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Tag: government departments and authorities

  • Biden begins to refill Strategic Petroleum Reserve, while Keystone Pipeline leak prompts new emergency exchange | CNN Business

    Biden begins to refill Strategic Petroleum Reserve, while Keystone Pipeline leak prompts new emergency exchange | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Biden administration announced plans Friday to provide nearly 2 million barrels of oil to refineries through an emergency exchange and simultaneously begin efforts to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve early next year.

    The new emergency exchange is aimed at addressing “potential supply disruptions” caused by the shutdown of the Keystone Pipeline due to a leak earlier this month, the Energy Department said. Part of that key pipeline remains shuttered and no timeline has been issued for a full reopening.

    Emergency exchanges allow oil refineries to borrow oil from the SPR for a short period due to supply disruptions such as hurricanes or pipeline outages. Unlike with emergency sales such as the record-setting release of 180 million barrels announced in March, this oil must be returned.

    In this case, the Energy Department agreed to provide 1.2 million barrels of oil from the SPR to ExxonMobil and 600,000 barrels to Phillips 66.

    At the same time, the Biden administration is beginning plans to repurchase crude oil for the SPR for the first time since that unprecedented release earlier this year.

    The Energy Department is planning to solicit bids to repurchase up to 3 million barrels of oil for the SPR to be delivered in February, the senior administration official said. The repurchase will pilot a new approach to buy back the oil at a fixed price, the official said.

    “Small but a signal that pledges to refill are credible,” former Obama energy official Jason Bordoff said on Twitter in response to the new steps.

    The senior administration official conceded it will take months or even years to refill the SPR, whose stockpiles are at the lowest level in 38 years.

    Comprised of underground salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana, the SPR is the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil. It has been used during times of war and natural disaster to ease supply crunches.

    The move to begin to refill the SPR — and to lock in a price — comes as oil prices have plunged to one-year lows amid recession fears.

    “This repurchase is an opportunity to secure a good deal for American taxpayers by repurchasing oil at a lower price than the $96 per barrel average price it was sold for, as well as to strengthen energy security,” the Energy Department said in a statement.

    The administration announced in October that it planned to repurchase oil for the SPR when prices are at or below roughly $67-$72 a barrel. Officials said at the time such a move would help boost demand and provide the oil industry with an incentive to keep pumping even during times of stress.

    Oil prices dropped nearly 4% on Friday morning to as low as $73.33 a barrel. Oil trimmed its losses after the Energy Department announced the SPR moves, with crude recently trading down 1.5% to $75 a barrel.

    Prices are currently in a “very useful” range to begin the process of refilling the SPR, the senior administration official said.

    Officials stressed that the efforts to refill the SPR won’t prevent future emergency releases in the future, if necessary.

    “The SPR remains ready to respond to energy security needs today. We will be prepared and as nimble as we can to make sure the SPR is doing everything it can on behalf of energy security and American consumers,” the senior administration official said.

    The Energy Department also took a bit of a victory lap for the decision to release 180 million barrels of oil following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Noting that gas prices are now at 15-month lows, the senior administration official said that historic release “helped provide some breathing room for American families at the pump,” the official said.

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  • US intel agencies likely missed chances to investigate Covid pandemic’s origin, House Democrats’ report says | CNN Politics

    US intel agencies likely missed chances to investigate Covid pandemic’s origin, House Democrats’ report says | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Democratic investigators on the House Intelligence Committee have alleged that US intelligence agencies may have lost a critical opportunity to gather useful information on the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins by failing to pivot its collection resources earlier. In a report released on Thursday morning, the Democrats also laid out perhaps the most detailed timeline to date of the litany of warnings the intelligence community offered the Trump administration in the early days of the pandemic.

    The Democratic report comes just 24 hours after committee Republicans released their own report on the intelligence community’s examination of the pandemic’s origins in what has become an indirect battle for the narrative surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic just weeks before Republicans are poised to claim control of the House.

    The Democratic investigators’ report says that the intelligence community was slow to pivot its clandestine resources to the growing crisis – in ways that have likely undermined its efforts to understand how or where the virus emerged.

    “It’s a hypothetical – no one could say with certainty, yes or no,” said one committee investigator. “But hypothetically speaking, if you have more information from clandestine sources from the very earliest days of the virus – perhaps before Chinese authorities entirely know what’s going on – you may be better positioned to answer some of those questions [about the virus’s origins] that are I think still open questions.”

    Investigators declined to offer specifics about what resources should have been trained on the problem. But according to the report, “the first valuable piece of clandestine collection on the virus” was disseminated only in late January 2020. Analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency unit that provided the intelligence community’s first warning of the pandemic told the House committee that by then, they had grown “frustrated at the lack of clandestine collection to inform their analysis.”

    “The lack of clandestine collection was a reflection of the Intelligence Community’s overall lack of preparedness to face an emerging pandemic,” the report found. “The first significant dissemination of intelligence this late in the development of the crisis demonstrates how the IC was underserving expert policymakers and analysts.”

    According to the Democrats’ report, the first warning the intelligence community offered to the Trump administration came from a little-known Defense Intelligence Agency unit in Fort Detrick, Maryland, which on December 31, 2019, published an open-source warning of an undiagnosed pneumonia in China, labeling it a “possible pandemic warning update.”

    By the end of January, the Office of the National Director of Intelligence had issued a memo directing the intelligence community to direct more resources at gathering information on the burgeoning crisis, calling it “the top intelligence concern in East Asia,” and warnings began to ripple out through the senior levels of government.

    On January 24, the same DIA unit warned that there was a “roughly even” chance of a global pandemic. President Donald Trump received what Democratic investigators believe was likely his first formal Presidential Daily Briefing on the virus the day before, and another on January 28.

    According to a witness who spoke to the committee about the January 28 PDB briefing, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger “was ‘losing it’ when talking about the disease’s severity and trying to convince the President and those assembled that ‘this will be a really big thing.’”

    The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff received a warning about the virus in an intelligence briefing on January 29, 2020, and the next day, the CIA began to produce what are known as “executive updates” on the virus – “shorter intelligence products that demonstrate the CIA’s taking a potential crisis serious,” according to the report.

    Still, Democratic investigators allege, despite the drumbeat of warnings from the IC, “White House messaging” failed to effectively inform the public of the risk from the virus. Trump’s rhetoric diverged “striking[ly]” from the intelligence communities late January conclusions, they said, demonstrating “an executive branch that was informed, but failed to warn the American people.”

    The report notes that on January 30 – two days after the January 28 briefing in which Pottinger was allegedly “losing it” – Trump told an audience in Michigan that, “We think we have it very well under control.”

    CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the reports.

    “There has been a lot of focus on the first warning to the President on January 28,” the committee investigator said. “There has been much less focus on the rhythm of warnings following that, and what we what we find with a pretty consistent rhythm of warnings starting in late January and then really dialing up the volume throughout February.”

    The committee did not receive access to the original PDBs given to Trump but based its conclusions on draft materials and interviews with different intelligence agencies who contributed to the final product, according to investigators.

    By February, according to the report, PDB staff “pivoted from ‘warning’ of the emerging virus to assessing what the virus would mean for the world as it continued to spread.” The report goes on to list reporting from the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services throughout the month, as well as what appears to be two additional warnings provided on February 11 and February 13 that are completely redacted.

    “For six weeks, the President’s message – that the virus was not a significant threat – was flatly inconsistent with what the Intelligence Community was reporting,” the report found.

    On March 11, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

    Committee Democrats say that despite some improvements, the intelligence community remains unprepared for the next pandemic. In a series of recommendations, the report calls for the intelligence community to develop the ability to pivot collection faster, better coordinate with health security agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and leverage open-source data more aggressively.

    Although House Republicans have made clear that investigations of the government’s handling of the pandemic – including the investigation into its origins – are a key target next year, it’s not clear how aggressively the Intelligence Committee specifically will move to pursue the issue when Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio takes the chairman’s gavel. Notably, the GOP report was authored by Rep. Brad Wenstrup, who will not be on the committee next year unless he receives a waiver from the incoming House speaker to serve.

    Republicans in their report, released on Wednesday night, are accusing the intelligence community of “downplay[ing] the possibility” that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, “was connected to China’s bioweapons program” – an assertion that directly challenges the intelligence community’s own declassified report, released earlier this year, that said that there was “broad agreement” that the virus was not developed as a biological weapon. The GOP report provides no details to back up its claims, citing classification concerns. CNN is unable to verify the GOP report’s claims.

    The Republican’s report also alleges that the classified version of the intelligence community’s report on the pandemic’s origins “omits additional vital information and dismisses important intelligence in a cursory manner.”

    “Although our unclassified summary cannot reveal details, we can state that the classified Updated Assessment claimed the IC lacked information regarding one key classified issue,” the report states. “However, the Committee otherwise found that very information in other intelligence reporting, and this information is particularly relevant to determining SARS-CoV-2’s potential links to China’s bioweapons program.”

    Wenstrup in a call with reporters on Thursday said that while “I can’t reveal it now because there’s a classification status… what we’re wanting to do is let America know that we have found some discrepancy between the two reports.”

    Panel Republicans also allege that the intelligence community’s unclassified report “likely skewed the public’s understanding” of the question of whether SARS-CoV-2 was created as part of a bioweapons program because it did not disclose the technical “confidence level” that it had in that assessment, as it did with some other assessments.

    When pressed by CNN to detail the discrepancies between the classified and unclassified versions of the report, Republican staff investigators noted that the classified version included the confidence level for the bioweapons assessment and suggested that this was part of why they were “making a big deal of it,” but declined to go into further detail.

    The intelligence community’s declassified report said that it has not reached a conclusion on the origins of Covid-19, instead confirming that officials were split about whether the virus originated naturally or escaped from a lab.

    The GOP report also claims, without evidence, that the unclassified report “omitted other key information that was in the classified version in a manner that likely skewed the public’s understanding of key issues” and stonewalled efforts by Congress to provide further oversight over the government’s investigation and its findings.

    Turner, in an interview with CNN earlier this week, also declined to offer any specifics about how he felt that the unclassified report did not accurately represent information in the classified record.

    “I personally do not believe that the unclassified version adequately reflects the assertions or conclusions in the classified version,” Turner said. “That discrepancy is one of great interest to us.”

    Wenstrup in the report and his remarks to reporters said that Republicans will move to subpoena the intelligence community for more information if officials do not testify voluntarily.

    “We’re not vindictive in our approach,” Wenstrup said. “We just want to get to the truth.”

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  • Danish bank pleads guilty to multi-billion dollar fraud scheme on U.S. Banks | CNN Business

    Danish bank pleads guilty to multi-billion dollar fraud scheme on U.S. Banks | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Federal prosecutors announced a plea deal and $2 billion forfeiture Tuesday with Danske Bank, one of Denmark’s largest banks, for illegally allowing foreign actors to funnel money through their branch in Estonia in order to gain unlawful access to the US financial system.

    The guilty plea marks the end of a years-long investigation into the company after accusations that it funneled billions of dollars in illicit payments from high-risk clients, including in Russia, into countries including the United States.

    Danske Bank agreed forfeit over $2 billion as part of the plea agreement, according to the Justice Department, which required the bank to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

    In addition to the criminal guilty plea, the SEC announced a separate settlement with Danske Bank over the allegations of money laundering in which the bank agreed to pay approximately $413 million.

