The collapsed stretch of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia will reopen within two weeks, Pennsylvania’s governor said Saturday, after joining U.S. President Joe Biden on a helicopter tour over the critical stretch of highway closed to East Coast traffic since last weekend.  

“We are getting it done here in Philly,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a briefing at Philadelphia International Airport after the flyover that included members of Congress and the city’s mayor.  

Biden outlined the substantial initial federal commitment and longer-term support for a permanent fix for the vital roadway. “I know how important this stretch of highway is” to Philadelphia and the Northeast Corridor, he said. “Over 150,000 vehicles travel on it every day, including 14,000 trucks. … It’s critical to our economy and it’s critical to our quality of life.’’  

Shapiro, offering a timeline that would be welcome news to commuters and long-haul truckers alike, said with Biden at his side: “I can state with confidence that we will have I-95 reopened within the next two weeks. We are going to get traffic moving again thanks to the extraordinary work that is going on here.”  

He said, “folks here in Philly have a real renewed sense of civic pride through this project” and that “there’s something special happening in our community” with people coming together. 

The stretch of the East Coast’s main north-south highway collapsed early last Sunday after a tractor-trailer hauling gasoline flipped over on an off-ramp and caught fire. State transportation officials said the driver was trying to navigate a curve and lost control. 

“I’ve directed my team … to move heaven and earth to get this done as soon as humanly possible,” Biden said. He said he told the governor, “There’s no more important project right now in the country as far as I’m concerned.” The president described it as an “all hands on deck” project to address a “crisis.” 

“We’re with you. We’re going to stay with you until this is rebuilt, until it’s totally finished,” he said at the briefing. 

Pennsylvania’s plan for the work involves trucking in 2,000 tons of lightweight glass nuggets for the quick rebuilding, with crews working around the clock until the interstate is open to traffic. Instead of rebuilding the overpass right away, crews will use the recycled glass to fill in the collapsed area to avoid supply-chain delays for other materials, Shapiro has said. 

After that, a replacement bridge will be built next to it to reroute traffic while crews excavate the fill to restore the exit ramp, officials have said. 

Biden said the design was “incredibly innovative in order to get this work done in record time.’’ 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the area Tuesday, promised that the federal government would provide the needed assistance to repair the destruction, although he warned that the wreckage will likely raise the cost of consumer goods in the short term because truckers must now travel longer routes. 

Joining Biden on the presidential Marine One helicopter were Shapiro, Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman and Rep. Brendan Boyle and Mayor Jim Kenney, all Democrats. Later Saturday, Biden was to attend a 2024 campaign event with union workers at the convention center. 
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High court’s emergency docket accounts for a big part of its work
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The current term of the U.S. Supreme Court is winding to a close, and in the next two weeks the justices are expected to issue nearly 20 opinions, some of them in cases guaranteed to stir controversy regardless of how the court rules.

Cases as yet undecided include a challenge to affirmative action in college admissions, a case that will determine whether a designer of wedding websites is allowed to decline to serve a gay couple, a challenge to President Joe Biden’s decision to grant student debt relief to thousands of Americans, and a case that could determine how much latitude state legislatures have to unilaterally change election laws.

The court, on which its more conservative members hold a 6-3 majority, has handed down more than three dozen rulings in the current term, and not one has been decided by a 6-3 split along ideological lines. However, that could change in the coming weeks.

Affirmative action

Among the most closely watched items remaining on the docket are a pair of cases challenging the practice of using an applicant’s race as a factor in deciding who is granted admission to colleges and universities. Both cases were filed by the organization Students for Fair Admissions, one against Harvard University and the other against the University of North Carolina.

The case against Harvard charges that the school discriminates against Asian Americans by instituting a de facto quota on the number of people of Asian descent who are admitted. The plaintiffs claim that Asian students have a much lower chance of acceptance than Black and Hispanic students do, in cases where their academic credentials are identical.

The case against North Carolina challenges the school’s use of students’ socioeconomic backgrounds as a factor in making admissions decisions, arguing that that metric is essentially a proxy for race.

The cases are similar in that each one poses the question: May institutions of higher education use race as a factor in admissions? They both ask the court to reconsider previous rulings that found the consideration of race permissible in college admissions, particularly the 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger.

LGBTQ discrimination

Civil rights activists will be watching for the court’s decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which challenges a state law in Colorado barring businesses open to the public from discriminating against potential clients, including over sexual orientation.

The case arises from a graphic design firm, 303 Creative, whose owner wanted to begin offering wedding website design services. However, the owner, Lori Smith, opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds and wanted to post an announcement on her company’s website explaining her position.

Such a statement would have been illegal under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), which Smith challenged in federal court. Her argument is that she is an artist, and that requiring her to design something to which she is morally opposed is a form of compelled speech.

The case is similar to a 2018 case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which successfully challenged the same law. However, the 2018 ruling was relatively narrow. In the 303 Creative case, plaintiffs are seeking a broader ruling invalidating CADA altogether.

Student debt relief

When he ran for president in 2020, one of Biden’s big promises was to provide relief for the millions of Americans who carry student loan debt. After winning the election, the Biden administration announced that it would take executive action to forgive $10,000 worth of federal student debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 per year, with some people eligible for $20,000 in debt forgiveness.

The court has heard two cases related to the executive action. In Biden v. Nebraska, the state of Nebraska and five other states banded together to sue the administration, claiming that in announcing the forgiveness plan, the secretary of education exceeded his constitutional authority. The case was dismissed by a lower court, which found that the states did not have legal standing to sue, but the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal.

In the case Department of Education v. Brown, the plaintiffs argue that the executive order should be invalidated because the decision amounted to an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’ power to make laws. A lower court issued an injunction, barring the administration from taking action on the new policy before the case could be heard by the Supreme Court.

Independent state legislatures

When congressional districts were apportioned after the 2020 census, the state of North Carolina set about drawing a new congressional map for the 2022 elections. With Republicans in charge of the state Legislature, the resulting maps heavily favored the Republican Party. When the resulting map was challenged in state court, North Carolina’s Supreme Court declared the map to be in violation of a “free elections” clause in the state constitution and directed that new maps be drawn.

The lawsuit Moore v. Harper challenges the basis of that ruling by asserting a novel legal proposition known as the independent state legislature theory. It holds that state legislatures have essentially limitless authority to write the rules governing elections within their borders, and that those rules are not subject to judicial review.

The theory is viewed as a fringe idea by many legal experts, but it has captured the imaginations of a number of Republican lawmakers across the country. As the country heads toward the 2024 elections, a ruling that supports the independent state legislature theory could give rise to a wave of restrictive new voting laws meant to affect the outcome of races that will determine who the next president will be, and which party will control the House and Senate.
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The U.S. Department of Energy got ransom requests from the Russia-linked extortion group Clop at both its nuclear waste facility and the scientific education facilities that were recently hit in a global hacking campaign, a spokesperson said Friday. 

