An American journalist detained in Myanmar since last month appeared Thursday for the first time in a special court facing charges of working to foment dissent against the country’s military government.  Danny Fenster, who is the managing editor of the website Frontier Myanmar, appeared in a special court in Yangon’s Insein Prison where he is being held for allegedly violating section 505-A of the country’s penal code, Frontier Myanmar said in a statement.If he is found guilty, he could face up to three years in prison.Fenster is scheduled to have another hearing on July 1.American Journalist Detained in Myanmar’Frontier Myanmar’ news magazine says its managing editor Danny Fenster was taken to Yangon’s Insein Prison “No reason was given for the filing of the charge against him,” Frontier Myanmar said. “We know that Danny has done nothing to warrant this 505-A charge.”Fenster was arrested May 24 at Yangon’s airport as he tried to leave the country.”We condemn his detention and demand his immediate and unconditional release,” Frontier Myanmar said.Bryan Fenster, Danny’s brother, tweeted that there was “finally some movement” on his brother’s case, but said “frustration is mounting” as the hearing took place “without official communication with the U.S. Embassy or our family.”He lamented his brother’s “continued detainment without access to legal counsel or official charges against him.”Another American journalist, Nathan Maung, who was detained in March for allegedly violating 505-A, was released Monday and left the country.Two Myanmar journalists were jailed for two years under the law, The Associated Press reported earlier this month.The military took power February 1, overthrowing the civilian government and detaining de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-ranking officials.Since the coup, widespread protests have rocked Myanmar, many of them turning violent as government officials cracked down. Hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children, have been killed by government troops and police since the coup.The U.S has sanctioned military leaders, some of their family members and other businesses in the country.  The U.S. has also called for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy Party, ousted President Win Myint, and protesters, journalists and human rights activists it says have been unjustly detained since the coup.  Military officials claimed widespread fraud in last November’s general election, which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide, as justification for the February takeover. The fraud allegations have been denied by Myanmar’s electoral commission.
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The United States is investing $3.2 billion in the development of antiviral pills for COVID-19 and other viruses that could spark new pandemics.
 
The top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, made the announcement Thursday at a White House briefing as part of a new initiative called the Antiviral Program for Pandemics.
 
The program will support research into the development of new drugs to address symptoms caused by the coronavirus and other potentially dangerous viruses.
 
Pills for COVID-19 are already in the developmental stage and could begin to be available by the end of 2021 if clinical trials are successful.  
 
The funding will expedite the trials and bolster support for private sector research, development, and manufacturing.
 
The U.S. previously approved the antiviral drug remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. It has also authorized for emergency use three antibody combinations that help fight the virus. But the drugs must be infused at hospitals or other medical facilities, a logistical issue that has resulted in weak demand.
 
Pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Roche have begun testing antiviral medications in pill form.
 
