WILMINGTON: A jury found Hunter Biden guilty on Tuesday of federal gun charges in a historic first criminal prosecution of the child of a sitting US president.
The 54-year-old son of President Joe Biden was convicted on all three of the felony counts stemming from his 2018 purchase of a handgun while addicted to drugs.
The verdict comes as his father is seeking reelection and on a day when the Democratic president is scheduled to give a speech in Washington about gun violence.
The president expressed his “love and support” for his son in a statement released by the White House following the conclusion of the trial held in the Biden hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
“I am the President, but I am also a Dad,” Biden said. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today.”
“So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery,” he said.
“I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,” Biden added.
The 12-member jury deliberated for about three hours over two days before reaching a verdict.
Hunter Biden did not take the stand during the one-week trial. First Lady Jill Biden attended several days.
Hunter Biden could face up to 25 years in prison, although as a first-time offender jail time is unlikely.
The verdict comes less than two weeks after the conviction on business fraud charges of Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s likely Republican opponent in the November presidential election.
The proceedings, along with another case in which Hunter Biden faces tax evasion charges in California, have complicated Democrats’ efforts to keep the election focus on Trump, the first former president ever to be convicted of a crime.
In addition to being a political distraction, Hunter Biden’s legal woes have reopened painful emotional wounds for the family from his time as a drug addict.
His brother Beau died from cancer in 2015, and his sister Naomi died as an infant in a 1972 car crash that also killed their mother, Neilia, Joe Biden’s first wife.
The Yale-trained lawyer and lobbyist-turned-artist was charged with falsely stating when buying a .38 caliber revolver in 2018 that he was not using drugs illegally.
He was also charged with illegal possession of the firearm, which he had for just 11 days in October of that year.
The president’s son, who has written unsparingly about his addiction, claimed that at the time he bought the revolver he did not consider himself to be an addict.
He has long been the target of hard-right Republicans, and Trump allies have investigated him at length in Congress on allegations of corruption and influence-peddling. No charges have ever been brought.
Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and Ukraine have also formed the basis for attempts by Republican lawmakers to initiate impeachment proceedings against his father. Those efforts too have gone nowhere.
The White House has said there would be no presidential pardon for Hunter Biden.
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President Biden’s son Hunter convicted on all charges in gun case
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President Biden’s son Hunter convicted on all charges in gun case
- 54-year-old son of President Joe Biden was convicted on all three of the felony counts
US keeps missile system in Philippines as China tensions rise, tests wartime deployment
- Typhon can fire missiles capable of striking China
- China, Russia accuse Washington of fueling arms race
MANILA: The United States has no immediate plans to withdraw a mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines, despite Chinese demands, and is testing the feasibility of its use in a regional conflict, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The Typhon system, which can be equipped with cruise missiles capable of striking Chinese targets, was brought in for joint exercises earlier this year, both countries said at the time, but has remained there.
The Southeast Asian archipelago, Taiwan’s neighbor to the South, is an important part of US strategy in Asia and would be an indispensable staging point for the military to aid Taipei in the event of a Chinese attack.
China and Russia condemned the move – the first deployment of the system to the Indo-Pacific – and accused Washington of fueling an arms race.
The deployment, some details of which have not been previously reported, comes as China and US defense treaty ally the Philippines clash over parts of the hotly contested South China Sea. Recent months have brought a series of sea and air confrontations in the strategic waterway.
Philippine officials said Filipino and US forces continued to train with the missile system, which is in northern Luzon, which faces the South China Sea and is close to the Taiwan Strait, and they were not aware of immediate plans to return it, even though the joint exercises end this month.
A Philippine army spokesman, Col. Louie Dema-ala, told Reuters on Wednesday that training was ongoing and it was up to the United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) to decide how long the missile system would stay.
A public affairs officer for USARPAC said that the Philippine army had said the Typhon could stay beyond September and soldiers trained with it as recently as last week, engaging “in discussions over employing the system, with a focus on integrating host nation support.”
