According to the United Nations, a third of the world’s food is either lost or wasted every year. Two startups are tackling food waste at the local level, allowing businesses to sell their leftovers at a discount instead of throwing everything away. Tina Trinh reports.

One year after the murder of Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump remains a reliable ally of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying the special relationship between the two countries is bigger than any one issue.   But many in the U.S. Congress are still pressing for changes in U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia until those responsible for the murder are held accountable. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.

Millionaire businesswoman Varisiri Methachittiphan is an immigrant success story. She started out in the U.S. as a typical Thai student, eager to study and enjoy new experiences. Then she adopted Nala, a 5-month-old kitten, from a shelter in California. What happened next is pure internet magic. VOA’s Warangkana Chomchuen tells their story. 

In the first few days of the four-month ban on all vaping products in Massachusetts, Laura Lee Medeiros, a medical marijuana patient, began to worry.

The 32-year-old massage therapist has a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from childhood trauma. To temper her unpredictable panic attacks, she relied on a vape pen and cartridges filled with the marijuana derivatives THC and CBD from state dispensaries.

There are other ways to get the desired effect from marijuana, and patients have filled dispensaries across the state in recent days to ask about edible or smokeable forms. But Medeiros has come to depend on her battery-powered pen, and wondered how she would cope without her usual supply of cartridges.

“In the midst of something where I’m on the floor, on the verge of passing out, my pen has been very helpful for me to grab,” she said. She carries her vape pen in her purse in case of an emergency, but has only one cartridge left.

Massachusetts imposed its ban on all vaping products, including both nicotine- and cannabis-based products, in response to mounting concern about the potential serious health risks. Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, said the ban would last at least four months while new legislation and regulation is explored.

More than 800 cases of a vaping-related lung disease and 12 deaths across 10 U.S. states have so far been reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those numbers are expected to climb.

More than three quarters of those with the respiratory illness reported vaping THC, the main psychoactive ingredient of marijuana. Many of them used small e-cigarette cartridges, or “carts,” bought on the black market, where the risk of adulterated products is high.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but a growing number of states allow it for medical or recreational use.

Massachusetts is one of 10 U.S. states that allows both uses, along with the District of Columbia.

Some marijuana users had long eschewed vaping even before the ban, often on the advice of doctors who saw the cocktail of compounds being inhaled into lungs as risky.

“I have advised against the vape carts for my patients for a long time exactly out of suspicion of basically what just happened,” said Dr. Ryan Zaklin, a doctor in Salem, Massachusetts. “Who the hell knows what they’re putting in them?”

Some patients like vaping because it is more discreet than traditional burning of marijuana “flower.” The devices are small, produce a relatively odorless “vapor” and is fast-acting: a handheld device rapidly heats liquid compounds into an aerosol that can be inhaled into the lungs.

Many of those patients are now asking their doctors or dispensaries about edible forms of marijuana, liquid tinctures that can be dropped under the tongue or old-fashioned flower buds and pre-rolled joints for smoking.

For Medeiros, who lives in the small coastal city of Peabody, other methods are a poor substitute. She found that edibles take time to take effect, typically about an hour.

Tinctures seemed to her similarly slow-acting. And rolling a joint while her vision is closing in and she is hyperventilating from a panic attack is nearly impossible, she said.

Unexpected blessing

Medeiros wishes medical marijuana patients had been given time to stock up on the products they use before the ban went into immediate effect.

Pressed on such concerns, the governor has not been swayed to change his decision over what he said was a public health emergency.

“There are many alternative uses available to people who currently have prescriptions for medical marijuana and they should pursue those,” Baker told reporters last week, according to local media.

But some public health experts have warned the ban may drive more people toward riskier black-market, totally unregulated vape products.

At the New England Treatment Access (NETA) dispensary in Brookline, near Boston, which has become one of the biggest suppliers of medical marijuana since the drug became legalized in the state in 2012, several patients said they view the ban as an unexpected blessing.

Denise Sullivan, 62, uses medical marijuana to treat symptoms of her leukemia. She had vaped for more than a year, but stopped after she heard about the ban. During the period she vaped, she contracted pneumonia five times, she said, and now believes that might have been vape related.

“I can tell when I vape I am more congested not in my lungs but in my sinuses,” she said. She plans to use edibles, which she said kick in with enough time to treat her pain.

