Author: CNN

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CNN
 — 

Whenever a lawmaker who is advancing in years appears infirm or confused in public, or takes some time to convalesce, there are questions about their fitness for office.

This week, it’s Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, who froze and appeared confused during a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday. After recovering off camera, McConnell returned to take questions and later left smiling, telling reporters that he was doing just fine and had just been “sandbagged” when he was unable to speak.

Earlier this year, McConnell could not hear reporters at a different news conference. Plus, McConnell is known to have fallen at least three times in the past year, according to CNN’s Manu Raju.

He slipped on ice before a meeting in Finland.

He fell getting off a plane at Reagan National Airport in Washington.

His fall at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington led to a concussion and broken ribs that sidelined him for weeks.

A fall several years ago at home in Kentucky caused a shoulder fracture.

Writes Raju of the way McConnell walks on Capitol Hill:

McConnell, 81, was a survivor of polio as a child and has long walked with a slight limp. He walks on stairs one at a time, and at times rests his hand on an aide to assist him through the Capitol.

It’s notable that fellow Republicans are not concerned about McConnell’s ability to continue to do his job. At least not openly.

On Friday, McConnell’s office said in a statement that he plans to serve the rest of the 118th Congress as the GOP leader. It didn’t address his plans in the next Congress, which begins in 2025.

Democrats have increasingly turned on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who at 90 is a shadow of the imposing figure she once cut on Capitol Hill. A long absence while she recovered from shingles gummed up their ability to move judicial nominees and some legislation and led some of her California colleagues to call for her to step down.

At a hearing Thursday, she had to be prodded, repeatedly, by fellow Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, to vote “aye” on a procedural vote.

Difficulties communicating are not exclusively the milieu of older lawmakers. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania won his seat despite suffering a stroke during last year’s campaign. He sought hospital care for depression this year. He now conducts interviews with the help of an iPad that transcribes questions in real time.

There’s an awkward gray area between legitimate questions about a person’s health and ageism.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley got some early attention for her presidential campaign when she suggested a mental competency test for politicians over 75.

It was ageist, constitutionally dubious and savvy politics all at the same time.

Democrats are perpetually on defense about President Joe Biden’s age and acuity. Republicans have turned attacks against Biden, 80, into an art form, with viral videos to highlight his frequent verbal miscues.

Haley’s proposal highlighted that these attacks on Biden occur without a whiff of irony that Republicans’ own current presidential primary frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, is 77.

That neither Haley nor any of the other much younger Republicans challenging Trump in the 2024 primary field have so far caught fire is an indication that voters, who often skew older than the general population, don’t seem to care. They like a young and exciting candidate like, say, Barack Obama. They also like an older candidate, like, say, Ronald Reagan or Biden.

The most powerful force in American politics isn’t age or ideas, but rather incumbency.

As CNN’s Harry Enten wrote, the most shocking result out of the 2022 midterms was not that Democrats held the Senate or that Republicans only narrowly captured the House. It was that every single Senate incumbent who ran won. Only one incumbent governor running for reelection lost.

I tried and failed to find a comprehensive look at whether younger or older candidates generally win congressional elections. But CNN recently published an interesting look at which generations are serving as lawmakers.

Millennials are America’s largest generation by population, but they’re one of the smallest groups that make up Congress. That suggests baby boomers, despite reaching retirement age, are holding onto their seats.

McConnell’s age of 81 might seem old to the average American, but it’s far from out of the ordinary on Capitol Hill, where the average age for a sitting senator, 64, is eligible for Social Security.

McConnell has been a senator since 1985, which makes him the 12th longest-serving senator ever. He hasn’t said if he will run for reelection in 2026. The only other longer-serving senator is Sen. Charles Grassley, who is 89, and who won an eighth term last November.

Biden had more than 36 years logged as a senator when he left to become vice president in 2009. If he had stayed in the Senate, he’d now have a full half-century tenure and be about a year away from eclipsing West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd’s Senate record of 51 years, five months and 26 days.

Byrd died while in office in 2010, and for the final years of his time as senator, he was frequently absent or had to use double canes or a wheelchair.

American life expectancy, despite advances in medical care, was 77.4 in 2020. It has declined in recent years, and not just because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Researchers point to poor average diet, lack of universal health care and access to guns as factors that keep the Americans from living longer when compared with other countries.

But the dwindling financial security of retirement programs like Social Security and Medicare means that future generations will likely have to work longer. Their lawmakers will be right there with them.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Washington
CNN
 — 

A federal judge in Florida on Friday dismissed a $475 million defamation lawsuit former President Donald Trump brought against CNN that accused the network of defaming him by using the phrase “the big lie” and allegedly comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

District Judge Raag Singhal, a 2019 appointee of Trump’s, said that use of the phrase or similar statements are opinion that don’t meet the standard for defamation.

“CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people. No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference,” Singhal wrote.

“Being “Hitler-like” is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim,” Singhal added.

The lawsuit is one of many Trump has filed against media outlets, including CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, objecting to coverage during his presidency and in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden.

Trump had accused CNN of a “campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander” and of creating a “false and incendiary association” between him and Hitler.

“Like Trump and CNN personalities … the Court finds Nazi references in the political discourse (made by whichever ‘side’) to be odious and repugnant,” Singhal wrote. “But bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement Saturday: “We agree with the highly respected judge’s findings that CNN’s statements about President Trump are repugnant.”

CNN declined to comment on the decision.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN
 — 

The Uber test driver behind the wheel of one of the company’s self-driving cars, when it hit and killed a pedestrian in 2018, pleaded guilty to endangerment and was sentenced to three years of supervised probation Friday, according to officials.

Rafaela Vasquez was watching television on her smartphone in March 2018 when the Uber self-driving vehicle fatally struck Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing a road in Tempe, Arizona, according to a National Transportation Safety Board investigation. Herzberg’s death was the first known fatality involving a fully autonomous vehicle.

A judge in the Superior Court of Maricopa sentenced Rafaela Vasquez to three years of supervised probation and determined that the charge would only be designated a misdemeanor “upon successful completion of her sentence,” according to a news release.

The Uber-employed safety driver behind the wheel of the car was meant to monitor the car’s performance and intervene if the autonomous driving software failed, as previously reported by CNN.

But the National Transportation Safety Board’s 2019 investigation found that Vasquez was looking away from the road for over a third of the trip. The board concluded that the crash was “avoidable” if the safety driver had been alert and also found that an inadequate safety culture at Uber contributed to the crash. The company’s self-driving software wasn’t designed to expect that pedestrians outside crosswalks may be crossing the street, according to the investigation.

“The defendant in this matter was responsible for the operation of a vehicle on our city streets that ended with a woman being killed,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in the court’s news release. “Determining an appropriate plea in this case involved considering a multitude of factors. We believe the Judge ordered an appropriate sentence based on the mitigating and aggravating factors.”

“Getting behind the wheel of a car is a serious responsibility. Regardless of whatever technology might be available to drivers, safety for everyone on the street and in the vehicle must always be a driver’s first priority,” Mitchell went on.

The plea agreement also stipulates that Vasquez pay restitution “to all victims,” including insurance companies involved.

Vasquez was initially charged with negligent homicide in 2020. She pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Uber reached a settlement with the victim’s family less than two weeks after her death. The company did not face criminal charges. In December, the ride-share giant said it plans to launch a fully driverless service in collaboration with Motional in 2023.

CNN has reached out to Vasquez’s attorney, Albert Jaynes Morrison, for comment.

CNN
 — 

It was an explosive week for “Barbenheimer,” with the atomic bomb and the atomic blond working hand in plastic hand to deliver box office dynamite. In their first week in domestic theaters, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” grossed more than $368 million combined.

Greta Gerwig’s dazzling doll surpassed a quarter of a billion dollars, with a stunning $258 million, according to Warner Bros., which produced the movie. (CNN and Warner Bros. are both owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)

It stayed No. 1 throughout the week, nabbing an average of $24 million each day. On Friday, that number jumped to $29 million.

Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan’s existential biopic grossed some $128 million. It averaged $11 million per weekday, according to media analytics company Comscore, with $13.4 million on Friday.

Observers say both films are defying box office gravity, even after a blowout opening weekend.

“Movies tend to drop off significantly midweek once that opening weekend interest is satisfied. But this midweek for both movies played almost like a weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

The numbers spell out continued interest in the films and solidify Barbenheimer’s status as a cultural sensation.

“The strongest measure of a film’s success is the second weekend,” said Dergarabedian.

Over this weekend, analysts project about $94 million for “Barbie” and $46 million for “Oppenheimer.”

“Even if that was the opening weekend, these would still be great numbers,” he added.

“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” are generating record-breaking second weekend presales, according to The Boxoffice Company, which powers show times and ticketing for Google, TikTok, IMDb and Apple.

Barbenheimer is also going toe to toe with big superhero flicks, with some analysts saying this weekend is shaping up to be one of the best holdover weekends since 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.”

The company has more than 150 theater partners who also reported that this week was their best in domestic sales since “Spider-Man: No Way Home” debuted December 17-23, 2021.

