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National

In the 1,160 days since the Brexit referendum, Northern Ireland — a complex, but oft-forgotten country the size of Connecticut — has emerged as the ultimate sticking point in the worst crisis the U.K. has faced since World War II.

Why it matters: Brexit threatens to unsettle the dual identity dynamic on which peace in Northern Ireland hinges. The struggle to maintain that balance has ended the political career of Theresa May, catapulted Boris Johnson into Downing Street, and could result in a cliff-edge Brexit on Oct. 31 with potentially disastrous consequences — barring a miraculous last-minute deal.

The big picture: Northern Ireland is home to the U.K.’s only land border with an EU member state. It’s there — where a physical border with checks and infrastructure has not existed for 2 decades — that complex issues of identity, sectarian violence and trade have coalesced into Brexit’s most intractable puzzle.

Background: Between 1968 and 1998, more than 3,000 people were killed and nearly 50,000 injured in sporadic bouts of politically motivated violence known as "The Troubles."

The low-intensity armed conflict saw nationalist paramilitaries — most famously the IRA — carry out guerrilla campaigns against state security forces in the name of ending British rule and reuniting Ireland.

Loyalists, who sought to remain part of the U.K., retaliated with attacks and bombing campaigns of their own, including against the minority Catholic community.

The conflict was formally ended in 1998 by the Good Friday Agreement, which established Northern Ireland’s current system of government and created some shared institutions with Ireland. Perhaps most importantly, it demilitarized and essentially abolished all visible signs of the Irish border.

Between the lines: Some people in Northern Ireland feel Irish. Others feel British. After the Good Friday Agreement, the lack of a hard border — since both Ireland and the U.K. are in the EU — made it possible for people to identify with either.

George Hamilton, the chief constable of Northern Ireland’s police service, tells the BBC that any new border infrastructure installed after Brexit would be attacked by Irish nationalists: "If you put up significant physical infrastructure at a border, which is the subject of contention politically, you are re-emphasizing the context and the causes of the conflict."

Flash forward: Theresa May was unable to pass her Brexit deal through Parliament because of opposition to the so-called "backstop," an insurance policy that would keep the U.K. aligned with the EU’s customs rules in case the two sides couldn’t figure out another way to avoid a hard Irish border by 2022.

New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has demanded that the backstop be removed, arguing that it would trap the U.K. inside the EU’s orbit indefinitely. The EU has refused, stressing that it’s simply a backup policy to ensure the Good Friday Agreement is preserved.

Johnson has claimed that "under no circumstances" would the U.K. put up border checks in Northern Ireland, but he has not proposed any viable alternatives to enforcing customs rules after Brexit. Leaked documents from his own government suggest that an open border would be "unsustainable" in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

What to watch: Parliament returns from recess next week, where its first order of business will be staging a cross-party rebellion to stop a no-deal Brexit. But lawmakers' power was severely hampered by Boris Johnson's dramatic decision on Wednesday to suspend Parliament from Sept. 11 to Oct. 14, giving them limited time to get their act together.

Go deeper: More on what Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament means for Brexit

Northern Ireland's Brexit balancing act

It cost Theresa May her job, catapulted Boris Johnson to Downing Street, and could result in a cliff-edge Brexit.

Illustration of the EU flag stars with one star pulling the leg off of another star. 

World

Brexit

Migrants with serious illness, crime victims may now face deportation

USCIS said ICE would now oversee the "medical deferred action" program — but ICE is not prepared.

The back of an ICE officer, whose uniform has the words "POLICE ICE" on it. 

Politics

Immigration

Health Care

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

Macro

Axios Macro

Reproduced from US-China Business Council Member Survey, 2019; Chart: Axios Visuals

13% of American companies with operations in China have moved or plan to move all or part of their business out of China, but only 3% plan to relocate those operations to the U.S., according to a survey of 220 members of the U.S.-China Business Council. Members include companies like Walmart, Caterpillar and Apple. 

Why it matters: It undercuts White House arguments that the trade war with China is causing U.S. companies to return home. In fact, a larger percentage planned to relocate from China to the U.S. in 2015. One caveat is that the survey was done in June, before the recent tariff escalations.

U.S. companies aren't leaving China for America, despite what Trump says

In fact, a larger percentage planned to relocate from China to the U.S. in 2015, before Trump's election.

Business

International trade

While Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was making his way to France for a surprise visit at the G7 summit on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team scrambled to make sure President Trump wouldn’t meet with him, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

Netanyahu frantically tried to get President Trump on the phone — who was in back-to-back meetings and couldn’t take the call — while his office contacted multiple senior Trump administration officials, trying to connect the two leaders.

