Beto O’Rourke was back at Keene State College, but the large crowd that flocked to see him six months ago was not.

Far removed from the whirlwind opening days of his presidential campaign, the former Texas congressman faced a far smaller, quieter gathering. An attempted “Beto! Beto!” chant fizzled and when an elderly voter declared that O’Rourke was “so clear and consistent on what the world needs,” the candidate responded, “Could you travel with us to every campaign stop and say what you just said?”

That joke was prophetic since O’Rourke has already undertaken two major campaign reboots since first coming to Keene State in March — and his latest is built on a national approach to running for president that makes a third visit to the New Hampshire campus seem unlikely. Looking to recapture the early enthusiasm surrounding his candidacy, O’Rourke is pursuing the go-anywhere, freewheeling style that made him a Democratic star last year while nearly upsetting Sen. Ted Cruz.

After a mass shooting last month in his hometown of El Paso, O’Rourke has again remade his White House bid, this time around decrying what he calls President Donald Trump’s racism and sympathy for white supremacy, as well as combating gun violence. He’s still visiting Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, which kick off the presidential contest. But he’s also turned up at places like an Arkansas gun show, where he debated banning assault weapons with self-described conservatives.

O’Rourke became the first presidential candidate to visit Mississippi communities where immigration raids led to the arrest of nearly 700 people and traveled to “Black Wall Street,” site of Oklahoma’s 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. He also hit Charlottesville, Virginia, to blame Trump for the deadly 2017 racial clash there, which former Vice President Joe Biden highlights as a key reason for his own presidential run.

After the El Paso shooting, which saw the suspected gunman drive 600-plus miles to a Walmart near the U.S.-Mexico border and kill 22 people after posting an online screed that echoed some of the president’s anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic rhetoric, O’Rourke suspended his campaign to attend vigils and visit hospitalized victims. He returned to the race vowing to forgo the Ferris wheels and corndogs of places like the Iowa State Fair because “the kind of challenges that we face in this country at this moment of crisis require an urgency.”

That’s since meant nontraditional stops, like visiting Virginia’s deep red Bland County, where about 82% of voters backed Trump in 2016, and hopping a low-cost “BoltBus” for a five-hour trip from New York to Boston.

“I kind of feel like I’m talking at a church or library because there are other passengers here,” O’Rourke said on a Facebook livestream during the journey. “They are reading or taking a nap or doing their own thing, so I want to be respectful.”

O’Rourke’s also begun swearing in public again, even using the f-word live on CNN. That’s something he did frequently while running for Senate last year in Texas but had sworn off during his fourth day of presidential campaigning when a man at a Wisconsin coffee shop complained he wasn’t setting a good example for the nation’s children.

O’Rourke entered the presidential race with promising polling and strong fundraising, reflected by his packed first visit to Keene State. But that early buzz has faded following underwhelming debate performances and as rivals like 37-year-old Pete Buttigieg supplanted him as the Democratic Party’s fresh face. O’Rourke raised only $3.6 million last quarter, down from the $9.3 million he brought in during his campaign’s opening 18 days alone.

Before the El Paso shooting, O’Rourke had concentrated on Iowa with frequent visits and months of building out staff there. But that increased campaign costs and ensured he began spending more money than he was taking in. The new national campaign approach may be helping with that. O’Rourke’s advisers noted that online fundraising in the two weeks leading up to Thursday’s debate in Houston was the highest since he entered the race in March.

The latest overhaul follows a first relaunch in May, when O’Rourke began concentrating more on television appearances, after largely shunning them in favor of rallies where he could see voters “eyeball-to-eyeball.” He also unveiled a series of proposals on combating climate change, protecting LGBT rights and other issues in an effort to boost his policy gravitas.

Still, none of his efforts have translated into better polling. After an initial bump, O’Rourke continues to badly trail the 2020 Democratic presidential primary’s established front-runners: Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The potential pitfall of the focusing on Trump and guns, meanwhile, is that O’Rourke has a lot of company: All the Democrats seeking the White House slam Trump as racist and support gun control. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker called for a mandatory assault weapon buyback before O’Rourke began making it a centerpiece of his campaign.

And candidates prioritizing states other than Iowa and New Hampshire often don’t survive long.

In 2008, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani entered the Republican primary leading in some national polls. He largely skipped campaigning in the early states in favor of spending weeks in delegate rich Florida, where he finished third and dropped out the following day.

More recently, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand took a break from her frequent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire to begin a bus tour of the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, which she vowed to take back from Trump over the long haul — only to abandon her 2020 presidential bid barely six weeks later.

“I think it’s very difficult to try to break the mold,” said Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas. “You win the nomination by winning delegates, and you win delegates by winning states, and you win more states by winning early states.”

O’Rourke’s advisers insist he’s not shortchanging early states, holding more events in them than most candidates because he packs so many stops into each campaigning day. They also note that “Super Tuesday” falls on March 3, just three days after South Carolina’s primary, and features voting in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Virginia, Massachusetts and O’Rourke’s native Texas — meaning their candidate’s nontraditional travel could yet payoff.

“There are many paths to the nomination, and none of them include leaving voters out of the conversation,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, O’Rourke’s campaign manager. “That commitment is something every voter — whether they’re in Iowa, New Hampshire, or Oklahoma — can appreciate.”

Some Iowans are used to seeing presidential hopefuls almost laughably frequently. But former 2016 presidential candidate and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who campaigned for O’Rourke in Iowa over Labor Day weekend, while the candidate returned to El Paso for a concert to benefit shooting victims, said seasoned activists know to look for candidates who have presidential wherewithal — something O’Rourke displayed in the face of tragedy.

“I didn’t hear anybody say he’s needs to be here more,” said O’Malley, who said he instead met a couple in Davenport, Iowa, who saw O’Rourke after the El Paso shooting and “noticed a depth of purpose and passion that they had not heard in other appearances when they had seen him.”

…

President repeats false claim that he spent time at ground zero alongside first responders

…

Sanctions and other economic pressures are making the lives of ordinary Syrians even more difficult, as the country’s national currency falls to record lows against the U.S. dollar in black market trading this week.

Arab news channels reported last month that Moscow had asked President Bashar al-Assad to pay $3 billion to defray costs for the deployment of Russian troops in Syria, causing a drain on government reserves. Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov denied the claim.

Syrian analyst Majed Ruslan told Arab media that the Syrian pound is hovering at about 650 to the dollar on the black market, while the official rate remains close to 430. This, he said, is causing pressure on ordinary Syrians as prices increase for consumer goods such as cooking oil, dairy products and gasoline.

Syria’s Central Bank governor, Hazem Karfoul, told state TV earlier this summer that it was not a wise policy to use foreign currency reserves to prop up the value of the pound.

Syria, he said, can’t keep focusing on the numeric value of the exchange rate and exhausting its resources in defending it. The exchange rate is a barometer, not a battle line to defend at all costs, he added.

The plunging value of the Syrian currency came despite efforts by the government to give the impression of economic normalcy returning to the country.

Last week, amid much fanfare, the government hosted the Damascus International Trade Fair. However, it was not clear how many international companies signed deals, given the risks of falling afoul of U.S. economic sanctions.

Syria’s labor minister, Jamal Qadry, lashed out at international pressures and countries like the U.S. that have been applying them.

While attending the Third International Labor Forum earlier this week, Qadry said international participants were showing solidarity with the workers of Syria in the face of an economic embargo and imperialist intervention and support for terrorism.

Syrian analyst and researcher Nasser Zuheir told a Syrian opposition TV channel, however, that he does not think that economic sanctions will cause the government to collapse, but will put pressure on the government and ordinary citizens.

The fall of the pound comes after the collapse of political talks, he said, adding that there are firewalls to stop the currency from deteriorating beyond a certain point.

Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, told VOA that it is “not clear whether the fall of the pound is due to international sanctions or backlash from government efforts to crack down on economic mafia warlords in the country,” such as his brother-in-law, well-known businessman Ramy Makhlouf, who was reportedly placed under house arrest last month. Many warlords have money stashed in Lebanese banks that the government would like to recuperate.

Abou Diab points out that Tuesday’s black market value of the Syrian pound (670 to the dollar) makes the monthly minimum wage salary of a Syrian worker worth just $45.

“The average Syrian is being severely punished,” he said, “but the government is unlikely to be affected by any popular backlash.”

…

Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire are vowing to hold a caucus and primary next year, even as party leaders in a handful of other states have canceled their contests to help smooth President Donald Trump’s path to reelection.

“Under no circumstances will the New Hampshire primary ever be canceled, whether there’s token opposition or a serious contest,” Steve Duprey, New Hampshire’s national Republican committeeman, said in an interview.

“It was never even up for discussion,” echoed Iowa GOP National Committeeman Steve Scheffler in a separate interview. “We’re not going to shut the door on anyone and say, ‘You’re not welcome.'”

At least three Republicans have stepped up to challenge Trump’s claim to his party’s 2020 presidential nomination: former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, former South Carolina Gov. and U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, and former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh. None of them is expected to generate enough support to defeat — or even embarrass — the incumbent president in the months leading up to the November 2020 general election.

Still, Trump allies on the ground in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas moved in recent days to cancel their 2020 primary contests altogether to eliminate the possibility of trouble. Some said the cancellations were simply a cost-cutting measure, yet they follow aggressive steps by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee in recent months to strengthen Trump’s reelection chances.

Sinister motives?

Canceling primaries is not unprecedented, but it is not common. Republicans and Democrats canceled presidential nominating contests to protect incumbents across 10 or fewer states in 1992, 1996, 2004 and 2012.

Longtime Iowa Republican operative David Kochel, a frequent Trump critic, said he doesn’t ascribe “a sinister motive” to the recently announced cancellations. It’s often a political party’s job to help incumbents win reelection, he said.

“It does lend itself to the whole sinister anti-democratic thing,” Kochel added. “I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”

While polls suggest the overwhelming majority of Republican voters support Trump, some veteran GOP officials were troubled by the decisions to cancel elections altogether, dismissing the cost-cutting motive as spin.

“This was a shady backroom deal where a small group of party insiders made a big decision that stops hundreds of thousands of voters from participating in the process,” said South Carolina Republican operative Rob Godfrey, who previously worked for the state GOP and former Gov. Nikki Haley.

Chip Felkel, another veteran South Carolina Republican operative, cried foul as well.

“What’s the RNC and the Trump campaign afraid of?” asked Felkel, who worked for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential bid. “This to me, no matter how they spin it, suggests there’s weakness they don’t want to reveal.”

At least one New Hampshire Republican official went further.

Fergus Cullen, a former state GOP chairman, said the push to cancel primaries represent the “drip drip drip of autocratic tendencies in the Trump administration.”

“This is the kind of thing that happens in autocratic nations led by dictators,” Cullen said. “One way to ensure that the president of Russia gets 98% of the vote is you don’t allow anyone else on the ballot.”

GOP challengers

The Trump campaign has essentially ignored the prospect of a serious primary challenge when asked. The incumbent president is not expected to accept invitations for traditional primary activities, such as debates.

Campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh would say only that “President Trump’s election is in November 2020.”

Trump himself, however, has already given his trio of challengers a derogatory nickname. “The Three Stooges, all badly failed candidates, will give it a go!” the president tweeted over the weekend after Walsh and Sanford formally joined Weld in the Republican field.

Both Walsh and Sanford have begun reaching out to potential supporters in New Hampshire, the state that has emerged as the unofficial staging ground of the GOP’s “Never Trump” movement. Former state party chair Jennifer Horn has become a fierce Trump critic, as have several former Republican officeholders in the state.

Cullen said that primary contest cancellations elsewhere mean that “New Hampshire is the only game in town” for a real Trump challenge.

“If anything, this means that the place to send a message is New Hampshire,” Cullen said. “It already was, but now there’s literally no other options.”

Even in the Granite State, however, Trump is expected to easily beat back primary challengers. And the bar may be high even for those Republicans hoping to embarrass Trump by denying him a significant portion of the vote.

President Barack Obama, for example, won New Hampshire’s 2012 presidential primary with only around 81% of the vote.

Still, New Hampshire Republicans will at least get a chance to be heard. The first-in-the-nation primary can only be canceled by changing state law.

New Hampshire GOP Chairman Stephen Stepanek, who ran the Trump campaign’s New Hampshire efforts in 2016, said he could “never conceive of the New Hampshire primary ever being canceled for any reason.”

The level of enthusiasm for Trump among New Hampshire Republicans “is just overwhelming,” he said. He also predicted that Trump will get “well into the 90s” in the state’s 2020 GOP primary.

“I think they’re going to be very excited to vote for him just to show their support for him,” Stepanek said.

…

Families of the passengers who died in one of the Boeing 737 Max crashes lobbied Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Tuesday to slow what they consider a rush to let the plane fly again.

Two of the relatives who took part in the two-hour meeting in Washington said Chao promised that the government will take as long as necessary to ensure that the plane is safe but stopped short of agreeing to an entirely new, top-to-bottom review.

A spokesman for Chao said the department and the Federal Aviation Administration have taken unprecedented steps to understand the accidents and the FAA’s certification of the plane in 2017. One of those steps, he said, included Chao’s appointment of a special committee to review the FAA’s process of certifying planes.

After the meeting, several dozen relatives held a vigil on the steps of the Transportation Department headquarters to mark the six-month anniversary of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302.

They carried pictures of many of the 157 people who died. Another 189 died in the October 2018 crash of a Max jet operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air.

Boeing delivers 18 planes

Separately, Boeing disclosed Tuesday that it delivered just 18 airliners in August, putting the company on pace for its worst showing since 2013. With Max deliveries halted since March, Boeing gave customers 276 planes through August, down from 481 in the same period last year.

Chicago-based Boeing has said it expects FAA approval for the Max to fly again early in the fourth quarter. U.S. airlines don’t expect to use the plane until at least December, and the wait could be longer in other countries because of signs that international regulators will take a slower approach than FAA.

Families call for new review

A group of 11 family members asked Chao to direct the FAA to conduct a completely new review of the Max instead of mainly examining changes Boeing made to flight-control software called MCAS, which was implicated in both crashes. FAA is part of her department.

Chao did not commit to full re-certification but said the FAA will wait for recommendations from a technical review board before it lets the plane fly, according to a department spokesman. The department is also being advised by a review panel that includes international regulators and by the special committee that Chao appointed, but the FAA won’t wait for those reports before deciding whether to approve the Max for flight, the spokesman said.

Michael Stumo, whose daughter Samya died in the Ethiopian crash, said those panels and foreign regulators “can go far beyond just reviewing MCAS. Time will tell, but we were encouraged by the meeting.”

European officials have said they will insist on test flights during extreme maneuvers — both with Boeing’s new software and with MCAS turned off — to judge the stability of the plane.

The families also want pilots to train on flight simulators before airlines can resume using the plane. Boeing, which wants to avoid further delays, believes that computer training is adequate for now, with simulator sessions later.

People in the meeting said Chao pointed to the small number of Max simulators, making immediate simulator training less feasible.

Families describe anguish

For about half the meeting, Chao and several deputies listened to family members describe the passengers who died in the Ethiopian crash.

