patrons in Washington. (I have already mentioned the Sunni adversaries, namely ISIS and al-Qaeda, not backed by Washington. Online, I see Sunni jihadists celebrating Soleimani’s death, with “I ❤️ Donald Trump” tweets in some cases.) The assaults on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, perpetrated by Iranian proxies with the support of the Iraqi government, are the most recent manifestation of this plan. The decision to fight these dirty wars is morally unforgivable, but as a strategic move, they have made Soleimani a hero to his government.The real questions are not of morality (did he have it coming?) but of timing. I doubt that yesterday was the first time Soleimani became a visible target for the United States. But this is the first time, to my knowledge, that we have tried to kill him. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s statement on Soleimani’s death warned of what might come next. “Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox,” Biden said (apparently unaware that tinderboxes are smaller than sticks of dynamite, or that dynamite obliterates dry and soggy firewood with equal ease).We should be asking two questions: Why now? and What now? The most obvious answer to the first is that Iran escalated its war with the United States by attacking the embassy in Baghdad, and that Soleimani’s assassination was the response Iran could (or should) have predicted. Unlike other Iranian escalations, this one came close to being irreversible—embassies, once overrun, cannot simply reopen after the protesters have finished looting the office supplies—and required a quick deterrent reply, enough to force Iran to pause and recalculate. Soleimani posed an ongoing and lethal threat. The other, more worrying answer to Why now? is that the president is impulsive, and wages war without much thought.

"These are all the kind of things, looking at him from the enemy's perspective, (that) is going to create a great deal of angst in this part of the world."ThePentagon saysSoleimani and his troops were "responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more."Known as Iran's "shadow commander," Soleimani -- who had led the Quds Force since 1998 -- was the mastermind of Iranian military operations in Iraq and Syria.US officialsbelievethat during the Iraq war, it was Soleimani's units that provided Iraqi insurgents with specially made bombs that could penetrate armor, a deadly weapon against American forces -- a claim Iran denied.Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani was killed by a US airstrike at Baghdad airport.During the war against ISIS, Soleimani was also often reported to be on the battlefields in Iraq,slipping in and outof the country to help Shia Iraqi forces battle extremist militants.Soleimani's Quds Force also wreaked havoc far beyond the Middle East.US Treasury officialssaySoleimani was involved in a notorious plot on American soil, overseeing Quds Force officers who in 2011 tried and failed to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States Adel Al-Jubeir at Washington's upscale Cafe Milano.JUST WATCHEDFareed: Iranian commander looms larger than any figureReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHFareed: Iranian commander looms larger than any figure 01:09In astatementon Friday, the Defense Department said Soleimani was "actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region."It blamed the Iranian general for orchestrating attacks on coalition bases in Iraq in recent months, including anattack on December 27that culminated in the deaths of an American contractor and Iraqi personnel.Also killed in the US airstrike at Baghdad International Airport early Friday was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a commander in the Popular Mobilization Forces, was also killed in Friday's attack.PMF supporters and members attempted to storm the US embassy in Baghdad in a separate incident this week. According to the Pentagon, Soleimani also approved that attack.Formed in 2014 to fight ISIS, the PMF is a Shia paramilitary force made up of former militias with close ties to Iran. It was recognized under a 2016 Iraqi law as an independent military force that answers directly to the prime minister.

Enlarge this image The Television Academy says TV shows won't have to compete with feature films that are blocked from movie theaters by the coronavirus outbreak. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images The Television Academy says TV shows won't have to compete with feature films that are blocked from movie theaters by the coronavirus outbreak. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images Feature films will no longer be able to double dip from both the Oscars and the Emmys, says the Television Academy. In a statement, the academy said it supports a recent decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors. That board decided to relax its rules for the 2021 Oscars in response to movie theaters being closed during the coronavirus pandemic. Now, this year's feature films that were originally slated for the big screen and are being streamed or available on demand will be eligible for the Oscars. But those same nominees will no longer be considered for the Emmys, according to rules the Television Academy laid out Thursday. In recent years, the line between film and television has been blurring. Last year, the National Geographic documentary feature Free Solo won an Oscar and two Emmy Awards.

