Pittsburgh synagogue massacre suspect pleads not guilty

FILE PHOTO: People pray at a makeshift memorial near the Tree of Life synagogue following Saturday's shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

By Chriss Swaney

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – The man charged with opening fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue and killing 11 worshipers pleaded not guilty on Thursday in federal court to all 44 counts against him, including hate crimes and firearms offenses.

Robert Bowers, 46, an avowed anti-Semite, appeared defiant and determined in court. Dressed in a red jumpsuit and with a bandaged left arm, he walked into the courtroom with what appeared to be a swagger.

He spoke little, other than to say he understood the charges against him, and that some of them could result in the death penalty, followed by entering a plea of “not guilty.”

Bowers was injured during a shootout with police during the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood in what is believed to be the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. He had appeared in court on Monday shackled to a wheelchair.

His appearance in court on Thursday came as funerals for three more victims were planned during the day.

Funerals will be held for Sylvan Simon, 86, his wife, Bernice, 84, and for Richard Gottfried, 65.

Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty against Bowers.

He is accused of bursting into the synagogue and opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle and three pistols in the midst of the Sabbath prayer service as he shouted “All Jews must die.”

Six people, including four police officers, were wounded before the suspect was shot by police and surrendered.

The attack, following a wave of pipe bombs mailed to prominent Democrats and other Trump critics, has heightened national tensions days ahead of U.S. congressional elections on Tuesday that will decide whether U.S. President Donald Trump loses the Republican majority he now enjoys in the Senate and House.

The Pittsburgh massacre also has fueled a debate over Trump’s rhetoric and his self-identification as a “nationalist,” which critics say has led to a surge in right-wing extremism and may have helped provoke the synagogue bloodshed.

The Trump administration has rejected the notion that he has encouraged white nationalists and neo-Nazis who have embraced him, insisting he is trying to unify Americans, even as he continues to disparage the media as an “enemy of the people.”

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Larry King and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Europe torn over Islamic State children in Syria

Belgian mothers attend a meeting of "Mothers' Jihad", a group aiming to repatriate women and children held in Syrian refugee camps, in Antwerp, Belgium September 8, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Alissa de Carbonnel and Emmanuel Jarry

ANTWERP/PARIS (Reuters) – For years, they heard little from daughters who went to join Islamic State. Now dozens of families across Europe have received messages from those same women, desperate to return home from detention in Syria.

They are among 650 Europeans, many of them infants, held by U.S.-backed Kurdish militias in three camps since IS was routed last year, according to Kurdish sources. Unwanted by their Kurdish guards, they are also a headache for officials in Europe.

In letters sent via the Red Cross and in phone messages, the women plead for their children to be allowed home to be raised in the countries they left behind.

In one message played by a woman at a cafe in Antwerp, the chatter of her young grandchildren underscores their mother’s pleas.

Another woman in Paris wants to care for three grandchildren she has never met, born after her daughter left for Syria in 2014, at the age 18. “They are innocent,” she said. “They had no part in any of this.”

Like other relatives of those held in Syria, the two mothers asked to remain anonymous – afraid of being linked to IS and worried their daughters may face reprisals.

The United States has taken custody of some citizens, as have Russia and Indonesia, and wants Europe to do the same – fearing the camps may breed a new generation of militants.

“We are telling European governments: ‘Take your people back, prosecute them. … They are more of a threat to you here than back home,'” a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said.

Europe is largely reluctant: there is little sympathy for militants’ families with the trauma of deadly attacks still fresh in many capitals, and European diplomats say they cannot act in a region where Kurdish control is not internationally recognized.

For the children it may be that their fate is determined by which country their mother came from.

The Kurds say it is not their job to prosecute or hold them indefinitely, leaving the women and children in legal limbo.

“Absolutely nobody wants them,” said a senior diplomat grappling with the issue. “How can you sell to the public that you are proactively helping the families of your enemies?”

However, mounting concern over abandoning hundreds of children with a claim to EU citizenship – most of them under six – is pushing governments to quietly explore how to tackle the complexities of bringing them back.

“The threat emanating from children of the caliphate is really an unprecedented, invisible and very complex one – one that we have to deal with right now,” Robert Bertholee, head of the Dutch AIVD intelligence agency, said earlier this year.

“These children are victims above all.”

