An Army veteran who stormed the U.S. Capitol in a military-style formation with fellow members of the Oath Keepers was sentenced Friday to more than eight years in prison, a day after the far-right group’s founder received an 18-year prison term in the January 6, 2021, attack. 

Jessica Watkins, of Woodstock, Ohio, was acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge that Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of in November, but jurors convicted her of obstruction and conspiracy to impede Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. 

She was the third member of the anti-government group to receive her punishment this week in one of the most serious cases the Justice Department has brought in the riot. Rhodes’ 18 year-term was the longest sentence that has been handed down so far in the hundreds of Capitol riot cases. 

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said that while Watkins was not a top leader, like Rhodes, she was more than “just foot soldier,” noting that at least three others charged in the riot wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t recruited them to join. He sentenced her to 8½ years behind bars. 

“Your role that day was more aggressive, more assaultive, more purposeful than perhaps others,” he told her. 

‘Just another idiot’

Watkins tearfully apologized for her actions before the judge handed down her sentence. She condemned the violence by rioters who assaulted police, but said she knew her presence at the Capitol “probably inspired those people to a degree.” She described herself as “just another idiot running around the Capitol” on January 6. 

“And today you’re going to hold this idiot responsible,” she told the judge. 

The judge, for his part, said her personal story of struggling for years to come to terms with her identity as a transgender woman made it especially difficult for him to understand why she had shown “a lack of empathy for those who suffered” on January 6. Watkins testified at trial about hiding her identity from her parents during a strict Christian upbringing and going AWOL in the Army after a fellow soldier found evidence of her contact with a support group for transgender people. 

During the nearly two-month trial in Washington’s federal court, lawyers for Watkins and the other Oath Keepers argued there was no plan to attack the Capitol. On the witness stand, Watkins told jurors she never intended to interfere with the certification and never heard any commands for her and other Oath Keepers to enter the building. 

Evidence shown to jurors showed Watkins after the 2020 election messaging with people who expressed interest in joining her Ohio militia group about “military-style basic” training. She told one recruit: “I need you fighting fit” by the time of the inauguration, which was January 20, 2021. 

On January 6, Watkins and other Oath Keepers wearing helmets and other paramilitary gear were seen shouldering their way through the crowd and up the Capitol stairs in military-style “stack” formation. She communicated with others during the riot over a channel called “Stop the Steal J6″ on the walkie-talkie app Zello, declaring “we are in the main dome right now.” 

Another Oath Keeper and fellow Army veteran, Kenneth Harrelson, was to be sentenced later Friday. One of their other co-defendants, Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs, was sentenced Thursday to 12 years behind bars for seditious conspiracy and other charges. 

More sentencings next week

Rhodes, 58, of Granbury, Texas, was the first January 6 defendant convicted of seditious conspiracy to receive his punishment for what prosecutors said was a weekslong plot to forcibly block the transfer of power from former President Donald Trump to Biden. Four other Oath Keepers convicted of the sedition charge during a second trial in January will be sentenced next week. 

During his sentencing Thursday, Rhodes defiantly claimed to be a “political prisoner,” criticized prosecutors and the Biden administration, and tried to play down his actions on January 6. The judge described Rhodes as a continued threat to the United States who clearly “wants democracy in this country to devolve into violence.” 

The Oath Keepers’ sentences this week could serve as a guide for prosecutors in a separate January 6 case against leaders of the Proud Boys extremist group. Earlier this month, a different jury convicted former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other group leaders of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was another plot to keep Trump in the White House. 

Before Thursday, the longest sentence in the more than 1,000 Capitol riot cases was 14 years and two months for a man with a long criminal record who attacked police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the Capitol. Just over 500 of the defendants have been sentenced, with more than half receiving prison time.
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The US Labor Department says the number of children employed in violation of labor laws has been on the rise since 2015. While the total number of violations is still lower than it was two decades ago, experts say the increase is troubling. For VOA News, Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Camera and video edit: Andre Sergunin and Anna Rice
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Japan and the United States will issue a joint statement on technology cooperation on Friday that will commit them to closer cooperation in research and development of advanced chips and other technologies, a Japanese government source said.

Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will meet in Detroit in the U.S. on the sidelines of the 2023 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, Yomiuri reported earlier. In addition to semiconductors, they will discuss artificial intelligence and quantum technology, the newspaper added.

They want to deepen ties between research and development hubs in Japan and the U.S., the Japanese official told Reuters, asking not to be identified because he is not authorised to talk to the media. It will be another incremental step as they map out their future technology cooperation, he added.

As Washington and Tokyo reduce their exposure to Chinese supply chains amid growing tension, they are working together to expand chip manufacturing to ensure access to advanced components that they see as essential for economic growth.

Japan has established a new chip maker, Rapidus, that is working with International Business Machines Corp (IBM)(IBM.N) to develop advanced logic semiconductors, and is offering subsidies to U.S. memory maker Micron Technology Inc (MU.O) so it can expand production there.

Japan, along with the Netherlands, has also agreed to match U.S. export controls that will limit the sale of some chipmaking tools in China.

The meeting between Nishimura and Raimondo comes after the leaders of the Group of Seven advanced democracies agreed at a meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, to reduce their exposure to China because of its “economic coercion.”

Raimondo on Thursday met China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao in Washington where the pair exchanged views on trade, investment and export policies.
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The top Chinese and U.S. business and trade officials met Thursday in Washington, an infrequent direct conversation between leaders of the world’s two biggest economies.

The U.S. Commerce Department said in a statement Thursday that Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimond had “candid and substantive discussions on issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship.”

Thursday’s meeting, the department said, “was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage” the U.S.-China relationship.

While U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Bali last November, Thursday’s trade talks in Washington were the first cabinet-level meeting in the U.S. capital between American and Chinese officials during the Biden administration.

Wang is in the United States for the 2023 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, in Detroit — a city in the U.S. state of Michigan — on Thursday and Friday.

Common concerns

In the Washington talks, China expressed its views on China-U.S. relations and issues of common concern, Shu Jueting, the Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson, told a regular briefing in Beijing.

On Monday, Wang met with representatives of U.S. firms in Shanghai, including Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Dow, Merck, and Honeywell, according to the ministry, telling them that “China will continue to welcome U.S.-funded enterprises to develop in China and achieve win-win results.”

But China on Sunday declared U.S. chip manufacturer Micron a national security risk and banned the firm from selling its memory chips to key domestic industries. The ban followed a series of raids on American consultancies operating in China.

‘De-risk’ without ‘decoupling’

Wang’s trip to the U.S. follows a recent summit in Hiroshima, Japan, of the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries, at which Biden and other G7 leaders took aim at China over “economic coercion” and said they would “de-risk” without “decoupling” from the world’s second-largest economy on an array of products.

“China hopes the G-7 will not abuse trade and investment restrictions while saying that they will not seek to decouple from the country,” Shu said.

Wang met earlier in May with U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns in Beijing amid speculation about a visit from top U.S. officials. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a trip in February after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that flew over sensitive military sites.

Raimondo and Blinken, as well as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have all expressed interest in visiting China.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
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The White House on Thursday released the first-ever national strategy aimed at countering antisemitism amid a rise in violence against members of the Jewish community and a gain in antisemitic beliefs among Americans.

Prominent American religious advocacy groups noted that the White House strategy would placate critics who worry about conflating criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitism. The White House did this by not basing the strategy solely on the definition used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Although its definition of antisemitism does not mention Israel, many of its cited examples of antisemitism do.

“At its core, antisemitism divides us, erodes our trust in government, institutions and one another,” said second gentleman Douglas Emhoff at the launch of the strategy. “It threatens our democracy while undermining our American values of freedom, community and decency. Antisemitism delivers simplistic, false and dangerous narratives that have led to extremists perpetrating deadly violence against Jews.”

Emhoff, who is Jewish, described disturbing incidents in recent American life, such as schoolchildren finding swastikas drawn on their desks and parents of young children being met with slurs at school drop-offs. In 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League, there were nearly 3,700 antisemitic incidents throughout the United States. More than one-third of those incidents involved vandalism or assault.

The White House said 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes affect members of the Jewish community — although Jews account for only 2.4% of the nation’s population. Overall, Jews are the target of 4% of all reported hate crimes in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

And the ADL, which helped the White House shape the new strategy, reported earlier this year that 85% of Americans believe at least one anti-Jewish trope — a jump from 61% in 2019.

Global implications

Antisemitism also has global implications, said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in praising the strategy.

