Editor’s Note: Stephen Bayley is an author, critic and curator, and co-founder of London’s Design Museum. This is an edited excerpt from his latest book, “Signs of Life: Why Brands Matter,” published by Circa Press. Not for nothing does the word “icon” cross from religion to business to religion and back again. That we use it to discuss everyday goods serves to emphasize the ritual element in consumer behavior. Indeed, not just advertising, many brands are said, sometimes carelessly, to be iconic. It was in the 17th century that the word “iconic” made its metaphorical transition, from religious usage to ordinary speech. Keep calm: The story behind the UK's most famous poster design In English in the 1650s, “iconic” began to be used to suggest something that had the status of a painting. It has now evolved into meaning something that is either well-recognized, much-admired or has some synoptic power to suggest a larger value system. In a 2006 survey, Big Ben, a cup of tea, a red phone box of the Scott design, a Routemaster bus and a Spitfire were all said to be iconic. Today, property developers will describe a fashionable loft apartment as iconic, usually irrespective of its true qualities. In November 2016, the New York Times carried a headline: “How the Rolling Stones became fashion icons.” There is, however, something more profound to be said about what icon means. Icon, or more properly “ikon” is the Greek word for a static visual image, most usually in Eastern Christian art. The Orthodox Holy Tradition is inspired by The Holy Spirit and they share access to the Divine Essence: the rhythms of Byzantine poetry are said to have had their origin in the Jewish Septuagint, not Greek classical metrics. Thus, closer to Jehovah than Jupiter. The design heroines behind some of London's best-known posters The very first icon may have been the image of Jesus said to have been owned by Pilate, the prefect of Judea in Christ’s lifetime, but the tradition of making icons only became firmly established three centuries later. This was when the Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 tolerated Christianity in the Roman Empire, leading to an increased market demand for religious images: religion and business are forever curiously admixed. Icons have, beside their astonishing, tranquil, mysterious beauty, certain definable characteristics. One, the image of Jesus tends to be a repetitive one: there was for the Byzantine artist very little scope for psychological interpretation, although several basic types allowed the expression of slightly different gestures and poses. But, essentially, like a brand, the image was firmly established and needed only refreshing from time to time. Two, icons are objects of veneration often possessing wonder-working properties. Sometimes, icons would weep tears of myrrh. And it was in the genre of icons that the idea of a halo, an aura, first appears in art (and only later got translated into business.) Occasionally, icons came into existence in a process known as acheiropoieta, which is to say, without an identifiable human artist. An ikonostasis is the screen of many icons separating the sanctuary and the nave in an orthodox church: thus, it is the setting for worship. It is before the ikonostasis that the faithful say their prayers and do their prostrations. So it might be compared to the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference where the late Steve Jobs, possessing his own version of Divine Essence, performed magic. To what extent it was conscious we will never know, but Steve Jobs’ great achievement at Apple was not in technology and design, but rather in the creation of a perfect high-tech simulacrum of religion. For a while, this made Apple the world’s most valuable company. Apple’s cathedral was this Developers Conference, first organized in San Francisco in 1995. Here, in an atmosphere of hushed reverence not at all dissimilar to that of a Byzantine basilica, revivalist meeting or perhaps a more rowdy get-together of snake-handlers in rural Georgia, Jobs presented himself as a messiah-like figure. His audience was a congregation of tech-literate faithful who waited for the Word. And, of course, the Revelation. The latter came in the form of exquisitely designed products that commanded slavish devotion. Jobs additionally had a genius for the quotable, throwaway line. He explained to a slack-jawed journalist that you know a design is good if you want to lick it. In this way, Jobs introduced an element of the erotic into the purchase of a smartphone. He made going to an Apple Store a cultured event. Designed for speed and style: A look back at 70 years of Ferrari After Jobs died in 2011, the Apple religion was without a leader – at least, without one of the petulant, inspired, charismatic type that Jobs so well represented. So much so that two years after his death, his biographer Walter Isaacson wrote about the Developers Conference he saw in 2013: “The event lacked Jobs’ spark, as did the products. (Apple’s presenters) used the word incredible so frequently that if it had been the magic word in a drinking game, the launch would have knocked cold an entire fraternity. So many things were described as ‘incredible’… that it began to serve as a reminder that none of them really were.” True incredibility requires irrational visions and unreasonable behavior. When Steve Jobs died, Apple lost that precious asset. But some of Jobs’ quasi-religious construct remains in Cupertino. His contrary character – a Buddhist bully, a hippie billionaire, a sensitive sadist – gave people the seductive impression that Apple was a commune of alfalfa-munching, zoned-out, herbivorous philanthropists. That was a subterfuge of genius. Apple is a vast, manipulative, cynical, stock-watching US corporation. For a while, it appeared to be something much more attractive. People wanted to believe in Apple. As John Hegarty says: “A brand is the most valuable piece of real estate in the world; a corner of someone’s mind.” You have the ikonostasis with the Dormition of the Mother of God and Christ Pantocrator or a slickly packaged iPhone 8. In brand terms, their power is identical. “Signs of Life: Why Brands Matter” by Stephen Bayley, published by Circa Press, is out now.


Pope Francis has created a church tribunal to judge bishops who fail to protect children from sexually abusive priests, the Vatican announced Wednesday, a move long sought by abuse victims and their advocates. The new court will be part of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church’s chief watchdog.  Since 2001, the congregation has judged priests accused of sexual abuse, but there has been no Vatican office with a similar role to judge bishops. Related video Pope begs for forgiveness The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said the Pope will appoint a secretary and permanent staff for the tribunal. The tribunal was proposed by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was appointed last year by Pope Francis. Longtime critics of the Vatican called Wednesday’s move a “sea change” within the Catholic Church. “Priests abuse children, and so do bishops,” said Terence McKiernan, president of the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org. “Bishops who offend are inevitable enablers, and the commission’s plan must confront that sad fact.” Critics of the church’s handling of its sexual abuse scandal, which has involved thousands of priests and victims, have often argued that bishops who quietly shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish – tacitly allowing the crimes to continue – should be punished. Related gallery The quotable Pope: Some of his more surprising sayings To date, one American bishop, Robert Finn of Kansas City, has been removed from office. Finn was convicted in 2012 on charges of failing to report suspected child abuse. The Vatican accepted Finn’s resignation in April, though without offering a reason. Last week, prosecutors in Minnesota charged the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis with six counts related to a sexually abusive ex-priest. Advocates for sexual abuse victims gave the new tribunal qualified approval. “Time will tell whether these moves actually result in holding bishops accountable for cover-ups of crimes,” Boston-based church reform group Voice of the Faithful said. “But these steps are the most promising the Vatican has yet taken.” The new court was advocated by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who has long pushed the Vatican to discipline bishops who failed to protect children. But at their semi-annual meeting in St. Louis on Wednesday, U.S. Catholic bishops seemed taken by surprise at the move. Several suggested they first heard of the new tribunal by reading news reports Wednesday morning. Related gallery Pope Francis “I don’t have a lot of background information on it,” said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. However, Kurtz said, he welcomes the Pope’s new tribunal. “We are eager to cooperate, and we know it’s a direction that we have to take seriously.” Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who is also in St. Louis for the meeting of Catholic bishops, said the tribunal does not represent the first time that popes have held bishops accountable. “Throughout history popes have deposed bishops for various reasons,” he said. Few, however, have been deposed during the church’s devastating sexual abuse scandal.


Hawaii will begin testing in November. Officials say threat of attack "not mature" Hawaii is set to become the first state in the US to test an “attack- warning” system in the event of a North Korean nuclear missile strike. Starting in November, Hawaii’s disaster warning plan will include a new protocol in case of a nuclear attack, CNN affiliate KNHL reports. But some are concerned the announcement will scare off tourists from visiting the island. A  “guidance summary” from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency says residents will be alerted of nuclear detonation through siren alarms and flashing white lights. An Emergency Alert System will broadcast over television and radio frequencies as well. There are 4,661 miles of ocean between Hawaii and North Korea, making the island one of the closest US territories to Kim Jong Un’s regime after Guam and Alaska. Despite plans for testing a nuclear warning system, there is no need to panic, Vern Miyagi, an administrator with the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, told the affiliate. “When I see stuff like, ‘Hawaii prepares for nuclear attack,’ that’s way overboard. We’re not preparing for a nuclear attack,” he said. “This is just a hazard, like tsunamis and hurricanes that Hawaii faces. It’s not impending.” Miyagi added the threat of a nuclear strike is “not mature.” Despite the alert system’s label as “just a hazard,” some are wondering why it was announced at the height of Hawaii’s tourist season. “The odds are so small right now and the possibility of this happening is so remote,” Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa told the affiliate. “It’s not worth getting everybody into a major economic situation to plan for a major attack.” Hawaii is a critical outpost for the US military, hosting naval and air force bases. US Pacific Command, the military’s headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region, is on the island of Oahu. While Hawaii is the first state in the US to prepare for a North Korean attack, it’s not alone on the world stage. Japan implemented a similar alert system after four North Korean missiles landed off its northwest coast in March, one landing just over 100 miles from the city of Oga. Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association president Mufi Hanneman told the affiliate that the system should only make tourists more comfortable traveling to the island. “We certainly have marketed ourselves as one of the safest places to visit if not in America, in the world,” he said. “If I were a visitor, I’d be pleased to know that Hawaii is taking steps and that I can continue to go there and feel safe.” In case of an actual nuclear strike, residents are instructed to go inside and remain sheltered for 14 days or until they are told it is safe to leave. While in shelter, residents should listen to local AM-FM radio stations for official information. But despite the possibility of a decline in tourism, Miyagi says it’s still worth testing the new system, even if an attack isn’t imminent. “Probability is low,” he said. “But we just want to get ahead of it.”


Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion and columnist for USA Today, is the author of “A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.” He formerly served as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and Paris correspondent for CBS News. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAndelman. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. David A. Andelman: President Trump left some explosive issues behind at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany If they detonate over the next few months, the United States will find itself increasingly isolated, writes Andelman President Donald Trump, back in Washington from the G20 summit and relaxing Sunday at his Virginia golf club, has managed to leave behind a succession of landmines likely to explode in the coming weeks and months. With each explosion, the United States is increasingly likely to find itself as a pariah nation on the global stage. Some of these explosive issues had been long anticipated – following weeks, even months, of vitriolic Trump tweets that effectively poisoned the atmosphere for many world leaders and especially for their top aides who were responsible for crafting the agenda and will be in charge of shepherding these issues going forward. Let’s take a closer look: The United States is as isolated as it has ever been on climate change, which is hardly surprising as Trump was the only leader to withdraw his nation from the Paris COP21 climate agreement, signed by 175 countries. The G20 final communique in Hamburg was the first formal indication that no one is prepared to follow Trump out the door. Moreover, French President Emmanuel Macron used the G20 platform to call for a global climate summit on December 12, the second anniversary of its drafting, with the aim of moving the pact forward through public and private financing of projects worldwide. With President Trump telling British Prime Minister Theresa May, as one senior government source told The Sunday Times of London, “that the United Kingdom will thrive outside the EU,” the pressure only intensifies for May to make good both on a hard Brexit and a rapid negotiation of a favorable trade pact with the United States. At the same time, just as the G20 was about to get underway, the EU announced it had already negotiated its own trade deal with Japan, following the framework for a similar pact with Canada. Indeed, with Trump standing silently by, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called his new EU arrangement a “model for the 21st century.” Related article Putin set a trap and Trump fell into it Ironically, the United States has failed even to begin any meaningful bilateral negotiations for such free trade mechanisms with either the UK or Japan, though bilateral pacts are what Trump has advocated loudly and repeatedly. Now, benchmarks have been set for any such negotiations going forward – yet another potential landmine for Trump’s business agenda. Next up? German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested an EU-China investment treaty may not be far behind. Indeed, the day before the G20 got underway, with Merkel and Xi looking on, China signed a $22 billion deal to buy 140 planes from the European Airbus consortium. New aerospace jobs may now go to European workers. Barely 24 hours after Trump and Putin glowed over a ceasefire in southwestern Syria, the fifth such agreement in the past six years went into effect. Still, both Russia and the United States are working out how to monitor and enforce it. Moreover, there’s no hint here that Russia is any closer to lifting its support from the Bashar al-Assad regime, or that the United States is any closer to finding a path forward for its own interests. Related article Trump, Putin and Erdogan: the three men upending global diplomacy And then there’s the cybersecurity pact that Trump and Putin announced – the creation of a somewhat vaguely defined joint unit to guard against the use of cyber tools in election hacking, and which Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio promptly denounced as “partnering with Syrian President Bashar Assad on a Chemical Weapons Unit.” How long will that take to blow up, and how likely is it simply to give the Kremlin cover on cyber shenanigans in much of the world? Let’s start with the White House press release calling Chinese President Xi Jinping the President of the Republic of China, which is the official name for Taiwan, just minutes after Trump was waxing eloquent about their “wonderful relationship.” Both leaders tried to plaster smiles on their faces, but there is no getting around Xi’s visit to Moscow en route to the G20, when leaders of both nations shook hands on an agreement that would ban North Korean missile tests as well as US-South Korean military drills. The United States has suggested that this is a highly asymmetric agreement – one that North Korea is likely to breach without warning and that leaves South Korea and Japan deeply vulnerable. It also takes no steps toward even more vital efforts to restrain North Korea’s efforts to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon. All but lost in the excitement of meetings Trump held was his first face-to-face meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto since Trump took office. With the Mexican leader sitting by his side, Trump reiterated publicly, yet again, that Mexico will “absolutely” pay for the wall on its northern border. Pena Nieto failed to challenge this embarrassing boast, which promptly inflamed opinion back home over the “cowardice” of the Mexican leader in dealing with an American President who apparently has little appreciation or sensitivity for Mexican feelings. Clearly, the path forward for relations between these two neighbors has only been re-paved with ill intentions. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Effectively, Trump left the G20 in precisely the place he wanted, but as seen through a fun house mirror. By turning his weekend’s focus to a succession of bilateral schmooze fests, he left the leadership of the rest of the world to the likes of Merkel, Xi , Macron, even Putin. His “America First” philosophy has left a vacuum going forward that will only be filled by others with their own interests and motivations. In an increasingly globalized world, an American President is willingly contributing to a chasm increasingly impossible to bridge.


"I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law," Chaffetz said For his part, Flynn, via his lawyer, continued to insist he had done nothing wrong With every passing week, it becomes more and more clear that Michael Flynn is in a world of trouble. This week was no different as it was revealed – first by CNN! – that President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser had been warned as far back as 2014 that he could not give paid speeches to foreign governments. That’s problematic for Flynn because we’ve long known that he had traveled to Russia to give a speech to RT TV, a media operation widely regarded as a propaganda arm for the Russian government. But that wasn’t all the bad news for Flynn this week. It was also revealed that Flynn had not properly disclosed the payments for the RT TV speech to either the Department of Defense or the State Department . Following a classified briefing on Flynn’s activities this week, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) held a press conference in which it was clear that what they’d seen had shocked them. “I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law,” Chaffetz said in a remarkable turn of phrase. “As a former military officer, you simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else. And it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate. And there are repercussions for the violation of law.” That’s a Republican member of Congress saying that about a Republican president’s one-time national security adviser! For students of Washington, the conclusion was obvious: Flynn is now such damaged goods that not even Republicans are willing to stand up for him. For his part, Flynn, via his lawyer, continued to insist he had done nothing wrong. “As has previously been reported, Gen. Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a component agency of DoD, extensively regarding the RT speaking event trip both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by DIA concerning the trip during those briefings,” Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, said in a statement. But if Flynn is innocent of all charges against him, why did he offer his testimony to congressional oversight committees in exchange for immunity? Seeking immunity is not typically the strategy of the blameless. This week felt like a major moment in Flynn’s demise. He’s now been cut off by almost all of his one-time defenders – the President, oddly, excluded – and that means he’ll have to fight the next stage of this investigation alone. And being alone when facing charges like these isn’t much fun. Michael Flynn, for watching even your allies start shuffling for the exits, you had the Worst Week in Washington. Congrats, or something.


Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he was the only presidential candidate with the relevant experience to secure the border, casting his Republican rivals as talkers, but not doers. “We know how to secure the border, and rhetoric’s not going to do it,” Perry, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the second time, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” Rick Perry’s wife explains 2012 flameout Perry also said the plan submitted by Donald Trump – also a 2016 Republican presidential candidate – who is calling for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is impractical. “A wall without personnel there means nothing,” he said. RELATED: Trump says he’s worth $10 billion Perry has looked to parlay his executive experience from 14 years as governor to distinguish himself from his Republican rivals. As a border state governor, he’s also highlighted his own record boosting the presence of patrolmen in the Rio Grande Valley. In recent weeks, Perry has also emerged as one of the sharpest critics of Trump’s comments about undocumented immigrants from Mexico. When asked if Trump was qualified to be president, Perry declined to answer, only saying that he himself is “the most qualified.” Rick Perry launches comeback White House bid Trump was meeting in New York with Perry’s fellow Texan, Sen. Ted Cruz, when speaking to Blitzer. Perry took a shot at his fellow presidential candidate when asked if he had any thoughts on the tete-a-tete. “Everybody gets to pick who they hang out with, so I have no idea whats going on,” Perry said.


