U.S. President Donald Trump, who has made religious freedom a centerpiece of his foreign policy, met Wednesday with victims of religious persecution from countries like China, Turkey, North Korea, Iran and Myanmar.

Trump counts evangelical Christians among his core supporters and the State Department is hosting a conference on the topic this week that will be attended by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Four of the 27 participants in the Oval Office meeting were from China, the White House said: Jewher Ilham, an Uighur Muslim; Yuhua Zhang, a Falun Gong practitioner; Nyima Lhamo, a Tibetan Buddhist; and Manping Ouyang, a Christian.

Ilham told Trump her father was one of many Uighurs “locked up in concentration camps” in the Xinjiang region and that she had not spoken with him since 2017.

China sanctions possible

The Trump administration has been weighing sanctions against Chinese officials over the treatment of the Uighurs, including the Communist Party chief of Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, but has so far held back amid Chinese threats of retaliation.

Relations between the United States and China are already tense over a tit-for-tat trade war, with the United States alleging that China engages in unfair trading practices.

Reuters reported in May that the U.S. administration was considering sanctions on Chinese video surveillance firm Hikvision over the country’s treatment of its Uighur minority, citing a person briefed on the matter.

Nearly two dozen nations at the U.N. Human Rights Council this week urged China to halt persecution of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang, where U.N. experts and activists say at least 1 million are held in detention centers.

The Chinese government has traditionally rejected any suggestion that it abuses religious rights and human rights.

Rohingya from Myanmar 

Also present at the meeting were Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, the White House said. On Tuesday, Pompeo announced sanctions against Myanmar military’s Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing and other leaders it said were responsible for extrajudicial killings of Rohingya in 2017, barring them from entry to the United States.

Trump’s ambassador for religious freedom, Sam Brownback, said during Wednesday’s meeting that the administration would announce “additional measures” on religious freedom at the State Department meeting Thursday.

Among the other victims who met with Trump were Christians from Myanmar, Vietnam, North Korea, Iran, Turkey, Cuba, Eritrea, Nigeria and Sudan; Muslims from Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan and New Zealand; Jews from Yemen and Germany; a practitioner of Cao Dai from Vietnam; and a Yezidi from Iraq.

Police have begun arresting protesters gathered at the base of Hawaii’s tallest volcano, Mauna Kea, to stop the construction of a giant telescope on what they say is their most sacred ground.

Protest leader Kealoha Pisciotta told The Associated Press that police had arrested 30 elders, called kupuna in Hawaiian, on Wednesday.  

Some of the elders used canes and strollers to walk, while others were taken in wheelchairs to police vans. Those who could walk on their own were led away with their hands in zip ties.

The elders were among about 2,000 people blocking the road to the summit of Mauna Kea in an attempt to stop construction material and workers from reaching the top. 

The $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope is expected to be one of the world’s most advanced. 

Opponents of the the telescope say it will desecrate sacred land. According to the University of Hawaii, ancient Hawaiians considered the location kapu, or forbidden. Only the highest-ranking chiefs and priests were allowed to make the long trek to Mauna Kea’s summit above the clouds.

Supporters of the telescope, however, say it will not only make important scientific discoveries but bring educational and economic opportunities to Hawaii. 

The company behind the telescope is made up of a group of universities in California and Canada, with partners from China, India and Japan.  

Astronomers hope the telescope will help them look back 13 billion years to the time, just after the Big Bang, and answer fundamental questions about the universe.

The U.S. Air Force has a warning for the more than 1 million people who have signed up to “storm Area 51” in search of aliens as part of an internet joke that has gone viral. 

“Any attempt to illegally access the area is highly discouraged,” the Air Force said in a statement Wednesday. 

The Air Force said it does not discuss its security measures and that the test and training range, known as Area 51, provides “flexible, realistic and multidimensional battle space” for testing and “advanced training in support of U.S. national interests.”

The Facebook event “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us,” invites people to attempt to run into the mysterious site at 3 a.m. September 20. 

“If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets,” the event description says, referring to a Japanese manga character known for running with his arms stretched out backward and his head forward. 

Area 51 is part of the vast Nevada Test and Training Range. It has been the subject of conspiracy theories that say the U.S. military keeps aliens and UFOs there.

After decades of government officials refusing to acknowledge Area 51, the CIA released declassified documents in 2013 referring to the 20,700-square-kilometer installation by name and locating it on a map near the dry Groom Lake bed. 

Zimbabwe’s ban on foreign currency, and the nation’s record inflation, has spurred demand for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to try to preserve wealth. Zimbabwean authorities last year banned banks from processing bitcoin and is warning that cryptocurrencies are open to hacking. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare.

