“I’ll refer you to the report on that.”

“That’s accurate based on what’s in the report.”

“I don’t want to wade in those waters.”

So it went for more than five hours as former special counsel Robert Mueller appeared before two congressional committees Wednesday to testify about his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and alleged presidential obstruction of justice, closely hewing to a final report he submitted to Attorney General William Barr in March.

Ahead of his appearance before the House judiciary and intelligence committees, Mueller, a former FBI director, had warned that he’d not stray beyond his 448-page legal thicket. He stuck to his word, frustrating both Democrats and Republicans in the process.

Differing outcomes

Democrats had hoped the public would hear from the special counsel himself damning details of misdeeds by President Donald Trump. With Mueller clearly unwilling to deliver, they were forced to read portions of the report for him, robbing the hearings of the power of a compelling witness’s words.

Republicans wanted to focus the testimony on the origins of a “witch hunt” based on bogus testimony. But Mueller made clear at the outset that he would not answer questions about how the investigation got started in 2016 — months before his appointment as special counsel — and what role the so-called Steele dossier, a largely debunked report claiming ties between Trump and Russia, played in it.

The result was a pair of hearings that elicited little fresh information that the public didn’t already have.

A typical exchange came early during Mueller’s testimony before the judiciary committee between Mueller and committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat:

Nadler: “Director Mueller, the president has repeatedly said that report completely and totally exonerated him. But that is not what your report said, is it?

Mueller: Correct. That is not what the report said.

Nadler: I’m reading from Page 2 of Volume 2 of your report. It’s on the screen. You wrote: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.” Does that say there was no obstruction?

Mueller: No.

The Democrats, and to a lesser extent the Republicans, followed the same formula during both hearings.

In the judiciary committee, the Democrats took turns highlighting five episodes of potential obstruction of justice by Trump, ranging from the president’s attempt to have the special counsel removed, to his “efforts to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation.” In the intelligence panel, they enumerated extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, even though Mueller found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

Nothing new

In the end, much to their frustration, Mueller said virtually nothing new as he paused, hesitated, and at times asked members to restate their questions or cite the page number. When a member appeared to be directly quoting from the report, the special counsel would simply offer, “If it’s in the report, it’s accurate.” And if he thought a member was mischaracterizing the report, he’d respond, “I’d not subscribe to that characterization.”

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said Mueller’s reticence took the drama out of the hearings.

“Today was not really about fact-finding. It was about the drama,” she said. “And when Robert Mueller’s answers are all some version of ‘Yes, no, or look at the report,’ it completely takes the air out of the room. It takes any drama out.”

Mueller concluded his 22-month investigation of Russian election interference in March. In his final report, he wrote that he found little evidence that the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

But he left undetermined the question of whether Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice, citing a long-standing Justice Department policy that says a sitting president can’t be indicted, and writing that the U.S. Constitution offers a separate process for dealing with presidential offenses.

Stayed out of the fray

Many Democrats wanted to use the hearings to discuss impeachment, but Mueller refused to be drawn into it, carefully avoiding the word even when it was pointed out to him that he had used it in his own report. And when several Republicans harshly criticized him for refusing to “exonerate” the president of obstruction of justice, he offered little in his own defense.

Levinson said the hearings gave Democrats little to make the case for impeaching the president.

“I think if we look at today, people are thinking, ‘I can’t imagine this Congress conducting impeachment proceedings,’” Levinson said.

The only time Mueller pushed back against critics was when Republicans renewed old accusations that most of the 19 lawyers on Mueller’s former team included Democrats who had contributed money to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“We strove to hire individuals who could do the job,” he said. “What I care about is the capacity of the individual to do the job, and do the job seriously and quickly and with integrity.

He also strongly disputed the claim his investigation of Russian interference in a U.S. election was a “witch hunt,” and warned that the Russians will try again to undermine the American political system. He stressed the need for U.S. intelligence agencies to work together to protect U.S. elections from foreign adversaries.

Half a century after astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon, a new space race is underway to exploit the skies for commercial profit.

Tech giants and startups pursuing bold plans such as selling space tourism, mining asteroids and beaming giant adverts into the skies are winning millions in investment with pledges to bring the stars into reach.

Annual revenues from space-related business, currently worth $350 billion, could nearly triple in size by 2040, estimates U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley.

But the rapid growth of a market with seemingly boundless potential has sparked concerns about a lack of laws and potential conflicts over resources, prompting calls for more rules to govern humanity’s use of the cosmos.

“By 2040 (we believe) there will be 1,000 people living and working on the moon and 10,000 annual visitors,” said Aaron Sorenson, a spokesman from the Japanese lunar exploration startup ispace.

“Our company vision is to extend human presence into outer space. We believe that begins with the expansion of the earth’s economy to the moon,” he said.

