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Timeline of the rise and fall of the Islamic State group By The Associated Press11 minutes ago

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group erupted from the chaos of Syria and Iraq’s conflicts and swiftly did what no Islamic militant group had done before, conquering a giant stretch of territory and declaring itself a “caliphate.”

Its territorial rule, which at its height in 2014 stretched across nearly a third of both Syria and Iraq, ended in March with a last stand by several hundred of its militants at a tiny Syrian village on the banks of the Euphrates near the border with Iraq.

But the militants have maintained a presence in both countries, and their shadowy leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had continued releasing messages urging them to keep up the fight. U.S. officials said late Saturday that he was the target of an American raid in Syria and may have died in an explosion.

Here are the key moments in the rise and fall of the Islamic State group:

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April 2013 — Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq, announces the merger of his group with al-Qaida’s franchise in Syria, forming the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

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2014

January — Al-Baghdadi’s forces overrun the city of Fallujah in Iraq’s western Anbar province and parts of the nearby provincial capital of Ramadi. In Syria, they seize sole control of the city of Raqqa after driving out rival Syrian rebel factions, and it becomes their de facto capital.

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February — Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri disavows al-Baghdadi after the Iraqi militant ignores his demands that IS leave Syria.

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June — IS captures Mosul, Iraqi’s second-largest city, and pushes south as Iraqi forces crumble, eventually capturing Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit and reaching the outskirts of Baghdad. When they threaten Shiite holy sites, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric issues a call to arms, and masses of volunteers, largely backed and armed by Iran, join militias.

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June 29 — The group renames itself the Islamic State and declares the establishment of a self-styled “caliphate,” a traditional model of Islamic rule, in its territories in Iraq and Syria. Al-Baghdadi is declared the caliph.

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July 4 — Al-Baghdadi makes his first public appearance, delivering a Friday sermon in Mosul’s historic al-Nuri Mosque. He urges Muslims around the world to swear allegiance to the caliphate and obey him as its leader.

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August — IS captures the town of Sinjar west of Mosul and begins a systematic slaughter of the tiny Yazidi religious community. Women and girls are kidnapped as sex slaves; hundreds remain missing to this day.

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Aug. 8 — The U.S. launches its campaign of airstrikes against IS in Iraq.

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Sept. 22 — The U.S.-led coalition begins an aerial campaign against IS in Syria.

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2015

January — Iraqi Kurdish fighters, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, drive IS out of several towns north of Mosul. In Syria, Kurdish fighters backed by U.S. airstrikes repel an IS onslaught on the town of Kobani on the border with Turkey, the first significant defeat for IS.

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April 1 — U.S.-backed Iraqi forces retake Tikrit, their first major victory against IS.

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May 20 — IS captures the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, where the extremists later destroy archaeological treasures.

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2016

Feb. 9 — Iraqi forces recapture Ramadi after months of fighting and at enormous cost, with thousands of buildings destroyed. Almost the entire population fled the city.

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June 26 — Fallujah is declared liberated by Iraqi forces after a five-week battle.

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July 3 — IS sets off a gigantic suicide truck bomb outside a Baghdad shopping mall, killing almost 300 people, the deadliest attack in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

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Oct. 17 — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announces the start of the operation to liberate Mosul.

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Nov. 5 — The U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces launch Operation Euphrates Wrath, the first of five operations aiming to retake Raqqa, starting with an encircling of the city.

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2017

Jan. 24 — Al-Abadi announces eastern Mosul has been “fully liberated.”

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May 10 — SDF captures the strategic Tabqa dam after weeks of battles and a major airlift operation that brought SDF fighters and their U.S. advisers to the area. The fall of the dam facilitated the push on Raqqa, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.

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June 6 — SDF fighters begin an attack on Raqqa from three sides, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.

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June 18 — Iraqi forces launch battle for Mosul’s Old City, the last IS stronghold there.