French officials have said they will work to repatriate the children – but not their mothers. Other EU nations are in talks with Kurdish authorities, two European intelligence sources said, but these are complicated because the Kurds want governments to take back all their nationals – not just the young.

“About the children we all agree but not on the parents,” a senior European security source said.

LETTERS HOME

The Red Cross collected about 1,290 messages for families in visits to the Al Roj, Al Hol and Ain Issa camps where the women are held this year. The camps are in an area of Syria under Kurdish control following the defeat of Islamic State in nearly all territory it once held in Syria and Iraq.

“Mummy, Papa, forgive me for everything,” one 23-year-old wrote, adding little hearts to the margins of the page provided. “I’ve lived unimaginable things,” she scribbled. “I want to be with you and never leave.”

The women paint a grim picture: tuberculosis is rampant while food, baby milk and medical care are in short supply. Some women have died.

“There is no capacity; keeping them there is not a long-term viable option,” said Nadim Houry, director of Human Rights Watch’s counterterrorism program, who has visited some camps.

“You don’t build counterterrorism policy on public opinion.”

Kurdish officials say the foreigners in their custody comprise 900 IS fighters, 500 women and more than 1,000 children. As coalition forces clear remaining pockets of IS territory, Western security sources say numbers will grow.

They fear the camps will not hold them long. Kurdish forces have traded some women back to IS fighters in exchange for prisoners and let others go.

While women made up almost 20 percent of 5,900 Western Europeans who joined IS – and they had at least 566 babies abroad, a report by the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalism found, few have returned.

 

LEGAL GREY ZONE

Families in Belgium, France and the Netherlands are suing governments to intervene to get their relatives home.

One mother has been petitioning authorities since receiving a letter on March 30 from her daughter – one of at least 20 Belgian women in the camps.

“I’ve tried everything,” she said, meeting with other mothers from around the country to share sorrows over tea and cupcakes on a recent Saturday in Antwerp. “We have no voice. We are branded the parents of terrorists.”

Calling their cause the Mothers’ Jihad, they plan to joint legal action after one of their group lost a case to repatriate six grandchildren – all under 5 years old – by her daughter and step-daughter from camp Roj.

The judge ruled that although Belgium had a moral duty under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to do so, it could not be enforced in the stateless war zone.

“I am broken,” their grandmother said after the ruling.

In the Netherlands, lawyers for three of about 35 women in the camps won a small victory. Judges ruled the government should bring them to stand trial where they would otherwise be prosecuted in absentia over their role in IS.

As long as Dutch authorities do not act, their trials are frozen. “It is a political decision,” a government official said. “Other countries are taking steps to bring people back.”

In France, lawyers say the absence of an official government stance on at least 60 French women and 150 children in camps has made it difficult to bring cases to court. “We have been met with a scornful silence,” said Martin Pradel, who represents several families.

‘DENIAL AND PANIC’

The children are seen both as victims and threats, so bringing them back to schools and homes in Europe is fraught with difficulties.

“I understand the sensitivities in countries that suffered from terrorist attacks; still we hope to facilitate humane solutions for kids,” said Peter Maurer, president of the ICRC.

But DNA testing to confirm claims of nationality may not be possible when parents are dead. IS widows often remarried, complicating custody issues. And separating children from their parents breaches international humanitarian law.

“The debate must stop oscillating between denial and panic,” said Muriel Domenach, who leads efforts against radicalization in France, where some 78 children of militants who fled IS have been taken in charge by the state. “These are neither kids like any other, nor are they time bombs.”

When French psychiatrists first see their young charges, they are in a state of shock from being separated from their mothers at the airport. “They are in a terrible state when we see them,” said Thierry Baubet, who is treating 40 children as part of the program set up by French authorities last year.

With their returning mothers in pre-trial detention, the children are placed with foster families – many of whom are at a loss on how to handle their trauma and have begun attending a support group set up by psychiatrists.

Mostly the children are too young to understand the stigma of IS or how their words may alarm neighbors, teachers and social workers.

“They talk about bombs. They talk about fathers who passed away,” Baubet said. “They talk about the Islamic State all the time.”

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin and Mark Hosenball in London; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Indonesian searchers find black box from crashed jet on sea floor

Chief of National Search and Rescue Agency Muhammad Syaugi shows a part of the black box of Lion Air's flight JT610 airplane, on Baruna Jaya ship, in the north sea of Karawang, Indonesia, November 1, 2018. Antara Foto/Muhammad Adimaja via REUTERS

By Cindy Silviana and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian authorities on Thursday retrieved a flight data recorder from a Lion Air jet that crashed and broke apart in shallow sea near the capital, Jakarta, this week, killing all 189 people on board.

