Month: August 2019

Once the epicenter of the self-declared “Islamic State” that ruled over parts of Syria and Iraq, Raqqa is slowly recovering after its liberation even though occasional attacks by extremists are on the rise.  There is a lingering fear among Raqqa residents that IS sleeper cells will rise up and take their revenge against those who are now living in peace with the authorities that defeated the militants and put an end to the harsh version of Islamic Law that guided their rule.  VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Raqqa, Syria.

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A four-legged hero who saved then-President Barack Obama from a White House intruder is now an award-winner in Britain.

Hurricane, a former Secret Service dog, has earned the Order of Merit from British veterinary charity PDSA. He’s the first foreigner to win the honor, to be bestowed at a London ceremony in October.

The Belgian Malinois intercepted an intruder who scaled the White House fence in October 2014. The intruder swung Hurricane around, punching and kicking him, but the dog dragged him to the ground, allowing Secret Service agents to intercept him. Obama, home at the time, was not harmed. 

Handler Marshall Mirarchi described Hurricane as a “legend” within the service after the attack. Mirarchi said injuries suffered in the incident contributed to Hurricane’s 2016 retirement from the Secret Service.

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When President Donald Trump levied tariffs on China that scrambled global markets, farmer Randy Miller was willing to absorb the financial hit. Even as the soybeans in his fields about an hour south of Des Moines became less valuable, Miller saw long-term promise in Trump’s efforts to rebalance America’s trade relationship with Beijing.

“The farmer plays the long game,” said Miller, who grows soybeans and corn and raises pigs in Lacona. “I look at my job through my son, my grandkids. So am I willing to suffer today to get this done to where I think it will be better for them? Yes.”

But the patience of Miller and many other Midwest farmers with a president they mostly supported in 2016 is being put sorely to the test.

The trigger wasn’t Trump’s China tariffs, but the waivers the administration granted this month to 31 oil refineries so they don’t have to blend ethanol into their gasoline. Since roughly 40% of the U.S. corn crop is turned into ethanol, it was a fresh blow to corn producers already struggling with five years of low commodity prices and the threat of mediocre harvests this fall after some of the worst weather in years.

“That flashpoint was reached and the frustration boiled over, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Lynn Chrisp, who grows corn and soybeans near Hastings, Nebraska, and is president of the National Corn Growers Association.
“I’ve never seen farmers so tired, so frustrated, and they’re to the point of anger,” says Kelly Nieuwenhuis, a farmer from Primghar in northwest Iowa who said the waivers were a hot topic at a recent meeting of the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Nieuwenhuis said he voted for Trump in 2016, but now he’s not sure who he’ll support in 2020.

While Iowa farmer Miller saw Trump’s brinkmanship with China as a necessary gamble to help American workers, the ethanol waivers smacked to him of favoritism for a wealthy and powerful industry _ Big Oil.

“That’s our own country stabbing us in the back,” Miller said. “That’s the president going, the oil companies need to make more than the American farmer. … That was just, `I like the oil company better or I’m friends with the oil company more than I’m friends with the farmer.”

The Environmental Protection Agency last month kept its annual target for the level of corn ethanol that must be blended into the nation’s gasoline supply under the Renewable Fuel Standard at 15 billion gallons (56.78 billion liters) for 2020. That was a deep disappointment to an ethanol industry that wanted a higher target to offset exemptions granted to smaller refiners. Those waivers have cut demand by an estimated 2.6 billion gallons (9.84 billion liters) since Trump took office.

At least 15 ethanol plants already have been shut down or idled since the EPA increased waivers under Trump, and a 16th casualty came Wednesday at the Corn Plus ethanol plant in the south-central Minnesota town of Winnebago. The Renewable Fuels Association says the closures have affected more than 2,500 jobs.

The 31 new waivers issued this month came on top of 54 granted since early 2018, according to the association. While the waivers are intended to reduce hardships on small oil refiners, some beneficiaries include smaller refineries owned by big oil companies.

