Tag Archives: United States

Hong Kong protesters seek international support on rights

By Felix Tam

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong protesters rallied outside diplomatic missions on Thursday to urge foreign governments to follow the United States and pass human rights bills to raise pressure on Beijing and support their pro-democracy campaign.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation last month requiring the State Department to certify, at least once a year, that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy from Beijing to justify favorable U.S. trading terms.

About 1,000 people, most of them dressed in black and wearing face masks, marched on a route that took them by the consulates of Australia, Britain, the European Union, the United States, Japan and Canada, to drop off a petition.

British, EU and U.S. diplomats came out to receive it and took photographs with the protesters.

“What happens in Hong Kong is not just a local issue, it is about human rights and democracy. Foreign governments should understand how this city is being suppressed,” said Suki Chan, who participated in the protest.

“We need to continue to seek international attention and let them know this movement is not losing momentum.”

Hong Kong has been rattled for more than six months by anti-government protests amid growing anger over what many see as Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Beijing has denied such meddling, blaming the unrest on “foreign forces” and saying attempts to interfere in the city are doomed to fail.

The U.S. legislation, which also threatens sanctions for human rights violations, followed similar “citizen diplomacy” petitions in Hong Kong this year and has been cheered by protesters.

Beijing denounced the U.S. legislation and Hong Kong’s government said it sent the wrong signal to the demonstrators and increased economic uncertainty in Hong Kong, a major financial hub.

The marchers’ petition condemned what it called police brutality and urged governments to pass legislation to punish Chinese and Hong Kong officials by denying them visas and freezing their assets.

The police say they have acted with restraint.

Police said separately on Thursday they had arrested four people suspected of money laundering in relation to the protests and had frozen HK$70 million ($9 million) in bank deposits.

Chan Wai Kei, from the police’s financial investigation and narcotics bureau, told reporters the four were part of a group that had asked for donations for arrested and injured protesters but used some of the money for personal investments.

‘LOVE CHINA, LOVE MACAU’

Beijing says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula that guarantees a high degree of autonomy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has this week visited the neighboring gambling hub of Macau, a former Portuguese colony, which he praised on Thursday, drawing a contrast with the Hong Kong protests.

“Love China, love Macau has become the core value of the whole society,” Xi told local officials.

The Macau government and “all parts of society deeply understand that harmony leads to prosperity, (and the importance of) unity, negotiation, no argument, no internal conflict, resisting external interference.”

On Friday Xi was due to attend ceremonies for the 20th anniversary of Macau’s handover to China, and was expected to announce economic perks as a reward for its stability and loyalty.

At the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong, protesters called for U.S. Congress to pass a “Be Water Act”, legislation championed by Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and named after a protest slogan borrowed from martial arts legend Bruce Lee.

The bill would freeze assets of Chinese nationals and state-owned enterprises believed to have contributed to suppressing freedom of speech in Hong Kong.

Thursday also marked the 35th anniversary of a treaty between China and Britain on Hong Kong’s future, which set the stage for its handover.

British Foreign secretary Dominic Raab urged China in a statement to open dialogue with the protesters and respect the commitments in the treaty.

The Chinese foreign ministry said in 2017 the 1984 joint declaration, signed by then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance.

Hong Kong’s special status, which helped it grow into a global financial center and avoid U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, is important to Beijing, which uses the city as its main gateway to global capital.

(Reporting by Felix Tam, Mari Saito, Clare Jim, Donny Kwok; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Robert Birsel and Frances Kerry)

China says in touch with U.S. on signing of Phase 1 trade deal

China says in touch with U.S. on signing of Phase 1 trade deal
BEIJING (Reuters) – China and the United States are in touch over the signing of their Phase 1 trade deal, China’s commerce ministry said, which will see lower U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and higher Chinese purchases of U.S. farm, energy and manufactured goods.

The Phase 1 deal was announced last week after more than two years of on-and-off trade talks, although neither side has released many specific details of the agreement.

