President Donald Trump and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto will mark 100 years of diplomatic relations between their countries at the White House next month.The White House says the Oct. 2 meeting will focus on furthering cooperation between the U.S. and Finland, including promoting European and Arctic security.The meeting is taking place during the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations.Finland hosted Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for a summit in Helsinki in July 2018. 
…

In the United States, the growing political divide along ethnic lines, along with President Donald Trump’s racially charged rhetoric, are renewing debate over what it means to be an American.  The growing divide and rising ethnic tensions come amid a time of rapid demographic change in the country.  White European-Americans are projected to lose their majority status by 2045, to be eclipsed by the growing populations of Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans.  “Demographic shifts are certainly fueling animosity but it’s more about, in essence, white people feeling they’re losing control of their country,” said Andre Perry, a scholar and commentator on issues of race, structural inequality and education at both the Brookings Institution and American University in Washington.Former President Barack Obama seemed to foreshadow a new demographic alignment in the U.S. when he won two decisive election victories in 2008 and 2012, with surging support from minority voters, in addition to winning over large numbers working class whites, traditionally affiliated with the Democratic Party. Immigration rhetoricMany of those same Democrats switched in 2016 to help elect Donald Trump as president, however, galvanized in key battleground states to support the head of the Republican ticket in part because he made illegal immigration a key campaign issue.   Trump, his critics say, also stoked ethnic tensions by engaging in racially charged rhetoric, referring to undocumented Mexican immigrants as criminals and calling for a “total and complete” immigration ban on all Muslims following a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, that was carried out by a Pakistani-born immigrant.While in office, the president has continued to single out minority groups for criticism. Trump denounced African American football players for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and inequality in the country. He refused to strongly condemn a neo-Nazi and white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned violent. And he questioned the loyalty to the country of two Muslim American congresswomen who a support a boycott movement against U.S. ally Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories.Trump’s defenders dismiss charges of racism against the president. They say Trump’s political strategy is to tie the Democratic Party to what he sees as its most unpopular issues and divisive leaders, adding that Trump’s reflex is to fiercely attack all critics.“President Trump, I think is an equal opportunity insulter. Anybody who raises his ire or criticizes him is liable to be insulted regardless of race, creed, color, or ethnic origin,” said Michael Barone, a conservative political analyst with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.Real American The president’s critics worry that the promise of the American dream, where all immigrants can assimilate into a diverse cultural melting pot, is today complicated by questions of loyalty, legality and racism.They say Trump’s tough talk, and his restrictive policies of severely reducing immigration from Muslim majority countries and accelerating deportations of undocumented Hispanic immigrants, are tainting entire ethnic groups in the U.S. as being un-American. The detractors worry that’s a way to gain political advantage.“At the end of the day, we know that people are using racism as a way to gain power and resources for the privilege of some and burden of others,” said Perry. Amid Trump’s attacks against minority critics, including tweeting that four Congresswomen of color should “go back” to the “places from which they came,” there are growing reports of ethnic minorities being criticized in public spaces for not speaking English and being told to go back to the country from which they came.  Assimilation qualms But in this highly polarized environment, some Trump supporters also have been confronted by angry critics of the president. Also, immigration skeptics say it is valid to raise concerns about undocumented immigrants who do not learn English, or about alarming reports that in the Muslim-American community in Minnesota, a number of Somali-Americans left to joined the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency, al-Shabab.“I think that people have qualms about illegal immigrants, which is understandable. And people also have some qualms that our assimilation institutions are not working as well as they did a century ago,” said Barone.Past waves of immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries from Germany, Italy, and Ireland also experienced hostility and negative stereotypes similar to what Hispanics and Muslims face today. Just a few generations ago, many questioned whether Catholics were more loyal to the Pope than to their newly adopted country. While immigration today has become a highly politicized issue, critics and advocates generally agree that immigrants from all over the world can become fully assimilated. It can take generations to fully integrate into society, though, and ultimately minority groups have to learn how to exercise political power in the American democratic system before they can achieve equal status.
