Who likes Donald Trump? Lots of Republicans, but especially Hispanic voters, plus very rural and very conservative people

Jonathan Schulman, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Northwestern University 

Matthew A Baum, Professor of Global Communications and Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Fri, August 11, 2023 

Former President Donald Trump greets supporters following a 2020 

campaign rally in Arizona. Isaac Brekken/Getty Images


Despite multiple state and federal indictments, recent polling indicates that former President Donald Trump retains a commanding lead in the race for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination.

So it seems useful to understand who, exactly, supports Trump – and whether the multiple criminal indictments against the former president have had any effect on his nomination prospects.

We are a multiuniversity team of social scientists that has been regularly polling Americans in all 50 states since April 2020.

Our most recent survey, which ran from June 29, 2023, to Aug. 1, 2023, included 7,732 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. We explored who, among these respondents, supports Trump in the 2024 Republican primary and how they reacted to his June 2023 indictment for withholding classified documents.

Since no other Republican candidate in our survey received more than 5% support, we focus on Trump and his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Consistent with recent polls, we found that Trump has a commanding 40-point lead over DeSantis.

While Trump leads DeSantis across nearly all major demographic categories, his advantage is especially large among Hispanic voters. The same is true when considering Republicans who said that they do not have higher education degrees and those who are very conservative, live in very rural places or are lower-income.
Very conservative voter support

People who identified as “very conservative” comprised 14% of the Republicans in our survey. Their support for Trump in 2024 is overwhelming: They support Trump over DeSantis by a 69-12 margin.

A recent FiveThirtyEight report showed that the most conservative Republicans were not always such strong supporters of Trump, but their support has risen substantially since Trump’s election in 2016.

Very conservative respondents were also the most likely to say that they were sure about which 2024 candidate they support. Just 5% of this group said they have not yet made up their mind, relative to 19% of moderate Republicans who were unsure of who they would vote for.

Younger support

Despite the 77-year-old Trump’s being more than three decades older than DeSantis, he enjoys significantly higher levels of support among younger Republicans.

About 53% of Republicans ages 25 to 44 said they support Trump, while just 9% of these people said they would vote for DeSantis. And 48% of even younger Republicans, ages 18 to 24, preferred Trump, as compared with 7% who support DeSantis.

In contrast, the gap between the two candidates is smaller among Republicans ages 65 and older. While 53% of this group supports Trump, 14% said they prefer DeSantis.

That said, Republicans ages 18 to 24 were significantly more likely than people in other age groups to select a candidate other than Trump or DeSantis, or to say they were not sure who they would vote for if the election were held today.

Members of the New York Young Republicans group rally for former president Donald Trump outside of the Manhattan district attorney’s office in May 2023. 

Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

Hispanic and white voters

Trump has a large advantage over DeSantis across all racial and ethnic groups we surveyed, but especially among Hispanic and white Republicans.

We found that Trump has a 45-point advantage over DeSantis among Hispanic Republicans, who are more likely to support him than any other racial and ethnic group we investigated.

About 52% of white Republican people we polled, meanwhile, said that they support Trump, compared with 12.1% who preferred DeSantis. The gap in preference for Trump over DeSantis among other ethnic groups, including Asian Americans and Black people, was smaller.

No geographic or socioeconomic boundary

Trump has a commanding lead over DeSantis across all geographic areas, but his lead is particularly strong among Republicans in very rural communities.

Trump enjoys a massive 51-point lead over DeSantis among those who describe the area in which they live as “very rural.” Trump’s vote share among rural Americans increased from 2016 to 2020 and remains a strong base of his support leading into the 2024 primary.

Trump also holds a large lead over DeSantis regardless of socioeconomic status, but the gap widens among lower-income and less-educated Republicans.

Among Republicans with a college or graduate degree, for example, Trump led DeSantis by a 45-15 margin, which jumped up to 55-9 among those without a college degree. Trump holds a 47-point advantage among white respondents without a college degree, which shrinks to 29 points for white respondents with college degrees.
Trump’s legal woes aren’t a deciding factor

We randomly embedded an experiment into our survey in which we asked a series of questions about Trump’s recent indictment in the Mar-a-Lago classified document case before or after asking Republicans their preferred 2024 candidate.

