Three men were convicted of various charges Tuesday in a trial showcasing U.S. claims that China has engineered pressure campaigns on American soil to bully expatriates into returning home, part of an effort called “Operation Fox Hunt.”

American private investigator Michael McMahon and two Chinese citizens living in the U.S. — Zheng Congying and Zhu Yong — all were accused of taking part in scare tactics aimed at a former Chinese official. He was living quietly in New Jersey, and Beijing wanted him back.

Zhu was convicted of acting as an illegal foreign agent, stalking, interstate stalking conspiracy and conspiring to act as an illegal foreign agent. Zheng was convicted of stalking and stalking conspiracy but acquitted of the other charges.

McMahon was convicted of all except conspiracy to act as a foreign agent.

The Brooklyn federal court trial was the first to result from a spate of U.S. prosecutions scrutinizing China’s Operation Fox Hunt, a nearly decade-old initiative that Beijing characterizes as a pursuit of fugitives from justice. U.S. authorities view it, at least sometimes, as an exercise in “transnational repression,” or deploying government operatives to harass, threaten and silence critics living abroad.

China has denied trying to force repatriations through intimidation and says the U.S. is maligning an effort to fight crime.

Prosecutors say pressure from Beijing was brought to bear in suburban New Jersey, where former Wuhan city official Xu Jin and his family moved in 2010. China has accused him and wife, Liu Fang, of taking bribes; they deny it and say they were targeted because he got crosswise with China’s Communist power structure.

According to prosecutors, Zhu, Zheng and McMahon took part in a yearslong, multipronged effort to goad Xu into going back to China. The country couldn’t officially compel him to do so, as it has no extradition treaty with the U.S.

The defense acknowledged that Zhu, Zheng and McMahon took various actions but said the three had no idea that Beijing was allegedly behind it all.

McMahon said he was “devastated by the verdict,” insisting that all he had done was his job as a private investigator.

Zheng and Zhu left court without speaking to reporters. Messages seeking comment were sent to their attorneys.

McMahon, a former New York City police sergeant, conducted surveillance and data searches to smoke out Xu’s carefully guarded address and information about his loved ones. Zhu, a retiree who also goes by Jason Zhu and Yong Zhu, helped hire McMahon and equip him with details to get started.

Zheng later went to Xu’s home and left an ominous note: “If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”

“Before I saw this, I felt that the threats from the Chinese Communist Party was only a mental threat to me. However, when I saw that note, I realized that it had become a physical threat,” Xu testified, through a court interpreter.

The defense said McMahon, Zheng and Zhu were told they were helping to collect a debt or achieve some other end for a company or individuals — not for China.

“They were used, cheated, misguided by a foreign government to work for them,” Zhu’s attorney, Kevin Tung, said in a closing argument.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Heeren said the three “agreed to participate in something that went way, way over the line … a line that all three defendants knew they were crossing.”

Prosecutors said the arm-twisting included derogatory Facebook messages to friends of Xu’s adult daughter and an onslaught of letters to a relative in New Jersey.

At one point, a Chinese prosecutor even flew Xu’s unwilling, octogenarian father to New Jersey to lean on his son to return to their homeland, according to prosecutors and trial testimony.

The trial unfolded at a fraught time in U.S.-China relations. The two powers have been at odds in recent years over a growing list of issues: trade, industrial espionage, human rights, Taiwan, the South China Sea, Russia’s war against Ukraine, U.S. allegations of Chinese spying, and Washington’s claims that Beijing is tracking and harassing dissidents overseas.

China announced Operation Fox Hunt in July 2014 as an effort to go after corrupt officials and criminals who had fled the country. However, Beijing’s wanted list has included people whose political and cultural views conflicted with those of China’s ruling Communist Party.

U.S. prosecutors have brought several criminal cases involving alleged Operation Fox Hunt endeavors. In one, a pregnant U.S. citizen was held in China for eight months and pressured to persuade her mother to return to the country, prosecutors said.
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U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has reached an agreement with the Justice Department to plead guilty on three federal tax and firearm charges in a deal in which he is unlikely to be imprisoned.

According to a court filing on Tuesday, the 53-year-old son of the president, long troubled by crack cocaine addiction and the focus of investigations of his overseas business transactions, will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges for failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes on time, and agree to probation.

In addition, the court filing said the Justice Department would charge Biden but agree not to prosecute him in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018 when he was using drugs, even though he claimed on a purchase document that he was drug-free. The deal calls for Biden to remain drug-free for two years and agree to never again own a firearm.

The agreement was hashed out over several months between lawyers for Hunter Biden and David Weiss, the U.S. attorney general for the eastern state of Delaware, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump but was retained after Trump’s defeat in 2020 to handle the politically sensitive case.

In a statement, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Christopher Clark, said, “With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.

“I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”

The agreement must still be approved by a federal judge. Hunter Biden is expected to appear soon in a federal court in Delaware, where the Biden family lives when they are not in Washington, and plead guilty to the misdemeanor tax charges. If there are no last-minute complications, he is unlikely to be sentenced to prison.

“The president and first lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement.

Trump and Republicans in the House of Representatives have long sought to tie Hunter Biden’s overseas business deals in Ukraine and China to alleged Biden family financial wrongdoing.

Representative James Comer, who has been leading an investigation of Biden family finances, assailed the plea deal.

“Hunter Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist when growing evidence uncovered by the House Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery,” he said.

Republicans have alleged that Hunter Biden was only able to secure lucrative overseas business deals by trading on the importance of his father’s vice presidency and then being elected president.
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A U.S. federal judge in Florida on Tuesday set August 14 for the start of the trial of former President Donald Trump on charges he mishandled classified national security documents when his presidency ended. Legal analysts say the complexity of the case could easily delay the first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. leader.

