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Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it is launching its dating service in 32 European countries after the rollout was delayed earlier this year due to regulatory concerns.The social media company had postponed the rollout of Facebook Dating in Europe in February after concerns were raised by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), the main regulator in the European Union for a number of the world’s biggest technology firms, including Facebook.The DPC had said it was told about the Feb. 13 launch date on Feb. 3 and was very concerned about being given such short notice.It also said it was not given documentation regarding data protection impact assessments or decision-making processes that had been undertaken by Facebook.Facebook Dating, a dedicated, opt-in space within the Facebook app, was launched in the United States in September last year. It is currently available in 20 other countries.In a blog post on Wednesday, Kate Orseth, Facebook Dating’s product manager, said users can choose to create a dating profile, and can delete it at any time without deleting their Facebook accounts.The first names and ages of users in their dating profiles will be taken from their Facebook profiles and cannot be edited in the dating service, Orseth said, adding that users’ last names will not be displayed and that they can choose whether to share other personal information on their profiles.
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Protesters in Lagos, Nigeria, have accused the military of opening fire on them Tuesday as they defied a curfew to demand an end to police brutality. Nigeria’s military has denied that the uniformed men, seen in social media videos firing on the unarmed protesters, were their troops.Twenty-five year old Dominic Alonge left work early after Lagos authorities announced an impromptu curfew that began at 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday.He spent hours in traffic but couldn’t make it through road blocks mounted by protesters. He then walked until he arrived the Lekki toll gate and decided to join the protests.Police officers detain a protester at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos, Nigeria, Oct. 21, 2020.Alonge says that around 7 p.m., security men in military uniforms descended on the crowd and opened fire after disabling CCTV cameras and street lights, he said.”They fired rounds and rounds of live ammunitions on dispersing protesters. The security agents could use water or even whips, to disperse people but they used live ammunitions that killed plenty,” said Alonge.Other eyewitnesses say many protesters were killed during the shooting and many more gravely injured.However, Lagos officials say only one person has died, with others receiving treatment at hospitals in Lagosu state.State governor Babajide Sanwo-olu visited injured protesters on Wednesday morning and urged Lagos citizens to remain calm.In this photo released by the Lagos State government press, governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, right, visit victims injured in last night’s protests in a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, Oct. 21, 2020.But human rights organizations are blaming the government for the shooting. Ariyo Dare is the leader of one such group, the Nigeria Center for Liberty. “The shooting of peaceful protesters by men of the Nigerian army, including other security agencies, are all barbaric acts carried out by rogue soldiers, elements sent by the Nigerian government with the connivance of the Lagos state government to unleash terror on peaceful protesters,” said Dare.Both Lagos authorities and the Nigerian army have denied ordering the shooting. On Wednesday, hours after the shooting, angry youths launched reprisal attacks all over the state, burning and damaging many state-owned establishments, including media houses believed to be influenced by the government.People stand near a burning shop as demonstrators protest against police brutality in Lagos, Nigeria, Oct. 21, 2020.The home of the governor’s mother was also targeted and razed to the ground.Ariyo Dare said violence is likely to escalate.”This protest cannot end with the way and manner the government has handled this protest. There is no way the protests will end in this format, even when the curfew is over Nigerians will still continue these protests,” said Dare.Rights activists have accused Nigerian authorities in the past of using excessive force against citizens.Amnesty International has been investigating alleged rights violations by Nigerian forces for many years but the organization’s country director, Osai Ojigho, said the perpetrators remain emboldened.”Our first report focusing specifically on the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was done in 2016 and in that report, we gave specific recommendations that needed to happen. One of which was prosecuting violating officers, the second was entrenching the Police Service Commission in order for them to do their job, but sadly things continued. We continued to receive cases and we opened up even further research into this area,” said Ojigho.As tensions mount across Nigeria, the U.S. consulate in Lagos was shut down Tuesday, and the State Department warned Americans in Nigeria to be careful.