Our goal was to test whether prompting them to think about the indictment affected respondents’ support for Trump.

Trump’s indictment has given some Republican voters pause, but this concern is not leading them to support DeSantis.

Republicans who saw Trump’s indictment as justified were significantly less likely to support Trump in the 2024 primary, but they were not more likely to support DeSantis as a result.

The effect of answering questions about Trump’s indictment immediately before, rather than after, asking about preferences for the 2024 primary was strongest among self-identified moderate Republicans, who make up 29% of the Republicans in our survey.

Among those moderate Republicans, answering questions about Trump’s indictment before the 2024 Republican primary candidate preference question decreased support for Trump by 6 percentage points.

Among the 18% of Republicans who felt that Trump’s indictment was justified, only 10% reported supporting DeSantis in 2024, compared with 25% who still backed Trump.

For conservative and very conservative Republicans, however, being prompted to think about Trump’s indictment immediately before answering the 2024 candidate preference question increased support for Trump by 3 percentage points.

This lends credence to the idea some Republicans have articulated that indictments could benefit Trump, but only among the most conservative Republicans.

The bigger picture

Our survey results show Trump with a commanding advantage over the field at this stage of the race for the 2024 Republican Party nomination.

That said, Trump’s support is not uniform across all Republicans – it is, for instance, notably higher among Republicans who identify with some of these characteristics – being less wealthy or educated, rural, older, Hispanic or white, or very conservative.

Moderate Republicans’ shift away from Trump after we reminded them about the classified documents indictment raises the possibility that additional indictments – such as the second one the Justice Department announced on Aug. 2, 2023, regarding attempts to overturn the 2020 election results – could negatively affect Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination, particularly among moderate voters.

Of course, our findings also suggest that they may further invigorate his ideologically conservative base.

Overall, potential indictment effects notwithstanding, our findings represent a picture of overwhelming domination by Trump across virtually all facets of the Republican Party.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Jonathan Schulman, Northwestern University and Matthew A Baum, Harvard Kennedy School.

Read more:

Voters are starting to act like hard-core sports fans – with dangerous repercussions for democracy

Donald Trump’s right − he is getting special treatment, far better than most other criminal defendants

Matthew A Baum receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Jonathan Schulman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Scientists uncover 8,000-year-old village underwater, find "treasure trove"

CBSNews
Fri, August 11, 2023 at 8:36 AM MDT·4 min read

Beneath the turquoise waters of Lake Ohrid, the "Pearl of the Balkans," scientists have uncovered what may be one of Europe's earliest sedentary communities, and are trying to solve the mystery of why it sheltered behind a fortress of defensive spikes.

A stretch of the Albanian shore of the lake once hosted a settlement of stilt houses some 8,000 years ago, archaeologists believe, making it the oldest lakeside village in Europe discovered to date.

Radiocarbon dating from the site puts it at between 6000 and 5800 BC.

"It is several hundred years older than previously known lake-dwelling sites in the Mediterranean and Alpine regions," said Albert Hafner, a professor of archaeology from Switzerland's University of Bern.

This aerial photograph taken on July 27, 2023, shows a diver searching for archaeological material in Lake Ohrid, southeastern Albania. Archaeologists say the the Palafitte settlement of Lin dates back to 5800 - 6000 years BC

. / Credit: ADNAN BECI/AFP via Getty Images

"To our knowledge, it is the oldest in Europe," he told AFP.

The most ancient other such villages were discovered in the Italian Alps and date to around 5000 BC, said the expert in European Neolithic lake dwellings.

Hafner and his team of Swiss and Albanian archaeologists have spent the past four years carrying out excavations at Lin on the Albanian side of Lake Ohrid, which straddles the mountainous border of North Macedonia and Albania.

Last month, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama touted the discovery in a Facebook post, hailing its "undisputed historical and archaeological value."

Swiss Ambassador Ruth Huber visited the excavations in July because she "wanted to be informed personally and on the spot about the research," Hafner's team said in a statement.

The settlement is believed to have been home to between 200 and 500 people, with houses built on stilts above the lake's surface or in areas regularly flooded by rising waters.

And it is slowly revealing some astonishing secrets.

During a recent dive, archaeologists uncovered evidence suggesting the settlement was fortified with thousands of spiked planks used as defensive barricades.

