“BANGKOK (AP) — American journalist Danny Fenster, sentenced only days ago to 11 years hard labor in Myanmar, has been freed and is on his way home, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson said Monday.
Richardson said in a statement that Fenster had been handed over to him in Myanmar and would return to the U.S. via Qatar over the next day and a half.
‘This is the day that you hope will come when you do this work,’ Richardson said in a statement emailed from his office. ‘We are so grateful that Danny will finally be able to reconnect with his loved ones, who have been advocating for him all this time, against immense odds.’
Richardson said he negotiated Fenster’s release during a recent visit to Myanmar when he held face-to-face meetings with Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military ruler.
Fenster, the managing editor of the online magazine Frontier Myanmar, was convicted Friday of spreading false or inflammatory information, contacting illegal organizations and violating visa regulations.
Fenster’s sentence was the harshest punishment yet among the seven journalists known to have been convicted since Myanmar’s military ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February.” Read more at AP News
“KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Attorneys were set to make closing arguments Monday at Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial in the shootings of three men during street unrest in Wisconsin, the last word before a jury begins deliberating in a case that underscored Americans’ bitter divisions on issues of guns, protests and policing.
Rittenhouse, 18, of Antioch, Illinois, faces charges ranging from intentional homicide — punishable by life in prison — to an underage weapons charge that could mean a few months in jail if convicted.
Rittenhouse, 17 at the time, traveled the few miles from his home across the state border to Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, as the city was in the throes of damaging protests that followed a white police officer’s shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, after a call to a domestic disturbance.
Bystander video captured the critical minutes when Rittenhouse, with a Smith and Wesson AR-style semiautomatic rifle, shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 27.
Rittenhouse is white, as are the three men he shot. The case raised questions about racial justice, policing, firearms and white privilege that polarized people far outside Kenosha.
Rittenhouse has argued self-defense in the shootings, leaving prosecutors with the burden of proving that his fear for his safety and his use of deadly force were unreasonable. Some legal experts watching the trial said the prosecution struggled to do so.
Perhaps in recognition of that, prosecutors asked Judge Bruce Schroeder to let the jury consider several lesser charges if they acquit on the original counts. Schroeder indicated on Friday that he would allow some of what prosecutors sought when he gave the jury instructions on Monday.” Read more at AP News
President Biden is expected to sign the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill today, setting in motion historic levels of funding for projects across the country. Biden has tapped former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to oversee the bill’s implementation. Landrieu has promised to work closely with state and local governments to organize projects and create new jobs to support them. About $550 billion in new federal investment is expected to go to such projects over the next five years. American infrastructure is in desperate need of updating and repair, and some undertakings that could get a big boost from the bill include a new bridge along a major transit artery in the Midwest, expanded public transit in the Atlanta metro area and rail improvements in Chicago, the nation’s busiest rail hub.” Read more at CNN
“The White House chief of staff under former President Trump has defied a subpoena to appear before the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. Now, a key member of that panel says the House will "move quickly" to refer Mark Meadows for criminal contempt, just like it did with Trump’s one-time adviser Steve Bannon. A federal grand jury on Friday returned an indictment against Bannon for his refusal to appear before the committee. Bannon is expected to self-surrender and appear in court today. As the committee expands its list of subpoenas, it wants to make clear that those who defy its requests could face real consequences.” Read more at CNN
“As the winter months roll in -- and Covid-19 spikes threaten as people move indoors -- the struggle over vaccine mandates in the US continues. A federal appeals court has reaffirmed its earlier decision to freeze the Biden administration's vaccine mandate, calling it ‘staggeringly overbroad.’ The OSHA rule requires all employers with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or undergo regular testing and wear face masks at work. In Oklahoma, the state's National Guard has pledged to thwart a Defense Department mandate that troops be vaccinated against Covid-19. GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt has also asked the Pentagon to suspend the mandate for National Guard members. The Pentagon has said it will respond.” Read more at CNN
“Consumer prices have climbed about 6.2% in the last 12 months -- a rate of increase that hasn’t been seen since 1990 and is well above the Federal Reserve's long-term inflation goal of around 2%. However, staggering inflation isn’t flagging consumer spending. US retail sales rose more than expected in September, and October numbers, due out tomorrow, are expected to be just as healthy. Still, the situation is very alarming for investors and financial experts. The director of the National Economic Council and Biden’s top economic adviser is urging Congress to pass the $1.75 trillion economic spending package to help curb rising prices.” Read more at CNN
“Thousands of people are now stranded at the border between Poland and Belarus as the humanitarian crisis there grows. The migrants -- most of whom are from the Middle East and Asia -- are seeking to cross illegally into Poland, and many are now living in a Belarusian forest, weathering freezing nighttime temperatures. Some have died of exposure. The Red Cross is delivering aid, but the situation may only get worse. Belarusian state border officials estimate the number of people in the border region could increase to 5,000 within a week. The US and EU are preparing to levy fresh sanctions on Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko has been accused of manufacturing the crisis by encouraging migrants to cross into Belarus’ EU neighbors.” Read more at CNN
“WASHINGTON — A year before the polls open in the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans are already poised to flip at least five seats in the closely divided House thanks to redrawn district maps that are more distorted, more disjointed and more gerrymandered than any since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.
