Most students and their families quickly dive into rankings when searching for the “best colleges and universities.”

However, Georgetown University, itself on many of those “best college” lists, has veered from rankings based on grade-point averages, admission rates and SAT scores, and come up with a new metric, ranking institutions of higher education based on the financial return students receive from their investment in the school.

Traditional private, four-year schools that offer bachelor’s degrees have the highest returns on investment not just immediately after graduation, but 40 years after enrollment, Georgetown’s report on the ranking says.

“For example, Babson College, a private college in Massachusetts, ranks 304th in net present value at the 10-year horizon, but ranks seventh at the 40-year horizon,” Georgetown’s University Center on Education and the Workforce said. Its detailed project included 4,500 schools that offer degrees and certificates.

Tops on the list for return on investment over 40 years was Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, a private nonprofit institution that costs about $50,000 per year. It was calculated to return $385,000 at 10 years, $1.3 million at 20 years, and $2.72 million on that investment to the graduate after 40 years.

By comparison, the private, nonprofit, four-year Stanford University in California that ranked No. 5 on the Georgetown list would return $307,000 in 10 years, $1.013 million in 20 years; and $2.068 million in 40. Tuition and fees are about the same as Albany College of Pharmacy.

Those calculations are published prices and do not include financial aid discounts.

“Everyone is asking, ‘Is college worth it?’ and we set out to try to find an answer,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, lead author and CEW director in a statement. “Not only will it help students, but this kind of information on the costs and benefits of higher education holds institutions more accountable.”

Carnevale served for a decade as vice president for public leadership at the Educational Testing Service, the largest private nonprofit testing service, which administers the SAT and other tests that are required or highly recommended for admission into higher-education programs.

Data from some obvious affordable schools CEW could not gain access to include the U.S. service academies. Those schools do not collect tuition and fees, and students are given stipends to pay for expenses like dry cleaning, barbers and laundry. Admission and graduation is exchanged for service in the U.S. military after graduation.

And who’s who in Georgetown’s Top 20? Some names you don’t typically see in the popular annual rankings and careers that you won’t find on many other lists. (Hint: Get your sea legs on.)

Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (N.Y.)
St. Louis College of Pharmacy (Mo.)
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (Mass.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mass.)
Stanford University (Calif.)
Maine Maritime Academy (Maine)
Babson College (Mass.)
Harvard University (Mass.)
Georgetown University (D.C.)
U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (N.Y.)
University of the Sciences (Pa.)
St Paul’s School of Nursing-Queens (N.Y.)
Massachusetts Maritime Academy (Mass.)
Harvey Mudd College (Calif.)
Stevens Institute of Technology (N.J.)
University of Pennsylvania (Pa.)
California State University Maritime Academy (Calif.)
California Institute of Technology (Calif.)
Colorado School of Mines (Colo.)
Bentley University (Mass.)

No, that’s not a typo, you are reading correctly: Pharmacy and maritime schools offer excellent return on investment along with notable STEM colleges and universities.

For-profit and certificate schools scored the lowest return on investment, and include beauty, rabbinical, ethnic and arts schools.

…

A proposal to rebuild Venezuela’s collapsed power grid with the help of the United Nations is proving a political hot potato for Nicolas Maduro’s opponents.

On Tuesday, the opposition-controlled National Assembly at the last minute scratched a schedule debate on a $350 million credit from a regional development bank to address an electricity emergency that has left much of western Venezuela in the dark from blackouts for months.

The project’s promoters accuse opposition hardliners of playing politics with Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis while ignoring the plight of millions of Venezuelans who urgently demand solutions to everyday travails as the fight to remove Maduro drags on.

“We can’t condemn millions of Venezuelans to life without power while we wait for Maduro to give up power,” said Oscar Rondero, an opposition lawmaker from Nueva Esparta state, one of the most impacted by the blackouts.

The proposed loan agreement with the Development Bank of Latin America, or CAF, enjoys the backing of Maduro but still requires the National Assembly’s approval. The funding would be used to reconnect 1,206 megawatts of power — about half of its current output from diesel and gas-powered facilities — in four hard-hit areas as well as backup generators for hospitals nationwide.

The proposal puts the opposition, which considers the Maduro administration corrupt and illegitimate, in a difficult spot, said David Smile, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University. It also lays bare divisions that have grown more embittered as the U.S.-backed campaign to oust Maduro loses its momentum, with many of his opponents exiled for fear of arrest.

“Supporting it would require tacit recognition of the Maduro government,” said Smilde, who is also a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America. “But opposing it would mean denying Venezuelans a significant opportunity to improve the terrible conditions they are living in.”

To address those concerns, the U.N.’s development agency would be responsible for administering the funding in conjunction with an independent board comprised of representatives of Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido. No funds would be provided directly to the state-run utility Corpoelec, which is run by Maduro loyalists and widely blamed for the grid’s collapse.

If approved, Smilde says it could help foster closer cooperation between the two feuding sides to stem a crisis that has led more than 4.6 million Venezuelans to flee the country, including support for an “oil for food” deal that is increasingly being floated by policymakers and analysts.

Still, for some in the opposition, any attempt at cooperation with Maduro to address the country’s humanitarian crisis, however modest, smacks of treason.

“Is the legislative branch going to pretend everything is normal approving funding for an executive power that’s supposedly usurping power?” Pedro Urruchurtu, the national coordinator for the Vente Venezuela movement, said on Twitter following Tuesday’s legislative session.

The loan proposal dates from March, when moderate opposition lawmakers gathered with their socialist counterparts at a forum sponsored by what’s known as the Boston Group.

The informal group came about in the wake of a 2002 coup as a way for Venezuelan lawmakers across the ideological spectrum, as well as Democrats and Republicans in the U.S., to rebuild trust following Hugo Chavez’s brief removal from power. Maduro was among its founding members.

More recently, the group was activated to secure the release of Joshua Holt, a Utah man arrested and held for almost two years on what were widely seen as trumped-up weapons charges.

Guaido, who leads congress and is recognized as Venezuela’s rightful president by more than 50 countries, including the U.S., has yet to publicly comment on the debate.

But Rondero said that members of his Popular Will party have expressed misgivings, while the Justice First party — which controls the largest bloc in congress — opposes the bill outright.

In removing a scheduled debate on the loan deal from Tuesday’s legislative session, lawmaker Enrique Marquez said more time was needed to build consensus.