"To protect themselves in this way, they had to cut down a forest," said Hafner.

But why did the villagers need to build such extensive fortifications to defend themselves? Archaeologists are still searching for an answer to the elusive question.

Researchers estimate that roughly 100,000 spikes were driven into the bottom of the lake off Lin, with Hafner calling the discovery "a real treasure trove for research."

Lake Ohrid is one of the oldest lakes in the world and has been around for more than a million years. The underwater excavations have proven to be challenging.

"We are dealing with a lot of riparian vegetation here," research diver Marie-Claire Ries told SRF News. "You have to fight your way through dense reed beds to get to the dive site."

This aerial photograph taken on July 27, 2023, shows divers searching for archaeological material in Lake Ohrid, southeastern Albania. / Credit: ADNAN BECI/AFP via Getty Images

Assisted by professional divers, archaeologists have been picking through the bottom of the lake often uncovering fossilised fragments of wood and prized pieces of oak.

Analysis of the tree rings helps the team reconstruct the daily life of the area's inhabitants — providing "valuable insights into the climatic and environmental conditions" from the period, said Albanian archaeologist Adrian Anastasi.

"Oak is like a Swiss watch, very precise, like a calendar," said Hafner.

"In order to understand the structure of this prehistoric site without damaging it, we are conducting very meticulous research, moving very slowly and very carefully," added Anastasi, who heads the team of Albanian researchers.

The lush vegetation at the site makes the work painstaking slow at times.

"Building their village on stilts was a complex task, very complicated, very difficult, and it's important to understand why these people made this choice," said Anastasi.

For the time being, scientists say it is possible to assume that the village relied on agriculture and domesticated livestock for food.

"We found various seeds, plants and the bones of wild and domesticated animals," said Ilir Gjepali, an Albanian archaeology professor working at the site.

But it will take another two decades for site to be fully explored and studied and for final conclusions to be drawn.

According to Anastasi, each excavation trip yields valuable information, enabling the team to piece together a picture of life along Lake Ohrid's shores thousands of years ago, from the architecture of the dwellings to the structure of their community.

"These are key prehistoric sites that are of interest not only to the region but to the whole of southwest Europe," said Hafner.

Last month, the team of scientists presented some of their findings at a conference in Greece.

‘Unprecedented, stunning, disgusting’: Clarence Thomas condemned over billionaire gifts

Martin Pengelly in Washington

THE GUARDIAN
Fri, August 11, 2023 

Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Conservative US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has been condemned for maintaining “unprecedented” and “shameless” links to rightwing benefactors, after ProPublica published new details of his acceptance of undeclared gifts including 38 vacations and expensive sports tickets.

Related: Supreme court justice Thomas took 38 undisclosed vacations from rich friends – report

Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, rendered an especially damning verdict.

“Unprecedented. Stunning. Disgusting. The height of hypocrisy to wear the robes of a [supreme court justice] and take undisclosed gifts from billionaires who benefit from your decisions. 38 free vacations. Yachts. Luxury mansions. Skyboxes at events. Resign,” she posted.

From the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic judiciary committee chair, said: “The latest … revelation of unreported lavish gifts to Justice Clarence Thomas makes it clear: these are not merely ethical lapses. This is a shameless lifestyle underwritten for years by a gaggle of fawning billionaires.”

The ProPublica report followed extensive previous reporting, by the non-profit and competitors including the New York Times, of undisclosed gifts to Thomas from a series of mega-rich donors.

Supreme court justices are nominally subject to ethics rules for federal judges but in practice govern themselves.

Durbin said Thomas and Samuel Alito, another arch-conservative justice who did not declare gifts, had “made it clear they’re oblivious to the embarrassment they’ve visited on the highest court in the land.

“Now it’s up to Chief Justice [John] Roberts and the other justices to act on ethics reform to save their own reputations and the court’s integrity. If the court will not act, then Congress must continue to” do so.

Roberts has rejected calls to testify, saying Congress cannot regulate his court. Durbin has advanced ethics reform but its chances are virtually nil, with Republicans opposed in the Senate and in control of the House.

Thomas denies wrongdoing, claiming never to have discussed with his benefactors politics or business before the court and to have been wrongly advised about disclosure requirements. Nonetheless, condemnation was widespread.