    The Justice Department said that it will credit the bank approximately $850 million to settle other claims with SEC and the Danish authorities.

    “Today’s guilty plea by Danske Bank and two-billion-dollar penalty demonstrate that the Department of Justice will fiercely guard the integrity of the U.S. financial system from tainted foreign money – Russian or otherwise,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement Tuesday. “Whether you are a U.S. or foreign bank, if you use the U.S. financial system, you must comply with our laws… Failure to do so may well be a one-way ticket to a multi-billion-dollar guilty plea.”

    The bank, according to the Justice Department, was aware of billions of dollars being funneled over an eight-year period through an Estonia branch into accounts in the United States and elsewhere without the proper anti-money laundering information about each account. The Estonia branch of the bank processed around $160 billion during that time period, prosecutors say.

    The bank promised customers they could move money through an Estonia branch with little to no oversight, prosecutors allege. Bank employees in Estonia conspired with their customers, the department alleged, and helped “to shield the true nature of their transactions, including by using shell companies that obscured actual ownership of the funds.”

    Though Danske Bank was aware the branch had potentially broken the law and was not meeting the standards of the company’s anti-money laundering program, executives overlooked the transactions and lied about information regarding Danske Bank Estonia’s customers and their risk profile.

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  • What to expect from this week’s Fed meeting | CNN Business

    What to expect from this week’s Fed meeting | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by half a point at the conclusion of its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, an indication that the central bank is pulling back on its aggressive stance as signs begin to emerge that inflation may be easing.

    Although that increase would be smaller than the three-quarter-point hikes announced at the past four Fed meetings, it’s nothing to scoff at.

    It’s still double the Fed’s customary quarter-point hike, and a sizable increase that will likely cause economic pain for millions of American businesses and households by pushing up the cost of borrowing for homes, cars and other loans.

    The Fed’s anticipated action would increase the rate that banks charge each other for overnight borrowing to a range of between 4.25% and 4.5%, the highest since 2007.

    Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed last month that smaller rate hikes could be expected, saying: “The time for moderating the pace of rate increases may come as soon as the December meeting.”

    But while inflation is unlikely to slow dramatically any time soon, partly due to continued pressure on wages amid a shortage of workers, Wall Street appears to believe the Fed will eventually be forced to pivot away from, or even reverse its regimen of rate hikes. Traders are largely pricing in rate cuts in the second half of 2023.

    The Fed will conclude its rate hike regimen by the second quarter of next year, predicted JPMorgan analysts in a recent note. “With inflation continuing to fade and fiscal policy likely on hold, the Fed is likely to end its tightening cycle early in the new year and inflation could begin to ease before the end of 2023,” they wrote. The analysts expect two quarter-point hikes in the first half of 2023.

    But the average period between peak interest rates and the first reductions by the Fed is 11 months, which could mean that even if the central bank stops actively hiking rates, they could remain elevated into 2024.

    Investors will closely read the Fed’s economic outlook, the Summary of Economic Projections, which is also due out Wednesday. And they will watch Powell’s press conferences for clues about what’s to come — though they may end up sorely disappointed.

    ​”We expect Fed Chair Powell will insist on the need to hold policy at a restrictive level for some time to bring inflation down toward the 2% target,” wrote Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, in a note to clients Monday. “This will serve to push back against current market pricing … Powell will stress that history cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy.”

    The Fed has increased its benchmark lending rate six times this year in an attempt to discourage borrowing, cool the economy and bring down historically high inflation that peaked at 9.1% over the summer.

    Even if interest rate hikes do ease off, they will remain high, and economists are largely expecting that the US economy will endure a recession next year. Powell said in November that there is still a chance the economy avoids recession but the odds are slim, noting: “To the extent we need to keep rates higher longer, that’s going to narrow the path to a soft landing.”

    In an interview that aired on CBS on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — Powell’s predecessor at the Fed — said there is “a risk of a recession. But it certainly isn’t, in my view, something that is necessary to bring inflation down.”

    And the economy has so far withstood the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes. The job market is healthy, wages are growing, Americans are spending and GDP is strong. Business is also good: Companies are largely beating revenue expectations and reporting positive earnings results.

    The Fed isn’t acting alone, it’s just one of nine central banks expected to make a rate announcement this week. Landing softly on the ever-narrowing path between high inflation and recession is a global concern as central banks across the world contend with similar economic problems.

    The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank are expected to follow the United States with half-point moves of their own on Thursday. Norway, Mexico, Taiwan, Colombia and the Philippines will also likely increase their borrowing costs this week.

    The Federal Reserve announces its rate hike decision Wednesday at 2 p.m., followed by a press conference with Chair Powell at 2:30 p.m.

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  • The Fed will raise rates again. But it’s playing with fire | CNN Business

    The Fed will raise rates again. But it’s playing with fire | CNN Business

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    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Federal Reserve is all but guaranteed to announce Wednesday that it will once again raise interest rates. But investors are hopeful it will be a smaller increase than the last four hikes.

    Traders are betting on just a half-point increase. Federal funds futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange show an 80% probability of a half-point hike.

    The Fed bumped up rates by three-quarters of a percentage point in the past four meetings (June, July, September and November). That followed two smaller rate hikes earlier this year. The central bank’s key short-term interest rate, which sat at zero at the beginning of the year, is now at a range of 3.75% to 4%.

    The hope is that inflation pressures are finally starting to abate enough that the Fed can pivot — Fed-speak for a series of smaller rate hikes -— to avoid crashing the economy into a recession.

    But it may not be that simple. The government reported Friday that a key measure of wholesale prices, the Producer Price Index, rose 7.4% over the past 12 months through November. That was a bit higher than the expected rate of 7.2% but a marked slowdown from the 8% increase through October.

    The more widely watched Consumer Price Index data for November comes out Tuesday, just a day before the Fed announcement. CPI rose 7.7% year-over-year through October.

    As long as inflation remains a problem, the Fed is going to have to tread cautiously.

    “Inflation has probably peaked but it may not come down as quickly as people want it to,” said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist for the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

    Jones still thinks the Fed will raise rates by only half a point this week and may look to hike them just a quarter point in early 2023. But she conceded that the Fed is now sort of “making it up as they go along.”

    The other problem: The Fed’s rate hikes this year have had limited impact on the economy so far. Yes, mortgage rates have spiked and that has severely hurt demand for housing, but the job market remains strong. Wages are growing, and consumers are still spending. That can’t last indefinitely.

    “The cumulative impact of higher rates are just beginning. Hence, the Fed has to step down its pace a bit,” Jones said.

    So investors are going to need to pay attention not to just what the Fed says in its policy statement about rates and what Powell talks about in his press conference. The Fed also will release its latest projections for gross domestic product growth, the job market and consumer prices Wednesday.

    In September, the Fed’s consensus forecasts called for GDP growth of 1.2% in 2023, an unemployment rate of 4.4% and an increase in personal consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred measure or inflation, of 2.8%. It seems likely that the Fed will cut its GDP target and raise its expectations for the jobless rate and consumer prices.

    The likelihood of an economic downturn is increasing, and the Fed’s projections may reflect that. But the Fed is not expected to start cutting interest rates until 2024 at the earliest, so it may be too late for the central bank to prevent a recession.

    “A pivot or pause is not a cure-all for this market,” said Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services. “Rate cuts may be too late. Recession risks are still relatively high.”

    The US economy isn’t in a recession yet. But are American shoppers tapped out? We’ll get a better sense of that Thursday after the government reports retail sales figures for November.

    Economists are actually forecasting a small dip of 0.1% in retail sales from October. But it’s important to put that number in context. Retail sales surged 1.3% from September and 8.3% over the past 12 months.

    So it’s possible consumers were simply getting a head start on holiday shopping. Inflation has an effect on the numbers too, since retail sales have been impacted (positively) by the fact that people have to spend more money for stuff.

    One market strategist also pointed out that as long as price increases continue to slow, consumers will feel more confident as well.

    “Everybody has been talking about inflation this year. Going forward, it will be more about disinflation in 2023 or 2024,” said Arnaud Cosserat, CEO of Comgest Global Investors.

    What does that mean for investors? Cosserat said people should be looking for quality consumer companies that still have pricing power and can maintain their profit margins. Two stocks that his firm owns that he said fit that bill: Luxury goods maker Hermes

    (HESAF)     and cosmetics giant L’Oreal

    (LRLCF)    .

    Monday: UK monthly GDP; earnings from Oracle

    (ORCL)

    Tuesday: US Consumer Price Index; Germany economic sentiment

    Wednesday: Fed meeting; EU industrial production; UK inflation; earnings from Lennar

    (LEN)     and Trip.com

    (TCOM)

    Thursday: US retail sales; US weekly jobless claims; ECB and Bank of England rate decisions; earnings from Jabil

    (JBL)

    Friday: Eurozone PMI; UK retail sales; earnings from Accenture

    (ACN)    , Darden Restaurants

    (DRI)     and Winnebago

    (WGO)

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  • As China moves away from zero-Covid, health experts warn of dark days ahead | CNN

    As China moves away from zero-Covid, health experts warn of dark days ahead | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China’s zero-Covid policy, which stalled the world’s second-largest economy and sparked a wave of unprecedented protests, is now being dismantled as Beijing on Wednesday released sweeping revisions to its draconian measures that ultimately failed to bring the virus to heel.

    The new guidelines keep some restrictions in place but largely scrap the health code system that required people to show negative Covid-19 tests for daily activities and roll back mass testing. They also allow some Covid-19 cases and close contacts to skip centralized quarantine.

    They come after a number of cities in recent days started to lift some of the harsh controls that dictated – and heavily restricted – daily life for nearly three years in China.

    But while the changes mark a significant shift – and bring relief for many in the public who’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the high costs and demands of zero-Covid – another reality is also clear: China is underprepared for the surge in cases it could now see.

    Experts say though much is still unknown about how the next weeks and months will progress, China has fallen short on preparations like bolstering the elderly vaccination rate, upping surge and intensive care capacity in hospitals, and stockpiling antiviral medications.

    While the Omicron variant is milder than previous strains and China’s overall vaccination rate is high, even a small number of severe cases among vulnerable and under-vaccinated groups like the elderly could overwhelm hospitals if infections spike across the country of 1.4 billion, experts say.

    “This is a looming crisis – the timing is really bad … China now has to relax much of its measures during the winter (overlapping with flu season), so that was not as planned,” said Xi Chen, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health in the United States, pointing to what was likely an acceleration in China’s transition, triggered by public discontent.

    The guidelines released Wednesday open up a new chapter in the country’s epidemic control, three years after the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in central China’s Wuhan and following protests against the zero-Covid policy across the country starting late last month.

    Where China once controlled cases by requiring testing and clear health codes for entry into a number of public places and for domestic travel, those codes will no longer be checked except for in a handful of locations like medical institutions and schools. Mass testing will now be rolled back for everyone except for those in high-risk areas and high-risk positions. People who test positive for Covid-19 but have mild or asymptomatic cases and meet certain conditions can quarantine at home, instead of being forced to go to centralized quarantine centers, as can close contacts.

    Locations classified by authorities as “high risk” can still be locked down, but these lockdowns must now be more limited and precise, according to the new guidelines, which were circulated by China’s state media.

