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      Taiwan monitoring Chinese strike group off the coast after president meets US speaker

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      Taiwan authorities are monitoring Chinese military activity including a carrier strike group about 200 nautical miles (370km) off the main island’s coastline, after the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, met US House speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles.In the meeting, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, McCarthy stressed the urgency of arms deliveries to Taiwan, while Tsai praised the “strong and unique partnership” with the US..Taiwan’s defence minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, said on Thursday that the island’s military was studying the carrier group, led by the Shandong aircraft carrier. Chiu said the group – a fleet of navy vessels led by an aircraft carrier – appeared to be on a training exercise and no planes had been detected taking off from the ship, but the timing was “sensitive”. He later confirmed that the US aircraft carrier Nimitz, which had been participating in joint drills with Japan and Korea in the East China Sea this week, was also in the same area as the Shandong on Thursday.The carrier group was sent to waters south-east of Taiwan’s main island on Wednesday, shortly before Tsai and McCarthy met in Los Angeles.Japan’s defence ministry confirmed it was also monitoring the strike group, which it detected 300km from Okinawa on Wednesday evening. The ministry said the Shandong was accompanied by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) frigate Liuzhou and a fast combat support ship as it travelled east towards the Philippines Sea, entering the Pacific Ocean for the first time.Separately, Japan said a PLAN guided-missile destroyer had been detected sailing between Taiwan and the Japanese island of Yonaguni, about 100km off Taiwan’s coast on Tuesday. Taiwan’s defence ministry would not confirm or comment on the detection.Taiwan’s defence ministry also reported three additional PLAN vessels and one anti-submarine helicopter operating near Taiwan in the 24 hours to Thursday morning.Chiu said a separate patrol of the Taiwan Strait announced by Chinese maritime authorities on Wednesday was not a military exercise, but appeared to be Beijing attempting to set a “new normal” in terms of enforcing their domestic law in wider maritime spaces. China’s coastguard, which comes under the command of the central military commission, claims authority to stop and inspect vessels in the area under a controversial 2021 law, though it is not believed to have done so before. The Taiwan defence ministry has instructed Taiwanese vessels, including cargo and ferry services, to not cooperate with attempts by this patrol to board and inspect them.Beijing has reacted angrily to the meeting between Taiwan’s leader and McCarthy, who is the second in line to the US presidency, accusing the pair of undermining its claim over Taiwan, conniving on “separatist” aims, and degrading China-US relations.McCarthy, a Republican who became the most senior figure to meet a Taiwanese leader on American soil in decades, was joined by a bipartisan group of US politicians who voiced support for dialogue with Taiwan amid simmering tensions with China.“We must continue the arms sales to Taiwan and make sure such sales reach Taiwan on a very timely basis,” McCarthy said at a news conference after the meeting, adding that he believed there was bipartisan agreement on this. “Second, we must strengthen our economic cooperation, particularly with trade and technology.”Beijing quickly denounced the meeting. Its foreign ministry said in statement that China will take “resolute and effective measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”A China defence ministry spokesperson called on the US to “stop its blatant interference in China’s internal affairs”.“We firmly oppose all forms of official interaction between the United States and Taiwan and any visit by leader of the Taiwan authorities to the United States in any name or under whatever pretext,” it said in a statement.China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, a position the government in Taipei strongly contests. Tsai says they are already a sovereign nation, and Taiwan’s future is for its people to decide.It is the second time Tsai has met the holder of the high-ranking office in less than a year, having welcomed McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan in August. That visit, which took place on what China considers to be sovereign soil, provoked a stronger reaction from Beijing, including days of live-fire military exercises around Taiwan.So far, the reaction to the California meeting is far more muted. It is understood the McCarthy meeting was held on US soil instead of in Taiwan as McCarthy originally wanted, at least in part to reduce its provocativeness. On Thursday, Taiwan’s national security chief also noted the presidents of France and the European Union were currently visiting China, and “China must practice peaceful diplomacy”.McCarthy told Tsai a shared belief in democracy and freedom formed “the bedrock” of their enduring relationship.