 
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French President Emmanuel Macron paid a soaring tribute to slain history teacher Samuel Paty during a national commemoration Wednesday at Paris’ Sorbonne University, describing him as incarnating values of tolerance and learning, and describing in bleak terms the threat of radical Islam.“We will not renounce cartoons,” said Macron, in reference to cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that Paty used in a class on secular values — and which authorities said led to his beheading by an Islamist terrorist.“Samuel Paty was killed because the Islamists want our future,” the president said, adding, “they will never have it.”The ceremony, marked by a moment of silence and the posthumous bestowal on Paty of France’s highest Legion of Honor award, capped an outpouring of grief and anger over Paty’s death near the Paris-area school where he worked.Paty’s death has shaken the nation partly for its sheer brutality, but also because it attacked what many French consider sacrosanct — the nation’s public schools as hubs of critical thinking and free expression, along with its staunch creed of laicité, or secularism.Yet, along with flowers, marches and tributes — including mass rallies in major cities that have gathered tens of thousands — the country is witnessing a fractured response to its latest terrorist attack, which mixes calls for war against Islamist extremism with fears the country may be taking its secular ethos too far.“There is a political culture that has problems with Islam, and that is laicité,” said sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, a specialist on radical Islam. “And laicité is a major problem.”Prophet Muhammad cartoonsPaty was killed going home from school last Friday in apparent retaliation for showing the controversial cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad to his students, during a class on free expression. Authorities said seven people, including two minors, would appear before an anti-terrorism judge.French anti-terrorist state prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard holds a press conference, Oct. 21, 2020, in Paris.At a press conference Wednesday, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Ricard said Paty’s killer, Chechen immigrant Abdullakh Anzorov, 18, gave students at Paty’s school, in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, money in exchange for identifying the teacher.Two accepted, and Anzorov followed and killed Paty after class, posting his gruesome act on social media. Shortly after, police shot dead Anzorov, an ethnic Chechen who had received asylum and later resident status in France.The assailant apparently was motivated by a social media campaign against the teacher for showing the controversial cartoons. The campaign had been launched by a disgruntled parent, although the man’s daughter apparently never attended the free-expression class.Both the parent and an alleged Islamist militant, who helped spread the social media campaign against Paty, are among those appearing before an anti-terror judge.  Also appearing are the two students, aged 14 and 15, who told investigators Anzorov said he intended to humiliate and hit Paty, but not kill him.Government crackdownFrench authorities have riposted swiftly to the killing, announcing the expulsion of more than 250 alleged Islamist radicals of foreign origin. They also launched dozens of raids on suspect groups this week, shuttering one mosque and vowing to dissolve several organizations allegedly linked to extremism.Among them is the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, or CCIF, an NGO that receives state funding, but which critics say is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier this week, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin denounced it as an “enemy of the republic,” accusing it of backing the disgruntled father’s fatwa or ruling against Paty — a claim CCIF head Jawad Bachare rejects.Residents applaud after observing a minute of silence for slain history teacher Samuel Paty, Oct.21, 2020, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, southwestern France.“The government has not been able to protect its population and it needs someone to blame — and it’s us,” Bachare said in a phone interview, describing the CCIF as apolitical and nonreligious.The father had approached the CCIF for legal support, he added, but the group had advised him to immediately remove his social media postings while it investigated his complaints.Paty’s killing was the second terrorist incident here in less than a month. An earlier stabbing in Paris that severely wounded two people also was triggered by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. Together with an ongoing trial over the 2015 attacks on the satirical newspaper, they are again putting in the spotlight France’s Muslim community, which is Western Europe’s largest.Prominent Muslim leaders have rushed to denounce the attacks, even as they worry Muslims may be unfairly stigmatized.”This is the moment, and we support our president and our government and the minister of the interior to really go and fight Islamism, to really go and look for them in their cellars, on their websites, where they hide,” said Paris-area Imam Hassen Chalghoumi during a ceremony commemorating Paty.Secularism at stakeMembers of France’s far right and several center-right leaders say the government has not gone far enough.”Since terrorism is an act of war, it needs wartime legislation” against radical Islam, said far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen, demanding broader changes, including further curbs on immigration.Macron’s centrist government plans to unveil so-called anti-separatism legislation in early December, which is expected to largely focus on radical Islam.“Laicité is the cement of a united France,” Macron said, announcing the bill last month. But others suggest laicité — or at least the official interpretation of it — is part of the problem. From banning Muslim burkinis on beaches to religious symbols in schools, it is feeding divisions, they warn, and paradoxically risks pushing some conservative Muslims to extremism.Khosrokhavar describes conducting multiple interviews with middle-class French Muslim men, many of whom said they were not particularly religious.Pedestrians walk along Marseille’s Old Port as the town hall is lit up in the French Tricolor to honor slain teacher Samuel Paty, Oct. 21, 2020.“The majority are deeply alienated, because they are targeted by this laicité, which becomes a symbol of neocolonial rule and a denial of their dignity,” he said.Teachers on the linePaty’s death also has shaken the country’s educational establishment. In rallies and commemorations, teachers have turned out en masse, brandishing banners defending free expression. In interviews, they describe tensions teaching laicité  to an increasingly diverse student body, especially those of Muslim origin.“There is a penetration of a religiosity that increasingly structures students and feeds a radical vision,” Iannis Roder, a history teacher in the heavily immigrant Seine-Saint-Denis region outside Paris, told French radio. “It manifests itself in really basic things, like some students refusing to listen to music during Ramadan.”Another Seine-Saint-Denis high school teacher told VOA that teaching tolerance takes time.“Tackling free expression by showing images of the Prophet [Muhammad] — you have to weigh the consequences,” said the teacher, who declined to be identified as she had not received authorization from her school to speak to the media.Instead, she opts for a less confrontational approach, taking her mostly Muslim students on school outings to Holocaust memorials and other sites — and drawing links with their own backgrounds. Slowly, she said, the lessons sink in.“The old students return to coach the youngsters,” she said. “It makes a really big difference.”
 
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A day after donning a face mask for the first time during a liturgical service, Pope Francis was back to his mask-less old ways Wednesday despite surging coronavirus infections across Europe and growing criticism of his behavior and the example he is setting.
Francis shunned a face mask again during his Wednesday general audience in the Vatican auditorium, and didn’t wear one when he greeted a half-dozen mask-less bishops at the end. He shook hands and leaned in to chat privately with each one.
