Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls, was found unconscious in a Manhattan jail cell with injuries to his neck, media reported late on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.

Epstein was found by guards sprawled on the floor of cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Wednesday, media reported. Some media reported that his face appeared blue.

The billionaire financier was taken to hospital, the New York Post reported, but it was unclear where he was taken or what his condition was.

It was not clear how he suffered his injuries.

Neither a representative for the correctional center nor Epstein’s attorney returned calls or email inquiries from Reuters.

Epstein was recently denied bail, a move his lawyers plan to appeal according to a court notice made public on Tuesday.

Epstein was expected to ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the judge’s July 18 rejection of his request to remain under house arrest in his $77 million mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Epstein has pleaded not guilty to the charges and the appeal for bail was expected. His lawyer Reid Weingarten did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan declined to comment.

The charges, concerning alleged misconduct from at least 2002 to 2005, were announced more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida.

In denying him bail, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan said the government had shown by clear and convincing evidence that Epstein would pose a danger to the community if released pending trial.
 

 

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The Trump administration’s new asylum rule survived an initial court challenge Wednesday, keeping in place a directive that disqualifies a significant proportion of mostly Central American asylum-seekers who reach the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly denied requests to block the rule while a pending court case goes forward, saying, “It’s in the greater public interest to allow the administration to carry out its immigration policy.” 

Announced earlier this month, the new rule bars asylum for migrants who reach the U.S. southern border without having applied for and been denied asylum in any country they passed through on their way to the United States.

The case was brought by two immigrant rights organizations: the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and RAICES, or Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. Both organizations argued the asylum rule would harm migrants fleeing dangerous situations.

Kelly, who serves on the U.S. District Court in the nation’s capital, voiced doubts that plaintiffs could demonstrate the administration exceeded its authority by issuing the asylum rule. 

The White House’s legal victory could be short-lived, as a federal judge in San Francisco was to consider a separate challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union later in the day.

“We’ve filed suit to stop the Trump administration from reversing our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect people fleeing danger,” the ACLU tweeted.

Trump administration officials have said the new rule is meant to ease the strain on the U.S. asylum system. 

In a recent statement, U.S. Attorney General William Barr noted a “dramatic increase in the number of aliens” arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that “[o]nly a small minority of these individuals” qualify for asylum. 

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The Gulf of Guinea is a hot spot for illegal activities, which affect global trade and security. This week a conference in Ghana’s capital, Accra, seeks solutions to overcome issues that plague the region. Experts say collaboration will be the focus of a seaborne law enforcement effort.

On board the USNS Carson City, which is visiting Sekondi, in Ghana’s Western Region, Admiral James Foggo thanked the American crew, telling personnel how important its role is in building partnerships and bringing security to the Gulf of Guinea – a coastal region of West and Central Africa.

The ship arrived for a port visit Sunday as part of the U.S. Navy’s effort to support African navies in anti-piracy, small boat maintenance and marine law enforcement. Personnel from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian forces are also part of the collaborative mission.

Alongside naval leaders from other nations, Foggo toured U.S., Ghanaian and Nigerian vessels at the port of Sekondi.

“Our interest in the Gulf of Guinea is helping our African partners and friends legitimize and control the sea lines of communication that lead to the ports of Africa. Ninety percent of their commerce travels by those sea lines of communication. There is a lot of activity that is legal, probably more legal than illegal. We want to stop the illegal activity, it takes away from their tax base, their profitability and detracts from their economy,” Foggo said.

But for success to endure, Foggo said there is a need for more emphasis on arresting, charging and prosecuting those committing illegal activities in the Gulf.

“There has got to be some kind of deterrence or punishment applied in order to keep people from doing this in the future, otherwise if they go into a detention facility or jail and they get out, they just go back and do it again,” he said.

Foggo is the commander of U.S. Allied Joint Force Command Naples, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, and U.S. Naval Forces Africa.  

The Accra conference is focused on tackling threats from illegal fishing, piracy, kidnappings for ransom, illegal oil bunkering and drug trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea.

Commander Veronica Arhin, a spokesperson for Ghana’s Navy, says the goal of the meeting is to get as many experts and navies together to address security in the Gulf of Guinea.  

”Collaboration between the navies in the Gulf of Guinea is extremely important because crimes or insecurity is transnational, it can move from one country to another, so there is a need for us to have that collaboration, such that if a ship has a problem in another country’s waters or there is a piracy attack and the pirates move to another country, there could be that communication. And the navies around the various countries could come together to fight such crimes,” said Arhin.

Those ideas are endorsed by Ahmed Tabsoba, who grew up in Ghana and is now an American citizen in the U.S. Navy.

Tabsoba has been stationed in Naples where the U.S. works with its 28 NATO allies. He was back in his home country, traveling with Admiral Foggo.

“We live in a world that you cannot predict what is going to happen next, so it’s really good to always build this relation[ship] and make sure we are there to help if something happens,” Tabsoba said.

The two-day International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference ending Thursday brings together 25 countries represented by speakers and exhibitors who hope to find ways to collaborate on solutions to the region’s challenges.
 

 

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The acting head of the Homeland Security Department is complimenting what he says is cooperation with Guatemala to tighten immigration security.

Kevin McAleenan’s statement comes a day after President Donald Trump railed against Guatemala and threatened retribution against the Central American nation over immigration.
 
McAleenan says the collaboration is “already yielding significant results” and he mentions a joint operation in Guatemala that broke up a human smuggling ring in May.
 
McAleenan tells counterparts from Honduras, El Salvador and Panama, and the Costa Rican ambassador that he wants similar cooperation.
 
Trump tweeted that he may impose tariffs and tax remittance money, and he alleged that Guatemala refused to sign an asylum deal with the U.S. even though the country’s government didn’t say it had agreed to the arrangement.

