Chris Hedges's Blog, page 131

The Media’s Dangerous False Balance on Anti-Fascism

Right-wing terror is a feature of daily life in present-day America. Ostensibly spontaneous violence incubates in the same ideological ecosystem as organized reactionary political associations.

Tribute to victims at the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in Pittsburgh. (photo: Wikimedia)

Robert Bowers, the man arrested for a rampage that killed seven at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, was seemingly steeped in the ultra-right’s internal online debates, blaming Jews and Muslims for what he sees as the “certain extinction” toward which Americans and “Western Civilization” are supposedly headed. Right before the killing spree, Bowers posted on Gab, a social media platform used by white nationalists, that he “can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered,” singling out HIAS, a pro-refugee organization that Tree of Life supports, as a particular villain.

Bowers is a believer in “white genocide,” a white-supremacist delusion that holds that demographic and social changes in the US and other countries—such as immigration, an increase in multiracial children, multiculturalism and feminism — are all part of a plot to exterminate the white race.

A massacre in El Paso left 20 dead, and the suspect appears to have posted an anti-immigrant manifesto immediately before the rampage that echoes white-nationalist talking points on the supposed threat of the “ethnic displacement” of white people; it warns against “race mixing,” and refers to immigrants as “invaders.”

Meanwhile, hate crimes in America rose by 9% in 2018, the fifth consecutive year of increase and a trend that so far continues into 2019. The most frequently targeted groups were black, Jewish and LGBTQ people; almost all the hate-based murders were carried out by white supremacists and misogynists, and none were attributable to leftists.

Fascists march in Charlottesville (cc photo: Tony Crider)

This is the backdrop against which conflicts between fascists and antifascists must be considered, particularly as the movements on the vanguard of the American right are implicated in violent attacks of their own.

The Proud Boys are a group of violent neo-fascists who are anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-transgender people. Violence is in the organization’s very DNA. Their initiation rituals involve applicants being beaten by people in the group, as well as prospective members “serv[ing] the ‘cause’ . . . by engaging in a physical brawl with members of ‘antifa.’” In October of last year, after a New York City lecture by the organization’s founder, Gavin McInnes, a mob of Proud Boys was captured on video beating several men while yelling homophobic slurs. Ten Proud Boys were charged in the assault, and two have been convicted.

Patriot Prayer is a violent, radical right-wing group. In 2018, Patriot Prayer members were arrested for assaulting multiple people in Portland. On August 3, Portland police arrested six members of the organization, including its leader, Joey Gibson, for attacking antifascists on May Day; the group has also been caught on video planning assaults.

The Three Percenters are an armed anti-migrant group;  one of its most well-known leaders, Chris Hill led an armed protest against the construction of a mosque. Earlier this year, three men tied to the group were sentenced to a combined 81 years in prison for plotting to bomb Somali and Muslim communities in Kansas.

American Guard, which the Southern Poverty Law Center considers a hate group, has members who previously belonged to the KKK. Brien James, who founded American Guard in Indiana in 2016, is alleged to have punched and stomped a man to the brink of death at a party for refusing to “seig heil,” and has boasted of being “tried for attempted murder and multiple batteries and hate crimes,” as well as having a Joint Terrorism Task Force file “a mile long”; in 2006, he was part of a group that beat up a rival fascist in front of the latter’s wife and daughter.

Antifa activist, Portland (cc photo: Old White Truck)

Antifascists organize to try to stop these movements as one prong of an effort to build a more equal world. “Antifa” refers to one set of tactics used to physically confront such groups; Cornel West says that antifa saved his life and those of other nonviolent protestors resisting the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Maximillian Alvarez, a writer and PhD candidate who organizes with the Campus Antifascist Network, says that contemporary antifascists “rely on collective, autonomous, grassroots power to disrupt, expose, block and overwhelm fascist gatherings.” He describes people engaged in antifascist practice as taking the view that

staying put is fatal while violent extremists take bolder action and banal institutional powers conspire more brazenly against us in the shifting terrain of our increasingly extreme moment; to resist surges in far-right extremism while constantly moving to build popular support for a progressive dismantling of the material and cultural conditions that engender it—this is the core of any antifascist politics worthy of the name.

Historian Mark Bray (Boston Review, 11/29/17) explains that while the overwhelming majority of antifascist action is nonviolent,

they take fascist ideologues at their word when they threaten to murder immigrants. The antifascist conception of self-defense amounts to an argument for the minimization of harm to marginalized communities. The best way to accomplish this, antifascists argue, is to stop white supremacists from taking even the first step toward building power rather than waiting for them to show up at someone’s house with baseball bats.

This goal, Bray says, is usually accomplished through a wide variety of nonviolent methods—

actions which tend to fly beneath the public radar. But when such tactics fail, as a last resort antifascists are willing to physically shut down a Klan rally—even one that is “law-abiding.”

Thus the qualitative differences between antifa and the uber-right could hardly be more stark. The latter preclude debate by dehumanizing the majority of people in America (and on earth) who aren’t white, male, straight and cisgender, and by enacting threatening violence against women and minorities because of who they are. Yet when the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, the Three Percenters and American Guard rallied in Portland, Oregon, last month—at least in part, it would seem, in an effort to encourage the government to curb left-wing dissent by classifying antifa as an “organization of terror”—mainstream media repeatedly suggested that these outfits are analogous to antifa.

USA Today (8/17/19) used vague language to obfuscate the nature of the conflict, describing explicit racists and explicit anti-racists as “competing groups” who “faced off with heated, verbal exchanges,” engaged in “political skirmishes” as “protesters and counter-protesters battled.”

Fox News (8/17/19) applied the same phony balance in its headline, “Portland Mayor Praises Police After ‘Largely Peaceful’ Day of Far-Right, Far-Left Demonstrations.” Using “far” as a modifier for both factions makes them sound like they are mirror images of each other, rather than one group of people that wants to promote violence against some of the most vulnerable in America and another that wants to stop that from happening.

The first sentence deployed the same trick:

The mayor of Portland, Ore., said Saturday night that his city had avoided the “worst-case scenario” after members of far-right groups and far-left members of antifa held dueling demonstrations in the center of the city that lasted for hours on end.

The article implied the conflict was between forces that are similar because they are on the fringes of opposite ends of the political spectrum, “dueling demonstrations” rather than people attempting to prevent fascists from building their movement to murder, assault and oppress women and minorities. Similar gatherings in Portland had, the piece noted, “erupted in clashes,” as if these “clashes” can be best understood as a depoliticized force of nature, like a volcano, instead of violent groups bent on dehumanization meeting pushback when they hold public events to spread their message.

