The powerful U.S. gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, said on Sunday it would oppose an outright ban on bump-stock devices that the killer in the Las Vegas massacre of 58 people used to turn rifles into automatic weapons and strafe a crowd with bursts of sustained gunfire. The NRA, which has seldom embraced new firearms-control measures, stunned gun control advocates last week when it issued a statement voicing willingness to support a restriction on bump stocks. On Sunday, the organization said it was open to regulation but opposed any legislation banning the devices. "We don't believe that bans have ever worked on anything. What we have said has been very clear - that if something transfers a semiautomatic to function like a fully automatic, then it ought to be regulated differently," Chris Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist, said on "Fox News Sunday." Police said the gunman, Stephen Paddock, 64, fitted 12 of his weapons with bump-stock devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to operate as if they were fully automatic machine guns, which are otherwise outlawed in the United States. Cox and Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive, accused the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives under Democratic former President Barack Obama of paving the way for the use of bump stocks and creating legal confusion about their usage. Republican President Donald Trump, whose party controls both chambers of the U.S. Congress, was an outspoken advocate of gun rights during his 2016 campaign for the White House. The NRA spent more than $30 million in support of his candidacy. Several Republican lawmakers suggested last week that they were receptive to legislation to curb the use of bump stocks, including Kevin McCarthy, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, who said such controls were an area where Congress may be able to act. But House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican who himself was nearly killed by a gunman earlier this year while at a baseball practice, was cautious on Sunday about potential new legislation. "I do think it's a little bit early for people to say they know what to do to fix this problem," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "A week ago most people didn't know what a bump stock was so to think that we're now all experts and know how to write some panacea law, it's fallacy," Scalise added. LaPierre lashed out at U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who has pushed for gun-control legislation on Capitol Hill. "I think you want to tell ATF to do its job. It's an interpretive issue and they need to get the job done. But not let Dianne Feinstein, which is what she wants to do - turn this all of this into some Christmas tree on the Hill where she brings all of her anti-gun circus she has been trying to do for years into this," LaPierre said on CBS's "Face the Nation." Feinstein said she has garnered some Republican interest, but no support, for the measure. "I have nobody lined up," she told the CBS program. Some gun-control advocates praised the NRA for showing some flexibility. "This is the first time that the gun lobby has shown willingness to come to the table and I think that's in part because Americans just simply do not accept mass shooting after mass shooting happening and Congress doing absolutely nothing," Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said on CNN's "State of the Union." But Sunday's comments from the NRA representatives suggested nothing may have changed as they castigated calls for gun-control measures in the emotional aftermath of a mass shooting. "There used to be a common decency in this country where people paused talking about policy. Unfortunately with Dianne Feinstein and Michael Bloomberg, they want to exploit a tragedy from Day One. It's shameful, but apparently that's the new normal." Cox said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. Bloomberg, a billionaire and former mayor of New York, has been an outspoken critic of the National Rifle Association through the group Everytown for Gun Safety. Investigators remain largely in the dark about what drove Paddock, a retired real estate investor and high-stakes gambler, on Oct. 1 to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.


A tiger was shot dead in western Paris on Friday after escaping from a circus, police said. The tiger was shot by circus staff, police said. A tram line had been closed while the animal was at large. No further details were immediately available.


In another show of just how disturbing the Republican Party s base has become, an astonishing number of primary voters marching out of the polls in South Carolina proudly said they supported Trump s idea to ban Muslims from entering the United States.According to a CBS News exit poll conducted during the South Carolina primary, a staggering 75 percent of voters said they supported Trump s proposal to ban Muslims. This is in line, but actually slightly up, from an earlier South Carolina poll that found Trump supporters overwhelming favored legalizing discrimination against Muslims.There s also 62/23 support among Trump voters for creating a national database of Muslims and 40/36 support for shutting down all the mosques in the United States, something no one else s voters back. Only 44% of Trump voters think the practice of Islam should even be legal at all in the United States, to 33% who think it should be illegal. To put all the views toward Muslims in context though, 32% of Trump voters continue to believe the policy of Japanese internment during World War II was a good one In the days after the San Bernardino terror attack, Trump demanded that America ban Muslims even American citizens currently abroad from entering the country. He ordered a total and complete shutdown on Muslims indefinitely. Or as he put it: Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. Certain political observers believed that Trump s proposal to ban Muslims even American citizens abroad from entering or re-entering the United States was so far beyond the pale that he would suffer in the polls because of it. Jeb Bush even risked his own campaign to call Trump out on it.Donald Trump is unhinged. His "policy" proposals are not serious. Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 7, 2015Unfortunately for common decency (and Jeb Bush), Trump s supporters loved the idea. His polls actually went up. Republicans have since only embraced Trump s bigoted ideas at ever scarier levels of enthusiasm.Given the hatred coming out of the election booths, it s no surprise to learn that Donald Trump is projected to win South Carolina by a massive margin. If moderate Republicans are wondering how the GOP went so wrong, they might want to look at what the voters are actually saying: Trump represents discrimination, bigotry, and hatred. And they absolutely adore him.


Venezuela: Will the army save the nation from chaos? 27.10.2016 Vladimir Padrino The Venezuelan Parliament stopping the procedure of the referendum about the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro and urged the people for "rebellion." The Brazilian precedent has thus become a practice, which can be referred to as a "legitimate illegal coup". Why is so hard for Washington to topple Venezuelan President Maduro? Legitimate illegal coup Print version Font Size Not that long ago, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was removed from power in compliance with all constitutional procedures. Dilma was a leftist progressive president, who was accused of using loans of private banks to consolidate the budget, which played a crucial role in the formation of her positive image in the presidential race. This practice is frequently used in Brazil, but the opposition could not forgive Rousseff for winning the presidential campaign by a very small margin.The economic situation in Venezuela is even harder than that in Brazil. The country suffers from low profitability of the budget due to the fall in oil prices and wild inflation of 400 percent for the current year. The authorities of the country had to introduce cards to distribute foodstuffs. The current situation in Venezuela looks very much like the one that Russia experienced in 1992: empty stores, hospitals where you have to pay for everything and depression. In the parliamentary elections last year, Socialists suffered a defeat, and the opposition bloc won the absolute majority of 74 to 26 votes.The government of Hugo Chavez should have created reserve funds not to let all this happen. In addition, Chavez used to give oil, the nation's treasure, away to assist "fraternal peoples." The previous administration of Venezuela made a mistake when it decided to develop economic ties with China. Today, China decreases both investment and oil procurement. As a result, the parliament's initiative to convene a referendum about Maduro's resignation has collected a lot more signatures than was necessary. A survey conducted by Venebarómetro shows that 88 percent of Venezuelans want to vote, and 10.8 million of them want Maduro to step down, whereas 1.4 million are against such a move. However, the courts of five provinces of Venezuela canceled the results of the first phase of the referendum signature collection, making the second phase of the process, which was scheduled for 26-28 October, impossible. It was important for the opposition to hold the referendum in 2016. If the referendum is held after January 10, 2017, and even the majority of Venezuelans vote to remove Maduro from power, the powers of the head of state for the remaining two years will be handed over to the sitting vice-president. If the referendum is held earlier, new elections would have taken place - this was the prime goal of the Venezuelan opposition. Maduro wins in the legal field of Venezuela, but not the opposition. One can talk a lot about the corruption of Brazilian senators, who voted for the impeachment of Dilma, and the corruption of Venezuelan judges, who did not approve the collected signatures, but it is very difficult and nearly impossible to prove it. Therefore, the dispute between the executive and the legislative powers of Venezuela may take an illegitimate turn to repeat the events that took place in Russia in 1993 or in Ukraine in 2014. In both of these scenarios, the army will play the decisive role. MP Freddy Guevara has already urged the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (BNVS) not to obey the dictatorship and not to shoot at their own people." However, the army is loyal to Maduro. Vladimir Padrino is the future President of Venezuela? Venezuela's Defense Minister and the commander of the Strategic Operational Command, Vladimir Padrino López, remains personally loyal to President Maduro. Padrino has recently been appointed the chief of the Sovereign Supply Mission (misión Abastecimiento Soberano) and the Second Vice-President, which will allow him to perform the duties of the president in the event Maduro is impeached after January 10, 2017. Secondly, Padrino successfully neutralizes certain divisions within the army, to ensure the continuity of "Chavismo." There is a group of those, who do not want to see Maduro in power, but demand the "return to the roots" of the Bolivarian revolution. There are also those who consider themselves "apostates from Chavismo", whereas the third group is controlled by Chavistas, Member of Parliament, Chairman of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Diosdado Cabello. His people believe that "some things need to change, but not through the toppling of Maduro, because Cabello is his political ally."Vice-Admiral Rafael Huizi Clavier believes that Padrino holds absolute power in the army. He has his people both in the National Guards (internal troops) and in military districts (Regiones de Defensa Integral (REDI)), which is a crucial aspect. Thus, it is clear that Maduro will be able to retain power in the midst of a crisis with Padrino's help. Lyuba Lulko