“The friendship between the people of Taiwan and America is a matter of profound importance to the free world, and it is critical to maintain economic freedom peace and regional stability,” he said.While stressing that there was no need for retaliation from China after the meeting, McCarthy also said he looked forward to, “more meeting like this in the future”.Republican Mike Gallagher, chair of the House Chinese Communist party committee, responded to China’s objections to the meeting, saying: “If the duly elected leader of one of our most important democratic partners can’t meet with American leaders on American soil, then we are merely feeding the crocodile that will eventually eat us.”Tsai’s US stops have been attended by crowds of pro- and anti-Taiwan protesters. The opposing groups scuffled outside the Ronald Reagan library, and were separated by police. Wednesday’s meeting was also attended by more than a dozen Democratic and Republican lawmakers, highlighting the bipartisan consensus in Congress when it comes to supporting Taiwan.Tsai thanked them for their “unwavering support”, which she said “reassures the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated and we are not alone”.Since 1979, the US has officially recognised the People’s Republic of China as the sole government of the “one China” that is mainland China and Taiwan. But the US also sells arms to Taiwan to deter any military advances from Beijing, something that McCarthy said should continue.He drew an explicit comparison between Hong Kong and Taiwan, saying that when China “reneged” on its promise to allow Hong Kong autonomy for 50 years after the handover to Chinese rule, “that harmed [Beijing’s reputation] around the world”.Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a thinktank, warned that the meeting could accelerate the downward spiral of US-China relations. He warned that it could trigger a “show of resolve” from Beijing, which could itself “drive Washington to move even closer to Taiwan in order to demonstrate its own resolve”.On Wednesday the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told Euronews that a move by China to annex Taiwan would have far reaching repercussions “for quite literally every country on Earth”.Chi Hui Lin and Reuters contributed to this report More

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      Senator John Fetterman leaves hospital with depression ‘in remission’

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      John Fetterman has left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after six weeks of inpatient treatment for clinical depression, with plans to return to the Senate when the chamber resumes session in mid-April, his office said on Friday.In a statement, Fetterman’s office said he is back home in Braddock, in western Pennsylvania, with his depression “in remission”, and gave details on his treatment – including that his depression was treated with medication and that he is wearing hearing aids for hearing loss.It was the latest medical episode for the Democrat, who won last fall’s most expensive Senate contest after suffering a stroke that he has said nearly killed him and from which he continues to recover.Fetterman, who has a wife and three school-age children, said he is happy to be home.“I’m excited to be the father and husband I want to be, and the senator Pennsylvania deserves. Pennsylvanians have always had my back, and I will always have theirs,” said Fetterman said. “I am extremely grateful to the incredible team at Walter Reed. The care they provided changed my life.”Fetterman, 53, will return to the Senate the week of 17 April.Fetterman checked into Walter Reed on 15 Feburary, after weeks of what aides described as Fetterman being withdrawn and uninterested in eating, discussing work or the usual banter with staff.In an interview that will air on CBS Sunday Morning, Fetterman said the symptoms gathered strength after he won the November election.“The whole thing about depression,” he said, “is that objectively you may have won, but depression can absolutely convince you that you actually lost and that’s exactly what happened and that was the start of a downward spiral.”He said he “had stopped leaving my bed, I’d stopped eating, I was dropping weight, I’d stopped engaging in some of the most – things that I love in my life.”At the time, Fetterman was barely a month into his service in Washington and still recovering from the aftereffects of the stroke he suffered last May, which left him with an auditory processing disorder and a pacemaker. Post-stroke depression is common and treatable through medication and talk therapy, doctors say.Fetterman’s return will be welcome news for Democrats who have struggled to find votes for some nominations, in particular, without him in the Senate.Fetterman’s office also released details of his treatment under medical professionals led by Dr David Williamson, a neuropsychiatrist.When he was admitted, Fetterman had “severe symptoms of depression with low energy and motivation, minimal speech, poor sleep, slowed thinking, slowed movement, feelings of guilt and worthlessness, but no suicidal ideation”, the statement attributed to Williamson said.The symptoms had steadily worsened over the preceding eight weeks and Fetterman had stopped eating and drinking fluids. That caused low blood pressure, the statement said.“His depression, now resolved, may have been a barrier to engagement,” it said. More

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      The $37m question: why do US states elect judges in expensive, partisan elections?