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, in announcing the 37-count indictment against Trump two weeks ago, called for a “speedy trial,” but Trump has yet to hire a full legal defense team in the southern state of Florida where Judge Aileen Cannon presides, and the trial would occur.

In her order, Cannon, a 42-year-old jurist appointed to the federal bench by Trump shortly after his 2020 reelection loss, told Justice Department prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers to file all pre-trial motions by July 24.

Last week, she directed the lawyers involved in the case to start filling out a federal government document to secure security clearances so they can view the classified documents that Trump kept at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate.

Because of the complexity of the case, numerous legal analysts have predicted the trial won’t start for a year, and possibly not until after the November 2024 presidential election. Trump, according to national polling, is the leading Republican contender for the party’s presidential nomination. 

Trump was required by U.S. law to turn his presidential documents over to the National Archives when his four-year term ended in early 2021, but he did not, and aides say he often referred to them as “my papers.”

Last week, at his arraignment in Miami, he pleaded not guilty to the criminal allegations.

The indictment alleges that Trump illegally retained 31 documents that “…included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”

As his presidency ended on January 20 two years ago, the indictment said, “Trump was not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents.” At various times, the indictment alleges that Trump stored boxes of the documents in a bathroom and shower stall at Mar-a-Lago, on a ballroom stage, and in a bedroom, an office and a storage room.

As a former president, Trump could have sought a waiver of the requirement that only people with a “need to know” could continue to retain and look at the documents, but the indictment said that the former president “did not obtain any such waiver after his presidency.”

The 37-count indictment against Trump also alleges that the country’s 45th president conspired with a personal aide, Walt Nauta, to hide the documents from Trump’s attorney, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the grand jury that was hearing evidence in the case. Nauta faces six charges.

Among the other charges, Trump is accused of making false statements to investigators and ordered that boxes be moved to various locations at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida so that his lawyer would not be able to locate all the documents that federal authorities had subpoenaed.

In two instances, the indictment alleged that Trump displayed a couple of the classified documents in front of people without security clearances.

But in an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump said that in one of the instances cited in the indictment, he was holding news articles, not classified material.

“There was no document,” Trump said. “That was a massive amount of papers talking about Iran and other things.”
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U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken traveled Tuesday to London where he is due to meet with his British and Ukrainian counterparts ahead of a conference focused on fostering international support for helping Ukraine recover from the effects of a Russian invasion. 

Britain and Ukraine are co-hosting the conference taking place Wednesday and Thursday. 

Blinken and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly are scheduled to take part in an event for World Refugee Day at a center set up to help Ukrainians who fled the war get the advice and support they need to adapt to life in Britain. 

After bilateral talks with Cleverly, Blinken is also due to hold talks later Tuesday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. 

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke by telephone Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference. 

“It was a unique opportunity to underline the strong public and private sector support for Ukraine, and demonstrate the country’s transformation and ongoing reform, the leaders agreed,” Sunak’s office said in a statement. 

Britain is the second-largest donor of military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, trailing only the United States. 

Zelenskyy said he expects the conference will consolidate various recovery efforts, and that the recovery “should demonstrate to the world that freedom is invincible.” 

Zelenskyy, in his nightly address Monday, also praised Britain for new legislation that would allow redirecting Russian funds frozen under sanctions to help pay for Ukraine’s rebuilding. 
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A U.S. judge in Florida on Monday ordered defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump not to release evidence in the classified documents case to the media or public, according to a court filing.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart also put strict conditions on Trump’s access to the materials.

“The Discovery materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court,” the order filed on Monday said.

It also specified that Trump “shall not retain copies” and that he may only review case materials “under the direct supervision of Defense Counsel or a member of Defense Counsel’s staff.”

The order granted a motion filed last week by prosecutors who had asked the court to put conditions on how the defense stores and uses the documents.

Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was indicted on federal charges this month. He was accused of illegally retaining classified government documents after leaving the White House and then conspiring to obstruct a federal probe of the matter.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in court to all 37 counts.

He defended his handling of the boxes in an interview with Fox News on Monday, saying that he needed to go through the boxes to remove personal items including golf shirts, pants and shoes.

“Before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things,” Trump said. “I was very busy, as you’ve sort of seen.”

Trump repeated his claim that the boxes contained magazine articles, personal items and art. The Justice Department told a court that the boxes contained highly classified documents, including a plan to attack Iran.

The former president faces other legal hurdles, having been indicted by New York City prosecutors in connection with an alleged hush-money payment to a porn star.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is also probing Trump’s alleged role in actions surrounding his loss in the 2020 presidential election that culminated in Trump supporters’ deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump is also being investigated in connection with efforts to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in Georgia.
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Chinese and U.S. officials say the two countries made progress during meetings between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s top leaders. Blinken made his first visit to China at a time of increased tensions over Taiwan, Beijing’s ties to the Kremlin, and Chinese military actions that Washington has called “unsafe.” VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports. Produced by: Barry Unger
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U.S. President Joe Biden is embarking on a string of political fundraisers through the end of June to bolster the initial stages of his 2024 reelection campaign.

Biden is raising money at four events this week in the heavily Democratic West Coast city of San Francisco, long a fount of campaign cash for the party’s national leaders. In all, the president is planning 20 fundraisers over the next two weeks, about half of which he is hosting, while first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, are speaking at the remaining events.

Biden announced his reelection effort in April but has had relatively few overtly political events since then, although he continues to regularly fly from Washington to key political battlegrounds around the country to promote new spending for infrastructure, the manufacture of computer chips and climate control that Congress approved during the first two years of his presidency.

In addition to the San Francisco events, Biden is also planning to appear at fundraisers in New York, Maryland and Illinois, all Democratic strongholds. Key worker unions endorsed Biden over the weekend in the eastern state of Pennsylvania, a traditional political battleground.

