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Tag: international relations and national security

  • Netanyahu to be invited to form government, paving way for return of Israel’s longest-serving leader | CNN

    Netanyahu to be invited to form government, paving way for return of Israel’s longest-serving leader | CNN

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    Tel Aviv and Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    Israel’s President Isaac Herzog announced Friday he will invite Benjamin Netanyahu to form Israel’s next government, paving the way for him to take the country’s top job for a record sixth time and extend his record as the nation’s longest-serving leader.

    Herzog will officially issue the mandate to Netanyahu on Sunday, he said. Herzog made the announcement after meeting with all the factions in parliament, the Knesset, to ask who they would back for prime minister.

    In a statement released by his office, he said: “At the end of the round of consultations, 64 members of the Knesset recommended to the president the chairman of the Likud faction, MK Benjamin Netanyahu.” He added that 28 Knesset members recommended outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid. The same number chose not to recommend anyone.

    Herzog will meet with Netanyahu at the president’s residence on Sunday to formally give him the mandate. Under Israeli law, Netanyahu will then have 28 days to form a new government, with the possibility of a 14-day extension if required.

    During negotiations, Netanyahu will have to divide up ministries among his coalition partners and haggle over policies.

    This is where things get interesting. With a four-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament, the five factions allied with Netanyahu’s Likud are all potential kingmakers: fail to give any one of them what they want, and they could bring the coalition down.

    When it comes to the ultra-Orthodox parties, their demands are uncontroversial as far as Netanyahu is concerned: bigger budgets for religious schools, and the right not to teach their children secular subjects such as math and English.

    The real showdowns are likely to come with his new extreme right-wing allies. Netanyahu rode to power on the back of a stunning showing by the Religious Zionism/Jewish Power list, which, with 14 seats, is now the third-biggest grouping in the Knesset. Its leader, Itamar Ben Gvir, who has a conviction for inciting anti-Arab racism and supporting terrorism, has demanded to be made Public Security Minister, in charge of Israel’s police.

    Ben Gvir’s partner is Bezalel Smotrich, who has described himself as a “proud homophobe.” He has said Israel should be run according to Jewish law. He has spoken of reducing the power of the Supreme Court, and striking out the crime of breach of trust – which just so happens to be part of the indictments against Netanyahu in his ongoing corruption trials. Netanyahu has long denied all of the charges. If Smotrich wins the Justice Ministry he covets, he may be able to make these things happen, ending Netanyahu’s legal worries.

    Yet these may be the least of his concerns. Having been forced to join forces with the extreme right wing, the sixth reign of Netanyahu may end up further alienating the half of Israel that didn’t vote for the bloc of parties backing him.

    Restrictions on settlements in the occupied West Bank could be loosened, prompting international condemnation. Violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank could worsen; 2022 has already seen more people killed on each side than any time since 2015.

    Then there’s the potentially explosive issue of the Jerusalem holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Ḥaram al-Sharīf, or Noble sanctuary.

    Under the status quo, only Muslims are allowed to pray at the compound. Ben Gvir advocates allowing Jews to pray at what is their holiest site.

    Any change could be used as a pretext by Palestinian militants to carry out attacks. It would almost certainly be condemned by Israel’s new friends in the Arab world, such as Morocco, the UAE and Bahrain.

    President Herzog himself summed up the issue when a hot mic caught him telling Netanyahu’s allies in the Shas party: “You’re going to have a problem with the Temple Mount. That’s a critical issue. You have a partner that the entire world is anxious about,” an apparent reference to Ben Gvir.

    Herzog told another of Netanyahu’s allies, Avi Maoz of the avowedly anti-LGBT Noam faction: “There has been concern about things you have said about the LGBT community. All human beings were created in God’s image and we must respect everyone. We have only one State of Israel. That pertains also to your party.”

    Could a Netanyahu-led government have disputes with the United States? Netanyahu may not have the same bromance with President Joe Biden as he did with Donald Trump, but the two men seem to get along.

    “We are brothers,” Biden told Netanyahu in a call after the election. “My commitment to Israel is unquestionable. Congratulations, my friend.”

    Netanyahu replied: “We will bring more historic peace agreements [with the Arab world], that is within reach. My commitment to our alliance and our relationship is stronger than ever.”

    Netanyahu is vehemently against the US rejoining the Iran nuclear deal, but that seems off the table for now. On Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Israel’s reluctance to provide Kyiv with defensive weapons, Netanyahu promised President Volodymyr Zelensky to “seriously examine” the issue.

    Assuming Netanyahu can reach a coalition agreement by the December 11 deadline, the Knesset Speaker will call a confidence vote within seven days. If all goes to plan, Bibi’s government will then take office, perhaps on December 18 – in time for Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights (and miracles).

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  • Voters in four states approve effort to wipe slavery and indentured servitude off the books | CNN Politics

    Voters in four states approve effort to wipe slavery and indentured servitude off the books | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Voters in five states on Tuesday were asked whether to update their states’ constitutions to remove slavery and indentured servitude as potential punishments.

    Although the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibited slavery in 1865, it allowed an exception “for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” and the proposed amendments asked voters to either explicitly rule out slavery and indentured servitude as potential punishments or remove the terms from state law altogether.

    Voters in four states agreed to strike the punishment from the books, CNN projects, while the effort fell short in one.

    Voters in Alabama approved a ballot measure that will overhaul the state’s constitution to rid it of racist language and make the constitution more accessible to Alabama’s citizens, CNN projects. One of the revisions in the overhaul will remove an exception clause as it applies to slavery and indentured servitude, changing the text of the constitution from:

    That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude, otherwise than for the punishment of crime, of which the party shall have been duly convicted.

    To:

    That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude.

    Voters in Oregon approved a ballot measure to remove “all language creating an exception” and make “the prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude unequivocal.”

    As part of the initiative, the Oregon Constitution was amended to allow “programs to be ordered as part of sentencing,” such as ones for education, counseling, treatment and community service.

    Tennessee voters approved a measure to amend the state’s constitution to say slavery and indentured servitude shall be “forever prohibited,” CNN projects.

    In Vermont, a measure to amend the constitution passed, CNN projects.

    Although Vermont was the first state to outlaw slavery, the proposal sought to remove text that read “no person born in this country, or brought from oversea, ought to be holden by law, to serve any person as a servant, slave or apprentice, after arriving to the age of twenty-one years, unless bound by the person’s own consent, after arriving to such age, or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like.”

    Louisiana voters rejected an amendment that would have changed the state’s constitution by explicitly prohibiting the punishments, CNN projects.

    Louisiana voters had been asked to mark yes or no to the question, “Do you support an amendment to prohibit the use of involuntary servitude except as it applies to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice?”

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  • Australia blames cyber criminals in Russia for Medibank data breach | CNN Business

    Australia blames cyber criminals in Russia for Medibank data breach | CNN Business

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    Brisbane, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    Cyber criminals in Russia are behind a ransomware attack on one of Australia’s largest private health insurers that’s seen sensitive personal data published to the dark web, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said Friday.

    In a short press conference, AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw told reporters investigators know the identity of the individuals responsible for the attack on health insurer Medibank, but he declined to name them.