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      While the 4 April Wisconsin supreme court race is technically non-partisan, the two candidates have not shied away from taking positions on policies that align with political parties. The Democratic party has spent heavily on the liberal candidate Janet Protasiewicz, while conservative candidate Dan Kelly has the backing of Republicans and top conservative donors.The race is already the most expensive state supreme court election in US history, with over $37m in spending. The unprecedented spending and political debate begs the question of why partisan groups are permitted to get involved in the selection of supposedly nonpartisan judges, and why judges are directly elected at all?It’s not uncommon for state supreme court judges to be selected through partisan elections in the United States. Thirty-eight states elect the people who sit on their highest courts in some way, whether it’s partisan elections, non-partisan competitive races, or retention elections where voters get to decide whether to keep someone on the bench.These judges often have the last word on major policy decisions in their states, from reproductive rights to voting policy and redistricting. Since the US supreme court overturned the right to an abortion with its Dobbs decision last year, attention on state supreme court races has intensified, with groups on both sides of the debate recognizing that state courts will have the last say on whether abortion is legal.Douglas Keith, counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice’s democracy program, explained that this political landscape comes at the same time that campaign spending on state supreme court races has already been increasing. Meanwhile, research has shown judges tend to rule in favor of their donors.According to the Brennan Center, the 2019-2020 election cycle set an overall national spending record of $97m. The group is still crunching numbers from 2022, but “I expect to see that we have enter for these races once again,” Keith said.A number of factors have contributed to the record spending, including the fact that the partisan balance of the court is up for grabs.“It’s a little bit of a perfect storm in that we are immediately post-Dobbs and so the awareness of how important these courts are is maybe at a peak,” Keith said, adding that Wisconsin’s election had added significance because it’s a swing state and the winner will determine the ideological leaning of the court heading into the 2024 presidential election.Have US states always allowed voters to elect state supreme court judges?The concept of having voters directly elect state supreme court judges dates back to the mid-19th century when there was a growing frustration that these top decision makers were being selected in “smoke-filled rooms, behind closed doors”, Keith said.“There was a sense that there wasn’t enough transparency,” he added. “That there was political deal-making and horse-trading that people didn’t want in the selection of judges, and there was a movement towards partisan elections.”Each state has a unique history when it comes to deciding who will sit on its top bench. Of the 38 states that currently use some kind of election to select judges for the high court, 16 states empower the governor to appoint judges, who are then reselected in retention elections. Another 14 states have voters select judges in contested, nonpartisan elections and eight states allow voters to select judges in contested, partisan elections.What’s the alternative?A few decades after states moved to partisan elections, some states began taking issue with the political influence involved in these elections and moved towards merit selections. Since 1940, more than half of states have switched at least in part from popular elections or solely appointments to experiment with merit selection.In states that use a merit system, the governor ultimately appoints judges with the help of a nominating commission or board, which is usually composed of a combination of attorneys, other judges, and the general public. The board considers applicants for the position and forwards the best candidates to the governor.Some research has shown that judges selected through a merit process produce higher-quality work than judges selected by partisan elections.The American Bar Association recommends against judicial elections, calling out the “corrosive effect of money on judicial election campaigns” and “attack advertising”.But for the most part, state policy on how to select judges has not changed in recent history, and judicial elections are used to select the vast majority of state judges.