“It was very emotional,” said Paul Njoroge, whose wife, three young children and mother-in-law died in the crash. The family members described their losses “and how their life has been ever since the crash,” he said.

The relatives are planning their next steps.

“We are not going to away until the correct processes are being followed in ungrounding the plane, if it’s ever ungrounded,” Njoroge said.
 

…

U.S. health officials are investigating what might be causing hundreds of serious breathing illnesses in people who use e-cigarettes and other vaping devices. They have identified about 450 possible cases in 33 states, including six deaths.

A look at what we know so far about the outbreak as the investigation continues:

What are the symptoms?

Patients are coming into hospitals with cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue and vomiting.

How serious are these illnesses?

Many of the reports involve severe, life-threatening illnesses in previously healthy people. Many patients received oxygen. Some needed to be put on breathing machines before they recovered. Antibiotics didn’t work, and it’s not clear yet whether steroid drugs helped.

What vaping products are involved?

No single device, ingredient or additive has been identified. Most of the patients say they vaped products containing THC, the high-producing ingredient in marijuana. Others say they vaped only nicotine and others say they vaped both THC and nicotine.

Is there a common thread?

Doctors don’t believe this is caused by a germ. Instead, they suspect chemical exposure. And vape juice contains many possible culprits.

After testing products, New York has focused its investigation on vitamin E acetate, which recently has been used as a thickener, particularly in black market vape cartridges. Suppliers say it dilutes vape oils without making them look watery. Vitamin E is safe as a vitamin pill or to use on the skin, but inhaling oily vitamin E droplets into the lungs can trigger pneumonia.

Immune cells containing oily droplets have been found in the lungs of some patients. These large cells, called macrophages, are the cleanup crew of the immune system. University of Utah doctors think this could be a marker for vaping injury. They wrote up their findings about six patients in the New England Journal of Medicine.

What else is in vape liquids?

Most e-cigarettes contain colorless, flavorless chemicals such as propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, which create an inhalable vapor when heated. The chemicals are considered safe as food additives but their long-term effects when inhaled have not been studied.

Researchers have found cancer-causing chemicals in e-cigarette vapor, such as formaldehyde. However, it’s not yet clear whether those chemicals are present in high enough amounts to cause harm.

E-cigarette vapor contains tiny particles that carry flavorings. Some early-stage laboratory and animal studies suggest these flavor particles can damage the lungs, airways and blood vessels, but more research is needed to better understand how human bodies react to them.

Much less is known about the contents of THC oils and how those chemicals behave when heated.

“I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point because we know so little,” said Dr. David Christiani of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Is this brand new?

There have been occasional reports of similar illnesses, including one from 2000 that was tied to inhaling homemade marijuana-infused oil vapor. The large number of cases is new and alarming to public health officials.

Who is investigating and what are they doing?

State and federal health officials are testing products and analyzing cases for clues.

New York is issuing subpoenas to three companies that sell vaping additives made from vitamin E acetate. The state wants to know more about the ingredients, the quality of the raw materials, any safety testing performed, sales of the products during the past three years and what other additives the companies sell.

Are products from state-licensed dispensaries safe?

Most of the cases involve products purchased on the street, not in dispensaries in states with legal sales of medical or recreational weed. One person who died in Oregon had used an e-cigarette containing marijuana oil purchased from a dispensary. Health officials there don’t know whether the product was contaminated or whether the victim may have added something to the liquid in the device after buying it.

What’s the best advice right now?

Health officials are urging people to stop vaping and to get medical care if they have trouble breathing or chest pain after vaping.
 

…

Like father, like son?

A son of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has caused a stir by questioning democracy in Latin America’s biggest country, which emerged from a two-decade military dictatorship in 1985.

“The transformation that Brazil wants will not happen at the speed we are aiming for in democratic ways,” tweeted Carlos Bolsonaro, a close aide to his father and a municipal councilor in Rio de Janeiro.

Bolsonaro, 36, did not say what he meant by “transformation,” but his father’s governing party is struggling to implement economic and social changes since it has to form alliances to get a majority in congress.

Dilma Rousseff, a former president and ex-rebel who was imprisoned and tortured during military rule, condemned the tweet.

“Only those who fought for democracy, have gone through exile, torture and imprisonment know that democracy is the only possible regime to promote change and make a country like Brazil move forward,” she said.

Felipe Santa Cruz, the head of Brazil’s bar association, also was critical.

“No attack on democracy can be accepted, nor can authoritarian impulses be normalized,” said Santa Cruz, whose father was killed by state agents during the dictatorship, according to a government-appointed commission.

On Tuesday, the Brazilian bar association participated in a panel about Brazil’s dictatorship at the United Nations in Geneva. Jose Carlos Dias, a former member of Brazil’s National Truth Commission, denounced what he described as a creeping authoritarianism in Brazil.

Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right politician who was elected last year following corruption scandals in the previous left-leaning government, scoffs at suggestions that Brazil is becoming less free on his watch.

But he has also spoken positively about Brazil’s military rule, which presided over hundreds of extrajudicial killings and disappearances.

Last week, he praised the 1973 military coup in Chile after Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. human rights chief, raised concerns about killings by Brazilian police and alleged restrictions on civil liberties.

Another of the president’s three sons, national lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, raised hackles last year when he said it would be easy to shut down the Supreme Federal Court.

“You don’t even have to send a jeep. Just send a soldier and a corporal,” the lawmaker told federal police recruits in a video that circulated on social media.

Carlos Bolsonaro tried to clarify his Monday evening tweet about democracy, saying on Twitter on Tuesday that “democratically, things don’t change quickly. It’s a fact.”

He also said the outrage was over the top, joking: “And now I’m a dictator?”

The president has a soft spot for Carlos, who handled social media for his presidential campaign. In December, the senior Bolsonaro wrote a birthday message to him: “My PitBull, thanks always for being around.”

…

The Trump administration is denouncing U.S. media reports that it evacuated a high-level CIA spy out of Moscow after he revealed that President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election in favor of Donald Trump.

The reports say U.S. officials were worried the mole was about to be exposed because of the controversy in the U.S. surrounding the Russian interference.

He was ordered out of Russia, refused to leave, but then decided to go because of the risk of exposure.

“I’ve seen that reporting. The reporting is materially inaccurate,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday without saying exactly what he believes the media got wrong.

Pompeo was CIA chief in 2017 when the spy was apparently brought out of Russia.

“It is only the occasions where there is something that I think puts people at risk or the reporting is so egregious as to create enormous risk to the United States of America that I even comment in the way I just did,” Pompeo added.

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said the media reports are dangerous and put lives at risk.

CNN reports one reason the informant was evacuated was because of Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified information that could have also led to his exposure. A CIA spokesman calls this “inaccurate.”

Russian media identified the suspected spy as Oleg Smolenkov.

According to the U.S. news reports, the CIA recruited Smolenkov several decades ago. He gradually rose up in the Russian government bureaucracy to become what The New York Times describes as one of the CIA’s “most important and highly protected assets” who had access to Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday Smolenkov did indeed work in Putin’s office, but at a low-level and never had direct contact with the president. He also said Smolenkov was “fired several years ago.”

Peskov described the U.S. news reports as “pulp fiction.”

Putin has consistently denied his government interfered in the 2016 U.S. election and Trump has backed Putin’s assertion even after U.S. intelligence said there is no doubt about Russian meddling.

…

Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard is set to meet Tuesday with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and other officials to discuss Mexico’s efforts to reduce the number of migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border.

The talks come a day after U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the number of migrants intercepted at the U.S.-Mexico border fell 22% in August, and said the drop was due to greater cooperation from Mexico.

CBP acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said the number of migrants taken into custody or turned back at the U.S.-Mexico border numbered 64,000 in August. He said that was a 22% drop from July and a 56% fall from a peak in May.

