Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, eyeing a 2024 run for the Republican presidential nomination, has delivered his strongest rebuke yet of the president he loyally served, Donald Trump. Pence said Trump was personally responsible for encouraging the January 6, 2021, riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol, trying to keep Congress from certifying that Joe Biden had defeated the 45th president in the 2020 election.

“President Trump was wrong; I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence told a group of elite Washington journalists and government officials at the annual Gridiron dinner Saturday night. “And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Pence last week asked a judge to block a subpoena for his testimony before a grand jury investigating the insurrection and Trump’s efforts to upend the election result. But at the dinner, he disparaged ongoing attempts, chiefly by conservative lawmakers and Fox News commentators, to downplay the rampage at the Capitol in which more than 1,000 Trump supporters have been arrested and about half, so far, convicted of an array of offenses.

“Tourists don’t injure 140 police officers by sightseeing,” Pence said. “Tourists don’t break down doors to get to the speaker of the House or voice threats against public officials.”

“Make no mistake about it. What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way,” Pence said at the dinner.

Pence also said people “have a right to know what took place” during the insurrection, praising journalists’ role in writing about the rampage, which for hours delayed lawmakers from certification of the Electoral College vote count showing Biden had won the election. In the United States, the president and vice president, running on the same ticket, are not elected by the national popular vote, but rather by state-by-state elections, with the biggest states holding the most Electoral College votes.

Trump had privately and publicly demanded that Pence block the outcome as the then-vice president presided over the vote count. Pence refused, saying his role was merely ceremonial.

Some rioters shouted, “Hang Mike Pence!” and protesters had erected a gallows on the National Mall within eyesight of the Capitol. As the rioters rampaged through the Capitol, security officials scrambled to keep Pence and his family safe, sheltering them at a loading dock inside the Capitol.

Meanwhile, officials in the White House that day say Trump watched the riot unfold on television and only after three hours issued a statement calling for his supporters to leave the Capitol. Officials have testified that Trump disparaged Pence for being weak in failing to block the election outcome and deserved to be hanged.

The annual white-tie Gridiron dinner features comedy routines by journalists poking fun at Washington officialdom and both Republican and Democratic officials making light of each other.

Even before turning serious about the riot at the Capitol more than two year ago, Pence, a devout Christian, jabbed at Trump.

“I once invited President Trump to Bible study,” Pence said early in his speech. “He really liked the passages about the smiting and perishing of thine enemies. As he put it, ‘You know, Mike, There’s some really good stuff in here.’”

Trump has announced his 2024 presidential candidacy and Pence has said he is weighing a run as well. Some Republicans have suggested or declared they won’t again support Trump, who is facing several criminal investigations, if he is the nominee.

Pence joked, “I will wholeheartedly, unreservedly support the Republican nominee for president in 2024. If it’s me.”
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Iran’s top diplomat claimed Sunday that a prisoner swap was near with the U.S., though he offered no evidence to support his assertion. The U.S. immediately dismissed his comments as a “cruel lie.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has made similar comments in the past about possible deals with the U.S. on frozen assets abroad and other issues that never came to fruition. Some of those remarks have appeared aimed at shoring up domestic support amid the mass protests challenging Iran’s theocracy and supporting the country’s troubled rial currency.

However, in an interview Sunday with Iranian state television, Amirabdollahian claimed that Iran had “reached an agreement in recent days regarding the exchange of prisoners between Iran and the United States.”

“If everything goes well on the American’s side, I think we will see the exchange of prisoners in the short term,” he added. He alleged a document between Iran and the U.S. laying out the exchange had been “indirectly signed and approved” since March 2022.

Reached by The Associated Press, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price called the comments “another especially cruel lie that only adds to the suffering of their families.” 

“We are working relentlessly to secure the release of the three wrongfully detained Americans in Iran,” Price said. “We will not stop until they are reunited with their loved ones.”

A separate statement from the White House’s National Security Council also called the remarks “false.”

“Unfortunately, Iranian officials will not hesitate to make things up, and the latest cruel claim will cause more heartache for the families of Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz,” the council said.

Iran long has taken prisoners with Western passports or ties to use in negotiations with foreign nations.

As of right now, there are at least three American citizens known to be held in Iranian prisons on widely disputed espionage charges.

The evidence against them has never been made public. The detainees all have dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship, something Tehran does not recognize.

In recent days, however, longtime Iranian American detainee Siamak Namazi was allowed to conduct an interview with CNN from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison — something that would not have happened without the acquiescence of security forces.

Meanwhile, Ali Bagheri Kani, a deputy Iranian foreign minister who has handled nuclear talks with world powers, made a trip Sunday to Oman, a longtime interlocutor between Tehran and Washington.

Amirabdollahian’s comments also come after Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Chinese mediation, announced Friday they would reestablish diplomatic ties and reopen embassies after a seven-year freeze in relations. 
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Residents are complaining about burning eyes and breathing problems. Dead fish have washed up on beaches. A beachside festival has been canceled, even though it wasn’t scheduled for another month.

Florida’s southwest coast experienced a flare-up of the toxic red tide algae this week, setting off concerns that it could continue to stick around for a while. The current bloom started in October.

The annual BeachFest in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, sponsored by a homeowners’ association, was canceled after it determined, with help from the city and the Pinellas County Health Department, that red tide likely would continue through the middle of next month when the festival was scheduled.

“Red Tide is currently present on the beach and is forecasted to remain in the area in the weeks to come,” the Indian Rocks Beach Homeowners Association said in a letter to the public. “It is unfortunate that it had to be canceled but it is the best decision in the interest of public health.”

Nearly two tons of debris, mainly dead fish, were cleared from Pinellas County beaches and brought to the landfill, county spokesperson Tony Fabrizio told the Tampa Bay Times. About 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms) of fish have been cleared from beaches in St. Pete Beach since the start of the month, Mandy Edmunds, a parks supervisor with the city, told the newspaper.

Red tide, a toxic algae bloom that occurs naturally in the Gulf of Mexico, is worsened by the presence of nutrients such as nitrogen in the water. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission warns people to not swim in or around red tide waters over the possibility of skin irritation, rashes and burning and sore eyes. People with asthma or lung disease should avoid beaches affected by the toxic algae.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Friday reported that it had found red tide in 157 samples along Florida’s Gulf Coast, with the strongest concentrations along Pinellas and Sarasota counties.
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Brent Sass, the defending Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race champion, withdrew from this year’s race on Saturday, citing concerns for his health.

Sass scratched at the Eagle Island checkpoint, a statement from the Iditarod said. Eagle Island is about 966 kilometers into the nearly 1,609-kilometer race.

“He didn’t feel he could care for his team due to current concerns with his periodontal health,” the statement said. The condition typically relates to gum disease.

A plane was being sent to Eagle Island to fly Sass off the trail, according to a video posted on the Iditarod Insider webpage.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sad, but it is what it is,” Sass’ father, Mark Sass, told Alaska Public Media. “I just want him to be OK.”

The Iditarod said all 11 dogs on Sass’ team were in good health.

Sass was in the lead when he arrived at the Eagle Island checkpoint late Friday night with an almost four-hour advantage over his nearest competitor, Jessie Holmes of Brushkana.

Holmes was the first musher to leave the Eagle Island checkpoint early Saturday morning. The 40-year-old Alabama native in 2004 moved to Alaska, where he is a carpenter and appears on the National Geographic reality TV show Life Below Zero, about people who live in rural Alaska.

The race started for 33 mushers on March 5 in Willow. It takes the sled dog teams over two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and the treacherous Bering Sea ice en route to the finish line in Nome. Mushers had to contend with another issue during the first week of competition: Altering their race strategy because of high heat in interior Alaska.

The winner is expected to mush down Nome’s Front Street, a block off the Bering Sea, to the finish line either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Before the competitive start to the race, mushers greeted fans March 4 during a ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage and drove auction winners riding in their sleds for a 17.7-kilometer jaunt through the streets of the state’s largest city.

The 33 mushers represented the smallest field ever to start a race, one short of the first race run in 1973.