The administration knows it has a problem. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at a farm policy summit in Decatur, Illinois, on Wednesday that Trump will take action to soften the effects. He would not say what the president might do or when, but said Trump believes the waivers by his EPA were “way overdone.”

Geoff Cooper, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, said the heads of the EPA and Agriculture Department and key White House officials have been discussing relief, and said his group has been talking with officials involved in those conversations. He said they’ve heard the plan may include reallocating the ethanol demand lost from the exempted smaller refiners to larger refiners that would pick up the slack, but many key details remain unclear, including whether the reallocation would apply in 2020 or be delayed until 2021.

“Anything short of that redistribution or reallocation is not going to be well received by farmers, I’ll tell you that,” Cooper said.

The White House referred questions to the EPA, where spokesman Michael Abboud said that the agency would “continue to consult” on the best path forward.

Meanwhile, the oil industry has spoken out against some of the steps Trump has taken to try to appease the farmers, including allowing year-round sales of gasoline with more ethanol mixed in.

“We hope the administration walks back from the brink of a disastrous political decision that punishes American drivers. Bad policy is bad politics,” Frank Macchiarola, a vice president for the American Petroleum Institute trade group, said in a statement.

Another example of the tensions came last week when the Agriculture Department pulled its staffers out of the ProFarmer Crop Tour, an annual assessment of Midwest crop yields, in response to an unspecified threat. The agency said it came from “someone not involved with the tour” and Federal Protective Services was investigating.

Despite farmers’ mounting frustrations, there’s little evidence so far that many farmers who backed Trump in 2016 will desert him in 2020. Many are still pleased with his rollbacks in other regulations. Cultural issues such as abortion or gun rights are important to many of them. And many are wary of a Democratic Party they see as growing more liberal.

Miller, too, says he’s still inclined to support Trump in the next election.

Though Trump has inserted new uncertainty into Miller’s own financial situation, he believes the president has been good for the economy as a whole. And as a staunch opponent of abortion, he sees no viable alternatives in the Democratic presidential field.

Chrisp, too, says he doesn’t see an acceptable Democratic alternative. Still, he cautioned Republicans against taking farmers for granted.

“We’re not a chip in the political game, though I’m certain there are folks who are political strategists who view us that way, but it’s not the case,” he said.

Brian Thalmann, who farms near Plato in south-central Minnesota and serves as president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, confronted Perdue at a trade show this month about Trump’s recent statements that farmers are starting to do well again.

“Things are going downhill and downhill very quickly,” Thalmann told Perdue.

Thalmann, who voted for Trump in 2016, said this week that he can’t support him at the moment. He said farmers have worked too hard to build up markets and the reputation of American farm products and “I can’t see agriculture getting dragged down the path it currently is.”

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Wednesday that he had accepted the help of four Chilean aircraft in the fight against wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, and he renewed his criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron. 
 
Bolsonaro again accused the French leader of calling him a liar over a dispute about how to contain the raging wildfires. He said Macron believed himself to be “the one and only person interested in defending the environment.” 
 
Bolsonaro’s remarks came one day after he said his country would accept $20 million in aid from Group of Seven countries to battle the wildfires only if Macron retracted what Bolsonaro considered offensive remarks. 
 
He initially said Tuesday that Macron had accused him of being a liar and demanded that Macron retract his comments. 
 
“From there, we can talk,” Bolsonaro said. 
 
Bolsonaro rejected the aid Monday, declaring the funds could be better used in Europe. 
 
Amazon nations’ meeting

After a meeting Wednesday with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera in Brasilia, Bolsonaro said Amazon nations, except Venezuela, would meet in Colombia Sept. 6 “to come up with our own unified strategy for preserving the environment.” 
 
A statement Wednesday from the two South American leaders acknowledged environmental challenges must be met, but only by respecting “national sovereignty.”  
 