The DOE contractor Oak Ridge Associated Universities, headquartered in Tennessee, and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the New Mexico-based facility for disposal of defense-related radioactive nuclear waste, were hit in the attack, which was first reported Thursday. Data were “compromised” at two entities within the DOE when hackers gained access through a security flaw in MOVEit Transfer, which is file transfer software. 

The requests came in emails to each facility, said the spokesperson, who did not say how much money was requested. “They came in individually, not as kind of a blind carbon copy,” the spokesperson said. “The two entities that received them did not engage” with Clop and there was no indication that the ransom requests were withdrawn, the spokesperson said.  

The DOE, which manages U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear waste sites related to the military, notified Congress of the breach and is participating in investigations with law enforcement and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA has said it has not seen any significant impacts to the federal civilian executive branch but was working with partners on the issue. 

Clop has said it would not exploit any data taken from government agencies, and that it had erased all such data.  

Clop did not respond to requests for comment, but in an all-caps post to its website Friday, the group said, “WE DON’T HAVE ANY GOVERNMENT DATA,” and suggested that should the hackers inadvertently have picked up such data in their mass theft, “WE STILL DO THE POLITE THING AND DELETE ALL.” 

Recorded Future analyst Allan Liska said Clop was likely making a big deal out of how they purportedly deleted government data in an attempt to protect themselves from retaliation from Washington and other governments. 

“They’re thinking, ‘If we post this, the government won’t come after us.’ I think the thought is, ‘As long as we don’t keep data from hospitals and government agencies we can operate under the radar.’” 

No one in the security community took the group’s data destruction claim seriously, Liska said. “Everybody in the security community was like, ‘Yeah, right. You probably gave it to your Russian handlers.’” 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected reports Friday that Washington and Tehran were close to deals on limiting Iran’s nuclear program and releasing U.S. citizens detained in the country. 

“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,” Blinken said when asked about indirect talks via Oman. 

Iran said Monday it was conducting indirect negotiations with the United States through the Sultanate of Oman, with nuclear issues, U.S. sanctions and detainees on the menu. 

That sparked reports that the two sides, who haven’t negotiated directly for years, could be closing a deal. 

“We welcome the efforts of Omani officials, and we exchanged messages with the other party through this mediator” over the lifting of U.S. sanctions, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Monday. 

“We have never stopped the diplomatic processes,” he added, emphasizing that the talks “were not secret.” 

The two sides have been unable for two years to reach a deal on President Joe Biden’s desire to revive the 2015 deal which granted Tehran much-needed sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. 

Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, and since then Tehran has steadily progressed in development of its nuclear industry, though not — as feared — producing a nuclear weapon.  

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated last week that the country does not intend to acquire a nuclear weapon. 

Khamenei said deals could be reached with the United States, provided they do not change “the existing infrastructure of the nuclear industry.” 

Kanani said Monday a prisoner exchange could be agreed “in the near future,” if Washington exhibits “the same level of seriousness” as Tehran. 

At least three Iranian Americans are being held in Iran, including businessman Siamak Namazi, arrested in October 2015 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage. 
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Daniel Ellsberg, the U.S. military analyst whose change of heart on the Vietnam War led him to leak the classified Pentagon Papers, revealing U.S. government deception about the war and setting off a major freedom-of-the-press battle, died on Friday at the age of 92, his family said in a statement.

Ellsberg, who had been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer in February, died at his home in Kensington, California, the family said.

Long before Edward Snowden and Wikileaks were revealing government secrets in the name of transparency, Ellsberg let Americans know that their government was capable of lying to them. In his later years, Ellsberg would become an advocate for whistleblowers and leakers and his Pentagon Papers leak was portrayed in the 2017 movie “The Post.”

Ellsberg secretly went to the media in 1971 in hopes of expediting the end of the Vietnam War. It made him the target of a smear campaign by the Nixon administration. Henry Kissinger, who was then the president’s national security adviser, referred to him as “the most dangerous man in America who must be stopped at all costs.”

When he went to Saigon for the State Department in the mid-1960s, Ellsberg had an impressive resume. He had earned three degrees from Harvard, served in the Marine Corps and worked at the Pentagon and the RAND Corporation, the influential policy research think tank.

He was a dedicated Cold War warrior and hawk on Vietnam at the time. But Ellsberg, in his 2003 book, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers,” said he was only one week into a two-year tour of duty in Saigon when he realized the United States was in a war it would not win.

Meanwhile at the behest of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Pentagon officials had secretly been putting together a 7,000-page report covering U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 through 1967. When it was finished in 1969, two of the 15 published copies went to the RAND Corporation, where Ellsberg was once again working.

Anti-war rallies

With his new perspective on the war, Ellsberg started attending peace rallies. He said he was inspired to copy the Pentagon Papers after hearing an anti-war protester say he was looking forward to going to prison for resisting the draft.

Ellsberg began sneaking the top-secret study out of the RAND office and copying it at night on a rented Xerox machine, using his 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter as helpers. He took the documents with him when he moved to Boston for a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and ended up sitting on them for a year and a half before passing pages to The New York Times.

The Times ran its first installment of the Pentagon Papers on June 13, 1971, and the administration of President Richard Nixon moved quickly to get a judge to stop further publication. Nixon’s claim of executive authority and invocation of the Espionage Act set off a freedom-of-the-press fight over the extreme censorship of prior restraint.

Ellsberg’s next move was to give the Pentagon Papers to the Washington Post and more than a dozen other newspapers. In New York Times v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled less than three weeks after first publication that the press had the right to publish the papers, and the Times resumed doing so.

The study said the U.S. officials had concluded that the war probably could not be won and that President John F. Kennedy approved of plans for a coup to overthrow the South Vietnamese leader. It also said Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, had plans to expand the war, including bombing in North Vietnam, despite saying during the 1964 campaign that he would not. The papers also revealed the secret U.S. bombing in Cambodia and Laos and that casualty figures were higher than reported.

On the run

The Times never said who leaked the papers, but the FBI quickly figured it out. Ellsberg remained underground for about two weeks before surrendering in Boston.

“I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public,” Ellsberg said at the time. “I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.”

He would say that he regretted not leaking the papers sooner.

Even though the Pentagon Papers did not cover Nixon’s handling of Vietnam, the White House’s “plumbers” unit, which would later pull off the Watergate break-in that led to Nixon’s downfall, was ordered to stop further leaks and discredit Ellsberg.

Two and a half months after first publication, two men who later figured prominently in Watergate, G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist to search for incriminating evidence.

Ellsberg and a RAND colleague were eventually charged with espionage, theft and conspiracy. But at their 1973 trial, the case was dismissed on the grounds of government misconduct when the break-in was revealed.