    “The AFP is undertaking covert measures and working around the clock with our domestic agencies and international networks including Interpol. This is important because we believe those responsible for the breach are in Russia,” he said.

    Medibank says the stolen data belongs to 9.7 million past and present customers, including 1.8 million international customers. The files include health claims data for almost half a million people, including 20,000 based overseas.

    This week, the group started releasing curated tranches of customer data onto the dark web, in files with titles including good-list, naughty-list, abortions and boozy, which included those who sought help for alcohol dependency.

    Kershaw said police intelligence points to a “group of loosely affiliated cyber criminals” who are likely responsible for previous significant data breaches around the world, without naming specific examples.

    “These cyber criminals are operating like a business with affiliates and associates who are supporting the business. We also believe some affiliates may be in other countries,” said Kershaw, who declined to take questions due to the sensitivity of the investigation.

    Cyber security experts have said the criminals are likely linked to REvil, a Russian ransomware gang notorious for large attacks on targets in the United States and elsewhere, including major international meat supplier JBS Foods last June.

    That breach shut down the company’s entire US beef processing operation and prompted the company to pay an $11 million ransom. Last November, the US State Department offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the identification or location of key leaders of REvil, also known as the Sodinokibi organized crime group.

    In mid-January, Russian state news agency TASS reported that at least eight REvil ransomware hackers had been detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) at the request of the US.

    They were facing charges of committing “illegal circulation of payments,” a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, TASS reported, citing Moscow’s Tverskoi Court.

    In March, Ukrainian national Yaroslav Vasinskyi, one of the chief suspects linked to an attack on US software vendor, Kaseya, was extradited from Poland to the US to face charges, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

    Jeffrey Foster, associate professor in cyber security studies at Macquarie University, said there’s one major link between the REvil network and the group suspected of hacking the Medibank network.

    “The biggest link is that the REvil dark web website now redirects to this website. So that’s the biggest link we have between them, and the only link we have between them,” said Foster, who is monitoring the blog where the group is posting their demands.

    “As Russia has stated that they’ve arrested and disbanded REvil, it seems likely this is a case of maybe a former REvil member, who had access to the dark web website to be able to do the redirect which requires access to the hardware,” he said. “Whether or not REvil has returned, we don’t know.”

    Medibank first detected unusual activity in its network almost a month ago. On October 20, the company issued a statement saying a “criminal” had stolen information from its ahm health insurance and international student systems, including names, addresses, phone numbers and some claims data for procedures and diagnoses.

    An initial ransom demand was made for $10 million (15 million Australian dollars), but the company said after extensive consultation with cybercrime experts it had decided not to pay. It was later lowered to $9.7 million – one for every customer affected, according to Foster.

    At the time, Medibank said there was only a “limited chance” that paying the ransom would stop the data being published or returned to the company.

    In his statement on Friday, Kershaw, the AFP Commissioner, said Australian government policy did not condone paying ransoms to cyber criminals.

    “Any ransom payment small or large fuels the cybercrime business model, putting other Australians at risk,” he said.

    Kershaw said investigators at the Australian Interpol National Central Bureau would be talking with their Russian counterparts about the individuals, who he addressed directly with a threat to see them charged in Australia.

    “To the criminals, we know who you are. And moreover, the AFP has some significant runs on the scoreboard when it comes to bringing overseas offenders back to Australia to face the justice system,” he said.

    Earlier Friday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was “disgusted” by the attacks and, without naming Russia, said the government of the country they come from should be held accountable.

    “The nation where these attacks are coming from should also be held accountable for the disgusting attacks, and the release of information including very private and personal information,” Albanese said.

    In a statement Friday, Medibank CEO David Koczkar said it was clear the criminal gang behind the breach was “enjoying the notoriety,” and it was likely they would release more information each day.

    “The relentless nature of this tactic being used by the criminal is designed to cause distress and harm,” he said. “These are real people behind this data and the misuse of their data is deplorable and may discourage them from seeking medical care.”

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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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  • Australian who sexually abused children in the Philippines given 129-year jail term | CNN

    Australian who sexually abused children in the Philippines given 129-year jail term | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    An Australian man already sentenced to life in prison in the Philippines for human trafficking and rape has been given an extra 129-year sentence for sexually abusing children as young as 18 months, according to prosecutors.

    Peter Gerard Scully, his Filipina girlfriend Lezyl Margallo, and two accomplices were charged with 60 offenses that included child abuse, trafficking, rape and syndicating child pornography, Merlynn Barola-Uy, a prosecutor in the southern city of Cagayan de Oro, told CNN on Wednesday.

    Margallo was sentenced to 126 years in prison, while the two accomplices received prison terms of nine years each.

    All four were sentenced on November 3 after entering a plea bargaining agreement, Barola-Uy said, describing the convictions as a “sweet victory.”

    “The victim-survivors and their families together with the prosecution team have been, since day one, consistent in their resolve to fight Peter Scully and slay every (delaying) tactic he employed,” the prosecutor said.

    “They all want to bring closure to this dark phase of their lives and move on,” Barola-Uy added.

    The offenses date back to 2012 and are among dozens of charges filed against Scully after his arrest in 2015.

    In 2018, the Australian and his former live-in partner Carme Ann Alvarez were sentenced to life in prison for human trafficking and rape in six cases involving seven children – one of whom was killed and buried in one of the couple’s rented houses in Surigao City, according to state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA).

    The cases against Scully have thrown the spotlight on the Philippines’ enduring struggle against the online sexual exploitation of children.

    In 2020, a report by the Washington-based International Justice Mission described the Philippines as a global dark spot for online sexual abuse, saying youths were vulnerable due to a combination of entrenched poverty, high internet connectivity and opaque international cash transfer systems.

    Two years later, a study by UNICEF, Interpol and ECPAT International, a global network of organizations against children sexual exploitation, found around 20% of Filipino children who used the internet and were aged between 12 and 17 had experienced some form of online sexual abuse.

    In August, members of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s cabinet told a news conference the country had declared “all-out war” on the sexual exploitation of children online.

    Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla vowed at the conference to prosecute and jail people who sexually exploited minors online, but did not detail how the law and its enforcement might be strengthened.

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  • Indian diamond billionaire Nirav Modi loses appeal against extradition from UK | CNN

    Indian diamond billionaire Nirav Modi loses appeal against extradition from UK | CNN

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    A London court on Wednesday rejected an appeal from Indian billionaire Nirav Modi against his extradition from the United Kingdom to India to face charges of fraud and money laundering.

    British police arrested the diamond dealer in 2019 in London over his alleged involvement in a bank fraud that could be worth $2 billion.

    Modi’s lawyers last year challenged a court order allowing the British government to extradite the fugitive businessman, citing his mental health and risk of suicide.

    London’s High Court dismissed the appeal on Wednesday, saying Modi’s risk of suicide does not rule out his extradition.

    Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith, one of the two judges, said that they were “far from satisfied that Mr Modi’s mental condition and the risk of suicide are such that it would be either unjust or oppressive to extradite him,” according to the court ruling.

    “On the basis of the assurances that the (Indian government) has given, we accept that there will be suitable medical provision and an appropriate plan in place for the management and medical care of Mr Modi, which will be provided in the knowledge that he is a suicide risk,” the judges said.

