Editor’s Note: Trita Parsi is author of “Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy,” and President of the National Iranian American Council. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. In a matter of days, protests in Iran have quickly spread across the country, taking the government by surprise and leaving analysts and pundits alike confused. Part of the reason many have been caught off guard is because these protests appear quite different from their 2009 predecessor – in terms of size, leadership and objective. But another reason is that the drivers of these protests are from a segment of the population that has rarely figured into Iran’s political developments in the past two decades – those who never believed or have lost hope in the idea of real change through reform. Similarities between the current protests and the 2009 uprising are quite limited. While the current demonstrations started outside of Tehran – in Mashhad and Qom – and quickly spread to other cities, their size remains relatively small compared to what the world observed after Iran’s fraudulent 2009 elections. In the first few days after that election, more than one million people protested in the streets of Tehran. Though quite ferocious, the current protests have rarely numbered more than a few thousand in any specific locality. The protests in 2009 also had very specific goals – at least initially. They were prompted by accusations of fraud in the presidential election, and the protestors were demanding the votes be recounted. The protests also had strong leadership from then-presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who gave the movement much-needed organization. The current protests appear much more sporadic, with no clear leadership and with objectives that have shifted over the course of the past four days. According to witnesses I’ve spoken to, the protests were initiated in Mashhad by religious hardliners who sought to take advantage of the population’s legitimate economic grievances to score points against the Hassan Rouhani government, which they consider too moderate. Related video Protests continue for a third day in Iran But they quickly lost control over the protests as the economic message has resonated with a broader segment of the population than they expected. Frustrations with corruption and falling living standards appear to have given way to much sharper political slogans – such as “Death to the dictator!” and “Down with the Islamic Republic!” Few have been more surprised by all of this than Iran’s reformists. The absence of slogans and chants invoking Green leaders such as Mousavi, Karroubi or former President Mohammad Khatami gives credence to their claims that they are not a driving force behind these protests. In fact, no major reformist figure has come out in favor of the protests, and some activists have even spoken out against them. Key operatives in the Green movement that I have spoken to both in Iran and in exile have clearly adopted a calculated distance from the demonstrators, though they express sympathy for the population’s grievances. The fact that reformists – who have been at the center of most of the large-scale protests in Iran for the past two decades – appear to be neither driving nor even particularly involved presents a new political phenomenon in Iran. Related video Trump applauds Iran's anti-government protest The protestors likely include some disillusioned Rouhani supporters. But remember that Rouhani won re-election with 57% of the vote (and 70% voter participation) only seven months ago. That means it’s more likely that the core of the demonstrators are of a different ilk. Their uncompromisingly anti-regime slogans suggest they may belong to the segment of the population who tends not to vote, doesn’t believe the system can be reformed and either never subscribed to or has lost hope in the idea of gradual change. Add to that those who have joined the protests out of a sense of economic desperation and humiliation. Most analysts have not kept an eye on these segments of the population precisely because they have not been at the center of political change in Iran in recent history. Nor do they have a track record of being able to muster protests of this size. Precisely because this is a new phenomenon, it is also more challenging to predict how the protests will evolve and how protestors will react to the likely crackdown by the authorities in the coming days. This may also explain why the government’s reaction thus far has been relatively muted. The Iranian government is certainly not known for its lack of brutality. Protests in 2009 were violently suppressed, with massive human rights violations captured by citizen journalists on their cellphones. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook The brutality it is capable of has – at least so far – not been fully mustered. The question is why? Is it because the Rouhani government calculates that the protests will fizzle out on their own and potentially even give him leverage against the hardliners to push more aggressively for reform? Or, is it because the hardliners are holding back to embarrass Rouhani and claim he is incapable of upholding security? Or, is it simply that the government as a whole is scrambling to figure out how to respond to this outpouring of discontent from segments of society they rarely pay attention to? Four days into the protests, there are still more questions than answers. The picture that is emerging, however, is that the political landscape in Iran is being shaken up by those seeking change outside of reform.


The white paper gives more details on the UK government's negotiating strategy Theresa May gave a speech last month which outlined her priorities The British government formally set out details for the first time Thursday of its strategy for Britain’s departure from the European Union. The 77-page “white paper” was published a day after lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that once finalized would give May the authority to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – the formal process of leaving the EU. It contained few clues about the government’s overall strategy that were not evident in a speech delivered by Prime Minister Theresa May in January. But it fleshed out aspects of May’s plan in some key areas. The white paper said: • The UK will seek a “new strategic partnership” with Europe. While the UK would leave the EU single market and  customs union, it would seek to keep “elements” of the free-trade zone. • No “cliff-edge” Brexit. The government said it would seek transitional arrangements to minimize the impact of Britain’s departure front he EU. • Early targets for trade deals would be the US, China, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, India and states in the Persian Gulf. It would seek “continuity” of arrangements with other countries that are currently covered by EU deals. • The government hopes for an “early” agreement on the status of the 2.8 million EU nationals who live in the UK. It expressed disappointment that a number of EU states had blocked attempts to sort the issue out before formal divorce talks begin. • It offered no guarantee on the status of the Irish border. The government said only that it would “aim” to protect the common travel area that exists between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, which will remain in the EU. The issue is a key part of the deal that brought peace to Northern Ireland. In a foreword to the white paper, May said Britain approached the negotiations anticipating success, not failure. “The House of Commons has voted overwhelmingly for us to get on with it. And the overwhelming majority of people – however they voted – want us to get on with it too,” she said. David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, told the House of Commons that Britain wanted the “European Union to succeed, politically and economically” and so would approach the negotiations in the “spirit of goodwill” and for both sides’ mutual benefit. Around 2.8 million EU nationals live in the UK, many of them Polish. Around 1 million UK nationals live in other member states, 300,000 of them in Spain. Resolving the status of both groups was an “early priority”, the white paper said. It indicated frustration with other EU states that it had not already been dealt with. “The government would have liked to resolve this issue ahead of formal negotiations,” it said. While welcoming the contribution of migrants to Britain’s economy and society, the white paper said there had been “record levels of long-term net migration in the UK and that sheer volume has given rise to public concern.” It cites pressure on housing, infrastructure, public services and downward pressure on wages for those on the lowest incomes. “We will design our immigration system to ensure that we are able to control the numbers of people who come here from the EU,” it says. “In future, therefore, the Free Movement Directive will no longer apply and the migration of EU nationals will be subject to UK law.” Pressed in the House of Commons by opposition Labour spokesman Keir Starmer, Davis said EU nationals would not be forced to leave the UK. “I am not going to be throwing people out of Britain and for him to suggest that is outrageous,” he said. Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, there is currently an open border between the north and south. Any change to this arrangement would imperil the peace process, critics have warned. However, there are doubts that the UK could maintain an open border with an EU member state – and the white paper acknowledges the doubts, saying only that the government “aims” to maintain the current arrangements. Speaking last month, May said that finding a solution to the border issue would be “an important priority,” adding that “nobody wants to return to the borders of the past, so we will make it a priority to deliver a practical solution as soon as we can.” The government will seek to retain a large part of the country’s current trade arrangements with the EU, but emphasizes the need to boost trade with other states, citing growth in its exports to South Korea, China, Brazil and Mexico. The paper reiterates May’s recent announcement that Britain will not remain in the union’s single market but will instead seek “the freest and most frictionless trade possible in goods and services between the UK and the EU.” But the document made it clear that the UK wanted to retain some parts of the present single market arrangements, saying it “makes no sense to start again from scratch” in areas where rules have existed for years. The government will seek the freest possible trade in financial services, a key sector for Britain’s economy. Several prominent financial institutions based in London have suggested moving jobs to EU states to remain part of the single market. From within the EU, Britain has been able to provide financial services across the union under a common set of rules and regulatory authority – access known in the sector as “passporting.” More than 5,000 UK firms use passporting to provide services to the EU, while around 8,000 European firms use the instrument to provide services to Britain, and UK-based financial institutions have lobbied the government to try to retain passporting rights. The government hopes to seek new opportunities and reform policy in the agriculture, food and fisheries sectors, which the paper described as “currently heavily influenced by EU laws.” The government says it will continue to work with the EU in fighting terrorism and maintaining security, adding it is “uniquely placed to develop and sustain a mutually beneficial model of cooperation.” It says that the UK is “driving or co-driving” approximately half of the Europol projects against organized crime, and cites the extradition of more than 8,000 individuals accused or convicted of a criminal offense to other EU countries under the European Arrest Warrant. It reiterates its willingness to work with EU allies over criminal matters, security and cyber security while upholding its commitments to NATO. It also highlights that it will “seek a strong and close future relationship with the EU with focus on operational and practical cross-border cooperation.” The government says it wants to deliver a smooth, orderly exit and to “avoid a disruptive cliff-edge” as Britain leaves the European Union. The government envisages finalizing a deal within the expected two-year period after triggering Article 50, but seeks a phased transition after that, to maintain stability and give businesses and institutions time to adjust. It does not give a timeline for how long the whole process might take, saying some elements will be phased in faster than others. But it stresses Britain will not seek an “unlimited transitional status” which would be good for neither side. CNN’s David Wilkinson contributed to this report.