With “Barbenheimer,” audience excitement for each film has propped up the other. Not only was it a great week for movie theaters, according to Dergarabedian, but this pop culture moment will be studied in film, business and marketing for years to come.

CNN
 — 

Jadarrius Rose, the unarmed Black man who was attacked by a police dog in Ohio on July 4, described being “terrified” and fearing for his life during the assault in an interview with CNN.

Rose, 23, was driving a commercial semi-truck when he failed to pull over for an inspector trying to stop him for a missing mud flap, according to the Ohio Highway Patrol case report and footage released by the agency.

When Rose kept driving, the inspector called for backup. Then, video released by authorities shows police pursuing Rose, who does eventually pull over but does not exit the truck.

Rose told CNN that he first called his mother from the truck. “She told me if I know I didn’t do anything wrong, to pull over, so that’s what I did,” he said. Looking in his rearview mirror, he saw responding police officers “had guns pointed at me, so I didn’t feel safe at all.”

He then called 911 to ask what he should do. “I was just trying to figure out if they could help me,” he said. “I was scared, i didn’t understand why they had guns pointed at me, I didn’t know the reason for them pulling me over at the time.”

Rose, still on the phone with 911, said he drove back on the highway, continuing what became a three-county pursuit.

Rose said the 911 operator instructed him to follow officers’ directions, so he ultimately pulled over and exited the truck with his hands up. He said that while a state trooper instructed him to walk toward him, a police officer from the Circleview Police Department told him to “stay on the ground or you’ll get bit” – conflicting instructions that left him unsure what to do.

“I just stopped in the middle, because I didn’t know what was gonna happen,” he said. “I was afraid that something would happen, and it did happen.”

Despite repeated warnings from a state trooper to not release the K-9, former officer Ryan Speakman turned the dog on Rose. It’s not clear if Speakman heard the trooper’s warnings.

Video shows that at the moment of the dog attack, Rose was on his knees.

Speakman was fired by the Circleville Police Department after a review of the incident.

“When the dog was biting me I just was terrified,” Rose said. “I thought I was going to lose my life. I was in pain. I really couldn’t see what the other officers was doing because the dog was biting me and I was just in fear of my life. And I just was screaming in pain, and I just didn’t want to die. Like, I didn’t want to die in the hands of police.”

Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney who has previously represented Randy Cox, Ajike Owens, and the family of George Floyd, is representing Rose.

Describing the video showing the dog attack Rose, Crump said, “He’s trying to do whatever he can do to survive the stop. That’s what Black people want to do when they interact with police, just survive.”

“He’s putting his hands up, he’s trying to do everything they said, he’s trying to do everything they tell him to do, putting your hands up is the universal sign of surrender, but yet that officer still orders the dog to attack him.”

Crump and Nana Watson, president of the Columbus branch of the NAACP, both reflected on the optics of a dog being unleashed on a Black man.

“This harkens back to the 1960s when unarmed Black people, who are not a threat at all, to the police, are still attacked by police dogs,” said Crump. “It’s disturbing that this officer did that in light of all the cameras that he knew was out there.”

A police review board is investigating the incident. Its findings are expected to be released next week, the mayor and police chief said.

For Rose’s mother Carla Jones, his frantic phone call immediately summoned images of other Black people who have been the victims of police violence.

“I was nervous out of my mind,” she told CNN. “I was scared that he was gonna be killed.”

“I thought about Tyre Nichols,” she said, referencing the Black driver who died after being beaten by Memphis police in January. Crump is also representing Nichols’ family.

“I was like, I don’t wanna lose my son,” Jones said. “I thought about that incident. What if I’m next?”

Crump also pointed out the parallels between Rose’s case and Nichols’. Rose is originally from Memphis, he said.

“It’s the fear of most Black people in America, that when the police pull them over, that it’s possible that they could be the next hashtag,” said the attorney. “And the fact that they live in Memphis, Tennessee, where Tyre Nichols, an unarmed black motorist was completely compliant, but yet he got brutalized to the point of where he lost his life.”

Crump said the Rose family is exploring legal remedies, including suing the Circleville Police Department.

The Circleville PD fired Speakman 22 days after the July 4 incident, following a Use of Force Review Board investigation.

Chief Shawn Baer said in a statement that Speakman’s actions “did not meet the standards and expectations we hold for our police officers.”

In the same statement, the department said it’s “policy for the use of canines was followed in the apprehension and arrest.”

Rose was treated for dog bites at a hospital and didn’t need stitches, he told CNN. He’s seeing a psychologist to help process that day.