…

Sweden’s prison board says U.S. rapper A$AP Rocky won’t be able to perform in the Swedish prison where he was held until convicted of assault in a June street brawl in Stockholm.

Citing logistical and security issues, Vilhelm Grevik of Sweden’s Prison and Probation Service told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet on Wednesday that the prison board won’t be able to organize a concert in the Kronoberg prison.

In August, A$AP Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was convicted of assault. The rapper and his two bodyguards were given “conditional sentences,” meaning they won’t serve prison time unless they commit a similar offense in the future.

Mayers, who wanted to entertain inmates at the Kronoberg prison, is due to perform Dec. 11 at Stockholm’s Ericsson Globe arena.
 

…

The United States is set to formally restart peace talks with the Taliban insurgency, nearly three months after President Donald Trump abruptly suspended the year-long process aimed at finding a political settlement to the war in Afghanistan.

U.S. chief peace negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad arrived in Kabul Wednesday for meetings with government representatives and other Afghan leaders before heading to the Gulf nation of Qatar, where Taliban interlocutors are based, according to a State Department announcement. It did not give a date for Khalilzad’s visit to the Qatari capital, Doha.

“In Doha, Ambassador Khalilzad will rejoin talks with the Taliban to discuss steps that could lead to intra-Afghan negotiations and a peaceful settlement of the war, specifically a reduction in violence that leads to a cease-fire,” it noted. Taliban sources expect the meeting with Khalilzad will take place next week.

The U.S. statement said that during his stay in the Afghan capital, Khalilzad will follow up on Trump’s recent Thanksgiving Day visit to the country, the site of America’s longest war, and discuss “how best to support accelerated efforts” to get all parties to Afghan-to-Afghan peace negotiations.

The Afghan-born American diplomat led his team in nine rounds of talks with the insurgent group in Qatar before Trump canceled them on Sept. 7. Trump cited a spate of Taliban attacks in Kabul that killed a U.S. soldier among others.

At the time, the two adversaries in the 18-year-old war had come close to concluding an agreement that could have set the stage for a phased withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan.

“The Taliban wants to make a deal and we’re meeting with them and we’re saying it has to be a cease-fire and they (the Taliban) didn’t want to do a cease-fire and now they do want to do a cease-fire,” Trump said last Thursday during his meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at Bagram Air Base.

But the Taliban insist that under the deal it negotiated with the U.S, the insurgent group had committed itself to observe a cease-fire with foreign troops to facilitate their drawdown and open peace talks with Afghan stakeholders for ending decades of hostilities in the country.

Insurgent officials say, however, a cease-fire with Afghan security forces will be on the agenda when the intra-Afghan negotiations begin. Those talks, they maintain, will he held with representatives of the larger Afghan society where government officials will participate in their private capacity and not as Kabul envoys.

For their part, Ghani’s aides insist any peace negotiations with the Taliban must be led by the Afghan government. Taliban-Afghan talks remain a daunting challenge for Khalilzad and his team to deal with, say analysts.

The Taliban, which controls or influences nearly half of Afghan territory, refuses to engage with the Kabul government, dismissing it as an illegitimate entity and a product of the “American occupation” of Afghanistan.

…

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has accused a former U.S. Marine currently facing charges of espionage of faking health problems and lying about his poor treatment while in custody — comments the U.S. Embassy in Moscow called “pulp fiction.” 

The diplomatic back and forth involves Paul Whelan, who was arrested for spying in December 2018 after allegedly accepting classified materials on a computer flash drive in a central Moscow hotel.

The case has proven an additional irritant to U.S.-Russian relations that already are strained by events in Syria, Ukraine, and Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.  

Whelan, who holds passports from Britain, Canada and Ireland, in addition to the United States, has repeatedly denied the charges. He insists he was in Moscow for a friend’s wedding and accepted the flash drive from a Russian acquaintance without knowing or ever viewing its contents.

In occasional court appearances and through his lawyer, Whelan has consistently claimed mistreatment by prison officials and Russian security services, including physical threats and a lack of medical care during his detention over the past year.
 
A statement posted to Russia’s Foreign Ministry website addressed those claims.

The statement accused Whelan of fabricating the complaints as part of “yet another mass-scale disinformation campaign aimed at smearing Russia’s image.” It also said American “controlled media” had artificially “created noise around this person” by disseminating numerous falsehoods about Whelan’s case.

The ex-Marine, the statement noted, had been caught “red-handed,” with his “spying activities fully documented.”

The statement also insisted Whelan had regular visits “every week” from U.S. Embassy personnel, as well other countries from which he holds passports.

The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Whelan received medical care upon request but had declined a “minor surgery” at a Russian hospital, opting for medication, instead.

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US Detainee Paul Whelan Declines Surgery for Medical Condition

Lawyer for American held on espionage allegations says client distrusts Russian physicians

“So, there is no threat to Whelan’s health,” concluded the statement. “As for feigned illnesses to which he resorts from time to time, this is apparently part of U.S. intelligence agent training.”

US reacts

U.S. Embassy press spokeswoman in Moscow, Rebecca Ross, responded with an extended tweet that called the Foreign Ministry’s version “pulp fiction,” while presenting a starkly different narrative. 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should stop distorting the facts. #PaulWhelan is not a spy. Still no evidence. Still no calls to his family. Enough is enough. Let Paul go home. @mfa_russia (7/7)

— Rebecca Ross (@USEmbRuPress) December 3, 2019

Ross condemned Russia’s depiction of Whelan’s health, arguing it was, in fact, “deteriorating.” She said Russia had not allowed Whelan a single phone call to family since his detention.

Ross also noted that “no evidence of any crime has been provided to date,” while Whelan — who speaks little or no Russian — had been kept uninformed about trial proceedings.   

“How is Paul supposed to understand what he is being accused of if he can’t even read it?” she asked. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should stop distorting the facts. #PaulWhelan is not a spy. Still no evidence. Still no calls to his family. Enough is enough. Let Paul go home,” she said.

Ordeal nears end

After nearly a year of pre-trial hearings largely closed to the public, the espionage case against Whelan appears now headed toward a final conclusion.

In its statement, Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that an investigation by Russia’s Federal Security Services was now complete, but it accused Whelan of “deliberately drawing out” the process with a delayed response to an indictment.   