The second problem with Biden’s attempt at ideological jujitsu is that, as with the crime bill, vulnerable people may get hurt. Democratic presidential candidates have bashed China before. But this isn’t an ordinary moment. The coronavirus—and Trump’s racist rhetoric about it—have sparked a horrifying rise in attacks on Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans. To his credit, Biden has condemned Trump’s “xenophobia and fear-mongering.” Without meaning to, however, his new ads may exacerbate it.A presidential candidate can, of course, attack the Chinese government without attacking Chinese Americans. But doing so requires some rhetorical finesse—something the Biden ad lacks. The ad doesn’t say that Trump “rolled over” for “Xi Jinping” or the “Chinese government” or even “China.” It says he rolled over for “the Chinese.” As a result, Kaiser Kuo, editor at large of the website SupChina, told me, the ad may contribute to a political “race to the bottom,” in which “Asian Americans will suffer even more terribly from racism.”Were the Biden camp’s anti-China ads a surefire winner with voters, Machiavellians might justify them as a necessary evil. But for Democrats, posturing as more anti-China than the GOP is a poor long-term bet.For Republicans—such as Trump, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, and Josh Hawley—stoking antagonism toward China makes ideological sense. The GOP is the party of military spending, national sovereignty, and white anxiety. For decades, Republicans have been looking for a new Ronald Reagan to lead them to victory over a new evil empire. They’ve tried Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. But China is the most credible candidate yet: a nonwhite, non-Christian, nominally Communist power that really can challenge America’s dominance in the world.Democrats are by nature the party that advocates spending on health care and education rather than on military confrontation. Democrats are the people who now say, in some polls, that climate change is their second-highest priority. You can’t view the climate threat as existential and simultaneously embrace a cold war that keeps the world’s two largest emitters of carbon dioxide from cooperating. Hawks won’t find the Democrats’ anti-China posturing credible. Even if a few Never Trumpers abandon the GOP in 2020, they’ll eventually come home to Cotton’s or Rubio’s or Nikki Haley’s more respectable militarism. And in trying to out-jingo the GOP, Democrats will alienate their Millennial activist base.By 2005, after two decades of Democrats like Biden and Clinton seeking to beat the GOP at its own game, the historian Rick Perlstein wrote a short book entitled The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo. Perlstein argued that for a political party, as for a corporation (“Superjumbo” is a reference to Boeing’s competition with Airbus), short-term gyrations in response to the vagaries of the market (the “stock ticker”) can have devastating long-term effects if they undermine its core identity. Clinton—who passed free-trade deals, deregulated the financial markets, cut welfare benefits, signed legislation against gay marriage, and helped fill America’s jails—won two presidential elections. But toward the end of his tenure, Democrats controlled fewer Senate seats and fewer state legislatures than they had in 50 years, and fewer governorships than they had in 30 years. Clinton had won; the Democratic Party had lost.By attacking Trump for being insufficiently nationalist rather than being insufficiently internationalist, Biden is hastening a geopolitical confrontation that threatens progressive goals. And he’s sowing doubts about what the Democratic Party actually believes. He’s choosing short-term advantage over long-term principle.This is what supporters of Bernie Sanders were worried about, and Biden is proving them right. Peter Beinartis a contributing writer atThe Atlanticand a professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York.Connect Twitter

France's rail network has been severely disrupted, as a wave of strikes against President Emmanuel Macron's labour reforms gets under way.The start of the strike has been dubbed "Black Tuesday", but the action will spread over three months, affecting two days in every five.Staff at state railway SNCF are leading the strike, but the energy and waste collection sectors are also affected.The unrest presents Mr Macron's biggest challenge since his election last May.The unions say some of the plans to overhaul the heavily indebted SNCF would pave the way for its privatisation.But Prime Minister Édouard Philippe denied this, saying the proposals aim to change the status quo that was "no longer tenable".In parliament, he added: "If the strikers are to be respected, the millions of French people who want to go to work, because they have no choice, because they want to go to work, must also be respected."SNCF warned that major disruptions were expected on Wednesday.With the four main rail unions observing the strike, services have been severely curtailed. Some 77% of