Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager and close confidant, on Tuesday stoutly defended his former boss and lashed out at Democrats during testimony to a U.S. congressional panel considering whether to impeach Trump.

“We as a nation would be better served if elected officials like you concentrated your efforts to combat the true crises facing our country as opposed to going down rabbit holes like this hearing,” Lewandowski said in his opening remarks to the Democratic-led House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

The White House on Monday told Lewandowski not to discuss conversations he had with Trump after he became president including an exchange that Democrats view as evidence that Trump committed obstruction of justice by trying to interfere in a federal investigation and may need to be impeached.

Lewandowski was the first impeachment witness to appear before the committee since former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified in July about his inquiry that detailed Russian 2016 election interference and Trump’s actions to impede the investigation.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, began the hearing by slamming the White House’s legal team for instructing Lewandowski to limit the scope of his testimony by invoking a doctrine called executive privilege.

“We should call this what it is: an absolute cover-up by the White House,” Nadler said.

“The White House is advancing a new and dangerous theory: the crony privilege,” Nadler added. “… Where are the limits?”

The hearing appeared likely to produce more political theater than factual revelations.

Lewandowski assailed the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2020 election.

“It is now clear the investigation was populated by many Trump haters who had their own agenda – to try and take down a duly elected president of the United States. As for actual “collusion” or “conspiracy,” there was none. What there has been however, is harassment of the president from the day he won the election,” Lewandowski added.

Lewandowski is considering a run for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in New Hampshire. Mueller’s report described Lewandowski as a Trump “devotee” with a “close” relationship with the president.

Trump in August sought to boost Lewandowski’s potential Senate bid, calling his former aide “a fantastic guy” who would make a “great senator” and that “I like everything about him.”

“This isn’t a campaign rally. This is the first hearing where you can tell the American people how you participated in the president’s effort to obstruct justice,” Democratic Representative David Cicilline wrote on Twitter.

Democrats, who hope to decide whether to recommend Trump’s impeachment to the full House by year’s end, had intended to grill Lewandowski about the president’s effort to persuade then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to redirect the Mueller probe away from the 2016 Trump election campaign.

The episode is among a number of incidents contained in Mueller’s 448-page investigative report made public in April that Democrats view as evidence that Trump obstructed justice.

Mueller made no determination about whether Trump obstructed justice but did not exonerate him of wrongdoing.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House has the power to vote to impeach a president while the Senate then would hold a trial on whether to remove him from office. The House is controlled by Democrats and the Senate by Trump’s fellow Republicans.

White House assertion

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee in a letter on Monday that Lewandowski could not testify about conversations with Trump after he became president or with his senior advisers.

The White House also directed two other witnesses, former Trump White House aides Rob Porter and Rick Dearborn, not to testify. Cipollone’s letter said they were “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to their service as senior advisers to the President.”

In June 2017, Trump met Lewandowski, then a private citizen, at the White House and dictated a message he was to deliver to Sessions. The message said Sessions should shift the Russia probe’s focus to future elections despite his recusal from the investigation.

At a second meeting a month later, Trump asked about the status of the message and said Lewandowski should “tell Sessions he was fired” if he would not meet with Lewandowski, according to the Mueller report.

Trump fired Lewandowski as his campaign manager in June 2016 but the two remained close. During the campaign, Lewandowski had often generated controversy including when he was charged with misdemeanor battery after being accused of forcefully grabbing a female reporter in Florida. The charge was later dropped.

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From: MeNeedIt

Older Americans aren’t moving as much as they used to. 

The migration rate of people over 55 has dropped steadily over the past two decades from a high of 6% in 1996, to 4.3% between 2017 and 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Moving rates for Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — have rebounded a bit since the Great Recession of 2007-2009, but they remain slightly below pre-recession rates.

“The idea is if the economy’s not so good, they may just want to stay working for a little bit more before they retire,” says demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.

“Their decision is when can they retire, when is it affordable to retire? And more importantly, from the migration standpoint, does it make sense to to pick up stakes and move somewhere else? If the housing crunch is there, they’re not going to have too many bidders for their homes, so the idea of selling your house to move somewhere else is not going to be as easy.”

When they do retire, Baby Boomers are still heading to traditional sunny retirement haunts like Phoenix, Tampa, Riverside [California], Las Vegas and Jacksonville [Florida].

The lure of the big city isn’t calling to these older folks. The cities that experienced the biggest net loss of seniors include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and San Francisco.

For all ages, short-distance moves far outnumber long-distance moves, especially for seniors. Those who move a short distance might be interested in being close to their adult children and grandchildren.

Typically, those who move far away are attracted by the weather, lower costs and services geared toward older people. However, there may be movement to back to their kids when they get beyond the early senior years.

“I’ve got to call them the yuppie elderly, in good health and still have some disposable income, they’ll move to places where they have some amenities for older people,” Frey says. “But when things are not going so well, they may then move back to areas where they have more friends and family that can help take care of them.”

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From: MeNeedIt

A U.S. service member was killed in action in Afghanistan on Monday, NATO said, without providing further details.

Last week, President Donald Trump abruptly called off talks with the Taliban to end American’s longest war, citing the killing of a U.S. service member in a Taliban attack days earlier.

Monday’s death was the 17th U.S. combat death in Afghanistan this year, according to the Pentagon’s count. There also have been three non-combat deaths this year. More than 2,400 Americans have died in the nearly 18-year war.

Across Afghanistan, militant attacks and more violence killed at least seven people as the country prepares for presidential elections later this month, Afghan officials said.

At least five civilians, including women and children, were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in western Farah province on Sunday, according to Mohibullah Mohib, spokesman for the provincial police.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, which occurred near the city of Farah, the provincial capital, but the Taliban are active in the province.

Earlier this month, the Taliban launched an attempt to take the city of Farah, briefly seizing an army recruitment center and setting it on fire. Airstrikes were called in and the Taliban were eventually forced out of the city.

Separately, a magnetic explosive device attached to a mini bus belonging to a university in Ghazni province exploded and killed the bus driver. Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said five Ghazni University students were also wounded in the blast.

In eastern Logar province, a schoolgirl died in the crossfire during a battle in the Mohammad Agha district between the Taliban and the security forces, the police said. A second student was wounded.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani cancelled his first electoral debate with his main electoral rival, Abdullah Abdullah, the country’s chief executive. Both men are partners in the national unity government.

Ghani’s electoral team, in a statement released just before the start of the debate, claimed Abdullah has no political program and that Ghani did not want to debate him.

Abdullah, who was present at the TV studio where the debate was to be held, said Ghani “should have come and shared his plans.”

Around 100,000 members of the country’s security forces will provide security on election day, Sept. 28. Around 72,000 security personnel will be on duty around the 4,942 polling centers across Afghanistan while nearly 30,000 additional troops will serve as reserve units.

Approximately 20,000 American and allied troops remain in Afghanistan. Between 14,000 and 13,000 U.S. troops are currently in the country.

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From: MeNeedIt

A Chinese American couple has been arrested and charged with stealing scientific trade secrets from a children’s hospital in Ohio in the latest federal prosecution aimed at clamping down on China’s alleged theft of American intellectual property.  

The couple — Yu Zhou, 49, and Li Chen, 46 — worked in separate labs at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for 10 years, stealing proprietary research for use in personal business ventures, law enforcement officials announced Monday.

The purloined exosome-related trade secrets play a key role in the diagnosis and treatment of a range of pediatric medical conditions, including liver cancer and a condition found in premature babies, according to a 27-page federal indictment.

The indictment alleges that the couple founded a company in China in 2015 without the hospital’s knowledge or authorization, marketing products related to exosome isolation. Two years later, Zhou helped found an American biotechnology company, advertising products including a kit developed with a trade secret created at one of the hospital’s research labs. Shortly before resigning from the hospital in 2017, Zhu allegedly announced in a press release his new company’s plans to distribute “proprietary exosome isolation systems” from its Central Ohio headquarters.

“Nationwide Children’s Hospital devoted years of work and its own money to researching exosomes in order to promote honorable medical advances,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Benjamin Glassman said in a statement.  

In a statement to VOA, the hospital said, “When we discovered this incident, we alerted the FBI and have been actively collaborating with them.”

Zhou and Chen were arrested in July. The 27-count indictment was unsealed Thursday at their arraignment in federal court in Columbus. The charges carry 10 to 20 years in prison.  

Lawyers for the couple did not immediately respond to an email from VOA seeking comment. 

U.S. crackdown 

The indictment is part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on China’s alleged theft of American property and other predatory practices that are at the heart of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

In the last 10 months, the Justice Department has brought charges against Chinese nationals and entities in at least seven separate economic espionage cases, up from three during the prior 10 months. In addition, the department has obtained guilty pleas and convictions in six older espionage cases, while charging four Chinese nationals for evading sanctions against North Korea.

“The theft of trade secrets is a growing threat that severely impacts our economy and our national security,” stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Todd Wickerham.

Separately, the Justice Department announced the arrest of a Chinese government employee on conspiracy charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. visas for fellow government workers.

Zhongsan Liu was arrested Thursday in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and later presented before a U.S. magistrate in federal court in New York.

“We welcome foreign students and researchers, including from China, but we do not welcome visa fraud  especially on behalf of a government,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of National Security. “We will continue to confront Chinese government attempts to subvert American law to advance its own interests in diverting U.S. research and know-how to China.”

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From: MeNeedIt

An innovative boat that saves energy by rising out of the water on hydrofoil wings underwent testing on the Seine river in Paris on Monday as its backers seek to obtain a license to operate a taxi service on the river.

The SeaBubbles craft is powered by electric motors and its hydrofoil wings reduce the drag on the hull in the water, making it more energy efficient than conventional boats.

SeaBubbles co-founder Alain Thebault said the boat, which carries four passengers and one pilot, has green credentials as it is noise free and produces no pollution.

“It’s the future,” he told Reuters in an interview after the boat had completed its latest tests, running up and down the Seine.

The testing will continue until Sept. 20, after which the project’s backers hope to obtain a commercial license to run taxi services from the east of Paris to the west.

Hydrofoils were invented decades ago but their commercial use is limited because they tend to be unstable. SeaBubbles uses computer processors to adjust the hydrofoil wings constantly in the water, which its designers say gives passengers a smooth ride.

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From: MeNeedIt

More than 450,000 people have signed up for a chance to receive $1,000 per month from U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

During last week’s debate, the Democrat announced that he will pick 10 families to receive the money for a year from his campaign funds.   

Since he made the announcement last Thursday, Yang’s campaign has raised more than $1 million and collected more than 450,000 email addresses from people who entered the online raffle.

Yang’s surprise announcement was aimed at drawing attention to the main platform of his campaign — to provide a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American adult.

The candidate says the stipend, which he calls Freedom Dividend, would allow Americans to use the money for basic needs while they try to better their lives.

Yang is a newcomer to the American political arena. He is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who has never run for elected office before.

The 44-year-old is the first Asian-American candidate to have gained significant national attention.

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From: MeNeedIt

Purdue Pharma, the maker of prescription painkiller OxyContin, has filed for bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court.

The company is facing numerous lawsuits from local and state governments and other plaintiffs alleging it aggressively marketed dangerous, addictive painkillers that helped fuel the opioid crisis in the United States.

The bankruptcy filing comes days after Purdue Pharma reached a tentative settlement with about 2,000 entities that have filed lawsuits.  The value of the settlement could reach $12 billion.

But some of the states involved in the suits oppose the settlement, saying the company and the Sackler family that controls it are not offering enough and that the current terms would not produce the $12 billion in estimated relief.

Purdue Pharma Chairman Steve Miller rejected criticism of the settlement and said if instead the lawsuits go forward the only result would be to waste money on the legal fight that could otherwise be part of the agreement.

The Sacklers have offered to pay $3 billion under the settlement, and said they want the company to be utilized for public benefit.  That could include providing communities with free doses of drugs the company has created to combat overdoses and addiction to opioids.

The New York Attorney General’s office alleged in a Friday court filing that members of the Sackler family used hidden accounts to transfer $1 billion to themselves.  The family said the transfers were done decades ago and were legal.

U.S. government data shows the number of drug overdose deaths involving opioids rose from 8,000 in 1999 to 47,600 in 2017.

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From: MeNeedIt

A new large supply transport ship will help the Beijing government ferry supplies to its holdings in the disputed South China Sea, a resource-rich waterway contested by other countries.

China has alarmed the other countries since 2010 by landfilling small islets for military use. Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines contest all or parts of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea with China. China claims about 90% of it.

The Sansha No. 2 transport ship that passed trial in August can “cover the whole South China Sea,” Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reports. The vessel with a displacement of  over 8,000 metric tons will help civilian and military work, Xinhua says.

The ship will help take equipment to the sea’s Paracel Islands – controlled by China but hotly disputed by Vietnam – and possibly further to the more widely contested Spratly Islands, analysts predict.

“They’re expanding their capabilities in all areas,” said Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. “Deploying in the disputed areas is even more symbolic. It’s also more important for them, because they’re able to keep ahead of the rest of the region.”

Extra-large ship

China’s second transport ship in its class, and one with an especially large displacement, will probably take ammunition, food, water, and power generation gear to the islets it now controls, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan.

The newest ship will “increase logistics support” for troops stationed on the islets, Yang said. “They have troops and operations stationed there, so they certainly need some kind of more capable logistical support systems,” he said.

The tropical sea stretches from Hong Kong south to Borneo. The six claimants prize it for fisheries, energy reserves and marine shipping lanes.

Sansha No. 2’s late August trial run took it to Woody Island in the Paracel chain. The ship can go 6,000 kilometers without refueling and carry up to 400 people, Xinhua says. 

China operates a military runway on Woody Island and keeps troops there. A transport that went into use on the island 11 years ago could carry just 2,540 metric tons. 

On three major islets in the Spratly chain, China has built runways and military aircraft hangars, according to an initiative under U.S. think tank Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Unique advance for China

Other countries with South China Sea claims lack China’s military power or technology. The People’s Liberation Army, the world’s third largest, flew bombers to the Spratly Islands last year. China plans to deploy floating nuclear power stations to the sea in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The transport ship marks the “latest technology” for China, Batongbacal said. China will probably produce more vessels of the same type to set up a rotation, Yang forecast.

The builder of Sansha No. 2 and its predecessor Sansha No. 1 plans to work on a third transport vessel “to provide better service to personnel stationed on islands”, Xinhua says.

Taiwan sometimes sends a transport to the Spratly chain, Yang said. Taiwan, however, has just one major holding in that archipelago.

Vietnam’s navy operates transport vessels but uses smaller fishing boats for South China Sea transport jobs, said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. China could disrupt resupply missions handled by smaller vessels, he said.

“The issue here is more about whether the other claimants can resupply their garrisons uninterrupted the way the Chinese will enjoy in the South China Sea,” Koh said.

The United States, China’s former Cold War foe and a modern-day economic rival, began increasing the number of ship passages through the South China Sea in 2017 under U.S. President Donald Trump. Washington does not claim the waterway but believes it should be open for international use.

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From: MeNeedIt

Members of the United Auto Workers union began a strike Monday against General Motors as the two sides remain apart on the terms of a new contract.

Talks are set to resume Monday, but plants that makes cars and parts in nine states will be closed with nearly 50,000 workers off the job.

Union Vice President Terry Dittes said the decision to go on strike was a last resort, but necessary. The union wants better wages and health care, as well as job security and profit sharing.

General Motors says it has offered pay raises, profit sharing and good health benefits, along with billions of dollars in investments in manufacturing facilities that would bring more jobs.

The last UAW strike at General Motors came in 2007.

Union contracts with Ford and Fiat Chrysler were also due to expire, but have been extended indefinitely.  Any contract reached with General Motors will serve as a template in negotiations with the other companies.

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From: MeNeedIt

Thirty-six people are missing after a boat sank in the Congo river on the outskirts of Kinshasa, DR Congo police said on Sunday.

The vessel, which was traveling to the capital, went down overnight in Maluku commune, about 100 kilometers from the center of the city.

Seventy-six people survived, police wrote on Twitter.

“The cause of the accident is not yet known,” police spokesperson Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu told AFP.

Lake and river transport is widely used in Democratic Republic of Congo as the highway system is poor, but accidents are common, often caused by overloading and the unsafe state of vessels.

The boat involved was called a “baleiniere” or “whaler” — a commonly-used flat-bottomed vessel between 15 to 30 meters (50 to 100 feet) long by two to six meters wide.

In the vast majority of accidents, passengers are not equipped with life jackets and many cannot swim.

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From: MeNeedIt

Hong Kong protesters clashed with  police Sunday.

Protesters threw Molotov cocktails and bricks at police near the Legislative Council building.

Police responded by firing water cannons filled with blue jets of water, a practice usually initiated to identify protesters later.

Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were on Hong Kong’s streets Sunday.

The weekend demonstrations have continued for three months despite the Hong Kong government’s promise to withdraw extradition legislation that sparked the protests. Dissenters have since broadened their demands for the direct election of their leaders and police accountability.

The protesters saw the bill that would have allowed some Hong Kong criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial as an example of the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.

More than 1,300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began in early June.

The increasingly violent demonstrations have further damaged Hong Kong’s economy, which had already been weakened by the U.S.-China trade war.

Earlier Sunday, demonstrators gathered outside the British consulate where they sang “God Save the Queen.”

Under an agreement with the former colonial power Britain, China has promised Hong Kong can maintain its free market system and democratic freedoms until 2047. But hundreds of thousands of people have turned out for marches to protest what residents of Hong Kong see as steady encroachment on those freedoms by Beijing.

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From: MeNeedIt

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation will hold an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intent to annex parts of the West Bank. 
 
The 57-member organization tweeted earlier this week that the meeting would be held “at the request of Saudi Arabia” in Jeddah.
 
On Saturday, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said the OIC would meet to discuss “Netanyahu’s statements on the intention to annex Jordan Valley and the illegal settlements in the West Bank by Israel.” 

Jordan Valley, northern Dead Sea
 
Netanyahu said Tuesday that he planned to annex part of the occupied West Bank if he won re-election next week, a move that could significantly alter the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 
 
Netanyahu said in a live televised address that he intended to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea,” a strategically important area, if he won on Sept. 17. 
 
Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi tweeted that annexation would destroy any chance of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord: 
 
“Netanyahu’s cheap pandering to his extremist racist base exposes his real political agenda of superimposing ‘greater Israel’ on all of historical Palestine & carrying out an ethnic cleansing agenda. All bets are off! Dangerous aggression. Perpetual conflict.”  

Anticipating Netanyahu’s announcement shortly before it was made, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the Israeli leader was “a prime destroyer of the peace process.” 
 
Netanyahu’s announcement reaffirmed his pledge to annex all Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but he has said he will not act before publication of a long-awaited U.S. peace proposal and consultations with President Donald Trump. 
 
There has been no comment from the White House, but the Trump administration has been receptive to Israel’s annexation of at least portions of the West Bank. 
 
The Jordan Valley is a 2,400-square-kilometer (927-square-mile) area that accounts for nearly 30 percent of the territory in the West Bank, which Israel captured in a 1967 war. The Palestinians covet the valley for the eastern perimeter of a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 

Close race
 
Netanyahu is in the midst of a closely contested re-election bid. Voters will go to the polls Tuesday, five months after the country’s parliament was dissolved in a vote in which Netanyahu failed to assemble a government. Polls show he is even or slightly behind Benny Gantz, a moderate former army chief of staff. 
 
The prime minister is also facing a series of corruption charges. 
 
More than 400,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements considered illegal by international law. About 2.7 million Palestinians live in the territory. 

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From: MeNeedIt