A senior Philippine government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and another person familiar with the matter said the USand the Philippines were testing the feasibility of using the system there in the event of a conflict, trialing how well it worked in that environment.
The government official said the Typhon — a modular system, which is intended to be mobile and moved as needed — was in the Philippines for a “test on the feasibility of deploying it in country, so that when the need arises, it could easily be deployed here.”
The office of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Sleepless nights’
The US army flew the Typhon, which can launch missiles including SM-6 missiles and Tomahawks with a range exceeding 1,600 km (994 miles), to the Philippines in April in what it called a “historic first” and a “significant step in our partnership with the Philippines.”
A note by the US Congressional Research Service, a policy institute of the USCongress, published at the time said it was “not known if this temporary deployment could eventually become permanent.”
In July, army spokesman Dema-ala confirmed the Typhon missile launcher remained in the Philippines’ northern islands and said there was no specific date as to when it would be “shipped out,” correcting an earlier statement that it was due to leave in September.
A satellite image taken on Wednesday by Planet Labs, a commercial satellite firm, and reviewed by Reuters showed the Typhon at the Laoag International Airport, in Ilocos Norte province.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, who analyzed the images, said the system remained.
The senior government official who spoke to Reuters said there were no immediate plans to withdraw it.
“If ever it will be pulled out, it is because the objective has been achieved and it may be brought (back) in after all the repairs or the construction would have been done,” the official said, adding that there was strategic value for the Philippines in keeping the system to deter China.
“We want to give them sleepless nights.”
Anti-ship weapons
The US has been amassing a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia, as Washington attempts to catch up quickly in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a big lead, Reuters has reported.
Although the US military has declined to say how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles are due to be bought in the next five years, according to government documents outlining military purchases. Several thousand Tomahawks are already in US inventories, the documents showed.
China has denounced the deployment of the Typhon several times, including in May when Wu Qian, spokesperson for China’s defense ministry, said Manila and Washington had brought “huge risks of war into the region”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in June cited the deployment when announcing his country would resume production of intermediate- and shorter-range nuclear-capable missiles.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo in July assured his Chinese counterpart the presence of the missile system in his country
posed no threat to China and would not destabilize the region.
China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the South China Sea, which it mostly claims in full despite a 2016 arbitral ruling that backed the Philippines, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, the UShas said.
China says its military facilities in the Spratly islands are purely defensive, and that it can do what it likes on its own territory.
China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- "The Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell
- “It’s not just a military challenge; it’s across the board. It is in the Global South. It is in technology," he said
WASHINGTON: China presents the top challenge to the United States in all of its history, surpassing the Cold War, a top US official said Wednesday, as he urged Europe to get tougher on Beijing.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, a key architect of a 15-year push for the United States to reorient its foreign policy toward Asia, also urged greater US investment in advanced technology to compete better with China.
“There is a recognition that this is the most significant challenge in our history,” Campbell told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Frankly, the Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents,” he said.
“It’s not just a military challenge; it’s across the board. It is in the Global South. It is in technology. We need to step up our game across the board.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has been pressing China about technology exports to Russia that US officials say have allowed Moscow to ramp up military production for its war in Ukraine.
“The challenge is, we’ve got to get more support here on this,” Campbell said of US sanctions on Chinese firms, an issue he said he has been raising on visits to Europe.
Campbell said that most of Washington’s European allies shared concerns on China’s ties with Moscow but were still reeling from the “huge shock” of slashing energy imports from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
“For many of these countries, doing business with China has been a big deal for 15 or 20 years,” he said.
Acting on China, after Russia, could feel like “kind of a one-two punch. You can understand leaders in Europe have some anxieties.”
China argues that, unlike the United States, it is not providing weapons to either Russia or Ukraine, but Washington says Beijing is providing support that has military uses.
Campbell’s tough talk comes despite easing tensions between the United States and China under Biden, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump more frequently speaking in Cold War terms about confronting Beijing.
Biden and his political heir Kamala Harris have supported dialogue with China even as their administration presses ahead with tough measures including a sweeping ban on exports of advanced chips.