As Americans began signing up for Obamacare health insurance plans on Wednesday, experts expected reduced participation as a bitter political debate clouds the program's future. Republicans in Congress have repeatedly failed to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's healthcare law, which they have said drives up costs for consumers and interferes with personal medical decisions. Democrats have warned that repeal would leave millions of Americans without health coverage. President Donald Trump promised to kill Obama's Affordable Care Act in his 2016 election campaign, and has taken steps to undermine a law he has declared "dead" and "imploding". Trump's administration cut Obamacare advertising by 90 percent and shortened the enrollment period by half. "The market's going to be extremely confusing. There's going to be entire complexity of choice," said David Anderson, a health policy researcher at Duke University. Obama took to social media on Wednesday, encouraging Americans who need insurance to sign up on the federal Healthcare.gov website. He stressed that government tax credits would keep coverage affordable for most. Obama asked people to get out the word, "because this country works best when we look out for one another." A new Trump ad, paid for by the Republican National Committee, blamed Democrats for Obamacare's "skyrocketing" insurance premiums and for blocking efforts to repeal the law. Obamacare advocates have warned that sign-ups for individual insurance coverage under the law could drop by about one million people in 2018 compared with 2017. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that four million fewer people will sign up for Obamacare private insurance than previously forecast due to Trump policies. Still, CBO expects total enrollment to reach 11 million in 2018, up from the around 10 million who obtained and paid for coverage in 2017. Administration officials could not immediately say when 2018 enrollment data would be made public. The Trump administration has cut the 2018 enrollment period in half to six weeks from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 for states using the federal Healthcare.gov website. Enrollment previously ran until Jan. 31, and many consumers tended to sign up in the last two weeks, according to state officials and organizations that help people choose insurance. The administration has also cut off billions of dollars in subsidies that insurers use to discount out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income Americans and cut funding to groups that help people enroll in health insurance. Several insurers have exited Obamacare markets due to concerns over subsidies and other Trump actions. Those that remained raised monthly premium prices to account for the lost government subsidies. Senate Republicans and Democrats are working on legislation to stabilize Obamacare markets in the short term, including restoring the subsidies. But Trump has sought more far-reaching changes, and urged Republicans to take up full-scale repeal again in the coming months. The Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that premiums for the most popular Obamacare plans would rise 37 percent in 2018. Americans eligible for Obamacare tax credits to buy insurance may pay less for coverage, but middle-class consumers who do not get subsidies will face much higher prices for these plans. "It's been such a flood of information. A lot of the population thinks the Affordable Care Act has already been put under," said Daniel Polsky, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. "The strange premium increases are going to be very confusing for consumers." The Trump administration is now planning changes for 2019. Last week, it proposed a rule giving states more flexibility over the benefits that must be covered by insurance. Under Obamacare, all insurers have to cover a set of 10 benefits, such as maternity and newborn care and prescription drugs.


Finland s defense ministry said on Tuesday it suspected a Russian aircraft had violated Finnish airspace over the Baltic Sea earlier in the day. The ministry said a Tupolev TU-154, a Russian passenger and transport plane, had been detected south of Porvoo and that the border guard was investigating the matter. A ministry spokesman declined to say whether Finland had scrambled jets to identify the plane. The Russian defense ministry was not immediately available to comment. Finland, which is preparing to celebrate 100 years of independence on Wednesday, has accused Moscow of several airspace violations since the Ukraine crisis began in 2014. Last year, Estonia and Finland blamed Russia for entering their airspace as Finland was signing a defense pact with the United States. In a separate incident, two Russian warplanes flew simulated attack passes near a U.S. guided missile destroyer in the Baltic Sea. Finland was part of the Russian Empire and won independence during the 1917 Russian revolution, then nearly lost it fighting the Soviet Union in World War Two. It is now an EU member state which does not belong to NATO military alliance.


A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday ordered that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton may have to testify in a lawsuit related to the private email server she used while secretary of state. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said the parties in the case, the State Department and conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, also struck an agreement about the scope of the testimonies that some of Clinton's former top aides will give in the case. Those testimonies, known as discovery, will take place over the next eight weeks and may yield information that would require Clinton herself to be deposed, Sullivan said in an order. Clinton has come under fire for using a private email account and server at her home in New York state for official emails when she was America's top diplomat between 2009 and 2013. Critics, including likely Republican presidential election rival Donald Trump, say she endangered government secrets and evaded transparency laws but the former first lady denies any wrongdoing. Judicial Watch brought a lawsuit against the State Department to gain access to records related to a Clinton aide's employment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also probing her email arrangement. "This is a very great victory for transparency and, despite the best efforts of the Obama administration and the Clinton camp, it looks like we might finally get some answers under oath about the Clintons' illicit email system," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. Sullivan gave Judicial Watch permission to take testimony from close Clinton aide Huma Abedin and others. They may be asked about the creation and operation of the private server but nothing unrelated to "whether State conducted an adequate search" in response to Judicial Watch's request for the emails, according to the court order. It is not typical for a judge to grant discovery to a plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act case, but Sullivan said in the order that the question remained whether the State Department provided all relevant documents to Judicial Watch.


