Russia’s Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant Monday for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham following his comments related to the fighting in Ukraine.

In an edited video of his meeting Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was released by Zelenskyy’s office, Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, noted that “the Russians are dying” and described the U.S. military assistance to the country as “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

While Graham appeared to have made the remarks in different parts of the conversation, the short video by Ukraine’s presidential office put them next to each other, causing outrage in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented Sunday by saying that “it’s hard to imagine a greater shame for the country than having such senators.”

The Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, has moved to open a criminal inquiry against Graham, and the Interior Ministry followed up by issuing a warrant for his arrest as indicated Monday by its official record of wanted criminal suspects.

Graham is among more than 200 U.S. members of Congress whom Moscow banned last year from entering Russia.

Graham commented on Twitter, saying that “to know that my commitment to Ukraine has drawn the ire of Putin’s regime brings me immense joy.”

“I will continue to stand with and for Ukraine’s freedom until every Russian soldier is expelled from Ukrainian territory,” he tweeted. “I will wear the arrest warrant issued by Putin’s corrupt and immoral government as a Badge of Honor.”
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A men’s knitting group in New York City is unraveling gender stereotypes by stitching in public, joining the multitudes of knitters who find the hobby calming as well as creative. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Vladimir Badikov
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Monday marks the 155th observation of Memorial Day in the United States as the nation honors those who have lost their lives in service to the country. 

Recognized annually on the last Monday in May, this year the holiday falls on May 29. 

President Joe Biden will mark the day at Arlington National Cemetery, where about 400,000 people — veterans and their eligible dependents — are buried.  He will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and deliver an address.

“As a nation, we undertake a sacred ritual: to reflect and to remember,” Biden said in his remarks last year.

The holiday was first widely observed in 1868 as the country recovered from the American Civil War. It became a federal holiday over one century later in 1971. 

Since the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, over 646,000 American troops have died in battle, while over 539,000 died from other non-combat related causes, Military.com reported in 2020.

While some observations of Memorial Day, particularly in and around Washington, are marked by solemnity, many Americans spend the unofficial start to summer celebrating over the weekend with barbecues and trips to the beach. 

More than 42 million Americans were expected to travel over the weekend, according to the travel organization Triple-A, marking what was expected to be the third busiest Memorial Day weekend since 2000, when AAA started tracking holiday travel.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg held a news conference last week about Memorial Day weekend, which he said would be “a test of the system.”

“More Americans are planning trips and booking them earlier, despite inflation. This summer travel season could be one for the record books, especially at airports,” said Paula Twidale, senior vice president of AAA.

Last year, thousands of flights were canceled or delayed over Memorial Day weekend. 

 
…

U.S. lawmakers are examining the details of an agreement to increase the country’s borrowing limit ahead of votes expected in the coming days, as both President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urge them to approve it. 

The proposal includes waiving the debt ceiling until January 2025 and a two-year budget deal that keeps federal spending flat in 2024 and increases it by 1% in 2025. 

Among the other pieces of the compromise package are reducing some funding to hire new Internal Revenue Service agents, rescinding $30 billion in COVID-19 relief and ensuring people ages 49 to 54 meet work requirements in order to receive food aid. 

Biden and McCarthy reached the agreement Sunday after weeks of negotiations with an early June deadline looming for the government running out of money to pay its bills. 

“The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default, for the first time in our nation’s history,” Biden said at the White House. It “takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table.”  

McCarthy, discussing the agreement at the Capitol, said, “At the end of the day, people can look together to be able to pass this.”  

SEE ALSO: A related video by VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias

While the two leaders expressed support for the deal, progressive Democratic lawmakers from the party’s ideological left, and Republicans from the party’s right-wing immediately voiced opposition Sunday.      

“The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. But that’s the responsibility of governing,” Biden said in a statement. He called the pact “an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programs for working people and growing the economy for everyone.”      

Earlier Sunday, McCarthy, on the “Fox News Sunday” show, said that from Republicans’ perspective, “There’s so much in this that is positive. It will not do everything for everyone, but this is a step in the right direction.”       

The debt ceiling needs to be increased so the government can borrow more money, or the U.S. government will run out of cash to pay its existing bills June 5, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned Congress.     

Yellen has said that without an increase in the debt ceiling or a suspension of the borrowing limit, interest on U.S. bonds held by foreign governments and individual American investors would be imperiled, as well as stipends for U.S. pensioners and salaries for government workers and contractors. Without enough tax receipts coming into U.S. coffers to pay its bills, the government would be forced to prioritize which payments to make.    

Another part of the agreement would also speed up the approval process for new energy projects.     

The pact also left in place Biden’s plan to write off up to $20,000 in student loan debts but says that loan recipients will have to start making loan payments that had been paused during the coronavirus pandemic. The provision would become moot if the Supreme Court overturns Biden’s authority to revoke the debt in a challenge to his action that it is expected to rule on by the end of June.    

Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal, the leader of the 102-member House progressive caucus, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that Biden and Jeffries should worry about progressives’ support for passage of the debt ceiling increase.     

Jayapal criticized expanding work requirements for food stamp recipients and said she did not know whether she would vote for the debt ceiling increase.    

“I’m not a big fan of in-principle (agreements) frameworks,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. “That’s always, you know, a problem if you can’t see the exact legislative text. And we’re all trying to wade through spin right now. But I think it’s going to come down to what the legislative text is.”   

Among Republicans, Representative Bob Good wrote on Twitter, “No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote” on the package.    

Another Republican critic of the deal, Representative Ralph Norman, tweeted, “This ‘deal’ is insanity.” He said a possible $4 trillion increase in the debt over the next two years “with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to. Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country. The American people deserve better.” 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

The mpox health emergency has ended, but U.S. health officials are aiming to prevent a repeat of last year’s outbreaks.

