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John Robert Lewis, a champion of civil rights for African Americans and longtime U.S. lawmaker, has died. He was 80. The veteran congressman died Friday after a yearlong battle with advanced pancreatic cancer.John Lewis rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. At age 23, he worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. and was the last surviving keynote speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. During the historic gathering, Lewis reminded America of the power of the civil rights movement.“By the force of our demands, our determination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy.  We must say: ‘Wake up America!  Wake up!’ For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient,” said Lewis, overlooking a crowd of 250,000.Former U.S. President Barack Obama said, “In so many ways, John’s life was exceptional. But he never believed that what he did was more than any citizen of this country might do. He believed that in all of us, there exists the capacity for great courage, a longing to do what’s right, a willingness to love all people, and to extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect. And it’s because he saw the best in all of us that he will continue, even in his passing, to serve as a beacon in that long journey towards a more perfect union.”From humble beginnings to a civil rights leaderBorn February 21, 1940, outside Troy, Alabama, John Lewis was the son of sharecroppers who grew up in the racially segregated South. He was not able to vote, enroll in college or obtain a public library card because he was Black.Determined to be a part of the struggle for equal rights, Lewis graduated from Fisk University in Nashville in 1963 with a degree in religion and philosophy.As a student, he organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated “Whites Only” lunch counters and staged bus boycotts. Lewis was one of the 13 original “Freedom Riders” beaten and arrested for riding alongside white passengers on interstate buses in the South.Two years later, as chairman of the influential Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he helped register thousands of Black voters in places like Alabama and Mississippi. “I’ve always fought for what was right,” said Lewis.Life-changing eventsAs a 25-year-old activist, Lewis was badly beaten by white Alabama state troopers as he and 600 peaceful demonstrators marched for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. Lewis suffered a fractured skull. Television images of the incident known as “Bloody Sunday” caused a national awakening to end racial discrimination.“I was beaten bloody and tear-gassed, fighting for what’s right for America. Our country would never ever be the same, because of what happened on this bridge,” said Lewis of the history-making event.Later that year, Lewis stood next to President Lyndon Johnson when he signed the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. The legislation outlawed discriminatory voting practices that kept Blacks from gaining political power.SuccessThe civil rights movement led John Lewis into a career of politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981. Lewis was elected to Congress in 1986, calling it “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 5th district.Sometimes called the “conscience of the Congress,” Lewis fought for income equality for minorities, criminal justice reform, gun safety and health care for all. In recognition of his achievements, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2011.“Every day of John Lewis’s life was dedicated to bringing freedom and justice to all,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.  “As he declared 57 years ago during the March on Washington, standing in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial: ‘Our minds, souls, and hearts cannot rest until freedom and justice exist for all the people.’ How fitting it is that even in the last weeks of his battle with cancer, John summoned the strength to visit the peaceful protests where the newest generation of Americans had poured into the streets to take up the unfinished work of racial justice.”Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Our great nation’s history has only bent towards justice because great men like John Lewis took it upon themselves to help bend it. Our nation will never forget this American hero.”While undergoing cancer treatment, he returned to Alabama to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the voting rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “We must go out and vote like we never, ever voted before,” he said. “I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to give in. We’re going to continue to fight. We must use the vote as a nonviolent instrument or tool to redeem the soul of America.”Before his death, Lewis endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for president in April 2020. In one of his last public statements, the congressman said, “I cannot stand by and watch President (Donald) Trump undo the progress we fought so hard for.”Lewis’s longtime friend and fellow civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said Lewis will be remembered for risking his life to change America for the better.Fern Robinson contributed to this story.  
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Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Friday he is now getting intelligence briefings and has been told Russia continues to try to meddle in November’s U.S. election.China also was conducting activities “designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome” of the 2020 election, Biden told supporters during an online fundraiser for his campaign.”We know from before, and I guarantee you that I know now, because now I get briefings again. The Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. Fact,” Biden said.He warned that if Russia continued to interfere there would be “a real price to pay” if he wins the November election against Republican President Donald Trump.It is unclear when Biden began receiving the intelligence briefings, which are normal for major party presidential nominees. His campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.Biden said at a June 30 press conference he had not been offered a classified briefing and “may very well” ask for one in the aftermath of reports Trump did not act on intelligence reports that Russia had put bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.The former vice president under President Barack Obama has criticized Trump over reports he does not read his intelligence briefings.Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies found Russia acted to help Trump in the 2016 election, a charge Russia denies, and which Trump has repeatedly labeled a “hoax.” 
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British ministers are making plans to distribute millions of free coronavirus antibody tests after a version backed by the UK government passed its first major trials, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Friday. The fingerprick tests, which can tell within 20 minutes if a person has ever been exposed to the coronavirus, were found to be 98.6% accurate in secret human trials held in June, the newspaper reported. It added the test was developed by the UK Rapid Test Consortium (UK-RTC), a partnership between Oxford University and leading UK diagnostics firms. Britain’s only antibody tests approved thus far have involved blood samples being sent to laboratories for analysis, which can take days, The Telegraph said. Anticipating a regulatory approval in the coming weeks, tens of thousands of prototypes have already been manufactured in factories across the United Kingdom, the report added. Ministers are hoping that the AbC-19 lateral flow test will be available for use in a mass screening program before the end of the year, the newspaper reported. “It was found to be 98.6 percent accurate, and that’s very good news,” Chris Hand, the leader of the UK-RTC, was quoted as saying by The Telegraph. “We’re now scaling up with our partners to produce hundreds of thousands of doses every month,” Hand said, adding the government’s health department is in talks with UK-RTC over buying millions of tests before the year ends. The tests are likely to be free and would be ordered online instead of being sold in supermarkets, according to plans cited by the newspaper. “While these tests will help us better understand how coronavirus is spreading across the country, we do not yet know whether antibodies indicate immunity from reinfection or transmission,” a Department of Health and Social Care spokesman was quoted as telling the newspaper.   