Both the Chinese and U.S. trade teams are in close communication, Gao Feng, a spokesman at the Chinese commerce ministry, told reporters at a regular briefing on Thursday, adding there is no specific information on the deal to disclose currently.

“After the official signing of the deal, the content of the agreement will be made public,” Gao said.

U.S. officials say China agreed to increase purchases of U.S. products and services by at least $200 billion over the next two years.

According to Washington, that would include additional purchases of U.S. farm products of $32 billion over two years. That would average an annual total of about $40 billion, compared to a baseline of $24 billion in 2017 before the trade war started.

Chinese officials have so far not publicly confirmed much of Washington’s version – especially on goods purchase commitments. But China said on Friday when the deal was announced that it will import more U.S. wheat, rice, corn, energy, pharmaceuticals and financial services.

Earlier on Thursday, China unveiled a new list of tariff exemptions for U.S. imports, mostly chemical products, days after the world’s two largest economies announced the Phase 1 deal. China said the second part of the waiver list will be released at an appropriate time.

Washington said the deal also includes stronger Chinese legal protections for patents, trademarks, copyrights, including improved criminal and civil procedures to combat online infringement, pirated and counterfeit goods.

The two countries have reached a consensus over the protection of trade secrets, guarding intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical products, and cracking down on counterfeits and pirated goods on e-commerce platforms, Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said on Friday.

China will step up protection of intellectual property but at its own pace, Wang said.

(Reporting by Stella Qiu and Martin Pollard; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Lincoln Feast and Giles Elgood)

U.S. House impeachment of Trump sets stage for trial in Senate

U.S. House impeachment of Trump sets stage for trial in Senate
By Amanda Becker and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The impeachment of President Donald Trump in the U.S. House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress sets the stage for a historic trial next month in the Republican-controlled Senate on whether he should be removed from office.

But it was unclear on Thursday how or when that trial would play out after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she might delay sending over the articles of impeachment to the Senate in order to pressure that chamber to conduct what she viewed as a fair trial.

Trump said the ball was now in the Senate’s court.

“Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate, but it’s Senate’s call!” Trump said on Twitter. “If the Do Nothing Democrats decide, in their great wisdom, not to show up, they would lose by Default!”

 

Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, said on MSNBC that Democrats would like the Senate to first approve a $1.4 trillion spending plan and a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico before turning to impeachment.

He said Democrats were also concerned that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell may not allow a full trial. McConnell has predicted there is “no chance” his chamber will convict Trump.

“It’s very hard to believe that Mitch McConnell can raise his right hand and pledge to be impartial,” Hoyer said.

The mostly party-line votes on Wednesday in the Democratic-led House came after long hours of bitter debate that reflected the partisan tensions in a divided America, and made Trump the third U.S. president to be impeached.

Republicans argued that Democrats were using a rigged process to nullify the 2016 election and influence Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, while Democrats said Trump’s actions in pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender, were a threat to democracy.

Trump is certain to face more friendly terrain during a trial in the 100-member Senate, where a vote to remove him would require a two-thirds majority. That means at least 20 Republicans would have to join Democrats in voting against Trump – and none have indicated they will.

Pelosi said after the vote she would wait to name the House managers, who will prosecute the case, until she knew more about the Senate trial procedures. She did not specify when she would send the impeachment articles to the Senate.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz said it would not bother him if Pelosi did not send over the impeachment articles.

“My attitude is OK, throw us in that briar patch, don’t send them, that’s all right,” he said on Fox News. “We actually have work to do.”

Trump, 73, is accused of abusing his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden, a former U.S. vice president, as well as a discredited theory that Democrats conspired with Ukraine to meddle in the 2016 election.

Democrats said Trump held back $391 million in security aid intended to combat Russia-backed separatists and a coveted White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as leverage to coerce Kiev into interfering in the 2020 election by smearing Biden.

Trump is also accused of obstruction of Congress by directing administration officials and agencies not to comply with lawful House subpoenas for testimony and documents related to impeachment.

Trump, who is seeking another four-year term in the November 2020 presidential election, has denied wrongdoing and called the impeachment inquiry launched by Pelosi in September a “witch hunt.”