 

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One year after a catastrophic dam collapse in southern Laos killed dozens of people and displaced thousands, rights groups are demanding that multinational companies behind the $1 billion project do more for the hundreds of families still living in cramped shelters on meager rations.

On the night of July 23, 2018, an auxiliary — or saddle — dam of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower project collapsed, sending a wall of water crashing through more than a dozen villages. More than 7,000 people in Laos and thousands more in neighboring Cambodia were forced from their homes.

Homes and farms were wiped out. In the aftermath, one survivor told VOA that the water hit his village “like a tsunami.”

The Lao government put the final death toll at 49, with another 22 missing, although rights groups say the official tally may be a “gross underestimation.”

Some 5,000 displaced villagers are still living in temporary camps in Laos in sweltering, tightly packed tin shacks, surviving on irregular allowances and thin rations from the government. Some have been given plows and seeds, but no new land on which to use them, while much of the old farmland remains buried under silt and debris.

The joint venture behind the dam, the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Power Company, or PNPC, has reportedly started offering victims compensation, according to Maureen Harris, Southeast Asia program director for International Rivers, a non-profit organization. She spoke Tuesday in Bangkok at the release of a new report, “Reckless Endangerment: Assessing Responsibility for the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam Collapse.”

“But the communities report for the most part that these offers of compensation are too low; they don’t properly account for the real value of what’s been lost in terms of the property, but also the lost livelihoods as a result of losing that property,” Harris said.

While some victims are refusing the offers, others have relented. The government says it will be four or five years before a permanent resettlement site is ready.

Accountability

Rights groups say the many companies building and backing the dam, which is slated for completion later this year, are bound by international law to do more for the victims, and that their governments should compel them to follow through.

To date, none of the companies has been held accountable for the collapse, despite mounting evidence that the lead developer and builder, South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction, compromised safety for profit.

An independent investigation commissioned by the Lao government ruled out force majeure — an unforeseen “act of God.” Authorities have yet to release the investigation report but said the expert panel decided that a poor foundation was “the major cause” of the collapse.

A Stanford University scientist, who parsed data from the dam, concluded that the reservoir the saddle dam was holding back had been built over a sinkhole, causing the dam to sink and crack and finally fail when the rising waters mounted the top. A company document leaked by a Korean lawmaker also showed that all five saddle dams were several meters lower than intended by the original design plan and made of different material, saving millions of dollars.

“So there is growing evidence basically from different quarters that suggests that the lead developer … may have caused the collapse by their actions and inactions,” Harris said.

Of the other PNPC partners, the rights groups also place much of the burden on Thailand’s Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding, the project’s construction supervisor responsible for overseeing SK Engineering’s work.

SK Engineering has rejected the independent investigation’s findings and denied responsibility. The company has said it followed industry standards, but failed to offer an alternate explanation for the collapse.

SK Engineering did not reply to a request for comment from VOA.

A public relations officer for Ratchaburi declined to answer any questions and referred all inquiries to PNPC. A project manager for PNPC also declined to comment.

Lao government officials could not be reached.

Insurance policy

Citing an industry source, rights groups say the project took out a massive insurance policy that includes roughly $50 million in liability coverage that the affected families could tap into, some of it from U.S. insurance company AIG.

“There is a pot of insurance money here for exactly this kind of situation, and the affected people should have the capacity to claim against this insurance to remediate them for the losses,” said Craig Bradshaw, Southeast Asia legal coordinator for Inclusive Development International, which co-authored the report.

Harris and Bradshaw said their groups were in talks with lawyers on the potential for filing legal claims, most likely in South Korea, but possibly in Thailand as well.

Rights groups are urging the companies to halt construction until those affected are made whole again. Without a full and public accounting of exactly what went wrong, they say, locals are also left to wonder if the other four saddle dams holding back the reservoir face the same risks as the one that collapsed.

Premrudee Daorung, a coordinator with the Laos Dam Investment Monitor, a grass-roots group set up in the wake of the collapse, said the group hoped the fallout would also convince the government to reconsider its ambitious — critics would say overly so — hydropower plans. 

“One of our first proposals, or the hope, was that Laos might be able to make use of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy case in order to turn the direction of the plan to become ‘the battery of Asia,’ to review that plan,” she said.

But with 27 more dams in the works and hundreds more still on the drawing board, she worried, those hopes appear dashed.

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Australian researchers are looking to Africa and the Middle East for drought- and heat-resistant crops as many grain farmers face another failed season.

Key farming regions in southern Queensland are forecast to miss their third winter grain crop in a row. The national crop this year is expected to be about 10 percent below the 10-year average.

Australia’s Grains Research and Development Corporation, the GRDC, is carrying out a global search for climate-proof grains. GRDC’s northern panel chairman, John Minogue, says crops in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa could be adapted to help farmers become more resilient in the face of a warming climate and less rainfall.

“We have got people in Syria, in Africa, in all of the parts of the world, which have historically had these crops grown for thousands of years,” he said. “We have a lot of investments in people on behalf of the grain growers searching the world for plants that are resistant to drought and also that are able to handle stress conditions and heat, and identifying the germplasm [genetic material] that we can then integrate into the Australian crops.”

Large areas of eastern Australia have been in drought for periods ranging from one to seven years. More than 95 percent of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, is officially in drought.

The national climate outlook for August to October suggests drier-than-average conditions for large parts of Australia, with higher-than-average daytime temperatures across the entire continent.

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Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a law returning the OPEC nation to a regional defense treaty on Tuesday, but opposition leader Juan Guaido sought to tamp down supporters’ hopes it could lead to President Nicolas Maduro’s imminent downfall.

Opposition hardliners had been pressuring Guaido to join the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, as a precursor to requesting a foreign military intervention to oust Maduro, a socialist who has overseen an economic collapse and is accused of human rights violations.