“The strategy reaffirms the United States’ commitment to combat antisemitism globally — including efforts to delegitimize or isolate the state of Israel at the U.N.,” she said in a statement.

The four-pillar plan — which includes increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism and why it matters; improving safety for Jewish communities; reversing the normalization of antisemitism; and building cross-community solidarity — has gained support from prominent American Jewish and Muslim groups.

“We welcome President Biden’s commitment to confronting the threat of antisemitism, a dangerous and pervasive form of bigotry that has become even more widespread in recent years, largely due to the rise in extremist, far-right political leaders,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement.

His statement continued: “We also look forward to the release of the White House’s strategic plans to confront other forms of bigotry, including Islamophobia. We also appreciate the White House’s use of language which makes clear that these national strategies should not be used to either infringe upon the constitutional guarantees of free speech or to conflate bigotry with human rights activism, including advocacy for Palestinian freedom and human rights.”

And T’ruah, a Jewish human rights organization that also worked with the White House, praised the White House’s decision not to adopt the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism as its only definition.

Larger fight

“We are glad to see the administration taking the threat of antisemitism seriously, and we welcome the announcement of a national plan that situates the fight against antisemitism within the larger fight against white nationalism, violent extremism, rising authoritarianism and hate in all its forms,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the organization’s leader, in a statement.

“The administration made the right decision by not codifying a definition of antisemitism, which would only have made it harder to recognize and respond to antisemitic attacks in context, and which would have opened the door to infringement of First Amendment rights,” the statement said, adding, “There is a long road ahead, and we look forward to continuing to work with the White House to stop antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.”

Emhoff said his own family history was shaped by antisemitism. His great-grandparents, he said, escaped persecution in what is now Poland, around the turn of the 20th century. They fled to the United States, where, 120 years later, their great-grandson became the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president.

“We must not forget the joy that comes from celebrating our faith, celebrating our cultures and celebrating our contributions to this great nation,” he said. “There is more that unites us than divides us.”
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The Air Force fighter pilot whom President Joe Biden nominated Thursday to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff got his call sign by ejecting from a burning F-16 fighter jet high above the Florida Everglades and falling into the watery sludge below.

It was January 1991, and then-Captain Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. had just enough time in his parachute above alligator-full wetlands for a thought to pop into his head. “Hope there’s nothing down there,” Brown said in an interview at the Aspen Security Forum last year.

He landed in the muck, which coated his body and got “in his boots and everything.” That’s how the nominee to be the country’s next top military officer got his call sign: “Swamp Thing.”

Brown, now a four-star general and the Air Force chief, was introduced by Biden on Thursday as his nominee. If confirmed, Brown would replace Army General Mark Milley, whose term ends in October. Biden made the announcement during a Rose Garden event on Thursday afternoon.

“[Brown] gained respect across every service from those who have seen him in action and have come to depend on his judgment,” Biden said.

“More than that, he gained the respect of our allies and partners around the world, who regard General Brown as a trusted partner and a top-notch strategist,” he added.

The call sign story was a rare inner look into Brown, who keeps his cards close to his chest. He’s spent much of his career being one of the Air Force’s top aviators, one of its few Black pilots and often one of the only African Americans in his squadron.

To this day, his core tenets are to “execute at a high standard, personally and professionally,” Brown said this month at an Air Force Association conference in Colorado. “I do not play for second place. If I’m in, I’m in to win — I do not play to lose.”

He’s been many firsts, including the Air Force’s first Black commander of the Pacific Air Forces, and most recently its first Black chief of staff.

If confirmed, he would be part of another first — the first time the Pentagon’s top two posts were held by African Americans, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin the top civilian leader. Brown would not be the first African American to be chairman, the Pentagon’s top military post; that distinction went to the late Army General Colin Powell.

Brown, 60, has commanded the nation’s air power at all levels. Born in San Antonio, he is from a family of Army soldiers. His grandfather led a segregated Army unit in World War II, and his father was an artillery officer and Vietnam War veteran. Brown grew up on several military bases and in various states, which he said helped instill in him a sense of mission.

His four-decade military career began with his commission as a distinguished ROTC graduate from Texas Tech University in 1984 and led him to his White House nomination this week. He was widely viewed within military circles as the front-runner for the chairmanship, with the right commands and a track record of driving institutional change, attributes seen as needed to push the Pentagon onto a more modern footing to meet China’s rise.

For the past two years Brown has pressed “Accelerate, Change or Lose” within the Air Force. The campaign very much has China in mind, pushing the service to shed legacy warplanes and speed its efforts to counter hypersonics, drones and space weapons, where the military’s lingering Cold War-era inventory does not match up.

In person, Brown is private, thoughtful and deliberate. He is seen as a contrast to Milley, who has remained outspoken throughout his tenure, often to the ire of former President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers.

“He’s not prone to blurt out something without some serious thought in his own mind, some serious kind of balancing of the opportunities or options,” said retired Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael Moseley, who knows Brown from when Brown worked for him as a member of the Air Staff.

Brown has more than 3,000 flying hours and repeat assignments to the Air Force Weapons School — an elite aerial fighting school similar to the Navy’s TOPGUN. Only about 1% of Air Force fighter pilots are accepted, Moseley said.

He later earned a spot as an instructor, “which is like 1% of the 1%,” Moseley said.

Brown returned to the weapons school as its commandant. By then it had expanded from fighter-only exclusivity to teaching combined airpower operations, with tankers, bombers and cargo planes.

Brown saw that the school “required a different approach and attitude,” said retired Air Force Lieutenant General Bill Rew. Earlier commandants had tried to institute a new mantra, “Humble, Approachable, Credible,” but it had not taken root.

Under Brown the cultural shift took hold and remains in place today, said Rew, who was one of Brown’s instructors at the weapons school and wing commander during Brown’s time as commandant.

“It takes a certain kind of leadership that doesn’t force cultural change on people but explains it and motivates them on why that change is important,” Rew said.

In June 2020, Brown was just a week from being confirmed by the Senate to serve as chief of staff of the Air Force when he felt the need to speak out on George Floyd’s murder.

It was risky and inopportune time for the general to offer his private thoughts. But he did so anyway, after discussions with his wife and sons about the murder, which convinced him he needed to say something.

In a June 2020 video message to the service titled “Here’s What I’m Thinking About,” Brown described how he’d pressured himself “to perform error-free” as a pilot and officer his whole life, but still faced bias. He said he’d been questioned about his credentials, even when he wore the same flight suit and wings as every other pilot.

“I’m thinking about how my nomination provides some hope, but also comes with a heavy burden — I can’t fix centuries of racism in our country, nor can I fix decades of discrimination that may have impacted members of our Air Force.

“I’m thinking about how I can make improvements, personally, professionally and institutionally,” so all airmen could excel.

His decision to speak out did not cost him. His Senate confirmation vote was 98-0.

But like the brief moment in Aspen, the personal video message was a rarity. After confirmation, he lowered his public profile again, and got to work.
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President Joe Biden said Thursday that negotiations with Republican lawmakers to raise the U.S. government’s borrowing limit and set future spending levels are going well, while assuring Americans the country will not default on its obligation to pay its bills.

White House budget negotiators continued to talk with representatives of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to sort out the last details of a deal, but no agreement was announced as lawmakers began to leave Washington ahead of the country’s annual Memorial Day weekend.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is not scheduled to return until Tuesday — just two days ahead of June 1, the date Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the government could run out of cash to meet its obligations if the country’s existing $31.4 trillion debt ceiling is not increased so the government can borrow more money. Both the House and Senate need to approve the debt limit increase before Biden can sign it into law.

The focus of the negotiations, Biden said, was on future spending, for the budget year starting in October and beyond. Republicans are trying to sharply curb spending, while the Democratic president and his congressional colleagues are trying to keep as much funding as possible in place for their legislative priorities.

At the U.S. Capitol, McCarthy said he had directed his negotiators “to work 24/7 to solve this problem.” He said that “every hour matters” but that a deal could come together “at any time.” He has repeatedly said the government cannot continue to run up massive deficits totaling about $1 trillion annually, adding to the long-term debt total.

“We have to spend less than we spent last year,” McCarthy said. “That is the starting point.”

A key Democratic lawmaker, Representative Katherine Clark, characterized the negotiations as “a battle between extremism and common sense.” Republicans, she said, “want the American people to make an impossible choice: devastating cuts or devastating debt default.”

