After a thousand days of President Donald Trump in the White House, official Washington found itself consumed by the twin crises of impeachment and Syria this week.

Even as the president is trying to fend off congressional Democrats moving toward impeachment, he also faces a fierce backlash from Democrats and many Republicans over his decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria.

Trump is used to weathering political storms, but this one is particularly intense and comes at a time when he is looking ahead to a re-election campaign next year.

Syria flap  

From the start, Trump has been on the defensive over his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.

“We were supposed to be there for 30 days. We stayed for 10 years, and it is time for us to come home. We are not a policing agent, and it is time for us to come home,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the U.S. and Turkey had agreed to a cease-fire against Kurdish forces in northern Syria.  Trump welcomed the development during a trip to Texas, calling it “an amazing outcome.”

Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw from Syria drew fire from both opposition Democrats and several Republicans, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, often one of the presidents most loyal supporters.

“So this is the president exercising his judgment in a way that I think is out of line with the advice he has been given, dangerous, and I hope he will reconsider,” Graham told reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday.

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Trump: I Did Not Green-Light Turkish Incursion Into Syria

US president tells reporters he does not want to get involved in a war between Turkey and Syria

The Syria controversy erupted as Trump was already busy fending off a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry in Congress spurred by his request to Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden.

Trump has blasted the impeachment investigation as a partisan witch-hunt and vented to supporters last Saturday in a speech to the Value Voters Summit.

“Impeachment! I never thought I would see or hear that word with regard to me. Impeachment. I said the other day, it is an ugly word. To me it is an ugly word.”

Impeachment undertone

With impeachment as a backdrop, tensions boiled Wednesday over at a White House meeting with Democrats about Syria.

During the meeting Trump called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “a third grade politician.” Pelosi described the president as having a “meltdown.” Trump’s comments targeting Pelosi prompted Democratic congressional leaders to walk out of the meeting, including Congressman Steny Hoyer, the House Majority leader.

“I have served with six presidents. I have been in many, many, many meetings like this. Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government of the United States,” said Hoyer.

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‘See you at the Polls’: Trump and Pelosi Have it out

He said she’s a ‘third-grade’ politician. She said he’s having a meltdown

There are signs the political pressure on the president over impeachment appears to be mounting, according to analyst John Fortier at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.

“The president’s removal [from office] and the president’s reputation afterward is something that clearly he must be thinking about. But in terms of the way the White House is reacting, I do think that they have a similar way of fighting all sorts of controversies, and it is not to back down.  It is to really stand up and push back and that is what we have been seeing.”

Expect to see more of that aggressive political pushback as the impeachment drama moves on, even as both sides in the impeachment inquiry keep a close watch on public opinion.

“Republicans have to be very careful not to be seen as defending the indefensible,” said Brookings Institution scholar William Galston. “And if they take the position of denying that the president did anything wrong, I think they are going to lose ground with the American people.”

Recent polls have shown growing public support for the impeachment inquiry. But the surveys also show Americans remain divided on whether Trump should ultimately be impeached and subsequently removed from office.

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Case for Obstruction by White House Is Building, Schiff Says

Chair of House Intelligence Committee Speaks after Trump admin refuses to turn over documents in impeachment probe

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House can impeach the president for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. If a majority of the House votes impeachment, the president would face a trial in the Senate where a two-thirds majority is required for conviction and removal from office.

Trump the disrupter

Trump has proudly cast himself from the start as a political disrupter, and there could be more to come as the impeachment battle unfolds, according to University of Virginia historian Barbara Ann Perry.

“So far, he has bombarded and exploded all of the norms and all of the precedents of the previous 44 [presidential] administrations. So nothing to me seems out of bounds for this particular president,” Perry told VOA via Skype.

No matter how the impeachment battle turns out, one likely result is a deeper partisan divide, said Vanderbilt University Professor Thomas Schwartz.

“It will probably polarize the country even more. I think you will have a very divided country, in a way similar to what you saw in 1999 and 2000 after the Clinton impeachment and then the divisive election of 2000.”

All of this is coming as the country prepares for the next presidential election in 2020, with many political analysts predicting a record voter turnout amid intense interest and mobilization in both major political parties.

…

Amnesty International said in a report Friday that Turkish military forces and a coalition of Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups have shown a “shameful disregard for civilian life” during the offensive into northeast Syria.

According to the account, the “serious violations and war crimes” include “summary killings and unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians.”

The report is based on witness testimony gathered from 17 people, a group that included medical and rescue workers, displaced civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.

Amnesty said it uncovered “damning evidence of indiscriminate assaults in residential areas, including attacks on a home, a bakery and a school, carried out by Turkey and allied Syrian armed groups.”

The human rights group said the testimony included the “gruesome details of a summary killing in cold blood of a prominent Syrian-Kurdish female politician, Hevrin Khalaf, by members of Ahrar Al-Sharqiya, part of the Syrian National Army.”
 

…

A tentative four-year contract with striking General Motors workers  gives them a mix of pay raises, lump sum payments and an $11,000 signing bonus. 
 
In return, the contract allows GM to proceed with factory closures in Lordstown, Ohio, Warren, Michigan, and near Baltimore. 
 
Details were posted Thursday on the union website as factory level union officials met to decide if they’ll approve the deal. 
 
No decision has been made. 
  
Workers went on strike Sept. 16, crippling the company’s U.S. production and costing it an estimated $2 billion. 
  
The Detroit Hamtramck plant that GM wanted to close will stay open and a new electric pickup truck will be built there. 
  
There are retirement incentives and buyouts for workers at the closed plants who don’t transfer to other GM factories. 
 
The deal also shortens the eight years it takes for new hires to reach full wages and gives temporary workers a full-time job after three years of continuous work. Workers hired after 2007 who are paid a lower wage rate will hit the top wage of $32.32 per hour in four years or less.   
  
It also has a $60,000 early retirement incentive for up to 2,000 eligible workers. 

