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Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives reached a deal Monday for the Justice Department to turn over crucial documents collected by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice by trying to thwart his probe of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
 
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the Justice Department would be opening Mueller’s “most important files to us, providing us with key evidence that the special counsel used to assess whether” Trump and others “obstructed justice or were engaged in other misconduct.”

Nadler said that all members of the Judiciary panel — Democrats and Republicans alike — would be able to see the documents, which he said “will allow us to perform our constitutional duties and decide how to respond to the allegations laid out against the president” by Mueller.

With the agreement, Nadler said he would withdraw a vote set for Tuesday whether to hold Attorney General William Barr in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to comply with the House committee’s subpoena for the information.

Nadler said he is giving the Justice Department “time to demonstrate compliance with this agreement. If the department proceeds in good faith and we are able to obtain everything we need, then there will be no need to take further steps.” But he said if the agreement collapses, it “will have no choice” but to pursue a court case to try to obtain the underlying documents from the Mueller probe that it is seeking.

The agreement did not address the committee’s request for testimony from former White House counsel Donald McGahn, who was a key witness for Mueller, but has declined to testify, complying with the wishes of the White House. Mueller’s team interviewed McGahn for 30 hours, with the lawyer telling prosecutors that Trump pressured him to try to get Mueller ousted from overseeing the investigation, a demand he ignored.

The full House is voting Tuesday whether to go to court under civil, not criminal, law to enforce subpoenas against both Barr and McGahn.

Several investigations

Nadler’s committee and others in the House are pursuing several investigations of Trump, along with the obstruction allegations, including about his business affairs, taxes and administration policies during his 29-month presidency. Trump has vowed to fight all Democratic subpoenas, but Nadler’s agreement for information from the Mueller probe signals there also is room for negotiation rather than to let every dispute end in a legal fight in a courtroom.

On Monday, the Judiciary panel heard from former White House counsel John Dean, who was instrumental 46 years ago in the downfall of another U.S. president, Richard Nixon. At the time, Dean testified before Congress about White House corruption that led to Nixon’s resignation as he was about to be impeached.  

Mueller declined to exonerate Trump of obstruction allegations after a 22-month investigation. But he said that in any event Trump could not have been charged because a Justice Department policy prohibits filing criminal charges against sitting presidents. Subsequently, Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said criminal charges against Trump were not warranted.

About a quarter of the 235 Democrats in the 435-member House, along with one Republican, have called for Trump’s impeachment or the start of an impeachment inquiry. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has resisted such calls, saying she prefers continued investigations by several House committees.

Last week, the political news site Politico reported that she told Democratic colleagues that she does not want Trump impeached, but “in prison,” after facing criminal charges once he leaves office.

Trump retorted, “She’s a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.”

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A helicopter crashed onto the fog-shrouded roof of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper on Monday, killing the pilot and unnerving a city still scarred by memories of the Sept. 11, 2001, airplane attacks on the World Trade Center.

The crash on a rainy, gray day atop the 54-story AXA Equitable Center forced office workers to evacuate in one of the city’s busiest areas a few blocks north of Times Square.

The pilot was the only person aboard the chopper when it plunged into the building and burst into flames, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference. No injuries, either to people in the building or on the ground, have been reported.

“The helicopter is pretty obliterated at this point. It was obviously a very hard hit,” de Blasio said, adding nothing indicated “an act of terrorism.”

Nicolas Estevez was standing across the street from the building when a 12-inch (30 cm) piece of metal that appeared to be from the helicopter landed on the pavement just feet away.

The crash, which sent people streaming out of the building within seconds, reminded him of Sept. 11, Estevez said.

“I saw the explosion and the smoke coming out,” he said.

Key mystery

A key mystery in the crash is why the Agusta A109E was flying at all in a rainstorm in tightly controlled airspace above midtown Manhattan.

To enter that vicinity, de Blasio said, the pilot would have needed approval from the air traffic control tower at LaGuardia Airport across the East River in Queens, “and we need to find out if that happened.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, “FAA air traffic controllers did not handle” the helicopter’s flight, but a spokeswoman for the agency declined to say whether the aircraft was observing prevailing flight restrictions.