Kate LeDoux, 49, had a similar experience. She is a runner and used medical marijuana to help recovery from recent foot surgery. LeDoux stopped vaping a few weeks ago after seeing the news about the lung disease, turning instead to edibles and smoking.

Almost immediately, her “weird cough” cleared up and her running times improved, she said. “Now I know it was 100 percent the vaping.”

Melania Trump will promote U.S. national parks and her youth initiative later this week in Wyoming.

The White House says the first lady will visit national parks and landmarks Thursday and spread the child well-being message that’s a big component of her year-old “Be Best” initiative.
 
Last month, Mrs. Trump and fourth-grade students from the District of Columbia participated in the ceremonial reopening of the Washington Monument. She helped hand out National Park Service passes that grant fourth-graders free access to hundreds of national parks, lands and waters.
 
The White House says Thursday’s visit will be about encouraging fourth-graders to get a pass from the National Park Service so they can spend more time outdoors.

Wyoming is home to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.
 

Ukraine’s president said Tuesday that no one explained to him why millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to his country was delayed, shrugging off suggestions that President Donald Trump froze the funding to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is struggling to distance himself from U.S. politics, and to contain the damage to Ukraine and his own reputation from a July phone call between him and Trump that unleashed a congressional impeachment inquiry.

“It is impossible to put pressure on me,” he told reporters Tuesday. “Many people try to influence me,” he said, but “I am the president of independent Ukraine.”

Zelenskiy said that in discussions with Trump, he repeatedly stressed the importance of the U.S. military aid to help Ukraine battle Russian-backed separatists. In the July call, he thanked Trump for his “great support in the area of defense” and said Ukraine was ready to “cooperate for the next steps,” according to a rough transcript released by the White House. Zelenskiy didn’t say Tuesday whether the issue was raised in other discussions or when they took place.

The Pentagon in June announced plans to send $250 million in aid to Ukraine, but its delivery was delayed. A defense official said the Trump administration was analyzing the extent to which Ukrainian was addressing long-standing U.S. concerns about corruption.

The funding was then released in September.

“It wasn’t explained to me” why the money didn’t come through earlier, Zelenskiy said.

Zelenskiy also said he has never met or spoken with Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has been pushing for Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

Zelenskiy is facing a dilemma over how to handle Trump’s request in the July call for Ukraine to “look into” the Bidens.

If Ukraine opens an investigation into the case, that helps Trump and the Republicans. If it doesn’t, that helps the Democrats. And what Ukraine’s current leadership really wants is continued U.S. support, no matter who wins next year’s U.S. elections.

A former Ukrainian security chief argued Tuesday that the best way to show that Ukraine is serious about fighting endemic, crippling corruption is to open new investigations into Burisma.

“The whole world is talking about Ukraine and the whole world wants to know what happened” at Burisma, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told The Associated Press.

Nalyvaichenko, a parliament member who twice headed Ukraine’s National Security Service, or SBU, said he will initiate a parliamentary inquiry into Burisma.

He insisted he is not trying to do Trump’s bidding. “We have no way to know whether any crimes were committed if we don’t lead a comprehensive, transparent investigation inside Ukraine,” he said.

A previous probe was closed in 2016.

 

From a sunrise event to a reading of victims’ names at the time the bullets flew, Las Vegas on Tuesday was marking two years since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, with memorials to the 58 people killed at a country music festival.
 
“No anniversary is more terrible than the one that recalls how your neighbors and guests were so wantonly slain, even while their hearts were singing out in joy as they listened to music with their friends and loved ones,” Joe Robbins said.
 
The father of 20-year-old Quinton Robbins told a daybreak audience of hundreds about his son, a city recreation worker who died when a gunman rained gunfire from a high-rise hotel into a crowd of 22,000 on Oct. 1, 2017.

“None of us want those who lost to be forgotten,” Joe Robbins said.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak recalled cellphones ringing as he joined officials walking the shooting scene the morning after the massacre.
 
“Many that would never be answered,” he said.

Two years ago, Sisolak led the county commission that oversees the Las Vegas Strip, where a concert turned to horror as people suddenly dropped — bleeding — ran to escape the spraying bullets and tried to save people they loved.
 
“Beyond the neon signs, we are a city of neighbors that look out for each other,” the first-term governor said.
 
The memorial audience was smaller than last year, but emotions were still raw for Al McIldoon, father of Jordan McIldoon, a 23-year-old from Maple Ridge, British Columbia, who died in the shooting.

“We feel the need to be here for our son,” he said.
 
He, his wife, Angela McIldoon, and their friend Paul Poteat of Las Vegas wore matching NHL Vegas Golden Knights jerseys, No. 58, with the name Jordy Mac on the back.
 
“We’ll keep coming every year,” Al McIldoon said.

Steve Darling and Judy Gardner of Ontario, California, wore T-shirts with the name of Judy’s daughter, Dana Gardner, a 52-year-old mother of three enjoying the music with her own daughter when she died.

They said they planned to join hands with survivors and other families of victims at the concert venue across the Las Vegas Strip from the Mandalay Bay resort-casino, where the shooter unleashed his attack.

MGM Resorts International, owner of the hotel and the venue, has announced plans to convert the now-shuttered concert space to parking while it plans a community center and a place to remember victims.

Darling and Gardner said they already visited a community healing garden, where Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman planned to read the names of the victims at the time the gunfire rang out: 10:05 p.m.

Greg Zanis, who made wooden memorial crosses with victims’ names and photos, put them up again at the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.

The Vegas Strong Resiliency Center, which offers financial help, counseling referrals and legal aid for those affected by the shooting, promoted daylong outreach wellness programs.

The shooting lasted nearly 11 minutes before gunman Stephen Paddock killed himself as police closed in. Police and the FBI found the 64-year-old retired accountant and high-stakes video poker player meticulously planned the attack, and they theorized that he may have sought notoriety. But they said they never found a clear motive.

Gun laws

Police recovered 23 assault-style weapons, including 14 fitted with bump stock attachments that allow firearms to fire rapidly like machine guns. The Trump administration banned the devices in March.

Nevada and some other states have tightened gun laws in the two years since the shooting, including passing “red flag” measures that allow a judge to order weapons be taken from someone who is deemed a threat.

Gun control advocates say they’re frustrated more hasn’t been done.

Two prominent gun control organizations will host a forum Wednesday in Las Vegas for 10 leading Democratic presidential candidates focusing on the issue.

Efforts to combat gun violence follow other recent mass shootings, including at a Florida high school last year that killed 17 and attacks in Texas and Ohio that killed 31 people in one weekend this summer.

“It’s a shame that it takes more and more of these shootings to bring attention to a topic,” said Liz Becker, a volunteer with the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action.

But “I do think that the tide is turning,” she said.
 

Mark Sanford, the most prominent primary challenger to President Donald Trump, has said he won’t solicit contributions from his longtime donor base until he’s “proven a measure of electoral success.”

Bill Kristol has yet to fully activate a super PAC aimed at hurting Trump’s reelection chances.
 
And Stuart Stevens, the top strategist for Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, until he was prompted, could not recall the name of the super PAC he is advising that supports another Trump challenger, Bill Weld.
 
So far, not even the start of an impeachment inquiry against the president has energized the campaigns of those candidates, or aligned groups, seeking to deny Trump the Republican presidential nomination.
 
Still, outside spending by disenchanted “Never Trump”-type Republicans could diminish Trump’s 2020 odds by wounding his candidacy even if stopping well short of denying him the nomination.
 
“For now, the idea that somehow, some way, some seven-figure guy or some seven-figure bundler, is going to break from the pack to go support one of these guys is just, I don’t think realistic,” said Reed Galen, a former Republican turned independent who worked in the past for George W. Bush and John McCain.

Weld, the former Massachusetts governor and the first Republican to announce a primary challenge to Trump, has struggled to mount a serious fundraising effort, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings. That’s also been true for the pro-Weld super PAC America United.
 
At the end of June, the committee had raised only $60,000 and had less than $20,000 cash on hand. Stevens emphasized last week that fundraising is just starting. By comparison, New Day for America, a super PAC supporting former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, ended June with close to $414,000 cash on hand.
 
“The people that we’re talking to are against Donald Trump,” Stevens said. “And they were against Donald Trump before, so it’s not like some light bulb went off. This may open up a new group of donors. I just don’t know yet.”
 
Weld was joined in the Republican primary race in recent weeks by Joe Walsh, a former tea-party-backed, one-term congressman from Illinois, and Sanford, the former South Carolina governor and congressman.
 
Since announcing for president in April, Weld has struggled to gain footing in New Hampshire even with frequent campaigning in the state. Sanford and Walsh both recently made initial visits.
 