    Modi’s alleged fraud first came to light in 2018 when Punjab National Bank, one of India’s largest banks, reported fraudulent activity at one of its branches.

    India then issued an Interpol Red Notice for Modi’s arrest and London authorities were asked to execute it. The Indian foreign ministry said in a statement at the time that it welcomed the arrest, and would seek to extradite Modi as soon as possible.

    Modi and officials at the bank allegedly issued fraudulent Letters of Undertakings to overseas banks to obtain buyer’s credit, according to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

    Forbes once ranked Modi as India’s 85th richest man, with a net worth of $1.8 billion.

    CNN has reached out to his lawyer after the court’s decision on Wednesday but is yet to hear back.

    Modi, who remains at Wandsworth Prison in London, can challenge Wednesday’s court ruling at the UK Supreme Court.

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  • Prosecutors use Oath Keepers leader’s own words against him in heated cross-examination | CNN Politics

    Prosecutors use Oath Keepers leader’s own words against him in heated cross-examination | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In a tense, head-to-head exchange with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, prosecutors used Rhodes’ own words from texts, speeches and interviews to suggest to the jury that the militia leader misled them when he testified he was unaware of other members’ activities on January 6, 2021, and was appalled by the violence that day.

    Rhodes is the first of the five defendants charged with seditious conspiracy in federal court in Washington, DC, to testify.

    In his two-day testimony, Rhodes told the jury that he wasn’t involved in the specifics of planning for January 6, and that he had no knowledge of plans for the so-called quick reaction force that the group set up in Virginia to quickly move weapons into Washington, as prosecutors have alleged.

    Prosecutor Kathryn Rakoczy, however, showed the jury Signal messages in which Rhodes told other members that “We WILL have a QRF” on January 6 because “this situation calls for it” and was part of group messages where members shared photographs of routes the QRF could use to enter the city.

    “The buck stopped with you in this operation,” Rakoczy said to Rhodes, reading the leader’s messages aloud.

    “I’m responsible for everything everyone else did?” Rhodes responded.

    “You’re in charge, right?” Rakoczy said.

    “Not if they do something off mission,” he shot back.

    “That’s convenient,” Rakoczy said, smiling.

    The militia leader also told prosecutors that he “hoped to avoid” conflict and was only concerned about a civil war breaking out after Joe Biden became president – leading to a chiding question from Rakoczy about how “the civil war will be on [January] 21st and not on the sixth?”

    “I don’t condone the violence that happened” on January 6, Rhodes testified. “Anyone who did assault a police officer that day should be prosecuted for it.”

    Rakoczy pointed to statements Rhodes made in a secretly recorded conversation in the days after January 6 where he said he wished the Oath Keepers had brought rifles to the Capitol that day.

    “If he’s not going to do the right thing, and he’s just going to let himself be removed illegally, then we should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said in the recording prosecutors again played for the jury.

    “We could have fixed it right then and there,” Rhodes said of the Capitol attack, according to the recording. “I’d hang f**king Pelosi from the lamppost.”

    After playing the recording, Rakoczy asked Rhodes, “That’s what you said four days after the assault at the Capitol, right?”

    “Yeah, after a couple drinks and I was pissed off,” Rhodes testified.

    Rhodes and the other four defendants have pleaded not guilty to the seditious conspiracy charges.

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  • ‘I never thought it would be Paul’: Nancy Pelosi reveals how she first heard her husband had been attacked | CNN Politics

    ‘I never thought it would be Paul’: Nancy Pelosi reveals how she first heard her husband had been attacked | CNN Politics

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    Editor’s Note: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s interview will air on “Anderson Cooper 360” at 8 p.m. ET.



    CNN
     — 

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed how she got the news that her husband, Paul, had been attacked, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she was “very scared” when there was a knock on the door from Capitol Police.

    Pelosi said in her first sit-down interview since the attack that she had been asleep in Washington, DC, after getting in the night before from San Francisco when her doorbell rang early in the morning. “I look up, I see it’s 5 [a.m. ET], they must be at the wrong apartment,” she told Cooper after he asked where she was when she got the news.

    Pelosi went on to say that the doorbell rang again and then she heard “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on the door.”

    “So I run to the door, and I’m very scared,” Pelosi said, describing what unfolded. “I see the Capitol Police and they say, ‘We have to come in to talk to you.’”

    Pelosi described how her thoughts went immediately to her children and her grandchildren.

    “And I’m thinking my children, my grandchildren. I never thought it would be Paul because, you know, I knew he wouldn’t be out and about, shall we say. And so they came in. At that time, we didn’t even know where he was,” she said.

    The violent attack on Paul Pelosi has raised fresh concerns over threats of political violence driven by partisan animosity and increasingly hostile political rhetoric – and highlighted the potential vulnerability of lawmakers and their families in the current political climate.

    Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer at the couple’s home in San Francisco by a male assailant at the end of last month, authorities have said. The assailant who attacked him was searching for the speaker of the House, according to court documents.

    David DePape is charged with six counts relating to the attack, including attempted murder, burglary, assault, false imprisonment and threatening the family member of a public official. He has pleaded not guilty to all state charges.

    Following the attack, Paul Pelosi had surgery “to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Nancy Pelosi, said in an earlier statement. He was released from the hospital last week.

    Nancy Pelosi also indicated that the attack on her husband will factor into her decision about her own political future after the midterm elections.

    Pelosi, one of the most powerful figures in national Democratic politics, has earned a reputation as a formidable leader to House Democrats who exerts significant influence on her caucus. But speculation is intensifying in Washington over what Pelosi’s next move will be, and whether she would decide to retire, if Republicans win back the majority.

    During Monday’s interview, Cooper asked Pelosi if she would confirm that she has made a decision, one way or another, about what she would do, noting that there has “been a lot of discussion about whether you’d retire if Democrats lose the House.”

    The speaker said the “decision will be affected about what happened the last week or two,” prompting Cooper to ask, “Will your decision be impacted by the attack in any way?”

    “Yes,” Pelosi said.

    “It will?” Cooper asked.

    “Yes,” Pelosi said again.

    This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.

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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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  • Xi Jinping has secured his power at home. Now he’s stepping back out on the international stage | CNN

    Xi Jinping has secured his power at home. Now he’s stepping back out on the international stage | CNN

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


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    After securing his iron grip on power in a leadership reshuffle late last month, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is now moving back onto the world’s stage – in person – in an apparent bid to bolster China’s standing amid rising tensions with the West.

    A handful of state visits in Beijing last week, which included meetings between Xi and leaders of Tanzania, Pakistan, Vietnam and Germany, and expected travel to international summits later this month are a sharp change of pace for Xi, who has drastically limited his foreign guests and only left the country once since start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    For more than two years, Xi – who is the most important figure in China’s Communist Party by a long shot – hunkered down as China ramped up a stringent zero-Covid policy that seeks to eliminate the virus using border controls, mandatory quarantines, lockdowns and routine mass testing.

    China continues to restrict its citizens under that policy, but Xi’s recent and expected diplomatic schedule suggests he is no longer willing to forfeit his place alongside other world leaders after assuming a norm-breaking third term following the ruling Communist Party’s National Congress last month.

