The University of Florida staff and students are divided over a student-led organization’s decision to invite one of the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., and former Fox News host Kim Guilfoyle to speak at the university next week.

Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle, a senior adviser to the president’s 2020 re-election campaign, will be paid $50,000 from student activity fees for the October 10 event, The Independent Florida Alligator, the daily student newspaper of the University of Florida, reported.

Swift reaction

Reaction was swift and mixed on the Facebook page of ACCENT Speakers Bureau, the student organization planning the event.

Abby Solomon wrote: “As a former ACCENT Vice Chair I am extremely disappointed in the decision to invite Donald Trump Jr to speak. What value does his presence add to the student body? ACCENT’s purpose is to challenge the student body and consider new ideas. Instead, this man will regurgitate factually incorrect White House talking points and ultimately fuel further political divides.”

Another student, Brian Murphy said, “I appreciate the attempt to bring in different opinions to campus however a divisive speaker who peddles conspiracy theories and has a moral deficiency would not have been my first choice.”

But a former student offered support for the event. “Not a Trump supporter, but ACCENT has ‘controversial speakers’ in its mission statement and has brought in speakers from all over the political spectrum. This obviously fits that criteria. If you don’t want to go, don’t,” Jared Schermer said.

Speakers Bureau defense

The head of the ACCENT Speakers Bureau also defended the group’s decision.

“Part of our mission is to engage the UF campus community in discussions on important issues by bringing prominent, influential and, oftentimes, controversial speakers to campus,” Henry Fair said in an email to The Alligator.

A group of students are organizing a protest ahead of the speech. The Protest: Say NO to Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle Facebook page has 305 people who say they will be going and another 816 who are interested.

The money paid to Trump and Guilfoyle is not atypical for what ACCENT Speakers Bureau pays their guests. Recent speakers include business investor Kevin O’Leary, who was paid $95,000, and music artist Armando Christian Pérez, better known as Pitbull, who was paid $130,000, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The 50-year-old student organization hosted liberal activist Ralph Nader and conservative politician Richard Nixon as their first guests in 1967.
 

There are no capes, no special powers and no battles between good and evil in the new “Joker” movie, whose portrayal of the most famous villain in comic book history is the most chilling twist on the character in 50 years.

The Joker has been depicted on television and in movies since 1966 and has undergone a series of ever darker transformations from his early days as a campy clown with a mirthless laugh.

“It’s barely the same character,” said Matthew Belloni, editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter. “I think the Joker has reflected the times in which he is portrayed.”

“Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and opening in movie theaters worldwide this week after winning the top prize at the Venice film festival last month, is the first film in which the Joker is the lead character but there is no Batman.

Set in 1980s New York, the Warner Bros film is a standalone origin story that depicts the man who becomes Batman’s arch-nemesis as an isolated, bullied, delusional, mentally ill loser who unwittingly inspires a populist rebellion manned by other outcasts adopting red noses and clown masks.

“The new Joker is a plunge into nihilism. There is no redemption at all. It is a lot grimmer to watch than even Heath Ledger’s Joker in ‘The Dark Knight,’” said David Crow, an associate editor at pop culture website Den of Geek.

Phoenix, 44, whose performance is seen by awards watchers as a likely contender for a best actor Oscar next year, told reporters in Venice in August, “I didn’t refer to any past creations of this character.”

Largely a prankster

Phoenix’s take on the Joker is far removed from Cesar Romero, who was the first actor to play the role in the 1960s “Batman” television series, which was mainly aimed at children.

“Romero didn’t even shave his mustache for the role. He put the make-up on top of the mustache. He had a lot of fun with it,” Crow said.

In 1989, Jack Nicholson brought his edgy, maniacal touch to the character in the “Batman” movie but was still largely a prankster.

Unsettling and unhinged

Ledger reinvented him as unsettling and unhinged in 2008 in “The Dark Knight” in 2008, when the Joker became a terrorist in a post-Sept. 11 2001, era beset by fears of anarchy and chaos.

Yet Ledger, who won a posthumous supporting actor Oscar for the role, “still played it a bit like a rock star, there was a bit of grunge glamour,” Crow said.

“Batman gets to stop him in the end. He does blow up a hospital but he never took it to a truly irredeemable place,” Crow added.

Difficult to watch

Phoenix, by contrast, turns in a performance so nerve-wracking that it is difficult to watch at times, Belloni said.

“If this was not a comic book character it would be among the most chilling characters I have ever seen in film. It’s really disturbing,” Belloni said.

The film has an R rating in the United States, meaning those under 17 need to be accompanied by a parent.

“It’s not for kids, and they won’t like it anyway,” the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater chain said in a warning on its website ahead of the opening weekend.
 

Prestigious universities around the world have accepted at least $60 million over the past five years from the family that owns the maker of OxyContin, even as the company became embroiled in lawsuits related to the opioid epidemic, financial records show.

Some of the donations arrived before recent lawsuits blaming Purdue Pharma for its role in the opioid crisis. But at least nine schools accepted gifts in 2018 or later, when states and counties across the country began efforts to hold members of the family accountable for Purdue’s actions. The largest gifts in that span went to Imperial College London, the University of Sussex and Yale University.

