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117 droner monteret med sprængstof angreb søndag fire militærbaser dybt inde i Rusland og gjorde skade på op mod en tredjedel af Ruslands strategiske bombefly. Angrebet, som Ukraine har navngivet operation “Edderkoppens spind”, har været halvandet år undervejs. Det er ukrainernes hidtil mest spektakulære angreb på Rusland siden krigens begyndelse, og det afslører alvorlige sprækker i Putins panser både militært og politisk. Jyllands-Postens korrespondent Henrik Philip Hare har undersøgt, hvordan operationen kunne lykkes, og hvad det kan betyde for krigen. Gæst: Henrik Philip Hare, Jyllands-Postens korrespondentVært: Jacob GrosenKlip og tilrettelæggelse: Mathias BondeFoto: SBU/Ukraine Der er lånt klip fra CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Weather last night..."Three Things You Need to Know"...Trump economy is good...SEC Baseball Tournament...Jake Tapper book and CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Trump er 100 dage inde i sin præsidentperiode, og han har allerede opfyldt sit populære valgløfte om at stoppe indvandringen til USA. Det betyder, at mange asylansøgere, som egentlig havde aftaler med de amerikanske myndigheder fra Joe Bidens tid som præsident, nu er strandet på den forkerte side af Trumps høje grænsemur. Samtidig spreder Trumps skærpede udlændingepolitik panik blandt de latinoer, der befinder sig i USA. Jyllands-Postens korrespondent Jørgen Ullerup tager dig i dag med til begge sider af grænsen mellem USA og Mexico, hvor han har undersøgt effekten af Trumps udlændingepolitik. Gæst: Jørgen Ullerup, Jyllands-Postens korrespondent i USA Vært: Jacob Grosen Tilrettelæggelse og klip: Signe Schack Engebjerg Foto: Casper Dalhoff Du kan læse Jørgen Ullerups reportage fra den katolske kirke i Dallas her eller fra et racerløb med amerikanske muskelbiler på Xtreme Raceway Park syd for Dallas her Til dagens episode er der lånt klip fra WFAA, Fox 5 Washington DC og CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

0:00 - Mr. BLM Brandon goes to Washington next week Wed 10:04 - Karoline Leavitt announces new rules for WH press corps’ access 21:27 - Philadelphia to let trans athletes play in girls sports, defying Trump, PA law 24:57 - FBI investigating Comey honeypot scheme to target Trump 42:08 - Just coming for a better life 01:00:48 - Thomas Weitzel, retired Chief of Police of Riverside, offers his review of the recently resigned Andrea Kersten: "Her reign of terror over CPD was destructive. There’s no trust in COPA going forward" Follow Chief Weitzel on X @ChiefWeitzel 01:19:02 - Noted economist Stephen Moore has a big smile on his face after Trump backed spending bill passes the House. Check out Steve’s newest book The Trump Economic Miracle: And the Plan to Unleash Prosperity Again – co authored with Art Laffer 01:34:39 - Former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense & contributor to the Washington Times and The American Spectator, Jed Babbin, believes the US should stand up to Putin but emphasizes "we do not have a vital national security in securing Ukraine" Follow Jed on X @jedbabbin 01:51:51 - JB with Tapper on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chicago to increase property tax increase. The International Space Station is falling apart. WaPo loses 200,000 digital subscribers. Tim Walz had secret fling with daughter of top Chinese Communist official during teaching stint in China. NY Times relies on Media Matters for their research. Veterans Organization Looking for Help After Weekend Fire. The left goes into hysterics after Hinchcliff joke. Weird Ball State Professor. Fireworks on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brown U Professor Wendy Schiller joins the show to talk about Gina Raimondo's comments yesterday on CNBC and tonight's Vice Presidential debate on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Afghanistan er det farligste land at være kvinde i. Menneskerettighedsaktivist Manilla Ghafuri flygtede selv fra landet som syvårig. Derfor kæmper hun for kvindernes frihed i dag – og hun mener, at Danmark har overladt millioner af afghanske kvinders skæbne hos et Taliban, som nu frarøver dem retten til et værdigt liv.  Danmark har allerede forsøgt at skabe demokrati og menneskerettigheder for kvinderne i Afghanistan. Det lykkedes ikke. Så hvorfor mener Manilla Ghafuri, at Danmark stadig har et ansvar for det afghanske folks – og særligt kvindernes – frihed?  Gæst: Manilla Ghafuri, talsperson i Rapolitics og medstifter af foreningen Afghan Network and Resources Vært: Mathias BondeTilrettelæggelse: Pernille SkytteKlip og produktion: Asta Aaholm Foto: Gregers Tycho Der er lånt klip fra Al Jazeera, BBC og CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Det sidste barn med dansk statsborgerskab bliver nu hentet hjem fra en af de kurdiskkontrollerede fangelejre, der omtales som “helvede på jord”, i Syrien. Godt tre år efter de første børn med dansk statsborgerskab blev evakueret fra de syriske lejre, afgjorde Højesteret torsdag, at Danmark også skal tilbyde evakuering af den otteårige dreng og hans dybt radikaliserede mor. Kvinden har ikke boet i Danmark i 20 år, og i Storbritannien er hun kendt som den ene del af duoen “terror-twins”, der har modtaget våbentræning og loyalt har støttet Islamisk Stat. Jyllands-Postens journalist Esben Larsen Mikkelsen tegner et portræt af kvinden, Danmark nu modvilligt henter hjem. For hvor farlig er hun, og hvornår kan hun være på fri fod igen?   Gæst: Esben Larsen Mikkelsen, journalist på Jyllands-Posten  Vært: Jacob Grosen  Tilrettelæggelse: Pernille Skytte og Mathias Bonde Klip og produktion: Emil Knüppel  Foto: Al-Roj-lejren (2021), Thea Pedersen   Der er lånt klip fra DR og CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva have landed in the United States, following the biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War.  The returnees were greeted with tears and embraces by their joyous families at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also on the tarmac to welcome them after their plane touched down some 20 minutes before midnight on Thursday.  Whelan, who was first to exit the plane, gave a salute before shaking hands with the US leaders, followed by Gershkovich, who embraced both Harris and Biden before hugging his ecstatic parents. Kurmasheva rushed into the arms of her husband and daughters after greeting Harris and Biden.  Gershkovich went quickly to address media gathered at the tarmac, telling his Wall Street Journal colleagues the words they had been waiting more than a year to hear. “I'm home,” he said.  Biden observed the emotional family reunions, then removed his pin and placed it on Whelan's lapel as Harris looked on.  “It feels wonderful. Long time in coming. I was absolutely convinced we could get it done. I meant it when I said – alliances make a difference. They stepped up and took a chance for us and it mattered a lot,” Biden told reporters, referring to the extensive diplomatic effort that resulted in the swap.  The return marks the conclusion of what Biden called a “brutal ordeal” for the three Americans and their families following their detentions in Russia, where prisoners are often kept in harrowing conditions.  Whelan, 54, had spent almost six years in Russian prisons after his arrest in Moscow in December 2018, while Gershkovich, 32, had been detained for more than a year. Both were sentenced on espionage charges and declared wrongfully detained by the US State Department.  Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old journalist for the US-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was detained in October 2023 and found guilty of spreading false information about the Russian army – charges her family and employer deny.  Their release – and that of Washington Post contributor and permanent US resident Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42 – was orchestrated as part of a complex prisoner swap between Russia, the US and other Western nations involving 24 detainees in total.  Sixteen people were released from Russian custody on Thursday, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Moscow in return got former high-ranking FSB colonel Vadim Krasikov, as well as several individuals accused of spying or cybercrime.  In a statement earlier Thursday, Biden hailed the agreement as a “feat of diplomacy,” in collaboration with US allies, including Germany, Poland, Norway, and Slovenia.  “Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over,” said Biden, who hosted the families of Gershkovich, Whelan, Kurmasheva and Kara-Murza at the White House.  Whelan, Gershkovich and Kurmasheva flew roughly 10 hours from Ankara, Turkey, on top of a three hour and 45 minute flight from Moscow to Ankara.  They were accompanied on their return plane by multiple medics, a psychologist and US government officials including representatives from the National Security Council and State Department, a US official told CNN.  All three and their family members are expected to continue on to San Antonio where they will be taken to Brooke Army Medical Center to undergo medical evaluation and receive whatever care they need for as long as they need, the US official said.  This is typical protocol for wrongfully detained Americans who return home. WNBA player Brittney Griner also went to the center right after she was released from Russian detention in December 2022.  The returnees will also have the option to participate in a Defense Department program called PISA (Post Isolation Support Activities), which is meant to help them readjust to being back in the United States. Many recently freed US wrongful detainees have undergone this program to help them acclimate back to normal life.  - by Simone McCarthy, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former President Donald Trump was loudly and consistently booed throughout his speech Saturday at the Libertarian Party's national convention, particularly when he asked attendees to “nominate me or at least vote for me.” The heckling began the moment the former president took the stage, and some of his supporters in the room tried to drown out the boos with chants of “We want Trump.” “Now I think you should nominate me or at least vote for me, and we should win together,” Trump said. “Because the Libertarians want to vote for me … and it's very important because we have to get rid of the worst president in history.” Trump added, “Only do that if you want to win; if you want to lose, don't do that. Keep getting your 3% every four years.” (In 2016, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson earned more than 3% of the popular vote – a high point in the party's history.) Trump left the stage after 34 minutes, marking one of his shortest campaign speeches to date. The Libertarian Party is expected to select its presidential nominee Sunday. Trump's stop at the Libertarian convention marked an unconventional one for a presumptive Republican nominee, but it is illustrative of his campaign's intensifying concern over third-party candidates. The outreach to Libertarians follows weeks of stepped-up attacks by Trump aimed at Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose high-profile independent White House bid is increasingly viewed by the former president's advisers as a potential problem in an election expected to be decided by a narrow margin in a handful of states. Kennedy, who spoke at the convention on Friday, was nominated by a delegate Sunday on the convention floor, where his candidacy was met with boos from other delegates. He was eliminated as a potential nominee in the first round of voting after receiving support from 19 delegates, or just 2.07% of delegates. Trump was also nominated on the convention floor Sunday, but Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle ruled the former president was not qualified because he did not submit nominating papers. The scene inside the Washington Hilton was at times raucous Saturday, as Trump supporters and Libertarians clashed. McArdle, the party chair, took the stage ahead of Trump's speech to tell supporters of the former president sitting in the front rows to make room for the Libertarian delegates. “I don't want to, like, fight with people or beg and plead. Let's just make room for the delegates, because those are the people you're trying to persuade, right? You are already sold. Our delegates are not sold, and President Trump is here to try to sell them,” McArdle said. “Those of you who are Donald Trump supporters, I think what I would like to see tonight is for us to all get along and come to an understanding and find areas of agreement even if we don't agree to vote for the same person,” she added. Also ahead of the speech, Secret Service agents confiscated rubber chickens that the super PAC aligned with Kennedy's presidential campaign had passed out to attendees. “No lighters, no water bottles, no noisy chickens,” one agent yelled to attendees waiting to go through the security checkpoint. Tony Lyons, the co-chair of the pro-Kennedy American Values 2024 super PAC, confirmed to CNN that the group had distributed the rubber chickens at the convention Saturday. Libertarians in the crowd at times confronted Trump supporters, and some audience members were escorted out of the venue. One Libertarian critic of Trump was forced to leave after CNN observed him throwing a punch at a Trump-supporting audience member. Several people toward the front of the room turned their backs to Trump as he spoke. One of Trump's few loud applause lines Saturday came when he announced that if elected, he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the underground website Silk Road, which let users anonymously buy and sell anything from drugs to hacking tutorials. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 following his conviction on seven counts ranging from money laundering to drug trafficking, and many attendees at the Libertarian convention have been arguing for his pardon. Trump also received cheers when he said he would put a Libertarian in his Cabinet and appoint Libertarians to senior positions in his administration in a potential second term. Prior to the speech, the Trump campaign said it anticipated getting an unfriendly reception from some attendees – former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, now a Trump surrogate, received loud boos when he mentioned the former president in his speech at the convention Friday. “Do we know that it's not exactly home base? Absolutely. There will be people who want him to be there and people who don't want him to be there, but we're on offense and competing for nontraditional votes in order to unite the country,” Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller told CNN. Meanwhile, Biden's campaign cast Trump as “anti-freedom” ahead of his address. “Donald Trump says his Republican Party is the party of freedom, but tell that to the women who have had the freedom to make their own health care decisions ripped away and their pregnancies monitored by the government,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement Saturday. Biden was also invited to speak at the convention but didn't respond, McArdle told CNN earlier. At a news conference immediately following Trump's speech, Chase Oliver, a Libertarian presidential candidate, said that he believed it was a mistake to invite Trump but that he was proud that Libertarians heckled the former president during his remarks. “I don't like having a war criminal on this stage. I don't feel he deserves a spot on this stage,” Oliver said. “While I think it was a mistake to have invited Donald Trump, I'm glad he got to see a glimpse of what a real Libertarian reception feels like.” Michael Rectenwald, another Libertarian presidential candidate, said he believed the party achieved some gains by inviting Trump to the convention, pointing to the former president's commitment to commute Ulbricht's sentence. “We got a major political party candidate to say that he would free Ross Ulbricht,” Rectenwald said at the news conference. “We moved the needle toward liberty.” Still, Rectenwald acknowledged that Trump's remarks were unlikely to persuade Libertarians to vote for the former president. “There are no people in this room in the Libertarian Party at risk for falling for Trump's bullsh*t,” he said. Trent Nestle, a Libertarian delegate from Tennessee, told CNN that Trump's pledge to commute Ulbricht's sentence wouldn't be enough to convince him to back the former president. “I want to see it happen,” Nestle said. “It won't change my vote in November.” - by Kate Sullivan, Aaron Pellish and Steve Contorno, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday he's assembling a team of investors to make a bid to buy TikTok.  This comes a day after the House passed a measure to ban the Chinese-owned social media giant or force a sale to a US-operated owner.  “It's a great business and I'm going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” Mnuchin said in an interview on CNBC Thursday morning. Even though TikTok is likely unprofitable, “it's worth a lot of money,” he added.  Mnuchin said he would give existing US investors the option to roll over their stakes in TikTok but stressed that no entity would have more than 10% control. But he declined to name any individuals on the team he's putting together.  “There's no way that the Chinese would ever let a US company own something like this in China,” he said. From his time in the administration, he said he's seen evidence that having TikTok on your phone gives it the ability to “collect an awful lot of data.”  But ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, may never be allowed to be sold to any company outside of China because of measures the government began putting into place in 2020. The Chinese government deems TikTok a sensitive technology and officials have said they'd oppose any forced sale that would involve exporting it into the hands of a foreign owner.  Mnuchin and TikTok didn't immediately respond to CNN's requests for comment.  Dan Ives, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told CNN that ByteDance and China will “never” sell TikTok with the source code — the “special sauce” that makes the app so successful and valuable.  “Without the source code, this would be like buying an F1 car without the engine. It would be illogical,” Ives said.  Mnuchin, though, said he's looking to find a solution where the Chinese government will allow TikTok to be sold without a technology transfer.  Mnuchin, who now leads Liberty Strategic Capital, a private equity firm, was an early advocate for forcing a sale of TikTok to a US company. But he faced opposition from other members of former President Donald Trump's cabinet when the sale was proposed in 2020. Trump supported a ban at the time. He's since changed his stance, arguing that it would benefit Facebook.  “Facebook has been very bad for our country,” he said in a separate interview on CNBC earlier in the week. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, didn't immediately respond to CNN.  “I believe he would support a sale,” Mnuchin said Thursday, referring to Trump. “I'll call him up later and ask him.” He added that he's been in touch with the former president in recent weeks regarding TikTok but has not discussed his nascent effort to acquire it.  Thursday's TikTok news comes just one week after Mnuchin led a $1 billion lifeline rescue of embattled regional lender New York Community Bank.  The TikTok bill the House passed is now heading to the Senate, where it faces a much larger uphill battle in getting approved. President Joe Biden said he would sign the bill into law if the Senate passes it. Even if that happens, any kind of TikTok ban would likely be fought in courts. Already Montana was prevented from moving forward with a law to effectively ban the app after a federal judge blocked it last year.  Ives, the tech analyst, said he sees a 25% chance that the TikTok legislation ultimately becomes law, forcing a sale of the company. He said countless parties are undoubtedly considering making an offer to buy TikTok should it go up for sale.  “It's sharks. They see blood in the water,” he said.  However, the more likely buyer, according to Ives, would be a tech giant like Microsoft or Oracle, which already has a relationship with TikTok, and not a financial player like Mnuchin.  - by Elisabeth Buchwald and Matt Egan, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Caroline Glick, JNS Senior Contributing Editor and Host of the Caroline Glick Show and Brigitte Gabriel, Founder & Chairman of ACT For America join to discuss the treatment of Israeli hostages, specifically the women - where are the women's rights activists now? Are these young children and women, with broken pelvis's from the gang rapes they have been subjected to not important? It appears even members of Congress are unable to condemn the savage attacks, as seen with Jayapal of Washington with Dana Bash of CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elon Musk declared artificial intelligence “one of the most disruptive forces in history” in a sit down conversation with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that dove into the dangers and opportunities of AI on Thursday, capping off the UK's inaugural AI Safety Summit.  “AI will be a force for good most likely,” Musk said. “But the probability of it going bad is not zero percent.”  The two men spoke in an interview-style chat from a stage at Lancaster House, a government venue in central London often used for diplomatic purposes, before the conversation was opened up to questions from journalists. The conversation was then posted for streaming on Musk's personal account on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter that he owns.  Musk was present throughout the two-day event held mainly at Bletchley Park, the headquarters for the Allied Forces codebreaking program during World War II, along with US Vice President Kamala Harris, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and other notable politicians and global tech leaders. Chinese officials were also present at the event.  “I'm glad to see at this point that people are taking AI seriously,” Musk said to Sunak on Thursday. “Thanks for this summit. I think it will go down in history as quite important.”  Musk unpacked several predictions for AI, including a future where no jobs would be necessary and AI companionship would be one of the highest forms of friendship.  In office for just over a year, Sunak has restored some calm to British politics, but also faced challenges over his elite background, having studied at the exclusive Winchester College, Oxford and Stanford universities. Before entering politics, he worked for banks and hedge funds, including Goldman Sachs.  In the first day of his AI event, more than 25 countries and the European Union signed the Bletchley Declaration, agreeing to work together to create a united approach to oversight in efforts to deploy AI technology in a “human-centric, trustworthy and responsible” way, underscoring the “potential for serious, even catastrophic, harm” that many tech leaders have expressed concern over.  Musk and world leaders  Musk's conversation with Sunak is one of numerous chats with world leaders the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has joined in the past few months. It showed his growing influence in geopolitical affairs as well as various technology and industrial sectors.  Musk met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September, weeks before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. Netanyahu met with Musk to discuss artificial intelligence and antisemitism on the Musk-owned social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, at a time Musk was warring with the Anti-Defamation League.  Musk also sat down with French President Emmanuel Macron numerous times in the past year. Other big names that recently made time for Musk in their schedule include Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in June, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in September.  At the event Thursday, Musk noted that if the AI powerhouses such as the United States and the UK “are aligned on AI safety, that is a good thing.” And he suggested other global powers such as China should also remain involved in discussions.  He compared AI to a magic genie and noted that fairy tales with magic genies that grant wishes “don't end well” and cause people to “be careful what you wish for.”  Musk has increasingly become a fixture in international affairs, making headlines not only for his meetings with heads of state but also for the provision – or lack thereof – of SpaceX's Starlink satellite services in war-torn regions.  Starlink in war zones  The billionaire received backlash this week for pledging to provide aid organizations in Gaza with Starlink satellite service as the besieged strip struggles with internet connectivity. The Israeli Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi said on X that Hamas “will use it for terrorist activities.”  “Perhaps Musk would be willing to condition it with the release of our abducted babies, sons, daughters, elderly people. All of them! By then, my office will cut any ties with starlink,” Karhi posted.  Musk made the announcement on X after US Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that “cutting off all communication to a population of 2.2 million is unacceptable.”  “Starlink will support connectivity to internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza,” Musk said in a post replying to Ocasio-Cortez.  In Walter Isaacson's new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk,” it was revealed that Musk secretly ordered his engineers not to turn on his company's Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to avoid supporting a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.  “There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor,” Musk posted on X in September.  Musk's decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk's conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson.  “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” Musk tweeted in September.  Sunak's AI Summit  The billionaire's presence at the UK's summit brought an increased level of media attention to the event that is key to Sunak's hope for global AI regulation.  Sunak and Musk discussed how digital super-intelligence could affect the public and require regulation the same way industries such as aviation and cars require regulation.  “I agree with the vast majority of regulations,” Musk said. “A referee is a good thing.”  At the same time, Musk reiterated his “fairly utopian” belief that AI could create an “age of abundance” with “no shortage of goods and services.” He says AI could lead to a future where “no job is needed” and people enjoy a universal high income. He mentioned a world of AI tutors and companionship for people like his son who has learning disabilities and difficulty making friends.  The next AI safety summits are set to be hosted by Korea and France and are scheduled for 2024.  - by Jennifer Korn, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Joe Biden is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the White House said, sharing an agreement in principle has been reached on a meeting later this month in San Francisco.  Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stressed that the White House believes the best way to manage competition is through “intense diplomacy,” and said, “It's going to be a constructive meeting. The president's looking forward to it.”  Pressed repeatedly on the meeting, Jean-Pierre said she “just confirmed it,” though a White House official later clarified that the press secretary “was speaking to the agreement in principle.”  “We are planning for a constructive meeting between the leaders, but still working together to put those plans into place,” the official said Wednesday, noting that logistical details continue to be worked out.  Biden is traveling to San Francisco on November 14 to host representatives from the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies for APEC Economic Leaders' Week.  The high-stakes meeting comes as the White House is navigating major wars in Ukraine and Israel, and amid growing competition with China as the US has worked to reestablish regular communication with Beijing following months of tension. Biden has frequently framed the battle between the world's democracies and autocracies as a central issue of his presidency. Other key issues up for discussion include trade and the economy and human rights concerns.  Biden has frequently pressed the importance of face-to-face interactions with world leaders as he seeks to foster improved relations.  US officials have previously stopped short of confirming the Xi-Biden meeting, suggesting preparations were underway but noting that the Chinese government regularly confirms high-level meetings only at the last minute.  Biden and Xi previously met face-to-face in November 2022 for a three-hour talk in Bali, Indonesia, at a G20 Summit, marking a step toward improving a souring –- but critical –- bilateral relationship. Since then, however, tensions have emerged over China's spy balloon and restrictions on US investments in China.  - by Betsy Klein, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, once seen as a reform-minded contender to the country's top leadership role, died of a sudden heart attack early Friday in Shanghai, state media reported. He was 68 years old. Li, who was nominally China's No. 2 leader until late last year, served as the country's premier – traditionally in charge of the economy – for a decade from 2013 to March this year under strongman leader Xi Jinping. During his time in the role, Li navigated the world's second-largest economy through a challenging period of rising technology and trade tensions with the United States, mounting government debt and unemployment, and the Covid-19 pandemic. In his final year in power, the economist by training had been a strong voice warning of challenges to China's economy amid widespread Covid-19 lockdowns. He backed efforts to boost employment and maintain economic stability. As the news of Li's death broke Friday morning, social media users circulated a line from Li's annual address to China's rubber stamp parliament in 2022, where he pledged that, “No matter how the international environment may change, China will keep the course of wider openness.” Li, known to use his English language skills on occasion in appearances outside the mainland, was seen as representing a different approach to China's ties with the world, at a time when the country's relations with the West have grown increasingly strained. “China and the United States have common interests,” Li said in response to CNN's question at his annual press conference in March 2021. “The two countries need to put more energy on their common ground and expand converging interests.” Li is also remembered for his focus on addressing societal ills – with social media users on Friday also pointing to his 2020 comments noting that China still had 600 million people with a monthly income of 1,000 yuan ($137). Those remarks came at a time when China was touting its success in lifting millions out of poverty as a point of national pride. Li, a highly educated technocrat with degrees in law and economics, was considered friendly to the private sector. He was seen to have an increasingly diverging economic policy stance from Xi, who tightened party control over the economy. A reform-minded leader Li is widely seen as a protege of Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao, who presided over an era of rapid growth in China from 2002 to 2012. The men shared economic sensibilities and rose to power through the Communist Party's Youth League, once seen as a training ground for future leaders. The faction was known for producing reform-minded leaders hailing from humble family backgrounds, but its influence is believed to have been crushed by Xi since he came to power. The relationship between Li and Hu was in the spotlight last year when the former top leader was unexpectedly led out of the closing ceremony of the October 2022 Communist Party Congress, where Xi further consolidated power. In a moment of drama during a usually highly choreographed event, Hu was escorted from the room, pausing on his way out to pat a stony-faced Li on the shoulder, who nodded and turned to watch the former leader depart. State media later suggested Hu left due to health issues. Under Hu, Li was named to the party's top leadership body, the Politburo Standing Committee, in 2007. He previously held key roles as party chief in industrial Liaoning province and was provincial leader of Henan, an agricultural base. Born in Anhui, Li spent his late teens doing manual labor with the Dongling Production Brigade in the eastern province during the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long social and political upheaval launched by late Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Li was among the first batch of students to sit the college entrance exam after it was reinstated following the end of the Cultural Revolution. In 1978, he enrolled at the prestigious Peking University, where he studied law and later obtained a doctorate in economics. Unlike Xi, Li is not considered one of China's princelings hailing from a prominent party family. He held positions in the Communist Youth League Central Committee during the 1980s and 90s. His time in the top echelons of China's Communist Party came to a close last October, when he was not named to the party's Central Committee during a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle that saw Xi surround himself with key allies. Then 67, Li was one year short of the unofficial retirement age for senior Chinese Communist Party leaders. He was succeeded as premier earlier this year by former Shanghai party chief and Xi loyalist Li Qiang. - by Simone McCarthy and Steven Jiang, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in central Paris on Thursday, in defiance of a controversial new ban on pro-Palestinian rallies in the country. French police and members of the gendarmerie worked to disperse the crowds with tear gas and water cannons, visuals showed. The ban had been announced earlier in the day, according to a message sent by French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin to the country's police, citing concerns about public order. “Pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order,” said the minister. He added that any organization of such protests will lead to arrests. Darmanin also called on the police to protect all locations visited by French Jews such as synagogues and schools, and said any foreigner committing acts of anti-Semitism on French soil will be “immediately expelled”. The ban follows a deadly and massive attack by militant group Hamas on Israel over the weekend that killed more than 1,200 people. The Israeli government has retaliated with overwhelming force in the coastal enclave of Gaza, which Hamas controls. Airstrikes have killed over 1,500 people in the densely inhabited area, and Israeli officials have shut off supplies of water and fuel to the entire population. As the conflict reaches unprecedented heights, protests in support of both Israelis and Palestinians have been seen around the world – some resulting in violent clashes. French President Emmanuel Macron in his address to the nation on Thursday called on the French people to stay united, saying that “it is this shield of unity that will protect us from drifting away and from all hatred.” Demonstrators in the historic Place de la Republique on Thursday whistled, clapped, and chanted in slogans in French including “We are all Palestinian” and “Palestine will live, Palestine will prevail.” The ban on pro-Palestinian rallies is “not normal under the rule of law,” one attendee named Ryan told Reuters. “In France, the great country that they say France is, you cannot demonstrate as is your right, freely. Unfortunately, freedom is no longer here, and we are forced to defy French law, as one would say, and demonstrate to show the truth,” he added. Another protester described the ban as a “great injustice” and told Reuters that he had been fined 135 euros (roughly $140) for wearing the keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian scarf. France is one of a number of European nations, including the United Kingdom and Germany, where security measures have been stepped up amid fears of reprisals against members of the Jewish communities. - by Dalal Mawad and Eve Brennan, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An asteroid sample collected by NASA has touched down on Earth, giving scientists the opportunity to learn more about the origins of the solar system and capturing a piece of a massive space rock that has a chance of colliding with our planet in the future. It's the first time the agency has accomplished such a feat.  Seven years after launching to space, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth Sunday to deliver the pristine sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.  OSIRIS-REx, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, lifted off in 2016 and began orbiting Bennu in 2018. The spacecraft collected the sample in 2020 and set off on its lengthy return trip to Earth in May 2021. The mission traveled 3.86 billion miles total to Bennu and back.  The spacecraft dropped the sample capsule — containing an estimated 8.8 ounces of asteroid rocks and soil — from a distance of 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) above Earth's surface early Sunday, and entered the planet's atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET while traveling at a speed of about 27,650 miles per hour (44,498 kilometers per hour).  Parachutes deployed to slow the capsule to a gentle touchdown at 11 miles per hour (17.7 kilometers per hour). The sample landed in the Defense Department's Utah Test and Training Range about 10 minutes after entering the atmosphere.  “Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team. You did it,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson. “It brought something extraordinary, the largest asteroid sample ever received on Earth. This mission proves that NASA does big things, things that inspire us, things that unite us. It wasn't mission impossible. It was the impossible that became possible.”  OSIRIS-REx is continuing its tour of the solar system — the spacecraft has already set off to capture a detailed look at a different asteroid named Apophis.  The mission now has a new name: OSIRIS-APEX, for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-APophis EXplorer.  What happens after landing  Four helicopters transported recovery and research teams to the landing site and conducted assessments to make sure the capsule wasn't damaged in any way, said Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The team confirmed that the capsule was not breached during landing.  Recovery teams, which have been training for the event for months, retrieved the capsule once it was safe, said Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, which partnered with NASA to build the spacecraft, provide flight operations and help recover the 100-pound capsule.  The initial recovery team, outfitted with protective gloves and masks, ensured that the capsule was cool enough to touch, given that it reached temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) during reentry, Burns said. The team also ensured the capsule's battery didn't rupture and leak any toxic fumes.  A science team collected samples from the landing site, including air, dust and dirt particles.  “One of the key scientific objectives of OSIRIS-REx is to return a pristine sample and pristine means that no foreign materials hamper our investigation during sample analysis,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “As unlikely as it is, we do want to make sure any materials that are out there in the Utah range that may interact with the sample are well documented.”  A helicopter carried the sample in a cargo net and delivered it to a temporary clean room near the landing site. Within this space, the curation team will conduct a nitrogen flow, called a purge, to prevent any of Earth's atmosphere from entering the sample canister and contaminating it. The larger pieces of the capsule will be stripped away, said Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curation lead at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.  A team will prepare the sample canister for transport on a C-17 aircraft to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday. Scientists expect to remove the lid to see the sample for the first time on Tuesday.  What the sample may reveal  Details about the sample will be revealed through a NASA broadcast from Johnson Space Center on October 11. While the science team will not have had time to fully assess the sample, the researchers plan to collect some fine-grained material at the top of canister Tuesday for a quick analysis that can be shared in October, Lauretta said.  Scientists will analyze the rocks and soil for the next two years at a dedicated clean room inside Johnson Space Center. The sample will also be divided up and sent to laboratories around the globe, including OSIRIS-REx mission partners at the Canadian Space Agency and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. About 70% of the sample will remain pristine in storage so future generations with better technology can learn even more than what's now possible.  If a government shutdown occurs, “it will not endanger the curation and safe handling of the asteroid sample,” said Lori Glaze, director for NASA's Planetary Sciences Division.  “Certain steps leading to this highly anticipated analysis will possibly be delayed, but the sample will remain protected and safe despite any disruptions to the schedule,” she said during a news conference Friday. “The sample has waited for more than 4 billion years for humans to study it and if it takes us a little longer, I think we'll be OK.”  Along with a previously returned sample of the asteroid Ryugu from Japan's Hayabusa2 mission, the rocks and soil could reveal key information about the beginning of our solar system. Scientists believe that carbonaceous asteroids such as Bennu crashed into Earth early during the planet's formation, delivering elements like water.  “Scientists believe that the asteroid Bennu is representative of the solar system's own oldest materials forged in large dying stars and supernova explosions,” Glaze said. “And for this reason, NASA is investing in these missions devoted to small bodies to increase our understanding of how our solar system formed and how it evolved.”  But the sample can also provide insights into Bennu, which has a chance of colliding with Earth in the future.  It's crucial to understand more about the population of near-Earth asteroids that may be on an eventual collision course with our planet. A better grasp of their composition and orbits is key to predicting which asteroids may have the closest approaches to Earth and when — and essential to developing methods of deflecting these asteroids based on their composition.  - by Ashley Strickland, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