Mpox infections exploded early in the summer of 2022 in the wake of Pride gatherings. More than 30,000 U.S. cases were reported last year, most of them spread during sexual contact between gay and bisexual men. About 40 people died.

With Pride events planned across the country in the coming weeks, health officials and event organizers say they are optimistic that this year infections will be fewer and less severe. A bigger supply of vaccine, more people with immunity and readier access to a drug to treat mpox are among the reasons.

But they also worry that people may think of mpox as last year’s problem.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who is advising the White House on its mpox response. “But we are beating the drum.”

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health alert to U.S. doctors to watch for new cases. On Thursday, the agency published a modeling study that estimated the likelihood of mpox resurgence in 50 counties that have been the focus of a government campaign to control sexually transmitted diseases.

The study concluded that 10 of the counties had a 50% chance or higher of mpox outbreaks this year. The calculation was based largely on how many people were considered at high risk for infection and what fraction of them had some immunity through vaccination or previous infection.

At the top of the list are Jacksonville, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee; and Cincinnati — cities where 10% or fewer of the people at highest risk were estimated to have immunity. Another 25 counties have low or medium immunity levels that put them at a higher risk for outbreaks.

The study had a range of limitations, including that scientists don’t know how long immunity from vaccination or prior infections lasts.

So why do the study? To warn people, said Dr. Chris Braden, who heads the CDC’s mpox response.

“This is something that is important for jurisdictions to promote prevention of mpox, and for the population to take note — and take care of themselves. That’s why we’re doing this,” he said.

Officials are trying to bring a sense of urgency to a health threat that was seen as a burgeoning crisis last summer but faded away by the end of the year.

Formerly known as monkeypox, mpox is caused by a virus in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals but was not known to spread easily among people.

Cases began emerging in Europe and the U.S. about a year ago, mostly among men who have sex with men, and escalated in dozens of countries in June and July. The infections were rarely fatal, but many people suffered painful skin lesions for weeks.

Countries scrambled to find a vaccine or other countermeasures. In late July, the World Health Organization declared a health emergency. The U.S. followed with its own in early August.

But then cases began to fall, from an average of nearly 500 a day in August to fewer than 10 by late December. Experts attributed the decline to several factors, including government measures to overcome a vaccine shortage and efforts in the gay and bisexual community to spread warnings and limit sexual encounters.

The U.S. emergency ended in late January, and the WHO ended its declaration earlier this month.

Indeed, there is a lower sense of urgency about mpox than last year, said Dan Dimant, a spokesman for NYC Pride. The organization anticipates fewer messages about the threat at its events next month, though plans could change if the situation worsens.

There were long lines to get shots during the height of the crisis last year, but demand faded as cases declined. The government estimates that 1.7 million people — mostly men who have sex with men — are at high risk for mpox infection, but only about 400,000 have gotten the recommended two doses of the vaccine.

“We’re definitely not where we need to be,” Daskalakis said, during an interview last week at an STD conference in New Orleans.

Some see possible storm clouds on the horizon.

Cases emerged this year in some European countries and South Korea. On Thursday, U.K. officials said an uptick in mpox cases in London in the last month showed that the virus was not going away.

Nearly 30 people, many of them fully vaccinated, were infected in a recent Chicago outbreak. (As with COVID-19 and flu shot, vaccinated people can still get mpox, but they likely will have milder symptoms, officials say.)

Dr. Joseph Cherabie, associate medical director of the St. Louis County Sexual Health Clinic, said people from the area travel to Chicago for events, so outbreaks there can have ripple effects elsewhere.

“We are several weeks behind Chicago. Chicago is usually our bellwether,” Cherabie said.

Chicago health officials are taking steps to prevent further spread at an “International Mr. Leather” gathering this weekend.

Event organizers are prominently advising attendees to get vaccinated. Chicago health officials put together social media messages, including one depicting three candles and a leather paddle that reads: “Before you play with leather or wax get yourself the mpox vax.”
…

“The Little Mermaid ” made moviegoers want to be under the sea on Memorial Day weekend.

Disney’s live-action remake of its 1989 animated classic easily outswam the competition, bringing in $95.5 million on 4,320 screens in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday.

And Disney estimates the film starring Halle Bailey as the titular mermaid Ariel and Melissa McCarthy as her sea witch nemesis Ursula will reach $117.5 million by the time the holiday is over. It ranks as the fifth biggest Memorial Day weekend opening ever.

It displaces “Fast X” in the top spot. The 10th installment in the “Fast and Furious” franchise starring Vin Diesel lagged behind more recent releases in the series, bringing in $23 million domestically for a two-week total of $108 million for Universal Pictures.

In its fourth weekend, Disney and Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” made an estimated $20 million in North America to take third place. It’s now made $299 million domestically.

Fourth went to Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which keeps reaching new levels in its eighth weekend. Now available to rent on VOD, it still earned $6.3 million in theaters. Its cumulative total of $559 million makes Mario and Luigi the year’s biggest earners so far.

Comics couldn’t stand up to Ariel as the week’s other new releases sank.

“The Machine,” an action comedy starring stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer, finished fifth with $4.9 million domestically. And ” About My Father,” the broad comedy starring stand-up Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro, was sixth with $4.3 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “The Little Mermaid,” $95.5 million.

2. “Fast X,” $23 million.

3. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $20 million.

4. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” $6.3 million.

5. “The Machine,” $4.9 million.

6. “About My Father,” $4.3 million.

7. “Kandahar,” $2.4 million.

8. “You Hurt My Feelings,” 1.4 million.

9. “Evil Dead Rise,” $1 million.