UK government's Brexit negotiating strategy


Bill Browder, a prominent financial manager and vocal Vladimir Putin critic, was briefly arrested in Spain on a Russian arrest warrant Wednesday. “Urgent: Just was arrested by Spanish police in Madrid on a Russian Interpol arrest warrant,” Browder tweeted early Wednesday. “Going to the police station right now.” He later tweeted out what he said was an image of the warrant. This is the arrest warrant pic.twitter.com/Cr1Sf4vS4a Spanish authorities confirmed that the anti-corruption activist was arrested in Madrid, but had since been released. “Browder had an international arrest warrant issued by Russia against him and that was the reason he was arrested,” a Spanish National Police spokesperson told CNN. “When he was at the police station we realized the arrest warrant wasn’t valid, so he was released.” Chicago-born Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, an international investment fund. He was once the largest investor in Russia’s stock market and a supporter of the Russian President. But that all changed in 2005 when he was expelled from the country after being deemed a threat to national security. Browder claims his expulsion was because of his criticism of Russian corporate governance. In the years since, Browder has become a UK citizen and a fierce critic of corruption. He has been one of the main proponents of the Russia sanctions law in the US known as the Magnitsky Act – named for his former lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in suspicious circumstances in 2009. The Magnitsky Act, passed in 2012, provides US lawmakers with sweeping powers to freeze assets and place travel restrictions on foreign government officials involved in human-rights abuses. Shortly after leaving the police station, Browder tweeted a curbside photo and wrote: “Good news. Spanish National Police just released me after Interpol General Secretary in Lyon advised them not to honor the new Russian Interpol Red Notice. This is the 6th time that Russia has abused Interpol in my case.” Good news. Spanish National Police just released me after Interpol General Secretary in Lyon advised them not to honor the new Russian Interpol Red Notice. This is the 6th time that Russia has abused Interpol in my case pic.twitter.com/ZonzXizvIJ Browder has previously claimed that Putin has tried multiple times to use Interpol, the multinational police organization, to target him abroad. “Thankfully, Interpol has seen these as blatant, politically motivated attempts to silence me,” he wrote for CNN last year. “Each request has been summarily rejected, including the most recent. But Putin doesn’t just use Interpol to express his anger. Russian agents have threatened me via email, voice mail and text messages with death, kidnapping and extradition.” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tweeted Wednesday that he was “very glad” Browder had been released. Just spoken to Bill Browder – very glad that he has now been released. Moscow should concentrate on bringing those responsible for the murder of #Magnitsky to justice In December, a Russian court convicted Browder in absentia of deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion and sentenced him to nine years in prison, Reuters reported, citing the country’s general prosecutor. Browder – who dismissed the accusations as politically motivated – had previously also been sentenced to nine years in jail in 2013 in a trial alongside Magnitsky, who was posthumously found guilty of tax evasion. Laura Perez Maestro reported from Madrid. Lauren Said-Moorhouse wrote from London.


One week before the formal opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, the city has posted the first signs officially pointing visitors to the facility’s location. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat posted a picture of himself near the new sign on his Facebook page, writing, “This is not a dream – it’s reality! This morning, I am proud and excited to install the first signs for the US embassy, which will open next week in Jerusalem.” Written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, the signs direct visitors to what is now the consulate in the Arnona neighborhood, south of the historic Old City of Jerusalem. On Monday, May 14, the building will officially become the US Embassy in Israel, in a move President Donald Trump promised during his campaign. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is expected to attend the opening, along with his wife, Ivanka Trump, and US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, among many others. The embassy move, coupled with Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, infuriated Palestinians, who responded by freezing ties with the US administration. Palestinian Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erekat, slammed the decision, in a statement on Monday, “This move is not only illegal but will also thwart the achievement of a just and lasting peace between two sovereign and democratic states on the 1967 borders, Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security. Those who attend the ceremony will thus be sending an ominous message, a message that they encourage flagrant violations of international law and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.” Palestinian leaders, who at first welcomed Trump as an arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reversed position following Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The status of Jerusalem was supposed to be one of the final and most sensitive issues addressed in negotiations toward a lasting peace deal. Trump’s decisions, the leaders said, exposed Trump as firmly biased toward Israel and rendered his administration incapable of leading Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The administration maintains it will be a fair negotiating partner and still intends to introduce a framework for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Trump’s recognition was overwhelmingly condemned by the United Nations General Assembly in early December, with 128 countries voting in favor of condemnation and only nine voting against. Since Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, he has remained very popular in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hosting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week, hailed a “deep friendship” between the US and Israel that is “getting even deeper and stronger.” Netanyahu has said a half-dozen other countries are also looking at moving their embassies to Jerusalem, but so far, only Guatemala has concrete plans to do so. Guatemala will officially open its embassy in Jerusalem two days after the opening of the American outpost.


Brain volume was smaller in people with ADHD compared to others, research finds The biggest difference occurred in the amygdala, a region involved in emotional processing People diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have smaller brain volume than those without the disorder, according to a study published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet Psychiatry. The differences in brain volume were identified by researchers who reviewed brain scans comparing those without ADHD to those with the disorder. ADHD, a neurodevelopmental disorder, can cause inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. More than one in 20 people younger than 18 is affected by the disorder. Two-thirds of those affected have symptoms into adulthood. For the study, the researchers re-examined data collected by a variety of ADHD studies at 23 research sites around the world. Participants included a total of 1,713 people with a diagnosis of ADHD and 1,529 people without a diagnosis, ranging in age from 4 to 63 years old. Related article Hyperfocus: The other side of adult ADHD Within these studies, MRI scans measured each participant’s overall brain volume plus the volume of seven brain regions thought to be linked to ADHD: the pallidum, thalamus, caudate nucleus, putamen, nucleus accumbens, amygdala and hippocampus. The aim of the new research was to address weaknesses in the existing research, specifically small numbers of participants in each study and non-uniform analytical techniques. After gathering data, the research team applied a consistent method of analysis to all of it in their investigation of whether children and adults with ADHD had structural differences in their brains. The researchers discovered that overall brain volume and the volumes of five regions in particular – the caudate nucleus, putamen, nucleus accumbens, amygdala and hippocampus – were smaller in people with ADHD than in others, with the biggest difference occurring in the amygdala. That’s the part of the brain responsible for emotions. Differences were most prominent in the brains of children with ADHD and less obvious in the brains of adults with the disorder. Although “children with ADHD can out grow the disorder … the adults in our study do have a current diagnosis of ADHD, so this cannot explain this effect,” said Dr. Martine Hoogman, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “It seems that there is a shift in the maturation of the brain but later in life it is caught up,” Hoogman wrote in an email. Related article Controversial ADHD prescription rule scrapped from Georgia bill Overall, the differences in volumes were very small and most likely would not have been found if the study size had not been so large, according to Hoogman. She added that similar differences in brain volume have been seen with other psychiatric disorders. “Similar studies have been performed in schizophrenia, depression, OCD and Bipolar, and similar sized differences were found, some in overlapping regions and some in different regions,” she wrote. As part of their analysis, Hoogman and her colleagues also investigated the possible effects of medication. Information about current use of medication was available for 1,254, or 73%, of the participants with ADHD: Twenty-seven percent were on psychostimulant medication (methylphenidate or amphetamine) when their brains were scanned, and 47% were not taking medication at scan time. Lifetime usage of medication was known for 719 (or 42%) of participants with ADHD. Of these, 11% had never taken stimulant medication, and 89% had used it for a period of more than four weeks at some point. The researchers found differences in volume of the total brain and the five regions whether a person with ADHD had taken medication or not. The researchers “were not able to show that medication effects attenuated or normalized brain volumes,” said Dr. Jonathan Posner, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University. “That’s actually a little bit different from prior studies, which have suggested that medications do have a normalizing effect on the brain in ADHD.” Posner, who was not involved in the new research but wrote a commentary about it, observed that “the more robust way” to study medication effects would be to “take a group of kids with ADHD and give some medication and some placebo.” However, this could not be done in the new research because it was based on data from a variety of studies that simply recruited and evaluated kids with ADHD and compared those who were on medication with those who were not. “The limitation in doing that is that there could be systematic differences between those kids,” Posner said. “For example, the kids who had ADHD and were on medication, it is possible that they had a more severe case of ADHD.” Authors of the study have consulting agreements or received payment or research funding from various pharmaceutical companies, including Shire, maker of Adderall, which is used to treat ADHD, and General Electric Healthcare, a maker of MRI products. Hoogman said financial ties did not influence the results and added that the study relied on data gathered from 80 different researchers. Related article ADHD may have lingering effects “Indeed some of them received for example a speaker fee from shire, but most of the researchers involved in the studies did not receive such funds,” she said. “We treated all the data the same and have been analyzed all together in one mega-analysis.” Overall, Posner believes the new study “represents an important contribution to the field.” “The most significant thing was, their sample size was really an order of magnitude larger than prior studies,” he said. Previous MRI studies of ADHD “maybe had 30 or 40 or 50 participants,” and the new study looked at more than 1,500 participants with ADHD and compared them to a nearly equal number of people without the disorder. “So it really was substantially larger, and that gives us a lot more confidence in the results,” Posner said. Sampling around the globe, he said, also “speaks to the disorder more broadly” and offers more certainty to the results. The volume differences found in several brain regions echoed past research, Posner said. “Some of them have been implicated before in ADHD, but (the researchers) also found volume differences in the amygdala,” he said, noting that this brain region is associated with emotional processing. According to Joel Nigg, a professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and behavioral neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, “the amygdala is heavily connected to other brain regions. It is a kind of hub for numerous kinds of signaling around salience and significance of events. “The bigger story here is that alterations in amygdala have not been widely accepted as part of ADHD, so seeing that effect emerge here is quite interesting,” said Nigg, who was not involved in the study. According to Posner, “kids with ADHD oftentimes have emotion-related symptoms,” including emotional reactivity and poor frustration tolerance. “Those types of symptoms aren’t given as much focus or attention as the cognitive symptoms seen in ADHD,” he said. He said emotional symptoms have often been assumed to be secondary. For instance, a child has a difficult time focusing, so any frustration or discouragement is seen as related to a difficulty concentrating. “These findings would suggest that it’s possible that there’s actually a more primary disturbance in emotional processing,” Posner said. The finding that people with ADHD no longer showed differences in brain volume by adulthood is consistent with the hypothesis that ADHD is a form of delayed maturation of the central nervous system, Posner said, but “to really be confident of that finding, you’d want to follow the same group of kids over 10, 15 years and see if that maturation is delayed in individuals.” In any event, one possible explanation of this finding “is that the brain structure no longer looks different but the function is different,”  he said. “And that would have to be picked up through other measurements.” See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. Nigg observed that the study focused on subcortical structures, those that are below the outer layer of the brain, but the regions on the surface of the brain “may be equally or more important.” The study also looked only at the size of structures, “but their interconnections may be more important than their size,” Nigg said. This is not a weakness of the research, he added, but readers should recognize that the differences in ADHD brains were very small and seen only when the numbers were averaged and compared across both groups, he said. The smaller size, then, would not be noticeable when looking at an MRI scan of an individual with ADHD. Among the structural differences, Posner noted that two regions – the caudate and putamen, part of the basal ganglia – have been implicated in ADHD for some time. “We think it relates to motor control, motivation, cognitive control,” he said. “Lots of the types of symptoms we see with ADHD.” The nucleus accumbens is also interesting, Posner said, because it relates to reward processing and is implicated in other disorders, such as substance abuse. “So it’s possible, for example, that kids with ADHD are at greater risk for developing substance abuse problems,” he said. “It’s possible because that underlying vulnerability is seen in both disorders – or that underlying abnormality.”


