The Wall Street Journal - Global pulse News

The Wall Street Journal - Global pulse News

Global pulse News

Alvin Bragg’s Next Choice on Trump Provides a Political Predicament

NEW YORK CITY — Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district lawyer, entered into previous President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial besieged by death dangers from extremists, reproval from political analysts for developing a nationwide diversion (“Conserve the mug shots for Georgia, the handcuffs for Jan. 6,” composed Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal) and criticism from legal experts who saw the case as structurally unsound, too quixotic to continue. The outcome nonetheless was a guilty decision on all 34 counts of falsifying organization records in the name of hiding a dubious plan to interrupt the 2016 election.

The district lawyer’s work will quickly turn to the sentencing memo his workplace will provide to the judge in the event, Juan M. Merchan, which should show similarly questionable no matter what it suggests. Trump was founded guilty of class E felonies, the most affordable level in the state, and might be sentenced to probation or as much as 4 years in jail — or, additionally, what is called a split sentence, with a reasonably short quantity of time invested in a city prison in advance of a probationary decision. (The idea of a previous president and his requisite Trick Service information all stacking into Rikers Island is not likely.)

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Definitely to be thought about is the truth that Michael Cohen, among the administrators of the conspiracy for which Trump functioned as impresario, was sentenced to 3 years in federal jail — though he eventually did not serve the complete term — after pleading guilty to project financing offenses and lying to Congress. In 2015, Allen Weisselberg, the previous chief monetary officer of the Trump Company, invested 100 days in prison after pleading guilty to tax scams including his previous company — likewise a “documents” infraction. And he was sentenced to prison time once again in April, in accordance with Bragg’s suggestions, after pleading guilty to perjury in Trump’s civil scams trial.

The political effects around this problem are layered, both in regards to the governmental election and Bragg’s own profession. Unlike a federal district attorney in a comparable position, Bragg is a chosen authorities. (Approved, history supplies no comparable example of a county district attorney weighing in on the fate of an ex-president with a criminal conviction.) Must he flex towards leniency, he deals with the prospective reaction of the Trump-hating Manhattan Democrats who would keep him in workplace. Must he lean into severe penalty, he deals with charges of hypocrisy from legal perfectionists in addition to a huge Trump support group, which, as one previous district attorney put it, would raise countless dollars immediately off the classification of an optimal sentence.

Bragg is a popular reformist who has actually developed his credibility on turning away from the prosecution of low-level street offenses and promoting anti-carceral techniques to criminal justice. What would it indicate for him to send out a 77-year-old guy without any previous rap sheet to jail?

“It’s an unfortunate day to put anybody in prison. ‘Lock him up’ — we don’t think in that,” Duncan Levin, a previous Manhattan district attorney turned defense attorney, informed me. “A conviction of a previous president is unfortunate,” he included, and the job of sentencing him is one “you wouldn’t want on anybody.”

Still, Levin preserved that he had a hard time “to picture an E felony case that calls out for prison time more than this one.” He indicated Trump’s 3 pending indictments, his absence of shown regret — which is provided significant attention throughout sentencing choices — and the numerous times he was held in contempt throughout the trial.

“You can slam the DA for requesting prison time as politically inspired,’’ Levin stated, “However it doesn’t indicate that Trump doesn’t deserve it.”

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June 7, 2024
North Korea releases a bothersome method over the border: garbage and manure balloons
- North Korea drifted numerous balloons filled with trash and feces throughout the border south.
- North Korea had actually promised retaliation after South Korean activists sent out anti-Pyongyang brochures.
- The North’s balloons included fertilizer, NBC reports, however not human excrement.
North Korea drifted balloons bring trash and feces into South Korea recently, authorities in Seoul stated.

The obnoxious drifting orbs were an obvious retaliation versus South Korean activists who had actually formerly flown anti-Pyongyang brochures and USB drives including K-pop music over the border.

Days before the balloons landed in South Korea, a North Korean authorities swore retaliation through “paper and dirt,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

South Korea’s military found the balloons near the border Tuesday and alerted locals to remain within, according to the Journal.

Approximately 260 balloons were eventually discovered — the biggest number ever sent out, the Yonhap News Company reports, mentioning South Korea’s joint chiefs of personnel. The nations have actually been feuding with messages returned and forth through balloons for many years.

North Korea’s most current barrage of balloons included plastic, batteries, parts of shoes, and manure, a JCS authorities stated, according to Yonhap.

