When Kamryn Yanchick graduated, she hoped to decorate her cap with a beaded pattern in honor of her Indigenous heritage. Whether she could was up to her Oklahoma high school. Administrators told her no.
Yanchick settled for beaded earrings to represent her Native American identity at her 2018 graduation.

A bill vetoed earlier this month by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, would have allowed public school students to wear feathers, beaded caps, stoles or other objects of cultural and religious significance. Yanchick, a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and descendent of the Muscogee Nation, said she hopes the legislature tries again.

Being able to “unapologetically express yourself and take pride in your culture at a celebration without having to ask a non-Native person for permission to do so is really significant,” said Yanchick, who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.

For Native American students, tribal regalia is often passed down through generations and worn at graduations to signify connection with the community. Disputes over such attire have spurred laws making it illegal to prevent Indigenous students from wearing regalia in nearly a dozen states including Arizona, Oregon, South Dakota, North Dakota and Washington.

High schools, which often favor uniformity at commencement ceremonies, take a range of approaches toward policing sashes, flower leis and other forms of self-expression. Advocates argue the laws are needed to avoid leaving it up to individual administrators.

Groups like the Native American Rights Fund hear regularly from students blocked from wearing eagle feathers or other regalia. This week in Oklahoma, a Native American high school graduate sued a school district, claiming she was forced her to remove a feather from her cap at a ceremony last spring.

When Jade Roberson graduated from Edmond Santa Fe High School, the same school attended by Yanchick, she would have liked to wear a beaded cap and a large turquoise necklace above her gown. But it didn’t seem worth asking. She said a friend was only able to wear an eagle feather because he spoke with several counselors, consulted the principal and received a letter from the Cherokee Nation on the feather’s significance.

“It was such a hassle for him that my friends and I decided to just wear things under our gown,” said Roberson, who is of Navajo descent. “I think it is such a metaphor for what it is like to be Native.”

When Adriana Redbird graduates this week from Sovereign Community School, a charter school in Oklahoma City that allows regalia, she plans to wear a beaded cap and feather given by her father to signify her achievements.

“To pay tribute and take a small part of our culture and bring that with us on graduation day is meaningful,” she said.

In his veto message, Stitt said allowing students to wear tribal regalia should be up to individual districts. He said the proposal could also lead other groups to “demand special favor to wear whatever they please” at graduations.

The bill’s author, Republican state Rep. Trey Caldwell, represents a district in southwest Oklahoma that includes lands once controlled by Kiowa, Apache and Comanche tribes.

“It’s just the right thing to do, especially with so much of Native American culture so centered around right of passage, becoming a man, becoming an adult,” he said.

Several tribal nations have called for an override of the veto. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin said the bill would have helped foster a sense of pride among Native American students. Muscogee Nation Principal Chief David Hill said students who “choose to express the culture and heritage of their respective Nations” are honoring their identity.

It means a lot that the bill was able to garner support and make it to the governor, Yanchick said, but she wishes it wasn’t so controversial.

“Native American students shouldn’t have to be forced to be activists to express themselves or feel celebrated,” she said.
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Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

Diverse Nationalities, Professions Among Migrants at US-Mexico Border

In the past, most of the migrants entering the U.S. or apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border were coming from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. But the nationalities of the migrants seeking to enter the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border have shifted over the past few months. Immigration reporter Aline Barros has the story.

Title 42 Ends, Posing New Challenges to Migrants, Authorities

Since the COVID-era immigration policy known as Title 42 ended last week, the U.S. says it has sent thousands of people who have crossed into the U.S. irregularly back to Mexico or back to their home country. But many immigrants who want to follow the rules say it is very difficult to apply for asylum. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports.

Mayorkas: No Asylum Ban, But Lawful Pathways Incentivized

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas denied claims that the change in U.S. policy amounts to a ban on asylum-seekers, but he also emphasized that there is a lawful and orderly way to reach the U.S. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details.

US Homeland Security Chief: No Migration Surge at Mexican Border

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday that the number of migrants trying to cross into the United States from Mexico since border entry rules were changed late last week has dropped nearly in half but that it was “too early” to know whether the surge in migration has peaked. VOA’s Ken Bredemeier reports.

US-Mexico Border Appears Calm After Lifting of Pandemic Asylum Restrictions

The border between the U.S. and Mexico was relatively calm Friday, offering few signs of the chaos that had been feared following a rush by worried migrants to enter the U.S. before the end of pandemic-related immigration restrictions. The Associated Press reports.

As Title 42 Ends, Confusion at the US-Mexico Border

The emergency health order used during the pandemic at the U.S.-Mexico border to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico or to their home countries has ended. VOA’s immigration correspondent Aline Barros reports on how the situation is unfolding along the South Texas border.

Honduran Teen Dies in US Immigration Custody

The mother of a 17-year-old who died this week in U.S. immigration custody demanded answers from U.S. officials Friday, saying her son had no known illnesses and had not shown any signs of being sick before his death. The Associated Press reports.

The Inside Story – Immigration Dilemma

We’re diving into the U.S. immigration dilemma and exploring the growing surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Find out what Washington is doing to address this long-troubled immigration policy and how it’s impacting the safety and management of people in this humanitarian crisis. VOA’s The Inside Story devotes an episode to the issue.

White House Defends Border Policy Amid Criticism from Opponents, Advocates

The White House on Thursday sought to soothe concerns that throngs of desperate migrants — like those seen this week along the 3,100-kilometer border separating the United States from Mexico — could become the norm after the lifting of the pandemic-related migrant expulsion policy known as Title 42. VOA’s White House correspondent Anita Powell reports.

Immigration Around the World

Migration, Defense Issues Unite Political Forces Ahead of Greek Elections

Like Turkey, Greece faces key national elections this month, and topping the foreign policy agenda are Athens’ tense relations with its NATO ally and neighbor. Conservative and liberal parties in Greece have long differed in their approach to dealing with Turkey, along with related issues of defense and illegal migration. Now, they are emerging more united than previously. Produced by Anthee Carassava.

Number of Refugees Who Fled Sudan for Chad Double in Week

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, says that the number of people who fled from Sudan to Chad has doubled to 55,000 in the last week, and many are women and children. Henry Wilkins spoke to Sudanese refugees who just arrived at a newly created camp in Borota, Chad.

Brazil Sends Thousands of Venezuelan Migrants to Country’s Rich Southern States

As the sun rose, Miguel Gonzalez, partner Maryelis Rodriguez and their four young children got off a passenger bus after an 18-hour ride south from the eastern Venezuelan community they desperately wanted to leave. The Associated Press reports.

