Ivanka Trump was at the Supreme Court Wednesday She listened to arguments as a guest of Justice Kennedy Ivanka Trump listened to oral arguments at the Supreme Court Wednesday, a court spokesperson confirmed. The first daughter was there as an invited guest as Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom she met at the inaugural lunch at the Capitol last month just after her father’s swearing-in ceremony. Supreme Court justices often host guests for arguments, and there is a gallery in the courtroom where visitors are able to observe the judicial branch in action. Trump was in a VIP section where special friends and invited guests sit, opposite from the press gallery. Trump listened to a technical case examining the question: “Do Arbitration Agreements between Nursing Homes and Patients Violate Public Policy or are they enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act.” Her daughter, Arabella Kushner, accompanied her mother. The 5-year-old was also at her mother’s side at a Lunar New Year party at the Chinese embassy earlier this month. The two left just before noon, stopping at the top of the steps of the Supreme Court building to smile for cameras. Trump declined questions as Arabella skipped to a waiting SUV. Trump posted an Instagram of her and her daughter on the steps shortly thereafter, writing, “Arabella and I visited the Supreme Court this morning and attended a hearing. I’m grateful for the opportunity to teach her about the judicial system in our country firsthand. #SCOTUS #SupremeCourt #ImportantLessons #MotherDaughter” Arabella & me at the Supreme Court today. I'm grateful for the opportunity to teach her about the judicial system in our country firsthand. pic.twitter.com/1YXHyZ9ADZ Trump, who was a key adviser to her father’s campaign but does not have a formal White House title, has taken an active interest in her father’s administration. Last week, she attended his event at a Charleston, South Carolina, Boeing factory, and helped host a women’s business initiative alongside the President and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump also spoke out against anti-Semitic behavior Monday evening, tweeting: “America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC.” President Donald Trump later followed his daughter’s lead, condemning anti-Semitism and bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers at a Tuesday visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The White House confirmed the visit but did not provide any additional details. This story has been updated.


More than 50 years after his death, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is having a bit of a moment. Following the release of “Churchill” in June 2017 (with Brian Cox in the lead role), “Darkest Hour” is set to hit US screens on November 22, this time with an unrecognizable Gary Oldman stepping into Churchill’s bowler hat. While both films offer an insight into Churchill’s life, a visit to his underground bunker in London lets you walk in the great man’s footsteps. The Churchill War Rooms (Clive Steps, King Charles, Westminster, London SW1A 2AQ; 020 7416 5000) are set in the secret underground command center used during World War II, just around the corner from 10 Downing Street. Surprisingly, the rooms aren’t too deep below ground. It was thought that the steel structure of the building above would provide additional protection, but in actuality a direct bomb strike would have been disastrous. Related article Visiting the London Eye? Here's our best advice Below the surface, you’ll find a warren of rooms, from the Transatlantic Telephone Room to the Map Room, which remains exactly as it looked the moment the lights were switched off in 1945, the day after Japan surrendered. There’s also a bedroom for Churchill, though he rarely slept there. It’s the smaller details that are perhaps the most fascinating. Check out the arms of Churchill’s chair in the Cabinet Room, marked with gouges from his nervous scratching. The rooms hold little secrets, too, like the rationed sugar cubes stashed away in a drawer by Wing Commander John Heagerty. One of the jazziest elements is a long interactive table within the Churchill Museum (itself part of the Churchill War Rooms). Dubbed ‘Churchill’s Lifeline’, the 50-foot-long table chronicles major world events that took place throughout his life, bringing thousands of pictures and documents to life whenever you select a date. The Churchill War Rooms are part of the Imperial War Museum (Lambeth Rd, London SE1 6HZ; 020 7416 5000), though don’t be fooled into thinking the London location is nearby – it’s around a 30-minute walk away. However, it’s well worth a visit and the walk will take you on a fairly decent sightseeing tour of London, passing the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge and St George’s Cathedral. The Imperial War Museum is also free to enter, which is a contrast to the Churchill War Rooms, where on-the-day tickets will rise to £21 ($28) in 2018. There’s a 10% discount on tickets bought online from January and these tickets also grant fast-track access, which might come in handy in the notoriously busy summer months. Get there early, if possible – it’s open from 9.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day (with a new “after-hours” experience set to launch in 2018). Westminster isn’t an area known for great restaurants, so it’s probably best to wander up to the Mayfair area if you want to grab a bite. A 15-minute walk through St James’s Park will take you to The Wolseley (160 Piccadilly, St. James’s, London W1J 9EB; 020 7499 6996), a London institution and favorite of the late restaurant critic AA Gill. The nearest tube station is Westminster, a 10-minute walk away, which is served by the Jubilee, District and Circle Lines (incidentally, it’s also one of the sleekest stations in the city, filled with huge intertwining steel tubes). If you’re looking to carry on with the wartime theme, you can follow up with a visit to The Bletchley (459 King’s Rd, London SW10 0LJ; 020 3488 1678), London’s first code-breaking cocktail bar. From the Churchill War Rooms, it’s a 20-minute taxi journey or 35 minutes by tube and bus to this subterranean bar in upscale Chelsea styled to resemble Britain’s wartime code-breaking headquarters. Nicola Brady is a travel writer based in Dublin. She has written for the Irish Independent, the Guardian, Condé Nast Traveler, Tatler and more.


Editor’s Note: This feature is part of Tomorrow’s Hero, a series profiling young innovators transforming the world for a brighter future. Discover their stories here. Rainier Mallol’s journey started with an infection. Dengue fever, ripping through mother’s body when he was 14 years old. Fever, headaches, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, transmitted by a mosquito bite in his native Dominican Republic. All too common in the tropics – and with cases rising dramatically in recent decades according to the World Health Organization – Dengue can become life-threatening. Although there is a vaccine, there is no specific treatment once contracted. “I felt powerless,” Mallol reflects, 12 years later. His mother was one of an estimated 390 million Dengue infections every year; one of an estimated four billion people at risk of Dengue infection globally. But what if this big data could be harnessed? If we can track the spread of previous disease outbreaks, can we find patterns to predict where they’ll happen next? These were the questions on Mallol’s mind in 2015 when he took part in a program at the NASA Research Park in California. Eighty people from around the world were invited by the Singularity University (a Silicon Valley thinktank and business incubator offering education programs) to workshop an idea: “a solution that would save billions (of lives) in the next 10 years,” says Mallol. They came from different backgrounds, among them journalists, health professionals, writers and film producers. Mallol was a computer engineering graduate and hit it off with Malaysian public health specialist Dr Dhesi Raja on their first day on the program. Related article Teen's brain cell breakthough could help Alzheimer's patients The two talked about dengue and the inability to forecast outbreaks, and conceived an algorithm-based approach to monitor the disease. Mallol created a basic artificial intelligence software in a week, feeding it Dengue statistics and asking it to predict three months ahead. “We waited about 10 weeks then compared the results,” he says. “We obtained about 81% accuracy.” It was the first steps towards co-founding their company, Artificial Intelligence in Medical Epidemics (AIME), which today claims an improved average accuracy of 86.4%. Their company’s Dengue Outbreak Prediction platform now supplies the Malaysian government and regional governments in Brazil and the Philippines with insights to manage and curb outbreaks. “What we do is we analyze data from the past year, past months, past days of dengue cases,” Mallol explains. Plotting these on maps, they add other factors. “We have a system that obtains over 276 variables,” he adds, “weather variables, geographical variables (and) socio-economic variables.” “(Governments) can actually take pre-emptive actions,” says Mallol, using fumigation of zones likely to be affected as an example. Authorities can easily break down an ongoing outbreak by prevalent symptoms, population demographics and so forth and act accordingly. Moreover, Mallol argues, they can do it faster. Related article Meet Amber Yang. She's trying to prevent a space debris catastrophe “I know of a product that (could map) all of the (Dengue) cases that happened in 2014, which took them about one year,” he says. “We do it in one minute or less.” AIME plans to roll out their platform to other countries and regions. With visits to The Clinton Global Initiative and Harvard University under its belt, the co-founder says governments are more receptive to the start-up. “Dengue is just the start,” he adds. “We will create a device to diagnose tuberculosis and malaria. We will create another software to diagnose diabetic retinopathy (a disease which can lead to blindness).” There’s also an idea “to link blood banks all over the world.” It’s clear Mallol and AIME have no limits to their ambitions. Though for now, Dengue remains the focus. “My invention will change the future,” he says. “I know this because it’s already changing the future in Malaysia.”