WASHINGTON — Fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. declined by 5.1 percent in 2018, according to preliminary official data released Wednesday, the first drop in two decades. 
 
The trend was driven by a steep decline in deaths linked to prescription painkillers. 
 
“The latest provisional data on overdose deaths show that America’s united efforts to curb opioid use disorder and addiction are working,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, though he cautioned the epidemic would not be stopped overnight. 
 
The total number of estimated deaths dropped to 68,557 in 2018 against 72,224 the year before, according to the figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
 
But that number is still far higher than the 16,849 overdose deaths in 1999, a figure that rose every year until 2017, with a particularly sharp increase seen from 2014 to 2017. 
 
Deaths attributed to natural and semisynthetic opioids, such as morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone and oxymorphone, which are prescribed as painkillers, saw a drop from 14,926 to 12,757, or 14.5 percent. 
 
That was the steepest drop for any category of drug, though deaths linked to synthetic opioids excluding methadone (drugs like tramadol and fentanyl) continued to rise sharply, while cocaine deaths also increased slightly. 

Overprescription
 
The U.S. opioid epidemic is rooted in decades of overprescription of addictive painkillers. 
 
The crisis is responsible for about 400,000 deaths involving prescription or illicit opioids, including high-profile victims such as pop icon Prince and rocker Tom Petty. 
 
But there are some signs the tide is beginning to turn.  
 
In recent months, federal and state authorities have taken on drug giants in court for allegedly bribing doctors to prescribe their medicines or for deceptive marketing that downplayed the risks of addiction. 
 
The overall opioid prescribing rate peaked in 2012 at 81 prescriptions for every 100 Americans and had dropped to 58 by 2017, according to data suggesting that health care providers have become more cautious. 
 
But the amount of opioids prescribed per person is still around three times higher than it was in 1999, according to the CDC, which uses a unit called morphine milligram equivalents (MME) to account for differences in drug type and strength. 

The United States is officially removing Turkey from its F-35 stealth fighter jet program after Ankara accepted the Russian delivery of its S-400 missile defense system.

“Unfortunately, Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems renders its continued involvement with the F-35 impossible,” the White House said in a statement Wednesday. “The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities.”

U.S. officials believe NATO ally Turkey’s decision to use Russian advanced radar technology could compromise the alliance’s military systems in the country. The S-400 could potentially be used to target NATO jets in Turkey, including the U.S.-made F-35, which is NATO’s newest stealth fighter jet.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next secretary of defense slammed Turkey’s acceptance of the S-400, parts of which were delivered last week, as “wrong” and “disappointing.” 

Mark Esper told lawmakers he emphasized in a phone call to Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar that “you can either have the S-400 or the F-35. You can’t have both.”

A Russian transport jet delivered the first parts of the $2.2 billion missile system last Friday to a Turkish military air base outside Ankara.

Washington’s decision to cut Turkey out of the F-35 problem means delivery of the aircraft has stopped, and Turkish firms will lose contracts to build significant parts of the expensive and complex U.S. jet.

Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense has said its purchase of the S-400 defense systems was “not an option but rather a necessity.” 

The ministry said last week that Turkey was still assessing the bid to acquire U.S. Patriot air defense systems.

But the White House countered Turkey’s assertion on Wednesday.

“The United States has been actively working with Turkey to provide air defense solutions to meet its legitimate air defense needs, and this administration has made multiple offers to move Turkey to the front of the line to receive the U.S. PATRIOT air defense system,” the White House said.

The White House added that Turkey has been a “longstanding and trusted partner and NATO Ally for over 65 years,” but that “accepting the S-400 undermines the commitments all NATO Allies made to each other to move away from Russian systems.”

Turkish officials argue Turkey is in a complicated geopolitical region, as it borders Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Three years ago, the Turkish presidential palace was bombed by rogue elements of its military in an attempted coup, and some analysts suggest the missiles could be used to protect Turkish President Erdogan.

While the S-400 is widely recognized as one of the most advanced missile systems in the world, its practical use is in question, given its incompatibility with the rest of Turkey’s NATO military systems.

“From a military perspective there is no logic,” said retired General Haldun Solmazturk, who now heads the Ankara-based 21st Century Institute research institution. “This is not only a problem between Turkey and the United States, but it is a problem between Turkey and the rest of the 28 NATO members, so it’s a serious problem.” 

Finland’s defense ministry says a Russian aircraft is suspected of having violated the Nordic country’s airspace.

The ministry said in a short statement that the alleged violation took place Wednesday morning on the Baltic Sea near the town of Porvoo, east of Helsinki. It provided no further details and said the Finnish Border Guard is investigating the matter.