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More jobless U.S. workers sought benefits last week, ending a string of six straight weeks of a falling number of claims, the Labor Department reported Thursday.The world’s biggest economy is on a path toward recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, but 412,000 newly laid-off workers filed for unemployment compensation last week, up 37,000 from the revised figure of the week before, the agency said. It was the first time in three weeks that the weekly figure topped 400,000.   US Jobless Benefit Claims Drop for 6th Straight WeekWorld’s biggest economy steadily recovering from coronavirus pandemicState governors and municipal officials across the U.S. have been ending coronavirus restrictions, in many cases allowing businesses for the first time in a year to completely reopen to customers. That could lead to more hiring of workers.California, the country’s most populous state, fully reopened its economy this week.Nearly 55% of U.S. adults have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, boosting the economic recovery, although the pace of inoculations has dropped markedly from its peak several weeks ago. Officials in many states are now offering a variety of incentives to entice the unvaccinated to get inoculated, including entry into lucrative lotteries.   The U.S. added 559,000 jobs in May, more than twice the 266,000 in April. Still, about 9.3 million people remain unemployed in the U.S., according to the government.    With the business reopenings, many employers are reporting a shortage of workers, particularly for low-wage jobs such as restaurant servers and retail clerks.Many businesses complain they are unable to find enough applicants for the job openings. The jobless rate fell to 5.8% in May, still higher than the 3.5% rate in March of last year before the pandemic was declared.     The federal government approved sending $300-a-week supplemental unemployment benefits to jobless workers through early September on top of less generous state-by-state payments.    But at least 25 of the 50 states, all led by Republican governors, have started ending participation in the federal payments program, contending that the stipends let workers make more money than they would by returning to work and thus are hurting the recovery by not filling available job openings.US Unemployment Claims Reach Lowest in Over a YearWorld’s largest economy continues to show signs it is recovering from coronavirus pandemicSome economists say, however, other factors prevent people from returning to work, such as lack of childcare or fear of contracting the coronavirus.The U.S. government has determined that it has no authority to force the states to continue to make the payments into September. President Joe Biden recently reaffirmed rules for accepting the extra federal aid so unemployed workers could not game the system.   “We’re going to make it clear that anyone collecting unemployment who is offered a suitable job must take the job or lose their unemployment benefits,” Biden said. “That’s the law.”  The economic picture in the U.S. has been boosted as money from Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package filters through the economy. The measure has likely boosted consumer spending, as millions of Americans, all but the highest wage earners, are now receiving $1,400 stimulus checks from the government or have already been sent the extra cash.   With more money in their wallets and more people vaccinated, Americans are venturing back to some sense of normalcy, going out to restaurants and spending money on items they had not purchased for a year.   But consumers are encountering higher retail prices, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting last week that prices jumped 0.6% in May and 5% over the last year.  Biden is proposing an additional $4 trillion in government spending on infrastructure repairs and assistance for children and families, but the assistance has been met with stiff resistance from Republicans. The fate of the proposals in the politically divided Congress remains uncertain but talks are planned between the White House and a bipartisan group of Republicans and Democrats.   Numerous Republican lawmakers have voiced opposition to the size of the Democratic president’s spending plans and his proposals to pay for them with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans.    Absent an agreement with Republicans, Democratic congressional leaders say they could attempt to push through Biden’s proposals solely with Democratic votes without any Republican support, as occurred with passage of the coronavirus relief package.
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The United Nations warns accelerating climate change is causing a dramatic intensification of global drought disasters, which are threatening agricultural production, the world’s safe water supply and other essential aspects of human development.   The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has launched a “Special Report on Drought 2021.”  U.N. researchers say drought has affected more people around the world in the past four decades than any other natural disaster.  The U.N. report warns the impact of the climate-driven drought emergency on the lives and livelihoods of people across the planet will worsen in the coming years.  The U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Mami Mizutori says drought has directly affected 1.5 billion people so far this century.  She says most of the world will be living with water stress in the next few years as drought disasters grow.  She says drought is a major factor in land degradation and is responsible for declining yields of major crops.  