Yet at his most recent court hearing, Whelan was only allowed to attend by video simulcast and was seen holding an illegible handwritten sign.  

Whelan’s lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, later called for his client to be included in a wider prisoner swap, given his various passports.    

“Paul is a citizen of four countries. None of them has asked to organize his exchange, yet,” said Zherebenkov. “Take the initiative, gentlemen!”

Whelan has called on President Donald Trump to intervene on his behalf, asking him “to tweet your intentions” about what Whelan has called “the Moscow goat rodeo.”

If convicted of espionage, Whelan faces the possibility of 10 to 20 years in prison.

…

The world may be heading for an even greater oversupply of oil, and that possibility — which could drive down fuel and energy prices — is hanging over members of the OPEC cartel as they head into negotiations Thursday.

The oil-producing nations will decide whether to stick with production cuts they’ve endured for the past three years, relax them or deepen them in the hopes of propping up prices.

They’re negotiating through a tangle of tensions driving members in competing directions.

Saudi Aramco’s stock market debut, which will get off the ground Thursday when the state-run oil giant prices its shares, has put Saudi Arabia in a precarious position as it bets on what volume of oil production will hit a sweet spot for prices, with the added pressure of considering the interests of its shareholders. The nation is already bearing the burden of the largest share of OPEC’s production cuts.

But some nations such as Iraq have been ignoring the agreement and producing more than their allotted amount.

“If people are already not complying to the current agreement, what’s the point to those that are complying cutting more? So the others can go on cheating?” said Bhushan Bahree, executive director of global oil at research group IHS Markit. “I think the Saudi position is they’re willing to cut more if needed, but they want better compliance.”

Production cuts 

Brent crude oil hovered around $61 per barrel Wednesday afternoon. Prices have fluctuated throughout the year, reaching nearly $75 per barrel in April after U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela limited world supply, but lingering trade tensions between the U.S. and China dampened economic expectations, pushing prices back down.

West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, was trading at around $56 Wednesday afternoon, and its price followed a similar trajectory throughout the year.

As it stands, OPEC nations have agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day through March 2020, and most analysts expect OPEC nations to extend those production cuts until at least summer.

“If they just keep the existing situation, then you get this massive oversupply,” said Jacques Rousseau, managing director at Clearview Energy Partners.

Rousseau believes OPEC nations will cut production by an additional 400,000 barrels per day to keep supply and demand in balance during the first half of next year, with the cuts made mainly by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But substantial cuts may be difficult to achieve with some OPEC members following their own agendas.

“Iraq has exceeded its production target every month this year,” Rousseau said. “Granted, there’s some unrest going on in the country, but I don’t think they’ll voluntarily reduce.”

Russia

Meanwhile, Russia, which is not part of OPEC but has been following its lead on production limits in recent years, has indicated it wants its oil production re-calculated in a way that’s in line with OPEC nations. That could enable it to produce more oil.

And even if members of the cartel cut production, there’s more oil coming online from non-OPEC nations including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Norway and Guyana, which will more than make up for any drop in production, according to IHS Markit.

The dynamic to watch will be whether Russia and Saudi Arabia will come to an agreement on production levels in the early and middle parts of next year, said Heather Heldman, managing partner at Luminae Group, a geopolitical intelligence firm.

“If something goes awry with Saudi production in the next few months, and there’s a fairly good chance something will happen … Russia’s going to be the first party looking to fill that gap,” Heldman said. “And I think the Saudis know that.”
 

…

Families of several U.S. and British people held in Iran expressed fear for their loved ones Tuesday amid the deadliest unrest in decades in the Islamic Republic.

The relatives spoke at a news conference in Washington to demand the release of spouses and parents held in Iran — in at least one case for more than a decade. Among those who spoke was a daughter of Robert Levinson, the former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007.

The protests now roiling Iran, reflecting widespread economic discontent and outrage over spiking gasoline prices, have been an added challenge to families who have gone years without seeing their loved ones. Iranian state television acknowledged Tuesday that security forces shot and killed protesters in multiple cities.

“Of course any kind of protest that goes on in Iran, and any kind of situation, that overlaps potentially with the fact that our families and loved ones are being held there as well,” said Babak Namazi, whose brother and father are held captive in Iran. “We’ve been talking about the brutality of what our family members have been facing. But I guess this is just a reminder of what the abilities and capabilities are.”

Prisons are more overcrowded now because of the demonstrations, the internet has been down, and communication has been even more complicated than it already is, Namazi said.

Sarah Moriarty, one of Levinson’s seven children, said she was heartened by Iran’s acknowledgment last month that it had an open case before its Revolutionary Court after years of denying any involvement in his disappearance.

Moriarty said she interpreted the development as Iran’s first acknowledgment that it had indeed taken Levinson into custody, though Iran has also said it regards Levinson’s case as a “missing person” file. She said she believes it’s clear that Iran knows where her father is and is in a position to send him home immediately.

“This is incredibly significant because it means that they have a case against my father, and it means that they have him,” Moriarty said. “And we want to see him, and we want him to be released immediately.”

Nearly two dozen of Levinson’s relatives are expected in a Washington court this week to testify in a wrongful death lawsuit against Iran that seeks damages against the government.

“We want Iran to know that this is not acceptable, and a big portion of our lawsuit is punitive damages because we want them to discourage them from doing this practice to anyone else,” Moriarty said.

Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. For years, U.S. officials would only say that Levinson, a meticulous FBI investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was working for a private firm on his trip.

In December 2013, The Associated Press revealed Levinson in fact had been on a mission for CIA analysts who had no authority to run spy operations.

Also present for the news conference was Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is a British-Iranian charity worker held in Iran for more than three years. He said that though different Western nations have their own approaches to hostage negotiations, “none of them have worked.”

He said sanctions should be considered as one option of punishment for hostage taking.

“There should be a real clear cost to hostage taking,” he said. “It should be an anathema in the modern world.”
 

…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he expected an upcoming watchdog report to be “devastating” on the origins of the Russia investigation that dogged his presidency for nearly two years, but also suggested Americans should really be more interested in the findings of a federal prosecutor appointed to do a similar probe.

Speaking to reporters in London, Trump said the “big report” on the Russia investigation will come from U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William Barr in July to lead the inquiry into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It’s not clear when that probe will be completed

But the Justice Department’s inspector general is scheduled to release a report on Monday on the early stages of the FBI’s Russia investigation.