Adam Schiff, a House Democrat running for Senate in California, said: “The scope of Justice Thomas’ undisclosed receipt of luxury vacations from billionaires takes your breath away. As does this court’s arrogant disregard of the public. Every other federal court has an enforceable code of ethics – the supreme court needs the same.”

Thomas joined the court in 1991, becoming the second Black justice in place of the first, Thurgood Marshall.

Sherrilyn Ifill, former director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) legal fund, said Thomas had created “a crisis and we need to start treating it as such. Our profession, the Senate judiciary committee, newspaper editorial boards, and the chief [justice] will need to summon the courage needed to call for what, by now, should be the obvious next step.”

Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary now a Berkeley professor and Guardian columnist, pointed to what that “next step” might be, saying Thomas “must resign or be impeached if [the supreme court] is going to retain any credibility”.

Only one justice, Samuel Chase, has ever been impeached – in 1804-05. He was acquitted in the Senate. In 1969, the justice Abe Fortas resigned under threat of impeachment, over his acceptance of outside fees.

Now, Republican control of the House renders impeachment vastly unlikely. Nor is Thomas likely to resign, particularly as Democrats hold the Senate, able to reduce conservative dominance of the court should a rightwinger vacate the bench.

Nonetheless, calls for Thomas to go continued.

Ted Lieu, a California congressman, said Thomas “has brought shame upon himself and the United States supreme court … no government official, elected or unelected, could ethically or legally accept gifts of that scale. He should resign immediately”.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a campaign group, said: “If three times makes a pattern, what does 38 times make? We’ll tell you: the fact that Clarence Thomas has taken 38 luxury trips with billionaires without disclosing them means this kind of ethical lapse is part of his lifestyle. He needs to resign.”

Ethiopia cracks down on gay sex in hotels, other venues

Reuters
Updated Thu, August 10, 2023

A general view of the skyline of Addis Ababa

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Security forces in Ethiopia are cracking down on hotels, bars and restaurants in the capital Addis Ababa where gay sexual activity is alleged to take place, the city administration said on Thursday.

Several African countries that criminalise homosexuality have enforced the law more harshly in recent years, with many governments proposing stricter laws and sentences, including most recently in Ghana and Uganda.

Rights groups say the LGBT community in Ethiopia remains underground because LGBT people face high levels of discrimination and fear violence and ostracism if their identities are discovered.

The Addis Ababa Peace and Security Administration Bureau, a government body, said it was taking action "against institutions where homosexual acts are carried out" following tip-offs from the public, and had already raided a guest house in the city.

"If there is any sympathy for those who commit and execute this abominable act that is hated by man and God, (the bureau) will continue to take action," the city administration said in a post on Facebook.

Gay sex is prohibited by law in Ethiopia, but there are no recent reports of people being convicted for engaging in consensual same-sex sexual activity.

Earlier this week an LGBT advocacy group, the House of Guramayle, said it condemned a recent escalation in attacks on individuals in Ethiopia based on their real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.

(This story has been corrected to change sourcing from Ethiopia News Agency to Addis Ababa Peace and Security Administration Bureau in paragraphs 1, 4 and 5)

(Reporting by Tiksa Negeri, Writing by Hereward Holland, Editing by William Maclean)

LGBTQ+ people in Ethiopia blame attacks on their community on inciteful and lingering TikTok videos

Thu, August 10, 2023

Secret service agents watch through their binoculars as a rainbow appears in the sky before President Barack Obama arrived at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 26, 2015. Members of Ethiopia’s LGBTQ+ community say they face a wave of online harassment and physical attacks and blame much of it on the social media platform TikTok, which they say is failing to take down posts calling for homosexual and transgender people to be whipped, stabbed and killed. 

AP Photo/Sayyid Azim

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Members of Ethiopia’s LGBTQ+ community say they face a wave of online harassment and physical attacks and blame much of it on the social media platform TikTok, which they say is failing to take down posts calling for homosexual and transgender people to be whipped, stabbed and killed.

A local LGBTQ+ support group, House of Guramayle, said that some TikTok users are also outing Ethiopians by sharing their names, photographs and online profiles on one of the country’s most popular social media platforms.