    There Xi gave a stark assessment of external threats facing China. Those growing challenges stem from “a grim and complex international situation,” with “external attempts to suppress and contain China” threatening to “escalate at any time,” Xi told his party members and the nation in a work report delivered during the congress.

    “(Xi) made it very clear … that the big challenges China will face (stem from) the less and less conducive international environment – and that is an area that China must contest,” said Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s SOAS China Institute.

    Xi’s apparent ramping up of foreign engagement is likely a bid to counter those headwinds, but also one based on a calculation: “He must have come to some kind of a conclusion that the risk of Covid is more containable than he had thought before,” according to Tsang.

    For a leader whose aim throughout his decade in power has been to enhance China’s global stature, a diminished physical presence on the world’s stage – such as sending his foreign minister to last year’s G20 – threatens to hinder Xi’s personal diplomacy.

    Even as other leaders resumed international travel and hosted dignitaries, Xi’s roster of diplomatic events remained largely dominated by remote engagements – speaking in online summits to the leaders of key partner countries, delivering addresses via video link, taking “cloud” group photos with counterparts at virtual events – in an apparent bid to minimize potential Covid-19 risk.

    A handful of foreign leaders have met Xi in Beijing this year, marking his first in-person state meetings since 2020. But the vast majority who visited before the party congress were there for Beijing’s Winter Olympics in February. Then, China-friendly nations like Russia and Egypt attended, while the US and its allies launched a diplomatic boycott over China’s human rights record.

    Xi made his first foray out of the country since the start of the pandemic in September to attend a meeting of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Uzbekistan.

    Xi’s foreign affairs priorities in the weeks and months ahead will likely continue to focus on shoring up relationships with friendly nations, experts say, as he finds himself operating in a very different world from the last time he was playing regular host or attending summits like G20 or the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit – both of which convene later this month and which he is expected to attend, though yet unconfirmed by Beijing.

    Since then, Western concerns about China’s rising global power have been fanned by Beijing’s close rapport with Moscow, damning reports on China’s human rights record in its Xinjiang region and shrinking liberties in Hong Kong, as well as negative views of how China has handled the pandemic.

    “The main challenge that China faces is the deterioration of relations with the US … With the US being hostile, China faces great headwinds in its relations with the West, especially in terms of decoupling of the economy,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center.

    “China will not directly discuss the US as the competitor, but instead will try to rally support and solidarity from the rest of the world,” she said.

    Xi’s meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, the first between Xi and a G7 leader in about three years, may be one aspect of that strategy, as a Germany that is more friendly toward China has the potential to hinder solidarity in an approach toward China from within the European Union, experts say.

    During his visit, which also included talks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Scholz voiced support of economic partnership with China, “on equal footing,” but said he raised issues like human rights, market access and the future of self-governing Taiwan, while also stressing that China’s relationship with one EU member affects all.

    Scholz brought up the responsibility to push for peace in Ukraine, and Xi used the meeting to release what may be his strongest comments about the escalation of the conflict.

    Xi called for the international community to “oppose the threat or use of nuclear weapons” and prevent a “nuclear crisis in Eurasia” – drawing an apparent red line, even as China has yet to condemn Russia’s invasion of its neighbor and as Xi maintains a close rapport with President Vladimir Putin.

    Scholz, who came in for heavy criticism at home for taking the trip, which was seen by critics as an endorsement of Xi’s rule, said later those comments on nuclear weapons alone made the trip “worth it.”

    Xi’s strategy in upcoming summits may fall along similar lines.

    “He will try to demonstrate that China is still committed to the world, and is ready to assume its due leadership,” said Sun of the Stimson Center.

    However, there will be challenges, nearly three years into the pandemic, as China’s top leader is only beginning to re-engage in person. Sun added: “There is a lot of catch-up to do.”

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  • Democrats confront their nightmare scenario on election eve as economic concerns overshadow abortion and democracy worries | CNN Politics

    Democrats confront their nightmare scenario on election eve as economic concerns overshadow abortion and democracy worries | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democrats close their midterm election campaign Monday facing the nightmare scenario they always feared – with Republicans staging a gleeful referendum on Joe Biden’s struggling presidency and failure to tame inflation.

    Hopes that Democrats could use the Supreme Court’s overturning of the right to an abortion and a flurry of legislative wins to stave off the classic midterm election rout of a party in power are now a memory. Biden faces a dark political environment because of the 40-year-high in the cost of living – and his hopes of a swift rebound next year are clouded by growing fears of a recession.

    On the eve of the election, Democrats risk losing control of the House of Representatives and Republicans are increasingly hopeful of a Senate majority that would leave Biden under siege as he begins his reelection bid and with ex-President Donald Trump apparently set to announce his own campaign for a White House return within days.

    It’s too early for postmortems. Forty million Americans have already voted. And the uncertainty baked into modern polling means no one can be sure a red wave is coming. Democrats could still cling onto the Senate even if the House falls.

    But the way each side is talking on election eve, and the swathe of blue territory – from New York to Washington state – that Democrats are defending offer a clear picture of GOP momentum.

    A nation split down the middle politically, which is united only by a sense of dissatisfaction with its trajectory, is getting into a habit of repeatedly using elections to punish the party with the most power.

    That means Democrats are most exposed this time.

    If the president’s party takes a drubbing, there will be much Democratic finger-pointing over Biden’s messaging strategy on inflation – a pernicious force that has punched holes in millions of family budgets.

    Just as in last year’s losing off-year gubernatorial race in Virginia, which the president won by 10 points in 2020, Democrats are closing the campaign warning about democracy and Trump’s influence while Republicans believe they are addressing the issue voters care about most.

    “Here’s where the Democrats are: they’re inflation deniers, they are crime deniers, they’re education deniers,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

    Hilary Rosen, a longtime Democratic consultant, said on the same show that her party had misjudged the mood of the electorate.

    “I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just think that we are – we did not listen to voters in this election. And I think we’re going to have a bad night,” Rosen told CNN’s Dana Bash.

    “And this conversation is not going to have much impact on Tuesday, but I hope it has an impact going forward, because when voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them. Stop talking about democracy being at stake.”

    Rosen is not the only key figure on the left uneasy with the midterm strategy. Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, urged the White House to do more to stress economic concerns in recent weeks even while acknowledging the crisis of democracy and the importance of abortion rights. In retrospect, it appears Democrats were slow to recognize that a favorable period over the summer, spurred by falling gasoline prices and a hot streak for the president in passing legislation, wouldn’t last long enough to compensate for a ruinous political environment caused by the economy.

    In effect, Biden’s stress on the threat to US political institutions posed by Trump essentially asks voters to prioritize the historic foundation of America’s political system over their own more immediate economic fears.

    It’s a message that resonates strongly in Washington, DC, where the scars of the US Capitol insurrection are keenly felt. And it is undeniably important because the survival of the world’s most important democracy is at stake. After all, Trump incited an insurrection that tried to thwart the unbroken tradition of peaceful transfers of power between presidents.

    But outside the Beltway bubble of politicians and journalists, democracy feels like a far more distant, esoteric concept than the daily struggle to feed a family and to be able to afford to commute to work. From Pennsylvania to Arizona, the return to normality after the Covid-19 nightmare that Biden promised remains elusive to many as the economic after effects of the once-in-a century health emergency linger.