Editor’s Note: Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College.  His most recent book is “The Way of Jesus:  Living a Spiritual and Ethical Life.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. Guns are a religion now. And too many of our fellow citizens – including evangelical Christians, of all people – will continue to heedlessly worship at this altar, despite the dead children, the dead teachers, the dead concertgoers and the innocent bystanders who must sacrifice their lives for others’ overriding faith in their weapons. They will, unless you do something. They are in something like a cult, and like all cults, difficult to break from, to stop or influence.  It’s an American thing, religious — yes – in scope, fundamentalist in its fanaticism and fervor, without precise parallel anywhere else in the world. As a Christian, I’m appalled by the hypocrisy I see among others of my faith, particularly those who are our leaders in government and show eagerness to participate in this cult.  They worship false idols in the form of weapons, and turn their back on the teachings of Jesus, who did not equivocate when it came to violence. The Sermon on the Mount is unmatched as a spiritual and ethical guide, as when Jesus declared:  “You have learned that they were told, ‘Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.’ But what I tell you is this: Do not set yourself against the man who wrongs you. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him your left.”  (Matthew 5:38-40) It is safe to say that nobody in the cult of guns listens to Jesus. Related article Why Americans don't do anything about mass shootings We’re reminded of the evil at the heart of this every month or so, when some demented individual gathers a cache of semiautomatic firearms — or even, as in the case of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting Wednesday, just one powerful assault rifle – and goes on a rampage. Parkland will before long drop down the long list of recent school shootings.  There is every reason to believe it will be second or third behind some new tragedy, just another name on a long list:  Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech and so forth.  Added to these we have the rampages in Las Vegas, Orlando, and countless other places. None of this will stop unless the cult of guns is curbed. This won’t be easy; the cult has a lot of money behind it.  The money pours in from the “devout”:  small-time contributions to the NRA that amount to hundreds of millions of dollars each year.  This money is used, in our skewed version of democracy, to influence politicians, who are only too happy to be bought. Our Congress is swamped with men and women, our so-called representatives, who do not represent the majority view, which is that guns must be curtailed. According to one Gallup Poll, about 60% of American are either “very dissatisfied” or “somewhat dissatisfied” with our guns laws and want change. This number had fallen for a few years, it’s climbing back up again.  More of our neighbors and friends want nothing to do with the cult. Given this, and in the face of the horrors we see in our news feeds, why is the ability to buy and possess guns so rabidly protected by our leaders and so many of our fellow Americans? There is, of course, a false answer:  We must protect the Second Amendment.  Anyone who has actually read this astonishingly brief and enigmatic constitutional amendment knows what baloney will be found on that plate.  Here it is; please read it. Related video A tough question for the FBI about Florida shooter I don’t care what you think about “well-regulated militias,” we don’t need anyone to have automatic or semiautomatic weapons in their possession, not unless they are soldiers or police officers. Rifles for hunting are one thing, handguns and repeating weapons – such as the AR-15 used in Parkland, Sandy Hook and Las Vegas – meant to destroy large numbers of people very quickly are another.  They are weapons of mass destruction, for sale to any nut with a credit card. But statistics – eight deadly school shootings in the first seven weeks of 2018, for example – will not be enough to move anybody in this cult.  And it’s no matter that we have the perfectly good example of Australia, where for over 20 years we’ve watched the rapid decline in gun deaths.  This is due to new, strict laws put into place after a mass shooting in Tasmania that left 35 people dead.  The government bought back or confiscated over a million firearms, and there has been no mass shooting in Australia since. It works, friends.  You can get rid of handguns and semiautomatic weapons, and people will stop dying on the same massive scale.  It’s simple math. But cults are not subject to reason.  They have their fiery preachers, their arcane lore, their faith in Fox News hosts who peddle phony stories, their “churches” – gun shows – and deeply ingrained mythologies.  These are all supported strongly by the NRA and the weapons manufacturers. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Hollywood doesn’t help, and never has:  The American taste for violence is notorious, and we spread this ghastly predisposition around the world. Donald Trump got elected, in part, because he kowtowed to this cult of guns, pretending to be a lover of weapons, even a member, although this was a veneer.  Has he uttered a single word about gun control since the shooting in Parkland?  Will he?  I think you know the answer, and where his bread is buttered. What would help?  You. Elections. Sensible laws. But this is going to require mental and spiritual toughness, a genuine resolve to end the killing and persuade those trapped in the cult of guns that it’s in everyone’s best interest for them to step out of that darkness.


Turkish police have seized a multi-million dollar jewel-encrusted dagger that once belonged to former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the official Anadolu news agency has reported. The ornamental ivory dagger, which is adorned with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, was seized from a Turkish businessman in an anti-smuggling operation in Istanbul, police said in a statement Monday. The Turkish suspect paid $4.6 million for the dagger, which was originally looted from one of Gadhafi’s palaces during the 2011 Libyan revolution that toppled the dictator. Is Libya is on verge of implosion? Police said he was planning to sell the dagger for $10 million to an unnamed Saudi businessman. The Turkish man and two of his aides were arrested in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district and were released after questioning, pending trial. Gadhafi led the North African country since 1969 when he assumed power in a bloodless coup. But then in October 2011, the strongman leader was killed in what was described as crossfire that followed his arrest by revolutionary forces. How fighters in Libya buy their weapons on Facebook