The Boston Herald (9/3/19) had a veneer of both sides-ism, saying in an editorial that “antifa and various far-right groups have continuously clashed on the streets of Portland, with escalating violence” and that any form of “violent and disruptive behavior cannot be normalized by our politicians.” (Opposing all forms of “disruptive behavior,” of course, means opposing all protests.) Yet it’s clear that in this article, which focuses on the antifa presence at Boston’s so-called “Straight Pride Parade,” the Herald wasn’t committed to moral equivalency between violent right-wing bigots and those who are fighting back against them: The article strongly implied that antifa is a more urgent social ailment, arguing that “our elected leaders need to call out antifa for what they are: a hate group,” without saying the term “hate group” should apply to the “Straight Pride” organizers, or any of the anti-minority, anti-women outfits that gathered in Portland; nor do the authors specify which demographic people using the antifa tactic supposedly hate, presumably because no such demographic exists.

Equation of antifa with its antagonists is a problem that unites conservative and centrist media. A CNN report (8/14/19) obscured the qualitative differences between violent racist, misogynist formations and those who oppose them in its headline, “Portland Braces for Dueling Protests: What We Know.” “Dueling protests” implies that the groups confronting each other are equivalent, though the article eventually noted that the Southern Poverty Law Center considers one side to be “a mix of white supremacists [and] neo-Nazis.”

The article’s lead referred to “multiple far-right and extremist groups” planning to attend, and its fourth sentence said that Joe Biggs, formerly of the right-wing conspiracy website Infowars, “has posted he wants the protest to ‘put an end to domestic terrorism,’ specifically left-wing antifascist extremists known as antifa.” The word “extremists” does not appear in quotes, so CNN appears to be endorsing its use.

Applying the term “extremist” to both antifa and the far right only a few sentences apart sends the message that they are substantively the same. Likewise, when CNN reports, “There are fears that the rally will attract many right-wing extremists, as well as antifa counter-protests,” the suggestion is that there’s as much reason to fear antifa as the violent fascists.

A New York Times article (8/17/19) criticized Trump for saying that antifa should be designated a terror organization by writing that Trump “did not mention any of the right-wing groups, although both they and antifa have a history of using violence against their opponents.” In this formulation, attacking people with the explicit goal of trying to subjugate the vast majority of the country and the world that is not white, male, cisgender and straight is indistinguishable from confronting such attacks.

Such framing obscures what ought to be made obvious: that there is a stark difference between groups who see violence as tool to make the world a more racist, misogynist, transphobic and homophobic place, and those who defend against such violence.

 

Warren Campaign Beats Facebook’s Shady Ad Policies at Their Own Game

Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren this week targeted Facebook’s advertising policy—which allows politicians to circulate lies—with an ad of her own, which falsely claims that the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg endorsed President Donald Trump for re-election.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who is now the frontrunner in her party’s 2020 presidential primary, took to Twitter Saturday to share her campaign’s Facebook ad that aims to draw attention to the social media giant’s policy, which Warren sees as a threat to democracy.

We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook’s ad platform to see if it’d be approved. It got approved quickly and the ad is now running on Facebook. Take a look: pic.twitter.com/7NQyThWHgO

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 12, 2019

After claiming that Zuckerberg endorsed Trump, Warren’s ad later acknowledges that the claim is not true while also arguing that the tech executive has “given Donald Trump free rein to lie on his platform—and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters.”

“Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once,” the ad declares. “It’s time to hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable.”

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Warren, in her series of tweets on Saturday, wrote that “Facebook holds incredible power to affect elections and our national debate.”

“They’ve decided to let political figures lie to you—even about Facebook itself—while their executives and their investors get even richer off the ads containing these lies,” she continued. “Once again, we’re seeing Facebook throw its hands up to battling misinformation in the political discourse, because when profit comes up against protecting democracy, Facebook chooses profit.”

The Trump campaign is currently spending $1 million a *week* on ads including ones containing known lies—ads that TV stations refuse to air because they’re false. Facebook just takes the cash, no questions asked. https://t.co/3gDD6ILJpy

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 12, 2019

The Washington Post article which Warren shared explains that “as Facebook cracked down on disinformation flooding its social media platforms, executives decided to codify a key loophole: Politicians remained free to lie at will—unbound by the rules designed to stop everyday users from peddling viral falsehoods.”

“This decision, put into place last year, has sparked a sharp backlash this week among Democrats, who complain that it gives President Trump free rein to use major social media platforms as disinformation machines,” the Post notes, referencing Warren’s ad as well as former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent request that Facebook remove a dishonest Trump campaign ad.

Despite the criticism, Facebook has doubled down on its political advertising policy. In a statement Friday responding to Warren’s ad, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told CNN that “if Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should not be in the position of censoring that speech.”

This is far from the first time Warren has publicly faced off against the social media giant. One of her many plans for the 2020 race calls for breaking up Big Tech companies. That proposal, unveiled in March, received renewed attention earlier this month after audio leaked from an internal Facebook meeting at which Zuckerberg vowed to “fight” against it if Warren wins the White House.

Warren, in response to Zuckerberg’s remarks about her plan and potential presidency, said that “I’m not afraid to hold Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon accountable. It’s time to #BreakUpBigTech.”

Ecuador’s Indigenous Leaders Willing to Talk After Fuel-Price Protests

QUITO, Ecuador — Indigenous leaders of fuel-price protests that have paralyzed Ecuador’s economy for nearly a week said Saturday they are willing to negotiate with President Lenín Moreno, signaling a possible exit from the crisis even as violence prompted the president to impose a curfew in the capital and surrounding areas.

Moreno said the military-enforced curfew would begin at 3 p.m. local time in response to breakouts of violence in areas previously untouched by the protests. Around 1 p.m., masked protesters broke into the national auditor’s office and set it ablaze, sending black smoke billowing across the central Quito park and cultural complex that have been the epicenter of the protests.

Across the capital, groups of hooded young men used rocks and burning tires to block streets in residential neighborhoods. Some drivers, pedestrians and owners of small businesses reported being threatened and robbed. Roads leading to the international airport were also blocked, according to Quito city officials.

The indigenous leaders have distanced themselves from the violent gangs, calling them instigators unconnected to the native groups’ cause.

Quito Mayor Jorge Yunda said Moreno was willing to revise the austerity package that set off protests and planned to meet Saturday with leaders of the demonstrations. Yunda said he and other mayors were mediating the standoff that has halted Ecuador’s oil production, blocked highways and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in loss to industries ranging from flower-growing to dairy farming.

Even as the two sides made progress toward compromise, violence was spreading.

Interior Minister María Paula Romo said 30 people had been arrested in the attack on the auditor’s office and firefighters said they were able to extinguish the blaze after soldiers and police retook control of the building, which houses evidence in corruption investigations.

Offering some hope of resolution, the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador said on its Twitter account that after internal discussion “we have decided to participate in direct dialogue” with Moreno.

Minutes later, Leonidas Iza, a Quechua leader from mountainous Cotopaxi province, told Ecuavisa television that “we have asked for minimal conditions for dialogue,” including what he called an end to government violence against protesters.