In Ethiopia, homosexual acts are punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The East African country whose population of close to 120 million is split between Christianity and Islam is largely conservative, and while LGBTQ+ people have long suffered abuse, activists say the hostility has reached a new level.

“TikTok is being used to incite violence,” said Bahiru Shewaye, co-founder of House of Guramayle. Bahiru said several videos have been reported to TikTok but “we are still waiting for them to take action.”

TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

The AP on Thursday reviewed several videos that appeared to violate TikTok’s community guidelines by inciting violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In one video, a popular evangelical Christian pastor calls for gay people to be stripped naked and publicly whipped.

“Then (gay) people all over the world would say, 'Oh, these (Ethiopian) people, this is what they do to gays, therefore we will not go to that country,'” says the pastor, whose account has over 250,000 followers. The video was posted on Aug. 5.

In another video posted Aug. 2, a TikTok user calls for gay men to be stabbed in the buttocks. In a third, posted in the past week, a young man says, “We should find them and kill them,” before making a stomping gesture with his foot.

The videos are in Amharic, Ethiopia’s main language.

It’s not clear what sparked the videos, but Bahiru said Uganda’s new anti-LGBT law that prescribes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is playing a role.

LGBTQ+ Ethiopians said the surge of abusive content has left them feeling unsafe, with several fleeing abroad in recent weeks. One nonbinary person said they are now in neighboring Kenya after they were attacked by a group of men in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, last month.

“It is very terrifying, to be honest,” they said. “I think I will stay here as long as the situation continues in Ethiopia. … It has always been bad, but this time it feels different.”

Another LGBTQ+ man, a student in Addis Ababa, said he has been outed twice on TikTok. In May, shortly after the first outing video appeared online, he was badly beaten at a restaurant by a group of classmates, who fractured his cheek.

“I don’t feel safe at school after that, so I stopped going,” he said.

The second outing video appeared in late July and has attracted over 275,000 views. It is a slideshow of individual and group photographs under the banner “Homosexuals live freely in Ethiopia.” The top comment says “Let’s kill them, give us their address.”

The first video has been removed, the student said. The second is still online.

Ethiopian public institutions have been accused of fanning the discrimination. Last week, Addis Ababa’s tourism bureau in a statement posted on Facebook told hotels not to allow “homosexual activities” on their premises and warned “action will be taken” if this happens. The bureau is part of the Addis Ababa city administration.

Soon afterward, the city’s police department launched a hotline for reporting “illegal activities that deviate from the law and social values.”

“This was a vulnerable group in the first place,” Bahiru said. “But the new scale of these calls for violence, it has grown out of control.”

LGBTQ+ advocates have long warned that online hate and harassment can lead to violence offline.

All major social media platforms — including TikTok — do poorly at protecting LGBTQ+ users from hate speech and harassment, especially those who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming, the advocacy group GLAAD said in its Social Media Safety Index earlier this year.

Uganda president defiant after World Bank suspends funding over LGBT law

A session of the Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg

Updated Thu, August 10, 2023
By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA (Reuters) -Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Thursday denounced the World Bank's decision to suspend new funding in response to a harsh anti-LGBTQ law and vowed to find alternative sources of credit.

The country would have to revise its budget to absorb the move's potential impact, a junior finance minister said.

The World Bank said on Tuesday that the law, which imposes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts, contradicted its values and that it would pause new funding until it could test measures to prevent discrimination in projects it finances.

The World Bank has an existing portfolio of $5.2 billion in Uganda, although these projects will not be affected.


The anti-LGBTQ law, enacted in May, has drawn widespread criticism from local and international rights organisations and Western governments, though it is popular domestically.

Museveni said in a statement that Uganda was trying to reduce borrowing in any case and would not give in to pressure from foreign institutions.

"It is, therefore, unfortunate that the World Bank and other actors dare to want to coerce us into abandoning our faith, culture, principles and sovereignty, using money. They really underestimate all Africans," he said.

Museveni said that if Uganda needed to borrow, it could tap other sources, and that oil production expected to start by 2025 would provide additional revenues.

He added he hoped the World Bank would reconsider its decision.

The government will ask parliament to vote through a revised 2023-2024 (July-June) budget to reflect the potential financial impact of the lending suspension, junior finance minister Henry Musasizi told parliament on Thursday.