SNCF drivers were believed to be on strike. The company said 34% of its staff overall were striking.Only one in eight high-speed TGVs is scheduled to run while only one in five regional trains is operating.Commuter lines into Paris have also been slashed and bus services have been hugely overcrowded. Some stations were crammed for the few trains available, others were deserted.The website that measures car traffic around the capital recorded about 420km (260 miles) of jams at rush hour.How this could affect your train journey (in French)International services are more sketchily affected. Eurostar has 75% of trains running and the Thalys services to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany are almost normal, but there are no services to Spain, Switzerland or Italy.Employees of Air France, who are demanding a 6% pay rise, are into the fourth day of industrial action. The airline is operating 75% of its flights.Travellers across Europe suffered more disruption as up to 15,000 flights across the continent were facing delays due to a technical problem.Eurocontrol, which runs the EU's air traffic system, said the fault in the system had been identified and that moves were under way to return the situation to normal.Unions have also called out all rubbish collectors, to push for the creation of a national collection service and better retirement options. Workers blockaded some waste treatment plants.Energy sector unions have also called strikes to demand, among other things, an end to the liberalisation of the energy markets and a review of deregulation.Thousands of students are also reportedly taking part in the strikes, in opposition to the toughening up of university entry regulations.Analysis by the BBC's Hugh Schofield in ParisThere are three reasons why President Macron feels relatively optimistic about the rail strike.First, unlike in the last massive (and successful) general strike in 1995, this time there can have been no mistaking the government's intention to reform. Neither the public nor SNCF staff can pretend the planned changes come out of the blue. They are clearly part of the broad reform agenda for which Mr Macron was elected.Second, there is far less automatic sympathy for the SNCF than there used to be. The level of rail services has declined sharply, especially for commuters, who are as a result more open to calls for reform.Third, new options have opened up for commuters. There is home-working; car-pooling; expanded coach services. This should make it easier for workers to get round the inconvenience.All that said, these will be tense weeks for the government. Nerves are going to fray. People will get angry. Daily life will not be easy. In these circumstances, plans can go badly awry. A wrong move and public opinion could easily shift back behind the strikers.SNCF workers enjoy generous conditions, including automatic annual pay rises, early retirement, 28 days of paid annual leave and protection from dismissal. Their close relatives are also entitled to free rail tickets.The Macron government wants to phase out the special SNCF contracts, proposing to put new hires on contracts like those that apply elsewhere in industry. The aim is to open up the state railways to competition from 2023, in line with EU requirements. SNCF has €46.6bn ($57.5bn; £40bn) of debt. French unions strike over labour reforms Macron launches overhaul of labour laws Macron's meteoric rise - in-depth analysis The rail unions also feel their action goes beyond rail workers' conditions and marks a major test of union clout.Just over 11% of the French workforce is unionised - one of the lowest levels in the EU - but the unions traditionally punch above their weight, economically and politically."We're defending the French public service, not just rail workers," said Emmanuel Grondein, head of union Sud Rail.Mr Macron's Republic On The Move party also feels the strike has wider connotations. "We need to rid this country of its strike culture," spokesman Gabriel Attal said.Opposition to Mr Macron's agenda was shown on 22 March, when tens of thousands of teachers, nurses and other workers joined rail staff on strike.The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Paris says many union members see Mr Macron as the man who wants to break the power of the unions.But strikes in September failed to stop Mr Macron passing laws that make it easier for firms to hire and fire, and the majority of the public are opposed to industrial action this time.The usual mix of support, anger, disappointment, humour and resignation.This one purports to show a Paris-Lille train and asks whether commuters are also on strike:This one carries a mock CV, suggesting railway workers are serial strikers (grévistes):While this offers wholehearted support:

