WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is deeply unpopular across the globe, holding the most negative rating among five world leaders, according to a new poll conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

A median of 70 percent of respondents across 25 countries said they do not have confidence in Trump to do the right thing – a significantly higher disapproval rating than the leaders of Germany, France and China. Only Russian President Vladimir Putin came close, with 62 percent of the poll’s respondents saying they did not trust the former KGB agent.

It’s not just Trump. Attitudes toward America are at historic lows around the world – from from Sweden to South Africa – with a median of 50 percent holding a favorable opinion of the U.S., compared to 43 percent who see the U.S. unfavorably. More people also say their own country’s diplomatic relationship with the U.S. has grown worse over the past year.

The Pew survey comes as Trump’s second year in office draws to a close. In that time, the American president has made waves across the world with his attacks on multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations and NATO, and his public spats with key allies, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

The poll also comes just one week after Trump and other world leaders gathered in New York for the U.N. General Assembly. Trump’s message – vowing to put American sovereignty over multilateralism – was not well received. Key U.S. allies also sharply rejected Trump’s hard line against Iran.

Pew surveyed more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, from May 20 to Aug. 12. The center, which studies public opinion and demographic trends, released the poll late Monday.

There were some bright spots for the U.S., with residents of Israel, the Philippines and South Korea registering overwhelmingly positive attitudes toward America.

But in other countries, many respondents said the U.S. is not stepping up to solve global crises like it used to, and America’s reputation as a champion of freedom has also waned.

Read more: Trump’s boast at the United Nations prompts laughter from world leaders and ridicule on Twitter

“Frustrations with the U.S. in the Trump era are particularly common among some of America’s closest allies and partners,” the Pew report concludes.

In Germany, for example, only 10 percent of those surveyed said they had confidence in Trump, 75 percent said the U.S. is now doing less to address global problems, and many believe the U.S. no longer respects personal freedoms.

Trump gets his lowest marks from those living right next door in Mexico – with only 6 percent of respondents saying they trust Trump as a leader. The president repeatedly pledge since his presidential campaign to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico. About one-quarter of Canadians rate Trump positively.

In Russia, only 26 percent of those surveyed voiced a favorable opinion of the U.S., a drop from 41 percent in 2017, and just 19 percent Russians have a positive view of Trump.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has the highest rating among the five leaders tested, with 52 percent saying they trust her. French President Emmanuel Macron earned a 42 percent positive rating.

In a similar 2017 poll, Pew found that global opinion of the U.S. had “dropped precipitously” after Trump’s election. Former President Barack Obama, who championed multilateralism and nurtured ties with foreign leaders, was seen as a more trustworthy steward of global affairs, with a median of 64 percent expressing confidence in his ability to direct American foreign policy, the 2017 survey found. 

Read more:

Trump’s hard line against Iran may leave U.S. more isolated, experts say

Must-watch TV: Trump to wield gavel at key UN Security Council meeting

Trump implores world leaders at United Nations to confront ‘scourge’ of drug addiction

 

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Gisele Bündchen’s new book (out Tuesday) is a chance to take a few “Lessons” from one of the world’s most prominent supermodels – the highest-paid in her industry for 15 years, until she was dethroned by Kendall Jenner in 2017.

The 38-year-old, who hails from the southwestern Brazilian city of Horizontina, opens up about motherhood, marriage to NFL star Tom Brady and several personal struggles throughout the pages of “Lessons: My Path to A Meaningful Life” (Avery), in addition to last week’s revelation about her panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. 

Here are five more things we discovered reading her memoir:

1. She regrets getting breast implants

Bündchen, who’d been nicknamed “The Body,” acknowledges her shape has changed after giving birth and breastfeeding her children – Benjamin, 8 and Vivian, 5, – for about two years each, rendering her breasts “much smaller” and “slightly lopsided.”

When she returned to work, people would comment on her modified chest. “Suddenly, I was very self-conscious about the way they looked,” she writes.

That insecurity moved Bündchen to make “one of the most upsetting decisions of my life.”  She opted for a boob job with the expectation that “no one will make those comments anymore, and I will feel like myself again.”

But surgery only made things worse, she discovered. “I became uncomfortable with the size of my breasts,” she writes. “I felt angry and depressed.” “I’d done something for myself,” Bündchen writes, “but mostly to try to please others.”

2. She ignored a doctor’s warnings about home birth 

Bündchen made the news when she said her son’s 2009 home birth “wasn’t painful, not even a little bit.” In “Lessons,” she expands on the experience, which she said “felt natural and right.”

But her plans for delivering her first-born in the bathtub were nearly dashed at her four-month checkup.

“The doctor told me that it was too dangerous for me to have a home birth,” she says. “He said that Benny was in an unusual position, my hips were too small, and the odds just weren’t in my favor.”

While he suggested Bündchen schedule a C-section, she refused. “My attitude was, ‘I don’t think you get to decide this!’ No one was going to talk me out of it.” (That included Brady, who was initially not on board.) 

Her one regret:  “I’m 5-foot-11, and the bathtub was – well – not a whole lot bigger than that.”

3. Her world turned “upside down” after learning of her “bonus child” Jack

“Two months into our relationship, Tom told me that his ex-girlfriend (“Blue Bloods” actress Bridget Moynahan) was pregnant,” Bündchen writes. “The very next day the news was everywhere, and I felt my world had been turned upside down.”

“Needless to say, that wasn’t an easy time,” she continues. “But it was a time that brought about so much growth,” adding that “Jack, my bonus child (born in 2007), has been a huge gift and blessing in my life.”

4. Why her marriage works 

Bündchen writes that Brady, whom she met on a blind date, “is someone you can count on. It’s a quality I hadn’t experienced in any of my other romantic relationships. I love my husband – and most of all, I trust him. With Tom, who provides our family with a stable foundation, I’m able to create a home.“

She says they also “complement each other,” adding, “My husband is rational, analytical, and a man of few words. I’m emotional, intuitive, changeable, and a woman of many words. I’ve learned a lot from Tom.”

5. What she actually eats

Bündchen also sheds some light on the Brady bunch’s much-publicized diet.

“Our family’s diet has evolved to be a whole-food, plant-based diet that ideally emphasizes organic and local ingredients, including raw or lightly steamed vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains, with the occasional small piece of meat or seafood added into the mix,” she explains, adding they are “mostly” gluten-free, but not “100 percent dairy free.”

Bündchen who says she’s attempted vegetarianism twice only to encounter anemia, eats “meat twice a month, and seafood once a week.”

She also has green juice, berry smoothies, salads and soup loaded with vegetables for lunch and opts for small portions. Her indulgences include dark chocolate, which she describes as her “obsession” and goat and sheep cheese, which she eats “sparingly.” 

She doesn’t miss an opportunity to jab her man, who famously didn’t taste a strawberry until earlier this year at age 40: “Nothing beats the sweetness of a strawberry in June (even if Tom would disagree with me).”

More: Gisele Bundchen goes ginger – and looks unrecognizable – on cover of Vogue Italia

More: Gisele Bündchen opens up about marriage with Tom Brady

 

 

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Nordic budget airline Primera Air has become the latest European carrier to go bust, saying all flights were being halted and stranding thousands of passengers.

“On this sad day we are saying goodbye to all of you,” the airline wrote in a note on its website dated September 30. Here’s the message:

Primera Air/screenshot

Primera was forced to cancel flights earlier this year, citing delays in receiving aircraft from Airbus, but has faced growing complaints about poor service and late refunds. The airline was planning to launch routes from Madrid to New York, Boston, and Toronto next year at prices as low as €149 ($172) each way.

In Europe, legacy airlines have been fighting back against low-cost rivals by operating budget carriers of their own, squeezing an already crowding market and driving fares lower. KLM has Transavia while sister company Air France has launched Joon.

IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, in 2012 took full control of Spanish low-cost airline Vueling, which services destinations across Europe. Last year, IAG launched Level, a low-cost long-haul carrier designed to take on Norwegian and WOW. Lufthansa has been developing its Eurowings and Germanwings low-cost subsidiaries for the past 15 years.

Primera’s collapse comes a year after Britain’s Monarch Airlines went under after falling victim to intense competition for flights and a weaker pound. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection in August 2017.

Just yesterday, Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline by passengers, warned that profit for the year would be hit by the fallout from labor strikes and rising fuel prices. The airline said more staff strikes could force the company to issue further profit warnings.

There is no medicine on earth that has the power to heal me in the way romantic comedies do. OK, well that statement is probably completely medically inaccurate, but I just completely and utterly adore this wildly underrated genre. 

For many years, I was somewhat coy about my adoration of this genre. In my early twenties, I wouldn’t admit to friends that I’d watched Notting Hill for the umpteenth time, but would instead gush about some arthouse film that I’d barely understood, let alone enjoyed. At university, I’d hide my DVD copies of My Best Friend’s Wedding, When Harry Met Sally, Bridget Jones’ Diary. Looking back now, I wish I hadn’t done that. But I also know that I did that because of a palpable cultural snobbery surrounding the genre of film I love the most. Whenever I did talk about the genre, it was always met with disparaging comments that it was a lesser art form, that it wasn’t high-brow. Ugh.

This year, with the release of Crazy Rich Asians and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, I decided it was high time we reclaimed this wonderful genre. But, in order to do so, we need to fully understand the reasons behind the reluctance to recognise the cultural value of the romantic comedy. 

“If you think about women located as consumers within the 20th century, using the supermarket is concatenated with women’s reading.”

According to academics, the romantic comedy has been a genre associated with women since its inception — and it’s because of this association that it’s considered inferior. Dr Stacy Gillis, lecturer in modern and contemporary literature at Newcastle University, says that the romantic comedy has been a “staple of Hollywood since the 1930s” but it’s always had a “very specifically gendered marketplace” that it’s been aimed at. 

Gillis says this gendering coincides with the rise of “romance fiction as we know it today” from the 1930s. “At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, romance was a term often used to refer to adventure romance, scientific romance, it meant popular storytelling,” says Gillis. 

Some of the most commercially successful books from the ’20s and ’30s were actually romance fiction written by women, but they weren’t considered the best of the best. “Any university syllabus of the 1920s will say, James Joyce one of the most seminal authors of the 20th century, but actually one of the bestselling novels in 1926 is Georgette Heyer’s These Old Shades,” says Gillis. “This is what people are reading, they’re not reading Joyce.” In the 1930s, Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca “sold very well,” says Gillis, but “wasn’t seen as the pinnacle of a certain kind of fiction. This is because “mechanisms” like university syllabi and book prizes “valorise a certain kind of reading,” according to Gillis.”What often happens is writing by women and about women — and I’d extend that notion to the romantic comedy — gets pushed to the peripheries,” she says.

The product placement of romantic fiction also plays a role in how we culturally view romance as a genre. When publisher Mills & Boon began investing in romance fiction in the 1930s, that’s when romantic fiction became “synonymous with formulaic plots.” “They had a distribution cycle that often saw them placed in supermarkets, so this goes hand in the hand with the dismissal of a certain kind of literature that you’re reading quickly and not reading critically, that has the same kind of plot,” says Gillis. “If you think about women located as consumers within the 20th century, using the supermarket is concatenated with women’s reading.”

Image: Castle Rock/Nelson/Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Another genre that follows a kind of formula — and could be labeled “formulaic” is the Western. But, rather than being dismissed as low-brow, it’s revered as the acme of cinema. Double standard?

“Because we live in a patriarchy, [romance] is dismissed as being inconsequential or ephemeral whereas something like science-fiction or the Western are not,” says Gillis. “Actually, the Western in Hollywood cinema had a very long and well-respected history whereas the romantic comedy is just seen as froth.”

