Politics roundup: Julian Assange arrested in London. Will he face charges in the U.S. next?

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by British officials in London. What charges will he face as he is likely moved to the United States?

Nielsen resigns from Homeland Security

Following months of speculation, Kirstjen Nielsen resigned her position as Secretary of Homeland Security on Sunday.

“I hope that the next secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America’s borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation’s discourse,” she wrote in her resignation letter.

That line obliquely references years of contention focused on Nielsen’s tenure. She drew particular ire for her handling of the family separation policy, which forcibly removed young migrant children from their guardians after they illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.

An alarming number of children were unaccounted for during this time period, with many housed in grim, understaffed detention centers. It was effectively ended in June 2018, though the state of U.S.-Mexico border crossing remains fraught and complex.

The policy was a humanitarian and public relations disaster with Nielsen as its figurehead. She was booed at a restaurant, while protesters gathered outside her home. On the other side, the White House was reported to be displeased with her work because she wasn’t tough enough.

Nielsen resigned quickly after meeting with the President over the weekend. She reportedly entered the discussion with the intention to repair her relationship with the Oval Office. Said relationship had grown contentious in the wake of the family separation scandal and her refusal to enact more stringent measures like closing ports of entry. In the meeting, the President asked for her resignation.

Though her critics say that Nielsen has been overwhelmingly tough on matters of immigration, it was not enough for the White House. The President in particular has been emphasizing border security and the specter of dangerous immigrants, likely in a bid to bolster support for a 2020 re-election campaign.

Nielsen stated that she would remain in her role until Wednesday, in order to help with the transition to a new secretary. There is no in-department official to take over, as Under Secretary Claire Grady stepped down soon after Nielsen’s announcement. Currently, Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, has stepped into the acting role. Former Virginia attorney general and conservative favorite Ken Cuccinelli may also be tapped to take on the job.

Assange arrested

On Thursday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by British police. He was carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy building, shouting, before officers loaded him into a police van and drove away.

Though the United States filed charges against Assange in March 2018, it took his arrest to uncover the particulars of the indictment. We now know that the U.S. took advantage of an extradition treaty with the U.K. and arrested him on a ”federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified US government computer.”

This is in reference to Assange’s alleged collaboration with former U.S. Private Chelsea Manning, who helped to leak critical military documents, which were eventually published on Wikileaks between April 2010 and April 2011.

Why did Ecuador revoke its protection? Assange had been living in the nation’s London embassy for seven years at the time of his arrest. At the time of his asylum request, Ecuador was no friend to the United States. It also had no extradition treaty with the U.S.

However, relations between Assange and Ecuador have been on a downturn for months, if not longer. President Lenín Moreno, more centrist than his far-left predecessor Rafael Correa, appears increasingly focused on building relations between his nation and the U.S.

With Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to the nation in July 2018, it appeared that tensions were beginning to thaw between the two powers. That spelled trouble for Assange, who was also ruffling feathers over his continued work with WikiLeaks. The embassy eventually cut his internet access, made him responsible for his cat’s hygiene (or risk losing said cat), and said that he was now on the hook for food and clothing.

Only a week prior to the arrest, Moreno said that Assange had “violated the agreement we reached with him and his legal counsel too many times.” Now in British custody, it is all but certain that Assange will travel to the U.S. and face charges there.

Sudan military forces have arrested President Omar Al-Bashir

Military forces have removed Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir from office, fulfilling part of the wishes voiced by protesters throughout the nation. Yet, this move may also come with a heavy price for the burgeoning democracy of Sudan.

Protests began in December 2018, after the government began dismantling subsidies for basic goods. Items like bread tripled in price. As the movement grew, it became increasingly political, while calls for Al-Bashir’s ouster grew more and more common. Many also pointed to Sudan’s intelligence agency, which has been accused of human rights violations including over-extended powers of arrest and interrogation, with little fear that agents might face legal scrutiny.

The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which has emerged as the leading group in the protests, has expressed its wariness not just of the intelligence agency, but also of the military. The fact that the military plans to enact a two-year transitional government is not enough. Rather, the SPA argues that it should quickly give power over to the people, prioritizing civilian leadership over yet another military coup.

Though the protests have been nonviolent, the Sudanese government arrest hundreds of people. An estimated 45 to 60 individuals have died after government forces fired on crowds of protesters.

Barr says Mueller report will be released to Congress soon

Following a spate of high-profile complaints, Attorney General William Barr has announced that the full Mueller report to Congress next week. The special counsel’s investigation into Russian election interference, and also into possible collusion between U.S. officials and Russian agents, has been the subject of news stories since the investigation began in May 2017.

While Congressional Democrats have demanded a full and unredacted report, Barr has said that he will instead issue a censored document. Such sensitive information will fall under four different categories: that concerning secret grand jury testimony, “peripheral third parties” unrelated to the case, anything concerning ongoing investigations, and specifics on intelligence-gathering methods.

And, finally, your palate cleanser

This week, we received the first known picture of a black hole. That’s huge news, especially given that black holes are gravity wells of such immense strength that nothing – not even light – can escape its grasp.

However, black holes are sometimes surrounded by accretion disks. These are accumulations of material that orbit the black hole. Accretion disks glow bright, thanks to heat generated by its rotation. That rotational movement can also throw off material at high speeds in fantastic displays of light and power, like quasars. This material is what it possible to document a black hole’s presence.

We wouldn’t have gotten to this point without some serious work. Thankfully, quite a few humans are up to the job. That includes everyone who helped create and manage the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a system of eight connected telescopes trained on the center of the Messier 87 galaxy (where the black hole in question lies). That took the work of more than 200 scientists over the course of years and a few hundred hard drives.

Consider also the work of Dr. Katie Bouman, the MIT/Caltech computer scientist who led the creation of an algorithm that did the deed. Dr. Bouman and her team essentially wrote it to convert the data collected by the EHT into visual form – hence, the photo.