At a raucous rally for his re-election in Battle Creek, Michigan, as the House voted, Trump said the impeachment would be a “mark of shame” for Democrats and Pelosi, and cost them in the 2020 election.

“This lawless, partisan impeachment is a political suicide march for the Democrat Party,” Trump said. “They’re the ones who should be impeached, every one of them.”

DEEP DIVISIONS

Trump’s election has polarized the United States, dividing families and friends and making it more difficult for politicians in Washington to find middle ground as they try to confront pressing challenges like the rise of China and climate change.

The impeachment vote comes ahead of Trump’s re-election campaign, which will pit him against the winner among a field of Democratic contenders, including Biden, who have repeatedly criticized Trump’s conduct in office and promised to make it a key issue.

Reuters/Ipsos polls show that while most Democrats wanted to see him impeached, most Republicans did not. Televised hearings last month that were meant to build public support for impeachment appear to have pushed the two sides further apart.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Lisa Lambert; Writing by John Whitesides and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Peter Cooney)

U.S. Congress approves sweeping military housing overhaul

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

(Reuters) – The U.S. Congress on Tuesday approved the largest overhaul to the American military’s housing program in more than two decades, vowing to end slum-like living conditions and hold private landlords and defense officials accountable for them.

The reforms, included in the yearly National Defense Authorization Act, aim to protect some 200,000 military families living on U.S. bases from health hazards including mold, lead, asbestos and pest infestations. The problems have been detailed by Reuters since last year in a series of investigations, Ambushed at Home.

To read the stories, click: https://reut.rs/2PuMyoG

The congressional action was prompted by the Reuters reports and a growing chorus of complaints from military families who joined forces to decry substandard living conditions.

In all, Congress approved more than $300 million in 2020 funding for the measures, including provisions to combat landlord fraud and protect families against retaliation for reporting hazards.

“This would not have happened if the military had not turned its eye away from managing these contracts,” Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said in a phone interview. After visiting bases, Kaine introduced requirements that housing managers check homes whenever a tenant moves in or out to protect residents from hazards or onerous move-out fees.

The housing measures are part of a larger defense bill that passed the Senate 86-8 after having cleared the House of Representatives. The bill now goes to President Donald Trump, who is expected to approve it.

Since the 1990s, 98% of the family housing on U.S. bases has been privatized and is now managed by corporate landlords in 50-year partnership agreements with the military. But the arrangements suffered from poor oversight, Congress concluded.

In reports this year, Reuters detailed how one major landlord, Balfour Beatty Communities, obtained millions of dollars in bonus payments after falsifying maintenance records. Earlier reports revealed children were sickened by lead and mold, and showed how base residents across the United States were deprived of basic tenant protections granted to civilians.

The new legislation follows congressional hearings since February, during which lawmakers criticized military leaders and top executives from housing providers including Corvias Group, Hunt Military Communities, Lincoln Military Housing and Balfour Beatty. The companies and the military branches have apologized and pledged to fix the issues.

The new legislation requires the U.S. Department of Defense to expand housing oversight and appoint a Chief Housing Officer to track progress. The military must create a tenant bill of rights, boost housing inspections and standards, and adopt a dispute resolution process in which tenants can withhold rent from landlords when unsafe conditions persist.

The measure also protects whistleblowers from reprisals, and forces private landlords to pay relocation and medical costs for families exposed to housing hazards. It bars base landlords from charging any home rental fees in excess of service members’ federal housing stipend, and suspends a program that saddled some families with inaccurate utility bills.

The new legislation requires federal audits and independent inspections, and gives tenants access to maintenance work-order records and details about past findings of hazards at their homes. The measures also require a public database for housing complaints and annual reports on the housing managed by each landlord. The military must now disclose whether the landlords are granted incentive fees, which will be withheld if the companies fail to remedy hazards.

U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an Oklahoma Republican, credited people like Janna Driver, one of the military family advocates who testified at the hearings, for drawing attention to the squalid living conditions. Last year, Reuters reported how Driver lived in a leaky, moldy house at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma operated by Balfour Beatty Communities.