Template for other talks
 
The deal now will be used as a template for talks with GM’s crosstown rivals, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Normally the major provisions carry over to the other two companies and cover about 140,000 auto workers nationwide. It wasn’t clear which company the union would bargain with next, or whether there would be another strike. 
 
The strike at GM immediately brought the company’s U.S. factories to a halt, and within a week the stoppage started to hamper production in Mexico and Canada. Analysts at KeyBanc investment services estimated the stoppage cut GM vehicle production by 250,000 to 300,000 vehicles. That’s too much for the company to make up with overtime or increased assembly line speeds. 
 
GM and the union have been negotiating at a time of troubling uncertainty for the U.S. auto industry. Driven up by the longest economic expansion in American history, auto sales appear to have peaked and are now heading in the other direction. GM and other carmakers are also struggling to make the transition to electric and autonomous vehicles. 
 
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and his tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have raised costs for auto companies. A revamped North American free-trade deal is stalled in Congress, raising doubts about the future of America’s trade in autos and auto parts with Canada and Mexico, which last year came to $257 billion. 

Seeking payback
 
Amid that uncertainty, GM workers wanted to lock in as much as they could before things get ugly. They argue that they had given up pay raises and made other concessions to keep GM afloat during its 2009 trip through bankruptcy protection. Now that GM has been nursed back to health — earning $2.42 billion in its latest quarter — they wanted a bigger share. 
 
The union’s bargainers have voted to recommend the deal to the UAW International Executive Board, which will vote on the agreement. Union leaders from factories nationwide will travel to Detroit for a vote on Thursday. 

…

The White House said Thursday it has chosen President Donald Trump’s golf resort in Miami as the site for next year’s Group of Seven summit.

The announcement comes at the same time that the president has accused Joe Biden’s family of profiting from public office because of Hunter Biden’s business activities in Ukraine when his father was vice president.

The G-7 summit will be held June 10 to 12. The idea of holding the event at Trump’s resort has been criticized by government ethics watchdogs.

Trump has touted his resort, saying it’s close to the airport, has plenty of hotel rooms and offers separate buildings for every delegation.

A team looking at the sites reported that it was “the perfect physical location to do this,” acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said. He said about a dozen potential sites were narrowed to a list of four finalists before Doral was selected.

“It’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event,” Mulvaney said.

Holding the event at Doral would also be dramatically cheaper than other sites, he said.

“There’s no issue here on him profiting from this in any way, shape or form,” Mulvaney said.

When the United States has hosted the summit before, it has been held in Puerto Rico; Williamsburg, Virginia; Houston; Denver; Sea Island, Georgia; and Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.

…

Haiti’s embattled president was forced on Thursday to hold a private ceremony amid heavy security for what is usually a public celebration of one of the country’s founding fathers.
 
Jovenel Moise and other officials appeared at the National Pantheon Museum in downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of armed police officers closed down the surrounding area while protesters who demanded his resignation began to gather nearby.
 
“This is not how a government should be functioning,” said Mario Terrain, who is 29 and unemployed. “The president is in hiding.”
 
Moise did not speak to reporters and left after the brief ceremony to commemorate the death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose rule ended in 1806 following a military revolt. Protesters had prevented Moise from visiting Pont-Rouge, the site north of the capital where Dessalines was killed and where the ceremony is usually held.
 
Anger over corruption, inflation and scarcity of basic goods including fuel has led to large protests that began five weeks ago and have shuttered many businesses and schools.
 
A couple hundred protesters had already gathered at Pont-Rouge as they criticized Moise.
 
“We dare the president to come,” said 28-year-old Joel Theodore. “It will be his last day in office.”
 
The president held a surprise press conference on Tuesday and said he would not resign as he once again urged unity and dialogue. Opposition leaders, however, said protesters would remain on the streets until he steps down.

…

Two people face human smuggling charges after U.S. border agents found dozens of Mexican and Ecuadorian nationals hidden inside a chilled semitrailer in the U.S. state of Arizona this week.

The 31-year-old driver and a 30-year-old passenger, both U.S. citizens not named by border officials, were stopped at an immigration checkpoint Monday on Interstate 19, a highway that runs from the U.S.-Mexico border, through the city of Tucson.

After a working dog alerted agents, a heat scan showed that inside the 8-degree-Celsius refrigerated tractor-trailer were 32 people hiding among produce, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection statement issued Wednesday.

Ranging in age from 16 to 53, the migrants entered the U.S. without authorization and were processed for immigration violations, CBP officials said.

Photos tweeted by the White House show a group of men sitting in the trailer with their hands up, some covering their faces, as a light is shone at them.

Yesterday at an immigration checkpoint, @CBP agents found 32 illegal aliens locked in a semitrailer, where it was 47 degrees inside.

Smuggling humans in commercial vehicles is not only unlawful: It places the passengers in extreme danger. pic.twitter.com/g7AuCPhtP0

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 15, 2019

Informal smuggling networks along the southwest U.S. border regularly use trucks, cars, vans, and buses to transport people without authorization into the United States.

While trucks can be an appealing option, with protection from extreme temperatures and faster transportation, they also put travelers at risk, dependent on drivers and others involved in the operation for their safety.

Last year, a truck driver was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a smuggling operation that left 10 people dead in San Antonio, Texas.
 

…

The Marine Corps has corrected the identity of another of the men who were photographed raising the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II. 
 
The Marines said in a statement Thursday that after questions were raised by private historians who studied photos and films, they determined that Cpl. Harold P. Keller was among the men who raised the flag. The Marines said Pfc. Rene Gagnon had helped in the effort but for decades was mistakenly identified by the Marines as one of the flag-raisers. 
 
Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal shot the iconic photograph atop Mount Suribachi during an intense battle between American and Japanese forces in 1945. 
 
In 2016, the Marines corrected the identity of another man in the photo after historians raised questions. 
 
