Chris Hedges's Blog, page 468

Trump Feels ‘Terribly’ for Kavanaugh; Democrats Want FBI Probe

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump showered sympathy Tuesday on Brett Kavanaugh, his embattled Supreme Court nominee who is accused of sexual assault, as Senate Republicans and Democrats fought determinedly over who should testify at a high-stakes hearing on the allegation just six weeks before major congressional elections.

Oddly, it remained unclear whether Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who set off the controversy over Trump’s nominee, would appear at Monday’s Judiciary Committee hearing.

Democrats said they wanted more time for the FBI to investigate — and more witnesses besides Kavanaugh and Ford, hoping to avoid what would turn into merely a “he said, she said” moment. Those witnesses would include Kavanaugh’s high school friend Mark Judge, who Ford said was in the room when she was assaulted, but Judge said no. Kavanaugh has denied Ford’s allegation, and Judge says he doesn’t remember any such incident.

The furious jockeying over the hearing underscored the political potency so close to an election that will decide control of both the House and Senate, not to mention the confirmation of a conservative justice likely to serve on the high court for decades.

Democrats see their arguments about treating women fairly as the best hope for either sinking the appellate judge’s nomination or, should Kavanaugh win confirmation, amplifying their appeals to female voters in November. Republicans have been careful to be seen as giving Ford a chance to be heard, mindful that outright dismissal of her accusation could hurt on Election Day.

Still, the risks of a public hearing starring the all-male lineup of Republicans on the committee could be high. Republicans said late Tuesday they were considering hiring outside attorneys, presumably including women, to question the witnesses.

Kavanaugh, 53, was at the White House for a second straight day, but again did not meet with Trump. The president said he was “totally supporting” Kavanaugh and rejected calls for the FBI to investigate the accusation.

Asked about the situation several times during the day, Trump did not mention Ford’s name but said he felt “terribly” for Kavanaugh, his wife “and for his beautiful young daughters.”

“I feel so badly for him that he’s going through this, to be honest with you, I feel so badly for him,” said Trump, who has himself faced numerous accusations of sexual harassment that he’s denied. “This is not a man that deserves this.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said an FBI investigation was essential. However, Trump rejected the idea of bringing in the FBI to reopen its background check of Kavanaugh, which would be likely to delay a confirmation vote until after the election. Republicans hope to have him confirmed by the Oct. 1 start of the next Supreme Court term.

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh has been calling Republican senators, and John Kennedy of Louisiana said the nominee was committed to moving forward.

“He’s not happy, he’s upset,” Kennedy said. “He said very clearly and unequivocally, This did not happen.”

Ford has said she was willing to testify. But panel chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said repeated efforts to reach her had failed, and Democrats said they didn’t know her plans. “So it kind of raises the question, do they want to come to the public hearing or not?” Grassley said on radio’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.”

Ford, now a California psychology professor, went public with her story Sunday, telling The Washington Post that Kavanaugh had forced himself on her in a bedroom at a party when he was 17 and she was 15, attempting to remove her clothes and clapping his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. She says she escaped when Judge jumped on the bed.

But in a letter to the Judiciary panel, Judge said he did not remember the party or the claimed incident.

“More to the point, I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes,” his letter said.

No. 2 Senate Republican leader John Cornyn of Texas was one of the few Republicans who openly questioned Ford’s version of events.

“We just don’t know what happened 36 years ago,” he said. “There are gaps in her memory. She doesn’t know how she got there, when it was and so that would logically be something where she would get questions.”

Criticism like that fed a Democratic narrative that the GOP’s handling of Ford could jeopardize that party’s election prospects in the age of #MeToo, the response to sexual abuse that has torched the careers of prominent men.

“Now this is really what #MeToo is all about, if you think about it,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Judiciary Committee Democrat. “That’s sort of the first thing that happens, it’s the woman’s fault. And it is not the woman’s fault.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Ford could testify privately or appear publicly before national television cameras. But he said pointedly, “Monday is her opportunity.” McConnell canceled the rest of this week’s Senate sessions, giving lawmakers a chance to avoid days of grilling from reporters.

He still expressed confidence that Kavanaugh would be confirmed, saying, “I’m not concerned about tanking the nomination.”

Democrats warned that anything less than a full investigation and fair hearing would haunt the GOP. They said the Republican hard line showed they’d learned nothing from the 1991 hearings when Anita Hill’s claims of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas, then a Supreme Court nominee, were dismissed by the all-male Judiciary panel.

On today’s Judiciary Committee, all 11 Republicans are men while four of the 10 Democrats are women.

“Women are watching,” said Patty Murray, D-Wash., who came to the Senate in a 1992 election soon after the Hill episode.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said, “I just want to say to the men of this country, ‘Just shut up and step up.’ Do the right thing for a change.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, suggested that Ford’s attorney, Debra S. Katz, be allowed to question Kavanaugh at the hearing. And when asked during his radio interview if a female counsel might ask questions during the hearing, Grassley said, “You’re raising legitimate questions that are still in my mind.”

Efforts to reach Katz for comment were unsuccessful.

On Monday, Republicans abruptly agreed to hold a public hearing on Ford’s accusation under pressure from senators demanding that the nominee and his accuser give public, sworn testimony before any vote.

Ford is now a psychology professor at California’s Palo Alto University. Kavanaugh is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, widely viewed as the nation’s second-most-powerful court.

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Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick, Juliet Linderman and Catherine Lucey contributed from Washington.

U.S. Appeals Court Rules for Bartenders, Waiters in Tip Fight

SAN FRANCISCO—Restaurants must pay waiters and bartenders minimum wage when they are engaged in tasks such as cleaning toilets that are unrelated to their main jobs and do not offer tips, a divided U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday.

At issue in the decision by an 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a federal law that allows an employer to pay workers who receive tips as little as $2.13 an hour as long as their tips earn them minimum wage.

Employers cannot use that tip credit when the workers are engaged in unrelated tasks that don’t pay tips, the panel ruled in a 9-2 decision. Employers also can’t use the tip credit for tasks related to bartending or serving such as preparing coffee if employees spend a substantial part of the work week on them.

The impact of the ruling appeared limited. Seven states require that employers pay workers the state minimum wage on top of any tips they receive, according to the labor department’s wage and hour division. Six of those states fall under the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction: California, Alaska, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Writing for the majority in Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Richard Paez said tips were intended as “a gift to the server, as opposed to a cost-saving benefit to the employer.”