The president’s comments could mean that Monday’s report, centered in part on the use of a secret surveillance warrant to monitor the communications of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, wouldn’t be a full-throated confirmation of his allegations that the Russia probe was a politically-motivated “witch hunt.” Republicans could instead play up that Durham’s inquiry is far from done, and could uncover wrongdoing that the inspector general wasn’t examining.

“I do think the big report to wait for is going to be the Durham report,” Trump said. “That’s the one that people are really waiting for.”

Trump’s remarks come a day after The Washington Post  reported that Barr told associates he disagrees with a finding from the inspector general’s upcoming report that the FBI was justified in July 2016 in opening a counterintelligence investigation into members of the Trump campaign.

The newspaper, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, reported that Barr had not been swayed by Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s rationale for concluding that the FBI had a good enough reason to open the investigation that would become the special counsel’s probe.

While the president said the inspector general’s report was also very important, and that he’s heard “it’s devastating,” the watchdog is limited in what he was examining, and Durham has a wider investigative scope. The inspector general does not have the power to compel former employees to be interviewed.

Durham is conducting a criminal investigation examining what led the U.S. to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and the roles that various countries played in the U.S. probe. He is also investigating whether the surveillance methods and intelligence gathering methods used during the investigation were legal and appropriate. Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, is a career prosecutor who has led investigations into the FBI’s cozy relationship with Boston mobsters like James “Whitey” Bulger and the CIA’s use of tough interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects.

The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation later morphed into special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Mueller concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election, but his investigation didn’t find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Mueller also examined 10 possible instances of obstruction of justice and has pointedly said he could not exonerate the president.

The inspector general uncovered that an FBI lawyer is suspected of altering a document related to surveillance of Page, according to a person familiar with the case who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke to AP only on the condition of anonymity. 

The inspector general cannot bring criminal charges, but can make referrals to federal prosecutors if potential crimes are uncovered.

Trump and his supporters are likely to seize on any findings of mistakes or bad judgment in the report to support their claims of a biased investigation. Supporters of the FBI, meanwhile, are likely to hold up as vindication any findings that the investigation was done by the book, or free of political considerations.

The Justice Department has no plan to submit a formal rebuttal as part of the inspector general’s report, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations surrounding the report.

The attorney general has taken a hands-on role in leading the Durham investigation and has traveled overseas with Durham for personal meetings with foreign law enforcement officials, some of which were initiated by Trump. The president has asked the Australian prime minister and other foreign leaders to help Barr with the Durham investigation.

Trump’s interactions with foreign leaders — and Barr’s role in those discussions — have received heightened scrutiny as the House conducts an impeachment inquiry into the president’s efforts to press the leader of Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden at the same time as military aid was being withheld from the country.

The report from the intelligence committee on the House impeachment inquiry was made public Tuesday.

…

A spokeswoman for Jimmy Carter says the former U.S. president is already feeling better after being treated for a urinary tract infection.

Carter Center spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said Monday that the 95-year-old was admitted to Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus over the weekend.

“He is feeling better and looks forward to returning home soon. We will issue a statement when he is released for further rest and recovery at home,” her statement said.

Carter’s recent health challenges have included surviving cancer and hip replacement surgery. He helped build a Habitat for Humanity home in October despite hitting his head in a fall, and then fractured his pelvis in another fall. He was released last Wednesday from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after surgery to relieve bleeding on his brain.
 

…

Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe left behind $10 million, 10 cars, a farm and several homes, but apparently no will, his estate revealed Tuesday.

The state-run Herald newspaper reported Tuesday that Mugabe’s daughter, Bona, registered the estate with the High Court on behalf of the family.

The family’s lawyers say they are still searching for a will but if one is not found, the estate will be divided between former first lady Grace Mugabe and four children.

Mugabe died in September at a Singapore hospital two years after he was forced out of office by his Zanu-PF party and the military.

Mugabe has long been rumored to have amassed a massive fortune during his 37-year rule.

A 2001 diplomatic cable sent by the U.S. Embassy in Harare and released by WikiLeaks said Mugabe was rumored to have more than $1 billion worth of assets in Zimbabwe and overseas, which “include everything from secret accounts in Switzerland, the Channel Islands and the Bahamas, and castles in Scotland.”

News of his wealth comes days after the United Nations warned that millions of people in Zimbabwe are facing food insecurity.  

“Zimbabwe is on the brink of man-made starvation,” and the number of people needing help is “shocking” for a country not in conflict, Hilal Elver, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, said.

…

Carbon dioxide emissions rose in 2019 for the third straight year, according to the latest Global Carbon Project estimate, and do not look set to fall before the end of the next decade.

This is more bad news for United Nations negotiators in Madrid to consider as they aim to hammer out rules for implementing the 2015 Paris international agreement on limiting climate change.

This year’s 0.6% growth in CO2 emissions is slower than the previous two years. Steep declines in coal use in the United States and Europe, combined with weaker global economic growth, were behind the slowdown, the report says.

But slowing growth is not enough. A recent United Nations report said emissions must decline by at least 2.7% per year to keep the planet from overheating. 

Emissions look likely to continue in the wrong direction for years to come, according to Stanford University Earth scientist Rob Jackson, chair of the Global Carbon Project, the international research consortium that published the findings Tuesday in Earth System Science Data. 

“I am, I have to confess, not very optimistic that in a five-to-year timescale, we’ll see a peak in emissions,” he said. “I hope I’m wrong. I really hope I’m wrong.”

Widening gap

The data follow a bleak report from the United Nations on the widening gap between what the world needs to do to prevent the worst impacts of climate change and what countries actually are doing to meet their Paris pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the Paris agreement, countries aim to limit global warming to “well under” 2 degrees Celsius and to “pursue efforts” to keep it to 1.5C over pre-industrial times. Currently, the planet has warmed about 1C, raising sea levels and producing more weather extremes, including heat waves, droughts, and heavy storms.

The U.N. Emissions Gap Report finds that the world is headed for 3.4 to 3.9 degrees of warming by 2100. If all the Paris pledges are met, temperatures still will warm by 3.2 degrees, with potentially devastating impacts on food security, water supplies and public health.

The report says countries need to triple their greenhouse gas reductions to reach the 2-degree target and cut them five-fold to reach 1.5 degrees.