Editor’s Note: Now you can get “5 Things You Need to Know Today” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here. An unthinkable crime. An unending campaign. An unbelievable finish. It’s Monday, and here are the five things you need to know to Get Up to Speed and Out the Door. Qs & (not many) As:  Words like “shock” and “unimaginable” don’t quite do the job in describing the reaction to what happened Saturday evening in this Michigan city. Here’s another difficult word: why. Why would a man shoot and kill six people, seemingly at random, all while picking up and dropping off passengers for Uber? Maybe we’ll get to the why today, when suspect Jason Brian Dalton is arraigned. Here’s the latest on what we know and don’t know. Had something better to do this weekend than watch the latest episode of that crazy reality show known as the presidential primaries? Well let us catch you up: Luck be a lady tonight: Hillary beats the house (and Bernie) in the Nevada caucuses, once again earning her top billing on the Democratic side. Nothing’s gonna stop us now: The Donald, this season’s breakout star, kicks you-know-what in the South Carolina GOP primary. He says he’s going to win the GOP nomination and predicts record turnout in an epic season finale with Hillary. Bushwhacked: Longtime cast member Jeb! leaves the show, after yet another disappointing finish. The audience just never warmed up to him. Can Bernie rebound in South Carolina? How long before the good Dr. Ben leaves the show? Will Melania get another speaking role?  Stay tuned. Have fingers. Will point: The feds really want to get into San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone. But they may be out of luck – and not because Apple is fighting a court order to unlock the phone. The FBI says a county employee may have accidentally reset the phone’s iCloud password. The county says, the FBI told us too. Either way, goodbye iCloud backup, which could have revealed more info about Farook. ISIS. Always ISIS: World leaders announce an imminent partial truce in war-ravaged Syria. So what does ISIS do hours later? It hits Syrian regime strongholds in Homs and Damascus with car bombs and suicide attacks, killing well over 100 people yesterday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry still believes a ceasefire is possible. But we’re a week-and-change into the promised timeline and … crickets. Cut off:  Ever try to fix one problem and only end up creating another? That’s pretty much what’s happening in India. after deadly protests and a water crisis broke out over quotas involving its complex caste system. The quota system’s meant to correct inequalities created by the caste structure. But in Harayana state, the relatively prosperous Jat group is crying ‘Reverse discrimination,’ Members blocked roads and attacked railways. Oh, and they’ve also cut off water to New Delhi. Now do they have your attention? The death toll from Fiji’s devastating cyclone keeps going up … David Cameron says Britain will stay with EU (but London’s mayor says, Not if I can help it) … The Pope says cool it with the death penalty. People are talking about these. Read up. Join in. Quote of the day: “80 percent of my income goes to paying my rent. Isn’t that ironic? Your employee for your food delivery app … can’t afford to buy food.” Yelp employee Talia Jane, who wrote an open letter to Yelp’s CEO complaining her pay’s too low and the rent’s too damn high. She was promptly fired. Baby, you can’t drive my car Welcome to Lamu, the Kenyan island where cars are banned. Money shot 50 Cent may be broke, but he still has some cash left to flash. His bankruptcy judge may have more than 21 questions about that. Lunar jamz NASA finally releases the “outer-space type music” from an Apollo mission on the far side of the moon. Won by that much Races don’t end any closer than Denny Hamlin’s 0.011-second victory in the Daytona 500 yesterday. Getting down What do you do when you’re 106 years old and meet the President you’ve waited a lifetime for? You bust a move, of course Here’s what’s happening today. No laughing matter Her husband’s lawyers’ are fighting it, but Camille Cosby will be deposed this morning by attorneys for the eight women who’ve sued comedian Bill Cosby for defamation. Klan clash The KKK wants a piece of Georiga’s “Adopt-A-Highway” action. The state DOT says Nuh uh. Georgia’s highest court says, Hmm, let us decide.


New developments are surfacing in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe nearly every day, but new poll numbers are showing Republican voters aren’t all that concerned. Weekly Gallup numbers released Monday show President Donald Trump’s approval rating among Republicans at a sky-high 90% — his best number among those in his own party since Inauguration Day. A new Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday shows a more nuanced look at how GOP voters view the Russia investigation — where they are unanimously skeptical and where their confidence has eroded over time. Here are five key numbers on how Republicans are sticking by the man in the Oval Office. A majority of Republican voters, 58%, say the FBI is biased against Trump, according to the new Quinnipiac poll, though voters overall disagree. The new numbers come days after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes released a memo alleging that the FBI abused its surveillance authority in obtaining a warrant for then-Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. Most Republican voters, 53%, also disapprove of how the FBI is handling its job — though voters overall disagree on this point, too. Is it appropriate for a president to ask officials from the Department of Justice for loyalty? Two-thirds of American voters overall give a resounding “no” to that question — but Republican voters are roughly evenly split. In the new Quinnipiac poll, 46% say it’s appropriate vs. 44% who say it’s not appropriate. Former FBI Director James Comey said Trump asked him to pledge his loyalty, Trump recently asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if he was “on my team,” and Trump also asked former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe who he voted for in the 2016 presidential campaign. A majority of American voters, 53%, says Trump tried to derail or obstruct the investigation into Russian meddling and potential coordination with the Trump campaign. But ask GOP voters, and it’s the polar opposite. A whopping 83% of Republicans voters — nearly the number of party faithful who tend to approve of Trump’s job performance — say that Trump hasn’t tried to derail anything. A list of topics that Mueller has provided to Trump’s lawyers suggest any interview between the two could focus substantially on obstruction of justice issues. A plurality of Republican voters, 46%, say that Mueller has not been fair in his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Roughly a third, 35%, say he’s been fair. That stands in contrast to the majority of Americans, 56%, who say that Mueller has been fair during his probe so far. Mueller’s investigation has charged four people, including former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about conversations with Russia’s ambassador. A broad 77% of GOP voters say that the investigation into Trump associates and Russian meddling is a “witch hunt,” according to Tuesday’s new survey from Quinnipiac. Overall, voters say the probe is legitimate by an 8-point margin. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as a witch hunt and attacked top investigators in his own Justice Department. This Quinnipiac University poll was conducted from February 2-5 among 1,333 registered voters. The margin for sampling error is ±3.3% pts. among all voters; it is larger for subgroups. The respondents were 24% Republican, 29% Democratic and 40% independent. This story has been updated.

Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling and Trump campaign


"Whatever you think about President Assad, the fact is that he is the president of Syria," she said Gabbard recently introduced legislation that would prohibit sending federal funds to nations that support terrorist groups Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard met with President Bashar al-Assad during a secret, four-day trip to Syria, she told CNN’s Jake Tapper Wednesday. “When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so because I felt that it’s important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace,” the Hawaiian congresswoman said. When asked by Tapper whether she had reservations about meeting with Assad, who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians, Gabbard said there has to be a dialogue between the US and Syria. “Whatever you think about President Assad, the fact is that he is the president of Syria,” she said. “In order for any peace agreement, in order for any possibility of a viable peace agreement to occur there has to be a conversation with him.” “My commitment is on ending this war that has caused so much suffering to the Syrian people, to these children, to these families, many of whom I met on this trip,” Gabbard said. Gabbard, who is a member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committee, recently introduced legislation that would prohibit sending federal funds to nations that support terrorist groups. “(The Syrians) asked me, ‘Why are the United States and its allies supporting these terror groups which are destroying Syria, when it was al Qaeda that attacked the United States on 9/11, not Syria.’ I didn’t have an answer to them.” The US government claims it does not fund these groups and only provides assistance to so-called moderate rebels. However, Gabbard said the Syrians she met with told her that there are no moderate rebels in the country. “Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” Gabbard said.


Editor’s Note: Liepa Želnienė is a political  journalist and fact-checker for Lithuanian online media outlet 15min. She was a member of the Digital Communication Network exchange program in 2016, funded by the US Department of State. The opinions in this article belong to the author. A few days ago I was talking to my daughter about World War II. She couldn’t believe that the US had helped Russia win a war against Germany. “Now Trump is acting the same. He is supporting Russia!” she said, with panic in her voice. This is precisely the issue that much of central and eastern Europe is thinking about, as it looks with concern at the news coming from Washington. It’s easy to get caught up in the drama of FBI director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers giving testimony to the House Intelligence Committee about the Trump’s wiretapping claim, alleged Russian interference in the US election and what, if any, relationship Trump’s campaign aides had with Moscow. While these allegations rightly concern Americans, here in Lithuania, it is more than a matter of domestic politics. Since his election, President Trump has done little to halt the growing confidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin. For those of us in the Russian “spheres of interest,” this carries potentially chilling consequences. Related article Timeline: What we know about the Trump campaign, his administration and Russia In his inaugural address, his first statement as US President, Trump said: “We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow.” Now the President is following up words with action. In his budget, outlined last week, Trump confirmed earlier reports that he intends to dramatically scale back funds to the State Department. What does that actually mean? Russian state-owned media has been very fast to translate. They wrote before the budget was officially announced that Trump was ready “to slaughter sacred US cows” and to stop “democracy export.” “Democracy export” is a phrase commonly used in Russian propaganda. They’ve used it to describe the Arab spring, the Euromaidan protest in Ukraine and even the Lithuanian declaration of independence 27 years ago. But in none of these historical events was there a drop of American imposition. I know this very well from my own family’s history. No one made my father’s uncle write and print illegal literature in his own flat. No American helped him in 1980, when he was sentenced to prison and exiled to Siberia for seven years. No one told my parents in 1987 to take their 3-year-old daughter – me – to a demonstration against the Soviet Union in Vilnius. Nor did America organize the Baltic Chain – in which 2 million people joined their hands for freedom. America didn’t impose any of these things on us. Rather, America gave us hope. We always knew that we were not alone. Like when the US refused to recognize the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union. Or how the Lithuanians who managed to break through iron walls were welcomed to come to the US as refugees. There was the the Voice of America on the radio, giving us small sips of truth. And American journalists bore witness as Soviet tanks tried to run over the fragile freedom of Lithuania on January 13, 1991. Democracy is not a thing to export. It’s impossible to export a wish for freedom and justice. But when a country gives everything for liberty, it’s good to have friends with same values who can teach them how to transition from revolution to functioning democracy. And one of the best ways to learn is to see and experience. Related article Why Putin is world's most powerful man As a journalist, I had the opportunity to go abroad through Digital Communication Network, a group that exists because of State Department support. After a fellowship at PolitiFact, I opened a fact-checking unit in Lithuania, 15min.lt. Today, my nation isn’t the only one wondering how Washington will treat Moscow and the rest of the world. Our neighbors in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are working hard to escape from the prison of Russia’s sphere of interest. If Trump keeps his promise, it won’t be long before the world faces another Ossetia or Crimea. Americans shouldn’t forget about us in the Baltic states – they could even learn something from us as they go through their period of political turmoil. We lived in a world of fake news for 50 years. We had propaganda all around us, but didn’t lose the capability to identify the truth and to reach for the information we needed. Trump seemingly doesn’t realize that by saying he doesn’t care about the rest of the world he plays into the hands of his own country’s enemies. America first should not mean turning a blind eye elsewhere. If Putin knows that the US is not looking, he might just remember Russia’s interest in the Baltic states.


Here’s what you might have missed on CNN today: Amid growing sexual harassment allegations and mounting pressure from colleagues, the Minnesota Democrat said he would resign and took a jab at President Trump in a speech from the Senate floor. Dozens of people were injured in the West Bank as protests erupted there and in other towns, including Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah. During demonstrations, the leader of Hamas called for a new intifada. More than 116,000 acres have burned in the Southern California region. Dry weather coupled with the strong Santa Ana winds are hampering firefighting efforts and making the blazes more explosive. The four raging fires have driven about 110,000 people out of their homes. Michael Slager is sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for the second-degree murder of an unarmed black man. Marriage equality cleared the final hurdle after Australia’s Parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage after years of political jockeying and public debate. – 2017 may become the year of the Bitcoin, but does anyone know why? The cryptocurrency has been breaking records, surging above $16,000. – A woman has crescent-shaped eye damage after viewing the solar eclipse in what doctors think were defunct viewing glasses. – Flu cases are higher than usual for this time of year, especially in the South. – Lindsay Lohan is pushing for a “Mean Girls” sequel, but Tina Fey is the only one who can decide to bring “fetch” back.


Tension filled the small Jerusalem courtroom as a family sat meters away from the man who killed their son, waiting to hear the judge’s verdict. The defendant, Ben Deri, arrived accompanied by his family and girlfriend. Deri was serving as an Israeli border policeman four years ago when clashes erupted near the West Bank village of Beitunya. The date was May 15 – when Palestinians mark the “Nakba” or Catastrophe, in memory of the more than 700,000 people who were either driven from, or fled, their homes during the Arab-Israeli war that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. CNN producer Kareem Khadder had a camera in hand and was filming at the precise moment Deri aimed and fired his rifle at Nadeem Nuwara. Nearby CCTV cameras captured the 17-year-old Palestinian walking unarmed before collapsing as a bullet entered his chest. A second Palestinian teenager was shot and killed by Israeli forces just over an hour later. An Israeli military spokesman said a preliminary inquiry showed that live fire had not been used. Later investigations proved otherwise. State prosecutors initially charged Deri with manslaughter, arguing that he knowingly used live ammunition. Under a plea deal, that charge was reduced to negligent homicide, with Deri admitting to an accidental use of live rounds. To the end, Nuwara’s family was convinced that Deri knew the type of ammunition he was using. “Ben Deri’s mentor described a responsible, accurate, committed and disciplined soldier,” Siam Nuwara, Nadeem’s father, told CNN. “I agree with the witness. Ben Deri is accurate and truly plans ahead. He knew very well what he was doing.” Judge Daniel Teperberg sentenced Deri to nine months in prison, and ordered him to pay Nuwara’s family 50,000 Israeli shekels, or nearly $14,000. As the judge read the sentence, Deri’s mother cried. Nuwara’s family fumed with rage and called the decision a joke. “Nadeem’s case is the strongest,” Siam told CNN after the trial. “We have all the evidence, strong evidence, but there is no justice in Israel.” Deri, flanked by his family and girlfriend, dodged journalists as he left the court just after the verdict. His lawyer, Zion Amir, said he was happy with the reduced charge and sentence, but insisted the case should never have gone to trial in the first place. “We don’t like the fact they are putting fighters on trial under circumstances like these,” Amir told journalists. “We think [the soldiers and police officers] are carrying out their roles.” Video of the incident, including the material from CNN and captured by CCTV, helped build a picture of events.  The court subpoenaed CNN’s footage and ordered CNN producer Kareem Khadder to testify to defend the video’s authenticity and recount the shooting. “I saw a border police officer playing with his rifle, and later aiming at the protesters,” Khadder recalled for the court. “I waited until he fired, and waited further for a military personnel next to him to fire at the protesters, before panning the camera on to the protesters. During that time, I heard protesters in the distance shouting, ‘Isaaf, Isaaf’ – they were calling for an ambulance.” A United Nations report about the incident found that Nuwara, and the other teen killed later, did not present a direct threat when they were shot. The judge agreed with the report. His sentencing detailed how the rock-throwing had ceased by the time Deri shot Nuwara. “Against procedures, and despite the fact there was no threat from the deceased [Nuwara] to the soldiers, the accused pointed his gun at the direction of the chest of the deceased and fired at him,” the judgment read. It added that – crucially – Deri fired under the belief he was shooting a rubber bullet. Palestinians said the killing and the subsequent verdict highlighted a double standard in the occupied West Bank, a place where they say Israeli soldiers and settlers act without real consequence. “Such a conviction represents Israel’s deliberate dehumanization of its Palestinian victims, primarily children, which is the outcome of decades of the military occupation that holds an entire nation under captivity, and employs an unremitting and lethal shoot-to-kill policy against Palestinians,” Palestinian Liberation Organization Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement condemning the verdict. Prosecutors said they were disappointed with the sentence, but added that it sent an important message to Israeli security forces. “We thought the sentence should have been longer, but still the fact the court says someone will go to jail although he was there as a soldier has a powerful meaning,” prosecutor Gula Cohen told CNN after the trial.