The country’s second-deadliest air disaster since 1997 has prompted renewed concern about Indonesia’s patchy aviation safety record, and the government has said Lion Air will face tougher safety regulation.

Investigations into the world’s first crash of a Boeing Co 737 MAX, introduced into commercial service last year, will be scrutinized by the global aviation industry.

“Hopefully, this can unveil the mystery behind the plane crash,” Indonesia’s transportation safety committee chief Soerjanto Tjahjono told a news conference at Jakarta’s main port after receiving the device, known as a black box.

The data it holds should provide clues to what went wrong with the plane, which had only been in service since August.

It lost contact with ground staff just 13 minutes after taking off early on Monday from Jakarta, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.

The pilot had asked to return to base shortly after take-off, and ground control officials had approved the request.

A navy diver told broadcaster Metro TV on board a search vessel his team found the orange-colored box intact in debris on the muddy seafloor.

Indonesia’s transportation safety committee (KNKT) will analyze its data in Jakarta, which could take up to two weeks.

Searchers have yet to find the second black box containing recordings of cockpit conversations. Strong currents have hampered search efforts, complicated by the presence of energy pipelines in the area.

The discovery of the black box may provide some relief to grieving relatives. But hopes are fading of finding a large section of fuselage intact with bodies, easily retrievable, inside.

The commander of the navy divers involved in the search was quoted by the Kompas.com news portal as saying divers had found many bodies. But only one has been identified.

“What is important for us is to get more information about the victims because having their remains back is important for us so we can bury them properly,” said Ade Inyo, whose brother in law was on the flight.

MORE INSPECTIONS, SAFETY REVIEW

The investigation will be carried out with help from Boeing, General Electric and the Federal Aviation Federation, officials have said.

It will also focus on four of Lion Air’s staff including its technical director who were suspended by Indonesia’s transportation ministry on Wednesday amid speculation the aircraft was not airworthy.

“For now, we will focus on two primary causes,” KNKT deputy chief Haryo Satmiko told Reuters, referring to equipment and the people who flew, maintained and managed the aircraft.

The transport ministry suspended for 120 days Lion Air’s maintenance and engineering director, fleet maintenance manager and the release engineer who gave the jet permission to fly on Monday, it said in a press release.

Founded in 1999, the privately owned budget carrier’s aircraft have been involved in at least 15 safety incidents and it has faced tougher international safety restrictions than other Indonesian airlines.

It will now be subjected to more intensive “on-ramp” inspections compared with other airlines, authorities said.

President Joko Widodo has also ordered a review of all regulations relating to flight safety.

Indonesia is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. Its transportation safety committee investigated 137 serious aviation incidents from 2012 to 2017.

Lion Air said the aircraft that crashed had been airworthy and the pilot and co-pilot had 11,000 hours of flying time between them.

But according to the transport safety committee, the plane had technical problems on its previous flight on Sunday, from the city of Denpasar on the resort island of Bali, including an issue over “unreliable airspeed”.

Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait has acknowledged reports of technical problems with the aircraft but said maintenance had been carried out “according to procedure” before it was cleared to fly again.

Lion Air’s only other fatal accident was in 2004 when an MD-82 crashed upon landing at Solo City, killing 25 of the 163 people on board, according to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network.

In April, the airline announced a firm order to buy 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 narrowbody jets with a list price of $6.24 billion. It is one of the U.S. planemaker’s largest customers globally and was the first carrier globally to take delivery of the 737 MAX last year.

(Reporting by Jakarta bureau; Writing by Fergus Jensen and Ed Davies; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel)

Pakistani Christian woman’s blasphemy ordeal highlights plight of minorities

FILE PHOTO: The daughters of Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi pose with an image of their mother while standing outside their residence in Sheikhupura located in Pakistan's Punjab Province November 13, 2010. REUTERS/Adrees Latif/File Photo

By Asif Shahzad and Kay Johnson

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Until one sweltering day in 2009, Asia Bibi led a simple life with her husband and children in rural Pakistan. Hers was one of only three Christian families in her village but they’d never had much trouble from Muslim neighbors, relatives say.

“She was an innocent, loving and caring ordinary woman,” said Bibi’s brother-in-law, Joseph Nadeem. “She and her husband both were farm workers. They had five kids and a happy life.”