"We shall be coming in one week or so... to ask for your approval," Musasizi told lawmakers.

In June, the United States imposed visa restrictions on some Ugandan officials in response to the law. President Joe Biden also ordered a review of U.S. aid to Uganda.

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Hereward Holland, George Obulutsa, Aaron Ross, Bernadette Baum and Tomasz Janowski)

US Halts Import of Rare Cargo of Polish Wheat in Houston

Isis Almeida, Michael Hirtzer and Gerson Freitas Jr.
Fri, August 11, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- The US is holding back a rare cargo of Polish wheat being imported into Houston, a move that may spark tensions with the European Union, according to people familiar with the matter.

The vessel Yochow, carrying about 30,000 tons of Polish wheat, is being prevented from unloading at the port of Houston, according to shipping data and the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Authorities are citing contamination with corn, the people said.

The US is resorting to purchases of European wheat after a drought pushed local prices higher. While there are enough American supplies for the nation’s flour mills, it’s cheaper to bring in grain from Poland than to haul it from the Midwest to places like Texas and Florida.

The rare imports are a blow to US farmers, which have been losing power in the global market for years to top shipper Russia. A final rejection of cargo could spark tensions with the EU. The US has in the past accused other countries of imposing non-tariff barriers to trade when American cargoes were rejected in places like China.

US Customs and Border Protection didn’t provide a comment. The Polish Grain and Feed Chamber didn’t have an immediate comment when contacted by phone, and a European Commission spokesperson declined to comment.

Read More: Drought-Hurt Crops Force US to Resort to Rare Wheat Imports

The Yochow left Poland on July 13 and arrived in Houston on Aug. 6, according to ship-tracking data. EU data shows two cargoes — one carrying about 29,000 tons and another 33,000 tons — sailed from Poland to the US in July.

--With assistance from Megan Durisin, Tarso Veloso and Konrad Krasuski.

(Updates with response from European Commission and Polish chamber in fifth paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

TURKEY OUT OF KURDISTAN (IRAQ & SYRIA)

At least 6 Turkish soldiers killed in attacks by Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, Ankara says
ROBERT BADENDIECK
Thu, August 10, 2023 

Turkish Army vehicles are driven away on a convoy at the Habur/Ibrahim Khalil border crossing with Iraq, near Silopi, southeastern Turkey, At least 6 Turkish soldiers killed in attacks by Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, Ankara says on Thursday, Aug, 10, 2023. (DHA-Depo Photos via AP, File)

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey's defense ministry said on Thursday that a spate of attacks the previous day and overnight by Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq killed at least six Turkish soldiers.

The attacks prompted retaliatory airstrikes that left four members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, dead on Thursday, according to a social media post shared later by the ministry.

The violence is the latest in a monthslong escalation between Turkey and Turkish-backed groups on one side, and Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria on the other.

Ankara considers the PKK — which has waged a decadeslong insurgency within Turkey — and allied Kurdish groups in Syria and Iraq as terrorist organizations. It claims members of the PKK regularly find sanctuary in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

There was no immediate comment from Iraq's central government in Baghdad.

Earlier, authorities in northern Iraq's Kurdish region said two separate Turkish drone strikes on Wednesday in attacks in Iraq's Sulaymaniyah province targeting PKK vehicles killed two insurgents and wounded four.

Turkey maintains troops in a border region in Iraq and regularly targets what it says are PKK positions there. Last year, it launched a ground and air operation dubbed Claw-Lock, against the PKK in northern Iraq.

Iraqi security officials said Thursday's airstrikes hit positions north of the city of Duhok. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorities to speak to the media.

Turkish Col. Zeki Akturk vowed to avenge the troops killed.

“Our soldiers will not leave the blood of the martyrs on the ground,” he said at a news conference on Thursday, adding that Turkish forces "will continue their fight against terrorism with the same determination until there is not a single terrorist left.”

Since 1984, the PKK's insurgency within Turkey has killed tens of thousands of people.

___

Associated Press writer reporter Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

TOOK LONG ENOUGH
California attorney general apologizes for agency's role in WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans

Bryan Ke
Fri, August 11, 2023 



[Source]

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has formally apologized for his office’s past role in forcing over 100,000 Japanese Americans to relocate to incarceration camps during and after World War II.