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EU leaders failed Friday to make headway in negotiations over a massive stimulus plan to breathe life into economies ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, returning to their Brussels hotels shortly before midnight to rest and try again in the morning.Many of the 27 heads declared on arrival for their first face-to-face summit for five months that a deal was crucial to rescue economies in free fall and shore up faith in the European Union, which has lurched for years from crisis to crisis.But officials said a thrifty camp of wealthy northern states led by the Netherlands stood its ground on access to the recovery fund, in the face of opposition from Germany, France, southern nations Italy and Spain, and eastern European states.The proposed sums under discussion include the EU’s 2021-27 budget of more than 1 trillion euros and the recovery fund worth 750 billion euros that will be funneled mostly to Mediterranean coast countries worst affected by the pandemic.Diplomats said the 27 remained at odds over the overall size of the package, the split between grants and repayable loans in the recovery fund and rule-of-law strings attached to it.But the main stumbling block was over vetting procedures to access aid, an EU official said, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte demanding that one country could block payouts from the fund if member states backslide on economic reform.”If they want loans and even grants then I think it’s only logical that I can explain to people in the Netherlands … that in return those reforms have taken place,” Rutte said, estimating the chances for a deal at 50-50.Polish premier Mateusz Morawiecki was even more gloomy.As the leaders broke up for the day, he tweeted that they were divided by a bundle of issues and said it was “highly probable” that they would fail to reach a deal on Saturday or even on Sunday if the summit drags past its scheduled two days.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who celebrated her 66th birthday around the negotiating table in Brussels, was also cautious on chances for an agreement, envisaging “very, very difficult negotiations.”After initial elbow bumps between the leaders – all wearing face masks – and birthday gifts for Merkel and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, tense meetings followed in the evening with Rutte and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.The world is watchingOrban, who critics accuse of stifling the media, academics and NGOs, threatened to veto the entire plan over a mechanism that would freeze out countries that fail to live up to democratic standards.With EU economies deep in recession and immediate relief measures such as short-time work schemes running out, the specter of an autumn of hardship and discontent is looming.The EU is already grappling with the protracted saga of Britain’s exit from the bloc and is bruised by past crises, from the financial meltdown of 2008 to feuds over migration.Another economic shock could expose it to more eurosceptic, nationalist and protectionist forces, and weaken its standing against China, the United States or Russia.”The stakes couldn’t be higher,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “The whole world is watching us.”Despite wrangling over medicines, medical gear, border closures and money, the EU has managed to agree a half-a-trillion-euro scheme to cushion the first hit of the crisis.Mediterranean countries now want the recovery financing to prevent their economies taking on ever-greater burdens of debt.”The big picture is that we are faced with the biggest economic depression since World War Two,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. “We need … an ambitious solution because our citizens expect nothing less from us.” 
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The Tokyo Olympics next year will use the same venues and follow an almost identical competition schedule as the one originally planned for this year before the event was postponed because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, organizers said Friday.However, organizers told an IOC session held by videoconference that it was too early to give details on coronavirus prevention measures during the games or on whether events would be in full or partly full stadiums, or behind closed doors.The International Olympic Committee and Japanese government decided in March to postpone the games until 2021 and organizers have been working to rearrange an event almost a decade in the making.The Olympics had been set to begin on July 24 this year.FILE – Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee CEO Toshiro Muto attends a news conference after a Tokyo 2020 executive board meeting in Tokyo, March 30, 2020.”Today, we are able to report that we have confirmed both the competition schedule and the use of all venues originally planned for this year, including the venue for the athletes village and the main press center,” said Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto.The new schedule means women’s softball will get competition underway at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) in Fukushima on July 21, two days before the games officially open, with all events taking place a day earlier than the 2020 schedule.There have also been some minor changes to session times.Biggest everThe games are set to be the biggest ever in terms of events, with a record 339 medals available before the closing ceremony on August 8, although organizers say they will be simplified.Muto said all of the 42 venues have been secured, overcoming one of the biggest hurdles for organizers as many had already been booked for 2021.This means the marathon and race walking events will remain in the northern city of Sapporo after being controversially moved out of Tokyo because of anticipated scorching summer heat.One of the biggest questions concerns how many people will be able to travel to the games and watch the events.”This is of course one of the scenarios we have to look into, because this has to do with travel restrictions and quarantine, and it’s too early to tell,” said IOC President Thomas Bach, speaking from the organization’s headquarters in Lausanne.”We would like to see stadiums full of enthusiastic fans to give them all the opportunity to live the Olympic experience, support the athletes, and this is what we are working for,” added Bach, who earlier said he was prepared to stand for reelection next year.”We cannot address the details yet. … There cannot be a solution today. This is asking too much,” he said.Massive taskJohn Coates, the head of the IOC’s coordination commission, said that securing the venues had been a “massive task.””We are talking about venues in different ownership,” he told the session.”We are talking also of securing the Olympic village, which has been constructed by a consortium of 11 different companies, who have agreed to put back the date when they will be able to hand over the apartments to the public.”The next challenge for Tokyo organizers is developing measures to help prevent a COVID-19 outbreak during the games and how much the delay will cost Japanese taxpayers.Muto said decisions would be made on these issues in the autumn. “We will be having a full-fledged discussion over COVID-19 countermeasures,” he said.”But, as an example, the topics and themes we may discuss are immigration control, enhanced testing structures and the establishment of treatment systems and measures against COVID-19 in the areas of accommodation and transport.”