The Fitch Ratings agency put the United States’ AAA credit on “ratings watch negative,” warning the government is at risk of a possible downgrade because of what it described as brinkmanship and political partisanship surrounding the debate over lifting the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling has been raised 78 times since 1960, including three times under Republican President Donald Trump.

Nonetheless, Fitch said it “still expects a resolution” in the current debt ceiling and budget negotiations.

A Treasury Department statement late Wednesday said the Fitch warning “underscores the need for swift bipartisan action by Congress to raise or suspend the debt limit and avoid a manufactured crisis for our economy.”

A White House statement said the move by Fitch “reinforces the need for Congress to quickly pass a reasonable, bipartisan agreement to prevent default.”

It remained unclear, however, exactly how Biden and Democrats pushing for only relatively modest cuts in government spending and Republicans pressing for steeper ones can get to an agreement, and to what extent the debt ceiling would be increased beyond its current level.

“I will not raise taxes,” McCarthy has said, rejecting a White House proposal to increase taxes on the wealthiest U.S. taxpayers and large corporations. Nor, he said, would he allow a House vote on a measure to raise the debt ceiling without accompanying it with spending cuts.

“Sixty percent of Americans believe we should not raise the debt ceiling without cutting spending,” he said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday the Biden administration says it is possible to reach a “reasonable bipartisan agreement that Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate can move forward with.”

Jean-Pierre said the American people do not want what she called “devastating cuts” sought by Republicans.

“House Republicans have said we need to make these cuts in the name of fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, but that’s not what this is about. That’s never been what this is about for them,” Jean-Pierre said. “Because even as they fight to gut investments in hardworking families, they want to turn around and protect tax breaks skewed to the wealthy and corporations.”

The government reached its existing borrowing limit in January, but the Treasury has adopted “extraordinary measures” since then to keep paying its bills. Without enough new tax receipts flowing into government coffers in the first days of June, the government would then face the difficult choice of which bills to pay.

Officials have warned that a default by the United States, the biggest global economy, could prove catastrophic, roiling the world’s stock markets, forcing job layoffs in the U.S. and hurting the U.S. credit standing, resulting in higher interest rates for borrowers.
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The United States has targeted mid-level al-Shabab commanders and multiple junior finance officers with new sanctions. 

The U.S. State Department designated five commanders of the Somali militant group as global terrorists, while the U.S. Treasury designated 26 individuals and entities, including charcoal smugglers. 

Four of the five sanctioned are accused of involvement in collecting taxes for al-Shabab and attacks on civilians and Somali forces. 

The U.S. reported that al-Shabab generates an estimated $100 million annually that is collected through illicit taxations, mandatory donations and extortions. 

Among the operatives newly sanctioned is Mohamed Siidow, who is described as a finance emir and a commander in the group’s armed wing, the Jabha. He is accused of overseeing illicit taxation operations in Aliyow Barrow village in the Lower Shabelle region.  

“He has also led al-Shabaab fighters in attacks and participated in attack planning operations utilizing improvised explosive devices [IEDs],” according to a statement Wednesday from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Also designated were Ali Yare, Mohamed Dauud Gaabane, and Suleiman Abdi Daoud, all finance emirs in separate towns and villages in Lower Shabelle – possibly al-Shabab’s most lucrative region, through which many vehicles carrying commercial goods from Mogadishu pass.

Yare is also accused of directing a deadly explosion on Nov. 14, 2018, that targeted Somali army forces in the same region.

Gaabane is also accused of serving as the head of the group’s intelligence wing, the Amniyat, in Wanlaweyn, the district where he works as finance operator. Wanlaweyn is close to Baledogle airfield where U.S. troops train elite Somali units. 

“Gaabane operates an extensive early warning and informant network that regularly collects information on coalition forces and Somalis who work at the Baledogle Military Airfield,” the statement said. 

The fifth commander designated by the State Department, Mohamed Omar Mohamed, is said to be the al-Shabab commissioner in the Dinsor district. The U.S. accuses him of being responsible for a series of attacks targeting civilians. 

Additionally, the U.S. Treasury designated 15 al-Shabab financial facilitators and operatives, four charcoal smugglers, and seven associated companies.

The most notable three among this group are al-Shabab’s shadow governor of the Juba region, Mohamed Abdullahi Hirey, also known as Abu Abdalla; the region’s militant commander Ahmed Kabadhe; and Mohamed Ali, a company commander the U.S. says oversees 100 fighters. 

Others targeted include junior officers accused of operating as mandatory donation collectors and coordinating attacks against Somali and African Union forces. 

“As a result of these actions, all property and interests in property of those designated today that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and all U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them,” Blinken said in the statement.

Last year, Somalia’s government launched a renewed effort to strangle al-Shabab financially, combined with combating the group’s ideology and military operations.

Earlier this year, Somalia Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said the government had shut down 250 bank and mobile money accounts suspected of being used by al-Shabab. The government says al-Shabab’s financial health has been hurt as result of the measures.

Ibrahim Aden Nadara, a former al-Shabab regional official who now advises Barre on awareness campaigns against al-Shabab, says U.S. sanctions are effective. 

“This is impactful and timely,” he told VOA Somali. 

He says the sanctions will prevent designated individuals from moving any money abroad. 

“If they were to deposit it in foreign bank accounts or buy houses abroad and invest in business this will be an obstacle to them,” he said.  
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The Supreme Court on Thursday sharply limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority narrowed the reach of environmental regulations.

The outcome could threaten efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi River and protect the Chesapeake Bay, among many projects, wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh, breaking with the other five conservatives.

The justices boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near Priest Lake in the state’s panhandle. Chantell and Michael Sackett objected when federal officials identified a soggy portion of the property as a wetlands that required them to get a permit before filling it with rocks and soil.

By a 5-4 vote, the court said in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that wetlands can only be regulated under the Clean Water Act if they have a “continuous surface connection” to larger, regulated bodies of water. There is no such connection on the Sacketts’ property.

The court jettisoned the 17-year-old opinion by their former colleague, Anthony Kennedy, allowing regulation of what can be discharged into wetlands that could affect the health of the larger waterways.

Kennedy’s opinion covering wetlands that have a “significant nexus” to larger bodies of water had been the standard for evaluating whether permits were required for discharges under the 1972 landmark environmental law.

Opponents had objected that the standard was vague and unworkable.

Environmental advocates said the new standard would strip protections from millions of acres of wetlands across the country.

Reacting to the decision, Manish Bapna, the chief executive of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called on Congress to amend the Clean Water Act to restore wetlands protections and on states to strengthen their own laws.

“The Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands. The majority chose to protect polluters at the expense of healthy wetlands and waterways. This decision will cause incalculable harm. Communities across the country will pay the price,” Bapna said in a statement.

The outcome almost certainly will affect ongoing court battles over new wetlands regulations that the Biden administration put in place in December. Two federal judges have temporarily blocked those rules from being enforced in 26 states.

EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said the Clean Water Act has been responsible for “transformational progress” in cleaning up the nation’s waterways.

“I am disappointed by today’s Supreme Court decision that erodes longstanding clean water protections,” he said in a statement.

Damien Schiff, who represented the Sacketts at the Supreme Court, said the decision appropriately narrowed the reach of the law.

“Courts now have a clear measuring stick for fairness and consistency by federal regulators. Today’s ruling is a profound win for property rights and the constitutional separation of powers,” Schiff said in a statement issued by the property rights-focused Pacific Legal Foundation.

In Thursday’s ruling, all nine justices agreed that the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property are not covered by the act.

But only five justices joined in the opinion that imposed a new test for evaluating when wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Alito would have adopted the narrower standard in 2006, in the last big wetlands case at the Supreme Court. They were joined Thursday by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal justices charged that their colleagues had rewritten that law.

Kavanaugh wrote that the court’s “new and overly narrow test may leave long-regulated and long-accepted-to-be regulable wetlands suddenly beyond the scope of the agencies’ regulatory authority.”

Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority’s rewriting of the act was “an effort to cabin the anti-pollution actions Congress thought appropriate.” Kagan referenced last year’s decision limiting the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

In both cases, she noted, the court had appointed “itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy.” Kagan was joined in what she wrote by her liberal colleagues Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The Sacketts paid $23,000 for a 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in 2005 and started building a three-bedroom home two years later.

They had filled part of the property, described in an appellate ruling as a “soggy residential lot,” with rocks and soil in preparation for construction, when officials with the Environmental Protection Agency showed up and ordered a halt in the work.

They also won an earlier round in their legal fight at the Supreme Court.

The federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the EPA’s determination in 2021, finding that part of the property, 300 feet from the lake and 30 feet from an unnamed waterway that flows into the lake, was wetlands.

The Sacketts’ own consultant had similarly advised them years ago that their property contained wetlands.
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The top Chinese and U.S. business and trade officials are set to meet Thursday in Washington, Beijing announced, in what is an infrequent direct conversation between leaders of the world’s two biggest economies.

Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao is set to meet with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Wang’s ministry confirmed, although Washington has not commented on the talks.

While U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Bali last November, Thursday’s trade talks in Washington would make it the first cabinet-level meeting in the U.S. capital between American and Chinese officials during the Biden administration.

Wang is in the United States for the 2023 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting, in Detroit, on Thursday and Friday.

In the Washington talks, “The Chinese side will exchange views on China-U.S. relations and issues of common concern,” Shu Jueting, the Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson, told a regular briefing in Beijing.

On Monday, Wang met with representatives of U.S. firms in Shanghai, including Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Dow, Merck, and Honeywell, according to the Ministry of Commerce, telling them that “China will continue to welcome U.S.-funded enterprises to develop in China and achieve win-win results.”

But China on Sunday declared U.S. chip manufacturer Micron a national security risk and banned the firm from selling its memory chips to key domestic industries. The ban followed a series of raids on American consultancies operating in China.

Wang’s trip to the U.S. follows a recent summit in Hiroshima of the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries, at which Biden and other G-7 leaders took aim at China over “economic coercion” and said they would “de-risk” without “decoupling” from the world’s second-largest economy on an array of products.

“China hopes the G-7 will not abuse trade and investment restrictions while saying that they will not seek to decouple from the country,” Shu said.

Wang met earlier in May with U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns in Beijing, amid speculation about a visit from top U.S. officials. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a trip in February after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that flew over sensitive military sites.

Raimondo and Blinken, as well as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have all expressed interest in visiting China.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
…

South Korean and U.S. forces began live-fire exercises simulating a “full-scale attack” from North Korea on Thursday in what they said were the biggest such drills to demonstrate their “overwhelming” military capability against the North’s threats.

Howitzers pounded into a mountainside in Pocheon near the fortified border with North Korea, while battle tanks maneuvered and fired their guns at targets, sending smoke, dust and shockwaves across the valley.

Some 2,500 troops from the South and the United States took part in the exercises, which will be held four more times from now until mid-June, South Korea’s defense ministry said.

“The exercise demonstrated our military’s capability and readiness to strongly respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and to a full-scale attack,” the ministry said in a news release, vowing to maintain “peace through overwhelming strength.”

Last week, North Korea’s state media reported that leader Kim Jong Un had approved final preparations for the launch of the North’s first military spy satellite. Kim has said it is necessary to counter threats from the U.S. and South Korea.

Analysts say the satellite will improve North Korea’s surveillance capability, enabling it to strike targets more accurately in the event of war.

Recent commercial satellite imagery showed progress on a new launch pad in the North’s satellite launching station, with activity at a “new level of urgency,” most likely in preparation for the launch, the U.S.-based monitoring group 38 North said.

U.S. and South Korean forces have been carrying out various training exercises in recent months, including air and sea drills involving U.S. B-1B bombers, after many drills were scaled back amid hopes for diplomatic efforts and COVID-19 restrictions.

North Korea has reacted angrily to the drills, which it characterizes as preparation by U.S. and South Korean forces for an invasion.
…

Fitch Ratings has put the U.S. credit rating at risk of downgrade because of the potential that the U.S. government will not be able to come to an agreement to raise its debt limit and be able to pay its bills. 

Fitch said Wednesday it “still expects a resolution” but that there is an increased risk the debt limit will not be raised in time. 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the government could run out of money to meet its obligations, such as interest on government bonds, salaries for federal workers and government contractors and stipends to pensioners, as early as June 1. 

A Treasury Department statement late Wednesday said the Fitch warning “underscores the need for swift bipartisan action by Congress to raise or suspend the debt limit and avoid a manufactured crisis for our economy.” 

A White House statement said the move by Fitch “reinforces the need for Congress to quickly pass a reasonable, bipartisan agreement to prevent default.” 

White House budget officials and House Republican negotiators have been meeting this week as they try to resolve the impasse.  Discussions have involved both increasing the debt limit and trimming future federal spending.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters Wednesday that the negotiations were still productive, but days of talks have yet to produce an agreement that both sides believe could win a majority vote in both houses of Congress.    

“I firmly believe we will solve this problem,” McCarthy said. “We’re not going to default.”   

It remained unclear, however, exactly how President Joe Biden and Democrats pushing for only relatively modest cuts in government spending and Republicans pushing for steeper ones could get to an agreement, and to what extent the debt ceiling would be increased beyond its current $31.4 trillion level.    

“I will not raise taxes,” McCarthy said, rejecting a White House proposal to increase taxes on the wealthiest U.S. taxpayers and large corporations. Nor, he said, would he allow a House vote on a measure to raise the debt ceiling without accompanying it with spending cuts.    

“Sixty percent of Americans believe we should not raise the debt ceiling without cutting spending,” he said.    

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that the Biden administration believes it is possible to reach a “reasonable bipartisan agreement that Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate can move forward with.” 

Jean-Pierre said the American people do not want what she called “devastating cuts” sought by Republicans. 

“House Republicans have said we need to make these cuts in the name of fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, but that’s not what this is about. That’s never been what this is about for them,” Jean-Pierre said. “Because even as they fight to gut investments in hardworking families, they want to turn around and protect tax breaks skewed to the wealthy and corporations.”   

The government reached its existing borrowing limit in January, but the Treasury adopted “extraordinary measures” since then to keep paying its bills. Without enough new tax receipts flowing into government coffers in the first days of June, the government would then face the difficult choice of deciding which bills to pay.    

Officials have warned that a default by the United States, the biggest global economy, could prove catastrophic, roiling the world’s stock markets, forcing job layoffs in the U.S. and hurting the U.S. credit standing, resulting in higher interest rates for borrowers.    

The U.S. government has raised its debt ceiling 78 times over several decades, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, and three times under former President Donald Trump.    

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

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has officially entered next year’s presidential election. But to face the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, President Joe Biden, he will have to vanquish former President Donald Trump. The story from VOA’s chief national correspondent, Steve Herman, at the White House. Videographer: Saqib Ul Islam
…

The White House says it is looking into reports about the alleged use of U.S.-provided equipment in what appeared to be a raid by anti-Putin Russian volunteers Monday in the Belgorod region in Russia, although the U.S. cannot confirm the claim.

“We don’t support the use of U.S.-made equipment for attacks inside Russia. And we’ve been clear about that with the Ukrainians. We’ve been nothing but consistent about our concerns in that regard,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday.

Russia called Monday’s incident an incursion by saboteurs deployed by Kyiv, with officials and state media using various epithets ranging from “militants” to “terrorists.”

Ukraine denied involvement in this week’s Belgorod incident, calling it an act by disgruntled Russians.

Earlier, Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder confirmed that the U.S. government had not approved any third-party transfers of equipment to paramilitary organizations outside the Ukrainian armed forces, nor had the Ukrainian government requested any such transfers.

“The United States has communicated regularly with Ukraine that the security assistance that we’re providing them is for them to use inside Ukraine, as part of their efforts to defend their country and their sovereignty,” said Ryder.

He noted the Pentagon could not confirm the veracity of the images with the alleged U.S.-provided vehicles inside Russia.

“I don’t know if it’s true or not,” said Ryder. He pointed out that a couple days ago there were “some bogus images” of reported explosions at the Pentagon, which never happened. “We have to take a look at these things and make sure we get the facts before we make assumptions.”

When asked by reporters about the fighters’ use of U.S.-made hardware, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday, “It is no secret for us that more and more equipment is being delivered to Ukraine’s armed forces.”

Previously, the Russian government released images of the alleged American Humvees, which according to the Russians were destroyed near Belgorod. Some users on Twitter, however, suggested the images with the trucks might have been staged.

Russia’s vulnerability

The raid in the Belgorod region means the Russians cannot effectively protect their borders, analysts told VOA.

The Russians did not expect the battles would move to their territory, said George Barros, a Russia analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, or ISW.

“If these Russian volunteers indeed penetrated as deep as they claim to have, then it demonstrates that Russian field fortifications don’t really mean anything if they’re not sufficiently manned,” Barros said. He added that the raid exposed the vulnerability of Russia’s defense lines.