South Korea’s defense ministry verified the existence of fertilizer to NBC, not human excrement — though the outlet kept in mind that human feces was sent out by North Korea in 2016.

The current skirmish comes as North Korea on Monday stopped working to introduce a spy satellite, which took off midair.

South Korean media reported Russia was aiding with the effort, with a variety of its service technicians getting in the nation before the messed up launch.

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May 29, 2024
US greenlights potential weapons sale to Israel

The Biden administration has informally told top lawmakers it has greenlit the potential sale of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, two congressional aides said Tuesday.

Context: It’s the first arms sale proposal for Israel to reach lawmakers since the administration placed a hold on an arms package to pressure Israel not to invade the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.

The congressional aides were granted anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive arms transfer that has not yet been made public.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the plans, which still need to be finalized by the two sides and are not expected to yield any deliveries for several years.

What’s on the table: The package being considered includes about $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, the aides confirmed.

Not so fast: It’s common practice for the State Department to share preliminary details of potential sales with Congress before they are finalized, and the top leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee have the ability to block a deal.

Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

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May 15, 2024
Biden administration delays proposal to ban menthol cigarettes

(Reuters) -The Biden administration on Friday delayed a plan to ban menthol cigarettes, citing the need for more time to review the health regulator’s proposal.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the decision, said it came after the White House weighed the potential public-health benefits of banning the cigarettes against the political risk of angering Black voters in an election year.

For decades, menthol cigarettes have been in the crosshairs of anti-smoking groups who argue that they contribute to disproportionate health burdens on Black communities and play a role in luring young people into smoking.

“This rule has garnered historic attention and the public comment period has yielded an immense amount of feedback, including from various elements of the civil rights and criminal justice movement,” U.S. health secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Friday.

“It’s clear that there are still more conversations to have, and that will take significantly more time.”

A U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision expected last year to ban the cigarettes was delayed with the Biden administration taking time to discuss the matter with several groups.

Shares of Altria Group and British America Tobacco were down marginally, while Imperial Brands was down about 1%. Shares in Philip Morris International, which does not sell cigarettes in the United States, fell 1%.

Menthol cigarettes account for a third of the industry’s overall market share in the United States.

The highly addictive products have been cited for their appeal to young smokers, as well as significant health impacts for Black communities.

Civil rights groups have contended for years that menthol cigarettes pose a disproportionately higher risk in Black communities, where they are heavily marketed.

About 81% of Black adults who smoked cigarettes used menthol varieties, compared with 34% of white adults, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(Reporting by Granth Vanaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Sriraj Kalluvila)

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April 26, 2024
Are Idaho’s famous potatoes vegetables or … grains?! Senators take a stand in food debate

Potatoes might be reclassified as a grain, but not if Idaho’s senators have their way.

U.S. Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, along with a bipartisan group of 12 other senators, have called on the departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to keep the potato classified as a vegetable. Their letter concerns the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is published every five years by the USDA and HHS. A recent report from The Wall Street Journal said the advisory committee for the guidelines is considering reclassifying the potato as a grain.

The letter, which was addressed to Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, argues that potatoes should keep their vegetable classification because they’re a good source of potassium, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin B6 and fiber.

“In fact, potatoes have more potassium than bananas, a food that is commonly associated with being high in potassium,” the letter said.

Don’t just take the senators’ word for it, though. The letter cited a 2013 study published by the National Library of Medicine saying that “potatoes should be included in the vegetable group because they contribute critical nutrients.”

Idaho U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo, left, and Jim Risch. Both are members of the Republican Party.

What would a change mean?

Potatoes are by far the most eaten vegetable in the U.S., according to the USDA. A 2019 study found that the average American eats 49.4 pounds of potatoes a year, compared to 31.4 pounds of tomatoes, the second-most-eaten vegetable, and 9.4 pounds of onions, which came in third.

A change in their classification would mean that vegetable consumption across the country would go down, technically, although the nutrients in potatoes wouldn’t magically disappear.

The senators aren’t so sure.

“If potatoes were to be reclassified, consumers would miss out on vital nutrients,” the letter warns.

Classifying potatoes as a grain would especially affect school lunch programs, which need a cheap way to offer meals that meet vegetable intake guidelines.

“Schools already struggle to meet vegetable consumption recommendations at a reasonable cost, and potatoes are often the most affordable vegetable,” the letter said.