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June 21 — IS destroys Mosul’s iconic al-Nuri Mosque and its 12th century leaning minaret as Iraqi forces close in, according to Iraqi and coalition officials.

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July 10 — Iraqi prime minister declares victory over IS in Mosul and end of the extremists’ caliphate in Iraq.

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Oct. 17 — SDF takes full control of Raqqa after months of heavy bombardment that devastates the city.

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September-December —Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power and Iranian forces, recapture IS territory on the western bank of the Euphrates River, seizing the cities of Deir el-Zour, Mayadin and Boukamal on the border with Iraq.

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2018

Aug. 23 — IS leader al-Baghdadi resurfaces in his first purported audio recording in almost a year; he urges followers to “persevere” and continue fighting.

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Sept. 10 — SDF launches a ground offensive, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, to take the last territory held by IS in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour.

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2019

March 23 — SDF declares the complete capture of Baghouz and the end of the Islamic State group’s territorial “caliphate.”

Oct. 27 — The White House says President Donald Trump plans to make a “major announcement” after U.S. officials say al-Baghdadi was the target of an American raid in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. The officials say confirmation of his death in an explosion is pending.

Ex-Trump aide wants judge to decide on impeachment testimony

WASHINGTON (AP) — An ex-White House adviser scheduled to testify before House impeachment investigators on Monday has asked a federal court whether he should comply with a subpoena or follow President Donald Trump’s directive against cooperating in what the president dubs a “scam.”

Full Coverage: Trump impeachment inquiry

After getting a subpoena Friday, former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman quickly filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court in Washington. He asked a judge to decide whether he should accede to House demands for his testimony or to assert “immunity from congressional process” as directed by Trump.

The lawsuit came as Democrats’ impeachment inquiry continued at full speed with a rare Saturday session. Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state for Europe, took questions behind closed doors for more than eight hours about Trump’s ouster of the ambassador of Ukraine in May and whether he had knowledge about efforts to persuade Ukraine to pursue politically motivated investigations. Reeker told the lawmakers that he was disturbed by a campaign — led by Trump — to oust ambassador Marie Yovanovitch in May and had supported efforts to publicly back her, even though those statements were ultimately never issued by the department.

Kupperman, who provided foreign policy advice to the president, was scheduled to testify in a similar session on Monday. In the lawsuit, Kupperman said he “cannot satisfy the competing demands of both the legislative and executive branches.” Without the court’s help, he said, he would have to make the decision himself — one that could “inflict grave constitutional injury” on either Congress or the presidency.

The impeachment inquiry is rooted in a July 25 phone call Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. During the call, Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to pursue investigations of Democratic political rival Joe Biden’s family and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election that propelled Trump into the White House.

At the time of the call, Trump was withholding congressionally approved military aid for Ukraine. He has repeatedly said there was no quid pro quo for the Ukraine investigations he was seeking, though witness testimony has contradicted that claim.

Kupperman’s filing says “an erroneous judgment to abide by the President’s assertion of testimonial immunity would unlawfully impede the House from carrying out one of its most important core Constitutional responsibilities” — the power of impeachment — and subject Kupperman to “potential criminal liability for contempt of Congress.”

On the other hand, “an erroneous judgment to appear and testify in obedience to the House Defendants’ subpoena would unlawfully impair the President in the exercise of his core national security responsibilities ... by revealing confidential communications” from advisers, according to the filing.

He has asked the court to expedite a decision, but unless the judge issues an opinion by Monday, Kupperman’s testimony might not occur as scheduled.

Rejecting his arguments, the three chairmen of the House committees overseeing the inquiry told Kupperman’s lawyers in a letter that the suit was without merit and appeared to be coordinated with the White House. They called the suit “an obvious and desperate tactic by the President to delay and obstruct the lawful constitutional functions of Congress and conceal evidence about his conduct from the impeachment inquiry.”