Such experiences, Inhofe said in an interview, “will come to a screeching halt.”

(Reporting by Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell in New York. Editing by Ronnie Greene)

Senate sends massive defense bill for Trump to sign, creating Space Force

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to pass a $738 billion defense policy bill that creates President Donald Trump’s “Space Force” and gives federal employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave, sending it to the White House, where Trump has promised to quickly sign it into law.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 86 to 8 in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. The Democratic-led House approved the bill by 377-48 last week.

Trump said on Twitter last week that he would sign the bill as soon as it passes, saying it included all his priorities.

As one of the few pieces of major legislation Congress passes every year, the NDAA becomes a vehicle for a range of policy measures as well as setting everything from military pay levels to which ships or aircraft will be modernized, purchased or discontinued.

This year’s legislation included a 3.1% pay increase for the troops; the first ever paid family leave for all federal workers, and the creation of a Space Force, the first new branch of the U.S. military in more than 60 years and a top military priority for Trump.

The Democratic-led House and Republican-led Senate each voted for a version of the NDAA earlier this year. Then lawmakers negotiated for months with representatives from the White House to reach the compromise that just passed.

A few left-leaning Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans voted against the NDAA because it did not include policy planks that would have restrained Trump’s war powers, including banning support for Saudi Arabia’s air campaign in Yemen.

Some also objected to the increase in military spending, as the national debt is skyrocketing.

“Conservatism is about more than supporting military spending at any cost,” Republican Senator Rand Paul said.

The NDAA also does not bar the Republican president from using military funds to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

Those provisions were included in the House’s version of the NDAA, but not in the Senate’s. They were removed during the negotiations.

Democratic leaders said they had extracted some concessions from Republicans, the 12 weeks of paid family leave for federal workers.

The fiscal 2020 NDAA increases defense spending by about $20 billion, or about 2.8%. It includes $658.4 billion for Department of Defense and Department of Energy national security programs, $71.5 billion to pay for ongoing foreign wars and $5.3 billion in emergency funding for repairs from natural disasters.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Editing by David Gregorio and Steve Orlofsky)

Top Senate Republican blasts House impeachment effort against Trump

By David Morgan and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday signaled opposition to a Democratic request to call new witnesses in a Senate trial expected next month on whether to remove President Donald Trump from office, saying he would not allow a “fishing expedition” after a “slapdash” House impeachment process.

Lawmakers from both parties were set to grapple on Tuesday over the rules of engagement for a historic vote set for Wednesday in the Democratic-led House of Representatives, where Trump is likely to become the third U.S. president to be impeached.

If the House approves articles of impeachment – formal charges – as expected, it would set the stage for a trial in the Senate, controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans – on whether to convict him and remove him from office. No president has ever been removed from office via the impeachment process set out in the U.S. Constitution.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has said he wants the trial to consider documents and hear testimony from four witnesses, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, saying testimony could sway Republicans in favor of impeachment.

Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell took aim at Schumer and Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that spearheaded the impeachment inquiry launched in September.

“So now, the Senate Democratic leader would apparently like our chamber to do House Democrats’ homework for them. And he wants to volunteer the Senate’s time and energy on a fishing expedition to see whether his own ideas could make Chairman Schiff’s sloppy work more persuasive than Chairman Schiff himself bothered to make it,” McConnell said.

“From everything we can tell, House Democrats’ slapdash impeachment inquiry has failed to come anywhere near – anywhere near – the bar for impeaching a duly elected president, let alone removing him for the first time in American history,” McConnell added.

McConnell said he also hoped to meet with Schumer very soon to discuss how to proceed.

Trump remained in attack mode a day before his expected impeachment in the Democratic-led House, referring to the process in a Twitter post as “this whole Democrat Scam” and calling himself “your all time favorite President.”

“Don’t worry, I have done nothing wrong. Actually, they have!” Trump wrote.

In what is expected to be a marathon meeting, the House Rules Committee will decide how much time to set aside for debate on Wednesday before lawmakers vote on two articles of impeachment charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his dealings with Ukraine.