Donald Trump is quickly closing in on his first 100 days in office, and despite his many, many promises of accomplishments during this presidential milestone, he s accomplished zilch other than a handful of executive orders that would help make America and the world a living stinkhole. So what does Trump, whose ever and only a showman do? He holds photo ops, where he holds up oversized documents to show off his cartoonish signature.His latest executive order was the type of empty photo op you d expect from a game show host, not from a president, because it literally did nothing. It was supposed to empower education secretary, Betsy DeVos to screw with Washington, D.C. public schools in much the same way as Trump is allowing oil companies to screw with our environment. Why just D.C.? Because they are the only school district within the purview of the federal government and not the states. So, every time Republicans want to bully people of color, they go after Washington, D.C. Fortunately for the school children, though, this executive order was about as toothless as the average Fox News viewer, as Senior Department of Education official Rob Goad admitted:Q You said at the top that this executive order would empower the Secretary to modify or get rid of any regulations that don t comply with law. How will that process work?MR. GOAD: So I think at the end of 300 days, and after we have produced a report, we will make those decisions once the report has concluded.Q So is she empowered to modify the regulations as needed, or is that going to be a separate process entirely?MR. GOAD: The executive order gives her empowers her to modify anything that is inconsistent with federal law.Q Isn t she already empowered to do those things? This executive order doesn t give her those powers, right?MR. GOAD: That s right.Source: ShareBlueThat, apparently, was too much transparency for the administration. Goad was prompted to shut down the press conference right after that question.


Trump s biggest (and most insane) surrogate Rudy Giuliani just got some bad news his daughter, Caroline, is backing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for President over Donald Trump, her father s new BFF.After posting on her Facebook that she has been pro Hillary all along, and making her profile picture Clinton s iconic H, Giuliani confirmed that the account was indeed hers and that her father, Rudy, does know:I love Hillary, I think she s by far the most qualified candidate that we ve had in a long while. My dad knows. I was for Barack in 2012. He knows and is fully comfortable with it and thinks I have a right to my opinion.She did not comment on her father s surrogacy or support for Trump. On her Facebook, after sharing an article titled, I Wrote That I Despised Hillary Clinton. Today, I Publicly Want To Take That Back, Giuliani wrote:I ve been pro-Hillary all along, but the people who are willing to open their minds & shift their perspectives are the ones with the power to save our country at this point, so I really respect this [the article]. #imwithher #voteAccording to Politico:The younger Giuliani is not the only one who has drifted from her father this election the New York Times reported that many of the former mayor s most loyal former aides have rejected Trump s candidacy, and have expressed concerns about Giuliani s embrace of the Manhattan mogul and his more extreme views, specifically on immigration. Some of his former staffers, like his onetime press secretary Matt Higgins, have endorsed Clinton.It seems like Rudy is really off his rocker when everyone around him, including his own family, are voting for the other candidate.One has to wonder what Trump promised or paid Giuliani for his ardent (and downright insane) support.


Republican Donald Trump's choice of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate on Friday helped bolster support among some conservatives skeptical about his policies, a crucial step as he prepares to accept the party's nomination next week. Some conservatives who had fought against Trump's ascendancy in the Republican nominating race welcomed his announcement that he had picked Pence, a well-known social and evangelical conservative. The Club for Growth, a conservative economic group, had sharply criticized Trump's support for protectionist trade policies. On Friday, the group noted that as a member of the House of Representatives, Pence had been a strong voice for "free markets and economic liberty" at a time when the Republican leadership had been weak on these issues. "Today's news gives a similar hope that Mike Pence will be effective in pulling the Republican ticket toward economic conservatism and limited government," the group said. Other conservatives were also heartened by Trump's VP pick, which the businessman announced in a tweet ahead of a joint appearance in his hometown of New York on Saturday. "Pence is a principled conservative, man of faith, and talented messenger for Republican ideas," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "His addition to the ticket will bring even more excitement to the voters who are eager to put a Republican in the White House and deny a third term for President Obama's liberal agenda." Trump, 70, chose Pence, 57, over two politicians he considers friends and close advisers, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, 73, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, 53. Pence is viewed as a safe choice for Trump. The Indiana governor's low-key demeanor is a contrast to that of the bombastic real estate developer. And he could take the fight to the Democrats in the months leading up to the Nov. 8 election without upstaging Trump. He and Trump will have to smooth over some policy differences. Pence has said he does not support trade protectionism or a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, two policies that are central to Trump's campaign message. In his first public remarks after Trump announced his running mate, Pence appeared to soften his opposition to a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country after he called it "offensive and unconstitutional" in a tweet last December. "I am very supportive of Donald Trump's call to temporarily suspend immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States," Pence told conservative Fox News commentator Sean Hannity. "We have no higher priority than the safety and security of the American people," Pence said, adding that he suspended a Syrian refugee program in Indiana after a shooting rampage last year in San Bernardino, California. Pence also said he "absolutely" backed Trump's promise to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to stem illegal immigration and make Mexico pay for it. Trump said Pence had done a great job in Indiana and that of all the people he had interviewed for the job, "there's nobody that agrees with me fully on everything." Pence's selection was slammed by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign. "By picking Mike Pence as his running mate, Donald Trump has doubled down on some of his most disturbing beliefs by choosing an incredibly divisive and unpopular running mate known for supporting discriminatory politics and failed economic policies that favor millionaires and corporations over working families," said Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta. Trump had faced a midday Friday deadline to announce Pence because the governor had to declare by then whether he would be on the ballot in his home state for re-election. Trump had postponed his announcement, which had been planned for Friday, out of respect for the victims in Nice, France. An attacker in a heavy truck drove into crowds celebrating Bastille Day, killing at least 84 people and injuring scores more in what President Francois Hollande called a terrorist act. Trump is set to be formally nominated as the party's candidate for the presidential election at the convention, which opens in Cleveland on Monday. Traditionally, the vice presidential choice is used to build enthusiasm among party loyalists. The Republican National Committee expects the convention to draw 50,000 people to the Ohio city, whose population is about 390,000. U.S. authorities were preparing for the possibility of violence, whether from demonstrators or planned attacks. The Cleveland conclave and the Democratic Party Convention the following week in Philadelphia have been given the status of special national security event by the federal government for the first time, and security will be heightened, said Republican Party spokesman Sean Spicer. The Department of Homeland Security will send more than 3,000 personnel to each convention, Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Thursday, speaking before the Nice attack. No specific or credible threat to either gathering has been reported, he said.


Clinton campaign in crisis after FBI agents uncover Hillary emails among sexts to underage girls on Anthony Weiner's phone.  The new Hillary Clinton emails uncovered by the FBI were discovered on electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner .  The devices were seized by the FBI as they investigate allegations Weiner sent illicit sexual messages to underage girls.  The New York Times reports that " The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the thousands — potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the election. "  Huma Abedin, Hillary's closest aide, separated from her husband Weiner recently after it was revealed he conducted an online affair with an underage girl – the latest in a long line of scandals for the former congressman.  The FBI informed Congress that while analyzing Weiner's phone agents had uncovered new Hillary Clinton emails related to the investigation into whether Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information.  The announcement has breathed new life into the Trump campaign – and proved the Republican nominee was eerily accurate with an old prediction. In a statement on his website immediately after the Abedin-Weiner split, Trump questioned Hillary's judgement in allowing someone like Weiner into her circle of trust:  DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON HILLARY CLINTON'S BAD JUDGMENT " Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him. I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It's just another example of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment. It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this." – Donald J. Trump  And previously, in an Aug. 3 tweet: It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary's private illegal emails. Huma's PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.