The chairmen also said Kupperman’s defiance of the subpoena would constitute evidence in a contempt proceeding as well as additional evidence of Trump’s obstruction of the inquiry. They said they planned to proceed with the Monday session as scheduled.

The lawsuit came as Democrats investigating the president won a victory in a separate case. A federal judge ordered the Justice Department on Friday to give the House secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and affirmed the legality of the Democrats impeachment inquiry. That decision could inform Kupperman’s suit.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he’s “not concerned with the impeachment scam. I am not because I did nothing wrong.”

In the House deposition, according to a person familiar with the testimony, Reeker told the lawmakers he was disturbed by the effort to oust Yovanovitch, and had supported efforts by some officials in the department to put out statements of support for her in both March, right before she was ousted, and in September, after the effort became public. The person, like others, requested anonymity to discuss the confidential testimony.

In both cases, Reeker testified that the officials were told by Undersecretary for Political Affairs David Hale that there would not be a statement, according to the person.

Reeker also told the lawmakers that he knew the military aid for Ukraine was being delayed and that a White House meeting between Trump and Zelinskiy was being delayed, but in both cases, didn’t know why, according to two people familiar with the testimony.

While Reeker had some visibility into the matter, Ukraine is only one country in his portfolio of 50, he told investigators.

Lawmakers leaving the meeting with Reeker said he was backing up testimony from previous witnesses, most all of whom have detailed concerns with Trump’s efforts to oust Yovanovitch and said they were wary of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer who was driving the push for the Ukrainian probes.

Washington Rep. Denny Heck, a member of the House intelligence panel, would not give details about the closed-door interview but said, “It’s almost startling how much in alignment all of the witnesses to date have been, in terms of their affirmation of the fact pattern. I’m almost taken aback by it.”

As was the case with other witnesses, the Trump administration directed Reeker not to testify, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the interaction. But Reeker appeared anyway after receiving his subpoena from the House, the people said.

Although he is currently the top U.S. diplomat for Europe and has been since Yovanovich was recalled earlier this year, Reeker was not directly involved in debate over aid to Ukraine, which other current and former officials have said was delegated to Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and special envoy Kurt Volker.

Volker testified and released text messages that detailed conversations between him, Sondland and William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine. In the messages, Taylor wrote that he thought it was “crazy” to withhold aid from Ukraine for help with a political campaign. Sondland and Taylor, who still work for the government, have already testified and detailed their concerns about the influence of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on Ukraine. Giuliani was leading the push for the investigations.

Taylor testified that he was told the aid would be withheld until Ukraine conducted the investigations that Trump had requested.

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Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Pete Buttigieg calls for elimination of incarceration for drug possession offenses

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2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg called for eliminating incarceration for drug possession offenses as part of his criminal justice reform plan released Saturday.
The South Bend, Indiana mayor rolled out his plan, titled “Securing Justice,” and is focused on “rebalancing” and “refocusing” the criminal system in the U.S., and reducing mass incarceration, as well as racial disparities.
“It is past time to transform the criminal legal system to one that truly promotes justice, and benefits all of us,” Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg plans to reduce the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. at both the federal and state level by 50 percent. As part of that effort, Buttigieg said he would prioritize funding for programs aimed at pretrial reforms, decarceration, and expansion of alternative to incarceration programs.
As part of the incarceration reduction plan, Buttigieg said on the federal level, he would eliminate incarceration for drug possession, reduce sentences for other drug offenses, and apply the reductions “retroactively.” Buttigieg said he also would legalize marijuana and “expunge past convictions.”
Buttigieg’s plan also would eliminate mandatory minimums and would establish an “independent clemency commission” outside of the Justice Department.
In addition, Buttigieg said he would “abolish private federal prisons and reduce the use of private contractors,” as well as work with states to “cap the amount of revenue cities and counties receive from fines and fees.”
The plan would also aim to promote justice for youth, with federal support to state efforts to abolish youth prisons and replace them with community-based programs. Buttigieg said he would invest in a new $100 million federal competitive grant program for states and localities to close those prisons, and “repurpose them to serve the needs of children.”
Buttigieg also said he would support a constitutional amendment to abolish the death penalty; while also ensuring that detention facilities have medical treatment and appropriate conditions for trans and gender non-conforming inmates.
Buttigieg is one of nine Democrats slated to speak at the Second Step Forum in Columbia, South Carolina on Saturday—a criminal justice reform forum.
2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., is boycotting that event, after the organization gave President Trump an award for his successful passage of the “First Step Act,” which grants earlier release to thousands of nonviolent offenders who are currently serving time in federal prisons.
The Trump criminal justice reform legislation received bipartisan support before Trump signed it into law.
Fox News' Kelly Phares contributed to this report. 