Since then, three mushers including Sass have withdrawn.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is poised to decide whether to pull the plug on a massive oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope or allow it to go ahead.

With the decision imminent, environmentalists have ramped up pressure on the White House, urging Biden to live up to the climate change pledges he made during his campaign.

During the 2020 presidential race, the Democratic candidate vowed not to approve any new leases for oil and gas projects on federal lands.

But Biden has found himself stuck in the middle of a years-long battle over the so-called Willow Project, a plan by US energy giant ConocoPhillips to drill for oil in the federally-owned National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska’s pristine western Arctic.

The Trump administration approved the Willow Project at the tail end of the former president’s term but it was blocked by a judge for further review.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), in an environmental impact analysis in February, approved three drilling sites while striking down one and deferring consideration of another.

ConocoPhillips welcomed the BLM’s assessment, saying it can “provide a viable path forward for development of our leasehold.”

The Interior Department, which oversees the BLM, said, however, it has “substantial concerns” about the project “including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.”

Biden has described global warming as an existential threat and promoted the development of renewable energy sources.

Temperatures in Alaska have been rising faster than in other regions of the planet and environmental groups have warned that the oil extraction project would make things worse.

The Willow Project will add more than 250 million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere over the next 30 years, the Sierra Club said, equivalent to the annual emissions of 66 coal plants.

Greenpeace described it as a “carbon bomb.”

A petition on Change.org seeking to halt the project has garnered more than three million signatures and a #StopWillow campaign on TikTok has drawn 150 million views.

180,000 barrels of oil per day

Backers of the Willow Project defend it as a source of several thousand jobs and a contributor to US energy independence with production of 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak or some 576 million barrels over 30 years.

Alaska’s two Republican senators and the state’s sole member of the House, Mary Peltola, a native Alaskan and a Democrat, met with Biden last week to urge him to approve the project.

“We hope the President will listen to the voices of indigenous Alaskans who live on the North Slope, the voices of labor leaders and union workers who are ready to help build Alaska’s economy (and) listen to the voices of national security officials underscoring the importance of Willow for American energy security,” they said.

Peltola, in an opinion piece published in The Hill, said Alaskans “aren’t blind to the impacts of climate change” but the Willow Project can serve as a bridge as the country transitions away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources.

“At the same time, we can reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of oil — which makes us all safer in a world that has grown more unpredictable after Russia invaded Ukraine,” Peltola said.

Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared with 2005 with the goal of achieving a net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.
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Remembered as an inspirational, humble leader with a passion for education and commitment to his people, former Navajo Nation President Peterson Zah was honored Saturday with a funeral procession that stretched for 160 kilometers from western New Mexico into eastern Arizona.

People lined roads on the reservation to say their final farewells to a monumental leader who made education, family, culture and Navajo language the hallmarks of his life. He fought tirelessly to correct wrongdoings against Native Americans.

“He led with compassion and a crystal-clear vision of what is right for the people first,” said Robert Joe, Zah’s nephew who served as the master of ceremonies at a public reception Saturday afternoon. “He always put the people before him to do what was right and for the interest of the people.”

Crsytalyne Curley, Zah’s granddaughter who is now the speaker of the Navajo Nation Council, said Zah “spread hope throughout the whole Navajo Nation.”

Zah died late Tuesday in Fort Defiance, Arizona, surrounded by his family and after a lengthy illness. He was 85.

Zah was buried in a private service at his family’s cemetery in Low Mountain, Arizona, where he was born.

The procession passed through several Navajo communities, with people holding their hands to their hearts and displaying signs that declared Zah would be missed. The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority hoisted flags from utility trucks along the route.

“All of Indian Country mourns with you today,” said Stephen Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community. “We mourn the loss of his brilliant mind, his personality, his wisdom. … We are truly mourning the passing of an era.”

Zah was the first president elected on the Navajo Nation — the largest tribal reservation in the U.S. — in 1990 after the government was restructured into three branches to prevent power from being concentrated in the chairman’s office. At the time, the tribe was reeling from a deadly riot incited by Zah’s political rival, former Chairman Peter MacDonald, a year earlier.

Zah, who also served a term as tribal chairman, vowed to rebuild the Navajo Nation. Under his leadership, the tribe established what’s now a multibillion-dollar permanent fund after winning a court battle that found the tribe had authority to tax companies that extracted minerals from the vast reservation.

“President Zah never lost sight of his purpose: to stand up for the dignity and respect of the Navajo people,” President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden wrote in a letter to Zah’s family Saturday.

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said in a statement that Zah “transformed the Navajo Nation, and with it, our state.”

Sometimes referred to as the Native American Robert Kennedy, Zah was known for his charisma, ideas and ability to get things done, including lobbying federal officials to ensure Native Americans could use peyote as a religious sacrament.

Zah also worked to ensure Native Americans were reflected in federal environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

He was well-known for his low-key but stern style of leadership, driving around in a battered, white 1950s International pickup that was on display outside at the public reception Saturday.

Several speakers said Zah was instrumental in their determination to attend and graduate from Arizona State University or other institutions of higher learning.

“To say Peterson Zah was a champion of education is like saying there are a lot of stars in the sky. It’s an understatement,” said Charles Monty Roessel, a former director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Education who is now president of Diné College in Arizona.

“He understood the transformational power of education because he saw it in his own life,” Roessel said.

Buu Van Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, said Zah had recently met with tribal leaders to emphasize the importance of continuing to prioritize educational opportunities for their children.

“He made sure education was at the forefront of everything he did,” Nygren said. “He touched many, many generations of young Navajo leaders like myself.”
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Four space station astronauts returned to Earth late Saturday after a quick SpaceX flight home.

Their capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast near Tampa.

The U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew spent five months at the International Space Station, arriving last October. Besides dodging space junk, the astronauts had to deal with a pair of leaking Russian capsules docked to the orbiting outpost and the urgent delivery of a replacement craft for the station’s other crew members.

Led by NASA’s Nicole Mann, the first Native American woman to fly in space, the astronauts checked out of the station early Saturday morning. Less than 19 hours later, their Dragon capsule was bobbing in the sea as they awaited pickup.

Earlier in the week, high wind and waves in the splashdown zones kept them at the station a few extra days. Their replacements arrived more than a week ago.

“That was one heck of a ride,” Mann radioed moments after splashdown. “We’re happy to be home.”

Mann, a member of Northern California’s Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, said she couldn’t wait to feel the wind on her face, smell fresh grass, and enjoy delicious Earth food.

Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata craved sushi, while Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina yearned to drink hot tea from a “real cup” not a plastic bag.

NASA astronaut Josh Cassada’s to-do list included getting a rescue dog for his family. “Please don’t tell our two cats,” he joked before departing the space station.

Remaining behind at the space station are three Americans, three Russians and one from the United Arab Emirates.

Wakata, Japan’s spaceflight champion, now has logged more than 500 days in space over five missions dating back to NASA’s shuttle era.
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Authorities ordered more than 1,500 people to evacuate early Saturday from a Northern California agricultural community famous for its strawberries after the Pajaro River’s levee was breached by flooding from a new atmospheric river pummeling the state.

Monterey County officials on Saturday said the break in the levee — upstream from the unincorporated community of Pajaro along California’s Central Coast — is about 30.48 meters wide. Crews had gone door to door Friday afternoon to urge residents to leave before the rains came but some stayed and had to be pulled from floodwaters early Saturday.

First responders and the California National Guard rescued more than 50 people overnight. One video showed a member of the Guard helping a driver out of a car trapped by water up to their waists.

“We were hoping to avoid and prevent this situation, but the worst-case scenario has arrived with the Pajaro River overtopping and levee breaching at about midnight,” wrote Luis Alejo, chair of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, on Twitter.

Alejo called the flooding “massive,” saying it has affected Pajaro’s 1,700 residents — many of them Latino farmworkers — and that the damage will take months to repair.

The Pajaro River separates the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey in the area that flooded Saturday.