A broader use of the tip credit would allow employers to underpay bartenders and wait staff and put off hiring staff such as janitors who don’t receive tips and therefore must get paid minimum wage by employers, Paez said.

The ruling upheld a regulation by the U.S. Department of Labor and subsequent guidance that limited employers’ use of the tip credit. It also revived lawsuits against restaurant chains by 14 bartenders and servers. The defendants include P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and J. Alexander’s.

Emails to attorneys for J. Alexander’s and P.F. Chang’s were not immediately returned.

One of the plaintiffs, Alec Marsh, said he spent almost half his work week at a J. Alexander’s in Phoenix on tasks that did not produce tips such as cutting fruit and stocking ice. The restaurant paid Marsh an hourly tip credit wage of $4.65 per hour in 2012 and $4.80 per hour in 2013 in accordance with Arizona law, according to the 9th Circuit ruling.

Marsh argued in his lawsuit that the company was entitled to pay him that wage while he worked as a server, but not when he performed the other tasks. A U.S. judge in Arizona threw out Marsh’s lawsuit. The 9th Circuit overturned that decision and sent the case back to the judge for additional hearings.

In Policy and Practice, California Is Showing Up Our President

California’s resistance to Donald Trump is unusual in this age of hot social media and cable television news. Our state, usually caricatured as the home of glitz, is tackling Trump in a thoughtful and policy-oriented manner that is opposite the style of the blowhard president.

That’s clear from the action and words of a couple of California politicians dealing with matters of great complexity. One is Gov. Jerry Brown, the other is Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

A three-day Global Climate Action in San Francisco last week, put together by Brown, wouldn’t have held Trump’s attention for more than the minute needed for him to heap scorn on the event. Nor would Trump, one of the world’s great global warming deniers, have boarded an electric-powered ferryboat to sign eight bills promoting the use of non-polluting vehicles on streets and highways, as Brown did. The governor, I bet, read them all and thought about their implications. As John Myers wrote in the Los Angeles Times, not “many elected officials so quickly shift from policy to philosophy and spirituality when discussing environmental danger.”

Personally, I’ve always thought the glitz label applied to only a small part of California. My career spent covering crime and politics—occasionally intertwined—immersed me in a much grittier California, but one led by people who often showed great vision.

The visionaries, of course, needed a push by demonstrations and marches—against the Vietnam War, police brutality and other evils and for immigrants, better schools and women’s rights.

The demonstration tradition continued with the California-based resistance to Trump. The resistance was loud and fiery in its early days. Women and men, young and old, protested Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, and his threat to national abortion rights, which have long been part of California law. Social media crackled. Television news homed in.

I see a change. Now, the tone of the protest is more like that of the climate summit—wonky and detail-oriented. On immigration, lawyers fight Trump with complex briefs, with courtrooms more than the streets as their battlegrounds. Quiet logic has become important as California grapples with climate change, immigration, overcrowded prisons and the homelessness that is spreading throughout the state. Cable news, always restless, has gone elsewhere.

I thought of this when I watched a video of Garcetti’s speech Sept. 7 to the Cleveland City Club, part of a three-day swing through Ohio as he tried out his embryonic 2020 presidential campaign in a key Midwestern state.

The words were deceptively mild but added up to a thorough takedown of the president and his policies.

He began with immigration and the story of his maternal great-grandmother, “a young woman named Fanny Shane who fled the Russian empire and came [to the United States] with nothing more than $20 in her pocket and the address of her brother in Dayton, [Ohio]. She found work as a dressmaker and she fell in love with a handsome tailor from nearby Columbus … who was a refugee as well.”

His paternal grandfather came from Mexico, brought here as an infant during the Mexican Revolution. Eventually, he volunteered for the Army. “As a veteran, he got his citizenship,” Garcetti said. His grandfather then became a barber.

“The driving optimism of my ancestors represent everything about America I love,” said Garcetti.

He talked of “their belief that they could pick up and go to this huge unknown land … where people spoke a language that was unknown to them. …”

Garcetti’s stories of his immigrant relatives went directly to the heart of the Trump administration’s campaign against immigrants, although he did not utter the president’s name.

His great-grandmother came here to join a relative, with little money and no English language skills. The Trump White House wants to restrict such family reunifications. His grandfather became a citizen after service in the Army. This is another classification being limited by the Trump administration, the Military Times reported July 5. Rejection of veteran requests for citizenship doubled from 10 percent to 20 percent under Trump, the paper said.

“I want a Washington that works for us … that unites us and invites all of us to the table, that reminds us we each belong in this country, that we won’t leave anyone behind,” Garcetti said. “I want a Washington that stops attacking the First Amendment. I want a Washington that doesn’t talk tough about law and order while defunding local police and making law enforcement public enemies’ No. 1. I want a Washington that doesn’t roll back clean air rules.”

And finally, Garcetti said, he wants an end to “the politics of today, subtracting our prosperity and dividing our people.”

California has a history of dealing with complex problems with innovative measures. At the climate summit, Gov. Brown paid tribute to his predecessors. He said he “stood on the shoulders of other people” who won approval of measures to control air pollution in the 1960s and ’70s. One of them was then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, who signed two powerful environmental laws, the Environmental Quality Act and the legislation creating the California Air Resources Board.

“We’ve developed the institutional capacity and the bureaucratic understanding to combat pollution and carbon emissions, ” Brown said. “So we are positioned well to deal with the problem.” And if Washington lags, Brown said, “we will launch our own damn satellite to figure out where the pollution is.”

In the past, some of the pioneering California innovations fell flat. For example, the proposal to replace huge hospitals for the mentally ill with community clinics was never implemented, and as a result many of those who struggle with mental illness are homeless and camped  on streets throughout California.

Yet the spirit of innovation persists. It’s a politics of complexity rather than a politics of rabble-rousing simplicity, much more suitable for this era than anything advocated by Trump.

Rich U.S. Mainlanders Are Finding a Tax Paradise in Puerto Rico

The official death toll from Hurricane Maria has increased to nearly 3,000 people. The storm left $90 billion in damage in its wake, and NBC reported that more than 200,000 Puerto Ricans have departed from the island. Families on smaller islands like Vieques and Culebra still have no power, and houses across Puerto Rico remain in pieces. Amid this death and destruction, which compounded the problems of an already shaky economy, Americans determined to profit from the situation can be found. In a new feature for GQ, writer Jesse Barron tells of the mainlanders who, thanks to two obscure laws, have turned the island into their own personal tax haven.