    The changes mark a swift about-face, following mounting public discontent, economic costs and record case numbers in recent weeks. They come after a top official last week first signaled the country could move away from the zero-Covid policy it had long poured significant resources into – though another official on Wednesday said the measures were a “proactive optimization,” not “reactive” when asked in a press briefing.

    “China has pursued this policy for so long, they’re now between a rock and a hard place,” said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the US. “They don’t have good options in either direction anymore. They had really hoped that this epidemic globally would run its course, and they could survive without impact. And that hasn’t happened.”

    As restrictions are relaxed, and the virus spreads across the country, China is “going to have to go through a period of pain in terms of illness, serious illness, deaths and stress on the health care system” as was seen elsewhere in the world earlier in the pandemic, he added.

    Since the global vaccination campaign and the emergence of the Omicron variant, health experts have questioned China’s adherence to zero-Covid and pointed out the unsustainability of the strategy, which tried to use mass testing and surveillance, lockdowns and quarantines to stop a highly contagious virus.

    But as some restrictions are lifted, in what appears to be a haphazard transition following years of focus on meticulously controlling the virus, experts say change may be coming before China has made the preparations its health officials have admitted are needed.

    “An uncontrolled epidemic (one which only peaks when the virus starts running out of people to infect) … will pose serious challenges to the health care system, not only in terms of managing the small fraction of Covid cases that are severe, but also in the ‘collateral damage’ to people with other health conditions who have delayed care as a consequence,” said Ben Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong.

    But even with easing restrictions, Cowling said, it was “difficult to predict” how quickly infections will spread though China, because there are still some measures in place and some people will change their behavior – such as staying at home more often.

    “And I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that stricter measures are reintroduced to combat rising cases,” he said.

    Experts agree that allowing the virus to spread nationally would be a significant shift for a country that up until this point has officially reported 5,235 Covid-19 deaths since early 2020 – a comparatively low figure globally that has been a point of pride in China, where state media until recently trumpeted the dangers of the virus to the public.

    Modeling from researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University published in the journal Nature Medicine in May projected that more than 1.5 million Chinese could die within six months if Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and there was no access to antiviral drugs, which have been approved in China.

    However, death rates could fall to around the levels of seasonal flu, if almost all elderly people were vaccinated and antiviral medications were broadly used, the authors said.

    Last month, China released a list of measures to bolster health systems against Covid-19, which included directives to increase vaccination in the elderly, stockpile antiviral treatments and medical equipment, and expand critical care capacity – efforts that experts say take time and are best accomplished prior to an outbreak.

    “(Is China prepared?) If you look at surge capacity three years on and the stockpiling of effective antivirals – no. If you talk about the triage procedures – they are not strictly enforced – and if you talk about the vaccination rate for the elderly, especially those aged 80 and older, it is also overall no,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

    Chinese authorities, he added, would likely be closely assessing outcomes like the death rate to decide policy steps going forward.

    Citizens wearing masks board a subway train on Monday in Henan province's Zhengzhou, where negative Covid-19 test results are no longer required for riding public transport.

    The US has at least 25 critical care beds per 100,000 people, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – by contrast, China has fewer than four for the same number, health authorities there said last month.

    The system also provides limited primary care, which could drive even moderately sick people to hospitals as opposed to calling a family doctor – putting more strain on hospitals, according to Yale’s Chen.

    Meanwhile, weak medical infrastructure in rural areas could foster crises there, especially as testing is reduced and younger people living in cities return to rural hometowns to visit elderly family members over the Lunar New Year next month, he said.

    While China’s overall vaccination rate is high, its elderly are also less protected than in some other parts of the world, where the oldest and most vulnerable to dying from Covid-19 were prioritized for vaccination. Some countries have already rolled out fourth or fifth doses for at-risk groups.

    By China’s accounting, more than 86% of China’s population over 60 are fully vaccinated, according to China’s National Health Commission, and booster rates are lower, with more than 45 million of the fully vaccinated elderly yet to receive an additional shot. Around 25 million elderly who have not received any shot, according to a comparison of official population figures and November 28 vaccination data.

    For the most at-risk over 80 age group, around two-thirds were fully vaccinated by China’s standards, but only 40% had received booster shots as of November 11, according to state media.

    But while China refers to third doses for its widely used inactivated vaccines as booster shots, a World Health Organization vaccine advisory group last year recommended that elderly people taking those vaccines receive three doses in their initial course to ensure sufficient protection.

    The inactivated vaccines used in China have been found to elicit lower levels of antibody response as compared to others used overseas, and many countries using the doses have paired them with more protective mRNA vaccines, which China has not approved for use.

    Cowling said evidence from Hong Kong’s outbreak, however, showed China’s inactivated vaccines worked well to prevent severe disease, but it was critical that the elderly receive three doses in the initial course, as recommended by the World Health Organization. They should then use a fourth dose on top of that to keep immunity high, he added.

    Top health officials on November 28 announced a new plan to bolster elderly vaccination rates, but such measures will take time, as will other preparations for a surge.

    Minimizing the worst outcomes in a transition out of zero-Covid depends on that preparation, according to Cowling. From that perspective, he said, “it doesn’t look like it would be a good time to relax the policies.”

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  • Congress faces time crunch on government funding and sweeping defense policy bill | CNN Politics

    Congress faces time crunch on government funding and sweeping defense policy bill | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are scrambling to try to fund the government and pass a sweeping defense policy bill before a new Congress is sworn in, but there are signs that both sides have struggled to reach agreement over these key outstanding issues.

    Government funding expires at the end of next week on December 16 – and it appears all but certain that lawmakers will have to pass a short-term extension as they try to reach a broader full-year funding agreement.

    Separately, the House has been expected to take up the National Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2023 this week, but it’s not yet clear when a vote will take place amid questions over whether certain controversial policy provisions will be included in the legislation – like eliminating a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for the military. Once the House has passed the bill, it would next have be taken up by the Senate.

    Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell warned on Tuesday that rather than passing a full-year funding bill, lawmakers may have to pass a short-term stop-gap measure to kick the can into early next year. This would set up a huge funding fight and create fears of a government shutdown early in the new Congress, when Republicans will take control of the House and would have to cut a deal with Democrats who run the Senate.

    On government funding legislation, McConnell said: “We don’t have agreement to do virtually anything, which can only leave us with the option of a short-term CR into early next year,” referring to a short-term bill known as a continuing resolution.

    He added: “We don’t even have an overall agreement on how much we’re going to spend, and we’re running out of time.”

    Despite the threat of a stop-gap, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated on Tuesday that senators are “working very hard” to reach a deal to fully fund the government before the upcoming deadline, but acknowledged that “there’s a lot of negotiating left to do.”

    Senate Republican Whip John Thune signaled Tuesday that he doesn’t have a “high level of confidence” both parties will be able to reach a deal on an omnibus government funding bill, as time is running short to pass that massive bill.

    “I don’t have a high level of confidence because I’m looking at the calendar,” the South Dakota Republican said. “It’ll be a very heavy lift, but who knows? I guess I would say is, you know, bring your Yuletide carols and all that stuff here because we may be singing to each other.”

    McConnell complained Tuesday that Democrats were preventing quick passage of the National Defense Authorization Act by trying to add unrelated items at the last minute that Republicans oppose.

    “Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA by trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship whatsoever to defense. We’re talking about a grab bag of miscellaneous pet priorities,” McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.

    “My colleagues across the aisle need to cut their unrelated hostage taking and put a bipartisan NDAA on the floor,” he added.

    Lawmakers released text of an agreement for the NDAA Tuesday night.

    The summary, released by the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it “requires the Secretary of Defense to rescind the mandate that members of the Armed Forces be vaccinated against COVID-19.”

    CNN reported earlier this week that the mandate was likely to be rescinded as part of the defense policy bill.

    In a tweeted statement Tuesday night, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said that “the end of President Biden’s military COVID vaccine mandate is a victory for our military and for common sense.”

    House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said earlier Tuesday that the House was considering eliminating the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for military members in order to gather enough Republican votes to pass the annual defense authorization. Republicans have said they will not support the NDAA with the vaccine mandate in place.

    Hoyer said at his weekly pen and pad with reporters that Democrats were not “willing” to give up the mandate, but that a compromise is required to get the NDAA across the finish line.

    “We’re not willing to give it up. This is not a question of will; it’s a question of how can we get something done? We have a very close vote in the Senate, very close vote in the House. And you just don’t get everything you want,” he said.

    Thune said of the defense policy bill, “I think the ransom the Democrats wanted for stripping the vaccine mandate is a whole bunch of things to include the permitting reform, but also some other things that are just going to be non-starters on our side, and I don’t think we’re going to get in the business of, you know, allowing them to hold us hostage.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Wealthy Russian businessman arrested in London on suspicion of multiple offenses, including money laundering | CNN

    Wealthy Russian businessman arrested in London on suspicion of multiple offenses, including money laundering | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A wealthy Russian businessman has been arrested as part of a “major operation” on suspicion of multiple offenses, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency said in a statement Saturday.

    The 58-year-old man was arrested Thursday at his “multi-million-pound residence in London by officers from the NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell” on suspicion of committing offenses including money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the Home Office – the UK government department for immigration and passports – and conspiracy to commit perjury, the agency said.

    A 35-year-old man, employed at the premises, was also arrested “nearby” on suspicion of money laundering and obstruction of an officer “after he was seen leaving the address with a bag found to contain thousands of pounds in cash,” according to the statement.

    A third man, aged 39, who the agency said is the former boyfriend of the businessman’s current partner, was arrested at his home in Pimlico, London, for offenses including money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, according to the statement.

    A person close to the investigation has given CNN more detail on two of the men arrested, saying the 39-year-old man was a national of Russia, Israel, and the UK and the 35-year-old man was a Polish national. The source told CNN the bank notes the 35-year-old was carrying have not yet been counted but were suspected to be in the tens of thousands and in British currency.

    The three individuals have been interviewed by authorities and have been released on bail, according to the statement.

    The Russian Embassy in London has sent a note to British authorities regarding the detention of a Russian citizen, according to a statement from the embassy made available to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

    “The Russian Embassy in London has asked the British authorities for clarification in connection with the information from the National Crime Agency about the alleged detention of a Russian citizen in London,” reads the note, according to RIA Novosti.

    “The NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, only established this year, is having significant success investigating potential criminal activity by oligarchs, the professional service providers that support and enable them and those linked to the Russian regime,” said the agency’s director general Graeme Biggar.

    “We will continue to use all the powers and tactics available to us to disrupt this threat,” he added.

    More than 50 officers were involved in the operation at the businessman’s London property, the statement said. “A number of digital devices and a significant quantity of cash was recovered following extensive searches by NCA investigators,” according to the statement.

    So far, the agency says it has secured nearly 100 disruptions “against Putin-linked elites and their enablers” and has taken direct action against “a significant number of elites who impact directly on the UK.”

    The agency is also targeting “less conventional routes used to disguise movements of significant wealth, such as high value asset sales via auction houses,” according to the statement.

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  • China’s top health officials deflect blame over zero-Covid problems as they defend controversial policy | CNN

    China’s top health officials deflect blame over zero-Covid problems as they defend controversial policy | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    China’s top health officials have pledged to rectify Covid-19 control measures to reduce their impact on people’s lives, while deflecting blame for public frustration away from the policy itself, in their first press briefing since protests erupted against the government’s stringent zero-Covid policy over the weekend.