Officials had been working along the levee in the hopes of shoring it up when it was breached early Saturday morning. Crews began working to fix the levee around daybreak Saturday as residents slept in evacuation centers.

The Pajaro Valley is a coastal agricultural area known for growing strawberries, apples, cauliflower, broccoli and artichokes. National brands like Driscoll’s Strawberries and Martinelli’s are headquartered in the region.

In 1995, the Pajaro River’s levees broke, submerging 2,500 acres (1,011 hectares) of farmland and the community of Pajaro. Two people died and the flooding caused nearly $100 million in damage. A state law that was passed last year advanced state funds for a levee project. It was scheduled to start construction in 2024.

This week’s storm marked the state’s 10th atmospheric river of the winter, storms that have brought enormous amounts of rain and snow to the state and helped lessen the drought conditions that had dragged on for three years. State reservoirs that had dipped to strikingly low levels are now well above the average for this time of year, prompting state officials to release water from dams to assist with flood control and make room for even more rain.

State transportation officials said Friday they removed so much snow from the roadways in February that it would be enough to fill the iconic Rose Bowl 100 times.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has declared emergencies in 34 counties in recent weeks, and the Biden administration approved a presidential disaster declaration for some on Friday morning, a move that will bring more federal assistance.

Emergency officials have warned people to stay off roads if they can and to carefully heed flash flood warnings.

The atmospheric river, known as a “Pineapple Express” because it brought warm subtropical moisture across the Pacific from near Hawaii, was melting lower parts of the huge snowpack built in California’s mountains. Snow levels in the Sierra Nevada, which provides about a third of the state’s water supply, are more than 180% of the April 1 average, when it is historically at its peak.

The snowpack at high elevations is so massive it was expected to be able to absorb the rain, but snow below 1,219 meters could start to melt, potentially contributing to flooding, forecasters said.

Lake Oroville — one of the most important reservoirs in the state and home to the nation’s tallest dam — has so much water that officials on Friday opened the dam’s spillways for the first time since April 2019. The reservoir’s water has risen 54.8 meters since December 1. Of the state’s 17 major reservoirs, seven are still below their historical averages this year.

State water managers also were grappling with the best way to use the storms to help emerge from a severe drought. On Friday, Newsom signed an executive order making it easier for farmers and water agencies to use floodwater to refill underground aquifers. Groundwater provides on average about 41% of the state’s supply each year. But many of these underground basins have been overdrawn in recent years.

Forecasters warned that mountain travel could be difficult to impossible during the latest storm. At high elevations, the storm was predicted to dump heavy snow, as much as 2.4 meters over several days.

Yet another atmospheric river is already in the forecast for early next week. State climatologist Michael Anderson said a third appeared to be taking shape over the Pacific and possibly a fourth.

California appeared to be “well on its way to a fourth year of drought” before the early winter series of storms, Anderson said. “We’re in a very different condition now,” he noted.
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From “Star Wars” to “Jaws” to “Schindler’s List,” John Williams has written many of the most instantly recognizable scores in cinema history.

The 91-year-old is already the oldest person to receive an Oscar nomination for a competitive award, which he earned thanks to his spare yet poignant compositions for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”

With 53 total nods, Williams has more Academy Award nominations than any other living person, and is second only to Walt Disney, who had 59.

And if he gets another statuette on Sunday, which would be his sixth, he will become the oldest person ever to triumph in any competitive category. The record is currently held by screenwriter James Ivory, who was 89 when he won.

It “seems unreal that anybody could be that old and working that long,” Williams recently told NBC News, adding: “It’s very exciting, even after 53 years.”

“I’m very pleased, I think it’s a human thing — the gratification of any kind of appreciation of one’s work,” he said.

Out of the dozens of nominations over the course of his extraordinary career, the composer won Academy Awards for the original “Star Wars,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and three films by Spielberg, with whom he is closely associated — “Jaws,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List.”

He’s even competed against himself multiple times for Oscars glory.

Williams is known for his grand neo-Romantic scores in the fashion of Wagner, a contrast to the more experimental fare prevalent among many modern composers outside Hollywood.

But his work is also steeped in mid-century influences including jazz and popular American standards.

Williams holds he’s not as Wagnerian as his music might indicate but admits the 19th century German giant’s influence on Hollywood’s early composers, and therefore his own, is palpable.

“Wagner lives with us here — you can’t escape it,” he told The New Yorker in 2020. “I have been in the big river swimming with all of them.”

‘Single greatest collaboration’

Williams was born on February 8, 1932, in New York’s Queens borough to a percussionist father, and was the eldest of four children.

The family moved to Los Angeles in 1948, where Williams later studied composition and took a semester of jazz band at Los Angeles City College.

While in the Air Force, he played both piano and brass while arranging music for the service’s band.

Afterwards, he moved to New York, where he enrolled at the prestigious Juilliard school to study piano.

Though he aspired to be a concert pianist, it became clear to Williams that composition was his forte.

He moved back to LA, where he worked on orchestrations at film — earning plaudits for his range — and as a session pianist, including for the film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”

Williams notched his first Oscar nod for the 1967 film “Valley of the Dolls,” and won his first in 1972 for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

His momentous partnership with Spielberg began in the early 1970s, when the soon to be household-name director approached him to score his debut, “The Sugarland Express.”

Spielberg approached him once more to work on his second film, “Jaws.”

The menacing two-note ostinato Williams composed for the film has practically become synonymous with fear itself: “John Williams actually is the teeth of Jaws,” Spielberg said last year at a concert for the composer’s 90th birthday.

The pair then worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a decades-long creative partnership unfurled.

At the Williams birthday celebration in Washington, Spielberg dubbed their relationship “the single greatest collaboration of my career and one of the deepest friendships of my life.”

“Through the medium of movies, John has popularized motion picture scores more than any other composer in history,” he said.

‘Soundtrack of our lives’

Spielberg also introduced Williams to one George Lucas — it would become another iconic collaboration that spawned perhaps the most recognizable film score ever.

Several of Williams’ “Star Wars” compositions are prime examples of leitmotif, with musical cues tying together the vast, character-rich story.

“He has written the soundtrack of our lives,” conductor Gustavo Dudamel told The New York Times last year. “When we listen to a melody of John’s, we go back to a time, to a taste, to a smell.”

“All our senses go back to a moment,” Dudamel said.

Other credits from Williams’ more than 100 film scores include the music for 1978’s “Superman,” the first three “Harry Potter” films and a number of “Indiana Jones” films.’

“Harrison Ford made Indiana Jones into an iconic action hero, but John made us believe in adventure again, through that pulse-pounding march,” said Spielberg.

Off-screen, Williams is responsible for the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” first composed for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and used ever since on U.S. broadcasts.

Williams recently indicated he might take a step back from film scoring, giving more energy to conducting and composing concert music; he was a longtime leader of the Boston Pops orchestra.

But speaking at a panel with Spielberg earlier this year, Williams seemed to walk back the notion of slowing down, vowing to work until he’s 100 or so.

“So I’ve got 10 more years to go. I’ll stick around for a while!” he told the crowd. “You can’t ‘retire’ from music. It’s like breathing.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday sought to minimize differences over a Washington plans to subsidize American companies — a concept that has frustrated many in Europe. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Russia’s repeated use of advanced hypersonic missiles as part of its bombardment of Ukraine may be getting the bulk of the West’s attention, but United States defense officials say it is China that has the world’s leading hypersonic arsenal.

“While both China and Russia have conducted numerous successful tests of hypersonic weapons and have likely fielded operational systems, China is leading Russia in both supporting infrastructure and numbers of systems,” the Defense Intelligence Agency’s chief scientist for science and technology told U.S. lawmakers Friday.

“Over the past two decades, China has dramatically advanced its development of conventional and nuclear-armed hypersonic missile technologies and capabilities through intense and focused investment, development, testing and deployment,” said the DIA’s Paul Freisthler, testifying in front of the House Armed Services Committee.

Unlike ballistic missiles, which fly at hypersonic speeds but travel along a set trajectory, hypersonic weapons are highly maneuverable despite flying at Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.