That report is based on 2018 data. The new report released Tuesday offers the first look at 2019.
 
Coal, oil

The good news is that, compared to last year, the world burned less coal, the most carbon-intensive fuel. Coal emissions were down 0.9%, mostly from sharp falls in the United States and Europe (both about 10%). China and India increased coal emissions (0.8% and 2%, respectively), but less than in recent years.

Oil makes up the second-largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from transportation. Unlike coal, however, emissions from oil have been growing steadily for decades and show no signs of decreasing. They were up 0.9% this year.

Electric vehicle sales are rising, but not nearly fast enough to offset the growing global fleet of gas and diesel engines.

For example, more than a million electric vehicles were sold last year in China, the world’s largest auto market.

“They led the world in electric vehicle purchases,” Jackson said. “But they still put 20-million-plus new gasoline-based vehicles on their roads.”

Natural gas

The decline in coal CO2 emissions also was partly canceled out by rapid growth in natural gas. It’s the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. More than one-third of the increase in global CO2 over the last decade has come from the rise of natural gas.

Burning natural gas produces 40% less carbon dioxide than coal, and the switch from coal to gas has played a major role in reducing emissions in the United States.

Globally, however, most natural gas is fueling new power plants, not replacing coal, Jackson said.

“We’re not taking fossil fuels offline,” he added. “We’re just adding new production.”

The same pattern is true for renewable energy, he said. While increasing amounts of wind and solar power are coming online, they mainly are meeting demand growth, not replacing fossil fuels.

“Public policies need to place far more importance on directly cutting back the use of fossil fuels,” the report says.
 

…

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the FBI he was “angry, ashamed, horrified and embarrassed” at the way James Comey was fired as FBI director, according to records released Monday.

Rosenstein was interviewed by FBI agents several weeks after Comey’s firing as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. An FBI summary of that interview was among roughly 300 pages of documents released as part of public records lawsuits brought by BuzzFeed News and CNN.

The records also include summaries of FBI interviews of key Trump associates, including Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski and Michael Cohen. They provide additional insight into Mueller’s two-year investigation, which shadowed the first part of Trump’s presidency and preceded an ongoing impeachment inquiry centered on his efforts to press Ukraine for investigations of political rival Joe Biden.

Hicks described efforts to prepare for media scrutiny of a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and the president’s oldest son. Lewandowski told investigators the president prodded him to tell then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to make an announcement that the scope of the Russia investigation had been limited to future election interference.

And Cohen, who is now serving a three-year prison sentence for campaign finance violations and lying to Congress, told investigators he advised Trump’s personal lawyer that there was more detail about a proposed deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow than what he had shared with lawmakers. He said he “vaguely recalled” telling Jay Sekulow about a call he had “with a woman from the Kremlin,” and said Sekulow’s response was in line with “so what” and the deal never happened, according to the FBI document.

Sekulow told The Associated Press on Monday night that Cohen’s statements were false and that Cohen never told him anything about any call with a woman from Russia.

Rosenstein, who left his Justice Department post last spring, was interviewed about his role in Comey’s May 2017 firing. Rosenstein wrote a memo harshly criticizing Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, a document held up by the White House as justification for his firing.

Rosenstein said he was asked during a White House meeting one day before Comey’s firing to produce a memo laying out his concerns with the FBI chief. He said he knew when he left the office that day that Comey would be fired, though he said he did not expect for his memo to be immediately released, and was surprised by the portrayal in the media that the termination was his idea instead of the White House’s, according to the FBI document.

Rosenstein said he expected Comey would be contacted by either Trump or Sessions so a meeting could be scheduled and he could be fired in person. Comey instead learned of his firing from television while speaking with agents in Los Angeles.When he learned of how Comey was fired, he was “angry, ashamed, horrified and embarrassed. It was also humiliating for Comey,” an FBI agent wrote of Rosenstein’s reaction.

At one point during the interview, as Rosenstein was describing how he had “always liked Jim Comey” but disagreed with his decisions in the Clinton case, the deputy attorney general “paused a moment, appearing to have been overcome by emotion, but quickly recovered and apologized,” according to the FBI.

…

Ten years ago on December 3, a suicide bomber attacked a graduation ceremony at Shamo Hotel, one of Mogadishu’s main hotels.

Fourteen medical students, lecturers, and doctors from Banadir University were among 30 people who were killed, more than 50 others injured.

Dr. Osman Mohamud Dufle was on the podium when the suicide bomber detonated the bomb.

“The explosion occurred right in front of me,” says Dr. Dufle, a physician and a member of the parliament.

Before going to the podium, his friend, Higher Education Minister Dr. Ibrahim Hassan Addow, asked if he could speak before him as he was rushing to another event. But the event organizer, Dr. Mohamed Mohamud Biday, intervened and convinced Dr. Addow he will speak next. The bomber detonated the explosion in the space between them. Dufle survived, Addow died.

Also killed were Health Minister Qamar Aden Ali, Education Minister Ahmed Aden Wayel, and Youth & Sports Minister Suleiman Olad Roble, who succumbed to his injuries few days later. Two journalists and one of the country’s leading embryologists, Dr. Mohamed Adam Shahid, were among the dead.

“That has particular memory for me,” says Dufle. “To see the colleagues I was sitting alongside two minutes ago, lifeless in front of me, it’s a shocking memory.”

Dr. Biday, a cardiologist who was among the seriously injured, thought it was a mortar attack. He tried to get up and run, fearing that a second mortar round may be on the way, but he could not move.

“I was seriously injured, I could not stand,” he said. “I suffered multiple fractures; I was carried in a sheet.” He was among 20 badly wounded evacuated abroad for medical emergency.

Dr. Biday only learned the extent of the tragedy after 24 hours.

“It was a very painful day. A dark day.”

University bounces back

On the day of the attack, Banadir University, which started admitting its first students in 2002, was graduating its second class, 60 students, 30 of whom were doctors.

It was a big blow not only to Banadir University but to the education sector in Somalia, which was reviving despite the absence of a strong, functioning government.

“It was a sad day but today we recovered,” says Dr. Biday, who is now the rector of Banadir University.

“The intention was to shut down our eyes, the university, and to stop the effort and the work. But the leadership stood up. Today we are stronger.”

Biday says it would have been like a “second death” had the university collapsed after the attack.