Puerto Rico passed the laws, called Acts 20 and 22, in 2012, intended to turn the island into a “global investment destination.” Act 20, GQ reports, “allows corporations that export services from the island to pay only 4 percent tax. Act 22 goes much further: It makes Puerto Rico the only place on U.S. soil where personal income, capital gains, interest and dividends are untaxed.”

About 1,500 U.S. mainlanders have taken advantage of these laws. Among them are Mark Gold, whom Barron calls the “kingpin of traffic-ticket contesting.” Gold explained his decision to move to Puerto Rico to Barron at an event called Cocktails and Compliance, where wealthy Americans sip expensive drinks and learn how to comply with the laws so they can skirt taxes:

I was looking at different tax havens … Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco. But the problem is, you have to give up your U.S. passport. When I heard about this, it was too good to be true. But it’s real. I live in paradise. I live at the Ritz-Carlton. I drive my golf cart to the beach club for breakfast. Then I go to my sunset yoga class on the beach.

The people who take advantage of Acts 20 and 22 are at the lower end of the ultra-rich. “They are new-money people who might not have their congressman’s cell-phone number back home,” writes Barron, “but who wield influence here in Puerto Rico.”

“Back in the States, I’m just one of 300 million voters,” James Slazas, who works for a hedge fund, is quoted as saying. “Here, I’ve already met a lot of the key players.”

The people Barron spoke to didn’t seem fazed by the laws’ requirements, which include living in Puerto Rico 183 days per year and giving up the right to vote. On that point, Harry Dent, a popular finance writer, told Barron: “I don’t give a flying [expletive]. We’ve got a civil war going on. Red versus blue.”

Some of the people interviewed tried to explain Acts 20 and 22 were actually good for the Puerto Rican economy. Rob Rill, who got rich from private equity, as defenses for Acts 20 and 22 pointed to job creation for Puerto Ricans and his own charity work with hurricane relief and rescuing dogs. “We’re trying to break the stereotype,” he said, of “a bunch of rich guys flying in on their private planes, helicoptering into their private, walled resort.” In fact, as Barron adds, “the acts together have created 12,000 new jobs, according to the government, out of a total workforce of 1.1 million.”

Perhaps most telling of the acts’ impacts is a Puerto Rican lawyer, who spoke anonymously, saying he will no longer advise clients seeking to benefit from the acts because “‘people were taking advantage.” He described a prospective Act 22 recipient as saying, “I’ll take my private jet and fly down, then I’ll take my boat and go somewhere else. They won’t know.”

Read the full article here.

Putin Warns Israel Over Russian Plane Downing

MOSCOW — The Latest on a Russian military aircraft shot down over the Mediterranean Sea and other issues related to Syria (all times local):

9:30 p.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Israel against conducting air raids on Syria like the one that led to the downing of a Russian warplane by Syrian air defense missile, killing all 15 aboard.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Putin to express sorrow over the plane’s loss, but insisted that Syria bears responsibility for the downing of the Il-20 electronic intelligence plane.

The Kremlin said that Putin emphasized that the Israeli attack violated Syria’s sovereignty and also breached the Russian-Israeli agreements on avoiding clashes in Syria. The Russian leader urged Netanyahu “not to allow such situations in the future.”

Netanyahu also offered to dispatch the Israeli air force chief to Moscow to share details and noted the importance of the continuation of security coordination between Israel and Russia.

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7 p.m.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria is calling on Russia, Syria and Israel “to refrain from military actions” following the downing of a Russian military aircraft.

Staffan de Mistura told the U.N. Security Council at the start of a meeting on Syria that new military action “would only exacerbate an already complex situation.”

He expressed concern at “worrying military activities” just as a potential major military offensive in the last major rebel stronghold in Idlib was averted following an agreement Monday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

De Mistura noted the differing statements by Russia, Syria and Israel about the downing of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft by Syria government anti-aircraft fire which killed all 15 people on board.

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6:45 p.m.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed sorrow over the downing of a Russian warplane in which the entire 15-member crew was killed after being hit with a Syrian missile as Syrian air defenses fired on Israeli jets.

Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call that Syria bears responsibility for the downing of the Il-20 electronic intelligence plane. He offered to dispatch the Israeli air force chief to Moscow to share details.

He noted the importance of the continuation of security coordination between Israel and Russia, saying it helped prevent many losses on both sides. Netanyahu also noted that Israel is determined to block Iran from establishing a military presence in Syria and transferring weapons to its proxy Hezbollah militia for use against Israel.

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5:15 p.m.

Israel says its deputy ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry after an aircraft was shot down over Syria.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon says that there will be no comment on what was discussed between Deputy Ambassador Keren Cohen-Gat and Russian officials.

Russia has blamed Israel for the incident saying the plane was caught in the crossfire as four Israeli fighters attacked targets in northwestern Syria.

Israel says Syria is responsible for shooting down the aircraft. It said Israeli jets had targeted a Syrian weapons facility and were already back within Israeli airspace when the incident happened. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to speak about the incident later Tuesday.

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4:35 p.m.

A war monitoring group says Israeli raids against a Syrian weapons facility on Syria’s coast killed two soldiers whose bodies were found after the fire sparked by the explosions died down.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday the identities of the soldiers were not known. The Syrian government acknowledge the raid that targeted the compound of the state-owned Institute for Technical Industries.

Syria said its air defenses were activated and intercepted the Israeli jets off its coast. It turns out they instead hit a Russian reconnaissance aircraft that was returning to a Russian base on Syria’s coast. All 15 Russians onboard the aircraft were killed.

The Observatory said the Syrian air defenses that hit the Russian aircraft came from a brigade based in Baniyas, a town over 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Latakia. Russia has military and naval bases in Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus.

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4:20 p.m.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says “a chain of tragic circumstances” is to be blamed for a Russian military aircraft shot down by a Syrian missile. He vowed to boost security for Russian troops there.

The Russian reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by Syrian missile defense over the Mediterranean Sea late on Monday. The missiles were reportedly targeting Israeli jets nearby. All 15 people onboard are reported dead.

Putin on Tuesday that the Kremlin will look into circumstances surrounding the crash. Putin made his remarks several hours after the Defense Ministry put the blame squarely on Israel for “provoking” the incident. Putin did not voice his grievances against Israel, but said he supported the Defense Ministry’s statement.

He said Russia will now focus on boosting security for its troops stationed there, saying that these will be “the steps that everyone will notice.

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3 p.m.