According to U.S. defense officials, that high-speed maneuverability makes hypersonic weapons especially difficult to detect and, therefore, difficult to stop.

According to the DIA and information gathered by the Congressional Research Service, China operates two research sites for hypersonic weapons, with at least 21 wind tunnels. Some of the wind tunnels can test vehicles flying at speeds of up to Mach 12.

China’s hypersonic arsenal includes the DF-17, a medium-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle that has a range of 1,600 kilometers.

It also has the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, which also carries a hypersonic glide vehicle. During a test of the system in July 2021, the hypersonic weapon circumnavigated the globe, prompting a top U.S. defense official to compare the incident to the start of the original space race in the 1950s.

Beijing also has the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle, with a range of close to 2,000 kilometers, and the Starry Sky-2, a nuclear capable hypersonic prototype.

Russia’s missile attack against Ukraine on Friday included about six of Moscow’s hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. The Kinzhal travels at speeds of up to Mach 10 and has a range of about 2,000 kilometers.

Russia also has the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which it claims can travel at speeds of more than Mach 20 with a range of more than 10,000 kilometers, and the ship-launched Zircon hypersonic missile, with a top speed of Mach 8 and a range of 1,000 kilometers.

The DIA’s Freisthler said Friday that Moscow is also developing an air-launched hypersonic missile (the Kh-95) and has announced plans to place a hypersonic glide vehicle on its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile.

The U.S. military has been developing a range of hypersonic weapons, all of which are still in testing or development. Officials have said that, unlike China and Russia, Washington has no plans to arm any of its hypersonic weapons with a nuclear warhead.
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A requirement that travelers to the U.S. from China present a negative COVID-19 test before boarding their flights expired Friday after more than two months as cases in China have fallen.

The restrictions were put in place December 28 and took effect January 5 amid a surge in infections in China after the nation sharply eased pandemic restrictions and as U.S. health officials expressed concerns that their Chinese counterparts were not being truthful to the world about the true number of infections and deaths. The requirement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expired for flights leaving after 3 p.m. Eastern time Friday.

When the restriction was imposed, U.S. officials also said it was necessary to protect U.S. citizens and communities because there was a lack of transparency from the Chinese government about the size of the surge or the variants that were circulating within China.

The rules imposed in January require travelers to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong and Macau to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone 2 years and older, including U.S. citizens.

China saw infections and deaths surge after it eased back from its “zero COVID” strategy in early December after rare public protests of the policy that confined millions of people to their homes and sparked demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.

But as China eased its strict rules, infections and deaths surged, and parts of the country for weeks saw their hospitals overwhelmed by infected patients looking for help. Still, the Chinese government has been slow to release data on the number of deaths and infections.

The U.S. decision to lift restrictions comes at a moment when U.S.-China relations are strained. U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a Chinese spy balloon shot down last month after it traversed the continental United States. The Biden administration has also publicized U.S. intelligence findings that raise concern Beijing is considering providing Russia weaponry for its ongoing war on Ukraine.
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The Republican chairman of a special House committee targeting China called Beijing’s government “bloodthirsty” and “power hungry” on Friday at a rally outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington. 

Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin attended a rally to commemorate the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against China’s rule. The gathering took place on what is known as Tibetan National Uprising Day and came as tensions between the U.S. and China continue to escalate. 

Speaking to members of the Tibetan community, Gallagher said he wanted to recognize their courage in fighting for their freedom and culture. He described Tibetans as victims of a “cultural genocide” by the Chinese Communist Party. 

“They’ve not changed one bit,” Gallagher said. “The CCP is still a threat, still duplicitous, still power hungry, still bloodthirsty.” 

Tibet is governed as an autonomous region in western China, with authorities maintaining tight control over Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and harassing and punishing Tibetans suspected of being followers of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who after the failed uprising would flee across the Himalayas to India. 

China has claimed Tibet as part of its territory for centuries and argues it has improved living conditions and reduced poverty in the region. It says the U.S. and its allies falsely accuse Beijing of violating Tibetans’ human rights. 

Tibetans say they were essentially independent before the People’s Liberation Army fought its way into Tibet in 1950. China has built a sprawling network of police stations and extrajudicial detention centers for rebellious monks and nuns — measures that Beijing mimicked in Xinjiang province against Uyghurs. 

Gallagher said that prioritizing human rights early on in the new committee’s work is a way of communicating to Americans that the Chinese Communist Party is not just a distant threat. 

“Increasingly, we see the CCP trying to undermine our own sovereignty, whether it’s through a Chinese spy balloon or a CCP-controlled algorithm that an American teenager uses, or fentanyl precursors from China ultimately killing 70,000 Americans a year,” Gallagher said. 

One of the questions arising from lawmakers’ increasingly harsh criticism of China is whether it will make relations between the two countries worse. Earlier this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned in unusually stark terms about the consequences of U.S.-China friction. 

“If the United States does not hit the brake, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing and there surely will be conflict and confrontation,” Qin said in his first news conference since taking up his post last year. 

Gallagher stressed that no one wants a war with China over Taiwan or any other issue, but said there has been a shift in thinking in Washington that the policy of economic engagement with the country has failed. 

“I think recognizing CCP aggression for what it is and taking sensible steps to combat that aggression is the best path to deterring that aggression over the long term,” Gallagher told The Associated Press after the rally. “I think the best path towards preventing an escalation is a strategy of strength, of communicating we will not be bullied.” 

Taking steps to curb China is one of the few ideas that generates bipartisan support in Congress. The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party held its first hearing last month. China responded by demanding its members “discard their ideological bias and zero-sum Cold War mentality.” 

Gallagher met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this week to discuss the committee’s future work. 

“Congress is going to disagree about a lot over the next year, but they want this to be an area where we try and identify that bipartisan center of gravity,” Gallagher said.
…

By launching an unmanned capsule into space, sending it around the moon and bringing it back to Earth in November, NASA demonstrated how it will once again transport astronauts to the lunar surface — a core goal of the Artemis program.

What remains to be seen is who will crew the first trips.

“Everybody in the astronaut office has the background, the basic training and the qualifications to go do that mission, so everyone is hoping that their name gets called,” astronaut Stan Love told VOA during an interview at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Artemis 1 launch.

Love is among those being considered for a spot. Artemis 2, a manned mission to orbit but not land on the moon, could launch as early as 2024. Love said the Artemis crews will look different than those of the Apollo program during the 1960s and 1970s.

“We are going to broaden our demographics, so it won’t just be white guys landing on the moon.”

“We make our boss’ jobs actually challenging, we make his job hard because he’s got to pick some of us,” says astronaut Victor Glover, who could make history as the first person of color to reach the moon.

The crew for Artemis 2 will be announced April 3, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who said the team will include three NASA astronauts and one member of the Canadian Space Agency.

“I think all of us are ready, trained and capable of making this mission a success,” Glover told VOA. “Just to be where we are now and be a part of this team is an honor.”

The initiative to ensure diversity in NASA’s Artemis program was outlined in the Biden administration’s $25 billion funding request to Congress for NASA for the fiscal year 2022, which includes the moon missions.

“Apollo had a sister, Artemis, and this is our generation, and I think this is a fantastic thing,” said Branelle Rodriguez, who works on the Orion capsule that will transport the astronauts in Artemis.

Ahead of the launch of Artemis 1, she expressed pride taking part in a historic project that will also bring the first woman to the moon.

“I think it’s important for all of us, whether it’s a man or a woman, I think it’s fantastic,” Rodriguez said. “I think as an agency, as a nation and as a world showing that we can explore as humans back to the surface of the moon is what we need to go off and show.”

Danielle Bell, a marketing and communications professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School who focuses on issues of diversity and inclusion, welcomes NASA’s initiative and said she hopes it is permanent.

“NASA has taken the step of naming the entire mission after the sister of Apollo, the Greek god, so that in and of itself is a wonderful symbol, [and a] signal when we think about diversity and inclusion,” Bell said.

“To do this once, would feel like performing,” she added. “When they are transformative and not performative, that happens when the organization lives their values from the inside out.”