While the clerics wore masks while seated during the audience, all but one took his mask off to speak to the pope. Only one kept it on, and by the end of his tete-a-tete with Francis, had lowered it under his chin.
Vatican regulations now require facemasks to be worn indoors and out where distancing can’t be “always guaranteed.” The Vatican hasn’t responded to questions about why the pope wasn’t following either Vatican regulations or basic public health measures to prevent COVID-19.
Francis has faced sharp criticism even from his most ardent supporters and incredulousness from some within the Vatican for refusing to wear a mask.
Just this week, the Vatican expert and columnist, the Rev. Thomas Reese, wrote a blistering, tough-love open letter to the pope offering him six reasons he should wear a mask and urging like-minded faithful to troll the pope’s @Pontifex Twitter feed to shame him into setting a better example.
“You’re the boss; you should follow your own rules,” Reese wrote. “When the clergy hold themselves above the rules, we call that clericalism, a sin that you have loudly denounced.”
At the start of his audience Wednesday, Francis explained to the faithful why he didn’t plunge into the crowd as he usually would do. But he said his distance from them was for their own well-being, to prevent crowds from forming around him.
“I’m sorry for this, but it’s for your own safety,” he said. “Rather than get close to you, shake your hands and greet you, I greet you from far away. But know that I’m close to you with my heart.”
He didn’t address his decision to forego wearing a mask.
Francis did, however, wear a white face mask throughout an interreligious prayer service in downtown Rome on Tuesday, removing it only to speak. He had previously only been seen wearing one once before as he entered and exited his car in a Vatican courtyard on Sept. 9. Italian law requires masks indoors and out.
At 83 and with part of a lung removed when he was in his 20s due to illness, the pope would be at high risk for COVID-19 complications. He has urged the faithful to comply with government mandates to protect public health.
In the past week, 11 Swiss Guards and a resident of the hotel where Francis lives have tested positive. All told, the Vatican City State has had 27 cases, according to the Johns Hopkins University running tally.
In Italy, the onetime European epicenter of COVID-19, coronavirus cases are surging, with the Lazio region around Vatican City among the hardest hit. Lazio has more people hospitalized and in intensive care than any other region except Italy’s most populous and hardest-hit region, Lombardy.
Inside the Vatican auditorium Wednesday, the crowd wore masks as did the Swiss Guards. But Francis, his two aides and some of the protocol officials didn’t.
In his open letter to Francis, which Reese said was a “fraternal correction” from a fellow Jesuit, the American noted that Francis was trained as a scientist, and should know to trust the science on virus protection. He urged Francis to be a good Jesuit and obey doctors and the Vatican’s own mask mandates.
Saying Francis’ decision to forego a mask was a sin, Reese urged Francis to set a better example to others and avoid being lumped in the same camp as COVID-19 negationists and mask-averse U.S. President Donald Trump, with whom Francis has clashed.
“Do you really want to be in company with a man who builds walls rather than bridges, who demonizes refugees and immigrants, who turns his back to the marginalized?” Reese asked. “I don’t think so, but that is where you are as long as, like Trump, you do not wear a mask.”
Reese’s campaign was having an effect. Dutch Catholic theologian Hendro Munsterman tweeted his anger at @Pontifex, writing: “How do we tell our kids to protect themselves and others if you cannot even give an example?”
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Doctors know that viruses can affect pregnant women and their developing fetuses. They are scrambling now to understand the effects of COVID-19 on pregnancies. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.Producer: Bronwyn Benito  
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Authorities in Nigeria are investigating reports that soldiers opened fire on demonstrators protesting against police brutality Tuesday night. The incident took place at Lekki Toll Plaza, an upscale district in Lagos, the country’s largest city and financial hub. One eyewitness, Akinbosola Ogunsanya, told news outlets that soldiers pulled into the plaza and after the lights were turned off at the plaza began shooting.   Ogunsanya and other eyewitnesses say there were multiple casualties at the scene.  Reports of the shooting came on the first night of a 24-hour curfew imposed by Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, which prohibits all but essential workers and first responders from the streets after 4 p.m. local time.  A spokesman for the governor, Gboyega Akosile, said on Twitter that the Lagos state government has ordered an investigation into the incident.The State Government has ordered an investigation into the incident.Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has advised the security agents not to arrest anyone on account of the curfew, which he urges residents to observe for the peaceful atmosphere we all cherish. #LASG#ForAGreaterLagos— The Lagos State Govt (@followlasg) October 20, 2020The international human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement saying there was “credible but disturbing evidence” of fatalities from the shooting at Lekki Toll Plaza.   “While we continue to investigate the killings, Amnesty International wishes to remind the authorities that under international law, security forces may only resort to the use of lethal force when strictly unavoidable to protect against imminent threat of death or serious injury,” the human rights watchdog tweeted.   The West African nation has been engulfed by two weeks of massive protests against the government’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad, commonly known as SARS, which were sparked by video allegedly depicting a man being beaten by SARS officers. The unit has long been accused of carrying out harassment, kidnappings, extortion, torture and murder. The demonstrations, conducted under the banner #EndSARS, led the Nigerian government to disband the controversial police unit.  But the demonstrations have persisted and turned violent as protesters demand broader changes to policing and an end to corruption.Video taken by a stringer for VOA’s Hausa service in the city of Jos Tuesday showed angry demonstrators hurling rocks and setting fires in the middle of one street, sidewalks covered with glass from shattered windows, burned out vehicles, and uniformed and plainclothes police patrolling the streets. “We need a new Nigeria. That is why we’re here,” protester David Danladi told VOA Hausa. “We need everything about the police to be changed.”   “We need someone that is going to address, that is going to tell us, ‘Look, we have heard your cry. We have heard your demands,’” Danladi said. “That is the change that we want.” At least 10 people have died since protests began earlier this month. Protesters and rights groups including Amnesty International have accused Nigerian police of using excessive force during demonstrations.  