In his later years, Ellsberg, who was born April 7, 1931, in Chicago, Illinois, became a writer and lecturer in the campaign for government transparency and against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
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The Justice Department alleged Friday that Minneapolis police have systematically discriminated against Black and Native American people for years and often violated constitutional rights following a sweeping investigation that began after George Floyd was killed.

The two-year probe found that Minneapolis officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of people engaged in constitutionally protected speech. The investigation also found that both police and the city discriminated against people with “behavioral health disabilities” when officers are called for help.

“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told a news conference in Minneapolis. “But the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”

Garland said officers routinely disregarded the safety of people in their custody, noting numerous situations in which a person in custody complained that they could not breathe, and officers replied with a version of “You can breathe. You’re talking right now.”

The report included allegations that police “used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offense and sometimes no offense at all.” Officers “used force to punish people who made officers angry or criticized the police.”

Police also “patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial composition and discriminated based on race when searching, handcuffing or using force against people during stops,” the report said.

Federal consent decree

As a result of the investigation, the city and the police department agreed to a deal known as a federal consent decree, which will require reforms to be overseen by an independent monitor and approved by a federal judge. That arrangement is similar to reform efforts in Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who led Newark, New Jersey, police through a consent decree, said the Minneapolis department was committed to creating “the kind of police department that every Minneapolis resident deserves.”

Mayor Jacob Frey acknowledged the work that lay ahead.

“We understand that change is non-negotiable,” Frey said. “Progress can be painful, and the obstacles can be great. But we haven’t let up in the three years since the murder of George Floyd.”

The investigation was launched in April 2021, a day after former officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the May 25, 2020, killing of Floyd, who was Black.

Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe before going limp as Chauvin knelt on his neck for 9 1/2 minutes. The killing was recorded by a bystander and sparked months of mass protests as part of a broader national reckoning over racial injustice.

Garland also said the report found that Chauvin used excessive force on other people on multiple occasions, and fellow officers stood by and did not stop him.

The report found that the city sent officers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, “even when a law enforcement response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results. These actions put MPD officers and the Minneapolis community at risk.”

The findings were based on reviews of documents and incident files; observation of body-worn camera videos; data provided by the city and police; and ride-alongs and conversations with officers, residents and others, the report says.

Current reforms

Federal investigators acknowledged that the city and Minneapolis police have already begun reforms.

The report noted that police are now prohibited from using neck restraints like the one Chauvin used in killing Floyd. Officers are no longer allowed to use some crowd control weapons without permission from the chief. And “no-knock” warrants were banned after the 2022 death of Amir Locke.

The city also has launched a “promising” behavioral health response program in which trained mental health professionals respond to some calls rather than police.

The Justice Department is not alone in its findings of problems.

A similar investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights led to a “court-enforceable settlement agreement” to address the long list of problems identified in the report, with input from residents, officers, city staff and others. Frey and state Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero signed the agreement in March.

The state investigation, which concluded in April 2022, found “significant racial disparities with respect to officers’ use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.” And it criticized “an organizational culture where some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic, and disrespectful language with impunity.”

Lucero said the legally binding agreement requires the city and the police department to make “transformational changes” to fix the organizational culture of the force, noting it could serve as a model for how cities, police departments and community members elsewhere work to stop race-based policing.

The report recommends 28 “remedial” steps to improve policing as a prelude to the consent decree. Garland said the steps “provide a starting framework to improve public safety, build community trust and comply with the constitution and federal law.”

The mayor said city leaders want a single monitor to oversee both the federal plan and the state agreement to avoid having “two different determinations of whether compliance has been met or not. That’s not a way to get to clear and objective success.”

Several police departments in other cities operate under consent decrees for alleged civil rights violations. A consent decree requires agencies to meet specific goals before federal oversight is removed, a process that often takes many years at a cost of millions of dollars.

Floyd, 46, was arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He struggled with the police when they tried to put him in a squad car, and though he was already handcuffed, they forced him to the ground.

Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years for murder. He also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in that case. He is serving the sentences concurrently in Tucson, Arizona.
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Researchers have been exploring the presence of cancer in animals from elephants to mollusks to learn about cancer in wild animals. They also hope their research will help with human cancers.

“Studying wildlife cancer, and more generally the evolution of cancer across the tree of life, is extremely promising to develop innovative therapies to treat cancer in humans,” Mathieu Giraudeau, a researcher at France’s La Rochelle University who has been focusing on cancer in wild animals since 2018, told VOA.

“The idea behind this is that some species have evolved some mechanisms to limit cancer initiation and progression,” he said. “If we identify and understand these mechanisms, then the goal is to use them as a source of inspiration to develop new therapies.”

Cancer affects both humans and animals but its impact on wild animals has been difficult to uncover.

“There are no basic blood tests to detect cancer in the wild animals,” Giraudeau told VOA, “so most of the studies have to use necropsies [post-mortem examinations of animals] to detect cancer cases in wild animals. That’s why using zoo animals is a fantastic opportunity, since a necropsy is performed for most of the animals dying in zoos.”

Researchers say there are more questions than answers regarding cancer in wild animals, which are hard to study in their natural habitat because they move around and are therefore difficult to observe over time.

“We don’t really know much about the different kinds of animals species that get cancer or how much,” biologist Carlo Maley, director of the Arizona Cancer Evolution Center at Arizona State University, where he is studying cancer in wild animals, told VOA.

“We’ve been focusing on collecting data to find which species are super susceptible or super resistant to cancer,” he said, “and we’re looking at questions such as how has nature figured out how to prevent cancer and then, can we translate that to humans.

It seems large and long-lived species “have evolved some powerful mechanisms to fight against cancer, and we now need to understand these mechanisms,” Giraudeau said.

They include elephants and whales.

“Elephant cells are super sensitive to DNA damage, and even with just a little DNA damage, the cell will commit suicide and not risk getting mutations,” Maley said. “So it seems to be a strategy for avoiding cancer by killing off a potentially dangerous cell, rather than risk getting a mutation that could lead to cancer.”

In Australia, however, that has not been the case for a much smaller animal, the Tasmanian devil. The carnivorous marsupials have been nearly wiped out from cancerous tumors growing in and around their mouths.

“Devils bite each other, particularly around the face, as part of their normal behavior,” Cambridge University veterinary medicine professor Elizabeth Murchison told VOA.

Murchison, a researcher on the genetics and evolution of transmissible cancers, added, “Tasmanian Devils have a transmissible cancer that spreads between the animals by the transfer of living cancer cells. There are, in fact, two independent transmissible cancers in Tasmanian devils, which was a surprise, and both are spread during biting, and result in fatal facial tumors.”

Murchison, who grew up in Tasmania, “passionately” hopes the endangered species can be saved.

“There is currently no way to control the disease,” she said. “Research directed towards developing a vaccine is ongoing, but it will be a long road to developing an effective protective vaccine.”

Even much smaller creatures, like shellfish, are dying from cancer.