Despite the drop in crossings, arrest figures in August were still the highest for the month in more than a decade and 17,000 higher than the same period last year.

Morgan told reporters at the White House that Mexico has “stepped up unprecedented ways” and have been “a real partner” with the United States since a June enforcement agreement between the two countries.

However, he said “we know the numbers could spike upwards,” and said “we need Mexico to do more.” Morgan expressed concern about Mexico “sustaining the level of commitment they have.”

Morgan also urged the U.S. Congress to pass an overhaul of immigration laws, saying that is the only long-term solution to the issue. “As a country, we can’t rely upon other countries” to deal with the crisis on our southern border, he said.

When asked if the United States was seeking a so-called “safe third country” agreement with Mexico, Morgan said “we are reaching across the aisle … to come up with a cooperative agreement.” A safe third country agreement between the U.S. and Mexico would mean that refugees from Central American countries would be required to seek protection in Mexico instead of the United States.

However, Ebrard said Monday on Twitter that “Mexico is not and will not accept” a safe third country designation.

After border arrests spiked in May at more than 144,000, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs against Mexico unless its government did more to stop the flow of migrants. Mexico pledged to cooperate and deployed thousands of national guard troops to the border to stop Central American migrants heading north.

…

President Donald Trump dismissed three Republican challengers to his 2020 re-election as “the Three Stooges” on Monday and expressed doubt about ever agreeing to meet them on a debate stage.

“They’re a joke. They’re a laughing stock,” Trump told reporters when asked whether he would agree to debate them during the 2020 nominating contest.

Three Republicans – former U.S. Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and former U.S. Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois – are mounting long-shot campaigns to deny Trump the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

They face a formidable re-election effort mounted by Trump, who has consolidated his grip on the party’s national and state machinery. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Aug. 19 and 20 showed 87% of Republicans approved of his performance in office.

Sanford, who announced his candidacy on Sunday, said he did not believe Trump’s popularity would last.

“I sincerely believe Trump is misguided on a whole host of issues. He’s out of sync with voters in South Carolina. I think he has lost touch with the very voters that sent him to office,” he told MSNBC on Monday.

Walsh has called Trump a bully and a coward who is unfit for office. Weld says another Trump term would be bad for America.

Before he left the White House for a rally in North Carolina, Trump also said he planned at some point to put out an “extremely complete” statement on his finances. Trump has refused for years to release his tax returns despite a long history of presidential candidates detailing their finances.

He said the financial statement would make clear he did not need whatever revenue was produced when U.S. military personnel stayed at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland while on refueling stops.

“I’m going to give out my financial condition, and you’ll be extremely shocked that the numbers are many, many times what you think. I don’t need to have somebody take a room overnight at a hotel,” he said.

Trump Promises Report on His Finances Before Election

President promising to release new financial report of his personal holdings to the public before 2020 election, though he was vague on just what he would disclose that is new

In a tweet earlier, Trump recalled Sanford’s disappearance in 2009 when, while governor of South Carolina, he met his Argentine mistress under the cover story of having gone hiking on the Appalachian Trail, only to be found out later.

“The Three Stooges, all badly failed candidates, will give it a go!” the president said, leaning on his penchant for bestowing derisive nicknames on his opponents. The Three Stooges were a vaudeville and slapstick comedy team whose antics regularly appeared on television.

Trump also denied having anything to do with the cancellation of Republican nominating primaries in four states, meaning he will face no opposition there. Canceling their primaries were Nevada and South Carolina, which are critical early voting states, as well as Kansas and Arizona.

“The four states that canceled it don’t want to waste their money. If there was a race, they would certainly want to do that,” Trump said.

…

Hundreds of Guatemalan soldiers were deployed on Monday to an area near the border with Honduras and Mexico, home to long-standing social conflicts, in a bid to improve security after three soldiers were gunned down by suspected drug runners.

Defense Minister Luis Miguel Ralda told reporters that 2,000 soldiers had been sent as part of the mission following a declaration of emergency powers granted by the Congress two days ago.

“We expect them to bring calm, security and peace to the people of this region,” he said, acknowledging that the area was marked by lawlessness due to extortion and other drug-related crime.

The area has played host over decades to a range of conflicts among locals and land owners, miners and palm oil plantations, including indigenous communities.

Guatemala’s army said last week a group of suspected drug traffickers ambushed a patrol of nine soldiers in Izabal province who were sent to detain an aircraft allegedly transporting drugs. Three of the soldiers were killed.

While some community members dispute parts of the army’s account, officials say they identified nearly 50 illegal runways that they say are used to transport drugs.

The attack on the soldiers, one of the worst incidents of violence perpetrated against the army in years, prompted lawmakers to authorize a 30-day emergency decree on Saturday that imposes a night-time curfew in the northeastern provinces of Alta Verapaz, El Progreso, Izabal, Peten, Zacapa and Baja Verapaz.

The six provinces make up a drug-trafficking corridor that runs from Honduras to Mexican border.

The decree also gives the military new powers to arrest and interrogate suspects and prohibits organized protests in the targeted areas.

Soldiers could be seen in the lush Izabal countryside on Monday stopping and inspecting passing vehicles and setting up new bases.

A school in the town of Semuy II, where the soldiers were attacked, was empty on Monday because classes have been suspended indefinitely.

Guatemala, like neighbors El Salvador and Honduras, is a hub for the trafficking of drugs from South America to the United States.

…

Coast Guard rescuers pulled four trapped men alive from a capsized cargo ship Monday, drilling into the hull’s steel plates to extract the crew members more than a day after their vessel overturned while leaving a Georgia port.

All four were described as alert and in relatively good condition and were taken to a hospital for further evaluation.

“Best day of my 16-year career,” Lt. Lloyd Heflin, who was coordinating the effort, wrote in a text message to The Associated Press.

A video posted online by the Coast Guard showed responders clapping and cheering as the final man, wearing only shorts, climbed out of a hole in the hull and stood up.

Three of the South Korean crew members came out in the mid-afternoon. The fourth man, who was trapped in a separate compartment, emerged three hours later.

The rescues followed nearly 36 hours of work after the Golden Ray, a giant ship that carries automobiles, rolled onto its side early Sunday as it was leaving Brunswick, bound for Baltimore.

“All crew members are accounted for,” Coast Guard Southeast wrote on Twitter. “Operations will now shift fully to environmental protection, removing the vessel and resuming commerce.”

In the hours immediately after the accident, the Coast Guard lifted 20 crew members into helicopters before determining that smoke and flames and unstable cargo made it too risky to venture further inside the vessel. Officials were concerned that some of the 4,000 vehicles aboard may have broken loose.

That left responders looking for the remaining four crew members. At first, rescuers thought the noises they were hearing inside could be some of the vehicles crashing around. But by dawn Monday, they were confident that the taps were responses to their own taps, indicating someone was alive inside.

“It was outstanding when I heard the news this morning that we had taps back throughout the night,” Capt. John Reed said. Those sounds helped lead rescuers to the right place on the 656-foot (200 meter) vessel and provided motivation.

“They were charged up knowing the people were alive,” Reed said.

On Monday morning, rescuers landed on the side of the Golden Ray and rappelled down the hull. Heflin, who was coordinating the search, said they found three men in a room close to the propeller shaft, near the bottom of the stern. Responders began drilling, starting with a 3-inch (7.5-centimeter) hole. Coast Guard officials brought the ship’s chief engineer, who was rescued Sunday, out to the ship to translate, and found the three men were “on board and OK,” as Heflin put it.

Reed said rescuers passed food and water through the hole to the men. They also provided fresh air to the propeller room, which Reed said was even hotter than outside, where the high was 93 degrees (34 Celsius).