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The White House and the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives “are serious about finding a compromise” on a second massive round of coronavirus aid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday. Pelosi said she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke by telephone Tuesday afternoon, and that she hoped they could continue talks Wednesday after he returns from an overseas trip. “Our conversation provided more clarity and common ground as we move closer to an agreement. Today’s deadline enabled us to see that decisions could be reached and language could be exchanged,” Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic colleagues. The two sides called on the heads of congressional committees “to resolve differences about funding levels and language,” Pelosi said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell committed Tuesday to bring any Trump-approved legislation that results from such a deal to the Senate floor for a vote.  “If such a deal were to clear the House, obviously, with the presidential signature or promise, we would put it on the floor of the Senate,” McConnell told reporters.     If negotiations between the White House and the Democratic-majority House of Representatives fail, the next opportunity for negotiations on aid will come during a lame-duck session of Congress in November and December.  “Nancy Pelosi isn’t serious,” McConnell said Tuesday on the timing of negotiations. “That’s because she doesn’t want anything to pass, she and [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer have made a calculated decision. It’s a political decision that nothing is going to pass until after Election Day because they believe that they have better chances of success on Election Day.”Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after casting his vote in the 2020 general election at the Kentucky Exhibition Center in Louisville, Ky., Oct. 15, 2020.The president also raised the timing of the deal in relation to the election during a campaign stop in Arizona Monday, saying Pelosi “at this moment, does not want to do anything that’s going to affect the election.”  U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly failed to reach an agreement on a second round of economic aid to millions of Americans impacted by the pandemic. In September, Senate Republicans failed to pass a slimmed-down $500 billion aid proposal. The House passed the $2.2 trillion Heroes Act in June and has so far rebuffed the administration’s offer of $1.8 trillion for a new round of aid.     The Senate voted Tuesday on another $500 billion proposal. That bill would provide funding for a new round of unemployment benefits and the popular Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).     McConnell said Senate Republicans did not feel there was a need for a second round of the $1,200 stimulus payments many Americans received as part of the CARES Act earlier this year.     “We thought about $500 billion was appropriate at this juncture,” he told reporters. “No one would argue the economy’s in good shape but it’s noteworthy that [un]employment is at about 8.4% which is what it was in several years during the Obama first term.”   He said the Republican proposal did provide funding for enhanced unemployment benefits.     Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Senate votes this week a stunt.  “Democrats want to get a big bold bill that will meet the American people’s needs as soon as we can,” he said. “Nancy Pelosi is fighting to get one now. And as you know we’ve been met just with intransigence by the Republican Senate. We will try to get one in the lame duck and we will try to get one should we win the presidency and win the senate after that, the sooner the better,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday.     President Donald Trump announced an end to negotiations on a new round of aid earlier this month before reversing course and tweeting, “Go big or go home!” His expression of support for a larger topline number closer to House Democrats’ asks for close to $2 trillion and has caused discomfort among many Senate Republicans.  The $2 trillion CARES Act, passed by bipartisan agreement in March, was one of the largest aid packages in U.S. history, providing $600 in weekly enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of out of work Americans. The weekly benefits expired on July 31.     The U.S. economy is showing some signs of recovery from the lockdowns instituted earlier this year to contain the spread of the virus. More than 11.4 million jobs have been recovered, and there are signs of increased hiring in hard-hit industries such as tourism.     New unemployment claims jumped last week to more than 890,000, the highest level since mid-August, although continuing unemployment claims dropped to 10 million.  The U.S. leads the world with just over 220,000 COVID-19 deaths, as well as infections, with more than 8 million cases total, according to Johns Hopkins University. 
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Should Americans trust polling data showing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump ahead of the November 3 election? VOA’s Elizabeth Lee takes a look.
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Hispanics, Blacks and Asian Americans in the U.S. have been dying at disproportionately higher rates from the coronavirus compared to white Americans, government health experts reported Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report that from late January — when the pandemic first hit U.S. shores from China and Europe — through early October, deaths of white people were about 12% higher than in the same months of the four previous years. But the CDC said deaths of Hispanics in that 2020 timeframe were 53.6% higher than in recent years, with deaths of Blacks up 32.9% and Asian Americans by 36.6%. “These disproportionate increases among certain racial and ethnic groups are consistent with noted disparities in COVID-19 mortality,” the CDC said. The federal health agency said the largest percentage increase in deaths was seen among individuals ages 25 to 44. In absolute numbers, people under age 25 fared best with 841 excess deaths. The total number of excess deaths compared to recent years ranged from 841 fatalities in people younger than 25 to 94,646 among those ages 75 to 84. The U.S. has now recorded more than 220,000 coronavirus deaths and 8.2 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University. Both figures are the highest of any country across the globe. 
