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Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigning amid Jeffrey Epstein scandal
WASHINGTON (AP) — Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said Friday he is resigning following renewed scrutiny of his handling of a 2008 secret plea deal with wealthy financier Jeffrey Esptein, who is accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls.
President Donald Trump, with Acosta at his side, made the announcement as he left the White House for a trip to Wisconsin and Ohio. The president said Acosta had been a “great” labor secretary.
“I hate to see this happen,” Trump said. He said he did not ask Acosta to leave the Cabinet.
Acosta said his resignation would be effective in seven days. Acosta said he didn’t think it was right for his handling of Epstein’s case to distract from his work as secretary of labor.
“My point here today is we have an amazing economy and the focus needs to be on the economy job creation,” Acosta said.
Acosta was the U.S. attorney in Miami when he oversaw a 2008 non-prosecution agreement Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein avoided federal charges, plead guilty to state charges and served 13 months in jail. Similar charges recently filed against Epstein by federal prosecutors in New York had put Acosta’s role in the 2008 deal under renewed scrutiny.
Top Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates had demanded that Acosta resign over his handling of the agreement, which a federal judge has said violated federal law because Acosta did not notify Epstein’s victims of the arrangement. The Justice Department has been investigating.
Trump had initially defended Acosta but said he’d look “very closely” his handling of the 2008 agreement.
The deal came under scrutiny earlier this year following reporting by the Miami Herald.
Epstein, 66, reached the deal to secretly end a federal sex abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls that could have landed him behind bars for life. He instead pleaded guilty to state charges, spent 13 months in jail, paid settlements to victims and is a registered sex offender.
Acosta had attempted to clear his name, and held a news conference — encouraged by Trump — to defend his actions. In a 50-plus-minute lawyerly rebuttal, Acosta argued his office had secured the best deal it could at the time and was working in the victims’ best interests.
“We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail,” he said, refusing to apologize for his actions. “We believe that we proceeded appropriately.”
Pressed on whether he had any regrets, Acosta repeatedly suggested that circumstances had changed since then.
“We now have 12 years of knowledge and hindsight and we live in a very different world,” he said. “Today’s world treats victims very, very differently,” he said.
After federal attorneys in New York announced the new charges against Epstein this week, Acosta tweeted that he was “pleased” by their decision.
“The crimes committed by Epstein are horrific,” Acosta tweeted. “With the evidence available more than a decade ago, federal prosecutors insisted that Epstein go to jail, register as a sex offender and put the world on notice that he was a sexual predator.”
“Now that new evidence and additional testimony is available, the NY prosecution offers an important opportunity to more fully bring him to justice,” he said.
Acosta, the nation’s 27th labor secretary, took on the role officially in early 2017, leading a sprawling agency that enforces more than 180 federal laws covering about 10 million employers and 125 million workers. He was confirmed in the Senate 60-38.
But Acosta had frustrated some conservatives who had been pushing for his ouster long before the Epstein uproar. Among their frustrations were Acosta’s decisions to proceed with several employment discrimination lawsuits and to allow certain Obama holdovers to remain on the job.
Acosta is a former federal prosecutor and civil rights chief. Before joining the administration he was dean of the Florida International University law school.
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Visiting lecturer to spearhead project exploring the geopolitics of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is expected to have tremendous societal impact across the globe in the near future. Now Luis Videgaray PhD ’98, former foreign minister and finance minister of Mexico, is coming to MIT to spearhead an effort that aims to help shape global AI policies, focusing on how such rising technologies will affect people living in all corners of the world.
Starting this month, Videgaray, an expert in geopolitics and AI policy, will serve as director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Policy for the World Project (MIT AIPW), a collaboration between the MIT Sloan School of Management and the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. Videgaray will also serve as a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan and as a distinguished fellow at the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative.
The MIT AIPW will bring together researchers from across the Institute to explore and analyze best AI policies for countries around the world based on various geopolitical considerations. The end result of the year-long effort, Videgaray says, will be a report with actionable policy recommendations for national and local governments, businesses, international organizations, and universities — including MIT.
“The core idea is to analyze, raise awareness, and come up with useful policy recommendations for how the geopolitical context affects both the development and use of AI,” says Videgaray, who earned his PhD at MIT in economics. “It’s called AI Policy for the World, because it’s not only about understanding the geopolitics, but also includes thinking about people in poor nations, where AI is not really being developed but will be adopted and have significant impact in all aspects of life.”
“When we launched the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, we expressed the desire for the college to examine the societal implications of advanced computational capabilities,” says MIT Provost Martin Schmidt. “One element of that is developing frameworks which help governments and policymakers contemplate these issues. I am delighted to see us jump-start this effort with the leadership of our distinguished alumnus, Dr. Videgaray.”