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Federal agents in green camouflage uniforms have been taking into custody people in the streets of Portland, not close to federal property that they were sent to protect, in what the ACLU on Friday said “should concern everyone in the United States.” “Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street we call it kidnapping,” said Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.”The actions of the militarized federal officers are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.” Gov. Kate Brown said President Donald Trump, who deployed Department of Homeland Security officers to Portland, is looking for a confrontation in the hopes of winning political points elsewhere. The Democratic governor on Thursday called the actions “a blatant abuse of power by the federal government.” Her spokesman, Charles Boyle, said Friday that arresting people without probable cause is “extraordinarily concerning and a violation of their civil liberties and constitutional rights.” Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Thursday. Some have been detained by the federal courthouse, which has been the scene of protests. But others were grabbed blocks away. One video showed two people in helmets and green camouflage with “police” patches grabbing a person on the sidewalk, handcuffing them and taking them into an unmarked vehicle. “Who are you?” someone asks the pair, who do not respond. At least some of the federal officers belong to the Department of Homeland Security. “Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley said in a tweet.  The Council on American-Islamic Relations Oregon chapter said in a statement: “We are now seeing escalating tactics with protesters being unlawfully detained by unknown Federal law enforcement entities.”  On Thursday night, federal officers deployed tear gas and fired non-lethal rounds into a crowd of protesters, hours after the the head of the Department of Homeland Security visited the city and called the demonstrators, who are protesting racism and police brutality, “violent anarchists.” A few hundred people gathered near the federal courthouse Thursday night. Other protesters went to a police station in another part of the city. Police told protesters to leave that site after announcing they heard some chanting about burning down the building. Protester Paul Frazier said Friday the chant was “much more rhetorical than an actual statement.” Portland police said Friday they wound up arresting 20 people overnight. Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said Thursday that state and city authorities are to blame for not putting an end to the protests, angering local officials. Mayor Ted Wheeler and others have said they didn’t ask for help from federal law enforcement and have asked them to leave.  Homeland Security Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said Friday morning on “Fox & Friends” that the federal government has a responsibility to protect buildings such as the courthouse. “What we’ve seen around the country is where responsible policing is advanced, violence recedes,” Cuccinelli said. “And Portland hasn’t gotten that memo. Nor have a lot of other cities. And the president is determined to do what we can, within our jurisdiction, to help restore peace to these beleaguered cities.” The Department of Homeland Security had no immediate comment when reached by The Associated Press on Friday. Tensions have escalated in the past two weeks, particularly after an officer with the U.S. Marshals Service fired at a protester’s head on July 11, critically injuring him. The protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis have often devolved into violent clashes between smaller groups and the police. The unrest has caused deep divisions in a city that prides itself on its activism and progressive reputation.   
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer, but has no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.The 87-year-old Ginsburg, who spent time in the hospital this week for a possible infection, said her treatment so far has succeeded in reducing lesions on her liver and that she will continue chemotherapy sessions every two weeks.
“I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that,” Ginsburg said in a statement issued by the court.
She said her recent hospitalizations, including one in May, were unrelated to the cancer.
A medical scan in February revealed growths on her liver, she said, and she began chemotherapy in May.
“My most recent scan on July 7 indicated significant reduction of the liver lesions and no new disease,” she said. “I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment.” 