Drops in launch costs brought about by technological advances such as the development of commercial reusable rockets have caught the interest of startups and investors.

Super-rich businesspeople including Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos who want to colonize space to support human life are pouring cash into cutting-edge private spacecraft.

In addition, a resurgence in national space programs of countries such as India, which this week launched a rocket aiming to get a rover on the moon, as well as the United States and China could provide a source of funding for businesses.

Grand ambitions

Space hotels, cosmic business insurance, celestial advertising billboards, and in-space manufacturing are among the businesses being explored by firms hoping that technology will open up new horizons amid a boom of commercial space activity.

“I think very soon you are going to see major, traditional nonspace businesses taking notice,” said Sorenson, whose company is working to develop a high-frequency shuttle between earth and the moon.

Aerospace companies such as Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin are aiming to become the first private firm to launch a human into space.

A handful of firms have also been exploring the potential of mining asteroids for minerals and resources, a business that for now remains in the realm of science fiction but which space companies think could be possible in a decade or two.

Governments are positioning to take advantage of these new markets even before they become a reality.

The United States and Luxembourg have both passed legislation aiming to allow property rights on planets and create regulations to permit space mining, with Russia indicating earlier this year that it may follow suit.

But it is doubtful whether some of the more futuristic firms have yet established a clear business model, said Ian Christensen from the Secure World Foundation, a space advocacy group.

Cluttered skies?

The rush of speculation in space has also revealed gaps in the international laws and treaties governing its use and sparked calls for greater oversight.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, with more than 100 nations party to the agreement, provides the main framework for space law, and says no nation can claim ownership of outer space and it must be free for use by all countries.

“In those days everybody thought that space was basically for a few states, for military purposes,” said Frans von der Dunk, a professor of space law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Nobody really foresaw the commercial development which we have seen since. So in that sense a lot needs to be clarified.”

Key questions include whether companies can claim ownership over space minerals, according to von der Dunk. If so, how should countries divide up access rights to ensure the spoils are shared fairly?

There is also debate about how to deal with the growing amount of “space junk” hurtling around the earth, such as broken satellites and spent rocket parts, which can cause serious damage to spacecraft.

“If it goes on like this then maybe 10 or 20 years from now it will be nearly impossible to conduct safe space operations because there’s so much junk floating around,” said von der Dunk.

Another worry is that plans by companies like Amazon and SpaceX to launch thousands of satellites will jam space with yet more clutter and increase the risk of collisions, said Christopher Newman, a space law and policy expert from Britain’s Northumbria University.

Clarifying the rules of doing business in space could benefit commercial operators by offering them stability and clearer costs and risks, say legal experts.

But the likelihood of world powers agreeing to any major new international space treaties or a body to referee disputes between nations are slim, Newman said.

He added that treaties that give away sovereignty are “out of fashion.”

Until a clearer picture emerges of the future of space infrastructure, he said, space players will continue to enjoy a degree of “anarchy.”

“Space is congested, competitive and contested … and it’s only going to get worse as the technology, orbital population and access to space all increase,” he said.
 

WASHINGTON — A Trump administration proposal to tighten eligibility for food stamps could undercut access to basic nutrition for millions of Americans and hurt some low-cost retailers, according to an analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which runs the program. 

The study clashes with the administration’s defense of the proposed rule change, unveiled Tuesday, which it said would end widespread abuse of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by Americans with sufficient resources. 

“The proposed rule may also negatively impact food security and reduce the savings rates among those individuals who do not meet the income and resource eligibility requirements for SNAP,” the Agriculture Department said in the text of the rule published in the federal registry. 

The USDA research also said retailers would see a drop in their sales as a result of the proposed change. “All retailers would likely see a drop in the amount of SNAP benefits redeemed at stores if these provisions were finalized,” it said. 

On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue defended the rule change that would cut an estimated 3.1 million Americans from food stamp eligibility. He said the administration was “closing a loophole” that allowed exploitation of the program by Americans that had substantial savings and assets. 

He also said the move would not affect food sales: “The people that are affected by this have resources other than that. … I don’t think that’s a decrease in food expenditures at all,” he said. 

Advocacy groups and Democrats have bashed the proposal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, called it “cruel,” and said it would “steal food off the table of working families and hungry children.” 

The SNAP program provides free food to 40 million Americans, or about 12 percent of the total U.S. population. Currently, 43 U.S. states allow residents to qualify for food stamps automatically through SNAP if they receive benefits from another federal program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, according to the USDA. 

The Agriculture Department wants to change that by requiring people who receive TANF benefits to pass a separate review of their income and assets to determine whether they are also eligible for free food from SNAP, officials said. 

If enacted, the rule would save the federal government about $2.5 billion a year, according to the USDA. 

Last year, Congress blocked efforts to pass new restrictions on SNAP. 