“There’s a lot we’ve done,” Biden said last week. “We just got to let many people know we’ve done it and be straight with people. Just be as straight as we can.”

The timing of the fundraisers coincides with the end of the second quarter of the year, a deadline when U.S. politicians are required to report the amount of money they have raised and disclose a list of major donors.

Biden, who has only limited opposition in seeking a second four-year term in the White House, is trying to build political momentum while 10 or more opposition Republican presidential candidates are in the earliest stages of their campaigns for the party’s nomination to oppose Biden in the November 2024 election.

Republicans are planning their first debate in August, but it is an open question how many candidates will be allowed to participate, with all the candidates facing minimal polling and fundraising requirements imposed by the national Republican Party to qualify to be on the debate stage.

Former President Donald Trump, according to national polling, is easily the Republican front-runner for the 2024 nomination, 30 percentage points or so ahead of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and with an even bigger lead over an array of other candidates polling at 5% or less.

Among those opposing Trump are his vice president, Mike Pence, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott and former governors Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson.

Despite his polling lead among Republicans, Trump’s run to reclaim the White House that he lost to Biden in the 2020 election is complicated by two criminal indictments he is facing, state charges in New York linked to a $130,000 hush money payment in 2016 to an adult film star and federal charges related to his handling of classified documents as he left office in 2021.

In addition, Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith is continuing to investigate Trump’s effort to upend his 2020 election loss, while a state prosecutor in the southern state of Georgia is probing Trump’s effort to reverse his loss there.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
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June 21 marks the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere – in Seattle, Washington, the summer solstice was celebrated this past weekend with the annual Fremont Solstice Parade. Natasha Mozgovaya has more.
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A Somali woman announced her candidacy for mayor of St. Louis Park, a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota. If elected, she would become the first Muslim and Somali mayor in the state. Mohamud Mascadde has this story from Minneapolis, narrated by Salem Solomon.
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More than 1 million people have been dropped from Medicaid in the past couple months as some states moved swiftly to halt health care coverage following the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

Most got dropped for not filling out paperwork.

Though the eligibility review is required by the federal government, President Joe Biden’s administration isn’t pleased at how efficiently some states are accomplishing the task.

“Pushing through things and rushing it will lead to eligible people — kids and families — losing coverage for some period of time,” Daniel Tsai, a top federal Medicaid official recently told reporters.

Already, about 1.5 million people have been removed from Medicaid in more than two dozen states that started the process in April or May, according to publicly available reports and data obtained by The Associated Press.

Florida has dropped several hundred thousand people, by far the most among states.

The drop rate also has been particularly high in other states. For people whose cases were decided in May, around half or more got dropped in Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia.

By its own count, Arkansas has dropped more than 140,000 people from Medicaid.

The eligibility redeterminations have created headaches for Jennifer Mojica, 28, who was told in April that she no longer qualified for Medicaid because Arkansas had incorrectly determined her income was above the limit.

She got that resolved, but was then told her 5-year-old son was being dropped from Medicaid because she had requested his cancellation — something that never happened, she said. Her son’s coverage has been restored, but now Mojica says she’s been told her husband no longer qualifies. The uncertainty has been frustrating, she said.

“It was like fixing one thing and then another problem came up, and they fixed it and then something else came up,” Mojica said.

‘Swiftly disenroll’

Arkansas officials said they have tried to renew coverage automatically for as many people as possible and placed a special emphasis on reaching families with children.

But a 2021 state law requires the post-pandemic eligibility redeterminations to be completed in six months, and the state will continue “to swiftly disenroll individuals who are no longer eligible,” the Department of Human Services said in statement.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has dismissed criticism of the state’s process.

“Those who do not qualify for Medicaid are taking resources from those who need them,” Sanders said on Twitter last month. “But the pandemic is over — and we are leading the way back to normalcy.”

More than 93 million people nationwide were enrolled in Medicaid as of the most recent available data in February — up nearly one-third from the pre-pandemic total in January 2020. The rolls swelled because federal law prohibited states from removing people from Medicaid during the health emergency in exchange for providing states with increased funding.

Now that eligibility reviews have resumed, states have begun plowing through a backlog of cases to determine whether people’s income or life circumstances have changed.

States have a year to complete the process. But tracking down responses from everyone has proved difficult because some people have moved, changed contact information, or disregarded mailings about the renewal process.

Outreach via text, email, phone

Before dropping people from Medicaid, the Florida Department of Children and Families said it makes between five and 13 contact attempts, including texts, emails and phone calls. Yet the department said 152,600 people have been non-responsive.

Their coverage could be restored retroactively if people submit information showing their eligibility up to 90 days after their deadline.

Unlike some states, Idaho continued to evaluate people’s Medicaid eligibility during the pandemic even though it didn’t remove anyone. When the enrollment freeze ended in April, Idaho started processing those cases — dropping nearly 67,000 of the 92,000 people whose cases have been decided so far.

Advocates fear that many households losing coverage may include children who are actually still eligible, because Medicaid covers children at higher income levels than their parents or guardians. A report last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services forecast that children would be disproportionately impacted, with more than half of those disenrolled still actually eligible.

That’s difficult to confirm, however, because the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services doesn’t require states to report a demographic breakdown of those dropped. In fact, CMS has yet to release any state-by-state data. The AP obtained data directly from states and from other groups that have been collecting it.

Some states haven’t been able to complete all the eligibility determinations that are due each month. Pennsylvania reported more than 100,000 incomplete cases in both April and May. Tens of thousands of cases also remained incomplete in April or May in Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio.