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The United States has blocked imports from the world’s top rubber glove maker just as health care workers are facing a new surge of coronavirus cases in some states.U.S. Customs and Border Protection imposed a “withhold release order” on two subsidiaries of Malaysia’s Top Glove Corp. on Wednesday over evidence of forced labor at their factories.MalaysiaMalaysia produces roughly two-thirds of the world’s disposable rubber gloves, a critical piece of personal protective equipment for health care workers on the front lines of the battle to stem the tide of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Top Glove alone makes about 20 percent of the gloves globally.”The evidence reveals multiple International Labor Organization … indicators of forced labor including debt bondage, excessive overtime, retention of identification documents and abusive working and living conditions,” the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement.The ban on shipments, it added, “sends a clear and direct message to U.S. importers that the illicit, inhumane and exploitative practices of modern-day slavery will not be tolerated in U.S. supply chains.”The CBP said it was aware of the critical need for rubber gloves during the pandemic and that the ban on Top Glove “will not have a significant impact on total U.S. imports of this type of gloves.”Top Glove downplayed the impact of the block on the company, noting that it was a seller’s market for glove makers with COVID-19 cases continuing to surge in the United States and elsewhere.“Other countries can take up these orders easily,” the firm’s executive chairman, Lim Wee Chai, told reporters in Malaysia late Thursday.“We have other plans as well if the U.S. does not allow the shipment to enter into their country,” he added, citing Brazil, which now has the second most confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world, as one potential alternative.FILE – A worker inspects newly-made gloves at Top Glove factory in Klang, Malaysia, March 3, 2020.The block does not cover all Top Glove imports to the United States, either. The company said the U.S. accounts for a quarter of its total sales and that the two subsidiaries hit by the withhold release order make up only half of those.Labor rights groups said that raises concerns the company could skirt the ban.Independent labor rights advocate Andy Hall said there would be “close monitoring by multiple stakeholders across [Top Glove] sites to see whether orders are shifted to get around the CBP” withhold release order and keep exports to the U.S. steady using other subsidiaries.Even so, he added, Top Glove will “find it hard to sidestep the impact of the ban given the severity of the challenges facing the company’s reputation now.”The CBP did not reply to a request to elaborate on its reasons for blocking the company’s imports. But Top Glove, reacting to the ban, said in a statement it may have to do with the recruitment fees many of its migrant workers pay middlemen to land jobs at its factories.Malaysia’s rubber glove industry runs on an army of migrant workers from poorer countries in the region lured by the promise of higher wages than those on offer at home. Along the way, many end up in crippling debt to recruitment agents who can charge upwards of $5,000 to set them up at a factory, leaving them virtually enslaved to their employers while they work off their loans at minimum wage.Top Glove said it has already “resolved” the issue among its migrant workers except for those who paid agents before 2019. But the company said it was working on a plan that could cost it up to $11.7 million to reimburse them and that it hoped to convince the CBP to lift its import ban in a matter of weeks.The U.S. agency handed down a similar import ban on another Malaysian rubber glove maker, WRP Asia Pacific, in September over similar forced labor concerns, then lifted it in March claiming the factories were by then free of labor abuses.Just last month, WRP launched a scheme to reimburse its migrant workers for their recruitment fees over the next two-and-a-half years.Hall said the U.S. import ban on WRP, the first for any Southeast Asian country, had been meant as a warning to the nation’s other glove makers to settle their own accounts with their migrant workers. He believes most ignored it thinking the United States would not risk its rubber glove supplies during a pandemic but expects more firms to reconsider, now that a second Malaysian company, considered an industry leader, has been hit.”We should expect all gloves companies to quickly move to remediate worker recruitment fees now to avoid further sanctions,” he said. 
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Asian countries who feel pinched by China over competing maritime claims expect the U.S. government to step up aid following Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s words of support this week, but only in severe cases and without risking conflict, scholars in the region believe.In a statement issued Monday, Pompeo promised to protect the maritime rights of the smaller Asian countries in keeping with international law. China vies for maritime sovereignty with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, all of which have weaker militaries. At stake is the shared 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea, which is flush with fish and energy reserves.Claimant governments tentatively welcome Pompeo’s offer but want to know what, specifically, Washington will do before feeling more confident, analysts say. “It will really make Southeast Asia sit up and take notice if there are real concrete actions that follow soon after the recent Pompeo statement, because otherwise it will still remain a statement and people will continue guessing what is going to come after the statement,” said Collin Koh, a maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.Pompeo told reporters in Washington on Wednesday he would consider protecting third countries against China through legal means and multilateral bodies including the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc. Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines are among the bloc members.U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell hinted at a conference Tuesday there is “room to sanction Chinese officials and state-owned enterprises that engage in illegal activities,” Olli Pekka Suorsa, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, wrote in a commentary e-mailed to reporters on Thursday.Pompeo said Washington’s superpower rival Beijing lacks rights to claim 90% of the waterway, where it has angered neighboring countries over the past decade by landfilling tiny islets for military, economic and scientific use.In this photo provided by the Department of National Defense, ships carrying construction materials are docked at the new beach ramp at the Philippine-claimed island of Pag-asa in the South China Sea on June 9, 2020.Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo, said U.S. officials will probably respond just to major upsets involving China but do that without sparking a conflict. The U.S. government would ignore localized fishing disputes and altercations over placement of oil rigs, he said. American officials might consider responding instead to Chinese ship movement in waters claimed by other countries. Chinese survey vessels have this year tested waters claimed by Malaysia and Vietnam.“It’s a very difficult line to walk between putting significant pressure back on the Chinese without it spiraling into a kinetic conflict,” Nagy said.China cites historical records to explain its maritime claims. On Thursday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman defended China’s compliance with international law and questioned whether the U.S. side had been as diligent.Washington is expected to enlist other powers in any action against China on behalf of a third country. A Japan-Australia-U.S. statement on July 7 condemned Chinese actions in Asia after Australia, Japan and India made their own similar comments. India’s external affairs ministry said Thursday the sea should stay open to international navigation and overflight. “I see that (it’s) stepping up and concentrating all levers of pressure against China and it’s going to include a multilateral pushback against China’s claims,” Nagy said.South China Sea Territorial ClaimsOfficials from Southeast Asian states were quiet after the Pompeo comments.Vietnam, normally the most outspoken claimant, probably welcomes Pompeo’s plan but hopes not to be singled out as a protected country, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, director of the Center for International Studies director at University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam needs China as a trading partner and the two Communist neighbors still try to get along despite decades of flare-ups in the South China Sea.“I think that they hope the U.S. can confront China unilaterally or with some other allies,” Nguyen said. “Vietnam should not be deeply involved in any initiatives.”