ISIS leader al-Baghdadi confirmed dead after apparent suicide during U.S. operation: sources

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, sources have confirmed to Fox News.
Al-Baghdadi, who took over ISIS after his predecessor Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was killed in 2010, detonated a suicide vest, killing himself when U.S. Special Operations forces entered a compound in northern Syria where he was located, according to a U.S. defense official. No U.S. Special Operations forces were hurt or killed in the raid.
“U.S. forces did a terrific job,” a U.S. military source told Fox News.“This just shows it may take time but terrorists will not find a sanctuary.” The same source told Fox News that biometric tests confirmed that it was indeed Baghdadi.
The compound was located near the Turkish border in northwest Syria’s Idlib Province, a known terrorist stronghold that has served as a home to groups linked to al-Qaeda. Al-Baghdadi had long been suspected to be hiding in the Idlib Province.
Mazloum Adbi, General Commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, touted a “historical operation” in a tweet Sunday morning, crediting “joint intelligence work with the United States of America.”
Regarding Mazloum’s claim of Kurdish assistance in the operation, a U.S. military source simply told Fox News, “the Kurds have always been good partners.”

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Bigger, longer blackouts could lie ahead in California (AP NEWS)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A wildfire in California wine country that may have been caused by a high-voltage transmission line called into question Pacific Gas & Electric’s strategy of selectively cutting off power in windy weather to prevent blazes and could force it to resort to even bigger blackouts affecting millions as early as this weekend.

The repeated shut-offs and the prospect of longer and more widespread ones brought anger down on the utility from the governor and ordinary customers.

“We will hold them to account,” warned Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has repeatedly blasted PG&E — the nation’s largest utility — for what he calls years of mismanagement and underinvestment that have left its grid less resilient.

Twice over the past two weeks, PG&E has cut power to large areas of northern and central California to reduce the risk of its equipment sparking fires. Nearly 2 million people lost electricity earlier this month, and then as many as a half-million this week.

But PG&E’s decision to shut down distribution lines but not long-distance transmission lines may have backfired this time when a blaze erupted near the Sonoma County wine country town of Geyserville.

The fire burned at least 49 buildings and 34 square miles (65 square kilometers) and prompted evacuation orders for some 2,000 people. No serious injuries were reported.

PG&E said a live, 230,000-volt transmission line near Geyserville had malfunctioned minutes before the fire erupted Wednesday night, and a broken “jumper” wire was found on a transmission tower.

PG&E Corp. CEO Bill Johnson said it was too soon to say whether the faulty equipment sparked the fire. He said the tower had been inspected four times in the past two years and appeared to have been in excellent condition.

But PG&E stock plummeted 31 percent on the news. And the blaze could mean wider blackouts ahead.

“It’s kind of a logical next step to say, ‘Well, if our high-voltage transmission lines are at risk, we’ve got to shut those down too,’” said Alan Scheller-Wolf, professor of operations management and an energy expert at Carnegie Mellon University.

PG&E, he said, “can’t win.”

The utility acknowledged that the discovery of the tower malfunction already had prompted a change in its strategy.