The rapidly forming congressional map, a quarter of which has taken shape as districts are redrawn this year, represents an even more extreme warping of American political architecture, with state legislators in many places moving aggressively to cement their partisan dominance.
The flood of gerrymandering, carried out by both parties but predominantly by Republicans, is likely to leave the country ever more divided by further eroding competitive elections and making representatives more beholden to their party’s base.
At the same time, Republicans’ upper hand in the redistricting process, combined with plunging approval ratings for President Biden and the Democratic Party, provides the party with what could be a nearly insurmountable advantage in the 2022 midterm elections and the next decade of House races.” Read more at New York Times
“A 9-year-old boy crushed during a crowd surge at the Astroworld Festival in Houston died Sunday, bringing the death toll from the catastrophic concert to 10.
Ezra Blount had been watching from his dad’s shoulders as Travis Scott rapped from the elaborate stage, when the crowd surged forward. His father, Treston Blount, struggled for air and lost consciousness, he later recounted in an online fundraiser, and Ezra fell to the ground and was trampled.
He was taken to a hospital and placed in a medically induced coma on life support, suffering from significant trauma in his brain, liver and kidney. He died Sunday, according to a statement released by the family’s attorneys, becoming the youngest person to die from injuries sustained at the festival.” Read more at Washington Post
“British police said Monday that a car explosion that took place outside a hospital in northwest England that left one person dead and another injured on Sunday was a ‘terrorist incident.’
The blast occurred right before 11 a.m. local time as a taxi pulled up outside an entrance of Liverpool Women’s Hospital, according to a Merseyside Police statement. Witnesses said the vehicle was quickly engulfed in flames. One passenger, who has not been publicly identified, was declared dead at the scene.” Read more at Washington Post
“Queen Elizabeth II did not attend Remembrance Sunday service due to a sprained back. The solemn ceremony to remember the sacrifices made by fallen servicemen and women was expected to be her first public appearanceafter she canceled several events on doctor's orders.” Read more at NPR
“The number of international students at U.S. colleges fell during the 2020-2021 school year amid the covid-19 pandemic, according to a survey released Monday, but there are initial signs of an uptick this fall.
For more than 70 years, the number of students from abroad at U.S. colleges and universities had been steadily rising, from about 25,000 students in 1948-1949 to more than 1 million in recent years.
Then the pandemic hit.
With border closings, flight cancellations and numerous other challenges to global mobility in the 2020-2021 academic year, the number of international students dropped 15 percent from the previous year, to about 914,000. (That number includes students taking online classes from U.S. schools, whether on campus or from overseas.)
The drop was driven by fewer first-time students coming from abroad: The number of new international students fell more than 45 percent from the 2019-2020 school year to the next.” Read more at Washington Post
“Case against Elizabeth Holmes winds down. The government will likely rest its case this week in the Theranos founder's fraud trial, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Schenk. Ex-employees who testified in recent weeks described a culture of fear and isolation at the blood-testing startup.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of helping procure underage girls for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, faces a trial Monday on charges that could bring up to 80 years in prison. Epstein, 66, was indicted in July 2019, accused of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of underage girls at his mansions from 2002 to 2005. He was found dead in his prison cell in 2019. Maxwell was arrested in July 2020 on charges that include transporting a minor for the purposes of criminal sexual activity and conspiring to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts. Maxwell, who denies the accusations, has been in custody ever since.” Read more at USA Today
“Former president Donald Trump’s real estate company plans to sell the federal lease to its luxury D.C. hotel to Miami-based CGI Merchant Group, according to a report Sunday in the Wall Street Journal.
The Trump Organization, which leased the Old Post Office property beginning in 2013, has been in discussions with CGI Merchant about selling the lease, according to two people who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the discussions. CGI Merchant signed a contract to buy the lease for $375 million, according to the Journal, citing anonymous sources.” Read more at Washington Post
“No one likes an end of day Zoom meeting, especially not with your biggest rival, but that’s essentially what U.S. President Joe Biden must take on today as he holds a virtual bilateral meeting (neither side wishes to call it a summit) with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this evening Washington time.