On Whidbey Island in Washington state, a massive die-off of cockles, a type of bivalve mollusk, were found on the beach. It turns out the cockles had a leukemia-like contagious cancer that affects the cells that live in their hemolymph, the equivalent of blood.

It is another transmissible cancer, found in many shellfish species worldwide, but first discovered in these cockles in 2018. The cancer cells in the sea can float to enter nearby cockles, spreading the disease.

“The whole cell of the cancer moves from one animal to the next,” unlike conventional human cancer that arises due to cell mutations that don’t move from one person to another, said Michael Metzger, assistant investigator at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute in Seattle, Washington.

Researchers are working to find the cause of the contagious cancer and using genetic analysis, to learn how the disease evolves.

It’s not clear how the cockles first got the disease.

It’s possible it could have been brought to the area by a boat carrying diseased shellfish, he said. He also said environmental stressors may have played a part, including global warming.

Scientists say there is a long way to go before cancer in wild animals is widely understood and how that may help battle human cancers in the future. Besides genetics, they are also looking at the effect of viruses, pesticides, habitat destruction and pollution.

Human cancers are short-lived, from an evolutionary perspective,” Murchison said. “Our work gives us insight into how cancers evolve over long time-periods.”

“I think the main benefit is going to be preventing cancer as opposed to curing it,” said Maley. But there’s some possibility that the mechanisms that prevent cancer could also be translated into potential therapies.”
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The U.S. Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed civil rights lawyer Nusrat Choudhury to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, making her the first Bangladeshi-American and female Muslim federal judge in the United States.

Choudhury, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois, was confirmed on a 50-49 vote. She will also be the first Bangladeshi-American federal judge.

Choudhury previously spent most of her professional career with the national ACLU, where she worked on racial justice and national security issues. She was deputy director of the organization’s racial justice program from 2018 until 2020. U.S. President Joe Biden nominated her to the federal bench in January 2022.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer in a statement said that Choudhury’s “experience as a talented and dedicated civil rights litigator has prepared her to serve with integrity and professionalism on the federal bench, and she will follow the facts and administer justice with fairness and a deep respect for the rule of law.”

She faced pushback from some Senate Republicans after she gave inconsistent answers on whether she made comments at 2015 event at Princeton University saying that police killings of unarmed Black men happen “every day.”

She later in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee panel said that “Such a statement is inconsistent with my deep respect for law enforcement.”

Choudhury clerked for a judge on the nearby Southern District of New York trial court as well as the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviews cases from the New York, Connecticut and Vermont federal courts.

Biden also appointed the first Muslim judge in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi. The Senate confirmed him to the New Jersey federal trial court in 2021.
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U.S. security officials say the U.S. Energy Department and several other federal agencies have been hacked by a Russian cyber-extortion gang.

Homeland Security officials said Thursday the agencies were caught up in the hacking of MOVEit  Transfer, a file-transfer program that is popular with governments and corporations.

The Energy Department said two of its entities were “compromised” in the hack.

The Russia-linked extortion group CI0p, which claimed responsibility for the hacking, said last week on the dark web site that its victims had until Wednesday to negotiate a ransom or risk having sensitive information dumped online.  It added that it would delete any data stolen from governments, cities and police departments.

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said while the intrusion was “largely an opportunistic one” that was superficial and caught quickly, her agency was “very concerned about this campaign and working on it with urgency.”

Reuters reports that the Britain’s Shell Oil Company, the University of Georgia, Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins Health System were also among those targeted in the hacking campaign. The Associated Press quoted a senior CISA official as saying U.S. military and intelligence agencies were not affected.

MOVEit said it is working with the federal agencies and its other customers to help fix their systems.

Information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.  
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All state-funded colleges and universities in Texas will have to close their diversity, equity and inclusion offices under a measure signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

The law, which one of its sponsors in the Texas state Senate called the most significant ban on diversity offices in higher education in the country, comes as the U.S. Supreme Court later this month is widely expected to ban colleges and universities from considering race as a factor in their admissions decisions.

Under the Texas law, signed by Abbott on Wednesday, any public college or university that does not certify it is in compliance with the measure would not be able to spend state funds allocated to it.

It also mandates that state officials every two years through 2029 conduct studies to gauge the impact of the law on students broken down by race. It will look at the rates of application, acceptance, matriculations, retention and graduation, along with grade point averages. The law does not explain the reasoning for conducting these studies.

The law is the latest salvo from Texas’ Republican lawmakers and Abbott, also a Republican, and comes as critics assail diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, efforts as divisive or anti-white, while proponents say they can help people from different backgrounds learn to work together.

“Texas is leading the nation and ensuring our campuses return to focusing on the strength of diversity and promoting a merit-based approach where individuals are judged on their qualifications, skills, and contributions,” state Senator Brandon Creighton, a Republican who was one of the bill’s authors, said in a statement.

But Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said in a statement that the bill’s signature marked a “sad occasion for all students at Texas’ public universities.”

“By dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and offices at these institutions, Texas lawmakers have chosen to prioritize a political agenda instead of the success of these students,” Russell wrote.

She said all students, regardless of race, benefit from having a diverse student body and that her organization would not stop working for Texas universities to be increasingly accessible and inclusive.
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White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is on an Asian diplomatic blitz this week, participating in a trilateral meeting with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea on Thursday.

On Friday, he is meeting with his counterparts from Japan and the Philippines, in the first trilateral engagement of that group’s national security advisers.

Sullivan’s meetings in Tokyo follow a stop in New Delhi earlier this week to finalize details for next week’s official visit to the White House by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India – a country that is becoming increasingly indispensable for Washington’s goals in the region.

While the timing is “coincidental,” according to an administration official, Sullivan’s meetings take place just days before Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing this weekend.

The State Department says the Beijing visit, which Washington postponed after it shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over U.S. territory in February, is part of the Biden administration’s efforts to repair deteriorating ties and keep lines of communication open between Washington and Beijing.

Strengthening alliances and partnerships is a clear component of the administration’s strategy to effectively compete with China, while Blinken’s trip to Beijing is aimed at stabilizing the relationship, said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. “They are two sides of the same coin,” she told VOA.

Working with more than one country at a time to shore up allies is part of what’s often called the administration’s “minilateral” strategy. The goal is to play up the strengths of each partner and encourage them to work together.

“We will not be able to get one big grouping, so let’s do lots of minilaterals,” said Aparna Pande, director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington. That way, she told VOA, the U.S. carries less burden, even as it acts as the glue that keeps the groupings together.

Geostrategic Indo-Pacific

The busy week of diplomacy is designed to reaffirm the message that Washington wants to bolster ties with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, which it sees as the world’s key geostrategic region with vast opportunities for greater economic security cooperation, including on critical and emerging technologies.

The region’s challenges include North Korean nuclear threats, highlighted by Pyongyang’s launch on Thursday of two short-range ballistic missiles. China, meanwhile, has massively increased its military spending in the past decade and has engaged in what Washington calls “economic coercion,” imposing economic costs on various countries to achieve political goals.