The Israeli military has expressed sorrow for the deaths of Russian aircrew downed by Syrian anti-aircraft fire and is blaming also the militant Hezbollah group and Iran for the incident.

The military issued a statement on Tuesday saying that Syria’s government is “fully responsible” for the shooting down of the Russian military aircraft over Syria and that Iran and Hezbollah are also “accountable for this unfortunate incident.”

It said Israeli jets had targeted a Syrian weapons facility and were already back within Israeli airspace when the incident happened.

The Russian plane was hit by “extensive and inaccurate” Syrian fire and “did not bother to ensure that no Russian planes were in the air.” The military said Israel will share all its information with Russia to “review the incident and to confirm the facts in this inquiry.”

Earlier, Russian state television said Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in a phone call to his Israeli counterpart said Israel was responsible. The Russian ministry said the plane was caught in the crossfire as four Israeli fighters attacked targets in northwestern Syria.

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2:15 p.m.

Germany’s foreign minister is welcoming a deal between Turkey and Russia to create a demilitarized zone in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.

Speaking in Romania on Tuesday, Heiko Maas said “whatever helps avoid a humanitarian disaster in Idlib is good.”

Maas cautioned that some agreements in Syria hadn’t been implemented in recent years, however. He called for humanitarian access to be ensured, adding that “we must use this chance to drive forward the political process.”

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1:20 p.m.

The Kremlin says that the shooting down of a Russian military aircraft close to Syria with the loss of 15 lives will not affect the new agreement between Russia and Turkey on a demilitarized zone in Syria.

President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday agreed to establish the zone in Syria’s rebel-held province of Idlib, averting a Syrian government offensive.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, on Tuesday called the deal “a landmark and crucial agreement for Syria’s future.”

He said the shooting down of the plane, which Russia says was caught in the crossfire between Israeli jets and Syrian missile defense late on Monday, will have no impact on that deal.

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1:05 p.m.

Iran has welcomed an agreement between Russia and Turkey that averted a Syrian government offensive on the rebel-held province of Idlib.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted: “Diplomacy works.” He added that his visits to Turkey and Russia in recent weeks pursued the deal to avert war in Idlib “with a firm commitment to fight extremist terror.”

Iran and Russia are the main backers of Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Turkey backs the opposition. The three countries have been mediating over finding a solution for Syria’s seven-year conflict.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi, also welcomed the agreement, adding that “it is an important and essential step for removing the remaining terrorists in Syria.

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12:35 p.m.

Syria’s foreign ministry has welcomed the agreement reached between Russia and Turkey over the northwestern province of Idlib, vowing that Damascus will continue the fight against “terrorists.”

The ministry said in a statement released Tuesday that the Russia-Turkey agreement was the result of “intensive consultations” between Moscow and Damascus.

It said Syria welcomes any initiative that can stop the Syrian bloodshed and contribute to the restoration of security in areas “hit by terror.”

It vowed to continue “war against terrorism until liberating the last inch of the Syrian territory, whether through military operations or through local reconciliations.”

It said that the Idlib agreement is a “time-bound” deal and is part of the previous agreements that were reached to reduce escalation in the areas.

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12:25 p.m.

The Kremlin says it’s deeply concerned over the shooting-down of a Russian military aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea close to Syria.

The Russian reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by the Syrian missile defense over the Mediterranean Sea late on Monday. The missiles were reportedly targeting Israeli jets nearby. All 15 people on board are reported dead. The Russian military blamed Israel for the crash, saying that it “provoked” the strike.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Tuesday that the Kremlin is analyzing reports. It stopped short of blaming Israel for the incident, which the military and the defense minister have done.

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12:05 p.m.

Russian state television says Defense Ministry Sergei Shoigu in a phone call to his Israeli counterpart has said Israel is responsible for the shooting down of a Russian military aircraft over Syria.

The Russian military said on Tuesday that the reconnaissance aircraft was brought down by a Syrian missile over the Mediterranean late on Monday, killing all 15 people on board. It said the plane was caught in the crossfire as four Israeli fighters attacked targets in northwestern Syria.

Russian TV quoted a Defense Ministry statement as saying that Shoigu told Avigdor Lieberman that Israel is “fully to blame” for the deaths of the 15 people onboard.

Shoigu said Russia had not been notified of Israel’s operation in the area despite the hotline between the two countries that should be preventing such accidents.

He added that Russia “reserves the right” to respond to Israel’s actions.

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11:45 a.m.

A pro-government Syrian newspaper says the agreement reached between Russia and Turkey over the northwestern rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib envisions three stages in returning Damascus government institutions to the area.

The daily Al-Watan reported on Tuesday that the agreement struck in Sochi the day before also calls for the establishing of a demilitarized zone along all the front line in Idlib by Oct. 15. The rebels are to hand over their heavy weapons under the supervision of Russia and Turkey by Nov. 10.

The paper says the third phase will see government institutions return to the rebel-held region after militants withdraw from residential areas.

The agreement between the leaders of Russia and Turkey on Monday is thought to have averted an all-out offensive by government forces to retake the last remaining rebel stronghold in Idlib.

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11 a.m.

Russia’s Defense Ministry says one of its reconnaissance aircraft with 15 people on board has been brought down by a Syrian surface-to-air missile over the Mediterranean Sea. Rescuers are searching for wreckage but do not expect survivors.

The Russian military said on Tuesday that the plane was hit by accident by one of the missiles, which were aimed at four Israeli fighter jets that were attacking targets in the coastal province of Latakia late on Monday.

Russia said the Israeli aircraft “pushed” the Russian plane into the line of fire. The ministry accused the Israeli army of “intentional provocation” and said Israel did not warn Russia of its operation in the area until one minute before the strike.

Russia has been a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and it has two military bases in the country, including one close to the Mediterranean coast.

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8:15 a.m.

Russia’s military says one of its aircraft with 14 people on board has disappeared over Syria’s Mediterranean Sea coast.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that the Il-20 jet went off radar 35 kilometers (22 miles) away from the coast late Monday as it was returning to the Russian base near the city of Lattakia. The military said the plane disappeared as four Israeli fighter jets were attacking targets in the area.

Officials did not immediately say if the plane was shot down.

Hungrier Insects Will Bite Into World’s Crops

Researchers have confirmed, once again, that a warmer world is likely to have hungrier insects. The new predators could increase their share of the harvest of wheat, rice and maize by up to 25%.

That is, for every 1°C rise in average temperature, aphids, beetles, borers, caterpillars and other crop pests could increase their consumption of grain by between one tenth and one quarter.