…

The Trump administration is poised to revoke California’s authority to set auto mileage standards, asserting that only the federal government has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy.Conservative and free-market groups have been asked to attend a formal announcement of the rollback set for Wednesday afternoon at Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington.Gloria Bergquist, spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said Tuesday that her group was among those invited to the event featuring EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.The move comes after the Justice Department recently opened an antitrust investigation into a deal between California and four automakers for tougher pollution and related mileage requirements than those sought by President Donald Trump. Trump also has sought to relax Obama-era federal mileage standards nationwide, weakening a key effort by his Democratic predecessor to slow climate change.Top California officials and environmental groups pledged legal action to stop the rollback.The White House declined to comment Tuesday, referring questions to EPA. EPA’s press office did not respond to a phone message and email seeking comment.Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at a news conference in Washington, Sept. 12, 2019.But EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told the National Automobile Dealers Association on Tuesday that the Trump administration would move “in the very near future” to take steps toward establishing one nationwide set of fuel-economy standards.”We embrace federalism and the role of the states, but federalism does not mean that one state can dictate standards for the nation,” he said, adding that higher fuel economy standards would hurt consumers by increasing the average sticker price of new cars and requiring automakers to produce more electric vehicles.Word of the pending announcement came as Trump traveled to California on Tuesday for an overnight trip that includes GOP fundraising events near San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.California’s authority to set its own, tougher emissions standards goes back to a waiver issued by Congress during passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970. The state has long pushed automakers to adopt more fuel-efficient passenger vehicles that emit less pollution. A dozen states and the District of Columbia also follow California’s fuel economy standards.California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Tuesday that the Trump administration’s action will hurt both U.S. automakers and American families. He said California would fight the administration in federal court.”You have no basis and no authority to pull this waiver,” Becerra, a Democrat, said in a statement, referring to Trump. “We’re ready to fight for a future that you seem unable to comprehend.”FILE – California Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses a news conference in Sacramento, July 23, 2019.California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the White House “has abdicated its responsibility to the rest of the world on cutting emissions and fighting global warming.””California won’t ever wait for permission from Washington to protect the health and safety of children and families,” said Newsom, a Democrat.The deal struck in July between California and four of the world’s largest automakers — Ford, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen — bypassed the Trump administration’s plan to freeze emissions and fuel economy standards adopted under Obama at 2021 levels.The four automakers agreed with California to reduce emissions by 3.7% per year starting with the 2022 model year, through 2026. That compares with 4.7% yearly reductions through 2025 under the Obama standards. Emissions standards are closely linked with fuel economy requirements because vehicles pollute less if they burn fewer gallons of fuel.The U.S. transportation sector is the nation’s biggest single source of planet-warming greenhouse gasses.Wheeler said Tuesday: “California will be able to keep in place and enforce programs to address smog and other forms of air pollution caused by motor vehicles.” But fuel economy has been one of the key regulatory tools the state has used to reduce harmful emissions.Environmentalists condemned the Trump administration’s expected announcement, which comes as gasoline prices have crept higher following a weekend drone attack that hobbled Saudi Arabian oil output.”Everyone wins when we adopt strong clean car standards as our public policy,” said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund. “Strong clean car standards give us healthier air to breathe, help protect us from the urgent threat of climate change and save Americans hundreds of dollars a year in gas expenses.”
 
…

Just a week ago, when the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives and the Republican-led Senate came back to work after a six-week summer recess, legislative action on gun control seemed possible.FILE – Demonstrators gather to protest after a mass shooting that occurred in Dayton, Ohio, Aug. 7, 2019.Despite congressional lawmakers’ previous passive response to gun violence in the United States, mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, seemingly galvanized public opinion to a point that Congress could not ignore.But with just a handful of weeks left in session before the 2020 elections get fully under way, U.S. lawmakers are at an impasse over a compromise that can pass through both chambers of Congress. The impasse is complicated by President Donald Trump’s conflicting statements on what measures he would be willing to endorse — and Senate Republican reluctance to act without Trump’s blessing.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to reporters during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 17, 2019.”We need some guidance from the president about what kind of proposal that would make a difference, that he would actually sign into law,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday. The top Republican senator said Trump’s leadership was needed to bring together lawmakers representing urban and rural areas of the country with disparate views on guns.Senate Democrats plan a late-night marathon of speeches on gun control Tuesday, an echo of past efforts to draw attention to the issue, including House Democrats’ June 2016 sit-in following the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting. The Senate has been sitting on HR 8, the House-passed bill closing loopholes in background checks, since February. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said it was unlikely to be the option lawmakers settled on.”HR 8 is the bill that should be on the floor,” Schumer, the Democratic leader, told reporters. “We should get a vote on it. Let’s see what the Republicans produce. From everything I’ve been told, it’s not going to be even close to HR 8.”Background checksIf passed, the legislation would require background checks on online, person to person and gun show sales at the federal level.Trump did sign background check legislation requiring a more thorough reporting of criminal records into law following a series of mass shootings in 2018. But that was under a Republican-majority U.S. Congress.Now, any bill that passes will have to satisfy both House Democrats heeding cries from their constituents for stricter regulations and Senate Republicans who have long avoided any significant moves on this politically risky issue.Looming over the deliberations is the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the possibility Trump will be unwilling to anger the powerful anti-gun-control lobbying group just ahead of his 2020 reelection bid.FILE – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., joined at right by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., calls for a Senate vote on the House-passed Bipartisan Background Checks Act at the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 9, 2019.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer spoke to the president by phone Sunday in an attempt to convince him to get behind their approach.”We made it clear to the president that any proposal he endorses that does not include the House-passed universal background checks legislation will not get the job done, as dangerous loopholes will still exist, and people who shouldn’t have guns will still have access,” the Democratic leaders said in a statement afterward.Senate Republicans have a number of proposals in the works, including a bipartisan offering from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal that would provide states with funding for so-called “red flag” laws.Democrats have proposed measures that would allow family or law enforcement agents to go to court to keep guns out of the hands of high-risk individuals. Graham told reporters Tuesday his proposal was still in the mix of options before the president.An overwhelming majority of Americans support such provisions, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken in early September. Eighty-six percent of Americans said they supported implementation of “red flag” laws, while 89% said they supported closing background check loopholes online and at gun shows.Gun control vs. gun confiscationTrump has said he is open to reaching a deal with House Democrats on gun control legislation, but “it depends on whether or not the Democrats want to take your guns away, because it’s a possibility this is just a ploy to take your guns away or whether or not it’s meaningful.”FILE – Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke delivers his closing statement at the end of the 2020 Democratic U.S. presidential debate in Houston, Sept. 12, 2019.Much of the debate in Washington now centers on a muddied line between gun control and gun confiscation. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, a former House member from Texas, raised the specter of the government confiscating or buying back semi-automatic weapons during last Thursday’s debate, and fueled Republican anxiety.”Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore,” O’Rourke said. Republicans pounced on his statement as evidence that Democrats were determined to strip Americans of their constitutional, Second Amendment right to own guns.In the Washington Post/ABC News poll taken days before O’Rourke’s pronouncement, 51% of Americans said they trusted congressional Democrats over Trump to handle gun legislation.