He has been charged with failure to comply, a felony. The family hopes the charge will be dropped. Rose was also terminated by Western Express, the trucking company, on the day of his arrest, according to Crump.

“Jadarrius Rose represents many young Black men in America,” the lawyer said. “Trying to do the right thing, trying to be gainfully employed, trying to just mind his business, but yet, why would they pull those many guns on him over a missing mud flap?”

Jones said that above all else, she is “grateful” that her son survived.

“So thankful that my son is still living because he could have went another way – he could have been another tale,” she said.

“So I’m thankful and I’m just grateful to God, that God kept him.”

CNN
 — 

Donald Trump only needed 10 minutes to show why his growing pile of criminal charges is not yet loosening his grip on the Republican presidential race and why his opponents will find him so hard to beat.

The ex-president’s growing legal peril hung Friday over the first showcase featuring all poll-leading GOP candidates on the same stage – an American Idol-style audition in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

But his closest rivals didn’t dare bring up a legal quagmire that threatens to be a liability in a general election if Trump is the nominee for fear of alienating his still-massive support in the grassroots. Minor candidates with much less to lose did take on the stampeding elephants in the room – but were rewarded with silence or a torrent of boos.

Still, Trump couldn’t escape the reality of a campaign in which he seems to be running as much to recapture the powers of the presidency to sweep away his criminal exposure, as to implement an agenda likely to be even more extreme and disruptive than that of his first term. Every candidate walked out to the Brooks & Dunn hit “Only in America.” But when Trump arrived, the lyrics echoed his uncertain future: “One kid dreams of fame and fortune. One kid helps pay the rent. One could end up going to prison. One just might be president.”

Trump was making his first major public appearance since special counsel Jack Smith slapped him with new charges Thursday over his hoarding of classified documents at his Florida home after leaving office.

But Trump, the only one of 13 Republican hopefuls to get a standing ovation before he even spoke, largely ignored a flurry of cases that could force him to split time between courtrooms and the campaign trail next year. He did lash out at the Biden administration for what he claimed was the political weaponization of justice.

“If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me. Or if I was losing by a lot, I would have nobody coming after me,” said Trump, who has tried to turn his precarious position into a campaign trail virtue by portraying himself as a victim of political persecution.

As well as the classified documents case, Trump has said he expects to be indicted in another special counsel investigation – into his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his behavior in the run-up to the mob attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. He is also due to go on trial in March in a case in Manhattan relating to a hush money payment made to an adult film actress.

But such is his strength in Iowa – where he has a huge lead in the polls – and nationally in the GOP that his major opponents avoided risking their own reception at Friday’s dinner and their chances in January by raising the new charges.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did stiffen his criticism of Trump’s legal situation – but did so offstage.

“If the election becomes a referendum on what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, we are not going to win,” DeSantis told ABC News. “We can’t have distractions.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence implicitly raised questions about Trump’s suitability for future office but also avoided openly criticizing his former White House partner.

“The allegations, including yesterday’s allegations against the president in that indictment are very serious,” Pence told Fox News with the caveat that Trump was entitled to his day in court. “But I’m never going to downplay the importance of handling our nation’s secrets. It literally goes straight to the security of this country.”

Only candidates who are so far behind that they so far look to have little chance to win in Iowa or anywhere else directly took on Trump.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson went there – but it didn’t do him any good.

“As it stands right now, you will be voting in Iowa, while multiple criminal cases are pending against former President Trump,” Hutchinson said. “We are a party of individual responsibility, accountability and support for the rule of law. We must not abandon that.” His comment drew a single clap in an otherwise silent ballroom.

Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, an ex-CIA officer, left his stinging criticism of the former president for the end of his speech.

“Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again. Donald Trump is not running for president to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 and 2020,” Hurd said to loud boos. “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison,” he said as jeers started to crescendo.

“I know, I know. I know. I know. I know. Listen, I know the truth. The truth is hard,” Hurd said, adding, “If we (nominate) Donald Trump, we are willingly giving Joe Biden four more years in the White House, and America can’t handle that.”

But judging by the snaking lines to shake Trump’s hand in his post-dinner reception and the much-smaller crowds at events hosted by his rivals, Trump remains the darling of his party. Much can change in the months before the caucuses, and it’s possible the sheer weight of legal threats could begin to weigh down Trump and convince some voters that, despite his hero status, another Republican might be a better bet. But if Trump is to be stopped, there is no sign so far that it will happen in Iowa.

Unlike some of the other GOP candidates, Trump is not using the dinner to also hold multiple Iowa campaign stops. On Saturday, he heads to Erie, Pennsylvania, for a campaign rally before what is likely to be an even friendlier audience.