eal in hand to draw yet another one of China's neighbors closer to the United States.  In just the last five months, Biden has hosted the Philippines' president at the White House for the first time in over a decade; he has fêted the Indian prime minister with a lavish state dinner; and he has hosted his Japanese and South Korean counterparts for a summit ripe with symbolism at the storied Camp David presidential retreat.  At each turn, Biden's courtship and his team's steadfast diplomacy have secured stronger diplomatic, military and economic ties with a network of allies and partners joined if not by an outright sense of alarm at China's increasingly aggressive military and economic posture, then at least by a growing sense of caution and concern.  The latest page in the US's Indo-Pacific playbook will come via the establishment of a “comprehensive strategic partnership” that will put the US on par with Vietnam's highest tier of partners, including China, according to US officials familiar with the matter.  “It marks a new period of fundamental reorientation between the United States and Vietnam,” a senior administration official said ahead of Biden's arrival in Hanoi, saying it would expand a range of issues between the two countries.  “It's not going to be easy for Vietnam, because they're under enormous pressure from China,” the official went on. “We realize the stakes and the President is going to be very careful how he engages with Vietnamese friends.”  The US' increasingly tight-knit web of partnerships in the region is just one side of the US's diplomatic strategy vis-à-vis China. On a separate track, the Biden administration has also pursued more stable ties and improved communication with Beijing over the last year, with a series of top Cabinet secretaries making the trip to the Chinese capital in just the last few months.  The latter part of that playbook has delivered fewer results thus far than Biden's entreaties to China's wary neighbors, a dichotomy that was on stark display as Biden attended the G20 in New Delhi, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not.  The president did not appear overly concerned when questioned Saturday about his Chinese counterpart's absence at the summit.  “It would be nice to have him here,” Biden said, with Modi and a handful of other world leaders by his side. “But, no, the summit is going well.”  As Biden and Xi jockey for influence in Asia and beyond, merely showing up can be seen as a power play and Biden sought to make the most of Xi's absence, seizing the opening to pitch the United States' sustained commitment both to the region and to developing nations around the world.  In Vietnam, it's not only China whose influence Biden is competing with. As he arrived, reports suggested Hanoi was preparing a secret purchase of weapons from Russia, its longtime arms supplier.  On Monday, Biden plans to announce steps to help Vietnam diversify away from an over-reliance on Russian arms, a senior administration official said.  As China's economy slows down and its leader ratchets up military aggressions, Biden hopes to make the United States appear a more attractive and reliable partner. In New Delhi, he did so by wielding proposals to boost global infrastructure and development programs as a counterweight to China.  Beijing and Moscow have both condemned a so-called “Cold War mentality” that divides the world into blocks. The White House insists it is seeking only competition, not conflict. Biden told reporters on Sunday that he is “sincere” about improving the United States' relationship with China.  “I don't want to contain China, I just want to make sure we have a relationship with China that is on the up-and-up, squared away, and everyone knows what it's all about,” Biden said. “We have an opportunity to strengthen alliances around the world to maintain stability. That's what this trip is all about, having India cooperate much more with the United States, be closer to the United States, Vietnam being closer with the United States. It's not about containing China. It's about having a stable base – a stable base in the Indo-Pacific.”  Still, the desire to pull nations into the fold has been evident.  Squeezed by rival giants  On Saturday, Biden held a photo op with the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa – three members of the BRICS grouping that Xi has sought to elevate as a rival to US-dominated summits like the G20.  If there is a risk in that approach, it is leaving nations feeling squeezed by rival giants. For Biden, however, there is an imperative in at least offering poorer nations an alternative to China when it comes to investments and development. The president on Sunday acknowledged that China's economy has faced “some difficulties” recently, noting stalled growth and an unfolding real estate crisis in the country, but attempted to tamp down the idea that the United States was rooting against China's economic success, telling reporters, “I want to see China succeed economically, but I want to see them succeed by the rules.”  “We're not looking to hurt China, sincerely, we're all better off if China does well – China does well by the international rules,” he added.  But increasingly, China's neighbors – like Vietnam – are seeking a counterweight to Beijing's muscular and often unforgiving presence in the region, even if they are not prepared to entirely abandon China's sphere of influence in favor of the US'.  “We're not asking or expecting the Vietnamese to make a choice,” the senior administration official said. “We understand and know clearly that they need and want a strategic partnership with China. That's just the nature of the beast.”  Days before Biden's visit and the expected strategic partnership announcement, China sent a senior Communist Party official to Vietnam to enhance “political mutual trust” between the two communist neighbors, the official Chinese Xinhua news agency reported.  Asked about Biden's upcoming visit to Vietnam, China's Foreign Ministry on Monday warned the US against using its relations with individual Asian countries to target a “third party.”  “The United States should abandon Cold War zero-sum game mentality, abide by the basic norms of international relations, not target a third party, and not undermine regional peace, stability, development and prosperity,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a daily briefing.  Vietnam has also sought to maintain good ties with China. Its Communist Party chief was the first foreign leader to call on Xi in Beijing after the Chinese leader secured an unprecedented third term last October. In June, Vietnam's prime minister met Xi during a state visit to China.  But even as it seeks to avoid China's wrath, Vietnam is increasingly pulled toward the US out of economic self-interest – its trade with the US has ballooned in recent years and it is eager to benefit from American efforts to diversify supply chains outside of China – as well as concern over China's military build-up in the South China Sea.  Experts say those tightened partnerships are as much a credit to the Biden administration's comprehensive China strategy as it is a consequence of the way China has increasingly aggressively wielded its military and economic might in the region.  “China has long complained about the US alliance network in its backyard. It has said that these are vestiges of the Cold War, that the US needs to stop encircling China, but it's really China's own behavior and its choices that have driven these countries together,” said Patricia Kim, a China expert at the Brookings Institution.  “So in many ways, China's foreign policy has backfired.”  From foes to friends  The upgrading of the US-Vietnam relationship carries huge significance given Washington's complicated history with Hanoi.  The two countries have gone from mortal enemies that fought a devastating war to increasingly close partners, even with Vietnam still run by the same Communist forces that ultimately prevailed and sent the US military packing.  There were signs during Biden's visit that some of those differences remain. Reporters representing US media outlets were physically held back from covering events at the Communist Party Headquarters – an event the White House and Vietnamese officials had agreed would be covered by the American press.  The episode only served to underscore the extent to which Biden is elevating US strategic and economic interests despite human rights and press freedom concerns.  Vietnam is the world's third-largest jailer of journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders, and the country ranks 178th out of 180 countries on the organization's World Press Freedom Index.  The White House has defended its engagement with autocratic regimes around the world, insisting that Biden raises human rights and democracy issues privately.  While the upgrading of that relationship has been a decade in the making, US officials say a concerted drive to take the relationship to new heights carried that years-long momentum over the line.  A late June visit to Washington by Vietnam's top diplomat, Chairman Le Hoai Trung, crystallized that possibility. During a meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the two first discussed the possibility of upgrading the relationship, according to a Biden administration official.  As he walked back to his office, Sullivan wondered whether the US could be more ambitious than a one-step upgrade in the relationship – to “strategic partner” – and directed his team to travel to the region and deliver a letter to Trung proposing a two-step upgrade that would take the relations to their highest-possible level, putting the US on par with Vietnam's other “comprehensive strategic partners”: China, Russia, India and South Korea.  Sullivan would speak again with Trung on July 13 while traveling with Biden to a NATO summit in Helsinki.  The conversation pushed the possibility of a two-step upgrade in a positive direction, but it wasn't until a mid-August visit to the White House by Vietnam's ambassador to Washington that an agreement was in hand. Inside Sullivan's West Wing office, the two finalized plans to take the US-Vietnam relationship to new heights and for Biden and Vietnam's leader, General Secreatary Nguyen Phu Trong, to shake hands in Hanoi.  The trip was still being finalized when Biden revealed during an off-camera fundraiser that he was planning to visit. The remark sent the planning into overdrive.  Still, US officials are careful not to characterize the rapprochement with Vietnam – or with the Philippines, India, Japan and Korea, or its AUKUS security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom – as part of a comprehensive strategy to counter China's military and economic heft in the Indo-Pacific.  “I think that's a deliberate design by the Biden administration,” said Yun Sun, the China program director at the Stimson Center. “You don't want countries in the region or African countries to feel that the US cares about them only because of China because that shows a lack of commitment. That shows that, ‘Well, we care about you only because we don't want you to go to the Chinese.'”  - by Jeremy Diamond and Kevin Liptak, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday formally notified the judge overseeing the Georgia election subversion case that he “may” try to move his state case into federal court. Trump's lawyers have previously said they would try to move the case, which could help him get the charges dropped by invoking immunity protections for federal officials. “President Trump hereby notifies the Court that he may seek removal of his prosecution to federal court,” his lawyer Steven Sadow said in a brief court filing. “To be timely, his notice of removal must be filed within 30-days of his arraignment.” The 30-day clock began on August 31, when Trump waived his right to an arraignment hearing and entered a not guilty plea. There are several potential benefits for Trump if he can move the state case into federal court. It would give him additional avenues to get the charges dropped if he can convince a judge that his alleged actions in the indictment were tied to his formal duties as a government official. If the case stays in state court, the jurors will all come from Fulton County, which President Joe Biden won by a 47-point margin. If the case moves to federal court, the jury pool will be culled from a 10-county region near Atlanta that Biden won by 32 points, a narrower but still comfortable margin. Several of Trump's 19 co-defendants are already attempting to move their case to federal court. His former chief of staff Mark Meadows testified at a hearing last week as part of his bid to move the case. Further hearings are scheduled for later this month on whether a federal judge will weigh similar requests from former Trump-era Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and other co-defendants. - by Marshall Cohen, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Authorities are investigating a death at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert as thousands of people remain trapped on site after heavy rains inundated the area and created thick, ankle-deep mud which sticks to campers' shoes and vehicle tires.  