Major beneficiaries of Sackler family foundations also included the University of Oxford in England and Rockefeller, Cornell and Columbia universities in New York, according to tax and charity records reviewed by The Associated Press.

In total, at least two dozen universities have received gifts from the family since 2013, ranging from $25,000 to more than $10 million, the records show.

‘Blood money’

Some skeptics see the donations as an attempt to salvage the family’s reputation.

“Money from the Sacklers should be understood as blood money,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a leading critic of Purdue and the Sacklers who has testified against the company in court and heads a program on opioid policy at Brandeis University, which was not among the schools identified in tax records as receiving donations from the Sacklers. “Universities shouldn’t take it, and universities that have taken it should give it back.”

Representatives of family members declined to comment.

The AP reviewed charitable giving from more than a dozen Sackler family foundations as reported to the Internal Revenue Service, the Canada Revenue Agency and the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The recipients included schools in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Israel.

Donations funded research

For decades, the family has been a major philanthropic figure in the worlds of art, medicine and education. They were listed by Forbes magazine in 2016 as one of the nation’s 20 wealthiest families, with holdings of $13 billion.

Much of their giving to universities has fueled research in areas including genetics and brain development. Other gifts supported medical schools, student scholarships and faculty jobs. It amounts to a small fraction of schools’ overall fundraising, but some say the money has been a boon to important programs.

When evaluating the ethics of Sackler gifts, some experts argue, it’s important to consider what schools knew about the family and when they knew it.

“We’re looking at this through the lens of what people know now,” said Ross Cheit, chairman of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission and a professor at Brown University, which has accepted donations from the Sacklers. “My sense is, during the time period we’re talking about, people’s views about that source of money changed — a lot.”

As opioid deaths have mounted, some schools joined with businesses and museums cutting ties with the family, but none plans to return the money. One school is redirecting unspent donations. Most schools refused to say whether they would accept donations in the future.

Kolodny, who is also director of the group Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, said the money, if returned, could be used to help cities and states harmed by the opioid crisis, which has killed more than 400,000 people in the U.S. in the past two decades.

Students, alumni angry

The family’s ties with colleges have come under fire recently from some students, alumni and politicians.

Petitions at New York University and Tel Aviv University called on the schools to strip the Sackler name from research institutes. A 2018 lawsuit from the Massachusetts attorney general argued that Purdue Pharma used its influence at Tufts University and other schools to promote the company’s opioids.

Tufts, near Boston, said it is reviewing its relationship with Purdue and declined to answer questions until the review is finished. The university’s school of graduate biomedical studies was founded with a Sackler gift in 1980 and carries the family’s name.

Kolodny said schools should have known about the Sacklers’ role in the opioid crisis after 2007, when Purdue pleaded guilty to federal charges that it misled the public about the risks of OxyContin. In that case, the company agreed to pay more than $600 million in civil and criminal penalties. By 2017, he said, the Sacklers’ ties to Purdue and OxyContin were common knowledge.

The records reviewed by the AP may not capture all giving by the family. Colleges are not required to disclose donation information, and many refused to provide details.

Purdue Pharma separately provides research money to some schools. Unlike nonprofit groups, it is not required to disclose its giving in publicly available tax forms.

Top recipients of Sackler money

Rockefeller University accepted more Sackler money than any other school in recent history, receiving more than $11 million from the Sackler Foundation in Canada. Most came from a single $10 million gift in 2014. Smaller donations continued through at least 2017. Richard Sackler, a former president of Purdue Pharma, previously taught at the school.

Rockefeller, which enrolls about 200 students in graduate science programs, did not respond to requests for comment.

Behind Rockefeller was the University of Sussex in England, which received $9.8 million, according to tax records. A university spokesman said the school actually received about $4 million over the past decade, while another pledge “was not progressed.” The funding supports Sussex’s Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, which performs research of “paramount importance” that will continue for years, the school said.

Sussex did not say how it would handle future gift proposals from the Sacklers.

Oxford, the University of Glasgow in Scotland and Cornell each received $5 million to $6 million, tax records show.

Columbia University followed with nearly $5 million, while Imperial College London and McGill University in Montreal each received more than $3 million.

The Sacklers have long held a presence in Britain, where Mortimer Sackler, one of three brothers who founded Purdue, lived for decades before his death in 2010. Some of the family’s major foundations in the United Kingdom have suspended giving.

England’s opioid addiction rates are far lower than those in the U.S., but they have climbed steadily in recent years, stoking fears of a crisis. Rising overdoses and deaths in Canada have spurred health officials to declare a crisis there, too.

Rejecting future funds?

Oxford said all gifts must pass a review committee and school gift guidelines. The panel weighs the source of the wealth and may reconsider donations “in the light of new information,” the school said.

The AP contacted all universities that were identified in tax records as receiving more than $1 million, along with some that were not listed in tax records but previously publicized major gifts from the Sacklers.

Of those 20 schools, three — Cornell, Yale and the California Institute of Technology — said they had made formal decisions to reject future funding from the family.

Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart said the school decided this year not to accept new gifts. Richard Sackler, the former Purdue president, previously served on an advisory board at the Yale Cancer Center, and a science institute at Yale is named after the family.

Some schools said they had no plans to accept Sackler funding for the foreseeable future, including Brown and the University of Washington. Most others refused to disclose their plans.

