The Jim Bakker Show

White House says Trump condemns Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis

People gather for a vigil in response to the death of a counter-demonstrator at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, outside the White House in Washington,

By Ian Simpson

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s remarks condemning violence at a white nationalist rally were meant to include the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups, the White House said on Sunday, a day after he was criticized across the political spectrum for not explicitly denouncing white supremacists.

U.S. authorities opened an investigation into the deadly violence in Virginia, which put renewed pressure on the Trump administration to take an unequivocal stand against right-wing extremists occupying a loyal segment of the Republican president’s political base.

A 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured, five critically, on Saturday when a man plowed a car into a crowd of people protesting the white nationalist rally in the Southern college town of Charlottesville. Another 15 people were injured in bloody street brawls between white nationalists and counter-demonstrators who fought each other with fists, rocks and pepper spray.

Two Virginia state police officers died in the crash of their helicopter after assisting in efforts to quell the unrest, which Mayor Mike Signer said was met by the presence of nearly 1,000 law enforcement officers.

Former U.S. Army enlistee James Alex Fields Jr., 20, a white Ohio man described by a former high school teacher as having been “infatuated” with Nazi ideology as a teenager, was due to be appear in court on murder and other charges stemming from the deadly car crash.

The federal “hate crime” investigation of the incident “is not limited to the driver,” a U.S. Justice Department official told Reuters. “We will investigate whether others may have been involved in planning the attack.”

Democrats and Republicans criticized Trump for waiting too long to address the violence – his first major crisis on the domestic front that he has faced as president – and for failing when he did speak out to explicitly condemn white-supremacist marchers who ignited the melee.

Trump on Saturday initially denounced what he called “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

On Sunday, however, the White House added: “The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi, and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.”

The statement was emailed to reporters covering Trump at his golf resort in New Jersey and attributed to an unidentified “White House spokesperson.”

SOLIDARITY WITH CHARLOTTESVILLE

Memorial vigils and other events showing solidarity with Charlottesville’s victims were planned across the country on Sunday to “honor all those under attack by congregating against hate,” a loose coalition of civil society groups said in postings on social media.

Virginia police have not yet provided a motive for the man accused of ramming his car into the crowd. But U.S. prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have opened a civil rights investigation, FBI and Justice Department officials said.

Derek Weimer, a history teacher at Fields’ high school, told Cincinnati television station WCPO-TV that he remembered Fields harboring “some very radical views on race” as a student and was “very infatuated with the Nazis, with Adolf Hitler.”

“I developed a good rapport with him and I used that rapport to constantly try to steer him away from those beliefs,” Weimer recounted, adding that he recalled Fields being “gung-ho” about joining the Army when he graduated.

The Army confirmed that Fields reported for basic military training in August 2015 but was “released from active duty due to a failure to meet training standards in December of 2015.” The Army statement did not explain in what way he failed to measure up.

Fields is being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and a single count of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, authorities said.

Two people stop to comfort Joseph Culver (C) of Charlottesville as he kneels at a late night vigil to pay his respect for a friend injured in a car attack on counter protesters after the “Unite the Right” rally organized by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S., August 12, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

REPUBLICAN SENATORS CRITICIZE RESPONSE

On Sunday before the White House statement, U.S. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, who chairs the Republican Party’s Senate election effort, urged the president to condemn “white supremacists” and to use that term. He was one of several Republican senators who squarely criticized Trump on Twitter on Saturday.

“Calling out people for their acts of evil – let’s do it today – white nationalist, white supremacist,” Gardner said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday. “We will not stand for their hate.”

Sunday’s White House statement elaborating on Trump’s initial comment on the Charlottesville clashes was followed hours later by even tougher rhetoric against white nationalists from Vice President Mike Pence, on a visit to Colombia.

“We have no tolerance for hate and violence from white supremacists, neo Nazis or the KKK,” Pence said. “These dangerous fringe groups have no place in American public life and in the American debate, and we condemn them in the strongest possible terms.”

Mayor Signer, a Democrat, blamed Trump for helping foment an atmosphere conducive to violence, starting with rhetoric as a candidate for president in 2016.