“The TIAR is not magic, it is not a button that we press and then tomorrow everything is resolved,” Guaido told a rally of supporters in Caracas, using the treaty’s Spanish initials. “In itself it is not the solution – it obliges us to take to the streets with greater force to exercise our majority.”

The treaty states that an attack on one of the members – which include most large Western Hemisphere countries including the United States, Brazil and Colombia – should be considered an attack on all. Venezuela and other leftist Latin American countries left the alliance between 2012 and 2013.

Venezuela plunged into a deep power struggle in January when Guaido invoked the constitution to declare a rival presidency, arguing Maduro’s May 2018 re-election was illegitimate. He has been recognized as the rightful leader by most Western countries, including the United States.

Maduro, who calls Guaido a U.S. puppet seeking to oust him in a coup, remains in control of government functions six months into Guaido’s campaign. The economy and public services have continued to deteriorate in that time, and on Monday much of the country went dark in the biggest blackout since March.

That has led some Maduro opponents, such as former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, to push Guaido to request foreign military intervention to oust Maduro.

U.S. officials have said a military option is “on the table” for Venezuela, but has so far focused on economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure to choke off cash flow to Maduro and try to convince top military officials to get behind Guaido.

Latin American and European countries are pushing a diplomatic solution to Venezuela’s political and economic crisis, and many have criticized the possible use of force.

Norway’s government is currently mediating negotiations between the government and the opposition in Barbados.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday told young people a number of falsehoods he’s been relating to adults for months and took a misleading swipe at the female Democratic lawmakers he’s trying to turn into foils.

A sampling of his remarks at a Turning Point USA gathering of conservative youth:

Trump, on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York: “She called our country and our people garbage. She said garbage. That’s worse than deplorable. Remember deplorable?”

The facts: Ocasio-Cortez did not label people “garbage.” She did use that term, somewhat indirectly, to describe the state of the country.

Arguing for a liberal agenda at a South by Southwest event in March, she said the U.S. shouldn’t settle for centrist policies because they would produce only marginal improvement — “10% better” than the “garbage” of where the country is now.

Trump has been assailing Ocasio-Cortez and three other liberal Democratic women of color in the House for more than a week, ever since he posted tweets saying they should “go back” to their countries, though all are U.S. citizens and all but one was born in the U.S.

Voter fraud

Trump: “And when they’re saying all of this stuff, and then those illegals get out and vote — because they vote anyway. Don’t kid yourself, those numbers in California and numerous other states, they’re rigged.  You got people voting that shouldn’t be voting. They vote many times, not just twice, not just three times. They vote — it’s like a circle. They come back, they put a new hat on. They come back, they put a new shirt. And in many cases, they don’t even do that.  You know what’s going on. It’s a rigged deal.”

The facts: Trump has produced no evidence of widespread voting fraud by people in the country illegally or by any group of people. 
 
He tried, but the commission he appointed on voting fraud collapsed from infighting and from the refusal of states to cooperate when tapped for reams of personal voter data, like names, partial Social Security numbers and voting histories. Studies have found only isolated cases of voter fraud in recent U.S. elections and no evidence that election results were affected. Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt found 31 cases of impersonation fraud, for example, in about 1 billion votes cast in elections from 2000 to 2014. 
 
Trump has falsely claimed that 1 million fraudulent votes were cast in California and cited a Texas state government report that suggested 58,000 people in the country illegally may have cast a ballot at least once since 1996. But state elections officials subsequently acknowledged serious problems with the report, as tens of thousands on the list were actually U.S. citizens.

U.S. economy

Trump: “We have the best economy in history.”

The facts: No matter how often he repeats this claim, the economy is nowhere near the best in the country’s history.

In fact, in the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth reached 7.2% in 1984. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under President Barack Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. Most of that took place under Obama.

Unemployment rate

Trump: “The best employment numbers in history.”

The facts: They are not the best ever.

The 3.7% unemployment rate in the latest report is not a record low. It’s near the lowest level in 50 years, when it was 3.5%. The U.S. also had lower rates than now in the early 1950s. And during three years of World War II, the annual rate was under 2%.

Employment numbers

Trump: “The most people working, almost 160 million, in the history of our country.”

The facts: Yes, but that’s only because of population growth.

A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.

According to Labor Department data, 60.6% of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in June. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7% in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9% when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

Veterans Choice

Trump, on his efforts to help veterans: “I got Choice.” 
 
The facts: He is not the president who “got” the Veterans Choice program, which gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense. 
 
Obama got it. Congress approved the program in 2014, and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.

NATO

Trump: “We’re paying close to 100% on NATO.”

The facts: The U.S. is not “paying close to 100%” of the price of protecting Europe.

NATO has a shared budget to which each member makes contributions based on the size of its economy. The United States, with the biggest economy, pays the biggest share, about 22%.

Four European members — Germany, France, Britain and Italy — combined pay nearly 44% of the total. The money, about $3 billion, runs NATO’s headquarters and covers certain other civilian and military costs.

Defending Europe involves far more than that fund. The primary cost of doing so would come from each member country’s military budget, as the alliance operates under a mutual defense treaty.

The U.S. is the largest military spender, but others in the alliance have armed forces, too. The notion that almost all costs would fall to the U.S. is false. In fact, NATO’s Article 5, calling for allies to act if one is attacked, has only been invoked once, and it was on behalf of the U.S., after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said Tuesday he plans to meet with the Taliban to persuade them to hold negotiations with the government in Afghanistan but cautioned that securing a political settlement to war will not be easy. 

While delivering a public talk at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, Khan noted that for the first time in the 18-year-old Afghan conflict, Pakistan and the United States are working together to advance peace efforts in the neighboring country. 