Returning money unlikely

University of Connecticut spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said all the school’s substantial gifts came before 2012. Returning the money, she said, would harm students and researchers who benefit from it, while doing nothing to “undo the damage of the opioid crisis.”

At many schools, the money has already been spent. And even if officials wanted to return what’s left, it isn’t as simple as writing a check. There are tax hurdles and legal obstacles that can make it difficult to return gifts from charities.

Brown said it will redirect unspent money to Rhode Island nonprofit groups that treat opioid addiction. The school received $1 million from the Sackler Foundation in 2015, tax records show, along with smaller gifts as recently as 2017, totaling nearly $500,000.

The 2015 gift was intended to create a new arts initiative called the Brown Sackler Arts Alliance, but the school says it was never spent. Brown officials decided to pause discussions about the arts series because of the “growing national conversation” about Purdue, the family and the opioid epidemic, school spokesman Brian Clark said.

At Harvard University, activists have pressured the school to strip the Sackler name from a campus museum, but administrators argue that the money for the building was given before OxyContin was developed. Tax records reviewed by the AP show a single gift to Harvard in recent history, a $50,000 donation in 2016.

Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy last month as part of an effort to settle some 2,600 lawsuits accusing it of fueling the opioid crisis to drive profits. The company has no connection to Purdue University in Indiana.
 

Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno declared a state of emergency Thursday as protests broke out nationwide over the end of decades-old fuel subsidies as part of a $2 billion government fiscal reform package.

“Down with the package!” protesters shouted, referring to measures enacted this week as Moreno sets the Andean oil producer on a centrist path after years of leftist rule.

With the fuel measure taking effect Thursday, taxi, bus and truck drivers blocked streets in the highland capital Quito and in Guayaquil on the Pacific coast, while bus stations were closed. Indigenous groups, students and unions joined the action, blocking roads with rocks and burning tires.

In Quito, masked demonstrators threw stones at riot police who responded with tear gas and deployed armored vehicles.

“It’s an indefinite action until the government overturns the decree on subsidies. We’re paralyzing the nation,” said bus transport leader Abel Gomez.

Officials say the elimination of fuel subsidies was necessary to lift the economy and stop smuggling.

Moreno, who won election in 2017 to replace Rafael Correa, told reporters the “perverse” subsidy, in place for 40 years, had distorted the economy and protests would not be allowed to paralyze Ecuador.

“To ensure citizens’ security and avoid chaos, I have ordered a national state of emergency,” the president said of the measure that suspends some rights and empowers the military to keep order. “I have the courage to make the right decisions for the nation.”

Arrests, looting

Some groups of protesters trying to reach the presidential palace in downtown Quito clashed with police. In Guayaquil, several shops were looted, authorities said.

Interior Minister Maria Romo said 19 people were arrested for blocking roads and other crimes.

“The lack of transport affects us all, but equally the rise in gasoline prices will affect us,” said Cesar Lopez, 39, walking to his business in Quito.

With a population of more than 17 million people, Ecuador has a long history of political instability. Street protests toppled three presidents during economic turmoil in the decade before Correa took power in 2007.

Economy Minister Richard Martinez said Wednesday that Ecuador hoped to save about $1.5 billion a year from eliminating fuel subsidies. Along with tax reforms, the government would benefit by about $2.27 billion, he said.

On Tuesday, Ecuador announced it was leaving the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to pump more oil and raise revenues. Ecuador pumps 545,000 barrels per day.

State energy company Petroecuador said oil facilities were operating normally despite Thursday’s unrest.

Fiscal deficit 

The government wants to reduce the fiscal deficit from an estimated $3.6 billion this year to under $1 billion in 2020.

Ecuador’s debt grew under Correa, who endorsed Moreno in the 2017 election but has since become a critic of his successor’s turn toward more market-friendly economic policies.

Moreno’s government has improved relations with the United States and reached a $4.2 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund in February. But skepticism of the IMF runs strong in Ecuador and throughout Latin America, where many blame austerity policies for economic hardship.

“We’ll close all the main roads,” said taxi driver Sergio Menoscal, 55, helping to block streets in Guayaquil.

“We’re tired of false promises … we can’t be blind to a government that has done nothing for the people.”
 

It is one of the most recognizable memorials in the United States — an 80-foot-high (24 meters) sculpture of six soldiers raising an American flag atop a mountain on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during World War II.

And it has a secret hiding in plain sight.

The Marine Corps War Memorial, which stands next to Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington D.C., has long offered onlookers a dramatic and iconic image.

But for Native Americans, the bronze soldiers carry special significance: The figure at the back of the group depicts Ira Hayes, a member of the Pima tribe from Arizona.

Some worry that significance is lost on most people.

Even as they gaze at the monument, tourists “overlook entirely” its reference to the role of America’s indigenous people in the battle at Iwo Jima, said Elizabeth Rule, assistant director of the AT&T Center for Indigenous Politics and Policy.

So, she helped create an app to change that. The memorial is the first entry in the new Guide to Indigenous DC app, which takes users on a walking tour of Native American history — and ongoing presence — in the nation’s capital.

Nearly 7 million Native Americans live in the United States — making up about 2% of the population, according to census figures.