Big business and politics are mass-mining everyday data — from Facebook ‘likes’ to online subscriptions – for profit and power, according to a Netflix documentary released on Wednesday.

“The Great Hack” says personal data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable asset, and warns viewers that companies and governments are hacking into way more than computers.

“There are people out there who are trying to figure out how you think. If you don’t understand how you think, they will think for you,” said directors Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim. “It’s not just our computers that have been hacked, it’s our minds,” they said in a statement.

The two-hour documentary — showing on the Netflix streaming video platform — examines the state of privacy in the United States and Europe, where people spend much of their time online, volunteering countless nuggets of exploitable information.

It centers on the Cambridge Analytica affair, which saw an international consultancy target undecided voters in the Brexit referendum and 2016 U.S. election, partly using Facebook data.

Facebook Inc agreed on Wednesday to pay a $100 million fine to settle charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it misled investors about the misuse of its users’ data related to Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook did not admit or deny wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

“Social media companies harvest millions of people’s personal data and sell it to the highest bidder. Personal data is being used on a mass scale to manipulate and influence people,” said Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, a British civil liberties group.

“Data-driven manipulation of populations is not only the reserve of shady start-ups, disturbingly, it is becoming the modus operandi in modern politics.”

Directors Amer and Noujaim first came to prominence for their Academy Award nominated film “The Square,” which looked at social media as a catalyst for the 2011 Egyptian uprisings.

“We ultimately made a film about whether we have free will. It’s about democracy and it’s about complicity,” they said of their latest documentary. “These are arguably the most important questions of our time.”

Czech President Milos Zeman will decide in August on whether to accept the Social Democrats’ preferred pick for culture minister, a personnel move at the heart of a dispute rattling the ruling coalition.

The Social Democrats, a party Zeman once led before a falling out, are the junior member to Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO party in a center-left minority government that gets parliamentary backing from the Communist party.

They requested in May that Zeman remove Antonin Stanek, whom they accuse of being ineffective, and replace him with their preferred candidate, Michal Smarda.

But Zeman has defended Stanek, angering the Social Democrats and creating a standoff that led to Social Democrat threats of resignations as the president has yet to finalize the change.

Babis met Zeman on Wednesday and said the president confirmed he would remove Stanek by the end of July as the Social Democrats requested.

“He will decide on the [Social Democrats’] nomination for the post of culture minister around the middle of August,” Babis said on Twitter.

Under the Czech constitution, the president is obliged to fire ministers if requested to do so by the prime minister, but Zeman is known for acting independently of the government. In this dispute he has said there is no deadline for taking action.

The Social Democrat leadership confirmed last week Smarda remained their choice for culture minister, calling on Babis to ensure the nomination is respected. The party stopped short of deciding to leave the coalition already although resignations by its ministers remain an option.

Babis has fought to maintain his one-year-old government The Social Democrats’ exit would cost him a parliamentary majority, leaving him few options. Babis has said early elections could hurt the country.

With the Czech economy and public finances mostly on firm footing, markets have been unfazed by the latest government dispute, similar to disputes in ruling coalitions that have marked the country’s politics for over a decade.

Malawi protesters have rejected a call by former President Bakili Muluzi to suspend street action to allow for talks to end further election-related clashes. Protesters have been calling for the Malawi Electoral Commission chairperson to resign over alleged fraud since President Peter Mutharika’s May re-election. 

Muluzi, who was Malawi’s president from 1994 to 2004, urged protesters late Tuesday to halt months of demonstrations so he could mediate with government authorities over May’s contested presidential election. He invited the main protesters’ group, the Human Rights Defenders Coalition, to his home in Blantyre to discuss the issue.

“Please, I want to plead,” he said. “Would you not give me, say, seven days, so that I have time to travel to Lilongwe, meet these people about the issue you are raising? But if you take a hard line, [chuckles] you know, I don’t think it will help anybody.”

But protesters rejected the offer and maintained their call for twice-a-week street action to force Electoral Commission chairperson, Jane Ansah, to resign.

Human Rights Defenders Coalition Chairperson Timothy Mtambo led the talks.

“We respect our former head of state,” he said. “But as we have spoken time without a number we do not believe in manipulative dialogue. We have strongly advised that demonstrations in itself, it’s not a problem it’s a constitutional right. However, the problem is that Jane Ansah is refusing to resign.”  

The protesters accuse Ansah of fraud in declaring Mutharika the winner of the May election with 39 percent of the vote.

Runners-up Lazarus Chakwera and Saulos Chilima are challenging the election results in court, alleging ballot-stuffing and the use of Tipp-Ex correction fluid to change votes.

The MEC maintains the election was free and fair.

But ongoing protests set the stage for further clashes with security. On Sunday, the headquarters of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party in Blantyre, which is seeking annulment of the elections, were burned to the ground.