Anti-deal advocacy groups flush with cash are flooding congressional offices with calls, emails to stop the Iran nuclear deal The White House has launched an all-hands-on-deck approach involving nearly every major national security official to defend the deal The sides facing off over the Iran nuclear deal are pulling out all the stops in an epic Capitol Hill battle. Anti-deal advocacy groups flush with cash are flooding congressional offices with calls and emails, running ads in national media and employing other campaign-style tactics to sway skeptical lawmakers before a mid-September vote on the agreement. Meanwhile, the GOP is readying its own campaign to take place over the summer recess. For its part, the White House has launched an all-hands-on-deck approach involving nearly every major national security official. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter are leading public and private classified briefings. Vice President Joe Biden is hosting a series of congressional meetings and intimate get-togethers while President Barack Obama is even holding one-on-one sessions with some undecided Democrats. Obama and Biden have also held conference calls with interest groups and concerned activists. Both camps also have a diplomatic corps on their side. Ambassador Ron Dermer of Israel, which has leveled intense criticism at the deal, is visiting dozens of congressional offices. On the other side, representatives from Britain, France and Germany, which joined with the U.S. to negotiate the deal, have been fervently knocking on members’ doors and hosting them in their lavish diplomatic residences. Even veterans of Washington’s many political battles say the effort stands out for its breadth, funding – and stakes. The administration argues that the deal it hammered out over 18 months of tense negotiations is the best, and at this point only, way to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Opponents claim that the terms of the agreement are so lax it paves the way for a country that has called for Israel’s destruction, threatens its Sunni neighbors and is a leading state-sponsor of terror to get the ultimate tool of military destruction. “From our perspective, this is one of the most significant mobilization efforts in our organization’s history,” said an official from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the lobbying group leading the anti-deal charge. “It is certainly the most important issue in a generation and we are fully engaged.” AIPAC, like other opponents of the deal, is calling for lawmakers to vote against the deal when a 60-day review period ends on September 17. The Republican-controlled Congress likely has the votes to pass a resolution of disapproval, which would block the deal. But Obama has promised to veto it, and Republicans would need to attract support from several Democrats to override it. AIPAC officials say they expect their 100,000 members to meet with every member of Congress before the vote, in home districts and recess town halls as well as in Washington. On Wednesday several hundred AIPAC members met in Washington with more than 400 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the issue. AIPAC has also formed a tax-exempt lobbying group to rally opposition to the deal. Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran has recruited several prominent Democratic operatives, including pollster Mark Mellman and media consultant Mark Putnam, and former Democratic lawmakers including Sens. Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu and Joseph Lieberman to sit on its advisory committee. The group is starting to spend upward of $20 million on a 35-state ad campaign, including New York, where prominent Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Eliot Engel, who are Jewish themselves and have large Jewish constituencies skeptical of the deal, remain undecided amid intense pressure from the White House. READ: Schumer still mum, but White House gets key Iran deal backer Schumer is one of the 15 Senate Democrats who remain on the fence. Schumer, who is close to AIPAC, has promised to review the agreement with a “fine-tooth comb.” On Monday, he stressed that he wouldn’t let “pressure, party or politics influence” his vote. And he suggested that he wouldn’t be making his decision any time soon, noting that he has read the agreement several times and is still “studying it extremely carefully.” Schumer is poised to become the Senate Democratic leader in the next Congress and is very influential with rank-and-file Democrats, so his arguments will be watched very closely by others on the fence. One pro-Israel lobbyist called convincing Schumer the “lynchpin” of lobbying efforts. AIPAC and other lobbying groups, including Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, are flooding the offices of Schumer and other New York Democrats with emails and calls, reminding them about the dangers of the deal. There are also groups pushing back on the other side, chief among them J Street. The lobby has just a fraction of the tens of millions of dollars AIPAC has dedicated toward the effort, and AIPAC’s ties on Capitol Hill are much wider and deeper, but the liberal group says its views are more representative of those held by Jewish Americans, a majority of whom backed the deal in a recent poll by the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal. J Street is just one tool in the Obama administration’s arsenal to win support for the deal. Additional advocacy groups, foreign policy experts, former U.S. officials and European diplomats have also been enlisted to counter what one senior administration official called, “the massive efforts by AIPAC, CUFI and other pro-Israel groups.” British Ambassador Sir Peter Westmacott told CNN that speaking to members of Congress “has taken up quite a big part of my time recently.” He points out that the deal is not just between the U.S. and Iran but was negotiated and agreed to by the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia, America’s negotiating partners over the past several years, and that he is sending the message that the international community is united on the deal being a “good and verifable” one. Then there’s the outreach by the White House itself. A senior administration official said Friday that the White House is “not flying by the seat of its pants” on its efforts to sell the deal. For months, long before the deal was even announced, an interagency team would huddle for several days a week to develop a playbook, dozens of pages long, on how to roll out the plan and tasking various administration officials on outreach in anticipation of opponents of the deal marshaling tens of millions of dollars. “It is fair to say every heavyweight in the national security apparatus is involved on outreach to the Hill and other outside voices who matter, to give them the facts,” the official said. Engel and fellow New York Rep. Jerry Nadler have been among the Democratic congressmen to be recipients of that outreach, receiving individual meetings with President Barack Obama on the agreement. While over his tenure in the White House, Democrats have complained that Obama has done very little personal outreach to his allies on Capitol Hill on various issues, this time he seems to be taking a different approach. Following his meeting with Obama, Nadler said on Iran the President has been “certainly more hands on.” On Wednesday night, when a meeting the President was holding with the Democratic caucus was broken up by votes, he said that any member who wanted to ask questions was welcome to return. After the votes, a couple dozen spent nearly two hours with him. Related video Celebrities urge support for Iran nuclear deal White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday that the President will continue to have many other conversations like these over the next several weeks, and seemed to acknowledge that the White House strategy is now focused on Democrats. He said they weren’t going to spend much time “trying to persuade” Republicans who came out against the deal before there was a deal. Instead, the deal’s supporters are laser-focused on getting enough votes to sustain a veto. Indeed, the GOP has its own plan for a campaign against the deal during the summer break, and most of its members have been clear that they will be voting against it. Earnest disputed the notion that there is a “sense of urgency” right now due to concerns that they don’t have enough Democratic support, saying the rush to meet with members now stemmed from so many of them leaving for the recess. However, the President had a more dire message for progressive groups he spoke to by conference call on Thursday night. “The lobbying that is taking place on the other side is fierce, it is well-financed, it is relentless,” he warned groups including Organizing for Action, MoveOn and Americans United for Change. “Right now the opponents of this deal have been flooding congressional offices, there are 20 million ads up right now in districts to put pressure on members of Congress. And they are feeling it,” Obama told them. He said their support was urgently needed since “I’m meeting with the members of Congress and they don’t really buy the arguments of the opponents, but I can tell when they start getting squishy and they start getting squishy because they are feeling the political heat.” The acrimony on the issue has spread from arguments over the deal to the nature of the debate itself. The administration accuses opponent of waging a “misinformation” campaign that exaggerates the worst-case scenario of what a deal might portend. Kerry, at a Senate hearing last week, slammed anti-deal TV ads arguing that a better deal could be had as a “unicorn arrangement involving Iran’s complete capitulation.” The White House has also ramped up efforts to sell the agreement with a Web page – full of fact sheets and info graphics – and a Twitter account – now with 18,000 followers – promising to “set the record straight” about the deal. During the last few weeks of hearings about the deal, administration officials were tweeting directly to senators countering what it called distortion of the facts. “The White House and rest of the administration will be aggressive across the board, from regional media, to Hispanic and African-American media, to the national press and any place else Americans are hearing about this deal.” a senior administration official said. Josh Block of The Israel Project, another organization opposing the deal, strongly rejected the administration’s characterization of efforts to block it. READ: Huckabee: Obama marching Israel to ‘door of the oven’ “The administration wants to talk in slogans and platitudes,” he said. “They know the polls show the more the Americans learn about various aspects of this agreement, the more they don’t want it. So it is incumbent on those of us who care about the deal to help people have a discussion and dialogue about what it would mean.” Gary Bauer, who heads the Christians United for Israel Action Fund, responded to the attacks by saying that the administration offers a “rosy” assessment of the deal, while his group’s campaign is “based on facts about the serious dangers posed by the deal.” The recent Washington summit for the massive evangelical group – which hopes to do for Israel what the National Rifle Association has done for the Second Amendment and gun rights – featured appearances by six Republican presidential candidates and half a dozen members of Congress. AIPAC may have more money, but CUFI has a much larger grassroots base. The group has 2.2 million members, including 1,500 pastors who can amplify the message during sermons. When a final deal between Iran and world powers was announced in mid-July, thousands of CUFI members were deployed to lobby members of Congress. Bauer said an email action alert sent last week to its members resulted in upward of 100,000 emails to Congress to reject the deal. “We are unique in that we have a large presence in every congressional district, in every county in America,” Bauer said, stressing that CUFI wants to disabuse lawmakers of the misperception that a vote to support the deal will be soon forgotten. “The temptation by politicians is to try and finesse these issues and move on, but no member will be able to claim ignorance,” Bauer said. “CUFI will be there to remind them.”


Editor’s Note: Errol Louis is the host of “Inside City Hall,” a nightly political show on NY1, a New York all-news channel. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Errol Louis: New York joins the list of cities targeted by truck-driving terrorists in recent years In the wake of such violent attacks, New Yorkers safeguard their way of life, instead of being driven away by fear, he writes We New Yorkers never forget that our city remains the No.1 terrorist target in the world. But many of us believed we would avoid the particular horror of a low-tech truck attack. It was not to be.  The murderous attack by an Uzbek national, who police say mowed down innocent people in a rented truck before being shot in the abdomen, puts New York in the company of cities like London, Barcelona, Stockholm and Berlin, all of which have been struck by truck-driving terrorists in recent years. New Yorkers never imagined we would escape terrorism altogether. I was living and working in the city on February 26, 1993, when the first World Trade Center bombing took place.  Eight and a half years later, I watched the towers burn on September 11, and walked around the ruins a few days later. Related article How the New York City truck attack unfolded While many outsiders reacted to the bombings with rage, my memory is that most New Yorkers felt sadness at the pain, loss and destruction that struck the heart of our beloved city.  And alongside the sadness, a determination to safeguard our lives, our families and our way of life, no matter how many demented fanatics might try to scare us away. Impressive layers of safety protocols have become part of life in New York.  We grew used to seeing heavily armed members of elite New York Police Department teams running drills in the city.  The subways often set up checkpoints to conduct random searches of backpacks. A heightened sense of alertness has set in, as well.  When a terrorist tried to set off a car bomb in the middle of Times Square in 2010, street vendors spotted the smoking, shuddering car and alerted authorities.  And when a bomb was left on the street in the Chelsea neighborhood last year, a local photographer saw the contraption and the bomb squad swung into action. We’ve gotten good at intercepting terrorists.  Earlier this month, authorities announced they had quietly thwarted yet another attempt to bomb Times Square. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Like other Americans, New Yorkers know something the death-dealing jihadists will never understand: that the blessings and benefits of a thriving culture – one based on compassion, prosperity and openness – is the wave of the future.  And we will survive and defeat the demons in the dark, with their twisted, deadly aims, no matter how many bombs, trucks and schemes they bring our way.