SAN FRANCISCO -- An Apple engineer who died when his Tesla Model X slammed into a concrete barrier had previously complained about the SUV malfunctioning on that same stretch of Silicon Valley freeway. His complaints were detailed in a trove of documents released Tuesday by federal investigators in two Tesla crashes involving Autopilot, one in California and the other in Florida. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the March 2018 crash that killed Walter Huang near Mountain View, California. It's also probing a crash in Delray Beach, Florida, that happened about a year later and killed driver Jeremy Banner. The documents say Huang told his wife that Autopilot had previously veered his SUV toward the same barrier on U.S. 101 near Mountain View where he later crashed. Huang died at a hospital from his injuries. “Walter said the car would veer toward the barrier in the mornings when he went to work,” the Huang family's attorney wrote in a response to NTSB questions. Records from an iPhone recovered from the crash site showed that Huang may have been using it before the accident. Records obtained from AT&T showed that data had been used while the vehicle was in motion, but the source of the transmissions couldn’t be determined, the NTSB wrote. One transmission was less than a minute before the crash. Huang had described Autopilot's previous malfunctioning to his brother, the Huang family attorney wrote, in addition to talking with a friend who owns a Model X. Huang, a software engineer, discussed with the friend how a patch to the Autopilot software affected its performance and made the Model X veer, according to the attorney. The Huang family is suing Tesla and California’s Department of Transportation for allegedly failing to maintain the highway. Autopilot is a partially automated system designed to keep a vehicle in its lane and keep a safe distance from vehicles in front of it. It also can change lanes with driver approval. Tesla says Autopilot is intended to be used for driver assistance and that drivers must be ready to intervene at all times. The full NTSB board is scheduled to hold a hearing on the Mountain View crash on Feb. 25. At that time, it will determine a cause and make safety recommendations. NTSB staff members have already recommended that California transportation officials move faster to repair highway safety barriers damaged by vehicles. A report from the agency says California officials failed to fix the barrier that was damaged in a crash 11 days before Huang was killed. In that incident, a 2010 Toyota Prius traveling over 75 mph (120 kmh) crashed against the attenuator, a cushion that protects vehicles from hitting the end of concrete lane dividers. The California Highway Patrol responded to the March 12 crash but did not notify the state Department of Transportation of the damage as required, the NTSB said. Huang's 2017 Tesla Model X was traveling at 71 mph (114 kph) when it crashed against the same attenuator, which the NTSB determined had been damaged and repaired more frequently than any other left-exit in Caltrans' District 4, which includes all of the San Francisco Bay Area. In the three years before the Tesla crash, the device was struck at least five times, including one crash that resulted in fatalities. A car struck it again on May 20, 2018, about two months after the Tesla crash, the NTSB said. NTSB first released some details from its investigation in September. The California Department of Transportation said in a statement Tuesday that it has “identified and is implementing several steps to enhance monitoring and tracking of the repair of damage” to highway infrastructure. “These efforts include updates to its policies and maintenance manual, training of staff, and enhanced reporting on the timely repair of high priority traffic safety devices,” Caltrans said. In the Florida crash, Banner turned on the Autopilot function of his Model 3 sedan 10 seconds before the crash, then took his hands off the steering wheel, NTSB documents said. The car then drove underneath a tractor-trailer that was crossing in front of it, sheering off the car's roof and killing Banner. It was eerily similar to another Florida crash in 2016 in which a Tesla on Autopilot went beneath a semi trailer. The NTSB said in a preliminary report that it still hasn’t determined the cause of the crash. According to the report, traffic was light on the four-lane highway and dawn was breaking when Banner, 50, set his speed at 69 mph (111 kph) and activated the autopilot as he headed to work. The speed limit was 55 mph (88 kph). Seconds later, a tractor-trailer driven by Richard Wood, 45, pulled from a driveway and began to cross to the other side of the highway. Wood said he saw two sets of car headlights coming toward him, but he thought he had time to make it across. “It was dark and it looked like the cars was back further than they was,” Wood told NTSB investigators four days after the crash. A photo taken by the NTSB from Tesla’s front-end video camera showed Wood’s trailer fully blocking the road 1.5 seconds before the crash. Data from the Tesla’s computer shows that Banner hit his brakes less than a second before the crash, but the car went under the trailer. Wood says he saw a second car but it didn't hit the trailer. ———— Krisher reported from Detroit. Terry Spencer contributed from Orlando, Florida.