“If states are already behind in processing renewals, that’s going to snowball over time,” said Tricia Brooks, a research professor at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. “Once they get piles of stuff that haven’t been processed, I don’t see how they catch up easily.”
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Monday marks the Juneteenth federal holiday in the United States. The name comes from the day after the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865 — June 19th — when U.S. soldiers arrived at the island city of Galveston, Texas, and informed slaves that they were free. Slaves had already been freed in other parts of the South, but most in Texas were kept in bondage until the Army arrived. As Greg Flakus reports, while the holiday is celebrated nationwide, it has special significance to the people of Galveston.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Monday with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on the second and final day of a visit to Beijing aimed at stabilizing relations between the two powers.

Blinken and Wang shook hands at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse before going into a meeting room for the talks along with delegations from both sides.

Sunday, Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang held “candid” and “direct” talks in Beijing, the State Department said.

During the seven-and-a-half hour meeting, Qin accepted an invitation to come to the United States. Agreement was also reached on more flights between the two countries.

In addition, both sides will continue to work on several issues “at a working level,” said a senior State Department official.

After Blinken’s in-person meetings with Qin, they had a working dinner later Sunday at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.

“The Secretary made clear that the United States will always stand up for the interests and values of the American people and work with its allies and partners to advance our vision for a world that is free, open, and upholds the international rules-based order,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in a statement.

He added the top U.S.-China diplomats also discussed how to facilitate people-to-people exchanges.

Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit Beijing since 2018. His two-day trip was rescheduled from February after a Chinese surveillance balloon flew through U.S. airspace.

“Hope this meeting can help steer China-U.S. relations back to what the two presidents (U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping) agreed upon in Bali,” said Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Hua Chunying in a Tweet. During that meeting the two leaders agreed to maintain open lines of communication.

“I think I can say with great confidence there is a recognition on both sides that we do need to have senior-level channels of communication, that we are at an important point in the relationship where I think reducing the risk of miscalculation” is important, a senior State Department official told reporters.

Topics high on the agenda during Blinken’s meetings in Beijing include regional security, counternarcotics, climate change, global macroeconomic stability, Americans wrongfully detained in China, as well as exchanges between American and Chinese people, according to senior U.S. officials.

Americans wrongfully detained in China

Children of Americans who the U.S. considers wrongfully detained by Chinese authorities asked Blinken to raise their fathers’ cases with his Chinese counterparts.

“Behind every hostage is a family suffering every day,” said “Bring Our Families Home Campaign” in a tweet Sunday.

“This Sunday will be the 7th time I’ve missed Father’s Day with my dad,” said Harrison Li. “Releasing my dad is one of the easiest things that the Chinese government can do to show they are serious about normalizing relations.”

Harrison Li’s dad, Kai Li, is an American citizen detained in China since September 2016. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage, a charge that his family rejects.

Alice Lin is the daughter of American pastor David Lin, who was detained under unclear circumstances in 2006 and later sentenced to life in prison on charges of contract fraud. Lin’s family staunchly maintains his innocence. Lin’s sentence was later reduced, and he is expected to be released in 2029.

“Secretary Blinken, we miss my dad. Please do everything possible to bring him home,” Lin told VOA.

Taiwan

Washington has said China’s military escalation in the Taiwan Strait was “a global concern.”

A senior State Department official told VOA it is an “abiding interest” of the U.S. to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. China is seen as ramping up economic coercion targeting Taiwan ahead of its presidential election.

In May, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told senators that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could halt the world’s largest advanced semiconductor production, wiping out up to $1 trillion per year.

“I will say this number is way too small” because it only costs about 6% of China’s gross domestic product, said Chen-Yu Li who is the chief economist of Taishin Financial Holdings in Taiwan.

Li said a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait will affect other Asian economies such as Japan and South Korea, whose GDP totals at least $5 trillion. He also cited the market value of tech giants such as Apple, Nvidia, AMD which Li estimates is at least $3 trillion.

“If Taiwan is under attack, the stock market in the U.S. may vanish $3 trillion,” Li said during a May 12 event hosted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“If I am Xi Jinping, I’ll be very happy to attack Taiwan. It’s just 6%.”

NGOs push for human rights

In a signed letter to Blinken, 42 nongovernmental organizations urged the top U.S. diplomat to hold the Chinese government accountable for its human rights abuses, citing repression against ordinary people who participated in peaceful protests.

“Hong Kong police detained over 20 people for commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre after banning the annual Victoria Park candlelight vigil,” said the letter.
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California photographer Jason Perry has been volunteering for Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion, collecting donations and clothes for civilians and medications for combat teams. During one trip, he brought more than $200,000 in humanitarian aid. Anna Kosstutschenko spoke with Perry. Camera – Pavel Suhodolskiy.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began two days of talks in Beijing on Sunday, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Blinken’s visit, postponed after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace in February, was aimed at stabilizing tense relations between the two world’s two biggest economies, but hopes for a breakthrough were low.

Below is a list of some other high-level U.S.-China exchanges during Biden’s term.

Biden-Xi phone call – February 10, 2021

Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held their first phone call as leaders, appearing at odds on issues ranging from trade to human rights, even as Xi warned that confrontation would be a “disaster” for both nations.  

First high-level meeting – March 18, 2021

The first bilateral face-to-face meeting at a high level under Biden’s administration was in Anchorage, Alaska. It got off to a fiery start, with each side rebuking the other’s policies in a rare public display that underscored the tensions.

The talks were led on the U.S. side by Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and on the Chinese side by senior diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi.

First trade talks – May 26, 2021

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and China’s then Vice Premier Liu He held talks virtually, the first such high level trade talks between the world’s two biggest economies since Biden took office.  

Senior US diplomat visits China – July 26, 2021

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman held talks with State Councilor Wang Yi, in Tianjin, China. She was the top Biden official to visit China until Blinken nearly two years later.  

