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  • North Korea fires ICBM into sea off Japan, according to South Korean officials | CNN

    North Korea fires ICBM into sea off Japan, according to South Korean officials | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday, the second missile test by the Kim Jong Un regime in two days, in actions condemned as unacceptable by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

    The ICBM was launched around 10:15 a.m. local time from the Sunan area of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, and flew about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) east, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

    Kishida said it likely fell in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), about 210 kilometers (130 miles) west of the Japanese island of Oshima Oshima, according to the Japan Coast Guard. It did not fly over Japan.

    “North Korea is continuing to carry out provocative actions at frequency never seen before,” Kishida told reporters Friday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

    “I want to restate that we cannot accept such actions,” he said.

    The Japanese government will continue to collect and analyze information and provide prompt updates to the public, he said. So far, there have been no reports of damage to vessels at sea, Kishida added.

    The ICBM reached an altitude of about 6,100 kilometers (3,790 miles) at Mach 22, or 22 times the speed of sound, according to the JCS, which said details were being analyzed by intelligence authorities in South Korea and the US.

    Friday’s missile was about 100 kilometers short in altitude and distance compared to Pyongyang’s missile test on March 24, which recorded the highest altitude and longest duration of any North Korean missile ever tested, according to a report from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) at the time. That missile reached an altitude of 6,248.5 kilometers (3,905 miles) and flew a distance of 1,090 kilometers (681 miles), KCNA reported.

    Calling the launch a “significant provocation and a serious act of threat,” the JCS warned the North of violating the UN Security Council’s resolution and urged it to stop immediately.

    The Misawa Air Base issued a shelter in place alert after the firing of the missile, according to US Air Force Col. Greg Hignite, director of public affairs for US Forces Japan. It has now been lifted and the US military is still analyzing the flight path, he said.

    US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the missile launch and his national security team will “continue close consultations with Allies and partners,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in statement Friday.

    “The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement,” Watson said. “The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and Republic of Korea and Japanese allies.”

    Friday’s launch comes one day after Pyongyang fired a short-range ballistic missile into the waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, and issued a stern warning to the United States of a “fiercer military counteraction” to its tighter defense ties with South Korea and Japan.

    It’s the second suspected test launch of an ICBM this month – an earlier missile fired on November 3 appeared to have failed, a South Korean government source told CNN at the time.

    The aggressive acceleration in weapons testing and rhetoric has sparked alarm in the region, with the US, South Korea and Japan responding with missile launches and joint military exercises.

    Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of International Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said North Korea is “trying to disrupt international cooperation against it by escalating military tensions and suggesting it has the capability of holding American cities at risk of nuclear attack.”

    North Korea has carried out missile tests on 34 days this year, sometimes firing multiple missiles in a single day, according to a CNN count. The tally includes both cruise and ballistic missiles, with the latter making up the majority of North Korean test this year.

    There are substantial differences between these two types of missiles.

    A ballistic missile is launched with a rocket and travels outside Earth’s atmosphere, gliding in space before it re-enters the atmosphere and descends, powered only by gravity to its target.

    A cruise missile is powered by a jet engine, stays inside Earth’s atmosphere during its flight and is maneuverable with control surfaces similar to an airplane’s.

    Ankit Panda, senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that while he wouldn’t see Friday’s presumed ICBM launch “as a message, per se,” it can be viewed as part of North Korea’s “process of developing capabilities Kim has identified as essential for the modernization of their nuclear forces.”

    The US and international observers have been warning for months that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test, with satellite imagery showing activity at the nuclear test site. Such a test would be the hermit nation’s first in five years.

    Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Center for Non-proliferation Studies, said the ICBM test was designed to validate parts of North Korea’s missile program, something that Kim Jong Un has vowed to do this year.

    The recent short-range tests “are exercises for frontline artillery units practicing preemptive nuclear strikes,” Lewis said.

    He dismissed any political or negotiating message from the tests.

    “I wouldn’t think about these tests as primarily signaling. North Korea isn’t interested talking right now,” Lewis said.

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  • Inside the White House’s months of prep-work for a GOP investigative onslaught | CNN Politics

    Inside the White House’s months of prep-work for a GOP investigative onslaught | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    More than four months before voters handed Republicans control of the House of Representatives, top White House and Department of Homeland Security officials huddled in the Roosevelt Room to prepare for that very scenario.  

    The department and its secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, had emerged as top targets of Republican ire over the Biden administration’s border security policies – ire that is certain to fuel aggressive congressional investigations with Republicans projected to narrowly reclaim the House majority and the subpoena power that comes with it.  

    Sitting around the large conference table in the Roosevelt Room, White House lawyers probed senior DHS officials about their preparations for the wide-ranging Republican oversight they had begun to anticipate, including Republicans’ stated plans to impeach Mayorkas, two sources familiar with the meeting said.  

    Convened by Richard Sauber, a veteran white-collar attorney hired in May to oversee the administration’s response to congressional oversight, the meeting was one of several the White House has held since the summer with lawyers from across the administration – including the Defense Department, State Department and Justice Department.

    The point, people familiar with the effort said, has been to ensure agencies are ready for the coming investigative onslaught  and to coordinate an administration-wide approach. 

    While President Joe Biden and Democrats campaigned to preserve their congressional majorities, a small team of attorneys, communications strategists and legislative specialists have spent the past few months holed up in Washington preparing for the alternative, two administration officials said.  

    The preparations, largely run out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House, are among the earliest and most comprehensive by any administration ahead of a midterm election and highlight how far-reaching and aggressive Republican investigations are expected to be.

    Along with Sauber, this spring the White House hired veteran Democratic communications aide Ian Sams as spokesman for the White House counsel’s office. Top Biden adviser Anita Dunn returned to the White House in the spring, in part to oversee the administration’s preparations for a GOP-controlled Congress.

    The Justice Department is also bracing for investigations, bringing in well-known government transparency attorney Austin Evers to help respond to legislative oversight. Evers is the founder of the group American Oversight and served as its executive director until this year, and previously handled the oversight response at the State Department.

     The White House is preparing to hire additional lawyers and other staff to beef up its oversight response team in the next two months, before the new Congress convenes in January, administration officials said. The hires will bolster Sauber’s current team of about 10 lawyers, a source familiar with the matter said.

    In piecing together GOP targets and strategy, the team has paid close attention to Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky, the two Republicans who are likely to lead much of the investigations under a GOP-controlled House and have spent months telegraphing their intentions in TV interviews and oversight letters.   

    Jim Jordan and James Comer.

    Their opening salvo came Thursday, when Comer and Jordan hosted a joint news conference to preview the various investigations into President Joe Biden’s family.  

    “In the 118th Congress, this committee will evaluate the status of Joe Biden’s relationship with his family’s foreign partners and whether he is a president who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence” said Comer, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee. “I want to be clear: This is an investigation of Joe Biden, and that’s where the committee will focus in this next Congress.”

    Comer, flanked by Jordan and other Republicans on the Oversight Committee, said Republicans have made connections between the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and the president whom they believe requires further investigation. 

    The White House accused Comer of pursuing “long-debunked conspiracy theories.”

    Even though the Republican majority is poised to be much thinner than expected – with a likely margin of just a couple seats – all indications are that House Republicans are poised to push ahead with a wide-ranging set of investigations into all corners of the Biden administration, including the messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Covid-19 vaccine mandates and the Justice Department’s handling of the various investigations related to Donald Trump. 

    Republicans are also intent on investigating the president’s family, particularly his son, Hunter Biden. 

    With little chance of passing much legislation in a deadlocked Congress, investigations are shaping up to be the focal point of how a House Republican majority wields its power.  

    “You’re gonna have a bunch of chairmen who are totally on their own, doing whatever the hell they want without regard for what the national political implications are,” said Brendan Buck, a former top adviser to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said he believes GOP leader Kevin McCarthy will have “very little leash” to rein in those investigative pursuits.  

    House Republicans have already sent over 500 letters to the administration requesting that they preserve documents, key committees have hired new legal counsels to help with investigations, and leadership has hosted classes for staffers on how to best use the oversight tools at their disposal.

    Meanwhile, McCarthy’s office has been working with likely committee chairs over the last several months to delegate who is going to be investigating what, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

    “It’s like a clearing house,” the source said. 

    But the GOP’s push for aggressive investigations could run into resistance from the moderate wing of the GOP, who want to use their newfound majority to address key legislative priorities – not just pummel Hunter Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci. While McCarthy has vowed to conduct rigorous oversight, he will have to strike a delicate balance between the demands of the competing factions in his party.

    White House officials believe Republicans are bound to overstep and that their investigative overreach will backfire with the American public. In the meantime, they are prepared to push back forcefully, believing that many proposed investigations are based on conspiracy theories and politically motivated charges.

    “President Biden is not going to let these political attacks distract him from focusing on Americans’ priorities, and we hope congressional Republicans will join us in tackling them instead of wasting time and resources on political revenge,” Sams, the spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, said in a statement to CNN. 

    The House’s expected razor-thin majority is likely to make it more difficult to take steps like impeaching members of Biden’s Cabinet – or even the president himself. But that doesn’t mean, sources told CNN, they’re not going to try, particularly when it comes to the border and Mayorkas.  

    Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, on Capitol Hill on May 04, 2022.

    On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee provided a preview of what is to come. Over the course of a marathon four-hour hearing, Republican lawmakers grilled Mayorkas over the influx of migrants at the southern border, the number of people who evade Border Patrol capture, and encounters with people on the border who are on the terror watch list. 

    Throughout, Mayorkas stood his ground, maintaining that the border is “secure” and batting down criticism that it’s “open” as Republicans have claimed. 

    At one point, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana foreshadowed more testimony next year, telling Mayorkas: “We look forward to seeing you in January.”  

    Mayorkas, officials said, remains undeterred by the threats of impeachment and intends to stay at the helm of the department, a point he reiterated Tuesday. Still, one person close to Mayorkas told CNN that the DHS chief is “nervous” about impending GOP investigations and the potential of being continually hauled before Congress by hostile Republican committee chairs. 

    “Don’t let the bastards win,” one US official familiar with Mayorkas’ thinking said when asked to sum up the DHS chief’s attitude toward potential GOP investigations on border issues and impeachment.   

    “We will respond to legitimate inquiries,” the official said. “We’re not going to feed into what might wind up as kabuki theater.”  

    DHS already responds to hundreds of congressional inquiries per month, according to a Homeland Security official, who added the department has been preparing for months for any potential increase in congressional activity. The department is also ready to “aggressively respond to attempts to mischaracterize the strong record” of the DHS work force, as well as “politically motivated attempts to attack the secretary,” the official said.

    DHS officials considered hiring outside legal counsel to prepare for the potential onslaught of Republican scrutiny but ultimately chose not to, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.   Ricki Seidman, a senior counselor to Mayorkas and former senior Justice Department official, has been involved in DHS’s preparation for the GOP oversight, the source added.

     Another Homeland Security official said that the Border Patrol along with Customs and Border Protection “are going to take the most heat.” 

    The most politically charged investigations next year are poised to be those into the president’s son Hunter Biden.  

    Top Republicans have largely been more than happy for Comer to take on the leading role of investigating Hunter Biden, multiple sources said.  Jordan does not plan to be intimately involved in the Hunter Biden probe but will provide public support for Comer, including appearing with him at the upcoming press conference.  

    “We’re going to lay out what we have thus far on Hunter Biden, and the crimes we believe he has committed,” Comer told CNN earlier this month just before the election. “And then we’re going to be very clear and say what we are investigating, and who we’re gonna ask to meet with us for transcribed interviews.”

    Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing in his business activities.

    Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, attends a ceremony at the White House on Thursday, July 7, 2022.

    Behind the scenes though, Jordan and other soon-to-be powerful Republican lawmakers – including likely chairman of House Intelligence Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio – have sought to distance their committees from the Hunter Biden investigation in favor of other investigative pursuits they deem to be “more serious,” the sources said. 

    The handling of Republican investigations related to Hunter Biden will fall to Hunter Biden’s own attorneys, while Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, will handle related matters related to Joe Biden’s personal capacity that do not touch on his official duties. Bauer, who is married to Dunn, and White House attorneys have already met to divvy up workflow over potential lines of inquiries to ensure there are clear lanes of responsibility between investigations that touch on Joe Biden’s official role as president and vice president and his personal life. 

    Another key point of interest is likely to be the administration’s handling of the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to the death of 13 Marines and nearly 200 Afghans when a bomb exploded at the Kabul airport.  

    At the State Department, a small group of officials has already begun planning for the coming investigations into Afghanistan, officials said. While that group will work with Sauber’s team at the White House, State Department officials expect to take the lead in handling GOP inquiries into Afghanistan.     

    The department has not hired new people to work on these efforts, but certain officials who are already at the department expect to spend a lot more of their time responding to the congressional inquiries, officials said.  

    The Republican investigation into the withdrawal is likely to be led by Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee. McCaul and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have historically had a good relationship, which State Department officials are hoping will be an important factor.