“I’m sure a lot of people have seen all those maps of the extensive lines that the Russians have dug all across the entire front line. Some analysts have argued that these extensive field fortifications and trenches mean that the Ukrainians are going to have a hard time moving,” he said.

“But if you don’t have enough soldiers physically occupying those lines, then they’re not going to be effective at preventing maneuver. And we know that for the entirety of the Ukrainian front line, which is about a little over 1,000 kilometers long, the Russian forces do not have enough infantry to be able to physically occupy to effectively defend the entirety of it,” Barros said.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk, now head of the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukrainian security think tank, said that until this point, observers had seen mostly bombings or other forms of sabotage inside Russia. Now, “the idea of the inviolability of Russia as a territory was seriously undermined,” he told VOA.

“Here, we are talking about armed personnel who entered the territory of the Russian Federation and stayed there for some time,” Zagorodnyuk said. “Therefore, people who are citizens of Russia demonstrated to Russia that it is not protected. The idea that Russia is physically untouchable and completely protected from different threats or raids from any side is a fiction. Russia is as vulnerable as many other countries.”

Raid objective

Ilya Ponomarev, a political representative of the “Freedom of Russia” Legion that was involved in the raid, told VOA that the goal of the Belgorod operation was to “create a piece of free Russia and keep it as long as possible.”

Ponomarev said another objective was to distract the Russian army from the Ukrainian front line ahead of the expected Ukrainian offensive. “The Russians were surprised. They didn’t expect this.”

He said Ukraine’s role was minimal and emphasized that none of the Ukrainian military participated in the operation, only Russian citizens.

Ponomarev said he was hopeful that the Russian volunteers could free the country from the current regime. “This is our country, and we will liberate it. … There will be a new flag and a new government,” he said.

Alexander Vindman, former director for European affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, said this could be significant. “It seems to me that this is actually a Russian separatist movement – maybe with the support of Ukraine, but they act independently, achieving their own goals,” he told VOA.

ISW analysts said that so far they had not seen any unusual movement of Russian troops.

Regardless, Barros said events in the Belgorod region have caused a certain degree of panic, factionalism and incoherency within the Russian informational space.

“Frankly, I think Russian sources have done much more to actually amplify and create panic around these particular raids, more so than the Ukrainian information space,” he said.

VOA’s Tatiana Vorozhko and Iryna Matviichuk contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Yellowstone National Park officials killed a newborn bison because its herd wouldn’t take the animal back after a man picked it up.

The calf became separated from its mother when the herd crossed the Lamar River in northeastern Yellowstone on Saturday. The unidentified man pushed the struggling calf up from the river and onto a roadway, park officials said in a statement Tuesday.

Park rangers tried repeatedly to reunite the calf with the herd but were unsuccessful. Visitors saw the calf walking up to and following cars and people, creating a hazard, so park staff killed the animal, according to the statement.

It’s the latest example of Yellowstone visitors getting in trouble or hurt after approaching bison. Park officials euthanized a newborn bison after a similar incident in 2016, when a Canadian man and his son put the calf in their SUV, thinking they could rescue it.

The man pleaded guilty. He was fined $235 and ordered to pay $500 to the Yellowstone Park Foundation Wildlife Protection Fund.

Bison have gored several people in Yellowstone in recent years, often after they got too close to the animals.

Many of Yellowstone’s larger animals — including bison, which can run up to 35 mph (55 kilometers per hour) and weigh up to 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) — are deceptively dangerous, even when they’re just grazing or resting.

Park rules require visitors to keep at least 25 yards (23 meters) away from wildlife including bison, elk and deer, and at least 100 yards (91 meters) away from bears and wolves.

Park officials are investigating the bison calf incident. The suspect was a white male in his 40s or 50s who was wearing a blue shirt and black pants, the statement said.
…

Tina Turner, the American-born singer who left a hardscrabble farming community and abusive relationship to become one of the top recording artists of all time, died on Wednesday at the age of 83.

She died peacefully after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her representative said.

Turner began her career in the 1950s during the early years of rock ’n’ roll and evolved into an MTV phenomenon.

In the video for her chart-topping song “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” in which she called love a “second-hand emotion,” Turner epitomized 1980s style as she strutted through New York City streets with her spiky blond hair, wearing a cropped jean jacket, mini skirt and stiletto heels.

With her taste for musical experimentation and bluntly worded ballads, Turner gelled perfectly with a 1980s pop landscape in which music fans increasingly valued electronically produced sounds and scorned hippie-era idealism.

Sometimes nicknamed the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. The decade saw her land a dozen songs on the Top 40, including “Typical Male,” “The Best,” “Private Dancer” and “Better Be Good to Me.” Her 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, which remains one of the largest concert audiences for any single performer.

By then, Turner had been free from her marriage to guitarist Ike Turner for a decade.

The superstar was forthcoming about the abuse she suffered from her former husband during their marital and musical partnership in the 1960s and 1970s. She described bruised eyes, busted lips, a broken jaw and other injuries that repeatedly sent her to the emergency room.

“Tina’s story is not one of victimhood but one of incredible triumph,” singer Janet Jackson wrote about Turner, in a Rolling Stone issue that placed Turner at No. 63 on a list of the top 100 artists of all time.

“She’s transformed herself into an international sensation — an elegant powerhouse,” Jackson said.

In 1985, Turner gave a fictional turn to her reputation as a survivor. She played the ruthless leader of an outpost in a nuclear wasteland, acting opposite Mel Gibson in the third installment in the Mad Max franchise, “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”

Most of Turner’s hit songs were written by others, but she enlivened them with a voice that New York Times music critic Jon Pareles called “one of the more peculiar instruments in pop.”

“It’s three-tiered, with a nasal low register, a yowling, cutting middle range and a high register so startlingly clear it sounds like a falsetto,” Pareles wrote in a 1987 concert review.

She was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush, which she described in her 1973 song “Nutbush City Limits” as a “quiet little old community, a one-horse town.”

Her father worked as an overseer on a farm and her mother left the family when the singer was 11 years old, according to the singer’s 2018 memoir My Love Story. As a teenager, she moved to St. Louis to rejoin her mom.

Ike Turner, whose 1951 song “Rocket 88” has often been called the first rock ’n’ roll record, discovered her at age 17 when she grabbed the mic to sing at his club show in St. Louis in 1957.

The band leader later recorded a hit song, “A Fool in Love,” with his protégé and gave her the stage name Tina Turner, before the two married in Tijuana, Mexico.

Tina employed her strong voice and strenuously rehearsed dance routines as lead vocalist in an ensemble called the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. She collaborated with members of rock royalty, including The Who and Phil Spector, in the 1960s and 1970s and appeared on the cover of issue two of Rolling Stone magazine in 1967.

Ike and Tina Turner bounced between record labels, owing much of their commercial success to a relentless touring schedule. Their biggest hit was a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”

Turner left her husband one night in 1976 on a tour stop in Dallas, after he pummeled her during a car ride and she struck back, according to her memoir. Their divorce was finalized in 1978.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Ike and Tina Turner in 1991, calling them “one of the most formidable live acts in history.” Ike Turner died in 2007.

After leaving her husband, Turner spent years struggling to regain the limelight, releasing solo albums and singles that flopped and gigging at corporate conferences.

In 1980, she met new manager Roger Davies, an Australian music executive who went on to manage her for three decades. That led to a solo No.1 record — “What’s Love Got to Do With It” — and then in 1984 her album “Private Dancer” landed her at the top of the charts.

“Private Dancer” went on to become Turner’s biggest album, the capstone of a career that saw her sell more than 200 million records in total.

In 1985 Turner met German music executive Erwin Bach who became her long-term partner and in 1988 she moved to London, beginning a decades-long residency in Europe. She released two studio albums in the 1990s that sold well, especially in Europe, recorded the theme song for 1995 Bond movie “GoldenEye” and staged a successful world tour in 2008 and 2009.

After that, she retired from show business. She married Bach, relinquishing her U.S. citizenship and becoming a citizen of Switzerland.

She battled a number of health problems after retiring and in 2018 she faced a family tragedy, when her oldest son, Craig, died by suicide at age 59 in Los Angeles. Her younger son Ronnie died in December 2022.

Her name continues to draw audiences years after her retirement. Musical stage show “TINA: The Tina Turner Musical,” with Adrienne Warren initially acting and singing the star’s life story, was a hit first in London’s West End in 2018, and later on Broadway, and is still running. And in 2021 HBO released a documentary about her life, “Tina.”