And with a 2°C rise above the average temperature for most of human history – the target set by 195 nations in Paris in 2015 – additional global losses of grain to insect pests could reach 213 million tonnes a year.

For once, the steepest losses could be experienced in the temperate zones, home to the richest nations, rather than in the poorest communities. The reasoning is simple, and the scientists spell it out with a clarity not normally found in scientific prose.

“Our choice now is not whether or not we will allow warming to occur, but how much warming we are willing to tolerate.”

“First, an individual insect’s metabolic rate accelerates with temperature, and an insect’s rate of food consumption must rise accordingly,” they write.

“Second, the number of insects will change, because population growth rates also vary with temperature.” And for that reason, insect numbers in the tropics might decline, but pest numbers in the cooler regions will rise.

Curtis Deutsch of the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues report in the journal Science that they set themselves the challenge of calculating potential crop losses to insect pests in a warmer world.

They took what is already known about 38 insect species from different latitudes, and the data for harvests over recent decades. About one third of all crops are lost to pests, diseases and weed competition: the point of the study was to isolate the impact of insect predation under a scenario of global warming.

Tropical impact lessened

Most crops are lost in the tropics, but the extra appetite in tropical pests could be offset by reduced numbers as the thermometer rises.

France, China and the US – the countries that produce most of the world’s maize – could experience the most dramatic crop losses from insect pests. France produces much of the world’s wheat, China much of its rice: both crops will be hit hard.

Altogether the scientists calculate that with a 2°C rise – and average global temperatures have already risen by about 1°C – by 2050 the median increase in losses of yield across all climates could be 46% for wheat, 19% for rice and 31% for maize: all of it to ever-hungrier caterpillars, beetles and borers.

These percentages translate to 59 million tonnes for wheat, 92 million tonnes for rice and 63 million tonnes for maize.

Food security jeopardised

Such research is a fresh iteration of an increasingly familiar theme: the threat to food security in a world of climate change driven by ever-increasing use of fossil fuels to raise greenhouse gas ratios in the atmosphere to unprecedented levels. Insect predation however is not the only factor.

Repeatedly over the last decade, researchers have warned that higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide could affect the levels of protein, iron and zinc delivered by crop plants; that the greater extremes of heat that must accompany higher average temperatures could hit grain harvests and yields of fruit and vegetables.

Rice, wheat and maize between them provide a huge share of the world’s calorie intake. The three grains are staples for about 4 billion people, and the UN calculates that more than 800 million worldwide do not have enough to eat.

Most of these are in the developing world, and in the tropics. The twist in the latest research is that it predicts that the biggest losses will be in the well-off zones.

Guiding policy

Eleven European countries are expected to experience a 75% increase in insect-linked wheat losses: altogether, by 2050, insects could be consuming 16 million tonnes of wheat. The US could see a 40% increase in maize losses to pests, and farmers will lose 20 million tonnes in yield. Rice losses in China alone could reach 27 million tonnes.

Such studies are intended as a guide to help ministries of agriculture, crop research institutions and other national and civic governments to confront a future of climate change.

Crop scientists could start devising new farming strategies, and working on more resistant crop varieties. Nations could begin to deliver on promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“I hope our results demonstrate the importance of collecting more data on how pests will impact crop losses in a warming world,” said Dr Deutsch, “because collectively, our choice now is not whether or not we will allow warming to occur, but how much warming we are willing to tolerate.”

Moon and Kim Arrive at Guesthouse for Luncheon

PYONGYANG, North Korea — The Latest on the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in (all times local):

11:30 a.m.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have arrived at a guesthouse in Pyongyang where they are expected to have talks over lunch.

Kim and Moon arrived at the Paekhwawon State Guesthouse in a black Mercedes convertible and were seen talking and adjusting their hair before stepping out of the backseat.

Their wives also reportedly shared a separate vehicle to the guesthouse.

The Paekwawon Guesthouse was also where former South Korean Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun stayed during their summits with Kim’s father in 2000 and 2007.

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10:15 a.m.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has greeted South Korean President Moon Jae-in upon his arrival in Pyongyang for their third summit this year to improve ties and help resolve the nuclear standoff.

Moon and Kim embraced at the Sunan International Airport on Tuesday as thousands of North Koreans cheered and waved flowers, North Korean flags and a blue-and-white map symbolizing a unified peninsula.

Moon and Kim and their wives shook the hands of North Korean and South Korean officials before they were saluted by a North Korean ceremonial guard.

They then inspected goose-stepping soldiers, and Moon shook hands with North Korean civilians and bowed deeply to them.

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9:50 a.m.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has landed in Pyongyang for his third summit of the year with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Moon was greeted at the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang by thousands of North Koreans, lined in neat rows and dressed in black suits and traditional hanboks. They waved bouquets of artificial flowers, the North Korean flag and a white-and-blue flag with a map symbolizing a unified Korean Peninsula. North Korean soldiers and naval troops quick-marched into position to welcome Moon, and Kim Jong Un’s sister was seen walking amid the preparations.

Moon is to meet Kim Jong Un later Tuesday and again on Wednesday during his three-day trip.

The main focus is to see whether Moon can set up talks between Pyongyang and Washington to salvage stalled nuclear diplomacy.

Moon’s previous meetings with Kim were at the border village of Panmunjom.

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9 a.m.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has left for Pyongyang for his third summit of the year with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Moon’s plane left a military airport near Seoul for Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on Tuesday morning.

Moon is to meet Kim later Tuesday and again on Wednesday during a three-day trip.

The main focus is to see whether Moon can set up talks between Pyongyang and Washington to salvage stalled nuclear diplomacy.

Moon’s trip makes him the third South Korean leader to visit Pyongyang for an inter-Korean summit.

Moon has met Kim twice this year, but each time at the Koreas’ border village of Panmunjom.

A group of about 150 business, sports, entertainment and government leaders streamed onto the plane before Moon’s departure.

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8 a.m.

North Korea says the summit between leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will offer an important opportunity in “further accelerating the development” in relations between the rivals.

North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency published the statement on Tuesday hours before the Korean leaders were expected to meet in Pyongyang for their third summit this year amid a global diplomatic push to resolve the nuclear standoff.

The summit will likely be a crucial indicator of how the larger nuclear negotiations with the United States will proceed. Talks between Washington and Pyongyang have sputtered in recent weeks, raising doubts about Kim’s supposed willingness to relinquish his nuclear arsenal and putting the pressure on Moon to broker progress once again.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Monday that he will push for “irreversible, permanent peace” and for better dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington, during “heart-to-heart” talks with Kim.