Since a summit last year between Biden and President Xi Jinping in California, China has agreed to key US requests of restoring military communications and cracking down on ingredients in fentanyl, the drug behind a US overdose epidemic.
Campbell contended that the Biden administration has strengthened the US position since taking over from Trump, in part by bolstering alliances.
“Four years ago, the general view globally was that China had eaten our lunch, that they were going to surpass us, economically and commercially, that we were in the midst of some sort of hurtling decline,” he said.
“I do not think that is what the general belief is today.”
Meeting another key ask of the Biden administration, China freed an American pastor, David Lin, who had been detained since 2006, the State Department confirmed Sunday.
The United States had raised the case of Lin and other detained Americans with China, including when Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of a meeting in Laos in July.
The State Department considers two other US citizens, Kai Li and Mark Swidan, to be wrongfully detained by China, but activists say far more Americans are behind bars or prohibited from exiting.
The mother of Swidan, detained over drug trafficking charges he denies, told a separate congressional hearing that Biden needs to engage with China on its proposals to free him.
“His case is a clear injustice, yet it continues to be ignored by those with the power to act,” she said in a statement to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Peter Humphrey, who was detained with his wife in China from 2013 to 2015 and has since become a specialist on such cases, said a “massive number” of Americans cannot publicly raise their cases for fear of retribution by Beijing.
He said he was held with 11 other men in a packed cell with no privacy or furniture, sleeping on the floor and eating from dog bowls pushed under the bars.
He said he lost 22 pounds (10 kilos) while in detention, which he described as “torture designed to crush the human spirit and force out a confession.”
Teamsters union declines to endorse Trump or Harris for president
- Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien said neither candidate had sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union
- Other large unions such as the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers have earlier endorsed Harris
WASHINGTON: The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined Wednesday to endorse Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for president, saying neither candidate had sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union.
“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”
The Teamsters’ rebuff reflected a labor union torn over issues of political identity and policy, one that mirrors a broader national divide. Vice President Harris has unmistakably backed organized labor, while former President Trump has appealed to many white blue-collar workers even as he has openly scorned unions at times. By not endorsing anyone, the Teamsters are essentially ceding some influence in November’s election as both candidates claimed to have support from its members.
Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt noted in an emailed statement that more than three dozen retired Teamsters spoke last month in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, having endorsed Harris. Their pensions were saved through the 2021 passage of the Butch Lewis Act that President Joe Biden and Harris championed.
“While Donald Trump says striking workers should be fired, Vice President Harris has literally walked the picket line and stood strong with organized labor for her entire career,” Hitt said. “The Vice President’s strong union record is why Teamsters locals across the country have already endorsed her — alongside the overwhelming majority of organized labor.”
The Teamsters said Wednesday that internal polling of members showed Trump with an advantage over Harris, a fact that the Republican’s campaign immediately seized upon by sending out an email that said the “rank-and-file of the Teamsters Union supports Donald Trump for President.”
Trump called the Teamsters’ decision not to endorse “a great honor.”
“It’s a great honor,” he said. “They’re not going to endorse the Democrats. That’s a big thing.”
Harris met Monday with a panel of Teamsters, having long courted organized labor and made support for the middle class her central policy goal. Trump also met with a panel of Teamsters in January and even invited O’Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention, where the union leader railed against corporate greed.
In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, O’Brien said lack of an endorsement tells candidates that they have to back the Teamsters in the future. “This should be an eye opener for 2028,” he said. “If people want the support of the most powerful union in North America, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, start doing some things to support our members,” he said.
The Teamsters’ choice to not endorse came just weeks ahead of the Nov. 5 election, far later than endorsements by other large unions such as the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers that have chosen to devote resources to getting out the vote for Harris.
With O’Brien facing a backlash from some Teamsters’ members after speaking at the Republican National Convention, it’s no surprise that the union decided not to make an endorsement, said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University.
Trump’s praise of Tesla CEO Elon Musk for firing workers who supposedly went on strike really made a Trump endorsement very unlikely, Wheaton said. “The members were not in total agreement,” he said.