    Lockdowns to suppress the spread of the virus should be lifted “as quickly as possible” following outbreaks, said health officials at a National Health Commission press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, as they defended the country’s overall policy direction – which aims to stamp out the spread of the virus through hefty controls.

    Cheng Youquan, a director at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said “some issues” reported recently by the public are not due to the measures, but their application by local officials taking a “one-size-fits-all approach.” He said some controls had been implemented “excessively,” with disregard for the people’s demands.

    Protests against the country’s zero-Covid policy, which includes a combination of lockdowns, forced quarantines and tight border controls, flared across China over the weekend, with citizens taking to city streets and college campuses to call for an end to the restrictive measures.

    While protests in several parts of China appear to have largely dispersed peacefully over the weekend, some met a stronger response from authorities – and security has been tightened across cities with police deployed to key protest sites in the wake of the demonstrations.

    Officials at Tuesday’s press briefing did not directly address the protests, but commission spokesperson Mi Feng said governments should “respond to and resolve the reasonable demands of the masses” in a timely manner.

    When asked if the government is reconsidering its Covid policies, Mi said authorities “have been studying and adjusting our pandemic containment measures to protect the people’s interest to the largest extent and limit the impact on people as much as possible.”

    Earlier this month, China announced 20 measures that were meant to streamline Covid-19 controls and reign in “excessive policy steps” taken by local authorities – who are under pressure from Beijing to control the number of cases in their regions.

    The protests – and the pledges to refine the policy implementation – come as the country faces its most significant surge of cases.

    China identified 38,421 locally transmitted cases on Monday, according to the National Health Commission, ending six consecutive days of record infections.

    Low vaccination rates among the elderly have long been cited by authorities as a reason why China must maintain tight controls over the virus. On Tuesday, officials also announced an “action plan” to boost vaccination rates among this high-risk group.

    Raising that rate is seen as necessary to eventually reopening the country and relaxing tough measures.

    As of November 28, around 90% of China’s total population had received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccination, but only roughly 66% of people over 80 had completed two doses, officials said Tuesday.

    Reactions to the officials’ statements on Chinese social media suggested they had done little to assuage frustration and anger over the zero-Covid policy. On a state media livestream of the press conference, many users called for an end to Covid testing and centralized quarantine.

    “We’ve cooperated with you for three years, now it’s time to give our freedom back,” said one top comment on the livestream, which was run by state media on the Weibo social media platform.

    “Can you stop filtering our comments? Listen to the people, the sky won’t fall,” wrote another, referring to censorship on the platform.

    In a separate briefing on Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry defended the Covid-19 control measures and civil rights in the country – where authorities regularly use far-reaching surveillance and security capabilities to quash dissent.

    “China is a country under the rule of law, Chinese citizens enjoy various legal rights and freedoms that are fully protected by law,” spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, when asked about the protests in a regular briefing on Tuesday. “At the same time, any rights and freedoms should be exercised within the framework of the law.”

    Asian shares rallied on Tuesday on signs that authorities had managed to contain protests, and then on hopes the health commission would announce an easing of Covid restrictions.

    Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index ended the day more than 5% higher. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index and the Shenzhen Component Index both finished more than 2% higher, while the CSI300 Index, which tracks the largest listed stocks, closed more than 3% higher.

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  • Rural Arizona county delays certifying midterm results as election disputes persist | CNN Politics

    Rural Arizona county delays certifying midterm results as election disputes persist | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Officials in a rural Arizona county Monday delayed the certification of November’s midterm elections, missing the legal deadline and leading the Arizona secretary of state’s office to sue over the county’s failure to sign off on the results.

    By a 2-1 vote Monday morning, the Republican majority on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors pushed back certification until Friday, citing concerns about voting machines. Because Monday was the deadline for all 15 Arizona counties to certify their results, Cochise’s action could put at risk the votes of some 47,000 county residents and could inject chaos into the election if those votes go uncounted.

    In the lawsuit filed by the office of Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs – a Democrat who will be the state’s next governor – officials said failing to certify the election results violates state law and could “potentially disenfranchise” the county’s voters.

    CNN has reached out to the supervisors for comment.

    The standoff between officials in Cochise County and the Arizona secretary of state’s office illustrates how election misinformation is continuing to stoke controversy about the 2022 results in some corners of the country even though many of the candidates who echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election were defeated in November.

    A crowd of grassroots activists turned up at a special meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to loudly protest that county’s election administration procedures during a public comment portion of the meeting after problems with printers at voting locations on Election Day led to long lines at about a third of the county’s voting locations. In a new letter to the state attorney general’s office – which had demanded an explanation of the problems – the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said that “no voter was disenfranchised because of the difficulty the county experienced with some of its printers.”

    Disputes over the results have erupted elsewhere.

    In Pennsylvania, where counties also faced a Monday deadline to certify their general election balloting, local officials have faced an onslaught of petitions demanding recounts. And officials in Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, deadlocked Monday on whether to certify the results, according to multiple media reports. Election officials there did not respond to inquiries from CNN on Monday afternoon.

    In a statement to CNN, officials with the Pennsylvania Department of State said they have reached out to Luzerne officials “to inquire about the board’s decision and their intended next steps.”

    On Election Day, a paper shortage in Luzerne County prompted a court-ordered extension of in-person voting.

    Arizona, another key battleground state, has long been a cauldron of election conspiracies. GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and GOP secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, both of whom pushed Trump’s lies about 2020, have refused to concede their races, as they continue to sow doubts about this year’s election results.

    Lake’s campaign filed a lawsuit last week demanding more information from Maricopa County’s elections department about the number of voters who checked in to polling places compared to the ballots cast. And Arizona’s GOP attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh – who, like Lake and Finchem, was backed by Trump – filed a lawsuit in the state superior court in Maricopa County last week challenging the election results based on what the suit describes as errors in the management of the election.

    Hamadeh is trailing his opponent Democrat Kris Mayes by 510 votes as their race heads toward a recount. But the lawsuit asks the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the Arizona secretary of state from certifying Mayes as the winner and asks the court to declare Hamadeh as the winner. A recount cannot begin until the state’s votes are certified.

    Alex Gulotta, Arizona state director of All Voting is Local, said the drama over certification of the votes and the refusal by losing candidates to back down is part of an “infrastructure of election denial” that has been building since the 2020 election in Arizona.

    “Those folks are going to continue to try and find fertile ground for their efforts to undermine our elections. They are not going to give up,” Gulotta said. “We had a whole slate of election deniers, many of whom were not elected.”

    But their refusal to concede “was inevitable in Arizona, at least in this cycle, given the candidates. These aren’t good losers,” he added. “They said from the beginning that they would be bad losers.”

    In Cochise County, the Republican officials on the county Board of Supervisors advocated for the delay, citing concerns about voting machines.

    Ann English, the Democratic chairwoman, argued that there was “no reason for us to delay.”

    But Republican commissioners Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, who have cited claims that the machines were not properly certified, voted to delay signing off on the results. Monday’s action marked the second time the Republican-controlled board has delayed certification. And it marked the latest effort by Republicans on the board to register their disapproval of vote-tallying machines. Earlier this month, they attempted to mount an expansive hand count audit of the midterm results, pitting them against Cochise’s election director and the county attorney, who warned that the gambit might break the law.

    State election officials said the concerns cited by the Republican majority about the vote-tallying machines are rooted in debunked conspiracy theories.

    The state’s election director Kori Lorick has confirmed in writing that the voting machines had been tested and certified – a point Hobbs reiterated in Monday’s lawsuit. She is asking the court to force the board to certify the results by Thursday.

    An initial deadline of December 5 had been set for statewide certification. In the lawsuit, Hobbs’ lawyers said state law does allow for a slight delay if her office has not received a county’s results, but not past December 8 – or 30 days after the election.

    “Absent this Court’s intervention, the Secretary will have no choice but to complete statewide canvass by December 8 without Cochise County’s votes included,” her lawyers added.

    If votes from this Republican stronghold somehow went uncounted, it could flip two races to Democrats: the contest for state superintendent and a congressional race in which Republican Juan Ciscomani already has been projected as the winner by CNN and other outlets.

    In a recent opinion piece published in The Arizona Republic, two former election officials in Maricopa County – said the courts were likely to step in and force Cochise to certify the results.

    But Republican Helen Purcell, a former Maricopa County recorder, and Tammy Patrick, a Democrat and the county’s former federal compliance officer, warned that “a Republican-controlled board of supervisors could end up disenfranchising their own voters and hand Democrats even more victories in the midterms.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Election deniers faced defeat but election denialism is still swirling in Arizona | CNN Politics

    Election deniers faced defeat but election denialism is still swirling in Arizona | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Many of the candidates who promoted former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” were defeated in November, a pattern heralded by Democrats that is already reshaping the contours of the 2024 election – leading the former president to modulate his tone when he recently launched another bid for the White House.

    But the efforts to cast doubts about the management and operation of the 2022 election are still festering in Arizona, long a hotbed of election conspiracies that spawned the sham audit of the 2020 Maricopa County results by the now-defunct firm Cyber Ninjas after Trump questioned Joe Biden’s victory there. The continuing election denialism underscores that although the highest profile promoters of Trump’s election lies were defeated, the efforts to undermine democracy will carry on.

    Several Trump-backed Republican candidates at the top of Arizona’s ticket, including defeated GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, defeated Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem, as well as GOP Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh – who is trailing his opponent Democrat Kris Mayes by 510 votes as their race heads toward a recount – have seized on a problem with Maricopa County’s printers on Election Day to make exaggerated claims about the election.

    Maricopa officials have said that printer problems affected about 70 vote centers, preventing some ballots from being read by tabulator machines on Election Day, but that the problems were fixed and that those ballots were set aside in a secure ballot box and counted separately. Bill Gates, the Republican Chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, called the inconvenience and the long lines that resulted “unfortunate” in one Twitter video but said “every voter had an opportunity to cast a vote on Election Day.”

    But that has not stopped the issue from spiraling into a swirl of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the overall management of the election within the hard-right faction of Arizona’s Republican Party, despite the best efforts by other Republican election officials to squelch conspiracy theories and fact-check them in real time.

    Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results, is once again among the officials signaling that it is time to move on.

    Though Lake has not conceded in her race against Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is the current secretary of state, Ducey posted pictures Wednesday of his meeting with Hobbs on Twitter, noting that he had congratulated the governor-elect on “her victory in a hard-fought race and offered my full cooperation as she prepares to assume the leadership of the State of Arizona.”

    The issues could come to a head next week. Monday is the deadline for counties in the Grand Canyon State to certify their general election results – with statewide certification slated to follow on December 5. Any recounts cannot begin until after certification. In the leadup to those events, Lake has posted videos and missives on Twitter insisting that she is “still in the fight.”

    Because some voters were forced to stand in long lines – a unremarkable occurrence on Election Day in many states – Lake charged during a recent appearance on Steve Bannon’s program “War Room” that her opponents “discriminated against people who chose to vote on Election Day.”

    Rather than using Trump’s 2020 buzzwords like ‘rigged,’ Lake has generally used more narrow language, describing the management of the election as “botched” and “the shoddiest ever” while accusing Maricopa County of “dragging its feet” in providing information about the election to her campaign.

