The operation dubbed “Find Jovenel Moise” organized by opposition leaders demanding the resignation of Haiti’s president ended abruptly when he appeared at the National Palace early this week following violent protests in which several people were killed.
 
Haitians had become so accustomed to not seeing their president in person amid a deepening political and economic crisis that his arrival at the palace Tuesday took protesters by surprise, with only a handful of them present to pelt his convoy with rocks.
 
Despite the rarity of his public appearances, the embattled leader has given no indication that he will step down after nearly a month of demonstrations against corruption, spiraling inflation and dwindling supplies of food and gasoline. Opponents have scheduled another protest for Wednesday, promising to once again paralyze Haiti’s capital and nearby communities if he doesn’t leave office.
 
As the standoff continues, Haitians wonder who will yield first: the protesters or the president.
 
“It’s a dramatic situation, a chaotic situation,” said Evans Paul, a former prime minister and Moise ally who privately discussed the crisis Monday with the Core Group, which includes officials from the United Nations, United States, Canada, France and others.
 
Paul told The Associated Press that while those present did not say whether Moise should remain in power or resign, they urged dialogue, voiced support for Haiti’s institutions and defended democratic principles, with Paul noting that Moise was elected by the people in 2017 for a five-year term.
 
He also said government officials are outlining ways to exit the crisis. He believes Moise has two options: choose a prime minister backed by the opposition or possibly reduce the length of his presidential term. However, Paul said many problems remain, including the lack of a provisional electoral commission.
 
After the meeting, Paul said, he met with Moise to talk about the options and negotiations are continuing.
 

“He hasn’t said yes yet,” Paul said, adding that while he has encouraged Moise to make bigger concessions, “he can’t put everything on the table.”
 
The opposition has rejected Moise’s pick for a new prime minister, with a Sept. 23 vote being indefinitely postponed after a senator who said he was trying to protect himself from protesters fired his pistol outside Haiti’s Senate, injuring an AP photographer and a security guard.
 
If Moise and key officials arrive at a solution, it will likely be announced by a non-partisan group instead of the president to lend it credibility and appease the people, Paul said.
 
Moise’s rare appearance Tuesday came a day after he presided over a meeting with a special council of ministers by phone, government spokesman Eddy Jackson Alexis confirmed to AP.
 
A spokesman for Moise did not return a message for comment, and neither did officials with the U.S. Embassy in Haiti. A Canadian government official said no one was available for comment.
 
A spokesman for the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti declined requests for an interview but issued a statement saying the mission was concerned about reports of violence and arson, seeks to have democratic processes respected and is working to encourage a peaceful resolution.
 
On the day the Core Group met, opposition leader and attorney Andre Michel tweeted that Haitians must remain mobilized until a president and interim government is installed: “We will not take orders from foreigners.”
 
Among those joining the opposition’s call for Moise’s resignation is Paul Emile Demostine, an EMT who joined the protests and spoke near a barricade of burning debris.
 
“Ever since he became president, it’s been total misery,” Demostine said, adding that his children have been unable to go to school as a result of the protests. “We need Haiti to change completely.”
 
Protesters also are demanding a more in-depth investigation into allegations that top officials in the previous administration misused billions of dollars in proceeds from a Venezuela-subsidized oil plan. Critics accuse Moise of trying to protect his ally, former President Michel Martelly, and of participating in the corruption himself before becoming president.
 
The protests have paralyzed the economy and closed down roads across the country, upending the supply chain and disrupting the distribution of food and gasoline, with long lines forming at a handful of gas stations and water kiosks that remain open.
 
“It’s an extremely serious situation,” said Haitian economist Kesner Pharel. “The political situation has been disastrous, and we are paying dearly for it.”
 
Prices have been rising in a country of nearly 11 million people where some 60 percent make less than $2 a day, he said. Inflation hit 19% in July, the latest number available, and economists predict it could be at 20% or higher in October, which would mark the first time that level since 2008, a situation that sparked food riots, Pharel said.
 