A dangerous direction

Muluzi told reporters he fears the violence is moving the country in a dangerous direction.

“We must also accept that these demonstrations have caused a lot of economic hardships, you know that,” he said. “The shops get closed, the bank’s not open, there are so many things. I am again appealing to you; could the demonstration on Thursday be postponed?”

Political analyst Vincent Kondowe says with continued protests and no dialogue, Malawi will head toward anarchy. He says Mutharika, Chakwera, and Chilima need to reach a compromise.

“Even if the court came in today and said, ‘well, the elections were conducted in a proper manner’, the political disagreements will continue. So, for me the best way is for the leaders to agree to have a re-run because even Peter Mutharika himself agrees that the elections were messed up. He has been speaking this in different political rallies that he has conducted.”

But Malawi authorities have dismissed re-running the election. 

Meanwhile, protesters plan to hold demonstrations and vigils Thursday in all of the major cities, which city authorities are heatedly rejecting. 

Fifty years ago, the first humans landed on the moon.  Many engineers and scientists have been thinking about what the next 50 years might bring in space travel.  That’s what NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program is all about.  It provides funds to foster ideas that could revolutionize future space missions.  One NASA funded idea is a space habitat that solves the problems that occur with long term space travel.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

Agriculturist Lauren Goodwin wants children to develop a passion for ethical agriculture. As Ghana’s capital Accra expands, green spaces diminish, and fast food starts to become a norm, Goodwin is teaching kids where their food comes from – and how to grow it themselves.  Stacey Knott reports for VOA, from Accra.

As Ghana’s capital Accra expands, green spaces have diminished and fast food is starting to become a norm; however, agriculturist Lauren Goodwin wants to ensure that children understand where their food comes from – and how to grow it themselves. 

Tucked away in one of Accra’s few green spaces, children are spending their school holiday learning about ethical agriculture and healthy living. 

Ghana, like many nations across the world, is seeing a rise in fast food consumption and the associated health risks. Fried local street food and fast food restaurants are common sights throughout the capital.

Goodwin, founder of the Under the Mango Tree Camp, says she sees people, especially in cities, becoming disconnected from their food source. 

“I know that children need to be a part of this. This can’t be a conversation that we just keep for adults, it can’t be, you know. We are growing and we have our young people that are coming up; it’s so important they are exposed to this thing. They need to know how food grows,” Goodwin said.

This month, the children have been learning about all aspects of ethical agriculture, from composting to creating natural pesticides. The camp is held at a park where the children like Björn Brinkmann have been able to plant herbs and vegetables.

“I have been planting, germinating, sowing, harvesting and also sometimes we taste the herbs and sometimes we brought some of the vegetables home,” Brinkmann said.

Goodwin, who emigrated from the United States to Ghana, worries about the health impact poor diets have on black communities. 

Educating children about the power of plants will also empower their families – and eventually the wider community, she says.  

Parents say the camp is both informative and fun for their children. They come home from the day camp eager to share their new knowledge, says one mother, Aziza Atta.

“I think physically it’s great, socially it’s great. In terms of their understanding of nature and how things work, and how things have a source and cycle, and you need to plant something and it grows, then you harvest it and this is how you do it. You don’t just go to the supermarket and buy things; it’s that thinking process,” Atta said.

Goodwin hopes the seeds the camp plants today will inspire the youngsters to lead the movement for healthy food and ethical agriculture in Ghana.

In the face of two weeks of massive protests calling for his resignation, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello says he has to listen to the people, but made no indication Tuesday he planned to step down.

“When one side speaks legitimately, the other has the responsibility to listen carefully,” Rossello said in a statement.  “The people are speaking and I have to listen.  These have been moments of complete reflection and of taking decisions based on the concerns of the people of Puerto Rico and of their best interests.”

As thousands of protesters again gathered in the streets for demonstrations, Rossello said his future statements will focus on the actions his government carries out.

A number of officials have resigned in connection with a texting scandal that was revealed earlier this month, the latest being Rossello’s chief of staff Ricardo Llerandi who announced his resignation on Tuesday citing threats against his family.

Meanwhile a judge has issued search warrants for the phones of Rossello and 11 of his political allies.

The public fury erupted when the island’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of online group chats between Rossello and several top aides and associates that included profane messages laced with contempt for victims of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, as well as misogynistic and homophobic slurs against Rossello’s political opponents.  

The publication of the chats unleashed long-simmering anger among Puerto Ricans who were worn down by years of public corruption and mismanagement that left the U.S. territory under the control of a congressionally-mandated oversight board to guide it out of a multi-billion-dollar debt crisis.  

Rossello stepped down as leader of the New Progressive Party during a televised address Sunday and said he would not seek re-election in 2020. 