    Marc Elias, an attorney specializing in election litigation who has taken a central role in pushing back against GOP efforts to restrict ballot access, noted in a post on his Democracy Docket website that Lake’s complaints about “voter suppression” were ironic given Republican’s efforts to limit voting access in recent years. He noted that there are videos on Lake’s Twitter feed of voters who “claimed that they waited in long lines to vote, were sent from one polling place to another by overworked election officials and had their provisional ballots rejected because they failed to register in time for the election.”

    “If you didn’t know better, you might think Lake was a champion of access to voting, supporter of funding for election officials and advocate for same day voter registration. She is none of those,” Elias wrote.

    Elias pointed out that the circumstance of voters being forced to wait in long lines due to equipment failures is not out of the ordinary.

    “Long lines caused by insufficient or broken voting equipment is a tax usually paid by Black, brown and young voters. At the same time that voters in Maricopa County were waiting in two-hour lines, students at the University of Michigan were enduring near freezing temperatures during their six-hour long wait to cast their ballots,” Elias said.

    But Lake’s arguments about problems with the election were bolstered by a letter from Arizona’s Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright last week to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office seeking information about what Wright described as “myriad problems that occurred in relation to Maricopa County’s administration of the 2022 General Election.” (Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is a Republican).

    The letter requested information about ballot-on-demand printer configuration settings that contributed to problems getting ballots read by on-site ballot tabulators; as well as the procedures for handling ballots that were supposed to be segregated and placed in the secure ballot box; and information about the handling of voters who checked in at one polling place but wanted to check out to vote in a second voting location, either because of wait times or other issues.

    Gates said the county would respond to the questions from the attorney general’s office “with transparency as we have done throughout this election” before it holds its public meeting on Monday to canvass the election. The canvass, Gates said, is “meant to provide a record of the votes counted and those that were not legally cast.”

    “There will be no delays or games; we will canvass in accordance with state law,” he said in the statement.

    But in Cochise County, a community of roughly 125,000 people in southeastern Arizona, the two Republicans on the three-person Board of Supervisors recently opted to delay a vote on certification until Monday’s deadline, citing their concerns about vote-tallying machines.

    That prompted the Secretary of State’s office to threaten legal action if county did not complete certification by the deadline. Peggy Judd, one of the Republican supervisors who initially voted to delay action, told The Arizona Republic this week that she has decided to certify the results when the board meets.

    CNN has reached out to Judd for comment.

    Still, the 11th-hour drama in the Republican stronghold underscores the mistrust of standard election procedures that has taken hold in parts of this battleground state ever since Biden won the state in 2020, the first Democrat presidential nominee to do so in nearly a quarter century.

    Officials in a second county – Mohave, in the northwest corner of the state – also voted to delay their certification until Monday’s deadline. But officials there described their move as a political statement to register displeasure with issues that arose on Election Day in Maricopa County.

    Like Lake, Finchem has refused to concede his race to Democrat Adrian Fontes while he has sent out fundraising solicitations to his supporters claiming that he is trying to get to the bottom of “myriad issues” with the election. He has repeatedly called for a new election.

    Hamadeh, the GOP attorney general candidate, filed a lawsuit in state superior court in Maricopa County this week challenging the election results based on what the suit describes as errors in the management of the election. Hamadeh’s lawsuit notes that plaintiffs are not “alleging any fraud, manipulation or other intentional wrongdoing that would impugn the outcomes of the November 8, 2022 general election.”

    But the lawsuit asks the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the Arizona secretary of state from certifying Mayes as the winner and asking the court to declare Hamadeh as the winner – while alleging that there was an “erroneous count of votes,” “wrongful disqualification of provisional and early ballots” and “wrongful exclusion of provisional voters.” The Republican National Committee has joined the lawsuit.

    Hamadeh trails Mayes by just 510 votes and the race is heading toward an automatic recount.

    “Legal counsel for the Secretary of State’s Office is reviewing the election contest and preparing a response but believes the lawsuit is legally baseless and factually speculative,” a spokesperson for the office said Friday, adding that “none of the claims raised warrant the extraordinary remedy of changing the election results and overturning the will of Arizona voters.”

    Lake has promised that her campaign’s attempt to get more information from election officials this week is only the beginning of her efforts. It remains to be seen whether she will have any more success than Trump did in his many failed lawsuits – and whether following a course that has now been resoundingly rejected by voters will be politically prudent as she lays the groundwork for her next act.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei dies at 64, officials say | CNN

    Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei dies at 64, officials say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The Foreign Minister of Belarus Vladimir Makei has died at the age of 64, the country’s foreign ministry said Saturday.

    “Vladimir Makei, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, has suddenly passed away today,” the Foreign Ministry said in its official Facebook account, without providing more details about the circumstances surrounding the foreign minister’s death.

    Makei was born in 1958 in the Belarusian region of Grodno. He had been in the post since August 2012, according to his official bio on the foreign ministry’s website.

    Makei was scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday, according to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

    President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday expressed his condolences to the family and friends of Makei, according to a statement published on the presidential website.

    The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs added in a statement that it was “deeply shocked” by the news of his death.

    “As head of the Foreign Ministry, he made a great contribution to the further strengthening of Russian-Belarusian relations,” it said.

    “Being an established professional and a sincere patriot of his country, he firmly and effectively defended the interests of the Republic of Belarus on international platforms,” the ministry continued, adding that “this is a heavy, irreparable loss.”

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  • UK bans Chinese surveillance cameras from ‘sensitive’ sites | CNN Business

    UK bans Chinese surveillance cameras from ‘sensitive’ sites | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    Hikvision, a leading Chinese surveillance company, has denied suggestions that it poses a threat to Britain’s national security after the UK government banned the use of its camera systems at “sensitive” sites.

    The restrictions, announced Thursday, will prevent authorities from installing technology that is produced by companies subject to China’s National Intelligence Law, which requires Chinese citizens and organizations to cooperate with the country’s intelligence and security services.

    In a statement to CNN Business on Friday, Hikvision said it was “categorically false to represent Hikvision as a threat to national security.”

    The company said it was hoping to engage with UK officials “urgently” to understand the decision, and had previously spoken with the UK government to clear up what it saw as misunderstandings about its business.

    “Hikvision is an equipment manufacturer that has no visibility into end users’ video data,” the Hangzhou-based company said. “Hikvision cannot access end users’ video data and cannot transmit data from end-users to third parties. We do not manage end-user databases, nor do we sell cloud storage in the UK.”

    In a statement to the UK parliament on Thursday, Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden said that after a security review, government departments had been instructed to stop deploying equipment produced by companies that are subject to the National Intelligence Law.

    Dowden cited “the threat to the UK and the increasing capability and connectivity of these systems,” without specifying further.

    Government departments have also been advised to consider whether to “remove and replace such equipment where it is deployed on sensitive sites rather than awaiting any scheduled upgrades,” he said. The minister added that departments could review whether sites not deemed sensitive should also be taking similar measures.

    The move comes months after UK lawmakers called for a ban on technology by Hikvision and Dahua, another Chinese surveillance camera maker, citing allegations that the firms had been involved in enabling human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

    The United States in 2019 placed Hikvision and other Chinese companies on a trade blacklist, prohibiting them from importing US technology over similar allegations.

    In a statement released in July by Big Brother Watch, a British nonprofit group that investigates the use of surveillance systems, 67 members of the UK parliament said the Chinese companies should be prohibited from selling their products in the country.

    Big Brother Watch said at the time that it had “found that the majority of public bodies use CCTV cameras made by Hikvision or Dahua, including 73% of councils across the UK, 57% of secondary schools in England, 6 out of 10 National Health Service Trusts, as well as UK universities and police forces.”

    Earlier this year, a UK health minister disclosed that there were 82 Hikvision products in use in his department.

    Hikvision, in its statement, said its cameras were compliant with UK laws and “subject to strict security requirements.”

    Dahua did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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  • The US-China chip war is spilling over to Europe | CNN Business

    The US-China chip war is spilling over to Europe | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN Business
     — 

    Two European chip deals have run into trouble over their links with China, a sign of concern spreading in the West over potential Chinese control of critical infrastructure.

    Last week, the new owner of Britain’s biggest chipmaker was ordered to unwind its takeover, just days after another chip factory sale was blocked in Germany. Both transactions were hit by national security concerns, and had involved acquisitions by Chinese-owned companies.

    In the United Kingdom, Nexperia, a Dutch subsidiary of Shanghai-listed semiconductor maker Wingtech, was told by the government to sell at least 86% of its stake in Newport Wafer Fab, more than a year after taking control of the factory. Staffers have since been protesting the decision, saying it puts nearly 600 jobs at risk.

    In Germany, the economic ministry barred Elmos Semiconductor, an automotive chipmaker, from selling its factory in the city of Dortmund to Silex, a Swedish subsidiary of China’s Sai Microelectronics.

    Chipmaking was already emerging as a new front in US-China tensions. Now the two troubled deals illustrate how the pressure is also rising in Europe, particularly as Western officials face calls for key sectors to be kept out of Chinese control.

    “These decisions mark a shift towards tougher stances regarding Chinese investment in critical industries in Europe,” said Xiaomeng Lu, director of geo‑technology at Eurasia Group.

    “US pressure definitely contributed to these decisions. [A] growing sense of technology sovereignty also likely prompted these moves — governments around the world are increasingly [viewing the] semiconductors industry as a strategic resource and seek to protect them from foreign takeovers.”

    Legal experts said the two decisions were notable because each deal was initially thought to have been cleared.

    The Newport Wafer case is “the first completed acquisition” that needs to be unwound under a UK national security and investment (NSI) act, which took full effect in January, according to Ian Giles, head of antitrust and competition for Europe, the Middle East and Asia for Norton Rose.

    Nexperia said last week that it was “shocked” by the decision, and that “the UK government chose not to enter into a meaningful dialogue with Nexperia or even visit the Newport site.”

    The company added that it had offered to avoid “activities of potential concern, and to provide the UK government with direct control and participation in the management of Newport,” a 28-acre site in south Wales.

    The factory makes silicon wafers, the basis for making computer chips. Many of its products eventually power cars and medical equipment. Nexperia has indicated that workers at the facility now face an uncertain future.

    In an open letter to the UK government last Thursday, the Nexperia Newport Staff Association said that it was “in disbelief” that employees’ livelihoods had been “put in jeopardy in the run-up to Christmas.”

    “This is clearly a deeply political decision,” the group wrote, rejecting the idea that the deal would undermine British security. “You must see sense and protect our jobs by allowing Nexperia to keep their Newport factory.”

    For Elmos, German authorities had initially indicated that they would issue a conditional approval, and even shared a draft approval after an intense review process lasting about 10 months, the company said in a statement following the injunction.

    Tim Schaper, head of antitrust and competition for Germany at Norton Rose, said government intervention was also significant given that “Elmos’ technology is said to be quite old, state of the art in the 1990s, and allegedly not of great industrial importance.”

    “The transaction became the plaything of a public debate about Chinese investors’ acquiring stakes in key German technologies,” he said.

    A company sign of Elmos Semiconductor, seen on Nov. 9 in the German city of Dortmund.

    It’s possible that regulators were concerned about an outflow of technical know how, according to Alexander Rinne, the Munich-based head of international law firm Milbank’s European antitrust practice.