Previously, indigenous protesters had refused to negotiate until Moreno restored fuel subsidies whose cancelations prompted days of protests around Ecuador.

Luis Chilán, a 47-year-old former from the Andes, said he had been protesting in central Quito for days.

“We’ll be here until there’s a deal with Moreno,” he said. The rise in gas prices, he said, “affects the poorest people in the country. We aren’t going to step back.”

An indigenous leader and four other people have died in clashes with authorities, according to the public defender’s office. The president’s office has reported two deaths. Hundreds of protesters have been injured and hundreds more briefly detained.

Ecuador, a former OPEC member, was left deeply in debt by a decade of high-spending governance and the oil price drop. Faced with a $64 billion debt and a $10 billion annual deficit, Moreno is raising taxes, liberalizing labor laws and cutting public spending in order to win more than $4 billion in emergency financing from the International Monetary Fund.

As part of that plan, Moreno eliminated a subsidy on the price of fuel on Oct. 2, driving the most popular variety of gasoline from $1.85 to $2.39 a gallon and diesel from $1.03 to $2.30. Panic and speculation sent prices soaring, with costs of some products — papayas, rural bus fares — doubling or more.

Ecuador’s indigenous people, wracked by poverty and underserved by government programs, were infuriated. Over the last week, thousands of Shuar, Saraguro, Quechua and other indigenous people streamed into Quito from deep in the Amazon rainforest and high in the towns and villages of the Ecuadorian Andes. They have set up camp in the Casa de la Cultura, the neighboring park known as El Arbolito and three universities.

At least once a day, young men with sticks and rocks have surged toward the legislature and try to take it over, as they’ve done at least once this week, before being driven out with tear gas.

The protests have halted activity in much of the southern end of the capital and prompted Moreno to temporarily move the seat of government to the Pacific port city of Guayaquil. Indigenous protesters also launched attacks on Amazon oil wells that have paralyzed production, the country’s main export, by cutting off generators and forcing essential staff to leave.

Despite the dire situation, Moreno has said he cannot restore the fuel subsidies. The country is broke and backing down to protesters would be a defeat for the president’s effort to undo the policies of his predecessor and former mentor, Rafael Correa.

Moreno has received statements of support from the U.S., the Organization of American States and a group of Latin American countries that emphasize he took office as Ecuador’s constitutionally elected president in 2017.

_______

Correspondent Raisa Avila contributed to this report.

France to Curtail Some Arms Exports to Turkey

AKCAKALE, Turkey — The Latest on Turkey’s military offensive into northeastern Syria against Syrian Kurdish fighters (all times local):

11:25 p.m.

France is halting exports of any arms to Turkey that could be used in its offensive against Kurds in Syria, and wants an immediate meeting of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State extremists.

France’s defense and foreign ministries made the announcement in a statement Saturday reiterating opposition to the Turkish military operation, which is facing growing international condemnation.

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The statement says France will push for a “Europe-wide approach” toward suspended arms sales at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting Monday. Germany also announced Saturday it’s curtailing arms exports to Turkey.

The French government argues the offensive is causing growing humanitarian problems and threatens the international fight against IS, “and therefore threatens European security.” IS-linked extremists have staged deadly attacks in European countries.

France wants a meeting of the anti-IS coalition to discuss its next steps in the context of the Turkish actions.

___

10:05 p.m.

Germany’s foreign minister has announced that the country will curtail its arms exports to Turkey, which has started a military offensive into northeastern Syria against Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Heiko Maas on Saturday told weekly Bild am Sonntag that, “against the background of the Turkish military offensive in northeastern Syria, the government will not issue any new permissions for any weapons that can be used by Turkey in Syria.”

Maas’ remarks came as thousands of Kurdish immigrants rallied against the Turkish military offensive in cities across Germany. Germany is home to one of the biggest Kurdish communities in Europe.

Austria, Switzerland and Greece also saw Kurdish demonstrations against Turkey’s offensive in Syria.

___

9:25 p.m.

About 1,000 Kurds and a contingent of left-wing activists have protested in the northern city of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest, against the Turkish military offensive in northern Syria.

The protesters carried banners, including one saying, “Where is the UN?” and burned pictures of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They repeated the photo burning and slogans outside the Turkish consulate. Both premises were guarded by police forces.

In the capital Athens, police said close to 2,000 Kurds and other activists marched to the Turkish Embassy in the city center but police prevented them from getting too close. They dispersed after a peaceful protest. A small contingent of 150 protesters also marched to the U.S. Embassy.

___

7:10 p.m.

The Arab League is calling for the United Nations Security Council to take measures to force Turkey to halt its military offensive in Syria and “immediately” withdraw its forces from the Arab country.

A communique after the meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Saturday also urged the Security Council to suspend military and intelligence support that could help Turkey’s offensive.

The communique says Arab countries reject Turkey’s attempts to impose “demographic changes” in Syria by a so-called “safe zone.”

It says Arab countries should consider taking “diplomatic, economic, investment, cultural measures … to confront the Turkish aggression.”

Two countries, Qatar and Somalia, expressed reservations about the communique. Qatar has backed Turkey’s offensive.

The Arab League’s meeting came as Turkey’s offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters entered its fourth day.

___

6:20 p.m.

Thousands of people have demonstrated in Paris in support of Kurds being targeted by Turkish forces in Syria.

Protesters warned that the offensive could allow Islamic State group extremists to resurge. Kurdish forces being targeted by Turkey this week were crucial to the international campaign against IS fighters, who orchestrated several deadly attacks against France.

Demonstrators from various activist groups slammed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with one carrying a sign reading “Erdogan=IS.” They also criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, which helped pave the way for the Turkish offensive.

The rally Saturday at Republique plaza in eastern Paris ended peacefully.

Turkey’s military, which calls the Kurdish forces a security threat, said it captured a key Syrian border town Saturday. French President Emmanuel Macron urged an end to the fighting, as international criticism of the offensive mounted.

__

6:05 p.m.

The main Kurdish-led group in northern Syria is calling on the United States to carry out its “moral responsibilities” and close northern Syrian airspace to Turkish warplanes.

Reydour Khalil, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, read the group’s statement, which did not directly name the U.S. but referred to them as “our allies.”

Saturday’s statement said “we don’t want them to send their soldiers to the front lines and put their lives in danger.”

It said “what we want is for them” to close the airspace for Turkish warplanes and “this is something they can do easily.”

The statement said the SDF has lost 45 fighters since Turkey began an invasion of northeast Syria four days ago.

___

6 p.m.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says that all foreign forces in Syria that lack its government’s invitation should leave the country.

Putin, speaking in an interview with journalists from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia ahead of his visits to the countries, said Moscow has talked to Turkey, Iran, the United States and others about the need to restore Syria’s territorial integrity and end foreign military presence.