    US soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul on August 20, 2021

    Administration officials said they plan to take McCaul’s inquiry seriously because they expect he will demonstrate a seriousness of purpose, instead of making bombastic demands like some other Republicans. And House Republican aides said they plan to explore the administration’s willingness to work with them before issuing subpoenas.

    “If they’ll meet us in the middle by giving us some documents instead of all documents, or agreeing to turn over certain individuals but not all of the individuals for interviews, then that’s a start,” said one of the GOP aides familiar with the plans. “But if they just want to be completely obstructive and say no to every single request, then you’ll see subpoenas fairly soon.”

    The department concluded its own review of the withdrawal in March, but the findings of that report have not been shared publicly, officials said. While it was expected to be put out earlier this year, State Department officials said the White House is making that determination, and they are unsure of where that decision stands. House Republicans want to see that report.

    At the Pentagon, officials are bracing for the possibility of public grilling at televised hearings on everything from Afghanistan to views about “wokeness” in the force and the discharging of troops who refused to take the Covid-19 vaccine. 

    “We know it’s coming,” one administration official said. 

     Both Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose term expires at the end of September 2023, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who appears determined to stay until the end of the Biden administration, have faced sharp criticism from congressional Republicans and know the coming months may be a rough political ride, officials said.    

    Milley has been a particular target for Republicans for his well-known efforts to keep the final weeks of the Trump presidency from careening into a national security crisis. 

    Both Milley and Austin have pushed back forcefully on GOP accusations that the military is “woke,” a topic that’s likely to become a focal point for some Republicans in the coming months.

    “This is going to be a Congress under Republican control like no other,” said Rafi Prober, a congressional investigations specialist with the law firm Akin Gump who previously worked in the Obama administration.    

    Aaron Cutler, the head of the Washington government investigations group at law firm Hogan Lovells and a former Republican congressional leadership staffer, said the partisan investigations serve to “feed the base red meat.”

    But Cutler said he has heard from conservatives that the tepid result for Republicans in the midterm elections may translate to less “silliness in politics,” he said. “The American people are pushing back, and saying we want government to work.”   

    That is exactly the calculation the White House and congressional Democrats are making. A senior House Democratic source said that aggressive attacks on Biden’s son could backfire, adding that congressional Democrats were gearing up to defend the president by calling out “lies and hypocrisy.”

    Still, with the GOP investigations in mind, a team of White House lawyers has in recent weeks and months advised senior White House staff on how “not to be seen as influencing politically sensitive missions at (departments and agencies),” a source familiar with the matter told CNN.  

    Asked at his press conference last week about the prospect of GOP investigations, including into his son, Biden said: “I think the American people will look at all of that for what it is. It’s just almost comedy. … Look, I can’t control what they’re going to do.”

    This story has been updated with comments from Rep. Comer on Thursday.

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  • Taylor Swift ticket snafu caused by Ticketmaster abusing its market power, Senate antitrust chair says | CNN Business

    Taylor Swift ticket snafu caused by Ticketmaster abusing its market power, Senate antitrust chair says | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Senator Amy Klobuchar criticized Ticketmaster in an open letter to its CEO, saying she has “serious concerns” about the company’s operations following a service meltdown Tuesday that left Taylor Swift fans irate.

    In the letter to CEO Michael Rapino, the Democrat from Minnesota and chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, wrote that complaints from Swift fans unable to buy tickets for her upcoming tour, in addition to criticism about high fees, suggests that the company “continues to abuse its market positions.”

    “Ticketmaster’s power in the primary ticket market insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services. That can result in the types of dramatic service failures we saw this week, where consumers are the ones that pay the price,” Klobuchar wrote.

    Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the country’s largest concert promoter, merged about a decade ago. Klobuchar noted that the company at the time pledged to “develop an easy-access, one-stop platform” for ticket delivery. On Thursday, the senator told Rapino that it “appears that your confidence was misplaced.”

    “When Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation in 2010, it was subject to an antitrust consent decree that prohibited it from abusing its market position,” Klobuchar wrote. “Nonetheless, there have been numerous complaints about your company’s compliance with that decree.”

    The letter includes a list of questions for Rapino to answer by next week. Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN Business.

    On Tuesday, the company said “there has been historically unprecedented demand with millions showing up” to buy tickets for Swift’s tour and thanked fans for their “patience.”

    Klobuchar is the latest high-profile politician to openly criticize Ticketmaster for the ticketing disaster that left bad blood between Swift fans and the company.

    “@Ticketmaster’s excessive wait times and fees are completely unacceptable, as seen with today’s @taylorswift13 tickets, and are a symptom of a larger problem. It’s no secret that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unchecked monopoly,” Rep. David Cicilline, currently the chairman of the Antitrust Subcommittee, tweeted on Tuesday.

    “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reined in,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

    Complaints about the company’s monopoly power go back long, long before Tuesday’s ticket problems, when the platform appeared to crash or freeze during presale purchases for Swift’s latest tour.

    In 1994, when Taylor Swift was only four years old and ticket purchase queues were in person or on the phone, not online, the rock group Pearl Jam filed a complaint with the Justice Department’s antitrust division asserting that Ticketmaster has a “virtually absolute monopoly on the distribution of tickets to concerts.” It tried to book its tour only at venues that didn’t use Ticketmaster.

    The Justice Department and many state attorneys general have made similar complaints over the years.

    Despite those concerns, Ticketmaster continued to grow more dominant. Pearl Jam’s complaint was quietly dismissed. The Justice Department and states allowed the Live Nation Ticketmaster merger to go through despite a 2010 court filing in the case raising objections to the merger. In the filing, the Justice Department said that Ticketmaster’s share among major concert venues exceeded 80%.

    – CNN Business’ Chris Isidore contributed to this report.

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  • Britain is bringing back austerity. Here’s why | CNN Business

    Britain is bringing back austerity. Here’s why | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN Business
     — 

    The last time a British finance minister revealed tax and spending plans, markets went haywire and the country’s prime minister ultimately lost her job. The new government is not looking for a repeat performance.

    On Thursday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is due to unveil a budget that will aim to restore confidence in the United Kingdom’s ability to manage its public finances. But that may be easier said than done.

    The country is staring down the barrel of a grueling recession, and investors remain on edge as interest rates rise. That requires Hunt, who has acknowledged that Britain faces “extremely difficult” decisions, to pull off a delicate balancing act.

    Media reports indicate that the government is looking to come up with between £50 billion ($59 billion) and £60 billion ($70 billion) through a mix of tax increases and spending cuts, many of which may not take effect until after the next election in 2024.

    “If you do too much, too soon, you risk worsening the recession,” said Ben Zaranko, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. “If you delay everything until after the next election, you risk not being seen as credible.”

    A new wave of austerity could help restore the government’s reputation with financial markets after the budget from former Prime Minister Liz Truss — which featured an unorthodox combination of major tax cuts and ramped-up borrowing — unleashed panic.

    But it will do little to ease fears about the country’s grim economic prospects. The United Kingdom is one of two G7 economies to have contracted in the third quarter. It’s now smaller than it was before the coronavirus pandemic. The Bank of England is forecasting a lengthy recession, which could stretch into 2024.

    New cuts could make matters worse. When the government adopted an austerity program in 2010 on the heels of the Great Recession, it shaved 1% off the country’s GDP, according to the UK budget watchdog. Just four years ago, former Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to bring nearly a decade of austerity to a close.

    Now, tax rises could further depress consumer confidence — already near a record low — and spending cuts risk placing further strain on public services that are already buckling under enormous pressure.

    Still, Hunt intends to show he has a plan to reduce government debt as a proportion of GDP in the medium-term. It currently stands at 98%. The Office for Budget Responsibility said in July that it could reach nearly 320% in 50 years.

    “We do have to do some tax rises, do some spending cuts, if we’re going to show we’re a country that pays our way,” Hunt told Sky News on Sunday.

    How did the United Kingdom get here? There’s no shortage of finger pointing.

    Part of the problem is global in nature. Interest rates have risen rapidly around the world as central banks attempt to rein in inflation. That’s pushed up borrowing costs for the government, dealing a shock after years in which money was cheap.

    At the same time, skyrocketing energy costs, exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine, have compelled governments to step in to cushion the blow of crippling energy bills — shortly after they spent significant sums helping households and businesses through the pandemic.

    Hunt has scrapped plans to cap energy bills for typical households at £2,500 ($2,981) for the next two years. Instead, support will only be guaranteed until next spring. But the measures will still prove costly.

    The government can’t blame all its problems on the rest of the world, however.

    “You can just look at how the UK is performing relative to every other country in Europe, and it’s obvious there’s a UK-specific element to this,” Zaranko said.

    The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union has weighed on trade and contributed to shortages of workers in key industries.

    “The UK economy as a whole has been permanently damaged by Brexit,” former Bank of England official Michael Saunders told Bloomberg TV this week. “If we hadn’t had Brexit, we probably wouldn’t be talking about an austerity budget this week. The need for tax rises, spending cuts wouldn’t be there.”

    And while inflation in the United States cooled more than expected in October, falling to 7.7%, it’s still rising sharply in the United Kingdom, reaching a 41-year high of 11.1% last month.

    That’s bolstering expectations that the Bank of England will need to keep raising interest rates and could hold them higher for longer, though recession may complicate those forecasts.

    The country’s labor market also remains extremely tight, with an employment rate lower than before the coronavirus hit and a record number of people who aren’t working due to long-term illness.

    “The UK does stand out in that labor supply has been very constrained, perhaps more so than in other countries,” said Ruth Gregory, senior UK economist at Capital Economics.

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  • Everything you need to know about Biden’s student loan forgiveness program | CNN Politics

    Everything you need to know about Biden’s student loan forgiveness program | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden’s federal student loan forgiveness program, which promises to deliver up to $20,000 of debt relief for millions of borrowers, is on hold indefinitely as legal challenges work their way through the courts.

    About 26 million people had already applied by the time a federal district court judge struck down the program on November 10 – prompting the government to stop taking applications. No debt has been canceled thus far.

    The administration officially launched the application on October 17, following a brief “beta period” during which its team assessed whether tweaks were needed.

    If the courts ultimately allow the program to move forward, not every student loan borrower is eligible for the debt relief. First, only federally held student loans qualify. Private student loans are excluded.

    Second, high-income borrowers are generally excluded from receiving debt forgiveness. Individual borrowers who make less than $125,000 a year and married couples or heads of households who make less than $250,000 annually will see up to $10,000 of their federal student loan debt forgiven.

    If a qualifying borrower also received a federal Pell grant while enrolled in college, the individual is eligible for up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness. Pell grants are awarded to millions of low-income students each year, based on factors including their family’s size and income and the cost charged by their college. These borrowers are also more likely to struggle to repay their student debt and end up in default.

    Here’s what else borrowers need to know about the new student loan forgiveness plan:

    It’s unclear when, or if, borrowers will see debt relief under Biden’s program.

    Administration officials expected to be able to grant relief before federal student loan payments are set to resume in January, when the pandemic-related pause expires. But now that timeline is in jeopardy.

    The White House has said that it has already approved 16 million applications for debt relief. The Department of Education will hold on to that information so it can quickly process those borrowers’ relief if the government prevails in court.

    If and when the program moves forward, an estimated 8 million borrowers may receive debt relief automatically because the Department of Education already has their income on file.

    If the government restarts taking applications, borrowers can apply online here: https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/application.

    Applicants can expect to receive an email confirmation once their application is successfully submitted. Then, borrowers will be notified by their loan servicer when the debt cancellation has been applied to their account.

    Borrowers were expected to have until December 31, 2023, to submit an application.

    There are a variety of federal student loans and not all are eligible for relief. Federal Direct Loans, including subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, parent PLUS loans and graduate PLUS loans, are eligible.

    But federal student loans that are guaranteed by the government but held by private lenders are not eligible unless the borrower applied to consolidate those loans into a Direct Loan by September 29.

    The Department of Education initially said these privately held loans, many of which were made under the former Federal Family Education Loan program and Federal Perkins Loan program, would be eligible for the one-time forgiveness action – but reversed course in September when six Republican-led states sued the Biden administration, arguing that forgiving the privately held loans would financially hurt states and student loan servicers.

    Defaulted Federal Family Education Loans and defaulted Perkins Loans are still eligible for the debt relief even if they are privately held.

    If Biden’s program is allowed to move forward, eligibility is based on a borrower’s adjusted gross income for either tax year 2020 or 2021. Adjusted gross income can be lower than your total wages because it considers tax deductions and adjustments, like contributions made to a 401(k) retirement plan.

    A taxpayer’s adjusted gross income can be found on line 11 of IRS Form 1040.

    The Department of Education says it already had income information for nearly 8 million borrowers, likely because of financial aid forms or previously submitted income-driven repayment plan applications. If the program is allowed to move forward, those borrowers will automatically receive the debt relief if they meet the income requirement, unless they choose to opt out. The department has said it will email borrowers who will be considered for debt relief but don’t need to apply.

    Millions of other borrowers will need to apply for student loan forgiveness if the Department of Education doesn’t have their income information on file. When they submit the application, borrowers are required to self-attest that their income is under the eligibility threshold. They are required to certify that the information provided is accurate upon penalty of perjury.