Then, a dispute over a cup of water with fellow field laborers led to Bibi being sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam. She spent eight years on death row before Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned her conviction this week and ordered her freed.

Bibi’s ordeal has become symbolic of the difficulties that Pakistan’s tiny Christian population, only 2.6 percent of the country of 208 million, faces along with other religious minorities as hard-line Islamist movements grow stronger.

Her family is now in hiding for fear of attacks by Islamists angry at the ruling, and still waiting to be reunited with Bibi

“You know my two youngest daughters were below age of 10 when their mother went away … They don’t remember spending much time with her,” Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, told Reuters by telephone.

The family has four daughters and one son, he said.

“We are thankful to the court that it decided the case considering us human beings instead of any discrimination on the base of faith or religion.”

He said Bibi, who is about 50, has not been released from prison pending arrangements for her safety.

Thousands of members of a hardline Islamist party have blockaded roads for two days in major Pakistani cities to protest against the Supreme Court’s decision, even calling for the assassination of the judges who made the ruling.

“She can’t be safe here,” brother-in-law Nadeem said. “You know what’s going on outside. We want things to settle down before we go ahead for her release.”

Supporters of the religious party Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam - Fazal-ur Rehman (JUI-F) raise their hands as they chant slogans, after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, during a protest rally in Karachi, Pakistan November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

Supporters of the religious party Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam – Fazal-ur Rehman (JUI-F) raise their hands as they chant slogans, after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, during a protest rally in Karachi, Pakistan November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

DISCRIMINATION

The rise of Islamist parties such as Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP), which has made “death to blasphemers” its main rallying cry, has many of Pakistan’s religious minorities worried.

Though the TLP gained no National Assembly seats in a general election this year, it won 2.2 million votes nationwide. The party’s fiery rhetoric also pulled much of the political discourse to the right in this deeply conservative country.

Pakistan is about 96 percent Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim, with Christians, Hindus and members the Ahmadi faith making up tiny minorities.

Christians in Pakistan are often targeted in attacks by militants, including a pre-Christmas suicide bomb attack last year on a Methodist church that killed more than 50 people in the southwestern city of Quetta. The attack was claimed by Islamic State’s local affiliate.

Christians are also frequent targets of discrimination and violence. In 2013, a mob burned down more than 125 Christian homes in a neighborhood of Lahore after rumors spread that a Christian resident had insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

Religious minorities are also far more likely to be charged with blasphemy than Muslims.

Despite their tiny percentage of the population, Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis made up half of the 1,549 cases of blasphemy filed over three decades through 2017, according to Peter Jacobs, the Christian head of the Centre for Social Justice, which compiled the numbers.

Pakistan’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion and – as the Supreme Court’s ruling Wednesday stressed – Islam’s holy Koran stresses tolerance and fighting injustice. The ruling said that evidence against Bibi was insufficient to convict her.

Bibi’s family says that for years, they lived side by side with Muslim neighbors in the village of Ikkawali, in the bread-basket province of Punjab.

“You know, the society we live in, we are often discriminated against as Christians but she was living a happy life,” said Nadeem.

‘ENEMY’

That all changed on June 14, 2009, when Bibi offered a cup of water to her Muslim fellow field workers. A woman refused, saying anything from the hand of a Christian was unclean, according to the Supreme Court ruling.

The incident led to harsh words and a police complaint several days later, then the court case that saw Bibi sentenced to death.

“Just sipping water from a mug made the whole village her enemy,” said Nadeem.

With Bibi soon to be free, her family is struggling to make plans. They would prefer to leave the country to be safe, but there are plans in place.

“We haven’t got any contact yet either from Pakistani authorities or anyone from outside,” Nadeem said.

Yet, despite all the family has been through, Bibi’s husband Masih said he would be sad to be forced to leave his homeland.

“We’re also part of Pakistan,” he said.

“This is our country. We love it.”

(Additional reporting by Mubasher Bukhari; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Exclusive: Canada rushes to deport asylum seekers who walked from U.S. – data

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) vehicle is seen near a sign at the US-Canada border in Lacolle, Quebec, Canada, February 14, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie/File Photo

By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada is prioritizing the deportation of asylum seekers who walked across the border from the United States illegally, federal agency statistics show, as the Liberal government tries to tackle a politically sensitive issue ahead of an election year.