Key details: Bonta’s office first issued the apology on Wednesday, which was followed by a video by the California attorney general uploaded to Twitter on Thursday.

Bonta’s office’s apology notably came on the 35th anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. On Aug. 10, 1998, former President Ronald Reagan signed the law that grants repatriations to surviving Japanese Americans who were interned by the U.S. government.

Bonta’s office’s apology also came three years after California formally apologized for its past actions against Japanese Americans.

More from NextShark: Steven Yeun joins cast of MCU's 'Thunderbolts’

“The forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese American citizens remains among the darkest periods of our history, and the suffering it caused Japanese American families across California is incalculable,” Bonta said.

His office’s initial involvement: Former California Attorney General Earl Warren testified in front of Congress in support of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s implementation of Executive Order 9066, which saw the incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans living in California’s West Coast during World War II.

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Warren also enforced the California Alien Land Law of 1913, which stopped immigrants from Japan and other Asian countries from purchasing agricultural land in California.

California Attorney General Robert Walker Kenny followed Warren’s footsteps in 1943 by creating a special unit within his office to enforce the land law. Kenny’s office also joined Oregon and Washington in submitting an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that supported the incarceration of civil rights hero Fred Korematsu.

Addressing the past horrors: Bonta also noted that while what happened can never be erased, “we must take steps to atone for past wrongs by answering the call for accountability, truth and reconciliation, racial healing and transformation.”

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“The California Attorney General’s Office deeply regrets its past complicity in these heinous violations of civil rights, and with this apology, recommits to its mission of protecting and defending civil liberties for all Americans,” he continued.

ABOLISH SEDITION LAWS
India moves to replace British colonial-era sedition law with its own version

ASHOK SHARMA
Updated Fri, August 11, 2023

FILE-A woman holds a placard protesting against the sedition case filed by police against a school after a play performed by students denouncing a new citizenship law, in Bangalore, India, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020. India's government on Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, introduced a bill in Parliament that seeks to replace a British colonial-era law dealing with sedition charges with its own version. 

AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, 

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s government proposed legislation Friday in Parliament that seeks to replace a British colonial-era sedition law with its own version.

The government also submitted a bill that it said would better protect women and children by providing greater punishments for sexual crimes.

Britain's rulers in India imposed a law against sedition — actions aimed at encouraging people to be or act against a government — in 1860 to repress freedom fighters. India won independence from the British colonialists in 1947, but continued to use the law.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s critics accused his government of using sedition charges to label dissenting citizens as disloyal toward the country. A conviction carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Home Minister Amit Shah said Friday that the bill submitted to India's lawmakers would repeal the British offense of sedition and introduce a new provision.

Chitranshul Sinha, a legal expert, said the government's proposed provision would punish “acts endangering sovereignty unity and integrity of India.” It carries prison sentence range of seven years to life.

"It doesn’t get rid of the British-era law. They (the government) have rearranged the provision,’’ Sinha said.

"It’s just a change of name. Essentially, nothing has changed,” he said. said.

The bill intended to protect women better would make sexual exploitation on the pretext of marriage, employment or promotion, or through the use of a hidden identity, a crime.

The legislation would make a gang rape conviction punishable by a maximum life sentence. imprisonment. Raping a child would be eligible for a death sentence, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

The bill also would allow penalties ranging from seven years in prison to death for mob lynching.

“I can assure the House (Parliament) that these bills will transform our criminal justice system. Punishment will be given to create a sentiment of stopping crime,” Shah said.

The two houses of India's Parliament are expected to consider the two bills later this year.

Siemens Gamesa has fix for onshore wind turbine problem

Reuters
Fri, August 11, 2023

 Siemens Gamesa logo

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Siemens Energy has fixed quality issues at onshore wind turbines it is currently selling to customers, the CEO of the group's wind division Siemens Gamesa said on Friday, adding the group had made progress with its turnaround.

The comments by Jochen Eickholt come after Siemens Energy this week unveiled 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in charges related to its wind division, a major setback for the group that has drawn the ire of top shareholder Siemens AG.

Of those charges, 1.6 billion euros are earmarked for quality issues around rotor blades and gears for its latest onshore turbine models, the 4.X and 5.X, of which roughly 2,900 are in the field.