Air Force identifies all six killed in suicide bombing on Monday They include Joseph Lemm, a New York City police officer and National Guardsman One of the victims was female Air Force officer who came out against "don't ask, don't tell" Joseph Lemm returned from a deployment in Afghanistan two years ago to surprise his family as his teenage daughter performed in a singing contest at a New York burger joint. A New York police veteran and National Guardsman, Lemm hadn’t seen his daughter Brook, then 14, son Ryan, then 2, or his wife, Christine, in nearly a year, CNN affiliate News12 reported. In addition to catching up with loved ones, Lemm had other simple things on his mind: “Pizza. Can’t wait for a pizza and a nice American burger. Something that’s not frozen before it gets to you, that’s what I’m looking forward to,” he told the station. On Wednesday, flags on all New York state government buildings will be flown at half-staff in honor of New York Air National Guard Technical Sgt. Joseph Lemm and five other NATO service members killed two days earlier in a motorcycle bomb attack in Bagram, Afghanistan. Related gallery Political violence is driving terrorism Flags will also be flown at half-staff on government buildings in New York City, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Staff Sgt. Joe Lemm served this nation with the selflessness and bravery that embodies the U.S. Armed forces and the NYPD,” Cuomo said in a statement. “On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend my deepest condolences to his family, friends, fellow officers and service members.” Lemm, 45, was a 15-year NYPD veteran who was promoted to detective in January 2014, serving in the Bronx warrant squad, according to a statement from Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. As a member of the NYPD, Lemm was deployed three times, twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. Lemm – a resident of West Harrison, New York, assigned to the 105th Security Forces Squadron, which is a part of the 105th Airlift Wing at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh – leaves behind his wife and two children. The Air Force on Tuesday identified the six people who died in a news release, listing their ages, hometowns and units. Among them was Maj. Adrianna Vorderbruggen of the Air Force. A pioneer in the protest against the military’s former “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, she was one of the first openly gay service members to marry after the policy was ended in 2011.  The group Military Partners and Families Coalition confirmed her death on its Facebook page. “Major Vorderbruggen leaves behind her wife, Heather, and son, Jacob,” the group said. “We do find comfort in knowing that Heather and Jacob are no longer in the shadows and will be extended the rights and protections due any American military family as they move through this incredibly difficult period in their lives.” She was 36. Another service member killed Monday was from Stewart Air National Guard Base, according to Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus. He was not identified, but CNN spoke to Diana Bonacasa, who said her son, Louis Bonacasa, had died. Louis Bonacasa, 31, was on his fourth tour of duty in the region. He was married and had a 5-year-old child. “I’ve never seen a man love a family the way he loved his,” Diana Bonacasa said. She said her son, who lived in Manorville, New York, was proud of serving his country and was a “man of integrity.” He had joined the military 14 years ago after the United States had invaded Afghanistan. He told his mother he wanted to join the special operations forces in the Air Force but couldn’t because of sight issues. Chester McBride, a 2003 graduate of Statesboro High School in Georgia, was also identified Tuesday as one of the service members killed in the blast, CNN affiliate WSAV reports. McBride, 30, was a graduate of Savannah State University, his family told the station. The Air Force identified the others killed as Staff Sgt. Michael A. Cinco, 28, of Mercedes, Texas, and Staff Sgt. Peter W. Taub, 30, of Philadelphia. A suicide bomber on a motorbike carried out the attack on a joint patrol of Afghan and coalition forces at about 1:30 p.m. in the Bajawri area of Bagram district, said Waheed Sediqi, a spokesman for the governor of Parwan province. Two other U.S. service members and an American contractor were also wounded, officials said. The area is close to the U.S. base in the Bagram district of northern Parwan province. The last time six U.S. service members were killed was October 2, when their C-130J Super Hercules aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Jalalabad Airfield, Afghanistan. On July 8, 2012, six U.S. soldiers were killed after an improvised explosive device attack in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province, Afghanistan. This week, Carter expressed his condolences to the Americans’ families. “As I saw firsthand during my visit to Afghanistan last Friday, our troops are working diligently alongside our Afghan partners to build a brighter future for the Afghan people,” Carter said in a statement. “Their dedicated efforts will continue despite this tragic event.” White House press secretary Josh Earnest in a statement condemned the “cowardly attack,” and said the United States “will continue to work together to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan.” The Taliban took credit for the attack. The attack remains under investigation, said U.S. Col. Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for NATO’s Operation Resolute Support. The six people killed Monday bring the tally of NATO service members who have died in Afghanistan this year to 25. The death toll has steadily declined year by year since reaching a peak of 711 in 2010. The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan stands at just under 10,000, down from its peak of 100,000 in 2010. Taliban takes control of key district in Helmand Province According to NATO, the operation was launched in January “to provide further training, advice and assistance for the Afghan security forces and institutions.” The mission involves 12,000 personnel from NATO and 14 partner nations. Its central hub is in Bagram/Kabul with “spokes” in Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Kandahar and Laghman, NATO says. CNN’s Steve Almasy, Laura Ly, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Ross Levitt and Sarah Aarthun contributed to this report.

United States military presence in Afghanistan


Rep. Devin Nunes is quickly becoming President Donald Trump’s favorite lawmaker in Washington. Trump singled out the California Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for praise Monday on Twitter, calling him “a man of tremendous courage and grit” after Nunes’ committee released a partisan memo alleging abuses by the FBI and Justice Department. Both Nunes and the White House have rejected allegations that they collaborated on the crafting of the memo, suspicions that several top Democrats have raised. “All I can say is that the first time anybody at the White House saw the memo was on Monday when it was delivered to the White House. Obviously, the chairman of the intelligence committee will have discussions with folks in the White House on all sorts of matters, but nothing with respect to coordination of the memo that I’m aware of,” White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah said Monday. Related article The Nunes memo: 5 takeaways Trump has seized on the controversial memo which was declassified last week, claiming it “totally vindicates” him in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that is probing allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and questions of obstruction of justice. “Representative Devin Nunes, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure!” Trump tweeted Monday morning. Representative Devin Nunes, a man of tremendous courage and grit, may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure! The memo does not clear Trump of wrongdoing in either aspect of the investigation, a point several Republican lawmakers have made clear in recent days, but the President and some of his allies have nonetheless seized on the memo in an attempt to discredit Mueller’s investigation. And while Nunes has not called into question Mueller’s authority in the wake of the release of the memo, he has raised questions about the top tier leadership at the FBI and Justice Department, refusing even to say in an interview last week whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should remain in his position. Nunes’ release of the memo fits a pattern of the House Intelligence Committee chairman’s efforts to muddy the waters as Mueller’s investigation has tightened its focus around Trump and his inner circle. Nunes also served on Trump’s presidential transition team. After the memo was released, Nunes seized on one of Trump’s talking points to claim “there was no collusion,” getting ahead of the special counsel’s investigation and its conclusions. Related article Trump takes aim at Schiff ahead of push to release Democrats' memo Trump also also fired off a missive at the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee – knocking Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, as “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington” and calling him “Little Adam Schiff.” Trump’s tweets about the top two lawmakers on the committee come as it is expected to vote as early as Monday afternoon on whether to release a Democratic memo that covers the same topic as last week’s Republican memo. If the memo gets out of the committee, it would then head to the White House for a declassification review – leaving the decision in the President’s hands. “If that memo is voted out and it comes to the White House we will consider it along the same terms that we considered the Nunes memo, which is to allow for a legal review, national security review, led by the White House counsel’s office and then within five days the president will make a decision about declassifying it,” said Shah, the White House spokesman.