Spokesman Kristian Vakkuri separately told Finnish newspaper Iltalehti that the alleged violation by a Russian aircraft lasted for about two minutes, entering about one kilometer (0.6 miles) into the airspace of Finland, which is not a member of NATO.

It was the second reported air violation of Finland’s airspace this year.
 
In April, the Portuguese Air Force said one of its surveillance planes unintentionally strayed into Finnish airspace during a NATO mission over the Baltic Sea.  

 

Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner had reeled in a big political fish.

A major government agency, the Bureau of Land Management, was moving to his state and marking a victory years in the making for one of the Senate’s most vulnerable Republicans. But Gardner’s moment of triumph rolled out Monday in the shadow of President Donald Trump’s racist tweets calling for four congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they came from. Republicans, perhaps Gardner most of all, struggled to respond.

A conservative radio show host wanted to know: Had Gardner heard about Trump’s tweets?

“We have been working on the BLM move, and that’s basically everything we’ve been trying to get done,” Gardner replied.

“I translate that as `I don’t want to talk about it,”’ chortled Denver host Steffan Tubbs.

It’s a feeling widely shared among Republicans in Congress weary of answering for Trump’s assorted provocations about Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, people of color, women and more.

But as Gardner’s response showed, Trump’s pass-or-fail loyalty tests don’t leave “no comment” as much of an option for the Republican senators running for reelection in 2020. The president has a record of helping unseat “disloyal” members of the GOP in the House and the Senate. Love, hate or tolerate Trump, Gardner and other endangered Republicans will need his support as the president amps up his own bid for reelection.  

There was a sense this week that Trump’s “go home” controversy marked an intensifying phase in the president’s approach and that Gardner may have offered an early clue for 2020 campaigns on how to respond when the president steps on an accomplishment. The answer: blandly and minimally, with relentless pivots back to issues.

On Sunday, Trump launched an unapologetic stream of tweets suggesting that the four women leave the United States and casting them as haters of America, Jews and Israel. He didn’t name the members of the self-styled “squad,” but his remarks were in clear reference to liberal freshmen Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Condemnation rolled in from Democrats and a few Republicans, and Trump offered no apologies.

Then came what was supposed to be Gardner’s rollout Monday, when he tweeted midafternoon that he was “thrilled” to announce that the administration was moving the agency from Washington to Grand Junction, Colorado. The Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, said about 300 jobs would move to Western states, with about 85 jobs for Colorado.

“This is a victory for local communities, advocates for public lands and proponents for a more responsible and accountable federal government,” Gardner said in a statement.

By Tuesday, Gardner offered up a more on-point answer to the question of whether and how much he supports Trump’s racist tweets.

“I disagree with the president,” Gardner told Denver-area KOA NewsRadio. “I wouldn’t have sent these tweets.”

But asked by CNN later at the Capitol, he would not say whether he thought Trump’s tweets were racist.

His caution may have been informed by the election math. Gardner was elected to the Senate by a little under 2 percentage points in the Republican wave year of 2014, while Democrats swept statewide offices in Colorado last year, winning the governorship by 11 percentage points. Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in Colorado by 5 percentage points in 2016. Voter registration in the state is divided more or less evenly three ways, among Republicans, Democrats and independents.

That makes Gardner perhaps the most vulnerable GOP senator in the country as Republicans defend 22 seats and their Senate majority.

Like many in his party, Gardner has a complicated history with Trump. Gardner briefly endorsed the reality television star-turned-presidential candidate in 2016 but rescinded that backing after the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted of groping women.

This time, Gardner has already endorsed Trump’s reelection campaign.

He’s had to walk a political tightrope. To win another term, Gardner will need to hold the votes of Colorado’s Trump-allied Republicans who remain suspicious of the senator’s rescinded endorsement in 2016, while winning over independents who reject the president but are wary of the Democrats’ agenda.  

Gardner has occasionally chastised the president after controversial moments – notably after Trump praised “both sides” following a confrontation between neo-Nazis and activists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that left a counterprotester dead – and he’s carved out a distinct path on immigration. But Gardner has also voted for most of Trump’s priorities. He’s supported the president’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, his tax cut, both his Supreme Court justices and several other federal judges, along with most of his Cabinet.

Gardner, who has a sunny disposition, has also embraced elements of Trump’s incendiary remarks. In a speech at a conservative gathering in Denver on Friday, Gardner, who has bemoaned Democrats’ embrace of “socialism,” slammed what Republicans describe as the leftward drift of Democrats.

“Since when did wearing the Betsy Ross flag become akin to wearing a swastika?” Gardner asked. “Since when did men and women trying to protect our borders and keep our country safe become Nazis running concentration camps?

Gardner’s approach apparently passed Trump’s loyalty test and by late Tuesday was being cited as an example for others in the party.