Most native lands in the country are governed as sovereign territories but continue to be administered, and legally held in trust, by the federal government.

That means that native communities have always had a unique relationship with Washington, said Renee Gokey, an education specialist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, one of the sites featured in the app.

The free app, which Rule designed in collaboration with others at the AT&T Center and with the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association, features 17 sites around the city.

“The focus on D.C. is mainly driven by the desire to educate people that the capital of the nation, the seat of government, is an Indian space,” said Rule, who is a member of Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation.

Missed history

Like the rest of the United States, the Washington of today sits on land that had long been inhabited by indigenous tribes — particularly a group called the Nacotchtank or Anacostans. Rule’s project draws attention to that physical history of the land.

The guide’s second site is a large island in the Potomac River that once hosted Nacotchtank settlements, while another site marks indigenous artifacts found on the grounds of the White House.

But the app, which launched in July, also leads walkers to history-making sites of the modern era, as well as statues of native figures in the U.S. Capitol building, and traditional and contemporary artworks.

For example, the nine-mile (14km) tour takes users to the sites of key protests in 2014 and 2017 against a proposed oil pipeline in North Dakota, as well as the Embassy of Tribal Nations that opened in 2009.

“It’s important to acknowledge … that native communities, leaders and other individuals have continued to come to Washington, D.C. over the years on behalf of their people,” said Gokey, a member of the Eastern Shawnee and Fox tribes.

“This app provides a much-needed glimpse into American history, with a native twist,” she said in emailed comments.

But the guide’s broader focus on Washington’s relationship with Native American communities has frustrated some who are determined to teach the public more about the city’s original inhabitants.

“Unfortunately, the app misses a great deal about the indigenous people of D.C.,” said Armand Lione, director of the D.C. Native History Project, who has been working to increase knowledge about the Nacotchtank.

In addition to the island in the Potomac that is included in the guide, Lione refers to several sites around the city where members of the tribe lived, quarried and farmed, none of which are listed on the app.

“The app discusses landmarks of indigenous people from many parts of the United States,” he said, but “the Anacostans are the Native American tribe that is indigenous to the land that is now Washington, D.C.””‘

‘War of awareness’

One of the youngest stops on the tour is in the basement of the Corcoran art museum, where Joerael Elliott has painted a hallway-length mural depicting the history of the Piscataway community from the north of Washington, in what is now Maryland.

The work took place after research with indigenous community members, said the New Mexico-based artist, who is not Native American.

Elliott is currently spearheading a global wall-painting project — which includes the new mural — to counter what he says is the divisive language of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Everywhere I go, I try to be aware of where I’m painting — what is the neighborhood, who was here before, how can I represent the era I’m in?” he said.

Elliott sees the mural, which is to be formally opened to the public in October, as offering a collection of histories, myths and philosophies specific to the Piscataway but that are largely unknown to most of the public.

Works like his, he said, help to fight “a war of awareness” on behalf of the country’s native peoples.

Rule is now thinking about how to expand the number of sites in the Guide to Indigenous DC app — and how to help other cities and native communities create similar guides for their own areas.

For her, one of the most important lessons the guide can teach is that the “conquest” of American Indians in the continent wasn’t successful.

“Colonization did happen, but this is still Indian land,” she said.

“You might not have a placard or a monument, but Indian culture and people and history are inscribed all over the place.”

Nigerian police plan to acquire stun guns and revise their rules of engagement in an effort to curb the use of deadly force, the inspector general of the force said Thursday.

The West African country, which plays a pivotal role in regional stability, is riven by security problems ranging from armed bandits who have forced 40,000 people to leave the northwest in recent months to communal violence between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities in central states.

Last month, a United Nations special rapporteur described Nigeria as a “pressure cooker of internal conflict” due to security problems and what it said was an excessive use of lethal force by police and military.

Mohammed Adamu told a gathering of senior officers in the capital, Abuja, that he had “initiated actions” toward deploying less lethal weapons — commonly known as stun guns — for low-risk police operations.

“This is with the intention of addressing public concerns on misuse of firearms by the police with its attendant consequences on lives and effect on the attainment of our community policing vision,” Adamu said, according to a copy of the speech distributed to media.

He did not say how much the stun guns would cost.  

Adamu said the force had also revised and simplified Force Order 237, which outlines its rules of engagement.

He did not specify what changes were made, but said the redesign would ensure the “protection of fundamental human rights” in policing.

The force is also arranging special training for certain units, including the counterterrorism unit, anti-robbery and kidnapping squads, and criminal investigation specialists.
 

Noisy conflict is common outside Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, with protesters sometimes using bullhorns to amplify their voices and the clinic itself blaring music to keep patients from hearing the protesters.

Owners of nearby businesses say the commotion is a headache for their customers who want to enjoy a meal or buy some clothes.

In response, the Jackson City Council voted 3-1 Tuesday to enact a local law limiting amplified sound outside health care facilities and creating buffer zones to move protesters further from the entrances. The law is set to take effect in about a month, and opponents say it unconstitutionally limits their right to free speech. A court challenge is likely.

The council vote came days before a federal appeals court was set to hear arguments over a 2018 Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks.