The number of people deported after their refugee applications were rejected was on track to drop 25 percent so far this year compared to 2017 to its lowest point in a decade, even as the number of deported border-crossers was on track to triple, according to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) data.

More than 36,000 people have walked into Canada from the United States to file refugee claims since January 2017, many saying they feared U.S. President Donald Trump’s election promise and policy to crack down on illegal immigration.

The influx has thrown the Canadian asylum system into turmoil and caused a political uproar in a country accustomed to picking and choosing its newcomers.

In response, the government gave more money to the independent body adjudicating refugee claims and appointed a minister responsible for border-crossers.

The CBSA, which is responsible for deportations, said in an email to Reuters that it classifies border-crossers with criminals as a top deportation priority.

Refugee lawyers and border officers said the prioritization seems to be Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s way of dealing with those asylum seekers, who have become a hot political issue for his Liberal Party ahead of a general election in 2019.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair declined to comment.

In an email, Blair’s office said the government is committed to a “robust and fair” refugee system and that everyone ordered removed has been given due process.

A CBSA inland enforcement officer said the tradeoff is that deportees who could pose a real public safety risk are not getting deported.

“We have priority cases, people with extensive criminal records that are due to be deported, people with security problems – these cases are not all taken care of because we have to take care of these administrative cases,” said the officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media.

Border-crossers “are not a priority, but they are a priority because of all the media attention around them.”

A CBSA spokesman said in an email that the agency prioritizes “irregular” failed refugee claimants along with criminals as a top priority, followed by other failed refugee claimants, but would not say why.

Six lawyers told Reuters they were aware of this acceleration of certain cases, some saying they have had border-crosser hearings scheduled in blocs, with a focus on those from Haiti and Nigeria.

Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman said there were good reasons for accelerating the processing and deportation of people who crossed the border: it deters people with weak claims from making refugee claims in the hopes of living in Canada for years while their case wends through the system.

“The best way of discouraging people from making frivolous claims is by having the claims processed quickly,” Waldman said.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; editing by Grant McCool)

Exhibition depicting death camp survivor’s trauma opens at Auschwitz

A man looks at a painting during the opening of an exhibition featuring works by David Olere, a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp, at the museum in Oswiecim, Poland October 30, 2018. Picture taken October 30, 2018. Agencja Gazeta/Jakub Porzycki via REUTERS

OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) – David Olere, a former Auschwitz prisoner who helped dispose of bodies at the Nazi death camp, depicted his trauma of the horrors he witnessed in haunting drawings and paintings.

Paintings are pictured during the opening of an exhibition featuring works by David Olere, a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp, at the museum in Oswiecim, Poland October 30, 2018. Agencja Gazeta/Jakub Porzycki via REUTERS

Paintings are pictured during the opening of an exhibition featuring works by David Olere, a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp, at the museum in Oswiecim, Poland October 30, 2018. Agencja Gazeta/Jakub Porzycki via REUTERS

Now more than 80 of those artworks have gone on display at an exhibition at the Auschwitz Memorial in Oswiecim, Poland.

“David Olere: The One Who Survived Crematorium III,” shows the extermination process which took place at Auschwitz during the Holocaust through the late painter’s own eyes.

A French Jew of Polish descent, Olere was part of a special unit of male Jewish prisoners, dubbed the Sonderkommando, chosen by the Nazis to discard the bodies of those killed in gas chambers.

“He is the only witness who documented this unimaginable cruelty in the form of paintings and drawings,” Agnieszka Sieradzka, an art historian at the Museum Collections and one of the curators of the exhibition, said in a press release.

Born in Warsaw in 1902, Olere studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in the Polish capital before eventually settling in Paris. He was arrested in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz, one of several concentration camps operated by the Nazis on Polish soil during the Holocaust in which some six million Jews were killed.

Marc Oler, David Olere's grandson attends the opening of an exhibition featuring works by David Olere, a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp, at the museum in Oswiecim, Poland October 30, 2018. Agencja Gazeta/Jakub Porzycki via REUTERS

Marc Oler, David Olere’s grandson attends the opening of an exhibition featuring works by David Olere, a prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp, at the museum in Oswiecim, Poland October 30, 2018. Agencja Gazeta/Jakub Porzycki via REUTERS

His grandson Marc Oler described the artist, who died in 1985, as “very, very tough, very, very talented, very, very traumatized”.