“Sen. Gardner is rightly focused on policies, not personalities,” said Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, chairman of the Senate’s Republican campaign arm. “If we do that, we win.”

But Trump’s efforts to rally his base of supporters can flip well-laid plans, said one pollster.

“It’s difficult to have that be an effective strategy when the president decides to blast away at four women of color,” GOP pollster David Flaherty said of Gardner’s efforts to focus on a pro-Colorado agenda.

Cuba’s energy minister says breakdowns in the country’s power plants have caused a string of blackouts across the country this week, and he promises the problem will be solved by Saturday.
 
Minster of Energy and Mining Raul Garcia Barreiro told state media Tuesday night that a series of blackouts in cities and towns throughout Cuba was due to mechanical problems in three power plants as two others were down for maintenance.
 
The statement came after days of official silence in response to reports on Twitter from Cubans experiencing power cuts. Dozens of users reported the times, duration and locations of blackouts, in a dramatic example of the government’s broken monopoly on information in the face of increased access to mobile internet, which came into wide use this year.

 

 

An FBI analysis of crudely made pipe bombs mailed to prominently critics of President Donald Trump has concluded they wouldn’t have worked, according to a report made public Tuesday.

The January report on the analysis was filed in Manhattan federal court, where U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff is scheduled to sentence Cesar Sayoc in September after the Florida man pleaded guilty to explosives-related charges in the scary episode weeks before midterm elections last year.

Sayoc, 57, faces a mandatory 10-year prison term and up to life. Sayoc has repeatedly said he never intended to injure anyone, a claim that his lawyers will likely argue was supported by the report.

The FBI said the devices wouldn’t have functioned because of their design, though it couldn’t be determined whether that was from poor design or the intent of the builder.

It said the fuzing system for each device lacked the proper components and assembly to enable it to function as a method of initiation for an explosive.

It also said the devices contained small fragments of broken glass, fragmentation often added to explosives to injure or kill people nearby.

Whether the devices might have exploded became a major focal point of recent hearings when Sayoc asserted that they could not and prosecutors seemed to leave the question open.

Sarah Baumbartel, an assistant federal defender, declined comment, though the issue was likely to be addressed when his lawyers submit written sentencing arguments next week.

In a letter to the judge several months ago, Sayoc wrote: “Under no circumstances my intent was to hurt or harm anyone. The intention was to only intimidate and scare.”

Sayoc admitted sending 16 rudimentary bombs – none of which detonated – to targets including Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joe Biden, several members of Congress, former President Barack Obama and actor Robert De Niro. Devices were also mailed to CNN offices in New York and Atlanta.

The bombs began turning up over a five-day stretch weeks before the midterms. They were mailed to addresses in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, California, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia.

Sayoc was arrested in late October at a Florida auto parts store. He had been living in a van plastered with Trump stickers and images of Trump opponents with crosshairs over their faces.

Bolivia, which has one of South America’s highest rates of women being killed because of their gender, has declared femicide a national priority and will step up efforts to tackle growing violence, a top government rights official said on Tuesday.

Since January authorities have recorded 73 femicides – the killing of a woman by a man due to her gender – in the highest toll since 2013. The murders amount to one woman killed every two days.

“In terms of the femicide rate, Bolivia is in the top rankings,” said Tania Sanchez, head of the Plurinational Service for Women and Ending Patriarchy at Bolivia’s justice ministry, despite legal protections being in place.

A 2013 law defined femicide as a specific crime and provided tougher sentences for convicted offenders.

“We are not indifferent,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The national priority is the lives of women, of all ages, and for that reason the president has raised this issue of femicide as the most extreme form (of violence),” Sanchez said.

Emergency Plan

The latest femicide victim was 26-year-old mother Mery Vila, killed last week by her partner who beat her on the head with a hammer.

This week, the government announced a 10-point “emergency plan.”

Worldwide, a third of all women experience physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives, according to the U.N. In Bolivia, violence against women is driven by entrenched machismo culture, which tends to blame victims and even condones it.

According to a 2016 national government survey, seven of every 10 women in Bolivia said they had suffered some type of violence inflicted by a partner.

Sanchez said the new plan “takes into account prevention, as well as care to victims and punishing violence, macho violence.”

A commission will also look at increasing government spending on gender violence and prevention, and evaluate various initiatives’ success.

“Funding is insufficient. There’s a great need in the regions,” Sanchez said.

Other measures include obligatory training courses for civil servants and public sector employees on gender violence and prevention.

School and university teachers will also receive training about “the psychological, sexual and physical violence” women and girls face.

The commission will also consider if femicide should be regarded as a crime of lesser humanity.

Widespread Gender Violence

Latin America and the Caribbean have the world’s highest rates of femicide, according to the United Nations.