Khan spoke a day after he met with President Donald Trump at the White House where the two leaders agreed to work together to end to the conflict. 

“Now, when I go back after meeting President Trump … I will meet the Taliban and I will try my best to get them to talk to the Afghan government so that the elections in Afghanistan must be inclusive where the Taliban also participate in it,” he said.

 The Taliban is strongly opposed to engaging in any formal intra-Afghan negotiations, involving the Kabul government, until securing a peace deal with the U.S.

Khan said that a Taliban delegation had wanted to meet him a few months back but he had to cancel the meeting because of objections from the Afghan government. He said he has now spoken to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani about his possible upcoming meeting with the insurgent group.

Pakistani leader visits Capitol Hill

Later, the Pakistani prime minister attended a reception at the Capitol Hill where he addressed a large number of American congressmen. Khan said his country has already arranged U.S.-Taliban talks and it will do all within its powers to advance the Afghan peace process. 

“Pakistan is now trying its best to get the Taliban on the table to start this dialogue and, so far, we have done pretty well. But it’s not going to be easy. Do not expect this to be easy because it’s a very complicated situation in Afghanistan,” Khan cautioned. “We all have one object and it’s exactly the same objective as the U.S., which is to have a peaceful solution as quickly as possible in Afghanistan,”  he added. 

Afghan leaders have consistently accused Islamabad of covertly backing the Taliban-led violent insurgency in their country, charges Pakistani officials reject and insist continued instability in the neighboring country is hurting Pakistan’s own stability and economic development. 

American and Taliban officials in their months-long talks are said to have come close to concluding an agreement toward ending the Afghan war. The proposed truce would require the insurgents to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a base for international terrorists in exchange for U.S. troops leaving the country. 

Afghan reaction to Trump’s remarks 

Meanwhile, U.S. chief negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, arrived Tuesday in Kabul to brief the Afghan leadership on his talks with the Taliban before he visits Qatar for another round of negotiations with insurgent envoys based there. The Afghan-born American diplomat tweeted he is focused on achieving an enduring peace that ends the war. 

Khalilzad arrived in Kabul a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he has military plans that could wipe Afghanistan “off the face of Earth,” killing millions of people.

Trump’s remarks, which he made during meeting with Khan at the White House, have outraged Afghan officials, opposition leaders and the Taliban as well.

President Ghani’s office in a statement issued Tuesday demanded a clarification from Washington.

Trump said if he wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan he could win that war in a week. 

“I just don’t want to kill 10 million people … Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone … It would be over in, literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do that — I don’t want to go that route,” the president said. 

Former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, while talking to VOA Afghan service strongly condemned Trump’s statement, saying it comes from a “criminal mindset” and shows “contempt” toward Afghanistan and the Afghan people.” 

“The U.S. shouldn’t have come in the first place. They should go. They should go now,” Karzai said when asked about the possible U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Karzai came to power with the help of the U.S. and for most of his time in office American special forces had been doing the job of his personal security. 

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement, denounced as “irresponsible” the comments made by the American president.

“We believe that Trump should pay close attention to the actual cause of the problem instead of irresponsible comments and take practical steps towards finding a solution instead of failed policies and impractical hubris,” Mujahid asserted. 

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Opening up another legal front against the Democrats investigating him, President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued the House Ways and Means Committee and New York state officials to prevent his state tax returns from being turned over to the congressional committee.
 
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to block the application of a new New York state law that could allow the Democratic-controlled House and Ways Means Committee to obtain the returns. The lawsuit, filed in Washington, comes amid a furious White House attempt to prevent the president’s tax returns to wind up in Democratic hands.
 
“We have filed a lawsuit today in our ongoing efforts to end presidential harassment,” said Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s lawyers. “The targeting of the president by the House Ways and Means Committee, the New York Attorney General, and a New York tax official violates article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The harassment tactics lack a legitimate legislative purpose. The actions taken by the House and New York officials are nothing more than political retribution.”
 
The state’s attorney general, Letitia James, said the act “will shine a light on the president’s finances and finally offer transparency to millions of Americans yearning to know the truth.”
 
“President Trump has spent his career hiding behind lawsuits,” James said in a statement, “but, as New York’s chief law enforcement officer, I can assure him that no one is above the law — not even the president of the United States.”
 
Trump’s tax returns have been a source of mystery — and contention — ever since the celebrity businessman broke with tradition and did not release his returns during his 2016 presidential campaign.
 
The House Ways and Means Committee sued the Treasury Department and IRS officials this month in an attempt to enforce a law that allows its chairman to obtain any taxpayer’s returns. Its chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., hasn’t indicated whether he would use the New York law, focusing instead on the federal lawsuit.
 
The lawsuit echoes what has become the White House consistent argument: that the committee’s pursuit of the president’s tax returns, as well as most of the Democrats’ investigative efforts, lack a legitimate legislative purpose and thus is outside Congress’s authority.
 
The suit also argues that the committee can’t have a legislative purpose in getting state records because its jurisdiction is limited to federal taxes. However, New York officials have argued that the state returns would contain much of the same information found on the president’s federal returns.
 
Trump has cited repeated IRS audits as a reason not to disclose his returns, but he isn’t legally prevented from releasing returns while under audit.
 
“Ultimately, this issue was litigated in the 2016 election,” the lawsuit said. “Voters heard the criticisms from Secretary (Hillary) Clinton, and they elected President Trump anyway. Democrats in Congress and across the country, however, have only become more eager to disclose the president’s tax returns for political gain.”
 
Democrats have argued that they need to review the returns in their search for potential conflicts of interest or corruption.
 
The administration and the Trump’s business have repeatedly tried to stall Democrats’ investigations by filing lawsuits and not cooperating. The White House has blocked several current and former officials from testifying, has refused to comply with document requests and the president has considered invoking executive privilege to stifle a series of probes.