Television just doing their part to contribute to the moral decay of America Sex in a box in front of a studio audience having failed to save American marriages, the TV industry now will attempt to rescue the institution by trying a two-week spouse switch for wedded couples. FYI has greenlighted The Seven Year Switch, an eight-episode series in which married couples bravely put their marriage on the line by shacking up with a new partner for a couple weeks. Production is underway for the series to premiere this summer.It s named after The Seven Year Itch, the 1955 Broadway play-turned-Billy Wilder movie starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell. Hopefully that will be lost on most viewers of this series because if they saw it, they re too old to be FYI s target audience or any network s for that matter.In today s announcement, FYI instead focused on the fact that someone at some point decided seven years marks the point in many marriages at which couples become restless and dissatisfied and might wonder why they d signed up with this guy instead of the doctor their mothers wanted them to marry. In the series, four couples at a crossroads in their relationship FYI did not say if they ve all been married seven years get the chance to shack up with a stranger for two weeks in an experimental marriage. They will eat, live and, yes, sleep with these total strangers, the network said.As with WE tv s recently pulled-due-to-lousy-ratings reality series Sex Box, relationship experts will help guide the Seven Year Switch couples through the process, FYI said. At the end of what the network explains is a monthlong experiment, each of the married couples will reunite and decide whether to divorce or renew their vows.Gena McCarthy, SVP Programming and Development at FYI, described it as an experiment to determine whether absence really does make the heart grow fonder, sidestepping the whole shacking-up-with-a-stranger part.


U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday the nation's debt ceiling will be raised in September and that after talks with congressional leaders from both parties everyone is "on the same page." "My strong preference is that we have a clean debt ceiling (increase), but the most important issue is the debt ceiling will be raised in September," Mnuchin told reporters at the White House, indicating an interest in legislation that did not stray into unrelated territory. "I have had discussions with the leaders in both parties in the House and Senate and we are all on the same page," he added. "The government intends to pay its debts and the debt ceiling will be raised."


Tapper, the host of the network's "State of the Union" Sunday show and "The Lead" on weekdays, was picked to lead the event at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library on Sept. 16. The prime-time debate will actually be split into two parts: One with the candidates that national polls rank as the top 10 GOP contenders, and one with the candidates who didn't make that cut. The broad GOP field has presented a challenge for both Fox News and CNN as debate hosts. Fox News announced a plan for an August 6 debate that would only include the 10 candidates that were at the top of the heap, as determined by an average of national polls. Fox's proposed criteria created the most consternation, partly because it is hosting the first debate, partly because it is a favorite of conservatives, and partly because its rules are more restrictive than CNN's. Some Republican Party leaders in Iowa and New Hampshire have said they feel the use of national polls stomps on their roles as the first in the nation caucus and primary states, respectively. Tapper announced that he'll moderate the debate on Sunday, at the end of his first show as CNN's new "State of the Union" host.


While immature, snowflake college students freak out over the pronouns their fellow students and teachers use to address them, people in so many countries around the world are facing real human rights violations that most of us can t even imagine.The floor looks clean in this high-rise apartment, seven stories above Kuwait City traffic. Not a smudge in sight on the picture window. On the other side of the glass, the maid is hanging on by one knuckle, screaming. Oh crazy, come here, a woman says casually in Arabic, holding a camera up to the maid. Hold on to me! Hold on to me! the maid yells.Instead, the woman steps back. The maid s grip finally slips, and she lands in a cloud of dust, many stories below.The maid an Ethiopian who had been working in the country for several years, according to the Kuwait Times survived the fall. The videographer, her employer, was arrested last week on a charge of failing to help the worker.It s still unclear what led to the fall. But it was not the first time a domestic servant had fallen off of a building in Kuwait, an oil-rich country where foreign workers are cheap, plentiful and live largely at the mercy of their employers. Washington Post


The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implements foreign arms sales, on Wednesday announced sales of $41.93 billion for fiscal 2017, a 25 percent rise from a year earlier. The agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, said sales included $32.02 billion funded by partner nations through the Foreign Military Sales system and $6.04 billion funded by the State Department's Foreign Military Financing. (bit.ly/2AfrSd7)


Indonesia has issued new regulations aimed at curbing money laundering and terror-related financing across a broader range of financial service providers, including money changers, credit card issuers and electronic money providers. The move is part of efforts by Indonesia to bring rules up to international standards and join the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body fighting money laundering. Indonesia was taken off an FATF blacklist two years ago. The new regulations, issued by Bank Indonesia (BI), cover transactions handled by non-bank financial institutions and were made public on its website on Wednesday. BI said the new rules balanced a need to contain the risks of money laundering and terrorism-related financial crimes and promoting economic growth. Eny V. Panggabean, BI s executive director of payment system regulation, said the rules also addressed developments in the industry, digital economy and innovations in payments that include a more complex money changer business . The new BI regulations cover credit card issuers, electronic money providers, remittance and money transfer companies as well as fintech startups. Service providers now have to have an up-to-date list on alleged militants, radical organizations and individuals linked to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in order to cross check with customers. They must also assess customer risks depending on the country origin of an incoming transfer or the destination of outgoing transfers, and must not engage with so-called shell banks, which don t have a physical presence in a country where they are incorporated. Companies should report anything suspicious to the financial transactions watchdog. A financial service provider that fails to follow the rules could have its license revoked and directors, commissioners or shareholders banned from the financial services business for five years. A similar regulation was introduced a few months ago by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) for financial conglomerates, banks, insurance companies and other bigger players in the industry. The OJK rules also elaborated on procedures to handle suspicious transactions. Indonesia was put on an FATF list of jurisdictions with weak measures to combat money laundering and terrorism financing in 2012. In 2015, the FATF declared Indonesia off the blacklist due to progress in improving regulations.


Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, seeking to up the pressure in a stand-off with Iraq s Kurdish region, said on Tuesday he would act soon over border areas under Kurdish control but predicted his government s forces would regain them without violence. The central government in Baghdad has cracked down hard on the Kurds since the government of the Kurdish autonomous region staged an independence referendum on Sept. 25 that Baghdad considers illegal. The Iraqi armed forces have threatened to resume military operations against the Kurds, accusing them of delaying the handover of control of borders and taking advantage of negotiations to bolster their defenses. We will regain control on border areas without escalation. But our patience will run out. We will not wait forever. We will take action, Abadi said at a news conference. The independence vote defied the central government in Baghdad which had ruled the ballot illegal as well as neighboring Turkey and Iran which have their own Kurdish minorities. Abadi spoke a few hours after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced a concession to Iraq s central government by saying it would accept a court decision prohibiting the region from seceding. The announcement marks the Kurds latest attempt to revive negotiations with Baghdad over their region s future after the central government imposed measures in retaliation against the independence vote. Among the steps was an offensive by Iraqi government forces and the Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces that took back the oil city of Kirkuk and other disputed territories from the control from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) last month. The KRG said on Tuesday it would respect the Nov. 6 ruling by the Supreme Federal Court, which declared that no Iraqi province could secede. We believe that this decision must become a basis for starting an inclusive national dialogue between (Kurdish authorities in) Erbil and Baghdad to resolve all disputes, the KRG said in a statement. Abadi had previously urged the northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region to abide by the court s decision. The court is responsible for settling disputes between Iraq s central government and the country s regions and provinces. Its decisions cannot be appealed, though it has no mechanism to enforce its ruling in the Kurdish region.


JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — For most of his adult life, Ahmed Qassim worked among the bearded enforcers of Saudi Arabia. He was a dedicated employee of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — known abroad as the religious police — serving with the troops protecting the Islamic kingdom from Westernization, secularism and anything but the most conservative Islamic practices. Some of that resembled ordinary police work: busting drug dealers and bootleggers in a country that bans alcohol. But the men of "the Commission," as Saudis call it, spent most of their time maintaining the puritanical public norms that set Saudi Arabia apart not only from the West, but from most of the Muslim world. A key offense was ikhtilat, or unauthorized mixing between men and women. The kingdom's clerics warn that it could lead to fornication, adultery, broken homes, children born of unmarried couples and societal collapse. For years, Mr. Ghamdi stuck with the program and was eventually put in charge of the Commission for the region of Mecca, Islam's holiest city. Then he had a reckoning and began to question the rules. So he turned to the Quran and the stories of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, considered the exemplars of Islamic conduct. What he found was striking and life altering: There had been plenty of mixing among the first generation of Muslims, and no one had seemed to mind. So he spoke out. In articles and television appearances, he argued that much of what Saudis practiced as religion was in fact Arabian cultural practices that had been mixed up with their faith. There was no need to close shops for prayer, he said, nor to bar women from driving, as Saudi Arabia does. At the time of the Prophet, women rode around on camels, which he said was far more provocative than veiled women piloting S. U. V. s. He even said that while women should conceal their bodies, they needed to cover their faces only if they chose to do so. And to demonstrate the depth of his own conviction, Mr. Ghamdi went on television with his wife, Jawahir, who smiled to the camera, her face bare and adorned with a dusting of makeup. It was like a bomb inside the kingdom's religious establishment, threatening the social order that granted prominence to the sheikhs and made them the arbiters of right and wrong in all aspects of life. He threatened their control. Mr. Ghamdi's colleagues at work refused to speak to him. Angry calls poured into his cellphone and anonymous death threats hit him on Twitter. Prominent sheikhs took to the airwaves to denounce him as an ignorant upstart who should be punished, tried — and even tortured. I had come to Saudi Arabia to explore Wahhabism, the Saudi strain of Sunni Islam that is often blamed for fueling intolerance around the world — and nurturing terrorism. I spent weeks in Riyadh, Jidda and other cities speaking with sheikhs, imams, religious professors and many others as I tried to peel back the layers of a closed and private society. For the Western visitor, Saudi Arabia is a baffling mix of modern urbanism, desert culture and the effort to adhere to a rigid interpretation of scriptures that are more than 1, 000 years old. It is a kingdom flooded with oil wealth, skyscrapers, S. U. V.s and shopping malls, where questions about how to invest money, interact with or even treat cats are answered with quotes from the Quran or stories about the Prophet Muhammad. Religion is woven into daily life. Banks employ clerics to ensure they follow Shariah law. Mannequins lack heads because of religious sensitivities to showing the human form. And schoolbooks detail how boys should cut their hair, how girls should cover their bodies and how often a person should trim his or her pubic hair. While Islam is meant to be a complete program for human life, interpretation is key when it comes to practices. The Saudi interpretation is steeped in the conservatism of central Arabia, especially regarding relations between women and men. In public, most women wear baggy black gowns called abayas, designed to hide their forms, as well as veils that cover their hair and faces, with only thin slits for their eyes. Restaurants have separate sections for "families," meaning groups that include women, and for "singles," which means men. Many Saudis mix in private, and men and women can usually meet in hotel lobbies with little problem. Others do not want to mix and see gender segregation as part of their cultural identity. In some conservative circles, men go their whole lives without seeing the faces of women other than their immediate family — even their brothers' wives. Inside the kingdom, all other religions are suppressed. Not only are there no public churches, there is no Church's Chicken. (It is called Texas Chicken in the kingdom.) When asked about this, Saudis deny that this reflects intolerance. They compare their country to the Vatican, saying it is a unique place for Muslims, with its own rules. Officials I spoke with were upset by the kingdom's increasingly troubled reputation abroad and said over and over that they supported "moderate Islam. " But what exactly did they mean by "moderate Islam"? Unpacking that term made it clear how wide the values gap is between Saudi Arabia and its American ally. The kingdom's "moderate Islam" publicly beheads criminals, punishes apostates and prevents women from traveling abroad without the permission of a male "guardian. " Don't even ask about gay rights. Instead of calls for jihad, what I heard were religious leaders insisting that the faithful obey the state. The Saudi royal family is terrified that the jihadist fervor inflaming the region will catch fire at home and threaten its control. So it has marshaled the state's religious apparatus to condemn the jihadists and proclaim the religious duty of obedience to the rulers. And while it was once common, I heard little disparaging talk about Christians and Jews, although it was open season on Shiites, whose faith is frequently bashed as part of the rivalry with Iran. The only Saudis who suggested I was an infidel were children. Once, a Saudi journalist proudly introduced me to his daughter, whom he had put in private school so she could study English. "What is your name?" I asked. "My name is Dana," she said. "How old are you?" "I am 9. " "When is your birthday?" Confused, she switched to Arabic. "We don't have that in Saudi Arabia," she said. "That's an infidel holiday. " Shocked, her father asked where she had learned that, and she fetched one of her textbooks, flipping to a lesson that listed "forbidden holidays": Christmas and Thanksgiving. Birthdays had been part of the same lesson. Another time, I met a religious friend for coffee, and he brought his two young sons. When the call to prayer sounded, my friend went to pray. His sons, confused that I did not follow, looked at me and asked, "Are you an infidel?" The first thing many Saudis will tell you about Wahhabism is that it does not exist. "There is no such thing as Wahhabism," Hisham told me the first time we met. "There is only true Islam. " The irony is that fewer people have a purer Wahhabi pedigree than Mr. Sheikh, a direct descendant of the cleric who started it all. In the early 18th century, Sheikh Mohammed ibn called for a religious reformation in central Arabia. Feeling that Islam had been corrupted by practices like the veneration of saints and tombs, he called for the stripping away of "innovations" and the return to what he considered the pure religion. He formed an alliance with a chieftain named Mohammed ibn Saud that has underpinned the area's history ever since. Then the Saud family assumed political leadership while Sheikh and his descendants gave legitimacy to their rule and managed religious affairs. That mix proved potent among the warring Arabian tribes, as Wahhabi clerics provided justification for military conquest in some cases: Those who resisted the House of Saud were not just enemies, but infidels who deserved the sword. The first Saudi state was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1818, and attempts to build another failed until the early 20th century, when King Abdulaziz undertook a campaign that put him in control of most of the Arabian Peninsula. But the king faced a choice: to continue expansionary jihad, which would have invited conflict with the British, or to build a modern state. He chose the latter, even crushing a group of his own warriors who refused to stop fighting. Since then, the alliance between the royal family and the clerics has endured, although the tensions between the quest for ideological purity and the exigencies of modern statehood remain throughout Saudi society. Fast forward to 2016, and the main players have transformed because of time and oil wealth. The royal family has grown from a group of scrappy desert dwellers into a sprawling clan awash in palaces and private jets. The Wahhabi establishment has evolved from a puritan reform movement into a bloated state bureaucracy. It consists of universities that churn out graduates trained in religious disciplines a legal system in which judges apply Shariah law a council of top clerics who advise the king a network of offices that dispense fatwas, or religious opinions a force of religious police who monitor public behavior and tens of thousands of mosque imams who can be tapped to deliver the government's message from the pulpit. The call to prayer sounds five times a day from mosques and inside of malls so clearly that many Saudis use it to organize their days. "Let's meet after the sunset prayer," they would tell me, sometimes unsure what time that was. So I installed an app on my phone that let me look up prayer times and buzzed when the call sounded. And so it was, after the sunset prayer, that I met Mr. Sheikh, a proud descendant of Mohammed ibn . He was a portly man of 42 who wore a long white robe and covered his head with a schmag, or checkered cloth. His beard was long and he had no mustache, in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad, and he squinted through reading glasses perched on his nose while peering at his iPhone. We sat on purple couches in the lobby of a Riyadh hotel and shared dates and coffee while he answered my questions about Islam in Saudi Arabia. "I am an person," he told me early on. It was clear that he hoped I would become a Muslim. His life had been defined by the religious establishment, but he proved to be a case study in the complexity of terms like "modern" and "traditional" in Saudi Arabia. He had memorized the Quran at a young age and studied with prominent clerics before completing his doctorate in Shariah, with his thesis on how technology changed the application of Shariah. Now he had a successful career and a host of religious jobs. He trained judges for the Shariah courts, advised the minister of Islamic affairs, wrote studies for the clerics who advise the king and served on the Shariah board of the Medgulf insurance company. On Fridays, he preached at a mosque near his mother's house