NBC News, which first reported on the Marines’ more recent correction, said Keller died in 1979 in Grinnell, Iowa. 

…

The United States is requiring all Chinese diplomats in the country and Chinese officials traveling to the U.S. on official business to give the State Department advance notice of meetings with local, state and federal officials, as well as educational and research institutions.

Chinese diplomats are not required to obtain permission for the meetings; they need only to notify the State Department in advance. In China, U.S. diplomats are required to obtain permission for such meetings.

“What we’re trying to accomplish here is just to get closer to a reciprocal situation, hopefully with the desired end effect of having the Chinese government provide greater access to our diplomats in China,” said a senior State Department official Wednesday in a phone briefing to reporters. 

“Unfortunately in China, U.S. diplomats do not have unfettered access to a range of folks that are important for us to do our job. That includes local and provincial-level officials, academic institutions, [and] research institutes,” said the official, adding that U.S. diplomats have to seek advanced permission from China, and that such requests are “frequently denied.”

Chinese object

The Chinese government was apprised of this requirement last week. The U.S. State Department received one such notification Wednesday.

The latest restrictions imposed by the US State Department on Chinese diplomats are in violation of the Vienna Convention.
So far, the Chinese side does not have similar requirements on American diplomats and consular officers in China.

— Chinese Embassy in US (@ChineseEmbinUS) October 16, 2019

The latest action comes amid heightened diplomatic tension between the two nations over issues including Hong Kong, human rights and trade.

But U.S. officials told reporters that Wednesday’s announcement had been in the works for some time and was “not directly linked” to any other part of relations between the U.S. and China.

Last Monday, the U.S. put 28 Chinese organizations in the so-called “Entity List,” barring U.S. companies from doing business with them. The Chinese companies affected are involved in the abusive treatment over the Uighur ethnic minority in its western Xinjiang province, and include high-tech firms that do considerable global business.

Last Tuesday, the State Department announced new restrictions on visas issued to senior Chinese officials who are said to be responsible for the repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang.

…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Iran policy came under strong criticism at a Senate hearing in which Democrats and some Republicans accused him of emboldening Iran by pulling U.S. troops out of Syria.

Trump’s Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, the sole witness at Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, rebuffed the criticism of the president’s decision earlier this month to begin a U.S. troop pullout from northern Syria shortly before Turkey launched a long-threatened offensive against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish forces in the region. Since then, Syrian Kurdish forces have appealed for and received help from troops under the command of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia, both allies of Iran.

“The president’s decision with respect to Syria is not going to change our Iran strategy or the efficacy of it,” Hook said, referring to the U.S. strategy of imposing maximum pressure on Iran to stop perceived malign behaviors, including support for Shiite militias in Syria who have defended Assad from a years-long rebellion.

Hook said the administration’s regular tightening of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran over the past year has raised the cost of Iranian involvement in the Syrian conflict. “Iran doesn’t have the money that it used to, [in order] to support Assad and its proxies,” Hook said. “So Iran is going to face a dilemma. They can either support guns in Syria or prioritize the needs of their own people at home.”

“Withdrawing troops in northern Syria and green-lighting Turkey’s brutal incursion gives new life to [Islamic State militants] and hands over the keys of our national security to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, Iran and Assad,” countered U.S. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democratic member of the committee. “All the sanctions in the world aren’t going to fix that.”

Small contingents of U.S. forces had been training and fighting alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northern Syria in recent years, helping them to destroy the Islamic State’s caliphate in Syria and keep it from regrouping.

Hook also faced tough questioning from several Republican committee members who have been critical of Trump’s decision to withdraw the troops and leave the SDF to face Turkey’s offensive on its own.

“This is the most screwed-up decision I’ve seen since I’ve been in Congress,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “If we withdraw all of our forces [from Syria] and abandon the oil fields, Iran will surely go in and seize the oil fields. It will undercut the maximum pressure campaign, and our friends in Israel will be in a world of hurt,” he added.

Northeastern Syria is home to that nation’s largest oil fields. There have been no reports of Iran deploying its own troops to that region.

U.S. Republican Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida also told Hook that they saw the U.S. troop pullout from Syria as emboldening Iran. But committee Chairman Jim Risch of Idaho did not raise the troop pullout issue, instead saying that he saw the U.S. maximum pressure campaign as working by reducing the funding that Iran has been able to provide to its proxies throughout the Middle East.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service.

…

A Cuban man who had sought asylum in the United States has died while being held at an immigration jail in Louisiana. 
 
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed Wednesday that Roylan Hernandez Diaz, 43, had died at a private detention facility of an apparent suicide. 
 
Hernandez Diaz applied for asylum at a border bridge in El Paso, Texas, in May. According to ICE, he was deemed “inadmissible” by border agents and had been in detention since. 
 
The Richwood Correctional Center near Monroe is one of eight Louisiana jails that now house mostly immigrants, including asylum-seekers. 
 
Of the 15,000 immigrants being held by ICE across the country, 8,000 are in Louisiana, the Associated Press reported. 
 
Hernandez Diaz was the second person to die in ICE custody this month. Nebane Abienwi, 37, of Cameroon died of a brain hemorrhage at a detention facility in San Diego. 

…

Barack Obama is urging Canadians to reelect Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, an apparently unprecedented endorsement of a candidate in a Canadian election by a former American president.

Obama tweeted Wednesday that he was proud to work with Trudeau and described him as a hard-working, effective leader who takes on big issues like climate change.

Obama says the “world needs his progressive leadership now, and I hope our neighbors to the north support him for another term.”

Trudeau is in a tough reelection fight ahead of Monday’s parliamentary elections.

University of Toronto history professor Robert Bothwell says an endorsement of candidate in a Canadian election by a former U.S. president has never happened before.
 

…

Congressional Democratic Party lawmakers abruptly left a White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Wednesday concerning the crisis along the Turkish-Syrian border. 
 
The president called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California a “third-grade politician,” according to those who attended. 
 