Friday’s dinner in Des Moines, the state capital, was a rare occasion when the major GOP candidates appeared in the same place, even if they delivered 10-minute speeches one by one and never clashed onstage. Trump has warned he may skip the first Republican presidential debate on Fox News next month – a decision that might make sense given the size of his polling lead. The format of such events makes it hard for any candidate to break out. But it’s not impossible. In 2007, Sen. Barack Obama delivered a stemwinder that rescued his dawdling campaign at the equivalent Democratic event – then known as the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. A few months later, victory in the Iowa caucuses put him on the road to the 2008 Democratic nomination and the White House.

On Friday night, the former president’s strength meant that every other candidate was battling to become the Trump alternative, with a strong showing in Iowa that might set them up for a long duel with the front-runner deep into primary season.

The field came to Iowa with added incentive because of the wobbles of DeSantis, long seen as the top rival to Trump but who was forced to slash campaign staff amid concerns by donors about his profligate spending and his performance on the trail. DeSantis is now running a classic grassroots campaign in the Hawkeye State, holding small events and looking voters in the eye.

Polling is sparse so far as the Iowa campaign speeds up ahead of the caucuses in January, but Trump led in a Fox Business survey this month with 46%. DeSantis had 16%, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott had 11%. No other candidate was in double figures.

Despite the indictments hanging over his head, Trump made the most impressive 10-minute presentation. Showing rare discipline in sticking to the script, he demonstrated how he will use the legacy of a presidency that remains hugely popular among activists to disadvantage his rivals. Unlike most of the other candidates, he also tailored his message to the Hawkeye State.

“Hello Iowa, I’m here to deliver a simple message – there’s never been a better friend for Iowa in the White House than President Donald J. Trump,” the ex-president said, before rattling off a list of economic and other benefits, real and exaggerated, that Iowa enjoyed when he was in office. Trump also said that without him, the state would have lost its position as the first to hold a presidential nominating contest. Democrats have already decided that the mostly White, rural state does not represent the diversity of the rest of America and have changed the order of their primary calendar.

“Without me, you would not be first in the nation right now,” Trump said.

After a grim week filled with stories about chaos in his campaign and panic among donors about his performance, the DeSantis camp will likely be cheered by the Florida governor’s reception, and he won one of the few standing ovations of the evening after his remarks.

He defiantly vowed to visit every Iowa county and to chase every vote, in a message to those wondering whether soaring expectations ahead of the campaign were misplaced. DeSantis turned the focus from his own plight to the Democrats, arguing that his record in Florida would translate to 2024 success.

“I’m not budging an inch. We are going to fight back against these people, and we are not letting them take over our schools any longer. We are going to get this right as a nation,” he said.

“Everything I promised people I would do, we did.”

Scott, who is spoken of warmly by many Republican voters in Iowa and is seen as a bright new voice, also slammed Biden in his remarks.

“He is tearing down every rung of the ladder that helped me climb. I was a kid trapped in poverty, who did not believe that in America all things are possible,” the Senate’s only Black Republican said.

While most other candidates were heard politely, none appeared to boost their fortunes significantly. And former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is planting his flag in New Hampshire, didn’t even show up.

To paraphrase Trump’s opening line, there was one message from Iowa on Friday night. The ex-president is going to be tough to beat, in the adoring world of the GOP primary – however many more indictments come raining down from the special counsel or elsewhere.

CNN
 — 

Afghans who were promised a home in the United States after their country fell to the Taliban say they have waited so long for the US to process their applications that they are now being sent back to the enemy they fled.

A number of Afghans who worked with the US and were told they were eligible for resettlement there have been forcibly deported back to Afghanistan from Pakistan, where they fled to await processing following the Taliban takeover in 2021, CNN can reveal.

One man waiting for a US visa described being dropped at the Afghan border by Pakistani police this summer. “They did not hand us over to the (Taliban) Afghan border forces,” he said. “They just released us on the border and told us to go back to Afghanistan. It was me, my four kids and my wife deported together.” He is now living in hiding in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Another deported Afghan, also speaking from hiding in Kabul, said: “So this is very, very dangerous, and it is very tough… How many people have been killed, had been tortured, have been disappeared?” The man, a former employee of a US contractor, said the Taliban “will punish me, they will put me in jail. Maybe they will kill me? I’m sure they will.” He added: “Still, we believe that the USA will help us. We believe we didn’t lose our hope still.”

Both individuals spoke to CNN anonymously for their safety, and provided documentation showing a US visa case number being processed, and evidence of their presence in Pakistan.