Some 15 other countries in the region have introduced laws against femicide in recent years.

Victims of femicides in Bolivia and across the region often die at the hands of current or former boyfriends and husbands with a history of domestic abuse, experts say.

“We believe that this increase (in femicides) is related to a patriarchal system that appropriates the bodies and lives of women,” said Violeta Dominguez, head of U.N. Women in Bolivia.

Femicide cases in Bolivia often go unpunished, with victims’ families struggling for justice, Sanchez said.

Of 627 cases recorded since 2013, 288 remain open without a conviction, which Sanchez called “alarming.”

Bolivian President Evo Morales posted on Twitter on Monday “It’s time to end impunity, and tackle problems as a society.”

President Donald Trump and many of his Republican allies in Congress were on the defensive Tuesday after critics deplored what they said were racist comments and tweets by the president urging four Democratic congresswomen to return to their home countries for being critical of the U.S.  All four of the lawmakers are U.S. citizens, and three of them were born in the United States. This latest firestorm has exposed sharp divides on politics and race in the country, as we hear from VOA National correspondent Jim Malone in Washington.

At least 12 people were killed and scores wounded on Tuesday in aerial strikes believed to have been carried out by the Syrian air force on a popular market in a village in opposition-held northwestern Syria, rescuers and residents said.

Residents and rescuers said bombs dropped on Maar Shoreen village in southern Idlib province by planes which monitors said were Syrian army jets left a trail of death and destruction and wounded scores in a main street of the village’s market.

Videos released on social media by activists purportedly showed footage of charred bodies lying on the streets alongside badly burnt people being carried by rescuers. Reuters was unable immediately to independently verify the footage.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed since a Russian-led assault on the last rebel bastion in northwestern Syria began nearly two months ago, rights groups and rescuers said.

The Russian defense ministry denies it targets civilians and Syrian state media said the army on Tuesday launched strikes on al-Qaida militants in the vicinity of Maar Shoreen, destroying their bases and killing scores of “terrorists.”

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), which monitors casualties and briefs various United Nations agencies, said in its latest report that the Russian-Syrian alliance had targeted 31 civil defense facilities, 37 medical centers and 81 schools in 11 weeks of relentless bombing.

It said 606 civilians were killed, including 157 children.

“O God, people have become charred. It’s doomsday,” said Abdullah al Idlibi, a rescuer from the civil defense team.

Russian jets joined the Syrian army on April 26 in attacking parts of rebel-held Idlib province and adjoining northern Hama province in the biggest escalation in the war between Syrian President Bashar al Assad and his enemies since last summer.

Residents and rescuers say the campaign has left dozens of villages and towns in ruins. According to the United Nations, at least 330,000 people have been forced to leave their homes for the safety of areas closer to the border with Turkey.

The far-right governor of Rio de Janeiro state, who has likened drug dealers to terrorists and Nazis while advocating snipers in helicopters to shoot them dead, said on Tuesday “it is only a matter of time” before he becomes president of Brazil.

Wilson Witzel, a former federal judge, was widely seen as a long-shot to become governor of Rio state in last year’s elections. But his law-and-order rhetoric helped align him with the eventual winner of the 2018 presidential race, former army captain Jair Bolsonaro, hoisting him to an unlikely victory.

“Without doubt,” Witzel said, when asked by foreign journalists in Rio if he believed he would be president in the future. He did not specify when he might run.

Witzel’s comments suggest Bolsonaro is likely to face tough challenges from both the left and the right if he seeksre-election in 2022. Bolsonaro had promised during last year’s campaign to do away with re-election for Brazilian presidents but recently said he could run for second term.

Sao Paulo Governor João Doria, whose once-close ties with Bolsonaro have frayed since he took charge of the wealthy and relatively peaceful state earlier this year, is also expected to run.

Murder Rate

In line with national trends, the number of murders in Rio has fallen since Witzel took office on Jan. 1, down around 25 percent between January and May compared with the same period in 2018.

But the number of killings by Rio’s police officers has risen, up nearly 20 percent in the first five months of this year. Critics argue Witzel’s hard-line rhetoric has given cops an implicit permission to kill.

“Nobody wants to kill bandits. We want to arrest them,” Witzel said. “But they need to know we are going to act with rigor. When we arrive, they either surrender, or die.”

Witzel, who has ramped up the use of helicopters in police operations, has said the city is now manning them with snipers to take out favela kingpins.

Witzel justified his fight against Rio’s drug gangs by likening it to the bombardment of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

“Although not in the same proportion, we’re also battling terrorists,” he said.

Additionally, Witzel said Rio’s death toll was likely to remain high during his time in office.

“That’s normal in a situation like this one,” he said.