    “Elmos is known for making chips for the automotive sector, which is Germany’s core industry and the pride of the country,” he said in an interview.

    Elmos and Nexperia both declined interview requests. A Nexperia spokesperson told CNN Business on Tuesday that it was “considering its options regarding the UK government’s decision.”

    Chips are a growing source of tension between the United States and China. Washington has declared a shortage of the materials a national security issue, and highlighted the importance of remaining competitive in advanced technology capabilities.

    This year, the United States ramped up its own restrictions and pressed allies to enact their own, according to Lu. In August, the US government ordered two top chipmakers, Nvidia

    (NVDA)     and AMD

    (AMD)    , to halt exports of certain high-performance chips to China.

    Two months later, the Biden administration unveiled sweeping export controls that banned Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chip-making equipment without a license. The rules also restricted the ability of American citizens or US green card holders to provide support for the development or production of chips at certain manufacturing facilities in China.

    The pressure is mounting. On Monday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged the West to “be careful not to create new dependencies” on China. Speaking at a NATO parliamentary assembly in Madrid, Stoltenberg said he was seeing “growing Chinese efforts” to control Western critical infrastructure, supply chains, and key industrial sectors.

    “We cannot give authoritarian regimes any chance to exploit our vulnerabilities and undermine us,” he said.

    China has pushed back on the handling of the two European semiconductor cases.

    “We firmly oppose the UK’s move, and call on the UK to respect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and provide a fair, just, and (a) non-discriminatory business environment,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning told a press briefing last Friday when asked about the Newport Wafer order. “The UK has overstretched the concept of national security and abused state power.”

    Zhao Lijian, another Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, called on Germany and other countries to “refrain from politicizing normal economic and trade cooperation” at a press conference earlier this month, without addressing Elmos specifically.

    Germany has shown greater scrutiny of Chinese buyers this year. Last month, a bid by Chinese state shipping giant Cosco for a stake in a Hamburg port terminal operator sparked similar controversy. Under pressure from some members of the government, the size of the investment was later limited.

    Attorneys say if the chipmakers appeal, they could face an uncertain battle that may drag on for years.

    In each case, they would need to file a challenge in court within roughly a month of regulators’ decisions, barring exceptional circumstances, according to Norton Rose.

    Both Britain and Germany have recently added rules that expand government oversight over such decisions, making outcomes harder to predict. In Germany, a change to foreign direct investment rules in 2020 meant the government can intervene in prospective deals “if there is a ‘probable impairment of public order and security,’” said Schaper.

    Previously, by contrast, it could only impose restrictions “if there was an ‘actual, sufficiently serious threat to public order and security,’” he told CNN Business.

    In the UK, the ability of the government to retroactively review deals under the NSI Act “was really something that was considered surprising and far-reaching,” said Andrea Hamilton, a London-based partner at Milbank.

    “If challenged, as Nexperia apparently intends, it will also become a test case as to [the] extent of the NSI Act’s limits,” she said.

    Elsewhere, attention is shifting to the Netherlands. The Dutch government is currently facing pressure from the United States to limit exports to China, particularly from ASML

    (ASML)    , a semiconductor equipment maker that holds a dominant position in the lithography machine market, according to Lu at Eurasia Group.

    “It will become the next case study,” she told CNN Business.

    The Netherlands has made clear it will form its own position.

    Asked about the issue this month, Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade Liesje Schreinemacher said the country would “not copy the US export restrictions for China one-to-one.”

    “We make our own assessment,” she said in an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC.

    — CNN’s Zahid Mahmood, Rose Roobeek-Coppack and Laura He contributed to this report.

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  • Pakistan to appoint former spy chief as new head of army | CNN

    Pakistan to appoint former spy chief as new head of army | CNN

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    Islamabad, Pakistan
    CNN
     — 

    Pakistan on Thursday named former spy chief Lt. Gen. Syed Asim Munir as chief of the South Asian country’s army, ending weeks of speculation over an appointment that comes amid intense debate around the military’s influence on public life.

    In a Twitter post, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said Munir’s appointment would be ratified once a summary sent by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif had been signed by the country’s president.

    Munir, a former head of the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, will take over from Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, who will retire on November 29 after six years in what is normally a three-year post.

    The Pakistani military is often accused of meddling in the politics of a country that has experienced numerous coups and been ruled by generals for extended periods since its formation in 1947, so the appointment of new army chiefs is often a highly politicized issue.

    Munir’s appointment may prove controversial with supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was ousted from office in April after losing the backing of key political allies and the military amid accusations he had mismanaged the economy.

    Munir was removed from his office at the ISI during Khan’s term and the former prime minister has previously claimed – without evidence – that the Pakistani military and Sharif conspired with the United States to remove him from power. After Khan was wounded in a gun attack at a political rally in early November, he also accused a senior military intelligence officer – without evidence – of planning his assassination.

    Both the Pakistani military and US officials have denied Khan’s claims.

    Khan is yet to comment on Munir’s appointment, though his party the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said in a tweet Thursday that he would “act according to the constitution and laws.”

    Khan aside, the new army chief will have plenty on his plate, entering office at a time when – in addition to a burgeoning economic crisis – Pakistan faces the aftermath of the worst floods in its history. He will also have to navigate the country’s notoriously rocky relationship with its neighbor India.

    On Wednesday, outgoing army chief Bajwa said the army was often criticized despite being busy “in serving the nation.” He said a major reason for this was the army’s historic “interference” in Pakistani politics, which he called “unconstitutional.”

    He said that in February this year, the military establishment had “decided to not interfere in politics” and was “adamant” in sticking to this position.

    Pakistan, a nation of 220 million, has been ruled by four different military rulers and seen three military coups since it was formed. No prime minister has ever completed a full five-year term under the present constitution of 1973.

    Uzair Younus, director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said the military institution “has lost so much of its reputation,” and the new chief had plenty of battles ahead.

    “In historical terms an army chief needs three months to settle into his role, the new chief might not have that privilege,” Younus said. “With ongoing political polarization there might be the temptation to intervene politically again.”

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  • Stories of Ukrainian resistance revealed after Kherson pullout | CNN

    Stories of Ukrainian resistance revealed after Kherson pullout | CNN

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    Near Kherson city, Ukraine
    CNN
     — 

    Two Russian soldiers walked down a street in Kherson on a spring evening in early March, just days after Moscow captured the city. The temperature that night was still below freezing and the power was out, leaving the city in complete darkness as the soldiers made their way back to camp after a few drinks.

    As one stumbled on, the other stopped to relieve himself on the side of the pavement. Suddenly, a knife was thrust deep into the right side of his neck.

    He fell to the grass. Moments later, the second Russian soldier, inebriated and unaware, met the same fate.

    “I finished the first one immediately and then I caught up with the other and killed him on the spot,” says Archie, a Ukrainian resistance fighter who described the scene above to CNN.

    He says he moved on pure instinct.

    “I saw the orcs in uniform and I thought, why not?,” Archie adds, using a derogative term for Russians, as he walks through that same street. “There were no people or light and I seized the moment.”

    The 20-year-old is a trained mixed martial arts fighter, with nimble feet and sharp reflexes, who had previously always carried a knife for self-defense, but never killed anyone. CNN is referring to him by his call sign to protect his identity.

    “Adrenaline played its role. I didn’t have any fear or time to think,” he says. “For the first few days I felt very bad, but then I realized that they were my enemies. They came to my home to take it from me.”

    Archie’s account was backed up by Ukrainian military and intelligence sources who handled communications with him and other partisans. He was one of many resistance fighters in Kherson, a city of 290,000 people before the invasion, which Russia tried to bend but could not break.

    People in Kherson made their views clear soon after Russia took over the city on March 2 coming out onto the main square for daily protests, donning the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag.

    But Kherson, the first large city and only regional capital Russian troops were able to occupy since the start of the invasion, was an important symbol for Moscow. Dissent could not be tolerated.

    Protesters were met with tear gas and gunshots, organisers and the more outspoken residents were arrested and tortured. When peaceful demonstrations didn’t work, the people of Kherson turned to resistance and ordinary citizens like Archie started to take action on their own.

    “I wasn’t the only one in Kherson,” Archie says. “There were a lot of clever partisans. At least 10 Russians were killed every night.”

    Initially solo operations, like-minded residents began organising themselves in groups, coordinating their actions with the Ukrainian military and intelligence outside the city.

    “I have a friend with whom we would drive around the city, looking for gatherings of Russian soldiers,” he says. “We checked their patrol routes and then gave all the information to guys on the frontline and they knew who to pass onto next.”

    Russian soldiers weren’t the only ones targeted for assassination. Several Moscow-installed government officials were targeted during the eight months of the Russian occupation. Their faces were printed in posters placed all over the city, promising retribution for their collaboration with the Kremlin, in a psychological war that lasted throughout the occupation.

    Many of those promises were kept, with some of those officials gunned down and others blown up in their cars in incidents that pro-Russian local authorities described as “terrorist attacks.”

    Archie was arrested by the occupying authorities on May 9, after attending a victory day parade, celebrating the Soviet Union’s win in World War II, wearing a yellow and blue stripe on his t-shirt.

    He was taken to a local pre-trial detention facility which had been taken over by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and used to torture Ukrainian soldiers, intelligence officers and partisans, according to Archie.

    Ihor says while he was held at this Russian detention center, he spent much of his time looking out the window, day dreaming about escaping the horrors within.

    “They beat me, electrocuted me, kicked me and beat me with batons,” Archie recalls. “I can’t say they starved me, but they didn’t give much to eat.”

    “Nothing good happened there,” he said.

    Archie was lucky enough to be let go after nine days and after being forced to record a video saying he’d agreed to work with the Russian occupiers. His account of what transpired in the facility has been confirmed by Ukrainian military sources and other detainees.

    But many others never left, according to Archie and other resistance fighters, as well as Ukrainian military and intelligence sources.

    Ihor, who asked CNN not to reveal his last name for his protection, was also held at the facility.

    The Ukrainian flag now hangs atop a detention center used by Russian forces to hold and torture Ukrainian soldiers, dissidents and partisans.

    “I was kept here for 11 days and throughout that time I heard screaming from the basement,” the 29-year-old says. “People were tortured, they were beaten with sticks in the arms and legs, cattle prods, even hooked up to batteries and electrocuted or waterboarded with water.”

    Ihor was caught transporting weapons and says “luckily” he was only beaten.

    “I arrived after the time when people were beaten up to death here,” he recalls. “I was stabbed in the legs with a taser, they use it as a welcome. One of them asked what I’d been brought in for and another two of them started hitting me in the ribs.”

    Ihor and other partisans helped Ukrainian forces zero-in on this warehouse, where Russian forces had stationed military assets, and target it with artillery.

    Through his detention, Ihor was able to hide that he was a member of the Kherson resistance and that transporting weapons was not the only thing he did. Ihor says he also supplied intelligence to the Ukrainian military – an activity that would have incurred far more brutal punishment.

    “If we found something, saw it, (we) took a picture or a video (and) sent it to Ukrainian forces and then they would decide whether to hit it or not,” he explains.

    Among the coordinates he communicated to the Ukrainian military is a warehouse within Kherson city. “The Russian military kept between 20 to 30 vehicles here, there were armored trucks, armored personnel carriers and some Russians lived here,” Ihor says.

    Departing Russian forces were quick to hollow out what was left of the prized interior, but the wrecked building bears the marks of the violent strike. Most of the roof has collapsed, its walls lay shattered and broken glass still covers most of the floor. The structure remains in place but in parts its metal has been mangled by the blast.

    Ihor filmed this warehouse used by Russian forces as he walked past it, pretending to be making a phone call. His information helped Ukrainian forces target and destroy it.

    Ihor used the Telegram messaging app to communicate the building’s coordinates to his military handler, who he referred to as “the smoke.” Along with the information, he sent a video he secretly recorded.

    “I turned on the camera, pointed it at the building and then I just walked and talked on the phone while the camera was filming,” he explains. “Afterward I deleted video, of course, because if they were to stop me somewhere and check my videos and pictures there would be questions…”

    He sent the information in mid-September and, just a day later, the facility was targeted by Ukrainian artillery.

    The United States and NATO have assessed that when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin expected its forces to be greeted as saviors, welcomed with open arms. Reality failed to live up to expectation, not just in the territories where Moscow’s armies were pushed back, but also in the areas it was able to seize.

    The strike on the warehouse which Ihor helped with, is one of many facilitated by Ukrainian partisans inside Kherson working tirelessly and under threat to disrupt Russian activities within the city.

    Eight months after it was occupied by Russia, the city of Kherson is now back in Ukrainian hands and Moscow’s armies are on the back foot, forced to withdraw from the western bank of the Dnipro river.

    But despite achieving victory here, Ukraine continues to faces almost daily crippling missile strikes almost everywhere else, all while Russian forces continue to press on in the East.

    Looking back, Ihor, father to a three-month-old daughter, says he was lucky he wasn’t caught.

    “It wasn’t hard, but it was dangerous,” he explains. “If they were to catch me filming such a thing, they would take me in and probably wouldn’t let me come out alive.”

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  • US Capitol Police assistant chief who oversaw intelligence operations for the department will retire | CNN Politics

    US Capitol Police assistant chief who oversaw intelligence operations for the department will retire | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    US Capitol Police Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman, who oversaw the department’s operations in the days leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, is retiring from the agency, according to an internal announcement shared with CNN.

    Her last day with US Capitol Police will be February 1, 2023.

    Pittman served as the assistant chief of Protective and Intelligence Operations for Capitol Police from 2019 through mid-January of 2021. She rose to acting chief after former Chief Steven Sund abruptly left the department in the days after the January 6 insurrection.

    Despite major criticisms of intelligence breakdowns leading up to January 6, Pittman returned to that role – which oversees the physical security of the US Capitol and the intelligence operations – shortly after current Chief Tom Manger was placed in the top spot.

    She most recently served as acting chief administrative officer.

    Her career with the department began in September 2001.

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  • Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics

    Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.

    Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

    His experience and resume will allow him, at least at first, to fly underneath the type of political blowback that quickly met former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team. It also shows he is adept at managing complex criminal cases related to both public corruption and national security – and that he has practice making challenging decisions with political implications.

    Smith is widely expected to be tasked with making policy decisions around whether to charge a former president of the United States. Garland’s statements on Friday and the recent steps taken in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations have signaled that, at the very least, Donald Trump is under investigation and could potentially be charged with a crime.

    “He knows how to do high-profile cases. He’s independent. He will not be influenced by anybody,” said Greg Andres, a former member of Mueller’s team.

    Andres, who has known Smith since the late 1990s when they started at a US attorney’s office together and ultimately became co-chiefs of the office’s criminal division, said it’s the breadth of Smith’s experience that will enable him to withstand the public scrutiny and make tough judgment calls.

    “He will evaluate the evidence and understand what type of case should be charged or not. He has the type of experience to make those judgments,” said Andres.

    “He understands the courtroom. He understands how to try a case. He knows how to prove a case,” he added. “Particularly in these circumstances it will be critical to understand what types of evidence is required to prove the case in court.”

    In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”

    “The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said.

    One former colleague highlighted that Smith has prosecuted members of both parties.

    “He’s going to be really aggressive,” the person said, adding that “things are going to speed up.” Smith, they said, “operates very quickly” and has a unique ability to quickly determine the things that are important to a case and doesn’t waste time “hand-wringing over things that are real sideshows.”

    In court, Smith comes off as very down-to-earth and relatable, this person said, characterizing that as a good attribute to have as a prosecutor.

    Smith also will not care about the politics surrounding the case, they said, adding he has very thick skin and will “do what he’s going to do.”

    Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.

    As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.

    Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.

    Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”

    “He is a phenomenal investigator; he leaves no stone unturned. He drills down to get to the true facts,” Fodeman said.

    Fodeman, who is still friends with Smith, said he is a “literally insane” cyclist and triathlete.

    Beginning in 2008, Smith worked for the International Criminal Court and oversaw war crimes investigations under the Office of the Prosecutor for two years.

    In 2010, he became chief of the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, where he oversaw litigation of public corruption cases. Lanny Breuer, the former assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division who recruited Smith, said his onetime employee was “a terrific prosecutor” with a “real sense of fairness.”

    “If you are going to have a special counsel, in my view, and you want someone who is going to be fearless, but fair, and not going to be intimidated and not overly bureaucratic, that’s Jack – he is all of these things,” Breuer told CNN.

    “Smith brings cases quickly. … He doesn’t sit on cases. He is a person of action,” Breuer added.

    After his stint at the Public Integrity Section, Smith was appointed first assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in 2015.

    Though he is not widely known in Washington, DC, legal circles, Smith is described as a consummate public servant.

    About a decade ago, he hired waves of line prosecutors into the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, supervising dozens over his years in charge there.

    Brian Kidd, whom Smith hired at the unit, recalled how his boss walked him through every step of a complicated racketeering case against corrupt police officers.

    “He was not going to tolerate a politically motivated prosecution,” Kidd said. “And he has an incredible ability to motivate the people working with him and under him. He’s incredibly supportive of his team.”

    Smith handled some of the most high-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – to mixed outcomes.

    He was the head of the public integrity unit when then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was indicted in 2014, and was in meetings with the defense team and involved in decision-making leading up to the charges, according to a person familiar with the case.

    McDonnell was initially convicted of receiving gifts for political favors, but then his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.

    Smith was also at the helm of the unit when the DOJ failed to convict at trial former Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

    A Republican source familiar with Smith’s oversight of the investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay commended Smith’s non-biased approach, saying that he ultimately made a “just” decision to conclude the investigation without alleging DeLay committed any crime.

    In recent years while working at The Hague, he has not lived in the United States. He’s no longer on the US Triathlon team but is still a competitive biker.

    Smith took over as acting US Attorney when David Rivera departed in early 2017 before leaving the Justice Department later that year and becoming vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America. In 2018, he became chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

    “Throughout his career, Jack Smith has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor, who leads teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead,” Garland said during the announcement on Friday. “Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner.”

    In May 2014, the House Oversight Committee interviewed Smith behind closed doors as part of the Republican-led investigation into the alleged IRS targeting of conservative groups. Then-Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa launched the probe following a 2013 inspector general report that found delays in the processing of applications by certain conservative groups and requesting information from them that was later deemed unnecessary.

    Republicans sought testimony from Smith, who at the time was Public Integrity section chief, due to his involvement with arranging a 2010 meeting between Justice Department officials and then-IRS official Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the IRS scandal. The meeting had been convened to discuss the “evolving legal landscape” of campaign finance law following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, according to a May 2014 letter written by Issa and Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who is expected to be House Judiciary chairman next year.

    “It is apparent that the Department’s leadership, including Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith, was closely involved in engaging with the IRS in wake of Citizens United and political pressure from prominent Democrats to address perceived problems with the decision,” Issa and Jordan wrote in the letter seeking Smith’s testimony.

    Smith testified that his office “had a dialogue” with the FBI about opening investigations related to politically active non-profits following the meeting with Lerner, but did not ultimately do so, according to a copy of his interview obtained by CNN.

    Smith explained that he had asked for the meeting with the IRS because he wanted to learn more about the legal landscape of political non-profits following the Citizens United decision because he was relatively new to the public integrity section. He said that Lerner explained it would be difficult if not impossible to bring a case on the abuse of tax-exempt status.

    Smith repeated at several points in the interview that the Justice Department did not pursue any investigations due to politics.

    “I want to be clear – it would be more about looking at the issue, looking at whether it made sense to open investigations,” he said. “If we did, you know, how would you go about doing this? Is there predication, a basis to open an investigation? Things like that. I can’t say as I sit here now specifically, you know, the back-and-forth of that discussion. I can just tell you that – because I know one of your concerns is that organizations were targeted. And I can tell you that we, Public Integrity, did not open any investigations as a result of those discussions and that we certainly, as you know, have not brought any cases as a result of that.”

    Smith also testified that he was not aware of anyone at the Justice Department placing pressure on the IRS – and that he was never pressured to investigate any political groups.

    “No. And maybe I can stop you guys. I know there’s a series of these questions. I’ve never been asked these things, and anybody who knows me would never even consider asking me to do such a thing,” Smith said.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • She left the dangers of Ukraine only to be killed riding a bike close to home. Hundreds will ride in her honor to demand change | CNN

    She left the dangers of Ukraine only to be killed riding a bike close to home. Hundreds will ride in her honor to demand change | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    On Thursday, Dan Langenkamp marked 12 weeks since his wife, Sarah, was killed.

    To honor her, Dan and his two young sons do what they do every day at around 4:05 p.m., the time Sarah died: They drop whatever they are working on, gather together, hold hands and talk to her, sharing details about their day. They tell her they love her, they miss her, and they hope she’s proud of them.

    Sarah Debbink Langenkamp was killed August 25 while riding her bike on a Bethesda, Maryland, road. She was traveling on the biker’s lane when the driver of a flatbed truck alongside her made a right turn into a parking lot and ran over the 42-year-old, police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

    “I’ve tried to make sense of what happened to Sarah, and since I started looking into it, I’ve realized this is not a freakish accident,” Dan Langenkamp said. “What happened to her is part of a huge, worsening trend in America of people getting killed in traffic crashes. There’s an epidemic of traffic violence against people walking or biking.”

    The accident came just weeks after the couple, both diplomats, moved back to the US after spending roughly a year and a half in Ukraine and later in Poland, on the border. They were part of a small group of US government employees who stayed behind after Russia’s invasion but ultimately made the difficult decision to leave, so they could reunite with their two sons – Oliver, 10 and Axel, 8 – whom they had sent to their grandparents in California when the war first started.

    The couple spent a few weeks in Washington DC before moving to Bethesda, where they were eagerly preparing for the start of a new chapter. Sarah enrolled in a master’s degree course and, three days after their move there, attended an open house at her son’s new elementary school. A few minutes before she got on her bike to return home that evening, she called Dan to share her impressions. It was the last call she ever made.

    “We’ve lived in dangerous places,” Langenkamp said. “The last thing we expected was that one of us would die or get hurt in Bethesda.”

    His anger, Langenkamp said, has been a driving force to push for change in bike safety. A GoFundMe campaign Langenkamp created has raised more than $289,000 to help local and national cycling safety organizations in their efforts to advocate for safer bike routes.

    And on Saturday morning, more than 1,500 people are registered to bike to Congress in Sarah’s honor in the 10.5-mile Ride for Your Life event her husband organized.