SEATTLE — When 10 representatives from Amazon visited the Denver area in late January, they did what you’d expect from a company scouting for a place to put its second headquarters. They toured more than a half-dozen potential sites for a new campus and talked about the technical talent available in the area.But they also did something that surprised local officials: Quiz them on how, if Amazon chooses to settle there, the company could avoid the problems it confronts in Seattle, the only hometown it has ever known.If Amazon moves in, bringing up to 50,000 high-paying jobs to town over time, how would the officials deal with traffic on its roads? And how would the company’s tax dollars contribute to the creation of affordable housing in the region?“I think they feel in Seattle they’re the scapegoat every time there’s an issue in the community and traffic,” said Sam Bailey, vice president of economic development at the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, which is managing the area’s bid for Amazon’s second headquarters.ImageHome prices in Seattle are growing faster than those in any other large city.Credit...Kyle Johnson for The New York TimesAmazon’s search for a second headquarters has been a pageant of finalist cities doing everything they can to woo the company and the good jobs and huge construction projects it would bring. The most controversial part of the process has been the big tax incentives that some state and local governments have offered Amazon, seen by critics as ineffective corporate giveaways.Amazon wrapped up its visits in mid-April to all 20 finalist locations for its HQ2, as Amazon calls its second headquarters. The company is now following up with the cities, from Los Angeles to Indianapolis to Toronto, seeking further information as it narrows its search.The company has a long wish list, including plentiful flights at local airports, a stable, business-friendly government and nearby recreational opportunities for employees.But local officials did not anticipate Amazon’s interest in how to tackle some of the troubles that have turned it into a polarizing symbol of Seattle’s booming economy. The e-commerce giant is celebrated by many in Seattle for being the city’s biggest employer and adding tremendous wealth to the area. But it is villainized by others for bringing too much change, too quickly.In Denver, Amazon and local officials talked at length about public transit options and the creation of bike lanes, said Mr. Bailey. They even discussed the possibility of Amazon financing a new light-rail station for its system, though no commitments were made, he said.In Atlanta, the company spoke to a representative of the Westside Future Fund, a nonprofit working to prevent displacement in an area being redeveloped. The fund will pay for the increases in property taxes for residents who have lived in the area since at least 2016 so that they’re not priced out of their homes.In Amazon’s visit to Toronto, the company discussed its potential impact on the labor market and the affordability of housing, said Ed Clark, the business adviser to Kathleen Wynne, the premier of the province of Ontario.“We’re all concerned about what could be gentrification or displacement, how do we deal with that,” said Aisha Glover, president and chief executive of the Newark Community Economic Development Corporation, which is involved in the New Jersey city’s bid.Adam Sedo, a spokesman for Amazon, confirmed that public transport and housing affordability were important topics in conversations with the finalist locations but declined to elaborate further.The company employs about 45,000 people in Seattle, spread out among more than 30 buildings near the downtown area. Despite a construction frenzy, building of new homes hasn’t kept up with demand, leading to soaring housing costs in Seattle, where rents are now close to those in Boston and New York and home prices are growing faster than those in any other large city.While Amazon is not the only reason for all the change, it has become the most convenient target for groups worried about home prices and paralyzing traffic.“There was clearly a sensitivity both to the real and to the perceived impact when they come in to a place,” Mr. Clark said, referring to Amazon’s discussions in Toronto.The company says it has given $40 million for affordable housing projects in Seattle. In a new office building it is constructing, Amazon has agreed to give a rent-free space to a homeless shelter for families. The company says its employees are big users of public transportation, with 17 percent of its local employees living in the same ZIP code in which they work.