Biden-Xi hold meeting – November 15, 2021

Biden and Xi spoke via video link for the first time in talks lasting more than three hours, which covered a wide range of topics including Taiwan, North Korea and trade.  

Sullivan-Yang talks in Rome – March 14, 2022

Weeks after China’s close ally Russia invaded Ukraine, Sullivan held a seven-hour meeting with Yang to warn Beijing not to aid Moscow’s war effort.  

Defense chiefs hold first talks – April 20, 2022

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a call with China’s then-defense minister Wei Fenghe, the first talks between the two since Biden took office.  

Blinken-Wang talks in New York – September 23, 2022

Taiwan was the focus of 90-minute, “direct and honest” talks between Blinken and Wang on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, a U.S official told reporters.

The talks came just over a month after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the democratic island China claims as its own, triggering a furious reaction from Beijing.

Biden, Xi meet in Bali – November 14, 2022

Biden and Xi held their long-awaited first face-to-face leadership talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. During the three-and-a-half hours of talks the pair covered topics including Taiwan and nuclear-armed North Korea.

VP Harris greets Xi in Bangkok – November 19, 2022

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met briefly with Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Thailand. 

Blinken, Wang hold tense Munich talks – February 19, 2023

The top diplomats of the two superpowers, Blinken and Wang, met at an undisclosed location on the sidelines of a global security conference in Munich, amid the dispute over the U.S. downing of the suspected Chinese spy balloon.

US, China commerce chiefs trade barbs in Washington – May 25, 2023

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao exchanged barbs on trade, investment and export policies in face-to-face talks in Washington, D.C., described by Raimondo’s office as “candid and substantive.”

US, China defense chiefs shake hands at Shangri-la Dialogue – June 2, 2023

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin shook hands with China’s Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu on the sidelines of a security summit in Singapore but the two did not have a “substantive exchange,” according to the Pentagon. The handshake came after China rejected a proposal from the U.S. for Austin and Li to hold formal talks at the Shangri-La Dialogue.
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President Joe Biden will visit Palo Alto, California Monday and announce over $600 million in climate investments to help coastal communities around the country fight climate change, a White House official said Sunday.

The investments will be funded by Biden’s climate and infrastructure bills and will include a $575 million project to fight rising sea levels, storm surges and tidal hurricanes, said the official, who did not wish to be named.

It will also include a $67 million investment for California to modernize its electric grid to reduce the impact of extreme weather events such as wildfires.

Biden signed a $430 billion bill last August that was touted as the biggest climate package in U.S. history.

The president’s trip to California will also see him raise campaign cash from tech and climate donors as he races to raise over a billion dollars for his reelection fight.
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At least 20 people were shot, one fatally, early Sunday during a gathering in a parking lot in suburban Chicago, authorities said.

TV news video showed the strip mall lot filled with debris and police tape in Willowbrook, about 32 kilometers southwest of Chicago.

“There were at least 20 individuals shot. One victim is deceased,” said Eric Swanson, deputy chief at the DuPage County sheriff’s office. “The motive behind this incident is unclear. … We transported numerous victims from the scene. Others just walked into area hospitals.”

The conditions of the wounded were not immediately available, Swanson told reporters.

“It was supposed to be like a Juneteenth celebration. We just started hearing shooting, so we dropped down until they stopped,” witness Markeshia Avery told WLS-TV.

Another witness, Craig Lotcie, said: “Everybody ran, and it was chaos.”
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Former President Donald Trump’s indictment over his handling of classified materials is sowing some divisions among Republicans. Veronica Balderas Iglesias has a wrap on some of the statements made over the weekend.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Beijing. He is the first chief U.S. diplomat to visit China since 2018. Blinken is meeting with Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, and very likely Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Both U.S. and Chinese officials have recognized the need to stabilize the nations’ relationship and to have senior-level channels.

But expectations are low for the two countries to reset the fraught ties over human rights, Taiwan, and technology, and other security issues.   

Shortly before departing for China on Friday evening, Blinken told a news conference in Washington that U.S. officials would speak candidly with their Chinese counterparts about “very real concerns” on a range of issues.

Speaking alongside visiting Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, Blinken said the U.S. wants to make sure “that the competition we have with China doesn’t veer into confrontation or conflict.”

Expectations are low that the trip will reset the two countries’ fraught relationship.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Friday that “the United States views China as its ‘primary rival’ and ‘the most consequential geopolitical challenge.’ This is a major strategic misjudgment.”

He said the competition the United States has with China is “not responsible competition, but irresponsible bullying. It will only push the two countries towards confrontation and create a divided world.”

Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit Beijing since 2018.     

“While in Beijing, Secretary Blinken will meet with senior [People’s Republic of China] officials where he will discuss the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the U.S.-PRC relationship. He will also raise bilateral issues of concern, global and regional matters, and potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges,” the State Department said Wednesday.

Tuesday night, Blinken spoke by phone with Qin.

In a tweet, Blinken said he and Qin “discussed ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication as well as bilateral and global issues.”   

In Beijing, Chinese officials Wednesday asked the United States to stop what they said was Washington’s undermining of China’s security and development interests, but added the two countries can manage differences and promote cooperation.

Wang said during a Wednesday briefing that the Beijing government hopes the U.S. will “take concrete actions” to “work with China to effectively manage differences, promote exchanges and cooperation, [and] stabilize the relationship from further deterioration.”

Senior U.S. officials said topics high on the agenda during Blinken’s meetings include regional security, counternarcotics, climate change, global macroeconomic stability, Americans wrongfully detained in China, and exchanges between American and Chinese people.  

Officials said they would not anticipate “a long list of deliverables” after Blinken’s meetings in Beijing.