Almost 200 years ago, a British warship transported Napoleon Bonaparte to his exile on the island of St. Helena, a place from where it would be impossible for him to escape ever again. Today, Bonaparte would probably find it almost as tough to escape from the tiny volcanic island located right in the middle of the South Atlantic. The island is one of a string of remote British possessions scattered across the hostile seas that lie between Africa and South America, the remains of a once mighty empire. It’s no exaggeration to say that reaching St. Helena from Europe takes pretty much as long as in Napoleon’s time. While St. Helena was once a port of call for sailing ships plying the route around the Cape between Europe and Asia, the Suez Canal and maritime advances have left it redundant. Until last year, the only regular link to the outside world was RMS St. Helena, the mail ship that, every three weeks, covers the five-and-a-half day journey from Cape Town, South Africa. After a rocky start, that’s set to change – a scheduled commercial air service linking St. Helena to Johannesburg is due to start later this month. In 2016, with much fanfare, St. Helena prepared to inaugurate its first ever airport – but then an unexpected obstacle got in the way: the South Atlantic winds. South African airline Comair, a British Airways franchise, planned to start flights to the island in May 2016 using a Boeing 737-800 aircraft. However, a serious wind shear issue was detected as soon as the airliner attempted to land. The wind shear only affects aircraft when landing from the north, but if the aircraft approaches from the south, there’s a problem with tailwinds. Prevailing tailwinds mean that aircraft need a longer runway to land with a full load. Smaller aircraft can still land, and a number of them have done so – for medical evacuation missions, for example.  However, size and weight limitations render the route uneconomic for most airlines. Atlantic Star Airlines, a start-up founded by former British Airways pilots with the purpose of linking St. Helena to the UK, advocated the use of Avro RJ100 aircraft, a now-aging model that nevertheless has the capability to land on very short runways. To demonstrate, last year Atlantic Star Airlines arranged for a former SWISS Avro RJ100 to make a stopover at Saint Helena while on a ferry flight from Zurich to Chile. Although the landing was successful, the Avro option has fallen to the wayside. Related article Beautiful landing! World's 10 most scenic airport approaches Embraer, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, also threw in its two cents. It flew one of its Embraer E190 jets, an airliner with capacity for nearly 100 passengers, from Fortaleza, Brazil direct to St. Helena. As well as demonstrating the capabilities of this aircraft type and its suitability for operations in the island, the Brazilian firm’s publicity stunt left us with stunning footage of St.Helena’s natural beauty. It’s actually an Embraer E190 airliner that will finally take up the task of connecting St. Helena to the outside world by air. South African carrier SA Airlink has opened ticket sales for its upcoming Johannesburg to Saint Helena flight. The flight, expected to launch on October 21, will have a stopover in Windhoek, Namibia. The aircraft will carry a maximum of 76 passengers, instead of the usual 99, in order to comply with operational restrictions imposed by the tailwinds. In the meantime, Atlantic Star Airlines has not given up on its project to link the island to Europe. “We are going to wait and see who it goes with the South African route, which is government supported. If we can establish there is enough demand, we may follow suit with some charter services to the UK” states Richard Brown, Atlantic Star’s CEO At the moment traveling between Europe and St. Helena is a costly proposition, both in terms of time and money. After reaching Cape Town, visitors must spend five and half days at sea aboard the RMS St. Helena. Once on the island, travelers must wait until the ship makes its next visit before they can leave – meaning a month-long trip with no flexibility of dates, a luxury few travelers can afford. Mostly it’s the islanders that suffer the inconveniences of isolation. Atlantic Star Airlines expects “Saints,” as the locals are commonly called, to make up most of the air traffic, at least initially. St. Helena has a population of about 4,500, but there another 10,000 Saints overseas, mainly in the UK. Those that leave the island in order to work or study overseas are often resigned to spending long periods of time away from their loved ones. No wonder that anticipation is running high among the islanders over the new air service. Air links are expected to have a massive transformative effect on the island’s economy – particularly on a tourism industry that’s currently limited to a few guest houses. In many ways, St. Helena is a sort of lost paradise. It boasts an unspoiled natural environment with ecosystems ranging from rainforest to desert. It has a picturesque capital, Jamestown, and several historical sites, some connected to the island’s past role as a Royal Navy anti-slavery base. Related article Do you know the world's most remote islands? The most popular of the island’s sights, though, may well be Longwood House, Napoleon’s last residence on the island. Locals are already gearing up for the economic boost that tourism can bring about, with plans to expand the island’s accommodation options and some operators working on special-interest tours. There may be concerns about the island’s ability to cope with a sudden influx of visitors, but even at peak capacity St. Helena is likely to remain a niche tourist destination. Its tourist appeal largely depends, after all, on its remoteness and truly unique character. Despite its tiny size, there is no shortage of things to do and see on the island. Its waters present numerous opportunities for whale- and dolphin-watching. It’s also perfectly suited for stargazing – in fact while on St. Helena astronomer Edmond Halley worked on the first star catalog ever compiled with the aid of a telescope. One of the most promising tourist markets, though, is that of Napoleon-era enthusiasts. Even today, in spite of its isolation, St. Helena welcomes a small but regular stream of French visitors who come to see the sites linked to their country’s former emperor, who died in exile on the island. These include Longwood House, as well as The Briars, Bonaparte’s first residence in the island, and The Valley of the Tomb, where he was buried before his remains were later repatriated. The number of Napoleon devotees making the pilgrimage to St. Helena can only be expected to increase once the island becomes more easily accessible from Europe. The Napoleonic Estates also have a peculiarity that adds to St. Helena’s uniqueness: they’re under direct French administration and enjoy extraterritorial status, making them French enclaves within British territory. The French flag flies over them and the French Republic maintains a consul on the island that takes care of their preservation. There’s more than tourism in St. Helena. Coffee has been grown on the island since the 18th century, when beans were brought all the way from Yemen. The island produces a rare, high-quality coffee whose flavor was praised by Napoleon himself, and is currently appreciated by connoisseurs the world over. As coffee beans are particularly sensitive to changes in humidity and environmental conditions and their quality can decay significantly during the long journey to market, air transport will no doubt facilitate the export of what is possibly the island’s most valuable commodity. And that’s not all. SA Airlink will also provide a monthly charter service between Saint Helena and Ascension Island, a route extension that was previously considered by Atlantic Star Airlines. Ascension Island, a dependency of St. Helena that lies about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) to the northwest, has long had an air base with regular Royal Air Force passenger flights to and from the UK, but the military activity and small permanent population means prospects for tourism development are limited. However, the fact that quite a few Saints work on Ascension might make it feasible to launch commercial flights between the two islands. And a trip to Ascension could provide the most adventurous travelers with the perfect complement to the St. Helena experience. Very different from St. Helena, Ascension features other-worldly volcanic landscapes and a unique physical environment that inspired naturalist Charles Darwin when he stopped here and on St. Helena in 1836. When looking at St. Helena’s tiny dot on the map it’s easy to forget it played host to the likes of Napoleon, Darwin and Halley and was once right in the middle of one of the most important trade routes in the world. What geography gave, geography took away and the ocean that once linked it to the epicenters of culture and commerce became, in later times, a formidable barrier. However, as the island prepares to welcome the first aircraft, St. Helena might soon emerge as the destination of choice for the world’s most discerning tourists. A hidden treasure waiting to be rediscovered. Miquel Ros is an aviation blogger and consultant. An economist by background, he’s worked for Flightglobal and Bloomberg. He currently covers the airline industry through Allplane.tv and collaborates with luxury travel website Trovel and other online media.


The Justice Department has asked a judge to dismiss former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s lawsuit challenging the authority of special counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and alleging Mueller’s appointment violated the law. Manafort was indicted on money laundering and other charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. The lawsuit argues Rosenstein and Mueller overreached their authority in bringing the charges. “This lawsuit plainly seeks to interfere with Manafort’s ongoing criminal prosecution,” Justice Department attorneys wrote to Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday. Mueller is leading the special counsel’s investigation into any potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia – one of several investigations into the matter. Rosenstein took on oversight of the special counsel’s probe after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation. President Donald Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion between his campaign and Russia in Moscow’s efforts to influence the 2016 election. Manafort’s lawsuit, filed last month, marked a new tack in a broader effort by supporters of the President to push back on the special counsel. Some Republicans have publicly called for Mueller’s probe to be shut down, and Manafort’s attorneys have echoed the President’s criticism that Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election is pursuing crimes that never happened. On Friday, Trump refused to say whether he was considering firing Rosenstein after the release of a declassified memo alleged the FBI had abused its FISA authority in applying for a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. Rosenstein signed off on at least one of the applications to monitor Page, according to the GOP memo. Later Friday, White House spokesperson Raj Shah said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” that “no changes” would be made at the Justice Department. “I’m saying it on behalf of the White House, and that’s that no changes are going to be made at the Department of Justice,” Shah said. Manafort and his business colleague Rick Gates, who served as deputy chairman of Trump’s campaign, face 12 criminal charges related to money laundering and failure to file federal disclosures. Gates has also pleaded not guilty to the charges. CNN’s Evan Perez contributed to this report.