 
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: “No one under 20 has died of COVID-19, and ‘it has not actually been determined yet’ that anyone under 20 can spread it to an older person.” — Wisconsin senatorVerdict: Mostly falseRead the full story at: PolitifactSocial Media DisinfoCirculating on social media: “A widely shared image claims to show CNN anchor Don Lemon denouncing Nigeria’s controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and Covid-19 as “two deadly viruses” killing people in the West African nation. AFP Fact Check found that the picture was digitally manipulated to change the news banner.” — AFP Fact CheckVerdict: FalseRead the full story at: AFP Fact Check Factual Reads on CoronavirusHow to void coronavirus while voting
Epidemiologists offer tips for U.S. voters and poll workers to limit their chances of getting infected. — Scientific American, October 14
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From making sure voters are eligible to cast a ballot, to tracking and reporting results, local election officers are key players in the U.S. presidential election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on what they’re doing to make the voting fair and safe.Camera and Produced by: Veronica Balderas Iglesias  
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The judge was incredulous as a federal prosecutor pushed to keep a 25-year-old man behind bars until his trial on a charge of having a Molotov cocktail at a protest in May.
The judge couldn’t understand how the government was arguing that the man — who had never previously been in trouble with the law, wasn’t a member of violent groups and lived with his parents in a suburb outside Austin, Texas — was too dangerous to be released.
The prosecutor pressed his case anyway, defending the government’s effort to keep the man locked up even as prisons across the U.S. were releasing high-risk inmates because of COVID-19 and prosecutors had been told to consider the risks of incarceration during a pandemic when seeking detention.
The case highlights the no-holds-barred approach the U.S. Department of Justice has taken against protesters involved in civil unrest, determined to focus on federal action and a reluctance to release.
It also underscores how the people being brought up on federal charges rarely fit President Donald Trump’s portrayal of them as members of left-wing radical groups.
An Associated Press review of thousands of pages of court documents from the more than 300 federal arrests nationwide shows that many look like people caught up in the moment. Very few of those charged appear to be affiliated with highly organized extremist groups, and many are young suburban adults who are from the very neighborhoods Trump is vowing to protect amid an election year effort to scare white voters from the suburbs into reelecting him.
Not to say there hasn’t been violence. Police cars have been set on fire. Officers have been injured and blinded. Windows have been smashed, stores looted, businesses destroyed.
Some of those facing charges undoubtedly share far-left and anti-government views. Far-right protesters also have been arrested and charged. Some defendants have driven to protests from out of state. Some have criminal records and were illegally carrying weapons. Others are accused of using the protests as an opportunity to steal or create havoc.
But many have had no previous run-ins with the law and no apparent ties to antifa, the umbrella term for leftist militant groups that Trump has said he wants to declare a terrorist organization.
Attorney General William Barr has urged his prosecutors to aggressively go after protesters who cause violence and has suggested that rarely used sedition charges could apply. But defense attorneys question why the Department of Justice has taken on some cases they say belong in state court, where defendants typically get much lighter sentences.
“It is highly unusual, and without precedent in recent American history,” said Ron Kuby, a longtime attorney who isn’t involved the cases but has represented scores of clients over the years in protest-related incidents. “Almost all of the conduct that’s being charged is conduct that, when it occurs, is prosecuted at the state and local level.”
In one case in Utah, where a police car was burned, federal prosecutors had to defend why they were bringing arson charges in federal court. They said it was appropriate because the patrol car was used in interstate commerce.
Even though most of the demonstrations have been peaceful, Trump has made “law and order” a major part of his reelection campaign, casting the protests as lawless and violent in mostly Democratic cities he says have done nothing to stymie the mayhem. If the cities refuse to properly clamp down, he says, the federal government has to step in.
“I know about antifa, and I know about the radical left, and I know how violent they are and how vicious they are, and I know how they are burning down cities run by Democrats,” Trump said at an NBC town hall.
In dozens of cases, the government has pushed to keep the protesters behind bars while they await their trials amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 220,000 people across the U.S. There have been more than 16,000 positive cases in the federal prison system, according to a tracker compiled by the AP and The Marshall Project.
In some cases, prosecutors have gone so far as appealing judge’s orders to release defendants. Pre-trial detention generally is reserved only for people who are clearly dangers to the community or a risk of fleeing.
In the Texas case, Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin repeatedly challenged the prosecutor to explain why Cyril Lartigue, who authorities say was caught on camera making a Molotov cocktail, should be behind bars while he awaits his trial. Lartigue, of Cedar Park, described his actions that night as a “flash of stupidity,” prosecutors said.
The judge said there are lot of people “who do something stupid that’s dangerous that we don’t even consider detaining.”