Putin didn’t talk about Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria in parts of the interview that were broadcast by Russian television Saturday. Russia has taken a soft stance on Turkey’s move, noting Ankara’s need to secure its border.

He added that if the Syrian leadership decides in the future that the country no longer needs Russian troops, they will also leave.

___

4:30 p.m.

Iraq’s foreign minister says Turkey’s military offensive in northern Syria “reinforces terrorists’ capabilities” to reorganize and undermines world efforts to fight the Islamic State group.

Mohamed Alhakim says the Turkish incursion is a “blatant aggression” against Syria’s sovereignty and integrity.

Alhakim spoke Saturday at an Arab League meeting called by Egypt following Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, which was launched on Wednesday.

He says the military assault also threatens to fuel other conflicts in Syria and will have “negative repercussions,” especially in Iraq, which is still suffering from the war against IS.

___

3:55 p.m.

Lebanon’s top diplomat is calling on the Arab League to restore Syria’s membership amid Turkey’s military offensive in northern Syria.

Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil says that readmitting Syria into the pan-Arab organization should be “the first response from the League to the Turkish aggression.” He spoke to the league on Saturday in Cairo.

He says: “We can no longer allow any Israeli or Turkish aggression or (aggression) from any party against an Arab state or an Arab people.”

Syria’s membership in the 22-member Arab League was suspended in 2011 after the Syrian government’s military crackdown on protesters calling for reforms.

Bassil spoke Saturday at an Arab League meeting called by Egypt on Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria.

___

3:10 p.m.

The head of the Arab League is calling for Turkey to halt its military offensive in Syria and pull out its forces from the war-torn country.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Saturday that Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria has resulted in a new wave of displacement and jeopardizes “achievements” made in fighting the Islamic State group.

Turkey says it aims to push back Syrian Kurdish forces, which it considers a threat for their links to a decades-long Kurdish insurgency within its own borders.

Aboul Gheit spoke at an emergency Arab League summit called by Egypt on Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, after meeting with a Syrian Kurdish representative earlier in the day, said he supported Kurdish “legitimate resistance” against the Turkish operation.

___

1:50 p.m.

A Kurdish police force in northern Syria says a car bomb has exploded outside a prison where members of the Islamic State group are being held, but there was no word on casualties.

The police force known as Asayesh said the blast occurred early Saturday outside the central prison in the northeastern city of Hassakeh, much of which is controlled by Kurdish forces.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said after the blast, Kurdish fighters brought reinforcements to prevent prisoners from escaping.

No one claimed responsibility but IS sleeper cells have carried out such bombings.

Kurdish fighters are holding about 10,000 IS fighters including some 2,000 foreigners.

There have been concerns that as Kurdish fighters try to repel Turkey’s invasion, some IS detainees might try to flee.

___

12:45 p.m.

Turkey says its military offensive has taken central Ras al-Ayn, a key border town in northeastern Syria, and its most significant gain since its cross-border operation began against Syrian Kurdish fighters.

The Turkish Defense Ministry tweeted: “Ras al-Ayn’s residential center has been taken under control through the successful operations in the east of the Euphrates (River).”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, confirmed that Turkish troops have entered the town adding that fighting is still ongoing.

The Turkish military and allied Syrian opposition forces have been advancing in villages around Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, under the cover of Turkish artillery and some airstrikes.

Turkey is fighting the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which it considers a threat for its links to a decades-long Kurdish insurgency within its own borders.

The YPG forms the backbone of the U.S.-backed ground forces fighting the Islamic State group.

___

12:20 p.m.

Arab foreign ministers are meeting to discuss Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, as the Arab League holds an emergency session at its headquarters in Cairo.

Saturday’s meetings in Egypt’s capital came as the Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters enters its fourth day.

Egypt called the emergency meeting to discuss what it called Turkey’s “blatant aggression” against Syria’s sovereignty.

Turkey says it aims to push back Syrian Kurdish forces, which it considers terrorists for its links to a decades-long Kurdish insurgency within its own borders.

But the military action and violence in northern Syria has raised concerns about a possible resurgence of Islamic State activity.

Syria’s membership in the 22-member Arab League was suspended in 2011 after the Syrian government’s military crackdown on protesters calling for reforms.

___

10:20 a.m.

France’s president has discussed the Turkish offensive in Syria with U.S. President Donald Trump, and warned about a possible resurgence of Islamic State activity as a result of the military action.

President Macron’s office said in a statement Saturday that in the call, the French leader “reiterated the need to make the Turkish offensive stop immediately.”

The statement didn’t say whether Macron urged U.S. forces to intervene. Trump’s decision to pull out of the region cleared the way for this week’s Turkish offensive against Kurds in northeast Syria it sees as a threat.

Macron stressed “above all else the need to avoid any resurgence of IS in the region,” and to support the Kurdish forces who helped the U.S.-led military coalition retake Syrian and Iraqi territory from IS extremists.

France has suffered multiple deadly attacks by IS-linked radicals.

The statement said France and the U.S. “share common concerns” and will coordinate closely on the issue in the coming days.

___

10:10 a.m.

Turkey’s official news agency says Turkey-backed Syrian opposition forces have reached a strategic highway in northeastern Syria as Turkey’s offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters enters its fourth day.

Anadolu news agency said Saturday the forces have arrived at the M-4 highway that connects the Syrian towns of Manbij and Qamishli. The road is about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the Turkish border.

Turkey has said it aims to push back Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which it considers terrorists for its links to a decades-long Kurdish insurgency within its own borders.

Erdogan said Friday Turkey won’t stop until the YPG, who forms the backbone of the U.S.-backed ground force against the Islamic State, withdraws below a 32 kilometer (20 miles) deep line.

Tokyo Area Shuts Down as Powerful Typhoon Lashes Japan

TOKYO — A heavy downpour and strong winds pounded Tokyo and surrounding areas on Saturday as a powerful typhoon forecast to be Japan’s worst in six decades made landfall and passed over the capital, where streets, nearby beaches and train stations were long deserted.

Store shelves were bare after people stocked up on water and food ahead of Typhoon Hagibis. The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of dangerously heavy rainfall in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures, including Gunma, Saitama and Kanagawa, and later expanded the area to include Fukushima and Miyagi to the north. A coastal earthquake also rattled the area.

“Be ready for rainfall of the kind that you have never experienced,” said meteorological agency official Yasushi Kajihara, adding that areas usually safe from disasters may prove vulnerable.

“Take all measures necessary to save your life,” he said.

Kajihara said people who live near rivers should take shelter on the second floor or higher of any sturdy building if an officially designated evacuation center wasn’t easily accessible.

Hagibis, which means “speed” in Filipino, was advancing north-northwestward with maximum sustained winds of 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, according to the meteorological agency. It was traveling northward at a speed of 40 kph (25 mph).

It reached Kawasaki, a western part of greater Tokyo, late Saturday and headed to Tsukuba city to the north about an hour later, before it was expected to swerve toward the sea, the agency said.