China expels detained Swedish human rights advocate Dahlin had appeared on Chinese state TV to "confess" China has expelled Swedish human rights advocate Peter Dahlin, who had been detained for three weeks and made what his organization described as an “apparent forced confession” on state television. A spokesperson for the Swedish embassy in Beijing confirmed Tuesday that Dahlin had been released from detention and expelled from the country but declined to give further details. Dahlin works for the Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, which “undertakes rapid response assistance for rights defenders in need” and provides legal aid and training across China, according to its website. He appeared on state television on January 18, where he apologized for [having] “caused harm to the Chinese government. I have hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. I apologize sincerely for this. And I’m very sorry that this ever happened.” His colleague Michael Caster also confirmed his release but said he hadn’t spoken to Dahlin yet. He added that his girlfriend, a Chinese national who was detained at that same time, had been released but remained in China. Related video Was Gui Minhai's TV confession made under duress? Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, said that Dahlin worked for an illegal organization that sponsored activities that jeopardized China’s national security. China Action said last week the accusations against Dahlin remain “baseless.” Dahlin’s confession on state broadcaster CCTV followed a similar appearance by another Swedish citizen – Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong publisher who went missing in Thailand in October. Gui said he turned himself in over a 2003 hit and run incident but supporters in Hong Kong say they suspect he was abducted by Chinese security forces because he publishes books critical of China’s ruling elite. READ MORE: Wife of missing Hong Kong booksellfer ‘reunited with him in China’ Related video Authorities request meeting with bookseller On Monday, before Dahlin’s release, the Swedish Embassy took to Chinese social media to express its concern and said arrested individuals should have their cases heard in court with the presence of defense lawyers, not on TV. “Two of our citizen have ‘confessed’ on China’s national broadcaster, and we feel unsettled about this kind of action,” read a statement on the embassy’s Weibo account. “Many hoped that China would have abandoned such mechanism of public self-criticism decades ago, yet it instead has become more and more common in the country.” CNN’s Steven Jiang, Judy Kwon and Elizabeth Joseph contributed to this report


Suspected leptospirosis cases rising in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria The bacterial infection can be transmitted through drinking water or open wounds Puerto Rico has reported at least 76 cases of suspected and confirmed leptospirosis, including a handful of deaths, in the month after Hurricane Maria, said Dr. Carmen Deseda, the state epidemiologist for Puerto Rico. Two deaths involved leptospirosis confirmed through laboratory testing, and “several other” deaths are pending test results, Deseda said. The 76 cases, up from 74 last week, also include one patient with confirmed leptospirosis who is currently hospitalized. Spiral-shaped Leptospira bacteria, which are found in the urine of rodents and other animals, tend to spread after floods through drinking water or infection of open wounds, according to the World Health Organization. In serious cases, infection causes organ failure and can be fatal. “This bacteria, like any other bacteria, can kill you,” Deseda said. Related article There's a hospital ship waiting for sick Puerto Ricans -- but no one knows how to get on it The island typically sees between 63 and 95 cases per year, she said. Health officials had expected that there would be a jump after the hurricane. “It’s neither an epidemic nor a confirmed outbreak,” Public Affairs Secretary Ramon Rosario Cortes said at a news conference Sunday. “But obviously, we are making all the announcements as though it were a health emergency.” Leptospirosis may be treated with antibiotics, but many people recover on their own. “The majority of the lepto cases is a mild, subclinical disease with no complications,” Deseda said. “But one out of 10 people who have leptospirosis develop severe illness.” In the first stage of leptospirosis, symptoms vary widely from fever and headache to red eyes and rashes. Some people may have no symptoms at all. But a small number will develop dire complications: meningitis, kidney and liver damage, bleeding in the lungs and even death. Related article About 1 million Americans without running water. 3 million without power. This is life one month after Hurricane Maria. Doctors are required to report any potential leptospirosis cases to health authorities, Deseda said. Those cases must then be tested to confirm the bacteria, since the symptoms can be difficult to tell apart from other illnesses. After that, health officials may look for patterns or clusters and determine whether there is an outbreak. The lab tests on the suspected cases have been sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Deseda said. The turnaround time is about five or six days. Doctors on the island have expressed concerns about burgeoning health crises amid hospitals that are overwhelmed, undersupplied and sometimes burning hot. Influenza is another concern on the horizon, Deseda said. Drinking water is also hard to come by on many parts of the island. See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. Dr. Raul Hernandez, an internist in San Juan, told CNN that people were drinking water from whatever sources they could find, such as rivers and creeks. If that water contains urine from an infected rat, those people will be at risk, he said. Deseda said people should be discouraged from walking barefoot, drinking or swimming in potentially contaminated waters. “These diseases are everywhere, and there’s a way to prevent them,” she said. CNN’s Catherine Shoichet and Parija Kavilanz contributed to this report.


Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing He's accused of accepting gifts of cigars and champagne A months-long criminal investigation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hangs over the Israeli leader as he prepares to host President Donald Trump later this month. Netanyahu, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, has been questioned three times in two different cases in the ongoing graft probe, with another questioning likely. In the first case, called Case 1000, Netanyahu is suspected of having received gifts from businessmen overseas, including cigars for himself and champagne for his wife, Sara. The case has focused primarily on Netanyahu’s relationship with billionaire Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. Netanyahu has lashed out against the accusations, calling them an “attempt to overthrow the government in an undemocratic way.” He has repeated what has become his mantra during the investigation: “There will be nothing because there is nothing.” Related article 5 corruption scandals that rocked Israel Nir Hefetz, Media and Communications Director for the Netanyahu family, said, “We’re talking about cigars that were given many times over the course of 17 years of friendship, so the claims that one present worth hundreds of thousands of shekels was given, or that many presents worth thousands of dollars each were given, is simply not true.” “In the course of all these years, there were no vested interests and nothing was given in return,” Hefetz added. “The close friendship between the families is an unequivocal fact and cannot be denied.” Milchan’s publicist Ronen Tzur has said that his client and his team are not commenting on any of the reports, whether they are “true or false and completely imaginary.” The second case, called Case 2000, involves conversations Netanyahu had with Arnon Mozes, the owner of one of Israel’s leading newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth, which is regularly critical of the Prime Minister. In the conversations, transcripts of which have been leaked in the Israeli media, Netanyahu allegedly discusses limiting the circulation of Yedioth Ahronot’s biggest competition in favor of more favorable coverage. Both Netanyahu and Mozes have said they were not serious discussions; rather, they each claim they were trying to expose the other’s lack of trustworthiness. The investigation, which began as a preliminary examination last summer before being upgraded to a criminal investigation in January by Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, a Netanyahu appointee, is likely to continue into the summer, a source close to Netanyahu told CNN. Israeli Police Chief Roni Alsheikh told reporters in late January that investigators were nearing the end of their work, and that they would soon issue their advice on whether the Prime Minister should be charged. However, no recommendation has yet been issued. If police do support an indictment, then it will be up to the Attorney General to decide whether to file charges. The source told CNN Mandelblit will likely make that decision in early fall. In Netanyahu’s first term as Prime Minister, in the late 1990s, facing two different graft probes, police recommended indictment, but the then Attorney General declined to file charges, citing a lack of evidence. In the current probe, police will likely not recommend an indictment in Case 2000, the source close to Netanyahu told CNN, because no agreement was ever reached between the Prime Minister and the newspaper owner, and nothing was ever exchanged. However, Case 1000 could see police recommending indictment, the source said. Despite that, the source close to the Prime Minister told CNN he believes the Attorney General would ultimately decide not to file charges, on the grounds that it would not be possible to prove that Milchan had gained, or had expected to gain, in any way from gifting Netanyahu the cigars and champagne. The investigation is now being led by Liat Ben-Ari, a prosecutor with a hardline reputation, who led a corruption case against former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Ben-Ari, head of the Financial Crimes Division at the Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office, succeeded in getting a judge to sentence Olmert to six years in prison, though that sentence was later reduced on appeal to 18 months. Speaking at an event for the Israel Bar Association Tel Aviv District last week, Ben-Ari was asked about the legality of receiving gifts. The question did not mention Netanyahu by name. Related article Netanyahu's honeymoon with Trump ends abruptly “When it is about hundreds of thousands of shekels given to a public servant, I find it hard to believe that it is just a present from one friend to another … I know how it is with me and my friends: none of us have received, and none of us have demanded, hundreds of thousands of shekels as gifts,” said Ben-Ari, in what was taken as a reference to Netanyahu. She went on: “Let’s say 1,500 shekels are given from someone, with an interest, to a public servant who advances those interests, then that person should be put on trial. The person might not end up going to prison for six years, that is a question of punishment; but it is not a question of whether or not to put the person on trial in the first place.” Under Israeli law, the Prime Minister does not have to resign if he is indicted. He only needs to step down if he is convicted of a crime and if that conviction is upheld throughout the appeals process. But an indictment would put tremendous public and political pressure on Netanyahu to step down.