“I’m frustrated because I don’t think this is a hard case,” the judge said. “I have defendants in here with significant criminal histories that the government agrees to release.”
“We have no evidence of him — at least that’s been given to me — being a radical or a member of a group that advocates violence toward the police or others. We’ve got no criminal history. … What evidence is there that he’s a danger to society?” the judge asked.
The judge allowed Lartigue to stay out of jail.
While some of the defendants clearly hold radical or anti-government beliefs, prosecutors have provided little evidence of any affiliations they have with organized extremist groups.
In one arrest in Erie, Pennsylvania, community members raised more than $2,500 to help with bail for a 29-year-old Black man who was arrested after they said white people had come and spray painted a parking lot.
In thousands of pages of court documents, the only apparent mention of antifa is in a Boston case in which authorities said a FBI Gang Task Force member was investigating “suspected ANTIFA activity associated with the protests” when a man fired at him and other officers. Authorities have not claimed that the man accused of firing the shots is a member of antifa.
Others have social media leftist ties; a Seattle man who expressed anarchist beliefs on social media is accused of sending a message through a Portland citizen communication portal threatening to blow up a police precinct.
Several of the defendants are not from the Democratic-led cities that Trump has likened to “war zones” but from the suburbs the president has claimed to have “saved.” Of the 93 people arrested on federal criminal charges in Portland, 18 defendants are from out of state, the Justice Department said.
This has contributed to a blame game that has been a subplot throughout the protests. Leaders in Minneapolis and Detroit have decried people from out of state and suburbanites for coming into their cities and causing havoc. Trump in turn has blamed the cities for not doing their part.
“Don’t come down to Detroit and tear the city up and then go back home. That’s putting another knee on the neck of Black folk because we got to live here,” the Rev. Wendell Anthony of the NAACP said in May.
More than 40% of those facing federal charges are white. More than two-thirds are under the age of 30, and most are men. More than a quarter have been charged with arson. More than a dozen are accused of civil disorder, and others are charged with burglary and failing to comply with a federal order. They were arrested in cities across the U.S., from Portland, Oregon, to Minneapolis, Boston and New York.
Attorneys for those facing federal charges either declined to comment or didn’t respond to messages from the AP.
Brian Bartels, a 20-year-old suburban Pittsburgh man who is described by prosecutors as a “self-identified left-wing anarchist,” was flanked by his parents when he turned himself in to authorities. Bartels, who lives at his parents’ house, spray painted an “A” on a police cruiser before jumping on top of it and smashing its windshield during a protest in the city, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in September.
One defendant who was arrested during a protest in the central Massachusetts city of Worcester told authorities he was “with the anarchist group.” Vincent Eovacious, 18, who is accused of possessing several Molotov cocktails, told authorities that he had been “waiting for an opportunity,” according to court documents.
But tucked into the protest-related cases are accusations of far-right extremism and racism as well.
John Malcolm Bareswill, angry that a local Black church held a prayer vigil for George Floyd, called the church and threatened to burn it to the ground, using racial slurs in a phone call overheard by children, prosecutors said. Bareswill, 63, of Virginia Beach, faces 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to making a telephonic threat.
Two Missouri militia members who authorities say traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to see Trump’s visit in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake were arrested at a hotel in September with a cache of guns, according to court documents. An attorney for one of the men, Michael Karmo, said he is “charged criminally for conduct that many Americans would consider patriotic,” as authorities have alleged his motive was to assist overwhelmed law enforcement.
Three of the men arrested are far-right extremists, members of the “Boogaloo” movement plotting to overthrow the government and had been stockpiling military-grade weapons and hunting around for the right public event to unleash violence for weeks before Floyd’s death, according to court documents.
After aborting a mission related to reopening businesses in Nevada as the coronavirus pandemic raged, they settled on a Floyd-related protest led by Black Lives Matter. Angry it had not turned violent, they brought carloads of explosives, military-grade weapons, to a meet-up about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the protest site and pumped gasoline into tanks. FBI agents arrested them before they could act, according to a criminal complaint.
FBI Director Christopher Wray recently told a congressional panel  that extremists driven by white supremacist or anti-government ideologies have been responsible for most deadly attacks in the U.S. over the past few years. He said that antifa is more of an ideology or a movement than an organization, though the FBI has terrorism investigations of “violent anarchist extremists, any number of whom self identify with the antifa movement.”
But the handling of the federal protest cases is vastly different from other recent times of unrest.
“Look at Travyon (Martin) verdicts, Eric Garner verdicts,” Kuby said, talking about high-profile cases in which Black people were killed but no charges were filed.
“There was a tremendous amount of anger and unrest and activity that was objectively unlawful,” he said. “There were objections about law enforcement being militarized, but you didn’t see following the quelling of those demonstrations any significant federal law enforcement involvement.”
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Thousands of aboriginal Australians are expected to join a class action lawsuit that has been filed against the West Australian government for compensation for years of unpaid work. Historians have said that at the time the authorities knew the practice was a form of slavery.      In the 19th and 20th centuries, indigenous children as young as four were forcibly taken from their families to work in mines, on farms and as domestic servants in Australia.  Many received little or no wages, and some were paid only with bread and beef.   Lawyers have said conditions were “akin to slavery.” Until the 1970s, wages earned by indigenous workers in Western Australia were paid to the state government, but rarely was the money passed on. 