This use of the term “formulaic” to dismiss romantic films as “froth” is actually a completely invalid argument. As Dr Faye Woods — a lecturer in film, theatre and television at the University of Reading — points out: ” romantic comedy is often described as ‘formulaic’ or ‘unrealistic’, but genre is a formula.” 

“Horror, westerns, war films, and sports movies don’t get described as formulaic, but romcoms and musicals are.”

“Horror, westerns, war films, and sports movies don’t get described as formulaic, but romcoms and musicals are,” says Woods. “These are genres built around pleasure and require great skill in creating. A well-built genre follows a formula and that’s why they are emotionally satisfying.”

So, what exactly is it about romcoms that makes people slap on the “formulaic” label? Well, the answer is, in part, rooted in misogyny. 

“Romantic comedy, as with much culture created for women, is not creatively and culturally valued,” says Woods. Does society have a problem with the way it views films about women’s lives and emotions? “We might think about how, socially, the lower status genres are female focused. The way that soap or melodrama is used as a descriptive term in a negative way, when they are genres that value complex emotion-focused storytelling,” Woods adds. 

Image: Bruce McBroom/Tri-Star/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

But, this devaluing of art about and for women stems from the way we view women’s pleasure and emotions. “As a culture we look down on and devalue emotions that are seen as feminine, in the same way that we devalue and mock female pleasure (Magic Mike XXL, Book Club, 50 Shades),” says Woods. “How pleasure is framed as ‘guilty’, and what kinds of genres and forms fall into this — romance, pop, weepies.”

In the same way that our emotions and desires are dismissed, so too are our feelings pertaining to the books and films we like. Gillis says that the “narratives in which women’s desires” — not just the sexual and emotional ones — are dismissed, also dismiss our “reading desires” and movie ones as “worthless.” 

For this reason, it’s extremely important we show pride in the books, movies, and TV shows we love, Gillis says. “I think it’s really important that we stand up for these movies, novels that we really believe in,” she says. 

Image: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

That’s why it’s important to celebrate the films we’re actually watching on repeat — not the ones our culture tells us are smarter or superior in some way. “How many times have people seen Sleepless In Seattle versus insert-name-of-arthouse cinema?” asks Gillis. 

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell film Overboard,” she says. “I think it’s one of the funniest movies ever made but it’s never gonna win any awards for high-brow filmmaking.”

I too can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Julia Roberts tell Hugh Grant that she’s “just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.” But, I can tell you that I am ready for each and every one of us to start celebrating the movies we can’t stop ourselves from watching. The ones we’re ashamed to admit we like. 

Saudi Arabia‘s public prosecutor has charged a prominent economist, who once criticised a government plan to privatise the kingdom’s oil company Aramco, with treason, local media and activists say.

Accusations against the man, who was not identified, include joining the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, communicating with neighbouring Qatar, as well as inciting protests and unrest in the kingdom.

The head of ALQST, a London-based Saudi rights group, confirmed to Al Jazeera the charges and revealed the identity of the businessman.

“They meant Essam al-Zamil,” Yahya Assiri, the head of ALQST and a close friend of al-Zamil, told Al Jazeera.

A Saudi government media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment when approached by Reuters news agency.

Al-Zamil has been detained since September 2017 along with dozens of intellectuals and clerics in a government crackdown on potential opponents of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose ambitious economic reform programme centered on selling up to five percent of the state-owned Aramco, Reuters reported.

In a series of social media posts before his arrest, al-Zamil said the $2 trillion valuation for Aramco suggested by Mohammed bin Salman would require the authorities to include the company’s oil reserves in the sale.