“Look at the campaign he ran, Signer said on CNN’s State of the Nation.” “There are two words that need to be said over and over again – domestic terrorism and white supremacy. That is exactly what we saw on display this weekend.”

Jason Kessler, an organizer of Saturday’s “Unite the Right” rally, which was staged to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate army commander General Robert E. Lee from a park, said supporters of the event would not back down. The rally stemmed from a long debate over various public memorials and symbols honoring the pro-slavery Confederacy of the U.S. Civil War, considered an affront by African-Americans.

Kessler attempted to hold a press conference outside city hall in Charlottesville on Sunday but was quickly shouted down by counter-protesters.

(Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani and Mike Stone in Washington, James Oliphant in New Jersey, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Julia Cobb in Bogota; Writing by Grant McCool and Steve Gorman; Editing by Andrew Hay and Mary Milliken)

Latin America slams Trump’s Venezuela ‘military options’ threat

Venezuela's Presidente Nicolas Maduro gestures as he speaks during a session of the National Constituent Assembly at Palacio Federal Legislativo in Caracas, Venezuela August 10, 2017. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Brian Ellsworth and Mitra Taj

CARACAS/LIMA (Reuters) – After months of attacking Venezuela’s unpopular President Nicolas Maduro, Latin America came out strongly against U.S. threats of military action against the struggling OPECnation.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise comments on Friday may give beleaguered leftist leader Maduro a regional boost, just as Venezuela was on verge of becoming a pariah.

Following Trump’s comment on Friday that military intervention in Venezuela was an option, Maduro’s critics are caught between backing the idea of a foreign invasion of Venezuela or supporting a president they call a dictator.

The surprise escalation of Washington’s response to Venezuela’s crisis came as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was set to begin a regional trip on Sunday that will bring him to Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Panama.

Venezuela’s powerful Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino on Friday disparaged U.S. threats as “craziness” and Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said on Saturday Venezuela rejected “hostile” threats, calling on Latin America to unite against Washington.

“We want to express gratitude for all the expressions of solidarity and rejection of the use of force from governments around the world, including Latin America,” said Arreaza, in a short speech on Saturday.

“Some of these countries have recently taken positions absolutely contrary to our sovereignty and independence but still have rejected the declarations of the U.S. president.”

It was one of Maduro’s fiercest critics, Peru, that led the charge slamming Trump, saying his threat was against U.N. principles. Mexico and Colombia joined in with statements of their own.

Regional alliance Mercosur added that it rejected the use of force against Venezuela, despite having indefinitely suspended the country last week.

Peru is negotiating a written response with other nations in the region, Foreign Minister Ricardo Luna said in a statement sent exclusively to Reuters on Saturday. The statement came the day after Peru expelled Venezuela’s ambassador in Lima.

“All foreign or domestic threats to resort to force undermine the goal of reinstating democratic governance in Venezuela, as well as the principles enshrined in the UN charter,” said Luna.

Peru under President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has taken the toughest stance yet toward Venezuela’s socialist government, and has openly called Maduro a “dictator”.

Venezuela is undergoing a major economic and social crisis, with millions suffering food and medicine shortages, soaring inflation and months-long anti-government unrest that has killed more than 120 people.

Maduro has faced withering criticism from around the world for leading the formation of an all-powerful legislature that critics call the creation of a dictatorship. He says it will bring peace to the OPEC member nation.

The ruling Socialist Party has for years accused the United States of plotting an invasion as a way of controlling its oil reserves, the world’s largest, through a military intervention similar to the Iraq war.

Previous U.S. administrations had brushed this off as politicized rhetoric meant to distract from Venezuela’s domestic problems.

Under former President Barack Obama, the State Department in 2015 made quiet diplomatic overtures that led to several high-level meetings. The effort ultimately foundered as Maduro hardened his stance against opposition critics.

Venezuela’s Information Minister Vladimir Villegas on Saturday tweeted a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding a machine gun instead of a torch, and a link to an article describing, “A Chronology of U.S. ‘Military Options’ in Latam and the Caribbean.”