10. “Book Club, The Next Chapter,” $920,000.
    …

Republican and Democratic House leaders expressed optimism Sunday that they will get enough votes in favor of raising the debt ceiling. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has details on a deal that has in principle, been struck. Video editor: Marcus Harton.
…

Former U.S. Congresswoman Liz Cheney implored new college graduates to not compromise when it comes to the truth, excoriating her House Republican colleagues for not doing enough to combat former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

In a commencement speech at Colorado College, the Wyoming Republican repeated her fierce criticisms of Trump but steered clear of talking about his 2024 reelection campaign or her own political future.

Cheney, who graduated from Colorado College in 1988, recalled being a political science student walking into a campus building where a Bible verse was inscribed above the entrance that read, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

“After the 2020 election and the attack of January 6th, my fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say the 2020 election was stolen, the attack of January 6th wasn’t a big deal, and Donald Trump wasn’t dangerous,” Cheney said Sunday in Colorado Springs, connecting her experiences as a student to her work in the U.S. House of Representatives. “I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership.”

In three terms in office, Cheney rose to the No. 3 GOP leadership position in the House, a job she lost after voting to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and then not relenting in her criticism of the former president.

Cheney’s speech touched on themes similar to those she has promoted since leaving office in January: addressing her work on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and standing up to the threat she believes Trump poses to democracy. She also encouraged more women to run for office and criticized one of the election-denying attorneys who worked for Trump after the 2020 election for recent remarks about college students voting.

“Cleta Mitchell, an election denier and adviser to former President Trump, told a gathering of Republicans recently that it is crucially important to make sure that college students don’t vote,” Cheney said. “Those who are trying to unravel the foundations of our republic, who are threatening the rule of law and the sanctity of our elections, know they can’t succeed if you vote.”

In an audio recording of Mitchell’s presentation from a recent Republican National Committee retreat, she warns of polling places on college campuses and the ease of voting as potential problems, The Washington Post reported.

Most students and parents in the audience applauded throughout Cheney’s remarks, yet some booed. Some students opposing the choice of Cheney as speaker turned their chairs away from the stage as she spoke.

Cheney’s busy speaking schedule and subject matter have fueled speculation about whether she may enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary since she left office. Candidates ranging from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have calibrated their remarks about Trump, aiming to counter his attacks without alienating the supporters that won him the White House seven years ago.

Though some have offered measured criticisms, no declared or potential challenger has embraced anti-Trump messaging to the same extent as Cheney. She did not reference her plans on Sunday but has previously said she remains undecided about whether she wants to run for president.

Though she would face an uphill battle, Cheney’s fierce anti-Trump stance and her role as vice chairwoman of the House committee elevated her platform high enough to call on a national network of donors and Trump critics to support a White House run.

A super PAC organized to support of her candidacy has remained active, including purchasing attack ads on New Hampshire airwaves against Trump this month.

After leaving office and being replaced by a Trump-backed Republican who defeated her in last year’s primary, Cheney was appointed to a professorship at the University of Virginia and wrote “Oath and Honor,” a memoir scheduled to hit shelves in November.

Two of Cheney’s five children as well as her mother are also graduates of the liberal arts college.

Cheney’s speaking tour appears to be picking up. She is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan.
…

Before he left Mauritania, the West African nation of his birth, Mohamed thought of New York as a place of “open arms,” a refuge for immigrants fleeing dire circumstances.

Now that he’s here, seeking political asylum from a government he feared would kill him, he doesn’t feel welcome. The 19-year-old has become a pawn in an escalating stand-off between New York City and suburban and upstate communities, which are using lawsuits, emergency orders and political pressure to keep people like him out.

Mohamed is one of about 400 international migrants the city has been putting up in a small number of hotels in other parts of the state this month to relieve pressure on its overtaxed homeless shelter system.

Some of the relocated asylum seekers say they now regret leaving the city, pointing to a lack of job opportunities and resources to pursue their asylum cases, as well as a hostile reception.

“It’s better in New York City,” Mohamed said. “There, no one cursed at you and said ‘go back to your country.'”

The Associated Press is withholding Mohamed’s full name at his request to protect the safety of his family in Mauritania. In his home country, Mohamed said he had joined a group of young people to decry the government’s corruption and human rights abuses, including allegations of ongoing slavery. Days later, he said a group of men threw him in an unmarked car, took him to a secret room, and beat him viciously for two days.

After a journey that took him across the U.S. border with Mexico, he landed in a shelter system in New York City he found frightening and overcrowded. In one Brooklyn shelter, a room with 40 beds, someone stole his few remaining possessions as he slept.

So when outreach workers offered him the chance to relocate earlier this month, promising more space and chances to work, Mohamed took it. He joined other asylum seekers at two hotels a few miles outside the small Hudson River Valley city of Newburgh, about two hours north of the city.

Republican county officials there have accused the city of dumping its problems on its neighbors, while insinuating that the new arrivals pose a danger.

Last week, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus won a temporary restraining order barring the city from sending additional migrants. More than two dozen other counties across New York state have declared emergencies in an attempt to block migrant arrivals, even in places where none are planned.

As far as 400 miles (644 kilometers) north of the city, Niagara County officials have warned of an imminent safety threat, vowing criminal penalties for hotels found to be housing asylum seekers.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, says he will continue his efforts to disperse some of the more than 40,000 asylum seekers currently in the city’s care.

Meanwhile, some who joined the initial wave of relocations have since returned to New York City’s shelter system. Those who don’t have money for transportation, such as Mohamed, say they are stuck.

“It’s like the desert,” lamented Mohamed, who studied law and taught himself English in Mauritania. “There’s nothing here for us.”

Some asylum seekers described a sense of being lured upstate on false pretenses, saying outreach workers described local economies in need of off-the-books migrant labor. Instead they have suffered a stream of harassment.

“There are people driving by pretty constantly in big pickup trucks telling them to go back to their country,” said Amy Belsher, an attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union, describing a phenomenon also witnessed by an AP journalist.