Kristol, a director of Defending Democracy Together, a 501(c)(4) anti-Trump conservative group, said Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and the impeachment proceedings have led to Never Trump donors feeling vindicated. And last week Republicans for the Rule of Law, a project of Defending Democracy Together, announced it had begun targeting digital ads at some congressional Republicans as “the first stage in a $1 million campaign urging Republicans to stand up for the rule of law and speak out against the president’s abuse of power.”
 
It could be a new ballgame, Kristol said, and raised the possibility of other Trump challengers getting into the race.
 
“I would say they’re being seen as serious. I don’t think people think they can win,” Kristol said of the three current Trump primary challengers. “But I think you can be serious without having much of a chance of winning if you raise issues and show weakness in the front-runner.”
 
That has resulted in a transition for Trump’s Republican critics.
 
 “Most of the Never Trumpers in the Republican Party, both donors and activists, are gradually becoming After Trumpers,” said Dan Schnur, a former Republican turned independent who was national director of communications for McCain’s 2000 presidential run.  He added: “Impeachment could force their hand, but right now, they’re devoting their time and effort to thinking about what the Republican Party could or should be once Trump has left the political landscape.”
 
Dating back to 1976, sitting presidents have a history of losing the general election after a serious primary challenge. But for Trump’s Republican challengers, the case to be taken seriously has only become more difficult as a handful of state parties cancel their primaries and other nominating contests.
 
Walsh hasn’t been shy about his struggles as a candidate and conceded before the impeachment inquiry that it had “not been easy to raise money.” But he has been encouraged by interest and support from small-dollar donors.
 
There is less support from big donors now, even from the ones who had donated to him in the past.
 
 “The vast majority of those donors, even though they like me, many of them are still on board the Trump train,” Walsh said.

 

Denmark’s largest bank says its Estonian branch, which was involved in a 200 billion-euro ($220 billion) money laundering scandal, has entered liquidation after winding down banking activities in the Baltic country.
 
Frederik Bjoern, Danske Bank’s chairman of the liquidation committee, said Tuesday it “has now essentially closed all banking activities in Estonia,” as agreed with the Estonian financial watchdog in February.
 
The money laundering scandal is one of the largest of its kind. It involved dirty money being funneled from 2007 to 2015 mainly from Russia and other former Soviet republics to client accounts of the Estonian bank subsidiary.
 
Last week, Estonian police found the body of Aivar Rehe, Danske Bank’s head in Estonia in 2006-2015, and confirmed Monday he had committed suicide. He was never considered a suspect.

 

Vietnam has passed a new regulation that details prohibitions against corrupt behavior by state officials, down to the last fruit basket.

Decree No. 59/2019/ND-CP requires officials to report all gifts, even small ones, and their relationship to the giver, and requires civil servants refuse to accept “improper gifts,” a term that has not been defined but is interpreted to refer to bribes.

A corporate law firm, Baker & McKenzie Vietnam, notes that there used to be a threshold of 500,000 Vietnam dong, or a little more than 20 U.S. dollars, under which officials did not have to report their gifts, often received at special occasions such as weddings, funerals, and public holidays. The new decree gets rid of that threshold.

“Public officials must now disclose all gifts received for an improper purpose, regardless of the value of the gift,” the law firm said in a summary of the decree for clients.

The decree is the latest change as part of the country’s recent efforts to get rid of corruption, not unlike the campaign next door in China under President Xi Jinping. Vietnam has already sent bankers, city officials, and oil company executives to prison. It is now focusing on the ruling Communist Party, which in September approved another rule, Decision 205, to ban payments for promotions.

Analyst Carl Thayer predicts that there will be three priorities as the party gathers in October for the Central Committee’s eleventh plenum: preparations for the next party congress; foreign policy; and anti-corruption.

“Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong is consistently and methodically carrying out a strategy to identify a core of non-corrupt strategic cadres for key party and state appointments after the thirteenth national party congress scheduled for the first quarter of 2021,” said Thayer, emeritus professor at The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy, Canberra. “The Communist Party of Vietnam has already approved a list of what party members cannot do, for example. Decision 205 aims to curtail, if not end, the widespread practice of paying for promotion or assignment to a particular post.”

Transparency International, a watchdog organization, ranks Vietnam 117 out of 180 countries on its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. The watchdog group said getting rid of corruption would also help Vietnam meet its broader sustainable development goals as an emerging economy.