He also noted the fiscal year began Oct. 1 but the government has not yet approved a new budget, adding that this year could see a 1% contraction in the economy as the demographic rate increases.
 
“You’re going to have more extreme poverty,” Pharel said. “We have a very volatile situation.”

Thousands of people protested Tuesday in the northern French city of Rouen to denounce the consequences for health and the environment of last week’s fire at a chemical factory. The blaze that broke out early Thursday ravaged the Lubrizol chemical plant in Rouen, a port city on the river Seine and the capital of Normandy, and created a huge black cloud over the region. Environmentalists and health experts are concerned that the toxic chemicals produced by Lubrizol could pollute the air and water in the area and pose health risks. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

U.S. President Donald Trump is criticizing an impeachment inquiry against him as a “coup,” while the heads of several House of Representatives committees accuse Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of blocking their efforts to gather documents and interview witnesses.

“As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2019

Majority Democrats in the House are pursuing the impeachment inquiry to see whether they want to officially bring charges against Trump under their constitutional authority to seek to remove officials who engage in “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The State Department’s inspector general is expected to meet Wednesday with staff from the House and Senate appropriations, oversight, foreign affairs and intelligence committees to discuss documents that lawmakers have requested as they probe a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The House intelligence, oversight and foreign affairs committees had asked to hear testimony Wednesday from former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, but that session was postponed until next week.  Former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker is expected to speak to the committees on Thursday.

Trump has said he did nothing wrong in his discussions with Zelenskiy.  A whistleblower filed a complaint expressing concern that Trump was seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election by asking Ukraine to investigate Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Pompeo sent a letter Tuesday to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel saying requests for State Department documents and depositions with current and former officials “can be understood only as an attempt to intimidate, bully, and treat improperly” the department’s staff.

He said the requests raise “significant legal and procedural concerns,” and dismissed warnings that not cooperating would amount to obstruction.

Engel, along with Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, responded by pointing to reports that Pompeo was on Trump’s call with Zelenskiy, saying that means he has an “obvious conflict of interest” and “should not be making any decisions regarding witness testimony or document production in order to protect himself or the President.”

They wrote that if it is true Pompeo participated in the call, then he is “now a fact witness in the impeachment inquiry.”

Hundreds of people held a vigil Wednesday outside the Hong Kong school of a young demonstrator shot by riot police during violent anti-Beijing protests Tuesday.  

Video footage showed a police office brandishing his weapon and shooting the 18-year-old at close range in the chest as the protester was about to strike the officer with a metal rod.  The shooting marked the first time Hong Kong police have used live rounds since the demonstrations began in June.  

Hong Kong police chief Stephen Lo said the officer was justified in using his gun because he feared for his life.  Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at umbrella-carrying protesters, who hurled homemade gasoline bombs at them and set several fires throughout the main section of the city

The wounded student is reportedly in stable condition at a Hong Kong hospital.  Protesters who gathered outside his school Wednesday held up posters and photos depicting the shooting.  

Tuesday’s violent clashes between pro-democracy demonstrators and Hong Kong security forces marred the carefully choreographed celebration in Beijing marking the 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China. The four-month-old protests in Hong Kong, which were sparked by a proposed bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China, mark a direct challenge to Beijing’s tightening grip on the autonomous city.  

Although Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam later withdrew the bill, the protests have since evolved into renewed demands for Hong Kongers to choose their own leaders, ending the current system where business elites with ties to Beijing select nearly half the legislative body.

The demonstrators are also demanding an independent inquiry into possible use of excessive force by police and complete amnesty for all activists arrested.  

In his National Day speech Tuesday, President Xi Jinping reaffirmed both Hong Kong and Macau’s one country, two systems autonomy, but emphasized that his government will continue to fight to reunify the entire Chinese population, which includes the autonomously ruled island of Taiwan.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday signed a decree with a variety of measures to expand financing for farmers.