and welcomed visitors who came to see his uncle, the grand mufti. He had traveled extensively abroad, and when he found out I was American he told me that he loved the United States. He had visited Oregon, New York, Massachusetts and Los Angeles. On one trip, he visited a synagogue. On another, a black church. He had also visited an Amish community, which he found fascinating. A relative of his lived in Montgomery, Ala. and he had spent happy months there, often visiting the local Islamic center. The hardest part, he said, was Ramadan, because there were few eateries open late that did not have bars. "All I had was IHOP," he said. He said Islam did not forbid doing business or having friendships with Christians or Jews. He opposed Shiite beliefs and practices, but said it was wrong to do as the extremists of the Islamic State and declare takfir, or infidelity, on entire groups. When it came to birthdays, which many Saudi clerics condemn, he said he did not oppose them, although his wife did, so their children did not go to birthday parties. But they had celebrations of their own, he said, showing me a video on his phone of his family gathered around a cake bearing the face of his son Abdullah, 15, who had just memorized the Quran. They lit sparklers and cheered, but did not sing. He was on the fence about music, which many Wahhabis also forbid. He said he had no problem with background music in restaurants, but opposed music that put listeners in a state similar to drunkenness, causing them to jump around and bang their heads. "We have something better," he said. "You can listen to the Quran. " Since much of what differentiates Saudi Arabia is the place of women, I wanted to talk to a conservative Saudi woman, which was tricky because most would refuse to meet with any unrelated male — let alone a correspondent from the United States. So I had a female Saudi colleague, Sheikha contact Mr. Sheikh's wife, Meshael, who said she would meet me. But I asked Mr. Sheikh's permission. "She is very busy," he said, and changed the subject. So Ms. Sheikh met Ms. Dosary at a women's coffee shop in Riyadh, where women can uncover their faces and hair. Her marriage to Mr. Sheikh had been arranged, she said. They met once for less than an hour before they were married, and he had seen her face. "It was hard for me to look at him or to check him out as I was so shy," she said. They were cousins. He was 21 she was 16. He agreed to her condition for marriage that she continue her studies, and she was now working on a doctorate in education while raising their four children. She disputed the Western idea that Saudi women lack rights. "They believe we are oppressed because we don't drive, but that is incorrect," Ms. Sheikh said, adding that driving would be a hassle in Riyadh's snarled traffic. "Here women are respected and honored in many ways you don't find in the West," she continued. She, too, is a descendant of Sheikh and said proudly that her grandfather had founded the kingdom's religious police. "Praise God that we have the Commission to protect our country," she said. The primacy of Islam in Saudi life has led to a huge religious sphere that extends beyond the state's official clerics. Public life is filled with celebrity sheikhs whose moves, comments and conflicts Saudis track just as Americans follow Hollywood actors. There are old sheikhs and young sheikhs, sheikhs who used to be extremists and now preach tolerance, sheikhs whom women find sexy, and a black sheikh who has compared himself to Barack Obama. In the kingdom's society, they compete for followers on Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat. The grand mufti, the state's highest religious official, has a regular television show, too. Their embrace of technology runs counter to the history of Wahhabi clerics rejecting nearly everything new as a threat to the religion. Formerly banned items include the telegraph, the radio, the camera, soccer, girls' education and televisions, whose introduction in the 1960s caused outrage. For Saudis, trying to navigate what is permitted, halal, and what is not, haram, can be challenging. So they turn to clerics for fatwas, or nonbinding religious rulings. While some may get a lot of attention — as when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran called for killing the author Salman Rushdie — most concern the details of religious practice. Others can reveal the sometimes comical contortions that clerics go through to reconcile modernity with their understanding of religion. There was, for example, the cleric who appeared to call for the death of Mickey Mouse, then tried to backtrack. Another prominent cleric issued a clarification that he had not in fact forbidden buffets. That same sheikh was recently asked about people taking photos with cats. He responded that the feline presence was irrelevant the photos were the problem. "Photography is not permitted unless necessary," he said. "Not with cats, not with dogs, not with wolves, not with anything. " The government has sought to control the flow of religious opinions with official fatwa institutions. But fatwas have provoked laughter, too, like the fatwa calling spending money on Pokemon products "cooperation in sin and transgression. " While the government seeks to get more women into the work force, the state fatwa organization preaches on the "danger of women joining men in the workplace," which it calls "the reason behind the destruction of societies. " And there are fatwas that arm extremists with religious justification. There is one fatwa, still available in English on a government website and signed by the previous grand mufti, that states, "Whoever refuses to follow the straight path deserves to be killed or enslaved in order to establish justice, maintain security and peace and safeguard lives, honor and property. " It goes on: "Slavery in Islam is like a purifying machine or sauna in which those who are captured enter to wash off their dirt and then they come out clean, pure and safe, from another door. " Once while we were having coffee, Mr. Sheikh answered his cellphone, listened seriously and issued a fatwa on the spot. He got such calls frequently. The query had been about where a pilgrim headed to Mecca had to don the white cloths of ritual purity — an easy one. The answer, in this case, was Jidda. Others were harder, and he demurred if he was not sure. Once, a woman asked about fake eyelashes. He told her that he did not know, but thought about it later and decided they were fine, on one condition: "that there is no cheating involved. " A woman, for example, could put them on before a man came to propose. "And then after they get married, they're gone!" he said. "That is not permitted. " One Friday, Mr. Sheikh took me to see his uncle, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz . We entered a vast reception hall near the mufti's house in Riyadh, with padded benches along the walls where a dozen bearded students sat. In the center, on a raised armchair, sat the mufti, his feet in brown socks and perched on a pillow. The students read religious texts, and the mufti interjected with commentary. He was 75, Mr. Sheikh said, and had been blind since age 14, when a German doctor carried out a failed operation on his eyes. Mr. Sheikh said I could ask him a question, so I asked how he responded to those who compared Wahhabism to the Islamic State. "That is all lies and slander. Daesh is an aggressive, tyrannous group that has no relation," he said, using another term for the Islamic State. After a pause, he asked, "Why don't you become a Muslim?" I responded that I was from a Christian family. "The religion you follow has no source," he said, adding that I should accept the Prophet Muhammad's revelation. "Your religion is not a religion," he said. "In the end, you will have to face God. " The first time I met Mr. Ghamdi, 51, formerly of the religious police, was this year in a sitting room in his apartment in Jidda, the port city on the Red Sea. The room had been outfitted to look like a Bedouin tent. Burgundy fabric adorned the walls, gold tassels hung from the ceiling, and carpets covered the floor, to which Mr. Ghamdi pressed his forehead in prayer during breaks in our conversation. He spoke of how the world of sheikhs, fatwas and the meticulous application of religion to everything had defined his life. But that world — his world — had frozen him out. Little in his background suggested that he would become a religious reformer. While at a university, he quit a job at the customs office in the Jidda port because a sheikh told him that collecting duties was haram. After graduation, he studied religion in his spare time and handled international accounts for a government office — a job requiring travel to countries. "The clerics at that time were releasing fatwas that it was not right to travel to the countries of the infidels unless it was necessary," Mr. Ghamdi said. So he quit. Then he taught economics at a technical school in Saudi Arabia, but didn't like that it taught only capitalism and socialism. So he said he had added material on Islamic finance, but the students complained about the extra work, and he left. He finally landed a job that he felt was consistent with his religious convictions, as a member of the Commission in Jidda. Over the next few years, he transferred to Mecca and cycled through different positions. There were occasional prostitution cases, and the force sometimes caught sorcerers — who can be beheaded if convicted in court. But he developed reservations about how the force worked. His colleagues' religious zeal sometimes led them to overreact, breaking into people's homes or humiliating detainees. "Let's say someone drank alcohol," he said. "That does not represent an attack on the religion, but they exaggerated in how they treated people. " At one point, Mr. Ghamdi was assigned to review cases and tried to use his position to report abuses and force agents to return items they had wrongfully confiscated, he said. He recalled the case of an older, single man who was reported to receive two young women in his home on the weekends. Since the man did not pray at the mosque, his neighbors suspected he was up to no good, so the Commission raided the house and caught the man — visiting with his daughters. "Often, people were humiliated in inhuman ways, and that humiliation could cause hatred of religion," Mr. Ghamdi said. In 2005, the head of the Commission for the Mecca region died, and Mr. Ghamdi was promoted. It was a big job, with some 90 stations throughout a large, diverse area containing Islam's holiest sites. He did his best to keep up, while worrying that the Commission's focus was misguided. In private, he looked to the scriptures and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad for guidance on what was halal and what was haram, and he documented his findings. "I was surprised because we used to hear from the scholars, 'Haram, haram, haram,' but they never talked about the evidence," he said. Realizing the gravity of