While Bolsonaro said Brazil was willing to accept “bilateral” offers of aid, he accused Germany and France of trying to “buy” the sovereignty of Brazil.  

Macron has questioned Bolsonaro’s honesty and commitment to protecting the environment. He threatened last week to block a free-trade deal between Latin America and the European Union unless Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic, took serious steps to fight the Amazon fires.  
 
World leaders at the recently concluded G-7 summit in France of the world’s most advanced economies committed an immediate $20 million on Monday to fight the wildfires that are threatening the world’s biggest rainforest. 
 
Macron said France within hours would provide military support in the region to fight the fires. 
 
Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, took aim at Macron on Tuesday, declaring Brazil was a nation that “never had colonialist and imperialist practices, as perhaps is the objective of the Frenchman Macron.” 
 
Lorenzoni also said Macron could not “even avoid a foreseeable fire in a church that is a world heritage site,” a reference to an April fire that devastated France’s Notre-Dame Cathedral. 

Aid for Africa
 
Macron and Pinera said the G-7 countries — the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and France — were studying the possibility of giving similar aid to support Africa to fight wildfires in its rainforests. 
 
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump pledged his “complete support” for Bolsonaro. In a tweet, Trump said Bolsonaro “is working very hard on the Amazon fires and in all respects doing a great job for the people of Brazil – Not easy.”  
 
Under pressure from the international community to protect the environment, Bolsonaro on Sunday dispatched two C-130 Hercules aircraft to help douse the flames. Macron said the U.S. supported the aid to South American countries, even though Trump skipped Monday’s G-7 working session on the environment. 
 
More than 75,000 fires covering the Amazon region have been detected this year, with many of them coming this month. Experts have blamed farmers and ranchers for the fires, accusing them of setting them to clear lands for their operations. 
 
About 60% of the Amazon region is in Brazil. The vast rainforest also extends into Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. 

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After celebrating her two-decade-plus career at the MTV Video Music Awards with a performance featuring a slew of her hits, Missy Elliott knew she did a great job when the first text she received after the performance was from another musical icon and longtime friend: Janet Jackson.

“She was like, ‘You shut that [expletive] down,'” Elliott said, laughing in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, a day after the VMAs. “And just to know that Janet even said that word was amazing. And I was like, ‘OK, I must have done good for her to use that [word].'”

Elliott, who has collaborated musically with Jackson in the past, received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award on Monday night for the eccentric and vibrant music videos that helped establish her as a trailblazer on the music scene.

The 48-year-old Grammy winner said the road to creating iconic videos was not easy. She said in the “She’s a B—h” clip, which includes a scene where she and others are submerged, two of the dancers “had asthma attacks just from being underwater.”

For “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” — her 1997 debut single where she wore an inflated trash bag — she recalls walking “to the gas station to use the air pump … in Brooklyn to pump up the suit, and then realized I was too big to fit in the car, so we had to walk … on the main street in this outfit all the way to set, and it had deflated.”

She confirmed that the bees in the “Work It” video were in fact real. And in the “Pass that Dutch” clip when she was lifted up and rapping from a cornfield, “they dropped me on my knees; I thought my kneecaps had broken.”

“I was just doing these videos and … it wasn’t like I was doing them and trying to make a point for later down the line. I was just doing it,” she said. “A lot of people say, ‘Hey you should have gotten [this award] a long time ago and I realize that I’m a spiritual person and so I always say, ‘I’m on God’s time.’ And so whenever God says it was time for me to have it is the correct time.”

Elliott’s VMA performance also included the well-known hits “Lose Control” and “Get Ur Freak On,” as well as “Throw It Back,” the first single from her new EP “Iconology,” released last week. Her performance also featured dancer and actress Alyson Stoner, who first gained fame as the young child who danced with skill in the “Work It” video.