The pilot was identified as Tim McCormack, who was going to land at Linden Airport in New Jersey, said Paul Dudley, the airport’s director.

“Tim McCormack is a well-respected, highly trained veteran pilot who also had tremendous local knowledge, having flown in this area for many years,” Dudley said in a phone interview. “We’re all saddened and shocked.”

McCormack worked for Daniele Bodini, founder of the real-estate firm American Continental Properties Group, Dudley said.

The chopper took off from a heliport on Manhattan’s east side at 1:32 p.m. and crash-landed on the building 11 minutes later, officials said.

The site is about half a mile from Trump Tower, where U.S. President Donald Trump maintains an apartment. The area has been under a temporary flight restriction since his election in November 2016.

Felt like a shove

Nathan Hutton, who works in information technology for the French bank BNP Paribas on the 29th floor, said the building shook when the helicopter slammed into the roof.

“It felt like you were just standing there, and someone takes their hand and just shoves you,” he said. “You felt it through the whole building.”

Trump called New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was at the scene soon after the crash, to offer assistance if needed, the governor’s office said.

Cuomo said the crash likely stirred memories of Sept. 11 for many city residents.

“If you’re a New Yorker, you have a level of PTSD from 9/11,” he said.

In addition to BNP Paribas, the AXA Equitable Center, built in 1985 houses offices for corporate tenants such as law firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Sidley Austin, and investment manager New Mountain Capital. Le Bernardin, one of New York City’s most celebrated restaurants, is also in the building.

The skyscraper is managed by Los Angeles-based CommonWealth Partners. CommonWealth office manager LeAnn Holsapple said the company had “no comment at this time.”

Manhattan has only three approved heliports after they were banned in New York City in 1977 after a rotor blade snapped on a helicopter on top of the former Pan Am building, killing five people.

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It’s a comedy night at Johns Hopkins University. Members of the university’s Stand-up Comedy Club are performing dialogues, cracking jokes, doing funny moves and face gestures.

They might be a little bit nervous at the beginning, but the experience is invigorating. Their jokes bring lots of laughter to normally busy, often stressed-out, students.
 
But comedy, as club member Ariella Shua says, is serious work. In their weekly meetings, students try out and rehearse the jokes they wrote over the week.
 
“Whoever is reading, we read all of the material, and then we would go joke by joke and see what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “So, it starts as an individual project for yourself and becomes a group effort.”
 
Since joining last year, Shua has become a better observer of what’s going around her. She doesn’t go anywhere without her notebook.
 
“It’s in my backpack all the time,” she explained. “Whenever I just have a thought in my head that seems like, ‘Oh, this is strange,’ or when I see something or overhear someone saying something in the library, I just write it down. Later, when I’m trying to write my own set, I go walk through that notebook to see if there is anything in there that I can use.”
 
A funny break
 
Along with achieving academic excellence, universities across the United States encourage their students to explore their potential and develop interests beyond their major. Joining an on-campus club is a good way to do that. Whether they are cultural, social, political or recreational, these clubs give students a voice and a chance to hone various skills, from community engagement to being funny. That is what the Stand-up Comedy Club offers.
 
Club president Nicholas Scandura finds that writing is one of the many skills he has developed since joining the club.

“Writing jokes is really fun,” he said. “It takes a lot of critical thinking.”

The club gives its members a sense of community. When they meet, they share funny experiences, tell jokes and laugh.

“It’s just a nice, relaxing break,” Scandura said.
 
Over the past decade, stand-up comedy clubs have become common on college campuses in America.

“Now that it’s become a popular pop culture, everyone wants to do it,” he said.
 
While students use the stand-up comedy format to express themselves and exercise their freedom of speech, they usually stay away from certain controversial topics.
 
“If you offend people, if you say something and people are going to hate you for saying it, why are you up saying it? Scandura said.
 
Funny in real life
 
Last year, sophomore Harry Kuperstein joined the club and discovered it was a natural fit for his personality. Observing ironies and funny aspects of different situations improved his perspective on life. Becoming an active member also helped him work on the future skills he will need as a neurosurgeon.
 
“Elements of, say, talking to patients as a doctor.  I think that being good in scripting and just having jokes ready to go might help smooth these interactions and make you a better public speaker,” he said.
 