    The Biden administration has said that applicants who are “more likely to exceed the income cutoff” will be required to submit additional information, like a tax transcript. Officials expect that just 5% of borrowers with eligible federal student loans would not qualify due to the income threshold.

    Borrowers will not have to pay federal income tax on the student loan debt forgiven, thanks to a provision in the American Rescue Plan Act that Congress passed last year.

    But it’s possible that some borrowers may have to pay state income tax on the amount of debt forgiven. There are a handful of states that may tax discharged debt if state legislative or administrative changes are not made beforehand, according to the Tax Policy Center. The tax liability could be hundreds of dollars, depending on the state.

    Yes, some current students are eligible. Eligibility for borrowers who filed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA, as an independent will be based on the individual’s own household income.

    Eligibility for borrowers who are enrolled as dependent students, generally those under the age of 24, will be based on parental income for either 2020 or 2021.

    Yes, if your income meets the eligibility threshold.

    Yes, if your income meets the eligibility threshold. A parent borrower with federal Parent PLUS loans for multiple children is still only eligible for up to $20,000 of loan forgiveness.

    But a parent is only eligible for up to $20,000 in debt relief if he or she received a Pell grant for his or her own education. If only the child received a Pell grant, the parent is eligible for up to $10,000 in forgiveness.

    Most borrowers can log in to Studentaid.gov to see if they received a Pell grant while enrolled in college. Information about Pell grants received is displayed on the account dashboard and on the My Aid page. This is also where borrowers can find out how much they owe and what kind of loans they have.

    Borrowers who received a Pell grant before 1994 won’t see their Pell grant information online, but they are still eligible for the $20,000 in student loan forgiveness.

    As long as borrowers received at least one Pell grant, they are eligible.

    The Biden administration has said that eligible borrowers who have received Pell grants will automatically receive the additional debt relief.

    Yes, defaulted federal student loans are eligible for debt relief.

    For borrowers who have a remaining balance on their defaulted student loans after the cancellation is applied, there will be an opportunity to get out of default once payments resume in January 2023 as part of what the Department of Education is calling its “Fresh Start” initiative.

    The Biden administration is facing several lawsuits over the student loan forgiveness program. Many of the plaintiffs argue that the Department of Education is overstepping its authority.

    In one case, a federal judge in Texas struck down the program on November 10, declaring it illegal. The Department of Justice has appealed the ruling to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, but debt relief is on hold while that case plays out.

    Previously, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals put a temporary, administrative hold on the program on October 21, barring the administration from canceling loans covered under the policy while the court considers a challenge brought by six Republican-led states. The appeals court then granted an injunction on the program on November 14, which will remain in place until the appeals court, or the Supreme Court, issues a further order in the case.

    A lower court judge dismissed the lawsuit on October 20, ruling that the plaintiffs did not have the legal standing to bring the challenge.

    On the same day as the lower court dismissal, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a separate challenge to Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, declining to take up an appeal brought by a Wisconsin taxpayers group.

    The Biden administration is also facing lawsuits from Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

    Lawyers for the government say that Congress gave the secretary of education “expansive authority to alleviate the hardship that federal student loan recipients may suffer as a result of national emergencies,” like the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a memo from the Department of Justice.

    Borrowers who have debt remaining after either $10,000 or $20,000 is wiped away could see their monthly payment amounts recalculated if they are enrolled in a standard repayment plan. Under a standard repayment plan, borrowers pay a fixed amount that ensures loans are paid off within 10 years.

    Borrowers who are already enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan are not likely to see their monthly payment amounts change due to the forgiveness, because their payments are based on household income and family size.

    Borrowers have not been required to make payments on their federal student loans since March 2020 because of the government’s pandemic-related pause. Biden has extended the pause through the end of this year, and payments will resume in January 2023.

    Along with Biden’s August announcement about canceling some federal student loan debt, he also said he would create a new plan that would make repayment more manageable for borrowers.

    There are currently several repayment plans available for federal student loan borrowers that lower monthly payments by capping them at a portion of their income.

    The new income-driven repayment plan that Biden is expected to propose would cap payments at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income, down from 10% that is offered in most current plans, as well as reduce the amount of income that is considered discretionary. It would also forgive remaining balances after 10 years of repayment, instead of 20 years.

    Biden is also proposing that the new plan cover the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest. This could be very helpful for people whose monthly payments are so low that they don’t cover their monthly interest charge and end up seeing their balances explode, growing larger than what was originally borrowed.

    But we don’t know when these changes will take effect. The Department of Education has not provided any sense of timing, but has said it will propose a new rule to create the repayment plan. The department’s formal rule-making process usually includes soliciting public comments and can take months, if not more than a year.

    Yes. Borrowers have not been required to make payments on their federal student loans since March 13, 2020, because of the pandemic-related pause. But if borrowers did make payments, they are allowed to contact their loan servicer to request a refund.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • David Beckham’s ‘status as a gay icon will be shredded’ if he continues as Qatar World Cup ambassador says British comedian | CNN

    David Beckham’s ‘status as a gay icon will be shredded’ if he continues as Qatar World Cup ambassador says British comedian | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    David Beckham’s “status as a gay icon will be shredded” if the former England captain and Manchester United star continues in his role as a Qatar World Cup ambassador said British comedian Joe Lycett on Sunday.

    In a video posted on Twitter, Lycett, a British comedian who describes himself as queer on his website, said he would donate £10,000 ($11,000) to charities supporting “queer people in football” or put the money through the shredder along with “Beckham’s reputation as a gay icon” if the former footballer did not cut ties with Qatar.

    Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy has recently told CNN that the 2022 World Cup will “be an inclusive, safe tournament” and said “everyone is welcome, regardless of race, background, religion, gender, orientation or nationality.”

    World football governing body FIFA referred CNN to the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy for all comment relating to Lycett’s criticism of Beckham and Qatar.

    Beckham, contacted by CNN through his representatives, declined to comment on the criticism around his ambassadorship.

    CNN contacted the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy for comment but has not received a response.

    “Homosexuality is illegal, punishable by imprisonment and, if you’re Muslim, possibly even death,” said Lycett in an Instagram post.

    A report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) published in October documented alleged cases of beatings and sexual harassment. According to victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch, security forces allegedly forced transgender women to attend conversion therapy sessions at a behavioral healthcare center sponsored by the government.

    “Qatari authorities need to end impunity for violence against LGBT people. The world is watching,” said Rasha Younes of Human Rights Watch.

    A Qatari official told CNN that the HRW allegations “contain information that is categorically and unequivocally false.”

    World’s only openly gay active pro footballer is concerned for LGBTQ community ahead of Qatar 2022


    04:39

    – Source:
    CNN

    Lycett, however, is taking aim at Beckham.

    “You’re the first Premiership footballer to do shoots with gay magazines like Attitude, to speak openly about your gay fans,” Lycett said.

    “Now, it’s 2022. And you signed a reported £10 million ($11.7 million) deal with Qatar to be their ambassador during the FIFA World Cup.”

    Under Qatari law, homosexuality is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison.

    Lycett said that Beckham has “always talked about the power of football as a force for good” and encouraged him to use his platform to campaign for LGBTQ rights.

    “If you do not, by midday next Sunday [November 20, 2022], I will throw this money into a shredder just before the opening ceremony of the World Cup and stream it live on a website I’ve registered called benderslikebeckham.com.”

    Lycett is not the first person or group to criticize Beckham for his ambassadorship. Adelaide United player Josh Cavallo, who came out as gay last year, told CNN Sport he would like to see Beckham using his platform to support the LGBTQ community instead of promoting the Qatari government.

    “If someone like David Beckham with his platform does get around us and becomes an ally that we are wanting him to be, it is really helpful.

    “If he could take that next step and show what he means to the LGBTQ community, that would be fantastic.”

    Beckham's fellow Qatar World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman told a German outlet that homosexuality is

    HRW has also recently highlighted “arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment” of LGBTQ people in Qatar.

    “There are just a few days until the World Cup kickoff, but that’s plenty of time for the Qatari government to end ill-treatment of LGBT people,” HRW said in a November press release.

    “Qatari authorities should publicly condemn violence against LGBT people and formally recognize that having same-sex sexual attraction is not a mental health condition.”

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  • Veterans and scientists fulfill ‘no man left behind,’ returning long-lost American remains from lonely Pacific WWII battlefield | CNN

    Veterans and scientists fulfill ‘no man left behind,’ returning long-lost American remains from lonely Pacific WWII battlefield | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    On a remote Pacific sandbar, replete with the ravages of war, a small group of veterans, volunteers and archeologists are doing their best to keep the enduring promise of “no man left behind.”

    According to the Department of Defense, nearly half of the known American casualties from the Battle of Tarawa were never recovered. Approximately 1,000 Marines and sailors lost their lives on the small sandbar November 20-23, 1943, in the US military’s first offensive of the war in the central Pacific.

    Graves remained lost for decades, Pentagon historians write, because of bad record keeping, poor memories, and in some instances, war infrastructure inadvertently built over service members’ unmarked final resting places. DOD records show by 1950, a military board declared hundreds of Americans who fought and died on the island “non-recoverable,” leaving families without words, images or ideas of where the young men rested.

    After excavation efforts paused during the pandemic, teams will return to the lonely atoll, with the goal of returning as many remains of US service members as they can.

    “This is not a normal thing for somebody to be doing,” said Paul Schwimmer, a retired US Army Green Beret who searches for American remains with the non-profit group, History Flight, who added a new chapter of history is unfolding along the isolated and idyllic shore.

    “Don’t tell us these men are not recoverable, give us a chance to go after them.”

    Government figures show 72,627 Americans are currently classified as missing in action from World War II. There are more US troops missing from 1941-1945, than from all other wars with US involvement combined.

    In 2003, commercial pilot and World War II history aficionado Mark Noah founded History Flight. The group’s initial aim was to preserve American aviation history, an outgrowth of Noah’s love of antiquity, aircraft and his family tradition of scholarship.

    “My father was a diplomat for the State Department, a Harvard and MIT-trained sinologist,” Noah said in an interview with CNN. “I was born in China, where my dad was posted, and I was able to see the lingering effects of World War II up close. That was the beginning of a fascination with the Second World War.”

    Noah relates the multitude of missing service members to those missing in his own life.

    “Four of my close friends in Beijing disappeared during Tiananmen Square,” Noah said. “And I’ve always wondered where they fell into, this deep void, the unknown. And at a subconscious level, it’s one of the reasons why I’m driven to find our missing Americans, especially when we know where they are, on an island.”

    Noah said 2008 was a turning point, when History Flight’s mission changed from aviation to recovery missions.

    “I was doing research about a missing airplane that crashed in the lagoon of Tarawa, and I was shocked at just how many people were missing on this small island,” Noah said.

    “So, I self-funded what became our first Tarawa excavation, and with all of those people missing in such a small place, we chose Tarawa because we thought we could deliver a project with a high probability of success.” The cost was $25,000, with a team of 10 people.

    A cadre of veterans, scientists and students interviewed residents who found bones underneath their homes. The non-profit also used ground-penetrating radar on the atoll, ultimately finding scores of American graves buried within a working commercial seaport.

    In the decade since its first dig, History Flight has led to the identification of 96 American service members killed on Tarawa, according to the branch of the Pentagon charged with finding US military remains, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

    “That number undoubtedly will go up,” agency spokesperson Johnie Webb said.

    In a cozy East Wenatchee, Washington, living room, twins Don and David McCannel held the crumbling and corroded helmet buried with their uncle, Gunnery Sgt. Arthur B. Summers, a Tarawa Marine once considered missing in action.

    Summers’ near-complete skeleton is among the latest remains discovered by History Flight. His return home for burial in America followed a now familiar ritual of repatriation: Delicately-handled bones are discovered on Tarawa, then flown to the US for positive identification, and finally, re-buried with full military honors.

    The McCannel twins are now 76 years old, born three years after a telegram told their mother Summers was killed in action, his body missing on a faraway Pacific island.

    “My most vivid memory is, when I was about 10 years old, my mother said to me, ‘my brother was killed in Tarawa and his body was never recovered,’” David McCannel described in an interview. “She didn’t cry. She just said he’s gone forever.”

    Schwimmer, the retired Green Beret with History Flight, said he was within the Tarawa excavation site when Summers’ remains were discovered in 2019, and attended Summers’ Washington funeral in August 2022.

    “To see this, to look over my shoulder, to put my hand on the casket and say, ‘Hey bud, I saw you in 2019. I took you from Tarawa to here.’ For me, that’s great,” Schwimmer said. “Now, put me back on an airplane, get me in the field, I got work to do.”

    Summers was killed on November 23, 1943, the final day of fighting on the island, and according to military records, the day Summers’ second enlistment extension was to expire.

    “I thank them eternally, and forever,” Don McCannel said of History Flight and those responsible for Summers’ identification. “My uncle Arthur did his duty, and these men and women today did theirs, truly.”

    Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Arthur B. Summers, 27. Summers' remains are among the latest to be discovered by History Flight on Tarawa and reburied in America.

    The Pentagon agency tasked with finding the remains of an astounding 81,500 Americans missing since World War I, contracts Tarawa excavation work with History Flight. But the agency itself is solely responsible for the process of DNA identification.

    There is no margin for error. Scientists and military personnel from Hawaii, Nebraska and Delaware finish the process of uniting stories, names, and family histories with the skeletal remains of US troops.

    The remains of Tarawa U.S. Marine 1st Lt. Alexander Bonnyman, discovered by History Flight, in a rare photo released publicly of how Tarawa remains are found.

    Dr. John Byrd, the agency’s laboratory director, explained the challenges of dealing with DNA from that era. “They’re highly degraded, there’s only a tiny amount of DNA left in there at all. And our DNA lab is the best in the world at extracting what little bit is left in there.”

    Byrd said the average time to identify an individual is 2.5 years, but can be as quickly as two weeks.

    “When none of the stars are aligned, it can take several years. We have ID’s we’ve made after more than 10 years, when we finally got enough evidence together to be able to prove the identity.”

    For Summers’ remains, delivered to the agency’s Pearl Harbor laboratory in July 2019, the DOD agency was able to make a positive DNA identification in a matter of months, on October 17, 2019.

    First, remains arrive at an agency laboratory in Honolulu, or Omaha, Nebraska. “They come from a variety of sources, from our own excavations, and from excavations from our partners … We also do a lot of disinterments of unknown remains, right from our national cemeteries,” Byrd explained.

    Next, as the remains are assigned to evidence managers, scientists determine which tests are needed to identify the remains. The majority will involve DNA testing, but other methods, such as dental records, can be used.

    DNA testing and other identification work then begins. Samples are sent to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab in Dover, Delaware, and a type of identification known as stable isotope analysis can also be performed at the agency’s Pearl Harbor lab. The isotope testing is used to trace remains’ geographic origin.

    Finally, test results are evaluated, and perhaps even more testing is needed.

    “You love it when the test results come back in, and they clearly direct you to one individual that these remains should be,” Byrd said. “But we also sometimes get results that aren’t strong enough to point to one person only. And then we have to find another way to try to resolve the case other than the testing we did in the first round … that is one of the most difficult steps for many of our cases.”

    History Flight estimates their Tarawa excavation efforts are halfway finished.

    “We believe about 250 sets of remains can still be found, and we want to keep going,” History Flight founder Mark Noah said.

    The non-profit’s vice president, retired U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Justin LeHew, is currently walking across America, from Boston to Newport, Oregon, to donations for the group’s ongoing work in the Pacific.

    LeHew served in the 2nd Marine Division, the same (albeit modern day) combat element which engaged in the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943. His previous chapter of military service includes receiving the Navy Cross, awarded for his 2003 role in rescuing ambushed soldiers in Iraq, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch.

    “Team members are putting in the work for the missing,” LeHew wrote on Facebook, as his walk on U.S. Highway 20, America’s longest road, approached Yellowstone National Park.

    “This specific road was selected to highlight the long journey home that over 81,000 missing U.S. Servicemembers have been trying to make since World War II,” LeHew said.

    “We know that we can fulfill this promise of ‘no one left behind’ on Tarawa,” Noah added. “We simply need people to know we’re there, to know about us, put the financial resources in place, and help us carry on this sacred mission.”

    History Flight team on Tarawa, from left, archeologists Aundrea Thompson & Hillary Parsons, retired Korean War veteran John Craig Weatherell, archeologists Maddeline Voas & Heather Backo.

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  • Sister of executed Iranian wrestler arrested and identified by state news as ‘agent’ | CNN

    Sister of executed Iranian wrestler arrested and identified by state news as ‘agent’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Iranian officials said they have identified the “Iran International agent” arrested Thursday as Elham Afkari, the sister of famous Iranian wrestler Navid Afkari, who was executed two years ago, according to state news agency IRNA.

    London-based news channel Iran International has become one of the go-to sources for many Iranians looking for news on the country’s ongoing protests in the country.

    The opposition television broadcaster, which was called a “terrorist” organization by the Iranian intelligence minister on Tuesday, has denied any association with Elham.

    In a statement sent to CNN, the London-based broadcaster said Elham “is not an employee of Iran International, nor is she an associate or agent of the company.”

    Her brother, Navid Afkari, was convicted of killing Hassan Torkman, a water company security employee, during a protest in Shiraz in 2018.

    Initially, Afkari confessed to the crime, but in court he retracted those words, arguing that he had been tortured into making a false confession.

    “It should be noted that she [Elham Afkari] is the sister of Navid Afkari, the killer of martyr Torkman, an employee of the regional water company of Fars province,” IRNA reported.

    “Intelligence operatives have been monitoring the activities of Elham Afkari for the past few years,” IRNA said, adding that “she was one of the main leaders in organizing recent riots.”

    State media shared pictures allegedly showing Elham’s arrest. The pictures show a woman seated in the backseat of a vehicle with barred windows, with a black blindfold over her face.

    Saeed Afkari, Elham and Navid’s brother, confirmed his sister’s arrest on Twitter on Thursday, saying that Elham’s three-year-old daughter was also missing.

    He later said Elham had been taken to a department of Iran’s intelligence ministry, and that his sister’s spouse and daughter had been released.

    “Elham was taken to No.100 intelligence ministry department,” he tweeted.

    Since Navid Afkari was executed, his family has faced many court cases over involvement in the demonstrations in 2018.

    Vahid Afkari, one of his brothers, remains in solitary confinement, according to the rights group Iran Human Rights.

    Founded in 2017, Iran International has been at the forefront of covering recent demonstrations following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini – a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

    However, the 24-hour news channel’s coverage of the demonstrations has brought it under the scrutiny of the Iranian government.

    This week, Iran International said two of its British-Iranian journalists working in the United Kingdom have been warned by police of a “credible” plot by Iran to kill them.

    In a statement Monday, the Farsi-language broadcaster said it was “shocked and deeply concerned” by the alleged lethal threats, while accusing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of being part of a “significant and dangerous escalation” of Tehran’s “campaign to intimidate Iranian journalists working abroad.”

    “Two of our British-Iranian journalists have, in recent days, been notified of an increase in the threats to them,” Iran International said in the statement.

    “The Metropolitan Police have now formally notified both journalists that these threats represent an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families.”

    Iran International did not name the journalists for security reasons.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists said that as of Monday at least 61 journalists have been arrested in Iran for reasons including covering the protests, reporting on the death of protesters, and taking photos of demonstrations, according to a report from the organization.

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  • Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan claims he had prior intel on shooting which injured him at rally | CNN

    Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan claims he had prior intel on shooting which injured him at rally | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan has told CNN he had information from within intelligence agencies that the shooting which injured him last week would take place.

    Khan survived a shooting at a political rally in Gujranwala on Thursday, an incident that his party has called an assassination attempt.

    When asked by CNN’s Becky Anderson on Monday what information he had been given on the incident, and by whom, Khan said: “Remember, three and a half years I was in power. I have connections with intelligence agencies, the different agencies that operate. How did I get the information? From within the intelligence agencies. Why? Because most people are appalled by what is going on in this country.”

    Speaking from his residence in Zaman Park, Lahore, Khan referred to a speech he made on September 24 in which he said he outlined how the events of the shooting would transpire.

    Last Friday, Khan blamed establishment figures for a plot to kill him – a claim strenuously denied by governing and security officials.

    On Monday, he told Anderson: “As the events unfolded, they are in that speech. How this would happen, how in the name of blasphemy a religious fanatic would kill me and they would blame it on him. All this is in my speech which I put on television – it’s on social media.”

    When asked about suggestions from his critics that accusing the current government of perpetrating the attack would help Khan get back into office, he replied that he doesn’t “need any reason to accuse this government for me to get back into power,” adding that his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party remains popular since his ousting in April.

    “They tried everything to somehow get me out of the way. When that didn’t happen, this was planned,” he added.

    One person died in Thursday’s attack which injured several others, while Khan was taken to a hospital in Lahore for treatment after a bullet hit his leg. Speaking from the hospital on Friday, and without offering evidence, Khan blamed Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif, interior minister Rana Sanaullah and Maj. Gen. Faisal, who is a senior intelligence official. CNN is reaching out to the three men for comment.

    Pakistan’s Ministry for Information and Broadcasting last week denied Khan’s allegations against Sharif and Sanaullah at a news conference.

    Pakistan’s military has also hit back at Khan’s claims, calling them “baseless and irresponsible” and “absolutely unacceptable and uncalled for.” In a statement on Friday night, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) called Khan’s accusations against the military and military officials “highly regrettable and strongly condemned.”

    “Pakistan army prides itself for being an extremely professional and well-disciplined organisation with a robust and highly effective internal accountability system applicable across the board for unlawful acts, if any, committed by uniformed personnel,” the statement read.

    “However, if the honour, safety and prestige of its rank and file is being tarnished by vested interests through frivolous allegations, the institution will jealousy safeguard its officers and soldiers no matter what,” it continued.

    CNN reported earlier on Monday that Khan wrote a letter to Pakistani president Arif Alvi saying since Khan’s government was removed from power in April, his party had been confronted with “an ever-increasing scale of false allegations, harassment, arrests and custodial torture.”

    The letter, obtained by CNN from a source close to the former prime minister, is dated November 6, three days after Khan survived the shooting.

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  • Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan blames establishment figures for plot to kill him | CNN

    Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan blames establishment figures for plot to kill him | CNN

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    Islamabad, Pakistan
    CNN
     — 

    Tensions escalated in Pakistan on Friday as former Prime Minister Imran Khan blamed establishment figures for a plot to kill him – a claim strenuously denied by governing and security officials.

    A day after after he survived a shooting at a political rally outside the town of Gujranwala, Punjab province, Khan gave a rambling speech at a hospital in the city of Lahore where he was recovering from the injuries he sustained. While sitting in a wheelchair, the cricket star-turned-politician cited three senior figures as being behind the attack.

    The former Pakistan leader sustained a fracture to his right leg due to stray bullet wounds, Dr. Faisal Sultan told reporters. Sultan displayed X-rays showing the fracture in Khan’s right leg, and bullet fragments that were lodged in two sides of his thigh.

    Without offering evidence, Khan blamed Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif, interior minister Rana Sanaullah and Major General Faisal, who is a senior intelligence official. CNN is reaching out to the three men for comment.

    Khan first alleged on Thursday that the trio were responsible for the plot, in a statement shared by PTI senior leader Asad Umar, who said he had recently spoke to Khan.

    In a televised address on Thursday, Sanaullah rejected the accusation, calling it “grievous.”

    Pakistan’s intelligence agency also rebutted Khan’s claims that a senior intelligence official was behind the shooting, with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) telling CNN in a statement that the accusations are “baseless.”

    “This is an attempt to prejudice the investigation from the very beginning. The organization had already sensitized the federal government about the threat to the former prime minister, who had communicated this to the Punjab provincial government,” the statement read.

    The ISI also said that Khan’s security was under the authority of the provincial government of Punjab, which is led by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

    “The security of the former PM was the responsibility of the PTI led government in the province of Punjab. The incident of the shooting is a security lapse on behalf of the government of Punjab and cannot be attributed to any individual or any security agency. The need of the hour is for calm in the country and not for irresponsible statements,” the ISI said in a statement.

    Khan had said he knew about the plot to kill him a day before it happened, and claimed there were two shooters involved in his attack.

    “There was a burst from one side, and another coming from the front. There were two people,” Khan said when talking about the attack.

    Khan has locked horns with the government since his dramatic ouster in a no-confidence vote in April. During that time, he’s repeatedly claimed, without any evidence, that the United States was behind his loss of power.

    One person died in Thursday’s attack which injured several others and prompted protests among Khan’s supporters.

    Video of the alleged attack shows Khan waving from an open-topped truck, when shots rang out, sending his party members ducking for cover.

    A bullet hit Khan in the leg, said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Asad Umar, who later added: “Yes, he has been shot, there are pellets lodged in his leg, his bone has been chipped, he has also been shot in his thigh.”

    A man suspected of firing shots at the rally was detained on Thursday, according to police.

    On Thursday, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information released a video of a confession from an unnamed man who it claims carried out the attack.

    Khan called on citizens to protest against the three officials he alleges planned his attack until they resign.

    “As long as these three men don’t resign, you have to protest, against unfairness, you must do a jihad against them, jihad means to stand against injustice,” Khan said Friday.

    Khan said as soon as he recovers from his shooting attack he will resume his so-called Long March to Islamabad calling for early elections. He was on the seventh day of the nationwide tour, which started in Lahore on October 28 and was due to finish in Islamabad after winding through several Pakistani cities.

    It’s among a number of rallies the former Pakistani cricket captain has held since his ousting in April.

    Thursday’s incident is not the first time that Pakistani politicians have been attacked.

    Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007, and then-Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani survived an assassination attempt in 2008.

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  • Interest rates will keep rising. How high will they go? | CNN Business

    Interest rates will keep rising. How high will they go? | 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. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.