“We’re living in a situation of confrontation, in which (drug gangs) are testing the limits of the police and of the governor.”

The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to pause the enforcement of a sweeping antitrust ruling against mobile chip supplier Qualcomm on Tuesday, citing support from the Energy Department and Defense Department.

“For DoD, Qualcomm is a key player both in terms of its trusted supply chain and as a leader in innovation, and it would be impossible to replace Qualcomm’s critical role in 5G technology in the short term,” Ellen M. Lord, Under Secretary for Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, wrote in a filing made in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Qualcomm, the largest supplier of modem chips that connect smartphones to wireless data networks, on May 21 lost in an antitrust lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Qualcomm had engaged in anticompetitive patent-licensing practices to keep a monopoly on the mobile chip market. Koh ordered Qualcomm to license its technology to rival chipmakers, which include firms like Taiwan’s MediaTek and Huawei Technologies’s HiSilicon chip unit.

Qualcomm has been fighting to have the ruling put on hold while it pursues an appeal. The San Diego, California, company has argued that letting the ruling stand could upend its talks with phone makers over chips for 5G, the next generation of wireless data networks.

Koh declined to pause the ruling, bringing the case before the 9th Circuit.

The Justice Department’s antitrust division had asked Koh to hold an additional hearing about potential penalties before she made her ruling, but she declined to do so.

‘Erroneous’ ruling

In a friend of the court filing on Tuesday, Justice Department attorneys argued her ruling was “erroneous” and called her decision to forego additional hearings “unlawful.”

Energy Department officials also filed in favor of a pause.

“DOE’s missions in nuclear security and protection of the Nation’s energy and nuclear infrastructure are dependent on secure and advanced wireless communications, of which Qualcomm is the major and predominant U.S. supplier of both current generation and upcoming 5G chipsets,” wrote chief information officer Max Everett.

Lord wrote that the Defense Department “firmly believes that any measure that inappropriately limits Qualcomm’s technological leadership, ability to invest in research and development, and market competitiveness, even in the short-term, could harm national security.”
 

The White House and Congress are engaged in tough, down-to-the-wire negotiations over raising the U.S. government’s borrowing limit and agreeing to new spending levels for as long as the coming two years.  

President Donald Trump’s latest tweetstorm against four Democratic progressive lawmakers and the early stages of the 2020 presidential election campaign are grabbing the headlines in Washington. But the outcome of behind-the-scenes discussions between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the country’s debt ceiling — its cap on borrowing to run the government — and the 2020 budget could prove more consequential.

Agreement on a new debt ceiling and a deal on a new two-year spending plan beginning in October could take both issues off the table ahead of Trump’s November 2020 re-election bid and Democratic efforts to oust him after a single term in the White House.

The century-old debt ceiling is a legal cap on the amount of money the government can borrow to cover revenue shortages. In March, the debt limit expired and the debt now totals $22.5 trillion.

Mnuchin, Trump’s point man in the spending talks, and Pelosi, leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, have talked several times in recent days and, according to news accounts, have made progress in reaching a deal, but aren’t at the finish line yet. Pelosi refuses to cut a deal on raising the debt ceiling until the two sides agree on new spending levels as well.

The discussions are complicated by the legislative calendar, with House lawmakers set to leave Washington July 26 for their annual five-week summer recess and the Senate a week later. Whether Trump will sign off on any deal reached by Mnuchin and Pelosi is also in question, even though the Treasury secretary has been briefing the president about the ongoing discussions.

Mnuchin has emphasized the need to raise the debt ceiling before Congress leaves on vacation. Although he has taken steps to avoid a default on the country’s financial obligations, Mnuchin and experts outside official Washington agree that the government could run out of money to pay its bills in early September, when Congress still possibly is on vacation or just returning to the capital.

The U.S. has never defaulted on its debt obligations, about 30 percent of which are held by foreign governments, led by China and Japan.  

But in years past, Congress has several times walked up to the deadline for raising the debt ceiling before approving periodic increases. Often it has proved to be an exercise in legislative brinksmanship that created tension in world financial markets about the mere prospect that the world’s biggest economy would even think of defaulting on its debt like a deadbeat consumer overdue on a monthly credit card debt.  

Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell testified to Congress last week that he assumes the debt ceiling will be raised, saying, “I wouldn’t be able to capture the range of possible negative outcomes” of not increasing it. Experts say a default could lead to a spike in interest rates on loans or a stock market tumble.

“The credit of the U.S. government is of the utmost importance,” Mnuchin said. “So the debt ceiling has to be raised.”

He said the White House and Republican lawmakers, along with opposition Democrats, prefer that an agreement be reached on both a debt ceiling increase and a new budget.

“To the extent we can agree on the debt ceiling and a budget deal, that is the first choice,” he said. “We’re getting closer.”