Saudi press reports that #EssamAlZamel @essamz has been charged with treason and collaborating with diplomats and other foreigners against the country. It should be noted that al-Zamel was arrested after criticizing the Saudi government’s planned partial privatization of ARAMCO. https://t.co/JJK58ZBr8m

— القسط ALQST (@ALQST_ORG) October 1, 2018

Reuters reported in August that the government had called off the IPO plans and disbanded financial advisers working on what had been billed as the biggest stock flotation in history.

Saudi authorities also arrested scores of top businessmen and officials last November in an anti-corruption campaign, though most of them were later released after reaching financial settlements.

Saudi billionaire businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was among those arrested. He was released after more than two months of detention on allegations of corruption.

The charges against al-Zamil, according to Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Okaz, include giving foreign diplomats “information and analysis about the kingdom” without informing the authorities or obtaining permission.

The charge of communicating with “an element of the Qatari regime” comes amid an ongoing diplomatic crisis in the region.

In June last year, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar, accusing it of harbouring “terrorism” – an allegation Doha strongly denies.

The move comes as Mohammed bin Salman has been seeking to project his government as a reformist.

In recent months, authorities arrested  more than a dozen women’s rights activists. Most campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom’s male guardianship system, which requires women to obtain the consent of a male relative for major decisions.

Earlier this year Mohammed bin Salman ended a decades-long ban on women driving and allowed women to attend concerts and football matches.

Rights groups have welcomed some of the decisions but called for more comprehensive changes to the kingdom’s “guardianship” system”, which Human Rights Watch describes as the main obstacle to realising women’s rights.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

The third woman to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct dating to his teenage years described him as a “mean drunk” who pushed “girls against walls” during her first televised interview.

Speaking to NBC News’ Kate Snow in an interview that aired Monday night on MSNBC, Julie Swetnick also called Kavanaugh a “liar” for dismissing her allegations against him. In a sworn statement signed under penalty of perjury and released last week through her attorney, Michael Avenatti, Swetnick alleged Kavanaugh preyed on young women. In Monday’s interview, Swetnick did not accuse Kavanaugh of assaulting her.

More: Brett Kavanaugh was ‘belligerent and aggressive’ drinker, Yale classmate says

Related: Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath, Sen. Patrick Leahy says. And he showed some evidence to prove it.

Swetnick also strayed at times from her sworn statement during the sitdown interview, admitting she didn’t know if Kavanaugh and his friend at the time, Mark Judge, would “spike” the punch at house parties in the early 1980s “so as to cause girls to lose their inhibitions and their ability to say ‘no,’” an explosive allegation made in her three-page statement.

“He was very aggressive. Very sloppy drunk. A mean drunk. I saw him go up to girls and paw on them and try to, you know, get a little too handsy touching them on private parts. I saw him try to shift clothing,” Swetnick said during the television interview. “I saw him push girls against walls. He would pretend to stumble and stumble into them and knock them against walls. He would push his body against hers.”

Kavanaugh has labeled Swetnick’s allegations as “ridiculous” and “from the Twilight Zone.

During the interview, Snow played a portion of Kavanaugh’s hearing from last week for Swetnick during which he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that there was no truth to the allegations made against him by Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez and Swetnick.

“I swear to God,” Kavanaugh told the committee.

After hearing his statement, Swetnick shook her head and said, “He’s a liar.”

NBC News could not to confirm Swetnick’s allegations. Of four people she named attending the parties, one said he didn’t recall, another was dead and two others didn’t respond.

Two days before he released Swetnick’s name and sworn statement, Avenatti told reporters in Los Angeles that his client had multiple witnesses to corroborate her story and called her “100 percent credible.”

In her sworn statement, Swetnick, 55, alleged Kavanaugh was among a group of boys who would doctor the punch at parties to “cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys.”

When asked by Snow if she had witnessed Kavanaugh spike drinks, however, Swetnick said only that she saw him “around the punch containers” and had seen him “giving red cups to quite a few girls during that time frame.”

“I don’t know what he did,” she added. “But I saw him by them, yes.”

In her written statement, Swetnick said she had “a firm recollection of seeing boys” — including Kavanaugh — “lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room.”