“It’s been 17 years since we shot that video,” Elliott said. “I couldn’t have done it without [Alyson]. I was like, ‘I’ve got to have Alyson in here because everywhere I went since then people have always been like, ‘What happened to that little girl that used to be in your ‘Work It’ video?'”

At the VMAs, Elliott also honored late R&B singer Aaliyah when she gave her acceptance speech. Elliott and Timbaland wrote and produced a number of hits for Aaliyah, from “One In a Million” to “4 Page Letter.” 
 
“I always pay tribute to her. And I’m always in contact with her brother, you know, checking on them. Even though each year makes it a year longer, it always still feels like it was yesterday,” Elliott said of Aaliyah, who was killed in a plane crash 18 years ago last Sunday. 
 
“I could still hear her laughter and I could see her smile and almost kind of could sense what she would be like today. She’s always been a risk taker and never a follower because when she chose to work with Timbaland and myself, we had style that was so different; she could have picked any other producer and writer that was already hot and popping,” she continued. “We hadn’t had anything out but she heard something in us and so I know that she would have just been setting the bar high.”

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Pinterest said it would try to combat misinformation about vaccines by showing only information from health organizations when people search. 
 
Social media sites have been trying to combat the spread of misinformation about vaccines. Pinterest previously tried blocking all searches for vaccines, with mixed results. 
 
Now searches for “measles,” “vaccine safety” and related terms will bring up results from such groups as the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the WHO-established Vaccine Safety Net. 
 
Pinterest won’t show ads or other users’ posts, as they may contain misinformation.  
  
“We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” Pinterest said Wednesday in a blog post. 
 
Though anti-vaccine sentiments have been around for as long as vaccines have existed, health experts worry that anti-vaccine propaganda can spread more quickly on social media. The misinformation includes soundly debunked notions that vaccines cause autism or that mercury preservatives and other substances in them can harm people. 
 
Experts say the spread of such information can push parents who are worried about vaccines toward refusing to inoculate their children, leading to a comeback of various diseases. 

Spike in measles cases
 
Measles outbreaks have spiked in the U.S. this year to their highest number in more than 25 years.  
  
In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed people “listening to that superstitious mumbo jumbo on the internet” for a rising incidence of measles in that country. The government plans to call a summit of social media companies to discuss what more they can do to fight online misinformation, though details are still being worked out. 
 
Facebook said in March that it would no longer recommend groups and pages that spread hoaxes about vaccines and that it would reject ads that do this. But anti-vax information still slips through. 
 
The WHO praised Pinterest’s move and encouraged other social media companies to follow. 
 
“Misinformation about vaccination has spread far and fast on social media platforms in many different countries,” the statement said. “We see this as a critical issue and one that needs our collective effort to protect people’s health and lives.” 

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OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and its owners, the Sackler family, are in discussion to settle more than 2,000 opioid lawsuits against the company for $10 billion to $12 billion, two people familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

Purdue is among several drugmakers and distributors that have been sued for fueling an opioid addiction crisis in the United States, which claimed 400,000 lives from 1999 to 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The lawsuits have accused the Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma of aggressively marketing prescription opioids while misleading prescribers and consumers about risks from their prolonged use. Purdue and the Sacklers have denied the allegations.

Purdue said it was actively working with state attorneys general and other plaintiffs to reach a resolution, without specifying a settlement amount.

There is currently no agreement and the settlement discussions could collapse, the sources said.

Representatives for Purdue and the Sackler family held discussions with cities, counties and states on the contours of the potential multibillion-dollar settlement last week in Cleveland, said a person familiar with the matter.

During the meeting, Purdue outlined a plan to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a mechanism for implementing the settlement, which the company hopes will address the lawsuits, the person said.

The Sacklers would cede control of Purdue under the settlement terms discussed last week, the person said.

All the parties face a Friday deadline to update a federal judge on the status of the negotiations, the person said.