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Most Americans think that tanking levels of distrust in the government and in other people are hindering efforts to solve pervasive, persistent issues, ranging from immigration and racism to healthcare, taxes and voting rights. Pew Research Center released results for the poll on Monday. It was conducted from November to December 2018 and included over 10,000 adults.

“Many people no longer think the federal government can actually be a force for good or change in their lives,” Pew quoted one survey participant as saying. “This kind of apathy and disengagement will lead to an even worse and less representative government.”

Nearly 70% of Americans say the federal government purposely withholds information that it could safely release, and a further 64% say that when elected officials speak, it’s hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t.

Public confidence in government, which dipped in the 60s and 70s, made a recovery in the 80s and early 2000s, according to an April Pew poll. Now, at 17%, the American populace’s trust in government is near historic lows.

And a large majority of people think this distrust is justified, with 75% answering that the government shouldn’t have more public confidence than it does.

Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents were more likely to pin the blame for distrust on corruption and poor government performance, while their Democrat and Democrat-leaning counterparts were more likely to point at U.S. President Donald Trump’s performance.

Confidence in other people has dropped too, but most prominently when politics come into the mix. While majorities trust others to “do the right thing,” such as in following the law, this changes when it comes to accepting election results, voting in informed ways, reconsidering views upon learning new information and a host of other situations.

Trust in others differed based on race, age, income and education, with older, richer and more educated participants holding higher levels of personal trust. White people had high levels of trust for others 27% of the time, more than double the share of black and Hispanic respondents.

“Americans who might feel disadvantaged are less likely to express generalized trust in other people,” Pew noted.

Strikingly, Republicans and Democrats held similar levels of personal trust in others, but had markedly different views regarding the government, with Republicans expressing more general confidence.

Why does public trust in government matter? Besides being the basis of any government that proclaims its power is drawn from the people, 64% of Americans say low trust in government is hampering responses to the country’s biggest problems. Exactly 70% think the same for distrust in other people. Solutions to persistent, divisive issues, like immigration, healthcare, taxes, voting rights and gerrymandering, were suffering, survey respondents said.

However, fully 84% of participants thought low confidence in the federal government could be remedied. In open comments, participants suggested solutions, including tamping down political partisanship and minimizing sensationalist he-said-she-said media coverage.

“Trust is the glue that binds humans together. Without it, we cooperate with one another less, and variables in our overall quality of life are affected,” wrote one 38-year-old man.

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South Korea says it fired warning shots at a Russian military aircraft after the plane breached South Korea’s airspace.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry says three Russian aircraft entered its air defense identification zone early Tuesday morning off its east coast before one of them breached the airspace. South Korean air force jets were deployed to intercept the plane and forced the Russian plane to leave the airspace. 

But the aircraft violated the airspace 20 minutes later, and stayed briefly before South Korean fighter jets fired another warning shot.

The ministry says it was the first time a Russian military aircraft violated South Korean airspace. Two Chinese aircraft also flew into the South’s air defense identification zone off the east coast hours earlier. The ministry says it will summon both Russian and Chinese embassy officials later Tuesday to lodge a formal protest.

The violation happened near a disputed group of islands claimed by both South Korea, which calls it Dokdo, and Japan, which calls it Takeshima.  

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Brazil seized 25.3 tons of cocaine bound for Europe and Africa in the first half of 2019, up more than 90 percent on the same period last year, officials said Monday.

Nearly half of the drugs were found at Santos port in southern Brazil, not far from where police recently arrested two men suspected of belonging to Italian mafia ‘Ndrangheta.

Customs officials attributed the increase in seizures to better intelligence and increased vigilance along Brazil’s borders.

“Last year we seized 31.4 tons of cocaine, a record that we will surely beat again,” Arthur Cazella told AFP. 

The amount of cannabis confiscated more than doubled to 10.2 tons in the January-June period, up from 3.9 tons year-on-year.

Brazil, which has some 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles)of land borders, is an important hub for international drug trafficking. 

Drugs produced in Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Paraguay are smuggled into Brazil and then sent to mainly European markets. 

Some routes to Africa are also opening up, Cazella said.

Cocaine seizures have soared in recent years, from 958 kilograms in 2014 to last year’s record 31.4 tons.

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Once upon a time, not too far from Hollywood, two of the world’s biggest movie stars were talking about what it’s like to screw up on set.  

“Messing up the lines in front of the entire cast and crew?” Leonardo DiCaprio said.  “It’s the going to school in your underwear nightmare.”

“It’s awful,” Brad Pitt chimed in. “When a scene’s not working. When YOU’RE not working in a scene…It goes beyond not being able to get the lines. You have 100 people there who are all ready to get on with their day and get home.”

DiCaprio hasn’t exactly had to resort to dunking his head in ice water after a too-late and too-fun night out, as his actor character does in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”

But Pitt? “Oh I’ve done that,” he laughed.

The two actors, who skyrocketed to fame around the same time more than a quarter century ago, have joined forces for the first time in a major motion picture to take on their own industry, their own town and even their own egos in a time of great change — 1969 Hollywood. Out nationwide Friday, it’s also reunited them with Quentin Tarantino.

Once known only as “Tarantino’s Manson Movie,” the actual film is something very different. Manson is a character, as are his most notorious followers. And of course, Sharon Tate is depicted too and played by Margot Robbie. But as with most Tarantino movies, it’s not exactly what you think.

“The best of what 1969 had to offer you kind of experience through Sharon,” Robbie said.

Like going to the Playboy Mansion with Mama Cass and go-go dancing the night away. Or rolling up to a movie theater to check out your latest matinee and getting a free ticket because you’re on the poster.

“She kind of represented the arms open, doors open sort of policy,” she added. “After 1969 and after her death, things kind of changed in Hollywood and people closed their doors and shut the gates.”