“David Olere wanted the next generation to be aware so they could be … (spared) the horrors that he had been through and know peace,” Oler, who attended the exhibition’s opening on Tuesday, said.

The exhibition, which runs until March, displays its own collection of Olere’s artwork as well as many others on loan from Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and France’s Memorial de la Shoah.

(Reporting by Reuters Television and Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian)

Refresh yourself on U.S. tax changes before it is too late

A tax sign is pictured on an H&R Block tax office in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Gail MarksJarvis

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Already seeing winter holiday decorations in your local stores, even though it is just Halloween? In the same spirit, it is time to start prepping for filing your tax return, which is due by April 15, 2019.

If you are going to make a difference in what you owe, the last two months of 2018 are crucial. But some of the deductions and tax strategies you used in the past might have changed due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that went into effect this year.

Here is a refresher on what you need to know:

1. WHAT IS GONE

Almost all miscellaneous deductions were dropped. For 2018, it will no longer matter if you accumulate moving expenses for a new job, run up expenses that will not be reimbursed from your employer, or get tax preparation advice or a safety deposit box.

Personal exemptions are also gone, while the standard deduction has doubled to $24,000 for couples and $12,000 for individuals.

2. WHAT HAS CHANGED

For people in high tax states, what may be most crucial is that there is now a $10,000 cap on what you can deduct on your federal tax return for everything from property taxes to state income and sales taxes.

Also, if you bought a home in 2018, only mortgage interest on debt up to $750,000 can be deducted. In the past, the limit was $1 million and that still applies to previous purchases.

For home equity loans or lines of credit, you can no longer deduct interest unless you used the money to buy, build or improve your home. Beware: Even borrowing to pay for college will not be deductible. The new rules apply even if you took out the loan before this year.

Losses from fires and storms are generally no longer deductible, although Mark Luscombe, principal analyst for Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting, said to watch for permitted losses from hurricanes through specific designations as “presidential declared disaster areas.”

One good note is that as itemized deductions were slashed, one became better. In the recent past, medical expenses had to exceed 10 percent of your adjusted gross income to count for most people, but that threshold for 2018 is just 7.5 percent for everyone. In 2019, the 10 percent threshold returns.

3. WHAT HAS NEW IMPACT

Selling stocks, bonds, funds and real estate that have gained value in taxable accounts can increase your taxable income, so trying to alleviate the impact of capital gains remains a smart strategy.

But this year the cutoffs for capital gains rates are no longer in sync with tax brackets, so pay attention to income cutoffs, said Luscombe. For the zero percent capital gains rate, which allows you to sell an investment you have owned for at least a year (a long-term capital gain) without paying tax: Singles can have incomes up to $38,600 and couples up to $77,200.

Once above that, long-term capital gains rates jump to 15 percent, 20 percent, and 23.8 percent. Yet, investors can reduce – or eliminate – capital gains taxes by selling an investment that has declined in value since it was purchased.

Tim Steffen, director of advanced planning for Baird Private Wealth Management, noted that no investment should be sold for tax reasons alone, but if a person can harness the zero percent rate now and expects higher income in the future, consider selling.

4. WHAT REMAINS

Teachers who spend $250 in their classrooms can still file an above-the-line deduction, even though most others were wiped out. Also, disabled people traveling to work, and military people going 100 miles or more from home and staying overnight can still claim deductions.

If you pay alimony you can continue to deduct the payments from income, and if you receive it you will claim it as income. But for any divorce that happens in 2019 or later this goes away – a reason why finalizing a divorce before year-end may mean harnessing a deduction that is going away

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Beth Pinsker and Frances Kerry)

Fighting fire with fire: Jewish people train to stop repeat of Pittsburgh shooting

Trainees practice an Israeli shooting method as they take part in the Cherev Gidon Firearms Training Academy in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, U.S. August 5, 2018. REUTERS/Noam Moskowitz

By Gabriella Borter

HONESDALE, Pa. (Reuters) – David Ortner adjusted his yarmulke, cocked his pistol and took aim – something he wishes a civilian had done to defend Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue three days ago when Robert Bowers walked in and shot 11 people dead.

“When this happens, you get a wake-up call,” said Ortner, a 28-year-old owner of an optician shop in Monsey, New York.

Ortner was one of nine Jewish men who attended a one-day course on Tuesday at the privately owned Cherev Gidon Israeli Tactical Defense Academy near Scranton, Pennsylvania, a class that was scheduled on Sunday in response to the Pittsburgh synagogue attack.