    The impossibility of the political environment for Democrats was laid bare in a CNN/SSRS poll released last week. Some 51% of likely voters said the economy was the key issue in determining their vote. Only 15% named abortion – a finding that explains how the election battleground has tilted toward the GOP. Among voters for whom the economy is their top concern, 71% plan to vote Republican in their House district. And 75% of voters think the economy is already in a recession, meaning that Biden’s efforts to stress undeniably strong economic areas – including the strikingly low unemployment rate – are likely to fall on deaf ears.

    It’s too simple to say that Biden has ignored the impact of inflation, or doesn’t understand the pain it’s bringing to the country.

    The premise of his domestic presidency and his entire political career has been based on restoring the balance of the economy and restoring a measure of security to working and middle class Americans. His legislative successes could bring down the cost of health care for seniors and create a diversified green economy that shields Americans from future high energy prices amid global turmoil. But the benefits from such measures will take years to arrive. And millions of voters are hurting now and haven’t heard a viable plan from the president to quickly ease prices in the short-term.

    There is no guarantee that plans by Republicans to extend Trump-era tax cuts and mandate new energy drilling would have much impact on the inflation crisis either. And divided government would likely mean a stalemate between two dueling economic visions. But the election has turned into a vehicle for voters to stress their frustration, with no imminent hope that things will get better soon.

    Biden has resorted to highlighting bright spots of the economy – claiming to have reignited manufacturing, high job creation and a robust effort to compete with China. He’s now warning that Republicans would gut Social Security and Medicare on which many Americans rely in retirement.

    And in practice, there is not much a president can do to quickly lower inflation on their own. The Federal Reserve is in the lead and the central bank’s strategy of rising interest rates could trigger a recession that could further haunt Biden’s presidency.

    Inflation and high gas prices are also a global issue and have been worsened by factors beyond Biden’s control, including the war in Ukraine and supply chain issues brought on by the pandemic. At the same time, however, economists are debating the wisdom of Biden’s high-spending bills that sent billions of dollars into an overheating economy. And the White House’s repeated downplaying of the soaring cost of living as “transitory” badly misjudged the situation and was another thing that battered Biden’s credibility – on top of the confidence some voters lost in him during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

    The Republican Party also got exactly what it wanted as Trump has delayed his expected campaign announcement until after the midterms, depriving Biden of the opportunity to shape this election as a direct clash with an insurrectionist predecessor whom he beat in 2020 and who remains broadly unpopular. Such a confrontation might have enabled the president to dampen the impact of his own low approval ratings and win over voters who still disdain the twice-impeached former president.

    Ironically, Biden’s struggles in framing a believable economic message could bring about the very crisis of democracy that he is warning about.

    Any incoming GOP majority would be dominated by pro-Trump radicals. Prospective committee chairs have already signaled they will do their best to deflect from Trump’s culpability on the January 6, 2021, insurrection and go after the Justice Department as it presses on with several criminal investigations into the ex-President’s conduct. And Tuesday’s election could usher in scores of election deniers in state offices who could end up controlling the 2024 presidential election in some key battlegrounds. GOP dominance of state legislatures could further curtail voting rights.

    High inflation has also always been a toxic force that brews political extremism and tempts some voters to be drawn to demagogues and radicals whose political creed is based on stoking resentment and stigmatizing outsiders.

    If Democrats do lose big on Tuesday night, Trump will be a beneficiary.

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  • Cheney endorses another Democratic congresswoman, saying Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger is ‘dedicated to serving this country’ | CNN Politics

    Cheney endorses another Democratic congresswoman, saying Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger is ‘dedicated to serving this country’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney endorsed Virginia Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger on Saturday, weighing in on another highly competitive House race in the final days of the midterm election campaign.

    Spanberger, a former CIA officer who was among the class of national security Democrats first elected in 2018, is locked in a tough contest with Republican challenger Yesli Vega to represent Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.

    “I’m honored to endorse Abigail Spanberger. I have worked closely with her in Congress, and I know that she is dedicated to working across the aisle to find solutions. We don’t agree on every policy, but I am absolutely certain that Abigail is dedicated to serving this country and her constituents and defending our Constitution,” Cheney said in a statement.

    “Abigail’s opponent is promoting conspiracy theories, denying election outcomes she disagrees with, and defending the indefensible,” she continued.

    The move is Cheney’s latest endorsement of a member of her opposing party. The Wyoming Republican campaigned for Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin on Tuesday and endorsed her last week saying, “While Elissa and I have our policy disagreements, at a time when our nation is facing threats at home and abroad, we need serious, responsible, substantive members like Elissa in Congress.”

    Spanberger has campaigned on issues like infrastructure and lowering prescription drug costs, while her opponent, Vega, has said she will work to keep the Biden administration in check if elected.

    Virginia’s 7th District House race is rated as “tilt Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.

    CNN has reached out to Spanberger’s campaign for comment on the endorsement.

    Cheney is leaving Congress at the end of her current term after losing the Republican primary for her at-large Wyoming seat in August. Her continued criticism of former President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was seen as a key factor in her defeat.

    Cheney said last month that she would not remain a Republican if Trump is the GOP nominee for president in 2024.

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  • Polling shows that most voters say economic concerns are top of mind | CNN Politics

    Polling shows that most voters say economic concerns are top of mind | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Economic issues remain a top concern for most voters ahead of the 2022 election, a review of recent polling finds, with many also worried about America’s democratic process itself. But voters’ highest priorities are divided along partisan lines, with abortion rights continuing to resonate strongly for Democrats, while Republicans remain sharply focused on inflation. Concerns about other issues, from gun policy to immigration, are often similarly polarized. And some topics that drew attention in previous elections – like the coronavirus pandemic – are relatively muted this year.

    Recent polling provides a good general sense of which issues have become the focal points of this year’s elections, and for whom. But what voters truly consider important, and how those concerns influence their decisions, is too complicated to be fully captured in a single poll question.

    As we’ve noted previously, voters tend to say they care about a lot of different issues. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean any of those issues will be decisive in a specific race, either by motivating people to vote when they wouldn’t have otherwise, or by convincing them to vote for a different candidate than they would have otherwise.

    In practice, few campaigns revolve around a single issue, with voters left to weigh the merits of entire platforms. In a recent NBC News poll, for instance, voters were close to evenly split on whether they placed more importance on “a candidate’s position on crime, the situation at the border, and addressing the cost of living by cutting government spending,” or on “a candidate’s position on abortion, threats to democracy and voting, and addressing the cost of living by raising taxes on corporations.”

    And in some cases, voters’ primary focus may not be on the issues at all. In CNN’s recent polls of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a majority of likely voters in both states said that candidates’ character or party control of the Senate played more of a role in their decision-making than did issue positions.

    Here’s a recap of what the polls are showing now.

    CNN’s most recent polls have examined voters’ priorities from two different angles. A survey conducted in September and early October asked voters to rate a series of different issues on a scale from “extremely important” to “not that important,” while a second survey conducted in late October asked them to select a single top priority. On both measures, the economy emerged as a top concern.