Statement likely to be well received inside Indonesia, say analysts Poor-quality statistics make it hard to quantify Indonesia's drug problem Indonesian President Joko Widodo has called on police to kill drug dealers who resist arrest in what critics say is an attempt to burnish his credentials as a strongman leader among wavering voters. “As I’ve said before, just be firmer, especially to those foreign drug dealers entering the country, particularly those who resist. Just shoot them on site, give them no mercy,” Widodo said in a speech to the Islamist United Development Party Friday. If enacted, the new policy would closely follow that of Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte, who’s brutal war on drugs has left up to 8,000 people dead in just over a year. Human rights activists condemned Widodo’s speech, but political analysts said it was likely to be well received inside Indonesia where hardline drug policies are popular. “He’s held to his (2014) campaign promise that he would be executing drug dealers and public support for that has barely wavered. It has overall been very popular,” associate professor of Indonesian politics at the Australian National University Greg Fealy told CNN CSIS political analyst Tobias Basuki said Widodo had deliberately invoked the memory of former Indonesian dictator Suharto in an attempt to appeal to those nostalgic for the former leader. “There’s a lot of jargon about returning to the New Order period, Suharto being more firm, much more stable, I think he is trying to (say) that he can be as firm as Suharto in a democratic period,” he told CNN. Suharto ruled Indonesia for over three decades, until his resignation following the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in May 1998. Widodo is not the first high-level Indonesian official to call for extrajudicial killings of drug dealers in the past week. National Police Chief General Tito Karnavian praised Duterte’s “war on drugs” in a speech Thursday, saying “we see that when we shoot at drug dealers, they go away.” Related article Philippines police claim drug war deaths exaggerated Karnavian’s speech came after Jakarta police shot a Taiwanese national dead earlier in July during a raid on a methamphetamine smuggling ring. It was the largest drug bust in the country’s history, local media reported at the time, totaling one tonne of sabu-sabu, the local term for methamphetamine. Basuki told CNN the real risk of the speeches from Widodo and Karnavian was if police took it as a green light to use excessive force. “I’m not saying that’s going to happen but I think it’s dangerous,” he said. “If there’s a shooting where it’s not called for, I think there would be a lot less backlash, security would not receive that much criticism.” The actual extent of Indonesia’s drug problem is unclear, with experts and government officials disagreeing on the nature of the problem. Related video From slums to the palace: President Widodo In 2015, the head of Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency (BNN) Commander General Anang Iskandar claimed that “33 people die from narcotics everyday,” and that four million people were part of the drug abuse epidemic. But many experts have criticized these numbers, which Widodo used to justify his harsh policies on offenders, saying they are based on small and outdated surveys with questionable assumptions. For example, those who had used intravenous drugs once within a 12-month period were categorized as addicts. “The statistics are flawed,” Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono told CNN. “Then what is the result? Over the last few years because of that statistical problem the prison density in Indonesia is worsening … I have a personal friend who was caught with two milligrams of sabu-sabu. He got seven years.” Related article 'A cannon to shoot sparrows': New Indonesian anti-Islamist law slammed According to a United Nations report in 2010, 0.18% of Indonesia’s population were using amphetamines, or about 469,000 people. Indonesia has a total population of 258 million, according to 2016 estimates. Harsono and Basuki both said it was hard to tell how serious the drug problem really was in Indonesia without quality statistics, but Fealy said a lot of Indonesians were already convinced. “When you hear people talking socially, when you listen to talkback radio, there’s always a flood of calls from people who have personal experience from friends and relatives who have drugs problems which have destroyed their lives,” he said. While he is still a popular leader in Indonesia, some analysts felt Widodo’s harsh line on drugs was a way to see off rivals who might paint him as a weak leader. “For people who are looking for a really determined president, Jokowi ticks more boxes than he had previously done,” Fealy said. “People think he’s a very decent man, he’s doing good things for the poor, good things for the economy … but on these kinds of issues there is some political benefits for him in appearing to be really uncompromising.” Widodo has maintained a harsh line on capital punishment for drug traffickers, despite strong international pressure and condemnation. Friday’s tough speech to the the Islamist United Development Party, who are part of his coalition in the Indonesian parliament, may also have been designed to shore up his support among Indonesia’s huge Muslim population, Fealy said. But while some analysts said Widodo should be taken at his word on the police shootings, Basuki said he expected a statement from the president’s office soon watering down his statement. “I think he made a hyperbolic statement, rather than calling it as a policy,” he said.


At first glance, the campaign against Qatar makes no sense But if you put it in a wider prism, the larger struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran becomes clear Let’s try to work this out. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (Sunni, US allies, conservative monarchies) lead a campaign to isolate neighboring Qatar (Sunni, US ally, conservative monarchy.) The charge: that Qatar “embraces various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region.” At the same time, just to complicate things, President Donald Trump appears to throw in his lot in with Saudi Arabia, tweeting that he hopes Qatar’s isolation may hasten “the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!” This even though a large US air base hosted by Qatar is a hub in the aerial war against ISIS. So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding... ...extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism! And then ISIS claims to carry out terror attacks that kill 12 people in Tehran. And Iran’s Revolutionary Guards blame the Saudis. None of it seems to make sense. But all these events can be seen through the prism of a much larger struggle - about regional superiority, the war against terrorism and sectarian distrust between Sunni and Shia followers of Islam. And the main belligerents: Iran and Saudi Arabia. On the face of it, for Riyadh and friends to place a fellow member of the Gulf Cooperation Council under siege is odd if their real enemy is Iran. But Saudi anger, shared by the UAE, Jordan and Egypt, is directed at Qatar’s mercurial and independent foreign policy, which includes cordial relations with the Islamic republic across the water. Qatar isn’t completely isolated. Turkey has fast tracked a decision to approve the deployment of troops to Qatar – part of an existing bilateral agreement but widely interpreted as a show of support. Related article Middle East split: The allies isolating Qatar Why should Qatar even want to get on with Iran? In part, it’s gas. The two countries share a huge field under the Persian Gulf. Kuwait – which is now trying to mediate in the Arabian bust-up, also shares oil resources with Iran. The Saudis and their allies in the Emirates also see Qatar as promiscuous: it has flirted with Israel, embraced the radical Muslim Brotherhood and offers shelter to the radical Palestinian group Hamas, all while using the pan-Arab reach of the al Jazeera news network to convey its perspective. There is certainly more than an idiosyncratic streak to the al-Thani dynasty in Qatar. To the Saudis and the Egyptians – and, ironically even the Israelis – the Muslim Brotherhood is inextricably linked to Hamas – and even al Qaeda. And they see radical elements in Iran as keeping these militant Sunni groups alive – in a cynical Faustian bargain – even though Iran is Shia. Unraveling the Qatar crisisCrisis threatens to split mom from kidsQatar Airways boss calls on USIran sends planes stuffed with food US suspects Russian hackers World cup a bargaining chipPhilippines stops sending workersGulf crisis: What you need to know Unraveling the Qatar crisisCrisis threatens to split mom from kidsQatar Airways boss calls on USIran sends planes stuffed with food US suspects Russian hackers World cup a bargaining chipPhilippines stops sending workersGulf crisis: What you need to know Saudi officials recall bitterly how Iran provided senior al Qaeda figures shelter after 9/11, even as the terror group launched attacks across the kingdom. One former member of al Qaeda, who was close to several senior figures in the group before 9/11, told CNN that many Muslims believe they are in the middle of a generational conflict for the soul of Islam. It’s a specter that’s haunted Arab regimes for decades, since the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1980. Former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt spoke a decade ago of “Tehran’s hand moving with ease throughout the region, from the Gulf to Morocco,” according to US diplomatic cables at the time. Related article Qatar frozen out: What you need to know This confrontation has deepened with the Syrian civil war. The rise of ISIS and the prominent role of Iran – in both Iraq and Syria – has redrawn the balance of power in the Middle East. Jordan’s top military officer, Gen. Mahmoud Freihat, said recently that Iran was trying to carve out a “land belt” between its territory and Lebanon – right the way across Iraq and Syria, partly motivated by a very real fear of ISIS. Just last week, pro-Iranian militia seized a town (Baaj) held by ISIS just inside Iraq, while their comrades on the other side of Iraq’s border with Syria tried to attack a US base (Al Tanf) supporting moderate Sunni rebels. The awful war and humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen is another example of this larger struggle. Once a country where sectarian identity was less important than left and right, its Shia minority – the Houthis – are clinging to power in one part of the country, under bombardment by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, while al Qaeda prospers in another. The Saudis, predictably, accuse Iran of arming the Houthis; Iran, predictably, denies the charge. But why has this long-simmering animosity now burst into the open?  First, according to some reports, Saudi Arabia was infuriated by a complicated ransom deal Qatar did in April to secure the release of nearly 30 prominent Qatari citizens held in Iraq. The terms of that deal are unknown, but both Iran and jihadist groups in Syria are reported to have been beneficiaries. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said suitcases containing hundreds of millions of dollars were seized from a private Qatari jet in Baghdad. Qatar’s foreign minister insisted his government “did not deal with armed groups outside the authority of the (Iraqi) state;” Riyadh didn’t believe him. Related article Middle East madness engulfs Iran, Qatar and US Then came the infamous alleged hack of the Qatari news agency on May 23, and the planting of a report quoting the Emir as saying: “There is no wisdom in harboring hostility towards Iran.” Saudi and UAE media went to town with the reports. But part of the answer may lie a hemisphere away in Washington. The Saudis didn’t like or trust the Obama administration, especially after it jettisoned their good ally Mubarak in Egypt (2011) and made a nuclear deal with Iran (2015).  There was a sense that as the US moved toward energy independence, it would care less about the Gulf. So Riyadh’s younger generation of decision-makers set out on a more assertive foreign policy, which included putting Qatar in its place. To some analysts, President Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia only encouraged this boldness – against Qatar and Iran. “His open embrace of the more hard-line factions in the Kingdom sent a signal to Tehran that regardless of its policies, the United States wouldn’t be responsive to changes in Iran,” such as the re-election of President Hassan Rouhani, say Dina Esfandiary and Ariane M. Tabatabai at Foreign Affairs magazine. While in Riyadh, Trump told a meeting of Arab heads of state that Iran was the chief source of instability in the region, providing terror groups with “safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment.” Which brings us to Wednesday’s terror attack in Tehran. For ISIS, which claimed responsibility in a statement and video, it’s a symbolic strike at the heart of “Safavid” (derogatory term for Iranian) darkness. For its part, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said the attack “was perpetrated soon after the meeting of the US President with the heads of one of the reactionary regional states that has always supported “Takfiri’ terrorists,” aka Saudi Arabia. And so a little more fuel is added to a fire well set.