To date, Banadir University has 11 different colleges. Last week, it graduated its 13th class, with 633 students achieving their dreams. Nearly 270 of the students graduated from the medical college, including 138 female doctors. Overall, 3210 students, including 938 females, have graduated since the University was opened.

The attack on the Shamo hotel graduation was one of the most gruesome suicide bombings in Somalia history. Ten years after the tragic event, and after multiple reviews of CCTVs and other recordings made of the event, it was concluded that the bomber was impersonating a journalist as he was holding a camera wandering around the ballroom of the graduation ceremony. At 11:15am, he detonated a laptop bomb that he was carrying.  

At that time, even the participants did not expect that anyone would target such an event where students and parents attended to express delight and celebrate achievement in a country where such happy gatherings, at the time, were rare.

Government security agencies blamed the attack on the al-Shabab militant group. The bomber was identified as an Al-Shabab member who travelled from Denmark to join the militant group.

Al-Shabab denied responsibility for the attack.

…

A survey of nearly 500 leaders at colleges and universities reflects other reports that found American higher education is facing challenges on many fronts.

School officials were asked to name the biggest issues their institutions would face in the next three to five years and how they would deal with them. The study was a joint effort with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Huron Consulting Group, and was released in October.

The study identified the top six issues that the 500 leaders listed. The most common concern? Increasing competition with other educational institutions. About 62% of those questioned noted that concern.

The next most common issue? The increase in non-traditional students, meaning students who fall outside the typical 18 and 24 years olds who enter school each year. The growth of non-traditional students – mostly adults with full-time jobs — were cited by 39% of leaders.

Two other concerns were shrinking state and federal financial support, and decreasing public trust in higher education. Officials said they were worried about political conditions around the world, too, and their effect on international students coming to the United States.

But the college and university officials said they have answers. In fact, 89% expressed confidence in their school’s ability to meet the needs of the growing number of students who are working adults.

Peter Stokes says colleges and universities have always been dealing with change. Stokes is the managing director for higher education with Huron.

After World War II, when the U.S. experience a sharp jump in the U.S. birth rate — known as the Baby Boom — more young people enrolled in college. Then, after the Great Recession in 2008, the birth rate dropped. Around that time, the number of working adults starting or returning to college or university began to rise.

The traditional student population will likely recover eventually, Stoke says. Until then, schools will have to adapt and increase internet-based and short-term programs to meet the needs of students who have less time and money to spend.

As for the five other issues identified in the study, only seven leaders polled felt very confident in their school’s ability to find solutions.

Louis Soares is the chief learning officer at the American Council on Education. He says that in recent years, Americans have come to think of higher education as more of a means of getting a well-paying job than as a public benefit.

This may not be surprising given the increased cost of higher education. But Soares said that this put many educational institutions in competition with one another to prove how their programs can results in better jobs.

At the same time, U.S-based companies like Amazon and Google are creating their own educational programs to compete with traditional degree programs. And countries like France, Canada and Australia are becoming more appealing to international students who would have likely looked to U.S. schools in the past.

As a result, some colleges and universities across the country have been closing. The U.S. Department of Education reports that in 2018 the number of institutions nationwide dropped to its lowest level since 1998.

Soares suggests that schools have a better chance of surviving if they work together, as Georgia Tech has, sharing new program ideas and methods with 50 other institutions. But that is not always easy.

“U.S. higher education is innovative, but the innovation tends to be small-scale,” he said.

Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, says it is important to focus on public trust and governmental support of higher education.

Pasquerella says U.S. higher education has failed to promote its own importance to society. Many people have come to think of colleges and universities as places where students waste time learning unnecessary subjects or hearing one-sided beliefs.

She says colleges and universities educate future business and political leaders who shape policies that improve conditions in  communities and the nation. Major scientific and technological developments usually emerge from a college or university laboratory.

“Demonstrating the ways in which … their success is inextricably linked to the physical, emotional, economic well-being of people in the communities in which they’re located and which they seek to serve … is a first and critical step in helping to restore public confidence in higher education,” said Pasquerella.

She added that as Americans better appreciate the contributions and impact of colleges and universities, funding from state and federal governments will likely increase to previous levels.

…

A typhoon struck the Philippines on Tuesday bringing heavy rains and prompting preemptive halts in air travel, schools and government offices, with some 200,000 people evacuated after warnings of floods and landslides.

Typhoon Kammuri, the 20th typhoon to hit the country this year, weakened slightly and moved slowly across central parts of the archipelago during the night, with damage minor reported in some areas.

The storm was packing 155 kph (96 mph) wind speeds and gusts of up to 235 kph (146 mph), the weather bureau said. Authorities warned of landslides, storm surges and floods triggered by heavy winds and rain, preemptively moving 200,000 people to safe places in several dozen provinces.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or significant damage.

The main airport in Manila would be closed for 12 hours from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. as a precaution, although air travel continued in unaffected areas of the country.

Government offices and schools were closed in affected areas and utilities firms appealed for patience ahead of anticipated power outages. The coastguard halted commercial sea travel in affected areas.

Local television showed footage of the main airport in Legazpi province with cables, lighting and panels hanging from the ceiling. Pictures posted by social media users showed waves crashing against bulwarks, felled trees and signage, and some minor damage to electricity poles.

The Philippines is hosting the Southeast Asian Games and organizers postponed several events, including the surfing, kayak, windsurfing, sailing and canoe contests.

…

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper urged Turkey on Monday to stop holding up support for a NATO defense plan for the Baltics and Poland, as Ankara presses the alliance to support its fight against U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG militia in Syria.

In an interview with Reuters ahead of the NATO summit, Esper warned Ankara that “not everybody sees the threats that they see” and added he would not support labeling the YPG as terrorists to break the impasse.

He called on Ankara to focus on the larger challenges facing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“The message to Turkey … is we need to move forward on these response plans and it can’t be held up by their own particular concerns,” Esper said as he flew to London.

“Alliance unity, alliance readiness, means that you focus on the bigger issues — the bigger issue being the readiness of the (NATO) alliance. And not everybody’s willing to sign up to their agenda. Not everybody sees the threats that they see.”

NATO envoys need formal approval by all 29 members for the plan to improve the defense of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia against any threat from neighboring Russia.

The dispute, as NATO prepares to hold its 70th anniversary summit, is a sign of deep divisions between Ankara and Washington over everything from the war in Syria to Turkey’s growing defense relationship with Russia.