Spain Welcomes Immigrants in Battle Against Depopulation

Much of western Europe is dealing with dwindling populations, and the problem is especially severe in Spain, where the government says more than half of the country’s municipalities are in danger of depopulation as many young people move to cities or choose not to have children. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in the Catalonian town of Vilada, where a Honduran immigrant and her three daughters are breathing life into a community.

Canada on Track to Host Largest Afghan Resettlement Program

The government of Canada says it is determined to reach its target of admitting at least 40,000 Afghan refugees by the end of the year. More than 30,600 Afghans have been resettled in Canada since August 2021 when Ottawa announced it would admit thousands of Afghans whose lives could be at risk under the new Taliban regime. Produced by Akmal Dawi.

News Brief

— The U.S. Immigration System explained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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Debt limit talks halted again late Friday at the U.S. Capitol shortly after resuming, another sudden turn of events after negotiations had come to an abrupt standstill earlier in the day when Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said it was time to “pause” negotiations, and a White House official acknowledged there are “real differences.”

Top Republican negotiators for McCarthy exited the brief meeting shortly after talks restarted Friday evening. They said there were no further negotiations planned for Friday and they were uncertain on next steps. But a top White House adviser to President Joe Biden said they were hopeful for a resolution. The negotiators are racing to strike a budget deal to resolve the standoff.

“We reengaged, had a very, very candid discussion, talking about where we are, talking about where things need to be, what’s reasonably acceptable,” said Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., a top McCarthy ally leading the talks for his side.

As the White House team left the nighttime session, counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, who is leading talks for the Democrats, said he was hopeful for an outcome. “We’re going to keep working,” he said.

Biden’s administration is reaching for a deal with Republicans led by McCarthy as the nation careens toward a potentially catastrophic debt default if the government fails to increase the borrowing limit, now at $31 trillion, to keep paying the nation’s bills.

Earlier in the day, McCarthy said resolution to the standoff is “easy,” if only Biden’s team would agree to some spending cuts Republicans are demanding.

The biggest impasse was over the fiscal 2024 top-line budget amount, according to a person briefed on the talks and granted anonymity to discuss them. Democrats staunchly oppose the steep reductions Republicans have put on the table as potentially harmful to Americans.

“We’ve got to get movement by the White House, and we don’t have any movement yet,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters at the Capitol. “So, yeah, we’ve got to pause.”

The White House official, who was granted anonymity to talk about the private discussions, had said at that time there are “real differences” between the parties on the budget issues and further “talks will be difficult.”

Wall Street turned lower as negotiations came to a sudden halt, raising worries that the country could edge closer to risking a highly damaging default on U.S. government debt.

The president, who has been in Japan attending the Group of Seven summit, had no immediate comment. Biden had already planned to cut short the rest of his trip, and he is expected to return to Washington on Sunday.

Negotiators met Friday for a third day behind closed doors at the Capitol with hopes of settling on an agreement this weekend before possible House votes next week. They face a looming deadline as soon as June 1, when the Treasury Department has said it will run out of cash to pay the government’s incurred debt.

McCarthy faces pressures from his hard-right flank to cut the strongest deal possible for Republicans, and he risks a threat to his leadership as speaker if he fails to deliver. Many House Republicans are unlikely to accept any deal with the White House.

The internal political dynamics confronting the embattled McCarthy leaves the Democrats skeptical of giving away too much to the Republicans and driving off the Democratic support they will need to pass any compromise through Congress.

Markets had been rising this week on hopes of a deal. But that shifted abruptly Friday after negotiators ended late morning an hour after they had begun.

The S&P 500 went from a gain of 0.3% to a loss of 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average went from a gain of 117 points to a loss of about 90 points.

As Republicans demand spending cuts and policy changes, Biden is facing increased pushback from Democrats, particularly progressives, who argue the reductions will fall too heavily on domestic programs that Americans rely on.

Some Democrats want Biden to invoke his authority under the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling on his own, an idea that raises legal questions and that the president has so far said he is not inclined to consider.
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Salman Rushdie made an emotional and unexpected return to public life Thursday night, attending the annual gala of PEN America and giving the event’s final speech as he accepted a special prize, the PEN Centenary Courage Award, just nine months being after being stabbed repeatedly and hospitalized.

“It’s nice to be back — as opposed to not being back, which was also a possibility. I’m glad the dice rolled this way,” Rushdie, 75, told hundreds gathered at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, where he received a standing ovation.

It was his first in-person appearance at a public event since he was attacked last August while on stage at a literary festival in western New York.

Rushdie, whose attendance had not been announced beforehand, spoke briefly and dedicated some of his remarks to those who came to his help last year at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center. He cited a fellow attendee, Henry Reese of the City of Asylum project in Pittsburgh, for tackling the assailant and thanked audience members who also stepped in.

“I accept this award, therefore, on behalf of all those who came to my rescue. I was the target that day, but they were the heroes. The courage, that day, was all theirs, and I thank them for saving my life,” he said.

“And I have one last thing to add. It’s this: Terror must not terrorize us. Violence must not deter us. La lutte continue. La lutta continua. The struggle goes on.”

Attacks against Rushdie have been feared since the late 1980s and the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, which Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned as blasphemous for passages referring to the Prophet Mohammad. The Ayatollah issued a decree calling for Rushdie’s death, forcing the author into hiding, although he had been traveling freely for years before the stabbing.

Since the attack, he has granted few interviews and otherwise communicated through his Twitter account and prepared remarks. Earlier this week, he delivered a video message to the British Book Awards, where he was given a Freedom to Publish prize.

Rushdie was clearly elated to attend the PEN America gala, but his voice sounded frailer than it once did, and the right frame of his glasses was dark, concealing the eye blinded by his attacker.

PEN galas have long been a combination of literature, politics, activism and celebrity, with attendees ranging from Alec Baldwin to Senator Angus King of Maine. Other honorees Thursday included “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels and the imprisoned Iranian journalist and activist Narges Mohammadi, who was given the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award.

“Dear writers, thinkers, and sympathizers, I implore you to help the Iranian people free themselves from the grip of the Islamic Republic, or morally speaking, please help end the suffering of the Iranian people,” Mohammadi wrote from prison in a letter read aloud at the ceremony. “Let us prove the magic of global unity against authorities besotted with power and greed.”

The host Thursday night was “Saturday Night Live” head writer Colin Jost, who inspired nervous laughter with jokes about the risks of being in the same room as Rushdie, likening it to sharing a balcony section with Abraham Lincoln. He also referred briefly to the Hollywood writers’ strike, which has left “Saturday Night Live” off the air since early May, saying it was “disorienting” to spend the afternoon on a picket line and then show up “for the museum cocktail hour.”

PEN events are familiar settings for Rushdie, a former president of PEN, the literary rights organization for which freedom of speech is a core mission. He has attended many times in the past and is a co-founder of PEN’s World Voices Festival, an international gathering of author panels and interviews held around the time of the PEN gala.
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Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown, the unstoppable running back who retired at the peak of his brilliant career to become an actor as well as a prominent civil rights advocate during the 1960s, has died. He was 87.