Japanese intercepts of Chinese planes almost double a year ago China says Japanese tactics are putting its fliers at risk Japanese military aircraft are increasingly engaging in dangerous intercepts of Chinese planes, putting the safety of Chinese fliers at risk and damaging bilateral relations, China’s Defense Ministry said Thursday. Japan reported earlier this month that it has scrambled its warplanes 407 times between April 1 and September 30 in reaction to increased Chinese military flights near Japanese airspace. That’s almost double the number of intercepts Japan’s Air Self Defense Force made on Chinese aircraft in the same period in 2015. “Such high-frequency reconnaissance against China not only disturbs the routine training of the Chinese military but also undermines the security interests of China,” Col. Wu Qian, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense, said at a briefing on Thursday. Wu said Japanese planes were using dangerous tactics during those intercepts. “The aircraft of Japanese Air Self Defense Force switched on the fire control radars or even dropped an infrared countermeasure bomb during encounters with Chinese aircraft,” Wu said, calling those actions “unprofessional and dangerous.” Wu said Chinese military flights near Japan were completely within international law and standard aviation practices. Japan’s disproportionate response risked accidents and relations, he said. Japan’s Defense Ministry on Friday said its Self Defense Force follows international law when conducting intercepts. “It has not taken any provocative actions against Chinese military planes nor endangered them as claimed by the spokesman of the Chinese Defense Ministry,” the ministry said in a statement. China did not cite any specific incidents during Thursday’s briefing. During the summer, China said two Japanese F-15 jets locked their fire control radars onto two Chinese Su-30 jets during a June 17 encounter over the East China Sea. When the Chinese jets maneuvered to counter the Japanese move, the Japanese fighter fired their infrared countermeasures, China’s Defense Ministry said. And in late September, Japan sent up fighter jets after eight Chinese military planes crossed between Okinawa and the Miyako islands near Taiwan. It was the first time that Chinese military aircraft had been seen in the Miyako Strait, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at the time. Related article British warplanes set for drills in Japan, South Korea Shen Jinke, an official with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, said that a fleet of 40 aircraft were sent to the West Pacific via the Miyako Strait for a “routine drill on the high seas,” according to China’s official Xinhua news agency. The fleet, which included H-6K bombers, Su-30 fighters and air tankers, simulated reconnaissance and early warning attacks on sea-surface targets. It also conducted in-flight refueling to test the Air Force’s fighting capacity, Xinhua added. The report added that the fleet conducted routine patrols in China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which the country set up in the East China Sea in 2013 despite objections from Tokyo and Washington. Japan rejects the ADIZ, which encompasses disputed islands that are known as the Senkakus in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Japan also has an ADIZ over the islands, which it administers. Both China and Japan claim ownership of the islands and tensions have flared numerous times in recent years. While they are uninhabited, their ownership would allow for exclusive oil, mineral and fishing rights in the surrounding waters. CNN’s Katie Hunt, Yoko Wakatsuki and Bex Wright contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: Michael F. Oppenheimer is a clinical professor of Global Affairs at the NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs and author of Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. Michael Oppenheimer: Trump's national security picks echo qualities of George W. Bush picks that blundered US into Iraq He says Trump's shrug at  Russia's election hack portends dangerous foreign policy The Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq spotlighted four ingredients sufficient to produce a historic strategic blunder: an ill-informed and inexperienced President; advisors with single-minded agendas; a broken policy process; and a major external shock. The Trump Administration is well on its way towards supplying three of these, and the fourth – a shock – is inevitable, although its precise character has yet to reveal itself. Observers should stop looking for a Trump grand strategy, or speculating about the President-elect’s policies towards particular countries or issues. Whatever attitudes he expresses about policy are skin deep, an incoherent, impulse-driven miscellany of ethno-nationalism, isolationism, and an infatuation with authoritarian rulers who he views as partners in deal making. Absent any workable strategic concept, the style will be transactional, similar to Obama’s but without the current President’s informed pragmatism and instinctive caution. Relations with our major adversaries will be governed by Trump’s inflated estimates of his prowess as deal-maker, then by humiliation and a dangerous sense of betrayal when partners fail to deliver. Related gallery In transition: President-elect Trump Indeed, the potential leverage we have gained over Russian behavior via Ukraine-related economic sanctions is already dissipating as Trump’s vocal opposition to sanctions and his eagerness to do a deal was reinforced this week by the arrival of Trump’s advance team of surrogates in Moscow. While Trump has endorsed some realist ideas, by questioning the cost/benefit of our alliance system, and the advisability of nation-building, Bush as candidate endorsed similar views but with little conviction, then reversed course in reaction to 9/11. We can expect the same from Trump, whose impulsive temperament, on full display during the campaign and in his ongoing Twitter war with critics, and now with his own intelligence agencies, will shape actions more powerfully than his “ideas.” Although wise advisors and effective process can compensate for the President-elect’s weaknesses, those selected or nominated thus far will mostly reinforce them. Michael Flynn, the choice for national security advisor, shares Trump’s thin skin and inventiveness with facts, as well as a single-minded focus on Islamic extremism that will quickly produce policy errors as the administration confronts complex challenges and policy tradeoffs. Related video Michael Flynn in 60 seconds Related video Who is Trump's pick for CIA director? The job of national security advisor requires an even-handed commitment to conveying the highest quality policy analysis to the President, an honest assessment of policy options and trade-offs, wire-brushing of intelligence to provide the President with the best information available, and effective management of policy debates to encourage argument even on behalf of unpopular positions. Flynn’s preoccupation with Islamic extremism, his intolerance of dissent, and his managerial ineptitude, demonstrated while running the Defense Intelligence Agency, make him uniquely unsuited to head the National Security Council. Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo for the CIA director post is a further blow to informed strategic decisions. Pompeo is a highly partisan member of the Tea Party with an inflated view of the threat of Islamic extremism, and no record of accomplishment in the field of intelligence, or in management. He takes over a job already deeply compromised by his new boss’s public dismissal of the CIA’s performance on Russian interference in the Presidential election, and by the President-elect’s disinterest in receiving intelligence briefings. The CIA job requires an understanding of policy-relevant intelligence needs, combined with sufficient detachment to provide the best information and analysis possible, whatever the implications for the president’s agenda. It requires a full acknowledgement of uncertainty surrounding key decisions. It also requires that the President be informed of developments off stage that pose new challenges outside the frame of current priorities. The combination of Flynn as information gatekeeper and advisor to the President, Pompeo as principle originator of intelligence, and Trump as disinterested intelligence consumer, is a guarantee of major intelligence and policy failure in a Trump Administration. Related video Who is James Mattis? James Mattis as Secretary of Defense may mitigate the damage, but Flynn will leverage his proximity to the President for the last word, which, given Trump’s lack of discipline and knowledge, will usually be decisive. The same can be said of Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, an accomplished CEO but a diplomatic and foreign policy novice with close business ties to a major U.S. adversary. The prospect of an entire foreign policy team with political and commercial driven sympathies to Russia, even as Russian hacking into the election escalates in importance, guarantees a rough confirmation for all nominees and a foreign policy already delegitimized. Jeffrey Sessions as Attorney General, and Stephen Bannon — former head of Breitbart News, the hard-right website  — as chief White House political strategist, further erode confidence in the administration’s future foreign policy. Related video Rex Tillerson in 60 seconds The AG nominee’s hard line on treatment of undocumented immigrants and border enforcement will inevitably embroil the country in disputes with Mexico, and with European allies expecting to share the burden of refugees from conflict zones. Bannon’s proximity to the President will make him a major influence on foreign policy, despite his absence from the formal policy process, and his right wing extremism coupled with a volatile temperament will make him a disruptive influence in an administration desperately in need of orderly process. Relations with European governments will be at great risk, as their increasingly powerful neo-fascist political opponents derive added confidence from the knowledge that a champion of global right-wing populism sits just down the hall from the Oval Office, while the President does deals with Putin, their principle external adversary. It is impossible to imagine this particular group forming an effective policy process. Related video Trump picks Sen. Sessions to run Justice Department The chaos of the President-elect’s transition and the marginal quality of most of his appointments reveal Trump himself as the problem. His impulsivity, lack of knowledge, many prejudices and conflicts of interest augur badly for the future of America’s global leadership and ultimately, for our safety. The consequences of these pathologies may not fully reveal themselves immediately, but will burst into full view when something goes wrong, and something will surely go wrong. Some of these future crises will be self-inflected, as the global uncertainty generated by the shaky hand in the White House will force both allies and adversaries into worst-case assumptions or risky behavior, and CIA early warnings go unheeded. But beyond the self-inflicted, no President can expect to avoid unpleasant surprises: for example, Soviet missiles in Cuba; Berlin blockades; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; 9/11; the 2008 financial meltdown; the Arab Spring and the sudden rise of ISIS. Administrations are often defined by their reaction to unanticipated challenges, and a combination of presidential calmness, the wisdom of advisors, good policy process and at least a working sense of strategy are essential requirements of effective crisis management. These qualities are in short supply in the emerging Trump Administration. When called upon to deal with the inevitable shocks that await, their failure could be truly catastrophic. Related video Bannon: The alt-right man for the job? It’s clear that that mitigating the damage to U.S. interests will not come from within the administration. It may learn from its inevitable mistakes (as JFK did from the Bay of Pigs fiasco), but this does not have the look of an administration intent on learning. The beginning of wisdom for the rest of us – in Congress, journalism, academia, civil society – is to acknowledge the new and manifold risks we now face from a chaotic, unpredictable and highly personalized Presidency, operating in a dangerous, complex and fast-moving world. Related article Why it could be good for Trump to skip some intelligence briefings We’ll need to be systematic about identifying and anticipating the sources of heightened risk: major strategic surprises resulting from an excessive focus on Islamic terrorism and an already broken intelligence-policy process; unanticipated, unintended blowback from errant policies (for example, China’s reaction to abandonment of the One China policy); American allies reacting to new uncertainty surrounding our commitment to their security, by renationalizing their defense (Japan? Germany?) and setting off regional arms races; adversaries taking excessive risk, encouraged by uncertainty about our red lines; Trump himself reacting out of pique to the discovery he’s been had by an erstwhile partner; and of course defending the country from violent extremism – from whatever source – without making the problem worse. We need to be honest about the greatly heightened risk to the country already created by the President-elect in dismissing (indeed, during the campaign, inviting) Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Russians would, at this point, be entirely justified in concluding that an attack on our core Democratic institutions is risk-free, so long as the political result favors the President. The Russians will need to be disabused of that idea. The challenge to the intelligence community cannot be exaggerated. Maintaining its professionalism, its detachment from the administration’s policy preferences, its candor in delivering bad news, while building and maintaining its credibility with the President, may turn out to be impossible. If that’s the case, Trump, to quote President Obama, will be “flying blind.” And we’ll all be along for the ride.


President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered a tough criticism of Republican Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Wednesday night. Here’s a look at the night’s most memorable lines from all the speakers: “I think it’s fair to say this is not your typical election.” “I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman – not me, not Bill, nobody – more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.” “Hillary was tough. I was worn out. She was doing everything I was doing, but like Ginger Rogers, it was backwards in heels.” “He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election. That is another bet that Donald Trump will lose. Because he’s selling the American people short. We are not a fragile or frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order. We don’t look to be ruled.” “America is already great.  America is already strong.  And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump.” “She knows their dream is quintessentially American, and the American Dream is something no wall will ever contain.” “How there be pleasure in saying, ‘You’re fired’? He’s trying to tell us he cares about the middle class? Give me a break. That’s a bunch of malarkey,” Biden said. “This guy doesn’t have a clue about the Middle Class. Not a clue.” “I built a business, and I didn’t start it with a million dollar check from my father,” said the billionaire former New York City mayor, knocking Donald Trump. “I’m a New Yorker and I know a con when I see one.” “Let’s elect a sane, competent person,” he added. “For my friend Hillary Clinton, I humbly accept my party’s nomination to be vice president of the United States,” the Virginia senator said. “Can I be honest with you about something? I never expected to be here.” “It’s time to put a bully racist in his place, and a tough woman in hers – the White House,” said the one-time Clinton primary rival. “I say to hell with Trump’s American nightmare. We believe in the American Dream.” “Enough of children dying in classrooms. Enough of nightly bloodshed on our city streets. Enough of our police officers being outgunned, ambushed, and cut down in the line of duty. Enough. It’s time to take Washington back from the gun lobby. And I know just how to do it.” “I don’t want to be here tonight, I should not be here tonight,” said Smegielski, whose mother was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “I’m here alone without my mother, while too many politicians cower behind the gun lobby.” “My son’s last words were, ‘We mean you no harm.’ Tywanza. My hero. Two days later, I forgave the shooter who murdered him. Hate destroys those who harbor it, and I refused to let hate destroy me,” said Sanders, a survivor of the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. “Donald Trump says he gets his foreign policy experience from watching TV and running the Miss Universe Pageant. If only it were funny. It is deadly serious,” he said. “Today, Donald Trump once again took Russia’s side. He asked the Russians to interfere in American politics. Think about that for a moment. Donald Trump is asking one of our adversaries to engage in hacking or intelligence efforts against the United States to affect our election.” “This morning, this very morning, (Trump) invited Russia to hack us. That’s not law and order, that’s criminal intent,” he said, adding, “Donald, you’re not fit to polish John McCain’s boots.”