The measures include the creation of a “fraternal” fund that will provide an estimated 5 billion reais ($1.20 billion) in additional credit for the sector, according to Rogerio Miranda, the Economy Ministry’s subsecretary for agriculture policy.

The fund will be partially funded by agricultural producers themselves and provides for farmers to band together to seek joint guarantees when renegotiating debts.

Bolosonaro is instituting the measures by what is known as a temporary decree, that must be approved by Congress within 120 days or its effects will expire.

The decree also included measures to equalize interest rates between all players providing loans to the farm sector, which officials said is aimed at promoting competition.

The policy will also subsidize grains companies to expand their storage capacity.

($1 = 4.1574 reais)

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday pleaded for time and patience to bring the economy back from the “dead,” as his government faces blame for surging inflation evoking dark days under Robert Mugabe.

Hopes that the economy would quickly rebound under Mnangagwa, who took over after Mugabe was deposed in a coup in November 2017, have faded fast with Zimbabweans grappling with acute shortages of fuel and electricity and soaring prices.

In a state of the nation address in parliament, boycotted by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which disputes his election, Mnangagwa acknowledged the economic crisis as well as the need for reforms.

“I’m aware of the pain being experienced by the poor and the marginalised. Getting the economy working again from being dead will require time, patience, unity of purpose and perseverance,” Mnangagwa said.

Zimbabwe has suspended the publication of official annual inflation data since August 1. In its last official figures, inflation hit more than 175% in June, its highest level since hyperinflation under Mugabe wiped out the economy in 2009.

Mnangagwa’s opponents accuse him of lacking commitment to political reforms and using his predecessor’s heavy-handed tactics to stifle dissent.

The International Monetary Fund said last week that Zimbabwe needed to intensify reform efforts and meaningfully improve transparency to boost economic growth.

Mnangagwa and senior officials say they are doing their best to lay the foundations for future growth and blame Western sanctions for hampering recovery and deterring investment.

A United Nations human rights envoy said on Friday that Zimbabwe’s political and economic environment was deteriorating, causing anxiety as hopes fade for a long-awaited improvement in people’s living conditions.

In his address on Tuesday, Mnangagwa repeated his commitment to implement recommendations made by election observer missions to Zimbabwe’s 2018 election, as well as a commission of inquiry led by former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe.

The observers and the commission had called for broad security, political and electoral reforms.

Mnangagwa, whose election last year remains disputed by the MDC, once again invited the opposition party to dialogue.

The MDC, led by Nelson Chamisa, has refused to take part in a dialogue forum convened by Mnangagwa, insisting on talks led by a neutral mediator.

U.S. President Donald Trump wanted a trench filled with snakes and alligators along an electric-charged border wall topped with flesh-piercing spikes, The New York Times reports.

The newspaper says the president also suggested U.S. soldiers shoot migrants in the legs if they try to cross into the United States before staffers talked him out of it.

The Times says it based its story on interviews with more than a dozen White House officials who met with Trump on ways to stop illegal migration from Central America across the Mexican border.

Although it is unclear how serious Trump was about such proposals as a snake-filled moat, the Times paints a picture of an extremely angry president, frustrated by his administration’s inability to stop the flow of migrants, the failure of his department heads to carry out his orders, and what he regarded as their moderate approach to tackling the crisis.

The news report focuses on an Oval Office meeting in March where Trump ordered the entire 3,200-kilometer border with Mexico shut down by noon the next day.

White House aides and advisors, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, tried to talk him out of it.

“You’re making me look like an idiot,” Trump is reported as shouting to those in attendance. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.”

Witnesses say the president cursed and ranted as he demanded a total border closure before the meeting broke up. The Times say it took nearly a week for aides to talk him out of it as not only impractical, but economically destructive.