Fellow club member Alex Hecksher Gomes, a computer science major, credits the club for helping him develop his own style and discover the secrets of writing good comedy.
 
“Not always tell the truth. Sometimes, it’s funny to go after your imagination,” he said. “You kind of get stuck in doing it, if you just follow what actually happened. Also, don’t always go with your first idea. I definitely thought some things that I said were funny, and then looked back. And where I got to with the joke was a lot funnier than when I started.”
 
‘Tomato Show’
 
Despite the workshops, rewritings and run-throughs, some ideas just aren’t funny.

Club member Benjamin Monteagudo said performing in front of a student audience doesn’t mean comedians won’t receive harsh criticism. Last year, they came up with an idea to keep the audience involved and get their feedback.
 
“We called it ‘Tomato Show,’ where if you were performing very badly on stage, we just let the audience throw tomatoes at us to kind of roll with the joke. So, we spent our entire budget on a big box of foam tomatoes. There were 200 to 300 of them. We gave them to the audience, and it was the best show ever. I think the audience was really engaged because of the tomatoes. And it helped us stay attentive and focused.”

…

Hundreds of firefighters continued to to battle the Sand Fire in Northern California Sunday, as it grew to more than 728 hectares overnight. 

Pacific Gas and Electric Company shut off power to approximately 1,600 customers in Napa, Solano and Yolo counties and about 43,000 customers in Butte, Yuba, Nevada, El Dorado and Placer counties in the Sierra foothills.

As winds, low humidity and heat are expected to continue, the power company said crews are inspecting power lines to check for any weather-related damage and power will be restored when it’s determined to be safe.

​”We know how much our customers rely on electric service, and our decision tonight to turn off power is to protect our communities experiencing extreme fire danger,” Michael Lewis, PG&E’s senior vice president of electric operations, said in a statement.

Last year, Camp Fire destroyed most of the town of Paradise, parts of which are included in the latest shutoffs. Investigators have blamed damaged power lines for sparking that fire. 

The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for parts of the Central Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta at elevations below 305 meters, where there has been less rain recently and the vegetation is driest.
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From funerals of presidents to the final Sunday sermon of a civil rights icon, the country’s most famous church is an American landmark. But an earthquake years ago shook parts of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to the ground. In 2019, officials there made child’s play of a fundraiser to rebuild. Arash Arabasadi unrolls the blueprints in this story.
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The Chai Spot is a café in New York City’s “Little Italy” neighborhood that serves a variety of Pakistani chai in a very colorful and cozy environment. It is also the spot that brought two people together as husband and wife, across two very different cultures and families. Khalida and David think chai cafes could help other people find happiness too. Kalsoom Kakar recently visited The Chai Spot and filed this report narrated by Niala Mohammad.
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rallied thousands of supporters in the northern border city of Tijuana on Saturday, saying that a new immigration deal with the United States would protect the human rights of migrants and maintain friendly ties with U.S.

Lopez Obrador said he was reluctantly prepared to slap retaliatory tariffs on US goods if negotiators in Washington had failed to strike a deal.

“We celebrate the important agreement of yesterday because it was a very difficult situation, very awkward doing the same and applying tariffs to some products of the US, the same measures, commercial restrictions similar to the ones that would be imposed on Mexican exports,” he said.

Under the deal, Mexico agreed to the immediate expansion along the entire border of a program under which the U.S. returns asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico to await adjudication of their cases.

The program, commonly known as Remain in Mexico, has been operating since January in the border cities of Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juarez.

 Mexico will also reinforce its southern border with Guatemala with thousands of National Guard officers.

The deal, announced on Friday after three days of negotiations in Washington, averted President Donald Trump’s threatened imposition of 5% import tariffs on all Mexican goods starting on Monday, June 10.

“I am pleased to inform you that the United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended,” President Donald Trump said Friday on Twitter.

“Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border. This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States,” Trump said.

 
…

It’s a comedy night at Johns Hopkins University. Members of the university’s Stand-up Comedy Club are performing dialogues, cracking jokes, doing funny moves and face gestures. 

They might be a little bit nervous at the beginning, but the experience is invigorating. Their jokes bring lots of laughter to normally busy, often stressed-out, students. 