“The pace of change has been so fast and housing supply has not kept up and the transit system has not kept up,” said Alan Durning, executive director of Sightline Institute, a nonprofit research group in Seattle focused on sustainability. “There’s a visceral public reaction to the whole rapid pace of change in the city symbolized by, and perhaps blamed too much on, Amazon.”In May, Seattle’s City Council plans to vote on a tax — dubbed the “Amazon Tax” by locals — on the city’s largest employers. The tax is expected to raise $75 million annually, with most of the money being funneled into building affordable housing. The remainder will go to support services for the homeless.This month, supporters of the plan staged a rally in front of Amazon’s glass spheres in Seattle holding signs that read “Tax Amazon” and “Tax Bezos,” referring to the company’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos. Asked why Amazon was discussing affordable housing with officials of the finalist cities for its second headquarters, Kshama Sawant, a socialist member of the Seattle City Council, said it was because of what’s happening in the company’s hometown.“It’s because they’re getting massive pushback from ordinary people in Seattle,” said Ms. Sawant.Growing cities with thriving local tech scenes are already grappling with affordable housing challenges, even without Amazon. Mr. Clark, the adviser involved in Toronto’s bid, said it helps that Amazon isn’t ducking the problem."To have someone coming in and worried about this issue and wanting to work with you to solve the issue is a big plus,” he said.

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.Friday was a truly historic day for the potent new social movement committed to sounding a global alarm about the climate crisis. The Global Climate Strikes, inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, age 16, may end up being the largest mass protest for action on global warming in history. The exact number of participants worldwide will be hard to get. But the event was truly global and astonishingly well organized: There were over 2,500 events scheduled in over 163 countries on all seven continents. One year and one month apart pic.twitter.com/f2URDOVFm2— Natalie Wolchover (@nattyover) September 20, 2019 And according to 350.org, a major environmental advocacy group and a co-organizer of today’s events, more than 4 million people worldwide took part. There were 40,000 people striking in France; 2,600 in Ukraine; 5,000 in South Africa; 10,000 in Turkey; 5,000 in Japan; 100,000 in London; 330,000 in Australia; 250,000 in NYC; and 1.4 million in Germany, 350.org told us. (You can see photos of the strikes around the world here.) Again, those numbers come from the event organizers so take them with a grain of salt. That said, it’s clear that Friday’s actions were enormous and spanned the globe. Kids and adults were protesting from Uganda to India, from Peru to Grenada, from Spain to Anchorage. There was even a small demonstration on the Antarctic continent. Another strike is planned for September 27.China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, was noticeably absent from the images of protesters shared by Thunberg and other organizers on Twitter. According to the Guardian, “No protests were authorized in China ... but Zheng Xiaowen of the China Youth Climate Action Network said Chinese youth would take action one way or another.”“Chinese youth have their own methods,” she said. “We also pay attention to the climate and we are also thinking deeply, interacting, taking action, and so many people are very conscientious on this issue.”But it was inspiring to see so many young people — people who may live to see a radically different world in the second half of this century — tell the grownups of the world to heed the warnings of scientists and limit devastating warming by accelerating decarbonization in the next decade. On Monday, at the UN Climate Action Summit, we’ll find out how many were listening. — Gale A. Brewer (@galeabrewer) September 20, 2019 And eventually, an independent tally of participants will come. Researchers are working on their own estimates of the crowd size. In 2017, Crowd Counting Consortium was launched by Erica Chenoweth, an expert on civil resistance at Harvard, and Jeremy Pressman, a political scientist at the University of Connecticut, as a public service project to document the scope of the Women’s March. “Documenting the women’s march in real time, we learned how important it was for people to be seen, witnessed and counted,” Chenoweth and Pressman wrote in a Washington Post article.They are currently collecting data on the September 20 climate strikes in the US and parallel events around the world. Eventually, they’ll have estimates of the total crowd size from September 20 to share.The vast majority of your plastic isn’t being recycled. It might be time to consider lighting it on fire.Looking for a quick way to keep up with the never-ending news cycle? Host Sean Rameswaram will guide you through the most important stories at the end of each day.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: