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The U.S. government plans to resume executions after a 16-year hiatus, picking five killers of children to be the first to die.
The five men — four white and one black — range in age from 37 to 67. They are being held in a high-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where they will be executed.
Here is a look at the five men and their crimes:
Daniel Lee, 46, is scheduled for execution Dec. 9.
Lee, a white supremacist, was convicted in 1999 for killing an Arkansas gun dealer, along with his wife and 8-year-old daughter.
Lezmond Mitchell, 37, is scheduled for execution Dec. 11.
Mitchell was convicted in 2003 for killing a 63-year-old grandmother and her 9-year-old granddaughter in Arizona. After stabbing the grandmother to death, Mitchell and his accomplice forced the child to sit next to the body for a more than 50-kilometer drive, before fatally slashing her throat.
Wesley Purkey, 67, is scheduled for execution Dec. 13.
Purkey was found guilty in 2003 for raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering and burning her body in Missouri. Months before that murder, Purkey had used a hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio.
Alfred Bourgeois, 55, is scheduled for execution Jan. 13, 2020.
Bourgeois was found guilty by a Texas court in 2004 of the murder of his 2-year-old daughter. Witnesses, including family members, told the court that Bourgeois had repeatedly beaten the child before her death. An autopsy found the girl had sustained more than 300 injuries. Bourgeois is the only African American man on the list.
Dustin Honken, 51, is scheduled for execution Jan. 15, 2020.
Honken was found guilty in 2004 for the shooting deaths of five people in Iowa, including two men, a single mother and her daughters, ages 6 and 10. The Justice Department has said the two men were drug dealers who planned to testify against Honken, a methamphetamine dealer.
A federal judge is considering whether to order Georgia to immediately stop using its outdated voting machines, even as state officials prepare to announce their replacement.
A lawsuit filed by election integrity activists argues that the paperless touchscreen voting machines Georgia has used since 2002 are unsecure, vulnerable to hacking and can’t be audited. It seeks statewide use of hand-marked paper ballots.
A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system, which state officials said will be in place for the 2020 presidential election.
But the plaintiffs are asking U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg to order the state to immediately stop using the current system, which it plans to use for special and municipal elections this year and which the plaintiffs fear would be used in 2020 if a new system isn’t implemented in time. Totenberg has scheduled a hearing Thursday on those requests.
Georgia’s voting system drew national scrutiny last year during the closely watched governor’s race in which Kemp, a Republican who was the state’s top election official at the time, narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams.
The plaintiffs in this case _ the Coalition for Good Governance and individual voters asked Totenberg last August to force Georgia to use hand-marked paper ballots for the November election. While Totenberg expressed grave concerns about vulnerabilities in the state’s voting system and scolded state officials for being slow to respond to evidence of those problems, she said a switch to paper ballots so close to that election would be too chaotic.
The plaintiffs argue the state has done nothing to address the problems, and the outdated machines should not be used. They argue a switch to hand-marked paper ballots would be relatively easy since the state already uses such ballots for absentee and provisional voting, and the scale is smaller given that there are no statewide elections this year.
They cite problems they say arose in last year’s election, including malfunctioning voting machines, long lines, electronic poll book errors and an extreme undervote in the lieutenant governor’s race on ballots cast using voting machines.
In addition to the use of hand-marked paper ballots, they asked the judge to order the state to take some other immediate steps, including post-election audits to verify results.
Lawyers for state election officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, argue concrete steps have been taken to address the concerns, including arranging for the purchase of new voting technology statewide and adding security measures to existing systems.
They also argue that paper ballots have vulnerabilities and that putting an intermediate system in place while the state is moving to a new voting system “places an impossible burden on both state and local election officials and may result in voter frustration and disaffection from the voting process.”
The new law calls for voters to make their selections on electronic machines that print out a paper record that is read and tallied by scanners. The state is expected to choose a vendor soon. The request for proposals specifies that vendors must be able to distribute all voting machine equipment before March 31, which is a week after the state’s presidential primary election is set to be held on March 24.
The plaintiffs argue the ballot-marking machines provided for in the new law have many of the same fundamental flaws as the machines they’re replacing. They say any system that puts a computer between the voter and the permanent record of the vote can’t be effectively audited and is unconstitutional. They’ve said they plan to challenge the new system once the state announces which machines it plans to use.
The plaintiffs also say the state’s plan to implement a new system statewide in time for the 2020 elections is extremely ambitious and that putting a hand-marked paper ballot system in place now would be a secure and constitutional backup plan, unlike using the current system.
This lawsuit is one of several that challenge various aspects of Georgia’s election system. Another, filed by a group founded by Abrams, alleges systemic problems in the election system and accuses election officials of mismanaging the 2018 election.
ASAP Rocky will be tried for an alleged assault next week over a June street brawl, a Swedish court said Thursday, in a decision likely to infuriate fans already indignant over his three weeks in custody.
“Today I have pressed charges against the three suspects for assault, because in my judgement what has happened amounts to a crime, despite the objections about self-defence and provocations,” prosecutor Daniel Suneson said in a statement published Thursday morning.
The 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was arrested on July 3 along with three other people, following the brawl in Stockholm on June 30. One of them, the rapper’s bodyguard, was later released.
Part of the fight was captured in an amateur video published by US celebrity news outlet TMZ. The rapper later published videos of his own to Instagram purporting to show the lead up to the fight.
Mayers has claimed he was acting in self-defence, saying he was responding to harassment and provocations by the plaintiff.
But Suneson said in his statement: “I have had more material to consider than what has been available on the internet.”
Heading to trial
According to the charge document filed with the Stockholm District Court, the evidence includes surveillance footage, witness testimony and text conversations that the prosecutor says prove there was no need for self defence and that a bottle was used as a weapon in the alleged assault.
On July 5 the court ordered that Mayers should be kept in custody pending investigation of the case as he was considered a “flight risk”.
The court originally gave the prosecutor two weeks to decide on whether to press charges, and later granted a week-long extension.
Suneson’s decision to press charges means the rapper can be kept in custody until his trial, which the court has set for next week.
The trial is scheduled to take place over three days, starting on July 30 and then continuing on August 1 and 2, the Stockholm District Court said in a statement.
Mayers can request to have his detention reviewed by the court and argue for conditional release until the trial is held.
Assault carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail in Sweden.
Mayers’ lawyer Slobodan Jovicic told reporters on Thursday that the decision was “expected” and that his client maintains that he is innocent.
“He is extremely disappointed that the prosecutor has put the other account (of the events) ahead of his own,” Jovicic said during a press briefing.
FreeRocky
The musician, who had his breakthrough in 2011 with the release of the mixtape “Live. Love. A$AP”, was on a European tour and has already had to cancel over a dozen shows.
Since his arrest, fans, fellow artists and US Congress members have campaigned for the artist to be freed.
US President Donald Trump contacted Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven directly to discuss the case.
Trump on Saturday tweeted that he had called Lofven and been assured that ASAP Rocky would be “treated fairly”.
“I assured him that ASAP was not a flight risk and offered to personally vouch for his bail, or an alternative,” Trump added.
Lofven’s press secretary Toni Eriksson confirmed the call had taken place and told AFP that “the prime minister was careful to point out that the Swedish justice system is completely independent”.
An online petition called #JusticeForRocky has garnered more than 620,000 signatures, and posters emblazoned with “Free ASAP Rocky ASAP” have been put up around Stockholm.
Artists including Post Malone, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Nicki Minaj, Meek Mill and Justin Bieber have all voiced their support for Mayers, with rapper Tyler, the Creator saying he would no longer perform in Sweden.
Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls, was found unconscious in a Manhattan jail cell with injuries to his neck, media reported late on Wednesday, citing unidentified sources.
Epstein was found by guards sprawled on the floor of cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Wednesday, media reported. Some media reported that his face appeared blue.
The billionaire financier was taken to hospital, the New York Post reported, but it was unclear where he was taken or what his condition was.
It was not clear how he suffered his injuries.
Neither a representative for the correctional center nor Epstein’s attorney returned calls or email inquiries from Reuters.
Epstein was recently denied bail, a move his lawyers plan to appeal according to a court notice made public on Tuesday.
Epstein was expected to ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the judge’s July 18 rejection of his request to remain under house arrest in his $77 million mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Epstein has pleaded not guilty to the charges and the appeal for bail was expected. His lawyer Reid Weingarten did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan declined to comment.
The charges, concerning alleged misconduct from at least 2002 to 2005, were announced more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges in Florida.
In denying him bail, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan said the government had shown by clear and convincing evidence that Epstein would pose a danger to the community if released pending trial.
A series of blasts rocked Afghanistan’s capital Kabul Thursday morning, killing at least ten people and wounding scores of others, as the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff met with Afghan officials.
A Ministry of Interior spokesman, Nasrat Rahimi, said a suicide bomber on a motorcycle targeted a mini bus carrying the staff of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum as they were on their way to work. A secondary explosion rocked the site of the first attack.
Secondary explosions are common in Kabul and have in the past killed first responders and journalists covering the attack.
A boy walks past the wreckage of a bus following a suicide bombing in Kabul on July 25, 2019.
A separate car bomb hit Jalalabad road in Kabul a few hours later. Local TV channels showed footage of relatives wailing outside local hospitals as they searched for their loved ones.
The Islamic State terror group took responsibility for the attacks in Kabul.
Meanwhile, another blast in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, killed nine members, six women and three children, from the same family, according to Ataullah Khogyani, a spokesman for Nangarhar governor’s office.
Gulzada Sangar, a spokesman for Nangarhar civilian hospital, said five other victims of the attack are in stable condition.
Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Jalalabad road, in which they claim they targeted “foreign invaders.”
“Martyrdom seeker [Muhammad Kabuli] using VBIED struck convoy of foreign invaders in Spechari area of #Kabul city 9am this morning resulting in 2 SUVs destroyed & 9 senior foreign officers killed,” a Tweet from Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said.
However, in the same Tweet he distanced the Taliban from the other two blasts in the city.
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass tweeted U.S. condemnation of the Kabul attacks.
“The perpetrators demonstrated a heinous disregard for the sanctity of human life, democratic values & #Afghanistan’s future. The US stands with the people of Afghanistan in their aspiration for peace and a better future. #AfghanPeaceProcess,” he tweeted.
The US condemns today’s multiple attacks in #Kabul. The victims are innocent #Afghans, including first responders, trying to make a better life for themselves & their families. 1/2
The perpetrators demonstrated a heinous disregard for the sanctity of human life, democratic values & #Afghanistan’s future. The US stands with the people of Afghanistan in their aspiration for peace and a better future. #AfghanPeaceProcess 2/2
As the violence rages in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, the man appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump to find a way to extricate the United States from Afghanistan, is in Kabul, discussing “where we are on the #AfghanPeaceProcess,” according to his tweets. He met senior Afghan leadership Wednesday, including President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, and Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani.
FILE – Afghan delegates inside the conference hall included Lotfullah Najafizada (2nd-R), the head of Afghan TV channel Tolo News, in Doha, Qatar, July 7, 2019. U.S special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is seen center rear, with red tie. (A. Tanzeem/VOA)
On Tuesday, as he arrived in Kabul, the Afghan government issued a strong press release demanding a “clarification” for President Trump’s words that “Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth if he wanted to win the war but he did not want to “kill 10 million people.”
Both Khalilzad and Taliban’s political team based in Doha have been sending out positive indicators about their ongoing negotiations, now in its seventh round.
Remaining issues
Both sides acknowledge that they have made progress on two issues: announcement of a timeline of withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, and promises by the Taliban that Afghan soil will not be used for terrorism against any other country.
However, there seem to be differences on two more issues on the table: announcement of a comprehensive cease-fire and agreement by the Taliban to enter into direct negotiations with the Afghan government.
The United States has asked Pakistan to help use its influence with the Taliban to resolve these issues. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was on a three day trip to Washington and the White House this week, promised to help.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump at the start of their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, July 22, 2019.
“Now, when I go back, after meeting President Trump, and I have also spoken to President Ghani, now I will meet the Taliban and tell them to talk to the Afghan government. I believe the election in Afghanistan should be inclusive and Taliban must be included,” Khan said during a public talk at the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, U.S. government funded research organization.
Americans love ice cream so much that in 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. VOA’s Karina Bafradzhian traveled to Savannah, Georgia, to try ice cream at a legendary parlor that has been making the cool treat for almost a century.
The Trump administration’s new asylum rule survived an initial court challenge Wednesday, keeping in place a directive that disqualifies a significant proportion of mostly Central American asylum-seekers who reach the U.S.-Mexico border.
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly denied requests to block the rule while a pending court case goes forward, saying, “It’s in the greater public interest to allow the administration to carry out its immigration policy.”
Announced earlier this month, the new rule bars asylum for migrants who reach the U.S. southern border without having applied for and been denied asylum in any country they passed through on their way to the United States.
FILE – A group of Central American migrants surrenders to U.S. Border Patrol Agents south of the U.S.-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, March 6, 2019.
The case was brought by two immigrant rights organizations: the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and RAICES, or Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. Both organizations argued the asylum rule would harm migrants fleeing dangerous situations.
Kelly, who serves on the U.S. District Court in the nation’s capital, voiced doubts that plaintiffs could demonstrate the administration exceeded its authority by issuing the asylum rule.
The White House’s legal victory could be short-lived, as a federal judge in San Francisco was to consider a separate challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union later in the day.
“We’ve filed suit to stop the Trump administration from reversing our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect people fleeing danger,” the ACLU tweeted.
Trump administration officials have said the new rule is meant to ease the strain on the U.S. asylum system.
In a recent statement, U.S. Attorney General William Barr noted a “dramatic increase in the number of aliens” arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that “[o]nly a small minority of these individuals” qualify for asylum.
The Gulf of Guinea is a hot spot for illegal activities, which affect global trade and security. This week a conference in Ghana’s capital, Accra, seeks solutions to overcome issues that plague the region. Experts say collaboration will be the focus of a seaborne law enforcement effort.
On board the USNS Carson City, which is visiting Sekondi, in Ghana’s Western Region, Admiral James Foggo thanked the American crew, telling personnel how important its role is in building partnerships and bringing security to the Gulf of Guinea – a coastal region of West and Central Africa.
The ship arrived for a port visit Sunday as part of the U.S. Navy’s effort to support African navies in anti-piracy, small boat maintenance and marine law enforcement. Personnel from Spanish, Portuguese and Italian forces are also part of the collaborative mission.
The USNS Carson City is seen in Ghana’s Sekondi port. (Stacey Knott for VOA)
Alongside naval leaders from other nations, Foggo toured U.S., Ghanaian and Nigerian vessels at the port of Sekondi.
“Our interest in the Gulf of Guinea is helping our African partners and friends legitimize and control the sea lines of communication that lead to the ports of Africa. Ninety percent of their commerce travels by those sea lines of communication. There is a lot of activity that is legal, probably more legal than illegal. We want to stop the illegal activity, it takes away from their tax base, their profitability and detracts from their economy,” Foggo said.
But for success to endure, Foggo said there is a need for more emphasis on arresting, charging and prosecuting those committing illegal activities in the Gulf.
“There has got to be some kind of deterrence or punishment applied in order to keep people from doing this in the future, otherwise if they go into a detention facility or jail and they get out, they just go back and do it again,” he said.
U.S. Navy Admiral James Foggo, in Ghana to participate in a conference on international maritime defense, meets with Navy personnel. (Stacey Knott for VOA)
Foggo is the commander of U.S. Allied Joint Force Command Naples, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, and U.S. Naval Forces Africa.
The Accra conference is focused on tackling threats from illegal fishing, piracy, kidnappings for ransom, illegal oil bunkering and drug trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea.
Commander Veronica Arhin, a spokesperson for Ghana’s Navy, says the goal of the meeting is to get as many experts and navies together to address security in the Gulf of Guinea.
”Collaboration between the navies in the Gulf of Guinea is extremely important because crimes or insecurity is transnational, it can move from one country to another, so there is a need for us to have that collaboration, such that if a ship has a problem in another country’s waters or there is a piracy attack and the pirates move to another country, there could be that communication. And the navies around the various countries could come together to fight such crimes,” said Arhin.
Ahmed Tabsoba, who grew up in Ghana, is now a U.S. citizen working for the U.S. Navy and back in his former home country as part of the conference. (Stacey Knott for VOA)
Those ideas are endorsed by Ahmed Tabsoba, who grew up in Ghana and is now an American citizen in the U.S. Navy.
Tabsoba has been stationed in Naples where the U.S. works with its 28 NATO allies. He was back in his home country, traveling with Admiral Foggo.
“We live in a world that you cannot predict what is going to happen next, so it’s really good to always build this relation[ship] and make sure we are there to help if something happens,” Tabsoba said.
The two-day International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference ending Thursday brings together 25 countries represented by speakers and exhibitors who hope to find ways to collaborate on solutions to the region’s challenges.
The acting head of the Homeland Security Department is complimenting what he says is cooperation with Guatemala to tighten immigration security.
Kevin McAleenan’s statement comes a day after President Donald Trump railed against Guatemala and threatened retribution against the Central American nation over immigration.
McAleenan says the collaboration is “already yielding significant results” and he mentions a joint operation in Guatemala that broke up a human smuggling ring in May.
McAleenan tells counterparts from Honduras, El Salvador and Panama, and the Costa Rican ambassador that he wants similar cooperation.
Trump tweeted that he may impose tariffs and tax remittance money, and he alleged that Guatemala refused to sign an asylum deal with the U.S. even though the country’s government didn’t say it had agreed to the arrangement.
One year after a catastrophic dam collapse in southern Laos killed dozens of people and displaced thousands, rights groups are demanding that multinational companies behind the $1 billion project do more for the hundreds of families still living in cramped shelters on meager rations.
On the night of July 23, 2018, an auxiliary — or saddle — dam of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower project collapsed, sending a wall of water crashing through more than a dozen villages. More than 7,000 people in Laos and thousands more in neighboring Cambodia were forced from their homes.
Homes and farms were wiped out. In the aftermath, one survivor told VOA that the water hit his village “like a tsunami.”
The Lao government put the final death toll at 49, with another 22 missing, although rights groups say the official tally may be a “gross underestimation.”
FILE – Villagers take refuge on a rooftop above floodwaters from a collapsed dam in the Attapeu district of southeastern Laos, July 24, 2018.
Some 5,000 displaced villagers are still living in temporary camps in Laos in sweltering, tightly packed tin shacks, surviving on irregular allowances and thin rations from the government. Some have been given plows and seeds, but no new land on which to use them, while much of the old farmland remains buried under silt and debris.
The joint venture behind the dam, the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Power Company, or PNPC, has reportedly started offering victims compensation, according to Maureen Harris, Southeast Asia program director for International Rivers, a non-profit organization. She spoke Tuesday in Bangkok at the release of a new report, “Reckless Endangerment: Assessing Responsibility for the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam Collapse.”
“But the communities report for the most part that these offers of compensation are too low; they don’t properly account for the real value of what’s been lost in terms of the property, but also the lost livelihoods as a result of losing that property,” Harris said.
While some victims are refusing the offers, others have relented. The government says it will be four or five years before a permanent resettlement site is ready.
Accountability
Rights groups say the many companies building and backing the dam, which is slated for completion later this year, are bound by international law to do more for the victims, and that their governments should compel them to follow through.
To date, none of the companies has been held accountable for the collapse, despite mounting evidence that the lead developer and builder, South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction, compromised safety for profit.
An independent investigation commissioned by the Lao government ruled out force majeure — an unforeseen “act of God.” Authorities have yet to release the investigation report but said the expert panel decided that a poor foundation was “the major cause” of the collapse.
FILE – An aerial view shows the flooded area after a dam collapsed in Attapeu province, Laos, July 25, 2018, in this image from social media.
A Stanford University scientist, who parsed data from the dam, concluded that the reservoir the saddle dam was holding back had been built over a sinkhole, causing the dam to sink and crack and finally fail when the rising waters mounted the top. A company document leaked by a Korean lawmaker also showed that all five saddle dams were several meters lower than intended by the original design plan and made of different material, saving millions of dollars.