Turkey wants NATO to formally recognize the YPG militia, the main component of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as terrorists and is infuriated that its allies have given the militia support.

Ankara has blamed Washington for the current impasse, saying it was caused by the U.S. withdrawal of support from a separate defense plan for Turkey, covering any possible attack from the south where it borders Syria.

Asked whether Washington might agree to branding the YPG as terrorists in order to break the deadlock, Esper said: “I wouldn’t support that.”

“We’re going to stick to our positions, and I think NATO will as well,” Esper said.

The issue is the latest source of friction between the NATO allies, which have also been at loggerheads over Turkey’s purchase of advanced Russian air defenses, which Washington says are incompatible with NATO defenses and pose a threat to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth fighter jets.

Washington said in July it was removing Turkey from the F-35 program and has warned of possible U.S. sanctions.

Two U.S. senators pressed the Trump administration on Monday to impose sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of the Russian missile defense system and said the failure to do so sent a “terrible signal.”

…

In its biggest military funeral in decades, France is honoring 13 soldiers killed when their helicopters collided over Mali while on a mission fighting extremists affiliated with the Islamic State group.
                   
A few thousand people, veterans, uniformed military units and ordinary residents,  lined the Alexander II Bridge and the esplanade leading toward the gold-domed Invalides monument in Paris on Monday to pay their respects, as 13 hearses drove slowly past.
                   
French President Emmanuel Macron and Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will preside over the funeral ceremony at the Invalides, a former military hospital that houses Napoleon’s tomb.
                   
The 13 coffins, draped in the French tricolor, arrived in France over the weekend.
                   
Tuesday’s crash was France’s highest military death toll since 1983. The French military says it was the result of complex coordination during a combat operation and has dismissed a claim of responsibility by an IS-linked group. The flight recorders were recovered and an investigation has begun.
                   
The deaths draw new attention to a worrying front in the global fight against extremism, one in which France and local countries have pleaded for more support. In a surge of violence this month, attackers often linked to IS have killed scores of troops in West Africa’s arid Sahel region.

…

Hundreds of people gathered in the Indian capital on Monday to demand justice in the case of a veterinarian who was gang-raped and killed last week.
                   
The protesters demanded a fast-track investigation in the case and stringent laws for the safety of women in India.
                   
“We are not safe anymore in India. We are scared to move out of our homes,” said Sejal Kumar, a college student.
                   
The burned body of the 27-year-old woman was found Thursday morning by a passer-by in an underpass in the southern city of Hyderabad after she went missing the previous night.
                   
Police said four suspects have been taken into custody.
                   
Violent crimes against women have been in the spotlight in India since 2012, when the fatal gang rape of a young woman aboard a moving bus in New Delhi prompted hundreds of thousands to take to the streets to demand stricter rape laws.
                   
The outrage spurred quick action on legislation that doubled prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalized voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. Indian lawmakers also voted to lower to 16 from 18 the age at which a person can be tried as an adult for heinous crimes.
                   
According to the most recent available official crime records, police registered 33,658 cases of rape in India in 2017, an average of more than 90 every day. But the real figure is believed to be far higher as many women in India don’t register the cases in police stations due to fear.
                   
The data also reveals that more than 90% of cases of crime against women are pending in city courts.
                   
The latest incident was also debated in Parliament.
                   
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said that the government is willing to discuss crime against women and to explore the strongest provisions in the law.
                   
“This act has brought shame to the entire country. It has hurt everyone. The accused must be given the most stringent punishment for their crime,” Singh said.
                   
Activists in India say the government has failed in checking the rising crimes against women.
                   
Jyoti Badekar, a women’s rights activist from Mumbai, said the lack of female police staff is one of the factors fueling the problem.

…

London Bridge reopened to cars and pedestrians Monday, three days after a man previously convicted of terrorism offenses stabbed two people to death and injured three others before being shot dead by police.
                   
Political leaders including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who have traded blame for the security failures that allowed the attack ,attended a vigil at Guildhall Yard in the medieval heart of London to remember the victims and honor members of the emergency services and bystanders who fought the attacker with fists, fire extinguishers and even a narwhal tusk.
                   
The dignitaries, city officials and members of the public observed two minutes of silence in honor of former University of Cambridge students Saskia Jones, 23, and Jack Merritt, 25. They were fatally stabbed by 28-year-old convicted terrorist Usman Khan during an event designed to connect graduate students with prisoners. Both victims worked for the Cambridge-based prisoner rehabilitation program Learning Together.
                   
Two of the three injured people remained in hospital Monday. The third was discharged.
                   
The attacker was attending the event at Fishmongers’ Hall, beside the bridge, and had returned for the afternoon session when he started stabbing people. Police believe he acted alone.
                   
He was pursued onto London Bridge and restrained by staff from the venue and others attending the conference. Police opened fire after he flashed what looked like a suicide vest. It was a fake device.
                   
Toby Williamson, chief executive of Fishmongers’ Hall, paid tribute to staff at the venue who tried to help the injured and fight off the attacker. Williamson said one staffer, whom he identified as Lukasz, pulled a 5-foot (1.5 meter) narwhal tusk from the wall and charged at Khan, allowing others to escape. Williamson told the BBC that Lukasz suffered cuts in a minute of “one-on-one straight combat” with the knifeman.
                   
London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Monday’s vigil that, in the face of tragedy, people should “take hope from the heroism of ordinary Londoners and emergency services who ran toward danger, risking their lives to help people they didn’t even know.”
                   
The attack has pushed security to the top of the agenda in campaigning for the U.K.’s Dec. 12 election.
                   
Johnson, a Conservative, has blamed legal changes made by a previous Labour government for the fact that Khan was freed from prison a year ago after serving half of a 16-year sentence for terrorist offenses, without parole officers assessing whether he still posed a risk.
                   
That rule was changed in 2012 by a Conservative-led government, and Johnson has vowed to end the early release of violent offenders altogether.
                   
Opposition parties blamed years of cuts to the prison and probation services by the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010. Khan was on probation, subject to restrictions on his movement and wearing an electronic tag when he launched his attack.
                   
“There are enormous questions to be learned from this terrible event that happened last week and that is, what happened in the prison with this particular individual, what assessment was made of his psychological condition before he was released and also what supervision and monitoring he was under after coming out?” said Corbyn.
                   