Like many places in the Deep South, Mississippi is a conservative state with a Republican-led Legislature that has been enacting laws to restrict access to abortion. Southern cities where abortion clinics are located tend to be more socially and politically liberal. That’s the case in Jackson, where most City Council members are Democrats.

But, during the Jackson debate, council members said limiting noise and creating a buffer zone is an attempt to help patients and local businesses rather than to help the clinic.

“This really is about access to health care,” Council president Virgi Lindsay, a Democrat, said after noting that people who spoke for the ordinance live in Jackson while most of those who spoke against it live other places.

The scene outside the bright pink clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was relatively quiet Wednesday, without amplified sound.

One man, who’s a regular there, held wooden rosary beads and murmured prayers. A few men and women tried to hand biblical tracts to people as they drove into the clinic parking lot. Three people wearing rainbow-striped vests emblazoned with “Clinic Escort” took turns trying to block protesters’ view of the patients, and some escorts walked with women from their cars to the clinic door.

As a vehicle with a license plate from Newton County, Mississippi, drove into the parking lot, Pastor David Lane called out: “I know some folks in Newton who will help you! I know some folks in Newton who will adopt your baby!”

“Oh, David, that’s enough,” clinic escort Derenda Hancock said to him with exasperation.

People from both sides are outside the clinic so often that many of the protesters and the volunteer clinic escorts know each other by name.

The clinic is in Jackson’s eclectic Fondren neighborhood, a short drive from the Capitol building where legislators have enacted several abortion restrictions that have been blocked by federal courts.

Across the street from the clinic, protesters sometimes stand outside restaurants and a T-shirt shop and hold graphic posters of aborted fetuses. Hancock said the ordinance won’t get rid of those images but could reduce the noise.

“If it is enforced the way it should be, it will allow the Jackson Women’s Health Organization to be more like it should be — a normal health clinic where women can come and at least have some dignity and some privacy,” Hancock said.

The Jackson ordinance prohibits people from protesting within 15 feet (5 meters) of any entrance to a health care facility. It also says that within 100 feet (30 meters) of the entrance of a health care facility, each person has a “personal bubble zone” of 8 feet (2 meters), and that unless the person gives permission, nobody else may get inside the bubble to hand over a leaflet or to engage in “oral protest, education or counseling.” Further, the ordinance prohibits amplified sound within 100 feet (30 meters) of the property line of a health care facility.

Violation carries a $1,000 fine, 90 days in jail or both.

A federal appeals court in February upheld the constitutionality of a 2009 Chicago ordinance that created an 8-foot (2-meter) bubble zone outside medical facilities. But, in 2014, the Supreme Court struck down a 2007 Massachusetts law that banned people from standing within 35 feet (11 meters) of an abortion clinic.

Dr. Coleman Boyd, an emergency room physician who leads a nondenominational Christian church in a Jackson suburb, said he and his family often pray outside the clinic and to try to talk women out of having abortions. He believes the ordinance is unconstitutional.

“They have one purpose,” Boyd said. “They want to silence those who are against abortion.”

The owner of the T-shirt shop, Ron Chane, told the City Council abortion protesters have yelled across the street at him. He said he didn’t deserve “any of those self-righteous comments.” He also expressed frustration with the clinic, saying if it was up to him and other local business owners, the clinic might not be there at all.

“Maybe it would be a dog park or a parking lot,” Chane said. “We just want peace.”

 

A popular singer who is challenging Uganda’s long-time president is urging his supporters to defy a government ban on civilian use of the red beret that has become a symbol of his movement.

Uganda’s government in September designated the red beret a military item, effectively banning its use by civilians such as Bobi Wine, who believes he is being targeted.

Wine, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, says he will run for president in 2021, likely against President Yoweri Museveni.

Wine faces multiple criminal offenses, including a treason charge stemming from his alleged role in an incident in which the president’s motorcade was pelted with stones.

Wine is urging Museveni to retire after three decades in power, saying young people should take over leadership in key positions.

In Turkey, a commemoration was held to mark the first anniversary of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi’s murder sparked widespread international condemnation of Saudi Arabia, and the calls for justice are continuing, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul

The European Union’s highest court says that Facebook can be ordered by an individual member state to remove or block access to material that was previously declared unlawful and says that it can have a worldwide impact.

The European Court of Justice ruling Thursday is seen as a defeat for Facebook as it could increase their responsibility for what is appearing on the internet.

The court ruled after an Austrian Greens politician sued the internet company in her home nation to remove comments that she considered bad for her reputation and insulting in a post that could be seen by any Facebook user.
 

Iraqi security forces used tear gas and fired live bullets to disperse protesters on the third day of anti-government demonstrations in Baghdad.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced a curfew Thursday seeking to control the protests in the capital city and elsewhere in the country.

Since the protests began Tuesday, clashes with security forces have left at least nine 19 dead with the Associated Press reporting 10 protesters killed overnight. Hundreds more have been injured. In addition to live rounds and tear gas, authorities have deployed water cannons and rubber bullets to try to break up the crowds.

Demonstrators are unhappy about poor government services and corruption.

There were widespread reports of internet outages Thursday.

The protests are the first major challenge to Abdul-Mahdi, who formed his government a year ago.

The government blamed the violence on “groups of riot inciters” and said security forces worked to protect the safety of peaceful protesters.