The report says Trump had especially harsh treatment for Nielsen, regarding her as weak. He appeared to show little patience the few times she challenged him, including his proposal to shoot down drones at the border and that the government simply take land for a wall without permission from property owners. Nielsen resigned in April.

The White House has not yet commented on the report. But Trump frequently refers to the newspaper as the “failing” New York Times, regarding it as a purveyor of fake news and having a liberal bias.

Citing an escalation of violence by Islamic State-affiliated women, supervisors at the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria are calling on the international community to find a solution for thousands of such women and children who are being held at the overcrowded refugee camp. VOA’s Mutlu Civiroglu reports from the al-Hol camp.

A U.S. government watchdog on Tuesday harshly criticized the Drug Enforcement Agency for its response to the opioid crisis, saying that amid a surge in opioid-related deaths the agency failed to use its most powerful deterrent and authorized an increase in pain pill output.

A report released by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, whose office is an internal government watchdog, found the DEA was “slow to respond to the dramatic increase in opioid abuse” since 2000.

The report criticized the DEA for cutting back on use of an enforcement tool known as “immediate suspension orders,” which allows it to halt pill shipments, between 2013 and 2017.

Horowitz’s report also found that between 2002 and 2013 the DEA authorized a 400% increase in production of the opioid oxycodone, and that the agency did not significantly reduce production of the pain pill until 2017.

Nearly 400,000 deaths in the United States have been linked to overdoses of opioids from 1990 to 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The DEA said in a statement that it appreciated Horowitz’s assessment and that it has made improvements intended to control the diversion of opioids.

“Working with United States Attorneys’ Offices across the country, an increasing number of individuals and corporations are facing civil and criminal charges for actions that have fueled the opioid crisis,” the DEA added.

Horowitz’s report said that the DEA, which is part of the Justice Department, had recently taken steps to address the opioid epidemic, including increasing its intelligence sharing with local law enforcement agencies and launching “community outreach efforts” to raise awareness of the dangers of opioids.

Horowitz found that more progress was needed, however, and that the DEA should establish “measurable performance metrics” to determine if some of its efforts were working.

Companies like drug distributor McKesson Corp and Oxicontin maker Purdue Pharma, which have been accused of enabling opioid abuse in many pending lawsuits, have long argued that they abided by the DEA’s production quotas and that it was not their place to second-guess the agency’s determinations.
 

The Federal Communications Commission could dump rules that keep internet providers from favoring some services over others, but couldn’t bar states like California from enacting their own prohibitions, a federal court ruled.

While Tuesday’s ruling handed Trump-appointed regulators a partial victory, consumer advocates and other groups viewed the ruling as a victory for states and local governments seeking to put in their own net neutrality rules.

The FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rules had barred internet providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from blocking, slowing down or charging internet companies to favor some sites or apps over others.
 
After the FCC repealed the rules, phone and cable companies are permitted to slow down or block services they don’t like or happen to be in competition with. Companies could also charge higher fees of rivals and make them pay for higher transmission speeds.
 
Such things have happened before. In 2007, for example, The Associated Press found that Comcast was blocking or throttling some file-sharing. And AT&T blocked Skype and other internet calling services on the iPhone until 2009.

The court now says that’s all permissible — as long as companies disclose it.

But in Tuesday’s decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the FCC failed to show legal authority to bar states from imposing any rules that the agency repealed or that are stricter than its own.

“This ruling empowers states to move forward in the absence of a federal approach to consumer protections,” said Lisa Hayes, co-CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology.

States already have come up with their own net neutrality laws, including one in California that was put on hold until Tuesday’s court decision. Congressional Democrats have attempted, unsuccessfully, to reverse the FCC’s repeal.
 
The federal court directed the FCC to rework its order to include the impact of its repeal on public safety. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the agency will address the “narrow issues” cited by the court.