such a conclusion for someone in his position, he stayed silent and filed the document away. But his conclusions would, soon, emerge. Around the time he was rethinking his worldview, King Abdullah, then the monarch, announced plans to open a university, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or Kaust. What shocked the kingdom's religious establishment was his decision to not segregate students by gender, nor impose a dress code on women. Kaust followed the precedent of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, which had also been shielded from clerical interference, highlighting one of the great contradictions of Saudi Arabia: Regardless of how much the royal family lauds its Islamic values, when it wants to earn money or innovate, it does not turn to the clerics for advice. It puts up a wall and locks them out. Most clerics kept quiet out of deference to the king. But one member of the top clerical body addressed the issue on a show, warning of the dangers of mixed universities: sexual harassment men and women flirting and getting distracted from their studies husbands growing jealous of their wives rape. "Mixing has many corrupting factors, and its evil is great," said the cleric, Sheikh Saad adding that if the king had known this was the plan, he would have stopped it. But mixing was in fact the king's idea, and he was not amused. He dismissed the sheikh with a royal decree. From his office in Mecca, Mr. Ghamdi watched, frustrated that the clerics were not backing a project he felt was good for the kingdom. So after praying about it, he retrieved his report and boiled it down to two long articles that were published in the newspaper Okaz in 2009. They were the first strikes in a yearslong battle between Mr. Ghamdi and the religious establishment. He followed with other articles, went on TV and faced off against other clerics who insulted him and marshaled their own evidence from the scriptures. His colleagues at the Commission shunned him, so he requested — and was swiftly granted — early retirement. Once off the force, he questioned other practices: forcing shops to close during prayer times and urging people to go to the mosque, requiring face veils, barring women from driving. Each comment lit a new inferno. A woman once asked him on Twitter if she could not only show her face, but also wear makeup. Sure, Mr. Ghamdi said, setting off new attacks. Then in 2014, he was to appear on a popular talk show, and the producers filmed a segment about him and his wife, who appeared with her face showing and said she supported him. Harsh responses came from the top of the religious establishment. Many attacked his religious credentials, saying he was not really a sheikh — a dubious accusation since there is no standard qualification to be one. They targeted his résumé, too, saying he had no degree in religion and pointing out, correctly, that his doctorate was from Ambassador University Corporation, a diploma mill that gives degrees based on work experience "in the Middle East. " "There is no doubt that this man is bad," said Sheikh Saleh a member of the top clerical body. "It is necessary for the state to assign someone to summon and torture him. " The grand mufti addressed the issue on his show, saying that the veil was "a necessary order and an Islamic creation" and calling on the kingdom's television channels to ban content that "corrupts the religion and the morals and values of society. " If the clerical attacks on Mr. Ghamdi were loud, the blowback from society was more painful. His tribe issued a statement, disowning him and calling him "troubled and confused. " His cellphone rang day and night with callers shouting at him. He came home to find graffiti on the wall of his house. And a group of men showed up at his door, demanding to "mix" with the family's women. His sons — he has nine children — called the police. Before the Mr. Ghamdi had also delivered Friday sermons at a mosque in Mecca, earning a government stipend. But the congregation complained after he spoke out, and he was asked to stay home, later losing his pay. Mr. Ghamdi had not broken any laws and never faced legal action. But in Saudi Arabia's society, the attacks echoed through his family. The relatives of his eldest son's fiancée called off their wedding, not wanting to associate their family with his. "Are you with your brother or with me?" Mr. Ghamdi said his sister's husband had asked her. "She said, 'I am with my brother. '" They soon divorced. Mr. Ghamdi's son Ammar, 15, was taunted at school. Ammar said another boy had once asked him: "How did your mom go on TV? That's not right. You have no manners. " So Ammar punched him. One evening in Jidda, a university professor invited me to his home for dinner. His wife, a doctor, joined us at the table, her hair covered with a stylish veil. They had recently been married and he joked that they were meant for each other because she was good at cooking and he was good at eating. His wife chuckled and gave him more soup. I asked about Mr. Ghamdi. "From what I read and what I saw, I think he's right and he stood up for what he believes in," the professor said. "I admire that. " The problem, he said, is that tolerance for opposing views is not taught in Saudi society. "Either follow what I say or I will classify you, I will hurt you, I will push you out of the discussion," he said. "This is . We have many people thinking in different ways. You can fight, but you have to live under the same roof. " His wife had no problem with mixing or with women working, but did not like that Mr. Ghamdi had caused a scandal by making his views public. The royal family sets the rules, and it was inappropriate for subjects to publicly campaign for changes, she said. "He has to follow the ruler," she said. "If everyone just comes out with his own opinion, we'll be in chaos. " After dinner, a young cleric who works for the security services dropped by. He, too, agreed with Mr. Ghamdi, but would not talk about it openly. The response, he said, is part of the deep conservatism in the clerical establishment that is impeding development. He often gave lectures to security officers, followed by discussions, he said, and a common question he heard was, "Isn't the military uniform haram?" Many Wahhabi clerics preach against resembling the infidels, leading to confusion. He believed that wearing uniforms was fine, and worried that such narrow thinking made people susceptible to extremism. "It's like in those American movies when they invent a robot and then they lose control and it attacks them and the remote control stops working," he said. The next day, the professor thanked me for my visit in a text message. "I'd like to remind u that any story that would uncover the source may hurt us. I trust your discretion," he wrote, followed by three flowers. All that was left, really, was to to speak with the Commission. What did its leaders and rank and file think about all of this? But for a force portrayed as and all powerful, it proved surprisingly shy. I could not visit Mr. Ghamdi's former office because are barred from entering Mecca. So I had multiple contacts ask for interviews with relatives who worked for the Commission, but they all declined to speak. I called the Commission's spokesman, who told me that he was traveling and then stopped answering my calls. I even dropped by the Commission's headquarters, a boxy, building on a Riyadh highway between a gas station and a car dealership. Its website advertised open hours with the director, so I went to his office, through halls filled with bearded men milling about and slick banners proclaiming "A Policy of Excellence" and "Together Against Corruption. " "He didn't come today," the director's secretary told me. "Maybe next week. " On my way out, two men invited me into an office and served me coffee. "How do you like working for the Commission?" I asked. "Everyone who chooses this job loves it," one said. It was the work of "the entire Islamic nation," and it felt good "to bring people from the darkness into the light. " The other man had been on the force for 15 years and said he preferred working in the office. "You rest more in the administration," he said. "Out there we have problems with people. They call us the religious police. Criminals! Thieves! You never get to rest out in the field. " A scowling man appeared in the doorway and told me that I was not allowed to talk to anyone. The first man soon left. The second offered me more coffee, then tea, then forced me to take a bottle of water when I left. The first irony of Mr. Ghamdi's situation is that many Saudis, including members of the royal family and even important clerics, agree with him, although mostly in private. And public mixing of the sexes in some places — hospitals, conferences and in Mecca during the pilgrimage — is common. In some Saudi cities it is not uncommon to see women's faces, or even their hair. But there is a split in society between the conservatives who want to maintain what they consider the kingdom's pure Islamic identity and the liberals (in the Saudi context) who want more personal freedoms. Liberals make cases like Mr. Ghamdi's all the time. But sheikhs don't, which is why he was branded a traitor. The second irony is that this year, Saudi Arabia instituted some of the reform Mr. Ghamdi had called for. It had been a rough year for the Commission. A video went viral of a girl yelping as she was thrown to the ground outside a Riyadh mall during a confrontation with the Commission, her abaya flying over her head and exposing her legs and torso. For many Saudis, "the Nakheel Mall girl" symbolized the Commission's overreach. Then the Commission arrested Ali a popular talk show host who often criticized religious figures. Photos appeared online of Mr. Oleyani in handcuffs with bottles of liquor. The photos were clearly staged and apparently had been leaked as a form of character assassination. Many people were outraged. In April, the government responded with a surprise decree defanging the religious police. It denied them the power to arrest, question or pursue subjects, forced them to work with the police and advised them to be "gentle and kind" in their interactions with citizens. Mr. Ghamdi applauded the decision, although he remains an outcast, a sheikh whose positions rendered him unemployable in the Islamic kingdom. These days, he keeps a low profile because he still gets insults when he appears in public. He has no job, but publishes regular newspaper columns, mostly abroad. Near the end of our last conversation, his wife, Jawahir, entered the room, dressed in a black abaya, with her face showing. She shook my hand, exuding a cloud of fragrance, and sat next to her husband. The experience had changed her life in unexpected ways, she said. And like her husband, she had no regrets. "We sent our message, and the goal was not for us to keep appearing and to get famous," she said. "It was to send a message to society that religion is not customs and traditions. Religion is something else. "