Amid Beijing’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea and tensions with Taiwan, the war on Ukraine has amplified the region’s threat assessment, reminding countries of the devastating impact of a potential Chinese invasion.

This leads to increased defense spending by individual countries and demands for an increasingly muscular American presence in the region, with more joint military exercises, a ramped-up defense posture and a stronger nuclear umbrella for South Korea, known as extended deterrence.

“We know they tend to balance against threats, and countries are feeling threatened,” said Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, at a recent event with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Beijing characterizes the increased U.S. presence as a “distinct military provocation,” a charge the Biden administration rejects.

“The fact that we are looking at ways to be more present is a response to changes in the security environment, not forcing changes in the security environment,” said Lindsay Ford, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia, during the CSIS event. “If that were not true, we would not have allies and partners who are so interested in having the United States there more.”

Beyond the defense context, U.S.-China relations are “more than just an arms race,” said Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It’s a competition now for the edge, the strategic edge in the future, on technology and economic power as well,” she told VOA.

U.S. officials say Blinken’s visit to China is aimed at restoring a sense of calm and normalcy and is unlikely to achieve any significant breakthrough in the myriad problems affecting Washington-Beijing ties.
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The Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking highly classified military documents has been indicted on federal felony charges, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Jack Teixeira faces six counts in the indictment of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.

He was arrested in April on charges of sharing highly classified military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other top national security issues in a chat room on Discord, a social media platform that started as a hangout for gamers.

The stunning breach exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the capabilities and geopolitical interests of other nations, and other national security issues.

A judge last month ordered him to remain jailed as he awaits trial, saying that releasing Teixeira would pose a risk that he would attempt to flee the country or obstruct justice.

His family has expressed support for him, and his lawyers had pressed the judge to release him to his father, saying he has no criminal history.
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The United States is enhancing engagement with China as it sees the potential for miscalculation with its top competitor growing, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would travel to Beijing this week.

During the trip, Blinken is expected to meet with senior Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Qin Gang, the department said.

The trip is seen as part of the Biden administration’s effort to mend ties with Beijing after a series of diplomatic clashes between the two countries.

“We’re coming to Beijing with a realistic, confident approach and a sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, in a phone briefing with reporters on Wednesday.

In the phone briefing, Kurt Campbell, deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs at the National Security Council, said, “Now is precisely the time for intense diplomacy.”

Campbell last week called for maintaining “appropriate diplomacy” with Beijing, saying the potential for miscalculation with China is growing.

He made the remarks at an event hosted by the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

Blinken on Tuesday called for “maintaining open lines of communication” with China to avoid “miscalculation and conflict” during his phone call with Qin, according to a readout of the call from the State Department.

Qin called on the U.S. to respect “China’s core concerns” and “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and stop harming China’s sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition,” according to a readout of the call delivered by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin.

Analysts say the likelihood of a breakthrough on key bilateral issues remains low during the trip.

“The best that this visit can accomplish is to establish a floor under bilateral relations and pave the way for other Cabinet-level interactions,” said Dennis Wilder, former National Security Council director for China.

“True stability in relations will prove elusive because of the high degree of distrust and the intractable nature of such issues as Taiwan and U.S. restrictions on high-technology exports to China,” added Wilder, who is now a senior fellow at the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University.

“Talking is important even when there are no breakthroughs,” said Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute.

Cronin said both sides may see some progress on Ukraine, trade and climate change.

“Driven by the mutual desire for diplomatic high ground when the leaders meet at a summit later this year, I think Secretary Blinken will be able to find some areas of common interest. A peaceful end to war in Ukraine, initiating a dialogue on AI, trade and climate change are all possible,” Cronin said.

Blinken’s visit to Beijing was agreed upon by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping when they met in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022.

That meeting did not provide a breakthrough, but it was seen as an important step in stabilizing relations between the two countries.

But tensions escalated as the two sides clashed over hot-button issues including Taiwan and Ukraine.

In February, Blinken canceled his trip to Beijing after a suspected Chinese spy balloon breached U.S. airspace.

Since then, the U.S. has made steady efforts to resume dialogue with Beijing despite tensions.

In recent weeks, there have been high-level talks between the two sides, a possible thaw in the bilateral ties.

Last week, Kritenbrink and Sarah Beran, the National Security Council senior director for China, traveled to Beijing to meet Ma Zhaoxu, the deputy foreign minister, and Yang Tao, the director of the North American and Oceanian affairs department.

VOA’s Christy Lee contributed to this report.
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The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved the system that gives preference to Native American families in foster care and adoption proceedings of Native children, rejecting a broad attack from Republican-led states and white families who argued it is based on race.

The court left in place the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which was enacted to address concerns that Native children were being separated from their families and, too frequently, placed in non-Native homes.

Tribal leaders have backed the law as a means of preserving their families, traditions and cultures.

The “issues are complicated” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for a seven-justice majority, but the “bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute.”

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Congress passed the law in response to the alarming rate at which Native American and Alaska Native children were taken from their homes by public and private agencies.

The law requires states to notify tribes and seek placement with the child’s extended family, members of the child’s tribe or other Native American families.

Three white families, the state of Texas and a small number of other states claim the law is based on race and is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause. They also contend it puts the interests of tribes ahead of children and improperly allows the federal government too much power over adoptions and foster placements, areas that typically are under state control.

The lead plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case — Chad and Jennifer Brackeen of Fort Worth, Texas — adopted a Native American child after a prolonged legal fight with the Navajo Nation, one of the two largest Native American tribes, based in the Southwest. The Brackeens are trying to adopt the boy’s half-sister, now 4, who has lived with them since infancy. The Navajo Nation has opposed that adoption.

More than three-quarters of the 574 federally recognized tribes in the country and nearly two dozen state attorneys general across the political spectrum had called on the high court to uphold the law.

All the children who have been involved in the current case at one point are enrolled or could be enrolled as Navajo, Cherokee, White Earth Band of Ojibwe and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. Some of the adoptions have been finalized while some are still being challenged.

The high court had twice taken up cases on the Indian Child Welfare Act before, in 1989 and in 2013, that have stirred immense emotion.

Before the Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted, between 25% and 35% of Native American children were being taken from their homes and placed with adoptive families, in foster care or in institutions. Most were placed with white families or in boarding schools in attempts to assimilate them.

 
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The U.S. government has released its annual report surveying human trafficking around the world, and Afghanistan, China and Russia are among the countries noted as trouble spots.

Burma, Cambodia, Eritrea, North Korea, South Sudan and Venezuela are also among the 24 nations included in the lowest and most troubling Tier 3 category in the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons report.

Tier 3 countries fall below minimum standards and haven’t demonstrated significant efforts to come into compliance. They are subject to potential sanctions.