"Although I am very disappointed that we are experiencing these issues, it's worth mentioning that the variants of the 4.X and 5.X onshore wind turbines that we are currently selling to our customers have already been modified," Eickholt said in a LinkedIn Post.

"In other words, the identified problems have been addressed and it is now a matter of rectifying them in the respective wind turbines that are already in the field."

Eickholt pointed out that Siemens Gamesa had raised prices, reduced damage liabilities and become more selective over new projects to raise profitability.

While conceding the group's "current situation is self-inflicted", he said market conditions were unfavourable for wind turbine makers, many of which have been struggling with losses in the wake of rising inflation.

($1 = 0.9095 euros)

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz Editing by Friederike Heine and Mark Potter)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

US set to carry out long-awaited crackdown on luxury-home money laundering

Luc Cohen and Chris Prentice
Thu, August 10, 2023

NEW YORK (Reuters) — The U.S. Treasury Department will soon propose a rule that would effectively end anonymous luxury-home purchases, closing a loophole that the agency says allows corrupt oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals to hide ill-gotten gains.

The long-awaited rule is expected to require that real estate professionals such as title insurers report the identities of the beneficial owners of companies buying real estate in cash to the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

FinCEN is slated to propose the rule sometime this month, according to its regulatory agenda, though the timeline could slip, said two people briefed on the developments. Anti-corruption advocates and lawmakers have been pushing for the rule, which will replace the current patchwork reporting system.

Criminals have for decades anonymously hidden ill-gotten gains in real estate, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in March, adding that as much as $2.3 billion was laundered through U.S. real estate between 2015 and 2020.

"That's why FinCEN is taking this important step to put something officially on the books that would root out money laundering through the sector once and for all," said Erica Hanichak, government affairs director of advocacy group the FACT Coalition.

Some advocates say FinCEN, which declined to comment on the timing of the proposal, has moved too slowly. Officials first said in 2021 that they planned to implement the rule.

FinCEN has been struggling to complete a related rule that would unmask shell company owners. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has pressed FinCEN to tighten up that proposal, according to an April public letter. That debate has slowed down FinCEN's work on the real estate reporting rule, one of the sources said.

The American Land Title Association, which represents title insurers, says it welcomes the new rule but that FinCEN should delay it until the shell company rule is completed.

The proposed rule will be open to public and industry feedback.

Patchwork

While banks have long been required to understand the source of customer funds and report suspicious transactions, no such rules exist nationwide for the real estate industry.

Instead, FinCEN has operated real-estate purchase disclosure rules, known as geographic targeting orders (GTOs), in just a handful of cities including New York, Miami and Los Angeles. The new rule is expected to effectively expand GTOs nationwide.

FinCEN implemented GTOs in 2016 after the New York Times revealed that nearly half of luxury real estate was bought by anonymous shell companies.

But the orders are easy to skirt by simply buying property outside the targeted areas, said Jodi Vittori, an expert on illicit finance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Transparency advocates pushing for a nationwide rule point to the example of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman who, according to prosecutors, used an anonymous shell company to channel illicit profit from a fraud scheme into the $26 million purchase of a 50,000-square-foot New Jersey mansion in December 2021.

Billionaire businessman Guo Wengui speaks during an interview in New York

Had Guo brought property across the Hudson River in Manhattan, it would have been subject to a GTO and likely flagged immediately to law enforcement.

Guo, a onetime business partner of former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. His lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

A FinCEN spokesperson said GTO reports provide valuable data.

Howard Master, a formal federal prosecutor, said law enforcement uses them to generate leads, but mainly to learn more about assets owned by individuals already under investigation.

"It'll identify an asset that is beneficially owned by someone that you might not otherwise have known about," said Master, now a partner at investigations firm Nardello & Co.

A 2020 report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, found that nearly 7% of GTO reports identified individuals or entities connected to ongoing FBI cases. But the same report highlighted concerns about the ability of FinCEN, which has complained of chronic underfunding, to police the program.

For the new rule to be effective, FinCEN will need more enforcement resources, said David Szakonyi, a political science professor at George Washington University.

"FinCEN needs more people and more computers to process the information."

(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Chris Prentice in New York; Editing by Amy Stevens, Michelle Price and Matthew Lewis)