Women make up one-third of the current group of 41 astronauts at NASA. Twelve are people of color. While 16 are experienced pilots, the rest are experts in fields such as geology, medicine and engineering, bringing professional diversity to the corps.

Bell said that makeup suggests that skin color or gender won’t likely drive the decision on who goes first.

“What I can appreciate about this mission, is that it’s not just about diversity, it’s not just about representation,” Bell told VOA. “It’s not diversity for diversity’s sake. It’s more meaningful, it’s more impactful. You’ve got an entire pool that is of diverse backgrounds.”

The importance of the Artemis diversity initiative is underscored for Glover whenever he participates in outreach and education efforts for NASA.

“People keep asking me, ‘Is it meaningful to you that little Black kids look up to you and say they want to be like you?’ You know what? Let’s be honest, I represent America. I’m a naval officer and I work for NASA.

“I represent America and little white kids, little Mexican kids, little Hispanic kids and little Iranian kids follow what we’re doing because this,” he said, pointing to the iconic NASA patch on his blue flight suit “is maybe one of the most recognizable symbols in the universe. I think that that’s really important and I take that very seriously.”

While Glover hopes to be picked for an upcoming Artemis mission to the moon, he said he will participate in the mammoth undertaking one way or another.

“If your name gets called or not, I’m going to be happy to still be a part of this team and help from the ground,” Glover told VOA.

“There won’t be any sense of disappointment,” said astronaut Love. “If I’m not on the rocket, I’m going to be in mission control talking to these crews. So, I will be supporting these missions no matter what my role.”
…

America’s employers added a substantial 311,000 jobs in February, fewer than January’s huge gain but enough to keep pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively to fight inflation.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.6%, from a 53-year low of 3.4%, as more Americans began searching for work but not all of them found jobs.

Friday’s report from the government made clear that the nation’s job market remains fundamentally healthy, with many employers still eager to hire. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress this week that the Fed would likely ratchet up its rate hikes if signs continued to point to a robust economy and persistently high inflation. A strong job market typically leads businesses to raise pay and then pass their higher labor costs on to customers through higher prices.

February’s sizable job growth shows that so far, hiring is continuing to strengthen this year after having eased in late 2022. From October through December, the average monthly job gain was 284,000. That average has surged to 351,000 for the past three months.

Economists pointed to other data in Friday’s report that suggested that the job market, while still hot, may be better balancing employers’ need for workers and the supply of unemployed people. More people have been coming off the sidelines to seek work, a trend that makes it easier for businesses to fill the millions of jobs that remain open.

The proportion of Americans who either have a job or are looking for one has risen for three straight months to 62.5%, the highest level since COVID struck three years ago. Still, it remains below its pre-pandemic level of 63.3%.

With more potential hires to choose from, employers seem under less pressure now to dangle higher pay to attract or retain workers. Average wage growth slowed in February, rising just 0.2%, to $33.09, the smallest monthly increase in a year. Measured year over year, though, hourly pay is up 4.6%, well above the pre-pandemic trend. Even so, that’s down from average annual gains above 5% last year.

What the Fed may decide to do about interest rates when it meets later this month remains uncertain. The Fed’s decision will rest, in part, on its assessment of Friday’s jobs data and next week’s report on consumer inflation in February. Last month, the government’s report on January inflation had raised alarms by showing that consumer prices had reaccelerated on a month-to-month basis.

Ahead of the February jobs data, many economists had said they thought the Fed would announce a substantial half-point increase in its key short-term interest rate, rather than a quarter point hike as it did at its meeting in February. Friday’s more moderate hiring and wage figures, though, led some analysts to suggest that the central bank may not need to move so aggressively at this month’s meeting.

“There’s clear signs of cooling when you dig deeper into the numbers,” said Mike Skordeles, head of economics at Truist, a bank. “I think it makes the case for the Fed to say … we’ll still hike rates, but we’re not going to do” a half-point hike.

The Fed’s final determination, though, will rest heavily on Tuesday’s report on consumer prices.

“Everything now hinges on February’s CPI report,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.

When the Fed tightens credit, it typically leads to higher rates on mortgages, auto loans, credit card borrowing and many business loans. Its rate hikes can cool spending and inflation, but they also raise the risk of a recession.

Even for workers who have received substantial pay raises, ongoing high inflation remains a burden. Consumer prices rose 6.4% in January compared with a year ago, driven up by the costs of food, clothing and rents, among other items.

Frustrated by wages that aren’t keeping up with inflation, Rodney Colbert, a cook at the Las Vegas convention center, joined a strike Thursday by the Culinary Workers union to demand better pay and benefits. Colbert said that his hourly pay was $4-$5 less than what cooks were paid at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

“I’ll average approximately 28 hours a week, and that’s not enough,” Colbert said. “Just in the past two years, my rent has gone up $400, so that’s a lot.”

Nationally, nearly all of last month’s hiring occurred in mostly lower-paid services industries, with a category that includes restaurants, bars, hotels and entertainment adding 105,000 jobs, its second straight month of strong gains. Warmer-than-usual weather likely contributed to the increase. With the weather likely allowing more building projects to continue, construction companies added 24,000 jobs.

Retailers added about 50,000 jobs last month, health care providers 63,000. Local and state governments — some of them flush with cash from stimulus programs — added 46,000 jobs.

Much of that job growth reflects continuing demand from Americans who have been increasingly venturing out to shop, eat out, travel and attend entertainment events — activities that were largely restricted during the height of COVID.

“We’ve created more jobs in two years than any administration has created in the first four years,” President Joe Biden said Friday about the employment report. “It means our economic plan is working.”

Economists note, however, that the very strength of the job market is itself contributing to the high inflation that continues to pressure millions of households.

In February, in contrast to the solid hiring in the services sector, manufacturers cut 4,000 jobs. And a sector that includes technology and communications workers shed 25,000 jobs, its third straight month of losses. It is a sign that some of the announced layoffs in the economy’s tech sector are being captured in the government’s data.

Last month, the government reported a surprising burst of hiring for January — 517,000 added jobs — though that gain was revised down slightly to 504,000 in Friday’s report. The vigorous job growth for January was the first in a series of reports to point to an accelerating economy at the start of the year. Sales at retail stores and restaurants also jumped, and inflation, according to the Fed’s preferred measure, rose from December to January at the fastest pace in seven months.

The stronger data reversed a cautiously optimistic narrative that the economy was cooling modestly — just enough, perhaps, to tame inflation without triggering a deep recession. Now, the economic outlook is hazier.
…

A U.S. citizen imprisoned by Iran on spying charges the United States rejects as baseless gave a rare interview from Tehran’s Evin prison on Thursday beseeching U.S. President Joe Biden to secure his release and that of two other American nationals.

“I implore you, sir, to put the lives and liberty of innocent Americans above all the politics involved and to just do what is necessary to end this nightmare and bring us home,” Siamak Namazi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in a telephone interview.

Namazi, 51, was speaking on behalf of himself, Emad Shargi, 58, a businessman and U.S. citizen, and environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who has both U.S. and British nationality.

Namazi made a similar plea in a letter to Biden on Jan. 16, seven years after Iran released five U.S. citizens in a prisoner exchange that coincided with the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under U.S. President Barrack Obama.

“I remain deeply worried that the White House just doesn’t appreciate how dire our situation has become,” he said, saying he, Tahbaz and Shargi were all now held in the same place. Early in his detention, Namazi said he spent months caged in a cell, sleeping on the floor.

Namazi also called it “hurtful and upsetting” that Biden had not met his family “just to give them some words of assurance.”

A White House spokesperson said on condition of anonymity that “Iran’s unjust imprisonment and exploitation of U.S. citizens for use as political leverage is outrageous, inhumane, and contrary to international norms.

“Senior officials from both the White House and the State Department meet and consult regularly with the Namazi family, and we will continue to do so until this unacceptable detention ends,” the spokesperson added.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
…

Mushers and their dogs in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race face plenty of variables in the Alaska wilderness. An unexpected one this year has been heat that is taking a toll in a sport better suited for temperatures well below zero. 

Jason Mackey said a thermometer hanging from the back of his sled hit 26.67 degrees Celsius at one point this week as he camped alongside the trail while mushers neared the halfway mark of the race. Other racers threw their game plans for the 1,609-kilometer race across Alaska out the window to deal with the heat and messy trail conditions. 

Although it’s warm, it wasn’t 26.67 degrees in interior Alaska, which would probably be a record high in July, said Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist with the National Weather Service’s Alaska Region. Instead, when you leave a thermometer in the sun, it absorbs the solar energy, which is the reason official measurement thermometers are kept in the shade. 

But it’s still warm and sunny, and it’s having noticeable effects on people who are exposed to it, Brettschneider said. 

Last weekend, the same area was much cooler than normal, with what appeared to be ideal mushing conditions. The warmer conditions are being driven by an area of high pressure, he said.  

Many communities in the nation’s largest state hit record highs this week, from Kodiak off Alaska’s southern coast to Deadhorse, the supply town for oil companies operating on the state’s North Slope, about 2,012 kilometers away. 

Along the Iditarod race route, the community of McGrath didn’t set records but had a high Wednesday of 2.22 degree Celsius, -10 degree Celsius above normal. More telling was a low temperature of -2.78 degrees Celsius. 

“Normally it should be below zero (-17.78 degrees Celsius),” Brettschneider said. 

That warmth was evident all along the Iditarod trail Wednesday. “There’s almost no places that were below freezing along the route,” he said. 

That was not news to Mackey. “I wish the temperatures would cool down,” the musher told a television crew from the Iditarod Insider. 

It’s just not the heat that was bothersome. He said he looked down at his sled at one point and saw two mosquitoes. 

“Yeah, it’s spring,” Mackey said. 

The heat is taking its toll on Mackey’s dogs, which he called “big boys” at 36.29 kilograms. He said other teams were moving in the heat of the day, but he wasn’t willing to do that. “I mean, it zaps them,” he said of the dog team. 

Kelly Maixner, a pediatric dentist, said his dogs don’t like the heat, and he’d rather it be -28.89 degrees Celsius. 

During the race, mushers must take one 24-hour layover at a checkpoint to rest. Part of where to take that layover plays into the strategy of most every musher. 

Nic Petit took his mandatory rest early in the race, at the checkpoint in Nikolai, because the sun was out. “I like hot dogs, just not my dog as a hot dog,” said Petit, who was born in France and raised in New Mexico. 

The melting was causing issues and concerns for some mushers, especially as they made for the race’s halfway point, the ghost village of Iditarod. 

“It could be soft and punchy out there, and who knows how the hills are going into Iditarod,” Richie Diehl told the TV crew. “It could be big tussocks just like a couple of years ago, and it could be a brutal run, you know, with the rolling hills and possibly barren tundra.” Tussocks are clumps of grass. 

Rookie musher Bailey Vitello of New Hampshire was near last place Thursday, running his dogs in the rain during the day and having to deal with ice at night. 

He would rather not be behind and dealing with ripped-up trails. “The back-of-the-pack is the worst part of the trail,” he told the TV crew. 

Riley Dyche of Fairbanks took his 24-hour break before reaching Iditarod because he didn’t want to run his dogs in the heat of the day. That likely cost him either $3,000 in gold nuggets or a new smart phone, the prize given to the first musher at the halfway point. 

“I don’t think the little incentive prize — it would have been cool — but I don’t think it would have been a benefit to these guys for getting to the finish line,” he said, speaking of his dogs. 

Instead, that prize went to race leader Wade Marrs, who is originally from Alaska but now living in Wisconsin. He arrived in Iditarod about 1 a.m. Thursday. 

The good news for mushers is that as they continue west, temperatures will be more Alaska-like, highs around -12 degrees Celsius and lows below -17.78 degrees, Brettschneider said. 

The race started Sunday in Willow, just north of Anchorage. Mushers will take their dog teams over two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and the Bering Sea ice to the finish line in Nome. The winner is expected sometime early next week. 

 
…

A global shortage of semiconductor chips in the automotive industry starting in 2020 has motivated many countries to increase their domestic manufacturing. The United States has allocated more than $50 billion to promote semiconductor production and research stateside as the global need for the chips is expected to double over the next decade. Keith Kocinski has more from New York.
Camera: Keith Kocinski and Rendy Wicaksana
…

Robert Blake, the Emmy award-winning performer who went from acclaim for his acting to notoriety when he was tried and acquitted in the killing of his wife, died Thursday at age 89.

A statement released on behalf of his niece, Noreen Austin, said Blake died from heart disease, surrounded by family at home in Los Angeles.

Blake, the star of the 1970s TV show “Baretta,” had once hoped for a comeback, but he never recovered from the ordeal that began with the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside a Studio City restaurant on May 4, 2001. The story of their strange marriage, the child it produced, and its violent end was a Hollywood tragedy played out in court.

Once hailed as among the finest actors of his generation, Blake became better known as the center of a real-life murder trial, a story more bizarre than any in which he acted. Many remembered him not as the rugged, dark-haired star of “Baretta,” but as a spectral, white-haired murder defendant.

In a 2002 interview with The Associated Press, he was adamant that he had not killed his wife. A jury ultimately acquitted him, but a civil jury would find Blake liable for her death and order him to pay Bakley’s family $30 million, a judgment that sent him into bankruptcy. The daughter he and Bakley had together, Rose Lenore, was raised by other relatives and went for years without seeing Blake until they spoke in 2019. She would tell People magazine that she called him “Robert,” not “Dad.”

It was an ignominious finale for a life lived in the spotlight from childhood. As a youngster, he starred in the “Our Gang” comedies and acted in a movie classic, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” As an adult, he was praised for his portrayal of real-life murderer Perry Smith in the movie of Truman Capote’s true crime best seller “In Cold Blood.”

Blake’s career peaked with the 1975-78 TV cop series, “Baretta.” He starred as a detective who carried a pet cockatoo on his shoulder and was fond of disguises. It was typical of his specialty, portraying tough guys with soft hearts, and its signature line, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” was often quoted.

Blake won a 1975 Emmy for his portrayal of Tony Baretta, although behind the scenes the show was wracked by disputes involving the temperamental star. He gained a reputation as one of Hollywood’s finest actors, but one of the most difficult to work with. He later admitted to struggles with alcohol and drug addiction in his early life.

In 1993, Blake won another Emmy as the title character in “Judgment Day: The John List Story,” portraying a soft-spoken, churchgoing man who murdered his wife and three children.

Blake’s career had slowed down well before the trial. He made only a handful of screen appearances after the mid-1980s; his last project was in David Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” released in 1997. According to his niece, Blake had spent his recent years “enjoying jazz music, playing his guitar, reading poetry and watching many Hollywood classic films.”

Once a wealthy man, he wound up living on Social Security and a Screen Actor’s Guild pension.
…

After three nasty years, the La Nina weather phenomenon that increases Atlantic hurricane activity and worsens Western drought is gone, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Thursday.

That’s usually good news for the United States and other parts of the world, including drought-stricken northeast Africa, scientists said.

The globe is now in what’s considered a “neutral” condition and probably trending to an El Nino in late summer or fall, said climate scientist Michelle L’Heureux, head of NOAA’s El Nino/La Nina forecast office.

“It’s over,” said research scientist Azhar Ehsan, who heads Columbia University’s El Nino/La Nina forecasting. “Mother Nature thought to get rid of this one because it’s enough.”

Global impact

La Nina is a natural and temporary cooling of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide. In the United States, because La Nina is connected to more Atlantic storms and deeper droughts and wildfires in the West, La Ninas often are more damaging and expensive than their more famous flip side, El Nino, experts said, and studies show.

Generally, American agriculture is more damaged by La Nina than El Nino. If the globe jumps into El Nino, it means more rain for the Midwestern corn belt and grains in general and could be beneficial, said Michael Ferrari, chief scientific officer of Climate Alpha, a firm that advises investors on financial decisions based on climate.