U.S. President Donald Trump slammed Rossello Monday for his “totally grossly incompetent leadership” of Puerto Rico. Trump clashed with Rossello and other Puerto Rican officials over the administration’s response to Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people and left the island without power for months.

Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande each received 10 nominations for the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) on Tuesday, leading the race in the youth-orientated awards show, which this year includes two new categories, best K-pop and video for good.

Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish scored nine nominations, including video of the year, best pop, best new artist and artist of the year, a category the 17-year-old will compete for against Grande, rapper Cardi B, pop rocker siblings Jonas Brothers as well as singers Halsey and Shawn Mendes.

Grande’s breakup anthem “thank u, next” and Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down,” in which she criticises social media trolls and those who attack LGBTQ people, will contend for prizes including song of the year, best pop and the video of the year.

That major category also includes Eilish’s “Bad Guy”, Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker,” “Old Town Road (Remix)” by rapper Lil Nas X featuring country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and “a lot” by rapper 21 Savage featuring J. Cole.

The 29-year-old Swift, whose acceptance speech at the 2009 awards was famously interrupted by rapper Kanye West, also received nominations for “ME!” her upbeat duet with Brendon Urie, the lead singer of Panic! at the Disco.

“Boy With Luv” a collaboration between boy band BTS, who have won legions of Korean pop music fans outside of Asia, and Halsey is among the nominees in the best K-Pop category. The song also received nods for best collaboration, best art direction and best choreography.

The new video for good category features songs that have raised awareness or given out a wider message. Animated, star-studded or depicting real footage, they include videos for Swift’s “You Need to Calm Down,” Halsey’s female-empowering “Nightmare,” Lil Dicky’s environmentally themed “Earth” and John Legend’s “Preach” about social injustices.

Other nominees include The Killers’ “Land Of The Free,” a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and a remake of Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” whose 1993 video featured missing children, by Jamie N Commons, Skylar Grey and Gallant.

Other music stars with several nominations include Lil Nas X with eight nods, Halsey who received six, Shawn Mendes who earned five and last year’s video of the year and artist of the year winner Camila Cabello, who got four.

The VMAs, which are voted for by fans and known for their unpredictable stunts, will be broadcast live on Aug. 26 from Newark, New Jersey.

Spain’s Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez failed on Tuesday in a first attempt to get parliament’s backing to form a government, leaving him two days to try and strike a deal with the far-left Unidas Podemos ahead of a second vote.

Sanchez, who won the most seats in an election in April but fell short of a majority, has faced three months of difficult coalition talks with Podemos, whose votes he needs to be confirmed as prime minister.

He has led the government as a caretaker in the interim, but could be forced to hold new elections if he cannot win confirmation.

After a few tense days where the two parties seemed at turns within reach of a deal or on the point of breaking off talks entirely, Podemos ended up abstaining on Tuesday, rather than voting against Sanchez. Officials in both parties described that as a gesture of good will to allow negotiations to continue.

“We will keep working so that there is a coalition government. Time is running out,” Podemos lawmaker Ione Belarra said after the vote. “Our last gesture was to abstain in order to make the negotiations easier.”

Sanchez was not expected to win Tuesday’s vote, but he lost it by a wide margin, with 124 votes to 170, and 52 abstentions.

Only one lawmaker outside his Socialist party voted for him.

To win Tuesday’s vote, Sanchez would have required an absolute majority of 176 votes in the 350-seat parliament. A second round on Thursday will operate under different rules, requiring only a simple majority excluding abstentions.

Still, he faces an uphill struggle to convert abstentions and some ‘no’ votes into votes in his favor.

All will depend on whether the Socialists and Podemos set aside their differences to strike a deal for a coalition government and also get support from smaller, regional parties.

Socialist spokesperson Adriana Lastra said: “It is the moment to form a government of the left. We have the basis for an understanding.”

Considering how difficult talks have been over the past three months, and tense exchanges between Sanchez and Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias in a parliament debate late on Monday, it remains to be seen how stable and united such a government would be.

If Sanchez is not confirmed as prime minister on Thursday, further votes could be held in September. If that failed too, a repeat election would be held on November 10.

Still, the mood appeared to be calmer on Tuesday.

Sources in Podemos and the Socialist party said that the main question was what role Podemos ministers would have.

Rejecting Podemos’ accusations that its ministers would only have a “decorative” role with no power, chief Socialist negotiator Carmen Calvo said Irene Montero, a senior Podemos lawmaker, had been offered the deputy premiership.

Unlike the other Podemos lawmakers, Montero voted ‘no’ on Tuesday. But Podemos officials said this was because Montero, who is pregnant, voted early in the morning from home, before the party changed its mind and decided to abstain.

Kenya’s parliament voted on Tuesday to nationalize the country’s main airline Kenya Airways to save it from mounting debts.