“We were offended, deeply. Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, alongside Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York outside the White House West Wing. 

‘A meltdown’
 
The House speaker told reporters Trump had “a meltdown” in the Cabinet Room because of the number of Republicans who had joined Democrats on Capitol Hill in approving a resolution condemning his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northeastern Syria. 
 
“And that’s why we couldn’t continue in the meeting — because he was just not relating to the reality of it,” Pelosi said. 

The speaker added that Trump appeared upset, saying he had not invited the Democratic leadership to attend the bipartisan meeting. 

“We didn’t invite ourselves,” Hoyer told reporters. 

Schumer described the meeting as a diatribe, rather than a dialogue. 

Pelosi, later back on Capitol Hill, remarked, “I think now we have to pray for his health.” 

Democrats who were at the meeting said that when Schumer pointed to concerns raised by James Mattis as defense secretary that the Islamic State group would resurge if the United States withdrew its troops from Syria, Trump reacted by insulting the retired general, calling him overrated and saying he “wasn’t tough enough,” especially when it came to handling IS. 
 
Schumer told reporters that he inquired about whether there was “any intelligence evidence that the Turks and Syrians will have the same interest that the Kurds or we did in guarding ISIS [Islamic State]. And the secretary of defense — thank God he was honest — said, ‘We don’t have that evidence.’ So, I said: ‘How can we think this is a plan?’ ” 
 
Republicans who were in attendance said that it was Pelosi who was insulting toward the president and that her conduct was unbecoming of a congressional leader. 

Later talks
 
Some other Democrats remained for the discussion after their leadership left, with Republicans and the White House describing the meeting as productive from that point forward. 
 
“The president was measured, factual and decisive, while Speaker Pelosi’s decision to walk out was baffling, but not surprising. She had no intention of listening or contributing to an important meeting on national security issues,” said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham. “While Democratic leadership chose to storm out and get in front of the cameras to whine, everyone else in the meeting chose to stay in the room and work on behalf of this country.”  

Representative Mike McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters the most significant outcome of the meeting was that Trump, in contrast to his earliest comments, stated that a residual U.S. force would be left in the region. 

McCaul also noted that the president had sent a stern letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warning him of debilitating sanctions if he did not reverse course on Syria. 

Unusual style
 
That letter, which began circulating during the lawmakers’ meetings with the president, drew considerable attention for its unconventional style. 
 
The letter, dated October 9, begins, “Let’s work out a great deal!” Trump says the Turkish leader doesn’t have to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and he threatens, as the U.S. president, that he does not want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy by imposing sanctions. 
 
The letter goes on to warn Erdogan: “Don’t be a tough guy” and “don’t be a fool.” 

…

The fourth Democratic presidential candidate debates took place Tuesday in Ohio. The candidates answered questions on a range of issues, including the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, the developments in the Syrian conflict, and the U.S. economy.

Here are some comments from each candidate:

Former Vice President Joe Biden, during a discussion of Trump’s outreach to Ukraine to investigate Biden’s son, Hunter, said, “My son did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong.  I carried out the policy of the United States government in rooting out corruption in Ukraine, and that’s what we should be focusing on.”

Senator Cory Booker, talking about the need to put in check Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power on the world stage, said, “We cannot allow the Russians to continue to grow in influence by abandoning the world stage. We cannot allow Russia to not only interfere in the democracies of Ukraine and Latvia and Lithuania, but even not calling them out for their efforts to interfere in this democracy are unacceptable.”

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, while promoting the need to depoliticize the U.S. Supreme Court, said, “We can’t go on like this where every single time there is a vacancy we have this apocalyptic ideological firefight over what to do next. Now one way to fix this is to have a 15-member court where five of the members can only be appointed by unanimous agreement by the other 10.”

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How (Historically) Presidential Are the Democratic Candidates?

Here’s how the candidates’ experiences stack up against each other as well as U.S. presidents throughout history.

Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, discussing the need for the country to be reliable in foreign relations, said, “If you’re Kim Jong Un, for example, why in the world would you believe anything that this president says to contain your nuclear weapons program when he tore up an Iran nuclear agreement we just signed four years ago, which was the strongest agreement to contain Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and now he’s abandoned the very people we’ve given our word to.”

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, when asked about her desire to pull U.S. troops from Syria, said, “The slaughter of the Kurds being done by Turkey is yet another negative consequence of the regime change war that we’ve been waging in Syria.  Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hand.  But so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime change war in Syria that started in 2011, along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and cheerleading this regime change war.”

Senator Kamala Harris, talking about the impeachment probe against Trump, said, “He has consistently, since he won, been selling out the American people, he’s been selling out working people, he’s been selling out our values, he’s been selling out national security, and on this issue with Ukraine he has been selling out our democracy.”

Senator Amy Klobuchar, on the issue of what Democrats must do to defeat Trump, brought up campaigning in key swing states from the last election, saying, “I do it not by going just where it’s comfortable, but by going where it’s uncomfortable.  And that’s why I have been in Pennsylvania, and in Michigan, and in Wisconsin, and all over Ohio and in Iowa.  Because I believe we need to build a blue Democratic wall around those states and make Donald Trump pay for it.”

Immigration

Former Congressman Beto O’Rourke, talking about gun control and plans for buybacks and seizures of high-powered weapons, said, “If the logic begins with those weapons being too dangerous to sell, then it must continue by acknowledging with 16 million AR-15s and AK-47s out there they are also too dangerous to own.  Every single one of them is a potential instrument of terror.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, addressing his recent heart attack and questions about running for president at age 78, said, “We are going to be mounting a vigorous campaign all over this country.  That is how I think I can reassure the American people.  But let me take this moment if I might to thank so many people from all over this country including many of my colleagues up here for their love, for their prayers, for their well-wishes.”