When there’s a La Nina, there are more storms in the Atlantic during hurricane season because it removes conditions that suppress storm formation. Neutral or El Nino conditions make it harder for storms to get going, but not impossible, scientists said.

Over the last three years, the U.S. has been hit by 14 hurricanes and tropical storms that each caused $1 billion or more in damage, totaling $252 billion in costs, according to NOAA economist and meteorologist Adam Smith. La Nina and people building in harm’s way were factors, he said.

Influence of climate change

Climate change is a major factor in worsening extreme weather, alongside La Nina, scientists said and numerous studies and reports show. Human-caused warming is like an escalator going up – It makes temperatures increase and extremes worse – while La Nina and El Nino are like jumping up and down on the escalator, according to Northern Illinois University atmospheric sciences professor Victor Gensini.

La Nina has also slightly dampened global average temperatures, keeping warming from breaking annual temperature records, while El Nino slightly turbocharges those temperatures, often setting records, scientists said.

La Nina tends to make western Africa wet, but eastern Africa, around Somalia, dry. The opposite happens in El Nino, with drought-struck Somalia likely to get steady “short rains,” Ehsan said. La Nina has wetter conditions for Indonesia, parts of Australia and the Amazon, but those areas are drier in El Nino, according to NOAA.

El Nino means more heat waves for India and Pakistan and other parts of South Asia and weaker monsoons there, Ehsan said.

Signs that La Nina’s leaving

This particular La Nina, which started in September 2020 but is considered three years old because it affected three different winters, was unusual and one of the longest on record. It took a brief break in 2021 but came roaring back with record intensity.

“I’m sick of this La Nina,” Ehsan said. L’Heureux agreed, saying she’s ready to talk about something else.

The few other times that there’s been a triple-dip La Nina have come after strong El Ninos, and there’s clear physics on why that happens. But that’s not what happened with this La Nina, L’Heureux said. This one didn’t have a strong El Nino before it.

Even though this La Nina has confounded scientists in the past, they say the signs that it’s leaving are clear: Water in the key part of the central Pacific warmed to a bit more than the threshold for a La Nina in February, the atmosphere showed some changes, and along the eastern Pacific near Peru there’s already El Nino-like warming brewing on the coast, L’Heureux said.

Think of a La Nina or El Nino as something that pushes the weather system from the Pacific with ripple effects worldwide, L’Heureux said. When there are neutral conditions like now, there’s less push from the Pacific. That means other climatic factors, including the long-term warming trend, have more influence in day-to-day weather, she said.

Without an El Nino or La Nina, forecasters have a harder time predicting seasonal weather trends for summer or fall because the Pacific Ocean has such a big footprint in weeks-long forecasts.

El Nino forecasts made in the spring are generally less reliable than ones made at other times of year, so scientists are less sure about what will happen next, L’Heureux said. But NOAA’s forecast said there’s a 60% chance that El Nino will take charge come fall.

There’s also a 5% chance that La Nina will return for an unprecedented fourth dip. L’Heureux said she really doesn’t want that but the scientist in her would find that interesting.
…

The United States on Thursday announced more sanctions against people and firms associated with Iran and with what it said was an illicit banking network used to conceal transactions.

The U.S. said it placed the penalties on 39 firms linked to a shadow banking system that helped to obfuscate financial activity between sanctioned Iranian firms and their foreign buyers, namely for petrochemicals produced in Iran.

The Treasury Department said the companies — from Hong Kong to the United Arab Emirates — made up a “significant ‘shadow banking’ network” that gave cover to sanctioned Iranian entities to disguise petrochemical sales with foreign customers.

“Today’s action demonstrates the United States’ commitment to enforcing our sanctions and our ability to disrupt Iran’s foreign financial networks, which it uses to launder funds,” Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a written statement that the U.S. “will continue to disrupt attempts to evade U.S. sanctions.”

Also included in the Thursday announcement is a set of financial penalties on a China-based network of firms and one person accused of being responsible for the sale and shipment of thousands of drone components to Iran. 

Iran is accused of supplying Russia with drones that are used to bomb Ukrainian civilians as the Kremlin continues its invasion of Ukraine. 

Among other things, the sanctions deny the people and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and citizens from doing business with them. 

The sanctions come one day after Iranian prison officials and others were hit with sanctions over the treatment of young women and girls. 

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are high amid months of anti-government protests in Iran and Western anger at Iran’s export of attack drones to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. 
…

The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to block Washington’s Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022.

In a bipartisan vote of 81-14, lawmakers advanced the Republican-led resolution with 33 Democrats voting alongside every Republican and Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

The vote on the so-called resolution of disapproval came after the House of Representatives blocked the RCCA on February 9. The bill will now go to President Joe Biden, who has said he will sign the measure. Biden has been under increasing pressure from Republicans who have made reducing crime a political priority as he gears up for a likely announcement of his presidential reelection campaign in the coming months.

A congressional disapproval resolution has not succeeded in Washington in about three decades.

The Council of the District of Columbia passed the act in November, but Mayor Muriel Bowser vetoed it in January. She released a letter saying that while she supports 95% of the bill, she is concerned about certain aspects that would reduce maximum penalties for certain offenses.

“It’s more important to get this opportunity right than to add policies and weaken penalties into what should be a bill that makes D.C. safer,” she wrote.

The council overrode her veto 12-1 on January 17.

Bowser has since introduced the Revised Criminal Code Amendment Act of 2023, which would alter some policies in the original version. It would not take effect until 2027.

“This is our capital city. But local politicians have let its streets become a danger and an embarrassment,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.

In a statement released after Wednesday night’s vote, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said, “To overturn our local, democratically enacted laws — the product of 10+ years of collaboration between law enforcement, judges and policy experts — without any independent analysis, review or alternative proposal, is not only undemocratic, but also careless.”

The House delegate for the district, Eleanor Holmes Norton, released a statement Wednesday stating that she will continue working to persuade Biden to not sign the disapproval resolution.

“Even if President Biden signs the resolution and denies D.C. residents the very self-governance that he has claimed to support, this chapter of D.C.’s continuing fight for autonomy is, in itself, a powerful argument for the full rights that can only be provided by D.C. statehood,” she said.

“Statehood would give the nearly 700,000 residents of the nation’s capital voting representation in Congress and full local self-government, and would ensure that Congress and the Executive Branch will never again be able to overturn local D.C. laws. I will not stop until the job is done.”

What is the Revised Criminal Code Act?

The Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022 is a rewrite of the existing criminal code that has been in the works for 16 years. The current criminal code hasn’t been comprehensively updated since 1901, and the new law would not take effect until 2025.

The bill would lower penalties for offenses such as carjackings. The current sentence is from seven to 21 years, and 15 to 40 if armed. Under the revised code, carjacking is divided into three gradations depending on severity, with the lowest penalties for an unarmed offense running from four to 18 years and the highest penalties for an armed offense ranging from 12 to 24 years.

Many opponents of the bill are concerned that this will increase crime; however, the RCCA’s maximum sentence for armed carjacking is harsher than that of 15 states. The revised code also increases sentences for attempted murder, attempted sexual assault, misdemeanor sexual abuse and many other crimes.

Ward 5 Council Member Zachary Parker wrote in an email that he supports the legislation, saying, “Years of evidence-based research, dialogue, debate, public engagement and thoughtful improvements went into producing it. … I truly believe it will foster healthier communities by creating a more uniform penalty system, reducing sentencing disparities that fall hardest on Black men and their families.”

Black residents experience more aggressive and frequent policing by the Metropolitan Police Department. In 2020, a D.C. Council report showed Black people accounted for 88% of stops, 91% of arrests and 100% of use-of-force incidents in the district. As of January 2023, 90.3% of city inmates were Black, according to the Department of Corrections Facts and Figures report.

Although violent crime in the district decreased by 7% last year compared with 2021, homicides topped 200 for the second time in nearly two decades in 2022, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department.