The company has said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved labels for OxyContin that warned about risk and abuse associated with treating pain. The Sacklers have argued they were passive board members who approved routine management requests rather than micromanaging the marketing of OxyContin.

Restructuring

The settlement offer was first reported by NBC. Paul Hanly, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs, in an email, replied only “Made up. Ridiculous,” when asked to confirm NBC’s report. Asked to clarify after Reuters confirmed the report, he did not respond.

Representatives for the Sackler family declined to comment and a representative for the state attorneys general did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The plan under discussion envisions Purdue restructuring into a for-profit “public benefit trust” that would last for at least a decade, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Purdue would contribute between $7 billion and $8 billion to the trust, with some of the money coming from the sales of its drugs, including those that combat opioid overdoses, the person said. Three experts would be approved by a bankruptcy judge as trustees who would select board members to run the trust, this person said.

The Sackler family, which has amassed an estimated $13 billion fortune over the years, is also weighing a possible sale of another pharmaceutical firm it owns called Mundipharma, with some of the proceeds potentially going toward the settlement under discussion, the person said.

David Sackler, one of a handful of family members who previously sat on Purdue’s board, was present for the discussions in the meeting last week, which included at least 10 state attorneys general, the person said.

Purdue is set on Oct. 21 to go on trial for the first time over about 2,000 federal lawsuits, largely by local governments, accusing several drug makers and distributors of fueling the epidemic.

Other companies set to face trial include drugmakers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and Johnson & Johnson and drug distributors McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and AmerisourceBergen Corp.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland, Ohio, who oversees the lawsuits, has been pushing for settlements that could “do something meaningful to abate this crisis.”

Bankruptcy protection 

Purdue, the Sacklers and the communities involved face high-stakes negotiations and Purdue has been preparing for filing for bankruptcy protection in case it cannot reach an agreement.

Going into Chapter 11 would give Purdue the exclusive right for several months to propose a reorganization plan, which if approved by a U.S. bankruptcy judge could be forced on any local governments who decide to hold out.

Some state attorneys general have said they will resist any attempt by Purdue to use bankruptcy.

New York Attorney General Letitia James subpoenaed Wall Street banks, Purdue corporate entities and family offices in mid-August for records related to the Sackler family’s finances, according to court records.

In a letter to a judge in an earlier lawsuit, her office characterized payouts to the Sacklers from Purdue as fraudulent conveyances, a legal designation for clawing back money during bankruptcy proceedings.

“The opioid epidemic has ravaged American communities for over a decade, while a single family has made billions profiting from death and destruction,” James said in a statement. “We won’t let up until we have delivered justice.”

A lawyer representing the Sackler family said in a statement that the New York attorney general’s “current claims are without merit and the subpoenas are improper.”

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Explosions hit two police checkpoints in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing three officers and wounding several other Palestinians, the Hamas-run interior ministry said, declaring a state of emergency after the blasts.

Such attacks on Hamas, which has the most powerful armed apparatus in the enclave, were rare.

Interior ministry spokesman, Eyad Al-Bozom, said security forces were making progress in their pursuit of those behind the explosions, but he did not disclose further details.

“The sinful hands that carried out this crime will not escape punishment,” said Bozom.

A spokesman for the Israeli military said he knew of no involvement by Israel in the back-to-back incidents in Gaza city at a time of simmering cross-border confrontations with Hamas, the Palestinian enclave’s ruling Islamists.

The first blast destroyed a motorcycle as it passed a police checkpoint, witnesses said. Two police officers were killed and a third Palestinian wounded. It was not immediately clear if the riders were among the casualties.

The second explosion, less than an hour later, killed one officer and wounded several people at a police checkpoint elsewhere in the city, the interior ministry said. The ministry declared a state of emergency throughout Gaza, putting security forces on alert.

Hamas, which took over Gaza in a 2007 civil war with the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has at times faced internal opposition from more stringent Islamist militants aligned with al Qaeda or Islamic State.