(Additional reporting by Caroline Stauffer in Buenos Aires, Julia Love in Mexico City and Helen Murphy in Bogota; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Chizu Nomiyama)

Oregon coastal city at ‘double ground zero’ braced for eclipse

By Jane Ross

DEPOE BAY, Ore. (Reuters) – Oregon’s Depoe Bay is preparing for the first total eclipse to traverse the continental United States in a century as if a natural disaster was bearing down on the small coastal city.

The town, home to 1,500 residents and a single traffic light, is near the spot of land where the total eclipse will first appear on Aug. 21 as it begins cutting a path through 14 states to the Atlantic.

That distinction has raised fears that a tidal wave of visitors will descend on Depoe Bay to get a first glimpse at “totality” a week from Monday.

“Totality” is when the moon passes in front of the sun, blotting out its light and exposing the glowing “corona” around its perimeter. After a little more than two minutes, the phenomenon will end in any given location as the eclipse moves to the east on its coast-to-coast journey.

“We’re a double ground zero,” said Pat O’Connell, who owns a small gallery and gift store facing the rocky sea wall, where thousands are expected to gather when the sky darkens and the eclipse comes in to view.

Given Depoe Bay’s proximity to a major geological fault line, Mayor Barbara Leff says earthquake and tsunami preparation is second nature to the town’s residents.

“This community has been practicing for a major catastrophe for years and years, and a lot of the eclipse preparations in some ways mirror those disaster preparations,” she said. “We’ve been doing what we’re used to doing and hopefully we are all prepared.”

One of the major challenges, Leff says, is anticipating how many people will show up.

The spectacle is the first in 99 years to span the entire continental United States, the world’s third most populous nation. It will also be the first total solar eclipse visible from any of the lower 48 states since 1979.

The city’s handful of hotels and campgrounds have been sold out for months and crowd estimates range from thousands to hundreds of thousands.

The city held its first eclipse meeting four years ago at its tiny two-room City Hall, a former wooden schoolhouse.

Since serious planning began eight months ago, the city has rented portable restrooms, bought a hundred additional garbage cans, and ordered thousands of protective glasses to be distributed free at the local fire station.

It also has handed out leaflets advising residents to stock up on food, medicine, cash and gas, and prepare for traffic gridlock.

The only way into and out of Depoe Bay is Highway 101, which has only one lane in each direction in the area. Even a minor traffic accident can completely stop traffic, said Depoe Bay Fire Chief Joshua Williams.

“Our worst case scenario is everybody on the road, stopping, parking on side of roads and not having enough access for a fire engine or an ambulance to get down the road to somebody’s emergency,” Williams said.

Normally, only one fire station in the area is staffed, but for the four days surrounding the eclipse, firefighters will staff three stations. Williams says he is working with state authorities to keep traffic lanes clear for emergency vehicles.

And it’s not just congestion on the roads the city has to worry about. With what it calls “the world’s smallest harbor,” Depoe Bay is also preparing for hundreds of boaters trying to use the town’s lone boat launch.

The Coast Guard will monitor boating traffic and will have a vessel stationed at the entrance to the harbor, Coast Guard spokesman Andrew Port said. Guardsmen will board boats to make sure boaters are prepared.

At Dockside Charters, Loren Goddard has rented out most of his boats for fishing trips, but there’s still space on a three-hour cruise for visitors with $1,000 hankering to see the eclipse from the ocean.

“You’re first on the scene. It’s going to happen there before it makes landfall,” said Goddard, who plans to be 30 miles offshore fishing for tuna when the time comes.

(Editing By Frank McGurty)

Trump administration defends travel ban in Supreme Court brief

FILE PHOTO - International passengers arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport after the U.S. Supreme Court granted parts of the Trump administration's emergency request to put its travel ban into effect later in the week pending further judicial review, in Dulles, Virginia, U.S., June 26, 2017. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

By Mica Rosenberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration reiterated arguments defending its temporary travel ban in a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, repeatedly citing the executive’s broad powers to exclude foreigners from the United States.