Police: Border Agent Targeted Homicide Victims for Vulnerability

LAREDO, Texas — A U.S. Border Patrol supervisor charged in the killings of four women knew the victims and targeted them for their vulnerability, authorities said Monday, as some feared more deaths at the hands of the agent remained undiscovered.

Though investigators didn’t detail Juan David Ortiz’s history with the women, who were believed to have been sex workers, they said he knew them before killing them and leaving their bodies by rural Texas roadsides during a 10-day string of violence.

“He had the trust of most of the victims that were involved in this killing,” said Chief Deputy Federico Garza of the Webb County Sheriff’s Office. “So he took that opportunity to commit this crime.”

Authorities said Ortiz grew convinced police were closing in on him, amassing weapons at his home for a possible confrontation. In the end, officers attempted to apprehend him at a gas station, but he fled to a nearby hotel parking lot. They said Ortiz tried to make his cellphone appear like a weapon in hopes of being shot by officers, but he was captured without incident around 2 a.m. on Saturday.

Garza said he was confident “the killings will stop” because they had nabbed the right suspect. But he was less sure that no other victims of Ortiz, who had worked for Border Patrol for a decade, would be discovered.

“We’re not confident of that,” he said, but assured the public investigators were scouring Ortiz’s history in case any other crimes may be linked.

Fear of additional victims is particularly haunting for sex workers, including Christa Daring, executive director of Sex Workers Outreach Project-USA. Daring said the organization routinely hears stories of women preyed on by law enforcement officers and that it seemed plausible there were other victims of Ortiz.

“Typically somebody who has this kind of access to really vulnerable populations is active for more than two weeks,” Daring said.

Victims’ families echoed that concern.

“I believe that it’s just kind of like a small piece of it,” said Alberto Luera, a second cousin of 42-year-old Claudine Anne Luera, who was discovered shot on a rural roadside Thursday. “I would imagine that things are just going to keep showing up.”

Garza said Ortiz “mentioned the dislike for the community … the victims represented” — presumably a reference to a comment made under police questioning. But even as additional details of Ortiz’s alleged crimes trickled out, authorities were still scouring for clues that would give a better understanding of what motivated the killings.

“The question that’s out there is, ‘Why did he do this?’” Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz said. He later added: “We are trying to get into the mind of this killer.”

Before being hired by Border Patrol, Ortiz served in the U.S. Navy for nearly eight years, until 2009, holding a variety of medical posts as well as a three-year detachment with the Marines. A Navy spokeswoman declined to answer questions about the nature of the suspect’s discharge or whether he’d been disciplined.

The Border Patrol said there was nothing in Ortiz’s background suggesting he was capable of such crimes. At a news conference, a representative of the agency said he had a minor incident in his background, but they gave no details on it.

Ortiz, 35, was being held in Laredo on four counts of murder in the deaths, as well as aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful restraint linked to a fifth woman who escaped, Erika Pena. After running off, that woman found an officer. Her tips helped police zero in on Ortiz.

According to affidavits , Ortiz confessed to the killings after he was taken into custody Saturday. He was being held on $2.5 million bond.

Besides Luera, police also identified Melissa Ramirez, 29, among the slain. A third victim was a 28-year-old transgender woman who authorities at a news conference identified as having the birth name Humberto Ortiz, but who reportedly was known as Janelle. The fourth victim’s name wasn’t released.

The suspect was believed to have acted alone. Jail records don’t list an attorney for him.

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This story has been corrected to show that the first name of one of the victims was Humberto, not Umberto.

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Sedensky reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Juan Lozano and Nomaan Merchant in Houston contributed to this report.

Could Trump Be a One-Man Version of the Lehman Brothers?

Once upon a time, there was a little-known energy company called Enron. In its 16-year life, it went from being dubbed America’s most innovative company by Fortune Magazine to being the poster child of American corporate deceit. Using a classic recipe for book-cooking, Enron ended up in bankruptcy with jail time for those involved. Its shareholders lost $74 billion in the four years leading up to its bankruptcy in 2001.

A decade ago, the flameout of my former employer, Lehman Brothers, the global financial firm, proved far more devastating, contributing as it did to a series of events that ignited a global financial meltdown. Americans lost an estimated $12.8 trillion in the havoc.

Despite the differing scales of those disasters, there was a common thread: both companies used financial tricks to make themselves appear so much healthier than they actually were. They both faked the numbers, thanks to off-the-books or offshore mechanisms and eluded investigations… until they collapsed.

Now, here’s a question for you as we head for the November midterm elections, sure to be seen as a referendum on the president: Could Donald Trump be a one-man version of either Enron or Lehman Brothers, someone who cooked “the books” until, well, he imploded?

Since we’ve never seen his tax returns, right now we really don’t know. What we do know is that he’s been dodging bullets ever since the Justice Department accused him of violating the Fair Housing Act in his operation of 39 buildings in New York City in 1973. Unlike famed 1920s mob boss Al Capone, he may never get done in by something as simple as tax evasion, but time will tell.

Rest assured of one thing though: he won’t go down easily, even if he is already the subject of multiple investigations and a plethora of legal slings and arrows. Of course, his methods should be familiar. As President Calvin Coolidge so famously put it, “the business of America is business.” And the business of business is to circumvent or avoid the heat… until, of course, it can’t.

The Safe

So far, Treasury Secretary and former Trump national campaign finance chairman Steven Mnuchin has remained out of the legal fray that’s sweeping away some of his fellow campaign associates. Certainly, he and his wife have grandiose tastes. And, yes, his claim that his hedge fund, Dune Capital Management, used offshore tax havens only for his clients, not to help him evade taxes himself, represents a stretch of the imagination. Other than that, however, there seems little else to investigate — for now. Still, as Treasury secretary he does oversee a federal agency that means the world to Donald Trump, the Internal Revenue Service, which just happens to be located across a courtyard from the Trump International Hotel on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue.

As it happens, the IRS in the Trump era still doesn’t have a commissioner, only an acting head. What it may have, National Enquirer-style, is genuine presidential secrets in the form of Donald Trump’s elusive tax returns. Last fall, outgoing IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said that there were plans to relocate them to a shiny new safe where they would evidently remain.