“Today’s decision is a victory for consumers, broadband deployment, and the free and open internet,” Pai said in a statement. He maintained that speeds for consumers have increased by 40% since the agency’s 2017 repeal “and millions more Americans have gained access to the internet.”

Net neutrality has evolved from a technical concept into a politically charged issue, the focus of street and online protests and a campaign issue lobbed against Republicans and the Trump administration.
 
The FCC has long mulled over how to enforce it. The agency had twice lost in court over net-neutrality standards before a Democrat-led commission in 2015 voted in a regime that made internet service a utility, bringing phone and cable companies under stricter oversight. An appeals court sanctioned the 2015 rules.
 
After the 2016 election, President Donald Trump appointed a more industry-friendly FCC chairman. Pai repealed the net neutrality rules in 2017, saying they had undermined investment in broadband networks.
 

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy lost a final court appeal Tuesday against an order that he stand trial on charges of illegal financing for his 2012 election campaign.

Sarkozy, who already faces a separate trial for corruption involving a judge, is accused of spending nearly double the legal limit of 22.5 million euros ($24.5 million) on his failed re-election bid.

France’s highest criminal appeal court rejected his attempt to avoid facing the charges, paving the way for a trial date to be set after multiple challenges by Sarkozy’s legal team.

Prosecutors claim the 64-year-old Sarkozy, who has spent the past few years fighting a barrage of corruption and campaign financing charges, spent nearly 43 million euros on his quest for a second term.

In the end, he was beaten by the Socialist Party’s Francois Hollande.

Investigators claim that Sarkozy’s campaign used fake invoices to get around the campaign spending limits.

Sarkozy has rejected the charges, saying he was unaware of the fraud by executives at the public relations firm Bygmalion.

He faces a year in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros if convicted.

Thirteen other people, including a number of Bygmalion executives, have also been charged in the case.

Iran’s judiciary says it has sentenced a man to death for spying for the CIA, amid rising tensions between Tehran and the U.S.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhhossein Esmaili said Tuesday two other people were sentenced to 10 years in prison for the same crime and a fourth received a 10 year sentence for spying for Britain.

Esmaili said the individual who received the death sentence has appealed and that a final decision will be made by the country’s appeals court.

The verdicts came as tensions between Iran and the U.S. continue to heighten after President Donald Trump withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. Trump has also renewed sanctions that have weakened Iran’s economy in an attempt to pressure Tehran to renegotiate the deal.

Esmaili declined to identify the recipient of the death sentence.

He said the two men sentenced to 10 years for spying for the CIA were Iranian nationals Ali Nefriyeh and Mohammad Ali Babapour. The men were ordered to repay $55,000 they had received.

Esmaili said the person sentenced for spying for British intelligence was Mohammad Amin-Nasab, also an Iranian.
 
Esmaili also announced that an appeals court had reduced the prison term for President Hassan Rouhani’s brother, who had been convicted on bribery charges. Hossein Fereidoun’s sentence had been cut from seven to five years.

It was not immediately known if Tuesday’s sentences were linked to cases stemming from Iran’s announcement in July that it captured 17 spies working for the CIA.

There has been no U.S. comment on the sentences announced Tuesday.

The speaker of Nepal’s parliament, one of the country’s leading Communist Party leaders, resigned Tuesday following allegations that he raped a government worker at her home while he was intoxicated.

In the letter of resignation, Krishna Bahadur Mahara said he wants to make it easier for an independent and unbiased investigation of the allegation.

Police refused to comment. News reports said the woman accused Mahara of entering her house Sunday night while her husband was away and assaulting her.

An earlier statement issued by Mahara’s office said the allegation was baseless and that he had stepped out of his official residence for only two hours in the afternoon and was home on Sunday evening.

It said the woman had been refused a position in Mahara’s office and was likely angry as a result.

Mahara was elected speaker of the House of Representative last year after the Communist Party of Nepal won a majority of the seats in elections in November 2017.