“It’s a completely predictable outcome of the local county executives jumping on the migrant ban bandwagon,” she added. The NYCLU has brought a lawsuit against Orange and Rockland counties alleging discrimination against migrants.

An attorney for Orange County, Richard Golden, said it was “utterly ridiculous” to accuse the county of fostering xenophobia. The county’s lawsuit against the city, he said, rests on a 2006 state administrative directive requiring municipalities to meet certain requirements before transferring homeless individuals.

Misinformation among local residents has not helped, including a false allegation that migrants displaced homeless veterans inside the hotels — a widely-circulated story that has fallen apart.

Peruvian Jhonny Neira offered a more mixed assessment of his time in Newburgh. The 39-year-old asylum seeker described a recent Sunday visit to a church where he felt welcomed by the congregation, even if he couldn’t understand the English sermon.

“I’m a respectful, hard-working person,” he said in Spanish. “I think after getting to know me, they would trust me.”

The number of U.S.-Mexico border crossings has declined since May 11, when the Biden administration put new rules in place intended to encourage migrants to apply for asylum online rather than enter the country illegally. But New York and other migrant destination cities are still dealing with thousands of people who entered the U.S. before the new rules.

The Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh is now home to men from South and Central America, Senegal, Egypt, Mauritania, and Russia. They speak in French and English and Spanish, as they kick a soccer ball in the hotel parking lot, beside a diner and a tangle of highways. A few yards away, a man who once worked as a barber in Venezuela offers haircuts for $5, as another sweeps up.

In order to gain asylum in the United States, they will have to prove they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” over their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

Mohamed’s experience tracks with a report by the U.S. State Department, which found Mauritania has overseen an expanded crackdown on political dissidents since 2021 and cites allegations of torture in unofficial detention centers.

If his story passes a credibility check, it would likely constitute a legitimate asylum claim, according to Jaya Ramji-Nogales, an asylum law professor at Temple University. But getting to that stage will require navigating an immigration system under severe strain.

“It was always an under-resourced system but now it’s really at a breaking point,” Ramji-Nogales said. “There’s not the political will to put aside the money it needs to function.”

Mohamed said his goal is building his asylum case — something he’s come to believe is not possible in Newburgh. A few days ago, he missed a key immigration appointment after a car that was supposed to take him to the city never showed up.

“You can’t stay here just sleeping, eating, after that going back to sleeping,” he said. “If you make no progress in your case, they will send you back home. For me, that would be very bad.”
…

Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday dedicated to those who died while serving in America’s wars. To commemorate the day, which falls on the last Monday in May, people flock to Washington to decorate the graves of fallen military service members, attend parades and visit national monuments. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement in principle on legislation to increase the nation’s borrowing authority and avoid a default.

Negotiators are now racing to finalize the bill’s text. McCarthy said the House will vote on the legislation on Wednesday, giving the Senate time to consider it ahead of the June 5 deadline to avoid a possible default.

While many details are unknown, both sides will be able to point to some victories. But some conservatives expressed early concerns that the deal doesn’t cut future deficits enough, while Democrats have been worried about proposed changes to work requirements in programs such as food stamps.

A look at what’s in and out of the deal, based on what’s known so far:

Two-year debt increase, spending limits

The agreement would keep non-defense spending roughly flat in the 2024 fiscal year and increase it by 1% the following year, as well as provide for a two-year debt-limit increase — past the next presidential election in 2024. That’s according to a source familiar with the deal who provided details on the condition of anonymity.

Veterans care

The agreement will fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget blueprint, including for a fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards. Biden sought $20.3 billion for the toxic exposure fund in his budget.

Work requirements

Republicans had proposed boosting work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents in certain government assistance programs. They said it would bring more people into the workforce, who would then pay taxes and help shore up key entitlement programs, namely Social Security and Medicare.

Democrats had roundly criticized the proposed changes, saying they would lead to fewer people able to afford food or health care without actually increasing job participation.

House Republicans had passed legislation that would create new work requirements for some Medicaid recipients, but that was left out of the final agreement.

However, the agreement would expand some work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. The agreement would raise the age for existing work requirements from 49 to 54, similar to the Republican proposal, but those changes would expire in 2030. And the White House said it would at the same time reduce the number of vulnerable people at all ages who are subject to the requirements

Speeding up energy projects

The deal puts in place changes in the National Environmental Policy Act that will designate “a single lead agency” to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.

What was left out

Republicans had sought to repeal Biden’s efforts to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all borrowers who took out student loans. But the provision was a nonstarter for Democrats. The budget agreement keeps Biden’s student loan relief in place, though the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on the matter.

The Supreme Court is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, and those justices’ questions in oral arguments showed skepticism about the legality of Biden’s student loans plan. A decision is expected before the end of June.
…

The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives impeached state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday, a sudden, historic rebuke of a fellow Republican who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.

The vote triggers Paxton’s immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ top lawyer in the interim. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Paxton’s wife’s, Angela, is a member.

The 121-23 vote constitutes an abrupt downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump. It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

Moments after the vote, Paxton’s office said the impeachment was “based on totally false claims” and pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing. House investigators said the attorney general’s probe into Paxton’s actions includes false and disproven claims.

“No one person should be above the law, least not the top law enforcement officer of the state of Texas,” Representative David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said in opening statements. 

Representative Ann Johnson, a Democratic member, told lawmakers that Texas’ “top cop is on the take.” 

As the articles of impeachment, which include bribery and abuse of public trust, were laid out, some of the lawmakers shook their heads.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. Until this week, his fellow Republicans had taken a muted stance on the allegations.

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that they had too little time to review evidence.

“I perceive it could be political weaponization,” said Representative Tony Tinderholt, one of the House’s most conservative members. Republican Representative John Smithee compared the proceeding to “a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.”