Democracy, diversity, and de-escalation
As Mexico’s finance minister from 2012 to 2016, Videgaray led Mexico’s energy liberalization process, a telecommunications reform to foster competition in the sector, a tax reform that reduced the country’s dependence on oil revenues, and the drafting of the country’s laws on financial technology. In 2012, he was campaign manager for President Peña Nieto and head of the presidential transition team.
As foreign minister from 2017 to 2018, Videgaray led Mexico’s relationship with the Trump White House, including the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He is one of the founders of the Lima Group, created to promote regional diplomatic efforts toward restoring democracy in Venezuela. He also directed Mexico’s leading role in the UN toward an inclusive debate on artificial intelligence and other new technologies. In that time, Videgaray says AI went from being a “science-fiction” concept in the first year to a major global political issue the following year.
In the past few years, academic institutions, governments, and other organizations have launched initiatives that address those issues, and more than 20 countries have strategies in place that guide AI development. But they miss a very important point, Videgaray says: AI’s interaction with geopolitics.
MIT AIWP will have three guiding principles to help shape policy around geopolitics: democratic values, diversity and inclusion, and de-escalation.
One of the most challenging and important issues MIT AIWP faces is if AI “can be a threat to democracy,” Videgaray says. In that way, the project will explore policies that help advance AI technologies, while upholding the values of liberal democracy.
“We see some countries starting to adopt AI technologies not for the improvement for the quality of life, but for social control,” he says. “This technology can be extremely powerful, but we are already seeing how it can also be used to … influence people and have an effect on democracy. In countries where institutions are not as strong, there can be an erosion of democracy.”
A policy challenge in that regard is how to deal with private data restrictions in different countries. If some countries don’t put any meaningful restrictions on data usage, it could potentially give them a competitive edge. “If people start thinking about geopolitical competition as more important than privacy, biases, or algorithmic transparency, and the concern is to win at all costs, then the societal impact of AI around the world could be quite worrisome,” Videgaray says.
In the same vein, MIT AIPW will focus on de-escalation of potential conflict, by promoting an analytical, practical, and realistic collaborative approach to developing and using AI technologies. While media has dubbed the rise of AI worldwide as a type of “arms race,” Videgaray says that type of thinking is potentially hazardous to society. “That reflects a sentiment that we’re moving again into an adversarial world, and technology will be a huge part of it,” he says. “That will have negative effects of how technology is developed and used.”
For inclusion and diversity, the project will make AI’s ethical impact “a truly global discussion,” Videgaray says. That means promoting awareness and participation from countries around the world, including those that may be less developed and more vulnerable. Another challenge is deciding not only what policies should be implemented, but also where those policies might be best implemented. That could mean at the state level or national level in the United States, in different European countries, or with the UN.
“We want to approach this in a truly inclusive way, which is not just about countries leading development of technology,” Videgaray says. “Every country will benefit and be negatively affected by AI, but many countries are not part of the discussion.”
Building connections
While MIT AIPW won’t be drafting international agreements, Videgaray says another aim of the project is to explore different options and elements of potential international agreements. He also hopes to reach out to decision makers in governments and businesses around the world to gather feedback on the project’s research.
Part of Videgaray’s role includes building connections across MIT departments, labs, and centers to pull in researchers to focus on the issue. “For this to be successful, we need to integrate the thinking of people from different backgrounds and expertise,” he says.
At MIT Sloan, Videgaray will teach classes alongside Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship Professor and a professor of global economics and management. His lectures will focus primarily on the issues explored by the MIT AIPW project.
Next spring, MIT AIPW plans to host a conference at MIT to convene researchers from the Institute and around the world to discuss the project’s initial findings and other topics in AI.
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Republicans run racist Colin Kaepernick ad with darkened skin for Trump 2020 campaign
As Donald Trump revs up his 2020 re-election campaign, ads launched from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) taking aim at Colin Kaepernick.
And it appears the former NFL player and activist’s skin color was darkened.
—O.J. Simpson at odds with Colin Kaepernick over canceled ‘Betsy Ross’ Nikes—
Critics blasted the NRCC for sending out a fundraiser email featuring Trump standing next to a Betsy Ross flag, The Daily Mail reports. Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who=kneeled during the national anthem in protest, looks like he’s a few shades darker for some reason.
The email said: “WHO DO YOU STAND WITH? DONALD TRUMP AND THE BETSY ROSS FLAG OR ANTI-AMERICAN FLAG COLIN KAEPERNICK.”
The NRC denies that the photo was tampered with.
“’The photo was not darkened,” NRCC communications director Chris Pack said in an email to Yahoo News.
—As Dems debate busing, southern schools slowly desegregate—
“Dear @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy: I served with you in the California legislature and now in Congress. I do not believe you are a racist. If the below is true, then I hope you will fire those who were responsible,” wrote Congressman Ted Lieu.