The travel ban barring refugees and people from six Muslim-majority nations was signed as an executive order in March, after an earlier version had to be scrapped in the face of legal challenges.

Two federal appeals courts blocked the revised order from taking effect until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June it could move forward on a limited basis.

The nation’s highest court has agreed to hear oral arguments about the lawfulness of the ban on Oct. 10, and the brief laid out the legal position the government plans to make.

The state of Hawaii and refugee organizations challenging the executive order claim it is discriminatory against Muslims, citing statements Trump made on the campaign trail calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

However, the government, hammering against a broad ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that blocked the ban, said campaign statements made by the president when he was a private citizen should not be taken into account.

The brief said it was a mistake to probe the president’s motives in decisions about national security, which would amount to inappropriate “judicial psychoanalysis” of the president. Trump said the order was necessary to review vetting procedures to help protect the country from terrorist attacks.

The Department of Justice argued the case would “invite impermissible intrusion on privileged internal Executive Branch deliberations” and that the plaintiffs in the case were calling for “up to 30 depositions of White House staff and Cabinet-level officials.”

The government repeated its stance that Congress has granted the president wide authority to limit refugee admissions and bar the entry of any foreigner or group of foreigners if it would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

The Supreme Court ruled parts of the revised March executive order could go into effect on June 29, finding that anyone from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen with a “bona fide relationship” to a U.S. citizen or entity could not be barred.

However, the government excluded grandparents and other family members from the definition of who would be allowed in, leading to another round of legal sparring.

Eventually the Supreme Court said that, while litigation continues over enforcement of the ban in lower courts, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and siblings-in-law of people from the six countries would be let in but that refugees with relationships with U.S. resettlement agencies would not.

Attorney Neal Katyal, who is representing Hawaii in its challenge to the ban, said in an email on Thursday: “We look forward to the Supreme Court hearing our case in October.”

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Paul Tait)

Anthem to exit Obamacare market in Virginia next year

FILE PHOTO: The office building of health insurer Anthem is seen in Los Angeles, California February 5, 2015. REUTERS/Gus Ruelas/File Photo

(Reuters) – U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc <ANTM.N> said on Friday it will exit Obamacare markets in Virginia and reduce its plan offerings in Washington and Scott counties and the city of Bristol next year.

The move comes nearly two weeks after President Donald Trump took aim at insurers by threatening to cut the healthcare subsidy payments that make Obamacare plans affordable, after repeatedly failing in his efforts to dismantle former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

Insurers are facing an upheaval in their health insurance businesses due to uncertainty over the healthcare legislation as Republican lawmakers seek to follow through on their promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Health insurers, such as UnitedHealth Group Inc <UNH.N>, Aetna Inc <AET.N> and Humana Inc <HUM.N>, have also exited most of the states where they used to sell plans.

The insurers have asked the government to commit to making the $8 billion in subsidy payments for 2018, saying they may raise rates or leave the individual insurance marketplace if there is too much uncertainty.

On Monday, Anthem said it would no longer offer Obamacare plans in Nevada’s state exchange and half of Georgia’s counties in 2018.

The company said on Friday it will only offer off-exchange plans in Washington and Scott counties and the city of Bristol.

Hundreds of U.S. counties are at risk of losing access to private health coverage in 2018 as health insurers consider pulling out of those markets in the coming months.

Last week, Molina Healthcare Inc <MOH.N> said it would stop selling Obamacare plans in Utah and Wisconsin.

(Reporting by Divya Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

U.S. wildfire preparedness raised to highest level

FILE PHOTO: Rose fire burns near Lake Elsinore in Western Riverside County, California, U.S. in this undated photo obtained by Reuters July 31, 2017. Riverside County Fire Department via Facebook/Handout via REUTERS.

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. fire managers on Thursday raised the nation’s wildfire readiness status to its highest level for the first time in two years, as California and several other Western states faced heightened danger from lightning storms.

The National Fire Preparedness Level was elevated one notch from “PL-4” to “PL-5,” the top ranking on a five-point scale, recognizing that firefighting resources have been strained to their limits by the large number and scope of blazes in the west.