The loss-making airline, which is 48.9% government-owned and 7.8% held by Air France-KLM, has been struggling to return to profitability and growth.

A failed expansion drive and a slump in air travel forced it to restructure $2 billion of debt in 2017. The airline later proposed taking over the running of Nairobi’s main airport to boost its revenue.

Parliament’s transport committee, however, rejected that plan, recommending instead the nationalization of the airline in a report debated by the national assembly on June 18.

In a voice vote taken on Tuesday afternoon, the majority of lawmakers in the chamber voted to accept the report.

Kenya Airways Chairman Michael Joseph told Reuters the vote was “great news.”

“Nationalization is what is necessary to compete on a level playing field. It is not what we want, but what we need,” he said, referring to competitors such as Ethiopian Airlines which are state-run and profitable.

Air France-KLM could not immediately be reached for comment.

The government will now draw up an implementation plan, with clear time lines, said Esther Koimett, the principal secretary at the ministry of transport.

“Parliament is our boss … we will obviously take the recommendations of parliament,” she told Reuters.

Kenya is seeking to emulate countries like Ethiopia which run air transport assets from airports to fueling operations under a single company, using funds from the more profitable parts to support others, such as national airlines.

“The government is keen to take a consolidated view of aviation assets of the country in order to make sure they work in a coherent and efficient way to support the (Nairobi aviation) hub,” Koimett said.

The committee’s report proposes that Kenya set up an aviation holding company with four subsidiaries, one of which would run Kenya Airways. Another arm of the holding company would operate Nairobi’s main international airport.

The committee’s report also recommended the holding company be given tax concessions for a period to be determined and that it be exempted from paying excise duty on all goods, including jet fuel.

Koimett dismissed concerns that nationalization could lead to further mismanagement. Kenya’s state-owned enterprises sector is riddled with corporate corpses and near failures caused by theft and poor management over the decades.

“Implementation is really the key thing … Ultimately all these things have to do really with ensuring that we get the right people in the right places,” she said.

($1 = 103.7000 Kenyan shillings)

Democratic lawmakers accused U.S. President Donald Trump and the Senate’s leading Republican of working to kill legislation designed to protect the upcoming U.S. presidential election from interference by Russia and others.

They also warned that because of Trump and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts, time is running out to get improved security measures in place for the 2020 vote.

“It appears that the majority leader, at the behest of the White House, has made it his goal to kill any meaningful legislation,” Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters during a news conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

“Even this president’s top intelligence, law enforcement officials have all indicated that Russia, which successfully intervened in our election in 2016, will be back in force,” Warner added. “I do not understand when we have common sense, bipartisan legislation, why we can’t bring that to the floor of the Senate and let the Senate vote.”

Through aides, McConnell declined to respond directly to the latest allegations. But in remarks earlier this month, he slammed Democrats for using the issue of election security to pursue a partisan agenda.

“Many of the proposals labeled by Democrats to be ‘election security’ measures are indeed election reform measures that are part of the left’s wish list,” he said. “They ignore the great work this administration has done and sweep under the rug the necessary measures this chamber has passed.”

Mueller testimony

The allegations by Democratic lawmakers come a day before U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, charged with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, is set to testify before two House committees.

Mueller’s report concluded Russia conducted what investigators described as a concerted campaign using hackers and disinformation to impact the outcome of the 2016 elections.

“There were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election,” Mueller said in a statement he read to reporters in late May.

But rather than settle political differences, the report has further polarized Democrats and Republicans, who continue to argue over how to interpret the report’s findings and over what action to take.

Last month, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill requiring paper ballots at all polling stations. However, almost all House Republicans opposed the measure, arguing that paper ballots are more susceptible to tampering.

Several Republican-controlled Senate committees have also been looking into election security issues, and the Judiciary Committee approved two election security bills in May.

But Democrats on Tuesday warned that the decision by McConnell to prevent any of the bills from getting a vote was threatening the country’s democracy.

“Hostile foreign actors are going to interfere in the 2020 election in a way that makes what happened in 2016 look like very small potatoes,” said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It is not just going to be the Russians.”

FBI warning

Earlier Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray repeated warnings that the country’s upcoming elections would again be targeted.

“The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere,” he told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying efforts to stop Moscow have failed to have much of an impact.

“My view is until they stop, they haven’t been deterred enough,” Wray said.

This past December, a report by U.S. intelligence agencies concluded Russia, along with China and Iran, targeted the 2018 Congressional elections with influence campaigns.

Under an executive order signed by Trump last year, all three countries could have faced sanctions and other punitive measures.

But a subsequent report by the Justice Department found “no evidence to date that any identified activities of a foreign government or foreign agent had a material impact on the integrity or security of election infrastructure or political/campaign infrastructure.”

Democrats’ bills

Warner and other Democrats said Tuesday said they would continue to push for a series of what they described as common sense, bipartisan measures to improve election security.