She adds shifting rainfall patterns and variability pose a risk to the 70 percent of global agriculture that is rainfall-dependent.”A warming planet threatens to multiply the number of people without access to safe water and sanitation, thereby seriously increasing the spread of diseases, the risk of displacement and the potential even for conflict over scarce water resources,” Mizutori said. G-7 Ministers Discuss COVID Vaccines, Climate ChangeForeign ministers of world’s wealthiest democracies are meeting ahead of a summit of the group’s heads of state next month  While droughts always have been part of the human experience, the damage and costs resulting from them are seriously underestimated.  The report estimates the global economic costs arising from drought from 1998 to 2017 of at least $124 billion.The World Health Organization considers drought to be the most serious hazard to livestock and crops in nearly every part of the world.  It says water scarcity impacts 40 percent of the world’s population.  WHO projects as many as 700 million people are at risk of being displaced by 2030 because of drought.Leading co-author of the report Roger Pulwarty agrees the data contained within the report is grim but does not see an apocalyptic picture ahead.  “I do not think that there is in fact this issue surrounding the collapse of civilizations…We are not seeing truly an increase in the frequency of drought,” Pulwarty said. “But we are seeing that where they occur in the different regions in which they do exist, an increase in intensification when they occur and the rapid onset of drought.”   Over the millennia, Pulwarty notes people have found ways to adapt to risks from drought and other natural disasters.  He says lessons learned from over 20 cases around the world – including the Horn of Africa and the Euphrates and Tigris River system in Western Asia  – have been incorporated in the report. However, he says tried and true drought management measures taken in the past must be adapted to meet the challenges of today’s changing nature of drought risk.
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The governor of the U.S. state of Texas has signed a new law that will allow people to carry handguns without possessing a permit or passing a background check.Gov. Greg Abbott was due to highlight the legislation as part of a ceremony Thursday.The measure, which goes into effect Sept. 1, applies to anyone who does not have any felony convictions or other legal barriers to owning a gun. Federal background checks for some gun purchases remain in place, and individual businesses can decide to not allow guns on their premises.Those supporting the measure argue it does away with barriers to their constitutional right to bear arms and improves self-defense.Opponents, including law enforcement groups, said lifting the restrictions will make it easier for criminals to obtain guns.Gun control groups also pointed to recent mass shootings in Texas, including a 2019 attack at a Walmart in El Paso.
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For some people, COVID has led to changes in lifestyle, or even a new job.  That’s the case of a cyclist in Los Angeles, California, who ended up opening several bicycle shops to meet a growing demand by people wanting to get exercise while exploring their city. Mike O’Sullivan has more.
Camera: Mike O’Sullivan and Roy Kim 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ended their summit with positive assessments of their meeting, but clear differences remain. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report from Geneva.
Producer: Kimberlyn Weeks
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Newly unveiled efforts to combat a growing domestic terrorism threat in the United States will have to find a way to overcome a major obstacle: carefully crafted campaigns by foreign countries and terrorist groups to incite violence.The warning, from a senior U.S. Department of Homeland Security official, comes just a day after U.S. President Joe Biden issued his long-awaited National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, described by his administration as the first of its kind.The Biden administration has downplayed direct links between violent extremists in the U.S. and those outside the country; one senior official noted that intelligence agencies “did not find a robust nexus between domestic terrorism and foreign actors.” Other officials caution, however, that is because the relationship does not follow a standard command-and-control model.“A central element of the current threat is to take narratives that may influence violent behavior and get it out as broadly as you can,” Department of Homeland Security Counterterrorism Coordinator John Cohen told a webinar Wednesday hosted by The George Washington University Program on Extremism.“We are seeing common narratives that seem to be resonating with individuals who are looking for extremist ideological beliefs to serve as the justification for violence being introduced by foreign nation-states, being introduced by foreign terrorist organizations,” Cohen said.“There are threat actors, whether it’s foreign governments like Russia or Iran or China, or extremist thought leaders or terrorist groups that are taking advantage of that anger and the polarization of our society,” he said.Concerns about foreign influences on domestic extremists in the United States are not new.An unclassified assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, issued this past March, raised concerns about connections between white supremacists in the U.S. and those in other countries, noting small numbers of extremists have been traveling in an effort to forge stronger ties.Cohen, though, warned those types of connections pale in comparison with those that are developing in the virtual environment.