Representative Jerry Nadler – the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which approved the articles of impeachment last week – will miss the Rules Committee meeting because of a family emergency, and Representative Jamie Raskin will represent the Democrats in his place, a congressional aide said. Nadler is expected to be back at the Capitol on Wednesday.

The panel’s top Republican, Representative Doug Collins, also will testify before the Rules Committee.

The looming vote promises to bring a raucous, partisan conclusion to a months-long impeachment inquiry against Trump that has bitterly divided the American public as voters prepare for next year’s presidential and congressional elections.

The House is expected to approve the impeachment articles largely along partisan lines. The action then moves to the Republican-controlled Senate, where the effort to remove Trump from office faces long odds.

House Democrats accuse Trump of abusing his power by asking Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic contender to oppose him in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. He is also accused of obstructing Congress’ investigation into the matter.

Trump has denied wrongdoing.

Lawmakers are expected to offer amendments at the Rules Committee meeting, which could run for 12 hours or more depending on how many of the House’s 431 sitting legislators decide to show up and speak.

In the end, the committee will set the rules for the floor debate that will precede the impeachment vote.

The White House, which has not cooperated in the impeachment inquiry in the House, also signaled opposition to Schumer’s requests for the Senate trial.

“Why in the world should we be asked to fill in the blanks that the Democrats created? They created these huge holes and canyons in the presentation of their case. It’s not up to us to help them fill in the blanks and make their case,” presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters.

The final House vote is expected to fall largely along party lines. Several Democrats from districts that backed Trump in 2016 said on Monday they would vote to impeach him.

Trump will be on friendlier terrain in the Senate, which is expected to consider the charges in January.

Republicans hold 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats, and at least 20 of them would have to vote to convict Trump in order to clear the two-thirds majority required to remove Trump from office. None have indicated they may do so.

McConnell has suggested the chamber could move quickly to a vote without hearing from witnesses, after House Democrats and the White House make their presentations.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Patricia Zengerle and Makini Brice; editing by Peter Cooney and Jonathan Oatis)

Tornadoes sweep across southeastern U.S., killing at least three: officials

A tornado spins during stormy weather in Mangum, Oklahoma, U.S., May 20, 2019, in this still image taken from video from social media. Lorraine Matti via REUTERS

(Reuters) – Tornadoes swept across swaths of the southeastern United States killing at least two people in northern Alabama and one person in Louisiana, tearing roofs off buildings, splintering trees and downing powerlines, officials said.

Most of the tornado and storm damage was reported in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas starting early Monday, sheriff’s officials told local media.

Survey teams will be sent out at first light Tuesday to assess the extent of the damage, said Rich Thompson, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.

“Initial reports suggest first tornado was reported in Louisiana around 10:35 (a.m.) CST and first tornado fatality was somewhere around 11:18 a.m. CST,” said NWS meteorologist Jared Guyer.

More rain and wind is expected overnight and into Tuesday as the storms push off into southeastern Georgia, Florida’s panhandle and the Carolina coasts in the morning hours.

At least 28,300 people had power outages in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, according to the tracking site Poweroutage.Us.

(Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; additional reporting and writing by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Number of U.S. executions and support for capital punishment decline in 2019: report finds

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – The number of executions carried out in the United States dropped in 2019 and public support for the death penalty fell to nearly a five-decade low, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Twenty-two executions were carried out during the year, down from 25 in 2018. Texas conducted nine executions, while Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia conducted three apiece in 2019.

It was the fifth straight year with fewer than 30 executions, marking a sharp decline from 52 in 2009, the Death Penalty Information Center said in its annual report.

It was also the fifth year in a row with fewer than 50 death sentences handed down, a steep decrease from the 118 imposed in 2009, said the non-profit organization that collects data on the death penalty in the United States.

Support for capital punishment dropped to a 47-year low as 60% of Americans told a Gallup poll they preferred life imprisonment over the death penalty. In 2014, the last time the poll asked the question, 45% of Americans said they preferred life over the death penalty, the report said.