“So there is growing evidence basically from different quarters that suggests that the lead developer … may have caused the collapse by their actions and inactions,” Harris said.
Of the other PNPC partners, the rights groups also place much of the burden on Thailand’s Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding, the project’s construction supervisor responsible for overseeing SK Engineering’s work.
SK Engineering has rejected the independent investigation’s findings and denied responsibility. The company has said it followed industry standards, but failed to offer an alternate explanation for the collapse.
SK Engineering did not reply to a request for comment from VOA.
A public relations officer for Ratchaburi declined to answer any questions and referred all inquiries to PNPC. A project manager for PNPC also declined to comment.
Lao government officials could not be reached.
Insurance policy
Citing an industry source, rights groups say the project took out a massive insurance policy that includes roughly $50 million in liability coverage that the affected families could tap into, some of it from U.S. insurance company AIG.
“There is a pot of insurance money here for exactly this kind of situation, and the affected people should have the capacity to claim against this insurance to remediate them for the losses,” said Craig Bradshaw, Southeast Asia legal coordinator for Inclusive Development International, which co-authored the report.
FILE – Kongvilay Inthavong and his wife, Thongla, clean up their house as the floodwaters start to recede in Sanamxay district, Attapeu province, Laos, July 26, 2018.
Harris and Bradshaw said their groups were in talks with lawyers on the potential for filing legal claims, most likely in South Korea, but possibly in Thailand as well.
Rights groups are urging the companies to halt construction until those affected are made whole again. Without a full and public accounting of exactly what went wrong, they say, locals are also left to wonder if the other four saddle dams holding back the reservoir face the same risks as the one that collapsed.
Premrudee Daorung, a coordinator with the Laos Dam Investment Monitor, a grass-roots group set up in the wake of the collapse, said the group hoped the fallout would also convince the government to reconsider its ambitious — critics would say overly so — hydropower plans.
“One of our first proposals, or the hope, was that Laos might be able to make use of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy case in order to turn the direction of the plan to become ‘the battery of Asia,’ to review that plan,” she said.
But with 27 more dams in the works and hundreds more still on the drawing board, she worried, those hopes appear dashed.
Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a law returning the OPEC nation to a regional defense treaty on Tuesday, but opposition leader Juan Guaido sought to tamp down supporters’ hopes it could lead to President Nicolas Maduro’s imminent downfall.
Opposition hardliners had been pressuring Guaido to join the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, as a precursor to requesting a foreign military intervention to oust Maduro, a socialist who has overseen an economic collapse and is accused of human rights violations.
“The TIAR is not magic, it is not a button that we press and then tomorrow everything is resolved,” Guaido told a rally of supporters in Caracas, using the treaty’s Spanish initials. “In itself it is not the solution – it obliges us to take to the streets with greater force to exercise our majority.”
The treaty states that an attack on one of the members – which include most large Western Hemisphere countries including the United States, Brazil and Colombia – should be considered an attack on all. Venezuela and other leftist Latin American countries left the alliance between 2012 and 2013.
Venezuela plunged into a deep power struggle in January when Guaido invoked the constitution to declare a rival presidency, arguing Maduro’s May 2018 re-election was illegitimate. He has been recognized as the rightful leader by most Western countries, including the United States.
FILE – Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro takes part in a military graduation ceremony in Caracas, July 8, 2019.
Maduro, who calls Guaido a U.S. puppet seeking to oust him in a coup, remains in control of government functions six months into Guaido’s campaign. The economy and public services have continued to deteriorate in that time, and on Monday much of the country went dark in the biggest blackout since March.
That has led some Maduro opponents, such as former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, to push Guaido to request foreign military intervention to oust Maduro.
U.S. officials have said a military option is “on the table” for Venezuela, but has so far focused on economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure to choke off cash flow to Maduro and try to convince top military officials to get behind Guaido.
Latin American and European countries are pushing a diplomatic solution to Venezuela’s political and economic crisis, and many have criticized the possible use of force.