    In the first poll, nine in 10 registered voters said they considered the economy at least very important to their vote for Congress, with 59% calling it extremely important. And in the second poll, 51% of likely voters said the economy and inflation would be most important to them in their congressional vote, far outpacing any other issue.

    While economic concerns rank highly among both parties, the CNN surveys found a pronounced partisan divide. Among registered voters in the first poll, 75% of Republicans called the economy extremely important to their vote, compared with about half of independents (51%) and Democrats (50%). And in the second, 71% of Republican likely voters called the economy and inflation their top issue, while 53% of independents and 27% of Democrats said the same.

    The Republican Party also holds an advantage on economic issues. In a Fox News poll, voters said by a 13-point margin that the GOP would do a better job than the Democratic Party of handling inflation and higher prices. And in a mid-October CBS News/YouGov poll, voters were nine points likelier to say that GOP control of Congress would help the economy than to say it would hurt. Voters also said, by a 19-point margin, that Democratic economic policies during the last two years in Congress have hurt, rather than helped.

    At the same time, voters express concerns beyond pocketbook issues. In that CBS News/YouGov survey, 85% of likely voters said that their “personal rights and freedoms” will be very important in their 2022 vote, while a smaller 68% said the same of their “own household’s finances.”

    Following the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, abortion has taken far higher precedence in this midterm than in recent past elections, particularly among Democrats.

    In CNN’s September/October poll, nearly three-quarters (72%) of registered voters called abortion at least very important to their vote, with 52% calling it extremely important. The share of voters calling abortion extremely important to their vote varied along both partisan and gender lines: 72% of Democratic women, 54% of independent women and 53% of Republican women rated it that highly, compared with fewer than half of men of any partisan affiliation.

    And in CNN’s latest poll, 15% of likely voters called abortion their top issue, placing it second – by some distance – to economic concerns. Democratic voters were about split between the two issues, with 27% prioritizing the economy and inflation, and 29% placing more importance on abortion.

    Abortion policy does stand out in some surveys as particularly likely to serve as a litmus test. In the Fox News poll, 21% of voters named abortion or women’s rights as an issue “so important to them that they must agree with a candidate on it, or they will NOT vote for them,” outpacing issues including the economy and immigration, and far greater than the 7% who named abortion when asked the same question in a 2019 survey.

    To the extent that abortion serves as a voting issue, it’s more of a factor for abortion rights supporters – something that was not necessarily the case in the past. In the mid-October CBS News/YouGov poll, just 17% of likely voters say they view their congressional vote this year as a vote to oppose abortion rights, while 45% say it’s in support of abortion rights, with the rest saying abortion is not a factor. In a recent AP-NORC survey, the Democrats hold a 23-point lead over Republicans on trust to handle abortion policy, their best showing across a range of issues; in a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, the Democrats lead by 12 points.

    Immigration’s role as an electoral issue has grown increasingly polarized. In CNN’s September/October poll, 44% of registered voters called immigration extremely important, on par with concerns ahead of the 2018 midterms. But Republican voters were 35 percentage points likelier than Democratic voters to call immigration extremely important, up from a 17-point gap four years ago.

    That partisan dynamic also plays out in which party is more trusted to handle immigration-related topics: In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, voters say by a 14-point margin that the GOP would do a better job than the Democratic Party on dealing with immigration. In the Fox poll, voters say by a 21-point margin that they trust the GOP over the Democrats to handle border security, making it by far the Republicans’ strongest issue by that metric.

    But with Republicans overwhelmingly focused on the economy, immigration isn’t at the forefront of many voters’ minds this year. In the latest CNN poll, just 9% of Republican voters and 4% of Democratic voters called it their top issue.

    This year also finds voters concerned about the electoral process. An 85% majority of registered voters in CNN’s September/October poll called “voting rights and election integrity” at least very important to their vote, with 61% calling those topics extremely important. Both 70% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans said the issue was extremely important, in comparison with a smaller 47% of independents. Seven in 10 registered voters in a Pew Research survey out in October said that “the future of democracy in the country” will be very important to their vote this year, with 58% saying the same about “policies about how elections and voting work in the country” – in each case, that included a majority of both voters supporting Democratic candidates and those supporting Republicans.

    But levels of concern can vary depending on how the issue is framed. In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 28% of registered voters, including 42% of Democrats, picked “preserving democracy” as the issue that’s top of mind for them in this election. In CNN’s latest poll, just 9% of likely voters, including 15% of Democrats, called “voting rights and election integrity” their top issue.

    The driving factors behind voters’ worries also vary significantly. In the Fox News poll, 37% of voters said they were extremely concerned about candidates and their supporters not accepting election results, while 32% were extremely concerned about voter fraud. In an October New York Times/Siena poll, about three-quarters (74%) of likely voters said they believed American democracy was currently under threat, but in a follow-up questioning asking them to summarize the threat they were envisioning, they diverged. Some cited specific politicians, most notably former President Donald Trump (10%) or President Joe Biden (6%), while others offered broad concerns about corruption or the government as a whole (13%).

    In CNN’s September/October poll, 43% of registered voters said that the phrase “working to protect democracy” better described the Democratic congressional candidates in their area, while 36% thought it better fit their local Republican candidates. In the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, voters said, 44% to 37%, that the Democratic Party would do a better job than the Republican Party of “dealing with preserving democracy.”

    Most voters in this year’s elections express concerns about guns and violent crime, but relatively few voters call either their top issue. There’s also a notable partisan divide depending on the framing, with Republicans more concerned about crime, and Democrats more attentive to gun policy.

    In a late October CBS News/YouGov poll, 65% of likely voters said crime would be very important to their vote, and 62% said gun policy would be very important. An 85% majority of Republican likely voters, compared with 47% of Democratic likely voters, called crime very important. By contrast, while 74% of Democratic likely voters called gun policy very important, a smaller 53% of Republican likely voters said the same.

    According to Gallup, voters’ prioritization of gun policy spiked this summer following a wave of high-profile mass shootings, before fading as a concern in the fall; the Pew Research Center polling found less significant changes in voters’ priorities over that time.

    Neither issue is currently widespread as a top concern. In the latest CNN poll, 7% of likely voters called gun policy their top issue, and just 3% said the same of crime.

    In an October Wall Street Journal poll, 43% of registered voters said they trusted Republicans in Congress more to handle reducing crime, compared with the 29% who said they trust Democrats in Congress. Voters who were instead asked about reducing “gun violence” gave Democrats a 7-point edge.

    The polling also reveals a few issues that aren’t receiving similarly widespread public attention this year. Among them is coronavirus, which just 27% of likely voters in the latest CBS News/YouGov poll called very important to their vote, rising to 44% among Democrats. Despite this year’s major climate change legislation, that issue ranked last among the seven issues CNN asked about in the September/October poll, with only 38% of registered voters calling it extremely important to their vote – although the issue had far more resonance among Democrats (60% of whom called it extremely important) and voters younger than age 35 (46% of whom did). And relatively few in the electorate are substantially focused on the war in Ukraine: in Fox’s polling, just 34% of registered voters said they were extremely concerned about Russia’s invasion of the country.