But comedy, as club member Ariella Shua says, is serious work. In their weekly meetings, students try out and rehearse the jokes they wrote over the week.

“Whoever is reading, we read all of the material, and then we would go joke by joke and see what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “So, it starts as an individual project for yourself and becomes a group effort.”

Since joining last year, Shua has become a better observer of what’s going around her. She doesn’t go anywhere without her notebook.

“It’s in my backpack all the time,” she explained. “Whenever I just have a thought in my head that seems like, ‘Oh, this is strange,’ or when I see something or overhear someone saying something in the library, I just write it down. Later, when I’m trying to write my own set, I go walk through that notebook to see if there is anything in there that I can use.” 

A funny break

Along with achieving academic excellence, universities across the United States encourage their students to explore their potential and develop interests beyond their major. Joining an on-campus club is a good way to do that. Whether they are cultural, social, political or recreational, these clubs give students a voice and a chance to hone various skills, from community engagement to being funny. That is what the Stand-up Comedy Club offers.

Club president Nicholas Scandura finds that writing is one of the many skills he has developed since joining the club.

“Writing jokes is really fun,” he said. “It takes a lot of critical thinking.”

The club gives its members a sense of community. When they meet, they share funny experiences, tell jokes and laugh.

“It’s just a nice, relaxing break,” Scandura said.

Over the past decade, stand-up comedy clubs have become common on college campuses in America. 

“Now that it’s become a popular pop culture, everyone wants to do it,” he said.

While students use the stand-up comedy format to express themselves and exercise their freedom of speech, they usually stay away from certain controversial topics.

“If you offend people, if you say something and people are going to hate you for saying it, why are you up saying it? Scandura said.

Funny in real life

Last year, sophomore Harry Kuperstein joined the club and discovered it was a natural fit for his personality. Observing ironies and funny aspects of different situations improved his perspective on life. Becoming an active member also helped him work on the future skills he will need as a neurosurgeon.

“Elements of, say, talking to patients as a doctor. I think that being good in scripting and just having jokes ready to go might help smooth these interactions and make you a better public speaker,” he said.

Fellow club member Alex Hecksher Gomes, a computer science major, credits the club for helping him develop his own style and discover the secrets of writing good comedy.

“Not always tell the truth. Sometimes, it’s funny to go after your imagination,” he said. “You kind of get stuck in doing it, if you just follow what actually happened. Also, don’t always go with your first idea. I definitely thought some things that I said were funny, and then looked back. And where I got to with the joke was a lot funnier than when I started.”

‘Tomato Show’

Despite the workshops, rewrites and run-throughs, some ideas just aren’t funny. 

Club member Benjamin Monteagudo said performing in front of a student audience doesn’t mean comedians won’t receive harsh criticism. Last year, they came up with an idea to keep the audience involved and get their feedback.

“We called it ‘Tomato Show,’ where if you were performing very badly on stage, we just let the audience throw tomatoes at us to kind of roll with the joke. So, we spent our entire budget on a big box of foam tomatoes. There were 200 to 300 of them. We gave them to the audience, and it was the best show ever. I think the audience was really engaged because of the tomatoes. And it helped us stay attentive and focused.”
…

Online data is at risk. Hackers are getting smarter and companies across the globe are facing a shortage of trained professionals who can help protect their data. To fill this gap, the U.S. government is beefing up its efforts to recruit the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. VOA’s Sahar Majid has more.
…

Rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China have sparked worries about the 17 exotic-sounding rare earth minerals needed for high-tech products like robotics, drones and electric cars. 

China recently raised tariffs to 25% on rare earth exports to the U.S. and has threatened to halt exports altogether after the Trump administration raised tariffs on Chinese products and blacklisted telecommunications giant Huawei.  

With names like europium, scandium and ytterbium, the bulk of rare earth minerals are extracted from mines in China, where lower wages and lax environmental standards make production cheaper and easier.  

But trade experts say no one should panic over China’s threats to stop exporting the elements to the U.S. 

There is a U.S. rare minerals mine in California. And Australia, Myanmar, Russia and India are also top producers of the somewhat obscure minerals. Vietnam and Brazil both have huge rare earth reserves.  

“The sky is not falling,” said Mary B. Teagarden, a China specialist, professor and associate dean at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix. “There are alternatives.” 

Simon Lester, associate director of the center for trade policy studies at the Cato Institute think tank in Washington, agreed. “Over the short term, it could be a big disruption, but companies that want to stay in business will find a way,” he said.    

Although the U.S. is among the world’s top 10 countries for rare earths production, it’s also a major importer of the minerals, looking to China for 80% of what it buys from other countries, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. China last year produced 120,000 metric tons of rare earths, while the United States produced 15,000 metric tons.  

Mountain Pass Mine

The United States also depends on China to separate the minerals pulled from Mountain Pass Mine, the sole rare earths mine in the U.S., which was bought two years ago by the Chicago-based JHL Capital Group LLC .  

“We need to develop a U.S.-based supply chain so there is no possibility we can be threatened,” said Ryan S. Corbett, managing director of JHL Capital. 

The mine’s top products are neodymium and praseodymium, two elements that are used together to make the lightweight magnets that help power electric cars and wind turbines and are found in electronics such as laptop hard drives. 

Mountain Pass, located in San Bernardino County, Calif., was once the top supplier of the world’s rare earth minerals, but China began taking over the market in the 1990s and the U.S. mine stopped production in 2002.  

Mountain Pass later restarted production, only to close again amid a 2015 bankruptcy. Corbett said extraction resumed last year after JHL Capital purchased the site with QVT Financial LP of New York, which holds 30%, and Shenghe Resources Holding Co. Ltd. of China, a nonvoting shareholder with 9.9%.  

Since then, Mountain Pass has focused on achieving greater autonomy with a $1.7 billion separation system set to go online late next year that would allow it to skip sending rare earths ore to China for that step. 

China could hurt itself in the long run by cutting off the U.S., specialists said.  

David Merriman, a rare earths analyst for Roskill commodity research in London, said that during a similar trade flap with China in 2011, Japan began looking to other countries, including Australia, for the minerals needed to manufacture electronics.   

Australian rare earths production giant Lynas Corp. Ltd. this month announced a proposed deal with Blue Line Corp. of Texas for a separation facility at an industrial site in Hondo, Texas.  

Other deposits

There may be other options, too. Deposits of rare earths have been detected in other U.S. states, including Wyoming and Alaska, as well in several remote areas of Canada. The Interior Department is calling for more prospecting and mining of “critical minerals,” including on public lands currently considered off-limits, and even in oceans. 

“We have to be more forward-thinking,” said Alexander Gysi, an assistant professor in geology and geological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. “It would be better for the U.S. to have a greater range of sources for rare earths.”
…

Congressional hearings on Robert Mueller’s report on the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election take place in coming days, amid mounting pressure to launch proceedings that could lead to the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

But Mueller, the special counsel who recently stepped down after completing the report, will not testify before the House Judiciary Committee, which is holding a hearing in Washington Monday entitled “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes.”

The panel will, instead, hear testimony from former U.S. attorneys and other legal experts, including John Dean, the star witness in the early 1970s Watergate hearings and former White House counsel for then-President Richard Nixon. The committee says the witnesses will discuss the report’s evidence that Trump often tried to obstruct or limit the probe, which reinforced the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the election with the intent of helping Trump win the presidency.

On Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee will also hold a “Lessons from the Mueller Report” hearing. It’s focus will be on the “counterintelligence implications” of Mueller’s findings, the committee said. Mueller, nor members of his team, will testify but the panel will hear from former top FBI officials Robert Anderson and Stephanie Douglas.

Both committees are chaired by Democrats, who represent a party that is divided over what to do with Mueller. He has refused to testify before Congress out of concern he may be exploited for political reasons. Most House Democrats believe Mueller is obligated to explain his findings to the public as the party considers issuing a subpoena to compel him to testify.

Efforts by the committees to get more information about Mueller’s findings have been largely obstructed by Trump’s claims of executive privilege and by ordering key witnesses to refuse to testify or submit documents.

Trump’s actions have prompted the most liberal members of the House to increase pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin a process that could lead to impeaching the president. But Pelosi has dismissed that approach, preferring a slower, more methodical strategy that includes litigation.

 
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