As of March 2023, violent crime in the capital was down 9%, while property crime was up 31% compared with last year.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Editor’s note: Alice Albright, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, gave an interview to Carol Castiel of VOA’s English to Africa Service on the “Press Conference USA” radio program on March 7, 2023, at our Washington headquarters.

As efforts to strengthen U.S.-Africa relations are in motion with plans for several high-level delegations to visit the continent following the December 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Albright discusses the role of MCC in several African countries and the organization’s future goals. The following highlighted excerpts from their conversation have been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: How would you define the MCC’s unique mission and model?

Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO Alice Albright: MCC was created in 2004 with the intention of doing international aid in a somewhat different way. Our mission is to fight poverty through economic growth and our business model is quite distinctive.

We start with a very selective process for determining the countries with whom we work. There are essentially two pieces to that. One is whether or not a country is low-income enough. The second is whether or not a country passes what we call our “scorecard.” The scorecard measures three essential policy areas. One is: is a country managing its economy well; the second is whether a country is investing in its people. These are investments in health and education, for example. And the third is: whether or not a country is on a strong democratic pathway and trying to fight corruption.

Once a country gets through those two essential filters at the beginning, we then start working with countries to figure out jointly, as partners, what are the main challenges towards economic growth ahead of them. Finally, once we do a lot of design, evaluation and diagnostic work, we then deploy, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars of grant money. This is significant, particularly in the current environment, to help countries invest in their biggest challenge.

One of the things that also really distinguishes it is how much we put at the heart of what we call country ownership, which is working with the countries on the problems that they think are their priorities.

VOA: Let’s talk about your stewardship. What do you bring to the agency, what unique vision?

Albright: Well, first of all, it’s an enormous honor to be at the agency and it is an agency of incredibly talented people. I just happened to be lucky enough to be nominated and confirmed for the job. I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about being there.

The agency already does incredible work. Some of the things that we’re currently working on are, for example, our gender and inclusion strategy. Even though MCC has had a lot of experience in that area we decided that it was important to sort of step it up a bit.

We’re spending a lot of time on the question of climate change and the need for climate resilience.

We’re very concerned about the impact. As you know, many countries have experienced all kinds of dislocation and migration for various reasons. Even though we are not a humanitarian assistance agency, we see the impact on countries of all of the forms of fragility.

I bring, perhaps, a different lens on a couple of things. I used to work very happily in a wonderful education partnership. So, I’m always asking: “What are we doing about education?” But it’s a terrific place and it’s just a terrific honor to be able to lead it and work with all my wonderful colleagues there.

VOA: In terms of the major sectors in which you work, they seem to be more infrastructure oriented. Talk about the sectors in particular that you support.

Albright: This is one of the more interesting aspects of the model. Unlike many other aid agencies where either they are a single sector by design or perhaps there are a number of earmarks over their choice of sectors, we are not sector confined. We can work almost in any sector.

Now, if you look at the breadth of sectors that we do work on, there are some clear similarities. A lot of it is infrastructure, but we work with countries on what we call the basics: Do they have energy? Do they have a road transportation network? Do they have an agricultural system that is scalable? Do they have health? Do they have education? Do they have transportation? Do they have ports? And so those tend to be major impediments to a country’s growth pathway, which is why we end up working with them.

And I can give you some great examples to just really boil it down to specifics. I was just in Sierra Leone last week. We’ve come to realize that it is in major need of upgrade to its electricity network. There’s a significant part of the country that does not have any reach of electricity. They also have a very fragmented generation capacity that is very heavily reliant on diesel. Their transmission and distribution lines are very inadequate relative to where the population lives. I was in a village talking to community members about what is the impact on their life of not having electricity. They’re not able to get their businesses off the ground. The children are not able to do their homework at night. Babies are being delivered in some cases by flashlight. And so, lack of electricity in a country is a fundamental barrier.

We are in the process of helping them identify the particular gaps in their overall energy landscape that need to be invested in. We’re really studying those carefully with the government, and then, as we proceed, we will probably invest a significant amount of money to help them upgrade their energy network.

VOA: President Joe Biden is trying to increase engagement in Africa based on the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. How do you play a role in that?

Albright: The president and the administration have indicated significant interest in the continent. And the African Leaders Summit in December was a real success and a really very important moment in terms of continuing to foster strong relations on the continent. It was really an honor for MCC to be so involved in that.

We signed our first regional compact for just a little bit over $500 million that enabled us to help Benin and Niger build a road transportation network that will increase trade between Niamey down to Cotonou. And we also had a number of terrific meetings with heads of state. It was a really successful few days, I think, and we found it very, very valuable.

VOA: Africa wants to integrate through the creation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement. So, this regional type of compact that you just mentioned between Benin and Niger, that plays right into that overall goal of the continent.

Albright: Yes, it very much matches what the continent aspires for itself. When you talk to leaders, what you hear about is how interested they are in greater integration as a way of driving economic growth, and there’s all kinds of interesting statistics that compare the degree of regional trade with other parts of the world and there’s certainly room to grow.

Benin and Niger were the first one and we’re now looking forward to getting on with it in terms of the implementation. We are also working on a regional power integration compact. It will be essentially situated in Cote d’Ivoire and it will map the geographic footprint of the West African power pool. It will help bring greater investment to that power network, which is essential to the overall power availability in that part of the continent.

And then, just in December, our board approved a third regional compact, which will be initially situated in Senegal and some of its neighbors. But we’ve got to start the process by looking at what are the means of regional integration opportunities that could be in and around Senegal, and then we’ll go from there.

It’s an authority that is difficult to use, but very powerful and we’re very enthusiastic about using it. Not only on the continent, but you can also think about where it could have application elsewhere in the world.

This interview originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
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Touting reforms designed to protect Americans’ privacy, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that the number of times the FBI searched U.S. citizens’ information in a database of warrantless surveillance dropped by more than 93% in 2022.

“And that is not an aberration,” Wray said during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that compared with 2020 levels, the 2022 number was about 85% lower. 

The surveillance program, known as Section 702, allows U.S. spy agencies to collect foreigners’ online communications for intelligence purposes, but controversially, FBI analysts are also allowed to search Americans’ data “incidentally” collected under the program. Civil liberties advocates call the warrantless searches unconstitutional.

The program is set to expire at the end of the year, and Wray and other top intelligence officials urged lawmakers to reauthorize it. 

While Wray did not disclose the total number of searches the FBI conducted in 2022, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has reported that the FBI in 2021 ran nearly 3.4 million queries of individuals in the U.S. That suggests that the number of such queries in 2022 stood at a little more than 200,000. 

Critics say the warrantless searches infringe on Americans’ privacy and civil liberties. 

Reacting to Wray’s comments, Elizabeth Goitein, senior director for liberty and national security at the Brennan Center for Justice, tweeted that even with the sharp drop in the number of queries, “the FBI is conducting up to 559 warrantless searches for Americans’ phone calls, texts, and emails every day.”

But Wray said concerns over the FBI’s use of the data predate “important reforms” that the bureau has implemented in recent years “to make sure people are using the authority in a surgical and judicious way.”  

Among the reforms, he cited the creation of an internet audit office, changes to the bureau’s database system to prevent inadvertent searches, and new oversight and preapprovals.  

“We take very seriously our role as stewards of these authorities,” Wray said. 

Originally enacted in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been increasingly used by U.S. intelligence and security agencies to combat a range of new threats, officials say.

“It is hard to overestimate, frankly, the importance of this authority to our work across the board,” Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, told lawmakers. “FISA section 702 provides unique intelligence on foreign intelligence targets at a speed and reliability that we cannot replicate with any other authority.”

Wray said the FBI increasingly uses Section 702 to “protect American victims from malicious cyber actors.”

Section 702’s reauthorization faces an uphill battle in Congress, where a coalition of conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats are demanding major changes before greenlighting renewal.

Republican Senator Mike Lee said last week that there was “not a chance in hell we’re going to be reauthorizing [Section 702] without some major, major reforms.”

“Your department is not trusted, because it has been politicized,” Lee told Attorney General Merrick Garland during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, echoing a long-standing Republican accusation. 

Garland rejected the Republican charge. 

 
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