 
Lawyers have said as many as 10,000 workers and their descendants would be eligible to join the stolen wages class action lawsuit, which has been filed in Australia’s Federal Court. 
 
Jan Saddler is the head of class actions at Shine Lawyers, a legal firm that is leading the court case.     
 
“We have been talking to indigenous Western Australians who are well into their 70s and 80s.  Those people have effectively been waiting all their lives to be properly compensated.  They are actually waiting to receive their wages from the 1940s and the 1950s and they still have not been paid, and this is what that claim is all about,” she said.
 
Up until the late 1970s, Australia’s laws controlled every aspect of indigenous peoples’ lives — from buying clothes to whether they could marry.  They also allowed wages to be withheld.   
 
The Western Australian state government, which is being sued for compensation, has said it hopes a mediated settlement can be reached. 
 
Multi-million-dollar reparation schemes have compensated indigenous workers in the states of Queensland and New South Wales.  A previous restitution program in Western Australia limited claimants to payments of $1,400 and came with strict conditions.  Campaigners said it was too restricted and did not go far enough to address the injustices of the past.  
 
A federal parliamentary inquiry in 2006 tried to determine how much money may have been stolen from aboriginal Australians over the decades, but lawmakers found that wage theft was so widespread the amount was almost impossible to calculate.    
 
 
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Bolivian presidential candidate Carlos Mesa of the Citizen Community party has conceded defeat to rival Luis Arce Catacora, candidate of the Movement Towards Socialism party, citing exit polls showing Arce with an insurmountable lead. Speaking Monday, Mesa said he recognizes that there has been a winner in the election and that it is appropriate in a democracy to recognize the victory. Mesa’s concession comes a day after the election, with the official count by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal expected in the next few days.  Exit polls revealed Arce obtained at least a 20-percentage point lead over Mesa, with third placed candidate Luis Fernando Camacho of the Creemos coalition garnering just over 14 percent of the votes. Meantime, the French News Agency reports exiled former president Evo Morales is suggesting he will return to Bolivia after the election victory by Arce, a former member of Morales’ cabinet.
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Thousands of indigenous peoples in Colombia are planning to join a national strike this week after staging a mass protest Monday in Bogota, insisting the government change its economic and social policies. Protesters are also demanding an end to violence against social leaders and mass killings.  Indigenous leaders refused to meet with a delegation sent by President Ivan Duque, saying they wanted to meet directly with the Colombian leader. President Duque said nothing justifies placing our health and life at risk at the moment. He said if we have discussions, let’s have them within the framework of democracy, without issuing a summons or ultimatums, or invoking judgments that have no basis in reality. He added the dialogue should be sectorial and timely with regard to the issues of the regions, as we have already had.  Indigenous groups are expected to join Wednesday’s planned national strike set up by unions other groups. 
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President Donald Trump heaped criticism Monday against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the press and the polls that show him trailing Democrat Joe Biden in key battleground states two weeks before Election Day. On the third day of a Western campaign swing, Trump is hoping for the type of last-minute surge that gave him a come-from-behind victory four years ago.  His aggressive travel comes as Trump plays defense in states he won four years ago, though the president insisted he was confident as he executed a packed schedule despite the pandemic. “We’re going to win,” he told campaign staff on a morning conference call from Las Vegas. He went on to acknowledge: “I wouldn’t have told you that maybe two or three weeks ago,” referring to the days when he was hospitalized with COVID-19.  Seeking to shore up the morale of his staff, Trump blasted his government’s own scientific experts as too negative, even as his handling of the pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 Americans remains a central issue to voters. “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Trump said of the government’s top infectious disease expert. “Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb. But there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci’s a disaster.” At a rally in Prescott, Arizona, Trump assailed Biden for pledging to heed the advice of scientific experts, saying dismissively that his rival “wants to listen to Dr. Fauci.” The doctor is both respected and popular, and Trump’s rejection of scientific advice on the pandemic has drawn bipartisan condemnation. At his rally, Trump also ramped up his attacks on the news media, singling out NBC’s Kristen Welker, the moderator of the next presidential debate, as well as CNN for aggressively covering a pandemic that is now infecting tens of thousands of Americans every day.  Fauci, in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired Sunday, said he was not surprised that Trump contracted the virus after he held a series of large events with few face coverings. Fauci also objected to the president’s campaign using his words in a campaign ad. “I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask,” Fauci said of the president. Trump’s comments drew a defense of Fauci from Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, who praised the doctor as one of the nation’s “most distinguished public servants.”  As Trump turned his flouting of scientific advice into a campaign applause line, Alexander added that if more Americans had heeded Fauci’s advice, “we’d have fewer cases of COVID-19, and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work and out to eat.” Biden was off the campaign trail Monday, preparing for Thursday’s second and final debate. His campaign praised Fauci while saying that “Trump’s reckless and negligent leadership threatens to put more lives at risk.” “Trump’s closing message in the final days of the 2020 race is to publicly mock Joe Biden for trusting science and to call Dr. Fauci, the leading public health official on COVID-19, a ‘disaster’ and other public health officials ‘idiots,'” the campaign said. “Trump is mocking Biden for listening to science. Science.” 