The report also lists Libya, Somalia and Yemen as “special cases,” where civil conflicts create difficulties in gaining information.

This year’s report, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, highlights several concerning trends – an increase in the trafficking of boys and young men, the continued expansion of forced labor and a rise in labor trafficking using online scams.

“The [coronavirus] pandemic supercharged this trend,” Blinken said. “Traffickers capitalized on widespread unemployment to recruit victims with fake job listings and then force them to run international scams.”

Blinken also highlighted steady progress in the 2023 report, with dozens of countries around the world making significant strides in preventing trafficking, protecting survivors and prosecuting those who carry out such crimes.

 
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A nonprofit in Washington is helping refugees from around the world learn English. Ksenia Turkova met with some Ukrainians who wound up in the U.S. capital and are learning English. Camera: Bogdan Osyka.
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In April, the FBI arrested two men accused of operating a secret police station in New York City on behalf of the government of the People’s Republic of China. Similar covert operations have been reported in dozens of cities around the world. Human rights groups investigating these so-called precincts say they’re being used to go after Chinese dissidents living overseas. How do these outposts operate, what are the concerns, and what’s being done to stop them?
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Microsoft Founder Bill Gates was in China on Thursday for what he said were meetings with global health and development partners who have worked with his charitable foundation.

“Solving problems like climate change, health inequity and food insecurity requires innovation,” Gates tweeted. “From developing malaria drugs to investing in climate adaptation, China has a lot of experience in that. We need to unlock that kind of progress for more people around the world.”

Gates said global crises stifled progress in reducing death and poverty in children and that he will next travel to West Africa because African countries are particularly vulnerable “with high food prices, crushing debt, and increasing rates of TB and malaria.”

Reuters, citing two people familiar with the matter, said Gates would meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Gates is the latest business figure to visit China year, following Apple’s Tim Cook and Tesla’s Elon Musk.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Large majorities of residents of South Korea, the Philippines and Singapore all expressed significant concerns about the impact of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China, with many worried that a geopolitical confrontation between the two superpowers could lead to deterioration of their own national security, according to a new survey released this week.

The survey, conducted by the Eurasia Group Foundation, found that in general, the U.S. is held in much higher esteem than China, with 70% of respondents across the three countries reporting a positive view of the U.S., while only 34% said the same of China.

However, the results were highly varied among countries, with a majority of respondents in Singapore reporting a negative view of the U.S. and a positive view of China. The opposite was true in South Korea and the Philippines.

Significant numbers of people in all three countries report having positive feelings toward both the U.S. and China, contributing to the difficulty many face when they feel they are being forced to “choose sides” in the face of great power competition. Across all three countries, 56.9% of respondents agreed with the statement, “My country’s politics will intensify as political parties pick sides in the U.S.-China rivalry.”

Talks ongoing

The survey results highlight the uncertainty surrounding the relationship between Washington and Beijing. Ties have soured over the past year, particularly after a suspected Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental U.S. before being shot down by the Air Force over the Atlantic Ocean in February.

Senior diplomats from both countries have been making cautious efforts to resume dialogue. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed that he will travel to China this weekend. On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department and China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that Blinken on Wednesday spoke to Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in advance of the trip.

In competing readouts of the call, the State Department said that Blinken had stressed to Qin “the importance of maintaining open lines of communication” between Washington and Beijing in order to “avoid miscalculation and conflict.” In addition, he said that “the U.S. would continue to use diplomatic engagements to raise areas of concern as well as areas of potential cooperation.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Qin had used the call to tell Blinken that the U.S. should “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs” and “stop undermining China’s sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition.”

Stressing the importance to the U.S. of maintaining strong relations with countries in the Pacific region, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to Tokyo this week for discussions with security officials from Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

Not a ‘monolith’

Zuri Linetsky, a research fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation and one of the co-authors of a report on the survey, told VOA that the results should serve as a reminder to Americans that there are a variety of perspectives on the U.S.-China rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region.

“There is concern about the U.S.-China rivalry in the region, but having said that, there’s pretty dramatic variation within the region about what that means,” he said. “We need to remember that Asia is large. And it’s not a monolith. And we need to be aware that when we talk about ‘Asia,’ we need to be careful because we lose a lot of nuance.”

Linetsky said one of the most striking findings was the degree of support respondents expressed for U.S. military intervention in the region under certain circumstances. The survey asked respondents to imagine a scenario in which an unnamed nondemocratic country in the region attacked a democratic country with the aim of taking over its territory, in whole or in part.

In all three countries there was majority support for a U.S. military intervention in such a case, and that support increased in the event that the U.S. had an existing defense treaty with the country under attack.

“There was this overwhelming preference for the United States to protect someone that’s been invaded,” Linetsky said. “Even in Singapore that exists. I was rather surprised by that.”

South Korea closest to US

Of the three countries surveyed, respondents in South Korea showed the highest levels of support for the U.S., with 82.6% of respondents saying that they hold a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of the U.S. By contrast, only 14.8% expressed similar views on China.

Asked whether they agreed with the statement, “The United States system of government sets a positive example for my country,” 11.9% of South Koreans said they agreed strongly, while 65.6% said they agreed somewhat. When asked the same question about the Chinese system of government, only 6.6% agreed at all.

Asked whether the influence of the U.S. on their country had been positive or negative over the past five years, 72.2% of South Koreans said it had been either very positive or positive. Asked the same question about China, 14.1% said they believed Beijing had exerted a positive influence.

Philippines mostly in US camp

Respondents from the Philippines expressed almost as much approval of the U.S. as those in South Korea, with 81.6% of respondents saying that they hold a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of the U.S. However, 30.2% of Filipinos also expressed positive views of China, more than double the rate of South Koreans.

Asked whether they agreed with the statement, “The United States system of government sets a positive example for my country,” 21.2% of Filipinos said they agreed strongly, while 60.9% said they agreed somewhat. When asked the same question about the Chinese system of government, 34% agreed either strongly or somewhat.

Asked whether the influence of the U.S. on their country had been positive or negative over the past five years, 85% of Filipinos said it had been either very positive or positive. Asked the same question about China, 33.5% said they believed Beijing’s influence had been a positive one.

Singapore leans toward China

Among the three countries surveyed, Singapore ranked as most favorable to China on most metrics. Asked how they view China, 55.7% of Singaporeans said that they hold a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of the country. By contrast, only 47.8% of Singaporeans expressed a positive view of the U.S.

A plurality of Singaporeans said they preferred the U.S. government as a model for their country, representing a much smaller margin than their counterparts in South Korea and the Philippines. Asked whether they agreed with the statement, “The United States system of government sets a positive example for my country,” 49.7% said they agreed strongly or agreed somewhat. When asked the same question about the Chinese system of government, 38% agreed either strongly or somewhat.