One major stumbling block to a deal is reaching agreement on spending levels for defense and domestic social welfare programs. The Democrats are insisting on parity in raising spending in both categories. The White House has agreed to increased government spending overall, but not to as much as Democrats want for their favored domestic programs.

Trump once said he could erase the U.S. debt if he won two terms — eight years — in the White House, but the $19 trillion debt he inherited when he took office in early 2017 has jumped on his watch, increased by chronic annual budget overspending by the government and a $1.5 trillion tax cut Trump championed.

Pelosi has also called for a joint deal encompassing an increase in the debt ceiling and a budget accord, saying an agreement only on a debt ceiling increase is not acceptable to her majority bloc of House Democrats.

She also objected Monday to a White House fallback proposal for a short-term debt ceiling increase for a few weeks if negotiations falter on a budget deal.

But if no spending deal can be reached in the current talks, negotiators have till the end of September to reach a new budget agreement, when current spending for government agencies expires before the start of a new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Last year, budget battles in Washington, chiefly over Trump’s demand for $5 billion to build a wall along the southern U.S. border with Mexico, extended well into December. The warring parties were unable to reach agreement, leading to a 35-day partial government shutdown that extended to late January.

The Trump administration’s plan to move the government’s largest land management office from Washington to Colorado evoked a mix of praise, criticism and questions Tuesday.

The Bureau of Land Management scheduled a formal announcement of its plans Tuesday afternoon. A day earlier, delighted Republican lawmakers said the bureau’s headquarters would move to Grand Junction, Colorado, and about 300 jobs would be relocated to Colorado, Nevada, Utah and other Western states.

The bureau, part of the Interior Department, oversees nearly 388,000 square miles (1 billion square kilometers) of public land, and 99% is in 12 Western states. Those lands produce oil, gas and coal, and ranchers graze livestock on them as well.

“This is a victory for local communities, advocates for public lands and proponents for a more responsible and accountable federal government,” said Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican.

Gardner released a letter from the Interior Department Tuesday confirming the move to Grand Junction, a city of about 63,000 people 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Denver.

Bill Stringer, a Uintah County, Utah, commissioner and retired Bureau of Land Management employee, said it’s a good idea to put more agency employees “closer to where the action is” and in the same time zone as many of the ranchers who seek permits on public land.

But Stringer said he wants to hear the details.

“Theoretically, it sounds like you might have better access,” said Stringer, who retired in 2014 from the BLM. “But I’m interested in seeing what it really looks like.”

He noted that flying in and out of Grand Junction could be logistically difficult for people coming from Washington. 
 
Steve Ellis, another retired bureau official who served as deputy director of the agency, questioned how effective senior leaders could be if they are in western Colorado while budget negotiations and briefings for Congress take place in Washington. 
 
“Those functions are critical, and they’re time-sensitive,” he said. “My concern is, they’re not going to operate well with key people west of the Rockies.”

Ellis dismissed the argument that Bureau of Land Management staff will make better decisions if the headquarters is in the West, saying 95% of the agency’s staff is already in field offices.

The bureau has 9,000 employees, most of them scattered among 140 state, district or field offices.

“This move will further remove BLM career leadership from policy decisions that will still be made in Washington by the [Interior] department,” Ellis said.

‘PR stunt’

The Center for Western Priorities, an environmental group, also scoffed at the argument that moving the headquarters west would lead to better decisions.

“This announcement is nothing but a PR stunt,” the group’s executive director, Jennifer Rokala, said in a written statement. “Moving senior BLM leadership would only turn the agency into an afterthought, rather than a core piece of the Interior Department.”

Interior Department officials have said they also considered Denver; Salt Lake City; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Boise, Idaho, for the new headquarters.

The move is part of a broader plan to reorganize the Interior Department, launched by then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Zinke stepped down in January amid ethics allegations, and his successor, David Bernhardt, continued the planning but with less fanfare.

The spacesuit astronaut Neil Armstrong wore during his mission to the moon went on public display for the first time in 13 years on Tuesday, at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum exactly 50 years to the day when Apollo 11 launched into space.

Armstrong’s son Rick unveiled the suit along with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence who recalled how the country was deeply divided in the late 1960s but came together in pride when Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

Armstrong died on Aug. 12, 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“On top of the contributions to science and human understanding, for that brief moment, the man who wore this suit, brought together our nation and the world,” Pence said.

“Apollo 11 is the only event of the 20th century that stands a chance of being widely remembered in the 30th century,” said Pence said. “A thousand years from now, July 20, 1969 will likely be a date that will live on in the minds and imaginations of men and women, here on Earth, across our solar system, and beyond.”