Many Afghans fled the Taliban after the August 15, 2021 fall of Kabul to the hard-line group. More than 124,000 Afghans were airlifted out of the country in a huge US-led operation.

Yet, thousands also fled across the border to Pakistan, often with incomplete paperwork, following US guidance that they should wait in a third country for their visa applications to the US to be processed.

Nearly 90,000 Afghans have since been resettled in the US, according to State Department figures, but many others have been caught in the backlog of so-called Afghan Priority 2 (P-2) or Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) applications waiting to be processed.

Human rights groups say the most acute situation is faced by those in Pakistan, from where hundreds of Afghans have been deported in a crackdown against migrants following recent political instability.

At least two Afghans awaiting P-2 visas have been swept up in this crackdown, CNN has learned, and complain of Pakistani police persecution. Several others still residing in Pakistan told CNN about what they said was harassment by Pakistani police and the threat of deportation if they did not pay fines or bribes.

Pakistan’s Foreign and Interior Ministries have not responded to CNN’s request for comment on the claims.

At least 530 Afghans have been deported from Pakistan so far this year, according to Haseeb Aafaq, a spokesman for volunteer group the Afghanistan Immigrants Refugees Council. Aafaq said the figure came from his studies of local records but added it might be a low estimate as many Afghans were deported without documentation.

Aafaq added that the Pakistani authorities made no exceptions for pending US visa cases. “There is no differentiation. The authorities here do not even think about where you are from. If you are Afghan, you must be deported if your visa is not valid, whether you are SIV or P-2 or sponsorship cases.” He said many of those deported are P-2 cases, but he could not provide a precise number as many Afghans keep their P-2 status confidential out of fear for their safety.

Two young Afghan men have taken their own lives in Islamabad since June, both awaiting US P-2 visas, according to activists. Aafaq said one of them, aged 25, who died last week, had suffered “mental pressure and economic pressure and an unclear future.”

Aafaq said the US failure to open a Resettlement Support Center (RSC) in Pakistan meant the processing of cases there had partially stalled. “The RSC has not been activated yet, while in other countries, like Turkey or Tajikistan, people have gone to the US,” he said.

Afghans waiting in Pakistan have reported harassment by Pakistani police, including arrest and demands for money. One, who worked with the US military and asked not to be named for his safety, told CNN: “They were asking for a visa. There were a lot of policemen, they came into the house without clear information. And they took me out of (my) home and they just put (me) in the van. My kids, they were very much harassed. They were crying, they were asking for help.”

He also described how he once saved his American colleagues during a protest, and had commendation letters denoting his service. “I’m disappointed because (of) the way that I served the Americans in Afghanistan. I was expecting them to welcome me there sooner. It seems like I have no future at all.”

The US State Department told CNN in a statement that the Biden administration “continues to demonstrate its commitment to the brave Afghans” who worked with the US. It added that its “processing capacity in Pakistan remains limited, but (staff) are actively working to expand it.” The statement urged “Afghanistan’s neighbors” to “keep their borders open” and “uphold their obligations” when it comes to asylum seekers. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

Another Afghan, whom CNN is not naming for his safety, served the US in Afghanistan and is now in Pakistan with his wife and children. He described their wait for US help as a “bad dream.” His wife sobbed: “Going back to Afghanistan is a big risk and here we are dying, every moment. Staying in Pakistan is a gradual death.”

Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

CNN
 — 

Jim Jordan is shaking down Mark Zuckerberg.

The hyper-partisan Ohio Republican, still on an unsuccessful years-long journey to dishonestly portray Silicon Valley as unfairly censoring American conservatives, is now wielding the power of the federal government in his quest to besmirch Meta.

Jordan, who sits atop the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has embarked on a fishing expedition at Facebook, demanding Zuckerberg turn over reams of internal documents that pertain to Meta’s content moderation decisions. Jordan will then selectively post portions of those very documents on Elon Musk’s rival platform, X, to advance a narrative that Facebook is a supposed anti-free speech social media network working in collusion with the Democrats and media elite to tilt the scales against the GOP.

In effect, Jordan is coercing Zuckerberg into turning over documents that will then be used to mendaciously smear the Meta chief’s company. And if Zuckerberg fails to comply, Jordan has threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress — an action that could carry with it serious legal consequences.

Jordan had been set to hold a contempt vote on Thursday, but backed off when Meta provided his committee some of the sought after documents. Meta, for its part, had previously said it had already turned over thousands of pages of documents and was cooperating with the committee.

“Based on Facebook’s newfound commitment to fully cooperate with the Committee’s investigation, the Committee has decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now,” Jordan wrote on X. “To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL.”