Significant majorities of Singaporeans said that both the U.S. and China had exerted a positive influence on their country over the past five years, with 69.4% holding that view about the United States and 69.1% expressing that view about China.
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Following the indictment of former President Donald Trump in connection with his alleged mishandling of classified documents, the former president and his supporters contend that he is the target of a politically weaponized justice system. They claim that the Department of Justice has ignored similar alleged crimes committed by his rivals, including President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In a speech after his arraignment Tuesday, Trump alleged that Biden and Clinton and other former presidents have committed far graver crimes than he has, yet he was the only one charged with felonies. That, he says, is proof that he is the victim of a political witch hunt.

Among other claims, many of which are contrary to evidence, Trump said Biden had “troves of classified documents” from his time as vice president and senator and sent away “1,850 boxes,” and “refuses to give them up.” He added that Clinton “stored vast quantities of classified and sensitive information on an illicit server.”

Biden, Clinton and Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, all have faced questions about holding on to government materials from their time in office. And like Trump, Biden is the subject of a Department of Justice investigation led by a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Here are summaries of the three cases and how they compare to Trump’s.

Joe Biden

Following media reports in January, the White House disclosed that in November the president’s personal attorneys found classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president stored at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington.

The White House said it notified the National Archives, which retrieved the documents and informed the Department of Justice. It instructed the FBI to search the think tank, which was done with White House consent. It’s unclear whether they found additional classified records.

Additional classified documents were found by Biden’s personal lawyers at the president’s personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware, which they reported to DOJ. The documents were secured by FBI agents, who found several more classified records while searching Biden’s home with White House consent. The FBI also searched Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth, Delaware, but did not find any classified materials.

In January, Garland appointed Robert Hur, former U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland, to oversee the investigation. Hur’s probe is ongoing, and it is unclear when it will conclude. The White House has pledged full cooperation.

Mike Pence

In January, Pence’s lawyers discovered about a dozen documents marked classified at his Indiana home and turned them over to the FBI. The documents were found after Pence asked attorneys to search his home “out of an abundance of caution” after the Biden classified document revelation.

A month later, the FBI discovered an additional document with classified markings at his home during their search. That search was done with Pence’s consent.

In June, the DOJ notified Pence that the investigation into his handling of these materials had been concluded and that he would not be charged.

Hillary Clinton

In 2015, Clinton was found to have used a personal email account and a private server at her residence in New York for both personal and official correspondence during her tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, triggering concerns about security and potential mishandling of classified information.

An FBI investigation revealed that Clinton and her aides had deleted thousands of emails, claiming that they were personal in nature, raising suspicions of attempts to conceal potentially incriminating information.

In July 2016, during Clinton’s presidential campaign, then-FBI Director James Comey criticized her for being “extremely careless” in handling classified information but did not recommend criminal charges against her.

Willful retention

A key difference between the three cases and Trump’s, according to legal experts, is that the former president continued to willfully retain those documents despite repeated government efforts to have them returned, including through a subpoena.

“Acting criminally is to know that you have documents that contain sensitive military information and to intentionally continue to hold them,” said David Sklansky, professor of Constitutional Criminal Procedure at Stanford University to VOA.

Unlike Trump, Biden and Pence handled the discovery appropriately, which ended the matter, said Mark Zaid, an attorney who focuses on national security law.

“The same would have happened with Trump had he cooperated,” Zaid told VOA.

The evidence in the indictment released by special counsel Jack Smith lays out “very, very persuasively” that Trump knew he had classified material, said Alison LaCroix, professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

Setting aside the question of whether Biden and Pence knew they had classified documents in their possession, LaCroix added, “they haven’t attempted to conceal them.”

With respect to Clinton, Zaid added, authorities determined there was no intent to violate the law and that the parties involved avoided discussing classified information.

Hunter Biden

In his Tuesday remarks, Trump alleged that the Biden administration is targeting him to distract from “the real espionage and the real crime.”

“Let’s indict President Trump so they don’t talk about the $5 million bribe,” he said.

Starting in 2019, as he campaigned for the 2020 presidential election against Biden, Trump has alleged that an executive of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma funneled millions of dollars to Biden and his son around 2015, so that Biden, then vice president, would pressure Ukraine to fire the government prosecutor investigating the company for corruption.

In June 2020, the head of Ukraine’s national anti-corruption bureau said that neither Biden nor Hunter Biden, who joined Burisma as a board member in 2014, had anything to do with the company’s corruption case.

A congressional investigation, which later led to Trump’s first impeachment in December 2019, concluded that Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation into Biden, including by withholding military aid to Kyiv.

In January, House Republicans launched an investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings. In May, they released financial documents detailing how some of the president’s relatives were paid more than $10 million from foreign sources between 2015 and 2017 but conceded they have not uncovered evidence of criminal conduct and corruption by President Biden.
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Republican and Democrat senators are backing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China beginning Friday but remain skeptical that it will lead to a breakthrough in relations with Beijing.

Blinken is expected to emphasize the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the two countries and discussing regional security issues, climate change and the global economy. State Department officials also said the issue of illegal fentanyl trafficking to the United States would also be a prominent part of the talks.

Ahead of the trip, VOA’s China branch spoke with several U.S. senators about their expectations for the talks, including whether Blinken should raise the issue of a Chinese spy station in Cuba, which was confirmed in recent days by U.S. officials.

The interviews have been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Do you think China’s spy base in Cuba reflects the scale of China’s infiltration or influence in the region?

Senator Bob Menendez (Democrat): I’m looking forward to a briefing on China’s spy station inside of Cuba. Obviously, it now seems that it is not something new, according to published reports. But the mere fact that certainly we didn’t know about it is really alarming to me. And what’s also alarming is that 90 miles [144 kilometers] away from the United States, you have a great opportunity to do significant signal and other intelligence over the United States. I think that any country who wants to allow China to do that from their home base must understand that the United States not only looks at it as a real challenge and problem, but that there must be consequences that flow from it.

VOA: How would you like Secretary Blinken to address this issue?

Menendez: I hope that he will raise it. You know, I don’t want this issue to impede his ability to have his trip and have face-to-face and tough conversations with the Chinese leadership. But I do think you should make it clear that we look at it as an affront, in terms of our own security and sovereignty.

Senator Todd Young (Republican): I want to make sure it is a topic of conversation. But beyond that, just emphasize that the American people will be insisting that their government does whatever it can to prevent invasive and unwelcome surveillance activities against the United States. Period. But most certainly those that emanate from our hemisphere, that should be conveyed in an especially powerful way in the wake of the balloon incident that occurred just weeks ago.

VOA: Do you believe China has been taking steps for a meaningful dialogue with the U.S.?

Senator Chris Van Hollen (Democrat): Well, they have not engaged in our effort to try to establish a line of communication between our secretary of defense and their minister of defense, which is important to try to prevent accidents or unintended events from spiraling out of control. So, I hope during Secretary Blinken’s visit, we can also resolve them.