She is survived by Bach and two sons of Ike Turner’s whom she had adopted.
…

Four years ago, high school and college students in the class of 2023 had just entered their first year when the coronavirus pandemic hit. They were thrust into an academic world of uncertainty when in-person classes stopped and were moved to online platforms.

Now recent graduates, they are the last undergraduate class with memories of what it was like to be students when the pandemic began. 

“It was shocking and confusing because we didn’t know what was going to happen with our studies,” said Sarabeth McClain, 22, who just received her undergraduate diploma in economics and political science at Rhode Island University. 

When the World Health Organization declared COVID a global pandemic in March 2020, in-person classes stopped in the United States, forcing students to learn online.  

“It was chaotic. I was taking classes that quickly went virtual, and I started to feel more distant from my professors,” said Rachel Buxbaum, who was in a doctoral degree program in clinical psychology at Long Island University in New York. “Plus, I began seeing psychotherapy patients online, and it all felt overwhelming.”

COVID-19 changed everything, including the college experience. 

“It was a resilience test for these students and impacted their ability to focus on education,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. 

According to a 2021 Best Colleges survey, 9 out of 10 college students said they struggled with isolation, anxiety and a lack of focus during the pandemic.

For much of two years, the lives of both college and high school students were turned upside down with uncertainty and the unease of not spending time with their classmates in person. 

“The quarantine led to an increase in social anxiety for them,” explained Caroline Clauss-Ehlers, a psychology professor in the School of Health Professions at Long Island University.  “Interacting with their peers is important to them, and with the quarantine that was lost, including some social skills.”

“I was struggling,” said high school student Jessica Hernandez, who graduated from Mount Vernon High School in Alexandria, Virginia, “because I couldn’t socialize with anyone since everyone was stuck behind a screen.” 

Besides social isolation, another Best Colleges study, in 2022, found the transition to remote learning caused significant stress from an increase in distractions and a loss of academic resources such as academic advisers.

“I felt neglected because the teacher wasn’t there to help me in person,” Hernandez told VOA, “and there were many distractions at home with my phone and TV easy to get to all the time, while I’m watching online classes from my bed.”

However, another high school student called her online learning “super easy.”

“It was such a quick transition during COVID that the teachers didn’t have much time to figure out online learning,” said Reda Adkins, a graduate of Perry High School in Perry, Ohio, “and so they were laid back and there was no pressure on the students to study and learn.”

According to a 2021 Frontiers in Psychology survey, 33% of college students were concerned about their academic futures due to the pandemic.

“I don’t feel there are many advantages to taking classes online,” said Sam Lodge, a graduate in economics at the University of Wisconsin. “It hurt me academically because it was harder to learn and process the information.”

“I didn’t like online learning and missed the structure of going to class, including classroom discussions,” said McClain.

“The professors prepared me academically,” said Matthew Shea, who received his diploma from Pennsylvania State University. “However, it was hard to pay attention during the lectures when you’re not in the classroom. I was also more hesitant to ask questions online rather than in-person, where I am more comfortable raising my hand.”

However, other students adapted to learning virtually, Pasquerella noted.

“Most students were skeptical about learning online during the pandemic, but after in-person college classes resumed, many wanted to have more online courses, especially for the flexibility.”

According to a new survey by TimelyCare, a virtual health and well-being program for students in higher education, about 80% of graduating seniors say the pandemic affected their workforce preparedness.

“I’m looking for employment right now,” Lodge told VOA. “During COVID, the lack of being social, including talking to new people, has had an impact on my reaching out to people who are hiring.”

Despite a disrupted college experience and trepidation about entering the workforce, nearly all of this year’s college graduates are hopeful for their future, TimelyCare said.

“I’m looking forward to my work as a clinical psychologist in primary health care at a hospital in New York,” said Buxbaum, who completed her doctoral degree.

“I feel like I’m regaining my mental energy, and I’m going to a local community college in northern Virginia to study to become a nurse,” said high school graduate Hernandez. 
…

The idea of the American Dream can conjure up images of tidy suburban homes with immaculate green lawns, but achieving and maintaining that lush carpet of grass can seem like a nightmare.

“Most people don’t install lawns, they get them when they buy the house. They’re stuck,” says Paul Robbins, author of Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are.

“That’s the first thing we learned in our research is that most people would prefer not to have them, but they feel that they need to have them, or that they can’t do anything about it. And the need to have them is that they feel an obligation to their neighbors,” Robbins said.

Conforming to the neighbors can be timely, expensive and unhealthy, due to the chemicals used to keep the lawn perfect. But not conforming can also be costly. Janet and Jeffrey Crouch, a Maryland couple who live about 45 minutes outside of Washington, learned this lesson when they decided to forgo a lawn to plant native plants that are wildlife-friendly.

“We started planting native plants and the butterflies and bees and birds started coming immediately when we stopped using pesticides and fertilizers,” Janet Crouch says.

But their next-door neighbor complained to the homeowners association, which like a typical HOA, oversees the management of some residential communities and is usually run by a board of volunteer homeowners. The Crouches were ordered to pull out their native plants and replace them with grass. They refused.

“We were not using pesticides or fertilizers. We knew we were doing things that were beneficial for the environment,” Janet Crouch says. “So, it just seemed fundamentally wrong to tear out this piece of paradise that we’ve created and put in turf grass, which is an environmental dead zone.”

Lawns are considered environmental dead zones in part because they provide no food or shelter for wildlife, including pollinators like birds, bees and butterflies, which are among the wildlife whose numbers are decreasing at a rapid rate due to habitat destruction and other human-related actions. One million species worldwide face extinction, many within decades, due to the loss of biodiversity.

“The fundamental ecological fact about turf grass is that it’s not native to North America, with maybe one exception. And to plant a crop which is not native to the continent, and then try to engineer it into a state of absolute perfection, is like pushing a boulder up the hill,” says Ted Steinberg, author of American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn.

An industry report suggests Americans spend almost $100 billion on lawn care yearly, with each household, on average, spending $503 on lawn care and gardening.

“Super-green monoculture is an ecological boondoggle,” Steinberg adds. “It uses a lot of chemical inputs, a lot of water — you water a lot — and leaches nutrients from the soil, and that sends people back to the store for more chemical inputs, especially fertilizer.”

Chemicals used to maintain lawns include glyphosate and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, known as 2,4-D, which are suspected of causing cancer and other health ailments and can contaminate groundwater. Some states already ban the use of certain chemicals on lawns. Others, particularly in the arid West, have restrictions on how often or if people can water their grass.

“There’s more than 40 million acres across the country of turf,” says Nancy Lawson, author of The Humane Gardener and Wildscapes. Lawson is also Janet Crouch’s sister and the person who encouraged the Crouches to install native plants. “Turf is the No. 1 irrigated crop, so it’s taking up a lot of water.”

Lawson has created a wildlife oasis of native plants surrounding her house. She lives in an area of Maryland that is not governed by HOAs.

“I think the future of the lawn, as it is now, is doomed,” Lawson says. “So, what’s the alternative? Well, it shouldn’t be rock or something like that because you’re heating up the planet even more. So, the alternative is plants, and it’s native plants that know how to grow in your soil conditions, in your sun conditions, in the weather of your region.”

The Crouches’ battle against their HOA took three years. The couple says they spent $60,000 fighting to keep their natural garden. They won and as a result of their efforts, the state of Maryland passed a law that allows people to grow native plants instead of grass, no matter what their HOA wants.

Robbins, who is also an environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes lawns will always be around, but not in the state they are in now.

“They’re going to be targeted in places where they’re most appropriate, where you’ve got kids and you want them to have a place to run around,” Robbins says. “There’s going to be fewer of them, and they’re going to live alongside much more biodiverse options.”
…

Negotiations between the administration of Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden and lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives over the government’s debt limit will resume Wednesday. 

Talks between the two sides broke off Tuesday without any apparent progress towards an agreement that would give the U.S. Treasury permission to exceed the current $31 trillion ceiling and continue borrowing money to pay the government’s outstanding debt.  Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the department will run out of money by Thursday, June 1, which could force the government to default on its debts, plunging the U.S. into a catastrophic recession and creating turmoil on global markets. 

House Republicans are demanding the Biden administration agree to reduce federal spending back to 2022 levels. Republicans also want to impose strict work requirements for Americans enrolled in such low-income relief programs as food and cash assistance and the Medicaid health insurance program.   

The White House has proposed freezing federal spending at this year’s current levels, and wants to end tax breaks for wealthier Americans and some corporations. The administration has also proposed that defense spending be included in any potential spending cuts.  