Texas’ top elected Republicans had been notably quiet about Paxton this week. But on Saturday both Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to his defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process “a travesty” and saying the attorney general’s legal troubles should be left to the courts.

“Free Ken Paxton,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the process, “I will fight you.”

Abbott, who lauded Paxton while swearing him in for a third term in January, has remained silent. The governor spoke at a Memorial Day service in the House chamber about three hours before the impeachment proceedings began. Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan also attended but the two appeared to exchange few words, and Abbott left without commenting to reporters.
…

The United States “won’t tolerate” China’s effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology MU.O memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such “economic coercion,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Saturday.

Raimondo told a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks that the U.S. “firmly opposes” China’s actions against Micron.

These “target a single U.S. company without any basis in fact, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won’t tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful.”

China’s cyberspace regulator said May 21 that Micron, the biggest U.S. memory chip maker, had failed its network security review and that it would block operators of key infrastructure from buying from the company, prompting it to predict a revenue reduction.

The move came a day after leaders of the G7 industrial democracies agreed to new initiatives to push back against economic coercion by China — a decision noted by Raimondo.

“As we said at the G7 and as we have said consistently, we are closely engaging with partners addressing this specific challenge and all challenges related to China’s non-market practices.”

Raimondo also raised the Micron issue in a meeting Thursday with China’s Commerce Minister, Wang Wentao.

She also said the IPEF agreement on supply chains and other pillars of the talks would be consistent with U.S. investments in the $52 billion CHIPS Act to foster semiconductor production in the United States.

“The investments in the CHIPS Act are to strengthen and bolster our domestic production of semiconductors. Having said that, we welcome participation from companies that are in IPEF countries, you know, so we expect that companies from Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, will participate in the CHIPS Act funding,” Raimondo said.
…

Trade ministers of 14 countries in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks “substantially completed” negotiations on an agreement to make supply chains more resilient and secure, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Saturday.

The “first of its kind” agreement calls for countries to form a council to coordinate supply chain activities and a “Crisis Response Network” to give early warnings to IPEF countries of potential supply disruptions, Raimondo told a news conference following a ministerial meeting in Detroit.

The deal provides an emergency communications channel for IPEF countries to seek support during supply chain disruptions, coordinate more closely during a crisis and recover more quickly.

Raimondo cited shortages of semiconductors during the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down American auto production, idling thousands of workers.

“I can tell you I would have loved to have had that Crisis Response Network during COVID. It absolutely would have helped us secure American jobs and keep supply chains moving,” she said.

The supply chains agreement, led by Commerce, marks the first tangible outcome of a year’s worth of IPEF discussions. But it is just one the four “pillars” of the IPEF talks.

The other pillars — trade, climate transition, and labor and inclusiveness — are more complex and expected to take longer to negotiate.

The supply chains agreement also includes a new labor rights advisory board aimed at raising labor standards in supply chains, consisting of government, worker, and employer representatives, the Commerce Department said.
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It’s among the world’s busiest container shipping routes — a stream of vessels packed with furniture, automobiles, clothing and other goods, traversing the Pacific between Los Angeles and Shanghai.

If plans succeed, this corridor will become a showcase for slashing planet-warming carbon emissions from the shipping industry, which produces nearly 3% of the world’s total. That’s less than from cars, trucks, rail or aviation but still a lot — and it’s rising.

The International Maritime Organization, which regulates commercial shipping, wants to halve its greenhouse gas releases by midcentury and may seek deeper cuts this year. “Shipping must embrace decarbonization,” IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim said in February.

Meeting agency targets will require significant vessel and infrastructure changes. That’s inspiring plans for “green shipping corridors” along major routes where new technologies and methods could be fast-tracked and scaled up.

More than 20 of these partnerships have been proposed. They’re largely on paper now but are expected to take shape in the coming years.

Front-runners

Los Angeles and Shanghai formed their partnership last year.

“The vision is that a container will leave a factory on a zero-emissions truck (in China),” said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.

“It will arrive at the port of Shanghai, be loaded onto a ship by a zero-emissions cargo handling equipment unit and move across the Pacific Ocean on a vessel that emits zero carbon. Once it gets to Los Angeles, the reverse happens,” with carbon-free handling and distribution.

Los Angeles entered a second agreement in April with nearby Long Beach and Singapore. Others in the works include the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River; a Chilean network; and numerous corridors in Asia, North America and Europe.

C40 Cities, a global climate action coalition of mayors, advocates green corridors as “tools that can turn ambition into action, bringing together the entire shipping value chain,” said Alisa Kreynes, a deputy director.

Pressure builds

From tea to tennis shoes, stuff in your pantry and closets likely spent time on a ship.

Roughly 90% of traded goods move on water, some in behemoths longer than four football fields, each holding thousands of containers with consumer products. About 58,000 commercial ships ply the seas.

Their emissions are less noticeable than onshore haulers such as trucks, although noxious fumes from ships draw complaints in port communities.

Maritime trade volumes are expected to triple by 2050, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Studies predict the industry’s share of greenhouse gas emissions could reach 15%.

Yet the 2015 Paris climate accord exempts maritime shipping, partly because vessels do business worldwide, while the agreement covers nation-by-nation goals.

“No one wants to take responsibility,” said Allyson Browne of Pacific Environment, an advocacy group. “A ship may be flagged in China, but who takes ownership of emissions from that ship when it’s transporting goods to the U.S.?”

The IMO responded to mounting pressure with a 2018 plan for a 50% emissions reduction by midcentury from 2008 levels. An update scheduled for July may set more ambitious targets favored by the U.S., Europe and small island nations. Opponents include Brazil, China and India.

The Biden administration wants a zero-emission goal, a State Department official told The Associated Press.

But fewer than half of large shipping companies have pledged to meet international carbon objectives. And there’s no consensus about how to accomplish them.