“We have revisited and adjusted some of our standards and protocols in determining when we will de-energize high-voltage transmission lines,” Andrew Vesey, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., said at a briefing Friday night.

With dangerously high winds in the forecast this weekend, the utility said it is planning another major shutdown that could hit more than 2 million people throughout the region starting Saturday afternoon and last up to two days.

The preparations came as firefighters simultaneously battled flames in both Northern and Southern California: the fire amid Sonoma County’s vineyards, and a wind-whipped blaze that destroyed at least six homes in the Santa Clarita area near Los Angeles and led to evacuation orders covering an estimated 50,000 people.

The possible link between the wine country fire and a PG&E transmission line contained grim parallels to the catastrophic fire last year that tore through the town of Paradise, killing 85 people and destroying thousands of homes in the deadliest U.S. fire in a century. State officials concluded that fire was sparked by a PG&E transmission line.

The line that failed this week is newer and should have been more robust, said Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy program at Stanford University. Its failure will probably make PG&E more cautious, which means more widespread blackouts, he said.

“There’s going to be more collateral damage,” Wara said.

Turning off big transmission lines reduces the stability of the electrical grid, leading to bigger outages, Wara said. Transmissions lines also take longer to re-energize because everything connected to them must be inspected, he said.

PG&E’s CEO has said it will take about a decade before widespread outages aren’t necessary.

Minimizing blackouts will require PG&E to harden its grid with stronger poles and newer equipment less likely to fall or spark. Cameras, weather sensors and a more segmented grid would allow the company to target blackouts to areas in the most danger.

PG&E began resorting to large-scale shut-offs after its equipment was blamed for several blazes in recent years that killed scores of people, burned thousands of homes and ran up billions of dollars in claims that drove the utility into bankruptcy, where it is still trying to put its finances in order.

The repeated and sometimes lengthy blackouts have frustrated Californians contending with uncertainty, spoiled food and disrupted plans. Many have complained about poor communication from the power company.

“I feel like we’re being held hostage for their failings and their incompetence,” said Logan Martin, 55, of Santa Rosa.

This year’s fire season in California has so far been mild, with fewer deaths and fewer acres burned following two years of deadly conflagrations.

Experts say it is impossible to know how much the blackouts contributed to that, but PG&E has cited numerous instances of wind damage to its equipment that it said could have caused fires if the lines had been electrified.

Losing power doesn’t put a huge burden on firefighters, but they need to know outages are coming so they can install generators where needed, such as pumps for retardant, said Thom Porter, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Firefighters sometimes draw water from rural water systems that use electrical pumps, but there have been no reports of problems getting water to fight either of the major blazes burning in California now.

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This story has been corrected to show that nearly 2 million people lost electricity earlier this month, not 2.5 million.

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Cooper reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker and Juliet Williams in San Francisco and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed.

Esper: US troops, armored vehicles going to Syria oil fields

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States will send armored vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to keep oil fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said.

It was the latest sign that extracting the military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump is making it out to be. Though Trump repeatedly says he is pulling out of Syria, the reality on the ground is different.

Adding armored reinforcements in the oil-producing area of Syria could mean sending several hundred U.S. troops -- even as a similar number are being withdrawn from a separate mission closer to the border with Turkey where Russian forces have been filling the vacuum.

On Friday, Esper described the added force as “mechanized,” which means it likely will include armored vehicles such as Bradley armored infantry carriers and possibly tanks, although details were still be worked out. This reinforcement would introduce a new dimension to the U.S. military presence , which largely has been comprised of special operations forces not equipped with tanks or other armored vehicles.

Esper spoke at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he consulted with American allies.

Sending an armored force to eastern Syria would partially reverse the ongoing shrinkage of the U.S. troop presence in Syria. Trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all 1,000 U.S. troops who had been partnering with a Syrian Kurdish-led militia against the Islamic State group. That withdrawal is proceeding even as Esper announced the plan to put reinforcements in the oil-producing area.