Responders set up a tent on the hull and began drilling additional holes, eventually making an opening large enough to insert a ladder and help the men climb out.

“It was like connect the dots,” Reed said of the hole, which grew to 2 feet by 3 feet (0.6 meters by 1 meter).

The fourth rescue was a greater challenge. That crewman was behind glass in a separate engineering compartment on another deck, Reed said.

The Golden Ray is now stuck in the shipping channel, closing one of the busiest U.S. seaports for shipping automobiles. One ship is unable to leave port and four more are lined up outside waiting to come in, according to ship-tracking website Marine Traffic.

A statement issued Monday by the South Korea foreign ministry said the crew members were isolated in an engine room. It said 10 South Koreans and 13 Filipinos had been on board, along with a U.S. harbor pilot, when the ship began tilting.

Position records for the Golden Ray show the ship arrived in port in Brunswick Saturday evening after making the short sail from a prior stop in Jacksonville, Florida. The ship then departed the dock in Brunswick shortly after midnight and was underway only 23 minutes before its movement stopped in the mouth of the harbor where it capsized, according to satellite data recorded by Marine Traffic.

Port officials were “working closely with the Coast Guard to reopen the channel,” Georgia Ports Authority Executive Director Griff Lynch said in a statement after the final man was rescued.

The cause of the capsizing remains under investigation. Marine Traffic shows the Golden Ray overturned as it was passed by another car carrier entering St. Simons Sound.

At the time, the skies were clear and the weather calm, with a southerly breeze of only 5 miles per hour, according to National Weather Service records.

Many of those rescued were taken to the International Seafarers’ Center in Brunswick. Sailors arrived with only what they were wearing when rescued. A restaurant donated a meal, and the volunteer-run center provided the seamen with clothes, toiletries and Bibles.

The vessel is owned by Hyundai Glovis, which carries cars for automakers Hyundai and Kia as well as others.

In a statement, the company thanked the Coast Guard for saving the crew and sought to assure the public that it would now focus on “mitigating damage to property and the environment.”

…

It’s a warm night in Indonesia and the air is filled with excitement as villagers watch a puppet show accompanied by traditional music.

To the rhythmic beat of cymbals, drums and a bamboo harmonica, the hand-held puppets wearing brightly colored batik headdresses and sarongs fight, and one gets flung off the stage.

This vivid performance is the brainchild of Drajat Iskandar, who has been lending a hand to revive the near-extinct art of “wayang bambu,” or bamboo puppetry.

Once enjoyed by generations of Sundanese, Indonesia’s second most-populous ethnic group who originate from the central island of Java, the delicate art has almost disappeared from modern stages.

Iskandar, 47, has updated his bamboo puppets by making them three-dimensional, unlike conventional two-dimensional ones.

This is done by weaving bamboo strips together to form an intricate head and torso fixed over two perpendicular bamboo sticks. The puppet is then dressed in a headdress and sarong.

The narratives Iskandar’s puppet troupe perform are also updated to reflect modern society, instead of the usual stories from Hindu epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

“I try to portray local stories and folklore from our community with bamboo puppets,” Iskandar said. “The stories we perform are also inspired by current issues, like brawls between students, drug problems, sexual freedom, and politics.”

Iskandar learned the art of “wayang bambu” from his father, who was also a puppeteer. A former artist, he started developing his own “wayang bambu” style of performance nearly two decades ago.

Now he has a full puppet troupe, along with an orchestra of 12 musicians that accompany each show, and has been training pupils to preserve the art form.

Iskandar and his pupils regularly visit a bamboo grove near his home to gather materials to assemble new puppets and make the minor repairs needed after the sometimes frenetic shows.

He says bookings for his troupe’s performances have steadily increased over the years. They’re also a hit since they perform in the Sundanese language.

“Members of the community, from children to the elderly, can understand and enjoy this new form of Sundanese culture, and the storyline is also very interesting,” said Pupung Syaiful Rohman, a resident of Ciapus village, in West Java province, where the recent performance was staged.

…

Thousands of students formed human chains outside schools across Hong Kong on Monday to show solidarity after violent weekend clashes between police and activists pushing for democratic reforms in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.

The silent protest came as the Hong Kong government condemned the illegal behavior of radical protesters” and warned the U.S. to stay out of its affairs.

Thousands of demonstrators held a peaceful march Sunday to the U.S. Consulate to seek Washington’s support, but violence erupted hours later in a business and retail district as protesters vandalized subway stations, set fires and blocked traffic, prompting police to fire tear gas.

Hong Kong’s government agreed last week to withdraw an extradition bill that sparked a summer of protests, but demonstrators want other demands to be met, including direct elections of city leaders and an independent inquiry into police actions.

Protesters in their Sunday march appealed to President Donald Trump to “stand with Hong Kong” and ensure Congress passes a bill that would impose economic sanctions and penalties on Hong Kong and mainland China officials found to suppress democracy and human rights in the city.

Hong Kong’s government expressed regret over the U.S. bill, known as the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. It said in a statement Monday that “foreign legislatures should not interfere in any form in the internal affairs” of Hong Kong.

The government said it was “very much in Hong Kong’s own interest to maintain our autonomy to safeguard our interests and advantages under the `one country, two systems’ principle” introduced when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week said Congress looks forward to “swiftly advancing” the Hong Kong bill because the city deserves real autonomy and freedom from fear.

The unrest has become the biggest challenge to Beijing’s rule since it took over Hong Kong, and is an embarrassment to its ruling Communist Party ahead of Oct. 1 celebrations of its 70th year in power. Beijing has slammed the protests as effort by criminals to split the territory from China, backed by what it said were hostile foreigners.
 
Trump has suggested it’s a matter for China to handle, though he also has said that no violence should be used. Political analysts suggest his response was muted to avoid disrupting talks with China over their tariff war.

High school and university students across Hong Kong held hands on Monday, following similar protests last week, forming long human chains that snaked into the streets outside their schools. They were joined by many graduates wearing the protesters’ trademark black tops and masks.

Many also rallied against what they viewed as excessive use of force by police, with one student carrying a placard that read “Stop violence, we are not rioters.”

Anger was fueled over the weekend after images of a youth being bloodily beaten up by riot police at a subway station were widely shared on social media. The boy, who didn’t fight back, was pinned to the floor and appeared unconscious under a pool of blood.

Police public relations chief Tse Chun-chung said Monday that police have received complaints about the case and are investigating. He said police were doing their best to handle escalating violence, with “radical” protesters attacking police and trying to snatch their weapons. He said 157 people had been detained since Friday.

Hong Kong journalists, some wearing helmets and gas masks, complained at the police briefing Monday that riot police had used pepper spray and threatened media personnel covering the weekend clashes.

Separately, well-known Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong was released Monday, a day after he was detained at the airport.
 
Wong, a leader of Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy protest movement, was among several people held last month and charged with inciting people to join a protest in June. His prosecution comes after his release from prison in June for a two-month sentence related to the 2014 protests.

A court said Wong’s overseas trips had been approved earlier and his detention was due to procedural errors.

Wong, who visited Taiwan last week, told reporters before he flew off to Germany and then the U.S. that he would continue to raise global awareness about Hong Kong’s fight for democratic reforms.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas welcomed Wong’s release and said he was prepared to meet him.

“We hope that the conflict there will be de-escalated bit by bit, but without that entailing the rights people are entitled to _ namely the right to express their opinion, including on the street _ in any way being limited,” Maas told reporters in Berlin.

…

British Airways has canceled almost all its flights for 48 hours, affecting as many as 195,000 travelers, due to a strike by pilots over pay.

The U.K.’s flagship carrier said in a statement Monday that it had “no way of predicting how many (pilots) would come to work or which aircraft they are qualified to fly.”