Attendees were told to shelter in place in the Black Rock Desert and conserve food, water and fuel after a rainstorm swamped the area, forcing officials to halt any entering or leaving of the festival.  “A little over 70,000 people,” remained stranded Saturday, Sgt. Nathan Carmichael, with the Pershing County Sheriff's Office, told CNN Sunday morning. Some people have left the site by walking out but “most of the RVs are stuck in place,” he said.  On Sunday morning, event organizers said roads remained closed as they were “too wet and muddy” and more uncertain weather was likely on the way. While some vehicles were able to leave, others got stuck in the mud, organizers said on the event's website.  “Please do NOT drive at this time,” they added. “We will update you on the driving ban after this weather front has left the area.”  The remote area in northwest Nevada was hit with 2 to 3 months' worth of rain – up to 0.8 inches – in just 24 hours between Friday and Saturday morning. The heavy rainfall fell on dry desert grounds, whipping up thick, clay-like mud festivalgoers said was too difficult to walk or bike through.  More rain is likely Sunday afternoon, according to a forecast from the National Weather Service office in Reno. “Stronger storms will be capable of very heavy rainfall, small hail, and wind gusts to 40+ mph,” the weather service noted.  Those conditions were likely to be in the Burning Man Festival area from around 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. local time, a CNN analysis showed.  The sheriff's office said it is investigating “a death which occurred during this rain event.” Authorities did not publicly name the person or provide details on the circumstances of the death.  “The family has been notified and the death is under investigation,” the sheriff's office said in a late Saturday news release.  The individual was found on the playa and life-saving procedures to revive them were not successful, Carmichael said Sunday, but did not share further details.  Playa is the term used to describe sunken dry lake beds in deserts where water evaporates rather than running off, and even a small amount of rain can quickly soak a large area.  Event organizers said they plan to burn the Man – the huge totem set on fire at the festival's culmination – on Sunday night, if weather allows.  How long this could last  Authorities have not provided information on when roads could reopen, but the sunshine is expected to return Monday.  “We do not currently have an estimated time for the roads to be dry enough for RVs or vehicles to navigate safely,” Burning Man organizers said in a Saturday evening statement. “Monday late in the day would be possible if weather conditions are in our favor. It could be sooner.”  Organizers noted the rain falling on an already saturated playa overnight and Sunday “will affect the amount of time it takes for the playa to dry.”  For now, the gate and airport into Black Rock City remain closed and no driving is allowed into or out of the city except for emergency vehicles, the organizers said on social media. Black Rock City is a temporary metropolis erected annually for the festival and comes complete with emergency, safety and sanitary infrastructure.  The rain “made it virtually impossible for motorized vehicles to traverse the playa,” the Pershing County Sheriff's Office said, noting people were advised to shelter in place until the ground has dried enough to drive on safely.  Vehicles trying to drive out will get stuck in the mud, Burning Man organizers said Saturday. “It will hamper Exodus if we have cars stuck on roads in our camping areas, or on the Gate Road out of the city,” the organizers added.  “If you are in BRC, please shelter in place & stay safe,” organizers said.  Storms and heavy rains across Nevada flooded other parts of the state and may have led to another death. In Las Vegas, authorities found a person unresponsive and “entangled with debris,” on Saturday morning who is believed to be “a drowning victim,” according to Jace Radke, a spokesperson for the city. An investigation is ongoing, Radke said in a news release.  Difficult conditions, but some stay positive  Some festivalgoers hiked miles on foot in the thick mud to reach main roads while others stayed at their camps, hoping for conditions to improve.  Hannah Burhorn, a first-time attendee at the festival, told CNN people were trudging through the mud barefoot or with bags tied around their feet.  “People who have tried to bike through it and have gotten stuck because it's about ankle deep,” Burhorn said. The mud is so thick it “sticks to your shoes and makes it almost like a boot around your boot,” she added.  It's unclear exactly how many people are stranded at the festival, but typically more than 70,000 people attend the weeklong event. It's being held from August 28 to September 4 this year.  There weren't any reports of injuries as of Saturday afternoon, Sean Burke, the director of emergency management for Pershing County, told CNN.  Amar Singh Duggal and his friends managed to leave the festival after hiking about 2 miles in the mud, he told CNN. He estimated it took them about 2 hours to get to a main road where they arranged to be picked up and taken to Reno, about a 120-mile drive from the event grounds.  “We made it, but it was pure hell (walking) through the mud,” Duggal said. “Each step felt like we were walking with two big cinder blocks on our feet.”  Among those attending the festival was DJ Diplo and comedian Chris Rock.  Rock posted a video on Instagram of thick mud and Diplo posted a series of videos in which he said a fan offered him and Rock a ride out of the site.  The DJ said they walked several miles and were able to get to a nearby airport.  Meanwhile, attendees who typically dedicate their time to making art and building community are now also focused on rationing supplies and dealing with connectivity issues.  “There is super limited bandwidth and a lot of people at the camp (are) trying to cancel flights and arrange for extended time here” due to the weather, Burhorn told CNN via text message from a Wi-Fi camp.  Still, the poor conditions have not stopped the creativity, said Burhorn, who had traveled from San Francisco.  “People are building mud sculptures,” she said.  Andrew Hyde, another attendee stuck at the Burning Man, said despite the muddy conditions making it difficult to walk, the weather has taken the meaning of the event back to its roots.  “You come out here to be in a harsh climate, and you prepare for that,” Hyde told CNN's Paula Newton. “So in many ways, everybody here just kind of made friends with their neighbors and it's a community event.”  Morale at the event is OK and there's generally no panic among the attendees, Hyde said, describing music returning overnight.  There are worries about the additional rain causing delays, however, and the unknowns of worsening conditions.  “I think the concern is if we have another rain,” he said. “People need to go back to their jobs, back to the responsibilities they have back home.”  Assistance brought in  Organizers announced Saturday night they'll be putting mobile cell trailers in different positions, configuring the organization's Wi-Fi system for public access and deploying buses to nearby Gerlach to take people who might walk off the playa to Reno.  “This is not likely a 24-hour operation at this time,” the festival said in a statement on its website.  Organizers are also resourcing four-wheel-drive vehicles and all-terrain tires to help ferry medical and other urgent situations to the blacktop.  There have been people who managed to walk to a main road and were waiting for transport from the festival organizers Saturday night, the Pershing County Sheriff's Office said.  Resources have been brought in from around northern Nevada to help people with medical needs on the event grounds, the sheriff's office said.  “Burning Man is a community of people who are prepared to support one another,” Burning Man said on its website. “We have come here knowing this is a place where we bring everything we need to survive. It is because of this that we are all well-prepared for a weather event like this.”  “We have done table-top drills for events like this,” organizers added. “We are engaged full-time on all aspects of safety and looking ahead to our Exodus as our next priority.”  - by Nouran Salahieh and Emma Tucker, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the first time since 2016, former Pres. Trump will hold a townhall on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Marcus, Columnist for Fox News and The New York Post and the author of "Charade: The Covid Lies That Crushed A Nation" Topic: Tucker Carlson's departure from Fox News Joseph diGenova, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Topic: Alvin Bragg and Jim Jordan, legalities of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon's departures from Fox and CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bill O'Reilly, author of Killing the Legends: The Lethal Danger of Celebrity, has a new book out in September, Killing the Witches, The Horror of Salem, joins us to discuss all the news of the day from Mayorkas to Biden to street takeovers by gangs of criminals. And last but not least, Humpty Dumpty tries to figure out why he was fired from CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Universal Music Group — the music company representing superstars including Sting, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande — has a new Goliath to contend with: artificial intelligence. The music group sent urgent letters in April to streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, asking them to block artificial intelligence platforms from training on the melodies and lyrics of their copywritten songs. The company has "a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators," a spokesperson from Universal Music Group, or UMG, told CNN. "We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists." The move by UMG, first reported by the Financial Times, aims to stop artificial intelligence from creating an existential threat to the industry. Artificial intelligence, and specifically AI music, learns by either training on existing works on the internet or through a library of music given to the AI by humans. UMG says it is not against the technology itself, but rather AI that is so advanced it can recreate melodies and even musicians' voices in seconds. That could possibly threaten UMG's deep library of music and artists that generate billions of dollars in revenue. "UMG's success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists — as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already," UMG said in a statement Monday. "However, the training of generative AI using our artists' music ... begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on." The company said AI that uses artists' music violates UMG's agreements and copyright law. UMG has been sending requests to streamers asking them to take down AI-generated songs. Difficult to control "I understand the intent behind the move, but I'm not sure how effective this will be as AI services will likely still be able to access the copyrighted material one way or another," said Karl Fowlkes, an entertainment and business attorney at The Fowlkes Firm. No regulations exist that dictate on what AI can and cannot train. But last month, in response to individuals looking to seek copyright for AI-generated works, the US Copyright Office released new guidance around how to register literary, musical, and artistic works made with AI. "In the case of works containing AI-generated material, the Office will consider whether the AI contributions are the result of 'mechanical reproduction' or instead of an author's 'own original mental conception, to which [the author] gave visible form,'" the new guidance says. The copyright will be determined on a case-by-case basis, the guidance continued, based on how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final piece or work. The US Copyright Office announced it will also be seeking public input on how the law should apply to copywritten works the AI trains on, and how the office should treat those works. "AI companies using copyrighted works to train their models to create similar works is exactly the type of behaviour the copyright office and courts should explicitly ban. Original art is meant to be protected by law, not works created by machines that used the original art to create new work," said Fowlkes. But according to AI experts, it's not that simple. "You can flag your site not to be searched. But that's a request — you can't prevent it. You can just request that someone not do it," said Shelly Palmer, Professor of Advanced Media at Syracuse University. For example, a website can apply a robots.txt file that works like a guardrail to control which URL's "search engine crawlers" can access a given site, according to Google. But it is not