In Brussels Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed optimism that he would eventually hold talks with his Chinese counterpart after China refused a meeting at an event in Singapore earlier this month.

“I’m confident that, over time, that’s going to happen. We’re going to meet at some point in time. But we’re not there yet,” Austin told a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

On Wednesday, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told reporters during a phone briefing that stopping illicit fentanyl “will feature prominently” in Blinken’s meetings in Beijing. Kritenbrink is accompanying Blinken on the trip. 

Officials also said China’s military escalation in the Taiwan Strait was “a global concern.”

Kurt Campbell, coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the White House National Security Council, said the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is “a clear bipartisan, strong determination” of the United States.

U.S. officials have said it is in the interest of both countries to maintain open lines of communication. The Pentagon also wants Beijing to answer a military hotline so generals can talk during incidents like a recent close encounter involving U.S. and Chinese ships in the Taiwan Strait.     

Observers say despite the tensions, the two governments are trying to set up a summit later this year.

“Both countries are working toward a possible meeting between [U.S. President Joe] Biden and Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, which will take place in San Francisco in November,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “And in order to have a successful summit, if that is indeed on the agenda, there needs to be a lot of preparation,” Glaser added.

While Washington is seeking to reengage Beijing on the issues of counternarcotics and climate change, experts and congressional critics are skeptical that the two countries can have a substantial change in the status of their relationship.

“I do not think that we should be looking towards a reset of the U.S.-China relationship,” Glaser told VOA.

“It is an opportunity for both sides to continue to express their concerns and maybe find ways to address differences. This is particularly true in the military realm, where they’ve actually been frozen,” Glaser added.

After Beijing, Blinken heads to London to attend a Ukraine Recovery Conference to “mobilize international support from the public and private sector” and “help Ukraine recover from Russia’s brutal and ongoing attacks.” 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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On Monday, Americans will celebrate Juneteenth, marking the day when the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free.

For generations, Black Americans have recognized the end of one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history with joy, in the form of parades, street festivals, musical performances or cookouts.

The U.S. government was slow to embrace the occasion — it was only in 2021 that President Joe Biden signed a bill passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19th, as a federal holiday.

And just as many people learn what Juneteenth is all about, the holiday’s traditions are facing new pressures — political rhetoric condemning efforts to teach Americans about the nation’s racial history, companies using the holiday as a marketing event, people partying without understanding why.

Here is a look at the origins of Juneteenth, how it became a federal holiday and more about its history.

How did Juneteenth start?

The celebrations began with enslaved people in Galveston, Texas. Although President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in 1863, it could not be enforced in many places in the South until the Civil War ended in 1865. Even then, some white people who had profited from their unpaid labor were reluctant to share the news.

Laura Smalley, freed from a plantation near Bellville, Texas, remembered in a 1941 interview that the man she referred to as “old master” came home from fighting in the Civil War and didn’t tell the people he enslaved what had happened.

“Old master didn’t tell, you know, they was free,” Smalley said. “I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That’s why, you know, we celebrate that day.”

News that the war had ended and they were free finally reached Galveston when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the Gulf Coast city on June 19, 1865, more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

Granger delivered General Order No. 3, which said, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”

Slavery was permanently abolished six months later, when Georgia ratified the 13th Amendment. And the next year, the now-free people of Galveston started celebrating Juneteenth, an observance that has continued and spread around the world. Events include concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.

What does ‘Juneteenth’ mean?

It’s a blend of the words June and nineteenth. The holiday has also been called Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day, second Independence Day and Emancipation Day.

It began with church picnics and speeches, and spread as Black Texans moved elsewhere.

Most U.S. states now hold celebrations honoring Juneteenth as a holiday or a day of recognition, like Flag Day. Juneteenth is a paid holiday for state employees in Texas, New York, Virginia, Washington, and now Nevada as well. Hundreds of companies give workers the day off.

Opal Lee, a former teacher and activist, is largely credited for rallying others behind a campaign to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. The 96-year-old had vivid memories of celebrating Juneteenth in East Texas as a child with music, food and games. In 2016, the “little old lady in tennis shoes” walked through her home city of Fort Worth, Texas and then in other cities before arriving in Washington, D.C. Soon, celebrities and politicians were lending their support.

Lee was one of the people standing next to Biden when he signed Juneteenth into law.

How have Juneteenth celebrations evolved over the years?

The national reckoning over race ignited by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police helped set the stage for Juneteenth to become the first new federal holiday since 1983, when Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created.

The bill was sponsored by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and had 60 co-sponsors, a show of bipartisan support as lawmakers struggled to overcome divisions that are still simmering three years later.

Now there is a movement to use the holiday as an opportunity for activism and education, with community service projects aimed at addressing racial disparities and educational panels on topics such as health care inequities and the need for parks and green spaces.

Like most holidays, Juneteenth has also seen its fair share of commercialism. Retailers, museums and other venues have capitalized on it by selling Juneteenth-themed T-shirts, party ware and ice cream. Some of the marketing has misfired, provoking a social media backlash.

Supporters of the holiday have also worked to make sure Juneteenth celebrators don’t forget why the day exists.

“In 1776 the country was freed from the British, but the people were not all free,” Dee Evans, national director of communications of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, said in 2019. “June 19, 1865, was actually when the people and the entire country was actually free.”

There’s also sentiment to use the day to remember the sacrifices that were made for freedom in the United States — especially in these racially and politically charged days.

Said Para LaNell Agboga, museum site coordinator at the George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural and Genealogy Center in Austin, Texas, “Our freedoms are fragile, and it doesn’t take much for things to go backward.”
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Nestled among the bustling city streets of Washington is a hidden oasis that many Americans don’t know exists. Congress established the U.S. National Arboretum in 1927. Vital scientific research is under way at the sprawling 183-hectare compound. VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports on the arboretum’s critical government mission. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
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As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to the United States for a state visit this week, officials in both countries expressed optimism about a trip that is being billed as a milestone in relations between the two countries.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that the Indo-U.S. relationship has come a “long way.”