In 2016, Trump became the first candidate since President Richard Nixon not to disclose his tax returns. During the campaign, he insisted that those returns were undergoing an IRS audit and that he would not release them until it was completed. (No one at the IRS has ever confirmed that being audited in any way prohibits the release of tax information.) The president’s pledge to do so remains unfulfilled and last year counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway noted that the White House was “not going to release his tax returns,” adding — undoubtedly thinking about his base — “people didn’t care.”

On April 17, 2018, the White House announced that the president would defer even filing his 2017 tax returns until this October. As every president since Nixon has undergone a mandatory audit while in office, count on American taxpayers hearing the same excuse for the rest of his term, even if Congress were to decide to invoke a 1924 IRS provision to view them.

Still, Conway may have a point when it comes to the public. After all, tax dodging is as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July. According to one study, every year the U.S. loses $400 billion in unpaid taxes, much of it hidden in offshore tax havens.

Yet the financial disclosures that The Donald did make during election campaign 2016 indicate that there are more than 500 companies in over two dozen countries, mostly with few to no employees or real offices, that feature him as their “president.” Let’s face it, someone like Trump would only create a business universe of such Wall Street-esque complexity if he wanted to hide something. He was likely trying to evade taxes, shield himself and his family from financial accountability, or hide the dubious health of parts of his business empire. As a colleague of mine at Bear Stearns once put it, when tax-haven companies pile up like dirty laundry, there’s a high likelihood that their uses aren’t completely clean.

Now, let’s consider what we know of Donald Trump’s financial adventures, taxes and all. It’s quite a story and, even though it already feels like forever, it’s only beginning to be told.

The Trump Organization

Atop the non-White House branch of the Trump dynasty is the Trump Organization. To comply with federal conflict-of-interest requirements, The Donald officially turned over that company’s reins to his sons, Eric and Donald Jr. For all the obvious reasons, he was supposed to distance himself from his global business while running the country.

Only that didn’t happen and not just because every diplomat and lobbyist in town started to frequent his money-making new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. Now, according to the New York Times, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is considering pressing criminal charges against the Trump Organization and two of its senior officials because the president’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid off an adult film actress and a former Playboy model to keep their carnal knowledge to themselves before the election.

Though Cohen effectively gave Stormy Daniels $130,000 and Karen McDougal $150,000 to keep them quiet, the Trump Organization then paid Cohen even more, $420,000, funds it didn’t categorize as a reimbursement for expenses, but as a “retainer.” In its internal paperwork, it then termed that sum as “legal expenses.”

The D.A.’s office is evidently focusing its investigation on how the Trump Organization classified that payment of $420,000, in part for the funds Cohen raised from the equity in his home to calm the Stormy (so to speak). Most people take out home equity loans to build a garage or pay down some debt. Not Cohen. It’s a situation that could become far thornier for Trump. As Cohen already knew, Trump couldn’t possibly wield his pardon power to absolve his former lawyer, since it only applies to those convicted of federal charges, not state ones.

And that’s bad news for the president. As Lanny Davis, Cohen’s lawyer, put it, “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?”

The bigger question is: What else is there? Those two payoffs may, after all, just represent the beginning of the woes facing both the Trump Organization and the Trump Foundation, which has been the umbrella outfit for businesses that have incurred charges of lobbying violations (not disclosing payment to a local newspaper to promote favorable casino legislation) and gaming law violations. His organization has also been accused of misleading investors, engaging in currency-transaction-reporting crimes, and improperly accounting for money used to buy betting chips, among a myriad of other transgressions. To speculate on overarching corporate fraud would not exactly be a stretch.

Unlike his casinos, the Trump Organization has not (yet) gone bankrupt, nor — were it to do so — is it in a class with Enron or Lehman Brothers. Yet it does have something in common with both of them: piles of money secreted in places designed to hide its origins, uses, and possibly end-users. The question some authority may pursue someday is: If Donald Trump was willing to be a part of a scheme to hide money paid to former lovers, wouldn’t he do the same for his businesses?

The Trump Foundation

Questions about Trump’s charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, have abounded since campaign 2016. They prompted New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood to file a lawsuit on June 14th against the foundation, also naming its board of directors, including his sons and his daughter Ivanka. It cites “a pattern of persistent illegal conduct… occurring over more than a decade, that includes extensive unlawful political coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions to benefit Mr. Trump’s personal and business interests, and violations of basic legal obligations for non-profit foundations.”

As the New York Times reported, “The lawsuit accused the charity and members of Mr. Trump’s family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing, and illegal coordination with Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.” It also alleged that for four years — 2007, 2012, 2013, and 2014 — Trump himself placed his John Hancock below incorrect statements on the foundation’s tax returns.

The main issue in question: Did the Trump Foundation use any of its funds to benefit The Donald or any of his businesses directly? Underwood thinks so. Asshe pointed out, it “was little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality.” Otherwise it seems to have employed no one and, according to the lawsuit, its board of directors has not met since 1999.

Because Trump ran all of his enterprises, he was also personally responsible for signing their tax returns. His charitable foundation was no exception. Were he found to have knowingly provided false information on its tax returns, he could someday face perjury charges.

On August 31st, the foundation’s lawyers fought back, filing papers of their own, calling the lawsuit, as the New York Times put it, “a political attack motivated by the former attorney general’s ‘record of antipathy’ against Mr. Trump.” They were referring to Eric Schneiderman, who had actually resigned the previous May — consider this an irony under the circumstances — after being accused of sexual assault by former girlfriends.

The New York state court system has, in fact, emerged as a vital force in the pushback against the president and his financial shenanigans. As Zephyr Teachout, recent Democratic candidate for New York attorney general, pointed out, it is “one of the most important legal offices in the entire country to both resist and present an alternative to what is happening at the federal level.” And indeed it had begun fulfilling that responsibility with The Donald long before the Mueller investigation was even launched.

In 2013, Schneiderman filed a civil suit against Trump University, calling it a sham institution that engaged in repeated fraudulent behavior. In 2016, Trump finally settled that case in court, agreeing to a $25 million payment to its former students — something that (though we don’t, of course, have the tax returns to confirm this) probably also proved to be a tax write-off for him.

These days, the New York attorney general’s office could essentially create a branch only for matters Trumpian. So far, it has brought more than 100 legal or administrative actions against the president and congressional Republicans since he took office.