French President Macron welcomes Hariri and his family in Paris Hariri announced his resignation two weeks ago Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced Saturday that he will return to Beirut despite his resignation two weeks ago. “I’ll be in Beirut in the next few days to participate in the Independence Day celebrations,” Hariri told reporters after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Hariri added that it would be there, in Beirut, that he’ll speak about the country’s current political situation. He also mentioned he would be speaking to the country’s President, Michel Aoun. Macron welcomed Hariri and his family at the Elysee Palace on Saturday, where he hosted a lunch. French officials said they hope the visit will help end the political crisis by showing Hariri is free to travel. Hariri and his wife arrived in France on Saturday,  two weeks after his shocking resignation sparked speculation that he was being held hostage in Saudi Arabia. Hariri announced his resignation in a televised address from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, this month, saying his life was in danger.  Lebanon said it could not accept his resignation until he returned to the country. The Lebanese President’s office had hinted at the trip earlier on Saturday, saying Hariri had called  Aoun and told him he will attend Lebanon Independence Day events, which will happen Wednesday. It is not exactly clear when he will return to Lebanon. Hariri’s resignation announcement plunged Lebanon into a political crisis and stoked fears of conflict between the Saudi-backed faction of the country’s government and Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed Shia militant group whose political wing is the most powerful bloc in Lebanon’s fractured coalition government. Related article How Saad Hariri's resignation could backfire on Saudi Arabia Aoun alleged Hariri was being “held captive” in Saudi Arabia earlier in the week. Since he quit, Hariri has held several meetings with senior European and Arab officials, including Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, but has made no public statements about them. Related article Lebanese PM held 'captive' in Saudi, president says Hariri tweeted Friday that his stay in Saudi Arabia had been to “conduct discussions over the future situation in Lebanon” and dismissed any stories about him leaving or staying in the kingdom. “To say that I am held up in Saudi Arabia and not allowed to leave the country is a lie. I am on the way to the airport,” he said Friday. Five days after Hariri resigned, Macron made an unscheduled trip to Riyadh to meet with Hariri and Saudi officials. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Hariri had been invited to France and was living in “Saudi Arabia by his own will and can leave whenever he wants.” CNN’s Ghazi Balkiz, Hamdi Alkhshali, Bijan Hosseini, Lindsey Isaac and Natalie Gallon contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: Caroline Polisi is a federal and white collar criminal defense attorney in New York City and is Of Counsel at Pierce Bainbridge. She frequently appears on CNN as a legal analyst and is an anchor at the Law & Crime Network, providing live legal analysis on the country’s high profile court cases. Follow her on Twitter: @CarolinePolisi. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. What can we learn about the Russia probe from the thousands of pages released by the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday? The voluminous testimony and exhibits pertaining to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting – including 224 pages of Donald J. Trump Jr.’s testimony from September 7, 2017 – tell us much about two key prongs of interest in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The first is attempted coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, and the second is possible obstruction of justice regarding the investigation into that potential collusion. And Trump Jr.’s testimony? It’s a predictable variation on the recent theme we’ve seen emerge over the past few weeks from team Trump’s explanations regarding the Stormy Daniels hush money payment: inconsistencies abound. In the transcript from Trump Jr.’s testimony, he says, “(I)n his email to me Rob suggested that someone had official documents and information that would incriminate Hilary Clinton and her dealings with Russia and that the information would be very useful to the campaign.” The email he refers to is from Rob Goldstone, the publicist, to Trump Jr. on June 3, 2016, and that “someone” turned out to be Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who attended the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting along with Trump Jr., Paul Manafort (Donald Trump’s then-campaign manager), and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. We now know that – despite her early denials of ties to Putin – Veselnitskaya is, in fact, a Russian informant. Remember, federal law prohibits foreign nationals, directly or indirectly, from making contributions, donations of money – or any “thing of value,” in connection with a federal election. Related video What happened at the 2016 Trump Tower meeting? In the context of this particular charge, “knowingly” refers to the state of mind of the person accepting the thing of value, and NOT knowledge of the law prohibiting accepting money from foreign nationals.  So the argument that perhaps Trump Jr. was simply such a political neophyte that he may not have been aware of the laws surrounding campaign contributions doesn’t hold up. His testimony indicates that he knew he was getting “official documents” that could be “very useful to the campaign.” That testimony falls squarely within the campaign finance law statutes and at least suggests that there was a willingness on the part of Trump Jr. to engage in preliminary discussions “regarding the acceptance of such information, which could be considered a “thing of value” under the law. Regarding the now infamously misleading statement that Trump Jr. released after news of the June 2016 meeting broke – that the participants had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” – his testimony reveals that his account of what happened diverges materially from reporting by the Washington Post. The Post reported in July 2017 that “according to people with knowledge of events,” President Trump actually dictated the statement on the way home from Germany on Air Force One on July 8 of that year. Related article Ex-FBI'er: Congressman shouldn't be sniffing around Mueller probe When asked by the Judiciary Committee how his statements regarding the meeting evolved, and whether his father in fact drafted the statement, Trump Jr. responded: “I don’t know. I never spoke with my father about it.” When asked if he knew if Trump had provided any “edits” or “input” to the statement, he said “(h)e may have commented through Hope Hicks.” According to Trump Jr., when Hicks asked Trump Jr. if he wanted to speak directly to his father about the statement, Trump Jr. said, “I chose not to because I didn’t want to bring him into something that he had nothing to do with.” Regardless of whether or not any “dirt” on Hillary Clinton actually materialized after the Trump Tower meeting, any effort on the part of Donald Trump or Trump Jr. to mislead investigators (including through the issuance of public statements) about the nature of the meeting could certainly be used as evidence of the Trump campaign’s coordinated effort to obfuscate the story of what actually took place. Of course, the culminating piece of evidence in any obstruction of justice case would likely be the firing of FBI director James Comey. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook This document dump, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Mueller’s appointment to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, is providing more fodder for the special counsel to scrutinize the underlying motivations of both Trump himself and other key players in the saga, and to check the veracity of Trump Jr.’s statements against the actual facts.