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  • Police deal with ‘disturbance’ involving armed detainees at London immigration center | CNN

    Police deal with ‘disturbance’ involving armed detainees at London immigration center | CNN

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Police were deployed to an immigration center near London Saturday following what they called a “disturbance.”

    Detainees inside the facility had armed themselves with knives and lumps of wood, CNN has learned.

    A spokesperson from the UK’s Home Office told CNN Saturday there had been a power outage at the Harmondsworth immigration removal center “and work is currently underway to resolve this issue.”

    They added “the welfare and safety of staff and individuals detained at Harmondsworth is our key priority.”

    Officers arrived at the Harmondsworth facility on Friday evening to “provide support to staff dealing with a disturbance” and remain there as of Saturday morning, a spokesperson for the city’s Metropolitan Police told CNN.

    There have been no reported injuries from the site, CNN has learned.

    It comes as the UK’s Home Office is under fire for its treatment of migrants and asylum-seekers, with London Mayor Sadiq Khan calling for an “urgent review.”

    A separate incident in which a man threw “crude incendiary devices” at Western Jet Foil Home immigration center in the southern English port of Dover last Sunday was motivated by extremism, police said.

    The UK’s counter-terrorism police department (CTPSE) said in a statement Saturday that the attack was motivated by a “terrorist ideology.”

    “After considering the evidence collected so far in this case, whilst there are strong indications that mental health was likely a factor, I am satisfied that the suspect’s actions were primarily driven by an extremist ideology. This meets the threshold for a terrorist incident,” said Tim Jacques, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.

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  • House January 6 committee gives Trump more time to turn over subpoenaed documents | CNN Politics

    House January 6 committee gives Trump more time to turn over subpoenaed documents | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, released a statement Friday outlining a new deadline for former President Donald Trump to turn over documents it subpoenaed.

    “We have informed the former President’s counsel that he must begin producing records no later than next week and he remains under subpoena for deposition testimony starting on November 14th,” the committee said in the statement.

    The panel subpoenaed Trump last month seeking a wide array of documents by 10 a.m. Friday and for Trump to sit for an interview under oath beginning on November 14 and “continuing on subsequent days as necessary.”

    The committee also said it “received correspondence from the former President and his counsel in connection with the Select Committee’s subpoena” but did not provide additional information.

    CNN has reached out to Trump and his attorneys for comment.

    Lawyers for Trump had accepted service of the subpoena from the committee as of October 26, according to sources familiar with the matter. Trump has criticized the committee but not said whether he would comply with the subpoena.

    On the day the subpoena was announced, Trump’s attorney David Warrington said in a statement the committee was “flouting norms and appropriate and customary process” by publicly releasing the subpoena and that his legal team would “respond as appropriate to this unprecedented action.”

    The Trump lawyers tapped to deal with the committee’s subpoena demands have been coordinating with other members of the former president’s legal team while determining how to proceed, according to a source familiar with the matter.

    Despite operating as two separate teams, the lawyers who are focused on addressing the committee’s subpoena are consulting with attorneys representing Trump in the Justice Department’s criminal probe related to January 6, the source said, noting there are areas of potential overlap between the two separate legal matters.

    Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chairwoman of the committee, previously said the committee was “in discussions” with Trump’s attorneys about testifying under oath in the probe. But it remains unclear whether those discussions will lead to him sitting for a deposition.

    A letter from the committee that accompanied the subpoena summarized what the panel presented in a series of hearings to demonstrate why it believes Trump “personally orchestrated and oversaw” the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    In the subpoena, the committee demanded Trump turn over any communications sent or received during from Election Day on November 3, 2020, to Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021, with more than a dozen of his close allies who have emerged as key players in the broader plan to overturn the 2020 election.

    It also asked Trump to turn over all records of phone calls, text messages or communications with any members of Congress from December 18, 2020, to January 6, 2021; all of his communications on January 6 specifically, and any communications or efforts to contact other witnesses in the committee’s investigation.

    The broad document request even asked for all documents and communications relating or referring “in any way” to members of the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, or other extremist groups from September 1, 2020, to the present. The panel’s document request spans 19 different categories.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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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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  • 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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  • Biden’s plea for democracy is a strong election-closing argument for a different election | CNN Politics

    Biden’s plea for democracy is a strong election-closing argument for a different election | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Joe Biden’s eloquent defense of democracy was a message Americans needed to hear. But it was not the one voters most want now from their president – that relief is at hand from the soaring cost of living.

    Biden’s speech Wednesday, delivered blocks from the US Capitol that was ransacked by ex-President Donald Trump’s mob on January 6, 2021, was a strong election-closing argument. But for an election other than the one taking place next week.

    That’s not to say that the warning was misplaced. The fact that Biden felt the need to say, “We can’t take democracy for granted any longer,” underscores the grave threat posed to America’s core values by political violence and election denialism. If a president does not safeguard this historic legacy, who will? The chaos and violence Trump incited after the 2020 election show what unfolds when a president chooses to try to destroy democracy for personal gain.

    Biden’s speech was deeply personal, reflecting his own view of the mission handed him by history. It was also highly political given that the midterm elections, which feature scores of pro-Trump candidates spouting his stolen election nonsense, are only five days away. And it came days after the latest shocking example of political violence – the attack on the 82-year-old husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And since Biden launched his 2020 campaign as a quest to save America’s soul from what he sees as the aspiring autocracy of Trump, it was a statement of a mission unaccomplished – as well as a potential opening volley of a possible 2024 showdown for the White House between the 45th and 46th presidents.

    “You have the power, it’s your choice, it’s your decision, the fate of the nation, the fate of the soul of America lies, as it always does, with the people,” Biden told voters.

    Elections should be about more than one thing. Voters can walk and chew gum at the same time. But the harsh truth is this: In Washington, where just a glimpse of the towering Capitol dome reminds politicians and their media chroniclers of the January 6 horror, the threat to democracy feels visceral.

    But in the heartlands of Pennsylvania, the suburbs of Arizona and cities everywhere, the gut check issue is less the somewhat abstract and age-old concept of self-government. It’s the more basic one of feeding a family. This is an election more about the cost of a cart full of groceries or the price of a gallon of gasoline than America’s founding truths.

    As Scottsdale, Arizona, retiree Patricia Strong told CNN’s Tami Luhby: “The price of everything was better during Trump,” adding, “We were looking forward to retirement because everything was good.”

    Declining stock markets have hurt retirement accounts and Americans with credit card debt took another blow Wednesday when the Federal Reserve raised its short-term borrowing rate by another 0.75%. There are fears the Fed’s strategy could pitch the economy into recession and ruin one of the best aspects of the Biden economy – the low unemployment rate.

    Biden’s argument is implicitly that while inflation will fall, and economic damage can be repaired, the current election – and its legions of anti-democratic Republican candidates – could cause political wreckage that is beyond mending.

    But it’s a tough case to make in such a doom-laden political environment for Democrats. The millions of Republicans who believe Trump’s falsehoods about the last election don’t listen to Biden and his call for national unity anyway. His low approval ratings don’t help. And in a new CNN/SSRS survey published on Wednesday, for instance, 51% of Americans said inflation and the economy was most driving their vote in the midterms. Abortion – the issue Democrats hoped would save them next Tuesday after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer – was the only other concern in double figures, polling at 15% of likely voters. And voting rights and election integrity – the focus of the president’s speech on Wednesday night – polled at only 9%.