Still, don’t sell the foundation short. It did, in the end, find a way to work for the greater good — of Donald Trump. He and his wife, Melania, for instance, used the “charity” to purchase a now infamous six-foot portrait of himself for $20,000 — and true to form, according to the Washington Post, even that purchase could turn out to be a tax violation. Such “self-dealing” is considered illegal. Of course, we’re talking about someone who “used $258,000 from the foundation to pay off legal settlements that involved his for-profit businesses.” That seems like the definition of self-dealing.

The Trump Team

The president swears that he has an uncanny ability to size someone up in a few seconds, based on attitude, confidence, and a handshake — that, in other words, just as there’s the art of the deal, so, too, there’s the art of choosing those who will represent him, stand by him, and take bullets for him, his White House, and his business enterprises. And for a while, he did indeed seem to be a champion when it came to surrounding himself with people who had a special knack for hiding money, tax documents, and secret payoffs from public view.

These days — think of them as the era of attrition for Donald Trump — that landscape looks a lot emptier and less inviting.

On August 21st, his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted in Virginia of “five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account.” (On September 14th, he would make a deal with Robert Mueller and plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy.)  On that same August day, Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, also pled guilty to eight different federal crimes in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, including — yep — tax evasion.

Three days later, prosecutors in the Cohen investigation granted immunity to the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. A loyal employee of the Trump family for more than four decades, he had also served as treasurer for the Donald J. Trump Foundation. If anyone other than the president and his children knows the financial and tax secrets of the Trump empire, it’s him. And now, he may be ready to talk. Lurking in his future testimony could be yet another catalyst in a coming Trump tax debacle.

And don’t forget David Pecker, CEO of American Media, the company that publishes the National Enquirer. Pecker bought and buried stories for The Donald for what seems like forever. He, too, now has an immunity deal in the federal investigation of Cohen (and so Trump), evidently in return forproviding information on the president’s hush-money deals to bury various exploits that he came to find unpalatable.

The question is this: Did Trump know of Cohen’s hush-money payments? Cohen has certainly indicated that he did and Pecker seems to have told federal prosecutors a similar story. As Cohen said in court of Pecker, “I and the CEO of a media company, at the request of the candidate, worked together” to keep the public in the dark about such payments and Trump’s involvement in them.

The president’s former lawyer faces up to 65 years in prison. That’s enough time to make him consider what other tales he might be able to tell in return for a lighter sentence, including possibly exposing various tax avoidance techniques he and his former client cooked up.

And don’t think that Cohen, Pecker, and Weisselberg are going to be the last figures to come forward with such stories as the Trump team begins to come unglued.

In the cases of Enron and Lehman Brothers, both companies unraveled after multiple shell games imploded. Enron’s losses were being hidden in multiple offshore entities. In the case of Lehman Brothers, staggeringly over-valued assets were being pledged to borrow yet more money to buy similar assets. In both cases, rigged games were being played in the shadows, while vital information went undisclosed to the public — until it was way too late.

Donald Trump’s equivalent shell games still largely remain to be revealed. They may simply involve hiding money trails to evade taxes or to secretly buy political power and business influence. There is, as yet, no way of knowing. One thing is clear, however: the only way to begin to get answers is to see the president’s tax returns, audited or not. Isn’t it time to open that safe?

U.S. to Slash Refugee Admissions to 30,000 Next Year

WASHINGTON—The U.S. will slash the number of refugees it will accept for a second straight year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday, insisting amid criticism from human rights groups that the country is still committed to providing sanctuary to people fleeing the world’s danger zones.

Up to 30,000 refugees will be allowed into the country next year, down from a cap of 45,000 this year. It will be the lowest ceiling on admissions since the program began in 1980. The announcement comes despite calls from global humanitarian groups that this year’s cap of 45,000 was too low.

Pompeo sought to head off potential criticism of the reduction by noting that the U.S. would process more than 280,000 asylum claims in addition to more than 800,000 already inside the country who are awaiting a resolution of their claims.

“These expansive figures continue the United States’ long-standing record as the most generous nation in the world when it comes to protection-based immigration and assistance,” he said.

The 30,000 cap is the maximum number of refugees the U.S. will admit during the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The actual number allowed in could be lower. So far this year, the U.S. has only admitted 20,918 refugees for the fiscal year set to end in two weeks, according to State Department records.

President Barack Obama raised the ceiling to 110,000 in 2017, but the pace slowed dramatically after President Donald Trump took office and issued an executive order addressing refugees. In 2016, the last full year of the Obama administration, the U.S. welcomed nearly 85,000 refugees.

Pompeo said the lower ceiling reflected commitment to aiding families forced to flee their homes by war, persecution or natural disasters while “prioritizing the safety and well-being of the American people.” He cited the case of an Iraqi refugee who was arrested in California for killing a policeman in his homeland while fighting for the Islamic State organization.

“This year’s proposed refugee ceiling must be considered in the context of the many other forms of protection and assistance offered by the United States,” he said, citing U.S. contributions to foreign aid and other forms of humanitarian assistance.

Amnesty International accused the Trump administration of “abandoning” refugees with the lower cap.

“This is the lowest goal in the history of the program, and compounded by this administration’s history of creating road block after road block for refugees to arrive, this must be perceived as an all-out attack against our country’s ability to resettle refugees both now and in the future,” said Ryan Mace of Amnesty International.

Worldwide, there were some 25.4 million refugees last year, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, with many more people internally displaced within their home countries. Most aid groups and governments advocate resettlement as a last resort, preferring to allow refugees to return to their homes if conditions improve, rather than permanently moving to another country.

During the ceiling announcement Monday Pompeo advocated U.S. efforts “to end conflicts that drive displacement in the first place and to target the application of foreign aid in a smarter way.”

Trump has made limiting immigration a centerpiece of his policy agenda. The Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy that forcibly separated families at the U.S. southern border sparked outrage among Republicans and Democrats alike. Last year Trump temporarily banned visitors from a handful of Muslim-majority nations, and insists he’ll build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump has linked increased immigration to increased crime in the United States. Yet, according to resettlement agencies in the United States, the U.S. vetting process is one of the world’s toughest. Of the 3 million refugees admitted to the U.S. since 1975, not one has been arrested for carrying out a lethal terror attack on U.S. soil, according to resettlement agencies.

Most applicants to the U.S. refugee program spend at least three years being interviewed, undergoing biometric checks and medical exams, and filling out paperwork. Cases are screened by the Defense Department, FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

After they are resettled, refugees continue to undergo security checks in the United States for five years or more.

The Trump administration added requirements, including longer background checks and more screenings for females and males between 14 and 50 from certain countries, including Iraq.