Public support for the death penalty was driven down as the guilt of several condemned inmates in high-profile cases came into question in 2019, said Robert Dunham, the center’s executive director.

“2019 came close to being the year of executing the innocent,” he said in the report. “Our courts and public officials too frequently flat out ignore potentially deadly mistakes, and often take steps to obstruct the truth.”

One such case was that of Rodney Reed, who was scheduled to be executed on Nov. 20, two decades after he was convicted and sentenced to death in Texas for the killing of his 19-year-old lover. After questions arose about evidence in the case and calls for Reed’s exoneration grew more intense, a Texas appeals court halted his execution.

The final execution in the United States this year took place last Wednesday when Texas put to death Travis Runnels, who was convicted of killing a prison supervisor.

The year also saw two states taking action against the death penalty. California imposed a moratorium on executions and New Hampshire became the 21st state to abolish the death penalty.

In announcing reprieves to all 737 inmates on death row and closing California’s execution chamber, Governor Gavin Newsom said the death penalty discriminated against poor and minority defendants and those who suffer from mental illness.

“Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure,” said the Democratic governor of the most-populous U.S. state.

Plans by President Donald Trump’s administration to resume federal executions in December after a 16-year hiatus were dashed by a U.S. judge who halted the scheduled executions of four inmates on death row. In early December, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Funeral set for New Jersey officer killed in shooting rampage

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Funeral services are scheduled on Tuesday for a northern New Jersey police detective, the first of six people to die last week in a shooting rampage that authorities have labeled an act of domestic terrorism.

Six people, including the man and woman who carried out the attack, died in a series of events on Dec. 10 that ended in a police shootout in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from New York City.

Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals was among four people killed by the pair, who died following a four-hour gun battle with police after holing up in a kosher market, authorities said.

Seals, 40, a 15-year police veteran who leaves a wife and five children, will be remembered at a funeral mass set for 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) at Saint Aedan’s Church in Jersey City.

A Jersey City native who worked as a county corrections officer before joining the police force in November 2005, Seals had been a detective for two years.

A GoFundMe page set up by Jersey City Police Officer’s Benevolent Association had raised more than $536,000 for his family by Monday afternoon.

Seals had gone to a cemetery on Dec. 10 to meet an informant as part of an unrelated gun or narcotics investigation, PIX11 television reported, citing an unidentified senior law enforcement source.

While there, he approached a van that was suspected of being involved in a murder in nearby a Bayonne. He was ambushed by the pair, David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, PIX11 and other local media reported.

A Jersey City police spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports.

The pair then drove to the JC Kosher Supermarket where authorities said they shot and killed three people and exchanged gunfire with police. The siege ended after four hours when police crashed an armored vehicle through the wall of the market.

After examining the attackers’ social media posts and other evidence, authorities said last week the pair had expressed interest in the Black Hebrew Israelites, a group unaffiliated with mainstream Judaism and some of whose offshoots the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as hate groups. Officials said they had not established an official link between the shooters and the group.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

Costco in Caracas: how Florida goods flood Venezuelan stores

By Shaylim Valderrama and Sarah Kinosian

CARACAS/MIAMI (Reuters) – While U.S. President Donald Trump wants to drive Venezuela’s socialist ruler out of power with economic sanctions, there has in fact been a burgeoning influx of American-bought goods from Nutella spread to Oreo cookies.

Many toiletries, food items and other imports became impossible to find during Venezuela’s economic implosion under President Nicolas Maduro. Yet now they line the shelves in scores of new U.S. dollar-only shops known as “bodegones”, providing an unlikely safety valve for Maduro.

The reason?

Venezuelan businessmen have taken advantage of his government’s quiet abandonment of price, currency and import controls to buy direct from U.S. wholesalers including Costco and Walmart.

The goods are delivered to Florida-based door-to-door services run by Venezuelans, according to 11 interviews with customs agents, operators and businessmen. The products move in bulk via shipping companies with bases in south Florida who have this year enjoyed a 100% exemption of import duties and waiver of some paperwork at the Venezuelan end, the sources added.