    The group’s requests to lawmakers include funding for the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program, which was authorized by Congress but not funded and which can help local governments invest in bike lane infrastructure. They’re also asking for more measures around truck safety, including mandating better training and requiring side and front guards on large trucks to prevent people from getting caught underneath.

    “I get comfort knowing that, maybe through all of this work, some other mother will ride home safely after riding her bike to work,” Langenkamp said. “And that’s meaningful to me.”

    Sarah Langenkamp seen here with her arm raised, during

    For many advocates, the fight for safer roads has been long and difficult, even amid worsening trends for biker and pedestrian safety. The problems have only been exacerbated by increased driver recklessness during the pandemic and bigger, heavier – and deadlier – vehicles on the roads, said Colin Browne, a spokesperson for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

    More than 930 cyclists were killed on American roads in 2020, a 9% increase from the prior year, and more than 38,800 were injured, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Nearly 80% of fatal bicyclist crashes that year were in urban areas, the agency said. At least 985 cyclists were killed in 2021, a 5% increase from 2020, according to early estimates from the NHTSA. Since 1975, deaths among cyclists 20 or older have nearly quadrupled, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

    “It’s a public health crisis,” Browne said. “Even more so because this is, from a technical standpoint, not a challenging problem to solve. The tools and the engineering to make the streets safer to use is out there, it’s tested, it’s proven.”

    But creating safer streets for bikers and pedestrians and regulating large vehicles has often proved a politically unpopular move, which has led to slow action from local leaders, he added.

    “We could give (funding) to buses and people on bikes and scooters, but we have sort of built an infrastructure that assumes the majority of people will drive,” Browne said.

    Anna Irwin will also ride her bike with her 10-year-old daughter on Saturday to honor Sarah’s memory. Irwin founded the Bethesda BIKE Now coalition, a local group created in response to a 2017 decision from local leaders to shut down a popular bike trail which ran through Bethesda during the construction of a rail line.

    In these five years, the group has called for the completion of a network of protected bike routes – formed by two major paths – running from one side of Bethesda to the other, while the existing trail remains closed. But progress has been slow, Irwin said.

    “Here we are, in 2022, and neither one of the routes is completed,” Irwin said. “They’ve done some work, but in five years they can’t build a protected bike lane to cover two miles of heavily trafficked area?”

    The Montgomery County Department of Transportation told CNN it recently completed the first phase of two segments in the network and more bike lanes are either being designed or under construction, adding “we are building them as fast as we can.”

    The department is also working with the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, which controls River Road, where Sarah was killed.

    The highway administration said in a statement it is committed to the safety of all highway users but did not answer CNN’s specific questions on bike trail projects, including if there are plans for construction on River Road. The agency last month announced it started construction on another road in North Bethesda, where an 18-year-old cyclist was killed in June and a 17-year-old cyclist was killed in 2019.

    “These things could have been prevented,” Irwin said. “We have got to just keep educating people about the need for protected bike lanes. You can’t just paint the road and then expect cars to give us the space that we need. It’s not safe.”

    Langenkamp has said his fundraising effort will also help advocate for the state’s transportation department to create a safer bike lane on River Road, where Sarah was killed.

    “Such bike lanes – lacking proper barriers, truck/auto driver education, laws, and law enforcement – are only death traps,” Langenkamp wrote on his GoFundMe page.

    The fight for change has given Langenkamp purpose in what otherwise has been an unbearable three months. Adjusting to life as a single father hasn’t been easy, he said. Just a few days ago, his son noted he had no clean pants for school, and Langenkamp realized he hadn’t done laundry for a week. He often worries what holidays and Mother’s Day will look like for the children.

    Sarah loved their two boys, he said. Even amid a demanding job which took the family all around the world – including to Baghdad, the Ivory Coast and Uganda – she was always able to turn off work and focus on her family, Langenkamp said. While working from Poland during Russia’s war on Ukraine, Sarah flew to California for a weekend over the summer to surprise her oldest son on his birthday. She returned to Europe when the weekend was over. And in the weeks before her return to the US, she wrote heartfelt postcards to her boys, sharing she couldn’t wait until they were reunited.

    She was equally incredible at her job, her husband said, adding, “She was everybody’s favorite colleague.”

    The two met in their Foreign Service orientation class in 2005 and were married a year later. “She had this quiet confidence, and a very down-to-earth, friendly demeanor that just really made her easy to get along with,” Langenkamp said. “She was the kind of boss that everybody loves. Just really smart.”

    And she was never afraid to go to the places where other diplomats were sometimes unwilling to go, telling her husband it was “where we were needed.”

    During their time in Ukraine, Sarah headed the US Embassy’s programs on corruption and law enforcement and was responsible for equipping and supplying its national police and border guard. And she was a “critical player” in Ukraine’s defense efforts and helped Ukrainian police and border guard forces receive equipment like helmets and body armor after the invasion, Langenkamp added. After her killing, letters of appreciation poured in from US leaders including President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

    “She was our guiding light, really, and our moral compass,” Langenkamp said. “It was her judgment that helped us through everything.”

    Sarah Langenkamp with her two sons, Oliver and Axel, on July 4, 2017.

    Three months since her death, reminders of Sarah are everywhere around the family’s Bethesda home, Langenkamp said.

    There’s a corner – a part of the home Langenkamp refers to as a “shrine” to his wife – where a candle remains lit by her urn, surrounded by pictures of the family, notes Sarah’s sons wrote to their mom after her passing, jewelry she used to wear, cards from family and friends. Nearby, pictures of Sarah are taped right up to the ceiling. “We just try to have her around, everywhere,” her husband said.

    There’s also a picture Sarah gifted to her husband at their wedding. It’s a picture of a bike with the words, “Life is a beautiful ride. Dan and Sarah, est. 2006,” the year of their wedding.

    “Biking was a thing for us,” he said. “It was a central part of our lives,” a mode of transportation which was “down-to-earth, healthy and environmentally friendly,” Langenkamp added.

    Wherever the couple found themselves, they tried to commute by bike when possible, he added. Choosing this fight for safety since his wife’s death was almost like an “impulse,” Langenkamp said.

    “If the least I can do to honor her, a person who had so much potential in her life. If we can do a little bit of good as a result of this, I’ll have been consoled slightly,” he said.

    “It won’t bring her back,” Langenkamp added. “But at least it will help, a little bit.”

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  • Fed officials crushed investors’ hopes this week | CNN Business

    Fed officials crushed investors’ hopes this week | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Investors sleuthing for clues about what the Federal Reserve will decide during its December policy meeting got quite a few this week. But those hints about the future of monetary policy point to an outcome they won’t be very happy about.

    What’s happening: Federal Reserve officials made a series of speeches this week indicating that aggressive interest rate hikes to fight inflation would continue, souring investors’ hopes for a forthcoming central bank policy shift. On Thursday, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said the central bank still has a lot of work to do before it brings inflation under control, sending the S&P 500 down more than 1% in early trading. It later pared losses.

    Bullard, a voting member on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), said that the moves the Fed has made so far to fight inflation haven’t been sufficient. “To attain a sufficiently restrictive level, the policy rate will need to be increased further,” he said.

    Those comments come a day after Kansas City Fed President Esther George, a voting member of the FOMC, said to The Wall Street Journal that she’s “looking at a labor market that is so tight, I don’t know how you continue to bring this level of inflation down without having some real slowing, and maybe we even have contraction in the economy to get there.”

    San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly added on Wednesday that a pause in rate hikes was “off the table.”

    A numbers game: Fed officials should increase interest rates to somewhere between 5% and 7% to tamp inflation, Bullard said Thursday. Those numbers shocked investors, as they would require a series of significant and economically painful hikes which increase the chance of a hard landing.

    The current interest rate sits between 3.75% and 4% and the median FOMC participant projected a peak funds rate of 4.5-4.75% in September. If those numbers hold steady, Fed members would only raise rates by another three-quarters of a percentage point.

    But Fed Chair Powell said at the November meeting that the projections are likely to rise in December and if Bullard is correct, that means investors can expect another one to three percentage points in rate hikes.

    Dreams of a pivot: October’s softer-than-expected CPI and producer price reading bolstered investors’ hopes that the Fed might ease its aggressive rate hikes and sent markets soaring to their best day since 2020 last week.

    But messaging from Fed officials this week has brought Wall Street back down to earth.

    That’s because market rallies help to expand the economy, said Liz Ann Sonders, Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab, which is the opposite of what the Fed is trying to do with its tightening policy. Fed officials could be attempting to do some “jawboning” via excessively hawkish speeches in order to bring markets down, she said.

    The bottom line: Investors listen closely to Bullard’s comments because he’s known for having looser lips than other Fed officials, Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of Bleakley Financial Group, wrote in a note Thursday. But his hawkish predictions may have been “overboard,” especially since he won’t be a voting member of the FOMC next year.

    Still, Wall Street analysts are listening. Goldman Sachs raised its peak fed funds rate forecast on Thursday to 5-5.25%, up from 4.75-5%.

    A series of high-profile layoffs have rattled Big Tech this month.

    Amazon confirmed that layoffs had begun at the company and would continue into next year, just days after multiple outlets reported the e-commerce giant planned to cut around 10,000 employees. Facebook-parent Meta recently announced 11,000 job cuts, the largest in the company’s history. Twitter also announced widespread job cuts after Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billion.

    The series of high-profile layoff announcements prompted fears that the labor market was weakening and that a recession could be around the corner.

    Those fears aren’t unwarranted: The Federal Reserve is actively working to slow economic growth and tighten financial conditions to rebalance the white-hot labor market. Further layoffs in both tech and other industries are likely inevitable as the Fed continues to raise interest rates.

    But this wave of layoffs isn’t as significant as headlines might lead Americans to believe. Thursday’s weekly jobless claims actually fell by 4,000 to 222,000 in spite of the surge in tech job cuts.

    In a note on Thursday Goldman Sachs analysts outlined three reasons why the layoffs may not point to a looming recession in the US.

    First off, the tech industry accounts for a small share of aggregate employment in the US. While information technology companies account for 26% of the S&P 500 market cap, it accounts for less than 0.3% of total employment.

    Second, tech job openings remain well above their pre-pandemic level, so laid-off tech workers should have good chances of finding new jobs.

    Finally, tech worker layoffs have frequently spiked in the past without a corresponding increase in total layoffs and have not historically been a leading indicator of broader labor market deterioration, Goldman analysts found.

    “The main problem in the labor market is still that labor demand is too strong, not too weak,” they concluded.

    Mortgage rates dropped sharply last week following a series of economic reports that indicated inflation may finally be easing, reports my colleague Anna Bahney

    The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.61% in the week ending November 17, down from 7.08% the week before, according to Freddie Mac, the largest weekly drop since 1981.

    But that’s still significantly higher than a year ago when the 30-year fixed rate stood at 3.10%.

    “While the decline in mortgage rates is welcome news, there is still a long road ahead for the housing market,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Inflation remains elevated, the Federal Reserve is likely to keep interest rates high and consumers will continue to feel the impact.”

    Affording a home remains a challenge for many home buyers. Mortgage rates are expected to remain volatile for the rest of the year. And prices remain elevated in many areas, especially where there is a very limited inventory of available homes for sale.

    Meanwhile, inflation and rising interest rates mean many would-be buyers are also facing tightened budgets.

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