The family of Merritt also cautioned against knee-jerk responses. They said he “would not want this terrible, isolated incident to be used as a pretext by the government for introducing even more draconian sentences on prisoners, or for detaining people in prison for longer than necessary.”
                   
In the wake of the attack, authorities are urgently reviewing the release of more than 70 other former terrorist prisoners.
                   
As part of that work, a 34-year-old man was arrested Saturday in Stoke-on-Trent, central England, on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts. Police said Monday he had been returned to prison for breaching his release conditions.

…

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of a “point of no return” in climate change as a result of inadequate efforts to stop it. The U.N. chief spoke in Madrid on Sunday ahead of a 10-day climate conference attended by 25,000 people from around the world. Spain has offered to host the event on short notice after Chile withdrew due to political turmoil there. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

…

In next year’s U.S. presidential election, most voters will have one or more additional choice beyond the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties. And there are indications that a relatively obscure third-party candidate has the potential to decide the election’s outcome.

That happened in 2016 when a smattering of votes in key battleground states in the Midwest enabled Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, who won the overall popular vote, thus capturing the tabulation for the Electoral College.

Like Clinton, then-Vice President Al Gore, also a Democrat, saw his Oval Office dreams shattered in 2000 when Green Party candidate and consumer activist Ralph Nader tipped the extremely close election of 2000 in favor of Republican George W. Bush.

No coalitions

Compared to most other democracies, the presidential election system of the United States is unusual and not only because of the Electoral College, a system which in 48 of the 50 states the candidate who wins the majority of votes in a state secures all of that state’s electoral votes.

“There are not a lot of strictly presidential systems. Most countries do have something that looks more like a parliamentary system where you are able to develop coalitions between parties,” says Samara Klar, an associate professor of government and public policy at the University of Arizona.

“What we see in the United States, where partisanship sort of becomes wrapped up in your social identity, is very unusual,” Klar tells VOA.

This polarization tends to limit political contests to the two big parties with others only able to nibble at the edges.

Few big splashes

It is thus rare for independent or third-party candidates to make a big splash in modern U.S. presidential elections. The last time a third-party candidate outperformed one of the two major parties was in 1912 when former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, running on the Progressive ticket, finished second to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

Recent research by Klar, who studies independent voters, indicates Democratic-leaning independents are currently more satisfied with their party than Republican-leaning independents.

“So I guess if somebody really wanted to make a go for it (in 2020) as a third-party candidate, the Republican-leaning independents seem to be the ones that might be least committed to their own party right now,” explains Klar.

That would indicate a third-party candidate next year would potentially have more opportunity to peel off voters from Trump, a Republican, than his eventual Democratic challenger.

GOP challenger?

No such high-profile outside candidate has yet to emerge. But there will be contenders.

Independent congressman Justin Amash from Michigan, who left the Republican Party, is seen as a potential Libertarian Party candidate to challenge Trump.

The Libertarian nominee in 2016, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson captured more than 3% of the national vote.

Also a fix: A former West Virginia coal executive, Don Blankenship, who portrays himself as “Trumpier than Trump” is a candidate for the nomination of the Constitution Party, which is expected to be on the ballot in about 15 states.

There is also speculation Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, who is a U.S. House member from Hawaii, will pursue a third-party candidacy.

Clinton has suggested the Russians are “grooming” Gabbard to make such a run.

The House member from Hawaii says she will not be a third-party candidate and calls accusations she is a Russian agent, “completely despicable.”

Clinton also accuses Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in 2012 and 2016, of being a “Russian asset.”

“They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate,” Clinton said last month of the Russians.

There is a connection between Moscow and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, who says he is interested in the nomination of the Green Party.

Ventura, who became famous nationally as a professional wrestler, hosts a talk show on RT America, a TV channel funded by the Russian government.

Green Party Communications Manager Michael O’Neil is frustrated with the chatter about links between his party and Moscow.

“Anyone who’s presenting a left populist agenda that’s calling for real reform and for dismantling the corporate power structure that runs this country, they say, ‘Oh, they’re foreign agents, they’re a foreign asset, foreign infiltrators,’” O’Neill tells VOA.

The spokesman for the Greens also says the party’s critics oscillate between terming it insignificant and having outsized influence.

“They’re saying that the Green Party or third parties are fringe, they don’t matter, then the next day, they’re saying that we can single-handedly change the outcome of a presidential election. Both of those things cannot be true,” says O’Neill.

What is true, according to the U.S. intelligence community, is the Russians did interfere in the 2016 election and are likely to try to do so again next year.

“A third-party candidate causing electoral chaos would be very attractive from a Russian perspective, given the predilection for trying to sow confusion and mistrust in the democratic process and institutions,” says Steven Lloyd Wilson, assistant professor of Political Science at University of Nevada, Reno.

“The bulk of the disinformation campaign in 2016 revolved around pushing and amplifying existing cleavages in American politics, using largely cut-and-pasted content from American sources, but retweeted by bot networks so as to try to increase the reach,” explains Wilson, who is also the project manager of the V-Dem Institute.

Wilson tells VOA he sees a similar social media campaign as the main risk from Moscow next year supporting a third candidate to try to swing the president election “to reinforce existing narratives being pushed by American actors.”
 

…

New Orleans police say 11 people were wounded in a shooting early Sunday on the edge of the city’s famed French Quarter.

A police news release said two people were in critical condition. No arrests were announced by midday Sunday.

Police Supt. Shaun Ferguson told The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune that a person of interest has been detained, but it was not immediately clear whether the person had any connection to the shooting.

Police said 10 people were taken to two hospitals and another walked in. Further details haven’t been released.

The shooting happened about 3:20 a.m. on a busy commercial block of Canal Street that has streetcar tracks and is near many hotels.

Ferguson said police quickly responded to the scene as patrols were heightened for this weekend’s Bayou Classic, the annual Thanksgiving weekend rivalry football game between Grambling State and Southern University at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

Kenneth Culbreth told The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune that he had gone into a CVS pharmacy in the early morning hours to make a quick purchase. Moments later, he walked out to a crime scene.
 “On my way out of the CVS, I heard pops,” Culbreth said. “It was so many, I couldn’t keep count.”

Culbreth spent the rest of the morning watching the scene, with law enforcement and several emergency vehicles moving in and out at a rapid pace.

…