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The United Nations Human Rights Office has called on Thailand to enact a torture and disappearance law that fully incorporates international standards.The U.N. office said in a statement Friday that draft legislation approved by the Thai Cabinet “is an important step, but the approved draft lacks essential international principles, including the absolute prohibition of torture and non-refoulement – both non-derogable rights in international law.”It also added the “definitions of the crimes in the proposed law are also not in line with international standards.”Cynthia Veliko, South-East Asia Regional Representative for the UN Human Rights Office in Bangkok, said, “A domestic law can provide effective judicial recourse to the victims and families if it is compliant with the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED).”Thailand ratified its CAT agreement in 2007 and its ICPPED pact in 2012.“Thailand’s willingness to enact a bill into law that fully incorporates the principles enshrined in international human rights law would show its commitment to zero tolerance of torture and enforced disappearance, as well as justice for victims of these crimes,” Veliko said. 
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The leaders of the European Union hold their first face-to-face summit in five months on Friday, but the reunion seems unlikely to bridge their divide over a post-virus economic rescue plan.Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel turns 66 on the day that she and her 26 colleagues return to Brussels, not to celebrate but to test whether in-person negotiations can answer a 750-billion-euro question.The EU has been plunged into a historic economic crunch by the coronavirus crisis, and EU officials have drawn up plans for a huge stimulus package to lead their countries out of lockdown.But a determined band of northern capitals, led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Netherlands, are holding out against doling out cash to their southern neighbors without strict conditions attached.Friday’s talks are expected to run into Saturday and perhaps even Sunday, but few here are confident of a breakthrough, despite the tight timetable, so another summit may well follow later this month.’A deal is essential’Summit host Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, has tried to create a sense of momentum after previous coronavirus-era videoconferences served only to underline the leaders’ differences.”Finding agreement will require hard work and political will on the part of all. Now is the time. A deal is essential,” he wrote in his letter inviting the leaders back to Brussels.”We will need to find workable solutions and come to an agreement, for the greater benefit of our citizens.”But optimism was in short supply as the leaders gathered in the Belgian capital, some arriving early on the eve of the summit to hold private discussions ahead of the main event.European diplomats said the Netherlands would continue to insist that member states retain the right to veto any joint borrowing by the European Union to finance loans to members.And they want any loans or grants to come with strict conditions attached to ensure that heavily indebted countries like Spain and Italy carry out reforms, under European Commission oversight.This is furiously opposed by the south. Both Michel and Merkel, whose country has just taken on the rolling six-month presidency of the EU, will struggle to broker any compromise.”We’re open to reaching an arrangement this weekend, but if there won’t be an agreement, we are open to more negotiations later on,” Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok said on Wednesday.Loans or grants?The Netherlands has emerged as the most likely hold out, but Rutte’s position is backed to varying degrees by fellow members of the so-called “Frugal Four” — Sweden, Denmark and Austria.Michel’s draft plan foresees a 750-billion-euro recovery package, made up of 250 billion in loans and 500 billion in grants and subsidies that would not have to be repaid by the recipient member states.The Frugals oppose grants and want any loans to come with conditions attached.This package is in addition to the planned 1,074 billion-euro seven-year EU budget from 2021 to 2027 that the leaders must also agree in the coming weeks or months.”An agreement is not at all guaranteed. On the contrary, there remain large differences to get over,” a senior European official admitted.Aside from the governance of the recovery package, the leaders may also clash over efforts to make EU budget support contingent on member states respecting the rule of law.Hungary and Poland, which have been targeted by the European Commission over their alleged drift into authoritarianism, will fight to stop such a rule being written into the budget.  
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The baseless conspiracy theory took off after an anonymous user posed a bizarre question in an internet chatroom: What if retail giant Wayfair is using pricey storage cabinets to traffic children? Self-proclaimed internet sleuths quickly responded by matching up the names of Wayfair products to those of missing children, producing social media posts that have since overrun Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The result: A national human trafficking hotline suddenly began taking a number of calls about the imagined Wayfair scheme, stretching its resources. A woman said she posted a video of herself on Facebook to counter false claims that she was missing. One mother’s pleas to Facebook and YouTube to remove a video of her young daughter that was being used to suggest she was a Wayfair victim went unanswered for days.  Wayfair was forced to respond to the accusations in a recent statement: “There is, of course, no truth to these claims.”  Yet internet users continue to weave a complex web around Wayfair’s furniture and decor, spun from falsehoods and conjecture. Social media influencers, fringe online communities and even political candidates have also now seized on the conspiracy theory as evidence of an even grander one, known as QAnon, that centers on the baseless belief that President Donald Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring. “Conspiracy theorists always managed to spread their theories in the past, but the internet has made this much easier,” said Kathryn Olmsted, a history professor who studies conspiracy theories at University of California, Davis. “If you believe in one, you believe in another. You start collecting them.”  Mentions of Wayfair and “trafficking” have exploded on Facebook and Instagram over the past week. And on TikTok, the hashtags #Wayfairconspiracy and #WayfairGate together amassed nearly 4.5 million views even as several strands of the conspiracy theory have been debunked. Some social media posts pointed to the high cost of the storage cabinets — which sell for about $13,000 each — as suspect. Wayfair, however, said the steel structures were priced correctly for industrial use. A pillow listed for $9,999 also fueled suspicion, but was an error, the company said. ‘Why am I mad? Because I’m not missing’Other posts shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter connected the name of one of Wayfair’s cabinets, Samiyah, to an outdated missing person report for an Ohio girl named Samiyah Mumin, claiming it was proof that the company is trafficking young girls. A woman who identified herself as Mumin filmed a Facebook video to set the record straight. “Why am I mad? Because I’m not missing,” she said. Mumin did not respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office confirmed Mumin was found after being reported missing for a four-day period in May 2019 and has not been reported missing since.  