A spokeswoman for Brown’s family said he passed away peacefully in his Los Angeles home on Thursday night with his wife, Monique, by his side.

“To the world, he was an activist, actor, and football star,” Monique Brown wrote in an Instagram post. “To our family, he was a loving husband, father, and grandfather. Our hearts are broken.”

One of the greatest players in football history and one of the game’s first superstars, Brown was chosen the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1965 and shattered the league’s record books in a short career spanning 1957-65.

Brown led the Cleveland Browns to their last NFL title in 1964 before retiring in his prime after the ’65 season to become an actor. He appeared in more than 30 films, including “Any Given Sunday” and “The Dirty Dozen.”

An unstoppable runner with power, speed and endurance, Brown’s arrival sparked the game’s burgeoning popularity on television.

As Black Americans fought for equality, Brown used his platform and voice to advance their cause.

In 1967, Brown organized a meeting in Cleveland of the nation’s top Black athletes, including Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor, who later became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to support boxer Muhammad Ali’s fight against the war in Vietnam.

In later years, he worked to curb gang violence in Los Angeles and founded Amer-I-Can, a program to help disadvantaged inner-city youth and ex-convicts.”

“Jim Brown is a true icon of not just the Cleveland Browns but the entire NFL,” said Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam. “He was certainly the greatest to ever put on a Browns uniform and arguably one of the greatest players in NFL history.

“So many people grew up watching him just dominate every time he stepped onto the football field but his countless accolades on the field only tell a small part of his story. His commitment to making a positive impact for all of humanity off the field is what he should also be known for.”

On the field, there was no one like Brown, who would blast through would-be tacklers, refusing to let one man take him down before sprinting away from linebackers and defensive backs.

Off the field, Brown was a contentious character.

While he had a soft spot for those in need and his generosity changed lives, he also was arrested a half-dozen times, mostly on charges of hitting women.

In June 1999, Brown’s wife called 911, saying Brown had smashed her car with a shovel and threatened to kill her. During the trial, Monique Brown recanted. Jim Brown was acquitted of a charge of domestic threats but convicted of misdemeanor vandalism. The Los Angeles judge sentenced Brown to six months in jail when he refused to attend domestic violence counseling.

When his playing days ended, Brown set off for Hollywood and eventually settled there. Brown advised Cleveland coach Blanton Collier of his retirement while the team was in training camp and he was on the set of “The Dirty Dozen” in England.

Brown was an eight-time All-Pro and went to the Pro Bowl in each of his nine years in the league. When Brown walked away from the game at age 30, he held the league’s records for yards (12,312) and touchdowns (126).

And despite his bruising style, Browns never missed a game, playing in 118 straight.

A two-sport star at Syracuse — some say he is the best lacrosse player in NCAA history — Brown endured countless racist taunts while playing at the virtually all-white school at the time. Still, he was an All-American in both sports, leading the nation in scoring, and lettered in basketball.

Many of the modern players couldn’t appreciate Brown or his impact on American sports.

“They have grown up in a different era,” former Browns coach Romeo Crennel said. “He’s one of the greatest players in NFL history and what he was able to accomplish in his time was tremendous. I don’t know that anybody could do what he did, the way he did it, under the circumstances that he had to operate and the things that he had to endure.”

Born on February 17, 1936, in St. Simons, Georgia, Brown was a multisport star at Manhasset High School on Long Island.

Brown is survived by Monique and their child. He was divorced after 13 years of marriage from Sue Brown, with whom he had three children.
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VOA Mandarin’s Hai Lun, Mo Yu and Ning Lu and VOA Spanish’s Victor Hugo Castillo traveled to Mexican and Texas border cities to talk to Chinese migrants who had come from South America. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee tells the story. Cameras: Hai Lun, Ning Lu, Victor Hugo Castillo, Oscar Cavadia.
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The midwestern city of Chicago is struggling to accommodate a wave of migrants, many from Central and South America, transported to the city after entering the U.S. at America’s southern border. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports on how the city and aid agencies are mobilizing to tend to asylum-seekers’ critical needs.
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In the space of 24 hours this week, a pair of U.S. House committees held hearings exploring the impact of China’s aggressive use of economic power against the U.S. and its allies, and considered measures the U.S. might take to counter Beijing’s efforts.

More than half a dozen witnesses told lawmakers about the ways China uses its economic might to coerce smaller countries into providing favorable trade arrangements and to force businesses that want to operate in China to surrender intellectual property, which is then provided to Chinese-owned competitors.

Other witnesses testified that China’s economic policies are part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s broader ambition to turn China into a globally dominant economic player that will ultimately outweigh the United States on the world stage.

One of the witnesses, Robert Lighthizer, who served as U.S. Trade Representative under former President Donald Trump, captured the tone of both hearings when he said, “It is not an exaggeration to say that the Chinese Communist Party has been waging an economic war against the United States for decades.”

VOA asked the Chinese Embassy to reply to the allegations detailed in the hearings but did not receive a response.

However, last week, when Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin was asked about G-7 countries’ complaints about Chinese economic coercion, he turned the accusation back on the U.S, saying, “If any country should be criticized for economic coercion, it should be the United States. The U.S. has been overstretching the concept of national security, abusing export control and taking discriminatory and unfair measures against foreign companies. This seriously violates the principles of market economy and fair competition.”

A ‘naive bet’

In a hearing on Wednesday night, the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened a hearing titled, “Leveling the Playing Field: How to Counter the CCP’s Economic Aggression.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican who chairs the panel, began the hearing with a video that documented efforts by past U.S. administrations, both Republican and Democratic, to welcome the People’s Republic of China (PRC) into the global economic community, including granting it privileged trade status in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“For the last 25 years, both parties largely made the same naive bet on China, that robust economic engagement would lead the Chinese Communist Party to political liberalization,” he said. “But Beijing saw our quintessentially American optimism as an opportunity to exploit and our treaties and international commitments as rules ‘for thee but not for me.’”

“Well, now the error of wishful thinking is over,” he said. “The CCP’s economic warfare uses any and all available leverage to coerce us and our allies and it’s time that we defend ourselves and the free world.”

Fundamental questions

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, was equally adamant about the need to challenge China on the global stage.

“This is the fundamental question: Who will be the economic and innovation leader for the remainder of the 21st century? Will it be America, or the CCP?” Krishnamoorthi said.

Stepping in to counter China’s various forms of economic influence in the world must be “pressing priorities” for the U.S., he said. “The moment to act is not in 10 years or five years or next year. It’s now.”