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Financial records related to U.S. President Donald Trump and three of his children that congressional Democrats have requested from Deutsche Bank AG include tax returns, the bank disclosed in a court filing on Tuesday.

Two committees in the U.S. House of Representatives subpoenaed Deutsche Bank in April to provide financial records belonging to the president and his children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump.

Deutsche Bank’s filing, in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, revealed that it had tax returns that it would need to hand over if it complied with the subpoenas, which the Trumps are seeking to block. It was not clear whose tax returns it had, because names were redacted from the filing.

A lawyer for the Trumps could not immediately be reached for comment. Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

The disclosure comes as Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee are seeking to obtain Trump’s personal and business tax returns, which the president has refused to turn over, from the Treasury Department.

Deutsche Bank has long been a principal lender for Trump’s real estate business. A 2017 disclosure form showed that Trump had at least $130 million of liabilities to the bank.

The subpoenas on Deutsche Bank, issued by the House Financial Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, seek records of accounts, transactions and investments linked to Trump and the three named children, their immediate family members and several Trump Organization entities, including records of possible ties to foreign entities.

Deutsche Bank said in Tuesday’s filing that it also had tax returns for people who “may constitute ‘immediate family'” as defined by the subpoenas, without giving any names.

A lawyer for the Trumps last week urged the 2nd Circuit to block the bank from handing over the records, saying Congress did not have the authority to demand them. The court has not yet ruled on the case.

The Trumps are also seeking to block a separate subpoena served by the Financial Services Committee on Capital One Financial Corp seeks records related to the Trump Organization’s hotel business.

Capital One said in a court filing on Tuesday that it did not have any tax returns related to the subpoena.

The bank did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. 2nd Circuit judges had ordered both banks to disclose whether they had tax returns last week.

Before Trump, the custom for modern U.S. presidential candidates was to reveal their income tax returns during their campaigns.

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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday she is open to dialogue with protesters, but that the government will not tolerate violence.

“If violence continues, the only thing that we should do is to stamp out that violence through law enforcement actions,” Lam said.

She said it would be inappropriate for the government to accept the demands of protesters who resort to violence and harassment.

“We want to put an end to the chaotic situation in Hong Kong through law enforcement,” Lam said. “At the same time, we will not give up on building a platform for dialogue.”

Lam has made few public comments through several months of demonstrations that began with a call for stopping an extradition bill and expanded to include demands for full democracy.

Protesters have plans to continue the demonstrations, which represent the biggest threat to peace in the Asian finance center since Britain handed over control of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The protesters say they are demonstrating against what they see as an erosion of rights under the “one country, two systems” arrangement under which Beijing assumed control of the territory.

Police arrested more than 80 people during protests Saturday and Sunday that included clashes with officers.

The police blamed protesters for “escalating and illegal violent acts,” while a group of pro-democracy lawmakers said it was police actions that were “totally unnecessary.”

Lawmaker Andrew Wan said police had provoked protesters to occupy a road already blocked by officers, and that government and police actions during the weeks of protests have caused a “hatred among the people.”

“I think the ultimate responsibility should be on the police side.  That is what I observed,” Wan said at a Monday news conference.

The vast majority of the thousands of protesters marched peacefully Sunday, but police at times fired bursts of tear gas at wildcat demonstrators who broke away from the largest groups. Officers also used water cannons for the first time in responding to protesters.

Some of the protesters threw bricks at police, attacked them with sticks and rods and sprayed detergent on streets to make it slippery for police.

In France, leaders of the Group of Seven countries meeting in Biarritz backed Hong Kong’s autonomy and called for “avoiding violence.” 

“The G-7 reaffirms the existence and the importance of the 1984 Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong,” according to a joint statement, referring to a deal between Britain and China that calls for Hong Kong to be part of China, but autonomous.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that the leaders of the G-7 all expressed “deep concern” about the situation in Hong Kong.

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