Marick Masters, a business professor emeritus at Wayne State University in Detroit who follows labor issues, said the Teamsters lack of an endorsement suggests a realignment within the union’s membership.
For many workers, issues such as gun control, abortion and border security override Trump’s expressions of hostility to unions, Masters said.
The Teamsters detailed their objections to the candidates in a statement, starting with their objection to a contract implemented by Congress in 2022 on members working in the railroad sector.
The union wanted both candidates to commit to not deploying the Railway Labor Act to resolve contract disputes and avoid a shutdown of national infrastructure, but Harris and Trump both wanted to keep that option open even though the Teamsters said it would reduce its bargaining power.
Harris has pledged to sign the PRO Act, which would strengthen union protections and is something the Teamsters support. Trump, in his roundtable with the Teamsters, did not promise to veto a proposal to make it harder nationwide to unionize.
Other unions have shown trepidation about endorsing either presidential candidate. The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America on Friday ultimately endorsed Harris with a caveat that “the manner in which party leaders engineered Biden’s replacement at the top of the ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris was thoroughly undemocratic,” union leadership said in a statement.
But the Teamsters lack of endorsement also suggests an indifference to the Biden-Harris administration, which signed into law a measure that saved the pensions of millions of union retirees, including many in the Teamsters.
As part of its 2021 pandemic aid, the administration included the Butch Lewis Act to save the underfunded pensions of more than 1 million union workers and retirees’ underfunded pensions. The act was named after a retired Ohio trucker and Teamsters union leader who spent the last years of his life fighting to prevent massive cuts to the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund.
Boeing furloughs thousands as it hunkers down for extended strike
- The extensive furloughs show the company is preparing to weather a prolonged strike that is not likely to be easily resolved
- A protracted labor battle could cost Boeing several billion dollars, further straining finances and threatening its credit rating
- The strike has halted production of Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX jets, along with its 777 and 767 widebody aircraft, delaying deliveries to airlines
Boeing said on Wednesday it will temporarily furlough tens of thousands of employees after about 30,000 machinists went on strike on Friday, halting production of its 737 MAX and other airplanes.
“We are initiating temporary furloughs over the coming days that will impact a large number of US-based executives, managers and employees,” CEO Kelly Ortberg said in an email to employees. “We are planning for selected employees to take one week of furlough every four weeks on a rolling basis for the duration of the strike.”
Ortberg also said he and other Boeing leaders “will take a commensurate pay reduction for the duration of the strike.”
The extensive furloughs show Ortberg is preparing the company to weather a prolonged strike that is not likely to be easily resolved given the anger among rank-and-file workers.
The strike, Boeing’s first since 2008, adds to a tumultuous year for the planemaker which began when a door panel blew off a new 737 MAX jet in mid-air in January.
A protracted labor battle could cost Boeing several billion dollars, further straining finances and threatening its credit rating, analysts said.
“It’s unlikely that the cuts will fully offset the costs of a prolonged strike,” said Ben Tsocanos, aerospace director at S&P Global Ratings.
Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) are talking in the presence of federal mediators. The union said Tuesday it was frustrated with the first day of mediation, which it said Boeing was not taking seriously.
The union has been pushing for a 40 percent raise over four years in its first full contract negotiations with Boeing in 16 years, well above the planemaker’s offer of 25 percent, which was resoundingly rejected.
Brian Bryant, the IAM’s international president, said actions like furloughs and the cutback in salaries amounted to “smoke and mirrors,” given earlier company spending on bonuses and compensation for top executives.
“This is just part of their plan to make it look like they’re trying to save money,” added Bryant who was in the Seattle area picketing on Wednesday with the “resilient” membership.
“The ball is in Boeing’s court. They could settle this strike tomorrow,” Bryant said, adding it would take fair pay, pension, restoring a bonus and health insurance.
In the email to employees, Ortberg said the company would not take any “actions that inhibit our ability to fully recover in the future. All activities critical to our safety, quality, customer support and key certification programs will be prioritized and continue, including 787 production.”