    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    What will the Federal Reserve do at its meeting in December? Analysts can speculate all they want, but Fed officials say they will be using hard economic data to make their next decision.

    That means key housing, labor, and inflation reports will likely have outsized effects on the market as investors speculate about what they might mean for the future of interest rates.

    What’s happening: No one can move markets like Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — with just a few words on Wednesday he crushed investors’ hopes of an interest rate pivot and sent stocks plunging. “We have a ways to go,” said Powell of the Fed’s current hiking regime meant to fight persistent inflation. “It’s very premature, in my view, to think about or be talking about pausing.”

    But Powell did add an important caveat. The Fed could start to slow the pace of those painful hikes as soon as December. “Our decisions will depend on the totality of incoming data and their implications for the outlook for economic activity and inflation,” Powell said on Wednesday.

    So what will the Fed be looking at between today and its next policy decision on December 14?

    The labor market: The Fed’s biggest worry is the super-tight US labor market, and Friday’s jobs report isn’t likely to soothe any nerves.

    The government report is expected to show the economy added another 200,000 positions in October — down from last month, but still a very solid number as demand for employment continues to outpace the supply of labor.

    That means more inflation. Businesses have to pay higher wages to attract employees and are able to charge more for their goods and services. The Fed will be looking closely at hourly wage growth in the report. In September, wages rose by 5% from a year ago.

    There is a possible upside: Another jobs report in December is expected ahead of the Fed meeting. If both reports show a downward trajectory in employment, that could be enough to placate Fed officials, even if the unemployment rate remains historically low.

    Inflation data: Expect new data from two major indexes that measure the pace of inflation ahead of the next Federal Reserve meeting.

    The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for October, which tracks changes in the prices of a fixed set of goods and services, is out on November 10.

    Core CPI prices, which exclude oil and food, rose 0.6% in September month-over-month, matching August’s pace and coming in well above expectations of a 0.4% increase, not a great sign for the Fed. And analysts expect to see another large 0.5% increase in October.

    The Fed will also get to see October data from its favored measure of inflation, Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), on December 1.

    PCE reflects changes in the prices of goods and services purchased by consumers in the United States. The Fed believes the measure is more accurate than CPI because it accounts for a wider range of purchases from a broader range of buyers.

    Core PCE climbed by 5.1% on an annual basis in September, higher than the August rate of 4.9% but below the consensus estimate of 5.2%, per Refinitiv.

    Housing: The housing market has been deeply impacted by the Fed’s efforts to fight inflation, and is one of the first areas of the economy to show signs of cooling.

    The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.95% last week, up from 3.09% just a year ago, and elevated borrowing costs are leading to a decline in demand.

    “The housing market was very overheated for the couple of years after the pandemic as demand increased and rates were low,” said Powell on Wednesday. “We do understand that that’s really where a very big effect of our policies is.”

    October’s new and existing home sales numbers, due on November 18 and 23, will show the continued impact of that policy ahead of the next meeting.

    The US economy is still standing strong in the face of rising interest rates, but things are softening much more quickly across the pond.

    The United Kingdom will face hard economic times and elevated interest rates well into next year, officials warned this week.

    The Bank of England raised interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point on Thursday, the biggest hike in 33 years, as it attempts to fight soaring inflation.

    But the bank also issued a stark warning. It said that economic output is already contracting and that it expects a recession to continue through the first half of 2024 “as high energy prices and materially tighter financial conditions weigh on spending.”

    A two-year recession would be longer than the one that followed the 2008 global financial crisis, though the Bank of England said that any declines in GDP heading into 2024 would likely be relatively small.

    The central bank also doesn’t think inflation will start to fall back until next year. That will require more interest rate hikes in the coming months, warned policymakers.

    Elon Musk has been busy over at Twitter HQ. Aside from tweeting and deleting a conspiracy theory, he’s talked about implementing some big changes at his $44 billion acquisition. Here’s what’s happened so far:

    Layoffs begin: Elon Musk began laying off Twitter employees on Friday morning, according to a memo sent to staff. The email sent Thursday evening notified employees that they will receive a notice by 12 p.m. ET Friday that informs them of their employment status.

    The email added that “to help ensure the safety” of employees and Twitter’s systems, the company’s offices “will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.”

    Twitter had around 7,500 employees prior to Musk’s takeover.

    Several Twitter employees have already filed a class action lawsuit claiming that the layoffs violate the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

    The WARN Act requires any company with over 100 employees to give 60 days’ written notice if it intends to cut 50 jobs or more at a “single site of employment.”

    Consolidating strength: In less than a week since Musk acquired Twitter, the company’s C-suite appears to have almost entirely cleared out, through a mix of firings and resignations.

    Twitter’s board of directors was also dissolved last week, according to a securities filing.

    The company filing states that all previous members of Twitter’s board, including recently ousted CEO Parag Agrawal and chairman Bret Taylor, are no longer directors “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement.” That makes Musk, according to the filing, “the sole director of Twitter.”

    Cashing blue checks’ checks: Musk on Tuesday said he planned to charge $8 a month for Twitter’s subscription service, called “Twitter Blue,” with the promise to let anyone pay to receive a coveted blue check mark to verify their account. That’s a steep haircut from his original plan to charge users $19.99 a month to get or keep a verified account.

    In a tweet, the world’s richest man used an expletive to describe his assessment of “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark.” He added: “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”

    Advertisers hit pause: Elon Musk wrote an open letter to advertisers just hours before cementing his acquisition of Twitter, explaining that he didn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all hellscape.” But that attempt at reassuring the advertising industry, which makes up the vast majority of Twitter’s business, doesn’t appear to be working.

    General Mills

    (GIS)    , Mondelez International

    (MDLZ)    , Pfizer

    (PFE)     and Audi

    (AUDVF)     have reportedly joined a growing list of companies hitting pause on their Twitter advertising in the wake of Musk’s acquisition.

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  • Exclusive: DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: DOJ mulling potential special counsel if Trump runs in 2024 | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    As Donald Trump inches closer to launching another presidential run after the midterm election, Justice Department officials have discussed whether a Trump candidacy would create the need for a special counsel to oversee two sprawling federal investigations related to the former president, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    The Justice Department is also staffing up its investigations with experienced prosecutors so it’s ready for any decisions after the midterms, including the potential unprecedented move of indicting a former president.

    In the weeks leading up to the election, the Justice Department has observed the traditional quiet period of not making any overt moves that may have political consequences. But behind the scenes, investigators have remained busy, using aggressive grand jury subpoenas and secret court battles to compel testimony from witnesses in both the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of national security documents kept at his Palm Beach home.

    Now federal investigators are planning for a burst of post-election activity in Trump-related investigations. That includes the prospect of indictments of Trump’s associates – moves that could be made more complicated if Trump declares a run for the presidency.

    “They can crank up charges on almost anybody if they wanted to,” said one defense attorney working on January 6-related matters, who added defense lawyers have “have no idea” who ultimately will be charged.

    “This is the scary thing,” the attorney said.

    Trump and his associates also face legal exposure in Georgia, where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State and expects to wrap her probe by the end of the year.

    Indicting an active candidate for the White House would surely spark a political firestorm. And while no decision has been made about whether a special counsel might be needed in the future, DOJ officials have debated whether doing so could insulate the Justice Department from accusations that Joe Biden’s administration is targeting his chief political rival, people familiar with the matter tell CNN.

    Special counsels, of course, are hardly immune from political attacks. Both former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe came under withering criticism from their opponents.

    The Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

    The Justice Department has brought in a brain trust for high-level advice on the Trump investigations, according to people familiar with the moves.

    Top Justice officials have looked to an old guard of former Southern District of New York prosecutors, bringing into the investigations Kansas City-based federal prosecutor and national security expert David Raskin, as well as David Rody, a prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer who previously specialized in gang and conspiracy cases and has worked extensively with government cooperators.

    Rody, whose involvement has not been previously reported, left a lucrative partnership at the prestigious corporate defense firm Sidley Austin in recent weeks to become a senior counsel at DOJ in the criminal division in Washington, according to his LinkedIn profile and sources familiar with the move.

    The team at the DC US Attorney’s Office handling the day-to-day work of the January 6 investigations is also growing – even while the office’s sedition cases against right-wing extremists go to trial.

    A handful of other prosecutors have joined the January 6 investigations team, including a high-ranking fraud and public corruption prosecutor who has moved out of a supervisor position and onto the team, and a prosecutor with years of experience in criminal appellate work now involved in some of the grand jury activity.

    Taken together, the reorganization of prosecutors indicates a serious and snowballing investigation into Trump and his closest circles.

    The decision of whether to charge Trump or his associates will ultimately fall to Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom President Joe Biden picked for the job because his tenure as a judge provided some distance from partisan politics, after Senate Republicans blocked his Supreme Court nomination in 2016.

    Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    Several former prosecutors believe the facts exist for a potentially chargeable case. But Garland will have to navigate the politically perilous and historic decision of how to approach the potential indictment of a former President.

    In March, Garland avoided answering a CNN question about the prospect of a special counsel for Trump-related investigations, but said that the Justice Department does “not shy away from cases that are controversial or sensitive or political.”

    “What we will avoid and what we must avoid is any partisan element of our decision making about cases,” Garland said. “That is what I’m intent on ensuring that the Department decisions are made on the merits, and that they’re made on the facts and the law, and they’re not based on any kind of partisan considerations.”

    Garland’s tough decisions go beyond Trump. The long-running investigation of Hunter Biden, son of the president, is nearing conclusion, people briefed on the matter say. Also waiting in the wings: a final decision on the investigation of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, after prosecutors recommended against charges.

    It likely won’t take long after the midterms for focus to shift to the 2024 presidential race. That could incentivize top DOJ officials to make crucial charging decisions as quickly as possible, including whether to bring charges against Trump himself or other top political activists, other sources familiar with the Justice Department’s inner workings say.

    “They’re not going to charge before they’re ready to charge,” one former Justice Department official with some insight into the thinking around the investigations said. “But there will be added pressure to get through the review” of cases earlier than the typical five-year window DOJ has to bring charges.

    Matters could also be complicated by the situation in Georgia, where Willis is investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election there. Willis has said she’s aiming for a special grand jury to wrap up its investigative work by the end of the year.

    Willis has observed her own version of a quiet period around the midterm election and is seeking to bring witnesses before the grand jury in the coming weeks. Sources previously told CNN indictments could come as soon as December.

    Key Trump allies, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows are among witnesses that have tried to fight off subpoenas in the state probe into efforts to interfere with the Georgia 2020 election.

    How those disputes resolve in Georgia – including whether courts force testimony – could improve DOJ’s ability to gather information, just as the House Select Committee’s January 6 investigation added to DOJ’s investigative leads from inside the Trump White House.

    The months leading up to the election have provided little respite from the political and legal activity around the investigations. The DC US Attorney’s Office–which is still shouldering the bulk of the January 6 investigations–has dealt with burnout in its ranks, as prosecutors are taking to trial or securing guilty pleas from more than 800 rioters who were on the grounds of the Capitol and still look to charge hundreds more.

    Trump has also foiled the DOJ’s efforts to keep things quiet in the weeks leading up to the election, leading to a steady barrage of headlines related to the investigation.

    Trump’s legal team successfully put in place a complicated court-directed process for sorting through thousands of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, to determine whether they’re privileged and off limits to investigators. But the Justice Department and intelligence community have had access for weeks to about 100 records marked as classified that Trump had kept in Florida.

    The outcome of the intelligence review of those documents may determine if criminal charges will be filed, according to one source familiar with the Justice Department’s approach.

    Yet in both investigations, under-seal court activity never subsided, with the Justice Department trying to force at least five witnesses around Trump to secretly provide more information in their grand jury investigations in Washington, DC, CNN has previously reported.

    On Tuesday a federal judge ordered Trump adviser Kash Patel to testify before a grand jury investigating the handling of federal records at Mar-a-Lago, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

    Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court granted Patel immunity from prosecution on any information he provides to the investigation— another significant step that moves the Justice Department closer to potentially charging the case.

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  • Unconfirmed Liz Truss phone hack report prompts calls for investigation | CNN

    Unconfirmed Liz Truss phone hack report prompts calls for investigation | CNN

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    The UK government is facing calls to investigate after an unconfirmed media report claimed former British Prime Minister Liz Truss’ phone was hacked while she was foreign secretary.

    The UK’s Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that private messages between Truss and international foreign ministers, including messages about the war in Ukraine, as well as messages with former finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng fell “into foreign hands.”

    The paper claimed that the hack was discovered during the Conservative Party leadership campaign over the summer, which ultimately saw Truss named prime minister.

    The paper also claimed that “agents suspected of working for the Kremlin” were behind the hack, citing unnamed sources.

    CNN cannot independently verify the Mail on Sunday claims, whether a hack occurred or who might have been behind it.

    CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

    A UK government spokesperson told CNN that the government “do not comment on individuals’ security arrangements,” but added it had “robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats.”

    Chair of the government’s Defense Select Committee, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, told Sky News on Sunday that Russia is “getting better and better at these cyber-attacks and hacking.”