“Everything our customers want from the United Sates, we’ve managed to offer here!” enthused Hector Mambel, who runs a “bodegon” in Puerto Cabello port with a “Mini Walmart” sign outside using the same design as the U.S. giant he buys from.

The shift shows how Venezuela’s economy is evolving to survive sanctions that have hit oil exports.

The trade from Florida does not violate Trump’s sanctions because they target business with Maduro’s government not with private entrepreneurs. It has, however, bemused some Venezuelans used to constant “anti-imperialist” rhetoric.

“I don’t understand this government that speaks ill of the ‘gringos’ and yet we now see U.S. products abound in stores and everything is in dollars,” said teacher Ligia Martinez, 38, holding a bag with purchases of cereal, tuna and cake mix.

She bought the goods at a “bodegon” in the city of Valencia with dollar remittances sent from family abroad.

It was only last year, as the local bolivar currency depreciated precipitously amid hyperinflation, that Maduro lifted a longstanding prohibition on dollar transactions.

Though the goods in the corner-shops are out of reach for most bolivar-earning Venezuelans, a well-heeled elite with dollars makes for a viable business in indulgence products.

“I SELL EVERYTHING”

The “bodegones” are reminiscent of the dollar-only stores communist Cuba ran for foreigners in the 1990s.

Reuters found 120 new such stores in Caracas alone, primarily in middle class areas, outnumbering the 27 bolivar supermarkets in those areas. Competition has brought down the price of niche-market items such as boutique hair products.

The abundance on shelves contrasts with years of scarcity of basics from shampoo to milk borne out of socialist regulations that often forced merchants to sell below cost.

“Bodegon” owners often buy online or partner with door-to-door services who scour chains for knock-down prices.

“Our customers ask us to buy at Costco or (Walmart affiliate) Sam’s Club in the United States and we import what they ask for them,” said an operator of a shipping company that brings supplies from Miami to Caracas.

At least half of the stores Reuters visited sold products from Members Mark, which is Sam’s Club’s private brand, and Costco’s Kirkland brand. Popular items include pancake mix, Pringles, ketchup and cereal, often selling for double or more their U.S. price.

Some of the “bodegones” buy from wholesale importers, meaning they have to hike prices further for margins, so pancake mix for $6.50 or thereabouts in Costco goes for $14 to $20 in Venezuela depending on how many hands it has been through.

Some Venezuelans offer imports direct via Instagram.

“Everything I bring from Miami, I sell,” said one small online merchant, noting his compatriots’ love of foreign goods. “There’s more competition these days, but it’s still good business because Venezuelans are snobbish.”

Costco declined to comment, while Walmart did not respond to a request. Venezuela’s Information Ministry, tax authority and state port agency also did not respond to requests for comment.

Asked for its view of the trade, given the underlying aim of sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department did not respond.

This year’s waiver of import duties and some documentation has been a boon to businessmen, used to crippling bureaucracy and regulations for years. “These imports move with ease, everything is exempted,” said one trader, who brings in products at La Guaira port outside Caracas.

The exemptions expire this month but may be extended.

Felipe Capozzolo, head of Consecomercio chamber of commerce, said the “bodegones” had become an unofficial part of “state policy” to enable Venezuela to stay supplied under sanctions and thus ease pressure on the government.

Maduro himself acknowledged the help from dollar transactions, saying last month they were an “escape valve” for the suffering economy. “I don’t view it badly … this process they call ‘dollarization’,” he said.

Though data has for years been scarce in Venezuela, local think tank Econalitica estimated that in October a remarkable 54% of transactions in main cities was in foreign currency.

Deisy Ruiz, a 47-year-old secretary is among them, buying Nutella for her 20-year-old son’s birthday at a store in the upscale Los Palos Grandes district of east Caracas.

“Just a little one – as a treat!” she said.

(Reporting by Corina Pons, Shaylim Valderram, Mayela Armas in Caracas, Sarah Kinosian in Miami, Tibisay Romero in Puerto Cabello and Valencia; Editing by Corina Pons, Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne)