The United States on Tuesday announced new North Korea sanctions related to thousands of IT workers, many operating in China and Russia, whose labors allegedly help fund weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, the Treasury Department said.

One individual, Kim Sang Man, and the North Korea-based Chinyong Information Technology Cooperation Company were sanctioned jointly by the United States and South Korea in relation to their IT worker activities, Treasury said.

North Korea oversees thousands of IT workers around the world, primarily located in China and Russia, Treasury said. These workers “generate revenue that contributes to its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.”

The workers hide their identities, locations, and nationalities and use forged documentation to apply for jobs, it said. They have secretly worked in a variety of positions and industries, including the fields of “business, health and fitness, social networking, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle,” the Treasury Department said.

In the past, the U.S. State Department has warned that hiring North Korean IT workers could also lead to incidents of intellectual property theft.

Three other groups — the 110th Research Center, Pyongyang University of Automation and Technical Reconnaissance Bureau — had been previously sanctioned by South Korea for engaging in cyber operations and illicit revenue generation that support North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs, Treasury said.

“Today’s action continues to highlight [North Korea’s] extensive illicit cyber and IT worker operations, which finance the regime’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs,” Brian Nelson, undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement.

In its announcement, the Treasury Department noted that the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau currently leads North Korea’s offensive cyber efforts and oversees staff affiliated with the infamous Lazarus hacking group.

Lazarus has been accused of carrying out some of the largest virtual currency heist to date. In March 2022, for example, they allegedly stole about $620 million in virtual currency from a blockchain project linked to the online game Axie Infinity.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met again Monday for tense Oval Office talks on raising the government’s borrowing limit — and, again, reached no agreement — as the U.S. government stares down a looming deadline for its first-ever default.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in a letter to congressional leaders Monday, said the government could default on its debt as early as June 1, and warned that even waiting until close to that time to reach an agreement “can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States.” 

On Tuesday, a Washington research group, the Bipartisan Policy Center, also warned of the possible financial peril the U.S. faces.  

“Come early June, [the U.S.] Treasury will be skating on very thin ice that will only get thinner with each passing day,” Shai Akabas, executive director of the group’s economic policy program, said in a statement. “Of course, the problem with skating on thin ice is that sometimes you fall through.” 

“The longer policymakers wait to address the debt limit, the more likely our economic fate will be determined by external actors,” Akabas said. “Credit-rating agencies, Treasury investors, and global financial markets aren’t going to wait around forever. Once things turn, the situation could deteriorate quickly and be hard to reverse, which would immediately and negatively impact American consumers and businesses.” 

On Monday, as Biden and McCarthy sat down for another meeting, the president said failing to act could have major consequences.

“The American people would have a real kick in their economic well-being,” said Biden, who cut short an overseas trip to return to Washington for the debt negotiations. “As a matter of fact, the rest of the world would, too.”

Biden and McCarthy have met three times in recent weeks but have yet to reach a deal on future government spending, even as they say they are making progress and that neither wants a government default.  

“We don’t have an agreement yet, but I did feel the discussion was productive in areas that we have differences of opinion,” McCarthy said Monday. He said the two negotiating teams would continue to talk via staffers.

Previous presidents and congressional leaders have reached deals to raise the country’s debt limit 78 times in give-and-take negotiations in which neither side got everything on its wish list for the federal budget.   

In the current debate, Republicans in the House have called for sharp government spending cuts, while the White House has countered with proposals to close tax loopholes and enact more limited spending reductions.

Republicans also want increased work requirements for able-bodied poor people receiving government assistance, but Democrats say that under such a proposal, several hundred thousand people could lose the benefits they now receive.

Republicans also are seeking cuts in funding for the country’s tax-collection agency and asking the White House to accept provisions from their party’s proposed immigration overhaul to reduce the number of migrants trying to enter the United States at the Mexican border.

Biden said in a statement after the talks, “We reiterated once again that default is off the table and the only way to move forward is in good faith toward a bipartisan agreement.” 

The president said he had done his part by offering ways to raise the country’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit so the U.S. government can keep paying its bills, such as interest on government bonds, stipends to U.S. pensioners, payments to health care providers and salaries for government employees and contractors. 

But as Biden warned Monday, the tight balance of political power in Congress means that any deal needs to appeal to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. He has previously called House Republicans’ spending plan an “extreme position.” 

“We have to be in the position where we can sell it to our constituencies,” Biden said. “We are pretty well divided in the House, almost down the middle. And it’s not any different in the Senate. So, we’ve got to get something we can sell to both sides.”  

Jeffrey Harris, a finance professor at American University in Washington, said, “The uncertainty that the debt ceiling injects into the economy adds another element of risk to the tenuous economic conditions that we are already experiencing.”   

“On top of the added burden of inflation and higher borrowing costs, consumer confidence is already near all-time lows. The possibility of a continuing U.S. impasse driving rates higher would compound current consumer issues and threatens to push the economy into a worse state,” he said.  

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

A top U.S. defense official is dismissing China’s use of surveillance balloons as a distraction, calling them inconsequential when compared to the larger problem posed by Beijing’s increasing ability to militarize space.

China’s use of spy balloons has grabbed headlines since the Pentagon announced it was tracking one of the high-altitude devices as it traveled across the continental United States this past February.

Since then, the United States has shot down a handful of Chinese balloons and other suspicious high-altitude objects, at times using advanced weaponry and U.S. officials have even acknowledged the balloon was able to gather some information around sensitive military sites.

But Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday, in some ways, China’s use of balloons, which Beijing has described as weather balloons, is a distraction.

“They have a very aggressive intelligence collection program. The balloons are a very small part of that and not highly consequential,” Kendall told reporters during a briefing to the Defense Writers Group in Washington.

What worries him more, Kendall said, is higher up.

“The space part of it is very significant and very consequential,” he said. “They’re linking their space-based capabilities to their operational forces.”

Other U.S. officials have likewise warned of China’s advances in space.

“China sees space as a potential vulnerability for the United States,” said Doug Wade, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s China Mission Group, this past March.

“There’s a variety of space and counter-space assets or capabilities in China that worry us a lot,” Wade said, calling Beijing’s space program, “second only to the United States.”

The U.S. chief of space operations, General Chance Saltzman, likewise warned about Beijing growing prowess, calling China “our most substantial threat into and from space.”

Kendall on Monday said specifically it is China’s growing ability to use its satellites to track U.S. troops and assets that has him “very concerned.”

“A big part of that operational capability is surveillance, reconnaissance, targeting … to do things like try to target aircraft carriers, trying to target mobile units, ground units of various types,” he said. “It’s a huge efficiency enhancement for them potentially.”

Despite pleas from officials like Kendall for lawmakers to focus on China’s space capabilities, there has been a push by some lawmakers to address the potential threat from high-altitude balloons.

“The [U.S. Northern Command commander] has told us that he has additional unfunded requirements for Air Force over the horizon and long-range expeditionary radars,” Democrat Jon Tester, chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said during a hearing last month.

“We need to provide the resources, and I think this committee on both sides of the aisle wants to make sure our nation is safe and provide the resources to do that,” Tester added.

The Air Force’s Kendall called on lawmakers to pass a defense budget on time and support modernization efforts, including reforms that would allow the service more flexibility to better respond to China’s advancements.

“The threat to our airbases, the threats to our carriers, their air superiority drive … have all been going on for quite some time and we have not responded, I think, as quickly as we should have,” he said, adding that in some cases, “We’re giving away over a year to China for no good reason.”
…

Authorities in Washington detained the driver of a box truck that crashed into security barriers on Lafayette Square adjacent to the White House grounds, a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson said Monday night. 

The truck was deemed safe by District of Columbia police, the Secret Service said, adding that charges would be filed by U.S. Park Police with investigative support from the Secret Service. 

“There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel, and the cause and manner of the crash remain under investigation,” Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the U.S. Secret Service, said on Twitter. 

“The driver may have intentionally struck the security barriers,” Guglielmi said in a second tweet, which announced the truck was deemed safe. 

Some roads and pedestrian walkways around the park were closed, the Secret Service said. 

The nearby Hay Adams hotel was evacuated at the request of the Secret Service, the Washington Post reported, citing a hotel official. 

WUSA television showed live video of a box-type, U-Haul truck stopped alongside a row of steel bollards, with uniformed law-enforcement officers and a dog approaching the vehicle. A remote-controlled robot pried open the truck’s rear door, revealing a dolly but no other obvious cargo. 

After crashing, the driver hit the barriers a second time, WUSA reported, citing a witness report. 

A spokesperson for the Washington Fire Department said a call came in at 9:40 p.m. local time (0130 GMT) for what was described as a suspicious package investigation. 

Washington Metro Police assisted other agencies at the scene, the Washington Post said, citing a police spokesperson. 
…

On a spring Saturday afternoon, two “hermanos” knelt to pray in the chapel of their Catholic brotherhood of St. Isidore the Farmer, nestled by the pine forest outside this hamlet in a high mountain valley.

Fidel Trujillo and Leo Paul Pacheco’s words resounded in New Mexican Spanish, a unique dialect that evolved through the mixing of medieval Spanish and Indigenous forms. The historic, endangered dialect is as central to these communities as their iconic adobe churches, and its best chance of survival might be through faith, too.

“Prayers sung or recited are our sacred heritage,” said Gabriel Meléndez, a professor emeritus of American Studies with the University of New Mexico who’s also a hermano. “When prayers are said in Spanish, they’re stronger. They connect us directly to people who came before us.”

Preserved mostly in devotions, particularly in humble “moradas” – as the brotherhoods’ chapels are called – built of mud and straw in rural communities across the northern reaches of the state, New Mexican Spanish is different from all other varieties of the language.

“Unlike most other forms of Spanish used in the U.S. today, it’s not due to immigration in the last 100 years, but rooted back to the 1500s,” said Israel Sanz-Sánchez, a professor of languages at West Chester University in Pennsylvania who has researched the dialect.

Spanish explorers and missionaries first reached these valleys isolated between mountains, deserts and plains at the end of the 16th century. Pushed back south by the Pueblo Native Americans, they resettled a century later – and their language evolved to incorporate not only words carried from medieval Spain but also a mixture of expressions derived from Mexican Spanish, Native forms and eventually some English after the territory became part of the United States.

Removed from the center of political and economic power for centuries, these villages preserved the dialect orally.

“You never heard English here,” said Felix López of growing up in the 1950s in Truchas, a ridgetop village between Santa Fe and Taos, where this master “santero” – an artist specializing in devotional art – has been helping preserve the 1760s Holy Mission church.

But by the mid-20th century, the push to promote schooling in English led many educators to correct students who used New Mexican Spanish’s idiosyncratic mix of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary, said Damián Vergara Wilson, a professor of Spanish at the University of New Mexico.

He has been working on teaching Spanish not as foreign but as a heritage language that has developed into something uniquely New Mexican.

It contains some words from medieval Spanish, but it also includes pronunciations that developed in New Mexico’s villages and words unique to its geographical and historical place at a crossroads of American civilizations. There are several words for turkey, for instance, including an anglicized one used in the context of Thanksgiving.

With such code-switching sometimes disparaged in education and among the public, younger generations often stick to English only or learn contemporary Spanish, especially as spoken in Mexico, with which the state shares a border. That leads many villagers to worry about being able to preserve New Mexican Spanish.

“The dialect we speak is dying out. We’re the last generation that learned it as a first language,” said Angelo Sandoval, 45, who serves as the “mayordomo” or caretaker of the 1830s San Antonio Church in Cordova, a village just down the valley from Truchas.

Its best chance for survival is prayer. Traditional devotions have been passed down through generations by hermanos, easily memorized because of their ballad-style rhyming. Sometimes they are transcribed into notebooks called “cuadernos.” In an adobe niche in a chapel in Holman, some of the handwritten notebooks are 120 years old.

Even in larger cities, people often request prayers in New Mexican Spanish for special occasions, like rosaries for the deceased or novenas for the holidays.

In Santa Fe, the prayer to the widely venerated statue of Our Lady of Peace contains some of the original Spanish terminology, such as “Sacratisimo Hijo” for the “most holy Son,” said Bernadette Lucero, director, curator and archivist for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

A nearly century-old women’s folklore society — Sociedad Folklórica de Nuevo México — also regularly practices the dialect for their hymns and nine-day “novenas” prayers to baby Jesus, Lucero added.

In the small town of Bernalillo, where the outskirts of Albuquerque fade into vast mesas, the mayordomos of San Lorenzo also preserve the dialect in their prayers and annual celebrations.

“When we sing an old ‘alabado,’ we can trace who wrote that,” said Santiago Montoya of the Catholic praise (in Spanish, “alabar”) hymns that have been passed down through New Mexican brotherhoods.

For 23 years, Montoya and his sister have been the mayordomos of San Lorenzo, a church that was constructed in the mid-19th century with 4-foot-wide adobe walls. The community fought to save it when a bigger, modern church was built next door.

But he’s also a “rezador,” reciting or singing the rosary — a prayer consisting of sets of Hail Marys called “decades” — which he does in the community and particularly for the deceased. He insists on using New Mexican Spanish even if the families speak only English.

“I tell them, ‘I’ll do three ‘decades’ in English, but let’s teach the kids,'” Montoya said.
…

On a September day he knew would be hard, Damone Presley marked the occasion with barbecue and balloons.

He was commemorating the one-year anniversary of the day in 2021 when his daughter and her three friends were fatally shot in Minnesota by a man who left their bodies in an abandoned SUV in a Wisconsin cornfield. Presley gathered 50 friends to celebrate the life of his daughter, Nitosha Flug-Presley, who was 30 when she died. He went big on the anniversary because he felt sure that’s what his daughter would have wanted.

“She would always do stuff big,” Presley told The Associated Press.

There have been 553 mass killings in the United States since 2006, and at least 2,880 people have died in them, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. Those include killings where four or more people died, not including the assailant, within a 24-hour period. So far in 2023, the nation has witnessed the highest number on record of mass killings and deaths to this point in a single year.

As the number of people who die in mass killings in the U.S. continues to rise, thousands more are left to handle the trauma of losing someone they love to a senseless act of violence. They struggle with a special kind of grief, haunted both by the loss and by how it happened.

One of the hardest days they confront each year is the anniversary of the killing.

Wednesday, families in Uvalde, Texas, will face that one-year anniversary — transporting them back to the day when a gunman entered Robb Elementary School and fatally shot 19 children and two teachers as they gathered to celebrate the end of the school year. And last week, families of 10 people in Buffalo, New York, crossed the one-year mark from the day a white supremacist opened fire in a supermarket.

People cope with these anniversaries in different ways. Some throw a party to get through the pain. Others prefer to be completely alone. Many fall somewhere in the middle, adopting little rituals to help get them through the day.

But they all grapple with the same question, sometimes after many years have passed:

What do I do with myself on the date that changed everything?

Spending the day alone

On the same day Presley gathered with friends and family at his home, Angela Sturm — whose children, Jasmine Sturm and Matthew Pettus, were killed in the same attack — chose to spend the day alone.

“I turn down invites to ‘celebrate’ because it’s not a celebration to me,” she said.

Instead, she honors her children privately by looking at their photos and remembering how their life together used to be. She writes, cries and practices self-care by reading a good book or taking a hot bath. She hopes people will understand that she wants to be alone, and that they shouldn’t worry or be upset if she turns down invitations or doesn’t respond to texts.

Everyone deals with grief differently, said Jeffrey Shahidullah, a pediatric psychologist at UT-Austin Dell Children’s Medical Center.

Shahidullah was part of a team that stayed in Uvalde for months after the shooting to operate a crisis walk-in clinic for first responders, community members, family and friends of victims.

In the short and long term, mass shootings can traumatize entire communities, Shahidullah said. That can lead people — even those who didn’t know the victims personally — to avoid situations that remind them of the event, feel constantly unsafe and experience intrusive flashbacks to when they first heard about the killing.

“A lot of these symptoms could be exacerbated or worsened around the time of these anniversaries,” Shahidullah said. “Over time, those symptoms do tend to subside. But everyone has their own timeline.”

A solemn Mother’s Day

By cruel coincidence, the first anniversary of the Buffalo supermarket shooting fell on Mother’s Day. That made things especially hard for Wayne Jones, whose mother, Celestine Chaney, was among the 10 people killed by a white supremacist that day.

Jones said some friends came over on the anniversary, and they talked about other things.

“5/14 is every day to me still,” he said.

The video and a photo of the shooter — standing with the gun he used, a vulgar racial slur scrawled on its barrel — are “ingrained in my brain,” he said.

Tirzah Patterson and her 13-year-old son, Jaques “Jake” Patterson — who lost his father, church deacon Heyward Patterson, in the supermarket shooting — left town altogether for the anniversary.

They have not set foot in Tops Friendly Market since it reopened last summer and did not attend the memorial events in Buffalo for her ex-husband and the others who were killed.

“We don’t want to go through that again,” Tirzah Patterson said before the weekend. “We’re going to be gone.”

They spent Mother’s Day weekend in Detroit and attended a church service there.

Marking a decade

While some are just crossing the one-year mark, others have been dealing with these anniversaries for years.

Topaz Cooks marked the 10-year anniversary of her father’s death last September. She was a month shy of her 21st birthday in 2012 when her dad and several others were shot and killed at their worksite in Minneapolis by a man who was fired from the company.

“I still cannot believe that happened to my family,” she said.

On the anniversaries, she likes to do things her dad, Rami Cooks, enjoyed. Last year, she went on a hike and ate dessert — because her dad loved rugelach, birds and wind. She loves that her friends send her photos of their dessert that day each year with the caption: “For your dad!”

She also has a journal she writes in once a year on that day, filling her dad in on the highlights, challenges and thoughts from the year that she wishes she could share with him.

Seven years after the killing, Topaz Cooks said she experienced PTSD while working as a theater stage manager. She was surprised because she didn’t expect it to hit so late. The production’s plot may have triggered it — the play was about a woman avenging her father’s death. It took months of therapy to feel like she was back in control.

Talking about the loss isn’t for everybody, but Cooks said it’s important to her.

“I wish that people talked about it more and normalized it,” she said. “Grief is just so lonely.”

Remembering life, not death

A hint of fall hung in the air on Sept. 12, the day Presley threw a party to mark the day his daughter and her three friends were killed. He said he wanted to think about who his daughter was rather than how she died.

She loved to throw exciting and glamorous birthday parties for her kids, friends and family.

Presley placed a life-size cardboard cut-out of his daughter smiling in a pink outfit by the door. Guests wore T-shirts with photos of her and phrases like “Never Forgotten” and “Daddy’s #1 Angel.” At Presley’s request, guests gave speeches about the funniest things they remembered his daughter doing.
…

A group of Chinese citizens living and working in the southern U.S. state of Florida sued the state Monday over a new law that bans Chinese nationals from purchasing property in large swaths of the state. 

The law applies to properties within 16 kilometers of military installations and other “critical infrastructure” and also affects citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. But Chinese citizens and those selling property to them face the harshest penalties. The prohibition also applies to agricultural land. 

The American Civil Liberties Union says the law will have a substantial chilling effect on sales to Chinese and Asian people who can legally buy property. The suit says the law unfairly equates Chinese people with the actions of their government and says there is no evidence of national security risks from Chinese citizens buying Florida property. 

The law “will codify and expand housing discrimination against people of Asian descent in violation of the Constitution and the Fair Housing Act,” the ACLU said in a news release announcing the suit. “It will also cast an undue burden of suspicion on anyone seeking to buy property whose name sounds remotely Asian, Russian, Iranian, Cuban, Venezuelan, or Syrian.” 

U.S.-China ties are strained amid growing tensions over security and trade. In nearly a dozen statehouses and Congress, a decades-old worry about foreign land ownership has spiked since a Chinese spy balloon traversed the skies from Alaska to South Carolina last month. 

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch a presidential campaign this week, signed the bill May 8. His office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. 

The law is set to take affect July 1. Under the new regulation, it will be a felony for Chinese people to buy property in restricted areas or for any person or real estate company to knowingly sell to restricted people. For the other targeted nationals, the penalty is a misdemeanor for buyers and sellers. 

It applies to land near military instillations as well as land near infrastructure like airports and seaports, water and wastewater treatment plants, natural gas and oil processing facilities, power plants, spaceports, and telecommunications central switching offices. 

The ACLU says the law “will have the net effect of creating ‘Chinese exclusion zones’ that will cover immense portions of Florida, including many of the state’s most densely populated and developed areas.” 

“This impact is exactly what laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the California Alien Land Law of 1913 did more than a hundred years ago,” the lawsuit says. 

Those on the restricted list that already own property near critical infrastructure must register with the state or face fines of up to $1,000 a day. They’re also prohibited from acquiring additional property. The law has provisions to allow the state to seize property from violators. 

The number of states restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land has risen by 50% this year. 

Heading into 2023, 14 states had laws restricting foreign ownership or investments in private agricultural land. So far this year, restrictive laws also have been enacted in Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. 

Foreign land ownership has become “a political flashpoint,” said Micah Brown, a staff attorney for the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas. 

Brown said the recent surge in state laws targeting land ownership by foreign entities stems from some highly publicized cases of Chinese-connected companies purchasing land near military bases. Earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force said that the Fufeng Group’s planned $700 million wet corn milling plant near a base in Grand Forks, North Dakota, poses a “significant threat to national security.” 

After a Chinese army veteran and real estate tycoon bought a wind farm near an Air Force base in Texas, that state responded in 2021 by banning infrastructure deals with individuals tied to hostile governments, including China. 
…

The United States is not considering lifting current sanctions on China’s defense chief, Li Shangfu, the State Department said Monday.

U.S. officials had said sanctions on Li do not prevent him from conducting official meetings with his American counterparts, nor should sanctions be hurdles for military talks between Washington and Beijing.

Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters that he would not consider easing sanctions on Chinese officials to improve relations. He later suggested that lifting sanctions on the defense chief is “under negotiation right now.”

The State Department clarified the U.S. position Monday.

“No, we are not,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told VOA on Monday during his first on-camera briefing. Miller was asked if the U.S. is considering or entertaining the idea of whether to ease sanctions on the top Chinese military official for negotiation purposes.

The People’s Republic of China named General Li Shangfu as its minister of national defense in mid-March. In 2018, the U.S. sanctioned Li under the so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) when he headed the Equipment Development Department of the Chinese military.

The sanctions were related to China’s purchase of ten SU-35 combat aircrafts in 2017 and S-400 surface-to-air missile system-related equipment in 2018, according to the State Department.

U.S. officials have been eager to resume talks with their Chinese counterparts. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Li are both expected to attend next month’s Shangri-La Dialogue, a high-level Asia security summit in Singapore.

The Chinese military has not accepted the U.S. proposal for a meeting between their defense chiefs on the margins of this annual gathering.

In Beijing, Chinese officials questioned Washington’s “sincerity” in its outreach for communications.

“China always firmly opposes illegal unilateral sanctions and has made clear its stern position to the U.S. side. The U.S. side should immediately lift sanctions and take concrete actions to remove obstacles, create favorable atmosphere and conditions for dialogue and communication,” said Mao Ning, the spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Monday.

Both U.S. and Chinese officials have said there is a need to stabilize fraught relations between the world’s two largest economies. Ties that have been increasingly strained in recent months over security, trade and technology issues, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Chinese officials have signaled a willingness to stabilize relations with the U.S., but at the same time they demand that the U.S. stop harming Chinese interests by strengthening ties with Taiwan and imposing technology restrictions on China.

Experts told VOA the ball is in China’s court.

“It’s unclear whether Beijing will proceed to take steps toward stabilizing ties unless the U.S. rolls back some of the measures it has taken that China objects to,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Diplomatic visits to Beijing

Biden also said a “thaw” in the bilateral relationship would begin “very shortly.”

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry’s visit to Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua would come after Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other U.S. cabinet members’ planned visits to Beijing, which was agreed during a recent phone call between Kerry and Xie, a diplomatic source who wishes not to be named told VOA.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo had also indicated their plans to visit China.
…

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are engaged in negotiations over raising the nation’s debt ceiling and the government reaches a “hard deadline” and run out of cash to pay its bills.

The two sides are working to reach a budget compromise before June 1, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the country could default.

McCarthy and Republicans are insisting on spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit. Biden has come to the negotiating table after balking for months but says the GOP lawmakers will have to back off their “extreme positions.”

On Sunday evening, negotiators met again and appeared to be narrowing on a 2024 budget year cap that could resolve the standoff. After speaking with Biden by phone as the president traveled home from a trip to Asia, McCarthy sounded somewhat optimistic. But he warned that “there’s no agreement on anything.”

A look at the negotiations and why they are happening:

WHAT IS THE DEBT CEILING FIGHT ALL ABOUT?

Once a routine act by Congress, the vote to raise the debt ceiling allows the Treasury Department to continue borrowing money to pay the nation’s already incurred bills.

The vote in more recent times has been used as a political leverage point, a must-pass bill that can be loaded up with other priorities.

House Republicans, newly empowered in the majority this Congress, are refusing to raise the debt limit unless Biden and the Democrats impose federal spending cuts and restrictions on future spending.

The Republicans say the nation’s debt, now at $31 trillion, is unsustainable. They also want to attach other priorities, including stiffer work requirements on recipients of government cash aid, food stamps and the Medicaid health care program. Many Democrats oppose those requirements.

Biden had insisted on approving the debt ceiling with no strings attached, saying the U.S. always pays its bills and defaulting on debt is non-negotiable.

But facing a deadline as soon as June 1, when Treasury says it will run out of money, Biden launched negotiations with Republicans.

IS IT CLOSE TO BEING RESOLVED?

There are positive signs, though there have been rocky moments in the talks.

Start-stop negotiations were back on track late Sunday, and all sides appear to be racing toward a deal. Negotiators left the Capitol after 8 p.m. Sunday and said they would keep working.

McCarthy said after his call with Biden that “I think we can solve some of these problems if he understands what we’re looking at.”

The speaker added: “We have to spend less money than we spent last year.”

Biden, for his part, said at a press conference in Japan before departing: “I think that we can reach an agreement.”

But reaching an agreement is only part of the challenge. Any deal will also have to pass the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support. Many expect that buy-in from the White House and GOP leadership will be enough to muscle it over the finish line.

WHAT ARE THE HANGUPS?

Republicans want to roll back spending to 2022 levels and cap future spending for the next decade.

Democrats aren’t willing to go that far to cut federal spending. The White House has instead proposed holding spending flat at the current 2023 levels.

There are also policy priorities under consideration, including steps that could help speed the construction and development of energy projects that both Republicans and some Democrats want.

Democrats have strenuously objected to a Republican push to impose stiffer work requirements on people who receive government aid through food stamps, Medicaid health care and the cash assistance programs.

Biden, though, has kept the door open to some discussion over work requirements.

WHAT HAPPENS IF THEY DON’T RAISE THE DEBT CEILING?

A government default would be unprecedented and devastating to the nation’s economy. Yellen and economic experts have said it could be “catastrophic.”

There isn’t really a blueprint for what would happen. But it would have far-reaching effects.

Yellen has said it would destroy jobs and businesses and leave millions of families who rely on federal government payments to “likely go unpaid,” including Social Security beneficiaries, veterans and military families.

More than 8 million people could lose their jobs, government officials estimate. The economy could nosedive into a recession.

“A default could cause widespread suffering as Americans lose the income that they need to get by,” she said. Disruptions to federal government operations would impact “air traffic control and law enforcement, border security and national defense, and food safety.”

IS THERE A BACKUP PLAN IF TALKS FAIL?

Some Democrats have proposed that they could raise the debt ceiling on their own, without help from Republicans.

Progressives have urged Biden to invoke a clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment that says the validity of the public debt in the United States “shall not be questioned.” Default, the argument goes, is therefore unconstitutional.

Supporters of unilateral action say Biden already has the authority to effectively nullify the debt limit if Congress won’t raise it, so that the validity of the country’s debt isn’t questioned. The president said Sunday that it’s a “question that I think is unresolved,” as to whether he could act alone, adding he hopes to try to get the judiciary to weigh in on the notion for the future.

In Congress, meanwhile, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has launched a process that would “discharge” the issue to the House floor and force a vote on raising the debt limit.

It’s a cumbersome legislative procedure, but Jeffries urged House Democrats to sign on to the measure in hopes of gathering the majority needed to trigger a vote.

The challenge for Democrats is that they have only 213 members on their side — five short of the 218 needed for a majority.

Getting five Republicans to cross over and join the effort won’t be easy. Signing onto a “discharge” petition from the minority is seen as a major affront to party leadership, particularly on an issue as important as the debt ceiling. Few Republicans, if any, may be willing to suffer the consequences.
…

U.S. Senator Tim Scott on Friday launched a bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He is the only Black Republican candidate so far, and says he is running as an antidote to racial and cultural divisiveness in the United States.

Here are key facts about Scott’s life and career.

Raised by single mother

Scott, 57, was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, by his single mother after his parents separated when he was 7.

The family briefly lived with his maternal grandparents, who became major influences for him. His grandfather left school after the third grade to pick cotton, and Scott frequently describes himself as an embodiment of the American dream by “going from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.”

He graduated from Charleston Southern University in political science and worked as an insurance agent and financial adviser before entering local politics in 1995.

State politician

Scott was elected to the South Carolina statehouse in 2009, and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2011. In 2012, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley — now a rival for the Republican presidential nomination — appointed him to replace retiring U.S. Senator Jim DeMint.

“To every single mom who struggles to make ends meet, who wonders if her efforts are in vain, they are not,” Scott said at his appointment.

Black Republican Southerner

Scott declined an invitation to join the Congressional Black Caucus in 2010 when he was serving in the U.S. House.

“My campaign was never about race,” he said at the time.

However, race is a difficult subject for him to avoid, particularly as he is the first Black Republican from the South in the U.S. Senate since 1881.

“I have experienced the pain of discrimination,” he said in a 2021 speech, but added that “America is not a racist country.”

He has both championed bills reforming policing in the United States and declined to support bills intended to protect voting rights.

“I’m not here to suggest that things could not get better and I’m going to work every single day to make sure that all Americans play on a level playing field,” Scott said at a Black History Month dinner in February. “But today is not 1865. … We have made tremendous progress, and it’s time that we as a people celebrate the progress we are making.”

Complicated relationship with Trump

Scott has largely managed to avoid drawing the ire of Donald Trump, despite occasionally offering some criticism of the former president.

After Trump in 2017 said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that ended with a woman killed by a motorist, Scott said he had “compromised his moral authority to lead.”
…

The United States and Papua New Guinea signed a pair of security deals Monday during a rare visit by the U.S. Secretary of State. The agreements are part of Washington’s broader attempt to counter China’s influence in the Pacific. But the region wants more sustained engagement from the United States, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.
…

When their homeowners association ordered Maryland residents Janet and Jeffrey Crouch to rip out the native plants in their front yard and replace them with green grass, the couple refused. Homeowners’ associations, also known as HOAs, are private organizations that oversee the management of some residential communities. They’re usually run by a board of volunteer homeowners. As VOA’s Dora Mekouar [meh-kwar] reports, the couple’s battle against their HOA, and in favor of the environment, ended up changing Maryland state law. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
…

An 8-year-old girl who died last week in Border Patrol custody was seen at least three times by medical personnel on the day of her death — complaining of vomiting, a stomachache and later suffering what appeared to be a seizure — before she was taken to a hospital, U.S. immigration officials said Sunday. 

The girl’s mother previously told The Associated Press that agents had repeatedly ignored her pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter, who had a history of heart problems and sickle cell anemia. Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, whose parents are Honduran, was born in Panama with congenital heart disease. 

“She cried and begged for her life, and they ignored her. They didn’t do anything for her,” Mabel Alvarez Benedicks, the mother of Anadith, told The Associated Press during an interview Friday. 

In a statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it knew about the girl’s medical history when personnel began treating her for influenza four days before her death on May 17. 

CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement that while his agency awaits the results of an internal investigation, he has ordered several steps be taken to ensure appropriate care for all medically fragile people in his agency’s custody. 

These actions include reviewing cases of all known medically fragile individuals currently being held to ensure their time in custody is limited and examining medical-care practices at CBP facilities to see if more personnel are needed. 

“We must ensure that medically fragile individuals receive the best possible care and spend the minimum amount of time possible in CBP custody,” Miller said, adding his agency is “deeply saddened” by the girl’s “tragic death.” 

Anadith’s death has raised questions about whether the Border Patrol properly handled the situation. It was the second child migrant death in two weeks in U.S. government custody since the expiration of pandemic-related order known as Title 42. 

According to a CBP statement, Anadith had first voiced complaints of abdominal pain, nasal congestion, and cough on the afternoon of May 14. She had a temperature of 101.8 degrees Fahrenheit (38.7 Celsius) 

After a test showed she had influenza, Anadith was given acetaminophen, ibuprofen, medicine for nausea and Tamiflu, a flu treatment, according to CBP. 

The family was then transferred from a facility in Donna, Texas, to one in Harlingen, Texas. 

She continued to be given Tamiflu for the next two days. She was also given ibuprofen, according to CBP. 

On May 17, the girl and her mother went to the Harlingen Border Patrol Station’s medical unit at least three times, CBP said. In the first visit, Anadith complained of vomiting. In the second, she complained of a stomachache. By the third visit at 1:55 p.m., “the mother was carrying the girl who appeared to be having a seizure, after which records indicate the child became unresponsive,” according to CBP. 

Medical personnel began performing CPR before she was taken to a hospital in Harlingen, where she was pronounced dead at 2:50 p.m. 

A medical examiner is waiting for additional tests before determining a cause of death. 

Her death came a week after a 17-year-old Honduran boy, Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, died in U.S. Health and Human Services Department custody. He was traveling alone. 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are to meet Monday at the White House as they negotiate raising the government’s borrowing limit. 

Negotiators for the two sides met for more than two hours Sunday, while Biden and McCarthy spoke by telephone in a call that each described positively. 

“It went well, we’ll talk tomorrow,” Biden told reporters upon returning to Washington from the Group of Seven summit in Japan. 

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

McCarthy said the phone call was “productive.” 

“I think we can solve some of these problems if he understands what we’re looking at,” McCarthy said. “But I’ve been very clear to him from the very beginning. We have to spend less money than we spent last year.” 

The government could come up short and be unable to meet its financial obligations as soon as June 1. 

Biden said earlier Sunday that House Republicans must move away from their “extreme position” on government spending and that there will be no agreement on only Republican terms.       

“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms,” Biden said at the end of the G-7 summit.       

Biden said he had done his part by offering ways to raise the country’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit so the U.S. government can keep paying its bills, such as interest on government bonds, stipends to U.S. pensioners and payments to health care providers and salaries for government employees and contractors.    

Republicans in the House have called for sharp government spending cuts, rejecting the alternatives proposed by the White House, which has called for closing tax loopholes and more limited spending reductions. Previous presidents and congressional leaders have reached deals to raise the country’s debt limit 78 times in give-and-take negotiations in which neither side got everything on its wish list.       

This time, Republicans want increased work requirements for able-bodied poor people receiving government assistance, but Democrats say that under such a proposal several hundred thousand people could lose the benefits they now receive. Republicans also are seeking cuts in funding for the country’s tax-collection agency and asking the White House to accept provisions from their proposed immigration overhaul to stem the tide of migrants trying to enter the U.S. at the Mexican border.       

The White House has countered by keeping defense and nondefense spending flat during the next budget year starting October 1, which would save $90 billion in 2024 and $1 trillion over 10 years.   

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show that the date when the government runs out of cash to pay its current bills remains uncertain, but that an expected June 15 infusion of tax payments may not come soon enough to avert a default.     

“There’s always uncertainty about tax receipts and spending,” Yellen said. “And so, it’s hard to be absolutely certain about this, but my assessment is that the odds of reaching June 15th, while being able to pay all of our bills, is quite low.”    

She said decisions have not been made on which bills would go unpaid if the government defaults.     

“I would say we’re focused on raising the debt ceiling and there will be hard choices if that doesn’t occur,” Yellen said. “There can be no acceptable outcomes if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, regardless of what decisions we make.”    

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

The 10th installment of the “Fast and Furious” franchise was off to the races this weekend, knocking “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” out of first place and easily claiming the No. 1 spot at the box office. “Fast X” earned $67.5 million in ticket sales from 4,046 North American theaters, according to estimates from Universal Pictures on Sunday.

It’s on the lower end of openings for the series which peaked with “Furious 7’s” $142.2 million launch, the sole movie in the series to surpass $100 million out of the gates. “Fast X’s” domestic debut only ranks above the first three. The last movie, “F9,” opened to $70 million in 2021.

But this is also a series that has usually made the bulk of its money internationally, often over 70%. True to form, overseas it’s on turbo drive. “Fast X” opened in 84 markets internationally, playing in over 24,000 theaters, where it earned an estimated $251.4 million. The top market was China with $78.3 million, followed by Mexico with $16.7 million. And it adds up to a $319 million global debut — the third biggest of the franchise.

“It’s a global franchise with a very broad audience,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s head of domestic distribution. “The themes resonate across the world.”

Directed by Louis Leterrier (who took over from Justin Lin during production), “Fast X” brings back the familiar crew including Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Jordana Brewster and adds several newcomers, like Brie Larson, Rita Moreno and a villain played by Jason Momoa. The ever-expanding cast includes Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Scott Eastwood and Helen Mirren.

Reports say the movie cost $340 million to produce, not including marketing.

Reviews were mixed for “Fast X,” the beginning of the end for the $6 billion franchise, which currently has a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. AP’s Mark Kennedy wrote in his review that, “It has become almost camp, as if it breathed in too much of its own fumes” and that it’s also “monstrously silly and stupidly entertaining.”

According to exit polls, audiences were 29% Caucasian, 29% Hispanic and 21% Black, and 58% were between the ages of 18 and 34. They gave the film a B+ CinemaScore.

In its third weekend, Disney and Marvel’s ” Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ” made an estimated $32 million in North America to take second place. It’s now made $266.5 million domestically and $659.1 million globally.

Third place went to another Universal juggernaut, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which is now in its seventh weekend and available to rent on VOD. Nevertheless, it earned an additional $9.8 million in North America, bringing its domestic total to $549.3 million.

“Book Club: The Next Chapter ” added $3 million in its second weekend to take fourth place, while “Evil Dead Rise” rounded out the top five in its fifth weekend with $2.4 million.

“Mario” and “Fast X” are just the latest success stories for Universal, following hits like “Cocaine Bear” and “M3GAN.” And later this summer, on July 21, they’ll release Christopher Nolan’s ” Oppenheimer.”

“Universal as a studio is just on a roll like no other by having this incredible slate of films from all different types of genres,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “They’ve created a release strategy that’s really picture perfect so far.”

“Fast X” doesn’t have an entirely open runway though. Next weekend there will be sizable competition in Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid,” in addition to a slew of crowd-pleasers hoping to catch a Memorial Day weekend audience, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “You Hurt My Feelings” and the broad comedy “About My Father,” with Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro.

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

1. “Fast X,” $67.5 million.

2. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $32 million.

3. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” $9.8 million.

4. “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” $3 million.

5. “Evil Dead Rise,” $2.4 million.

6. “John Wick: Chapter 4,” $1.3 million.

7. “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” $1.3 million.

8. “Hypnotic,” $825,000.

9. “MET Opera: Don Giovanni,” $701,025.

10. “BlackBerry,” $525,000.
    …

Talks to prevent the U.S. defaulting on its debt continued Sunday, even as U.S. President Joe Biden made his way home after attending the G-7 summit in Japan. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has a recap of where Democrats and Republicans currently stand on raising the debt limit.
…

Stepping up a feud with Washington over technology and security, China’s government Sunday told users of computer equipment deemed sensitive to stop buying products from the biggest U.S. memory chipmaker, Micron Technology Inc. 

Micron products have unspecified “serious network security risks” that pose hazards to China’s information infrastructure and affect national security, the Cyberspace Administration of China said on its website. Its six-sentence statement gave no details. 

“Operators of critical information infrastructure in China should stop purchasing products from Micron Co.,” the agency said. 

The United States, Europe and Japan are reducing Chinese access to advanced chipmaking and other technology they say might be used in weapons at a time when President Xi Jinping’s government has threatened to attack Taiwan and is increasingly assertive toward Japan and other neighbors. 

Chinese officials have warned of unspecified consequences but appear to be struggling to find ways to retaliate without hurting China’s smartphone producers and other industries and efforts to develop its own processor chip suppliers. 

An official review of Micron under China’s increasingly stringent information security laws was announced April 4, hours after Japan joined Washington in imposing restrictions on Chinese access to technology to make processor chips on security grounds. 

Foreign companies have been rattled by police raids on two consulting firms, Bain & Co. and Capvision, and a due diligence firm, Mintz Group. Chinese authorities have declined to explain the raids but said foreign companies are obliged to obey the law. 

Business groups and the U.S. government have appealed to authorities to explain newly expanded legal restrictions on information and how they will be enforced. 

Sunday’s announcement appeared to try to reassure foreign companies. 

“China firmly promotes high-level opening up to the outside world and, as long as it complies with Chinese laws and regulations, welcomes enterprises and various platform products and services from various countries to enter the Chinese market,” the cyberspace agency said. 

Xi accused Washington in March of trying to block China’s development. He called on the public to “dare to fight.” 

Despite that, Beijing has been slow to retaliate, possibly to avoid disrupting Chinese industries that assemble most of the world’s smartphones, tablet computers and other consumer electronics. They import more than $300 billion worth of foreign chips every year. 

Beijing is pouring billions of dollars into trying to accelerate chip development and reduce the need for foreign technology. Chinese foundries can supply low-end chips used in autos and home appliances but can’t support smartphones, artificial intelligence and other advanced applications. 

The conflict has prompted warnings the world might decouple or split into separate spheres with incompatible technology standards that mean computers, smartphones and other products from one region wouldn’t work in others. That would raise costs and might slow innovation. 

U.S.-Chinese relations are at their lowest level in decades due to disputes over security, Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong and Muslim ethnic minorities, territorial disputes and China’s multibillion-dollar trade surpluses. 
…

Wrapping up a three-day summit with allies of the Group of Seven leading democracies, U.S. President Joe Biden sought to reassure China that conflict with the West is avoidable, even as the G7 ramps up pressure to push back against Beijing’s rising military and economic security threats.

“I don’t think there’s anything inevitable about the notion that there’s going to be this conflict” between the West and Beijing, Biden said during a Sunday news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, at the conclusion of the summit.

Biden, however, underscored that the G7 and other regional partners are aligned to push back against Beijing’s aggression, including its potential invasion of Taiwan. “I think we’re more united than we’ve ever been in the Pacific,” he said.

“We all agree we’re going to maintain the One China policy,” Biden said, referring to the policy under which the United States recognizes Beijing as representing China, and acknowledges Beijing’s view that it has sovereignty over Taiwan without endorsing it. Under the policy, Washington considers Taiwan’s status as unsettled.

Neither China nor Taiwan “can independently declare what they’re going to do, period,” Biden said, referring to the Taiwan’s status quo. “There has to be a mutually agreed new outcome.”

While Western allies “don’t expect Taiwan to independently declare independence,” Biden warned China against invading the self-governing island that Beijing considers a breakaway province.

“There is clear understanding among most of our allies, that in fact, if China were to act unilaterally, there would be a response,” he warned. “There would be a response.”

Biden’s comments came as G7 countries amplified their denunciation of China’s rising military and economic security threats.

In the summit’s communique, the group criticized China for its use of “economic coercion,” militarization of the South China Sea and “interference activities” aimed at undermining the safety of diplomats, the integrity of democratic institutions and economic prosperity.

Beijing swiftly hit back, accusing the G7 of using “issues concerning China to smear and attack China and brazenly interfere in China’s internal affairs.”

“Taiwan is China’s Taiwan,” said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson in a statement. “Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese.”

United on Ukraine

Biden said the G7 would remain united in its support for Ukraine. “We will not waver,” he said. “Putin will not break our resolve as he thought he would,” Biden added, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the decisions taken at the G7 summit in Hiroshima “aim to contain both Russia and China.”

On Friday, Biden made a significant endorsement of Kyiv’s effort to boost its air power to fight Russian aggression, telling G7 leaders Friday that he now supports joint allied training programs for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.

For months Biden had refused requests for the aircrafts from his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, partly due to concerns that such offensive weaponry would escalate the war.

“I have a flat assurance from the – from Zelenskyy that they will not, they will not use it to go on and move into Russian geographic territory,” he said.

Returning to Washington immediately following the news conference to deal with negotiations on raising the U.S. debt ceiling to avoid the country from going into default, Biden said, “There’s been very little discussion” at the G7 about the crisis.

“They all know what’s going on about whether or not we’re going to default on our debt,” he said, adding that he “can’t guarantee” that Republicans in Congress “wouldn’t force a default by doing something outrageous.”

Without an agreement to increase the debt ceiling, the U.S. Treasury Department said it can only pay the U.S. government’s bills through June 1.

Most economists agree a U.S. default would be catastrophic for financial systems globally.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden said Sunday that opposition Republicans in the House of Representatives must move away from their “extreme position” on government spending in order to reach a deal with Democrats to raise the country’s borrowing limit before it runs out of cash to pay its bills.

The government could come up short to meet its financial obligations as soon as June 1, but the Democratic president said at a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, that there will be no agreement to avert a catastrophic default affecting the U.S. and global economies only on Republican terms.

“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms,” Biden said at the end of a Group of Seven summit of the leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies.

Biden said he had done his part by offering ways to raise the country’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit so the U.S. government can keep paying its bills, such as interest on government bonds, stipends to U.S. pensioners and payments to health care providers and salaries for government employees and contractors. He said, “It’s time for the other side to move from their extreme position.”

Biden was expected to talk later Sunday with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy about the debt ceiling negotiations, possibly as he flies back to Washington on Air Force One. While Biden was in Japan, his negotiators met with key Republicans, but the talks produced no agreement, with both sides digging in for their viewpoints on government spending for the year starting in October.

“My guess is he’s going to want to deal directly with me in making sure we’re all on the same page,” Biden said of McCarthy.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show that the date when the government runs out of cash to pay its current bills remains uncertain, but that an expected June 15 infusion of tax payments may not come soon enough to avert a default.

“There’s always uncertainty about tax receipts and spending,” Yellen said. “And so, it’s hard to be absolutely certain about this, but my assessment is that the odds of reaching June 15th, while being able to pay all of our bills, is quite low.”

She said decisions have not been made on which bills would go unpaid if the government defaults.

“I would say we’re focused on raising the debt ceiling and there will be hard choices if that doesn’t occur,” Yellen said. “There can be no acceptable outcomes if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, regardless of what decisions we make.”

Biden said he still believes a compromise remains within reach to avert what would be the first-ever U.S. government default, roiling world stock markets, diminishing the U.S. credit rating and forcing many U.S. businesses to lay off thousands of workers.

“I’m hoping that Speaker McCarthy is just waiting to negotiate with me when I get home. … I’m waiting to find out,” Biden said.

Republicans in the House have called for sharp government spending cuts, rejecting the alternatives proposed by the White House, which has called for closing tax loopholes and more limited spending reductions. In the past, previous presidents and congressional leaders have reached deals to raise the country’s debt limit 78 times in give-and-take negotiations in which neither side got everything on its wish list.

This time, Republicans want increased work requirements for able-bodied poor people receiving government assistance, but Democrats say that under such a proposal several hundred thousand people could lose the benefits they now receive.

Republicans also are seeking cuts in funding for the country’s tax-collection agency and asking the White House to accept provisions from their proposed immigration overhaul to stem the tide of migrants trying to enter the U.S. at the Mexican border.

The White House has countered by keeping defense and nondefense spending flat during the next budget year starting October 1, which would save $90 billion in 2024 and $1 trillion over 10 years.

“I think that we can reach an agreement,” Biden said.

But he acknowledged, “I can’t guarantee that [Republicans] wouldn’t force a default by doing something outrageous.”
…

In a sign of warming relations between America’s two closest allies in Asia, U.S. President Joe Biden met Sunday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, in a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Seven advanced democracies’ summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

Topping the meeting’s agenda was the growing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea and China’s rising assertiveness, two regional threats that have aligned the three countries more closely.

In a statement, the White House said the leaders discussed “how to take their trilateral cooperation to new heights,” including with new coordination in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, on economic security, and on their respective Indo-Pacific strategies.

“A big focus for our three countries is improving our interoperability militarily and improving our readiness and looking for ways in which we can better prepare ourselves to meet our individual and our collective national security commitments to each other and to the region,” a senior administration official said in a briefing to reporters Saturday.

China challenge

The leaders would also discuss the “economic challenges that they all face from the PRC when it comes to coercion,” the official added, referring to the People’s Republic of China’s use of punitive trade measures for its political goals.

The three leaders are largely aligned in their views of the regional threat posed by Beijing, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in an interview with VOA Friday.

“Japan has put forward a new national security strategy which really gives them a stronger voice and presence here in the Indo-Pacific in terms of regional security,” Kirby said. “And President Yoon helped author a new Indo-Pacific strategy that the Republic of Korea put out that dovetails nicely with our national security strategy.”

Yoon has sought closer ties with Tokyo and Washington, a departure from his predecessor, former President Moon Jae-in, who worked to strengthen relations with Pyongyang.

Treaty allies

Japan and South Korea are both U.S. treaty allies. After Tokyo’s defeat in World War II, the United States occupied and pledged to defend Japan in exchange for maintaining a large military presence in the country. In 1953, in the aftermath of the 1950-53 war on the Korean Peninsula, the two sides signed the U.S.-Korea Mutual Defense Treaty which became the basis of U.S. continued military presence on the Korean Peninsula.

However, Japan-South Korea ties have long been strained by historical animosity following Tokyo’s brutal occupation of Korea from 1910 until Japan’s defeat at the end of World War II. Despite some domestic opposition, Yoon and Kishida have continued their rapprochement by expanding bilateral security and economic cooperation. The pair met earlier this month, their second meeting in less than two months.

“Since the recent Kishida-Yun summit has linked the Japan-Korea leg, it is important for Biden to capitalize on this trilateral momentum,” said Ken Jimbo, former adviser to Japan’s Defense Ministry who now teaches at Keio University.

“Whenever three heads of state are together, they must seize the opportunity to reiterate the importance of trilateral cooperation,” Jimbo told VOA. “They must wave a green light for deeper cooperation to navigate each domestic stakeholder.”

South Korea, which is not a G7 member, was invited by Kishida to Hiroshima as an observer, along with the leaders of Australia, Brazil, Comoros, Cook Islands, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam.

The city, now rebuilt from the devastation caused by the atomic bomb dropped by American forces that ended World War II, provided a poignant backdrop for the trilateral meeting amid increasing saber-rattling by Pyongyang. This year alone North Korea has launched at least 13 missiles this year, including three intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Extended deterrence

During the South Korean leader’s state visit to the White House in April, Yoon and Biden signed the Washington Declaration, whereby Seoul agreed not to pursue its own nuclear weapons program, in return for a greater decision-making role in U.S. contingency planning in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack and a more muscular U.S. presence in the region.

Yoon called the Washington Declaration “an unprecedented expansion and strengthening” of the extended deterrence strategy — a term also known as the American nuclear umbrella.

The trilateral meeting in Hiroshima is an opportunity for the leaders to discuss whether elements of U.S. extended deterrence can plausibly be applied to both South Korea and Japan, Ken Jimbo said.

“In that context, I think there will be a lot of chance that we will develop some kind of coordination mechanism together rather than one by one,” he added.

In April, senior officials from the three countries agreed to hold regular missile defense and anti-submarine exercises together.
…

Jennifer Seeley was glued to her phone, safe at home but terrified nonetheless.

There was an active shooter at the Texas mall where she works as an assistant store manager. And she was searching desperately for information, praying. Was the gunman dead? Were her coworkers dead? What was happening?

So with law enforcement in the Dallas area town of Allen releasing information slowly on that horrible May 6 afternoon, she turned to social media for answers, stumbling across videos showing the bodies of some of the eight who were slain. Desperately she texted her coworkers.

“That’s where all of my information came from was what I saw on Twitter. And, you know, nobody was really releasing any information on what actually happened,” she says now, nearly two weeks later.

The shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets this month has law information public information officers from around the country talking. Social media, they say, has accelerated everything. Now everyone can post images from their phone. That means if police don’t talk, reporters and the public will simply go online, as happened in Allen.

And that presents a major problem, says Katie Nelson, social media and public relations coordinator for the Mountain View Police Department in northern California. Nelson teaches about crisis management and social media best practices. And these days, she says, when it comes to responding, “The luxury of time does not exist.”

Police approaches have evolved

Police began to harness social media a decade ago, most famously after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. The four-day manhunt ended with police tweeting: “CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.”

It was groundbreaking at the time, says Yael Bar Tur, a police communication consultant and former director of social media for the New York City police department. Now, she says, that it is the basic level expected of law enforcement.

“It’s not enough just to be on social media, you have to be good at it,” she says. “At the end of the day, you know, we have to use this tool because if you don’t, it is going to be used against you.”

In Allen, the mall shooting happened around 3:30 p.m. Allen police sent their first tweet around 4:20 p.m., announcing simply that police were at the mall and that an active investigation was underway. Seeley continued to fear that her coworkers at the Crocs store were hiding and the gunman was still on the loose.

At nearly 7 p.m., police in Allen said an officer had “neutralized the threat.” That meant he was dead. But the often-used term can be confusing to the public, says Julie Parker, a former broadcast journalist and law enforcement public information officer who now advises government agencies on how to respond to critical incidents.

“Normal people who don’t work in law enforcement don’t know what the words neutralized means,” Parker says.

Adding to the situation, the initial news conferences were brief and infrequent. One lasted less than two minutes, and police took no questions.

Eventually she learned that her coworkers had survived, but a security guard she knew was among the dead. Twenty-year-old Christian LaCour had helped jump start a customer’s car just a few days earlier.

“Very anxiety-inducing,” Seeley said of the whole experience.

Making the best of social media

How to harness social media in the best ways — and quickly — was on everyone’s mind last week as public information officers gathered at a midyear conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

“You had a little more time to get information out five or six years ago. The expectation wasn’t there that it would be immediate, and I think it is now,” says Sarah Boyd, who is on the executive board of the association’s group on public communication.

She says her colleagues often text each other to discuss how communications are handled after tragedies. The responsibility weighs on her; she is well aware that the messages police tweet in the midst of a mass shooting might be read by someone hiding from the shooter.

“All they’ve got is their phone, and that tweet is their lifeline,” says Boyd, a former newspaper reporter. She is now the public relations manager at the Clay County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Office in the Kansas City area.

This newest crop of public information officers, who like Boyd are much more likely to be former reporters themselves than in the past, also are demanding to have a seat at the table when officers are planning how to respond to mass casualty events and police shootings.

They note that the flow of information can go both ways, generating tips from the public, who might have cell phone or Ring doorbell video that could help investigators.

It can be challenging, though, with police nationally struggling to regain the public’s trust in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in 2020 and the protests that followed. Many factors — for example is the suspect still on the loose? — play a role in what can be released. And even if the suspect is killed, the investigation isn’t over; law enforcement still must determine whether the shooter acted alone, says Alex del Carmen, an associate dean of the school of criminology at Tarleton State University in Texas.

Missteps after the mass shooting at Uvalde, when law enforcement released shifting and at times contradictory information, show the importance of getting details right.

“People were just scratching their heads on the second or third day,” del Carmen says. He has sympathy, though, for the officers faced with communicating the unimaginable; entire careers can be defined by moments like these.

A model for quicker information

The bulk of the nation’s police forces are small, and there are vast differences in what each state allows them to release. In Missouri, for instance, 911 recordings are inaccessible to the public.

The public itself has no such restrictions, though.

After a man killed 10 people at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, in March 2021, an independent, part-time journalist began livestreaming on his YouTube channel before officers even arrived. The effect can be instantaneous — and, for authorities, quite dizzying.