The light and the dark of the imminent end of the ’60s is the backdrop to what is otherwise a classic star-driven two-hander. “Once Upon a Time…” is awash in nostalgia, showbiz lore (and cameos), wistfulness and Tarantino-wit that allows DiCaprio, as a past his prime television cowboy in a moment of crippling self-doubt, and Pitt, as his devoted stuntman, to do what they do best: Charm.

“I don’t think you can completely act that kind of dynamic,” Pitt said.

The change happening in Hollywood around 1969 led to many on-set discussions of what was going on at the time with the new batch of filmmakers upending the establishment and leaving room for the Coppolas and the Scorseses to break in.

“The ‘take and wait,'” Pitt said. “Like, we’ll get the take but we’re getting through this story.” Tarantino does that often.

It also made them all reflect on their own industry at the moment, where streaming is disrupting the old ways but once again ushering in new voices. As producers, Pitt, DiCaprio and Robbie all find it exciting.  

“What’s incredible is this wealth of talent from writers to directors to actors that are getting opportunities now. It’s quite extraordinary,” Pitt said. “You see that we’re not so special.”

DiCaprio is even a little jealous to see some “out of the box ideas” and “really ballsy storytelling” that he tried and failed to get made just a decade ago now not only being financed, but made at a high quality too.

“There’s so many more opportunities,” Robbie added. “I’m very grateful to be playing roles in this day and age than perhaps when Sharon was.”

But it’s not lost on them that they all happen to be promoting a “a big budget art piece like this,” as DiCaprio called it, from one of the major studios whose future is going to depend on people actually going to see films like “Once Upon a Time…” in a movie theater.

“Hopefully it becomes like a concert experience,” DiCaprio said. “People want to get together on the Friday night and feel the energy of the crowd and the excitement of a movie coming out that they’ve been anticipating rather than the isolation of being home. Hopefully that’s not lost in the sauce, because that’s half the fun of it, right?”

“Once Upon a Time…” is Tarantino’s ninth film, and, according to him, his second to last.

Pitt and DiCaprio believe him too.

“I always imagined it as his little box set that he wants to just hang up on the wall and that’s it,” DiCaprio said. “That completes the Tarantino, you know, cinematic experience.”

“The Tarantino 10,” Pitt added.

As with many button-pushing Tarantino projects, “Once Upon a Time…” has been at the center of a few heated public discussions, including the morality of making a movie about Tate and Manson, and the casting of Emile Hirsch, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to assaulting a female studio executive at Sundance.

Then there was that tense moment at the Cannes Film Festival press conference where a reporter asked why Robbie’s character has so few lines and Tarantino curtly responded that he rejected the hypothesis.

Tarantino declined to be interviewed for this article. But his response touched a nerve culturally.

“He’s an incredibly unique filmmaker,” DiCaprio said. “And whatever choices he makes, he’s one of those rare filmmakers in this industry that has retained the right to say, ‘This is a piece of art that I’m going to give to the world. And this is what this character represents, and this is what this character represents. And it’s my piece of work’… That’s why we consistently want to work with somebody like that.”

It’s clear his actors are in awe of him and what he brings to their art form. It’s the kind of admiration that can result in two true movie stars talking like fans.

“You know he’s got a four-hour cut of this?” Pitt said excitedly.
 
“Yeah,” DiCaprio responded. “I’m still waiting to see the four-hour cut of ‘Django.'”

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Mexico’s economy, the 2nd largest in Latin America, has hit a rough patch, weighed down by dwindling business confidence and an industrial slump.

But ahead of GDP data for the second quarter due on July 31, a debate has raged over whether all that gloom adds up to a recession.

Several banks say definitely yes – an assessment that could call into question the ability of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s eight-month-old government to deliver on his promises of development and improved fortunes for the country’s poor.

“We estimate GDP will also contract in the second quarter, putting Mexico in a technical recession, two consecutive quarters of negative growth,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a client note in late June.

The government strongly disagrees.

“There has been a slowdown on a global level,” said Finance Minister Arturo Herrera in his first press conference earlier this month, after his predecessor abruptly resigned. “But we are very, very far from thinking that we are close to a recession.”

In theory, defining whether there is a recession in Mexico could decide whether policymakers need to take action.

“If the government thinks there is a danger of recession, it could implement countercyclical measures to boost the economy a bit, or the Bank of Mexico could cut the interest rate, said Marco Oviedo, head of Latin America economics research at Barclays.

While Lopez Obrador has raised eyebrows by saying “I’ve got other numbers” when presented with negative economic news, even he does not pretend Mexico is enjoying strong growth.

The split between the government and private sector economists over the “R word” appears to focus more on how to define that highly charged term than any disagreement over substantive data.

Those who are predicting recession cite the benchmark of two consecutive quarters of economic contraction – and say the preliminary GDP figures for April-June will most likely confirm that.

However, despite being commonly used by private economists around the world, not all governments use that measure. The highly respected Cambridge, Massachusetts-based U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) for example, looks at a more open-ended  significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.”

Likewise, a senior official at Mexico’s Finance Ministry, who asked not to be named, said for the ministry two quarters of successive contraction do not necessarily signal a recession.

The ministry takes more factors into account, the official said, although it has not stated what those factors are.

Jonathan Heath, a former HSBC chief economist appointed to the central bank board by Lopez Obrador’s government has also pushed back against the “two quarters” definition, which he recently called a “rule of thumb for defining a recession” but “no guarantee.”

In a move that could make the debate less political in the future, Mexico’s statistics agency INEGI last month announced the creation of a group of experts, including Heath, who will look at the way other countries measure economic cycles.