Products can cause eye irritation, breathing problems and nose bleeds Group says FDA has known about health problems since 2008 but has not taken action Your straight hair may be harming both you and your stylist, yet the Food and Drug Administration has turned a blind eye, says the Environmental Working Group. The nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting public health filed a lawsuit Wednesday charging the FDA with a failure to respond to the danger posed by hair-straightening treatments that contain formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. “This is what’s called an unreasonable delay suit,” said Scott Faber, the group’s senior vice president of government affairs. The FDA is “legally bound to respond within a year” of a request, he said. The agency has not done so, and now, “the petitioner can make the argument of undue delay, and that’s what we’re doing here.” Related article Could African-American beauty products pose health risks? The FDA said it is unable to comment on pending litigation. However, on its website, the agency said that it had issued warning letters to two hair-straightening product companies – Brazilian Blowout and Van Tibolli Beauty Corp. –  citing safety and labeling violations and that it “continues to evaluate hair products that release formaldehyde when heated.” After a request, Van Tibolli made a label change to its keratin hair-straightening treatment sold under the GK Hair brand, said Meghan McHugh, the company’s international business development manager. It used the exact wording provided by the FDA. “People are aware that there’s methylene glycol in the product,” McHugh said, adding, “that’s one of the first things they learn about the ingredients.” Usually, customers communicate with the company a lot about how to use the products, but having learned this information from the start, they typically don’t complain. “We’ve always been very transparent with this type of information,” McHugh said. Brazilian Blowout did not respond to a request for comment. Originally, in 2011, the Environmental Working Group filed a formal request with the FDA to investigate the marketing practices of more than a dozen companies the group accused of hiding formaldehyde ingredients within their products. Faber said the group is ultimately asking the FDA to examine whether a warning is required. It also wants the FDA to examine whether methylene glycol (a form of formaldehyde) should be used at all in these products and, if so, what amount is permissible. “This is a chemical that is so dangerous that even the industry’s own self-regulatory program, what’s called the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, has concluded that it should not be used in hair-straightening products,” Faber said. As the original petition explained, some keratin hair-straightening products list “methylene glycol” as an ingredient, which is formaldehyde in a solution, he explained. Dr. Beth Jonas, chief scientist for the Personal Care Products Council, explained that the FDA convened an independent review panel, made up of scientific and medical experts. They found that the safety of methylene glycol and formaldehyde in hair-straightening products depends on chemical concentration levels, the temperature used during application and ventilation, among other factors. “They concluded that under present practices of use and concentration, formaldehyde and methylene glycol are unsafe in hair straightening products,” Jonas wrote in an email. “Personal Care Products Council fully supports the panel’s findings.” However, the products are still available, and consumers and salon workers continue to use them. When methylene glycol solution is applied to the hair and heated, it is inhaled as formaldehyde gas – and this is where the health problems begin, said Alexandra Scranton, director of science and research at Women’s Voices for the Earth. The Montana-based environmental group, led by women, joined the Environmental Working Group in the complaint filed against the FDA. “I talked to one woman who was like, ‘I can’t blow dry my hair. Every time I put heat to my hair, it gases off, and I can’t breathe, and I’m coughing, and my eyes swell up,’ ” Scranton said, explaining that once someone becomes sensitive to formaldehyde, “even much, much lower exposures” to the chemical will cause their body to react. Unfortunately, “there’s no reversing sensitization,” added Scranton, whose description of the body’s reaction to formaldehyde is confirmed by a safety report published in the International Journal of Toxicology (PDF). Some salon workers become sensitized to it after routine exposures to this chemical at work, and then “they have trouble doing their job, because these same symptoms keep coming back,” explained Scranton. Even worse, they are encountering formaldehyde not only at work but in many other environments including their homes, since it is used to manufacture some wood products, including cabinetry and flooring. Related article Danger of some laminate wood flooring was underestimated, report says As Scranton put it, “formaldehyde is real hard to avoid in our culture, so they don’t know when they’re going to be exposed to it and have this terrible reaction.” Meanwhile, salon workers and the women who use these straightening products are often unaware of the contents. Though there’s more awareness today than in 2010, when she first began educating salon workers about these products, “there’s still a general impression that, “Well, if it’s on the shelves of the beauty supply store, it must be safe to use,’ ” Scranton said. “Even if it’s got a formaldehyde warning somewhere buried on a safety data sheet.” Generally, there isn’t a warning on the label, though occasionally a product will recommend “adequate ventilation” on the instructions, explained Scranton. These products are required by law to have a safety data sheet listing the hazardous chemicals. Although some of the safety data sheets do list formaldehyde exposure risks – at least among the products that have been the subject of lawsuits in various ways – some products have outdated information, said Scranton: “It’s a bit of a mix.” Faber said personal care product companies are virtually unregulated by the FDA, which “everyone admits – including the industry – that FDA has very, very limited authority to ban or even restrict chemicals.” Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, cosmetic products and ingredients do not need premarket approval, with the exception of color additives. But those who manufacture or market cosmetics have a legal responsibility to ensure the safety of their products. When the FDA becomes aware of a cosmetic posing a risk, it can notify the public so that consumers can make informed decisions. All the FDA’s warning letters are publicly available. Of the estimated 6,000 chemicals used in personal care products, Faber said, only nine “have ever been banned for health reasons and only because they are like truly the equivalent of poisons.” Yet the FDA notes that the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a Hazard Alert to hair salon owners and workers about potential formaldehyde exposure from working with these products. See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. “Even though the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (Expert Panel) has concluded that methylene glycol and formaldehyde are the same thing and you shouldn’t use methylene glycol in hair-straightening products, it’s not binding, so companies are free to ignore that,” Faber said. Jonas noted that the Personal Care Products Council contracts “outline our expectations for ethical business practices. These often include provisions for labor rights, and health and safety.”  Violation of these provisions, said Jonas, can result in cancellation of business partnerships. Still, Faber maintains that the FDA needs to rule on formaldehyde within hair-straightening products: “This is one of those cases. … You know, nothing is open and shut – but this is as close as you get!”


House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes said some take Donald Trump too literally The Senate Intelligence Committee Chair said they take anything the President says seriously House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes chided the media Wednesday for taking President Donald Trump’s wiretap accusations literally, but his Senate counterpart fired back that he takes the President so seriously he’s spent the last few weeks searching the government for evidence. “I take seriously anything the President says,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr told reporters Wednesday. “If I didn’t, then we wouldn’t have searched and talked to every federal agency about whether there were any warrants that existed.” Both Burr and Nunes have said they have yet to see any evidence that Trump was wiretapped by then-President Barack Obama last year – an allegation he tweeted almost two weeks ago, which has only added fuel to a trio of Russia investigations on Capitol Hill. “We don’t have any evidence that that took place and in fact I don’t believe – just in the last week of time, the people we’ve talked to – I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” Nunes said earlier Wednesday. But Nunes cautioned against reading too much into what the President says. “I think the challenge here is that President Obama wouldn’t physically go over and wiretap Trump tower. So now you have to decide, as I mentioned to you last week, are you going to take the tweets literally, and if you are, then clearly the President was wrong. But if you’re not going to take the tweets literally and if there’s a concern that the President has about other people, other surveillance activities looking at him or his associates – either appropriately or inappropriately – we want to find that out.” “I think it’s all in the interpretation of what you believe,” Nunes concluded. Nunes advised Trump during the transition and has routinely defended the President in briefings about the House’s investigation into Russian interference in the US elections, but has also joined with Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, in pressing for answers from the Department of Justice and supporting public hearings. The word “wiretap” is a specific term that can’t be used to describe surveillance more broadly, Schiff told CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday night. “It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious,” Schiff said. “No, wiretap is a wiretap. And particularly when he elaborates that he believed that President Obama was tapping his phones. So, I certainly don’t think wiretap is broad enough to cover what is really a baseless accusation, a complete fabrication by the President of The United States.” Trump’s claims make the US look a lot like Russia, Schiff added. “When you have a President of the United States saying basically ‘Putin is right, I’ve been bugged by my predecessor, we’re equally corrupt,’ that just feeds that whole destructive narrative,” he said. Burr, who is leading one of the three Congressional investigations into Russia’s interference in the US election, said he plans to announce details of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s first public hearing soon. It will be focused on “Russian active measures in the 2016 elections.”


Editor’s Note: CNN’s Leyla Santiago has been in Puerto Rico since before Hurricane Maria hit one month ago. I am writing this in the dark. The hotel doesn’t have power, and one of the generators failed. I had to walk up 10 flights of stairs to get to my hotel room because the elevators don’t work. The lights have been flickering all night. Such is life here. If that’s my biggest problem, however, I consider myself lucky. I’ve covered devastation. I’ve covered disaster. I’ve covered destruction. Hurricane Maria was more. It has upended the lives of 3.4 million people. It has cut off entire towns from each other. It has left residents without water to drink or bathe in. Enough aid has not come for many. The gravity of the recovery time is starting to set in. Maria also devastated the people I call family, and destroyed the island that molded me into the person I am today. So for me, covering the devastation was personal. I owed it to the island that has given me so much. I was born here, and while I left when I was 3, I have returned for so many holidays. It’s where I spent my summers and where I was married. I fought the winds as the Category 4 storm smashed into Puerto Rico on September 20 and then reported the devastation around San Juan. A month ago today. Haven't left PR. Still telling the stories of the people on the island I call home. pic.twitter.com/wwVMuiGYXU Most roads were closed so to see the impact outside the capital, we had to take to the air. I was flying over an island I didn’t recognize. It had no color. The once lush trees had been stripped of all shades of green. It was hard to find any power lines still standing. Even the typically bright turquoise of the ocean was muted. We flew to some of the most remote, rural and hardest hit areas: Yauco, Utuado and Quebradillas. I will never forget how I was greeted. When our chopper touched down in Quebradillas, a woman ran to embrace me. She was crying, desperately explaining she needed to reach her family in New Jersey. She hugged tightly, and didn’t let go quickly. I was the first outsider she had seen since the hurricane hit. Word spread quickly. The town surrounded us within minutes. No one knew who we were. They didn’t ask for food or money. They were curious. Did we have cell service? Did we know what was happening in other towns? As with other towns, we were their only source of news and the only way to share their own. They begged for help relaying messages home. I asked for a list of names, numbers and a message. I promised them I would call later. Then it was time to leave. Amid the chaos, I didn’t even get the woman’s name. … As we left Quebradillas to return to San Juan, the pilot asked if I needed to see anything else. I asked him to fly over Corozal, a mountainous community in the interior. He said we didn’t have enough fuel to land, but a flyover was feasible. When he announced “This is Corozal,” I was scared to look out the window. I was dreading what I would see. “Whoa, it looks like a bomb went off here,” the pilot says. He didn’t know it was my hometown, where my family has lived since the 1800s. I had to look. I didn’t recognize what I saw. Trees were down, debris was scattered everywhere. For a few minutes, I couldn’t even find a landmark to orient myself at all to the town I called home. And I couldn’t control the tears as we circled the destruction from above. I felt so helpless having family down there, but not being able to land, to reach them. I snapped a picture. I left with a lot of guilt, thinking Corozal should have been my first stop. When I got back to the hotel, I called my family in Florida. I told them Corozal didn’t look good, but I couldn’t bring myself to share the photo. And then my crew and I pulled out the names and numbers given to me earlier to call friends and families and deliver news. One note read simply: 1. Tony OK 2. Tony @ Frank’s House 3. Villa damaged but repairable 4. Cell out 5. Love you all! We made call after call, trying to share as much as we could with loved ones. … A couple of days after flying over Corozal, I overheard that the road was now clear. Soon, I was on that road. For 45 minutes from San Juan to Corozal, my heart was pounding. We stopped at a shelter on the way to my family’s street. I was appalled. More than 120 people were now living in the town’s high school classrooms. There were children with asthma, an elderly woman with Parkinson’s disease, and a woman with cancer. The staff was struggling to meet their needs. The generator was out. All of the food in the refrigerator had spoiled. The bathrooms were becoming unsanitary. People needed medicine. It had been nine days since the hurricane. Corozal was in horrible shape. They needed help. And after seeing the shelter, I needed to find my family. I went straight to my uncle’s house. I’m not sure if I waited for the car to stop before I jumped out. I saw my uncle’s car shop was destroyed, the roof completely ripped off. I walked in through the open door and shouted his name from the living room. That’s when I saw him, and my other family members. They were OK. My uncle Jesus and I couldn’t stop hugging. He kept describing the damage as we hugged. “I know, Tio, I flew over here a few days ago but I couldn’t land,” I admitted to my uncle in tears. “It’s OK,” he said as he hugged me again. “We’re OK.” And that’s all I needed to hear. As days turned into weeks, the reality of the scope of damage across the island has become even more clear. To tell the story of what life has become, we decided to try to find the woman from the mountainside who hugged me so tightly just days after the hurricane. We headed to her municipality, asking around and showing the video of the hug on my cell phone. We found a family member who showed us to her home. Her name was Brenda. She immediately recognized me, and gave me another tight hug. Not much help has arrived since my last visit. Impact Your World: How to help hurricane relief In fact, conditions have grown so bad after Maria, they are tearing apart her family. One of Brenda’s children decided the conditions were no longer safe, that her 3-year-old grandchildren should go to Florida and Connecticut, where they had other family. Three years old. That’s the age when I left Puerto Rico, with my military family for a posting in Panama and then South Carolina. The circumstances are so different, but I know those children’s lives will change forever. … But then, Puerto Rico has also changed forever. The struggles are everywhere. And where there is help or supplies, there are lines, always lines. Some days, it would be people lining up for gas. And then for food at the supermarket. The longest lines were now to use the ATM. I became numb to the lines quickly. When we passed another long one at the port, I didn’t think anything of it. Until it hit me. Thousands were lining up to leave Puerto Rico. I watched as an old man dragged an oxygen tank, while pleading with organizers to let him on that massive cruise ship now acting as a refugee transport. Another man lifted his shirt to show the scars from an operation, hoping it would convince the right people that he needed to get off the island. The last time I saw a cruise ship anchored here, I could hear music and laughter coming from tourists on board. This time, there were no celebrations. These weren’t tourists. The ship would soon be filled with thousands of Puerto Ricans carrying suitcases fleeing the hurricane-ravaged island. How could one hurricane force so many to leave their homes? The images unfolding before my eyes reminded me of scenes from the 1950s, when a wave of Puerto Ricans left the island, most permanently.  Many in today’s exodus said the plan was to “come back.” I couldn’t help but wonder how many would actually return. As the line dwindled, my heart seemed to do the same. The sun set. All passengers boarded. The horn blasted, and I sobbed. I shed more tears for that line than anything else I encountered on this island over the last month. I found myself humming the words to a famous song in Puerto Rico. It is the song my grandfather sang to me when I was a child back in Corozal, “En Mi Viejo San Juan.” Me voy, ya me voy, pero un día volveré (I am leaving, I am now leaving, but someday I will return.) A buscar mi querer (to search for my love) A soñar otra vez (to dream once again) En mi viejo San Juan. (In my old San Juan) My dream, after Maria, is that someday they will return – to the island I remember. Leyla Santiago reported this story from all over Puerto Rico since she arrived to cover Hurricane Irma in early September and then Hurricane Maria in late September. Mallory Simon edited and produced from New York.