The storm brought heavy rainfall in wide areas of Japan all day ahead of its landfall, including in Shizuoka and Mie prefectures, southwest of Tokyo, as well as Chiba to the north, which saw power outages and damaged homes in a typhoon last month.

Under gloomy skies, a tornado ripped through Chiba on Saturday, overturning a car in the city of Ichihara and killing a man inside the vehicle, city official Tatsuya Sakamaki said. Five people were injured when the tornado ripped through a house. Their injuries were not life-threatening, Sakamaki said.

The heavy rain caused rivers to swell, and several had flooded by late Saturday. The wind flipped anchored boats and whipped up sea waters in a dangerous surge along the coast and areas near rivers, flooding some residential neighborhoods and leaving people to wade in ankle-deep waters and cars floating. Some roads were so flooded they looked like muddy ditches.

An earthquake shook the area drenched by the rainfall shortly before the typhoon made landfall in Shizuoka prefecture Saturday evening. but there were no immediate reports of damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 5.3 quake was centered in the ocean off the coast of Chiba, near Tokyo, and was fairly deep, at 59.5 kilometers (37 miles). Deep quakes tend to cause less damage than shallow ones.

In Shizuoka, one of two men who went missing in the Nishikawa River was rescued, Gotemba city official Fumihiko Katsumata said. Firefighters said the two men were working at a river canal to try to control overflowing when they were swept away.

The nationally circulated Yomiuri newspaper put the storm’s casualty toll at two people dead, three missing and 62 injured. More than 170,000 people had evacuated, the paper said.

More than 370,000 homes suffered power outages as a result of the typhoon, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Yusuke Ikegaya, a Shizuoka resident who evacuated ahead of the storm, said he was surprised that the nearby river was about to overflow in the morning, hours before the typhoon made landfall.

“In the 28 years of my life, this is the first time I’ve had to evacuate even before a typhoon has landed,” he said.

Authorities also warned of mudslides, common in mountainous Japan.

Two dams began to release some of their waters and other dams in the area may take similar measures, as waters were nearing limits, public broadcaster NHK reported. An overflooded dam is likely to cause greater damage, and so releasing some water gradually is a standard emergency measure, but the released water added to the heavy rainfall could be dangerous, causing rivers to flood.

Rugby World Cup matches, concerts and other events in the typhoon’s path were canceled, while flights were grounded and train services halted. Authorities acted quickly, with warnings issued earlier in the week, including urging people to stay indoors.

Some 17,000 police and military troops were called up, standing ready for rescue operations.

Residents taped up their apartment windows to prevent them from shattering. TV talks shows showed footage of household items like a slipper bashing through glass when hurled by winds.

Evacuation centers were set up in coastal towns, and people rested on gymnasium floors, saying they hoped their homes were still there after the storm passed.

The typhoon disrupted a three-day weekend in Japan that includes Sports Day on Monday. Qualifying for a Formula One auto race in Suzuka was pushed to Sunday. The Defense Ministry cut a three-day annual navy review to a single day on Monday.

All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines grounded most domestic and international flights at the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya airports, and some Sunday flights have also been canceled.

Central Japan Railway Co. canceled bullet-train service between Tokyo and Osaka except for several early Saturday trains connecting Nagoya and Osaka. Tokyo Disneyland was closed, while Ginza department stores and smaller shops throughout Tokyo were shuttered.

A typhoon that hit the Tokyo region in 1958 left more than 1,200 people dead and half a million houses flooded.

___

Hong reported from Fujisawa, Japan. Associated Press videojournalist Haruka Nuga in Tokyo contributed to this report.

AP Fact Check: Trump’s Shoddy Information on Syria, Impeachment, More

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump spread shoddy information about Syria, the economy and matters at the heart of the impeachment inquiry against him in a week of caustic rhetoric.

Some examples:

TRUMP, on Hunter Biden, whose father is former Vice President Joe Biden, a Trump political rival: “Guy walks in, no experience, no nothing, walks out with $1.5 billion. Gee, flies in on Air Force 2 with his father, the vice president. … So China gives his son $1.5 billion. How would you like to have Joe Biden take over negotiations right now with China? I don’t think so.” — Minneapolis rally Thursday.

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by Chris Hedges

THE FACTS: There’s no evidence Hunter Biden pocketed $1.5 billion from China. More generally, accusations of criminal wrongdoing by father or son are unsubstantiated.

In 2014, an investment fund started by Hunter Biden and other investors joined with foreign and Chinese private equity firms in an effort to raise $1.5 billion to invest outside China. That’s far from giving Hunter Biden such a sum, as Trump describes it.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, told the PolitiFact website that his client was an unpaid director of the fund at the time and it ended up raising less than one-third of its target.

Trump’s attempt to press Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is at the center of the impeachment inquiry into the president’s activities in office; Trump also has called for China to investigate them. Joe Biden is contending for the 2020 Democratic nomination to run against Trump.

___

IMPEACHMENT

TRUMP: “Adam should be Impeached!” — tweet Tuesday.

TRUMP, on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee: “Nancy Pelosi knew of all of the many Shifty Adam Schiff lies and massive frauds perpetrated upon Congress and the American people, in the form of a fraudulent speech …This makes Nervous Nancy every bit as guilty as Liddle’ Adam Schiff for High Crimes and Misdemeanors … I guess that means that they, along with all of those that evilly ‘Colluded’ with them, must all be immediately Impeached!” — tweet Sunday.

THE FACTS: There’s no danger that either Schiff or Pelosi, who last month launched impeachment proceedings against Trump, will be impeached themselves. That’s because House members cannot be impeached under the Constitution.

The House does have the power to expel one of its members by a two-thirds vote, but there are little grounds for it based on what Trump alleges.

Trump’s reference to a “fraudulent speech” comes from remarks Schiff made last month at a committee hearing, when he mocked the president’s pleas in his July call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Schiff said his remarks were a parody, reflecting the “essence” of what he believed Trump was conveying to Zelenskiy, “shorn of its rambling character.”

Trump routinely mocks critics, as he did in this tweet, and invents dialogue that he attributes to them.

The House has expelled only five of its own, based on charges of members supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War or bribery and corruption.

___

SYRIA and TURKEY

TRUMP, on removing U.S. troops from Syria: “I was elected on getting out of these ridiculous endless wars, where our great Military functions as a policing operation to the benefit of people who don’t even like the USA. The two most unhappy countries at this move are Russia & China, because they love seeing us bogged…down.” — tweets Monday.

THE FACTS: That’s a dubious reading of Russia, in particular.

Both Russia and Iran stand to gain from a U.S. troop withdrawal and will probably bide their time until they can move in and retake the area. With their help, Syrian President Bashar Assad has recaptured most of the Syrian territory except for the north and east.