Editor’s Note: Kate Maltby is a regular broadcaster and columnist in the United Kingdom. She writes a weekly column on politics and culture for The Financial Times and is a theater critic for The Times of London. She was on the founding team behind the reform conservative think tank Bright Blue and is also completing a Ph.D. in renaissance literature. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers. Kate Maltby: As UK election nears, British Prime Minister deals with fallout from Trump's Twitter attacks on London mayor Maltby says that Trump, as an unpopular figure in the UK, should try to steer clear of British politics right now President Trump is having a difficult week and it’s only Monday. Executive Order 13769 is headed to the Supreme Court; the President’s lawyers are arguing it does not constitute a “travel ban,” so the President immediately undermined his own team by labeling it just that on Twitter. (Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeated the phrase “travel ban” at a news conference Monday afternoon.) Numerous leaks in recent days claim the President is at odds with most of his senior team, allegedly deliberately countermanding their best advice like an obstreperous toddler. And fired FBI Director James Comey is to testify to a congressional committee later this week. Perhaps it was inevitable that Trump would look for a distraction. His choice of distraction is unfortunate for all of us, British and American. First thing in the morning after Saturday night’s killings in London, Trump decided to renew an old fight with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. Khan gets under Trump’s skin for the same reason lawyers have been this week: When the President first publicly insulted  Khan, earlier this spring, it was in response to his criticism of Executive Order 13769. Back then, Khan was merely the most popular politician in the UK and its most senior elected Muslim. By the time of Trump’s latest verbal assault, Khan had become the figurehead of a city in mourning. Not just any city: the capital of one of the United States’ most important allies. Imagine if Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister, had responded to last year’s homophobic attack in Orlando, Florida, by launching a sustained attack on the policies of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. On a very basic level, Trump’s tweets are highly distasteful. They also give the appearance of being racist. Two weeks ago, terrorists also struck in Manchester, a British city with a mayor from Khan’s Labour Party. Manchester’s first responders may have done a less efficient job than London’s in the aftermath, though the toll of the attack was greater:  Stories circulate about relatives given no information about missing loved ones.  But oddly enough, there was no tweet from  Trump attacking Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham. Could it be because  Burnham is a white man with Roman Catholic roots? Or is it simply because  Khan has had the temerity to stand up to Trump before – when he called him “ignorant about Islam” and suggested he was giving terrorists what they wanted? In an interview with Britain’s Piers Morgan last May, President Trump growled like a mafia don and said of Khan’s criticisms: “Frankly, tell him I will remember those statements, those very nasty statements.” If that’s what lies behind Monday’s Twitter barrage, it is a mark of the cheapest possible statesmanship to prioritize an old feud over diplomatic relations with an allied nation state in mourning. If  Trump meant to damage Sadiq Khan, he’s mistaken. Being marked as an enemy by the former “Apprentice” star is about the surest-fire way to cult popularity in Britain short of personally masterminding a One Direction reunion. By contrast, the people Trump will damage are his supposed conservative allies in Britain. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, is reported to be exasperated. May comes from the Conservative Party, which she is leading in an election campaign against Sadiq Khan’s Labour Party. This should make them opponents, but Khan is not the leader of the Labour Party, and has used the unique position of the London mayoralty to assert his independence from both the federal government and his own party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. This isn’t unusual behavior from mayors and regional governors on both sides of the Atlantic: His job in London allows Khan to play responsible civic leader while being uncontaminated by the mudslinging that goes on in the national Parliament. As mayor, he does not have an official opposition figure to fight with, and he is not up for re-election this cycle. Related article Trump's post-London tweets are a bad omen But May is up for re-election, and she is under huge pressure to disassociate herself from the American President. That is, of course, diplomatically impossible, although UK officials have already taken the step of temporarily severing intelligence-sharing links with the United States, after classified information about the Manchester bombings appeared in the American press. At a news conference early Monday, when asked about President Trump’s comments, the Prime Minister took the unusual step of praising a mayor from another party, telling reporters that Khan was “doing an excellent job as mayor” and stressing that she was fully cooperating with him to jointly oversee anti-terror operations in London. But she stopped short of explicitly condemning Trump’s tweets, clearly hoping the matter would go away. How did President Trump reward her? He doubled down on his tweets just three hours later, accusing Khan of a “pathetic excuse” for his failure to prevent terror. This comes at the worst possible time for May. Terror attacks usually result in a spike of support for Conservative  parties perceived to prioritize law and order: Saturday’s attack, coming only five days ahead of the general election, might still have that effect. But Brits don’t like being seen to give in to fear. Labour leader Corbyn, despite his rocky record of supporting far-left terrorist groups himself, has taken the spike in extremism as an excuse to attack Britain’s foreign policy and American alliance. Many are buying it: The easiest way of signaling virtue in post-Tony Blair Britain is still to attack the war in Iraq or the American government. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook This has precedent. In Madrid in 2004, Spain experienced the deadliest terror attack in Europe since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. It was three days before the general elections and completely reversed the political narrative. The Spanish people voted overwhelmingly that week to defeat the government, on the grounds that it had sent Spanish troops into the Iraq War alongside America, which was perceived to have inflamed Islamic feelings. We won’t know for sure how the events of this week have influenced British electoral politics until the votes are counted this Friday morning. But one thing is clear. The unpopular President Trump would be well advised to stay out of it. And every attack he tweets against Sadiq Khan only strengthens the position of the British left. Ironically, that does damage  Khan slightly: It delays the collapse of the current Labour leadership – and thus Khan’s longheld plan to take over.  But I doubt that’s much consolation to Theresa May.


Brunei's Poni Divers and Malaysian artist Anuar Abdullah have teamed up to sketch Brunei's sunken shipwrecks. The sketches will promote diving in Brunei and act as maps to help divers better prepare. While Brunei's water is not as clear as that of some of its neighbors, these wrecks offer unique underwater scenery. When it comes to odd jobs, Anuar Abdullah’s might top the list. The Malaysian artist and coral conservationist has spent the past few months diving off the coast of Brunei, sketching the skeletons of sunken ships. Last year, Brunei-based Poni Divers hired Abdullah to immortalize the sultanate’s eerie collection of more than 30 shipwrecks. From the 1942 Australian Wreck – a Dutch steamer sunk by a Japanese mine – to the 1945 American Wreck, a victim of World War II, each provides a unique diving experience. “Southeast Asia is really the diving capital of the world – (people) fly all over the world to dive in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia,” Thye Sing Wong, founder of Poni Divers, tells CNN. “Most people don’t even know there is diving in Brunei. But some of the world’s best sites are here.” Ranging from shallow-water skeletons to 230-foot-deep goliaths, the shipwrecks dotting Brunei’s ocean floor chronicle the sultanate’s maritime history. “A lot of them are natural wrecks, with a lot of history behind them from World War II (when the Brunei Bay was invaded by US and Japanese ships),” says Wong. “We even have a decommissioned oil rig wreck. It was sunk by a partnership between fishery departments here and Brunei Shell Petroleum (the oil company).” The sketches, he says, help to promote Brunei as a diving destination, and also act as maps, enabling his team to properly brief divers on the underwater territory they face. “Whenever you go to a really established dive destination, they have maps of the dive sites on the wall,” says Wong. “That way you can explain where you enter the water, where you enter the wreck, and how you get back up.” That process is especially important for divers in Brunei, where the visibility – the distance divers can see underwater – can be limited, due to brown water from silty inland rivers which flows into the Brunei Bay. On a good day, divers can expect up to 66 feet of visibility in Brunei, whereas in the Philippines 150 feet is not unusual. This isn’t the first time the Brunei shipwrecks have been sketched. Back in the 1980s and 90s, some of the more popular wrecks were sketched by the Brunei Sub Aqua Dive Club. Brunei Darussalam is one of the wealthiest and oldest continuously ruling dynasties in the world. The current sultan is Hassanal Bolkiah.The country was a British protectorate from 1888 to 1984, when it gained independence. Located on the South China Sea, Bandar Seri Begawan is the capital, home to the majority of the country’s estimated population of 417,200 people.The major languages spoken are Malay, English, and various Chinese dialects.Islam is Brunei’s official religion and Sharia Law, a strict Islamic law, is practiced. SOURCE: United Nations, Brunei Economic Planning and Development Brunei Darussalam is one of the wealthiest and oldest continuously ruling dynasties in the world. The current sultan is Hassanal Bolkiah.The country was a British protectorate from 1888 to 1984, when it gained independence. Located on the South China Sea, Bandar Seri Begawan is the capital, home to the majority of the country’s estimated population of 417,200 people.The major languages spoken are Malay, English, and various Chinese dialects.Islam is Brunei’s official religion and Sharia Law, a strict Islamic law, is practiced. But nearly 25 years later, Wong felt it was time to update the artwork. Enter Abdullah. A Malaysia sketcher and the founder of coral re-population program Ocean Quest Global, the veteran diver started sketching the wrecks earlier this year. So far, he has drawn roughly six shallow underwater hulls. Each work takes about two days, during which he dives, takes notes on a plastic slate, snaps underwater photos for details, and then jots down an initial sketch. “You can only see a small section at a time. You don’t know if you are on the front or the back, or in the middle of the wreck, because it’s such a huge structure.” To orient himself, Abdullah finds an edge and traces it until he identifies a distinctive marker – an anchor, a propeller or a rudder. “I have to estimate the size. I can’t be measuring it with measuring tape, because it takes too long. Due to time underwater, especially in deep dives, time is limited.” From there, he starts with an outline and fills in the details on his subsequent dives. “For example, I’ll add in the ship frames – they look like ribs. I have to count how many are visible, how many are not, so it’s accurate,” says Abdullah. “If somebody dives, they know there are eight ribs. The drawing is precise.” In the world of scuba diving, anything below 98 feet is considered a “deep dive.” This year, Abdullah started mapping the deeper wrecks for the first time – some of which sit 230 feet below sea level. With these deeper dives, the most time-consuming part of the process is the slow ascent required in order to readjust to reach equilibrium and eliminate gases in the body. “It’s not hard to be under water, but it’s hard to surface,” explains Abdullah. “It takes three hours to get back to the surface from 230 feet (70 meters). It takes time for decompression, about 2 hours, and the journey up takes another hour.” The wrecks are beautiful, he says, pointing to the 302-foot-long Cement Wreck, which sunk in the 1980s. Carrying a cargo of cement – which would have been used to build the sultan’s Istana Nurul Iman palace in the capital of Bandar Seri Begawan – the ship wasn’t a victim of warfare, but rather a deadly sandbank. With multiple decks, maze-like interiors and colorful marine life, this is one of the area’s most fascinating dives. The Blue Water Wreck is another favorite, thanks to relatively good visibility in its locality. Located roughly 22 miles offshore, the 262-foot-long ship sank in 1981, due to a fire on board. Most people don’t even know there’s diving in Brunei. Thye Sing Wong, Poni Divers' founder Today, it attracts barracuda, giant batfish and, occasionally, white-tip sharks – a type of small reef shark. “I love (the Blue Water Wreck) because I can put together the entire history of how it sank, the history of what it looked like – it’s the most comprehensive story I can get.” It’s not only a dive underwater, but a step back in time.