a full stop, keep-out option. Grammy-winning DJ and producer David Guetta proved in February just how easy it is to create new music using AI. Using ChatGPT for lyrics and Uberduck for vocals, Guetta was able to create a new song in an hour. The result was a rap with a voice that sounded exactly like Eminem. He played the song at one of his shows in February, but said he would never release it commercially. "What I think is very interesting about AI is that it's raising a question of what is it to be an artist," Guetta told CNN last month. Guetta believes AI is going to have a significant impact on the music industry, so he's embracing it instead of fighting it. But he admits there are still questions about copyright. "That is an ethical problem that needs to be addressed because it sounds crazy to me that today I can type lyrics and it's going to sound like Drake is rapping it, or Eminem," he said. And that is exactly what UMG wants to avoid. The music group likens AI music to "deep fakes, fraud, and denying artists their due compensation." "These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists," the UMG statement said. Music streamers Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora did not return request for comment. - Vanessa Yurkevich, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Special Live CNN Town Hall with Americans and Ukrainians on The One-Year Anniversary of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine...tonight at 9E/6P on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Show set-up..."Three Things You Need to Know"...new study about Covid-19...Don Lemon still AWOL from CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last night, Tucker ROASTED Don Lemon of CNN because of the way Don is acting toward his co-workers on that dumpster fire of a morning show on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When James Michael Grimes fell overboard from a Carnival cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico, he said the sheer will to live, along with strength from God, kept him alive as he miraculously swam for what he believes was more than 15 hours. Grimes, 28, who described himself as an "average guy" who likes hunting, fishing and being outdoors, was rescued late on Thanksgiving Day and told CNN he is "blessed to be here." The Alabama native was onboard the Carnival Valor with 18 members of his family for the week of the Thanksgiving holiday. It was the night before Thanksgiving when Grimes, who was at an onboard bar with his sister, went to use a restroom around 11 p.m., his sister recalled, according to a Carnival statement to CNN. The last thing he remembers before regaining consciousness in the water was going to listen to live music aboard the ship with family, he said, and he doesn't remember where, or how, he fell off the ship. He'd had drinks on the Valor, but says he was not inebriated, Grimes told ABC earlier. "I was trying to stay as positive as I could from the moment I came to, and regain consciousness, I can just remember right then thinking, 'wow, it's a miracle that I'm not already dead,' " Grimes said. Grimes said he is not capable of floating, and credited his survival to his faith and positive attitude, adding he even created songs to keep his spirits up. He swam through two schools of jellyfish and watched the sun rise during his time in the water, and said he lost almost 20 pounds during the experience. "The lord gave me the will to live. It's a miracle," he told CNN. "I wasn't going to give up at any point in time just say, this is it, this is the end. It never came to that. I was determined to swim until my arms and legs could not hold my body up anymore." "It was like a 20-hour baptism," he added. He also battled confusion, fatigue, and some sort of creature below. "It came up on me really quick. And I went under, and I could see it. And it wasn't a shark, I don't believe. But it had more like a flat mouth, and it came up and bumped one of my legs, and I kicked it with the other leg. It scared me, not knowing what it was ... all I could see was a fin," he told ABC earlier. At another point, Grimes grabbed a floating stick, which he said "looked like bamboo," and started chewing it. "It gave some type of flavor in my mouth other than saltwater," he told ABC. Grimes also said he had conversations with God during his time in the Gulf. "'Lord, my worst fear is drowning. I don't know why you put me out here in this trial, but I know you're going to get me through it,' " he recalled saying. "It wasn't a matter of if I get saved or if they find me, it was just a matter of when, and I just got to keep swimming until they do." Grimes' family had reported him missing at noon on Thanksgiving. He eventually saw lights from a tanker ship, and swam toward it, he had told ABC. The ship's crew spotted him around 8:25 p.m. and alerted the Coast Guard, which sent a helicopter crew to hoist him out of the water, the service said. The Coast Guard member who rescued him looked like a guardian angel coming down from the helicopter, Grimes told CNN. Lt. Seth Gross, a search and rescue coordinator for the USCG told CNN if Grimes was in the water for 15 hours, it's "the absolute longest that I've heard about, and just one of those Thanksgiving miracles." "The fact that he was able to keep himself afloat and above the surface of the water for such an extended period of time, it's just something you can't take for granted and certainly something that'll stick with me forever," Gross said, adding the case showed how much "the will to live is something that you need to account for in every search-and-rescue case." Grimes is now planning a trip to New Orleans to meet the Coast Guard crew who rescued him and added he wouldn't rule out another cruise in the future. "If that's the worst thing I ever have to go through again, I think I'll be okay," Grimes said. "Being the Alabama fan that I am, I was out there just rolling with the tide." - by Leyla Santiago, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Hannah Sarisohn and Alaa Elassar, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China has abruptly delayed the publication of key economic data, one day before its scheduled release, as the ruling Communist Party gathers at a major political meeting against the backdrop of a faltering economy. The country's National Bureau of Statistics updated its schedule on Monday, with the dates for a series of economic indicators -- including the closely-watched GDP growth -- marked as "delayed." The indicators, which had been scheduled for release on Tuesday, also include quarterly retail sales, industrial production and monthly unemployment rates. The bureau did not give a reason for the delay or set a new publication date. Separately, the country's customs authority also postponed the release of monthly trade data, which were initially scheduled to come out on Friday. The delay of the highly anticipated data coincides with the week-long 20th Communist Party National Congress in Beijing, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to secure a norm-breaking third term in power. Priorities presented at the gathering will also set China's trajectory for at least the next five years. "The delay suggests that the government believes that the 20th Party Congress is the most important thing happening in China right now and would like to avoid other information flows that could create mixed messages," said Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING Group, in a research note on Tuesday. Other analysts believe it could be because the data sets are not pretty. "My forecast is for a further decline of 1.2% [on a quarterly basis for China's GDP]. This would mean China had joined the US in a technical recession," said Clifford Bennett, Chief Economist at ACY Securities. The delay would make sense "from an image management perspective," he said. Some economists call two consecutive quarters of contraction a technical recession. China's GDP declined 2.6% in the second quarter from the previous one, reversing a 1.4% growth in the January-to-March period. On a year-on-year basis, the economy expanded 0.4% in the second quarter. Analysts have widely expected third-quarter growth to remain weak, as strict Covid curbs, an intensifying crisis in real estate, and slowing global demand continue to pressure the economy. Economists polled by Reuters have expected China's GDP to expand by 3.4% in the third quarter from a year earlier. That would fall far short of the government's full-year growth target of around 5.5%. Many international organizations, including the IMF and World Bank, have recently downgraded China's GDP growth forecasts for this year. Bennett expected the third-quarter GDP data to be released after the Party Congress. "Whenever the release occurs, we should all be prepared for some global financial market reaction if the world's two largest economies are both in recession this year, " he said. China's economy is facing mounting challenges. Growth has stalled, youth unemployment is at a record high, and the housing market is in shambles. Constant Covid lockdowns have not only wreaked havoc on the economy, but also sparked rising social discontent. In the 20th Party Congress report released on Sunday, Xi renewed his pledge to grow China into a "medium developed country" by 2035. That would mean China needs to grow at an average growth rate of around 4.7% a year from 2021 to 2035, according to Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Group. Hu added that the target might be hard to meet, as the economy faces several structural headwinds, such as the property downturn, an aging population, and rising US-China tensions. - by Laura He and CNN's Beijing Bureau, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A federal judge rejected a lawsuit brought by six Republican-led states challenging President Joe Biden's student debt relief program. US District Judge Henry Edward Autrey said Thursday he was dismissing the case because the states had not overcome the procedural threshold known as standing, which requires that plaintiffs show that a policy is causing them direct and traceable harm. Student loan cancellations, worth up to $20,000 per eligible borrower, could begin on Sunday. The states are expected to appeal the judge's ruling, sending the case to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is likely to face a panel of conservative judges. The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Missouri last month by state attorneys general from Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina, as well as legal representatives from Iowa. The states had argued in court documents that the Biden administration does not have the legal authority to grant broad student loan forgiveness, as well as that the program would hurt them financially. Lawyers for the government have argued that Congress gave the education secretary the power to discharge debt in a 2003 law known as the HEROES Act. They also argue that the plaintiffs don't have standing to ask for an injunction. In another victory for Biden, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a separate challenge to the administration's student loan forgiveness program on Thursday, declining to take up an appeal brought by a Wisconsin taxpayers group. The Biden administration faces other lawsuits from Arizona Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, and conservative groups such as the Job Creators Network Foundation and the Cato Institute. But the legal challenge filed by six states that was dismissed Thursday was widely seen as the most formidable. It was the "most plausible legal challenge to the Biden Jubilee," said Luke Herrine, an assistant law professor at the University of Alabama who previously worked on a legal strategy pushing for student debt cancellation, in a tweet Thursday. Biden's student loan forgiveness program, first announced in August, aims to deliver debt relief to millions of borrowers before federal student loan payments resume in January after a nearly three-year, pandemic-related pause. While the application officially opened on Monday, the Biden administration has agreed in court documents to hold off on canceling any debt until October 23. Once processing begins, most qualifying borrowers are expected to receive debt relief within weeks. Under Biden's plan, eligible individual borrowers who earned less than $125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 and married couples or heads of households who made less than $250,000 annually in those years will see up to $10,000 of their federal student loan debt forgiven. If a qualifying borrower also received a federal Pell grant while enrolled in college, the individual is eligible for up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness. - by Katie Lobosco and Tierney Sneed, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NATO and Russia are set to separately hold long planned exercises of their nuclear forces at a time of huge tension as Russia continues its war on Ukraine. The Pentagon and the US intelligence community are watching for any unexpected or unusual movements of Moscow's nuclear weapons during Russia's exercise, which is expected to take place before the end of the month, according to several US officials. "We believe that that Russian nuclear rhetoric and its decision to proceed with this exercise while at war with Ukraine is irresponsible. Brandishing nuclear weapons to coerce the United States and its allies is irresponsible," a senior defense official told CNN. The Russian exercise called Grom, which roughly translates into thunder, is conducted every year, according to the US. "We anticipate the exercise will span several days. It'll include actions within the normal bounds of what Russia has done in the past. It'll include live missile launches and a deployment of strategic assets," said John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council. Though