It also reflects the probability that severe weather conditions conducive to wildfires will continue for at least a few days.

The move allows for emergency assistance to be called upon from the U.S. military and even other countries, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

“Wildfire activity has escalated in recent days after thunderstorms, many with little or no moisture, moved across parts of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, sparking hundreds of new fires,” the fire center said.

The decision to raise the preparedness level was made by a multi-agency group of federal and state fire managers. The readiness status had been posted at PL-4 during most of July and into August before Thursday’s move, said fire center spokesman Randy Eardley.

The higher alert level means fire managers may be forced to let some large blazes they otherwise would have fought in remote locations burn unchallenged in order to make resources available to suppress fires posing a greater threat to life and property, Eardley said.

Nearly 41,000 individual wildfires of all sizes have scorched more than 6 million acres in the United States so far this year, well above the 4.2 million acres burned on average over the last 10 years, according to the fire center.

The last time an alert level of PL-5 was invoked was in August 2015. That same year, 200 U.S. Army soldiers were assigned to battle fires in Washington state for 30 days, while personnel and aircraft were brought in from Canada, Australia and New Zealand to support fire suppression efforts in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies.

Thursday’s elevation to PL-5 marked the fifth time the highest point on the readiness scale has been reached since 2007.

The National Interagency Fire Center reported 38 large, active wildfires burning across seven Western states on Thursday, primarily in California, Montana and Oregon.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Joseph Radford)

Mexican official says migration, security at stake in NAFTA talks: report

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo speaks during an interview at Reuters Latin American Investment Summit in Mexico City, Mexico August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico could pull back on cooperation in migration and security matters if the United States walks away from talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Mexican economy minister said in a newspaper report published on Thursday.

Ildefonso Guajardo, who will take part in the first round of NAFTA talks with U.S. and Canadian officials in Washington on Wednesday, told the Reforma daily that new tariffs on Mexican exports to the United States were unacceptable.

“If they do not treat [us] well commercially, they should not expect us to treat them well by containing the migration that comes from other regions of the world and crosses Mexico,” Guajardo said. “Or they should not expect to be treated well in collaboration with security issues in the region.”

Guajardo also said if U.S. President Donald Trump moves to impose tariffs of 35 percent on any Mexican exports, Mexico could respond with “mirror” actions, such as putting an equal tariff on U.S. yellow corn.

In an interview with Reuters this week, Guajardo said he saw a 60 percent probability that the talks would be wrapped up by a soft deadline for year-end.

(Reporting by Veronica Gomez; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Simmering North Korea tensions knock back Wall Street

By Sruthi Shankar

(Reuters) – U.S. indexes were trading at session lows on Thursday afternoon, with the Dow and the Nasdaq posting triple-digit point declines, as investors fretted over escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea.

North Korea said it was completing plans to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam in an unusually detailed threat.

The threat followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s warning on Tuesday that any threats by Pyongyang would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen”.

“Markets are looking for any reason at all for a reset. That reset is being triggered by North Korea geopolitical concern and stretched valuations,” said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, New York.

Trump’s comments on Tuesday ended the Dow’s nine-day streak of record closes.

Investors on Thursday scampered to safe-haven assets such as gold and the Swiss franc, helping the precious metal hit a more two-month high.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.VIX>, the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term stock market volatility, rose to a near three-month high of 15.36.

At 12:36 p.m. ET (1636 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was down 158.98 points, or 0.72 percent, at 21,889.72 and the S&P 500 <.SPX> was down 27.37 points, or 1.11 percent, at 2,446.65.

The last time the S&P 500 fell over 1 percent was on May. 17.

The Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was down 115.35 points, or 1.82 percent, at 6,236.98. Apple <AAPL.O> was down 2.3 percent, weighing most on the index.

Shares of Macy’s <M.N> tumbled 9.5 percent and Kohl’s <KSS.N> 6.7 percent after the department store operators reported a drop in quarterly same-store sales that stoked concerns that their turnaround may still be a long way off.