Between the lines: The Israelis were worried that Trump — who loves making a deal and relishes the drama of an unconventional meeting (think Kim Jong-un) — would let French President Emmanuel Macron talk him into holding an unscheduled meeting with Zarif.

The Israelis feared that a Zarif meeting could have made Trump more likely to agree to a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — leading to a showy summit and a long, open-ended diplomatic process that would take the pressure off of the Iranian regime.

Trump has made it clear he's willing to meet with the Iranians without preconditions, but his administration recently sanctioned Zarif and U.S. officials said a meeting with him would have been highly inappropriate.

Macron threw a curveball at the Americans — irritating some senior Trump administration officials — by inviting Zarif to Biarritz. And Trump, who usually sees little downside in meeting with foreign adversaries, appeared open enough to the idea that Israeli officials worried he might upend his carefully-planned schedule to meet with Zarif.

Trump administration officials said they viewed a Zarif meeting as ill-advised, both for policy reasons but also because Zarif is effectively a spokesperson with no real authority. They didn’t want to upend protocol and elevate him by seating him across the table from the president of the United States.

Why it matters: Netanyahu’s urgent attempts to get Trump on the phone showed the deep nervousness in Israel about possible renewed talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Netanyahu saw Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal as a signature foreign policy achievement — and one that remains essential to Israel’s security. Any loosening of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran could create tension with America’s closest ally in the Middle East.

The White House and Netanyahu's office declined to comment.

Behind the scenes: On Friday morning, Macron met with Zarif in Paris. On Saturday evening, the leaders of the G7 discussed the Iranian issue over dinner, and Macron briefed the other leaders, including Trump, on his talks with Zarif.

Macron invited Zarif to Biarritz for more meetings on the sidelines of the G7 summit.

As Macron later explained at a press conference, his ultimate goal is to broker a meeting between Trump and Rouhani.

On Sunday, Netanyahu got word about Zarif’s planned drop-in at the G7 and was worried Trump or other senior U.S. officials might meet with the Iranian foreign minister, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. Netanyahu asked to schedule a phone call with Trump right away.

The big picture: These events unfolded while a serious escalation took place at Israel’s northern border with Syria and Lebanon. Late Saturday night, Israel launched airstrikes into Syria, targeting an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps special unit that Israeli officials said was plotting drone attacks against Israeli targets.

A separate drone attack reportedly took place in Beirut on Sunday near Hezbollah headquarters. The Israeli government has remained tight-lipped about this attack.

Israeli officials said Netanyahu was dealing with the Iranian issue all day Sunday, and felt an urgent need to speak directly to Trump. U.S. officials described a fast-moving situation in which the Israelis were calling multiple members of the Trump administration. 

U.S. officials could not say how close Trump was to agreeing to a meeting with Zarif. Macron said at his press conference with Trump on Monday that he wanted to arrange a meeting between Zarif and a U.S. cabinet secretary.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wasn’t present at the G7 summit, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was there with Trump. Trump said on Monday that he told Macron he didn’t think the timing was right for a meeting with Zarif at the G7, but that he was open to meeting Rouhani another time.

Netanyahu ultimately spoke with Vice President Mike Pence and Pompeo.

What we’re hearing: U.S. officials said Trump decided not to meet Zarif regardless of Netanyahu’s messages, and they told the Israelis of Trump’s decision on Sunday. They said when Trump finished his G7 meetings that day, administration officials asked the Israelis if they wanted to connect the call with Netanyahu, but there was no need because Trump had already decided not to hold the meeting.

Senior Israeli officials said that although Trump didn’t meet Zarif, they think direct talks between the U.S. and Iran are just a matter of time – and not a lot of time.

The Israeli officials said they are concerned that a meeting between Trump and Rouhani could take place as soon as the UN general assembly opens in New York at the end of September.

Scoop: Netanyahu tried to reach Trump to block Zarif meeting

He didn't want Trump to take the pressure off of Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

Zarif. Photo: Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel

State and city election boards have spent the better part of 3 years hardening their systems for a 2020 hacker invasion. Yet all that work may not be enough to keep out ransomware.

Driving the news: On Monday, Reuters was first to report that the Department of Homeland Security would begin helping elections officials prepare for ransomware attacks. 

Ransomware typically locks users out of their own files until they pay a ransom. Across an election office's network, those files could range in sensitivity from trivial vacation schedules to essential voter data.

Background: DHS has been aiding local officials since 2016, trying to prevent a repeat of that year's election interference campaigns. 