The crown prince arrived in New York before Trump was sworn into office The Obama administration felt misled by the United Arab Emirates Former national security adviser Susan Rice privately told House investigators that she unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York late last year, multiple sources told CNN. The New York meeting preceded a separate effort by the UAE to facilitate a back-channel communication between Russia and the incoming Trump White House. The crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, arrived in New York last December in the transition period before Trump was sworn into office for a meeting with several top Trump officials, including Michael Flynn, the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his top strategist Steve Bannon, sources said. Related article Russia proposed full normalization with US under Trump, Kremlin says The Obama administration felt misled by the United Arab Emirates, which had failed to mention that Zayed was coming to the United States even though it’s customary for foreign dignitaries to notify the US government about their travels, according to several sources familiar with the matter. Rice, who served as then-President Obama’s national security adviser in his second term, told the House Intelligence Committee last week that she requested the names of the Americans mentioned in the classified report be revealed internally, a practice officials in both parties say is common. Rice’s previously undisclosed revelation in a classified setting shines new light on a practice that had come under sharp criticism from the committee chairman, California Rep. Devin Nunes, and President Donald Trump, who previously accused Rice of committing a crime. But her explanation appears to have satisfied some influential Republicans on the committee, undercutting both Nunes and Trump and raising new questions about whether any Trump associates tried to arrange back-channel discussions with the Russians. “I didn’t hear anything to believe that she did anything illegal,” Florida Rep. Tom Rooney, a Republican helping to lead the panel’s Russia invesigation, told CNN of Rice’s testimony. He declined to discuss any of the contents of her classified remarks. Related article Exclusive: Justice Department declines Senate request to interview FBI officials over Comey firing Through a spokeswoman, Rice declined to comment about her testimony. Nunes refused to answer questions when asked about Rice Tuesday evening. It’s unclear precisely which Trump officials Rice discussed at the House meeting. But multiple sources have confirmed to CNN that Zayed met at the time with Flynn, Kushner and Bannon. The three-hour discussion focused on a range of issues, including Iran, Yemen and the Mideast peace process, according to two sources who insisted that opening up a back-channel with Russia was not a topic of discussion. Still, the fact that the New York meeting occurred prior to the Seychelles session and that the UAE did not notify the Obama administration about why the crown prince was coming to the United States has raised questions in the eyes of investigators on Capitol Hill. But the Trump Tower meeting came shortly before the UAE brokered a meeting to open lines of communications with the United States and Russia, with a clandestine January meeting in the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, according to reports in CNN and The Washington Post. That meeting is now under investigation on Capitol Hill, though it’s unclear whether Rice mentioned the Seychelles meeting in the testimony. A senior Middle East official told CNN that the UAE did not “mislead” the Obama administration about the crown prince’s visit, but acknowledged not telling the US government about it in advance. The meeting, which took place December 15, 2016, the official said, was simply an effort to build a relationship with senior members of the Trump team who would be working in the administration to share assessments of the region. Related article Dems to Mueller: Flynn failed to disclose trip to broker Saudi-Russian business deal “The meeting was about ascertaining the Trump team’s view of the region and sharing the UAE’s view of the region and what the US role should be,” the official said. “No one was coming in to sell anything or arrange anything.” A spokesperson for the crown prince declined to comment. The Seychelles meeting – and the circumstances around it – has been a subject of interest to Hill investigators looking at any potential link between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Washington Post initially reported in April that the UAE brokered a pre-inauguration meeting between the founder of the security firm Blackwater, Erik Prince, who is a close Trump ally, and an associate of Vladimir Putin’s in the Seychelles Islands. The purpose of the meeting was part of an effort by the UAE to persuade Russia to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, according to the Post. Related article Read Dems' letter to Mueller: Flynn failed to disclose trip to broker Saudi-Russian business deal And it occured shortly after Bannon, Flynn and Kushner also met in Trump Tower with Zayed, whom the Post said helped arrange the Seychelles meeting with Russia government officials to set up the private discussions with the Trump team. But the senior Middle East official told CNN this week that Prince’s name was not discussed at the Trump Tower meeting. And Prince himself has said he did nothing wrong, telling CNN’s Erin Burnett last month: “I was there for business.” Both the White House and Prince have strongly denied that Prince was working as a liaison for the Trump administration. Prince said he met with a Russian while at the Seychelles but “I don’t remember his name.” “It probably lasted about, as long as one beer,” he said about the meeting. For her part, Rice had been called to the House Intelligence Committee to testify partly over what Nunes and other Republicans believed was an abuse in the practice of “unmasking” – or revealing the identities of Americans who were communicating with foreign officials under surveillance by the US intelligence community. Simply unmasking the names of individuals in classified reports does not mean that their identities will be revealed publicly, and Rice denied to the committee that she leaked classified information to the press, sources familiar with the matter said. But Rice’s suggestion that she unmasked the names of US individuals – who turned out to be Trump associates – over concerns about the propriety of the crown prince’s visit to the United States could help her fend off attacks that she was out of line in the actions she took. Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who is helping lead the House investigation, told the Daily Caller “nothing that came up in her interview that led me to conclude” that she improperly unmasked the names of Trump associates or leaked it to the press. Related article Flynn refusing new request to speak to Hill committee Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, did not say explicitly whether Trump still believes Rice committed a crime but added the issue of leaking and unmasking needs to be investigated. “We’ve seen illegal leaking of classified materials, including the identities of American citizens unmasked in intelligence reports,” Sanders told CNN. “That’s why the President called for Congress to investigate this matter and why the Department of Justice and Intelligence Community are doing all they can to stamp out this dangerous trend that undermines our national security.” Nunes was forced to step aside from running the Russia investigation amid a House ethics inquiry into whether he improperly disclosed classified data. The ethics inquiry came in the aftermath of his bombshell comments that Obama administration officials had improperly unmasked the names of Trump associates, a revelation that Trump used as cover for his unsubstantiated claim that Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped during the election to spy on him. The Justice Department said in a court filing Friday that the DOJ and the FBI have no evidence to support Trump’s claims. But on Tuesday, the Republican who took over the investigation from Nunes said there was no reason to bring Rice in for further questioning. “She was a good witness, answered all our questions,” Rep. Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican now running the House Russia probe, told CNN. “I’m not aware of any reason to bring her back.” CNN’s Elise Labott and Dana Bash contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: Alan Lau is a collector based in Hong Kong. He co-chairs the Asia Pacific Acquisition Committee of UK’s Tate Modern and Para Site, Hong Kong’s oldest contemporary art space. He also serves on the board of M+, part of the ambitious West Kowloon Cultural District project in Hong Kong. Southeast Asian contemporary art has always drawn attention on the world stage but it's now coming into its own Its art institutions are growing in stature and the region is rapidly expanding its own impressive line-up of art fairs Lau selects some of his favorite works from the region in the gallery above Not to be outdone by North Asia, which hosts major events like Art Basel every year, Southeast Asia is rapidly growing its own art fair line-up. The inaugurating edition of Art Stage Jakarta attracted 15,000 people last month and pulled in collectors and curators to visit not just the city but the adjacent art hub of Yogyakarta, a thriving center for alternative art spaces in the region. Critics seem generally positive about the spotlight that such an event helps to put on artistic practices in the region. But, to be clear, Southeast Asian contemporary art has always drawn ample attention on the world stage. In South Sulawesi, Indonesia, find some of the world's oldest cave art Ming Wong’s Singapore Pavilion in Venice Biennale 2009 won the Silver Lion Award with his video work referencing Singapore’s cinema culture in the 50s and 60s and Indonesia hosted its first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale last year with works from Heri Dono. Guggenheim’s Hugo Boss Asia Art 2015 prize went to Maria Taniguchi from the Philippines. And Singaporean artists like Heman Chong, Ho Tzu Nyen, and Lim Tzay Chuen all recently showed in galleries and museums across Asia.Artists from the region are by no means ‘provincial’ or appeal only to Asian audiences. Rirkrit Tiravanija from Thailand is a recognized global pioneer of a school of art called relational aesthetics, art that is not just a painting or an object but “a constructed social experience” where the audience becomes part of the work. In his landmark work, ‘Untitled (Free)’, he turned a gallery into a kitchen and cooked Thai curry for visitors to MOMA. He is a professor at Columbia University, and has influenced rising star Korakrit Arunanondchai, also originally from Thailand and now based in New York. Korakrit, just 30 years-old, already has a hat-trick of exhibitions at MOMA PS1, Palais de Tokyo, and Beijing’s UCCA with his seminal denim paintings and burnt mannequins that talk to pop culture, music and religion. While auction houses might draw ‘hard’ regional lines to fence-in what is Southeast Asian art – which typically involves artists based in the region including big names like S. Sudjojono and Affandi – art lovers do not need such strict taxonomy. There are many artists who were born in Southeast Asia but who now live and work outside the region and produce works that are richly informed by their own history and experience. Take Danh Vo for example. Born in Vietnam in 1975, he fled the country when he was four years old on a family boat intercepted by a Danish container ship. His themes of displacement and identity resonate with a global audience. The new Tate Modern: A pyramid devoted to progressive art One of his most recognizable works, called ‘We the People’, recreates the Statue of Liberty as 267 fragments and disperses them all across the world as standalone abstract sculptures. Dinh Q Le, who left Vietnam at age 10, produced works about the Vietnam War by observing it from a distance while he was studying in the US at the time. Last but not least, US-based Tiffany Chung’s work feature themes of war and conflict, and she regularly returns to Vietnam which inspires and informs her practices. Of course, labeling an artist by his or her place of birth can be a dangerous shorthand, and is often resented by artists – for good reason. Forward-thinking institutions are taking note, and doing less ‘country shows’, and more exhibitions that find connections in similar practices from vastly different locations. Para Site Art Space, Hong Kong’s oldest exhibition-making gallery, hosted a show about abstract modernism which put American Robert Motherwell, Brazilian Japanese Tomie Ohtake and Thai Chinese Tang Chang together and explored connections among their abstract works. Centre Pompidou will be showing Tang Chang’s work next, putting his acclaimed art next to iconic Western artists such as Leger and Chagall. Singapore's State of Art: Is 50 too young for a renaissance? The Tate Modern, long a proponent of telling a global story by including works from all over the world, is now giving a prime spot to another master, Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Thailand, in its new wing called the Switch House. The ambitious multi-channel video work, called ‘Primitive’, is described by the Tate as a “sci-fi ghost story rooted in Thai folklore”. The work was one of the earliest Southeast Asian works acquired by Tate’s Asia Pacific Acquisition Committee to become part of the Tate Collection, a validation of Apichatpong’s status in the art world. The 'Louvre of Asia': 7 reasons to visit the Singapore National Gallery While Western institutions are actively exhibiting works from Southeast Asia, Asian institutions are not leaving it to the West to take the narrative on what defines Southeast Asia art. The newly-opened National Gallery Singapore, led by director Eugene Tan, is taking back the storytelling by giving works and artists from the region some much-needed spotlight. Its Southeast Asian collection is second to none, and there is no better place to see it than its new home, which used to be the magnificent old Supreme Court and City Hall of Singapore. National Gallery Singapore finds first home for unseen art The Gallery’s recent programs include focal shows on Southeast Asia as well as ambitious collaborations, like ‘Reframing Modernism’ with Centre Pompidou, which placed works from the region against those by Picasso, Matisse and more. Certainly the art “ecosystem” will not be complete without collectors and patrons, and Southeast Asia is very much present in this scene. Uber-collectors like Indonesian Budi Tek are building art spaces to display their collections not just in Southeast Asia but in art hubs like China (via his Yuz Museum in Shanghai) to fuel the regional dialogue. It will more likely be such exchanges across regions – by nomadic artists, borderless curators, global citizen-collectors – rather than a strict definition of ‘Southeast Asian art’ that will shape what we can expect from the region in the years to come.