“You can look at the technology part of the relationship, you can look at the trade in the relationship, you can look at the political convergence, and you can look at the strategic interests. So, I think there is a very compelling case for stronger and stronger India-U.S. relations,” Jaishankar told reporters last week.

The most compelling case, analysts say, is the rise of China. Modi visits the United States as India’s fraying ties with Beijing following a three-year-long military standoff along their disputed Himalayan borders have prompted New Delhi to drop previous hesitations and work closely with Washington in Asia as it seeks to counterbalance an increasingly assertive Beijing.

“The strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific has changed very dramatically and there is recognition both in Washington and New Delhi that they need to work ever so closely to stabilize the situation,” said Harsh Pant, vice president, studies and foreign policy, at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

“That strategic clarity has meant that for India strengthening ties with a like-minded country like the U.S. has become a strategic imperative,” he said.

Giving India access to advanced defense technologies, including coproduction of weapons, is expected to be a key takeaway during Modi’s visit. This could include an agreement to produce jet engines by General Electric for military aircraft in India according to a Reuters report. The two countries are also discussing the possible purchase of U.S.-made armed drones by India.

Analysts say the defense partnership is being shored up as Washington wants to build India’s military capabilities.

“The Americans are looking to strengthen India as a counterweight to China, so they want to support India’s military modernization,” according to Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs. “That is why both sides have removed some of the cobwebs that existed and are saying we have the same adversary, and we need to cooperate a lot more to push back this shared adversary.”

He said that from India’s standpoint also there are question marks over the viability of Russia as a military supplier, which for decades provided the bulk of Indian military hardware, to provide India with advanced weapons as it is weakened by Western sanctions.

The groundwork for Modi’s visit has been laid by recent high-level visits by U.S. officials to India. Earlier this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the two countries are setting a roadmap for defense industrial cooperation.

Modi is also expected to meet top business leaders in Washington as he tries to woo American companies amid U.S. efforts to diversify supply chains beyond China in critical areas such as semiconductors.

Building factories in India however has not been easy with U.S. businesses often complaining of regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, on a visit to New Delhi, told an Indian business forum Tuesday that both countries are engaged in efforts to facilitate trade.

“A number of the deliverables at that [Modi] visit are not just bullet points on a page. They are fundamentally designed to remove those obstacles in defense trade, in high-tech trade, in investment in each of our countries in taking away obstacles,” according to Sullivan.

The areas in which the two countries aim to deepen cooperation include quantum computing, artificial intelligence and 5G wireless networks — areas in which China has acquired a dominating position.

The visit will include all the pomp and ceremony that accompanies state visits – the last state visit by an Indian prime minister to Washington took place in 2009. Modi will also address a joint session of the U.S. Congress – the second time he will be doing it since he took power nine years ago.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, addressing the U.S.-India Business Council on Monday, expressed optimism about the visit.

“So, we are here almost literally on the eve of what we believe will be a historic state visit by Prime Minister Modi, one that will further solidify what President Biden has called the defining relationship of the 21st century.”

However, amid shifting geopolitics, the two countries are not always on the same page. India has strongly defended maintaining friendly ties with Russia in the aftermath of its Ukraine aggression. In recent months, Moscow has become New Delhi’s biggest crude oil supplier as India snaps up supplies of cheap energy.

Critics have also expressed concerns about democratic backsliding in India, accusing the Modi administration of stifling dissent and divisive policies that discriminate against Muslims and other minorities. In its latest annual report on human rights practices, the U.S. State Department also highlighted challenges to freedom of expression and violence targeting religious and ethnic minorities in India. New Delhi rejected the report calling it flawed and biased.

But analysts say the effort by both countries during Modi’s visit will be to build on common interests while managing their differences as the two countries focus on the big picture of countering China.

“When the Ukraine war started there was a lot of concern that it will derail the relationship and the two countries are going in different directions,” Pant said.

“But the relationship has continued to grow, it fact it has become more vibrant. I think that is because there is a new recognition that with all the challenges that India faces, it is a good bet and Washington needs to cultivate India,” he said.
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Israel could find acceptable an understanding between its archfoe Iran and the United States if it includes rigorous supervision of Tehran’s nuclear program, a senior lawmaker said in comments aired on Saturday.

According to Iranian and Western officials, Washington is holding talks with Iran to sketch out steps that could include limiting the Iranian nuclear program.

These steps would be cast as an understanding rather than an agreement requiring review by the U.S. Congress, such as the 2015 accord abandoned in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump.

“It’s not a wide-scope agreement, it’s more like a small agreement, a memorandum of understanding, an M.O.U., and I think Israel can live with this if there is real supervision,” Yuli Edelstein, head of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Channel 12’s Meet the Press.

The U.S. has rejected reports of negotiations with Iran, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying Friday, “With regard to Iran, some of the reports that we’ve seen about an agreement on nuclear matters or, for that matter, on detainees, are simply not accurate and not true.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined comment on whether fellow Likud Party member Edelstein’s remarks reflected the views of the premier.

On Tuesday, before briefing the foreign affairs and defense committee, Netanyahu said in televised remarks: “Our position is clear. No agreement with Iran would obligate Israel, which will do everything required to defend itself.

“Our opposition to the deal — a return to the original (2015) deal — is working, I think.”

“But there are still differences in outlook, and we do not hide these, regarding smaller agreements too. We have been stating our position clearly, both in closed and open sessions,” Netanyahu said.

A core element of the possible understanding that remains unclear is the degree to which Iran would agree to rein in its uranium enrichment. Israeli officials in Netanyahu’s circle have given potentially differing views on the issue this month.

Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said Israel didn’t see as much damage in any new understanding as there was in the 2015 deal, but it was poised for any Iranian shift to more than 60% fissile purity.

“That would already be a clear acknowledgment that the uranium enrichment is for weapons needs,” Hanegbi said in an interview published on Friday in newspaper Israel Hayom, referring to the 90% fissile purity required for a bomb. Tehran denies seeking the bomb.

But last week, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who accompanied Hanegbi to Washington talks about Iran, voiced misgivings about any freeze of current enrichment levels.

“It means that you reconcile with a higher level of enrichment in Iran. And we thought that was a bad idea then, and we think it’s a bad idea today,” he told the AJC Global Forum in Tel Aviv.

Having failed to revive the 2015 deal, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration hopes to restore some limits on Iran to keep it from getting a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel and trigger a regional arms race.
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For more than one-and-a-half centuries, the Juneteenth holiday has been sacred to many Black communities.

It marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, found out they had been freed — after the end of the Civil War, and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Since it was designated a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth has become more universally recognized beyond Black America. Many people get the day off work or school, and there are a plethora of street festivals, fairs, concerts and other events.

People who never gave the June 19 holiday more than a passing thought may be asking themselves, is there a right way to celebrate Juneteenth?

For beginners and those brushing up on history, here are some answers:

Is Juneteenth a solemn day of remembrance or more of a party?

It depends on what you want. Juneteenth festivities are rooted in cookouts and barbecues. In the beginnings of the holiday celebrated as Black Americans’ true Independence Day, the outdoors allowed for large, raucous reunions among formerly enslaved families, many of whom had been separated. The gatherings were especially revolutionary because they were free of restrictive measures, known as “Black Codes,” enforced in Confederate states, controlling whether liberated slaves could vote, buy property, gather for worship and other aspects of daily life.

Alan Freeman, 60, grew up celebrating Juneteenth every year in Houston, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Galveston. A comedian who is producing Galveston’s first Juneteenth Comedy Festival on Saturday, he has vivid memories of smoke permeating his entire neighborhood because so many people were using their barbecue pits for celebratory cookouts.

“It’s where I began to really see Black unity because I realized that that was the one day that African Americans considered ours,” Freeman said. “The one holiday that was ours. We didn’t have to share with anybody. And it was about freedom because what we understood is that we were emancipated from slavery.”

Others may choose to treat Juneteenth as a day of rest and remembrance. That can mean doing community service, attending an education panel or taking time off.

The important thing is to make people feel they have options on how to observe the occasion, said Dr. David Anderson, a Black pastor and CEO of Gracism Global, a consulting firm helping leaders navigate conversations bridging divides across race and culture.

“Just like the Martin Luther King holiday, we say it’s a day of service and a lot of people will do things. There are a lot of other people who are just ‘I appreciate Dr. King, I’ll watch what’s on the television, and I’m gonna rest,'” Anderson said.

What if you’ve never celebrated Juneteenth?

Anderson, 57, of Columbia, Maryland, didn’t learn about Juneteenth until he was in his 30s.

“I think many folks haven’t known about it — who are even my color as an African American male. Even if you heard about it and knew about it, you didn’t celebrate it,” Anderson said. “It was like just a part of history. It wasn’t a celebration of history.”

For many African Americans, the farther away from Texas that they grew up increased the likelihood they didn’t have big Juneteenth celebrations regularly. In the South, the day can vary based on when word of Emancipation reached each state.

Anderson has no special event planned other than giving his employees Friday and Monday off. If anything, Anderson is thinking about the fact it’s Father’s Day this weekend.

What kind of public Juneteenth events are going on around the country?

There is a smorgasbord of gatherings in major cities and suburbs all varying in scope and tone. Some are more carnivalesque festivals with food trucks, arts and crafts and parades. 

Are there special foods served on Juneteenth?

Aside from barbecue, the color red has been a through line for Juneteenth food for generations. Red symbolizes the bloodshed and sacrifice of enslaved ancestors. A Juneteenth menu might incorporate items like barbecued ribs or other red meat, watermelon and red velvet cake. Drinks like fruit punch and red Kool-Aid may make an appearance at the table.

Does how you celebrate Juneteenth matter if you aren’t Black?

Dr. Karida Brown, a sociology professor at Emory University whose research focuses on race, said there’s no reason to feel awkward about wanting to recognize Juneteenth because you have no personal ties or you’re not Black.

“I would reframe that and challenge my non-Black folks who want to lean into Juneteenth and celebrate,” Brown said. “It absolutely is your history. It absolutely is a part of your experience. … Isn’t this all of our history? The good, the bad, the ugly, the story of emancipation and freedom for your Black brothers and sisters under the Constitution of the law.”

If you’re struggling with how to mark the day, Brown also suggested expanding your knowledge of why the holiday matters so much. That can be through reading, attending an event or going to an African American history museum if there’s one nearby.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he supports South Korea’s efforts to develop a “healthy and mature” cooperative relationship with China, South Korea’s foreign ministry said Saturday. 

Blinken, who arrives in Beijing on Sunday for the highest-level visit by an official of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, discussed bilateral relations, relations between China and South Korea, and North Korea in a call with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, the ministry said Saturday in a statement. 

Blinken and Park strongly condemned what they consider North Korea’s repeated provocations, the ministry said, and agreed the U.S., South Korea and Japan should continue to urge China to play a constructive role in the U.N. Security Council on denuclearization. The statement did not elaborate. 

U.S. officials say they do not expect Blinken’s trip to China, the first by a secretary of state in five years, to yield a breakthrough in how Washington and Beijing deal with each other. Blinken said Friday the trip was aimed at establishing “open and empowered” communications.  
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