Retailers’ results are being keenly watched by investors to gauge the companies’ strategy to counter No. 1 online retailer Amazon.com’s <AMZN.O> growth.

Data showed U.S. producer prices unexpectedly fell in July, recording their biggest drop in nearly a year, while another set showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week.

“This inflation data for the month was not good. Wall Street was expecting more inflation. Every August we have some reason to run up the alarm”, Kenny said.

However, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley suggested on Thursday that the central bank was on track to raise interest rates once more as he expects sluggish inflation to rise over the next several months.

Blue Apron <APRN.N> slumped as much as 19.1 percent to a record low after the meal-kit delivery service provider reported a bigger-than-expected loss in its first quarterly report as a public company.

Perrigo <PRGO.N> surged 17.6 percent after the drugmaker raised its full-year adjusted profit forecast. Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by 2,461 to 444. On the Nasdaq, 2,303 issues fell and 567 advanced.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

America’s total eclipse floods market with fake sunglasses

Solar eclipse glasses that will be handed out by the community are pictured in Depoe Bay, Oregon, U.S., August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Jane Ross

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – When millions of Americans turn their faces skyward to witness the nation’s first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in a century, many will reach for specially designed sunglasses, but experts caution the public to stay clear of unsafe counterfeits.

Even as makers of certified, safety-tested solar eye ware rushed to meet surging demand before the Aug. 21 eclipse, they have joined astronomers and optometrists in warning of defective knockoffs flooding the U.S. market.

“It’s a bunch of unscrupulous people cashing in on the eclipse and putting public safety at risk,” said Richard Fienberg, press officer for the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

Staring at the sun without proper filtration, even when it is partially obscured by the moon during an eclipse, can damage or destroy photo-receptor cells of the eye’s retina, leaving blind spots in a person’s field of vision, experts said.

Special eyeglasses made with proper solar filters allow viewers to safely gaze at the sun any time for unlimited duration, the AAS said.

Although the advent of solar-safe sunglasses dates back more than three decades, they have never been so widely available to the public as for the 2017 event, which Fienberg said may rank as the most watched total solar eclipse in human history.

That is largely because this year’s spectacle will be the first in 99 years to span the entire continental United States – the world’s third most populous nation – across a 70-mile-wide (113-km) path over 14 states, from the Pacific coast of Oregon to the Atlantic shore of South Carolina.

It will also be the first total solar eclipse visible from any of the Lower 48 states since 1979.

SHADY DISTRIBUTORS

As a measure of excitement surrounding the event, a leading supplier of solar lenses, Arizona-based Thousand Oaks Optical, has sold enough of its filters this year alone to produce roughly 100 million pairs of glasses, company owner Pat Steele-Gaishin told Reuters.

While no data exists for how many made-for-eclipse eyeglasses are in circulation overall, shady distributors of purportedly solar-safe shades abound on the Internet, Fienberg said.

The lenses of some obvious fakes allow the penetration of light from such relatively faint sources as fluorescent lamps, while the only thing one should see through authentic solar-safe filters when looking at objects fainter than the sun is pitch blackness.

Other bogus glasses have come stamped with forged logos of reputable manufacturers or with phony safety labels.

Peru State College in Nebraska, which lies in the path of the eclipse, ordered 7,500 pairs for students but discovered the shipment from a Chinese distributor was defective and came with safety certificates for ordinary sunglasses.

Peru marketing director Jason Hogue said the college has since reordered from a legitimate supplier.

The AAS and NASA have posted a list of reputable solar filter brands, retail distributors and online dealers. (https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters)

Prices range from as little as 99 cents for a pair of paper-frame glasses to $20 or $30 for a more stylish plastic set.

While a last-minute rush has left many dealers out of stock two weeks before the big day, the good news is that U.S. astronomy buffs have to wait only seven more years for the next total solar eclipse over North America, in April 2024.

Made from an extremely opaque black polymer film containing fine carbon powder, true solar-safe lenses are designed to screen out 250,000 times more visible light than would otherwise reach the naked eye, said B. Ralph Chou, a Canadian optometrist who led development of global standards for solar optics.

Any filter less opaque than that may cause severe eye damage that would not become evident until hours later, Chou warned.

The legitimate glasses, which offer no views outside the eclipse, carry their own hazards, however.

“When you put the glasses on, you can look at the sun, but don’t try to walk around,” Chou said.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Ben Klayman and Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. slaps new sanctions on Venezuela, fugitive mayor defiant

Demonstrators block a street at a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Hugh Bronstein and Matt Spetalnick

CARACAS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Washington imposed sanctions on eight Venezuelan officials on Wednesday for their role in creating an all-powerful legislative body loyal to President Nicolas Maduro, while a mayor-turned-fugitive called for more anti-government protests.

The new U.S. sanctions targeted politicians and security figures but stopped short of actions against Venezuela’s vital oil industry. Energy sector sanctions, which could cripple Venezuela’s already ailing economy, are still being considered, U.S. officials said.

The sanctions followed Friday’s installation of a legislative superbody known as the constituent assembly, made up entirely of allies of the ruling Socialist Party and armed with the power to re-write the constitution.

The assembly’s first action was to fire Venezuela’s chief prosecutor, who had accused Maduro of human rights abuses, confirming opposition fears that the assembly would purge the government of dissenting voices.

Maduro’s loyalist Supreme Court has, meanwhile, stepped up the prosecution of opposition politicians including Ramon Muchacho, mayor of the wealthy Chacao district of capital city Caracas.

Muchacho appeared in a video shot from a secret location after the court removed him from office and sentenced him to 15 months in prison on Tuesday for failing to halt anti-government protests in his district.

“To all Venezuelans, the message is to continue in this struggle,” said a bearded Muchacho, clad in a white T-shirt emblazoned with the Venezuelan flag and appearing before a plain white backdrop. The video was circulated on social media.

Chacao has been the epicenter of demonstrations against Maduro and Muchacho’s video could help breathe new life into the protest movement. The massive street protests seen before the election of the assembly have lost steam while anti-Maduro activists try to draw up a strategy for the future.

The Supreme Court said on Wednesday via Facebook that it had sentenced David Smolansky of the El Hatillo district of Caracas to 15 months in prison, fired him from his post and ordered his arrest. Smolansky, the fifth mayor to face such sanctions this year, was also accused of defying an order to prevent opposition protests from blocking streets.

FROZEN ASSETS

The sanctions unveiled Wednesday will freeze U.S. assets of the officials targeted, ban them from travel to the United States and prohibit Americans from doing business with them. Among those named was constituent assembly member Adan Chavez, brother of the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

“We absolutely reject this act of aggression by the North American empire, by the government of Washington, and we do not recognize any sanction against the people of Venezuela,” said Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza in a televised broadcast.”

“Venezuela cannot be sanctioned by anything or anyone.”

Washington clamped sanctions on Maduro himself last week following actions against 13 Venezuelan figures last month.

Experts say individual sanctions have had little or no impact on Maduro’s policies and that broader oil-sector and financial sanctions may be the only way to make the Venezuelan government feel economic pain.

More than 125 people have died in violence since the opposition began a sustained wave of protests in April. Met by rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas fired by the National Guard, the protesters say the crisis demands an early presidential election that they are sure Maduro would lose.

His popularity has been pounded lower by triple-digit inflation and acute food and medicine shortages which Maduro blames right-wing conspirators in league with the U.S. “empire”.

The opposition, which gained control of Venezuela’s congress in 2015 only to see its decisions nullified by the Supreme Court, boycotted the July 30 election of the legislative superbody known as the constituent assembly.

Maduro says the 545-member assembly will bring peace and prosperity to Venezuela. Laws passed by the new body will not need approval from Venezuela’s traditional congress, which met on Wednesday to discuss the region’s response to the new body.

In a joint declaration released on Tuesday, countries including Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia condemned the “breakdown of democratic order” in Venezuela and said they would not recognize any action taken by its “illegitimate” new constituent assembly.

(Additional reporting by Corina Pons, Eyanir Chinea, Diego Ore, Deisy Buitrago, and Girish Gupta; Editing by W Simon and Tom Brown)

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