While their subordinates have kept busy contact with each other, this will be only the third time the leaders of the world’s largest economies have spoken directly since Biden took office in January. Their first phone call lasted two hours, and today’s on-camera meeting is likely to challenge that timeframe with a senior administration official telling reporters on Sunday to expect the meeting to last “several hours.”
Although there is plenty to discuss, from trade to nuclear weapons, a curtain raising call between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday indicated that Taiwan will loom largest. Since the last time the leaders spoke, China has flown a record number of warplanes close to Taiwan’s airspace and it has emerged that U.S. military trainers have been secretly working with Taiwanese forces for at least a year to shore up the island’s defenses.
The climate ‘oasis.’ While urgent geopolitical concerns are likely to dominate today’s discussions, the fate of the world when the two men are long dead looks slightly rosier after last week. Climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua issued a surprise joint statementindicating little concrete other than offering hope that, despite China’s admonishments about making climate policy an ‘oasis,’ the two countries may be able to navigate a path to avoiding a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.
Domestic contrasts. The two leaders come to the meeting facing vastly different domestic landscapes. Public approval of Biden’s presidency is at its lowest yet according to recent polls, piling on more pressure to deliver something worth driving voters to polls in next year’s mid-term elections. Xi, by contrast, has been lifted into the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party pantheon following last week’s meeting of the Central Committee. And while Biden stares down the possibility of a one-term presidency, Xi can look forward to a rare third term in charge.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Sliding support | Argentina’s ruling coalition was defeated in midterm elections yesterday and is poised to lose control of the senate, too, as the economy struggles. The left-wing movement founded by Juan Peron in the 1940s won’t have enough senators to move forward legislation for the first time in almost four decades.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Online army | Ultra-conservative pundit Eric Zemmour has been elevated to a kind of cult status among French-language Facebook groups, Twitter discussions and other online spaces. Read how the TV star who may challenge Emmanuel Macron for the presidency next year is benefiting from a social media model that cheered Donald Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. election.” Read more at Bloomberg
“A new party pledging to stamp out graft and organized crime in the EU’s most corrupt nation won Bulgaria’s elections yesterday.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Biden will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Washington Thursday to discuss immigration, energy and trade, as well as recovery from the pandemic.” Read more at Bloomberg
“A son of deceased Libyan strongman Moammar Al Qaddafi filed papers to run in December’s presidential race, further complicating a vote meant to cap a decade of conflict.” Read more at Bloomberg
“IBM has created a quantum computer capable of processing information so complex the work can't be done or simulated on a traditional computer, CEO Arvind Krishna told Ina Fried on ‘Axios on HBO.’
Why it matters: Quantum computing could help address problems that are too challenging for even today's most powerful supercomputers, such as figuring out how to make better batteries or sequester carbon emissions.
IBM says its new Eagle processor can handle 127 qubits, a measure of quantum computing power.
It would take a traditional computer ‘bigger than this planet’ to be able to accomplish the same work, Krishna said.” Read more at Axios
“Adele is back. The top-selling artist of the 2010s releases her fourth album, ‘30,’ on Friday. Industry analysts expect it to be one of the biggest music events of the year, but are watching to see if she can maintain her impact in a marketplace that has been transformed in the six years since her last album.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“'She was the best of us': NPR books editor Petra Mayer died 'suddenly' at age 46.” Read more at USA Today
“What’s in a name? Well, for Ji-Young, the newest muppet resident of ‘Sesame Street,’ her name is a sign she was meant to live there.
‘So, in Korean traditionally the two syllables they each mean something different and Ji means, like, smart or wise. And Young means, like, brave or courageous and strong,’ Ji-Young explained during a recent interview. ‘But we were looking it up and guess what? Ji also means sesame.’
At only 7 years old, Ji-Young is making history as the first Asian American muppet in the ‘Sesame Street’ canon. She is Korean American and has two passions: rocking out on her electric guitar and skateboarding. The children’s TV program, which first aired 52 years ago this month, gave The Associated Press a first look at its adorable new occupant.
Ji-Young will formally be introduced in ‘See Us Coming Together: A Sesame Street Special.’ Simu Liu, Padma Lakshmi and Naomi Osaka are among the celebrities appearing in the special, which will drop Thanksgiving Day on HBO Max, ‘Sesame Street’ social media platforms and on local PBS stations.” Read more at AP News
No posts