The email was also sent to face-off with the famed athlete for his recent activism, convincing Nike to ditch Betsy-Ross emblazoned sneakers since they are considered offensive because of ties to the Revolutionary war era and slavery.
The brand listened and decided to opt out of selling the Air Max 1 USA shoe. Their stock also reportedly went up two per cent immediately following backlash from conservatives.
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Viral bagel shop guy says he’s not racist but uses n-word and he’s the MLK of short people
A short man who went nuts in a New York bagel shop and started ranting about how women treat him because of his diminutive stature, is still holding fast to his hateful beliefs about them.
—Cardi B claps back at Jermaine Dupri over ‘stripper rappers’ comments—
Chris Morgan is the little man with the big mouth who got tackled in a now viral video for trash-talking about women, screaming at employees and complaining they mistreat him on dating websites because he’s not a tall drink of water.
The 5-foot hot-head got his behind handed to him when he went off in the Bagel Boss in Long Island and started ranting and spewing outbursts at employees.
Olivia Shea recorded the video on Twitter saying:
“So in bagel boss this morning, the misogynistic d—-ebag seen in the video was degrading almost all of the female staff as well as other patrons. F— this guy.” The video has since gone viral with more than 20 million views.
“He just went totally nuts. He said ‘why are you smiling at me?’” a manager of the shop told the Post. “He started saying it’s because ‘I’m short and nobody wants me.’”
The man has gotten some fame from his shortcomings, and appeared on Hot 97 to further offend people by calling himself “the modern Martin Luther King” of short people.
He also claims he’s not racist nor a homophobe and he only uses the n-word in certain situations, TMZ reports. He says he feels the way he does about women because he’s been burned by them.
—O.J. Simpson at odds with Colin Kaepernick over canceled ‘Betsy Ross’ Nikes—
Let’s hope Napoleon gets some therapy for his short-man complex.
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As Dems debate busing, southern schools slowly desegregate
This small Mississippi Delta town serves as a reminder that fierce debates over the integration of black and white students are not a thing of the past.
Two rival high schools in Cleveland, one historically black and the other historically white, had to be merged just two years ago after a judge determined that all-black student bodies in the 3,400-student district were illegal vestiges of segregation. It is one of scores of school districts around the U.S. still facing federal desegregation mandates, and the decision followed a fight over the town’s segregated schools that dates back to 1965.
The federal government’s role in integrating schools came into the national spotlight following an exchange during the 2020 Democratic presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris. The former vice president was attacked for his work as a senator in the 1970s to oppose federally-ordered busing to achieve a racial balance in schools. Harris pointed to the fact that she was a beneficiary of a busing program that allowed her to attend an integrated elementary school in California.
The clash proved to be a stumbling block for Biden’s campaign, but the debate’s focus on 1970s-era busing — when the practice was at its peak — belied the fact that federally ordered integration efforts still exist in many places.
Joseph Wardenski, the Justice Department’s lead lawyer during the 2015 trial, said Cleveland is an example of why school desegregation isn’t “ancient history” and said he was surprised at comments made by Biden in the debate that indicated a lack of support for court-ordered busing.
“There is still very much of a role for courts and the federal government to get the job done,” said Wardenski, who is now in private practice.
Since Cleveland’s consolidated high school opened in 2017, there have been some points of tension, including a pair of lawsuits claiming administrators unfairly altered grade-point-averages to give white students valedictorian and salutatorian honors. But many see the consolidation as progress.
“It’s better that they brought the schools together as far as having the races interact,” said Allison Tyler, whose 16-year-old daughter, Valecia, is black and a junior at the high school.
The district’s majority-white school board resisted the merger for several years, despite federal pressure, with some predicting white flight to private schools.
Indeed, the district’s white student enrollment has dropped sharply since the 2014-2015 school year, the last before changes were ordered, even though Census figures show Cleveland’s number of white children has held steady. White enrollment that had been around 30% has fallen three years in a row, to 23% last year, according to reports filed in the case.
The two sons of Carmen Oguz are among the white children who have stayed to attend Cleveland Central High School this fall. Oguz said the family chose to remain in the district, in part because her younger son wanted a more competitive football team. She said she’s also happy with the academics.
“We pay tax dollars. We wanted the public school system to work,” she said.
However, Oguz said that most of her younger son’s friends made a different choice on graduating from a magnet elementary school and left the district. “He was definitely in the minority,” she said.
Currently, an estimated 150 to 200 school districts nationwide are operating under desegregation orders, according to Erica Frankenberg, a Pennsylvania State University professor, who said nobody keeps a precise count.
Schools in the South are better integrated racially than those elsewhere because of desegregation plans implemented in the 1960s and 1970s, Frankenberg said. And while every district is different, she said “what we can say pretty definitively is that desegregation has been shown to have a wide range of academic and social benefits.”