the Russian exercise is routine it comes after President Joe Biden issued a stark warning earlier this month about the danger of President Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats as Moscow continues to face military setbacks in Ukraine. "First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use (of a) nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going," Biden warned during remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in New York. He added: "I don't think there's any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon." After Biden's remarks, administration officials stressed that the US still has seen no evidence that Putin is moving toward using Russia's nuclear capability, nor is there any intelligence showing he's decided to do so. The tensions over Ukraine means there will be even more scrutiny on the Russian exercise. The US constantly monitors Russian nuclear assets, but the Pentagon will be watching the exercise for any sign Russian strategic forces or nuclear weapons movements are anything other than routine and expected, officials told CNN. The exercise is expected to focus on strategic weapons, meaning tests of ballistic missile systems that Russia would be required to provide advance notice of under treaty obligations. NATO and US officials have said they are confident they will be able to accurately monitor any Russian nuclear activity during the exercise. "We will monitor that, as we always do. And of course, we will remain vigilant not least in light of the veiled nuclear threats and the dangerous nuclear rhetoric we have seen from the Russian side," said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday. On Monday, NATO will begin its annual nuclear exercise known as Steadfast Noon, with the US among the 14 nations participating. It's been conducted annually for over a decade, according to the Pentagon. The exercise includes fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads but there will be no live weapons aboard. The US will provide B-52 bombers flying from Minot Air Base in North Dakota. The major exercise area will be more than 625 miles from Russia. The goal is to ensure NATO's nuclear deterrent remains "credible, effective, safe and secure" the defense official said. According to NATO there will be up to 60 aircraft involved including advanced fighter jets, surveillance and tanker aircraft. Flights will take place over Belgium, the UK and the North Sea. - by Barbara Starr, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1pm - The Fastest 15 // Schrier says she supports cops, has taken 40k from defund groups // NBC says Fetterman cannot understand speech // Tulsi Gabbard on why she left Dem party // Brock Huard stops by // DeSantis ad featuring his wife is powerful // Biden on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dems to spend $10M to sell the Increase Inflation Act, social media not fact-check checking Reduce Inflation Act, judge considering redacting part of affidavit, Brian Stelter gone from CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Biden administration officials are concerned that China could seek to declare a no-fly zone over Taiwan ahead of a possible visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as an effort to upend the trip, potentially raising tensions even further in the region, a US official told CNN. China could also respond by flying fighter jets further into Taiwan's self-declared air defense zone, which could trigger a response from Taiwan and the US, the official added. They did not detail what a possible response would entail. China has sent warplanes into Taiwan's self-declared air defense zone identification zone many times in recent months, an act which does not violate any international law but which usually results in Taiwan taking precautionary defensive measures, including sometimes scrambling its fighter jets. Chinese planes have not entered the island's territorial airspace -- the area extending 12 nautical miles from its coastline. The State Department has called on China to cease its intimidation of Taiwan. Pelosi has been planning a trip to Taiwan in the coming weeks, according to three sources familiar with the planning process. While other members of Congress and former US officials have visited Taiwan this year, Pelosi would be the highest-ranking US lawmaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years. Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich traveled there in 1997. Tensions between Washington and Beijing over the issue of Taiwan have heightened in recent months. The Chinese Communist Party has long claimed democratically ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has repeatedly vowed to "reunify" with the island of 24 million people -- by force if necessary -- despite having never governed it. The US has committed to providing Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though recent weapons sales to Taiwan have been slow to arrive, which has raised concerns among US lawmakers. The Chinese embassy in Washington referred CNN to the remarks from the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating firm opposition to a possible Pelosi visit when asked to comment on the airspace concerns. The Financial Times was first to report Pelosi's plans for a visit. President Joe Biden cited concerns from the US military about Pelosi's possible trip earlier this week. "I think that the military thinks it's not a good idea right now, but I don't know what the status is," Biden said on Wednesday when asked whether it was a good idea for Pelosi to travel to the self-governing island. Col. Dave Butler, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman, said the military "in general" briefs decisionmakers on military assessments. "We talk about what adversaries may do, discuss logistics and military plans and readiness," Butler said. He declined to say whether or not Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley spoke with Pelosi about a proposed trip to Taiwan. Pelosi said it's important to show support for Taiwan on Thursday, but said that she would not be discussing any travel plans, calling to a security issue. Pelosi said she heard "anecdotally" about Biden's comments on her possible visit, but said she had not heard anything from the President directly. "I think what the President was saying is that maybe the military was afraid of my plane of getting shot down or something like that. I don't know exactly," Pelosi said. State Department officials also have some concerns, two sources said. State Department spokesperson Ned Price deflected questions about the trip on Thursday, calling it a "hypothetical" at this time. "I am not going to be offering any advice from the is podium," Price said when asked about the State Department position on her possible visit. Price reiterated that the Biden administration is still adhering to its one China policy, noting that the US does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan but has a "robust unofficial" relationship with the island. Voicing opposition to the possible Pelosi visit, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, said Tuesday that it "would seriously violate the one China principle and the stipulations in the three China-US joint communiqués and harm China's sovereignty and territorial integrity." The spokesperson for Taiwan's official office in DC, Sabina Chang, told CNN that Taiwan has "not received any information about a planned visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi." - by Kylie Atwood, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Joe Biden has defended his controversial visit to Saudi Arabia next week, saying the trip is critical to the security of the United States."As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure. We have to counter Russia's aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete China, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world," Biden wrote Saturday in an op-ed for The Washington Post."To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. Saudi Arabia is one of them, and when I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that's based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values," he added.The President's visit has drawn criticism given that US intelligence has deemed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for ordering the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As a candidate for President, Biden had pledged to make the kingdom a "pariah."In his op-ed, Biden also said he will be focused on a more integrated and stable Middle East, calling the region "essential to global trade and the supply chains we rely on" while also noting how critical Middle East energy supplies are in light of sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine."And a region that's coming together through diplomacy and cooperation -- rather than coming apart through conflict -- is less likely to give rise to violent extremism that threatens our homeland or new wars that could place new burdens on U.S. military forces and their families," Biden said.Biden tacitly criticized his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, for abandoning the Iran nuclear deal and said his administration will "continue to increase diplomatic and economic pressure until Iran is ready to return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, as I remain prepared to do."The President is also set to travel to Israel during the visit. He touted US security assistance for the country in his op-ed, while also noting, "Working with Congress, my administration restored approximately $500 million in support for Palestinians."Biden is set to travel to the region on Wednesday.- Gregory Clary, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Could Donald Trump end up in jail?The big revelations from the first House Select committee hearing into the January 6th attack on the US Capitol including the president's daughter Ivanka and the former Attorney General Bill Barr stating that there was no election fraud. HOST: Fionnan Sheahan GUEST: Gina London Columnist with the Sunday Independent, Founder of ‘Language of Leadership' and former White House Correspondent for CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Could President Trump go to jail? The big revelations from the first House Select committee hearing into the January 6th attack on the US Capitol including the president's daughter Ivanka and the former Attorney General Bill Barr stating that there was no election fraud. HOST: Fionnan Sheahan GUEST: Gina London Columnist with the Sunday Independent, Founder of ‘Language of Leadership' and former White House Correspondent for CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First lady Jill Biden spent part of Mother's Day making an unannounced trip to Uzhhorod, Ukraine, a small city in the far southwestern corner of Ukraine, a country that for the last 10 weeks has been under invasion by Russia.At a converted school that now serves as temporary housing for displaced citizens, Biden met with Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska, who has not been seen in public since the start of the war on February 24."I wanted to come on Mother's Day," Biden said to her Ukrainian counterpart, the two women seated at a small table in a classroom of a former school that is now a source of temporary housing for displaced Ukrainians, including 48 children. "We thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people this war has to stop. And this war has been brutal." Biden added, "The people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine."Zelenska, who early on in the Russian invasion sent a letter to Biden, has exchanged correspondence with her American counterpart in recent weeks, US officials tell CNN."First of all, I would like to thank you for a very courageous act," said Zelenska, speaking through an interpreter to Biden. "Because we understand what it takes for the US first lady to come here during a war when the military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day, even today. We all feel your support and we all feel the leadership of the US President but we would like to note that the Mother's Day is a very symbolic day for us because we also feel your love and support during such an important day."The meeting of the two women included a closed-door bilateral, which lasted for about one hour and took place at what was a school before the war. The building has been transformed into a refuge, a collaboration between the government of Ukraine and the International Organization for Migration, the UN migration agency. Dozens of internally displaced persons now live in the building, on a leafy property near the city center of Uzhhorod.Biden, who is three days into a four-day visit to Europe to spend time with refugee families in Romania and Slovakia, traveled about 15 miles into western Ukraine from the Slovak border town of Vysne Nemecke to Uzhhorod.The first lady is the latest high-profile American and the first family member of President Joe Biden to visit the war-torn country in recent weeks. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv last month; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was there last Saturday.The first lady has spent the last two days in Europe meeting with humanitarian aid organizations and government officials in both Romania and Slovakia, as well as interacting with displaced Ukrainians in both countries, her focus primarily on the health and emotional welfare of women and children.Biden's visit to Ukraine is the first time a United States first lady has visited a war zone since Laura Bush made a secret, 10-hour visit to Afghanistan in 2008. Bush made her first visit to that country, an active combat zone, in 2005. Both of Bush's visits centered around her interest and support of Afghan women.As second lady in 2010, Jill Biden accompanied then-Vice President Joe Biden on a trip to Baghdad, Iraq, over the July 4 holiday.