The suspect, Sean Andrew Duncan,had a pattern of suspicious behavior, according to an affidavit Duncan tried to destroy a memory chip and thumb drive when FBI agents raided his home An FBI raid in Sterling, Virginia, on Friday night was part of an investigation into a man who allegedly supported ISIS, according to an FBI affidavit obtained by CNN affiliate WJLA. During the raid, the suspect, Sean Andrew Duncan, attempted to destroy evidence, the criminal complaint, which WJLA obtained from the FBI, alleges. When agents arrived at Duncan’s home on Friday, he “ran out the back door, barefoot, and with something in his hand,” the affidavit alleges. Duncan then threw “a plastic baggie” over their heads, which, when recovered, was found to contain “a memory chip stored within a thumb drive that had been snapped into pieces, and placed in a liquid substance that produced frothy white bubbles.” Duncan had recently traveled to Turkey with his wife, but was deported to the United States, according to the affidavit. In December 2017, a detained ISIS recruiter showed the FBI a list of handwritten names and phone numbers, which contained Duncan’s information, the document alleges. According to the affidavit, authorities searched Duncan’s cell phone over the summer and found “numerous internet searches for ISIS-related materials,” including information on ISIS attacks, weapons, body armor, surveillance and defense tactics, and paintball venues. Efforts to reach Duncan or a representative of his for comment over the weekend were unsuccessful. The affidavit alleges an unnamed co-conspirator told the FBI in July 2017 that Duncan had connected with her on social media and expressed an interest in joining ISIS and conducting a terrorist attack in the United States; he also asked her to travel to Syria with him and his wife, but she declined, the document says. In August 2017, an undercover FBI employee identified an encrypted messaging account associated with Duncan and, posing as a co-conspirator, used the account to ask Duncan if he had any connections in Syria, the affidavit alleges; Duncan answered, “No a couple have been marytred (sic),” the document says. This story is developing and will be updated.


The man was seen in surveillance footage with another suspect Police say the man is believed to be part of a network tied to the bombing The suspect left Thailand a day before the August bombing Thai authorities have an arrest warrant out for a Chinese man in connection with last month’s fatal bombing at a Bangkok shrine, a senior police spokesman said Saturday. The man, identified as Abudusataer Abudureheman, was seen in surveillance camera footage with another bombing suspect already in custody. Abudusataer is wanted for jointly possessing arms without permission, said the spokesman, Lt. Gen. Prawut Thavonsiri. Police have not been fully able to establish Abudusataer’s role in the August 17 attack but believe he is part of a network tied to the bombing, Prawut said. Abudusataer, also known as “Ishan,” left Thailand on August 16, Prawut said. Police found he was living with Yusufu Meerailee, also from China, who was arrested last week trying to flee across the Thai border into Cambodia. Prawut said Abudusataer was recently in Bangladesh but left the country at the end of August, according to information from Bangladesh’s ambassador to Thailand. Yusufu has confessed to carrying a rucksack that contained the bomb that killed 20 people at the Erawan Shrine, Prawut said earlier this week. He said he exchanged the rucksack with a man seen on surveillance cameras wearing a yellow t-shirt shortly before the attack. Prawut said Yusufu was linked to an apartment where another man was apprehended during raids on two addresses in Bangkok, a few days before Yusufu was caught. Yusufu’s fingerprints were found on possible bomb-making equipment found at the apartment in a suburb of the capital, police said. The other man was named as Adem Karadak. Prawut said Thursday that Karadak may not have had a direct role on the day of the bombing, but that he may have been involved in some other way. Police believe the atrocity was carried out by a group of people. Thailand: Erawan shrine reopens to the public Yusufu has a Chinese passport, Prawut said, and Thai authorities have sent copies of it to Turkey and China to check its authenticity. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said China is following the investigation and is in close contact with Thai authorities. A number of arrest warrants have been issued for people police believe are connected to the attack, including a husband and wife suspected of having fled to Turkey. They were named last week as Emrah Davutoglu and Wanna Suansan. Wanna is the only Thai suspect named in the bomb investigation so far. Police believe her husband is Turkish. Wanna and Davutoglu are suspected of organizing and providing accommodation to other suspects, police have said. The search for Wanna began after authorities found bomb-making materials in a Bangkok-area apartment allegedly connected to her. While no one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, speculation has been mounting about possible links with China’s Uyghur minority – though there is no proof of this. The Uyghurs are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group who live in Xinjiang, a province in western China the size of Iran that is rich in natural resources, including oil. Over recent decades, waves of Han Chinese migrants – China’s dominant ethnic group – have arrived in the region, displacing Uyghurs from their traditional land. In July, Thailand was criticized for deporting more than 100 Uyghur refugees to China, with human rights activists warning that they would face persecution. The decision to deport the Uyghurs from Thailand sparked protests in Turkey, with which the Uyghurs share linguistic and cultural similarities. The Thai Embassy in Ankara and its consulate in Istanbul had to be closed temporarily after pro-Uyghur protesters stormed the latter. CNN’s Kocha Olarn reported from Bangkok, and Melissa Gray wrote in Atlanta.