Climate Change

Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, connecting U.S. cooperative foreign policy with addressing climate change, said, “Any problem that we’re going to do, but specifically climate, we’re going to have to lead the world morally, we’re going to have to lead it technologically, financially and commercially.  This is the proof that this kind of America first, go it alone, trust nobody and be untrustworthy, is the worst idea that I’ve ever heard and I would change it on day one in every single way.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, on the topic of her health care plan amid challenges she has not made its costs clear, said, “I have made clear what my principles are here, and that is costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations, and for hard-working middle class families costs will go down.”

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, discussing big tech companies and whether they have become too powerful, said, “There are absolutely excesses in technology and in some cases having them divest parts of their business is the right move.  But we also have to be realistic that competition doesn’t solve all the problems.  It’s not like any of us wants to use the 4th best navigation app.  That would be like cruel and unusual punishment.

…

Protesters and police clashed late on Tuesday in Barcelona during rallies against the jailing of nine Catalan separatist leaders, with the unusually tense confrontations turning into a major challenge for Spanish and regional authorities.

Protesters threw cans, stones and flares at riot police, and set garbage containers and cardboard on fire in the middle of several streets in Barcelona, including a thoroughfare housing designer stores and the stock exchange.

Fences were on fire next to La Pedrera, one of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi’s most famous buildings and one of the city’s main tourist attractions.

Police charged several times through the crowd with batons and fired foam projectiles at the protesters. A spokesman for the regional Mossos police said they were trying to make space around the local headquarters of the Spanish government. Four people were detained, the spokesman said.

A Reuters cameraman was hit by police in the leg while filming them charge at protesters. The cameraman, clearly identified as a journalist by a press armband, was hit from behind by a police baton.

This was the second day of protests after the Supreme Court sentenced nine separatist leaders to nine to 13 years in jail over their role in a failed bid to break away from Spain in 2017.

The clashes are a challenge for the regional, pro-independence authorities and the central government in Madrid, both of which are facing a fragmented political landscape and an economic slowdown.

Catalan separatism has long prided itself on being a peaceful movement and its leaders say that has not changed. But there were concerns in Madrid already before Monday’s Supreme Court ruling that heavy jail sentences for the separatist leaders could unleash pent-up frustration among a radicalized fringe, a senior parliamentary source told Reuters.

A spokeswoman for the pro-independence Catalan regional government was quick to say that separatists had proven they were peaceful and that an isolated group behaved violently, sullying their reputation.

“The regional government condemns all violent actions as we always have done,” spokeswoman Meritxell Budo told Spanish national broadcaster TVE.

Spain’s acting government warned in a statement it would step in if needed to guarantee security in the region, without elaborating.

“A minority is trying to impose violence in the streets of Catalan cities,” the statement said. “It is obvious that this is not a peaceful movement,” the government said, while praising coordination between regional and national police Catalonia’s independence drive triggered Spain’s biggest political crisis in decades in 2017 and still dominates much of the country’s fractured political debate. It was a major theme in a parliamentary election in April and will likely be as well for the new, snap election set for Nov. 10.

Security

The leader of Spain’s centre-right People’s Party, Pablo Casado, on Twitter called for acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to activate a national security law and take control of Catalonia’s security forces to “guarantee security and public order.”

Spain’s main parties have consistently refused to hold an independence referendum in Catalonia, although the Socialists say they are open to dialogue on other issues.

Police also charged protesters in the cities of Girona and Tarragona, TV footage showed. Catalan police warned people on Twitter not to approach the epicenter of protests in Barcelona and Girona for safety reasons.

Reuters reporters saw Spanish national police firing blanks in the air from rubber bullet guns in Barcelona. Police could not immediately be reached for comment.

Earlier in the evening, thousands of peaceful demonstrators ad taken to the streets of the regional capital. Some lit candles and chanted “Freedom for political prisoners.”

Pro-independence leaders have vowed to keep pushing for a new referendum on secession, saying Monday’s prison sentences strengthened the movement.

Oriol Junqueras, who was given the longest sentence of 13 years for his role in organizing the 2017 referendum which was ruled illegal, told Reuters in his first interview after the sentence that it would only galvanize the independence movement.

“We’re not going to stop thinking what we think, ideals can’t be derailed by (jail) sentences,” he said, adding that a new plebiscite was “inevitable”.

Demonstrators had blocked railways on Monday and thousands descended on Barcelona’s international airport, where some clashed with police. An airport spokesman said 110 flights were cancelled on Monday and 45 more were cancelled on Tuesday.

Diana Riba, wife of convicted leader Raul Romeva, told Reuters the independence drive would prevail over time.

“This is a very long process, but we will see results as we did with the feminist movement, how they grew until becoming massive and achieving the rights that they were seeking,” she said, calling for “everyone to take to the streets.”

…

Rescue workers in Japan searched for the missing on Wednesday as the death toll from one of the worst typhoons to hit the country rose to 74, public broadcaster NHK said, many drowned by flooding after scores of rivers burst their banks.

Public broadcaster NHK said 12 were missing and more than 220 injured after Typhoon Hagibis lashed through the Japanese archipelago at the weekend. Throughout the eastern half of the main island of Honshu, 52 rivers had flooded over.

Click to see an interactive graphic plotting the path of Typhoon Hagibis) Residents in Fukushima prefecture, which has seen the highest number of casualties, were busy dumping water-damaged furniture and rubbish onto the streets. Many elderly remained in evacuation centers, unable to clean up their homes.

In Date city, not far from the site of the nuclear disaster in 2011, farmer Masao Hirayama piled damp books in the street in front of his house, adding to a mound of rubbish from the neighborhood.

He said the water had reached about 2 meters (6.6 feet) deep in his house, when he and his son were rescued by boat and taken to an evacuation centre. His wife and grandchildren had stayed with relatives through the storm.

“I feel down,” Hirayama, 70, said, adding that the flood had swept away all his green houses and farming equipment. “All that is left is the land.”

Hirayama said he had rebuilt his house in 1989, raising the ground level following a flood in 1986. His family plan to live on the second floor until he can make repairs, which he reckons could take three months.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government would spend 710 million yen ($6.5 million) to facilitate disaster relief.