Districts released from court orders have tended to relax their integration efforts, a major factor in the resegregation of many schools nationwide, according to Sheneka Williams, an associate professor at the University of Georgia.
Communities may support desegregation in the abstract, but “oftentimes, they don’t want to shuffle their kids around for racial balance,” Williams said. “They think it’s a good idea on the whole, but as an individual, do they really want to go through all it takes to maintain it? That answer is no.”
In districts released from federal desegregation orders, as well as districts that were never under court order, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that race can’t be used as the driving factor in assigning students to public schools, whether to integrate or segregate them. However, a 2016 Century Foundation report found at least 100 districts and charter schools nationwide have voluntary desegregation plans that work around the ruling by mixing students from families with different incomes or educational levels, factors often associated with race. Those plans may consider race as one factor, using magnet schools or voluntary transfers to try to achieve balance.
Through earlier integration efforts, Cleveland High and its neighboring middle school, once all-white, were by 2011 about half white and half black. But East Side High School and its associated middle school, once all-black by law, remained almost entirely black. The school district and even some African-Americans defended the two sets of schools, pointing to community pride in East Side’s athletic teams and traditions.
The district began operating a new Cleveland Central High School based at the former Cleveland High in August 2017. The football team went undefeated that season before losing in the playoffs, and donations are funding an expanded program for high school students to take college classes at neighboring Delta State University.
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” Valecia Tyler said as she was leaving a summer program one day last week.
But advocates are watching closely. The Rev. Edward Duvall, a Baptist pastor and part of a group of African Americans who pushed for consolidation in the district, advocated for a new high school building that could be symbolic break from the segregated past, and he’s disappointed the district chose instead to renovate old buildings.
“This is a microcosm of the nation,” he said. “How do we merge these two cultures together? If we work and put it together, we can be an example for the nation.”
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FIFA gets tougher on racism in disciplinary code update
FIFA is doubling its minimum ban for racist incidents to 10 games, and will start inviting players to make victim statements at disciplinary hearings.
Stricter handling of discrimination allegations is a key theme of the redrafted FIFA disciplinary code which takes effect next week.
“Topics like racism and discrimination have been updated, putting FIFA at the forefront of the fight against this appalling attack on the fundamental human rights of individuals,” soccer’s world body said in a statement Thursday.
The minimum ban for players or officials rises from five to 10 games, and victims can soon be heard in person by FIFA judging panels.
“FIFA will not let down victims of racist abuse,” FIFA said, adding the victims “may be invited by the respective judicial body to make an oral or written victim impact statement.”
“For a first offense, playing a match with a limited number of spectators and a fine of at least 20,000 Swiss francs ($20,000) shall be imposed on the association or club concerned,” FIFA said.
In recent seasons, FIFA and European soccer body UEFA have closed cases of alleged racist abuse for lack of evidence beyond testimony of the players involved.
“In the past some players have felt let down by the action taken,” said Piara Powar, executive director of the Fare network, soccer’s leading discrimination monitoring group.
Overhauling its disciplinary rules, FIFA will also impose transfer bans on clubs that default on debts in cases processed in-house and at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
FIFA is also preparing to open the doors of some judicial hearings, offer free legal counsel to parties, and publish more verdicts online.
“For the first time, certain types of disciplinary hearings — concerning doping and match-manipulation cases — will be open to the public if the parties request it,” FIFA said.
To modernize and improve its work, FIFA worked with London-based Fare and now includes specific language including sexual orientation as a discrimination issue, bringing it into line with FIFA’s statutes.
“We welcome the clear reference to homophobia,” Powar said. “FIFA has sanctioned acts of homophobia quite extensively in Latin America in particular, but the previous rules were not fit for purpose.”
When players are subject to abuse by fans, FIFA already has an escalating three-stage process for referees to act, leading to games being abandoned. It applies in all 2022 World Cup qualifying games, which Fare observers will attend after assessing the risk of discrimination.
FIFA has clarified that abandoned games are forfeited as a 3-0 loss by the fans’ team “unless there are exceptional circumstances.”
“Our expectation is that national Football Associations will mirror the new procedures and implement them,” Powar said of FIFA’s 211 member federations.
Transfer bans — typically imposed for breaking rules to sign youth players — will be extended to cases of defaulting on debts to players, coaches or other clubs. Previously, clubs risked a deduction of league points.
“A transfer ban has been shown to be the most effective instrument for this purpose,” said FIFA, which will lift a ban when debts are paid. Currently, teams are deducted points in about 10 mostly low-key cases per year, which are not publicized.
FIFA’s move toward more transparency will see judicial panel leaders make the final decision — to approve a request in a doping case or require it in a match-fixing prosecution — on allowing the media in and live-streaming proceedings.
This follows a European Court of Human Rights ruling last year which required CAS to relax secrecy around its traditional closed-door hearings. However, lawyers are rarely expected to recommend openness for their clients.
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