This page includes the show Transcript February 28, 2017 The U.S. president gives some details about his upcoming budget proposal. An international mystery deepens concerning a murdered relative of North Korea’s leader. A debate takes place regarding H-1B visas. And a crowdfunding site helps Americans cover the cost of adoption. It’s all featured this Tuesday on CNN 10. TRANSCRIPT CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR:  On this February 28th, thank you for taking time for CNN 10.  I’m Carl Azuz. Tonight, U.S. President Donald Trump makes his first address to a joint session of Congress.  You can watch the Republican leaders speech and the Democratic response starting at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN. When we bring you some highlights tomorrow, we’ll explain why a president’s first speech like this is not technically a State of the Union address.  One thing President Trump is expected to do is outline his goals for the coming years.  And on Monday, he released some information about his first budget proposal, which is expected next month. The Trump administration plans to increase U.S. defense and security spending by $54 billion and decrease about the same amount from non-defense programs. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  This budget will be a public safety and national security budget.  This defense spending increase will be offset and paid for by finding greater savings and efficiencies across the federal government.  We’re going to do more with less. (END VIDEO CLIP) AZUZ:  The president added that, quote, “lower priority programs and most federal agencies would see their budgets reduced in the proposal.” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer says President Trump’s budget proposal would, quote, “help the wealthy and special interest and that it would significantly cut programs that help the middle class.”  A president’s budget proposal is a blue print.  It reflects his priorities but it’s Congress that determines the final budget for the federal government. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) AZUZ (voice-over):  Ten-second trivia: What nation’s full name includes “Democratic People’s Republic” though it’s a communist state? Bangladesh, Cuba, North Korea or Vietnam? The DPRK or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the full name of North Korea, a communist country. (END VIDEO CLIP) AZUZ:  An international murder mystery is deepening.  It started with the apparent poisoning of a man named Kim Jong Nam.  He was the half-brother of North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un.  And he died on February 13 while traveling through Malaysia at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The murder is having ripple effects around the world.  Malaysia says four North Koreans were involved in Kim Jong Nam’s death, and South Korea has accused the North Korean government of ordering the murder. North Korea has repeatedly denied being involved and says the South is publishing false report.  But all this is believed to have caused the cancellation of informal talks being North Korean officials and former American government workers.  The talks were set for this week in New York, but the Trump administration changed its mind on approving the North Koreans travel.  That decision was made after officials announced how Kim Jong Nam was killed. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT:  This is a spot where Kim Jong Nam was poisoned.  He was here awaiting to check in for a flight to Macau, when as you can see in some pretty incredible CCTV footage, a woman walks up behind him and police say she then puts VX nerve agent on his face, one of the world’s most deadly chemicals. She flees the scene and he immediately becomes uncomfortable.  He starts walking this way and eventually ending up at this information desk right here.  He goes up, cuts several people in line and asks for help.  He tells the attendants that he’s feeling dizzy. And standing here, this is a really public place.  It’s big, it’s open, and frankly, it’s kind of bizarre to think that an alleged assassination of such a public figure could happen in a place like this.  And yet here we are. He then heads down to the clinic where the Malaysian health minister said he later fainted.  From the time he was poisoned, from the time he died en route to the hospital in the ambulance, it’s only 20 minutes. Once officials confirmed that VX nerve agent was used, they finally sent in a hazmat team to check if there were any chemicals left over here in terminal two.  And thankfully, they didn’t find anything, but it begs the question, what took so long to send in the team.  Why didn’t they send them in earlier? And that’s not the only question here.  The two female suspects involved both told investigators that they thought they were just part of the prank show.  That they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong.  But Malaysian police say they specifically trained for this attack. So, which version is correct?  And furthermore, police say that they had VX nerve agent on their hands.  So, why didn’t either one of them get sick? The fact is that we’ve learned a lot over the past two weeks since this alleged assassination took place but there are many questions that still remain in this most public murder of Kim Jong Nam. (END VIDEOTAPE) AZUZ:  Later this week, President Trump is expected to issue a new executive order concerning immigration to the U.S.  Courts put his previous travel restrictions on hold.  Separately from that, though, Democratic and Republican lawmakers had introduced bills that could reduce the number of people from other countries allowed to work in the U.S. The most popular program for this is the H-1B visa program.  Healthcare, media and tech companies all use H-1Bs to get international talent and to hire trained workers that they can’t find in America. But critics say the H-1B program is flawed, that some companies abused H-1Bs to pay foreign workers less money than they pay America employees.  That apparently hasn’t stopped people from around the world from wanting to work in the U.S. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RAVI AGRAWAL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT:  Aayush Suwalka symbolizes the Indian dream.  He grew up in a small town, studied hard and wants to take it to one of the country’s best engineering colleges. But the dream in Aayush’s mind isn’t Indian, it’s American. Why America? AAYUSH SUWALKA, TECH STUDENT:  It’s always America because the companies, all the big companies are there in America and the life there is like really amazing. AGRAWAL:  At Aayush’s college in Bangalore, students are recruited by the world’s biggest companies.  With months to go before he graduates, Aayush has already gotten a job at the local branch of JPMorgan, the American investment bank. His dream is to work with them for a few years here, and then transfer to the United States. Every year, tens of thousands of Indians move to the United States on highly skilled work visas and many of those workers tend to come from technology and engineering schools like this one here in Bangalore, in the city that is known as the heart of India’s Silicon Valley, and when you speak to the students here, they’ll tell you that they often entered these universities with an end goal in mind, and for a lot of them, that end goal is America. Congress is deliberating three separate bills aiming to curb immigrant work visas.  One of those visa programs, the H-1B for highly skilled workers, is being watched closely.  Of the 85,000 visas handed out every year, an estimated two-thirds go to Indian workers. As we leave Aayush for the day, I have little doubt he is going to make his dreams come true.  The only question is when. (END VIDEOTAPE) AZUZ:  The U.S. government says it’s hard to determine exactly how many children are adopted each year in America.  It’s estimated to be around 135,000.  For many families, the cost of adoption is an obstacle.  The government estimates that adopting American children can range from $15,000 to $40,000.  International adoptions can cost $20,000 to $50,000. But the founder of Adopt Together devised a way for people to share those costs. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HANK FORTENER, ADOPTTOGETHER.ORG:  I grew up with a brother and a sister and we had 36 foster kids over a seven-year period.  And then my mom and dad adopted four boys and four girls from five different countries. In the morning, you didn’t know who’s going to be at the breakfast table, but there was always more seat. Did you have this pillow with you? UNIDENTIFIED KID:  Yes. FORTENER:  What a cool idea. Who’s this right here? UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Daddy. MATT RIEHM, FATHER OF ADOPTED SON:  Tacy came to me and said she wanted to adopt.  We’re really concerned about the costs. FORTENER:  And oftentimes, a family is looking at bill of $30,000, $40,000, $50,000.  If so many families would adopt if they can eliminate this financial barrier, then what if we could carry the burden together? AdoptTogether.org is designed as a first ever crowdfunding platform for adoption. We’re raising funds to pay those bills.  That’s when you friends and family and co-workers get to be a part of your adoption stories, simply by donating to your process. TACY RIEHM, MOTHER OF ADOPTED SON:  We aren’t anything crazy special.  We’re not rich.  We and a community brought him home. FORTENER:  AdoptTogether.org has helped over 2,400 families, raised $10.5 million to bring their kids home and it’s so rewarding for me to get to do this work because I get to continue in the family business of helping children come in to families. Nice! (END VIDEOTAPE) AZUZ:  Usually the words “Chile” and “Ring of Fire” are used when talking about earthquakes.  This phenomenon was celestial.  It’s a solar eclipse when the moon passes between the earth and the sun.  It was visible on Sunday in the southern hemisphere.  Countries like Chile.  But scientists say a Ring of Fire eclipse is unique because the moon is too far away from the Earth to appear to cover the sun completely.  So, with its edges exposed, a ring of sunlight surrounds the moon. Johnny Cash would have fallen into that.  And though it might not happen every February, it’s still annular, which has a nice ring to it.  It leaves some observers moony-eyed and it makes for a satellight-hearted ending to CNN 10. I’m Starl Azuz. Click here to access the printable version of today’s CNN 10 transcript. CNN 10 serves a growing audience interested in compact on-demand news broadcasts ideal for explanation seekers on the go or in the classroom. The show’s priority is to identify stories of international significance and then clearly describe why they’re making news, who is affected, and how the events fit into a complex, international society. Thank you for using CNN 10