As a result, it said it had “no option but to cancel nearly 100%” of its flights for the duration of the strike.

British Airways operates up to 850 flights a day. London’s sprawling Heathrow Airport was most affected by the work stoppage as it is the airline’s hub and is used for many of the company’s long-haul international flights.

The sprawling departure area at Heathrow Terminal 5 was almost empty, with only a handful of BA flights set to leave on Monday.

There were no queues at any of the check-in desks or security gates and only a handful of people waiting on benches. The terminal is typically quite busy.

British Airways said it stands ready to return to talks with the pilots’ union, Balpa, and that it has offered all affected customers full refunds or the option to rebook. The airline had been preparing for weeks for the strike, giving travelers advanced notice.

“We understand the frustration and disruption Balpa’s strike action has caused our customers,” it said.

“After many months of trying to resolve the pay dispute, we are extremely sorry that it has come to this.”

British Airways says it has offered pilots an 11.5% pay raise over three years but the union says its members want a bigger share of the company’s profits.

The union accuses British Airways of making big profits at the expense of workers who made sacrifices during hard times. British Airways’ parent company, IAG, made a net profit of 2.9 billion euros ($3.2 billion) last year.

Union leader Brian Strutton said pilots are determined to be heard.

“They’ve previously taken big pay cuts to help the company through hard times. Now BA is making billions of pounds of profit, its pilots have made a fair, reasonable and affordable claim for pay and benefits.”

A further strike is penciled in for Sept. 27.

…

A divisive fight over the future of a crude-oil pipeline across Minnesota is pinning presidential candidates between environmentalists and trade unions in a 2020 battleground state, testing their campaign promises to ease away from fossil fuels.

Progressive candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have condemned a Canadian company’s plan to replace its old and deteriorating Line 3 pipeline, which carries Canadian crude across the forests and wetlands of northern Minnesota and into northern Wisconsin. They’ve sided with environmental and tribal groups that have been trying to stop the project for years, arguing that the oil should stay in the ground.

Others candidates — including home-state Sen. Amy Klobuchar and front-runner Joe Biden — have remained largely silent, mindful that such projects are viewed as job creators for some of the working-class voters they may need to win the state next year.

The fight illustrates a hard reality behind the Democratic candidates’ rhetoric on climate change. For months, Democrats vying for the White House have sounded strikingly progressive on the issue, endorsing ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions and putting forward sweeping proposals for investing in the green jobs of the future. But the debate often glosses over the harder, more immediate choices between union jobs and phasing out fossil fuels. Those fights often divide Democrats and may create an opening for President Donald Trump.

Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 project has generated opposition on two main grounds: that the oil it would carry would aggravate climate change and that it would risk spills in pristine areas of the Mississippi River headwaters where Native Americans harvest wild rice. Enbridge says replacing the 1960s-era pipeline, which is increasingly prone to corrosion and cracking, will be safer for the environment while allowing it restore the line’s original capacity and ensure reliable deliveries to refineries. Labor unions, once the bedrock of Democrats’ support in northern Minnesota, backed the plan on the promise it will create scores of new jobs.

Regulators in Canada, North Dakota and Wisconsin have given the necessary approvals, and some work on those segments already has been completed. In Minnesota, the Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge is still waiting for permits while court challenges play out.

While it waits, the pipeline has become a political weapon. Democrats and Republicans in Minnesota are in a tug of war over working-class, rural voters needed to win statewide. Trump won enough of those voters to come within just 1.52 percentage points — fewer than 45,000 votes — of beating Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. He has said repeatedly he intends to win Minnesota in 2020, something not done by a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972.

While Trump hasn’t taken a specific stand on Line 3, he’s made it clear that he’s all for oil pipelines. Soon after taking office, he signed executive actions to advance the highly disputed Keystone XL and Dakota Access projects, vowing, “From now on we are going to start making pipelines in the United States.” He backed that up in April with more orders to assert presidential power over cross-border pipelines and to make it harder for states to block them over environmental concerns.

Some Democratic candidates have been eager to draw a contrast. Sanders, a Vermont senator, was the first to come out against Line 3. In January, he tweeted a video of himself listening to indigenous activists about the proposal and wrote: “The dangerous Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota would send a million barrels of tar sands oil — the dirtiest fossil fuel in the world — through the headwaters of the Mississippi River, tribal treaty lands and sacred wild rice beds. It must be stopped.”

Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, weighed in just ahead of a recent visit to Minnesota by tweeting: “The Line 3 pipeline would threaten Minnesota’s public waters, lands, and agricultural areas important to several Tribal Nations. I’m with @MN_350 and Minnesota organizers fighting to #StopLine3 and protect our environment.”

She was referring to MN350, a climate change group that’s part of the opposition. Its spokesman, Brent Benson, called on other candidates who’ve spoken out against climate change to oppose Line 3, too.

“It’s folly to be promoting fossil fuel infrastructure in the middle of a climate crisis,” Benson said. “Presidential candidates have an opportunity and a duty to point that out.”

Other Democrats have not taken clear positions on the project. The campaigns of Biden and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A spokesman for Sen. Kamala Harris of California didn’t address whether she has a position on Line 3, but pointed out that she opposed the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

Klobuchar has also avoided taking a position. She has said she wants to ensure a thorough environmental and scientific review to determine if the Line 3 project should move forward. Minnesota regulators signed off on the main environmental review last year, although an appeals court has ordered additional study on the potential impacts to the Lake Superior watershed. But she recently returned $5,600 in donations from an Enbridge project manager after a liberal watchdog group, the Public Accountability Initiative, revealed them.

In contrast to the divided Democrats, Minnesota Republicans have made it clear that they support Line 3, and that they see it as a winning strategy for 2020, coupled with other issues that split Democrats along ideological and geographic lines, such as copper-nickel mining to northeastern Minnesota.

Just before her visit to Minnesota, Warren also tweeted her opposition to a proposed Twin Metals mine near Ely. Like her position against Line 3, it drew an angry response from labor unions.

“Why would you want to be against something that will create so many jobs, and living (wage) jobs, within an area that desperately needs it?” Mike Syversrud, president of the Iron Range Building and Construction Trades Council, told the online news site MinnPost.

When Republican Jason Lewis launched his U.S. Senate campaign at the Minnesota State Fair, the former congressman said he would focus on greater Minnesota — the mostly rural part outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul area — to make up for Democratic strength in the cities. He highlighted the 8th Congressional District, which covers northeastern Minnesota and has swung from blue to red. Lewis said Trump’s campaign is “dead serious about Minnesota,” and that he expects them to follow the same strategy.

“Greater Minnesota is turning red, deep red. … I don’t know how a Democrat’s going to win the 8th District promising to give pink slips to every trade union member on the Iron Range, promising to stop Enbridge, to stop copper mining, to stop logging, to stop people from having jobs on the Iron Range,” Lewis said.

…

President Donald Trump’s rally in North Carolina will serve as a measure of his clout in trying to elect a Republican to the House in a closely watched special election that’s seen as a tossup race.

It will be his first campaign rally since a tough end of summer that saw slipping poll numbers, warning signs of an economic slowdown and a running battle over hurricane forecasts.
 
Trump will visit the state Monday night on the eve of the House election. He enjoys wide popularity within his own party, but a GOP defeat in a red-leaning state could, when combined with a wave of recent bad headlines, portend trouble for his reelection campaign.
 
The rally may also pose a different sort of test: It will be held just over a 100 miles from the site of a Trump rally in July where “send her back” chants aimed at a Somali-born American congresswoman rattled the Republican Party and seemed to presage an ugly reelection campaign.
 