In addition to requiring paper ballots at all polling stations, the bills would require social media companies to provide information on who is paying for political ads and require mandatory sanctions for any country found trying to interfere.

A fourth bill would require candidates and campaigns to notify the FBI if any foreign country or entity reaches out to them with “dirt,” or damaging information, on their opponents.

“The response ought to not be to say, ‘Thank you,”’ Warner said. “The response ought to be to tell law enforcement.”

An executive of state-owned EgyptAir said Tuesday that British Airways’ decision to suspend flights to Cairo, the Egyptian capital, for several days was “without a logical reason.”

The vice chairman of EgyptAir Holding Co, Sherif Ezzat Badrous, told reporters at a ceremony marking the delivery of the carrier’s newest Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner that Cairo airport is safe and EgyptAir continues to operate in a “very safe environment.”

British Airways, part of International Airlines Group, suspended flights to Cairo on Saturday for seven days “as a security precaution” as it reviews security at the Cairo airport.

Later Saturday, Germany’s Lufthansa said it had canceled services from Munich and Frankfurt to Cairo, but it resumed flights Sunday.

“What happened three days ago was unexpected completely, and without a logical reason,” Sherif Ezzat Badrous said. “Until now, at this moment, we don’t have any logical reason” for the actions taken by British Airways.

“You can ask them about the true reasons,” he added.

On Sunday, Egypt’s aviation minister, Younis Al-Masry, “expressed his displeasure at British Airways’ taking a decision unilaterally concerning the security of Egyptian airports without referring to the competent Egyptian authorities,” the Aviation Ministry said in a statement.

Other airlines were continuing to operate flights to Cairo.

Air France had decided to maintain its service to Cairo after liaising with French and Egyptian authorities, an airline spokesman said in a statement sent to Reuters. Emirates flights were operating to schedule, a spokeswoman said.

The website for Abu Dhabi’s Etihad showed its services were also operating, and a spokesman said the airline was monitoring the security situation in Cairo.

Colombia has given ride-hailing app Uber Technologies four months to improve its data security, the commerce regulator said on Tuesday, after a 2016 data breach affected more than 260,000 of the South American country’s residents.

Last year, Uber agreed to pay a fine of $148 million in a settlement reached in the United States for failing to disclose the massive breach.

The settlement followed a 10-month investigation into the breach, which exposed personal data from around 57 million accounts, including 600,000 driver’s license numbers.

Uber is popular in Colombia even though the government says its use is illegal. The country has not yet specifically regulated transport services like Uber, but has said it will suspend for 25 years the licenses of drivers caught working for the platform.

Of those whose data was compromised by the breach, some 267,000 are Colombian residents, the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce said in a statement, adding that Uber will have four months to show it is protecting users from fraudulent or unauthorized access to their accounts, among other things.

The company should also develop a protocol for handling future data security breaches, training for its staff on the issue, and put in place a permanent monitoring system to determine whether the new measures are adequate, the regulator said.

The required improvements must be certified by an independent third party chosen by Uber, the statement said, and will continue to be monitored for five years.

Uber’s Colombia office said in a statement it has already shown local authorities that it has “implemented various technological improvements to the security of our systems” in 2016 and after.

“We have also implemented significant changes in our corporate structure, to ensure the respective transparency in front of regulators and users in the future,” it added.

The company said in May it will spend $40 million over five years to open its third Latin American support center in Bogota in September.

U.S. President  Donald Trump said he is now considering a “ban,” tariffs and remittance fees after Guatemala decided to not move forward with a safe third country agreement that would have required the Central American country to take in more asylum seekers.

“Guatemala … has decided to break the deal they had with us on signing a necessary Safe Third Agreement. We were ready to go,” Trump tweeted.

“Now we are looking at the ‘BAN,’ Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above. Guatemala has not been good,” Trump wrote.

Guatemala, which has been forming Caravans and sending large numbers of people, some with criminal records, to the United States, has decided to break the deal they had with us on signing a necessary Safe Third Agreement. We were ready to go. Now we are looking at the “BAN,”….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2019

….Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above. Guatemala has not been good. Big U.S. taxpayer dollars going to them was cut off by me 9 months ago.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2019

It was not immediately clear what policies he was referring to. The White House and the Guatemalan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has made restricting immigration a cornerstone of his presidency and re-election campaign. He has pushed Guatemala, Mexico and other countries in the region to act as buffer zones and take in asylum seekers who would otherwise go to the United States.

The Guatemalan government had been expected to hold a summit with Trump during which Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales would sign the safe third country agreement, but the country’s constitutional court blocked Morales from making the declaration.

Power was restored to Caracas while five Venezuelan states were seeing the lights return Tuesday according to a government official, after a blackout across of the South American country Monday.