More: Here are the five allegations made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Opinion: Brett Kavanaugh investigation should be free of handcuffs

But, in her interview with Snow, Swetnick said the boys were not “lined up” but “huddled by the doors.”

At the party in which she said he was sexually assaulted — “My body was violated. My soul was broken,” she told Snow — Swetnick said she couldn’t single out Kavanaugh as one of her attackers.

“I cannot specifically say that he was one of the ones who assaulted me,” Swetnick said.

Swetnick said she told her mother and reported the incident to Montgomery County police. Her mother and the police officer who took the report are both dead, and the department told NBC News it could take weeks to retrieve records about the incident.

President Donald Trump has remained supportive of his Supreme Court pick, telling reporters on Monday that he believed the ongoing FBI investigation into Kavanaugh’s background would be “a good thing.”

Also Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the full Senate would vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination this week.

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has given the FBI clearance to interview anyone it wants to by Friday in its investigation of sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The new guidance, described to The Associated Press by a person familiar with it, was issued to the FBI over the weekend in response to Democratic and news media pushback that the scope of the probe was too narrow.

It comes as the FBI presses ahead with its investigation, questioning in recent days at least four people about accusations of misconduct against Kavanaugh dating to when he was in high school and college. Among the witnesses interviewed were men who California college professor Christine Blasey Ford says were present at a party of teenagers in the early 1980s at which she says she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh.

President Donald Trump, addressing concerns about the probe’s expansiveness at a news conference Monday, said he wants the FBI to do a “comprehensive” investigation and “it wouldn’t bother me at all” if agents pursued accusations made by three women who have come forward. But he also said Senate Republicans are determining the parameters of the investigation and “ultimately, they’re making the judgment.”

“My White House will do whatever the senators want,” Trump said. “The one thing I want is speed.”

The White House instructed the FBI to interview anyone it deems relevant to the inquiry, but required the work to be done by Friday, according to the person familiar with the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The revised guidance was aimed at promoting an investigation that could tamp down Democratic criticism and satisfy on-the-fence Republicans about its thoroughness and fairness while also ensuring a fixed deadline to prevent the probe from becoming open-ended and spanning weeks. Officials said it was possible, but not likely, the bureau could complete its work before Friday.

Trump said a comprehensive investigation is “a good thing” for Kavanaugh and that while it was fine that the FBI wants to interview all three women who have made accusations, “we don’t want to go on a witch hunt, do we?”

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — one of three Republican senators who was instrumental last week in holding up Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote — said she had extensive conversation with the White House counsel’s office and is “confident that the FBI is doing a thorough investigation and that it will be helpful to us as we make our decisions.”

As Republicans and Democrats quarreled over whether the FBI would have enough time and freedom to conduct a thorough investigation before a vote on the nomination, FBI agents have been interviewing multiple witnesses from Kavanaugh’s high school and college years.

They include Mark Judge, a high school friend of Kavanaugh’s who Ford has said was in the room when a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. Judge has denied misconduct allegations. On Monday, his lawyer Barbara “Biz” Van Gelder said Judge had been interviewed “but his interview has not been completed.” She declined to elaborate.

Another witness, Patrick “P.J.” Smyth, answered “every question” he was asked and told agents he had “no knowledge” of the small gathering that Ford described, according to his attorney, Eric Bruce. Smyth also told the FBI he doesn’t have “knowledge of Ford’s allegations of improper conduct against Kavanaugh,” Bruce said.

Ford has said Smyth, whom she remembered as “P.J.,” was downstairs, not anywhere near the event.

The FBI has also interviewed Leland Keyser, who Ford said attended the same party. Keyser’s attorney, Howard Walsh, said she was questioned by FBI agents Saturday, but he didn’t provide any additional details about the interview.

Walsh has said his client doesn’t know Kavanaugh and has no recollection of ever being at a party with him. He has said Keyser believes Ford’s account but is “unable to corroborate it because she has no recollection of the incident in question.”