Trump’s appearance Monday on behalf of Republican Dan Bishop is shaping up as a test of the president’s pull with voters. The special election could offer clues about the mindset of Republicans in the suburbs, whose flight from the party fueled the GOP’s 2018 House election losses.
 
The House district flows eastward from the prosperous Charlotte suburbs into rural areas hugging the South Carolina border. State officials invalidated last November’s election following allegations of voter fraud by a GOP operative.
 
The district has been held by the GOP since 1963. In 2016, Trump won the district by 11 percentage points. Should Bishop defeat Democrat Dan McCready, it could let Trump assert that he pulled Bishop over the top. If McCready prevails or Bishop wins by a whisker, it will suggest GOP erosion and raise questions about Trump’s and his party’s viability for 2020.
 
“This will tell us if Trump can carry candidates through suburban districts or not,” said Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which represents moderate Republicans. If not, she said, the GOP must “work harder to address the concerns of suburban individuals, mainly women.”
 
While the stakes for the House are high, Trump’s trademark rallies inevitably become more about him than the local candidate, as he uses the stage to settle political scores, sharpen attacks and take on perceived foes. After a light rally schedule of late, the president will have plenty of new material to work with.
 
Chief among them are the White House’s worries about the impact an economic downturn could have on a president who has made a strong economy his central argument for a second term. Trump advisers worry that moderate Republican and independent voters who have been willing to give him a pass on some of his incendiary policies and rhetoric would blame him — and, in particular, his trade war with China — for slowing down the economy.
 
Trump has increasingly turned to culture-war issues to rev up his core supporters. He’s leveled harsh criticism at majority African American cities, like Baltimore, and delivered repeated broadsides against four liberal Democratic congresswomen of color.
 
Those attacks have been cheered by Trump’s advisers, who are bullish on running a campaign critical of Democrats they cast as socialist and unpatriotic. But they went too far for many Republicans, who recoiled when the crowd at a Trump rally in Greenville, North Carolina, in July erupted into a “send her back” chant about Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
 
In the hours before the rally, Trump is expected to visit coastal North Carolina to inspect the damage left by Hurricane Dorian. He spent considerable effort over the last week defending his erroneous claim that Alabama was likely to face significant impact from the storm .
 
McCready has not had any public events in the district with Democratic presidential hopefuls, appearances that might not help him in the moderate area as those candidates jostle to appeal to liberal voters. But former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., two rival candidates, have emailed fundraising solicitations on his behalf. Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence will also campaign in the district on Monday for the Republican.
 
Democrats captured 39 GOP-held House districts in the 2018 midterm elections, more than enough to give them majority control of the chamber. Much of that turnover occurred in suburbs, largely in Democratic strongholds like California and New Jersey but also in red-leaning communities near places like Dallas, Oklahoma City and Atlanta. GOP alarm bells have been ringing about the suburbs ever since.
   

…

Pope Francis visited the Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius on Monday to celebrate its diversity, encourage a more ethical development and honor a 19th century French missionary who ministered to freed slaves.

Thousands of Mauritians waved palm branches as Francis arrived in his popemobile to celebrate a Mass honoring the Rev. Jacques-Desire Laval. While Catholics represent less than a third of Mauritius’ 1.3 million people, Laval is seen as a unifying figure for all Mauritians, most of whom are Hindu of Indian descent.

Francis was in the Mauritian capital Port Louis for just a few hours to honor Laval on his feast day and meet with government leaders on the final full day of his weeklong Africa trip.

Among the estimated 100,000 people attending the Mass was a 50-member delegation from the Chagos Islands, an Indian Ocean archipelago that includes the U.S. air base on Diego Garcia.

Earlier this year, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand that Britain, which held onto Chagos after granting Mauritius independence in 1968, ends its “colonial administration” and return Chagos to Mauritius. Britain has refused to do so, saying its presence on the archipelago is strategically important.

Britain evicted about 2,000 people from Chagos in the 1960s and 1970s so the U.S. military could build the air base at Diego Garcia.

On Monday, Chagos delegation leader Suzelle Baptiste said some of those evicted had met with Francis two years ago at the Vatican and explained their plight.

“For our community it is very important to be here to welcome the pope and at the same time we know that the pope knows about our cause so we are here to greet him in joy and to pray together with all Mauritian families,” Baptiste said as delegation members, some of whom wore pins reading “Let us return,” waited for Francis to arrive.

Their plight is likely to have struck a chord with the Argentine pope, who as archbishop of Buenos Aires spoke out forcefully against the British claim to the Falkland Islands, which Argentines call the Malvinas.

It wasn’t clear if Francis would raise the case of the Chagos in his private talks with Mauritius’ president and prime minister, though he mentioned the faithful from Chagos in a final prayer thanking pilgrims from across the region for coming to the Mass.

In his meetings with government authorities, Francis was expected to flag concerns about corruption and other ills associated with Mauritius’ growth into a regional financial center that some consider a global tax haven. Transparency International has said that while Mauritius boasts one of Africa’s highest per capita incomes, its growth into a financial center has come at a cost that was exposed in the “Panama Papers” and subsequent leaks about offshore financial instruments.

The government has called the tax haven allegations false and insisted that it abides by all international standards on transparency and sharing of financial information.

In his homily, Francis lamented that young Mauritians in particular haven’t benefited from the country’s strong economic growth and are left uncertain about their future and on the margins of society, where drugs are a persistent problem.

“Let us not allow those merchants of death rob the first fruits of this land!” Francis said, in an apparent reference to drug dealers.

He urged young people to look to Laval as a model of someone who spoke up for the voiceless. Laval, who was beatified in 1979 in the first beatification ceremony presided over by St. John Paul II, is hailed for having ministered to African slaves who had been freed but were treated as second-class citizens in Mauritius.

“Through his missionary outreach and his love, Father Laval gave to the Mauritian church a new youth, a new life that today we are asked to carry forward,” Francis said.

…

Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor and congressman, joined the Republican race against President Donald Trump on Sunday, aiming to put his Appalachian trail travails behind him for good as he pursues an admittedly remote path to the presidency.

“I am here to tell you now that I am going to get in,” Sanford said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” ″This is the beginning of a long walk.”

When asked why he was taking on an incumbent who’s popular within the party, Sanford, who has acknowledged his slim chances by saying he doesn’t expect to become president, said: “I think we need to have a conversation on what it means to be a Republican. I think that as the Republican Party, we have lost our way.”

Sanford joins Joe Walsh, a former tea-party-backed, one-term congressman from Illinois, and Bill Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, as primary challengers to Trump.

“This vanity project is going absolutely nowhere,” said Drew McKissick, the South Carolina Republican Party chairman.

Sanford tweeted that he respects “the view of many Republican friends who have suggested that I not run, but I simply counter that competition makes us stronger.”

“Humbly I step forward,” he said.

The 59-year-old Sanford has long been an outspoken critic of Trump’s, frequently questioning his motivations and qualifications during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and calling Trump’s candidacy “a particularly tough pill to swallow.”

Ultimately, though, Sanford said he would support Trump in the 2016 general election, although he had “no stomach for his personal style and his penchant for regularly demeaning others,” continuing a drumbeat that the then-candidate release his tax returns.

As Sanford sought reelection to his post representing South Carolina’s 1st District in 2018, drawing a primary challenger who embraced Trump, the president took interest in the race. State Rep. Katie Arrington repeatedly aired ads featuring Sanford’s on-air critiques of Trump and attached the “Never Trump” moniker to Sanford, a condemnation in a state that Trump carried by double digits in 2016.

Although unlikely to have had a significant impact on the results, Trump endorsed Arrington just hours before the polls closed, tweeting that Sanford “has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign” and that “He is better off in Argentina” — a reference to Sanford’s secret 2009 rendezvous to South America for an extramarital affair while his in-the-dark gubernatorial staff told reporters he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Asked Sunday if that incident could be a distraction to his campaign, Sanford said that the aftermath had forced him to attain a new “level of empathy.”