Iran and Russia are both key allies of Assad’s government with troops on the ground in Syria. While they may publicly oppose a Turkish incursion into Syria, they probably don’t mind an operation that diminishes the U.S.-allied Kurdish forces.

Some of Turkey’s incursions into Syria appeared to have been coordinated with Russia and Iran.

___

TRUMP: “We defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate.” — tweet Thursday.

TRUMP: “When I arrived in Washington, ISIS was running rampant in the area. We quickly defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate.” — tweet Monday.

THE FACTS: His claim of a 100% defeat is misleading because the Islamic State group still poses a threat.

IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017, then lost the last of its land holdings in Syria in March, marking the end of the extremists’ self-declared caliphate.

Still, extremist sleeper cells have continued to launch attacks in Iraq and Syria and are believed to be responsible for targeted killings against local officials and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

IS controlled large swathes of northern and eastern Syria, where they declared a caliphate in 2014 along with large parts of neighboring Iraq.

U.N. experts warned in August that IS leaders are aiming to consolidate and create conditions for an “eventual resurgence in its Iraqi and Syrian heartlands.”

___

TRUMP: “So many people conveniently forget that Turkey is a big trading partner of the United States, in fact they make the structural steel frame for our F-35 Fighter Jet.” — tweet Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Actually, Turkey won’t be providing the steel for U.S. F-35 fighter jets much longer.

The Trump administration removed Turkey from the F-35 program in July because the Turks refused to cancel the purchase of a Russian S-400 air defense system that is incompatible with NATO forces. At the time, the White House said the S-400 would compromise the F-35 program and aid Russian intelligence.

As part of that process, the U.S. said it will stop using any Turkish supplies and parts by March.

___

TRUMP: “We quickly defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate, …including capturing thousands of ISIS fighters, mostly from Europe. But Europe did not want them back, they said you keep them USA!” — tweet Monday.

TRUMP: “Most of them came from Europe.” — Minneapolis rally.

THE FACTS: Not true. The foreign fighters captured and being held by the U.S.-allied Kurds are not mostly from Europe, which Trump has argued could easily reclaim them.

Of the more than 12,000 IS fighters in custody in Kurdish areas, only 2,500 are from outside the region of the conflict, some from Europe, some from other parts of the world. But most of captured fighters — about 10,000 — are natives of Syria or Iraq.

Trump has said it will now be up to countries in the region to decide what to do with captured fighters.

___

JUDGES

TRUMP, criticizing Barack Obama’s struggle to win confirmation of federal judges as president, contends “they were unable to fill 142 important Federal Judgeships (a record by far), handing them all to me to choose.” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: First, his number is false. So is his insinuation that Obama couldn’t fill judicial vacancies due to complacency.

It’s true that Trump has a stronger record than Obama so far in picking federal judges. But it was due to unprecedented lack of action by the Republican-controlled Senate on Democrat Obama’s judicial nominees in his last two years in office. That left Trump more vacancies to fill.

Of the 71 people whom Obama nominated to the district courts and courts of appeals in 2015 and 2016, only 20 were voted on and confirmed, said Russell Wheeler, an expert on judicial nominees at the Brookings Institution. Trump entered office in January 2017 with under 110 vacancies on the federal bench — not 142 as he asserts — about double the number Obama had in 2009.

Trump has since been aided by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has pushed through Trump’s nominations of appeals court judges in particular.

___

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “If our opponent had won that election, you know what would have happened? Right now, China would be the No. 1 economy anywhere in the world. And right now, I can tell you, they’re not even close.” — Minneapolis rally.

TRUMP: “So I think China might have caught us if my opponent had gotten in. By now, they would have caught us. And now it’s going to be a long time before they catch us, if they ever catch us. I don’t think anybody is going to catch us.” — remarks Monday on trade.

THE FACTS: No matter who got elected in 2016 — Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton — there is no way China’s economy would have caught up with America’s by now.

Even if the U.S. economy hadn’t grown at all since 2016, China’s gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — would have had to have surged a fantastical 79% in three years to have pulled even with America’s. That comes to growth of more than 21% a year — something even China’s super-charged economy has never approached.

Moreover, despite Trump’s suggestion that China can’t ever catch up, the Chinese economy continues to slowly narrow the gap because every year it grows much faster than America’s. In 2019, for example, the International Monetary Fund expects Chinese GDP to increase 6.2%, more than double the 2.6% growth it expects for the United States.

___

RONNA MCDANIEL, Republican National Committee chair: “New data is out on median income growth: Under Barack Obama, incomes rose $11 a month. Under @realDonaldTrump, incomes are rising at $161 a month. That’s huge!” — tweet Monday, retweeted by Trump.

THE FACTS: This comparison is misleading.

McDaniel didn’t provide her data source. But her statement obscures the track records of both presidents and the economic conditions that their administrations inherited.

For the first two full years of Trump’s presidency, the Census Bureau shows that median household income has been growing by a monthly average of $58, to $63,179 in 2018. That’s almost one-third of what claimed in McDaniel’s tweet.

Under Obama, incomes rose at a monthly average of only $31. But that average includes Obama’s first term, when the economy was dealing with the ravages from the Great Recession that began before he became president. Trump took office at a moment when the economy was relatively healthy.

Obama’s track record improved sharply after 2012, as the recovery took hold. Median incomes during that period rose at a monthly average of $122. That is more than double the income growth during Trump’s first two years.

___

TRUMP: “As you know, in addition to what we’re talking about today, they’re building — Japan — many car plants in the United States, which they weren’t doing for a long time. And they’re building in Michigan, Ohio, lots of different states. And we just appreciate it very much. Been a tremendous investment.” — remarks Monday on trade.

THE FACTS: Not true. Japanese automakers are not building “many” car plants in the U.S. No Japanese automakers are building assembly plants in Michigan, and Honda is making only a small investment at an existing facility in Anna, Ohio, near Dayton. Honda has announced it will build a hybrid SUV at a factory in Greensburg, Indiana, but that investment is $4.2 million and will add 34 new jobs.

The only major assembly plant being built now by Japanese automakers in the U.S. is the Toyota-Mazda factory in Alabama, which is expected to employ 4,000 people and will start producing vehicles in 2021.

Normally, parts-making companies set up operations in or near the main assembly plant, and that’s happening in Huntsville. Six companies are investing about $491 million in the area, creating an expected 1,765 jobs, according to Toyota.

Earlier this year, Japanese truck maker Hino opened a new assembly plant in Mineral Wells, West Virginia, investing $100 million and creating 250 jobs. It replaced an older facility that also was in West Virginia.

Trump is also wrong to suggest recent construction from Japanese car companies in the U.S. is somehow new. Japanese automakers have been building in the U.S. since the 1970s and have expanded manufacturing over the years. The companies have announced millions in investments to retool existing plants to make new models.