“We’re putting out information quicker than I’ve ever seen before,” says Boulder police public information officer Dionne Waugh. Given the speed of social media, she says, there’s simply no choice.

Amid a crush of media, each victim’s family was assigned its own public information officer. All the while, what had happened was hitting Waugh personally; the victims included police Officer Eric Talley, a friend who died rushing into the store.

Though she described the experience as “life-changing” and “horrible,” she has led trainings in the years that have followed. She hopes that reliving it will help others.

Sadly, it wasn’t long after Nashville Police Department spokesperson Don Aaron asked her to speak that he faced his own mass shooting. In March, a shooter killed three children and three adults in March at a Christian school in his city before being gunned down by police.

The police tweets were fast. The very first one announced that the shooter was dead. Surveillance video was released before the 10 p.m. nightly newscast. Body camera footage came out the following morning, in line with the department’s policy of releasing such video quickly. The stream of information was fast, continual and generally accurate.

“As we have made decisions about releasing body cam in police-shooting situations, I have said to some of my colleagues across the country, especially when this first started, that I was flying a jet trying not to crash it,” says Aaron, a 32-year police veteran. “And so far, it hasn’t crashed.”
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National Treasure won the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Saturday, giving Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert a record-breaking eighth win in the middle jewel of U.S. thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown.

With John Velazquez aboard, National Treasure held off a late charge from Blazing Sevens. Kentucky Derby winner Mage finished third, meaning the chestnut colt will not have a shot at becoming U.S. thoroughbred racing’s 13th Triple Crown winner.

The win capped an emotional day for Baffert, whose colt Havnameltdown was euthanized on the track earlier on Saturday after going down with an injury during a race at Pimlico.

“Losing that horse today really hurt but I am happy for Johnny, he got the win,” Baffert said fighting back tears, referring to the jockey. “It’s been a very emotional day.”

For Baffert, one of the sport’s best-known figures, the Preakness marked his first Triple Crown race in two years due to a lengthy suspension after one of his horses, Medina Spirit, tested positive for a banned substance and was stripped of the Kentucky Derby title in 2021.
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Brittney Griner stood for the national anthem before her first regular-season WNBA game since being jailed in Russia.

Griner was outspoken for social justice in 2020 and didn’t take the court during the pregame anthem. But nearly a year behind bars in Russia changed her.

“I was literally in a cage and could not stand the way I wanted to,” she said. “Just being able to hear my national anthem and see my flag, I definitely want to stand.”

Griner had 18 points, six rebounds and four blocked shots Friday night for the Phoenix Mercury in a 94-71 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks.

“Not good enough, didn’t get the dub,” said Griner, who nevertheless couldn’t be down in defeat.

“I appreciate everything a little bit more, all of the small moments, like, ‘Oh, I’m so tired I don’t want to go to practice today,’ that has changed, honestly,” she said. “Tomorrow is not guaranteed, you don’t know what it’s going to look like. I feel a lot older somehow, too.”

The 32-year-old center’s immediate goal is to play an entire game by the All-Star break in mid-July. She played for 25 minutes Friday.

“I hope to be exactly where I want to be,” Griner said. “Just getting back to how I was before all this happened.”

Griner made an immediate impact against the Sparks. She fired a pass to Moriah Jefferson, who hit a 3-pointer for Phoenix’s first basket. Griner grabbed a couple of rebounds and scored twice to help the Mercury to an early lead.

“How good did she just look? Unbelievable,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters at halftime.

For the first time since last season, Phoenix coach Vanessa Nygaard opened her pregame comments without announcing how many days Griner had been jailed. Griner has been free since December when she was part of a high-profile prisoner swap.

“Until the day we got the news in the morning that she was on her way home, no one thought that it was going to happen,” Nygaard said. “We did our jobs probably with less joy than professional athletes do. It was heavy every day.”

Not anymore.

“Today is a day of joy,” Nygaard said. “An amazing, amazing thing has happened.”

Griner and the Mercury were greeted with a standing ovation when they came on court for pregame warmups, although the biggest cheers were reserved for the Sparks.

“Just taking it in but staying focused because at the end of the day I’m at work,” Griner said. “Can’t get caught up in the moment. Kind of feel it, but put it to the side and feel it a little bit later.”

Griner hugged U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and first gentleman Doug Emhoff as they left the court after Harris was presented with a No. 49 Sparks jersey. Earlier, Harris posed for photos in the Mercury’s locker room.

“It was nice to be able to see her face-to-face and thank her for everything,” Griner said.

She patted her heart and applauded in return during a brief video welcoming her back to the WNBA.

“It was nice to be back on the court for a real game,” she said. “The love from the fans when we came out was amazing. I definitely feel it.”

Griner scored 10 points in 17 minutes in an exhibition loss to the Sparks last week. It was her first game action since she was arrested at a Moscow airport in February 2022 after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil.

“We brought back this Black, gay woman from a Russian jail and America did that because they valued her and she’s a female athlete and they valued her,” Nygaard said.

“Just to be part of a group that values people at that level, it makes me very proud to be an American. Maybe there’s other people that that doesn’t make them proud, but for me, I see BG and I see hope and I see the future and I have young children and it makes me really hopeful about our country,” the coach said.

Fans arriving early at Crypto.com Arena wore T-shirts with Griner’s name and jersey number on them. The 6-foot-9 Griner stopped to photo-bomb a group of young girls posing courtside before the game.

Billie Jean King and wife Ilana Kloss, who are part-owners of the Sparks, were on hand for the opener, as was Magic Johnson, Pau Gasol, Byron Scott, Robert Horry, Los Angeles Lakers coach Darvin Ham and South Carolina women’s coach Dawn Staley.

Since her release, Griner has used her platform to advocate for other Americans being detained abroad. She was already an LGBTQ+ activist since publicly coming out in 2013.

“She stands for so many people, so many different kinds of people who can be undervalued in our society,” Nygaard said. “She stands with pride and confidence and has never once, has shied away from who she is.”

Griner announced in April that she is working with Bring Our Families Home, a campaign formed last year by the family members of American hostages and wrongful detainees held overseas. She said her team has been in contact with the family of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being detained in Russia on espionage charges.

“She’s an amazing person on and off the court,” Phoenix teammate Jefferson said. “I think her energy just inspires everybody every single day to show up and be the best version of themselves.”
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The world must urgently assess the impact of generative artificial intelligence, G7 leaders said Saturday, announcing they will launch discussions this year on “responsible” use of the technology.

A working group will be set up to tackle issues from copyright to disinformation, the seven leading economies said in a final communique released during a summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

Text generation tools such as ChatGPT, image creators and music composed using AI have sparked delight, alarm and legal battles as creators accuse them of scraping material without permission.

Governments worldwide are under pressure to move quickly to mitigate the risks, with the chief executive of ChatGPT’s OpenAI telling U.S. lawmakers this week that regulating AI was essential.

“We recognise the need to immediately take stock of the opportunities and challenges of generative AI, which is increasingly prominent across countries and sectors,” the G7 statement said.

“We task relevant ministers to establish the Hiroshima AI process, through a G7 working group, in an inclusive manner … for discussions on generative AI by the end of this year,” it said.

“These discussions could include topics such as governance, safeguard of intellectual property rights including copyrights, promotion of transparency, response to foreign information manipulation, including disinformation, and responsible utilisation of these technologies.”

The new working group will be organized in cooperation with the OECD group of developed countries and the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), the statement added.

On Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before a U.S. Senate panel and urged Congress to impose new rules on big tech.

He insisted that in time, generative AI developed by his company would one day “address some of humanity’s biggest challenges, like climate change and curing cancer.”

However, “we think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,” he said.

European Parliament lawmakers this month also took a first step towards EU-wide regulation of ChatGPT and other AI systems.

The text is to be put to the full parliament next month for adoption before negotiations with EU member states on a final law.

“While rapid technological change has been strengthening societies and economies, the international governance of new digital technologies has not necessarily kept pace,” the G7 said.

For AI and other emerging technologies including immersive metaverses, “the governance of the digital economy should continue to be updated in line with our shared democratic values,” the group said.

Among others, these values include fairness, respect for privacy and “protection from online harassment, hate and abuse,” among others, it added.
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