Venezuela’s latest power outage began Monday afternoon, causing widespread traffic jams and forcing travelers to walk as the nation’s rail system quit.

Venezuelans also lost access to running water and had difficulty buying food, as credit and debit cards became unusable.

Netblocks, an organization that monitors Internet usage across the globe, said Internet connectivity was down to 6% in Venezuela.

In the aftermath of the blackout, the government alleged foul play, claiming that an “electromagnetic attack” had struck a hydroelectric power plant.

On twitter, President Nicolas Maduro called the blackout a “new criminal attack against tranquility and peace of the homeland.”

The political opposition, however, argues that the power outage was caused by government failure.

“They tried to hide the tragedy with rations throughout the country, but the failure is evident: they destroyed the electrical system and have no answers,” wrote opposition leader Juan Guaido on Twitter.

“Venezuelans will not get used to this disaster,” he said.

In March, Venezuela suffered a similar blackout that impacted all of the country’s 23 states. Blackouts are common in some regions of the country.

In recent years, Venezuela has suffered protracted political and economic turmoil, with the nation experiencing high inflation and widespread shortages.

Guaido declared himself president in January, receiving support from over 50 countries but struggling in an attempt to oust Maduro.  
 

Pope Francis named Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Mark Brennan to lead West Virginia’s Catholics on Tuesday following a scandal over the former bishop’s sexual harassment of adults and lavish spending of church money.

The 72-year-old Brennan replaces Bishop Michael Bransfield, who resigned in September after a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual and financial misconduct.

Last week, Francis barred Bransfield from public ministry and prohibited him from living in the diocese, while also warning that he will be forced to make amends “for some of the harm he caused.” Brennan will now help decide the extent of those reparations as he seeks to restore trust among the Catholic faithful.

Coming on the heels of a new wave of sex abuse allegations in the U.S., the Bransfield scandal added to the credibility crisis in the U.S. hierarchy. Several top churchmen received tens of thousands of dollars in church-funded personal gifts from Bransfield during his tenure in Wheeling-Charleston, which is located in one of the poorest U.S. states.

In his first comments after his appointment, Brennan said he would work to bring “true healing and renewal” to West Virginia. And in comments to the Catholic Review of the archdiocese of Baltimore, he said a main focus would be on rural poverty and victims of the opioid crisis, which has hit West Virginia particularly hard.

”There is immense need which is matched by immense desire and determination to reinvigorate the church here in West Virginia and across our nation,” he said, according to a statement from his new diocese.

Brennan, a Boston native who was ordained in Washington D.C., in 1976, spent time studying Spanish in the Dominican Republic and completed his theology studies at the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was named auxiliary bishop of Baltimore in 2016 and has ministered to the city’s Hispanic community.

After Bransfield’s resignation, Francis asked Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to oversee the diocese temporarily and complete a full investigation. The findings, first reported by The Washington Post, determined that Bransfield spent church funds on dining out, liquor, personal travel and luxury items, as well as personal gifts to fellow bishops and cardinals in the U.S. and Vatican.

Lori has said that Bransfield was able to get away with his behavior for so long because he created a “culture of fear of retaliation and retribution” that weakened normal checks and balances in the diocese. The diocese’s vicars have all resigned and been reassigned to parish work, and Lori recently announced new auditing and other measures to ensure church funds are properly administered.

Bransfield had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last year.

He has disputed the findings of Lori’s investigation, telling The Post “none of it is true,” but declining detailed comment on the advice of his lawyers.

The Wheeling-Charleston diocese includes nearly 75,000 Catholics and 95 parishes and encompasses the entire state of West Virginia.

A tenth day of protests in Puerto Rico against embattled Governor Ricardo Rossello ended late Monday with police using tear gas to disperse protesters who had gathered near the governor’s mansion in San Juan.

A massive crowd estimated at 500,000 people, including pop singer Ricky Martin and other Puerto Rican-born entertainers, filled the streets of the capital earlier in the day demanding Rossello resign. 

The public fury erupted nearly two weeks ago when the island’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of online group chats between Gov. Rossello and several top aides and associates that included several profane messages laced with contempt for victims of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people and left the island without power for months, as well as numerous misogynistic and homophobic slurs against Rossello’s political opponents.  

The publication of the chats unleashed a long-simmering anger among Puerto Ricans worn down by years of public corruption and mismanagement that left the U.S. territory under the control of a congressionally-mandated oversight board to guide it out of a multi-billion dollar debt crisis.  

Rossello stepped down as leader of the New Progressive Party during a televised address Sunday and said he would not seek re-election in 2020. 

President Donald Trump slammed Rossello for his “totally grossly incompetent leadership” of Puerto Rico Monday at the White House.  Trump clashed with Rossello and other Puerto Rican officials over the administration’s seemingly tepid response to Hurricane Maria.