Both President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have rejected the competing proposals, but news outlets say a potential deal could include taking back up to $30 billion in unspent COVID-19 pandemic relief funds and reforms to simplify the approval process of new energy projects.  

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday that the negotiations were “moving forward,” but insisted that both Democrats and Republicans “have to understand that they’re not going to get everything they want.” She said the goal is “to get to a budget that is reasonable, that is bipartisan, that Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate will be able to vote on and agree on.” 

But Representative Garret Graves, one of the House Republican negotiators, said Tuesday there were still “significant gaps” between the two parties.

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

A group of hardline conservative Republicans are urging Speaker McCarthy – who needed their support to be elected to his post back in January – not to reach a compromise with Biden and instead force the president to give in to their demands.  Biden is also being pressured by House Democrats not to give into Republicans and simply declare that the government will continue to borrow money by invoking the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that the “validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law…shall not be questioned.” 

The negotiations are also complicated by the need to convert the agreement into legislation and allow House lawmakers 72 hours to review the bill before bringing it to a vote. It then must go to the Democratic-controlled Senate for passage before it goes to Biden for his signature.  

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

Apple Inc on Tuesday said it has entered a multi-billion-dollar deal with chipmaker Broadcom Inc. to use chips made in the United States. 

Under the multi-year deal, Broadcom will develop 5G radio frequency components with Apple that will be designed and built in several U.S. facilities, including Fort Collins, Colorado, where Broadcom has a major factory, Apple said. 

Broadcom were up 2.2% after the announcement, hitting a record high. The chipmaker is already a major supplier of wireless components to Apple, with about one fifth of its revenue coming from the iPhone maker in its two most recent fiscal year. 

Apple has been steadily diversifying its supply chains, building more products in India and Vietnam and saying that it will source chips from a new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co plant under construction in Arizona. 

SEE ALSO: A related video by VOA correspondent Michelle Quinn

The two companies did not disclose the size of the deal, with Broadcom saying only that the new agreements require it to allocate Apple “sufficient manufacturing capacity and other resources to make these products.” 

Broadcom and Apple previously had a three-year, $15 billion agreement that Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said was set to expire in June. He said the development was positive for Broadcom, despite the fact that the two firms did not give a time frame for how long the work will last. 

“It’s good that it removes that overhang,” Rasgon said. “Broadcom has existed over the years with a number of these long-term agreements with Apple. Sometimes they have them and sometimes they don’t.” 

Apple said it will tap Broadcom for what are known as film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) chips. The FBAR chips are part of a radio-frequency system that helps iPhones and other Apple devices connect to mobile data networks. 

“All of Apple’s products depend on technology engineered and built here in the United States, and we’ll continue to deepen our investments in the U.S. economy because we have an unshakable belief in America’s future,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. 

Apple said it currently supports more than 1,100 jobs in Broadcom’s Fort Collins FBAR filter manufacturing facility. 
…

New York’s mayor asked a judge on Tuesday to let the city suspend its long-standing “right to shelter” obligation, saying officials are no longer able to house every homeless person because of the arrival of tens of thousands of international migrants.

The right to shelter has been in place for more than four decades in New York, after a court in 1981 required the city to provide temporary housing for every homeless person who asks for it. Other big U.S. cities don’t have such a rule.

But with the arrival of 70,000 asylum-seekers since last spring, many of whom crossed into the U.S. from Mexico, the city has been challenged to find room for everyone in need of a temporary roof and bed.

SEE ALSO: A related video by Evgeny Maslov

“It is in the best interest of everyone, including those seeking to come to the United States, to be upfront that New York City cannot single-handedly provide care to everyone crossing our border,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.

“Being dishonest about this will only result in our system collapsing, and we need our government partners to know the truth and do their share,” said the mayor, a Democrat.

Adams said he was not seeking to permanently end the right to shelter but was seeking “clarity from the court.”

The proposal was condemned by some housing advocates, who said it could result in more people living outdoors.

Joe Loonam, housing campaign coordinator for the advocacy organization VOCAL-NY, said Adams wants “to end the right to shelter that has prevented New York City from following in the footsteps of places like L.A. and San Francisco where thousands of people are in horrendous conditions out on the street.”

New York’s shelter system is now filled to record levels. The city says it is currently providing housing for 93,000 people. In recent months it has rented out entire hotels to house the influx of migrants, at great cost. It has also put cots in schools, and temporarily housed people in tents, a cruise ship terminal and a former police academy building.

In a letter to the deputy chief administrative judge for New York City Courts, the city’s lawyers asked for a change in the mandate that would allow officials to suspend the right to shelter when the Department of Homeless Services lacks the resources to house everyone safely.

Adams has sought financial help from the state and federal government and has been critical of President Joe Biden’s administration for not providing funding to care for migrants.

In an appearance on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Adams said the White House offer of $30 million is insufficient.

“We’ve spent over a billion dollars,” the mayor said. “We’re projected to spend close to $4.3 billion, if not more. This estimate was based on a number of migrants coming to the city, and those numbers have clearly increased.”

In recent weeks, the city has begun paying to house some asylum-seekers at hotels in counties north of the city, but that action has stoked anger and accusations that the city was dumping its problems on other communities.

In the initial months of the crisis, Adams heralded the right to shelter mandate as an emblem of his city’s empathy toward asylum-seekers. Many of the first arrivals were bused to New York by the governors of Republican-led border states including Texas and Arizona who were trying to bring attention to the border crisis. The governors also targeted Washington, D.C., another city with a Democratic mayor.

Catherine Trapani, executive director of Homeless Services United, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing, urged the city to alleviate the shelter crisis by increasing rental assistance programs.

“There are alternatives,” she said. “The mayor does not need to take this drastic step to limit what should be a fundamental right.”

In a joint statement, the Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society said they both “vigorously oppose” the mayor’s request.

“New Yorkers do not want to see anyone, including asylum-seekers, relegated to the streets,” the statement said.
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The United States would not accept preconditions set by the People’s Republic of China while pursuing open lines of communication with Beijing, a senior State Department official told VOA on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the official said there is not much indication that China is willing to use its influence over Russia to end its war on Ukraine.

State Department counselor Derek Chollet spoke Tuesday to VOA State Department bureau chief Nike Ching about China and Ukraine ahead of the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference to be held in mid-June when U.S. ambassadors will return to Washington for meetings.

The following excerpts from the interview have been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: What can you tell us about Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive since summer is around the corner?

DEREK CHOLLET, COUNSELOR OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE: We have been supplying Ukraine, along with our 50 other coalition partners, with the resources they need to defend themselves and to take back territory. I’m going to let the Ukrainians speak for themselves in terms of the timing of their counteroffensive and what their aims are.

VOA: Which countries are willing to, or have promised to provide Ukraine with F-16s? And what numbers are we looking at?

CHOLLET: We’re working through those specifics right now. Our Pentagon colleagues are working closely with Ministries of Defense throughout Europe and elsewhere to talk about the way forward on F-16s. It’s got to start with training, because these are planes that are not easy to operate. They require weeks and weeks of training. We’re still working through who is actually going to be providing those planes. We’ve made no decisions on that for ourselves.

I don’t think it’s going to be a system particularly relevant, because of the timing, to the coming counteroffensive. But nevertheless, when we think about Ukraine’s needs for the future, and its ongoing needs to deter and defend itself, these planes are going to be a critical part of a modern Ukrainian military.

VOA: Can you talk about Ukraine’s diplomatic push to challenge Russia’s influence in the Global South? Because Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is starting his tour to Africa this week.

CHOLLET: Foreign Minister Kuleba and [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and the entire Ukrainian leadership have been very determined to try to take their case throughout the world, all corners of the world. There’re no better people to make the case for Ukraine than the Ukrainian leadership, and so we very much support their efforts. And I know President Zelenskyy had a successful visit to Jeddah and the Arab League Summit. I know they’re also engaging with Middle East partners, as well.

VOA: Chinese envoy Li Hui is visiting European Union headquarters in Brussels before heading to Russia, according to media reports. How do you assess China’s peacemaking efforts? Does China have the credibility?

CHOLLET: It’s a good thing that the Chinese are now talking to the Ukrainians and that an envoy has visited. Quite frankly, I’ve modest expectations for this effort. I mean, what China can be most helpful in doing is trying to make the case to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and getting Vladimir Putin to stop this war. It’s important to note this war could end tomorrow if Vladimir Putin decided to pull his troops out of Ukraine. I see no evidence to suggest that Putin is thinking about that anytime soon.