Senator Tim Kaine (Democrat): Here’s what I believe: Dialogue guarantees nothing, but the absence of dialogue almost always guarantees problems. So, dialogue has no downside and all upsides. And so, we have to keep making the case. And I’m hoping that China will also view dialogue is really important to promote stability to avoid miscalculation, miscommunication.

Senator John Cornyn (Republican): It seems like it’s a one-way street to many people from the Biden administration reaching out, only to be met with no response.

VOA: Is this the right time for the U.S. to talk with China?

Cornyn: Well, I think it’s always good for two countries to talk so that they try to understand each other better, so there’s not any mistakes that could lead to conflict.

VOA: Do you expect any positive results [from Blinken’s visit]?

Cornyn: No.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday defended Jack Smith, the career prosecutor he appointed as an independent special counsel to handle the criminal investigations of former President Donald Trump.

Trump has assailed Smith repeatedly in his social media posts. He has called the prosecutor a “thug” and “lunatic,” including on Tuesday, when Trump pleaded not guilty at the U.S. Courthouse in Miami to a 37-count indictment filed by Smith. The document accused Trump of “willfully” retaining 31 highly classified national security documents and conspiring to hide them when federal authorities demanded he hand them over.

“As I said when I appointed Mr. Smith, I did so because it underscores the Justice Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability,” Garland, the top U.S. law enforcement official, told reporters at the Justice Department he heads.

“Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor,” Garland said. “He has assembled a group of experienced and talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity and the rule of law. Any questions about this matter will have to be answered by their filings in court.”

Smith sat behind his fellow prosecutors in the courtroom on Tuesday, and a few meters from Trump at the defendant’s table, but they did not interact in any way.

A Trump lawyer referred to his client as “President Trump,” while the judge conducting Trump’s arraignment referred to him as “the former president” and a prosecutor called him “the defendant.”

Garland’s defense of Smith was the first time he had commented publicly since a federal grand jury charged Trump last week. It was the first time that a former or sitting American president has faced a federal indictment.

No date has been set for a trial, which could come in the first half of 2024, as Trump tries to win the Republican presidential nomination, or even after the November 2024 national election.

Trump has also been indicted by a state prosecutor in New York, where he is accused of falsifying records at his real estate conglomerate to hide a hush money payment to a porn star who claimed to have had a one-night tryst with Trump in 2006. The payment was made just ahead of Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign.

Smith is also investigating Trump’s role in trying to upend his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden and the subsequent riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. A prosecutor in the Southern state of Georgia is also investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss there to Biden.

Trump has denied all the charges, calling them a “witch hunt” aimed at keeping him from winning the presidency again. He far and away leads national polls of Republicans for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination. 

When Trump first disclosed he had been indicted, some Republican lawmakers and several of Trump’s Republican presidential opponents accused Garland’s Justice Department of “weaponizing” the country’s judicial system to target Trump while ignoring alleged offenses committed by Democratic politicians. Some of the attacks have continued since then.

But once the 49-page indictment was released on Friday and the critics had a chance to read it, numerous Republicans have adopted a more nuanced position on the charges against Trump, with some still attacking the prosecution but refusing to defend Trump against the specific allegations.

Mike Pence, Trump’s onetime vice president who is now running against him for the Republican nomination, told The Wall Street Journal editorial board, “These are very serious allegations. And I can’t defend what is alleged. But the president is entitled to his day in court, he’s entitled to bring a defense, and I want to reserve judgment until he has the opportunity to respond.”
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The Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday after having raised it 10 straight times to combat high inflation. But in a surprise move, the Fed signaled it may raise rates twice more this year, beginning as soon as next month.

The Fed’s move to leave its benchmark rate at about 5.1%, its highest level in 16 years, suggests that it believes the much higher borrowing rates have made some progress in taming inflation. But top Fed officials want to take time to more fully assess how their rate hikes have affected inflation and the economy.

“Holding the target rate steady at this meeting allows the committee to assess additional information and its implications” for the Fed’s policies, the central bank said in a statement.

The central bank’s 18 policymakers envision raising their key rate by an additional half-point this year, to about 5.6%, according to economic forecasts they issued Wednesday.

The economic projections revealed a more hawkish Fed than many analysts had expected. Twelve of the 18 policymakers forecast at least two more quarter-point rate increases. Four supported a quarter-point increase. Only two envisioned keeping rates unchanged. The policymakers also predicted that their benchmark rate will stay higher for longer than they envisioned three months ago.

“We understand the hardship that high inflation is causing, and we remain strongly committed to bring inflation back down to our 2% goal,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference.

One reason why the officials may be predicting additional rate hikes is that they foresee a modestly healthier economy and more persistent inflation that might require higher rates to cool. Their updated forecasts show them predicting economic growth of 1% for 2023, an upgrade from their meager 0.4% forecast in March. And the officials expect “core” inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, of 3.9% by year’s end, higher than they expected three months ago.

Immediately after the Fed’s announcement, which followed its latest policy meeting, stocks sank, and Treasury yields surged. The yield on the two-year Treasury note, which tends to track market expectations for future Fed actions, jumped from 4.62% to 4.77%.

The Fed’s aggressive streak of rate hikes, which have made mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and business borrowing costlier, have been intended to slow spending and defeat the worst bout of inflation in four decades. Mortgage rates have surged, and average credit card rates have surpassed 20% to a record high.

The central bank’s rate hikes have coincided with a steady drop in consumer inflation, from a peak of 9.1% last June to 4% as of May. But excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core inflation remains chronically high. Core inflation was 5.3% in May compared with 12 months earlier, well above the Fed’s 2% target.

Powell and other top policymakers have also indicated that they want to assess how much a pullback in bank lending might be weakening the economy. Banks have been slowing their lending — and demand for loans has fallen — as interest rates have risen. Some analysts have expressed concern that the collapse of three large banks last spring could cause nervous lenders to sharply tighten their loan qualifications.

The Fed has raised its benchmark rate by a substantial 5 percentage points since March 2022 — the fastest pace of increases in 40 years. “Skipping” a rate hike at this week’s meeting might have been the most effective way for Powell to unite a fractious policymaking committee.

The 18 members of the committee have appeared divided between those who favor one or two more rate hikes and those who would like to leave the Fed’s key rate where it is for at least a few months and see whether inflation further moderates. This group is concerned that hiking too aggressively would heighten the risk of causing a deep recession.

In an encouraging sign, inflation data that the government issued this week showed that most of the rise in core prices reflected high rents and used car prices. Those costs are expected to ease later this year.

Wholesale used car prices, for example, fell in May, raising the prospect that retail prices will follow suit. And rents are expected to ease in the coming months as new leases are signed with milder price increases. Those lower prices, though, will take time to feed into the government’s measure.

The economy has so far fared better than the central bank and most economists had expected at the beginning of the year. Companies are still hiring at a robust pace, which has helped encourage many people to keep spending, particularly on travel, dining out and entertainment.
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