    “We take the most stringent measures to make sure it doesn’t happen,” he said adding that “it is something for the intelligence and security committee to investigate further.”

    UK opposition parties have demanded an investigation into the reported claims.

    The Labour Party’s shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement the report raises, “immensely important national security issues… which will have been taken extremely seriously by our intelligence and security agencies.”

    The Liberal Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran also called for an “urgent independent investigation to uncover the truth” in a tweet Saturday.

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  • Former Guantanamo detainee Saifullah Paracha repatriated to Pakistan | CNN Politics

    Former Guantanamo detainee Saifullah Paracha repatriated to Pakistan | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Saifullah Paracha, a former detainee at the Guatanamo Bay detention facility, has been repatriated to Pakistan, according to a statement from the Department of Defense.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin previously notified Congress in September of his intent to repatriate Paracha, who had been held in US detention since 2003 for alleged ties to al Qaeda.

    The Defense Department statement said that “the United States appreciates the willingness of Pakistan and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility.”

    A statement from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Paracha had arrived in the country on Saturday, adding that the Foreign Ministry “completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate the repatriation of Mr. Paracha.”

    “We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family,” the statement continued.

    Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve, a prisoner advocacy group working with Paracha, said, “Saifullah is returning to his family as a frail old man, having been taken from them in the prime of his life. That injustice can never be rectified.”

    Paracha, 75, had significant health issues while in US custody. He suffered his third heart attack (his second while in US custody) in June 2020, according to a statement from Reprieve. He was the oldest prisoner at Guantanamo Bay at the time of his release.

    Foa thanked the Biden administration for the decision to release Paracha but pressed the White House to close Guantanamo Bay permanently.

    “The Biden administration deserves some credit for expediting the release of Guantanamo detainees who were never charged with a crime, but the USA’s embrace of indefinite detention without trial has done lasting damage,” Foa said. “We can only begin to repair it when Guantánamo is closed for good.”

    Thirty-five detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon said in its statement Saturday, adding that, “20 are eligible for transfer; 3 are eligible for a Periodic Review Board; 9 are involved in the military commissions process; and 3 detainees have been convicted in military commissions.”

    This story has been updated with additional reaction.

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  • DOJ asks judge to force Trump White House lawyers to testify in Jan. 6 probe | CNN Politics

    DOJ asks judge to force Trump White House lawyers to testify in Jan. 6 probe | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to force the top two lawyers from Donald Trump’s White House counsel’s office to testify about their conversations with the former President, as it tries to break through the privilege firewall Trump has used to avoid scrutiny of his actions on January 6, 2021, according to three people familiar with the investigation.

    The move to compel additional testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin just last week is part of a set of secret court proceedings. Trump has been fighting to keep former advisers from testifying before a criminal grand jury about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down criminal investigators.

    But the Justice Department successfully secured answers from top vice presidential advisers Greg Jacob and Marc Short over the past three weeks in significant court victories that could make it more likely the criminal investigation reaches further into Trump’s inner circle.

    Jacob’s testimony on October 6, which has not been previously reported, is the first identifiable time when the confidentiality Trump had tried to maintain around the West Wing after the 2020 election has been pierced in the criminal probe following a court battle. A week after Jacob spoke to the grand jury again, Short had his own grand jury appearance date, CNN reported.

    All four men previously declined to answer some questions about advice and interactions with Trump when they testified in recent months in the secret criminal probe. Trump lost the court battles related to Jacob and Short before the chief judge of the trial-level US District Court in Washington, DC, last month.

    Attorneys for the men whom the DOJ is seeking to compel have declined to comment for this story or haven’t responded to requests. Cipollone and Philbin didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Justice Department also declined to comment.

    All four men have been willing to be as cooperative as the law demands, leaving Trump’s team to handle the fight over certain details in the investigation, the sources say.

    The litigation around Cipollone and Philbin’s testimony may be important for investigators in the long run, given how close the pair was to the Trump leading up to and during the Capitol riot. Prosecutors are likely to aim for the grand jury to hear about their direct conversations with the then-President.

    The disputes – conducted under seal in court because they involve grand jury activity – may also spawn several more court fights that will be crucial for prosecutors as they work to bring criminal charges related to Trump’s post-election efforts.

    Witnesses the federal grand jury has subpoenaed, such as former White House officials Mark Meadows, Eric Herschmann, Dan Scavino, Stephen Miller and campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, also could decline to describe their conversations with Trump or advice being given to him after the election, several sources familiar with the investigation say.

    Trump and his allies have used claims of confidentiality – both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege – with mixed results in multiple legal quagmires that surround the former President. Those include the January 6 federal criminal investigation, the Mar-a-Lago documents federal criminal investigation, Georgia’s Fulton County investigation of election meddling, and the House select committee probe of January 6 as well. Some of the privilege arguments Trump has raised have never been settled in federal court, and some of the fights could lead to the Supreme Court.

    Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich slammed the “weaponized” Justice Department in a statement and referred to the probes surrounding the former President as “witch hunts.”

    According to the sources, the Justice Department won a trial-level judge’s order at the end of September that said Jacob and Short must testify in response to certain questions over which Trump’s team had tried to claim presidential and attorney-client confidentiality.

    The sealed court case, stemming from the grand jury’s work, had been before the chief judge of the DC District Court, Beryl Howell. Howell refused to put on hold Jacob and Short’s testimony while Trump’s team appealed, a source said.

    The Trump team, meanwhile, took several days to respond to their loss before Howell in court. The Justice Department set a quick-turnaround subpoena date for Jacob, leaving him to head into the grand jury under subpoena on October 6, according to several sources.

    The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering legal arguments from Trump’s defense lawyers and the Justice Department over his ability to make executive and attorney-client privilege claims.

    How that is resolved – either by the appeals court or even the Supreme Court, if Trump pursues it that far – could have significant consequences for the January 6 criminal investigation, and for multiple witnesses who may be refusing to share some of what they know because of Trump’s privilege claims.

    Among a large group of former top Trump officials, Jacob has been one of the most searing voices condemning the then-President’s actions after the election, especially regarding the pressure he and his election attorney, John Eastman, tried to place on then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional certification of the presidential vote.

    Jacob has been a harsh critic of Eastman, who is also of interest to prosecutors, dating back to when Eastman tried to convince Pence’s office the vice president alone could override the vote. He told Eastman at the time the right-wing attorney was a “serpent in the ear” of the President, and wrote while Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, “thanks to your bulls**t, we are now under siege.”

    Jacob added to a parade of star witnesses at public House select committee hearings this summer, speaking candidly about his disgust with what he witnessed inside the White House complex from his high-ranking position administration.

    “There is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person would choose the American President, and then unbroken historical practice for 230 years, that the vice president did not have such an authority,” Jacob testified in July.

    But what Jacob and Short knew of Trump’s conversations, they wouldn’t disclose to the House nor to the grand jury until this month.

    In a taped House select committee deposition, Cipollone answered many questions about what happened inside the West Wing on January 6 but declined to describe communications between him and Trump.

    Cipollone’s and Philbin’s roles as White House lawyers raise complicated legal questions about whether Trump can claim confidentiality over the legal advice they gave him, as well as whether a former president can assert executive privilege to hold off criminal investigators.

    President Joe Biden has repeatedly declined to assert executive privilege around January 6 information, essentially leaving the fight for Trump to wage opposite the Justice Department.

    While the courts will look at each situation individually, history isn’t on Trump’s side. Federal prosecutors investigating former Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon were able to overcome attorney-client privilege assertions for White House counsel as well as executive privilege assertions so the grand jury could hear closely guarded information.

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  • Attorney General Merrick Garland vows Justice Department ‘will not permit voters to be intimidated’ ahead of midterms | CNN Politics

    Attorney General Merrick Garland vows Justice Department ‘will not permit voters to be intimidated’ ahead of midterms | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday vowed that the US Justice Department “will not permit voters to be intimidated” during November’s midterm elections.

    “The Justice Department has an obligation to guarantee a free and fair vote by everyone who’s qualified to vote and will not permit voters to be intimidated,” Garland said during a press briefing.

    More than seven million ballots have already been cast across 39 states as of Monday, according to data from election officials, Edison Research and Catalist. But with just two weeks until November 8, multiple reports of voter intimidation out of Arizona – home to some of this year’s most pivotal contests up and down the ballot – have stirred concern.

    In one instance, which has been referred to the Department of Justice and Arizona Attorney General’s Office, an unidentified voter reported that they were approached and followed by a group of individuals when trying to drop off their ballot at an early voting drop box.

    “There’s a group of people hanging out near the ballot dropbox filming and photographing my wife and I as we approached the dropbox and accusing us of being a mule,” the voter wrote, adding that the group took photographs of them, their license plate and followed them out of the parking lot.

    In another instance, two armed individuals – dressed in tactical gear – were spotted at a ballot drop box in Mesa, Arizona, on Friday night, according to Maricopa County officials. The pair left the scene when the County Sheriff’s Office arrived.

    “We are deeply concerned about the safety of individuals who are exercising their constitutional right to vote and who are lawfully taking their early ballot to a drop box,” Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and Recorder Stephen Richer said in a joint statement on Saturday.

    Dozens of Republicans trying to be elected in 2022 as governor, state secretary of state or US senator have joined former President Donald Trump in baselessly rejecting or questioning the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Some of them have even attempted to overturn the 2020 results.

    Such unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud inspired a slew of restrictive new voting laws and has led to growing safety concerns around elections. Last year, the Justice Department launched a task force to address the rise in threats against election officials, and safety preparations are already well underway for Election Day across the country.

    In Colorado, for example, a state law – the Vote Without Fear Act – prohibits carrying firearms at polling places or within 100 feet of a ballot drop box. And in Tallahassee, Florida, officials have added Kevlar and bullet-resistant acrylic shields to the Leon County elections office, said Mark Earley, who runs elections in the county.

    The FBI and sheriffs representing some of America’s biggest counties last week discussed the possibility of misinformation fueling violence at polling stations during next month’s midterm elections, a representative of a sheriff’s association told CNN.

    The briefing covered how law enforcement can balance supporting the security needs of election officials without risking intimidating voters by being “out in force” near polling stations, said Megan Noland, executive director of Major County Sheriffs of America, which represents the 113 largest sheriff’s offices in the country. The recent surveillance by private citizens of ballot drop boxes was also discussed, Noland said.

    Neal Kelley, a former election official who also presented at the briefing, told CNN that the potential for confrontations at ballot drop boxes “is something that we need to watch.”

    The FBI declined to comment on the briefing.

    The FBI, Kelley said, gave an overview of the threat environment facing election officials.

    “The whole idea was to give [sheriffs] an idea on how they can collaborate with their election officials because there’s not a lot of that happening nationwide,” Kelley, the former chief election official of Orange County, California, said of his presentation. Big counties have some of that collaboration between cops and election officials, but smaller ones often don’t, he said.

    One idea discussed at the briefing was giving patrol officers a list of election criminal codes that they could keep in their pockets when responding to any incidents on Election Day, Kelley told CNN.

    “If you’re calling 9-1-1 on Election Day as an election official, it’s too late,” he said.

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  • London-based TV channel sparks Iranian leaders’ ire amid protests | CNN

    London-based TV channel sparks Iranian leaders’ ire amid protests | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi
    CNN
     — 

    A top Iranian military official issued a warning to Saudi Arabia last week as his government continued to face off against protesters at home. “You are involved in this matter and know that you are vulnerable, it is better to be careful,” he said at the sidelines of a military drill.

    Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was referring to what state news outlets called a “media war” that they say is being waged against “the Iranian youth and nation” by foreign conspirators seeking to create unrest in the country by supporting protesters there.

    Then, on Thursday Iran again warned Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom, to “stop interfering in the country’s internal affairs.”

    Iran last week said it sanctioned a number of media outlets in the UK for “supporting terrorism” and “inciting violence”, reported Tasnim news agency The sanctioned entities include, among others, Volant Media, Global Media, and DMA Media, as well as the “anti-Iranian TV channels” that the companies support, such as Iran International, reported Tasnim agency.

    Now in their sixth week, protests have swept through the Islamic Republic following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died on September 16 after being detained by “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center,” allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.

    As the protests rage, Iran is turning up the heat on its adversaries, mainly the United States and Israel. But last week, Saudi Arabia found itself in the line of fire, which risks further complicating attempts by the two regional rivals to mend ties.

    Riyadh hasn’t publicly commented on the protests. The kingdom’s foreign minister refused to give his view when asked to during an interview with Al Arabiya news channel on October 12.

    “Saudi Arabia has a fixed policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” he said. “Surely, we are following [the situation] and we wish Iran and its people the best.”

    Iran and Saudi Arabia severed ties in 2016 and both parties have backed opposite sides in proxy conflicts across the Middle East. Last year, they began direct talks in an attempt to improve relations. Baghdad has hosted five rounds of talks so far, the last of which was held in April.