Mahara was a leading figure of the Maoist rebels who fought a violent campaign against the government between 1996 and 2006. The Maoists entered United Nations-monitored peace talks in 2006, ending their armed revolt, and joined mainstream politics. Mahara played a key role in the peace talks with the government.

He has served as deputy prime minister, information minister and home minister.

Former national security adviser John Bolton says North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons voluntarily. In his first speech after being ousted from the Trump administration, Bolton said North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un will do “whatever he can to keep a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.”  Bolton’s talk Monday coincided with a North Korean envoy’s address to the United Nations General Assembly in which he accused the United States of “provocations” that hamper the progress of talks on the situation in the region. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

The controversy over U.S. President Donald Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president continues, with Trump threatening both the whistleblower who outlined a detailed complaint about Trump’s actions as well as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who is now leading the impeachment inquiry. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.

British-registered companies have facilitated North Korean efforts to evade international sanctions, according to an investigation by the London-based Royal United Services Institute. The report reveals how British companies are being used to operate cargo ships smuggling coal out of North Korea. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.

South Korea showcased newly acquired F-35 stealth fighter jets to mark Armed Forces Day on Tuesday as President Moon Jae-in tries to allay concerns that his policy of engagement with North Korea may be weakening the South’s commitment to defense.

North Korea has criticized the South’s weapons procurement and its joint military drills with the U.S. military as undisguised preparations for war that were forcing it to develop new short-range missiles.

Moon has thrown his support behind dialogue to end the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, urging that working-level negotiations between the North and the United States be held soon. No new dates or locations have been set.

Moon marked the founding of the South Korean military at a ceremony at an airbase in the city of Taegu that highlighted four of the eight Lockheed Martin F-35A jets delivered this year. Forty of the aircraft are to be delivered by 2021.

Analysts have said the F-35 stealth jets put North Korea’s anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems in a vulnerable position, with Pyongyang claiming that use of the jets forced it to develop new missiles to “completely destroy” the threat.

Negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have stalled since a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke down in February over disagreements on denuclearization.

North Korea blamed the United States on Monday for a failure to restart talks, with Pyongyang’s U.N. ambassador Kim Song saying it was time for Washington to share proposals for talks that showed Washington had adopted a new “calculation method.”

South Korea and the United States have separately begun talks for a new military burden-sharing agreement to decide the portion South Korea will shoulder for the cost of stationing what is now about 28,500 U.S. troops in the country.

Moon told Trump during a summit in New York last week what South Korea would contribute, including an increase in purchases of U.S. weapons and future purchase plans, a senior official at South Korea’s presidential office said.

Eating red meat is linked to cancer and heart disease, but are the risks big enough to give up burgers and steak?

A team of international researchers says probably not, contradicting established advice. In a series of papers published Monday, the researchers say the increased risks are small and uncertain and that cutting back likely wouldn’t be worth it for people who enjoy meat.

Their conclusions were swiftly attacked by a group of prominent U.S. scientists who took the unusual step of trying to stop publication until their criticisms were addressed.

The new work does not say red meat and processed meats like hot dogs and bacon are healthy or that people should eat more of them. The reviews of past studies generally support the ties to cancer, heart disease and other bad health outcomes. But the authors say the evidence is weak, and that there’s not much certainty meat is really the culprit, since other diet and lifestyle factors could be at play.

Most people who understand the magnitude of the risks would say “Thanks very much, but I’m going to keep eating my meat,” said co-author Dr. Gordon Guyatt of McMaster University in Canada.

It’s the latest example of how divisive nutrition research has become, with its uncertainties leaving the door open for conflicting advice. Critics say findings often aren’t backed by strong evidence. Defenders counter that nutrition studies can rarely be conclusive because of the difficulty of measuring the effects of any single food, but that methods have improved.

“What we need to do is look at the weight of evidence — that’s what courts of law use,” said Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition at Harvard University who was among those calling for the papers’ publication to be postponed.