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The United States has rejected the expiration of an international arms embargo on Iran, saying it will use its domestic laws to punish any weapons supplier dealing with the Islamic Republic.   “No nation that desires a peaceful Middle East should contemplate arms sales with Iran,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday on Twitter. “We are prepared to use domestic authorities to sanction individuals or entities contributing to these arms sales.”  Another statement issued Saturday by Pompeo gave a different interpretation of the arms embargoes, saying that “virtually all U.N. sanctions on Iran returned” on Sept. 19 after Washington triggered the “snapback” provision of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.   FILE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters following a meeting with members of the U.N. Security Council, at the United Nations, Aug. 20, 2020. (AP)Other world powers, including America’s European allies, disagree with the U.S. interpretation, saying that by withdrawing from the JCPOA in 2018, Washington forfeited its right to use the snapback provision of the deal.   Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the lifting of the arms embargo was a success for his country’s diplomacy.  “A momentous day for the international community, which — in defiance of malign U.S. efforts — has protected UNSC Res. 2231 and JCPOA,” Zarif tweeted Sunday.   FILE – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speaks at the Raisina Dialogue 2020 in New Delhi, India, Jan. 15, 2020. (AP)”Today’s normalization of Iran’s defense cooperation with the world is a win for the cause of multilateralism and peace and security in our region,” he added.  No shopping spree  Despite the expiration of the decade-long embargo, some experts doubt that Iran will go on a weapons shopping spree as its economy struggles under crippling U.S. sanctions.  “Iran’s difficult economic situation remains the greatest obstacle to its procurement of large-scale, costly weapons,” Nicole Grajewski, a fellow with the Belfer Center’s International Security Program, wrote in an article published on the center’s Russia Matters website.    “It is simply unfeasible for a country facing a crippling economic downturn to afford expensive weapons such as the S-400 or a squadron of fighter jets,” she added.   Iran’s imported weapon systems largely date back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which resulted in the ouster of the country’s pro-Western King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Those weapons, experts say, need upgrading now.  FILE – In this photo released by the official website of the Iranian Defense Ministry Aug. 13, 2018, Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami walks past a missile display at an undisclosed location in Iran.Iran Defense Minister Amir Hatami on Sunday, however, boasted about his country’s homemade weapons.  “The ground for selling and buying weapons is prepared for the Islamic Republic of Iran, but of course the sales will be more,” Iranian state-owned Tehran Times quoted Hatami as saying.   U.S. sanctions  Since its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Washington has increasingly imposed sanctions on those trading with Iran. Currently, nearly all key sectors of Iran’s oil-based economy are under U.S. sanctions.  The most recent round of sanctions, introduced earlier this month, targeted 18 “major” Iran-based banks. That followed last month’s sweeping executive order from President Donald Trump to “restrict Iran’s nuclear, ballistic missile and conventional weapons pursuits.”  Russia and China are viewed as the most likely arms suppliers to Iran as both countries have publicly stated their willingness to sell weapons to Tehran.   But experts are split on whether U.S. sanctions have the power to deter Moscow and Beijing from signing defense contracts with Iran.”If anything, the Trump administration’s opposition to arms sales to Iran could incentivize the Russians and Chinese to announce new transfers, which would probably take some time to implement,” Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told VOA.  On the other hand, Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), says the threat of sanctions by the Trump administration along with previous authorities “constitute robust non-kinetic tools to deter and/or punish sales or transfers of weapons.”  Even though the most recent designations include a “military-affiliated bank,” some experts suggest their impact on the ground would be symbolic.    “Iranian officials have already admitted that their interaction with the global system has been blocked for months,” Alex Vatanka, an Iran analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told VOA. “So more sanctions would not necessarily worsen their situation as the governor of central bank of Iran, [Abdolnaser] Hemmati, has made it clear that almost all companies and countries are staying away from dealing with Iran.”   Humanitarian exemptions  Washington says its sanctions include exemptions that would permit sending humanitarian assistance to the Iranian people as they are battling the coronavirus pandemic.   “Our sanctions programs will continue until Iran stops its support of terrorist activities and ends its nuclear programs,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Oct. 8 when introducing the latest round of sanctions. “Today’s actions will continue to allow for humanitarian transactions to support the Iranian people.”  Iranian officials claim that the U.S. designation of Iranian banks is aimed at “starving” the Iranian people.    “Amid COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food and medicine,” Zarif said in response to the recent U.S. designations.   Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based advocacy group, said the U.S. sanctions would rather help expose Iranian policies that prioritize military adventurism over the well-being of its people.   “Just a few weeks ago,” he said, “Iran’s health minister complained that only a small portion of promised funds from the National Development Fund (NDF), which is controlled by Iran’s supreme leader, had been received for combating the coronavirus.”  “The NDF has been used in the past to fund Iran’s malign activity throughout the region,” Brodsky said.  
 
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