A Maryland boy who briefly went missing in April also was identified by internet conspiracy theorists as a possible Wayfair victim because his last name matched the name of a pillow. He was found in less than 24 hours, with no signs that he had been trafficked or kidnapped, according to the sheriff’s office in St. Mary’s County. The burst of attention for the Wayfair claims also renewed interest in the QAnon conspiracy theory. In recent days, three conservative congressional candidates in Florida, Georgia and California who have expressed support for QAnon have also pushed unfounded allegations about Wayfair on Twitter. Thousands of tweets promoted the QAnon hashtag with claims that Wayfair is trafficking. A network of popular QAnon Facebook groups shared a video with a mashup of claims about human trafficking, including the Wayfair conspiracy theory.  The term QAnon skyrocketed on Instagram and Facebook, receiving more interactions last week than any other week over the last year, according to data from CrowdTangle, which tracks more than 4 million public pages, profiles and accounts. Surge in hotline callsThe attention created by the Wayfair conspiracy theory has, in some cases, been damaging for the very people social media users say they’re trying to help.  An increase in calls prompted by the conspiracy theory is straining the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which provides emergency help to victims. The line was already seeing a surge in requests for emergency shelter assistance because of the coronavirus, said Robert Beiser, of Polaris, a nonprofit organization that runs the hotline. “There’s a very real possibility that if there’s a conspiracy theory that comes out on the internet and it generates thousands of signals into our hotline, that could get in the way for us providing timely service to survivors who are in crisis,” Beiser said.  YouTube video Meanwhile, a YouTube video of a young London girl sitting on a couch to audition for a Wayfair commercial was used by some pro-Trump YouTube accounts to claim that she was a victim in the alleged trafficking scheme.  The video was taken from the girl’s mother’s YouTube account and spread across the internet, said Carleen McCarthy, a senior agent for the talent agency Alphabet Agency, which represents the girl. The agency and the girl’s mother repeatedly flagged the videos to YouTube and Facebook, as they continued to rake in thousands of views online. YouTube removed the video after the AP inquired about it, although new versions remain on the site. Facebook said in a statement that it’s reduced circulation of false claims around the Wayfair conspiracy theory.  One YouTube influencer — who posted a video, viewed 155,000 times, that accused Wayfair of trafficking children through their products — walked back the comments a few days later. “I didn’t really have all the facts for that video, I just kind of made it on impulse because I was so scared,” said Jeremiah Willis in a later video. “I personally have no knowledge, no evidence, nothing.” 
 
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Critics of the Trump administration’s most sweeping set of rules to restrict asylum in the United States sent in a deluge of comments opposing the effort, hoping an old law that serves as a check on presidential power will weaken or even doom it.Opponents submitted nearly 80,000 public comments before Wednesday’s deadline, with about 20,000 in the final hours. The Trump administration must address each concern in the final rules, setting itself up for legal challenges if it rushes or is careless.”This is kind of standard administrative law trench warfare,” said Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western University School of Law. “It has been the case for some time that opponents of an agency action initially seek to flood the zone with comments and procedural objections as a way of slowing things down and cause a mistake, try to cause an unforced error.”The proposal directs immigration judges to be more selective about granting asylum claims and allows them to deny some without a court hearing. Its dense language describes rules President Donald Trump’s administration has already tried and others that are new.Trump has already remade much of the system for seeking humanitarian protection in the U.S., claiming it’s rife with abuse and overwhelmed with undeserving claims. But courts recently knocked down some of his efforts on procedural grounds, including his bid to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that shields about 700,000 young people from deportation.Groups taking aim at the newest proposal focusing on immigration courts urged supporters to issue comments. HIAS, a group that assists refugees, hosted a briefing for 370 people two weeks ago.FILE – In this June 18, 2020, photo, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students protest in front of the Supreme Court in Washington.”We would like to slow the implementation down for as long as possible (perhaps even long enough that there might be a new administration in place before they are implemented),” Naomi Steinberg, the group’s vice president of policy and advocacy, wrote in an email.Nearly 10,000 people used a “click to comment” feature on Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc.’s website, which included a template and advice on writing effectively, said Jill Marie Bussey, director of advocacy.”These regulations would plunge the United States into moral darkness,” the group said in its own 101-page letter.Under the administration’s proposal, immigration judges, who work for the U.S. Justice Department, could reject “legally deficient” asylum claims without a court hearing. Several new factors would weigh against asylum, including failure to pay taxes. Criminal records would still count against an asylum-seeker even if their convictions were expunged.Asylum is to protect people from persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group, a loose category that may include victims of gang or domestic violence.The regulations say gang members shouldn’t be considered part of a social group if they were ever recruited or targeted by gangs or because they live in country with generalized violence. The definition of “political opinion” is also more narrowly construed.Michael Hethmon, senior counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, thinks his letter was among the few supporting the rules out of 79,339 public comments.Hethmon wrote that most of the comments he reviewed “appear to be repetitive mass mailings” and that “comprehensive reform of current dysfunctional practices is urgently needed.”Trump’s critics are hoping he trips over the Administrative Procedure Act, enacted in 1946 as a check on presidential power in the wake of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s expansive New Deal. It requires agencies to give reasoned explanations for their actions and refrain from “arbitrary and capricious” behavior.The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to let the Trump administration scrap DACA, citing a failure to follow procedures outlined in the 1946 law. Last year, the court prohibited a census question about citizenship for similar reasons.New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity says the Trump administration has succeeded on only 11 of 99 legal challenges to its regulatory changes, with more than half its losses on environmental policy.Bethany Davis Noll, who manages the scorecard, said success rates in previous administrations hovered around 70 percent.Christopher Walker, a professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, said the Trump administration’s aggressive approach is partly to blame for its relative lack of success in court.Walker also said targeting the proposed immigration rules with a massive public comment campaign wasn’t realistic because the administration doesn’t have to consider repeat statements. The objective should be to build a record that demonstrates the government failed to consider alternatives.”It’s not as much the quantity as the quality,” he said.