“I profoundly apologize for that,” he added, noting that South Carolina voters subsequently forgave him politically and sent him back to Congress.

…

Todd Phillips’ dark comic book film “Joker” won the Golden Lion Award at the 76th Venice International Film Festival on Saturday and cemented its place as a legitimate contender for the rest of the awards season.

Jury president Lucretia Martel announced the winners of the prestigious award during a ceremony on the Lido. The Golden Lion previously put a spotlight on films that went on to be major awards season players, such as “Roma” and the film academy’s 2018 best picture winner, “The Shape of Water.”

“I want to thank Warner Bros. and DC for stepping out of their comfort zone and taking such a bold swing on me and this movie,” Phillips said with star Joaquin Phoenix by his side on stage.

Phoenix did not win the best actor prize — it went to Italian actor Luca Marinelli for the Jack London adaptation “Martin Eden” — but the director of “Joker” dedicated much of his speech to the talents of his leading man.

In the film, he transforms from struggling stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck into Batman’s classic nemesis.

“Thank you for trusting me with your insane talents,” Phillips said to Phoenix.

Grand jury prize

Roman Polanski’s Dreyfus affair film, “An Officer and a Spy,” won the grand jury prize, which recognizes other strong contenders for the Golden Lion.

Polanski, who fled the U.S. after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl and has been a fugitive for over 40 years, was not at the ceremony to accept the award.

The inclusion of “An Officer and a Spy” among the 21 films competing for the Golden Lion was widely criticized, although it was welcomed warmly by Venice Film Festival audiences. Jury president Martel issued a statement saying that while she does not “separate the art from the artist,” she bore no prejudice toward Polanski’s film.

Roy Andersson won best director for “About Endlessness,” although hip complications prevented him from accepting the award in person.

Actress Ariane Ascaride took the best actress prize for the French domestic drama “Gloria Mundi.” Olivia Colman won best actress in Venice last year for “The Favorite,” and went on to win the best actress Oscar.

Best screenplay went to Yonfan for the animated film “No. 7 Cherry Lane,” about Hong Kong in 1967. He thanked Hong Kong for giving him the freedom to create.

Toby Wallace won best new talent award for his work in Shannon Murphy’s “Babyteeth.”

“We can’t believe we’re here in general, so anything extra is super nice,” Wallace said.

He thanked co-stars Eliza Scanlen and Ben Mendelsohn, as well as Murphy, his director. She was one of only two female directors in the main competition.

“(Murphy) led us into this project with so much honesty,” Wallace said.

Adapted from Rita Kalnejais’ comedic stage play, “Babyteeth” is about an ill teenage girl who falls in love with a small-time drug dealer.

The jury that chose the winner of the Golden Lion and other top awards was headed by Martel, an Argentine director, and included director Mary Harron, actress Stacy Martin, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and Toronto International Film Festival executive director Piers Handling.

Notable also-rans

Notable films in the main competition leaving the Lido empty-handed include the Brad Pitt space epic “Ad Astra,” Steven Soderbergh’s Meryl Streep-led Panama Papers comedy “The Laundromat” and Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama “Marriage Story,” with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver.

The Venice Film Festival also handed out prizes to a diverse array of films in other sections, like Venice Classics, Virtual Reality and Horizons.

Venice Classics

In Venice Classics, best documentary went to “Babenco: Tell Me When I Die,” about the late Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco, who was known for his socially conscious works. Director Barbara Paz said the prize was very important to her country.

“We must say ‘no’ to censorship,” Paz said. “Long (live) freedom of expression, long (live) Brazil cinema.”

“You Will Die at Twenty,” from Sudanese director Amjad Aby Alala, was awarded the Luigi de Laurentiis award for a debut film.

“I’m really feeling honored and happy,” Alala said. “I’m from a country that has no cinema because we are under regime that didn’t want to support cinema.”

Virtual Reality

“Daughters of Chibok,” about Boko Harem’s abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria, won best VR story.

Nigerian director Joel Kachi Benson said he wanted to, “Take the world to Chibok and show them these women who for five years have been living in pain because their daughters are still missing.”

Horizons

In the Horizons sections, director Saim Sadiq accepted the award for best short film for “Darling,” about the transgender community in Pakistan.

The Horizons special jury prize went to “Verdict,” about domestic abuse in the Philippines, from director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez.

“The struggle for battered women continues, and I hope the film can reach people that can make a difference,” Gutierrez said.

Finally, the Horizons best film award went to the Ukrainian film “Atlantis,” directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych, about a near-future dystopia in eastern Ukraine and a former soldier suffering from PTSD.
 

…

Sudan’s first Cabinet since the ouster of president Omar al-Bashir was sworn in Sunday as the African country transitions to a civilian rule following nationwide protests that overthrew the autocrat.

The 18-member Cabinet led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, which includes four women, took oath at the presidential palace in Khartoum, an AFP correspondent reported.

It is expected to steer the daily affairs of the country during a transition period of 39 months.

The line-up was formed after Sudan last month swore in a “sovereign council” — a joint civilian-military ruling body that aims to oversee the transition.

The 18 ministers were seen greeting members of the sovereign council, including its chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in images broadcast by state television from the palace.

“We have to put in a lot of efforts to meet our people’s demands,” Information Minister Faisal Mohamed Saleh told reporters after the swearing in ceremony.

“The world is watching us. It is waiting to see how we can solve our issues.”

The sovereign council itself is the result of a power-sharing deal between the protesters and generals who had seized power after the army ousted Bashir in April.

Hamdok’s Cabinet, which has the country’s first female foreign affairs minister, is expected to lead Sudan through formidable challenges that also include ending internal conflicts in three regions.

Rebel groups from marginalized regions of Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan states had waged long wars against Bashir’s forces.

“The road ahead is not easy. We will face many challenges but we have to work on them,” said Walaa Issam, Minister for youth and sports.

‘200-day program’

Sudan’s power-sharing deal aims to forge peace with armed groups.

Hamdok’s Cabinet will also be expected to fight corruption and dismantle the long-entrenched Islamist deep state created under Bashir.

Bashir had seized power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989 and ruled Sudan with an iron fist for three decades until his ouster.

It was a worsening economic crisis that triggered the fall of Bashir, who is now on trial on charges of illegal acquisition and use of foreign funds.

The key challenge facing the new government is reviving the ailing economy.

“We have a 200-day program for reviving the economy in a way that could help reduce the cost of living for our people in the near term,” said Finance Minister Ibrahim Ahmad Al-Badawi.

“We also have a long term plan to restructure the overall economy,” he said, adding that the country was soon expecting new donations to help tackle some immediate challenges.

According to doctors linked to the umbrella protest movement that led to Bashir’s fall, more than 250 people have been killed in protest-related violence since December.

Of that at least 127 were killed in early June during a brutal crackdown on a weeks-long protest sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum. Officials have given a lower death toll.

…

Taking another page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook, Israel’s prime minister is trying to pass a law requiring video cameras at Israeli polling stations ahead of next week’s vote — an effort that’s drawing charges of racism and incitement.

The 11th hour move, allegedly meant to prevent fraud in Arab voting stations, could have a tough time passing parliament on such short notice.
 
It’s nonetheless become an effective campaign tool for embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to galvanize his supporters. During April’s vote, Netanyahu’s Likud party deployed activists with cameras at polls in Arab communities.
 
Critics accuse him of diverting attention from a flawed campaign, undermining the country’s democratic institutions and potentially setting the stage for a Trump-like rejection of the results if he loses.

…