Watch on CNN: “United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell” visits Muslims living in small town America Sunday at 10p ET/PT. Stephen Miller is Trump's senior adviser for policy and speechwriter He used to work for then-Senator Jeff Sessions The author of President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban, which targeted people from six-majority Muslim countries, is the principal speechwriter for the President’s speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior adviser for policy and speechwriter, is the principal aide in charge of writing both the speech on Islam and Trump’s later speech on the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a White House official told CNN. Both are topics Miller has spoken out against throughout his career on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Related article Donald Trump's risky religious pilgrimage The official said the speech has been put together through a collaborative process inside the White House, but that Miller was the primary author. The speech, which will be given in front of about 50 Muslim leaders, could be a flashpoint in Trump’s eight-day, five country trip. Trump has long derided Islam, proposed banning all Muslim immigration into the United States during the campaign and is expected to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism” throughout the speech in Saudi Arabia, the cradle of the 1.6 billion-member religion. His travel ban, in the name of protecting the US against terrorism, also specifically targeted all Muslim-majority countries, a move that was derided by Muslims everywhere, including in the Middle East. That ban was the work of Miller, a 31-year-old aide who, along with Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart CEO, has been a key voice in Trump’s ear on immigration. Miller himself has a lengthy history with anti-Muslim rhetoric. During his time at Duke University, Miller wrote extensively for the school’s newspaper, including one article in which he wrote: “Islamic terrorists … have declared a death sentence on every man, woman and child living in this country.” The time I went to summer camp with the future mini-Trump Miller also worked as a college student for the Terrorism Awareness Project, an effort founded by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The group is considered an anti-Muslim hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Prior to working with Trump, Miller worked as a top aide and speechwriter to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is now Trump’s attorney general. Sessions was outspoken on terrorism during Miller’s time on his staff, mimicking Miller’s views on the faith. Trump has called his first foreign trip “crucial,” despite the fact the trip couldn’t come at a worst time for the President: His administration is currently consumed by the naming of a special counsel by the Justice Department to look into Russia’s connections to the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. Trump said earlier this week that he will “challenge” Muslims in Saudi Arabia to “fight hatred and extremism and embrace a better future of their faith.” “We have to stop radical Islamic terrorism,” he added. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, said Trump’s speech will be “inspiring but direct” and urge the leaders to “confront radical ideology.” “The President hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam to dominate across the world,” McMaster said. “The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate America’s commitment to our Muslim partners.” CNN’s Daniel Burke contributed to this report. CORRECTION: This story has been updated to properly identify a group Trump will deliver a speech on. It’s the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.


Saudi Arabia has replaced a number of top military commanders in a late-night political reshuffle Monday that saw the country’s monarch issue 39 royal decrees. The state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud had issued the orders that included reshuffles for the positions of chief of general staff and the commanders of the country’s air defense force, land forces and strategic missiles force. The decrees related to military appointments were issued “based on recommendations of the Minister of Defense,” according to one of the royal decrees. The current Defense Minister is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is first in line to inherit the throne from his 82-year-old father, King Salman. The 32-year-old is seen as a key power player behind the king and a reformer by Saudi standards. Saudi Arabia has waged a years-long military campaign in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized government that the Houthi rebels drove out of the capital, Sanaa. Changes and appointments were also made to several government posts, including naming the first female deputy minister –  Tamadhir bint Yosif bin Moqbil Alrammah as deputy minister of labor and social development. Since his appointment some restrictions on women have been eased and last year, the Crown Prince vowed to destroy “extremist ideologies” in a bid to return to “a more moderate Islam.” A day before the military reshuffle, Saudi Arabia announced that it would open its military to female employment for the first time. “The General Directorate of Public Security announces military jobs for females at the rank of soldier,” the kingdom’s General Directorate of Public Security said in an advert on its official Twitter account on Sunday. Clarification: This story has been updated to include the names of the new appointees and their roles


President Donald Trump again called for an end to the filibuster and said there will be no deal with Democrats on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA. “Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. ‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL! In two more tweets Sunday morning, Trump threatened to dismantle the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he called Mexico’s “cash cow,” if the country doesn’t reduce the flow of immigrants coming across the southern US border. Trump also tweeted that “big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!” Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL! The President followed up on his tweets as he went into Easter Sunday church service in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Mexico has got to help us at the border. If they’re not going to help us at the border, it’s a very sad thing between two countries. Mexico has got to help us at the border. And a lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA and we’re going to have to really see,” he said. “They had a great chance. The Democrats blew it. They had a great, great chance. But we’ll have to take a look. But Mexico has got to help us at the border. They flow right through Mexico. They send them into the United States. Can’t happen that way anymore.” This isn’t the first time Trump has called for a change to Senate rules by invoking the “nuclear option,” which would permit a simple majority to move forward on a measure. Last May, he called for Congress to move to a simple majority to pass health care and tax reform bills. Related article How Trump is quietly rewriting US immigration policy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has emphatically stated he is against changing senate rules to initiate a nuclear option for the legislative filibuster. Current Senate rules mandate that 60 senators – three-fifths of the 100-member Senate – must agree in order to end debate and move forward to a vote on a measure or piece of legislation – a process known as invoking cloture. CNN’s Tal Kopan and Miranda Green contributed to this report.


Trump delivered at least four falsehoods during his remarks last month CNN's Jake Tapper will look next week at a stump speech delivered by Clinton In one stump speech last month in Fort Myers, Florida, Donald Trump offered up at least four big whoppers. That’s according to a fact-check from CNN’s Jake Tapper, who investigated a set of remarks from September 19 alongside FactCheck.org The first falsehood: Hillary Clinton would not bring in 620,000 refugees in her first term – only 55,000 more Syrian refugees, lifting the total to 155,000 for all refugees. The second: Trump did not publicly oppose the war in Iraq before it began. He was ambivalent about the invasion, at best. The third: Trump might say that the US “got out of Iraq the wrong way,” but he had once said the US should just “declare victory and leave.” And the fourth: Clinton did push for intervention in Libya, but Trump himself too called for that same move. It’s part of a pattern for Trump. FactCheck.org analyzed another Trump appearance, in Miami, and found over 20 questionable statements. Tapper will look next week at a stump speech delivered by Clinton. As FactCheck.org wrote: “The day-to-day appeals in stump speeches often go largely uncovered, though. The words are nearly identical in stop after stop for weeks and weeks. And the media are looking for new things to report. But those speeches — repetitive as they may be — represent the core appeal to voters.” Read the full post at FactCheck.org.