Iraq’s parliament has ordered a probe into the violence.

Many Iraqi citizens blame politicians and government officials for the corruption that has prevented the country from rebounding from years of sectarian violence and the battle to defeat Islamic State militants who at one point controlled large areas in the northern and western part of the country.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting, the Iraqi prime minister released a statement promising jobs for graduates. He also ordered the oil ministry and other government agencies to apply a 50 percent quota for local workers in future contracts with foreign countries.

Former U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker is set to testify before House committees Thursday about his involvement in U.S. President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. He is expected to speak behind closed doors to the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees.

Volker has served as a special envoy to Ukraine since he was appointed to the job by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Volker was in public service for more than 20 years, starting as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency in 1986.

After that followed time in the foreign service, serving overseas in London, Brussels and Budapest. He eventually ended up as special assistant to the U.S. special envoy for Bosnia negotiations, Richard Holbrooke.

Volker also served as a legislative fellow for Sen. John McCain for two years.

He became the first secretary of the U.S. mission to NATO in 1998. He worked in different capacities in NATO until 2005. His work there included being in charge of U.S. preparations for the summit in Prague in 2002 and the summit of NATO members in Istanbul in 2004.

Volker later became deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. He served in that position until President George W. Bush named him U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO in July 2008, where he served until May 2009.

He entered the private sector as an independent director at the Wall Street Fund, and worked at other financial groups. He also worked at McLarty Associates, a global consulting firm, and BGR Group, a lobbying firm and investment bank.

When Arizona State University launched the McCain Institute for International Leadership in 2012, Volker was its first executive director, a position he still holds.

He returned to public life in 2017 when Tillerson appointed him special envoy to Ukraine.

A Cambodian judge Thursday ordered a reinvestigation in the espionage case against two former Radio Free Asia journalists, saying he could not rule on their guilt or innocence without enough evidence.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Im Vannak ordered the new investigation on the day he was scheduled to deliver a verdict in the case against the two reporters, Uon Chhin and Yeang Sothearin.

The 2-year-old case has added to concerns about a crackdown on criticism and dissent by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who extended his rule of more than three decades in a general election last year after the main opposition party leader was arrested on treason charges and his party banned.

The two former reporters for Washington-based RFA were arrested in November 2017 and charged with espionage and producing pornography. They denied the charges.

Hun Sen has accused the United States of trying to end his rule.

RFA earlier in 2017 shut down its Phnom Penh office complaining of a “relentless crackdown on independent voices.”
 

Australia’s ban on Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s involvement in its future 5G networks and its crackdown on foreign covert interference are testing Beijing’s efforts to project its power overseas.

In its latest maneuver, China sent three scholars to spell out in interviews with Australian media and other appearances steps to mend the deepening rift with Beijing — a move that appears to have fallen flat.

In a recent press conference at the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, Chen Hong, the head of Australian studies at East China Normal University, accused Australia of acting as a “pawn” for the United States in lobbying other countries against Huawei’s involvement in 5G networks.

“Australia has been in one way or another, so to speak, pioneering this kind of anti-China campaign, even some kind of a scare and smear campaign against China,” Chen said. “That is definitely not what China will be appreciating, and if other countries follow suit, that is going to be recognized as extremely unfriendly,” he said.

After meetings in Beijing last week, Richard Marles, the opposition’s defense spokesman, assessed the relationship as “terrible.”

Australians see threat

A growing number of Australians are convinced that Beijing has been using inducements, threats, espionage and other clandestine tactics to influence their politics — methods critics believe Beijing might be honing for use in other Western democracies.

“Australia is seen as a test bed for Beijing’s high-pressure influence tactics,” said Clive Hamilton, author of “Silent Invasion,” a best seller that focuses on Chinese influence in Australia. “They are testing the capacity of the Australian democratic system to resist,” he said.

Trade partners

Still, Australian officials have downplayed talk of a diplomatic freeze. They must balance a growing wariness toward China and their desire for strong ties with the U.S. with the need to keep relations with their resource-rich country’s largest export market on an even keel.

Australia relies on China for one-third of its export earnings. Delays in processing of Australia exports of coal and wine at Chinese ports have raised suspicions of retaliation by Beijing.

While Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared to side with President Donald Trump on the issue of China’s trade status during a recent visit to Washington, he sought to temper suggestions by Trump that he had expressed “very strong opinions on China” in their closed-door meeting.

“We have a comprehensive, strategic partnership with China. We work well with China,” Morrison replied.

Trump and Morrison did agree that China has outgrown trade rule concessions allowed to developing nations, advantages it insists it should still be able to claim.

Morrison praised

Morrison, the prime minister, has won praise from the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times for standing up for Gladys Liu, the first Chinese-born lawmaker to be elected to Australia’s Parliament, when she was attacked for her associations with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, whose mission is to exert influence overseas.

Liu, who was born in Hong Kong in 1964, was elected to the conservative government in May to represent a Melbourne district with a large population of ethnic Chinese voters. She has said she had resigned from such organizations and any honorary positions she might have held, some possibly without her “knowledge or consent.”

Morrison accused her critics of smearing the 1.2 million people who make up the Chinese diaspora in Australia.

That was a “decent gesture,” the Global Times said.