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Social media in Egypt is exploding with voices echoing the #MeToo movement following the July 4th arrest of Ahmed Bassam Zaki, a former college student accused of raping or harassing as many as 100 women and girls. His arrest came after a barrage of Instagram posts making the accusations against him. VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from Istanbul with Hamada Elrasam in Cairo.Camera: Hamada Elrasam
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Military clashes between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan continued Thursday, further raising tensions between Turkey and Russia, which back opposing sides in the conflict.   The fighting erupted after a day of calm that had raised hopes of an end to the confrontation. At least 16 people have been killed since clashes started Sunday. What sparked the latest violence was not clear, but the two sides have blamed the other for the trouble. The two former Soviet Republics have been at odds for decades over Azerbaijan’s breakaway, predominantly ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In the 1990s, Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over the disputed territory. Armenian servicemen transport used tires in the back of a truck to fortify their positions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border near the village of Movses on July 15, 2020.According to the Reuters news agency, Armenia’s defense ministry accuses Azerbaijan’s army of moving positions and using people in one village as human shields. Azerbaijan denies the allegation and has made similar accusations against Armenia. The latest clashes indirectly pit Turkey against Russia. Turkey backs Azerbaijan, while Russia supports Armenia. “Turkey will never hesitate to stand against any attack on the rights and lands of Azerbaijan,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday. Erdogan suggested a wider conspiracy lay behind the latest fighting.  “This is not a border violation and conflict but a deliberate attack on Azerbaijan. Undoubtedly this attack shows Armenia is punching above its weight.” Turkish pro-government media have been quick to accuse Moscow of encouraging Armenia to attack Azerbaijan, albeit without substantiating the allegation. Moscow dismisses such accusations, with Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov on Tuesday calling for restraint on both sides and offering Russian mediation. Ankara and Moscow are already involved in proxy confrontations by backing rival sides in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars.  “Armenia and Azerbaijan are faced with the challenge of becoming the next spot, like Syria and Libya. The Russian military is already deployed in the region,” said Zaur Gasimov, a Russia expert at the University of Bonn.  “Turkey is the only player in the [Caucasus] region representing to a certain extent Western values and interests, and can prevent domination by Russia and Iran,” Gasimov added. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 2nd right, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, 2nd left, along with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, right and Bulgaria’s PM Boyko Borisov left, symbolically open the TurkStream pipeline, Jan. 8, 2020.Energy interests Where the latest fighting between Armenian and Azeri forces is occurring is in itself cause for suspicion among observers.  “The location is very strange,” said Gasimov, referring to Azerbaijan’s remote Tovuz region, adding, “Normally fighting occurs in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.”The Tovuz region is close to Azerbaijan’s crucial South Caucasia pipeline. The SCP channels natural gas to Turkey’s TANAP pipeline and is a key component of Ankara’s efforts to decrease its dependence on Russian energy. “Turkey is heavily dependent on Russia for gas supplies,” said Mehmet Ogutcu of the London Energy Club policy group.  “Turkey is paying almost twice the price of EU buyers for [Russia’s] Gazprom gas,” Gasimov said.  “Turkey is now trying to reduce its intake from Russia,” he added. “Azeri gas is coming through TANAP (pipeline), which is cheaper than Russian gas that Turkey is buying. Turkey depends on 98% of its gas on imports and 92% on oil. It’s a national security issue.” Azerbaijan, one of the major oil suppliers to the European Union, is Turkey’s biggest foreign investor — mostly in the energy sector. The Azeri-Turkish partnership could deepen further as a new opportunity arises in 2021, when a major gas deal between Turkey and Russia is up for renewal. The 25-year-old deal has obliged Turkey to buy a set amount of Russian gas annually, ensuring Russia’s dominance of the Turkish energy market.  “With the contract coming to an end, Turkey will use this opportunity to rebalance its energy relations with Russia,” said Ogutcu. Russian concerns  Leaders in Russia worry their country is losing ground in Turkey’s energy market.  “Russian-Turkish talks in April on gas prices ended without success,” Gasimov said. “Azerbaijan, Iran, and Qatar are set to become as prominent as Russia as gas providers [in Turkey].” Analysts say Ankara’s energy diversification efforts play favorably for the U.S. administration.  Washington has been intensively lobbying its European allies to curtail energy cooperation with Russia as part of the Trump administration efforts to curb the Kremlin’s economic leverage over Europe. The United States is also threatening sanctions over Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline serving Germany and TurkStream, opened in January by Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. administration officials say both pipelines violate the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017.   FILE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaks during a news conference at the State Department, July 1, 2020, in Washington.In remarks Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the two projects as “the Kremlin’s key tools to exploit and expand European dependence on Russian energy supplies” that he said “ultimately undermine transatlantic security.” “It is a clear warning to the companies aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects. Get out now, or risk the consequences,” Pompeo said.  The rift between Turkey and Russia has coincided with a rapprochement between Ankara and Washington, but analysts are not rushing to declare an end to the Russian-Turkish partnership.   While Ankara seeks to reduce its dependence on Russia’s energy, both Erdogan and Putin are aware of a mutual dependency between the two countries. “Turkish-Russian relations are not based only on Russian gas,” said Ogutcu.  “It’s a package. You have a [Russian] nuclear energy plant being (built) in Turkey, you have a security issue in Syria. Turkish construction exports to Russia and Russian tourists coming to Turkey,” Ogutcu said.  As some observers see it, Moscow is likely to avoid a rupture with Ankara and they warn the latest tensions in the Caucasus could be a message to Turkey that there is a cost to rebalancing ties with Russia. 