    At the heart of Iran’s most recent accusations against Saudi Arabia may be Iran International, a Persian-language news channel that broadcasts from London. The channel has become one of the go-to sources for many Persian speakers looking for news on the protests. It has been at the forefront of covering the demonstrations, getting breaking news and exclusive footage of the events on the ground. Its Twitter account has over a million followers.

    Founded in 2017, Iran International has previously come under scrutiny by the Iranian government. Some say it is due to their coverage of the protests at home, which in recent weeks have rocked the Islamic Republic.

    Salami didn’t name the channel in his warning, but government-backed Iranian media last week accused Saudi Arabia of funding it. Saudi Arabia has not addressed the allegations. Karim Sa djadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington DC, said on Twitter that Iran has demanded the shuttering of the channel in talks with Saudi Arabia, citing a senior Gulf official.

    In 2018, Iran International released a statement denying connections to any government, including Saudi Arabia or Iran after The Guardian reported that it was funded by a firm whose director has ties to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

    Saudi Arabia did not comment on the Guardian report. The Saudi government did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    “We have heard these accusations before most often promoted by those in whose interests it is to deny a free press,” a spokesperson for Volant Media told CNN.

    “Iran International and its sister channel, Afghanistan International, are editorially independent television channels owned by Volant Media, a company based in London owned by a Saudi Arabian/British citizen; it has no state backing or affiliation,” added the spokesperson.

    Azadeh Moaveni, associate professor of journalism at New York University, described the channel as “one of the most pernicious and damaging forces to enter the Iranian media sphere,” calling it an arm of Saudi foreign policy. “I would not describe Iran International as pro-reform, or organically Iranian in any manner,” she told CNN.

    Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran who was also an adviser to the Iranian nuclear talks negotiating team, said there’s “no doubt” that Iran International is funded by Saudi Arabia. A prominent figure on state-funded Iranian outlets, Marandi added that Iran International spreads rumors, ethnic and sectarian strife “and it tries to use misinformation to create fear, chaos and promote violence.”

    Saudi Research and Marketing Group, a media conglomerate with ties to the Saudi ruling family, has run the Persian language website of the UK’s Independent newspaper since 2018. Its account on Instagram, where many Iranians get their news, has over 600,000 followers.

    CNN’s parent company is Warner Bros. Discovery, which has a partnership with Saudi Research and Media Group, a Saudi joint stock company.

    Saudi Arabia has for years accused Iran of doing the same with its own Arabic-language news channels: targeting Arab audiences with propaganda. State-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting runs Al Alam TV, an Arabic news channel that has interviewed Saudi opposition figures and has been blocked by Arab states. Iran-backed Hezbollah’s Al Manar channel has also been blocked.

    “It’s about time Iran gets a taste of its own medicine,” said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi author and analyst. “Iran has spent decades inciting and funding instability in the Arab world so having them pay the price of such behavior themselves is certainly a source of satisfaction to a lot of people,” he told CNN.

    The channel “is making an impact on public behavior in Iran and they are nervous about their domestic situation,” added Shihabi.

    Analysts say that Iran’s tight grip on domestic media outlets and its lack of freedom of expression have created “fertile ground” for anti-establishment platforms such as Iran International to flourish.

    “It is not so much the broadcasters themselves, but the situation in Iran has provided the possibility for broadcasters outside of Iran to gather a certain degree of popularity in the Iranian context,” said Gholam Khiabany, a reader in media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.

    Harun Najafizada, a former journalist at Iran International who is now a director at the sister Afghanistan International news channel, said the parent company Volant Media is privately funded but “I don’t care as long as they do not influence my editorial take,” adding that shareholders never interfere in decision making.

    Iran International stood out from other Western-backed Persian language news outlets “by taking the side of the disenchanted, oppressed, voiceless people,” while competitor Persian channels in the West were focused on bringing balance by giving the Iranian government a voice, he told CNN.

    “They have a vision, of course – they don’t do it for God,” said Najafizada, referring to the shareholders. “That vision is democracy.”

    Just two days after Salami’s first warning, however, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, was quoted saying that the two countries should reopen their embassies to facilitate a rapprochement, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA.

    “We are neighbors of Saudi Arabia and we must coexist,” he was cited as saying by ISNA. “The embassies of the two countries should reopen in order to solve our problems in a better way.”

    Business owners and factory workers in Iran’s Kurdish region went on strike over the weekend as anti-government protests continued.

    Video shared with CNN by pro-reform activist outlet IranWire shows Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdish region, quiet at the beginning of the work week as stores remain shut.

    The Norway-based Iranian rights group Hengaw said shopkeepers were on strike in Bukan, Sanandaj and Saqez, as well as Marivan. Strikes and protests have become common in cities and towns across Iran as people unite against the regime.

    The nationwide protests are now in their fifth week, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died three days after being arrested by the country’s morality police and taken to a re-education center.

    Here’s the latest on this developing story:

    • Iran will file a lawsuit against the United States claiming the US had direct involvement in recent riots, Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy head of the Iranian judiciary and secretary of the country’s High Council for Human Rights, said on Saturday, according to state news agency IRNA.
    • The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA) on Saturday called for a nationwide strike in protest at the recent deaths and detention of students in the country, according to a statement published on Telegram. The council also announced a period of public mourning for students who have died in recent weeks from Thursday through Saturday, and called for a sit-in on Sunday, October 23 and Monday, October 24.
    • Protests took place in central Berlin on Saturday, with close to 80,000 people standing in solidarity with Iran, German state broadcaster RBB reported, citing police officials.

    Israel and Lebanon could sign maritime border agreement on Thursday, Biden energy adviser says

    Senior US adviser for global energy security Amos Hochstein said on Sunday that Israel and Lebanon could sign their historic maritime borders agreement as early as Thursday.

    • Background: “We’re going to have a deal. We’re going to sign it hopefully this Thursday,” Hochstein said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “And I hope that this continues our commitment to stability in the region and prosperity for both countries,” he added.
    • Why it matters: The US-brokered agreement settles a years-long maritime border dispute involving major oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean. Still technically at war, Lebanon and Israel both have much to gain. Not only does the agreement cool down recent security tensions, it also allows Israel to begin drilling and exporting gas to Europe and offers potential economic relief to Lebanon.

    Human Rights Watch says LGBTQ people subjected to arrest and mistreatment in Qatar ahead of World Cup

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Qatar’s security forces of arbitrarily arresting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and subjecting them to ill-treatment in detention ahead of the FIFA World Cup.

    • Background: HRW said in a report issued Monday that it documented six cases of “severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022,” the most recent of which took place in September. Security forces arrested people in public places based solely on their gender expression and unlawfully searched their phones, the HRW report said, adding that as a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend “conversion therapy sessions” at a government-sponsored “behavioral healthcare” center. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and punishable by imprisonment. A Qatari official told CNN that the HRW allegations “contain information that is categorically and unequivocally false.”
    • Why it matters: Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which starts November 20, Qatar has said it would welcome LGBT visitors, after concerns were raised from the LGBT community over how safe they will be at the tournament.

    Egypt has ordered the release of prominent activist, presidential pardon committee member says

    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Monday pardoned a prominent activist and former parliamentarian, Zyad el-Elaimy, according to a presidential pardon committee member.

    • Background: Jailed since 2019, el-Elaimy was one of the key participants in the 2011 uprisings that led to the downfall of former longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. His release is “in response to calls by political parties and forces,” presidential pardon committee member Tarek el-Khouly wrote on Facebook. Young members of political parties, politicians and the presidential pardon committee also coordinated to help secure his release, added el-Khouly. El-Elaimy was given a five-year sentence last year on charges of spreading false news.
    • Why it matters: The release comes two weeks ahead of November’s COP27 summit in Egypt. The country has come in for sharp criticism in recent months, with activists denouncing global leaders’ attendance in the light of Sisi’s questionable human rights record. Egypt has been promoting moves to improve its rights record, but activists and critics have described recent reforms as mostly cosmetic.

    United Arab Emirates: #Diwali

    Also known as Deepavali, the holiday is widely trending across social platforms in the United Arab Emirates, with many flooding Twitter with colorful photos of candles and wishing joy and prosperity to the world.

    Some are also posting photos of themselves in traditional celebratory garments. Diwali is one of the most important festivals in Hinduism, the largest religion in India. This year, it falls on October 24.

    India and the UAE share a strong political and economic relationship, one that has grown closer in recent years.

    The Indian expatriate community in the UAE is around 3.5 million, according to the Indian embassy in the UAE, adding that it is reportedly the largest ethnic community in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf state. Approximately 15% of the diaspora are in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, added the Indian embassy, while the rest are in six northern Emirates, including business hub Dubai.

    The UAE also accounts for 33% of foreign remittances to India, at more than $20 billion a year.

    Diwali is also significant for Sikhs and Jains. It is celebrated in India, Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries with South Asian diasporas.

    Palestinian girls wearing traditional embroidered dresses perform during a ceremony marking the start of the olive harvest season in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Sunday.

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  • Yemen Fast Facts | CNN

    Yemen Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at Yemen, a country located on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, sharing a border with Saudi Arabia and Oman.

    (from the CIA World Fact Book)
    Area: 527,968 sq km (twice the size of Wyoming)

    Population: 30,984,689 (2022 est.)

    Median age: 19.8 years

    Capital: Sanaa

    Ethnic groups: Predominantly Arab; but also Afro-Arab, South Asian, European

    Religions: Muslim (99.1%: an estimated 65% are Sunni and 35% are Shia) and small numbers of Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Baha’i (2020)

    Unemployment: 27% (2014 est.)

    Yemen is part of the Arab League.

    Yemen has been mired in political unrest and armed conflict, which intensified in early 2015. Houthi rebels – a minority Shia group from the north of the country – drove out the US-backed government and took over the capital, Sanaa. The crisis quickly escalated into a multi-sided war, with neighboring Saudi Arabia leading a coalition of Gulf states against the Houthi rebels. The coalition is advised and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, among other nations.

    READ: Yemen: What you need to know about how we got here

    May 22, 1990 – The Republic of Yemen is created from the unification of North Yemen, the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.

    May-July 1994 – A civil war between northerners and southerners begins due to disagreements between supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, from North Yemen, and Vice President Ali Salim al-Baid, from South Yemen. Troops loyal to Saleh win the war.

    September 25, 1999 – Saleh wins the country’s first direct presidential election, with 96.3% of the vote. Opposition leaders allege tampering at the ballot box.

    September 23, 2006 – Saleh wins reelection to a seven-year term with 77% of the vote.

    September 17, 2008 – Ten people, Yemeni citizens and police officers, are killed in terrorist attack on the US embassy in Sanaa.

    December 28, 2009 – A Yemen-based arm of al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), claims responsibility for a failed bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25.

    January 2, 2010 – US President Barack Obama announces a new counterterrorism partnership with Yemen, involving intelligence sharing, military training and joint attacks.

    January 3, 2010 – The United States and the United Kingdom temporarily close their embassies in Sanaa after they receive word that AQAP may be planning an attack on the facilities. The US embassy reopens two days later after Yemeni forces kill two AQAP militants in a counterterrorism operation.

    January 2010 – A group called Friends of Yemen is established in the UK to rally support for Yemen from the international community. They later hold meetings in London and Saudi Arabia.

    January 27, 2011 – Protests break out, inspired by demonstrations in neighboring countries. The unrest continues for months, while crackdowns on protesters lead to civilian deaths.

    June 3, 2011 – Opposition forces launch missiles at the presidential palace, injuring Saleh and killing several others.

    September 2, 2011 – More than two million people demonstrate across Yemen, demanding that the military remove Saleh from power.

    September 23, 2011 – Saleh returns to Yemen after more than three months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

    September 30, 2011 – Anwar al-Awlaki, spokesman for AQAP, is killed by a CIA drone strike.

    November 23, 2011 – Saleh signs an agreement in Saudi Arabia transferring his executive powers to Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s vice president, effectively ending his rule.

    January 21, 2012 – Parliament approves a law that grants Saleh immunity from prosecution.

    February 21, 2012 – Yemen holds presidential elections to replace Saleh. There is only one candidate on the ballot, Vice President Hadi, the acting president since November 2011. Hadi receives 99.8% of the 6.6 million votes cast, according to the government elections committee.

    February 25, 2012 – Hadi is sworn in as president.

    May 21, 2012 – During a rehearsal for a military parade in Sanaa, a suicide bomber kills more than 100 Yemeni troops and wounds more than 200.

    May 23, 2012 – Friends of Yemen pledges more than $4 billion in aid to help the country fight terrorism and boost its economy. The amount is later increased to $7.9 billion. There are delays, however, that hold up delivery of the funds, according to Reuters.

    December 5, 2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry hospital in Sanaa. They ram the building with an explosives-laden vehicle and gunmen battle security forces inside. At least 52 people are killed, including four foreign doctors, according to the government.

    December 15, 2013 – Parliament calls for an end to drone strikes on its territory three days after a US missile attack mistakenly hits a wedding convoy, killing 14 civilians.

    February 10, 2014 – State news reports that Hadi has approved making Yemen a federal state consisting of six regions: two in the south, and four in the north. Sanaa is designated as neutral territory.