He was there to learn how to use a gun to protect himself and his community and prevent a repeat of Saturday’s massacre, the deadliest targeting Jewish people in U.S. history.

“The fact is, we’re at war,” said Yonatan Stern, a veteran officer of the Israel Defense Forces and director of the academy, told his class. “We want every Jew in America armed.”

In the six years since Stern started the academy, demand for firearms training had never been higher than after Saturday’s attack. Hundreds of interested students contacted Stern in the last 72 hours. All but three or four were Jewish.

The spike in demand follows President Donald Trump’s statement that the shooting might have been prevented if the synagogue had employed an armed guard.

But many Jews have resisted the idea that having guns in synagogues is the best way to prevent such attacks.

Rabbi Moti Rieber, executive director of the Kansas Interfaith Action, an advocacy organization, said on Tuesday that he did not believe Trump’s call for more armed guards could prevent attacks on places of worship.

“What kind of country we’re going to be if every house of worship has to have an armed guard?” Rieber said. “I think having less access to that kind of weaponry is going to be much more effective in the long run than having a single armed guard.”

According to Stern, an armed guard at a synagogue is a useful deterrent but not a replacement for armed civilians, since a shooter could kill the armed guard before entering and killing congregants.

“To wait for law enforcement to arrive simply is not the answer,” Stern said.

Some of the students attending the course were card-carrying National Rifle Association members. Some had never fired a gun before. Two worked in schools and wanted to defend Jewish children. Many of them intended to bring guns to their synagogues on the next Sabbath for protection.

“Everybody has to find a way to react; this is my way,” said Zev Guttman, who said he was scared of guns until Saturday’s shooting convinced him he had to be armed.

Tuesday’s course, held in a log cabin on an outdoor shooting range in rural Honesdale, about 300 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, consisted of active-shooter response drills using handguns and rifles. Students practiced drawing concealed weapons, loading and firing AR-15 rifles at bulls-eye targets.

Stern said that it “touches my heart” to see his students in training because he knows they will return to their synagogues as a first line of defense.

(The story corrects the name of Israel’s military in 5th paragraph to “Israel Defense Forces” instead of “Israeli Defense Force”.)

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Cynthia Osterman)

Protests after Pakistan frees Christian woman sentenced to death over blasphemy

Supporters of religious and political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) hold their palms to pray in a protest, after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, in Karachi, Pakistan October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

By Asif Shahzad and Mubasher Bukhari

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE (Reuters) – Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday freed a Christian woman from a death sentence for blasphemy against Islam and overturned her conviction, sparking angry protests and death threats from an ultra-Islamist party and cheers from human rights advocates.

New Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a warning to the religious right late in the evening that any prolonged blockade of streets would be met with action.

Asia Bibi, a mother of four, had been living on death row since 2010, when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws, which critics say are too harsh and often misused.

She was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Bibi has always denied committing blasphemy.

The case has outraged Christians worldwide – Pope Francis said he personally prayed for Bibi – and has been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help Bibi were assassinated.

Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who headed a special three-judge bench set up for the appeal, cited the Koran in the ruling, writing that “tolerance is the basic principle of Islam” and noting the religion condemns injustice and oppression.

In overturning her conviction, the ruling said the evidence against Bibi was insufficient.

Bibi did not appear in the courtroom and her whereabouts were a closely held secret for fear of attacks on her and her family. Many have speculated they will be forced to leave the country, but there was no confirmation of their plans.

Her lawyer called the court ruling “great news” for Pakistan.

“Asia Bibi has finally been served justice,” lawyer Saiful Mulook told Reuters. “Pakistan’s Supreme Court must be appreciated that it upheld the law of the land and didn’t succumb to any pressure.”

Supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan Islamist political party block the Faizabad junction to protest after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, in Islamabad, Pakistan October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

Supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan Islamist political party block the Faizabad junction to protest after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam, in Islamabad, Pakistan October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

DEATH THREATS

Supporters of Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) immediately condemned Wednesday’s ruling and blocked roads in major cities, pelting police with stones in the eastern city of Lahore.

Street protests and blockades of major roads were spreading by mid-afternoon, paralyzing parts of Islamabad, Lahore and other cities.

One of the TLP’s top leaders called for the death of Nisar, the chief justice, and the two other judges on the panel.

“They all three deserve to be killed. Either their security should kill them, their driver kill them, or their cook kill them,” TLP co-founder Muhammad Afzal Qadri told a protest in Lahore.

“Whoever, who has got any access to them, kill them before the evening.”

He also called for the ouster of Khan’s new government of and for army officers to rise up against powerful military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who he said “should be sacked from the army”.

Khan addressed the nation in a televised speech on Wednesday night, supporting the court ruling and warning the ultra-Islamists not to disrupt the nation.

“We will not allow any damages to occur. We will not allow traffic to be blocked,” Khan said. “I appeal to you, do not push the state to the extent that it is forced to take action.”

The TLP was founded out of a movement supporting a bodyguard who assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer for advocating for Bibi in 2011. Federal minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was also killed after calling for her release.

In November, TLP staged a crippling blockade of Islamabad after small changes to a religious oath taken by election candidates, which it said were tantamount to blasphemy. Seven people were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with the police and TLP’s supporters only dispersed after striking a deal with the military.

BLASPHEMY LAW CRITICIZED

In February, Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, and one of her daughters met Pope Francis shortly before Rome’s ancient Coliseum was lit in red one evening in solidarity with persecuted Christians, and Bibi in particular.

The pope told Bibi’s daughter: “I think often of your mother and I pray for her.”

Christians make up only about 2 percent of Pakistan’s population and are often discriminated against.

Dozens of Pakistanis – including many minority Christians or members of the Ahmadi faith – have been sentenced to death for blasphemy in the past decade, though no one has been executed.

Rights groups say the blasphemy law is exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores.

Additionally, at least 65 people have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, including a 23-year-old student beaten to death on his university campus last year.

“This is a landmark verdict,” said Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International. “The message must go out that the blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the country’s most vulnerable minorities.”

(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)

Istanbul prosecutor says Khashoggi was suffocated in Saudi consulate

A security staff member stands at the entrance of Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Ece Toksabay and Ali Kucukgocmen

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Istanbul’s chief prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was suffocated in a premeditated killing as soon as he entered Saudi Arabia’s consulate four weeks ago, and his body was then dismembered and disposed of.

In a statement issued after two days of talks with Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb, it also said no concrete results were reached in those meetings.

Khashoggi’s death has escalated into a crisis for Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, which at first denied any knowledge of or role in his disappearance on Oct. 2.

Mojeb later said Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated and Riyadh said 18 suspects had been arrested. But Turkey, which released a stream of evidence undermining Riyadh’s early denials, has demanded more details including the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s body and who ordered his killing.

“Despite our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth, no concrete results have come out of those meetings,” the Istanbul prosecutor’s office said of the talks on Monday and Tuesday between Mojeb and Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan.

The killing of Khashoggi, a critic of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has put into focus the West’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia – a major arms buyer and lynchpin of Washington’s regional plans to contain Iran.

Riyadh’s European allies have criticized its initial response and U.S. President Donald Trump said Saudi authorities had staged the “worst cover-up ever”, although he has repeatedly said he would not jeopardize U.S. business with the kingdom.

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, who has demanded more information from Saudi Arabia, said on Tuesday Fidan had asked Mojeb to disclose who sent a 15-strong team from Riyadh which is suspected of involvement in the killing.

The prosecutor’s statement said Fidan also repeated Ankara’s request for the 18 suspects to be extradited to face trial in Turkey, and asked Mojeb to disclose the identity of a “local cooperator” who, according to a Saudi official, disposed of Khashoggi’s body.

In a written response, Mojeb invited Fidan to Saudi Arabia to question the suspects and determine “the fate of the body” and establish whether the killing was premeditated, the Turkish prosecutor’s statement said.

It said Mojeb’s response also distanced Riyadh from the idea that a “local cooperator” had been involved, saying that Saudi authorities had not made an official statement to that effect.

Mojeb left Turkey on Wednesday evening after a three-day visit during which he also held talks at the offices of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT).

Turkey’s relations with Saudi Arabia were strained last year when Ankara sent troops to the Gulf state of Qatar in a show of support after its Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, imposed an embargo on Doha.

Erdogan’s government has pressed Riyadh to conclude its investigation as soon as possible. “The whole truth must be revealed,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said this week.

Erdogan has also called on Saudi Arabia to disclose who ordered Khashoggi’s killing. “There is no point in procrastinating or trying to save some people from under this,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Dominic Evans and Angus MacSwan)