On Friday, Donald Trump was so angry about the more than half the country that feels it is probably not a good idea for his administration to be in bed with Russia that he was completely unable to type coherently when unleashing his unpresidential ravings on Twitter. Specifically, he found himself unable to spell the word hereby. Trump informed the American public that he the President* wants to hear by launch investigations into his political enemies because they have been in photographs taken during public, scheduled meetings with some of the same Russian folks with whom members of his administration have been busted having secret, off-the-books meetings. After half the world pointed out he had spelled it incorrectly, he gave it another go, changing it to hearby still wrong, but closer.Then he unironically tweeted about education We must fix our education system for our kids to Make America Great Again. Wonderful day at Saint Andrew in Orlando. pic.twitter.com/OTJaHcvLzf Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2017 before finally spelling hereby correctly.I hereby demand a second investigation, after Schumer, of Pelosi for her close ties to Russia, and lying about it. https://t.co/qCDljfF3wN Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2017Taking pity on The Donald for the difficulties he was having, the Merriam-Webster dictionary jumped into the fray, providing the first President who would lose a second-grade spelling bee a little bit of assistance. OK, OK. Here. Bye, the dictionary tweeted shortly after Trump s numerous flubs:OK, OK.Here.Bye. https://t.co/hLdwJNNI05 Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) March 3, 2017Naturally, this was quite popular with Americans who care about having a President who isn t a constant embarrassment:@MerriamWebster me seeing this tweet. pic.twitter.com/W2y8GlM5HU Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) March 4, 2017@MerriamWebster I hereby declare you the winner of that round, or any round. Laila Lalami (@LailaLalami) March 3, 2017@MerriamWebster @realDonaldTrump LOOK, the dictionary people voluntarily helped you out big of them .you should thank them. Kirsten Frazier (@KvFrazier) March 3, 2017@MerriamWebster How high on the geek meter am I if this the funniest post of my feed? True, LOL. Beth Landau (@theblandau) March 3, 2017@MerriamWebster you know you're doing a horrible job when the heckin dictionary throws shade at you @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/Tq9OJNGhWs Angel G. Suarez (@BaezAngelG) March 3, 2017Whoever tweets for @MerriamWebster, I'm picturing your mother at bookclub or something, bragging about her child's awesomeness. E. Lebee (@ewlebee) March 3, 2017Dear @MerriamWebster, give the person running this account a raise. Karen Priester, MD (@Dr_Priester) March 4, 2017@MerriamWebster hereby the best cunning linguists on Twitter (((ResisTrumpNazi))) (@NeinFuhrerTrump) March 3, 2017This is not the first time the dictionary has helped Trump out, nor will it be the last. The Donald still has not thanked them.