…

China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing resolutely opposed new measures passed by the U.S. House of Representatives related to the Hong Kong protests and urged lawmakers to stop interfering.

China’s relationship with the United States will be damaged should the legislation become law, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement.

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, one of the measures passed by the House, would require the U.S. secretary of state to certify each year that Hong Kong retained its autonomy in order to receive special treatment as a major financial center.

…

European Union officials hoped to sketch out a Brexit deal with Britain within hours, but negotiations stretched into early Wednesday in the latest effort at producing an agreement in more than three years of false starts and sudden reversals.
 
The bloc said it might be possible to strike a divorce deal by Thursday’s EU leaders’ summit, which comes just two weeks before the U.K’s scheduled departure date of Oct. 31. One major proviso: The British government must make more compromises to seal an agreement in the coming hours.
 
Britain and the EU have been here before – within sight of a deal only to see it dashed – but a surge in the British pound Tuesday indicated hope that this time could be different. The currency rose against the dollar to its highest level in months.
 
Even though many questions remain, diplomats made it clear that both sides were within touching distance of a deal for the first time since a U.K. withdrawal plan fell apart in the British House of Commons in March.
 
Still, talks that first lingered into Tuesday night turned into negotiating past midnight as no deal materialized between experts from both sides holed up at EU headquarters in a darkened Brussels.
 
Late Tuesday, Martin Schirdewan, a German member of the European Parliament’s Brexit Steering Group, said an agreement was “now within our grasp” following a breakthrough in negotiations.

This week’s EU leaders’ meeting – the last scheduled summit before the Brexit deadline – was long considered the last opportunity to approve a divorce agreement. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson insists his country will leave at the end of the month with or without an agreement, although U.K. lawmakers are determined to push for another delay rather than risk a chaotic no-deal Brexit.
 
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said at a meeting of the bloc’s ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday that the main challenge now is to turn the new British proposals on the complex Irish border issue into something legally binding. EU member Ireland has a land border with the U.K.’s Northern Ireland, and both want to keep goods and people flowing freely across the currently invisible frontier.
 
A frictionless border underpins both the local economy and the 1998 peace accord that ended decades of Catholic-Protestant violence in Northern Ireland. But once Britain exits, that border will turn into an external EU frontier that the bloc wants to keep secure.
 
Barnier wants a clear answer by Wednesday morning, so EU capitals can prepare for the bloc’s two-day summit that begins Thursday. “It is still possible this week,” said Barnier. As so often, intricate details kept hopes from turning into immediate reality.

 
The big question is how far Johnson’s government is prepared to budge on its insistence that the U.K., including Northern Ireland, must leave the European Union’s customs union – something that would require checks on goods passing between the U.K. and the EU, including on the island of Ireland.
 
The British government has given away little detail of the proposals it has made on the issue; even government ministers have not been told specifics. In broad terms, the U.K. is proposing that Northern Ireland – but not the rest of the U.K. – continue to follow EU customs rules and tariffs after Brexit in order to remove the need for border checks.
 
But that sounds like a customs union in all but name – and would mean new checks or tariffs on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
 
An EU official said Barnier told a teleconference of some lawmakers that the Irish Sea would largely become the customs border between the EU and the U.K. That would avoid having a visible land border on the island of Ireland between the two. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were ongoing.
 
But Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, the party that props up Johnson’s minority government, strongly opposes any measures that could loosen the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
 
After DUP leaders met with Johnson late Tuesday at the prime minister’s office, the party said negotiations continued but “it would be fair to indicate gaps remain and further work is required.”
 
Brexit supporters are also wary that maintaining any kind of customs union with the EU will tie the U.K. to the bloc’s regulations and limit its ability to strike new trade deals around the world – undermining what were supposed to be some of the key benefits of a withdrawal.
 
The customs proposals on the table also appear similar to those put forward by former Prime Minister Theresa May. Opposition from pro-Brexit lawmakers, including Johnson, led to those being rejected by Parliament three times.
 
In public, Johnson has not changed his tune. But the British leader was working hard behind the scenes to secure a deal that would allow him to fulfil his vow to take the U.K. out of the bloc. And some of the staunchest Brexit-backers appeared willing to give him a chance.
 
“I am optimistic that it is possible for us to reach a tolerable deal that I will be able to vote for,” said pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker Steve Baker.
 
On Tuesday, Johnson called French President Emmanuel Macron – one of the EU leaders most skeptical about Britain’s intentions – to discuss where elements of a compromise could be found. Johnson’s spokesman, James Slack, called the conversation “constructive.”
 
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who had a long, intense talk with Barnier early Tuesday, said the EU believes a deal “is difficult, but it is doable.” He said Barnier addressed EU ministers and “did point to progress in the last number of days where the gaps have been narrowed.”
 
Still, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the British proposals to keep the Irish border protected from smuggling and fraud once it leaves the bloc were insufficient.
 
EU ministers insisted it was Johnson’s turn to make the next move – and he seemed to be listening. In addition to the call with Macron, Johnson shifted Britain’s weekly Cabinet meeting from Tuesday to Wednesday to give his ministers a better idea of Brexit progress.
 
If talks fail or stumble ahead of the EU summit, there could always be an extraordinary meeting just before the Brexit deadline – or it could be extended again. It has already been postponed twice.
 
“There will be progress tomorrow, the question is how big this progress will be,” said a senior German official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in line with department rules. “Is this progress so great that work is still needed, but this work can be done in the next few days? Or is the progress such that two more months’ work is needed?”

…

Calls for calm and warnings against voter intimidation marked a closely watched election day in Mozambique on Tuesday that is crucial in consolidating a wary peace in the southern African nation of nearly 30 million people.

Parties’ acceptance of the presidential, parliamentary and provincial vote results is a key test of the ceasefire signed in August between the government and opposition Renamo rebels after years of skirmishes following a 15-year civil war that killed an estimated 1 million people.

The ruling Frelimo party, which has governed since Mozambique’s independence from Portugal in 1975, is expected to be returned to power. President Filipe Nyusi is expected to win a second term in a vote where insecurity and political tensions might keep some people from the polls.

Nyusi after voting urged Mozambicans to avoid violence and maintain “total serenity, total calm” — a week after police acknowledged that several suspects in the murder of prominent local election observer Anastacio Matavel were police officers, leading to condemnation from some international vote observer groups.

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Mozambique Elections Key to Country’s Peace and Stability

Elections are almost certain to be won by the ruling party, Frelimo, and President Filipe Nyusi — but it is unclear if the results will establish badly-needed stability and economic growth

Local feelings on Nyusi are mixed. The president can claim credit for the $25 billion Mozambique Liquid Natural Gas project, part of efforts to tap substantial deposits of natural gas, but his first term has been overshadowed by an economic crisis caused by a $2 billion corruption scandal in which companies set up by the secret services and defense ministry secretly borrowed money to set up projects that never materialized.

The opposition Renamo’s candidate and new leader Ossufo Momade is expected to benefit from the party’s popularity in the countryside.

A beaming Momade held up the inked proof of his vote and called on supporters to participate “massively” in the election. In comments carried by national broadcaster TVM, he called on “my brother” Nyusi and security forces to respect the popular vote, and he cited the recently signed peace deal.

Momade also held up what appeared to be tampered-with ballots, saying, “It can’t continue like this … We want democracy. We want peace.” He said his party would not accept any vote manipulation.

There were no immediate reports of election day violence. The local Center for Public Integrity noted a few incidents of pre-marked ballots or late-opening voting centers but said in general polls opened normally across the country.

Some voters showed up at dawn at wait. “I got here early, I voted early,” said Nalia Joaquim Lourenco, a teacher in Gaza province.

Also seeking the presidency is opposition MDM candidate Daviz Simango, the mayor of Beira city, which suffered badly in the devastating Cyclone Idai earlier this year.

The country on the Indian Ocean was hit by Idai and, weeks later, Cyclone Kenneth, raising fears about what climate change would bring to the sprawling coastline in the decades to come. Hundreds of thousands of people are still recovering from the storms and hunger is a growing concern as months remain before the next substantial harvest.

Insecurity also poses a growing threat. At least 10 polling centers were not opening in northernmost Cabo Delgado province as Mozambique’s election authority said it could not guarantee safety from attacks by shadowy Islamic extremists, who have killed more than 400 people in the past two years. That means some 5,400 people are not able to vote.

Some 13 million Mozambicans are registered to vote. Vote counting starts after polls close at 6 p.m. local time and preliminary results are expected Wednesday, with full provisional results before the end of the week.

A runoff will be held if no presidential candidate wins a majority of the vote.

For the first time Mozambicans are also electing provincial governors, a key concession to Renamo. Previously all governors were appointed by the ruling party.

In 10 of the country’s 11 provinces, the governor will be the lead candidate of the party or list which wins the most votes in the provincial assembly election. Maputo, the 11th province and the capital, is both a city and a province and it was decided not to add a governor to the elected mayor.

However, Frelimo has established a new management layer, a provincial secretary of state, which will be appointed by the president and take on many of the powers that governors have had up to now.

…

Hunter Biden denied any wrongdoing in his business dealings in Ukraine and China but acknowledged he exercised poor judgment and cashed in on the fame of his last name.

In an interview to be aired Tuesday on ABC News, Biden said he had failed to anticipate how those activities would be become fodder for critics of his father, former vice president Joe Biden, as he runs for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Did I make a mistake? Maybe in the grand scheme of things,” Biden said in the interview, excerpts of which were released ahead of its airing Tuesday evening before another Democratic presidential debate.

“But did I make a mistake based on some ethical lapse? Absolutely not,” Biden, 49, insisted.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden,” Biden said.

Biden held a lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, while his father was vice president under Barack Obama and helped engineer the ouster of that country’s prosecutor general on grounds he was weak on corruption.

A lawyer for Biden Jr. said Sunday that Biden is leaving his position on the board of a Chinese private equity company.

Hunter Biden has kept out of public view since the impeachment scandal surrounding President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine erupted last month.

Trump has disparaged Biden Jr. and taunted him with tweets like this one last week: “WHERE’S HUNTER?”

Trump has made repeatedly made unsubstantiated charges that Biden Sr. intervened in Ukraine to protect his son. And news that Trump’s request in a July 25 phone call with the president of Ukraine that he probe the Bidens has triggered the fast moving impeachment investigation that is now consuming the Trump administration.

Biden Jr. said in the interview  that the administration has spread a “ridiculous conspiracy theory” about his work in Ukraine.

“I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father,” Biden said.

“That’s where I made the mistake. So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever,” he added.

…

A Brexit divorce deal is still possible ahead of Thursday’s European Union summit but the British government needs to move ahead with more compromises to seal an agreement in the next few hours, the bloc said Tuesday.
 
Even though many open questions remain, diplomats made it clear that both sides were for the first time within touching distance since an earlier EU-U.K. Brexit withdrawal plan fell apart in the British House of Commons in March.  
 
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said at a meeting of EU ministers that the main challenge now is to turn the new British proposals on the complex Irish border issue into something binding. EU member Ireland has a land border with the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and both want to keep that border invisible, for economic and peace treaty reasons. But once Britain leaves the bloc, that Irish border turns into an external EU border that the bloc wants to keep secure.

Barnier said it’s “high time to turn good intentions into a legal text.” He wants a clear answer by Wednesday morning to tell EU capitals what should be decided once the bloc’s two-day summit kicks off Thursday.

“Even if an agreement will be difficult — more and more difficult, we think — it is still possible this week,” Barnier said.

To further boost the momentum, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss where more movement could be found.