VOA: To clarify, does the United States see the PRC [People’s Republic of China] as having a case with Putin or not?

CHOLLET: Clearly, they have a close relationship with Russia. President Xi [Jinping] and President Putin have met several times, and before this war, they released a very lengthy joint communique talking about a relationship, a partnership within their limits. What we would be asking our PRC friends to do is use whatever influence they have over Russia to get Putin to stop this war.

I haven’t seen much to suggest that they’re willing to use that influence. And I haven’t seen much to suggest that even if they were willing to use the influence, it would work to change Putin’s mind. But that’s the simple thing we’re asking.

VOA: Moving on to the U.S.-China relationship: Was national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s recent meeting with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi bad news for Russia?

CHOLLET: Well, I don’t want to talk about whether it’s bad news for Russia or good news for Russia. It was a very businesslike meeting between our national security adviser and Wang Yi to talk about the U.S.-China relationship, and to speak forthrightly from our side about some of the challenges that we see emanating from the PRC, some of the fundamental differences we have with them. But also, importantly, to talk about the areas for dialogue and cooperation that we continue to hope to be able to achieve with the PRC.

We, again, have some fundamental differences with the PRC, and we’re going to stay true to our principles and values and our interests there. But at the same time, we think it’s important to have dialogue with the PRC to talk about how we manage those differences, how we put guardrails on this relationship.

VOA: Are Sullivan and Wang going to meet regularly, such as quarterly?

CHOLLET: Well, no, there’s no decision at all on a regular meeting. Secretary [Antony] Blinken was just hours from departing for Beijing several months ago until the Chinese irresponsibly and unacceptably flew a surveillance balloon over the United States. So, that’s a dialogue that we very much hope to be able to restart at some point. There’s no plans for that as of yet. There’s no decision on sort of the frequency of the dialogue. What’s important is that we are willing to have that dialogue, and that’s the case we’re making to China.

VOA: Can you tell us about U.S. Ambassador to PRC Nicholas Burns’ meetings at the Chiefs of Mission Conference in Washington next month?

CHOLLET: Nick Burns is one of our most accomplished diplomats in modern U.S. history. We very much trust his judgment, and we’re thrilled that he’s taken on this difficult assignment to return to service to be in Beijing. He’s had several meetings in Beijing just in the last week to help talk about ways we’re going to try to get this relationship in some place where we have, again, guardrails on it, and we have a floor on, beneath it, to help support it. So, we’ll look forward to his firsthand impressions on how that’s going.

VOA: Chinese officials have said that there’s a need to stabilize a relationship with the United States. But at the same time, they also demand the U.S. to stop strengthening ties with Taiwan, stop putting restrictions on trade, on technology. Are those preconditions?

CHOLLET: There’s certainly nothing that we would accept. Let the PRC speak for themselves about what kind of conditions they put on any sort of dialogue with us. We’re very clear that we will not diminish our commitment to our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific or anywhere. We will continue to defend our interests and stay true to our values. While doing that, there is space to have a dialogue with the PRC or anyone else.
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U.S. forces are expected to start training Ukrainians on M1A1 Abrams tanks “in the next week or so,” Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told VOA on Tuesday.

About 250 Ukrainians are arriving in Germany this week for the training, a senior military official familiar with the training told VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.

The Ukrainians will train on 31 Abrams tanks that arrived in Germany earlier this month. U.S. officials have said that a different set of 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks are being refurbished in the United States and will be delivered to Ukraine by the fall.

Training in Germany is expected to last about 10 weeks and will focus on how to operate the tanks, how to maneuver the tanks in a combined arms fight and tank maintenance, the official said.

The course structure will be similar to previous U.S.-led training on armored Bradley fighting vehicles and Stryker vehicles, which were provided to Ukraine earlier this year, according to the official.

Abrams tanks, in particular, have been a long-awaited addition to the fight. The tank’s thick armor and 1,500-horsepower turbine engine make it much more advanced than the Soviet-era tanks Ukraine has been using since the war’s beginning.

The Biden administration announced in January that it would send a newer version of the Abrams tanks, known as M1A2, to Ukraine after they were procured and built, a process that could potentially take years.

In March, the administration pivoted to provide M1A1 Abrams tanks instead, to get the tanks “into the hands of the Ukrainians sooner rather than later,” Ryder said at the time.

F-16s on agenda

The news of the Abrams tank training comes as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is set to host another virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Thursday.

Military and defense leaders from more than 50 nations are expected to focus on ground-based air defense, ammunition needs and F-16 training, Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon earlier Tuesday.

Ryder said F-16 training would be conducted outside of Ukraine at European sites, but it could be weeks or months before the training begins.

“F-16s for Ukraine are about the long term. These F-16s will not be relevant to the upcoming counteroffensive,” he added.

After months of Ukraine pleading for Western fighter jets, U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday said the U.S. would support a joint international effort to train Ukrainian pilots on modern fighter aircrafts, including F-16s.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko responded to the news on Saturday with a warning that Western countries would run “colossal risks” if they supplied Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, according to the TASS news agency.
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Representatives of U.S. President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans ended another round of debt ceiling talks on Tuesday with no signs of progress as the deadline to raise the government’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit or risk default ticked closer.

The two parties remain deeply divided about how to rein in the federal deficit, with Democrats arguing wealthy Americans and businesses should pay more taxes while Republicans want spending cuts.

White House negotiators Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and senior White House adviser Steve Ricchetti met with their Republican counterparts for about two hours. They left without making substantive comments to the media.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the federal government could no longer have enough money to pay all its bills as soon as June 1, which would cause a default that would hammer the U.S. economy and push borrowing costs higher.

The two sides still disagree on spending, and it was not clear when talks would resume, said Republican Representative Patrick McHenry, who chairs the House Finance Committee.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre called the talks “incredibly tough.”

“Both sides have to understand that they’re not going to get everything that they want,” Jean-Pierre said at a briefing. “And what we’re trying to get to is a budget that is reasonable, that is bipartisan, that Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate will be able to vote on and agree on.”

Global markets on edge

The lack of clear progress continued to weigh on Wall Street with U.S. stocks sharply lower on Tuesday and global markets on edge.

Democrats want to freeze spending for the 2024 fiscal year that begins in October at the levels adopted in 2023, arguing that would represent a spending cut because agency budgets won’t match inflation. The idea was rejected by Republicans, who want spending cuts.

Biden wants to cut the deficit by raising taxes on the wealthy and closing tax loopholes for the oil and pharmaceutical industries. McCarthy said he will not approve tax increases.

McCarthy told reporters on Monday that he expected to talk with Biden daily at least by telephone.

If and when Biden and McCarthy reach a deal, they will still need to sell it to their caucuses in Congress. It could easily take a week to pass a deal through the House and Senate, which would both need to approve the bill before Biden could sign it into law.

‘Why is June 1 the drop dead?’

Hard-line Republicans and progressive Democrats both voiced anger at the idea of compromise.

Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the 101-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said “the vast majority” of the group’s members would oppose any deal that included spending cuts or new work requirements for federal benefit programs for low-income Americans, both of which are major Republican demands.

Some hard-line members of the Republican House Freedom Caucus on Tuesday said they were skeptical of how firm the June 1 deadline is. Treasury has said the U.S. could run short of cash as soon as June 1, or perhaps in the days following.

“Secretary Yellen needs to not only testify, but in writing, she needs to justify her dates that she’s given. Why is June 1 the drop dead?” Republican Representative Ralph Norman said.

Democrat Representative Hakeem Jeffries — the top Democrat in the House — dismissed that skepticism as unfounded.

“The June 1 date is a real one. Secretary Yellen continues to make that clear,” Jeffries told reporters.

Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling and allows the federal government to borrow money to pay its bills, the United States could default on its obligations, potentially tipping the nation into recession and plunging global financial markets into chaos.

Any deal to raise the limit must pass both chambers of Congress, and therefore hinges on bipartisan support. McCarthy’s Republicans control the House 222-213, while Biden’s Democrats hold the Senate 51-49.

Despite the gridlock, the two sides have found some common ground on several areas, including permit reform that will help energy projects move forward.

On Monday, McCarthy said including some permitting reforms in the debt deal would not solve all of the related issues and that talks on further reforms could continue later, declining to address transmission for renewable energy.

The two sides are also discussing clawing back unused COVID-19 relief funds and imposing stricter work requirements on two popular public benefit programs aimed at helping Americans out of poverty.
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