The documents that Jordan ultimately obtained and posted on Thursday were far from surprising. They showed that the White House in 2021 had applied pressure on Meta to keep its platforms clean of Covid vaccine disinformation — something that was already well-known given that the White House had staked a public position on such measures during the pandemic. In fact, President Joe Biden even went as far as to accuse Facebook of “killing people” in his efforts to press the social media company to do more to tackle dangerous vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories on its platforms.

Jordan, however, predictably hyped the documents in a much different light. Dubbing them the “Facebook Files” — a rip off of the Musk-orchestrated “Twitter Files,” which also failed to provide any smoking gun evidence proving government collusion in the Hunter Biden case — Jordan tweeted X’d in all-caps that he had “SMOKING-GUN” evidence proving Facebook “CENSORED AMERICANS BECAUSE OF BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE.”

“These documents, AND OTHERS that were just produced to the Committee, prove that the Biden Admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance,” Jordan claimed, teasing the release of more documents.

Most news organizations gave Jordan’s “Facebook Files” entry little attention on Thursday. But, as you might expect, right-wing media outlets hyped the stunt. Fox News, for instance, featured a story on the documents’ release as the top story on its website and Jordan was welcomed on the network’s air to further promote his narrative without scrutiny. It was a helpful distraction on a day in which new charges against Donald Trump commanded the attention of the nation’s biggest newsrooms.

We are about to live through the Twitter Files era all over again — except, this time around, Facebook and Instagram will be on center stage. Notably, the documents are not being made available to the public because of an erratic billionaire owner who purchased a company and legally acquired the material. In this case, the awesome powers of the federal government are being weaponized to threaten Zuckerberg into handing the information over.

Ironically, Jordan does this all from the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government — a committee ostensibly against wrongfully exploiting the powers of government for a political end.

CNN
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The US and its allies are grappling with how to avert a global food crisis following Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal and its subsequent attacks on Ukraine’s ports and storage facilities.

To keep Ukraine’s massive farming industry afloat, and with the harvest only a few months away, US and Western officials are looking for any options to increase storage capacity, and whether any more grain, wheat or barley can be driven or railed out of Ukraine.

Over the past several days, a number of urgent meetings have been convened by organizations including the United Nations, NATO, and the European Commission. There have been new pledges of support for Ukraine’s agricultural industry, including a new $250 million commitment from the US Agency for International Development.

But officials acknowledge that none of those solutions will be able to replace the millions of tons of food Ukraine was able to export from its deep water ports.

Since leaving the grain deal on July 17, Russia has unleashed a flurry of attacks on grain supplies in key Ukrainian cities, including the port city of Odesa, wiping out 60,000 tons of grain, enough to feed 270,000 people for a year, British Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward said last Friday.

Moscow’s attack last week on Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port, which “facilitates nearly 70 percent of Ukrainian wheat exports to developing countries, caused damage that experts say will take at least a year to repair,” UN Ambassador to the United Nations Linda-Thomas Greenfield said Wednesday.

And earlier this week, Russia targeted a Ukrainian port on the Danube River near NATO ally Romania.

“To see Russian forces targeting…Danube river ports and grain silos, it’s just chilling in the extreme,” said USAID Administrator Samantha Power, who briefed reporters Tuesday after returning from Ukraine.

In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday, Power said she is “really worried” about a global food crisis, noting that as of mid-day Wednesday, wheat prices were up 10% since Russia abandoned the agreement.

The grain deal, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, lasted about a year and allowed billions of dollars worth of grain and wheat to safely transit out of war-torn Ukraine via the Black Sea. Now, Russia’s defense ministry has warned that ships sailing to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports will be viewed as military targets.

Ukraine accounts for large portions of the world’s food supply, including 10% of the world wheat market, 15% of the corn market, and 13% of the barley market, according to the European Commission. Two thirds of the wheat that left Ukraine via the Black Sea ports went to developing countries, said Power.

Speaking separately in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday, Power said she is “really worried” about a global food crisis, noting that as of midday Wednesday, wheat prices were up 10% since Russia abandoned the agreement.

“Russia, by weaponizing food, is doing something truly unconscionable,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week at the Aspen Security Forum.

In its strikes last week on Odesa, Russia claimed it was targeting facilities related to the seaborne attack drones Ukraine has used in the Black Sea, including against the Kerch Bridge. But repeated strikes against grain and food infrastructure, as well as civilian buildings – intended or not – left a city shaken after a year of relative quiet as the grain deal held.