It’s the world’s best-selling and most widely distributed book, but most modern Bibles, with their dense black-and-white pages and often austere covers, are not normally associated with art. However, this wasn’t always the case. For centuries, rich, handmade illustrations and intricate calligraphy brought the biblical texts to life. Some of the most beautiful examples have been brought together in “The Art of the Bible: Illuminated Manuscripts From the Medieval World,” a new book by Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle that highlights 45 examples from the British Library’s vast collection of Christian manuscripts. “Within the Christian tradition, this rich illustration is a way of signifying the recognized importance of the text as being a sacred text,” explains McKendrick, who is head of Western Heritage Collections at the British Library. Friends or foes? Art's long, complicated relationship with religion From the embellished arches of the “Golden Canon Table” – a text from 6th or 7th century Constantinople on gold-painted parchment – to a book of brightly colored gospels from 17th century Ethiopia, “The Art of the Bible” shows the development of the art and calligraphy used to express Christian religion over more than a thousand years. “We’re very aware that, for many people, this is a sacred, holy text but at the same time it has a historical development, and we wanted to portray that history as accurately as we possibly could,” says Doyle, lead curator of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library. “It’s not a religious book, it’s an art book,” McKendrick adds. History illuminated: The evolution of knowledge told through 60,000 pieces of glass The book proved to be a labor of love for the authors, who took pains to ensure they were presenting a wide chronological and geographic spread that was representative of the many different styles of texts in the library’s collection. This meant they had to make some difficult decisions along the way. “Choosing which manuscripts to include was so hard, a bit like saying which of your children do you love the most, because you love them all,” says Doyle. In the Digital Age, is shopping America's new religion? Ultimately, both authors say it’s given them great satisfaction to make the art within the illuminated Bibles they work with every day more widely available and understood. “I think there is a strong public duty to make this material accessible, to engage people with it and remind them of what is essentially theirs,” McKendrick says. “The Art of the Bible: Illuminated Manuscripts From the Medieval World” by Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, published by Thames & Hudson, is available now.


Editor’s Note: Andrew Cohen is an author and journalist who writes a nationally syndicated column for the Ottawa Citizen. His latest book is “Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours that Made History” (Signal/Random House). He is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. In one bizarre, unguarded moment at a private fundraiser in Missouri, Donald Trump showed why months of trade negotiations between Canada, Mexico and the United States have been fitful, frustrating, and fruitless. In an earlier conversation with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the President made up facts about the balance of trade with Canada – and later boasted about it. On Wednesday, he told donors that he had claimed, falsely, that the United States has a trade deficit with Canada. On Thursday, he repeated the canard. In fact, when the Washington Post published a transcript of the conversation, Trump tweeted “we do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive). P.M. Justin Trudeau … doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the U.S. (negotiating), but they do … they almost all do … and that’s how I know!” And that’s how I know. To Canada, Trump’s braggadocio, ignorance and self-confidence are no surprise. After a year of dealing with Trump – in meetings at the White House, over the telephone, and across the table from US negotiators re-opening NAFTA – Trudeau is used to Trump’s hyperbole and inconsistency and even this, the most brazen of his falsehoods. (The Department of Commerce says the United States had a $2.77 billion surplus in 2017, including timber and energy. In 2016, the United States Trade Representative said the US had a surplus of $12.5 billion, not a deficit.) Related video Trudeau on NAFTA: Focused on working together Canada is a progressive place that is committed to free trade, universal health care, open immigration, international institutions and the international response to climate change. Under President Barack Obama, it saw an America that believed in many of those things, too. Now it doesn’t. Like other countries, Canada has had to come to terms with a world in which the US is an unreliable ally on the environment, a skeptic of the United Nations and NATO, an aggrieved trading partner and a faithless friend. Geography, history, prosperity, necessity – the enduring elements of a relationship of 200 years – no longer mean much. The longest un-militarized border in the world is now seen with suspicion in Washington, which worries that terrorists will come through it. A trading relationship of $1.7 billion a day is now seen as a threat to America, not a benefit. So, when Trump distorts the truth, as he did Wednesday and Thursday, Trudeau sighs and shrugs. It is all he can do. Canada’s relationship with the United States remains his top international priority, and now more than ever as Canada struggles to save NAFTA, which is far more important to Canada than it is to the US. As the junior partner, Canada turns the other cheek. It has absorbed slight after slight: demands at the NAFTA talks that the US knows a self-respecting country cannot meet, such as eliminating the dispute settlement mechanism, creating a sunset clause and re-writing rules of origin; duties on Canadian jets (later reversed); threats of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports (pending the outcome of the NAFTA talks). Related video The Obama-Trudeau bromance: Enjoy! With every move, differences between the two countries sharpen and tensions rise. No wonder Trump – unlike Obama, who was beloved here – is so unpopular in Canada that he dare not visit Ottawa, traditionally a new President’s first foreign trip. For Trudeau, whom Trump calls “a nice, good-looking guy,” managing the President is a daily challenge. To do this, Canada has assembled a seasoned team of NAFTA negotiators; created a war room in Ottawa; and made saving NAFTA a bipartisan cause, enlisting the help of the opposition Conservatives and former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney. Most of all, Trudeau has imposed an iron discipline on the government, which means forbidding cabinet ministers or any senior officials from responding to Trump’s taunts or provocative tweets. So, when Trump made his comments yesterday, the prime minister was silent, on vacation. The minister of foreign affairs sent out her press secretary, who made an innocuous statement. Canada knows better. It may not get its way with a mercurial, dissembling President, but it is firm, clear and unfazed, its eyes on the prize.


The Sanchi sank Sunday after days engulfed in flames Much of the oil may have evaporated, but what's left could impact marine life A massive oil tanker that sank off the coast of China could affect marine life for decades, environmentalists and experts say. The Iranian-owned Sanchi fell to the ocean floor Sunday, eight days after it collided with a Hong Kong-registered cargo ship, resulting in a toxic, fiery blaze that claimed the lives of 32 crew members. China’s State Oceanic Administration said several oil slicks have already been found, including one nearly 15 kilometers long (9.3 miles) and another covering an area of 58 square kilometers (22.4 square miles). The 900 foot-long tanker was carrying 136,000 tons – around 1 million barrels – of ultra-light crude oil at the time of the collision. Environmentalists and officials are worried the oil on board and the fuel used to power the massive vessel could harm nearby aquatic life. “The critical thing is to understand that when we put hydrocarbons into the oceans through events like this, it’s going to affect a wide range of animals,” said Jessica Meeuwig, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Western Australia. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said an investigation is already underway. Water samples tested by the Chinese government showed a dangerously high petroleum concentration around the spill. This could have a detrimental impact on marine life, including aquatic creatures and bacteria, according to Ma Jun, one of China’s leading environmentalists. “The collision site was within the area which considered to be one of the richest fishing grounds in China, the Zhoushan shipping ground,” said Ma. “We still need to keep an eye on how these contaminants might be carried by the ocean flow to have the impact on the fishing ground.” According to Greenpeace, the Zhoushan area is a spawning ground for swordtip squids and bluefin leatherjackets, and during the winter is home to edible species like crabs and mackerel. Previous incidents like Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico have taught scientists that even if a spill is limited to a certain area or only immediately impacts certain species, it still has the possibility to affect entire ecosystems. “The fact is that it goes all the way through the food chain,” said Meeuwig. The tanker was carrying condensate, an ultra-refined, highly volatile form of ultra light crude oil used to make products such as jet fuel. Condensate, which is made up of a mixture of hydrocarbons, is lighter than the thick black crude oil associated with spills such as Exxon Valdez. Condensate oil’s high volatility means it evaporates more easily than heavier crudes. Much of the oil on board the Sanchi – though it’s unclear how much – was likely consumed in the fiery blaze after the crash, environmentalists say. Greenpeace said it is impossible to estimate how much of the condensate has burned off or evaporated. The one modeling test from the Chinese government cited by the environmental group suggested that less than 1% would remain on the sea surface five hours after the collision, though Greenpeace said further research is necessary to confirm how much condensate oil is left. “Now the most important thing we need to do is to send a team of experts to evaluate the situation and try to make some appropriate plans to minimize the damage,” said Fu Pengcheng, a professor of life sciences and biotechnology at Beijing University of Chemical Technology. The substance’s volatility also explains why the tanker went up in flames so quickly, dooming the 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshi crew members on board the tanker, but not those aboard the other vessel involved in the collision. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the crew on board the Sanchi died within an hour of the accident “because of the large-scale deflagration and the toxic gas.”