“There hasn’t been significant change in a long time,” Keith said. He explained that some states, like Ohio and North Carolina, made smaller changes more recently – both added party labels to their ballots, making these races partisan. But the last state to dramatically change how it selects judges was Rhode Island in 1994.Why have these races drawn such a large increase in spending in recent years?Before recent years, there were sporadic elections that drew large spending. In the 1980s and 1990s, big businesses and trial lawyers were frequently at odds over tort reform, which sometimes led to high-cost elections.The type of spending we see now did not become possible until the 2010 supreme court Citizens United decision, which prohibited the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, opening the floodgates for outside groups to pour money into political races.The Brennan Center has tracked spending in these races through 2020 and found that the 2019-2020 state supreme court election cycle was the most expensive in history, but this year’s Wisconsin race has already broken records for spending in a single election.Is the spending equal on both sides of the political divide?Republicans were first to dedicate vast amounts of financial resources to state supreme court races. In 2014, the Republican State Leadership Committee – which is now the leading spender in state judicial elections – tested whether money could influence the North Carolina supreme court election. The group launched its Judicial Fairness Initiative, a project aimed at backing conservative judges, explaining that it wasn’t enough to elect legislators and governors if they would run into state supreme courts who rejected their policy priorities.It took longer for Democrats to try to match Republicans’ level of spending, but they began to increase spending in state supreme court races as they focused more attention on races that would impact redistricting, especially around the 2020 cycle. According to the Brennan Center, 44% of outside-group spending in 2019-20 state supreme court elections came from groups on the left, marking a higher percentage than in previous cycles.In Wisconsin, Democrats have poured millions of dollars into advertising for Protasiewicz. Of the more than $25m booked in television advertising as of 22 March, Protasiewicz has ordered more than $10m, and outside groups supporting her including A Better Wisconsin Together, Planned Parenthood, and the American Civil Liberties Union have spent an additional $5.4m, giving her a roughly $5m spending advantage in booked advertising over Kelly.Does the increased political spending affect how judges rule once elected to the bench?Though it’s hard to measure the impact of campaign spending and how winning judges will ultimately act on the bench, there has been some research and analysis showing that judges are more likely to rule in favor of major donors and political parties that support them.In their forthcoming book Free to Judge, law professors Michael S Kang and Joanna M Shepherd find that the desire to win re-election results in judges who lean toward the interests and preferences of their campaign donors across all cases.Other research shows that judges tend to be harsher in criminal cases during election years than they are during non-election years, especially when there are more TV ads. 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      Reactions to Trump’s indictment run the gamut, cynical to sublime

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      For Democrats, Donald Trump’s indictment was proof that no one, not even a former president, was above the law. For Republicans, it was the culmination of a years-long political witch-hunt designed to take down Donald Trump.The unprecedented move by a Manhattan grand jury triggered a wave of predictably partisan responses, reflecting a nation deeply divided over Trump and his presidency, which ended after his failed attempts to cling to power culminated in a deadly assault on the US Capitol. News on Thursday that Trump had become the first ever former US president to face criminal charges drew an audible gasp on Fox News, as broadcasters and viewers processed the extraordinary development.Though the charges remain under seal as of late Thursday, the case centered on payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims from the porn star Stormy Daniels and the former model Karen McDougal that they had extramarital affairs with Trump. A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed the indictment and said prosecutors were working with the president’s legal team to coordinate a surrender.Trump, who is running again for president, reacted angrily in a lengthy statement that denounced the grand jury vote as “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history”.He framed the indictment as part of a long litany of investigations he has faced since he “came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower” to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015. He was the first president to be impeached twice, first over his efforts to pressure Ukraine’s president into announcing a criminal investigation into Joe Biden, and later for his role inciting the violence that unfolded in his name on 6 January 2021.“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference,” he said. “Never before in our Nation’s history has this been done.”Trump ratcheted up his attacks on the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, accusing him of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work” while failing to prosecute crime in New York. Many top-ranking Republicans followed Trump’s lead.The notional field of 2024 Republican presidential candidates have treaded carefully around Trump’s legal woes even as they prepare to challenge him for the nomination.