Ford shared her allegation at an extraordinary congressional hearing last week that also included Kavanaugh’s angry and emotional denial. As of Monday afternoon, she had not been contacted by the FBI to schedule an interview, according to a person close to her.

The FBI interviewed a separate accuser over the weekend — Deborah Ramirez, who has said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were students at Yale University in the 1980s. Ramirez also provided investigators with the names of others who she said could corroborate her account, according to a person familiar with her questioning.

Kavanaugh has denied that allegation.

Since Trump, under pressure from three undecided Republicans, ordered the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh’s background check Friday, the White House has scrambled to defend the process from Democratic complaints that certain witnesses were being kept off-limits.

Officials insisted that they were not “micromanaging” the new one-week review of Kavanaugh’s background and insisted that Republican senators were dictating the inquiry’s scope.

But questions about the investigation’s expansiveness mounted as additional witnesses came forward with accounts they wanted to present to the FBI about Kavanaugh’s behavior.

In a statement Sunday, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s said he is “deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale.” Charles “Chad” Ludington, who now teaches at North Carolina State University, said he was a friend of Kavanaugh’s at Yale and said Kavanaugh was “a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker.”

While saying that youthful drinking should not condemn a person for life, Ludington said he was concerned about Kavanaugh’s statements under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A third woman, Julie Swetnick, accused Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge of excessive drinking and inappropriate treatment of women in the early 1980s, among other accusations. Kavanaugh has called her accusations a “joke.” Judge “categorically” denies the allegations.

Swetnick’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Monday that his client was willing to cooperate with the FBI but has not been contacted.

As the fresh review unfolded, the prosecutor brought in by Republicans to question Ford at last week’s hearing outlined in a memo why she did not believe criminal charges would be brought against Kavanaugh if it were a criminal case rather than a Supreme Court confirmation process.

Rachel Mitchell argued that that there were inconsistencies in Ford’s narrative and said no one has corroborated Ford’s account. Ford was not questioned as part of a criminal proceeding but in the confirmation process.

The ultimate comedy power couple are now the ultimate literary comedy power couple.

Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman dropped by The Tonight Show to chat to Jimmy Fallon about their first co-written book, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: An Oral History, which will be released Tuesday. 

But not only did they chat about it, and do a little dance, they did a short book reading just for the show.

The pair are busy bees right now, with Mullally returning to NBC as the supreme Karen Walker on Season 2 of the revived Will & Grace premiering 9 p.m. ET on Oct. 4. 

Plus Offerman’s appearing alongside Chris Hemsworth and Jeff Bridges in the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale, in theaters Oct. 12.

At least seven people have been killed and 25 others injured in suicide attack at an election campaign rally in the eastern Afghanistan.

The suicide bomber blew himself up at the rally of parliamentary candidate Abdul Nasir Mohmmand in Kama district in Nangarhar province, provincial governor spokesman Ataullah Khogyani told AFP news agency.

The attack came as campaigning has begun for parliamentary elections due on October 20.

Five candidates have been killed in attacks, according to the Independent Election Commission, and there are fears violence will escalate.

The Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group have vowed to disrupt the election process, as they ramp up attacks across the country.

More soon.

Bargain hunters, get ready. 

Southwest’s big twice-a-year fare sale is back, with round-trip fares below $100 on dozens of the carrier’s shortest routes.

The sale fares also include longer routes, with the price of flights loosely tied to distance. Flights begin at $49 each way on Southwest’s shortest routes and increase to $79, $99 or $129 each way for longer flights.

The sale launched Tuesday morning and is good for travel from Nov. 28 through Dec. 19 and from Jan. 3 through Feb. 13.

MORE: Southwest Airlines user’s guide: 12 tips for flying the popular, polarizing carrier

The sale covers a shorter window than last year’s version, when the booking window began Oct. 31. 