The agency said the group would decide by next year whether Mexico should create a Business Cycle Dating Committee, after studying the experience of similar committees used by the NBER, the Euro Zone, Brazil and Canada to help identify recessions.

Worst Since 2009 Crisis

Regardless of what constitutes a recession, the government’s own numbers make sobering reading.

The economy shrank 0.2% in the first quarter versus the previous three month period, in seasonally-adjusted terms, and was flat in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Pollyanna De Lima, economist and author of the IHS Markit Mexico Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index report, said that in the first quarter Mexico’s manufacturing sector was at its weakest since the series began in 2011.

Business sentiment faded “to one of the lowest levels seen in the survey history,” said De Lima.

The slowdown has matched a broader, global trend, that has caused several other Latin American economies to slash growth forecasts. The region’s largest economy, Brazil, has also been teetering on the edge of a recession. It contracted in the first quarter of the year and figures suggest it barely recovered at all in the second.

It is not uncommon for Mexico’s economy to contract in one quarter over the previous three months – it has happened five times since 2009. The global financial crisis triggered by a U.S. housing meltdown was the last time Mexico was in recession, contracting for three quarters.

But the country’s sharpest decline in industrial output in a decade, a 2.1% drop in May, made economists wonder if this time was different.

Alfonso Ramirez Cuellar, a member of Lopez Obrador’s leftist National Regeneration Movement who chairs the budget committee in the lower house of Congress, said that instead of getting hung up over whether Mexico is technically in a recession, “we have to accept that the country’s economy is weakening and work from there.”

Mexico’s commitment to a 1% primary budget surplus makes a major fiscal stimulus unlikely, although the government could tap some rainy day funds.

Lopez Obrador’s reaction to the negative data so far has been to blame critics for adhering to a “neo-liberal” mindset, He argues that by redistributing wealth better his government is able to help economic development among the poor even with lower headline growth numbers.

“That is not a particularly strong argument. If the economy contracts you have less to distribute. (I have) never seen development in an economy that shrinks,” said Goldman Sachs’ head of Latin American research Alberto Ramos.

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Four Turkish nationals have been kidnapped at gunpoint in central Nigeria, police said on Monday, in the latest such incident in the country.

Gunmen stormed a bar in the village of Gbale in the state of Kwara and seized the men on Saturday, national police spokesman Frank Mba told AFP.

“We are working frantically to secure their release,” he added.

Mba did not say if any ransom demands have been made.

Local media said the Turks were working for a construction firm in the state.

Kidnapping for ransom is common in Nigeria, especially in the oil-rich south and the northwest.

The victims are usually released after a ransom is paid although police rarely confirm if money changes hands.

Earlier this month, two Chinese nationals were kidnapped in the southern state of Edo.

Nigerian police could not confirm if they are still being held.

There have also been many abductions in the northeast, where an insurgency led by Boko Haram jihadists has killed 27,000 people and forced some two million to flee their homes since 2009.

 

 

 

 

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Poland’s politicians are condemning violence against the first LGBT rights parade through the eastern city of Bialystok.

Police said Monday that 28 “hooligans” have been detained and have heard charges of disturbing a legal gathering.

Local police have published images of at least two more men suspected of having thrown bottles and stones at police and at the marchers Saturday.  Police responded with tear gas.

The interior minister in the right-wing government, Elzbieta Witek, and the deputy prime minister Beata Szydlo, have condemned the violence and spoke in favor of tolerance.  

The spokesman for Poland’s Roman Catholic Church said that “violence and contempt” can’t be accepted.  

The government has tolerated marches by far-right extremists in Bialystok in the past.
 

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Puerto Rico braced early Monday for what many people expected to be one of the biggest protests ever seen in the U.S. territory as irate islanders pledged to drive Gov. Ricardo Rossello from office.

Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to take over one of the island’s busiest highways Monday morning to press demands for the resignation of Rossello over an obscenity-laced leaked online chat the governor had with allies as well as federal corruption charges leveled against his administration.
 

The anticipated march in the capital of San Juan came a day after Rossello announced that he would not quit, but sought to calm the unrest by promising not to seek reelection or continue as head of his pro-statehood political party. That only further angered his critics, who have mounted street demonstrations for more than a week.
 
“The people are not going to go away,” said Johanna Soto, of the northeastern city of Carolina. “That’s what he’s hoping for, but we outnumber him.”
 
Organizers labeled the planned road shutdown “660,510 + 1,” which represents the number of people who voted for Rossello plus one more to reject his argument that he is not resigning because he was chosen by the people.
 
Monday would be the 10th consecutive day of protests, and more were being called for later in the week. The island’s largest mall, Plaza de las Americas, closed ahead of the protest as did dozens of other businesses.
 
In a video posted Sunday night on Facebook, Rossello said he welcomed people’s freedom to express themselves. He also said he was looking forward to defending himself against the process of impeachment, whose initial stages are being explored by Puerto Rico’s legislature.
 
“I hear you,” he said the brief video. “I have made mistakes and I have apologized.”
 
The 889 pages of chat on the encrypted app Telegram between the governor and 11 close allies and members of his administration, all men, showed the governor and his advisers insulting women and mocking constituents, including the victims of Hurricane Maria.
 
Hours after Rossello spoke Sunday, another top government official submitted his resignation. “Unfortunately the events in recent weeks, including the attitudes reflected in the comments of officials and advisers of the current administration, do not match my values and principles,” wrote Gerardo Portela, principal investment officer, president of Puerto Rico’s Economic Development Bank and executive director of the Housing Finance Authority.

Since the chat leaked July 13, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have marched to Rossello’s official residence in the largest protest movement on the island since Puerto Ricans successfully demonstrated to bring an end to U.S. Navy military training on the island of Vieques more than 15 years ago.
 
Ramphis Castro of Guayama arrived in San Juan late Sunday after more than an hour-long drive to prepare for Monday’s march. He said he was incensed after Rossello’s announcement Sunday.
 