Neutralizing influence

But while it seeks to control damage from the tensions with Beijing, the Australian government has been moving to neutralize its influence by banning foreign political donations and all covert foreign interference in domestic politics.

The Chinese scholars singled out for criticism Hamilton and another Australian author, John Garnaut, who has described Australia as the canary in the coal mine of Chinese Communist Party interference.

Hamilton’s book was published last year, but only after three publishers reneged on offers to back the book for fear of retaliation from Beijing. It became a top seller.

In comments to a U.S. congressional commission last year he asserted that Beijing was waging a “campaign of psychological warfare” against Australia, undermining democracy and silencing its critics.

In separate testimony, Garnaut, a former government security adviser, told the House of Representatives Arms Services Committee in Washington, D.C., that China’s meddling was aimed at undermining the U.S.-Australian security alliance.

In 2016, Garnaut was commissioned to write a classified report that found the Chinese Communist Party had for a decade tried to influence Australian policy, compromise political parties and gain access to all levels of government.

Others beginning to take note

He has said Australia is reacting to a threat that other countries are only starting to grapple with.

“This recognition has been assisted by the sheer brazenness of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s drive for global influence and by watching Russian President Vladimir Putin and his agents create havoc across the United States and Europe,” Garnaut wrote.

“In the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, it is far more difficult to dismiss foreign interference as a paranoid abstraction,” he added.

Garnaut, whose friend Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun has been detained in Beijing since January on suspicion of espionage, declined to comment to The Associated Press.

China wants to make an example of Australia, said Chinese-born Sydney academic Feng Chongyi, who was detained for 10 days and interrogated about his friend Garnaut’s investigation while visiting China in 2017.

“For the last two decades, Australia has been taken for a soft target because of this myth of economic dependence on China, so they believe they have sufficient leverage to force Australia to back off,” said Feng, a professor of China studies at the University of Technology in Sydney.

“They are extremely upset that Australia somehow in the last two years has taken the lead in what we call the democratic pushback” against Chinese interference, he said.

A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant accused of stockpiling weapons and planning mass killings that prosecutors said was “on a scale rarely seen in this country” will likely plead guilty in federal court Thursday.

Officials say Christopher Paul Hasson had amassed 15 guns, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, silencers and hand grenades and had drawn up a hit list of 15 prominent Democrats and journalists, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris. He was arrested at his Maryland home in February.

Police also found 100 pills of the opioid Tramadol and 30 bottles of human growth hormone.

Prosecutors have not charged Hasson of terrorism, instead they have filed charges on unlawful possession of silencers and two counts of possession of a controlled substance as well as possession of a firearm by an unlawful user or addict.

Officials say they began investigating Hasson after being alerted to searches on his work computer at the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.

He remains on active duty until the case is resolved.

A freakish heat wave is making early autumn feel like the dog days of summer in much of the southern and eastern U.S., with forecasters predicting Wednesday that temperatures could get close to triple digits.

Washington hit 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36 Celsius) late in the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), surpassing the city’s previous monthly record of 96 degrees on Oct. 5, 1941.

And October records were due to topple across the country, the NWS said.

Temperatures in some places could be as many as 30 degrees higher than normal, the NWS said, while a quarter of the country will reportedly experience temperatures above 90 degrees.

It’s been so bad this week that some schools in Ohio and Maryland that have no air conditioning are sending children home early or closing altogether.

In Tipp City, Ohio, teachers gave kids popsicles and held some classes in shady spots outdoors, NBC affiliate WDTN reported.

Records were set or tied Tuesday in more than a dozen cities including Cleveland, Ohio, New Orleans, Louisiana and Syracuse, New York, the Weather Channel reported.

Atlanta could break its all-time October record high of 95 degrees Wednesday or Thursday, it added.

Relief is expected late in the week as a cold front rushes in, sending temperatures way down. Some in the Northeast could even see the first frost or freeze of the season.

America has already experienced extreme weather at the other end of the scale this week, as the northern state of Montana was blanketed with record snowfall — four feet (1.20 meters) in the town of Browning.

And at 8 a.m. Wednesday in Billings, Montana’s largest town, it was a lowly 34 degrees Fahrenheit (1 Celsius).
 

The U.S. government plans to collect the DNA of all migrants detained after entering the country illegally, officials said Wednesday.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is developing a plan to take DNA samples from each of the undocumented immigrants and store it in a national database for criminal DNA profiles, they said.

Speaking to journalists on grounds of anonymity, DHS officials said the new policy would give immigration and border control agents a broader picture of the migrant and detainee situation.

And stored on the FBI’s CODIS DNA database, it could also be used by others in law enforcement and beyond.

“It does enhance our ability to further identify someone who has illegally entered the country,” said one official.

“It will assist other organizations as well in their identification ability.”

Officials said they were in fact required to take the DNA samples by rules about the handling of arrested and convicted people that were issued by the Justice Department in 2006 and 2010, but which had not been implemented.

They said the program for collecting DNA was still being developed, and they did not have a date set for implementation.

Collecting and storing the DNA of people simply detained and not tried or convicted of a crime could draw criticism from civil rights groups.

Earlier this year the U.S. Border Patrol began performing “rapid DNA” tests on migrants who cross the border as family units to determine if the individuals were actually related and were not making fraudulent claims.