However, other fine print mirrors restrictions from previous years of Southwest’s big sales. Flights on Fridays and Sundays are excluded. Schedules for Southwest’s Florida, Nevada and Puerto Rico flights have additional day-of-week restrictions, though the sale’s booking window for Puerto Rico extends through March 6. Orange County flights also were excluded from the sale.

More fine print: The sale applies specifically to nonstop flights, though many connecting itineraries may also show lower-than-usual fares that mirror sale fares. Seats sold at the sale prices are capacity controlled, meaning the cheapest seats will likely sell out on individual flights as the sale progresses.

ARCHIVES: Southwest’s first day of international flying is in the books (story continues below)

 

Some of Southwest’s international routes are also included in the sale, though those routes come with significant day-of-travel restrictions (Tuesdays and Wednesdays only). One-way fares to international destinations were listed for as low as $99, but most were higher and availability scattered. The travel window for international routes is from Nov. 28 through Dec. 12 and from Jan. 6 through March 12.

Regardless of the details, bargain seekers will have to act quickly to snag the fares. The sale ends on Thursday (Oct. 4) at 11:59 p.m. local time in the city of the departing flight. (Full sale details)

A Tuesday morning spot-check of fares showed fairly broad availability of the sale fares. The $49 fares do appear on most days on the advertised routes, though some routes show greater availability than others.

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Southwest’s “Low Fare Calendar” offered a quick way for customers to find the sale fares on any particular route. 

The broad fare sale has become a staple for Southwest. It has rolled out similar three-day sales each June and October for the past several years. One sale from June 2015 proved so popular that it crashed Southwest’s website, prompting the carrier to extend that particular sale by an additional 24 hours. Southwest’s website did not appear to be having any such issues during the current sale.

Southwest has used the sales to generate buzz and — perhaps more importantly — to sell seats during what are usually some of the slowest travel periods of the year.

In earlier versions of the sales, Southwest had pegged fares to mileage thresholds. Earlier this decade, for example, Southwest priced its sale fares at $49 each way for flights of 500 miles or less and prices increased from there. Flights of 501 to 1,000 miles cost $99 each way and flights of 1,001 to 1,500 miles cost $129 each way. Flights of more than 1,500 miles went for $149 each way.

Southwest ended the precise mileage component of its big sales a few years ago, but its big sales have continued to closely mimic its previous distance-based promotions. The carrier’s four advertised sale-fare tiers for this sale — $49, $79, $99 and $129 each way — are similar to the fares Southwest offered on its distance-based sales of years past.

Whatever the details, travelers can snag advertised round-trip fares for less than $100 on short routes.

SOUTHWEST: City-by-city list of sale fares | Fine print

Among the sub-$100 options with reasonable availability as of Tuesday morning were:

Albuquerque-Los Angeles; Amarillo-Dallas Love; Atlanta-Raleigh/Durham; Baltimore-Cincinnati; Austin-Houston Hobby; Boise-San Jose, California; Boston-Baltimore; Buffalo-Chicago Midway; Burbank, California-Sacramento; Charlotte-Nashville; Chicago Midway-Minneapolis/St. Paul; Cleveland-Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio-Washington Reagan National; Corpus Christi, Texas-Houston Hobby; Dallas Love-New Orleans; Des Moines-St. Louis; Detroit-Baltimore; El Paso-Phoenix; Fort Lauderdale-Jacksonville; Grand Rapids, Michigan-Chicago Midway; Kansas City-Chicago Midway; Los Angeles-El Paso; Los Angeles-San Francisco; Oakland-San Diego; Pensacola, Florida-Nashville; Phoenix-Oakland; San Antonio-Dallas Love; Salt Lake City-Los Angeles; Rochester, New York-Baltimore; Richmond, Virginia-Atlanta; San Jose, California-Las Vegas; St. Louis-Oklahoma City; Tucson-Los Angeles; Tulsa-Houston Hobby; Washington Reagan National-Providence; and Wichita, Kansas-St. Louis, among others. 

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