“Upholding integrity and fighting corruption can play a crucial role in promoting investment and increasing local people’s income,” Nguyen Ngoc Anh and Dang Quang Vinh, two researchers at the organization, said in a report in February.

Decree No. 59/2019/ND-CP is part of that effort. Besides new guidelines on illicit payments, it also further empowers police to investigate corruption, as well as holds supervisors liable for potentially corrupt actions by their staff.

Venezuela wants to reopen contacts with foreign bondholders after a two-year hiatus to renegotiate some $60 billion of foreign debt, President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday, but investors gave short shrift to the suggestion.

Venezuela said in 2017 it wanted a restructuring, but the process quickly stalled amid a national political and economic crisis, and the imposition of U.S. financial sanctions.

At a news conference, Maduro gave instructions to Vice Presidents Delcy Rodriguez and Tareck El Aissami – both of whom are on the U.S. sanctions list – to contact creditors again.

“You two, call a debt renegotiation round with all the bondholders in the world, let’s establish a timetable of immediate solutions,” he said.

“I want to meet them here or anywhere in the world that we need to go, except the United States, I don’t want to go the United States any more for now.”

U.S. President Donald Trump calls Maduro’s government illegitimate and recognizes Congress head and opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president.

Guaido’s team is also pursuing plans to renegotiate Venezuela’s debt. He wants to prevent creditors from taking Venezuela’s main foreign asset, U.S. refiner Citgo, as partial repayment for debt.

Creditors have had minimal contact with Venezuelan officials because Maduro is not seen as a credible negotiator and U.S. sanctions prevent many from taking part in such meetings.

“Venezuela’s public debt bonds were issued under New York law, so any debt negotiation can only be done by the Guaido government, whose legitimacy is recognized by the United States,” tweeted Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez.

“A renegotiation with Nicolas Maduro has no legal validity,” added Rodriguez, who was the economic adviser to an opposition candidate who ran against Maduro in last year’s election.

One U.S. bondholder told Reuters it would be impossible for Maduro to negotiate given the U.S. sanctions, its inability to issue new debt, and the Guaido team’s advances with creditors.

Maduro’s suggestion might have been intended to try and encourage bondholders to pressure the U.S. government to ease sanctions against Venezuela, he surmised.

Asked if Maduro’s renewed push for a restructuring had any mileage, another investor replied: “No. Zero. Nothing.”

 

International Criminal Court judges on Monday ordered an alleged jihadi leader from Mali to stand trial on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.

A pretrial chamber issued a confidential decision confirming charges including torture, rape, sexual slavery, and deliberately attacking religious buildings and historic monuments against Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud.

The crimes were allegedly committed in Timbuktu during a brutal occupation of the historic desert city by Islamic extremists from April 2012 until January 2013.

The global court said in a statement that after studying evidence presented by prosecutors the judges concluded that there are “substantial grounds to believe that Mr. Al Hassan is responsible” for the crimes charged.

Prosecutors allege he was a key member of Ansar Dine, an al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremist group.

 At a hearing in July to assess the strength of the evidence, defense lawyer Melinda Taylor argued that the prosecution case relies heavily on statements Al Hassan made while he was held at an undisclosed location in Mali that she said was notorious for human rights abuses. She said that Al Hassan later told ICC prosecutors he was tortured. 
 
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told judges that Al Hassan was the de facto chief of the Islamic police that imposed a brutal regime on Timbuktu residents during Ansar Dine’s occupation.

She said he “played an essential and undeniable role in the system of persecution established by the armed groups throughout the period of occupation of Timbuktu.” 
 
No date was immediately set for Al Hassan’s trial.

Previous case

The case against Al Hassan is the second at the global court to focus on crimes committed during the occupation of Timbuktu. 
 
A member of Ansar Dine, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, was convicted in 2016 and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for intentionally directing attacks against nine mausoleums and a mosque door in Timbuktu in 2012. Al Mahdi had earlier pleaded guilty and expressed remorse for his role in leading the destruction. 
 
A French-led military operation in 2013 forced Al Hassan and others from power, though elements have continued to stage numerous attacks on Malian and international forces.
 

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra announced he was dissolving Congress after it defied his warnings and elected a new member of the Constitutional Tribunal on Monday, prompting opposition lawmakers to prepare a motion to impeach him.

Vizcarra stressed his decision was part of his constitutional powers and said he would call new legislative elections. He blamed lawmakers for repeatedly trying to block his anti-graft reforms.