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The European Union’s top court ruled Thursday that an agreement that allows thousands of companies — from tech giants to small financial firms — to transfer data to the United States is invalid because the American government can snoop on people’s data.
The ruling to invalidate Privacy Shield will complicate business for some 5,000 companies, and it could require regulators to vet any new data transfers to make sure Europeans’ personal information remains protected according to the EU’s stringent standards.
It will no longer simply be assumed that tech companies like Facebook will adequately protect the privacy of its European users’ data when it sends it to the U.S. Rather, the EU and U.S. will likely have to find a new agreement that guarantees that Europeans’ data is afforded the same privacy protection in the U.S. as it is in the EU.
Privacy activists hailed the court ruling as a major victory, while business groups worried about the potential to disrupt commerce, depending on how the ruling is implemented. Companies like Facebook routinely move such data among their servers around the world and the practice underpins billions of dollars in business.  
“It is clear that the U.S. will have to seriously change their surveillance laws, if U.S. companies want to continue to play a major role on the EU market,” said Max Schrems, an Austrian activist whose complaints about the handling of his Facebook data triggered the ruling after years of legal procedures.
He first filed a complaint in 2013, after former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the American government was snooping on people’s online data and communications. The revelations included detail on how Facebook gave U.S. security agencies access to the personal data of Europeans.
Though the legal case was triggered by concerns over Facebook in particular, it could have far-reaching implications not only for tech companies but also businesses in sectors like finance and the auto industry.  
Things like email, flight and hotel reservations would not be affected in the short term, experts say. Cloud services by providers like Microsoft will also continue, pending any intervention from a regulator.
Companies use legal mechanisms called standard contractual clauses that force businesses to abide by strict EU privacy standards when transferring messages, photos and other information. The clauses — which are stock terms and conditions — are used to ensure the EU rules are maintained when data leaves the bloc.
The Court of Justice of the EU ruled Thursday that those clauses are still valid in principle. However, it declared invalid the Privacy Shield agreement between the U.S. and EU on data transfers over concerns that the U.S. can demand access to consumer data for national security reasons.
It said that in cases where there are concerns about data privacy, EU regulators should vet, and if needed block, the transfer of data. That raises the prospect that EU regulators will block Facebook, for example, from transferring any more European data to the U.S.
The court noted in its ruling that there are “limitations on the protection of personal data arising from the domestic law of the United States on the access and use by U.S. public authorities of such data transferred from the European Union to that third country.”
Government surveillance of personal data is something the U.S. in its turn accuses China of doing through tech companies  like Huawei. It highlights the growing importance of data as the basis of modern business and politics globally.  
Data drives much of the world’s biggest companies, like Facebook, Google, Alibaba and Amazon, and is also prized for national security to prevent extremist attacks, for example. Mining large sets of people’s data has also become crucial to winning elections, such as the use of Facebook data for Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016.
Alexandre Roure, a senior manager at Computer & Communications Industry Association, said the decision “creates legal uncertainty for the thousands of large and small companies on both sides of the Atlantic that rely on Privacy Shield for their daily commercial data transfers.  
“We trust that EU and U.S. decision-makers will swiftly develop a sustainable solution, in line with EU law, to ensure the continuation of data flows which underpins the trans-Atlantic economy.” 
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Global financial markets are in freefall Thursday, despite China’s economic rebound in the second quarter of this year.   In Europe, both the FTSE in London and the DAX index in Frankfurt are down 0.6% in late afternoon trading, while Paris’s CAC-40 index is 0.8% lower. The big selloff began earlier Thursday in Asia, with the Nikkei finishing the day 0.7%.  The Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 2%, while Shanghai’s Composite index lost a staggering 4.5%. Sydney’s S&P/ASX index fell 0.6%.  Seoul’s KOSPI index closed 0.8% lower, and the TSEC in Taipei ended down 0.3%.  Mumbai’s Sensex is trading one percent higher in late afternoon trading. In other market news, U.S. crude oil is selling at $40.75 per barrel, down one percent, while Brent crude is selling at $43.50 per barrel, down 0.6%.China revealed Thursday that its economy grew 3.2% in the period between April and June compared to the previous year, but that good news was tempered by worse-than-expected data on domestic retail sales.  The growing tensions between the United States and China also contributed to investors’ nervousness about a post-pandemic recovery. In futures trading, all three major U.S. indices were trending downward hours ahead of Thursday’s opening bell on Wall Street.   
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