Willett, who has led studies tying meat to bad health outcomes, also said the reviews do not consider the particularly pronounced benefits of switching from red meat to vegetarian options.

The journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, defended the work and said the request to have it pulled before publication is not how scientific discourse is supposed to happen. Guyatt called the attempt to halt publication “silly.”

In the papers, the authors sought to gauge the potential impact of eating less meat, noting the average of two to four servings a week eaten in North America and Western Europe. They said the evidence for cutting back wasn’t compelling. For example, they found that cutting three servings a week would result in seven fewer cancer deaths per 1,000 people.

Based on the analyses, a panel of the international researchers said people do not have to cut back for health reasons. But they note their own advice is weak and that they didn’t take into account other factors, such as animal welfare and the toll meat production has on the environment.

There was dissent even among the authors; three of the 14 panelist said they support reducing red and processed meats. A co-author of one review is also among those who called for a publication delay.

Those who pushed to postpone publication also questioned why certain studies were included or excluded in the reviews. Harvard’s Dr. Frank Hu also noted that about a third of American adults eat at least one serving of red meat a day. He said the benefits of cutting back would be larger for those who eat such high amounts.

Still, other researchers not involved in the reviews have criticized nutrition science for producing weak and conflicting findings. Dr. John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, said such advice can distract from clearer, more effective messages, such as limiting how much we eat.

As for his own diet, Guyatt said he no longer thinks red or processed meats have significant health risks. But he said he still avoids them out of habit, and for animal welfare and environmental reasons.

John Kerry got “Swift Boated” in 2004. For Hillary Clinton in 2016, it was her “damn emails.” Remembering those failed Democratic presidential campaigns, Joe Biden is determined not to get “Ukrained” in 2020.

Since a whistleblower report last week revealed that President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden, the former vice president has struck an aggressive tone.

He has told supporters that he would beat Trump “like a drum” in a general election and that the Republican president is scared of that possibility. Biden has demanded that reporters “ask the right questions” and accused Trump of trying to “hijack” the campaign with unfounded assertions that Biden and his son Hunter had corrupt dealings in Ukrainian business and politics.

Biden has built his campaign around the idea that he can return Washington to a more stable pre-Trump era. But Biden’s ability to win will turn on his ability to navigate the turbulent, no-holds-barred vortex that Trump has imposed on American politics with his Twitter megaphone, deep well of campaign cash and phalanx of surrogates.

And while many Democratic strategists and Biden supporters give him plaudits for pushback, there remain some worries about how the storyline might affect Biden’s tenuous front-runner status.

“It’s really a no-win situation,” said Karen Finney, an adviser to Clinton in 2016, when the former secretary of state was besieged with media scrutiny and Trump criticism over her use of a private email server when she ran the State Department.

Finney credited the Biden campaign for “working the refs” by sending detailed memos to the media explaining the timeline of Hunter Biden’s service on a Ukrainian energy company board and Joe Biden’s involvement in Ukraine as vice president and for pressuring television executives not to give a platform to Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney.

Giuliani has alleged that Biden, while vice president, tried to quash a Ukrainian investigation of the company that paid Hunter Biden as a board member. The top Ukrainian prosecutor said earlier this year that his team found no wrongdoing, and there’s no evidence that U.S. law enforcement has gotten involved.

Trump, nonetheless, raised his theory in a July telephone conversation with the new Ukrainian president, asking Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens anew. That move, now the center of a formal whistleblower complaint and the House impeachment inquiry, could be found to violate U.S. law making it a crime to solicit or accept foreign contributions in an American election.

“This is about Donald Trump, not Joe Biden,” said Barry Goodman, a Michigan attorney and major Biden donor.

But a media cacophony can smother any argument, Finney said, pointing back to Clinton and to Kerry’s 2004 campaign. Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran who’d earned a Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his service, was criticized in the summer of 2004 by a group of Vietnam veterans who — contrary to military records — questioned the service accounts that resulted in his recognition. Kerry was later admonished for not aggressively counterattacking the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” despite his campaign releasing his military records.