Padre Gilberto is one of three American Catholic priests living in Cuba, church says He hopes thawing U.S.-Cuba relations will help more families be reunited The Rev. Gilbert Walker came to Cuba to connect with his family’s past, but he found out much more about his ancestors’ lives and secrets than he could have ever imagined. Padre Gilberto, as his parishioners call the thin, seemingly always smiling pastor, is one of only three American Catholic priests living in Cuba, church officials said. He has been here for 12 years, and other than Black Panthers who skyjacked planes to Cuba in the 1960s, there are likely few other Americans who have lived on the island so long. Walker grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi, and dreamed of one day visiting Cuba, off limits to most Americans since the Cuban revolution took power in 1959. “I became interested in Cuba hearing the stories of my great-grandparents and my grandmother. She lived until she was about 11 or 12 on a small sugar plantation in Chaparra, in eastern Cuba,” Walker told CNN in an interview from the small church he oversees in Old Havana. A member of the Vincentians order of missionaries, Walker finally got his wish. Six months after moving to Cuba, he journeyed to the remote town where his great-grandparents had lived for more than 30 years. The Chaparra in his family photos looks like an American town transplanted to Cuba. The men, including Walker’s great-grandfather Ralph Wood, all wear suits and ties, an act of defiance against Cuba’s tropical heat. In one photo, Wood’s breast pocket is stuffed with Cuban cigars. “He smoked them every day,” Walker said. Most of the houses in the town, which was populated with American employees of a U.S. sugar company, had several floors and wraparound porches. There was even a country club. Little of that luxury was left when Walker visited the town, long after after his great-grandparents left to move back to the U.S. in the 1950s. A few years later, all U.S. property, including the American sugar companies, had been expropriated, and all Americans living in Cuba were forced by the new revolutionary government to leave the island. Even the name of the town had changed; Chaparra was now Jesús Menéndez, in honor of a slain union leader considered to be a martyr by the revolution. Walker went to the town museum to ask if anyone remembered his family. “One man said my great-grandfather liked to gamble, but he was fair to his workers,” Walker said. Then Walker asked a question that surprised even him: Had his great-grandfather had any children outside his marriage? “It was a strong intuition. The only explanation that I have is that God gave me this intuition that I have family here,” he said. The answer was yes. He and a local woman had a daughter named Amparo. Walker’s great-grandfather Ralph saw his daughter Amparo only a few times. She and her mother were left behind in Cuba when he returned to the U.S. with his American family for good. Town residents told Walker that they had telephoned Amparo’s son, Rafael, and a few minutes later the American priest was face to face with a member of the Cuban family he never knew he had. “I didn’t know what to expect, what he’d be like,” Walker said. “I didn’t know if he would be welcoming. It was absolutely unknown to me, and it was absolutely wonderful. He and I welled up as we met each other.” His cousin Rafael Rabade Guntín had given up hope of ever meeting his family in the U.S. “I always say he had me at a disadvantage,” Rafael said. “He looked for his family. He could find them or not. He knew he could find them. I didn’t hope for anything. It was a bigger surprise for me.” From that first meeting, the men stayed in touch and now see each other or talk at least once a week. Walker said he hopes that with the restoration of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, more families divided by the country’s political differences will once again be reunited. “It’s been a real blessing for me, and I think for my family here, too, and for my family in the States,” Walker said. “To know that there’s a connection. That time and distance haven’t erased that connection. It’s still there. The same blood flows through our veins.”


U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said his planned visit Wednesday to a joint industrial complex has been canceled by North Korean authorities. In a speech in Seoul,  the secretary-general said there was no explanation given by the North Koreans for the last-minute change. “This decision by Pyongyang is deeply regrettable. However, I, as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, will not spare any efforts to encourage the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea) to work with the international community for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and beyond,” Ban said, according to a U.N. statement. The Kaesong Industrial Complex lies north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas. More than 100 South Korean factory owners employ about 50,000 North Korean laborers to manufacture products such as clothing and shoes. The complex was established more than a decade ago at a time when a previous government in South Korea was pursuing a “sunshine policy” of friendship with its reclusive northern rival. Its creation allowed South Korean companies to benefit from the low cost of North Korean labor. Meanwhile, North Korea gained a valuable stream of hard currency revenue by appropriating an undisclosed amount of salary from its citizens working in Kaesong. CNN’s Karen Smith and Laura Ly contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect the latest number of fatalities from London Metropolitan Police. "You have to be kidding me?!" Trump Jr. tweeted Khan and Trump had sharp words for each other during the campaign President Trump’s son is criticizing the mayor of London in the immediate aftermath of an attack in the city that killed four and wounded about 40 on the grounds of the UK Parliament. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., manages the Trump Organization and has no role in the White House, but he remains an occasional surrogate for his father. The younger Trump also occasionally calls out the President’s political opponents on Twitter, the venue he chose Wednesday to weigh in on the incident in Britain. You have to be kidding me?!: Terror attacks are part of living in big city, says London Mayor Sadiq Khan https://t.co/uSm2pwRTjO “You have to be kidding me?!” Trump Jr. tweeted, as he shared an article from The Independent, and paraphrased its headline as: “Terror attacks are part of living in big city, says London Mayor Sadiq Khan” Police name London attackerLondon unites against terrorA city stilled, shocked, enragedOpinion: Attack was long overdueAnalysis: Don’t bet on lone wolf Challenge of low-tech terrorPolitician rushes to victim’s aid Police name London attackerLondon unites against terrorA city stilled, shocked, enragedOpinion: Attack was long overdueAnalysis: Don’t bet on lone wolf Challenge of low-tech terrorPolitician rushes to victim’s aid The article, published in September 2016, featured Khan’s reaction to a bombing in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York. In it, Khan said that preparedness for terror attacks is “part and parcel of living in a big city,” and asked Londoners to be correspondingly “vigilant.” Twitter users took to the platform to criticize Trump for his take on the tragedy. Labour politician Wes Streeting – a party colleague of Khan – called the President’s son a “disgrace” for capitalizing on the attack for “political gain.” “You use a terrorist attack on our city to attack London’s Mayor for your own political gain,” he wrote. “You’re a disgrace.” You use a terrorist attack on our city to attack London's Mayor for your own political gain. You're a disgrace. A  journalist for UK broadcaster Channel 4 accused Trump of mischaracterizing Khan’s words – suggesting that he didn’t read past the article’s lead paragraph. “Is this helpful @DonaldJTrumpJr?” Ciaran Jenkins wrote. “Did you even read the article before goading London’s Mayor during a live incident?” The White House issued a more conciliatory response to the terrorist attack. The President spoke by phone with British Prime Minister Theresa May, and White House press secretary Sean Spicer said it would be “irresponsible” to speculate this soon on what precisely happened or who was responsible. Khan and Trump Sr. had sharp words for one another during the campaign: Khan, who is Muslim, criticized Trump’s immigration ban, and Trump at one point challenged the London mayor to an I.Q. test. Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the latest number of fatalities from London Metropolitan Police.


After Brexit and the Trump victory, traditional political expectations lie in tatters Soon voters in France, Austria, Italy and Germany will have their say in national polls The outcomes could change the political map of Europe If Europe’s leaders thought Brexit was an aberration, the election of Donald Trump brought the reality of their own vulnerabilities crashing home. With political norms and expectations shattered, attention is turning to the heart of western Europe – to France, Germany, Austria and Italy, each of which holds national polls in the coming months. For so long, the allies were able to look across the Atlantic at one another and see themselves more or less reflected back. President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric and subsequent election victory has smashed that mirror. What really draws down the darkening for Europe’s leaders, however, is the realization that there are plenty of other European politicians ready to remake their own image in Trump’s. They want the mirror effect to work for them, so that their visions can win. They are not just on the right, like Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front, who predicts Trump’s victory will translate to gains for her in the upcoming French presidential elections, but also leftists like Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece, even though neither rooted for a Trump victory. They all think they can profit from Trump’s populist message by similarly tapping into frustrations, anger and nationalist agendas. The change in mood and reality was clear when President Obama visited Europe earlier this month. Matteo Renzi, Italy’s young and charismatic Prime Minister, sat to Obama’s right at his farewell roundtable in Berlin, displacing British Prime Minister Theresa May, who might once have expected to take that prestigious position. The Italian will have been fully aware he faces his own denouement at the hands of populists buoyed by Trump’s victory. Renzi has called a referendum to push for needed political reforms. That referendum has since morphed into a vote on him, and he has said that he’ll quit should the vote go the wrong way. Presidential elections taking place in Austria on Sunday – the same day as Renzi’s referendum – could also point to a “Trump effect.” The Austrians currently seem set to hand victory to Norbert Hofer, a nationalist who used Trump-style rhetoric of rigged elections to force the last ballot to be canceled before it was even held. Among other things, he has been trading on fears of migrants. Also at the table with Obama in Berlin was French President Francois Hollande, who knows his current approval rating is so low that he is now unlikely to be his party’s pick to represent them in the French presidential elections next year. Already, pollsters are tipping Le Pen as a favorite in the first round of voting, and will only be defeated if left and center right join forces in the second round. The mood at the table, aside perhaps from May’s, must have been stark. Obama is aware that much that he holds dear could be lost. Trump has openly criticized the transatlantic relationship, questioning NATO’s relevance, and has praised Britain’s decision to leave the EU. For many of Europe’s leaders, the fear is that this winter may be a long one. Not perhaps of Shakespearian proportions heralded in the opening lines of “Richard III,” but nevertheless, one of significant discontent.