Voting machines often dominate the public conversations around election security. But DHS and localities have to take a much more holistic view of security. Russia did not attack voting machines in 2016, but it did conduct reconnaissance on accessing and altering voter registration databases.

The big question: Accessing and altering data is technically all that most ransomware does, and the criminals behind ransomware are at least notionally less sophisticated than the militaries and spies that states are gearing up to protect against. So why is ransomware still a problem for elections?

Many states have made defending against motivated, strategic actors their election security priority. But ransomware is deployed by opportunistic criminals, and fighting it can be more akin to fighting a force of chaos. 

When Russia probed voter databases in 2016, it approached them through the easiest access point — vulnerabilities in web applications that connect to the database. So states concentrated on shoring up defenses around the web applications and databases, said Dylan Owen, senior manager for cyber services at Raytheon.

But less critical systems that access the secure database may not be as well protected. 

Elections officials might be left with the time-consuming task of restoring dozens of office systems in their entirety in a ransomware attack. That could impair their ability to provide services, even if the ransomware never reaches the voter database. 

"This is more about defending the [systems] that connect to those databases, in my mind," Joseph Lorenzo Hall, an election security expert serving as chief technologist of the Center for Democracy & Technology, speculated in an email.

What they're saying: Homeland Security describes both the databases and the systems retrieving data as potential concerns.

"Voter registration databases could be an attractive target for these attacks," said Christopher Krebs, who directs the cyber-focused wing of DHS, in a written statement. "A successful ransomware attack at a critical point before an election could limit access to information and has the potential to undermine public confidence in the election itself."

States have made strides in protecting voter databases, but not all states are entirely there yet.

"In a utopian world, that’s how the process would work," said Brian Varner, a researcher at Symantec who recently discovered at least one instance where the utopia never came to fruition. 

Varner presented research at the DEF CON conference about a state that inadequately separated its elections computers and databases from other state systems. Hackers who infected one of those other systems could hypothetically work their way back to the election systems.

Dime-a-dozen ransomware attacks could mess with elections

The attacks are commonplace, but that doesn't mean election systems will be able to avoid them.

Illustration of a computer with a door open on the side, light is streaming out of the door and someone is sneaking in. 

Technology

Election Security

U.S. News

Cybersecurity

The Justice Department's inspector general has released a blistering report finding that former FBI Director James Comey broke department policy and his employment agreement in his handling of sensitive information in the Russia investigation.

Why it matters: The report, which calls Comey a "dangerous example" for the FBI, is jet fuel for President Trump and allies determined to aggressively investigate the intelligence community's conduct. After evaluating the findings, however, the Justice Department ultimately decided not to prosecute.

"The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties. ... Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information."

Details: The report said it found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys leaked any of the classified information contained in the memos about his personal conversations with President Trump. However, it harshly criticizes him the way for taking the memos home with him and disclosing some of the contents to a friend for the purpose of leaking them to the media and prompting a special counsel investigation.

"Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome."

The big picture: Trump and Republican lawmakers, who have repeatedly accused Comey of lying and leaking, had hoped that this report would vindicate Trump's claims that the Russia investigation was a witch hunt.  

Comey's memos of his private conversations with Trump, some of which included classified information, were reviewed in former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice. 

DOJ said they declined to charge Comey "in part because they didn't believe there was evidence to show Comey knew and intended to violate laws on handling classified information."

In response to the report, Comey tweeted: "DOJ IG 'found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media.' I don't need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a 'sorry we lied about you' would be nice."

House Oversight Ranking Member Jim Jordan said in a statement: "Today's report is a disappointing reminder that the former FBI Director put partisanship and personal ambition over patriotism and his legal obligations to the American people. By leaking his confidential communications with the President in an attempt to save face in the wake of his firing, Mr. Comey believed he was above the rules of the DOJ."

DOJ inspector general releases report on James Comey investigation

The inspector general found that Comey violated FBI and Justice Department policies.

Axios

Thursday's top stories

Northern Ireland's Brexit balancing act

Migrants with serious illness, crime victims may now face deportation

U.S. companies aren't leaving China for America, despite what Trump says

Scoop: Netanyahu tried to reach Trump to block Zarif meeting

Dime-a-dozen ransomware attacks could mess with elections

DOJ inspector general releases report on James Comey investigation

Tariffs threaten to reshape tech industry

Alaska's cloudy crude oil future

U.S. GDP growth revised lower to 2% in second quarter

Bernie Sanders' plan to restructure your life

Hong Kong #MeToo rally against police held as Chinese troops cause unease