    September 21, 2014 – Hadi, Houthi rebels and representatives of major political parties sign a ceasefire deal. The United Nations-brokered deal ends a month of protests by Houthis that essentially halted life in Sanaa and resulted in hundreds of people being killed or injured.

    January 17, 2015 – Houthi rebels kidnap Hadi’s Chief of Staff Ahmed bin Mubarak in a push for more political power. He is released 10 days later, according to Reuters.

    January 20, 2015 – Houthi rebels take over the presidential palace.

    January 22, 2015 – President Hadi resigns shortly after the prime minister and the cabinet step down. Houthis say they will withdraw their fighters from Sanaa if the government agrees to constitutional changes including fair representation for marginalized groups within the country. No agreement is reached.

    February 11, 2015 – The United States and the United Kingdom suspend embassy operations in Yemen.

    March 20, 2015 – Terrorists bomb two mosques in Sanaa, killing at least 137 and wounding 357. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.

    March 22, 2015 – Houthi rebels seize the international airport in Taiz.

    March 26, 2015 – Warplanes from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and other countries strike Houthi rebel targets.

    December 6, 2015 – The governor of the city of Aden and six bodyguards are killed in a car bombing. ISIS claims responsibility.

    December 18-19, 2015 – At least 100 people are killed as violence erupts in the Harath district of Hajjah, a strategic border near Saudi Arabia.

    April-August 2016 – Direct peace talks between the warring parties take place in Kuwait, but fail after Houthi rebels reject a UN proposal aimed at ending the war. Yemeni government officials leave the discussions shortly afterward.

    November 28, 2016 – The Iranian-backed Houthi movement forms a new government in the capital. Abdul Aziz Habtoor, who defected from Hadi’s government and joined the Houthi coalition in 2015, is its leader, according to the movement’s news agency Saba.

    December 18, 2016 – A suicide bomber strikes as soldiers line up to receive their salaries at the Al Solban military base in the southern city of Aden. The strike kills at least 52 soldiers and injures 34 others, two Yemeni senior security officials tell CNN. ISIS claims responsibility.

    January 29, 2017 – US Central Command announces that a Navy SEAL was killed during a raid on a suspected al Qaeda hideout in a Yemeni village. The Navy SEAL is later identified as William Owens. The Pentagon reports that 14 terrorists were killed during the raid. Yemeni officials say civilians got caught in the crossfire and 13 people died, including eight-year-old Nawar Anwar Al-Awalki, the daughter of Anwar Al-Awalki. The raid was authorized by US President Donald Trump, days after he was sworn in as commander in chief.

    February 8, 2017 – Two senior Yemeni officials tell CNN that the government has requested that the United States stop ground operations in the country unless it has full approval.

    May 15, 2017 – Save the Children reports that 242 people have died of cholera as an outbreak spreads through Sanaa and beyond.

    October 16, 2017 – US forces conduct airstrikes against two ISIS training camps in what a defense official tells CNN are the first US strikes specifically targeting ISIS in Yemen.

    November 4, 2017 – Houthi rebels fire a missile at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The Saudi government says that their military intercepted the missile before it reached its target. The Saudis carry out airstrikes on Sanaa in response.

    November 6, 2017 – Saudi Arabia blocks humanitarian aid planes from landing in Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the attempted missile strike on Riyadh.

    December 4, 2017 – Saleh is killed by Houthi rebels as he tries to flee Sanaa.

    December 6, 2017 – Trump issues a statement that he has directed his administration to call for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade.

    December 21, 2017 – The International Committee of the Red Cross announces that one million cases of cholera have been reported in Yemen since the outbreak began during the spring. More than 2,200 people have died, according to the World Health Organization. It is the largest outbreak of the disease in recent history.

    April 3, 2018 – Speaking at a UN Pledging Conference on Yemen, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres notes that, in its fourth year of conflict, more than three-quarters of the population, 22 million, require humanitarian aid. Regarding hunger alone, “some 18 million people are food insecure; one million more than when we convened last year.”

    August 3, 2018 – The World Health Organization warns that Yemen is teetering on the brink of a third cholera epidemic.

    August 9, 2018 – A Saudi-led coalition bombs a school bus, killing 40 boys returning from a day trip in the northern Saada governorate. Fifty-one people are killed in total. Later, munitions experts tell CNN that the bomb, a 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The Saudi coalition blames “incorrect information” for the strike, admits it was a mistake and takes responsibility.

    November 20, 2018 – Save the Children says that an estimated 85,000 children under the age of 5 may have died from extreme hunger or disease since the war in Yemen escalated in early 2015.

    December 6, 2018 – The opposing sides in Yemen’s conflict begin direct talks in Sweden, the first direct discussions between the parties since 2016.

    December 18, 2018 – A ceasefire reached in Sweden between Yemen’s warring parties goes into effect at midnight (4 p.m. ET December 17) in the strategic port city of Hodeidah.

    February 2019 – A CNN investigation reveals that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have transferred US-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other groups on the ground in Yemen. The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels, exposing some of America’s sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other war zones.

    May 2019 – A CNN investigation exposes the theft or “diversion” of food aid, some of which is being stolen by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, on a scale far greater than has been reported before.

    June 2019 – The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) finds that the total number of reported fatalities in Yemen is more than 91,000 since 2015.

    June 12, 2019 – A missile fired by Houthi rebels strikes the arrivals hall of Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia, injuring 26 people. On July 2, a second attack occurs when Houthi rebels execute a drone strike on the same airport, injuring nine civilians. according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.

    August 11, 2019 – A spokesperson for Yemeni separatists tells CNN that they have taken control of Aden, which had been the seat of the Saudi-backed government since Houthis took over Sanaa in 2014.

    January 19, 2020 – At least 80 Yemeni soldiers attending prayers at a mosque are killed and 130 others injured in ballistic missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, according to the UN Special Envoy for Yemen.

    December 26, 2020 – Yemen’s new 24-member cabinet, the power-sharing government brokered by Saudi Arabia, is sworn in. The new cohesive government will have equal representatives from Yemen’s internationally recognized government and southern separatists, their coalition allies in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels.

    February 12, 2021 – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces the removal of Yemen’s Houthi rebels from the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, effective February 16, reversing the Trump administration’s January 2020 designation that faced bipartisan backlash from politicians and humanitarian organizations.

    April 2, 2022 – Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis and their rival Saudi-led coalition agree to a nationwide truce. It is the most significant step towards ending the hostilities since the war began seven years ago, and a win for UN and US mediators who for the past year have been trying to engineer a permanent peace deal. The renewable two-month truce is meant to halt all military operations in Yemen and across its borders.

    October 2, 2022 – After a rare six months of relative calm, the truce between Yemen’s warring sides expires. The two-month truce had been renewed twice but ends after the two sides fail to renew their deal.

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  • Indonesia bans sale of all cough syrups after 99 child deaths | CNN

    Indonesia bans sale of all cough syrups after 99 child deaths | CNN

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    Jakarta, Indonesia
    CNN
     — 

    Indonesia has halted the sale of all syrup and liquid medicines following the deaths of nearly 100 children and an unexplained spike in cases of acute kidney injuries.

    The ban, announced by the country’s Health Ministry on Wednesday, will remain until authorities complete an investigation into unregistered medical syrups suspected of containing toxic ingredients.

    Health Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Syahril said 99 deaths and 206 cases of acute kidney injuries in children, mostly under the age of 6, were being investigated.

    “As a precaution, the ministry has asked health workers in health facilities not to prescribe liquid medicine or syrup temporarily,” he said. “We also ask that drug stores temporarily stop all sales of non-prescription liquid medicine or syrup until our investigations are completed.”

    The ban comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) linked four Indian-made cough syrups to the deaths of up to 70 children suffering acute kidney failure in The Gambia, West Africa. Earlier this month Indian authorities shut down a factory in New Delhi where the medicines were made.

    WHO suspects that four of the syrups made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited – Promethazine oral solution, Kofexmalin baby cough syrup, Makoff baby cough syrup and Magrip N cold syrup – contained “unacceptable amounts” of chemicals that could damage the brains, lungs, livers and kidneys of those who take them.

    The syrups being used in The Gambia were not available in Indonesia, according to the Southeast Asian country’s food and drugs agency.

    However, on Thursday, Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol – which are more usually found in products like antifreeze, paints, plastics and cosmetics – had been detected in syrups found in the homes of some child patients.

    “(The chemicals) should not have been present,” Budi said.

    He added that the number of acute kidney failure cases could be higher than reported and his ministry was taking a conservative approach by banning the sale of all syrups.

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  • EXCLUSIVE: Trump considers allowing federal investigators to search Mar-a-Lago again | CNN Politics

    EXCLUSIVE: Trump considers allowing federal investigators to search Mar-a-Lago again | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump’s legal team is weighing whether to allow federal agents to return to the former President’s Florida residence, and potentially conduct a supervised search, to satisfy the Justice Department’s demands that all sensitive government documents are returned, sources tell CNN.

    In private discussions with Trump’s team as well as court filings, the Justice Department has made clear that it believes Trump failed to comply with a May subpoena ordering the return of all documents marked as classified and that more government records remain missing.

    Some in Trump’s inner circle aren’t convinced there are any remaining government documents, after the FBI seized nearly 22,000 pages when they executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August.

    The possibility of allowing federal officials to return to Trump’s property – likely with Trump’s own lawyers present – is just one option on the table as the Trump team grapples with how best to protect the former President from legal jeopardy. No firm decisions have been made while sources familiar with the situation say Trump’s legal team is continuing to weigh how accommodating or adversarial they should be toward the Justice Department.

    “It’s a risk to invite a DOJ lawyer to lunch let alone back to Mar-a-Lago,” said a person close to Trump.

    In the throes of multiple legal battles and hoping to alleviate some of the pressure he is facing, Trump has recently signaled to aides and allies that he is open to a less adversarial approach toward the Justice Department – one that might swiftly resolve the records issue after weeks of contentious court proceedings, according to people familiar with the situation.

    The approach comes even as Trump continues to indulge legal theories that the records he took with him at the end of his presidency are his personal property, an argument his team is making in court and that he first heard from conservative judicial activist Tom Fitton.

    “The general belief in Trump World is that this is much ado about nothing and the sooner we get past it the better,” said a person close to Trump, adding that the former President has told allies he “wants to move on.”

    Trump’s compliance with the grand jury subpoena potentially poses a distinct legal risk amid legal wrangling over whether the former President mishandled classified documents he retained after leaving the White House. In earlier court filings, prosecutors claimed that Trump’s team had not fully complied with a subpoena served in May and “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”

    At least some of the battle to secure their return has been playing out behind the scenes in a court proceeding that is under seal, according to people familiar with the situation. One potential resolution could involve the Justice Department asking a judge to issue an order compelling the Trump team to work with DOJ to arrange for another search.

    The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

    Sources close to Trump said that the former President has become more amenable to the cooperative approach being advocated by some of his more experienced lawyers, including former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise, who joined his legal team following the FBI search in August. Kise had faced headwinds from Trump and some of his more aggressive advisers.

    Trump has favored a more pugilistic approach, even accusing federal investigators at one point of planting evidence during their search at Mar-a-Lago – a claim he has never substantiated in court.

    As the midterm election draws closer and Trump grapples with his next political move, he and allies are eager for some relief from his web of legal troubles.

    “He is worn down,” one source close to the former President said. “Getting one thing off his plate” would help him move forward.

    A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment.

    Among the complicating factors has been Trump’s personal views on the document dispute. He initially claimed that his team had been fully cooperative with investigators and insisted on social media “ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK,” for documents to be returned. Trump has since argued, on social media and in court filings, that the Mar-a-Lago documents are his property. “I want my documents back!” the former President said in early October.

    As recently as last Thursday, Trump complained to donors at a roundtable at Mar-a-Lago that federal investigators “got to see everything” when they searched his residence and were conducting a “complete sham” investigation, according to a person familiar with his comments.

    Trump has continued to complain to advisers and allies that he is being treated unfairly and different than past presidents, multiple sources said.

    Some Trump allies also worry that the legal jeopardy lawyers currently face could grow worse the longer the records issue drags on.

    Trump lawyer Christina Bobb had to hire her own lawyer after signing an attestation in June which declared that Trump’s team had conducted a “diligent search” to comply with the Justice Department’s subpoena and returned all documents with classified markings. Bobb, who was Trump’s custodian of records at the time, recently told federal investigators in a voluntary interview that the attestation had been drafted by another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, for her to sign. A source with knowledge of the event said Bobb was rushed to Mar-a-Lago to sign the attestation, but she insisted on first adding a line that her knowledge was “based upon the information that has been provided” to her.

    Two months later, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, recovering thousands of additional government documents, including more than 100 with classified markings.

    Corcoran has insisted to colleagues that he does not believe he faces any legal risk and has not hired a lawyer, according to sources familiar with his situation.

    A third Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, had his cellphone seized by the FBI last month and has testified in front of a Georgia grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    In her conversation with federal investigators, Bobb also discussed Epshteyn, said a source briefed on the matter.

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