- by Kate Bennett, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that he's "ready for negotiations" with Russian President Vladimir Putin but warned that if they fail "that would mean that this is a third World War.""I'm ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations we cannot end this war," he told CNN's Fareed Zakaria."I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third World War," he added.Zelenskyy has urged more negotiations in recent days as Russia's invasion of Ukraine nears its fourth week. In a video message posted Saturday, he called for talks "without delay," warning that otherwise Russia's losses would be "huge.""We have always insisted on negotiations. We have always offered dialogue, offered solutions for peace," he said. "And I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. It's time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine."Zelenskyy has previously said that his priorities in the talks are clear: "The end of the war, security guarantees, sovereignty, restoration of territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country, real protection for our country."Zelenskyy also told Zakaria on Sunday that if Ukraine "were a NATO member, a war wouldn't have started.""I'd like to receive security guarantees for my country, for my people. If NATO members are ready to see us in the alliance, then do it immediately. Because people are dying on a daily basis," he said, while also adding that he was grateful for the aid NATO has provided since the invasion began.Still, last week, Zelenskyy dropped his clearest hint yet that he does not expect his country to join NATO anytime soon, something that has been a Ukrainian goal.NATO, a security alliance currently made up of 30 North American and European nations, was created in 1949 in response to the start of the Cold War. Its original purpose was to protect the West from the threat posed by the Soviet Union.Since the end of the Cold War, many former Soviet satellite states and three former Soviet republics have joined NATO, meaning Russia now shares a land border with the world's largest military alliance.'We are trying to defend our sovereignty'Asked how he is holding up amid the war, Zelenskyy told CNN that he was "doing just everything that everyone else in Ukraine is doing.""We have made up our team to defend our country, so it seems to me that the person does not need to turn into anyone else. That is important when you can be just yourself," he said. "So I am holding up quite well," he added.Zelenskyy also admitted that as of now his weakest point is losing people and children in these "huge numbers.""I go to sleep with this information about children who were killed and we are continuing to pray in order to prevent new losses of people, but so far we haven't attained these results," he said, adding that "we are trying to defend our sovereignty, defend our country."The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Sunday that since the start of the war, 11 girls and 25 boys have been killed.Asked about Putin's claims that the Ukrainian government is full of neo-Nazis, Zelenskyy told Zakaria that it shows that the Russian President "might be capable of very horrendous steps.""I'm not afraid of anything except for people, but the fact -- the fact is that if he is serious about this statement, he might be capable of very horrendous steps because that would mean that this is not a game for him," Zelenskyy said.- by Devan Cole, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to put Russia's deterrence forces, which includes nuclear arms, on high alert are part of a wider pattern of unprovoked escalation and "manufactured threats" from the Kremlin."This is really a pattern that we've seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don't exist in order to justify further aggression -- and the global community and the American people should look at it through that prism," Psaki told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week."Additionally, a senior administration official told CNN on Sunday that Putin's move was "yet another escalatory and totally unnecessary step," a senior administration official said Sunday."At every step of this conflict Putin has manufactured threats to justify more aggressive actions -- he was never under threat from Ukraine or from NATO, which is a defensive alliance that will not fight in Ukraine," the official said."The only reason his forces face a threat today is because they invaded a sovereign country, and one without nuclear weapons. This is yet another escalatory and totally unnecessary step," they added.Putin's move comes in the face of universal condemnation from Western powers over Moscow's unprovoked assault on Ukraine, now in its fourth day."Top officials in leading NATO countries have allowed themselves to make aggressive comments about our country, therefore I hereby order the Minister of Defense and the chief of the General Staff to place the Russian Army Deterrence Force on combat alert," Putin said in a televised meeting with top Russian defense officials.Putin also said the Western sanctions placed on Russia were unlawful.US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield similarly cast Putin's actions as unnecessarily escalatory on Sunday, telling CBS News that he "is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable.""We have to continue to condemn his actions in ... the strongest possible way," she told CBS News. "Putin has tried every means possible to actually put fear in the world in terms of his action, and it just means that we have to ramp up our efforts here at the United Nations and elsewhere to hold him accountable."Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova, meanwhile, cast Putin's move as "one more example of the terrorist behavior of Russia," telling CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday on "State of the Union" that Russian forces "attacked our country, they are scaring everyone."And NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called Putin's allegations against NATO "dangerous rhetoric," adding that "this is a behavior which is irresponsible.""The new statements from President Putin just added to the very aggressive rhetoric we have seen from Russia for many months, and especially the last couple of weeks, where they are not only threatening Ukraine, but also threatening NATO allied countries," he told Bash earlier on the same program.- by Sam Fossum, Arlette Saenz and Devan Cole, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ahlan wa sahlan and welcome to a new edition of CoinMENA’s weekly newsletter, Kalam Crypto. Every week we will bring you the latest news and developments from the exciting world of cryptocurrencies. This week, US authorities recover 3.6 billion USD in BTC from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, Russia to draft regulation to recognize crypto as a currency, and CoinMENA is giving away 50 thousand USD this month! All that and more, so let's dive into this week’s letter, and talk crypto: Join the fastest growing crypto exchange in the region, sign up and start trading today Watch CoinMENA CEO Talal Tabbaa interview on CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The nor'easter that dumped record snowfall in parts of the East Coast has left treacherous wind chills and thousands of people without power."An East Coast blizzard dropped one to over 2 feet of snow along the coast. Now, cold weather will hold a grip on the Mid-Atlantic today and tonight," the National Weather Service Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center tweeted Sunday.Ferocious winds knocked down power lines in Massachusetts, leaving 88,000 outages in the state late Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us.By Sunday afternoon, the number had dropped to about 44,000 outages.Regional shelters and warming centers have been set up for those without electricity in the brutal cold, Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said Sunday.She said the state's transportation department has been trying to clear roads to provide access for those in need.The storm became a "bomb cyclone" Saturday, meaning it strengthened rapidly and had the barometric pressure drop more than 24 millibars within 24 hours, the Weather Prediction Center said.It also broke snowfall records in parts of Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.Much of the Northeast is suffering subzero wind chillsAbout 1 million people across the Northeast were under winter weather alerts Sunday -- down from about 16 million people Saturday night."That is a huge drop-off as the storm exits the most populous areas of the eastern seaboard," CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said.But there's a catch: "Behind the northward moving storm, winds of 10-20 mph, with gusts to 30 mph had led to areas of blowing snow and below-zero wind chill values across much of the Northeast," the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center said Sunday.Most of the Northeast is still stuck in a deep freeze."Afternoon high temperatures will remain below average across the Northeast on Sunday, with most locations struggling to get above 30 degrees," CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said.While temperatures will slowly rise after the nor'easter, "we will have to be patient for any real warm up, which doesn't come until the middle of the week," Van Dam said.Record snow and roaring windsThe bomb cyclone brought heavy snow that accumulated quickly as howling winds blew through the region.The town of Stoughton, Massachusetts, recorded a staggering 30.9 inches of snowfall by Saturday night, the NWS said.In parts of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, where Cape Cod is located, hurricane-strength winds reached 81 mph Saturday, the service said.Here are some notable snowfall records:Atlantic City, New Jersey: The city crushed its all-time January snowfall record by Saturday, reaching a monthly total of 33.2 inches of snow. The prior monthly record of 20.3 inches was set in January 1987. The city's 14 inches of snow Saturday also beat its previous record for the calendar date, which was set in 2014 at 7.3 inches.Boston: Logan International Airport tallied at least 23.6 inches of snow by Saturday night, said the NWS, making Saturday the snowiest January day Boston has recorded and tying the record for biggest 1-day snowfall total. The previous record was set on January 27.Central Park, New York: The iconic park saw 7.3 inches on Saturday, beating the previous record for January 29 of 4.7 inches set in 1904.Philadelphia: The city was hit with 5.8 inches of snow Saturday, beating the previous calendar day record of 5 inches set on January 29, 1904.About 5,000 flights canceledDangerous conditions snarled travel plans, with about 5,000 flights into, out of or within the US canceled this weekend, according to FlightAware.com.East Coast hubs were the most affected.Major airlines offered waivers and alternative options to passengers whose travel was affected by the storm.- by Aya Elamroussi and Holly Yan, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A wildfire near California's scenic Highway 1, which winds along the Pacific coastline, prompted evacuation orders in Monterey County on Friday night.The Colorado Fire was sparked in Palo Colorado Canyon in the Big Sur region, according to the county's office of emergency services.A portion of Highway 1 was closed in both directions, the Department of Transportation said in a tweet Saturday. The road is closed for about 21 miles, between the entrance to Andrew Molera Park in Big Sur to Rio Road in Carmel.Evacuation orders are mandatory for "all areas West of 3800 Palo Colorado Rd. to Highway 1 and south to Bixby Creek," Monterey County officials said. It's unclear how many residents are impacted by the order.The fire had burned around 100 acres when the evacuation order was issued Friday, CNN affiliate KCRA reported. By Saturday morning, it had burned through 1,500 acres in Monterey County, and was only 5% contained, according to Cal Fire.Dry winds were pushing the fire toward the highway, according to the local National Weather Service."The strongest offshore (northeast) winds have peaked and expected to ease after midnight through sunrise. Humidity should trend higher by 4-6 am. Need to be on the watchout for some light southerly winds early Saturday morning," the NWS said in a tweet.A CalFire unit said it sent four engines to help fight the fire. And there 13 agencies responding to help fight the fire, KCRA reported.This fire can be seen from Santa Cruz County, even though it is about 70 miles away in Monterey County, CalFire said.The Red Cross is assisting with shelter at Carmel Middle School for those affected by the wildfire, county officials said in a tweet. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also tweeted that it will provide emergency pet supplies at that shelter.Monterey County is home to about 430,000 residents.California has experienced severe drought last year, which made for a devastating wildfire season.Recent heavy rains across the state have eradicated the highest level of drought and greatly reduced the level 3 out of 4 "extreme drought" from 80% of the state in mid-December to 1% this week.Still, NWS says the drought is impacting fires, which it described as "stubbornly active" in a forecast Saturday."Anecdotally it seems as though the long term drought is acting like a chronic illness where even recent rains and cold winter wx [weather] isn`t helping to keep fires from developing," the NWS office in San Francisco said.- by Melissa Alonso and Aya Elamroussi, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Best Monday ever. Mark Davis takeaways from the Mueller report summary may be a bit more your speed than CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.