“It’s just a tough situation,” Finney said, putting the onus on the media “to not get sucked in.”

Goodman, the Biden donor, said he’s pleased with the campaign’s strategy. But he said there are other ways to stay on offense — and not necessarily against Trump. Biden must also push back against Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, his chief progressive rivals for the Democratic nomination.

“Many Democrats are scared … of ‘Medicare for All’ and losing their private health insurance,” Goodman said, referring to single-payer health insurance proposals from Sanders and Warren. Goodman noted an ongoing United Auto Workers strike in Michigan. “Those people are striking to keep the health care they have,” he said, recommending that Biden go to Michigan and turn the issue around on his primary rivals.

Interviews with Democratic voters in early primary states make clear Biden’s challenge.

“I think that a certain amount of dirt will stick to him, even if it shouldn’t,” said Lee Williams, 69, of Fort Mill, South Carolina. A retired Navy officer, Williams backs Warren, even though he says his politics align with the more centrist Biden. “The fact is,” Williams says, “that truth doesn’t matter to Trump, so on the campaign trail, all you will hear is Biden, corruption, Ukraine.”

In New Hampshire, Ellen Bowles, a 71-year-old retired middle school teacher, said she is uncomfortable with people using their influence even if there’s no wrongdoing. Biden had been her second choice among Democrats behind Warren, but that’s no longer the case.

“I think (Biden’s) going to have to talk a lot more about what his son was doing in Ukraine,” Bowles said. “I just feel that he’s going to get tainted by that somehow.”

The Republican-led Senate on Thursday confirmed lawyer Eugene Scalia, a son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as President Donald Trump’s new labor secretary.

The Senate voted along party lines, 53-44, to approve Scalia’s nomination. Republicans said his background in labor and employment law made him qualified for the post. Democrats said Scalia fought for corporations and against workers and was the wrong candidate for the Cabinet post.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he received more than 30 letters of support for Scalia from small-business owners, workers, former career lawyers at the Labor Department, where Scalia once worked, and more.

“It is important for the Department of Labor to create an environment to help employers and employees succeed in today’s rapidly changing workplace,” said Alexander, R-Tenn.

Scalia spent the bulk of his career as a partner in the Washington office of the Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher firm, where he rang up a string of victories in court cases on behalf of business interests challenging labor and financial regulations. He also served for a year as the Labor Department’s top lawyer during the George W. Bush administration.

“The president has sent us a corporate lawyer who’s fought over and over to stop workplace protections, to undermine worker safety, to depress workers’ wages over and over and over again,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

The AFL-CIO opposed the nomination, calling Scalia a union-busting lawyer who has eroded labor rights and consumer protections.

“We will not forget this betrayal by the Trump administration, and we will never stop fighting to ensure all working people have the safety protections on the job they deserve,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Business interests viewed Scalia as a sturdy opponent of government overreach and backed his nomination.

FreedomWorks, a conservative group that helped launch the tea party movement, said Scalia’s confirmation “is a victory in the fight against outdated, burdensome workplace regulations that neither protect employees nor encourage job and wage growth.”

Scalia becomes the seventh former lobbyist to hold a Cabinet-level post in the Trump administration.

On his financial disclosure form filed with the Office of Government Ethics, Scalia listed 49 clients who paid him $5,000 or more for legal services, including e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs, Facebook, Ford, Walmart and Bank of America.

Disclosure records show Scalia was registered in 2010 and 2011 to lobby for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Trump’s previous labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, resigned in July after renewed criticism for his handling of a 2008 secret plea deal with financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was found dead last month in his cell at a federal jail in Manhattan after his July arrest on sex trafficking charges.

Deputy Labor Secretary Pat Pizzella has been serving as acting secretary.