“Global shipping is hard to decarbonize … because of the energy required to cover long distances with heavy cargoes,” said Lee Kindberg, head of environment and sustainability for Maersk North America.

Mechanical sails. Batteries. Low- or zero-carbon liquid fuels.

They’re among propulsion methods touted as replacements for “bunker fuel” that powers most commercial ships — thick residue from oil refining. It spews greenhouse gases and pollutants that endanger human health: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, soot.

Finding alternatives will be a priority for green shipping corridors.

For now, liquid natural gas is the runaway choice. Worldwide, it’s used by 923 of 1,349 commercial vessels not powered by conventional fuels, according to a study last year by DNV, a Norway-based maritime accreditation society. Vessels with batteries or hybrid systems placed a distant second.

Many environmentalists oppose LNG because it emits methane, another potent greenhouse gas. Defenders say it’s the quickest and most cost-effective bunker fuel substitute.

Of 1,046 alternative-energy ships on order, 534 are powered by LNG while 417 are battery-hybrids, DNV reported. Thirty-five others will use methanol, which analysts consider an up-and-coming cleaner alternative.

Moller-Maersk plans to launch 12 cargo vessels next year that will use “green methanol” produced with renewable sources such as plant waste.

Norsepower offers a new twist on an ancient technology: wind.

The Finnish company has developed “rotor sails” — composite cylinders about 33 yards (30 meters) tall that are fitted on ship decks and spin in the breeze. Air pressure differences on opposite sides of the whirring devices help push a vessel forward.

An independent analysis found rotor sails installed on a Maersk oil tanker in 2018 produced an 8.2% fuel savings in a year. Norsepower CEO Tuomas Riski said others have saved 5% to 25%, depending on wind conditions, ship type and other factors.

Thirteen ships are using the devices or have them on order, Riski said.

“Mechanical sails have an essential role in the decarbonization of shipping,” he said. “They can’t do it alone, but they can make a great contribution.”

Who goes first?

Before building or buying low-emission vessels, companies want assurances clean fuels will be available and affordable.

Companies producing the fuels, meanwhile, want enough ships using them to guarantee strong markets.

And both need port infrastructure that accommodates new-generation ships, such as electrical hookups and clean fuel dispensing mechanisms.

But ports await demand to justify such expensive upgrades. Switching onshore cargo handling equipment and trucks to zero-emission models will cost the Los Angeles port $20 billion, officials say.

“Once you put a (green) corridor on the map,” said Jason Anderson, senior program director for the nonprofit ClimateWorks Foundation, “at least they’re heading in the same direction.”
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A court-appointed monitor said in January that child migrants held in medical isolation may be overlooked when Border Patrol stations get too crowded, a warning issued five months before an 8-year-old girl with a heart condition died in custody during an unusually busy period in the same Texas region he inspected.

Dr. Paul H. Wise, a pediatrics professor at Stanford University, called the death of Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez of Panama “preventable” during an interview this week while in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley to look into the circumstances.

“Any child who is ill, but particularly kids with chronic problems, there should be little hesitation to refer them to local hospitals, preferably a children’s hospital or hospital with good pediatric capabilities,” Wise told The Associated Press.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has acknowledged the girl was seen at least three times by medical personnel the day she died — complaining of vomiting, a stomachache and suffering what appeared to be a seizure — before she was taken to a hospital. CBP did not respond to a request for comment on Wise’s January report or his latest comments.

Report flagged concerns

Wise authored a lengthy report in January on Border Patrol custody conditions for children in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso, Texas, that gave satisfactory reviews on many counts but also flagged serious concerns. Last year, a federal judge asked him to examine custody conditions in the two busy regions as part of a 1997 court settlement to ensure safe treatment of child migrants.

Wise plans to submit a report soon on the May 17 death of the girl, who died on her ninth day in custody after being transferred to a station in Harlingen, Texas, with her family after being diagnosed with influenza. The agency limits custody to 72 hours under its own policy.

While his findings are not yet known — he declined to discuss them — some of his earlier warnings may resurface.

Wise previously expressed concern about crowding of children in medical isolation. His January report tells how “one medical team” in El Paso was responsible for 125 ill patients, a number that “far surpasses” the team’s capabilities.

The Border Patrol also struggled to meet a requirement to conduct regular medical assessments of children when they came in families and were in crowded stations, Wise said in January.

“The 5-day repeat medical assessment is most important when families are being held for protracted periods in overcrowded conditions,” he wrote. “However, because of other important demands on available medical staff, this medical protocol appears to be given relatively low priority under these conditions.”

Wise further raised concerns about chronic conditions going undetected and “relevant medical information” being unknown or not shared among staff.

CBP’s relatively detailed public account of the girl’s time in custody does not directly address the requirement for exams every five days or how crowded the Harlingen station was when she was there.

Acting commissioner orders review

The government’s responsibilities for medical care of children is clearly defined in the recently updated agreement for the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors. “CBP shall promptly activate the 911 system or refer juveniles to the local health system whenever appropriate for evaluation and treatment. Further, CBP shall refer juveniles with urgent or emergent medical issues to the local health system,” the agreement stipulates.

During his visit, Wise interviewed Anadith’s mother, Mabel Alvarez Benedicks, who told the AP that agents repeatedly ignored pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter as she felt pain in her bones, struggled to breathe and was unable to walk.

Agents said her daughter’s diagnosis of influenza did not require hospital care, Benedicks said. They knew the girl had a history of heart problems but was told to return if she fainted, the mother said.

Troy Miller, CBP’s acting commissioner, has since ordered a review of all medically fragile detainees to ensure limited time in custody. Wise said he spoke with U.S. officials, including medical staff, to convey concerns from his recent visit.