Norway’s government is currently mediating negotiations between the government and the opposition in Barbados.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday told young people a number of falsehoods he’s been relating to adults for months and took a misleading swipe at the female Democratic lawmakers he’s trying to turn into foils.
A sampling of his remarks at a Turning Point USA gathering of conservative youth:
Trump, on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York: “She called our country and our people garbage. She said garbage. That’s worse than deplorable. Remember deplorable?”
The facts: Ocasio-Cortez did not label people “garbage.” She did use that term, somewhat indirectly, to describe the state of the country.
Arguing for a liberal agenda at a South by Southwest event in March, she said the U.S. shouldn’t settle for centrist policies because they would produce only marginal improvement — “10% better” than the “garbage” of where the country is now.
Trump has been assailing Ocasio-Cortez and three other liberal Democratic women of color in the House for more than a week, ever since he posted tweets saying they should “go back” to their countries, though all are U.S. citizens and all but one was born in the U.S.
Voter fraud
Trump: “And when they’re saying all of this stuff, and then those illegals get out and vote — because they vote anyway. Don’t kid yourself, those numbers in California and numerous other states, they’re rigged. You got people voting that shouldn’t be voting. They vote many times, not just twice, not just three times. They vote — it’s like a circle. They come back, they put a new hat on. They come back, they put a new shirt. And in many cases, they don’t even do that. You know what’s going on. It’s a rigged deal.”
The facts: Trump has produced no evidence of widespread voting fraud by people in the country illegally or by any group of people.
He tried, but the commission he appointed on voting fraud collapsed from infighting and from the refusal of states to cooperate when tapped for reams of personal voter data, like names, partial Social Security numbers and voting histories. Studies have found only isolated cases of voter fraud in recent U.S. elections and no evidence that election results were affected. Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt found 31 cases of impersonation fraud, for example, in about 1 billion votes cast in elections from 2000 to 2014.
Trump has falsely claimed that 1 million fraudulent votes were cast in California and cited a Texas state government report that suggested 58,000 people in the country illegally may have cast a ballot at least once since 1996. But state elections officials subsequently acknowledged serious problems with the report, as tens of thousands on the list were actually U.S. citizens.
U.S. economy
Trump: “We have the best economy in history.”
The facts: No matter how often he repeats this claim, the economy is nowhere near the best in the country’s history.
In fact, in the late 1990s, growth topped 4% for four straight years, a level it has not reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth reached 7.2% in 1984. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under President Barack Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.
The economy is now in its 121st month of growth, making it the longest expansion in history. Most of that took place under Obama.
Unemployment rate
Trump: “The best employment numbers in history.”
The facts: They are not the best ever.
The 3.7% unemployment rate in the latest report is not a record low. It’s near the lowest level in 50 years, when it was 3.5%. The U.S. also had lower rates than now in the early 1950s. And during three years of World War II, the annual rate was under 2%.
Employment numbers
Trump: “The most people working, almost 160 million, in the history of our country.”
The facts: Yes, but that’s only because of population growth.
A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.
According to Labor Department data, 60.6% of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in June. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7% in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9% when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.
Veterans Choice
Trump, on his efforts to help veterans: “I got Choice.”
The facts: He is not the president who “got” the Veterans Choice program, which gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Department of Veterans Affairs medical system at government expense.
Obama got it. Congress approved the program in 2014, and Obama signed it into law. Trump expanded it.
NATO
Trump: “We’re paying close to 100% on NATO.”
The facts: The U.S. is not “paying close to 100%” of the price of protecting Europe.
NATO has a shared budget to which each member makes contributions based on the size of its economy. The United States, with the biggest economy, pays the biggest share, about 22%.
Four European members — Germany, France, Britain and Italy — combined pay nearly 44% of the total. The money, about $3 billion, runs NATO’s headquarters and covers certain other civilian and military costs.
Defending Europe involves far more than that fund. The primary cost of doing so would come from each member country’s military budget, as the alliance operates under a mutual defense treaty.
The U.S. is the largest military spender, but others in the alliance have armed forces, too. The notion that almost all costs would fall to the U.S. is false. In fact, NATO’s Article 5, calling for allies to act if one is attacked, has only been invoked once, and it was on behalf of the U.S., after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