___

Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman, Josh Boak, Robert Burns, Christopher Rugaber and Stephen Braun in Washington, Tom Krisher in Detroit and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

Pentagon: U.S. Not Abandoning Kurds in Face of Turkish Attack

WASHINGTON — Top Pentagon officials on Friday denied the U.S. is abandoning its Syrian Kurdish allies in the face of a Turkish military offensive, although the future of a counterterrorism partnership with the Kurds was in grave doubt.

“We have not abandoned the Kurds. Let me be clear about that,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters. “We have not abandoned them. Nobody green-lighted this operation by Turkey — just the opposite. We pushed back very hard at all levels for the Turks not to commence this operation.”

Esper’s remarks appeared aimed at strengthening the Trump administration’s argument that it did all it could to stop the Turks and, failing that, was left with no reasonable option but to pull some U.S. troops away from the border. It’s unclear how far the Turks will take their offensive, how badly the Kurds will be hit and whether U.S. forces will be compelled to withdraw entirely in coming days.

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Many have called the limited U.S. pullback a grave mistake. Even some of President Donald Trump’s staunchest Republican supporters have sharply criticized it as a decision that opened the door for the Turkish invasion. Some regard Trump’s move as a betrayal of the U.S.-armed Kurdish fighters who have, at great cost, partnered with American forces against the Islamic State group since 2015.

Esper told a Pentagon news conference that Washington is “greatly disappointed” by the Turkish incursion. He said it has badly damaged already frayed relations with Turkey, a NATO ally ousted from a Pentagon fighter program in July for refusing to drop its purchase of a Russian air defense system that is incompatible with NATO.

Esper insisted the Kurds remain a viable partner, although the U.S. has said it will not step between them and the Turks.

“To be clear, we are not abandoning our Kurdish partner forces, and U.S. troops remain with them in other parts of Syria. The impulsive action of President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan to invade northern Syria has put the United States in a tough situation,” Esper said.

The Turkish incursion has complicated U.S. military efforts in the region, even as Washington seeks to deter Iran from further attacks on Saudi Arabia following a drone and cruise missile assault in September that damaged key Saudi oil facilities. Esper announced Friday that he was sending dozens more fighter jets and additional air defenses to Saudi Arabia, beefing up efforts to defend against Iran.

At the White House, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin put Turkey on notice that it could face “powerful sanctions” for its military incursion, and that the U.S. will “shut down the Turkish economy” if Ankara goes too far.

Mnuchin said the U.S. hopes it will not have to use new, expanded sanctions authority that Trump has authorized. The administration threatened sanctions against Turkey earlier this year for its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system, but never followed through.

The Turkish invasion also has raised the prospect of losing control of thousands of captured Islamic State fighters who are in detention facilities under the Kurds’ control.

Esper called on the Turks to halt their offensive, but he told reporters that he has no indication they will. He lamented “the dramatic harm” done to the two nations’ relationship.

Speaking alongside Esper, Army Gen. Mark Milley said the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish military known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, is still guarding camps holding IS prisoners.

Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Turkish military operations across the border into Syria are still “relatively limited.”

He said the air and ground operations, including strikes by fighters and drones, have been carried out near two Syrian villages by about 1,000 members of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army and hundreds of Turkish commando forces. The distance they have penetrated into Syria ranges from a kilometer or two (about 1 mile) in one area to about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in another.

Milley emphasized that U.S. forces are still working with Kurdish forces. He said U.S. policy is to continue with a counter-IS campaign except in one area of the incursion, but the Kurds themselves said earlier this week that they suspended their counter-IS efforts.

Milley said leaders of the Kurdish force have told some of their fighters to move north to defend what they consider to be their territory. But he said the U.S. is “encouraging them to not overreact at this point and to try to tamp things down in order to allow some sort of diplomatic resolution.”

Esper’s remarks were the Pentagon’s most explicit criticism of the Turkish operation, which began Wednesday as a campaign against the Syrian Kurd-led militia that has partnered with U.S. forces over the past five years to fight the Islamic State.

Trump has called the invasion a “bad idea” and held out the possibility of the U.S. mediating a settlement.

A senior Turkish official in Washington suggested that the U.S. mediation offer would not be welcomed in Ankara due to Turkey’s opposition to negotiating with terrorists. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said previous efforts to broker deals with the Kurds had failed because negotiating “will not change their basic motivation and will not change their tactics.”

The official reiterated that Turkey would halt the operation and withdraw its forces only after the border area is cleared of the Kurdish fighters it considers “terrorists” but would not stay in Syria “one more day than is necessary.”

The Pentagon had said before the operation began that the U.S. military would not support it, but it had not openly criticized the invasion. The U.S. pulled about 30 special operations troops out of observation posts along the invasion route on the Syrian border.

Turkey views elements of the U.S.-backed Syrian militia as terrorists and a border threat.

The U.S. has about 1,000 troops in Syria.

International aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis, with nearly a half-million people at risk near the border.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Kevin Freking contributed to this story.

California to End its Use of Private, For-Profit Prisons

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California will ban the use of for-profit, private detention facilities, including those under contract to the federal government to hold immigrants awaiting deportation hearings, under a bill that Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday that he had signed.

The Democratic governor said the measure helps fulfill a promise he made to end private prison use, which he said contributes to over-incarceration and does “not reflect our values.”

The state’s prison system was already phasing them out, despite having to comply with an inmate population cap imposed by federal judges.

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Immigrant advocates have praised the bill authored by Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta, which they said would put an end to almost all immigration detention in California in the next few years.

California has been at the forefront of resisting President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport those who are in the country illegally and has a so-called “sanctuary state” law that restricts police from asking people about their immigration status or participating in federal immigration enforcement actions.

The new measure prohibits the state corrections department from renewing contracts starting next year and from housing any state inmates in private, for-profit prisons starting in 2028.

“We are sending a powerful message that we vehemently oppose the practice of profiteering off the backs of Californians in custody,” Bonta said.

California previously halted growth in local government contracts to house immigration detainees. After that, populous Orange County south of Los Angeles and other local governments ended their contracts to hold detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Four dedicated immigration detention facilities remain in California with an average daily population of about 3,700 detainees. ICE has previously said the largest one, run by The Geo Group in Adelanto, California, has a temporary contract set to expire in 2020, as does another facility in Bakersfield, California.

ICE’s acting press secretary, Bryan Cox, said immigration enforcement would still take place, noting that California accounts for less than 10 percent of the agency’s detention capacity. He said the impact “would be felt primarily by residents of California who would theoretically have to travel greater distances to visit friends and family in custody.”

Christina Fialho, co-founder of Freedom for Immigrants, said she doesn’t believe ICE could legally extend the contracts ending in 2020. The remaining two private detention contracts are set to expire within five years and cannot be renewed after the bill takes effect, she said.

“Within the next one to five years, private immigration detention will be abolished for good in California,” she said, adding that rural Yuba County in northern California still has a contract to detain immigrants but may also soon end it. “This is huge.”