 “When is he going to say that he’s resigning,” Castro exclaimed. “This makes people even more angry.”
 

The upheaval comes as the U.S. territory is struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria and trying to restructure part of $70 billion in debt amid a 13-year recession in this territory of more than 3 million American citizens who do not have full representation in Congress or a vote for president.
 
Normally, a governor who resigns would be replaced by Puerto Rico’s secretary of state, but Luis Rivera Marin quit that job amid the uproar over the chat, so the next in line would be the justice secretary, Wanda Vazquez.
 
Pressure on Rossello to step down has intensified as the chorus calling for his resignation grew to include Puerto Rico music superstars Ricky Martin, Bad Bunny and Residente and a string of U.S. politicians including Congress members from both parties, several Democratic presidential candidates and Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress.
 
Rossello was elected governor in November 2016 with nearly 50% of the vote, and he had already announced his intention to seek a second term. A graduate of MIT with a doctorate in genetics, he is the son of former Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello, who flew to the island to marshal support after the chat was made public.
 
The governor belongs to the New Progressive Party, which seeks statehood for the island, and he is also a Democrat. Most of his time has been spent seeking federal funds since Hurricane Maria devastated the island on Sept. 20, 2017, and battling austerity measures implemented by a federal control board that Congress set up to oversee the island government’s finances.
 
The upheaval against Rossello prompted at least four cruise ships to cancel visits to Puerto Rico, and many officials worry about the impact a resignation would have on the already fragile economy as the island rebuilds from Maria, a Category 4 storm that caused more than an estimated $100 billion in damage.
 
Another concern is the recent string of arrests involving federal corruption charges targeting Puerto Rico officials, among them two former agency heads, including former education secretary Julia Keleher.

 

 

 

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Areas of the central and eastern United States are getting relief Monday in the form of lower temperatures after suffering through days of sweltering conditions that led to power outages, canceled events and several deaths.

A cold front sweeping to the east is bringing with it some severe storms and heavy rain that forecasters warn could produce flash flooding and damaging winds.

But behind the front, the coming days will feature weather with lower humidity and high temperatures below 30 degrees Celsius in many areas that had experienced temperatures around 38 degrees Celsius.

Events were canceled across the country on Saturday and Sunday, from festivals and concerts to sporting events. In New York City, tens of thousands of people were still without power Monday as crews worked to repair the grid and try to prevent a more widespread outage.  

Officials in Boston and Washington expanded access to public pools to help residents cope with the heat.

 

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Kenya’s Finance Minister Henry Rotich and other treasury officials were arrested Monday on corruption and fraud charges over a multi-million dollar project to build two mega dams, police said.

Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji had ordered the arrest and prosecution of Rotich and 27 other top officials on charges of fraud, abuse of office and financial misconduct in the latest scandal to rock graft-wracked Kenya.

Rotich, his principal secretary and the chief executive of Kenya’s environmental authority then presented themselves to the police.

“They are in custody now awaiting to be taken to court,” police chief George Kinoti told AFP.

“We are looking for (the) others and they will all go to court.”

Haji said the conception, procurement and payment processes for the dam project — part of a bid to improve water supply in the drought-prone country — was “riddled with irregularities”.

“Investigations established that government officials flouted all procurement rules and abused their oath of office to ensure the scheme went through,” said Haji.

He pointed to the awarding of the contract to Italian firm CMC di Ravenna in a manner that he said flouted proper procurement procedures, and despite financial woes that forced the company into liquidation and had led to it failing complete three other mega-dam projects.

According to the contract, the project was to cost a total of $450 million (401 million euros), but the treasury had increased this amount by $164 million “without regard to performance or works,” said Haji.

Some $180 million has already been paid out, with little construction to show for it.

Another $6 million was paid out for the resettlement of people living in areas that would be affected by the project, but there is no evidence of land being acquired for this, the chief prosecutor said.

“I am satisfied that economic crimes were committed and I have therefore approved their arrests and prosecutions,” said Haji.
‘Well-choreographed scheme’ –

“The persons we are charging today were mandated with safeguarding our public interest and deliberately breached this trust.

“Under the guise of carrying out legitimate commercial transactions, colossal amounts were unjustifiably and illegally paid out through a well-choreographed scheme by government officers in collusion with private individuals and institutions.”

Rotich has previously denied any wrongdoing in the scandal.

The dams scandal is one of several in the poverty-plagued country that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars of public money disappear due to fraud.

In 2017 Kenya fell to 143rd out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s annual corruption index.

In March 2018, a damning report from the auditor general showed the government could not account for $400 million in public funds.

A string of top officials have been charged since last year as President Uhuru Kenyatta vows to combat corruption — a refrain weary Kenyans have heard from multiple presidents.

 

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Ireland’s Shane Lowry won golf’s British Open on Sunday, his first career major championship, in front of thousands of cheering fans at Northern Ireland’s Royal Portrush course alongside the Atlantic Ocean.

The bearded, 32-year-old Lowry led going in to the final round of professional golf’s last major championship of the year by four shots and was never seriously challenged.

He finished the 72-hole tournament at 15 under par, shooting a one-over par 72 in gusty winds and intermittent rain during the last day of the four-day event. His playing partner, Britain’s Tommy Fleetwood, started Sunday in second and finished second, but six shots behind Lowry, with a final round 74.

As the Irish throngs cheered Lowry’s final tap-in par on the last hole, Lowry raised his arms to the leaden skies and broke into a smile of satisfaction.

Lowry’s victory meant that four different golfers won the sport’s major championships in 2019, with Americans winning the other three — Tiger Woods at the Masters, Brooks Koepka at the Professional Golfers championship and Gary Woodland at the U.S. Open.
 

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