Opposition lawmakers in a plenary session accused Vizcarra of overstepping the bounds of the constitution, and said they would seek to oust him on the grounds he was morally incapable of governing.

The power struggle threatens to hobble governing and could trigger unrest in a country that has seen increased political volatility in recent years. Some lawmakers have vowed to physically resist any attempt to send them home.

A San Francisco tour guide has been charged with being an agent of the Chinese government, accused of picking up U.S. national security secrets from furtive locations and delivering them cloak and dagger style to Beijing, federal prosecutors said Monday.

Xuehua Peng, also known as Edward Peng, was arrested on Friday in the San Francisco suburb of Hayward, California, and was denied bail during an initial court appearance by a U.S. magistrate judge that same day, federal prosecutors said at a Monday morning news conference.

“The conduct charged in this case alleges a combination of age-old spycraft and modern technology,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said.

“Defendant Xuehua (Edward) Peng is charged with executing dead drops, delivering payments, and personally carrying to Beijing, China, secure digital cards containing classified information related to the national security of the United States,” Anderson said.

Peng, 56, is not accused of stealing secrets from the U.S. government himself, but is charged with acting as a courier who between October 2015 and June 2018 picked up classified information from the “dead drops” in Oakland and Newark, California, and Columbus, Georgia, and delivering them to his handlers from the Ministry of State Security (MSS) in Beijing.

FBI surveillance

FBI agents began conducting surveillance on Peng after a double agent, referred to in court papers only as “the Source,” was told by MSS officers in March 2015 that “Ed,” who had family and business dealings in China, could be relied on.

“I believe that ‘Ed’ — who was later identified as Peng — had been instructed in spycraft, practiced it and knew that he was working for intelligence operatives of the PRC,” FBI Agent Spiro Fokas said in a sworn affidavit filed with the criminal complaint, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

An MSS officer told the Source that the ministry “control(s) everything about Ed’s” company and would “cut him off” if he did not do as told.

Hotel drops

According to Fokas’ affidavit, the double agent on several occasions passed information to Peng for delivery to Beijing, dropping them at the front desk of a hotel or in rooms reserved by Peng.

The dead drops sometimes involved Peng leaving $10,000 or $20,000 taped in white envelopes inside the drawer of a television stand and retrieving secure digital cards with the classified information, according to the court papers.

Peng then flew to Beijing with the digital cards, the affidavit alleges.

Peng, who works as a sight-seeing tour operator for Chinese tourists in the Bay Area, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, prosecutors said. He has been ordered to return to court in San Francisco on Oct. 2.
 

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has announced an “income inequality” plan calling for tax increases on companies that pay CEOs far more than their workers’ median salaries.
 
The Vermont senator’s proposal, unveiled Monday, would raise taxes 0.5 percentage points on companies paying top executives more than 50 times the median salaries of workers. Tax penalties would rise up to 5 percentage points for firms whose highest-paid official earns 500-plus times median worker pay.
 
The plan would apply to all private and publicly held corporations with annual revenues of $100 million. Sanders’ campaign says it would raise $150 billion over the next decade, which he would use to eliminate medical debt nationwide.
 
Sanders says the public demands that profitable corporations “pay their fair share of taxes.” 

The U.S. violent crime rate fell for the second year in a row in 2018, largely extending a decades-long decline, the FBI said in its annual crime report released on Monday.  

There were an estimated 369 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2018, a decline of 3.9 percent from 2017 and a decline of nearly 15 percent from 2009, according to the report.

The murder rate also fell for the second consecutive year, decreasing by 6.8 percent to nearly 5 murders per 100,000 people.  The rate is nearly half the 1991 high of almost 10 murders per 100,000 residents.

Large cities saw a marked decline in murder.  In cities with a population of more than 1 million people such as Chicago, the overall murder rate fell by 8.5 percent.  In Chicago, it tumbled by 14 percent.  

Baltimore, another city that has experienced high murder rates in recent years, saw the murder rate decrease by 9 percent.  

Among other violent crimes, robbery saw the largest decline, decreasing by 38,000 incidents.  The rate of rape crimes, however, rose by 2.1 percent likely due to an increase in reporting.

President Donald Trump made history this past week, but not the kind he had hoped for. Trump is now the fourth U.S. president to become the subject of an impeachment inquiry, the U.S. constitutional process whereby Congress may remove a president from office.