Despite the repeated attacks, the residents of Odesa, sometimes called “the Pearl of the Black Sea,” still headed to the beaches during the day. People sat in cafes and walked their dogs. But at night the streets fell silent and if the air raid sirens blared, families could be seen scurrying into basements.

During that week, Russia fired some of the most notable pieces of its arsenal at Odesa: a variety of land-, sea- and air-launched cruise missiles along with Iranian -made Shahed drones. Massive blasts shook the city, shattered windows and caused car alarms to go off. The buzzing of the drones’ engines could be heard over the rooftops as red tracer fire, looking for the drones, shot up in the dark sky.

Some of the most destructive strikes were largely out of sight – in secure port or grain facilities.

An administration official familiar with discussions told CNN the US is focused on maintaining safe passage of export ships through the Russian-occupied Black Sea, and supporting UN Secretary-General António Guterres in negotiating a breakthrough.

Complicating matters is that five EU countries, four of whom border Ukraine – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria – have currently banned the import of Ukrainian grain to protect their own agricultural industries, although they will allow it transit through their countries.

While past US contributions had gone into developing “alternative shipping routes,” Power on Tuesday said that, “going forward, we’re going to want to invest in additional storage capacity because harvests that had planned to be transmitted to the rest of the world via the Black Sea are now going to need someplace to be stored safely so they don’t rot while they wait to reach global markets.” More storage will also be needed as Ukraine works to repair or replace grain silos that are damaged by Russian strikes.

There are other routes – “road, river, and rail,” in Power’s words – to get food products out of Ukraine.

The US, Ukraine, and Western allies have been discussing how to utilize such routes since Russia’s invasion began, choking off the export of critical food supply and driving up inflation in developing countries. During such talks in 2022, Ukraine told Biden administration officials that transporting one year’s grain harvest by rail into Romania and Poland would take three years, according to a former senior administration official involved in discussions.

After the grain deal was reached last year, the European Union and the US worked closely to expand the land routes to transport Ukrainian agricultural products through other countries and by adjusting railroad lines to accommodate different kinds of train gauges.

Although there have been major increases in the amounts of products exported on the alternative routes, they are more expensive for Ukrainian farmers, who are already dealing with challenges like unexploded mines on their farmlands or continued repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic or worker shortages.

“To be clear, the effects of Ukraine exporting less will be Ukraine producing less,” Power said.

“This is a very intentional, not only use of food as a weapon of war, weaponizing food, including food that is reaching the poorest communities internationally, but it also appears to be part of an ongoing effort to decimate Ukraine’s economy,” Power added.

Kees Huizinga, a farmer in Ukraine, told CNN that “there are no complete alternatives for the grain export through the Black Sea.”

There is nowhere for Ukrainian grain to go with the ports closed, blocked or damaged and four of Ukraine’s neighbors blocking the import of wheat, Huizinga explained.

For the first several months of the war, Russia blockaded key Ukrainian ports, keeping millions of tons of grain off of the global food market and spiking global food prices.

Now the risk of those consequences have returned, along with warnings from the West that Russia could go even further.

“Last week, the United States shared information with the international community warning that Russia was looking to expand its targeting of Ukrainian grain facilities. Russia did just that,” Katherine Brucker, the charge d’affaires at the US Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Tuesday. “We believe its targeting might also include attacks against civilian shipping in the Black Sea. Our information indicates Russia laid additional sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports. We believe this is a coordinated effort by Russia to justify any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea and then blame Ukraine.”

“As we condemn Russia for its bombardment of Ukraine’s port cities and export infrastructure, we must remain vigilant to ways in which Russia looks to expand the conflict and continue to blame others for its unconscionable actions,” she said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN
 — 

Rudy Giuliani concedes he made defamatory statements about Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in an effort to resolve their lawsuit against him and to satisfy a judge who has considered sanctioning him.

The late-night Tuesday filing from Giuliani says he doesn’t contest Moss and Freeman’s accusations that he smeared them after the 2020 election. Yet the filing says he still wants to be able to argue that his statements about voter fraud in the 2020 election were protected speech. Notably, he also refuses to concede that his statements caused damages to Moss or Freeman.

CNN has reached out to a lawyer for Freeman and Moss.

The new filing doesn’t immediately resolve the case against Giuliani, which had taken a thorny turn for the former prosecutor and New York City mayor after a judge cautioned him earlier this month that he could lose the lawsuit or face severe sanctions for not gathering his own records in a thorough way and turning them over to Moss and Freeman’s team as they move through the case.

The federal judge, Beryl A. Howell of the DC District Court, must still look at Giuliani’s filings from Tuesday, which also try to provide explanations for why he didn’t search his records more thoroughly.

This story is breaking and will be updated.