‘Difficult, but doable’
 
Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on Oct. 31, and the EU summit this week was long considered one of the last possible chances to approve a divorce agreement to accommodate that deadline. Johnson insists his country will leave at the end of the month with or without a divorce deal, but British lawmakers have been adamant on avoiding a no-deal Brexit.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who had a long, intense talk with Barnier early Tuesday, said the EU believes “this is difficult, but it is doable.” He said Barnier addressed EU ministers and “did point to progress in the last number of days where the gaps have been narrowed.”

A senior German official wouldn’t rule out a Brexit agreement in principle by Wednesday afternoon, but stressed the importance of time-consuming specifications.
 
“The basis for our decisions are legal texts in which the details are settled,” the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in line with department rules, said in Berlin. “But there has been progress, and as always in these negotiations the biggest progress happens over the final meters.”

Late Monday, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said the British proposals to keep the Irish border protected from smuggling and fraud once it leaves the bloc were insufficient.
 
“The U.K. proposal contained some steps forward but not enough to guarantee that the internal market will be protected,” Blok said.
 
One EU diplomat said for things to work, technical negotiators would need to finish their text and make it available by 10 a.m. Wednesday so European governments have time to assess them.

Johnson’s move
 

EU ministers insisted it was time for Johnson to make the next move — and he seemed to be listening. Besides the call with Macron, Johnson shifted Britain’s weekly Cabinet meeting from Tuesday to Wednesday so he could give his ministers a better idea of Brexit progress.

If talks fail or stumble ahead of the EU summit, there could always be an extraordinary meeting just ahead of the Oct. 31 Brexit departure — or the Brexit deadline could be extended again.
 
“There will be progress tomorrow, the question is how big this progress will be,” the German official said. “Is this progress so great that work is still needed, but this work can be done in the next few days? Or is the progress such that two more months’ work is needed?”

Brexit negotiators, politicians and ordinary Europeans were all waiting for the answers to those questions.

…

Germany’s security services said Tuesday they’re seeking greater powers to fight the kind of far-right extremism behind last week’s synagogue attack, including requiring internet companies to report illegal hate speech to police.

A 27-year-old German man previously unknown to police confessed to carrying out the attack in the eastern city of Halle in which two people were killed Wednesday.

The suspected gunman, identified by prosecutors only as Stephan B. due to privacy rules, allegedly built the firearms he used with the help of online instructions, posted an anti-Semitic screed before the attack and later broadcast the shooting live on a popular gaming site.

In response to the attack and previous incidents, German officials have called for more officers to be devoted to tackling far-right extremism and a greater focus on online platforms they say are increasingly being used as a means of spreading far-right radicalism and linking up with like-minded people in a way already seen with Islamist extremism.

Thomas Haldenwang, who heads the BfV domestic intelligence agency, said the attack in Halle and similar shootings in Texas, New Zealand and Norway showed the need for security services to get better tools to tackle online extremism. In particular, he called for authorities to be given permission to install monitoring software on suspect’s devices so as to read their encrypted communication.

Holger Muench, head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said online threats and acts of violence are creating a “climate of fear” in Germany that is deterring people from volunteering for public office.

“Right-wing crimes threaten our democracy,” Muench said. “The situation is serious.”

The country is still reeling from the killing of Walter Luebcke, a regional politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, who was shot dead at his home in June. Luebcke had vocally supported Merkel’s welcoming stance toward refugees in 2015 and the suspect in his killing is a far-right extremist with a string of convictions for violent anti-migrant crimes.

Muench said his agency has identified 43 far-right extremists they consider a serious threat, an increase of about a third since the start of the year. Overall, authorities say there are some 12,700 far-right extremists in Germany “prepared to use violence.”

He called for a bundle of measures including greater scrutiny of online hate postings, extending the period of time that security services can store data on possible extremists and prosecutions of those who create and distribute lists of political enemies.

He also proposed that an existing law requiring platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to swiftly remove illegal hate speech should be expanded to force them to report such content to police.

Muench suggested his office could become a central point of contact dealing with online hate crimes in the same way it already does for child pornography.

Further proposals include creating a special unit to investigate possible extremists in the police and other government departments, and a crackdown on known far-right groups.

Opposition lawmaker Martina Renner called for the BfV to stop using neo-Nazis as paid informants , a practice that has in the past resulted in funds flowing to the far-right scene.

Renner, a member of the Left party, instead backed calls for better cooperation among European countries in fighting far-right extremism.

Security officials are particularly concerned that the `new right’ — groups that include factions within the Alternative for Germany party which entered the federal parliament two years ago — are providing the intellectual fodder for extremists. Roland Ulbrich, a regional lawmaker for the party, prompted outrage after the Halle attack for posting on Facebook: “What’s worse, a damaged synagogue door or two dead Germans?”

The suspect had failed to force his way into the synagogue as scores of people inside were observing Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur. He then shot and killed a 40-year-old woman in the street outside and a 20-year-old man at a nearby kebab shop before fleeing. He was later arrested in Zeitz, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Halle.

Authorities are still investigating whether he had ties to any known groups or individuals. At least five people watched the attack live as it happened, suggesting they may have known it was going to take place.

The suspect has admitted during questioning that he carried out the shooting and had anti-Semitic and right-wing extremist motives.

A memorial service for the younger victim of the shooting, an avid fan of Halle’s third-tier soccer club Hallescher FC, is planned Friday.

“An inconceivable act of horror took away my son, our grandson, uncle, nephew and friend,” the man’s family wrote in an obituary notice published in regional daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.

“Our hearts are broken.”

…

Thousands of Hongkongers rallied this week to show support for the U.S. Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, up for a vote in Congress as early as this week. The Act, if passed, would require the U.S. to annually review Hong Kong’s special economic status and impose sanctions on officials who undermine its autonomy — a move that could further complicate the U.S.’ trade war with China, and overall relations between the world’s two largest economies. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Hong Kong.

…