In addition to Lighthizer, the committee heard from Roger Robinson, former chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In his testimony, Robinson claimed that U.S. investors are, in some cases unknowingly, subsidizing Chinese companies by participating in investment funds that contain Chinese corporate debt.

Robinson argued that because Chinese firms are not subject to the same disclosure requirements as firms in the U.S. and other developed countries, they should not be allowed continued access to U.S. capital markets.

A third witness, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, called for immediate action to bolster investment and innovation in key emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to keep the U.S. ahead of China in some areas and to catch up in others.

“It’s never too late to stop digging our own grave,” he said.

Rejecting economic coercion

On Thursday morning, in a hearing before the Indo-Pacific Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Young Kim opened the hearing with a statement that was highly critical of China’s behavior towards its neighbors. For example, she accused Beijing of causing the recent crash in Sri Lanka’s economy by pressuring its leaders to take on excessive debt through its “Belt and Road” infrastructure-building initiative.

She called on members to “recognize the immense economic pressure that the PRC puts on our allies, partners and friends around the world.”

“The CCP uses debt-trap diplomacy through the Belt and Road Initiative to achieve its political goals abroad,” said the Republican lawmaker. “So much so that it is willing to crash economies and generate instability as it did in Sri Lanka.”

Last month, after Sri Lanka and its creditors launched debt restructuring talks without the participation of China, the country’s largest creditor, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wenbin was asked if the absence of his country reflected frustration about Beijing’s approach to third-world countries indebted to China. He said, “China calls on commercial and multilateral creditors to jointly participate in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring under the principle of fair burden-sharing. We have been in close communication with Sri Lanka and supported Chinese financial institutions in actively discussing debt treatment arrangements with Sri Lanka.”

Legislation proposed

Rep. Ami Bera, the ranking Democrat on the sub-committee, pushed back against Beijing’s claims that the U.S. is trying to isolate China economically, saying, “Truth is, we’d like to maintain the status quo, which has lifted all the countries in that region through a rules based order, but we have to respond to Chinese aggression and Chinese economic coercion.”

Bera called on Congress to pass a measure that would direct the Biden administration to form “an interagency task force to respond to the PRC government’s acts of economic coercion and required the evaluation of the impacts on U.S. business and economic performance.”

The same bill, he said, would give the president “new tools to provide rapid economic support to partners and allies facing economic coercion from the PRC and hold the PRC accountable for its actions.”

Intellectual property theft

Thursday’s panel heard from Alon Raphael, CEO of FemtoMetrix, a company that makes a set of software tools used in the manufacture of advanced semiconductors. Raphael told the panel that in 2020, three of his company’s former employees, all Chinese nationals, “covertly absconded with thousands of files and years’ worth of proprietary information” that they used to set up a competing company called Weichong Semiconductor in mainland China.

Weichong has filed for patents in China using FemtoMetrix technology, Raphael said, and has pitched its services to his company’s existing customers, sometimes using slide decks that still contain the FemtoMetrix logo.

“Weichong is not an outlier, but an exemplar for the theft of American intellectual property,” Raphael said.

FemtoMetric has sued Weichong, Raphael said, but has little hope that a result will come quickly, or that a judgment in his company’s favor would be enforced by Chinese authorities.

“Companies like Weiching have become accustomed to exploiting the court system’s slow pace and high cost,” he said. “Alternative means of addressing such international theft are needed.”
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Since the COVID-era immigration policy known as Title 42 ended last week, the U.S. says it has sent thousands of people who have crossed into the U.S. irregularly back to Mexico or back home. But many immigrants who want to follow the rules say it is very difficult to apply for asylum. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports. Camera: Celia Mendoza and Jesus Rosales
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The U.S. State Department on Thursday called on Iran not to carry out the possibly imminent execution of three men that Tehran arrested during anti-government protests that spread throughout the country last year following the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman who morality police detained for improperly wearing a hijab.

The State Department told reporters that the execution of Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi would be an affront to human rights.

On Wednesday, Amnesty International said the Iranian Supreme Court had upheld their death sentences after state media broadcast their forced “confessions” to a charge of “enmity against God.”

The three men were arrested in the city of Esfahan last November as they protested the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the country’s morality police last September and died while in police custody.

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement, “The shocking manner in which the trial and sentencing of these protesters was fast-tracked through Iran’s judicial system amid the use of torture-tainted ‘confessions,’ serious procedural flaws and a lack of evidence is another example of the Iranian authorities’ brazen disregard for the rights to life and fair trial.”

Amnesty International said the families of the three men were allowed to see them Wednesday but were also told it would be their last visitation with them.

Hundreds of protesters, and some Iranian security agents, have been killed in the months of demonstrations. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden has canceled a historic visit to Papua New Guinea, where he was to meet with Pacific Island leaders, choosing instead to focus on crucial debt-ceiling negotiations in Washington. Biden’s meeting with the leaders of India, Australia and Japan in Sydney has also been scrapped. VOA’s Jessica Stone looks at what this means for U.S. engagement in the region at a time when China is increasingly exerting its influence.
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Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the German lender should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein when he was a client, according to lawyers for women who say they were abused by the late financier.

A woman only identified as Jane Doe sued the bank in federal district court in New York and sought class-action status to represent other victims of Epstein. The lawsuit asserted that the bank knowingly benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking and “chose profit over following the law” to earn millions of dollars from the businessman.

One of the law firms representing women in the case, Edwards Pottinger, said it believed it is the largest sex trafficking settlement with a bank in U.S. history.

“The settlement will allow dozens of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein to finally attempt to restore their faith in our system knowing that all individuals and entities who facilitated Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation will finally be held accountable,” the firm said in statement.

Deutsche Bank would not comment on the settlement Thursday but noted a 2020 statement from the bank acknowledging its mistake in taking on Epstein as a client, said Frank Hartmann, the German lender’s global head of media relations.

“The Bank has invested more than 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) to bolster controls, processes and training, and hired more people to fight financial crime,” Hartmann said in a written statement.

The Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, which also represents plaintiffs, called the settlement an important step for victims’ rights.

“The scope and scale of Epstein’s abuse, and the many years it continued in plain sight, could not have happened without the collaboration and support of many powerful individuals and institutions,” David Boies, the firm’s chairman, said in a statement.

Deutsche Bank had previously joined JPMorgan Chase, which is also facing a lawsuit over its ties to Epstein, in fighting the allegations. Epstein killed himself in prison while facing federal criminal charges of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls.

The German lender said late last year that it provided “routine banking services” to Epstein from 2013 to 2018 and that the lawsuit “does not come close to adequately alleging that Deutsche Bank … was part of Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring.”

The lawsuits — which also target the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein had an estate — are drawing in some high-profile figures.

A U.S. judge decided last month that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon must face up to two days of questioning by lawyers handling the lawsuits.

The Virgin Islands government also is trying to subpoena billionaire Elon Musk as part of its own litigation against JPMorgan, accusing the banking giant of enabling Epstein’s recruiters to pay victims and helping conceal his decades of sex abuse.

JPMorgan has denied the allegations and in turn has sued former executive Jes Staley, saying he hid Epstein’s abuse and trafficking to keep the financier as a client. A lawyer for Staley had no comment on the lawsuit when it was filed in March.
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Analysts say U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to postpone a trip to Australia is a major blow to Canberra. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will still make the trip to Australia next week, even though the Quad leaders’ summit at the Sydney Opera House has been canceled.

The White House says U.S. President Joe Biden has postponed his planned trip to Australia because of domestic debt ceiling negotiations.

Biden will, however, travel to Japan for a meeting of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations, which Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will also attend, along with Japan’s Fumio Kishida and India’s Narendra Modi.

Albanese told reporters Wednesday that the leaders of the Quad security dialogue, including the United States, Australia, Japan and India, will meet for talks on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

“President Biden, though, indicated that he was very much looking forward to coming down at a future date when it can be arranged and I will visit the United States for a state visit later this year. All four leaders; President Biden, Prime Minister Kishida, Prime Minister Modi and myself will be at the G-7 head in Hiroshima,” he said.

The Quad summit in Sydney was to have been the first to be held in Australia.

It has now been postponed indefinitely. Analysts say the cancellation harms the grouping’s ambitions to be an influential alternative to China. They also insist it damages the reputation of the United States as a reliable ally at a time when strategic competition with China in the Indo-Pacific region is intensifying.

Ian Hall is a professor of International Relations at the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University. He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. cancellation of the summit will harm the Quad’s reputation.

“The Quad’s work is going on. Officials are beavering away on Quad business all the time. But these kinds of focal points, these sorts of summits are important. They are good for, kind of, articulating what the Quad is all about, what the Quad is going to do, what its intentions are. In that sense, not having this summit I think is problematic, or at least postponing this summit is problematic,” he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains committed to traveling to Australia next week for his first trip since 2014, but his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida is reportedly unlikely to travel.

Biden has also abandoned plans for a historic visit to Papua New Guinea, where he would have signed a security accord with Prime Minister James Marape.

Beijing has been critical of the Quad grouping, describing it as an “exclusive clique.”

However, despite Australia’s enthusiasm for the four-nation alliance, there are signs its recent trade and diplomatic tensions with China are continuing to ease.

Also, China’s ambassador to Canberra, Xiao Qian, said Thursday that Beijing will resume imports of Australian timber.
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U.S. President Joe Biden arrived Thursday in Japan for a summit of leaders from the Group of Seven nations that is expected to focus on countering China’s economic practices and supporting Ukraine in its battle against a Russian invasion.

Biden greeted a group of about 400 U.S. and Japanese troops at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni shortly after landing.

He was scheduled to meet later with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Hiroshima, the site of the G-7 talks.

The G-7 summit will also include leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Kishida also invited a group of nonmembers to take part in the summit as part of an effort to engage with the Global South. Those nations include Australia, Brazil, Comoros, Cook Islands, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Ukraine and Vietnam.

Leaders are expected to discuss China’s use of trade and investment restrictions, as well as boycotts and sanctions. Possible actions by the G-7 include export controls and restrictions on investments from those nations in China. 
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More than two weeks after Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old mentally ill and homeless Black man was choked to death on the New York City subway by a former Marine, reaction to the killing has broken down along familiar political fault lines.

Daniel Penny, the 24-year-old man who placed Neely in a chokehold and was captured on video holding him for several minutes, is being widely hailed as a hero by Republican politicians in the United States, and a fund set up for his legal defense has collected more than $2.5 million and continues growing.

Many Democrats, by contrast, have argued that choking Neely to death was a criminal act that should be punished. In the eyes of many, it evoked the death of George Floyd, the Black Minneapolis man whose 2020 choking death at the hands of a white police officer was also captured on video, and energized the Black Lives Matter movement.

Penny was released in the immediate aftermath of the subway killing. Ten days later, the Manhattan district attorney charged him with second-degree manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Known facts

Neely’s killing first came to the public’s notice via a cellphone recording made by a fellow passenger in the minutes before his death. When the video begins, Penny and Neely are already on the floor of the subway car, with Penny’s left arm around Neely’s throat. Two other men are attempting to restrain Neely’s arms and legs.

Penny holds him in the chokehold for several minutes as the movement of Neely’s arms and legs become feebler. At one point, another passenger warns Penny that he appears to be killing Neely. Several minutes into the video, when Penny releases Neely, the latter remains on the ground, unmoving.

Witnesses told police that in the moments before Penny placed Neely in the chokehold, Neely had been behaving erratically. He was reportedly screaming at other passengers, telling them he was hungry and thirsty and that he was ready to die.

Prosecutors said that in advance of Penny placing him in a chokehold, “Several witnesses observed Mr. Neely making threats and scaring passengers.”

However, there has been no claim that Neely actually harmed or attempted to harm anyone.

Republican reaction

In the days after Neely’s death, public reaction rapidly fractured along political lines, with conservatives praising Penny as a hero, and liberals condemning him as a vigilante.

One of Penny’s most vocal supporters has been Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. DeSantis last week used his Twitter account to support Penny and attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, claiming the latter is funded by billionaire George Soros, long a detested target of the conservative movement who contributes to liberal causes and Democratic campaigns.

“We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens. We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine … America’s got his back,” DeSantis wrote.

Nikki Haley, a declared candidate for the GOP nomination, said on Fox News Tuesday night that New York Governor Kathy Hocul should intervene in the case and pardon Penny.

“If she pardons him, that sets a right on a lot of things — it’ll put criminals on notice,” said Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who served as ambassador to the United Nations under former President Donald Trump. “And it’ll let people like Penny who really were very brave in that instance, it will let them know that we’ve got their back.”

Democratic reaction

“Black men seem to always be choked to death,” said Representative Jamaal Bowman, after the killing. “Jordan Neely did not have to die. It’s as simple as that. Yet we have another Black man publicly executed.”

Representative Maxine Waters, a long-serving California House Democrat, wrote in an essay published by the HuffPost, “Instead of being offered compassion, [Neely] was violently murdered by a vigilante who pinned him down and … choked him to death. Others aided and abetted the murder by helping to hold him down. His offense: Being hungry and homeless.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in an interview with the online publication The Cut, called Neely’s death a failure of government support.

“Jordan Neely was killed by public policy. He was killed by the demonizing of the poor by many of our leaders,” she said. “He was killed by the same reluctance for people to see him as human that leaders are exhibiting right now, even in his death.”

Fits existing narratives

Regina Bateson, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at Canada’s University of Ottawa, told VOA that the reaction to Neely’s killing has broken down along partisan lines because it very clearly plays into existing frames of reference.

“This incident lines up with the core interests of two very different, but very widespread social movements that are going on in the United States at the same time,” said Bateson, who has studied the political aspects of vigilantism.

“This incident lines up squarely with both the law-and-order framing that’s been adopted by the right, and the concern about racial justice, excessive use of force and civil rights that’s been adopted more on the left,” she said.

However, Bateson said it is important to understand that examples of vigilantism are often used misleadingly to suggest that the behavior being punished is more widespread than it actually is.

Neely is being portrayed by many on the right as having presented an immediate danger to other passengers on the subway, despite there being no evidence that he actually harmed or was going to harm anyone.

“Some people’s reaction to this might be to think, ‘Oh, New York is a very dangerous place. Violence is rampant in public transportation there. The state isn’t providing enough policing,'” she said.

“I think that really misses the subjectivity of vigilantism and the fact that people are responding to things that they see as an offense, but are not necessarily responding to the objective reality of the situation,” Bateson said.
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The U.S. State Department on Wednesday said two top members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee could view a redacted version of a classified cable about the chaotic August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan sought by the committee’s Republican chairperson. 

The chairperson, Representative Michael McCaul, scheduled a committee meeting next week to consider a contempt of Congress charge against Secretary of State Antony Blinken over his refusal to release the cable, sent by U.S. diplomats via the department’s “dissent channel.” The channel allows State Department officials to air concerns to supervisors. 

The State Department will let McCaul and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Gregory Meeks, view a redacted version to protect the identity of those using the dissent channel, deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters. 

In an interview on CNN, McCaul said the State Department’s offer to make the cables available was “a really significant step forward.” He said if the department agreed to allow the entire committee to see the cables, “then I think we’ve resolved a litigation fight in the courts.” 

In a letter to McCaul, the department said it would make the material available as soon as possible.  

“The department has engaged extensively with the committee to respond to your requests. We have provided numerous briefings, thousands of pages of documents, and public testimony from the department’s senior leaders,” the letter said, adding that it was important to protect the dissent channel. 

“The accommodations that the department has provided to date are extraordinary and, as stated in our prior correspondence, already create a serious risk of chilling both future use of, and future candor in, dissent channel cables,” the letter said. 

McCaul has launched an investigation into the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Republicans — and some Democrats — say there has never been a full accounting of the chaotic operation, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed at Kabul’s airport. 

McCaul has for months been seeking a “dissent channel” cable sent in July 2021 that a Wall Street Journal article in August 2021 said warned top officials of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
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Montana Governor Greg Gianforte on Wednesday signed legislation to ban Chinese-owned TikTok from operating in the state, making it the first U.S. state to ban the popular short video app.

Montana will make it unlawful for Google’s and Apple’s app stores to offer the TikTok app within its borders. The ban takes effect January 1, 2024.

TikTok has over 150 million American users, but a growing number of U.S. lawmakers and state officials are calling for a nationwide ban on the app over concerns about potential Chinese government influence on the platform.

In March, a congressional committee grilled TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew about whether the Chinese government could access user data or influence what Americans see on the app.

Gianforte, a Republican, said the bill will further “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.”

TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, said in a statement the bill “infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok,” adding that they “will defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana.”

The company has previously denied that it ever shared data with the Chinese government and has said it would not do so if asked.

Montana, which has a population of just over 1 million people, said TikTok could face fines for each violation and additional fines of $10,000 per day if it violated the ban. Apple and Google could also face fines of $10,000 per violation per day if they violate the ban.

The ban will likely face numerous legal challenges on the ground that it violates the First Amendment free speech rights of users. An attempt by then-President Donald Trump to ban new downloads of TikTok and WeChat through a Commerce Department order in 2020 was blocked by multiple courts and never took effect.

TikTok’s free speech allies include several Democratic members of Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and First Amendment groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union.

Gianforte also prohibited the use of all social media applications that collect and provide personal information or data to foreign adversaries on government-issued devices.

TikTok is working on an initiative called Project Texas, which creates a standalone entity to store American user data in the U.S. on servers operated by U.S. tech company Oracle.
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Author, journalist and former Russian service chief of Voice of America’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Masha Gessen resigned Tuesday as vice president of the board of PEN America over the free expression group’s cancellation of an event with Russian panelists.

As part of PEN America’s annual World Voices festival this past weekend, Gessen was set to moderate a panel with two Russian dissident writers.

A separate panel featured Ukrainian writers Artem Chapeye and Artem Chekh, who are also active members of the Ukrainian military.

Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Chapeye and Chekh objected to the presence of any Russian panelists. PEN believed that condition applied only to the Ukraine event.

PEN then canceled the Russian panel after learning that Chapeye and Chekh didn’t want Russians at the festival at all. In a statement Tuesday, PEN said a “misunderstanding” led to the Russians being uninvited. 

“Once the Ukrainians arrived in New York and learned that the Russian dissident writers were part of the festival, they informed us that they would be unable to participate, explaining that had both events proceeded, the soldiers could face an emergency situation involving significant political, legal and compliance repercussions and risks,” PEN said.

The two Russians on the canceled panel — Ilia Veniavkin and Anna Nemzer — left Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine.

“Faced with the consequences of our mistake and without good options, we made the decision that the event with the Ukrainians should go forward,” PEN said. “PEN America regrets the situation that ensued from the error.”

Gessen, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said PEN’s decision to cancel the panel was a betrayal of the organization’s values.

“I felt like I was being asked to tell these people that because they’re Russians they can’t sit at the big table; they have to sit at the little table off to the side,” the award-winning writer told The Atlantic Monthly, which first reported their resignation Tuesday. “Which felt distasteful.” 

“I can’t look my Russian colleagues in the eye,” Gessen added.

Gessen, who immigrated from the former Soviet Union as a teenager in 1981 and holds both Russian and American citizenship, is a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now a staff writer at The New Yorker, they previously worked as director of the Russian-language service of VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

PEN said that it was “saddened” by Gessen’s decision to resign. “We are deeply grateful for their innumerable contributions and service,” PEN said.

Gessen told The Associated Press that PEN should not have tolerated guests being blocked from speaking “because someone else doesn’t want them to.”

“It’s up to people whose country hasn’t been invaded, whose relatives haven’t been disappeared, whose houses are not being bombed, to say there are certain things we don’t do — we don’t silence people,” Gessen told The Atlantic. “We’re a freedom-of-expression organization. I’m not blaming the Ukrainians for this.”

Gessen said they would remain a PEN member.
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Nigerian and American authorities are investigating after armed men on Tuesday attacked a U.S. convoy in southeast Anambra state, killing two consulate staff and two policemen. Nigerian police say the attackers also abducted two police officers and a driver. 

Anambra state police command spokesperson Tochukwu Ikenga said Wednesday that security forces are searching for the perpetrators and the three people they abducted.

In a separate statement late Tuesday, Ikenga said local police were unaware of the movement of the U.S. convoy until after the attack and that the area was known for separatist violence.

Police said the attackers opened fire on the motorcade, killed the officers and U.S consulate workers and then burned their corpses along with the vehicles. 

Analyst Kabiru Adamu of Beacon Security Consulting said there’s no question the attackers sought out the U.S. convoy for attack. 

“These vehicles had diplomatic numbers (license plates), they were protected by security escort,” he said. “So, it was very clear that whoever targeted them, it was a specific targeting.”

Nigerian police and White House national security official John Kirby said there were no U.S. citizens in the convoy.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but authorities suspect separatist agitators in the region.

Security forces have blamed the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for increasing violence in the southeast.

But security expert Chidi Omeje said the attack is a sign of a general decline in security, not just Biafran separatist activity. 

“It just goes to show that the security challenge in the southeast is still very much an issue,” he said. “I do not want to believe that every crime committed in the southeast now is by IPOB, because there are criminals who take advantage of this situation and commit these kinds of crimes. The embassy should’ve known that the southeast region for now is actually challenged by insecurities.”

The IPOB is seeking to break away from Nigeria’s southeastern region to form an independent state called Biafra.

The movement triggered a civil war in the late 1960s in which an estimated one million Biafrans died, mostly from famine.

In recent years, the region has seen increased attacks, including many raids on offices of the independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in a bid to disrupt elections.

Adamu said the latest attack less than two weeks before the start of a new presidential administration could have implications. 

“The fact that it’s in a transition period, the attackers would’ve known the consequences of attacking a diplomatic convoy in a transition period would be far reaching, and so whether the objective is to affect the transition or not the result is the same,” he said. “There were warnings by different security agencies of plans to truncate the transition process.”

On Monday, the U.S. State Department announced a visa ban on Nigerian citizens who undermined the electoral process.

The department did not immediately name anyone affected by the ban.
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Top administration officials testified Tuesday on Capitol Hill about how the president’s new budget request will shape U.S. competition with China. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
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President Joe Biden canceled his trips to Papua New Guinea and Australia next week to continue debt ceiling talks with congressional leaders that he held Tuesday at the White House.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the president would to return to Washington on Sunday, following the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, “in order to be back for meetings with congressional leaders to ensure that Congress takes action by the deadline to avert default.”

When asked what kind of message the change in the president’s plan would convey to allies and partners he was scheduled to meet, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters during a briefing earlier Tuesday that leaders would “understand that the president also has to focus on making sure that we don’t default.”

Biden will depart for Hiroshima on Wednesday. From Japan, Biden was scheduled to continue to Sydney for the Quad Summit with a brief stop in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, to meet with Pacific Island Forum leaders. The meetings had been billed as opportunities to deepen cooperation on regional challenges and advance U.S. strategic interests in countering China’s influence.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday the Quad meeting in Sydney would be postponed, but that since all the Quad leaders would be in Japan for the G-7 talks, they would try to get together on the sidelines of those meetings. 

It would not be the first time an American president skipped a summit over budget disputes at home. Barack Obama canceled a trip to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Indonesia and the East Asia summit in Brunei in 2013 because of a government shutdown over a budget disagreement, and Bill Clinton pulled out of the APEC Japan meeting in 1995, also during a debt ceiling dispute.

‘A mini-G-20’

Hiroshima is the venue for this year’s May 19-21 summit of the G-7, a grouping of the world’s leading industrial nations, including the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Leaders will try to find alignment in countering Beijing’s use of trade and investment restrictions, boycotts and sanctions — practices the West views as Chinese “economic coercion.” They will do so through export controls and restrictions on investment from their own nations to China, while seeking to slow China’s technological advance and reduce its dominance of the global supply chain.

More than a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the meeting will also focus on supporting Kyiv’s defense and ratcheting up economic pressure on Russia through broader export bans. G-7 members, mainly those in Europe, still export around $4.7 billion a month to Russia, about 43% of what they did before the invasion — mostly pharmaceuticals, machinery, food and chemicals.

As part of his outreach to the Global South, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan, this year’s G-7 host, has invited Australia, Brazil, Comoros, Cook Islands, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Ukraine and Vietnam.

“A little bit like the G-7 trying to create a mini-G-20 without China and Russia,” said Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, in a briefing to reporters Friday.

Looming over the meeting is the concern that financial instability from the threat of a U.S. default and the recent collapse of three American banks will spill over into the rest of the world. That would particularly hurt countries in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia that are struggling with post-pandemic debt accumulated through infrastructure and other loans mainly from China.

There have been calls to reduce those debts to more manageable levels, said Shihoko Goto, deputy director of the Asia program at the Wilson Center. However, she told VOA, “Without having China there, there isn’t really going to be much momentum.”

Symbolism of setting

Nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation are also at the top of this year’s agenda, with Kishida’s symbolic choice of hosting the summit in his hometown of Hiroshima, a city destroyed by an atomic weapon in 1945.

Notably lacking in this G-7 is the push to provide funding for global infrastructure projects as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which was a focus in the last two G-7 summits.

Biden’s trip to Papua New Guinea would have been the first for a U.S. president, following Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to the 2018 Asia Pacific Economic Forum in Port Moresby.

“There is no question but that this is a disappointment to the leaders of the Pacific Islands and the Quad, particularly Australia and PNG,” said Daniel Russel, vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “It will be seen in the region as a self-inflicted wound caused by political polarization in Washington that does not reflect well on America’s reliability as a partner.”

He was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister James Marape and other leaders of the Pacific Island Forum, a grouping of 18 countries and territories spanning more than 30 million square kilometers of ocean. The meeting was intended to establish stronger strategic ties and deter those nations from making security deals with China amid rising tensions over Taiwan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has visited the region three times, setting up infrastructure projects and signing a 2022 security pact with the Solomon Islands.

“The U.S. needs to make up ground in the region,” said Charles Edel, the inaugural Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, during a briefing earlier this week. “Years of strategic neglect from Washington produced a strategic vacuum that China was eager to step into.”
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English soccer star Jimmy Fryatt was known for his ability to head the ball, and the proof of his prowess may be in the damage it did to his brain.

Still physically fit in his late 70s, Fryatt played tennis but couldn’t keep score or remember which side of the net he was supposed to be on. He lived in Las Vegas for almost 50 years but started to get lost while riding his bicycle in the neighborhood.

“I had to put a tracker on him,” his wife, Valerie, said this week. “I’d call him and say: ‘Stop. I’m coming to get you.'”