The new program will collect much more genetic information than that program, and will store it.

“This is fundamentally different from rapid DNA,” said a second official.

“This is a more-full scope DNA profile.”

Democratic presidential contenders on Wednesday vowed to pursue far-reaching limits on guns while standing up to the gun lobby, tackling an issue that has increasingly become a chief concern for their party’s voters.

Nine of the leading candidates gathered in Las Vegas for an all-day forum on gun safety, one day after the city marked two years since it suffered the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, which killed 58 people.

The candidates offered details of various policies they have championed, including universal background checks, banning assault-style weapons and requiring gun owners to obtain licenses.

But they also urged the hundreds of gathered activists to continue pressing the issue, arguing that their movement already has the power to prevail over the National Rifle Association.

“We cannot wait for this hell to be visited upon your community for you to be activated for this fight,” said U.S. Senator Cory Booker, who spoke passionately about witnessing firsthand the everyday scourge of gun violence in his low-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. “It is a life-and-death issue for people in communities like mine.”

But the specter of the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine could overshadow policy debates on the campaign trail, while threatening to imperil negotiations between the White House and lawmakers on legislation to expand background checks for firearm purchases.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has ascended to the second spot in public opinion polling behind former Vice President Joe Biden, rejected Trump’s assertion on Wednesday that the Democratic impeachment inquiry is to blame for inaction on gun safety, calling it an “alternative reality.”

“You have to stop and ask yourself the question: What is so badly broken in this democracy that something that the overwhelming majority of Americans want to see done doesn’t get done,” she said. “And the answer is, there’s too much power in the hands of the gun industry and the gun lobby.”

Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, who has been one of his party’s leading voices on gun safety since 20 schoolchildren were massacred in 2012 in his home state of Connecticut, has been negotiating with the White House on background checks.

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, he conceded the impeachment inquiry could prove an obstacle but also said Trump may be more inclined to support legislation to demonstrate that the investigation is not “the functional end of his presidency.”

The forum, hosted by the gun safety advocacy group Giffords and the student-led organization March For Our Lives, is the latest evidence that the politics around gun control have shifted following a spate of high-profile mass shootings in recent years.

But in Washington, the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate has shown little appetite for new limits for fear of angering the gun lobby. Trump, whose election campaign in 2016 was bolstered by millions of dollars from the National Rifle Association, has offered mixed signals.

Biden, who was scheduled to appear at the forum later on Wednesday, released a gun reform plan ahead of the event that would ban assault-style rifles but does not go as far as some other proposals.

Both Booker and former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, for instance, have called for mandatory buyback programs to remove assault-style weapons from circulation, a move Biden did not endorse.

Biden also did not call for a national licensing program, which has drawn support from several other candidates. In his remarks, Booker noted that large majorities already support licensing.

“You should not be a nominee from our party that can seriously stand in front of urban places and say, ‘I will protect you,’ if you don’t believe in gun licensing,” Booker said. “This is not about leadership. It’s about standing with the overwhelming majority of Americans on gun licensing.”

The forum gave candidates an opportunity to push back against arguments that their positions are either impractical or politically untenable.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, rejected the notion that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guarantee of a right to bear arms would be violated by banning assault-style weapons.

“Anybody can have a water balloon; nobody can have a Predator drone,” said Buttigieg, who does not support mandatory buybacks of assault-style weapons. “Somewhere we’re going to draw a line. And all we’re saying … is that we need to draw the line a lot tighter.”

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who had been scheduled to appear, was forced to cancel after his hospitalization for a procedure to clear a blocked artery.

Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, whose eponymous nonprofit co-hosted the event, made a brief appearance at the start of the day, telling supporters to “fight, fight, fight!”

Giffords suffered brain damage when she was shot in the head in 2011 during a mass shooting in Arizona.
 

A high-tech building named after Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and Jimmy Iovine will be opened on the University of Southern California campus.

Dr. Dre and Iovine are expected to attend a dedication ceremony for the Iovine and Young Hall on the campus Wednesday. The building was named after the duo who donated a combined $70 million in 2013 to create an art, technology and business academy at the college.

The hall will provide a learning space featuring 3-D printers, electronic labs, a podcast studio and alumni incubator space.

Dr. Dre is best known as a producer, rapper and co-owner of Death Row Records. He later started his own record label, Aftermath Entertainment.

Iovine is a music industry entrepreneur who is known as the co-founder of Interscope Records.

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered inspections of Boeing 737 NG aircraft for structural cracks after Boeing discovered the problem on planes undergoing modifications, the agency said Wednesday.

The mandate affects 1,911 U.S.-registered aircraft and is expected to require about 165 planes to be inspected within seven days, the agency said. The NG is a precursor plane to the Boeing 737 MAX, which has been grounded since mid-March following two deadly crashes.

The FAA said Boeing notified the agency of the problem after encountering the issue on a plane in China and that subsequent inspections showed other planes also had cracks.

The agency said the inspections can be done visually and require about an hour.

The order comes as Boeing faces stepped-up oversight from the FAA and international regulators in the wake of crashes of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines that together claimed 346 lives.

Boeing has targeted the fourth quarter to win approval from regulators to resume flights on the MAX, while acknowledging that the time-frame is up to regulators.