Yolo County supervisors this week ended its decade-old contract with the federal government to house troubled immigrant children in a facility west of Sacramento that is one of two in the nation for teens who entered the country unaccompanied by parents and are considered dangerous to themselves or others.

The move in California comes as ICE has expanded immigration detention across the U.S. amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

California isn’t the only state pushing back, Fialho said, adding that Illinois also passed similar legislation and that New Mexico and Minnesota are weighing proposals.

The bill “will deal a critical blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to further expand its system of immigration detention, especially as other states follow our lead,” she said.

California’s corrections department last month ended one of its four contracts with The GEO Group to run three male prisons and one for women that that together house about 1,600 inmates. The remaining contracts expire in 2023.

The federal receiver who controls medical care in California state prisons recently found inadequate health care at all four privately run prisons, citing problems with their policies and procedures, training, health care grievance process, emergency medical response and physician case reviews. The deficiencies are being reviewed again, with results expected in December.

In 2006, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger started sending California inmates to private out-of-state prisons to relieve crowding in prisons where nearly 20,000 inmates were bunked three-deep in gymnasiums and dayrooms. The state then relied on the private prisons for years to help meet the federal population cap.

But the last inmate housed out-of-state returned to California in June as the state ended those contracts. The new law allows the department to renew or extend the existing private prison contracts to comply with the court-ordered population cap until 2028.

The state’s inmate population has been declining under several measures easing criminal sentences approved by voters and state lawmakers in recent years. Inmates housed in private prisons now make up less than 1% of the prisons’ overall 125,000 inmate population.

A 2018 law already directed the corrections department to close male private in-state facilities as the state’s prison population declined.

___

Taxin reported from Tustin, California.

Shepard Smith Abruptly Departs Fox News

NEW YORK — Shepard Smith, whose newscast on Fox News Channel seemed increasingly an outlier on a network dominated by supporters of President Trump, abruptly quit after working at Fox since it started in 1996.

Smith said at the end of his daily newscast on Friday that he had asked the network to let him out of his contract and it had agreed.

Even in the current polarized environment, Smith said “it’s my hope that the facts will win the day, that the facts will always matter and journalism and journalists will thrive.”

Neil Cavuto, who anchors the broadcast following Smith’s, looked shocked after the announcement.

“Whoa,” Cavuto said. “Like you, I’m a little stunned.”

Smith’s departure also comes one day after Attorney General William Barr met privately with media mogul Rupert Murdoch, founder of Fox News. President Trump has been increasingly critical of personalities on Fox News that he views as disloyal.

On his afternoon newscast, Smith had frequently given tough reports debunking statements made by Trump and his supporters — even the Fox News opinion hosts that rule the network’s prime-time lineup.

Two weeks ago, Smith clashed with Tucker Carlson when an analyst on Smith’s program, Andrew Napolitano, said that it was a crime for President Trump to solicit aid for his campaign from a foreign government, in this case the Ukraine. Later that night, Carlson asked his own analyst, Joseph diGenova, to comment and he called Napolitano a fool.

The next day, Smith said that “attacking our colleague who is here to offer legal assessments, on our air, in our work home, is repugnant.”

U.S. Suspends Plans to Hike Tariffs on Chinese Imports

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is suspending a tariff hike on $250 billion in Chinese imports that was set to take effect Tuesday, and China agreed to buy $40 billion to $50 billion in U.S. farm products as the world’s two biggest economies reached a cease-fire in their 15-month trade war.

The White House said the two sides made some progress on the thornier issues, including China’s lax protection of foreign intellectual property. But more work will have to be made on key differences in later negotiations, including U.S. allegations that China forces foreign countries to hand over trade secrets in return for access to the Chinese market.

The U.S. and Chinese negotiators have so far reached their tentative agreement only in principle. No documents have been signed.

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President Donald Trump announced the trade truce in a White House meeting with the top Chinese negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He. The news followed two days of talks in Washington.

“You’re very tough negotiators,” Trump said to the Chinese delegation.

Trump has yet to drop plans to impose tariffs Dec. 15 on an additional $160 billion in Chinese products, a move that would extend the sanctions to just about everything China ships to the United States. The December tariffs would cover a wide range of consumer goods, including clothes, toys and smartphones and would likely be felt by American shoppers.

The trade war has taken an economic toll on both countries. U.S. manufacturers are hurt by rising costs from the tariffs and by uncertainty over when and how the trade hostilities will win.

“They’re trying to de-escalate,” said Timothy Keeler, a lawyer at the law firm Mayer Brown and former chief of staff at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representatives. “I think it serves both sides’ interests because both sides were feeling pain.”

Stock prices had been up substantially all day, partially in anticipation of a significant trade agreement. But once the White House announced the contours of the tentative accord, the market shed some of its gains. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had risen more than 500 points at its high, closed up 319.

The negotiators did not deal with a dispute over the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Huawei, saying it poses a threat to U.S. national security because its equipment can be used for espionage. Trump has said he was willing to use Huawei as a bargaining chip in the trade talks.

Among the skeptics of Friday’s agreement is Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, who suggested that the deal amounted to merely a temporary pause in the conflict.

“The president is acting as if a lot of Chinese concessions have been nailed down, and they just haven’t,” Scissors said.

Gregory Daco, an economist at Oxford Economics, said the partial nature of the deal won’t relieve much of the uncertainty surrounding trade policy that has discouraged many American companies from investing in new equipment and expanding.

“For businesses this will mean less damage, not greater certainty,” Daco said in a research note.

Daco has estimated that the trade fight will cut U.S. growth by about 0.6 percentage point in 2020. Friday’s pact might reduce that slightly to 0.5 percentage point, he said.

“While market reacted positively to the news, we caution that beyond the promises and

The two countries are deadlocked primarily over the Trump administration’s assertions that China deploys predatory tactics — including outright theft — in a sharp-elbowed drive to become the global leader in robotics, self-driving cars and other advanced technology.

Beijing has been reluctant to make the kind of substantive policy reforms that would satisfy the administration. Doing so would likely require scaling back China’s aspirations for technological supremacy, which it sees as crucial to its prosperity.

For now, the two sides have come to “almost a complete agreement” on both financial services and currency issues, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

The Chinese agreed to be more transparent about the way they set the value of their currency, the yuan. The Trump administration has accused China of manipulating the yuan lower to give its exporter a price advantage in foreign markets.

China has agreed to open its markets to U.S. banks and other financial services providers, Mnuchin said.

Earlier Friday, China announced a timetable for carrying out a promise to allow full foreign ownership of some finance businesses, starting with futures traders on Jan. 1, as Beijing tries to make its slowing economy more competitive and efficient.

Ownership limits will be ended for mutual fund companies on April 1 and for securities firm on Dec. 1, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said. Until now, foreign investors have been limited to owning 51% of such businesses.

___

AP Business Writers Christopher Rugaber and Bani Sapra contributed to this report.