    But Biden effectively asked voters to make a concern well down the list of their priorities the decisive factor when they cast their ballots.

    “This year, I hope you’ll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote, and how you vote,” he said. “Will that person accept the outcome of the election, win or lose?” he added, at the end of a campaign in which several GOP nominees have not guaranteed they would accept voters’ will.

    In places where Biden is unpopular, Democrats in tight races have made an explicit point about distancing themselves from the national party.

    “You know, the national Democratic Party has never been really good at strategic political decisions. So you know, it is not a surprise here, and thank God that I have enough experience that I’ve built this campaign not needing them and we really don’t want them at this point. We’re gonna do this thing with all the grassroots people we have here,” Rep. Tim Ryan, who is in a tight race for US Senate in Ohio against J.D. Vance, told “CNN This Morning” on Thursday.

    It’s not that Biden hasn’t been also talking about high prices. His pitch is that the billions of dollars of spending in his domestic agenda will lower the cost of health care, lift up working families and create millions of jobs. That may be the case, but things that could happen in the future can’t ease the pain being felt now.

    While Biden may be talking at cross purposes with the electorate on these issues, they are linked, in a fateful way, that he did not mention in his speech at Union Station on Wednesday evening. The president’s failure – whether it is all his fault or not – to quell inflation and the worries of a nation already demoralized by a once-in-a-century pandemic created the electoral conditions that look likely to restore Trumpism to power, in the form of a volatile, extreme GOP majority in the House of Representatives at least, with the Senate still on a knife’s edge.

    Throughout history, inflation has often been a pernicious political force that breeds desperation in an electorate and seeds extremism as a potential response. That’s why politicians fear it so acutely and why it is so curious that the Biden White House initially didn’t take the surge of prices that seriously, repeatedly insisting that this was a “transitory” problem caused by Covid-19.

    The president also renewed his call for national unity that he delivered in his inaugural address in front of a still violence-scarred Capitol in 2021. He explained that American democracy was primarily under attack because “the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election.”

    “He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution. And he’s made the Big Lie an article of faith in the MAGA Republican Party – a minority of that party,” Biden said, being careful not to insult every GOP voter as he did when referring to “semi-fascism” earlier this year.

    The president also argued that Trump’s threat was far broader now than it was in the 2020 election. “As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America: for governor, Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state who won’t commit – who will not commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re running in,” the president warned.

    Biden also hinted at a lack of understanding of Trump’s MAGA supporters, who have embraced his anti-democratic, populist, nationalist appeal to mainly White voters, which grew out of a backlash to the first Black presidency of Barack Obama. The 44th president has been making his own searing defenses of democracy and repudiation of Trump on the midterm election campaign trail in recent days.

    “You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said. The president is right – the essence of democracy depends on the loser in an election accepting the verdict of the people. This is why Trump’s behavior was so noxious in 2020 since his refusal to admit defeat did not just ruin one election. It tore at the fundamental principle of the political system that made America great two-and-a-half centuries before Trump’s political career and caused damage that will long outlast the shockwaves of one administration.

    But the essence of the Trump message exists in direct contradiction to Biden’s logic. Such voters can only love their country when their party wins because they see the Democrats that they lose to as the antipathy of their vision of America itself. These dueling understandings of what America actually means are at the core of the current, great political struggle that will not just play out next Tuesday, but in the 2024 election and beyond.

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  • Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn Nets each to donate $500,000 to anti-hate organizations; NBA star takes ‘responsibility’ for negative impact of tweets | CNN

    Kyrie Irving, Brooklyn Nets each to donate $500,000 to anti-hate organizations; NBA star takes ‘responsibility’ for negative impact of tweets | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets announced on Wednesday that they will both donate $500,000 towards anti-hate organizations after the point guard tweeted a documentary deemed to be antisemitic last week.

    In a joint statement between Irving, Nets and the Anti-Defamation League – a “nonprofit organization devoted to fighting antisemitism and all types of hate that undermine justice and fair treatment for every individual” – the 30-year-old said he took “responsibility” for the “negative impact” his post had towards the Jewish community.

    “I oppose all forms of hatred and oppression and stand strong with communities that are marginalized and impacted every day,” Irving said.

    “I am aware of the negative impact of my post towards the Jewish community and I take responsibility. I do not believe everything said in the documentary was true or reflects my morals and principles.

    “I am a human being learning from all walks of life and I intend to do so with an open mind and a willingness to listen. So from my family and I, we meant no harm to any one group, race or religion of people, and wish to only be a beacon of truth and light.”

    Irving was condemned last week by, among others, Nets owner Joe Tsai and the NBA for tweeting a link to the 2018 movie “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America.”

    The movie is based on Ronald Dalton’s book of the same name, which has been blasted as being antisemitic by civil rights groups.

    Earlier this week, NBA analyst and Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said he thought the league “dropped the ball” on Irving and that he believed Irving should have been suspended.

    On Tuesday, when asked why Irving had not been disciplined for his actions, Nets general manager Sean Marks told reporters: “I think we are having these discussions behind the scenes.

    “I honestly don’t want to really get into those right now. … Really just trying to weigh out exactly what the best course of action is here.”

    NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says he is “disappointed” with Irving after the guard did not offer an apology nor denounce the “harmful content contained in the film he chose to publicize.” Silver will meet with Irving in the next week, the commissioner said in a statement Thursday.

    “Kyrie Irving made a reckless decision to post a link to a film containing deeply offensive antisemitic material,” Silver said. “While we appreciate the fact that he agreed to work with the Brooklyn Nets and the Anti-Defamation League to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, I am disappointed that he has not offered an unqualified apology and more specifically denounced the vile and harmful content contained in the film he chose to publicize.”

    Irving was not made available to the media on Monday or Tuesday following Nets games on those days.

    The joint statement said the donations were made to “eradicate hate and intolerance in our communities.”

    “This is an effort to develop educational programming that is inclusive and will comprehensively combat all forms of antisemitism and bigotry,” the statement read.

    Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO, said: “At a time when antisemitism has reached historic levels, we know the best way to fight the oldest hatred is to both confront it head-on and also to change hearts and minds.

    “With this partnership, ADL will work with the Nets and Kyrie to open dialogue and increase understanding.

    Irving talks with now-former head coach Steve Nash during a game against the San Antonio Spurs on Friday, January 21, 2022.

    “At the same time, we will maintain our vigilance and call out the use of anti-Jewish stereotypes and tropes – whatever, whoever, or wherever the source – as we work toward a world without hate.”

    Kanye West, who has been criticized following antisemitic remarks on social media and in interviews, showed his support for Irving, tweeting a picture of the guard on Thursday.

    Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has previously said Jewish people have too much control over the business world.

    He threatened in a Twitter post to “Go death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” He also ranted in an Instagram post about Ari Emanuel, CEO of the talent agency Endeavor, referencing “business” people when he clearly meant Jews.

    Last Friday, he told paparazzi that his mental health issues had been misdiagnosed by a Jewish doctor, made reference to Jewish ownership of media and compared Planned Parenthood to the Holocaust.

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