Armstrong’s suit was displayed for about 30 years at the Smithsonian before it was taken down in 2006 because curators were concerned about deterioration.

For the past 13 years, the suit has been subject to extensive conservation work, which included interviews with the designers and creators of the spacesuit and research into the materials and products used.

“The complexity of the suit ensured it could support human life in the harshest of environments: extreme heat and cold, radiation, micrometeorites and the threat of cuts from sharp rocks all had to be taken into consideration,” Ellen Stofan, the Washington museum’s director, said at the event.

“As our curators note, these spacesuits were actually single-person spacecraft, but while they were designed to endure the punishment of a lunar walk, they weren’t designed to last half a century on display.”

While the original boots worn by the Apollo 11 astronauts were left on the moon because of weight concerns, the Smithsonian does have the boots worn by astronauts on Apollo 17 which were brought back to Earth.

Conservation work was funded by thousands of public donations. Additional funds have been raised to conserve the spacesuit of astronaut Michael Collins, who joined Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission.

Federal prosecutors won’t bring civil rights charges against a New York City police officer in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The decision not to bring charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo comes a day before the statute of limitations was set to expire, on the fifth anniversary of the encounter that led to Garner’s death. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Garner was black, Pantaleo is white. Garner’s words “I can’t breathe” became a rallying cry for police reform activists, coming amid a stretch of other deaths of black men at the hands of white officers. Protests erupted around the country erupted, and police reform became a national discussion.

Some lawmakers and activists decried the decision.

“The Garner family has suffered too much. This decision pains me,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent running for president as a Democrat. “It is not just, and we will not have real justice for black Americans until there is serious reform of our racist criminal justice system.”

Officers were attempting to arrest Garner on charges he sold loose, untaxed cigarettes outside a Staten Island convenience store. He refused to be handcuffed, and officers took him down.

Garner is heard on bystander video crying out “I can’t breathe” at least 11 times before he falls unconscious. He later died.

A state grand jury had also refused to indict the officer on criminal charges.

In the years since Garner’s death, the New York Police Department made a series of sweeping changes on how it relates to the communities it serves, ditching a policy of putting rookie cops in higher-crime precincts in favor of a neighborhood policing model that revolves around community officers tasked with getting to know New Yorkers.

Some activists, including Garner’s family and the relatives of others killed by police, have argued the changes weren’t enough.

Garner’s family and attorney were meeting with federal prosecutors at 10 a.m. Tuesday. A news conference was planned afterward with the Rev. Al Sharpton, and they were expected to address the outcome.

Pantaleo’s attorney, Stuart London, said he was not immediately aware of the decision.

Chokeholds are banned under police policy. Pantaleo maintained he used a legal takedown maneuver called the “seatbelt.”

The medical examiner’s office said a chokehold contributed to Garner’s death.

The New York Police Department brought Pantaleo up on departmental charges earlier this year. Federal prosecutors were observing the proceedings. An administrative judge has not ruled whether he violated policy. He could face dismissal, but Police Commissioner James O’Neill has the final say.

In the years since the Garner death, Pantaleo has remained on the job but not in the field, and activists have decried his paycheck that included union-negotiated raises.
 

Bulgarian officials said Tuesday that unidentified hackers have stolen the personal details of millions of people from Bulgaria’s national revenue agency and noted a possible Russian link in the case.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov called an emergency meeting of all law enforcement services to consider the potential harm to the country’s national security. Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov told reporters after the meeting that the hackers behind the breach contacted local media using a mailbox from a Russian domain.

The leak, the biggest in the Balkan country, contains names, personal data and the financial earnings of individuals and companies. According to local media, the hackers have stolen the details of some 5 million of the country’s 7 million people.

Goranov said the government has requested help from the European Union’s cybersecurity agency.

Speaking to the bTV channel, Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said the attack coincided with Bulgaria’s purchase of U.S. F-16 fighter jets for its air force and that it could likely be motivated by that.

“Organized criminal groups involved in cyberattacks usually seek financial profits, but here political motives are possible. The government decided yesterday to buy F-16 jets,” Marinov said.

The finance minister, however, rejected a possible link to the jet purchase, saying the cyberattack had occurred before the deal was approved.

Bulgarian media, which received an email from the hackers, said it came from Russian mail provider Yandex but demanded no ransom. The email did call for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is now in a British prison serving a 50-week sentence for jumping bail in Britain and also faces an extradition request by the United States, which seeks him on espionage charges.

Bulgarian media quoted the hackers’ email as criticizing the Bulgarian government and saying “the state of your cybersecurity is a joke.”

It was not clear why the tax agency was targeted but corruption in Bulgaria is widespread. Transparency International says Bulgaria is the most corrupt of the European Union’s 28 nations.