“I have enough information at this point to make urgent recommendations to CBP, [the Department of Homeland Security] and to the court. And this will be focused around the steps that should be taken, in my view, to ensure that no preventable deaths occur to children in CBP custody,” he said.
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This week, U.S. and Chinese officials held meetings in Washington aimed at building ties following months of tension since Beijing’s surveillance balloon floated across the U.S. in early February.

For the former U.S. officials who used to broker such talks 15 years ago, the tensions reflect how Beijing itself has changed under leader Xi Jinping.

Stephen Hadley, who served as national security adviser for former President George W. Bush, said Beijing has gone from wanting to be a part of the international system at the end of the Bush administration to trying to challenge it now.

“The China we faced was a China that wanted a benign international environment so they could focus on their own domestic development,” Hadley, one of the highest-profile U.S. foreign policy specialists of the past 25 years, told an audience in Washington this week.

“It was a China that did not want to overturn the international system but wanted to be a part of that system and made that very clear. It was a China that wanted a constructive relationship with the United States. And we tried to build that,” he added.

Hadley and other former Bush administration officials gathered this week to discuss relations with China during the Bush administration, just as China’s leader Xi Jinping was rising to power.

Dennis Wilder, a senior fellow for the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University, who appeared with Hadley at the event, said the Bush administration “did try to figure out Xi Jinping” during its first meeting with the Chinese leader. Wilder served as the National Security Council’s special assistant to Bush.

“When we went to the 2008 Olympics, Xi Jinping was actually in charge of the Olympics. … It was one of the most boring meetings I’d ever been in. Xi Jinping gave nothing. He was cardboard. He wasn’t going to tell us a thing about himself. He was not going to show his hand. And this is how he got to the top of the Chinese system. He did hide his cards,” Wilder said.

Wilder added that many thought Xi Jinping was “another reformist Chinese leader,” but everyone was surprised by him.

Xi’s vision

Xi is enhancing Beijing’s diplomacy, economic strength and military capability, believing the United States is in “terminal decline,” according to Hadley, whose book Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama was published in February.

Xi, Hadley said, views that “the West is in decline” and “the United States is in terminal decline.”

“Xi was prepared to put his power center stage and then to use it to intimidate his neighbors and others abroad, with his enhanced diplomacy, economic strength and military capability,” he said.

VOA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington for comment but received no response. But China’s official media outlets such as the People’s Daily and the Global Times have published pieces recently discussing various aspects of what is described as America’s decline, according to a collection published by CSIS.

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping, who is widely considered the father of modern China, kick-started the country’s economic reform that embraces a free-market economy while maintaining the political model of one-party dictatorship. The reform led China to open up to the world economically and politically, achieving double-digit GDP growth rates for over 30 years by becoming the global manufacturing hub. Today, China is the world’s second-biggest economy.

Hadley said Deng’s “hide and bide” strategy, which guides China to build power while hiding from international leadership responsibility, continued to be prominent in the Chinese leadership until Xi came to power in 2012.

The U.S. sees China as its main strategic and geopolitical challenge. The U.S. national security strategy published on October 2022 states that “the People’s Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit.”

Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at CSIS, who also attended the event, said the U.S. right now is not necessarily able to communicate with China the way it could during the Bush administration. But she added that there is a “continued emphasis on President [Joe] Biden being able to speak directly with Xi Jinping.”

“Given how much China has centralized power under Xi – very different than under Hu Jintao, who was going in sort of the opposite direction, inviting more collective leadership – that is even more important for the two leaders to maintain that personal bond,” Lin said.

Hadley said the foreign policy of the Bush administration that was passed to the Obama administration was to try to cooperate and engage with China and to “bring China into the international system,” but China’s shift to challenge the system was not anything the U.S. can control.

“Who leads countries really matters,” he said. “And I think if China decided in 2012 for a Jiang Zemin- or Hu Jintao-type leader, and we had that leader for 2012 to 2022, I think China would be in a very different place today. And America’s relationship with China would be very different today.”
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Living in New York City, working full time and without a car, Jessica Ray and her husband have come to rely on deliveries of food and just about everything else for their home. It has meant more free time on weekends with their young son, rather than standing in line for toilet paper or dragging heavy bags of dog food back to their apartment.

“I don’t even know where to buy dog food,” said Jessica Ray of the specialty food she buys for the family’s aging dog.

There are millions of families like the Rays who have swapped store visits for doorstep deliveries in recent years, meaning that contentious labor negotiations now underway at UPS could become vastly more disruptive than the last time it happened in 1997, when a scrappy upstart called Amazon.com became a public company.

UPS delivers millions more packages every day than it did just five years ago and its 350,000 unionized workers, represented by the Teamsters, still seethe about a contract they feel was forced on them in 2018.

In an environment of energized labor movements and lingering resentment among UPS workers, the Teamsters are expected to dig in, with the potential to cow a major logistical force in the U.S.

‘Something’s got to give’

The 24 million packages UPS ships on an average day amounts to about a quarter of all U.S. parcel volume, according to the global shipping and logistics firm Pitney Bowes, or as UPS puts it, the equivalent of about 6% of nation’s gross domestic product.

Higher prices and long wait times are all but certain if there is an impasse.

“Something’s got to give,” said Thomas Goldsby, logistics chairman in the Supply Chain Management Department at the University of Tennessee. “The python can’t swallow the alligator, and that’s going to be felt by all of us.”

In other words, brace yourself for Supply Chain Breakdown: The Sequel.

In the second half of 2021, the phrase “global supply chain” began to enter casual conversations as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses struggled to get what they needed, raising prices and wait times. Automakers held vehicles just off the assembly line because they didn’t have all the parts.

Some of those problems still linger and a strike at UPS threatens to extend the suffering.

Household routines at risk

Those who have come to rely on doorstep deliveries for the basics might have to rethink weekly schedules.