But if history is any guide, both sides should take note that the politics of impeachment are complicated and risky, and the eventual outcome and fallout are often hard to predict.

What is clear from the past several days is that Donald Trump is now fully engaged in a battle to save his presidency.

“What these guys are doing, Democrats, are doing to this country is a disgrace and it shouldn’t be allowed,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “There should be a way of stopping it. Maybe legally through the courts.”

Ukraine call

Trump has rejected a charge from Democrats that he abused the powers of his office by seeking Ukraine’s help to find damaging information about one of his Democratic rivals, former vice president Joe Biden.

Democrats point to a whistleblower complaint that detailed Trump’s attempt to get help from Ukraine and alleged White House efforts to cover it up.

Democrat Adam Schiff chairs the House Intelligence Committee.

“And if as alleged, and if as this record of the call already indicates, the president was instead of faithfully executing his office, was using that office as leverage to obtain dirt, have another country manufacture dirt on his opponent, it is hard to imagine a more fundamental abuse of that office,” Schiff said.

For the most part, Republicans continue to back the president, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

“I think people will find this to be overreach,” he said. “I think people will believe this is just revenge.”

A few Republicans have expressed various levels of concern. Utah Senator Mitt Romney, one of the few Republicans with a reputation of occasionally being critical of the president, said the summary of the phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president was “deeply troubling.”

Uncertain impact

The political impact of an impeachment battle during a presidential election campaign is hard to predict, especially on some of the president’s supporters.

“Are they then going to rally behind the president? That is certainly what Trump is banking on,” University of Illinois analyst William Howell told Associated Press Television. “He is going to do everything he can to elicit that kind of response by members of his own party.”

Trump did some musing about a possible impeachment during the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Late last year, the president told Reuters that he was not concerned about impeachment.

“I think that the people would revolt if that happened,” he said.

Some Democratic strategists predict the impeachment battle could weaken Trump’s case for re-election, even if the effort falls short of forcing him out of office.

Complicated history

Many Democrats are no doubt mindful of what happened with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998.

Clinton lied about and tried to cover up his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, which led to his impeachment by the House.

Clinton remained in office after a Senate trial in which he was acquitted.

Clinton and Andrew Johnson are the only two U.S. presidents to have been impeached. Johnson survived his own Senate trial in 1868.

In the aftermath of the Clinton impeachment, Republicans lost five House seats in the 1998 midterm elections.

University of Virginia expert Larry Sabato said that amounted to a political backlash over the impeachment effort.

“Given the fact that the Republicans took a wounded Bill Clinton and made him almost invulnerable for the rest of his term, it should serve as a warning to Democrats,” he said.

Republicans may have paid a price for the Clinton impeachment in 1998, but two years later, Democrat Al Gore was defeated in the 2000 presidential election by Republican George W. Bush. Many experts believe the hangover from the Clinton scandal hurt Gore and may have cost him the presidency.

In 1974, Congress began impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal. Nixon left office when it became clear that he would likely not survive an impeachment trial in the Senate.

Divided public

Public opinion polls show voters remain sharply divided over whether to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry of Trump, though recent surveys have shown an uptick in support for the idea.

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that 49 percent of those surveyed favor the impeachment inquiry, while 46 percent oppose it.

A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found 43% in favor of starting the impeachment process, and 43% opposed. Support for impeachment was up 7 points from a previous poll conducted last week.

And a new Huffington Post/YouGov survey showed 47% now support impeaching Trump and removing him from office, while 39% are opposed.

Senate obstacle

The biggest obstacle facing the Democratic impeachment effort of Trump is the Republican-controlled Senate.

Republicans control the Senate by a margin of 53 to 47, and that includes two independents who usually vote with Democrats. That means Democrats would have to bring over at least 20 Republican senators in any impeachment trial in order to get a conviction and remove the president from office. So far, that seems like a long shot.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to keep Democrats focused on the Ukraine matter in the impeachment inquiry, rather than include a host of other issues related to the president that have come up previously. Pelosi did not give a timeline for the inquiry.

“They will take the time that they need, and we won’t have the calendar be the arbiter,” she said.

What comes next for President Trump and the country is not entirely clear, but both sides appear to be preparing for a long and divisive political battle with an uncertain outcome, just as the 2020 presidential campaign begins to heat up.