On a more ominous note, the senators warn that classifying potatoes as a grain would “immediately confuse consumers, retailers, restaurant operators, growers, and the entire supply chain.”

But it’s really about the economy, right?

The senators also could be worried about the economic impact that a reclassification would have on their home states. Idaho produces a third of the potatoes grown in the U.S., according to the state agriculture department. Potato farms in the state brought in $1.3 billion in 2023, per a University of Idaho study. According to Jamey Higham, the president and CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission, reclassifying the food would affect how much funding the potato industry receives.

“It would affect our funding from different agencies in the government that would now put us in the same basket as the grains,” Higham said. “We would no longer be a specialty crop, which would mean a whole different set of guidelines.”

A change in the food’s classification would offer meal programs that aim to meet federal vegetable consumption guidelines, such as school lunches, less incentive to buy potatoes.

It also would affect individual consumers, according to Higham, especially those facing food insecurity. Classifying potatoes as a grain could lead to people who rely on government meal programs spending more on vegetables.

“Whenever this comes up, the next topic is almost inevitably food insecurity. … I think it has some severe economic impacts on all of the feeding programs, whether it’s WIC, school lunch, school breakfast, because it just messes up the food pyramid a little bit,” Higham said.

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March 30, 2024
1 year after Evan Gershkovich’s arrest in Russia, Biden vows to “continue working every day” for his release

Washington — President Biden pledged Friday to “continue working every day” to secure the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russian detention, as the American journalist’s time imprisoned in Russia hit the one-year mark.

“We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russia’s appalling attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips,” Mr. Biden said in a statement released Friday that also mentioned the case of Paul Whelan, another U.S. citizen who has been held in Russia since 2018.

Gershkovich — whom the U.S. State Department deemed “wrongfully detained” soon after his arrest — is still awaiting a trial on espionage charges that the White House, his family and his employer all insist are fabricated, but which could still see him sentenced to decades in prison.

The U.S.-born son of Soviet emigres covered Russia for six years, as the Kremlin made independent, on-the-ground reporting increasingly dangerous and illegal.

Journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested on espionage charges, stands inside a defendants’ cage before a hearing to consider an appeal on his arrest at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, April 18, 2023.

NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty

His arrest in March 2023 on charges of spying — the first such charge against a Western journalist since the Soviet era — showed that the Kremlin was prepared to go further than ever before in what President Vladimir Putin has called a “hybrid war” with the West.

The Journal and the U.S. government dismiss the espionage allegations as a false pretext to keep Gershkovich locked up, likely to use him as a bargaining chip in a future prisoner exchange deal.

Putin said last month that he would like to see Gershkovich released as part of a prisoner swap, but the Biden administration has said Moscow rejected the most recent exchange offer presented to it.

The 32-year-old, who has been remanded in custody until at least the end of June, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

The Gershkovich family said in a letter published by the Wall Street Journal on Friday that they would pursue their campaign for his release.

“We never anticipated this situation happening to our son and brother, let alone a full year with no certainty or clear path forward,” they said. “But despite this long battle, we are still standing strong.”

Gershkovich reported extensively on how ordinary Russians experienced the Ukraine conflict, speaking to the families of dead soldiers and Putin critics. Breaking stories and getting people to talk was becoming increasingly hard, Gershkovich told friends before his arrest.

But as long as it was not impossible, he saw a reason to be there.

Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s ability to win war against Russia

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“He knew for some stories he was followed around and people he talked to would be pressured not to talk to him,” Guardian correspondent Pjotr Sauer, a close friend, told AFP. “But he was accredited by the foreign ministry. I don’t think any of us could see the Russians going as far as charging him with this fake espionage.”

Speaking to CBS News’ Leslie Stahl last week, the reporter’s sister Danielle said the family back in the U.S. was still worried, despite Gershkovich’s repeated assurances to them of his accreditation, which he thought would keep him safe, as it always had.

But as Stahl reported, what used to be unprecedented in Russia has become almost routine under Putin. Gershkovich is only the most recent American to inadvertently become a pawn on Putin’s geopolitical chessboard against the West.

Whelan, a U.S. Marine veteran, has been jailed in Russia for five years. Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was arrested in January, accused of treason for helping Ukraine. And basketball star Brittney Griner, imprisoned for nine months on drug charges, was finally freed in an exchange for a notorious arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.”

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March 29, 2024