The company employs about 150,000 people in the United States. It is unclear exactly which employees are affected by the furloughs. A union representing Boeing’s engineers said their members were not affected.
The strike, now six days old, also carries risks for the company’s vast network of suppliers, some of whom are also considering furloughs, several told Reuters.
“Certainly suppliers are worried,” said Nikki Malcom, CEO of the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance. “It’s going to have a significant impact on suppliers if it goes on a long time.”
Production halts
The strike has halted production of Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX jets, along with its 777 and 767 widebody aircraft, delaying deliveries to airlines.
Boeing said on Monday it was freezing hiring to cut costs as its balance sheet is already burdened with $60 billion of debt.
The company has also stopped placing most orders for parts for all Boeing jet programs except the 787 Dreamliner, in a move that will hurt its suppliers.
One senior supplier dismissed the latest announcement as “panic mode” and said it underscored Boeing’s lack of room to maneuver due to its already-strained balance sheet.
“They would be better to settle; they are getting very near the precipice,” said the supplier, who asked not to be named.
Boeing shares have fallen about 40 percent so far this year.
UN chief urges divided nations to approve blueprint to address global challenges from climate to AI
- Guterres stressed that in every area — from climate to AI — “there is a serious problem of governance,” and that’s what the Summit of the Future is about
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations chief urged the world’s divided nations on Wednesday to compromise and approve a blueprint to address global challenges from conflicts and climate change to artificial intelligence and reforming the UN and global financial institutions.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that discussions on the “Pact of the Future” are in their final stretch and failure to reach the required consensus among all 193 UN member nations “would be tragic.”
A year ago, Guterres sounded an alarm about the survival of humanity and the planet and summoned world leaders to a Summit of the Future at their global gathering this year to unite and take action to reform the UN and other institutions established after World War II and address new global threats. It is taking place Sunday and Monday, just before Tuesday’s start of the annual high-level meeting at the UN General Assembly.
Negotiations on the 30-page pact, now in its fourth revision, have been taking place for months, and in recent interviews and at Wednesday’s press conference the secretary-general has faced questions about its lack of vision, and what is different from UN documents adopted in recent years that haven’t been implemented.
“It’s very simple,” the UN chief replied.
All the previous “extraordinary, important declarations” were about what is needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century, he said. The Summit of the Future is about implementing those challenges, which requires reform of global institutions established after World War II including the United Nations.
Guterres stressed that in every area — from climate to AI — “there is a serious problem of governance,” and that’s what the Summit of the Future is about.
The draft Pact of the Future says world leaders are gathering “at a time of profound global transformation,” and it warns of “rising catastrophic and existential risks” that could tip people everywhere “into a future of persistent crisis and breakdown.”
But the draft says leaders are coming to the UN “to protect the needs and interests of present and future generations through actions in the Pact for the Future.”
It includes 51 actions on issues including eradicating poverty, combating climate change, achieving gender equality, promoting peace and protecting civilians, and reinvigorating the multilateral system to “seize the opportunities of today and tomorrow.”
Guterres pointed to “potential breakthroughs” in the pact including “the strongest language on Security Council reform in a generation,” and the most concrete steps to enlarging the powerful 15-member body since 1963.
He also cited the first measures to govern new technologies including Artificial Intelligence, a “major advance” in reforming international financial institutions, and a commitment to multiply resources for developing countries to meet UN development goals by 2030.
Urging member states to get the Pact of the Future “over the finish line,” Guterres said, “We can’t create a future fit for our grandchildren with systems built for our grandparents.”
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters Tuesday that a priority for the Biden administration at this year’s Summit of the Future is “to create a more inclusive and effective international system.”
She said the Group of 77 which now represents 134 developing countries at the UN, the 27-member European Union and the United States all agreed to the fourth revision of the Pact of the Future.
But the US ambassador said Russia objected to about 15 different issues, Saudi Arabia had problems with the climate language, and other countries objected to the language on reforming the international financial institutions including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund..
“I do think the Summit of the Future will make a difference,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “There are still some major differences. … But I am still hopeful that we will get there.”