The story goes that Enwonwu was walking in the Nigerian countryside when he met a beautiful young woman whom he just had to paint, according to Bonhams auction house in London. Her name is Adetutu Ademiluyi, abbreviated as Tutu, and she was a princess in her city of Ife in south-western Nigeria. One of a triptych of artworks created by Enwonwu during the aftermath of Nigeria’s bloody civil war, “Tutu” disappeared shortly after being painted in 1974. Its whereabouts remained the subject of intense speculation for over 40 years before the portrait was discovered in a family home late last year. Depicting the Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi (abbreviated as “Tutu”), the painting was subsequently authenticated and went under the hammer as part of Bonhams’ “Africa Now” sale. The London auction house initially predicted a price tag of between £200,000 and £300,000 ($275,000 to $413,000), less than a quarter of the final bid. “On discovering the long-missing work,” continued Peppiatt, “I felt a little like Howard Carter peering into Tutankhamen’s tomb. When Carter was asked by Lord Carnarvon ‘What can you see?’, Carter replied ‘Wonderful things… Wonderful things.’ And so it was for me on that dark December night.” The paintings grew in fame not only for their beauty but for the mystery surrounding their disappearance. The eventual discovery of “Tutu” is partly thanks to the efforts of Giles Peppiatt, Director of African art at Bonhams, who for years made it his mission to find them. People brought him a number of prints but they all transpired to be fakes. Then one day in December 2017, he finally found the real thing. After receiving a tip, Peppiatt made a visit to a “modest” apartment in north London and discovered the painting had been hanging there for the last 30 years. According to Bonhams, Peppiatt said: “I was absolutely staggered when I first saw the piece. The owners, who had inherited it, had no idea of its current value.” The family behind the discovery has chosen to remain anonymous. “On discovering the long-missing work,” continued Peppiatt, “I felt a little like Howard Carter peering into Tutankhamen’s tomb. When Carter was asked by Lord Carnarvon ‘What can you see?’, Carter replied ‘Wonderful things… Wonderful things.’ And so it was for me on that dark December night.” “Tutu” was among 20 Enwonwu artworks made available at the Bonham’s sale. His paintings “Negritude” and “The Female Form” sold for £100,000 ($138,000) and £110,000 ($151,000) respectively.


"I'm sure that all of them didn't need it," he said White House budget proposal would slash $193 billion from food stamp program Congress should use money from its food stamp budget and Planned Parenthood funding to pay for a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, Rep. Steve King said Wednesday. The House appropriations committee released its homeland security bill on Tuesday, which includes the full $1.6 billion requested by the Office of Management and Budget to begin construction on a southern border wall. The Iowa Republican, however, wants to more than triple taxpayer dollars spent on the wall. “Are you comfortable, congressman, with providing $1.6 billion of taxpayer money, not from Mexico, to build that wall?” CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked on “New Day.” “Absolutely, yes and more,” he replied. “And I’d throw another $5 billion on the pile and I would find half a billion of that from right out of Planned Parenthood’s budget. And the rest of it could come out of food stamps and the entitlements that are being spread out for people who haven’t worked in three generations.” The lawmaker said the government needs to “ratchet back down” the number of Americans on food stamps. More than 40 million Americans receive food stamps, and nearly two-thirds of them are children, elderly or disabled. The average household on food stamps had income of less than $10,000 a year. “I wouldn’t impose anything more strict on anybody in America than what (former first lady) Michelle Obama did with her school lunch program. So, I would just say let’s limit to that,” King said. “But we’ve seen this go from 19 million people now on the SNAP program up to 47 million people on the SNAP program,” he added. “I’m sure that all of them didn’t need it. So, we need to set this down and ratchet it back down again.” A document circulated on Capitol Hill in May said that a White House budget proposal would slash $193 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) also known as food stamps. A CNN analysis found that of the top 10 places with the largest percentage of residents who use SNAP, seven voted for Trump in the 2016 elections. “We built the programs because to solve the problem of malnutrition in America,” said King, who backed Trump in 2016. “Now we have a problem of obesity. When you match up the EBT card with what the scales say on some of the folks, I think its worth looking at.” “Michelle Obama looked at it. Republicans should be able to look at it too,” he added. More than 2 billion adults and children globally are overweight or obese and suffer health problems because of their weight, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, with the United States having the greatest percentage (13%) of obese children and young adults. The “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” legislation spearheaded by the former first lady in response to America’s childhood obesity problem was regularly criticized by Republicans and her efforts may be in jeopardy under the Trump administration. The School Nutrition Association, a lobbying group, released recommendations in March to scale back federal nutrition standards set under the Obama administration.


The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the law the NSA uses to track emails and phone calls It's up for re-authorization and that's why the Senate intelligence committee is holding a hearing The Russia investigation and President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey are sure to dominate the headlines out of Wednesday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing, but that’s not the reason that four top administration national security officials are appearing before the panel. The officials are testifying because the committee leaders have to shepherd a bill through Congress before the end of the year to reauthorize a key National Security Agency surveillance tool that has been slammed by privacy advocates as ripe for abuse. Wednesday’s hearing is the committee’s first step to make the case for re-authorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is the law the NSA uses to track emails and phone calls of non-US citizens – while sometimes incidentally collecting communications of US citizens, too. Related article 5 things to watch: Coats, Rogers, McCabe and Rosenstein testify The administration officials – Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – will testify that Section 702 is an essential national security tool to stop terrorism, a view most of the intelligence committee agreed with. But their boss has made reauthorizing more complicated. Trump’s tweets alleging – with no evidence – that he was wiretapped by President Barack Obama, as well as his assertion that “unmasking” is the real Russia story, have thrown a wrench into the surveillance debate on Capitol Hill, raising concerns for some conservatives about whether the NSA’s spying powers are being abused. “We’re not going to reauthorize these surveillance programs if the American people are not satisfied that their security is going to be safeguarded,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican and House intelligence committee member, said last month on Fox News. House intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’ trip to the White House was about the alleged “unmasking” of Trump officials by former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice. The communications of US citizens that the NSA collects in the process of tracking a foreign national are routinely “masked,” where the identity of that citizen is hidden. But a handful of government officials have the authority to request that an identity be “unmasked” if it’s relevant for national security purposes. Last week, Nunes issued three subpoenas seeking details of “unmasking” of US residents by Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. National security analysts and backers of the law argue that the unmaksing issue should remain separate from the debate over reauthorizing the NSA surveillance law. “Section 702 should not become collateral damage in the unmasking debate,” said Adam Klein of the Center for a New American Security. Related article What is the FISA court, and why is it so secretive? Robert Chesney, a Texas University law professor and writer on the Lawfare national security website, said the unmasking controversy and Section 702 shouldn’t be related, but now unmasking will “hang over” the renewal of the surveillance law. “For whatever reason, they decided collectively to make as much stink as possible about unmasking in order to put the intelligence community on trial and change the narrative about Russia,” Chesney said. Privacy advocates argue changes are needed to the surveillance law to safeguard the communications of US citizens. Last week, Facebook, Amazon, Google and other tech companies signed a letter to the House Judiciary Committee urging Congress to overhaul the surveillance law. Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said one of the most significant reforms needed is to the so-called “backdoor search loophole,” where intelligence agencies may conduct warrantless searches of US citizens’ collected communications if the target of the surveillance was a foreign national. Related article 'Unmasking,' FISA and other terms to help you understand the wiretapping story Senators on the intelligence committee downplayed the role that Trump’s tweets – and broader views on unmasking – would play in their efforts to reauthorize the law. “There will be hurdles, but it won’t have anything to do with the tweets,” Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN. “The President seems to complicate things from time to time, but it’s hard for me to believe that FISA will not be renewed,” said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and more than a dozen Republican senators, including Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, introduced a bill Tuesday that would permanently authorize Section 702. Democrats are more split than Republicans. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, supports renewing the NSA surveillance law, while Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden is one of the chief critics of the law in the Senate. But both senators indicated Tuesday they plan to focus their questions on grilling Coats and Rosenstein over Trump’s actions, saving the surveillance debate for another day before the law expires at the end of the year. Burr said that even if Russia is likely to dictate Wednesday’s hearing, he plans on sticking to the FISA script. “I have no control of where hearings go, but I know that (Section) 702 re-authorization is an important issue, so that’s where my focus is going to be and that’s where everybody is programmed to talk about,” Burr said.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702