A North American Soccer League champion who played 18 years in Britain, Fryatt is one of four former professional soccer players newly diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The Concussion Legacy Foundation announced Tuesday that English pro and Oregon State coach Jimmy Conway, Scottish and Seattle NASL midfielder Jimmy Gabriel, and NCAA champion Franny Pantuosco also were found to have the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions in athletes, combat veterans and others who have sustained repeated head trauma.

They are the first diagnoses among those who played in the NASL, a precursor to MLS as the top U.S. pro soccer league that attracted attention with high-profile signings — including Pelé — before folding in 1985.

Valerie Fryatt said her husband had several diagnosed concussions, but CTE researchers believe the disease can also be caused by repeated sub-concussive blows to the head.

In soccer, that means heading the ball.

“Jimmy was a prolific header of the ball. He was very skilled at that,” Valerie Fryatt said. “A lot of players from that era said he was the best header of the ball they’d ever seen.”

The new diagnoses come as soccer officials gather in Chicago for a Head Injury Summit, a conference cohosted by U.S. Soccer and the top American men’s and women’s pro leagues that promises “two days of presentations and panel discussions led by medical professionals, stakeholders and researchers.”

But CTE researchers and families of those affected by the disease say that the agenda, the guest list — and even the name — belie a desire to give only the appearance of confronting brain injuries, part of a trend among sports leagues to downplay the long-term effects of concussions and delay measures that could prevent them.

“In rugby and hockey and, of course, still in football, we’re so familiar with that,” said Dr. Ann McKee, director of the Boston University CTE Center — the brain bank that has led the research into the disease that can cause memory loss, violent mood swings, depression and other cognitive difficulties.

“I’m sorry, I have a jaded point of view about these summits,” she said. “I think they’re largely a PR stunt production to make people think that they’re taking the injury and the condition seriously.”

A U.S. Soccer spokesman listed as the media contact on a summit release did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Major League Soccer spokeswoman forwarded an agenda, which lists panels conducted by, among others, scientists, soccer officials and unnamed current and former players.

But no researchers from the Boston CTE Center were invited to speak at the summit, even though McKee and Robert Cantu are two of the most-published, most prolific — and most outspoken — in the field.

“What happens with these large sports groups is they often invite a roster filled with people who minimize the long-term effects,” McKee said. “And they come away saying: ‘Here, we have held a summit. We looked at the evidence. It’s not very strong, and the scientists are undecided.’ So it’s sort of fait accompli that they don’t have to do anything about it.”

Even the title was a problem for Concussion Legacy Foundation co-founder Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player-turned-professional wrestler-turned Ph.D. who has been a leader in educating professional and amateur athletes about the dangers of concussions.

“‘Head injury’ is what you say when you don’t take it seriously,” Nowinski said. “To call it ‘head injury’ when you’re actually talking about ‘brain injury’ is a tactic the NFL used to use.”

Boston University researchers have diagnosed more than 100 American football players with CTE; it also has been found in boxers, rugby players, professional wrestlers and members of the military. Cases among U.S. soccer players have been less common, but researchers expect the numbers to increase now that those who began playing the growing sport as children are reaching old age.

Last year, Scott Vermillion was announced as the first former MLS player to be diagnosed with CTE. His father, David Vermillion, said he would have made it his “first priority” to attend the summit if he had been invited.

Instead, he is going on a family vacation.

“They’re not going to have people there that have dealt with it first-hand,” Vermillion said. “Folks like that have all this knowledge, that can have input into trying to make things safer for the athletes, aren’t going to be there.”

CTE can only be diagnosed posthumously. Vermillion, Fryatt and Conway died in 2020. Gabriel and Pantuosco died in 2021.

McKee said the families of CTE victims are often the best source of information on how to recognize brain injuries, which can take years to develop and cause problematic behavior like alcohol abuse or violent mood swings.

“These are human beings. These are the people that played the game, that made the owners rich, that caused the fans that have all the enjoyment, who are really responsible for the popularity of soccer today,” McKee said. “And yet when they get into trouble, when they start to develop problematic behaviors, when their families start suffering, when they start suffering, no one pays any attention, including these summits.”
…

U.S. law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced a series of criminal cases exposing the relentless efforts by Russia, China and Iran to steal sensitive U.S. technologies.  

The five cases, which spanned a wide range of protected U.S. technologies, were brought by a new “strike force” created earlier this year to deter foreign adversaries from obtaining advanced U.S. innovation.

“These charges demonstrate the Justice Department’s commitment to preventing sensitive technology from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, who leads the Justice Department’s National Security Division, and co-heads the task force.

Some of the cases announced on Tuesday go back several years but Olsen said the “threat is as significant as ever.”

Two of the cases involve Russia.

In New York, prosecutors charged a Russian national with smuggling U.S. military and dual-use technologies, including advanced electronics and testing equipment, to Russia through the Netherlands and France.  Nikolaos “Nikos” Bogonikolos was arrested last week in France and prosecutors said they’ll seek his extradition.

In a second case, two other Russian nationals – Oleg Sergeyevich Patsulya and Vasilii Sergeyevich Besedin – were arrested in Arizona on May 11 in connection with illegally shipping civilian aircraft parts from the United States to Russian airlines.

Patsulya and Besedin, both residents of Florida, allegedly used their U.S.-based limited liability company to purchase and send the parts, according to court documents.

The three other cases center on China and Iran.

In New York, prosecutors charged a Chinese national for conspiring to provide materials to Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Xiangjiang Qiao, an employee of a Chinese sanctioned company for its role in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, allegedly conspired to furnish isostatic graphite, a material used in the production of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, to Iran.

Liming Li, a California resident, was arrested on May 6 on charges of stealing “smart manufacturing” technologies from two companies he worked at and providing them to businesses in China.

Li allegedly offered to help Chinese companies build “their own capabilities,” a federal prosecutor said.

He was arrested at Ontario International Airport after arriving on a flight from Taiwan and has since been in federal custody, the Justice Department said.

The fifth case announced on Tuesday dates back to 2018 and accuses a former Apple  software engineer with stealing the company’s proprietary research on autonomous systems, including self-driving cars. The defendant took a flight to China on the day the FBI searched his house.

The charges and arrests stem from the work of the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a joint effort between the departments of justice and transportation.

The initiative, announced in February, leverages the expertise of the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and 14 U.S. attorney’s offices.

Olsen said the cases brought by strike force “demonstrate the breadth and complexity of the threats we face, as well as what is at stake.”

“And they show our ability to accelerate investigations and surge our collective resources to defend against these threats,” Olsen said at a press conference.
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History reveals decades of strained diplomatic ties between the world’s two largest economies. VOA looks back at more than 50 years of on-again, off-again relations.
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