“We finally reached a point where we finally feel pretty good about it,” Ray said. “We can take a Saturday afternoon and do a fun family activity and not feel the burden of making everything work for the day-to-day functioning of our household.”

UPS workers feel they have played a part in the transformation of how Americans shop since the last contract was ratified in 2018, while helping to make UPS a much more valuable company.

Annual profits at UPS in the past two years are close to three times what they were before the pandemic. The Atlanta company returned about $8.6 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks in 2022, and forecasts another $8.4 billion for shareholders this year.

The Teamsters say frontline UPS workers deserve some of that windfall.

“Our members worked really hard over the pandemic,” said Teamsters spokesperson Kara Denize. “They need to see their fair share.”

Union members rejected the contract they were offered in 2018, but it was pushed through by union leadership based on a technicality. The acrimony over the current contract was so fierce that last year workers rejected a candidate to lead the Teamsters favored by longtime union head James Hoffa, instead choosing the more combative Sean O’Brien.

O’Brien went on a nationwide tour of local Teamsters shops preparing frontline workers ahead of negotiations.

In addition to addressing part-time pay, and what workers say is excessive overtime, the union wants to eliminate a contract provision that created two separate hierarchies of workers with different pay scales, hours and benefits. Driver safety, particularly the lack of air conditioning in delivery trucks, is also in the mix.

Possible ripple effect

A win at UPS could have implications for the organized labor outside the company.

Teamsters are attempting to organize Amazon workers and dozens of company delivery drivers and dispatchers in California joined the union last month. There are also prominent labor organization campaigns at Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Apple, even strippers at a dance club in Los Angeles.

“This has just huge implications for the entire labor movement in the United States,” said John Logan, the director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, referring to labor talks at UPS. “There’s greater assertiveness and militancy on the part of a lot of young labor activists and some sectors of the labor establishment. Sean O’Brien is representative of that.”

When dozens of UPS locals met with Teamsters leadership early this year, O’Brien delivered a message of urgency.

“We’re going into these negotiations with a clear message to UPS that we’re not going past August 1,” O’Brien told the gathering.

It would be the first work stoppage since a walkout by 185,000 workers crippled the company a quarter century ago.

UPS CEO Carol Tome has remained optimistic publicly, telling investors recently that the company and the Teamsters were not far apart on major issues.

“While we expect to hear a great deal of noise during the negotiation, I remain confident that a win-win-win contract is very achievable and that UPS and the Teamsters will reach agreement by the end of July,” Tome said.

If Tome is wrong, Americans might need to put aside more time to shop like they used to do.

“It has the potential to be significantly impactful,” said Ray, the New York City resident. “My husband and I have invested a lot in figuring out how to remove the burden of just making sure we always have toilet paper.”
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Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao was in the U.S. this week, meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. The meetings took place days after President Joe Biden signaled a thaw in bilateral relations strained by trade and security issues and the takedown by a U.S. fighter jet of a Chinese espionage balloon over American territory in February. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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The U.S. government can keep using chemical retardant dropped from aircraft to fight wildfires, despite finding that the practice pollutes streams in western states in violation of federal law, a judge ruled Friday.

Halting the use of the red slurry material could have resulted in greater environmental damage from wildfires, said U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana.

The judge agreed with U.S. Forest Service officials who said dropping retardant into areas with waterways was sometimes necessary to protect lives and property.

The ruling came after environmentalists sued following revelations that the Forest Service dropped retardant into waterways hundreds of times over the past decade.

Government officials say chemical fire retardant can be crucial to slowing the advance of dangerous blazes. Wildfires across North America have grown bigger and more destructive over the past two decades as climate change warms the planet.

More than 200 loads of retardant got into waterways over the past decade. Federal officials say those situations usually occurred by mistake and in less than 1% of the thousands of loads used annually.

A coalition that includes Paradise, California — where a 2018 blaze killed 85 people and destroyed the town — said a court ruling that stopped the use of retardant would have put lives, homes and forests at risk.

“This case was very personal for us,” Paradise Mayor Greg Bolin said. “Our brave firefighters need every tool in the toolbox to protect human lives and property against wildfires, and today’s ruling ensures we have a fighting chance this fire season.”

State and local agencies lean heavily on the U.S. Forest Service to help fight fires, many of which originate on, or include federal land.

Fire retardant is a specialized mixture of water and chemicals including inorganic fertilizers or salts. It’s designed to alter the way fire burns, making blazes less intense and slowing their advance.

That can give firefighters time to steer flames away from inhabited areas and in extreme situations to evacuate people from danger.

“Retardant lasts and even works if it’s dry,” said Scott Upton, a former region chief and air attack group supervisor for California’s state fire agency. “Water is only so good because it dries out. It does very well to suppress fires, but it won’t last.”

The Oregon-based group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics argued in its lawsuit filed last year that the Forest Service was disregarding federal law by continuing to use retardant without taking adequate precautions to protect streams and rivers.

Christensen said stopping the use of fire retardant would “conceivably result in greater harm from wildfires — including to human life and property and to the environment.” The judge said his ruling was limited to 10 western states where members of the plaintiff’s group alleged harm from pollution in waterways that they use.

After the lawsuit was filed the Forest Service applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for a permit that would allow it to continue using retardant without breaking the law. The process could take several years.

Forest Service spokesperson Wade Muehlhof said the agency believes retardant can be used “without compromising public health and the environment.”

“The Forest Service is working diligently with the Environmental Protection Agency on a general permit for aerially delivered retardant that will allow us to continue using wildfire retardant to protect homes and communities,” Muehlhof said.

Climate change, people moving into fire-prone areas, and overgrown forests are creating more catastrophic megafires that are harder to fight.

Many areas of the western U.S. experienced heavy snowfalls this past winter, and as a result fire dangers are lower than in recent years across much of the region.
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