Speaking to reporters Friday at the White House, Trump said the U.S.-brokered agreement with Turkey to halt its offensive against U.S.-supporting Syrian Kurdish fighters was a win for his administration. That offensive began after Trump announced U.S. troops would not stand in the way, though he also said the U.S. would punish Turkey’s economy if the country acted inhumanely.

He also said anew on Friday that “we’re getting our troops out” of Syria, without mentioning Esper’s announcement.

“We are doing well in Syria, with Turkey and everybody else that we’re dealing with,” Trump said. “We have secured the oil. ... We have a couple of people that came knocking, we said don’t knock. And I think I would say that things are going very well.”

White House officials would not clarify whom he was referring to as “knocking.”

The U.S. special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said in Geneva on Friday he had talked to a Russian official about an unspecified issue in Syria’s oil region.

“We are currently very concerned about certain developments in the south, in the Deir el-Zour area,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve talked to my Russian colleague about that and we’re having other contacts with the Russians concerning that situation. We think it is under control now.”

Although Esper did not mention the size of the U.S. reinforcements, it could total several hundred troops because fuel-guzzling tanks and other armored vehicles depend on a large supply and logistical support group. One official, who discussed the planning on condition of anonymity because some details remained to be agreed, cautioned that tanks might eventually be eliminated from the mix because of logistical challenges, including air transport.

Russian and Turkish leaders have now divided up security roles in northeast Syria following Trump’s abrupt troop withdrawal from the Turkey-Syrian border region. The American move triggered widespread criticism that the U.S. administration had abandoned the Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought alongside the U.S. against IS for several years.

Esper’s announcement came even as Trump again indicated in tweets that the U.S. military mission in Syria is complete. He previously has acknowledged a willingness to help protect the oil fields in eastern Syria, suggesting they could benefit the Kurds as well as the United States, although those resources belong to the Syrian government.

“Oil is secured,” Trump tweeted Friday. “Our soldiers have left and are leaving Syria for other places, then.... COMING HOME! ... When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!”

Asked about America’s shifting Syria strategy, Esper said the U.S. mission has always been to prevent the resurgence of IS. “That mission remains unchanged,” he said.

But Esper said at NATO that the U.S. is “considering how we might reposition forces in the area in order to ensure we secure the oil field.” He added: “We are reinforcing that position. It will include some mechanized forces.”

He made clear the main purpose is to prevent IS from regaining access to Syrian oil, which prior to 2017 was a major source of its revenue.

Starting in late 2015 and continuing for many months, the U.S. conducted airstrikes against a range of oil resources in the Deir el-Zour province that had been taken over by IS. The attacks damaged or knocked out oil tanker convoys, oil processing plants, storage facilities, pumping stations, pipelines and refineries. It was called Operation Tidal Wave II, after a World War II air campaign to hit Romania’s oil industry.

Esper said IS must not be allowed to again threaten the oil.

“If ISIS has access to the resources, and therefore the means to procure arms or to buy fighters or whatever else they do, then it means it makes it more difficult to defeat ISIS,” he said.

Just last week, Trump insisted that all American forces in Syria would come home. Then he said the 1,000 in the north would return home and that American troops in the south, numbering about 200 at the Al-Tanf garrison in the south, would stay.

Trump in the past days has turned a greater focus on the Syrian oil facilities in the eastern part of the country, saying U.S. will stay in Syria to protect them.

According to officials, top military leaders have pushed for the U.S. to leave forces in Syria to guard against an IS resurgence. While the group’s physical zone of control was largely destroyed by U.S. and Syrian Kurdish forces, insurgents remain in small pockets throughout the country and in Iraq.

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AP National Security Writer Robert Burns reported from Washington. AP writer Aamer Madhani contributed.

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This story has been corrected to say Trump threatened Turkey’s economy, not Syria’s.