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is seen as Trump’s strongest potential opponent should he declare his candidacy as is expected, called the indictment “un-American” and assailed Bragg as a “Soros-backed” Manhattan prosecutor who was “stretching the law to target a political opponent”.He added that as governor of Florida, where Trump has lived since leaving the White House, he would not oblige an extradition request should Trump refuse to surrender voluntarily, which the former president is expected to do on Tuesday.Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s UN secretary and is now running against him for the nomination, has attacked the investigation. So too has Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president who is contemplating a run for president.“I think the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage,” Pence said. “And it appears for millions of Americans to be nothing more than a political prosecution.”The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, said in a statement that Bragg had “irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election”.“As he routinely frees violent criminals to terrorize the public, he weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump,” McCarthy said. “The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.”Ohio congressman Jim Jordan, one of Trump’s fiercest allies in Congress, tweeted simply: “Outrageous”. Jordan has sought to use his perch atop the powerful House judiciary committee to attack the legitimacy of the various investigations into the former president, while pointing his gavel at the Biden administration.Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Trump loyalist, suggested the House retaliate by impeaching Biden “now that the gloves are off”.“Enough of this witch-hunt bullshit,” she concluded.Republican Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina, issued a statement calling the indictment “one of the most irresponsible decisions in American history by any prosecutor”. “The chief witness for prosecution is a convicted felon, Michael Cohen, whose previous lawyer said he is untrustworthy. Upon scrutiny, this case folds like a cheap suit.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House declined to comment on the indictment of Biden’s predecessor and potential opponent in 2024. But many Democrats, including those who had sought to hold Trump accountable for his conduct as president, sounded a note of satisfaction after years of insisting that no one was above the law.Nancy Pelosi, who presided over the House as speaker during both of Trump’s impeachments, said: “The grand jury has acted upon the facts and the law. No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former president will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”Democratic leaders were more muted in their response. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said there should be “no outside political influence, intimidation or interference in the case” and urged calm in response to the indictment.California congressman Adam Schiff, the Democrat who led the prosecution in Trump’s first impeachment trial, said Trump’s “unlawful conduct” was unprecedented in American history.“A nation of laws must hold the rich and powerful accountable, even when they hold high office. Especially when they do. To do otherwise is not democracy,” Schiff said.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a watchdog organization in Washington, called Trump the “most corrupt president in American history”.“He has spent his entire political career dodging accountability for his wanton disregard for the law. It is finally catching up to him,” its president, Noah Bookbinder, said in a statement. “The charges in New York are the first ever brought against him, but they will not be the last.”This is not the only legal challenge Trump is facing. He remains the subject of three separate criminal investigations, involving his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that culminated in the January 6 assault on the US Capitol as well as handling of classified documents that he improperly kept after leaving the White House.Clark Brewster, a lawyer representing Daniels, said Trump’s indictment was “no cause for joy”.“The hard work and conscientiousness of the grand jurors must be respected,” he said. “Now let truth and justice prevail. No one is above the law.”Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and a key witness who testified that he arranged the payments to Daniels on Trump’s behalf, said he took “solace in validating the adage that no one is above the law, not even a former president”.“Today’s indictment is not the end of this chapter, but, rather, just the beginning,” said Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges related to his role in arranging payments for Daniels and McDougal ahead of the 2016 presidential election.Meanwhile, Yusef Salaam, who was exonerated in the infamous Central Park jogger case more than a decade after Trump placed full-page newspaper ads in several New York newspapers calling for the death penalty for him and four other Black and Latino teens wrongly accused of raping a white woman, issued a one-word statement: “Karma”. More