…

Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb and Katherine Ahn of VOA’s Persian Service contributed to this report.There is growing evidence that a drone and missile attack launched against Saudi Arabian oil fields under the cover of darkness originated in Iran.Houthi rebels in Yemen, backed by Iran, originally claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack, knocking out half of the country’s oil production. But U.S. officials say the available evidence is showing that is not possible.Missiles and drone aircraft are seen on display at an exhibition at an unidentified location in Yemen in this undated handout photo released by the Houthi Media Office on Sept. 17, 2019.”Our working assumption is that this did not come from Yemen or Iraq,” a U.S. defense official told VOA Tuesday, adding that a U.S. forensic team is on the ground working with the Saudis to examine the remnants of the missiles.”We think that evidence will be compelling,” the official added.Separately, other U.S. officials say the evidence that already has been collected is conclusive and points directly to Iran.Unnamed officials told NBC News on Tuesday that more than 20 drones and missiles used in the attack on the Saudi oil facilities were launched from Iran.Other officials told CBS News that at least one of the missiles flew through Kuwait’s air space as it headed south toward Saudi Arabia, while Reuters quoted officials as saying the attacks originated in southwestern Iran.Officials also said investigators are examining a missile-guidance mechanism found in Saudi Arabia and a mostly intact cruise missile that apparently failed to reach its intended target.FILE – Top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Joseph Dunford, talks to media representatives at the ISAF headquarters in Kabul, June, 18, 2013.U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, speaking on the record to reporters in London, said Saturday’s attack looked different from those previously carried out by the Yemen’s Houthi rebels.He said the U.S. does not have any overhead imagery of the attacks, but that in addition to the forensics team, Washington is providing additional support to Riyadh and will let the Saudis make their own assessment.Despite the conclusions drawn by a growing number of U.S. officials, Iran on Tuesday continued to deny any role in the attack.”US is in denial if it thinks that Yemeni victims of 4.5 yrs of the worst war crimes wouldn’t do all to strike back,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote Tuesday on Twitter.US is in denial if it thinks that Yemeni victims of 4.5 yrs of the worst war crimes wouldn’t do all to strike back.Perhaps it’s embarrassed that $100s of blns of its arms didn’t intercept Yemeni fire.But blaming Iran won’t change that.Ending the war=only solution for all. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman gives a press conference in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah, Sept. 17, 2019.Meanwhile, Saudi’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, announced Tuesday that half of the production cut by the attacks has been restored and that the kingdom expects to be producing 11 million barrels a day by the end of September, compared to 9.6 million before the attacks.Earlier, Saudi King Salman said his country is capable of defending itself against the “cowardly attacks” but called on the international community to “clearly confront” the perpetrators.Other Saudi officials also reiterated Riyadh’s accusation that Iranian weapons were used in the attack, but offered no evidence of its claim.Trump has offered mixed signals about a possible U.S. response to the attack on Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally.”I’m not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to,” he said. “That was a very large attack, and it could be met by an attack many, many times larger.””Certainly, it would look to most like it was Iran,” he concluded.With Trump blaming Iran for the attacks, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday dismissed the possibility of negotiating with Washington over its nuclear program unless the U.S. returned to the 2015 international pact that restrained Iran’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions against Iran.In withdrawing the U.S. from the accord last year, Trump reimposed the sanctions, hobbling the Iranian economy. There had been suggestions in recent days that Trump could meet next week with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when both are at the annual United Nations General Assembly.”Iranian officials, at any level, will never talk to American officials,” Khamenei said, adding that Trump’s attempt to link Iran to the drone attacks was “part of their policy to put pressure on Iran.”The entrance of an Aramco oil facility near al-Khurj area, just south of the Saudi capital Riyadh, is seen Sept. 15, 2019.With the initial uncertainty about responsibility for the drone attacks, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the Trump administration to brief all 435 members of the House of Representatives on its intelligence findings.The attacks spiked world crude prices Monday by about 15%, but prices retreated by as much as 6% on Tuesday on reports that Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil company whose facilities were attacked, could return its production to normal more quickly than first thought.Ashley Peterson, an oil market analyst at Texas-based energy industry consulting company Stratas Advisors, told VOA Persian one reason oil prices have not risen further is that the latest reports on global crude stockpiles show the markets have been well supplied.”Now there is an opportunity for [oil producers] Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S. to step in and fill a little bit of this gap [resulting from the Saudi attacks],” she said. “Saudi Aramco, China, Japan and South Korea also have said they have stockpiles ready to go.”Peterson said in the short term, the oil market is likely to be focused on uncertainty about geopolitical reactions to the attacks in Saudi Arabia.”Geopolitical uncertainty is certainly nothing new in the Middle East,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, in a comment cited by the French news agency.
…