“This is not a threat that we can investigate, or we can mitigate simply by looking at the physical activities of individuals who may be involved in preparing to conduct an attack,” he said. “We have to understand more about how extremist thought leaders and those working in a leaderless resistance structure will use these private and public online platforms to spread narratives broadly in the hopes that they will influence the behavior of disaffected, socially disconnected, angry individuals.”Russia has been a particular concern for top U.S. officials.During her confirmation hearing in January, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified that the Kremlin was using active measures against the U.S. political right and the U.S. political left “to promote extremism, in a sense.”DNI nominee Haines says #Russia pushing on both US right & left, “to promote extremism in a sense” w/their active measures— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) January 19, 2021Current and former officials, as well as analysts, have also warned Russia is actively cultivating a new generation of influence peddlers focused on building followers among the far right and far left.As part of the new domestic terrorism strategy, officials have pledged to find ways to “counter the polarization often fueled by disinformation, misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories online, supporting an information environment that fosters healthy democratic discourse,” according to a White House handout.Officials also note that Washington has joined the Christchurch Call to Action to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online — an initiative named after the New Zealand city where a far-right gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in 2019.But countering the threat from disinformation in particular will be difficult, according to Homeland Security officials, who point to the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, for which almost 500 people have been arrested.“Now what united all of those people?” asked Cohen, who noted many of those at the Capitol that day were not affiliated with any groups.“Among other things, they were all encouraged to come here by a disinformation narrative that the election was fraudulent and that had been stolen and that it was their responsibility to act,” he said.And officials worry the spread and influence of disinformation could soon get worse as U.S. adversaries, whether countries or eventually criminal or terrorist networks, gain access to artificial intelligence, or AI.“Artificial intelligence could generate disinformation scale in a way that brings real concern,” Anne Neuberger, White House deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, told a virtual forum last month. 
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The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations reassured Congress Wednesday that she is working to monitor and rein in what she called China’s “malign influence” at the world body. “China has been aggressive and coercive in using its power at the United Nations,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She said Beijing promotes an “authoritarian approach to multilateralism.”  The ambassador pointed to an array of actions, including its influence at three U.N. technical organizations where their nationals are in charge, and Beijing’s use of COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy to pressure some poorer nations. “We will be pushing hard against those efforts,” she said. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield testifies to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Biden administration’s priorities for engagement with the United Nations on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 16, 2021.She urged lawmakers to invest in the United Nations to restore U.S. influence there, which declined during the Trump administration. “Our adversaries and competitors are investing in the United Nations. We can’t expect to compete unless we do, too,” Thomas-Greenfield said. More than 40 legislators questioned the veteran diplomat over more than four hours during a hearing on the Biden administration’s priorities for engagement with the United Nations. Many expressed concerns about China’s persecution of minority Uyghur Muslims in the autonomous Xinjiang province. Human rights groups accuse China of sending more than a million Uyghurs to detention camps. China says the compounds are “vocational education centers” intended to stop the spread of religious extremism and terrorist attacks.  U.S. Representative Michael McCaul asked Thomas-Greenfield if she agrees with the committee that the Chinese government is carrying out a genocide and crimes against humanity on the Uyghurs. FILE – A perimeter fence is constructed around what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Dabancheng in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, Sept. 4, 2018.”Yes, genocide is being committed against Uyghurs in Xinjiang,” she said. “And the PRC government is committing crimes against humanity. We have called the Chinese out on this.” Lawmakers also expressed concern about China’s sway over the World Health Organization, some charging that Beijing’s influence had made the WHO fail in its duty to warn the world of the severity of the coronavirus pandemic. Thomas-Greenfield made clear that the Biden administration supports “a robust and transparent” investigation into the origins of the pandemic. As for the WHO, she noted it has appointed an independent committee headed by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark to review WHO’s response. “I am confident in their abilities to get to the bottom of this, and I know they are working hard,” she said. “Their reputations are attached to this, and we are looking forward to seeing the results.” U.S. Representative Mark Green asked if Taiwan should participate at the United Nations. China has used its influence over the years to prevent its recognition. “We support Taiwan,” she said. “We want to see Taiwan recognized for the extraordinary democracy that it is.” Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. continues to push at the U.N. for Taiwan’s participation in programs that do not require member state status, such as the recent World Health Assembly. However, that effort failed. Thomas-Greenfield took up her post as U.N. ambassador and a member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet in February. The posting is the culmination of a wide-ranging, 35-year State Department career. 
 
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