At least 100 people have died in northern India over the last three days in unusually heavy late monsoon rains which have submerged streets, hospital wards and houses, officials said Monday.

Dozens of boats were pressed into service on streets overflowing with gushing rain water in Patna, the capital of the eastern state of Bihar, after torrential downpours far stronger the normal.

At least 27 people have lost their lives across the state and another 63 in neighboring Uttar Pradesh since Friday, authorities said. With more rain predicted, weather experts say September could end as the wettest in more than a hundred years.

“Patna alone has recorded some 226 millimeters [8.9 inches] of rainfall since Friday,” Bihar disaster response official M. Ramachandru told AFP.

Photos showed patients lying on hospital beds in dirty rain water at the state-run Nalanda Medical College and Hospital in Patna.

It has also been raining heavily in southern India and in the western state of Gujarat.

The annual monsoon usually lasts from June to September.

With the Indian Meteorological Department Monday predicting excess rainfall across 15 states, this year’s monsoon will end as the wettest since 1917, the mass-circulation Times of India said.

“There are no signs of withdrawal for at least four-five days,” senior IMD officer Mrutyunjay Mohapatra told the daily.

The monsoon, which is vital for farmers across the South Asian region, killed some 650 people in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan in July this year.

 

 

 

 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied wrongdoing Sunday over his links to an American businesswoman who allegedly received money and favorable treatment because of their friendship during his time as mayor of London.

Asked during a BBC interview about his ties to tech entrepreneur and model Jennifer Arcuri, Johnson sought to suggest that political motivations were behind the decision Friday by the Greater London Authority to refer a conduct matter to a police watchdog agency.

The matter arose from a Sunday Times report saying Arcuri was given 126,000 pounds in public money and privileged access to trade missions to the United States, Israel and Asia that Johnson led as mayor, even though her fledgling business had not yet met eligibility requirements for such trips.

“Everything was done in accordance with the code … and everything was done with full propriety,” Johnson said Sunday. When pressed again by BBC journalist Andrew Marr, Johnson added: “There was no interest to declare.”

The scandal worsened Sunday as Johnson’s Conservative Party was opening its annual party conference in Manchester following a tumultuous week for a leader who has only been in the job since July.

In just the last few days, the U.K. Supreme Court declared Johnson’s attempt to suspend Parliament illegal and he cut short a trip to the United States, racing home to face the House of Commons, where lawmakers greeted him with cries of “Resign!” He then lost a vote on a normally routine matter — a request to adjourn for a week so that Conservatives could attend their conference.

Complicating things further, questions were raised about the 55-year-old Johnson’s links to Arcuri, now 34, who set up a cyber firm in East London after moving to the capital seven years ago.

Yet even as the British leader visited North Manchester General Hospital on Sunday to talk about his government’s plans to build 40 hospitals, his efforts failed to change the subject.

“Let’s be absolutely clear, I am very, very proud of everything that we did and certainly everything that I did as mayor of London,” he said, adding that the current London mayor, Sadiq Khan of the Labour Party, “could possibly spend more time investing in police officers than he is investing in press officers and peddling this kind of stuff.”

The independent office, which oversees police complaints in England, was asked to consider if there were grounds to investigate Johnson for misconduct in public office. The authority said Friday it had a “statutory duty” to record the matter because Johnson served as police commissioner during his 2008-2016 tenure as London’s mayor.

The probe is the latest sign of animosity that has consumed British politics since the country narrowly voted in 2016 to leave the European Union. Three years later, Britain and its politicians remain bitterly divided over how, or even whether, to leave the 28-nation bloc.

Johnson took power two months ago with a “do-or-die” promise that Britain will leave the EU on the scheduled date of Oct. 31 — even if there’s no divorce deal outlining Britain’s commercial relations with the other 27 EU nations. His foes in Parliament are determined to avoid a no-deal exit, which economists say would plunge Britain into recession.

In unusually heated debate Wednesday, Johnson referred to an opposition law ordering a Brexit delay as the “Surrender Act” and said postponing the country’s departure would “betray” the people. He also brushed off concerns that his forceful language might endanger legislators as “humbug.”

Opponents accused him of fomenting hatred in the country with his populist, people-versus-politicians rhetoric.

As tempers smoldered, Johnson rejected the notion that he himself had played a role in whipping up tensions.

“I think I’ve been a model of restraint,” Johnson said Sunday. “But I think everybody should calm down.”