South Africa hosted the world’s biggest mining investment conference this week, with industry experts in attendance saying the U.S. and China are in a race for the critical minerals — such as cobalt and lithium — that will likely power the projected transition to clean energy.

African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have some of the largest deposits of these resources, but China currently dominates the supply chain as well as their refinement and the U.S. wants to reduce its reliance on the Asian giant.

In his remarks at the mining conference in Cape Town this week, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose Fernandez hinted at this saying, “I don’t need to remind you of what happens when the supply chain breaks down or when we depend on a single supplier. We lived it during the COVID pandemic, and this is a vulnerability that we need to solve together.”

Fernandez — who did not mention China by name — noted that electric vehicles are expected to command half the global market by 2030 and that demand for lithium is expected to increase 42-fold by 2040. China is responsible for some 80 percent of the world’s lithium refining.

Tony Carroll, the director of Acorus Capital and an international adviser to the conference known as the Africa Mining Indaba, told VOA the session came at a critical time for the West.

The Chinese made it a “priority to corner the market for critical minerals about two decades ago and supported that strategy with massive public diplomacy and infrastructure investments into Africa — most of which [came] via long-term debt. The West woke up to this strategy too late and have been scrambling ever since,” he said.

Rare earth minerals are essential for electric vehicle production and expanding the production of green technologies. However, their extraction can come at an environmental or social cost to African countries that have big deposits.

Fernandez echoed remarks made by Pope Francis on his recent trip to Congo denouncing “economic colonialism” in Africa, which could be seen as a swipe at Beijing. He also assured African countries the United States would respect “environmental, social, and governance standards.”

“While late to the game, the U.S. has awakened with more ambition in mining and processing and building alliances with like-minded partners,” said Carroll, who is also an adjunct professor in the African studies program at Johns Hopkins University.

A first-time sponsor of the Mining Indaba this year was Chinese company Zijin, one of the largest mining groups in the world with interests in lithium, copper and other metals.

Asked for comment by VOA on whether China is now in a race for rare earth metals with the U.S., as well as other questions about Chinese mining interests in Africa, the PR manager of South Africa Zijin Platinum said the CEO was unable to respond before the deadline for this article.

African governments are now trying to get the best deals for their people. Namibia’s Mines Minister Tom Alweendo told Reuters at the Cape Town conference that his country is insisting that all lithium mined in Namibia has to be processed in the country.

Similarly, DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, who was one of the key speakers at the mining conference, has been demanding better terms from China for several years. China sources the majority of its cobalt from DRC, which produces some 70 percent of the world’s total.

Despite its vast mineral resources, Congo is one of the world’s least developed countries and Tshisekedi said in January it hadn’t benefited from a $6.2 billion minerals-for-infrastructure contract with China signed by his predecessor.

“The Chinese, they’ve made a lot of money and made a lot of profit from this contract,” Tshisekedi told Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “The Democratic Republic of Congo has derived no benefit from it. There’s nothing tangible, no positive impact, I’d say, for our population.”

“Now our need is simply to re-balance things in a way that it becomes win-win,” he added.

There are signs Tshisekedi could be moving toward the West.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden organized the Minerals Security Partnership last year as a way of diversifying supply chains. Partners include Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the European Union. At its first meeting last year, the DRC was one of the non-partner nations in attendance.

Then at Biden’s U.S.-Africa Summit in December, the DRC and Zambia inked a deal with the U.S. to jointly develop the supply chain for electric vehicle batteries.

“Dependency on China for rare earths is viewed with alarm,” said Jay Truesdale, CEO of the risk advisory firm Veracity Worldwide, and a speaker at the Indaba. “Given that Beijing has the means to severely restrict access to these minerals, in the event of a geopolitical crisis it could choose to use its market dominance to cripple non-Chinese manufacturers in such sectors as electronics, automotive manufacturing, aerospace, and renewable energy.”

Besides the rising tensions between China and the West in Africa, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will also force mining companies to make hard decisions, Truesdale said.

“The war in Ukraine has placed greater scrutiny on Russian mining activities across the continent. Russia benefits from a lack of transparency and weak governance where its mining companies operate. African governments are now more closely observing how Moscow trades promises of greater security for deeper access to mineral resources and the state capture that can result,” he told VOA.
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Some American myths go all the way back to the nation’s founding. Like the one where, as a young boy, America’s first president, George Washington, felt compelled to tell the truth about taking a hatchet to his father’s cherry tree because he could not tell a lie.

“There are plenty of lies that are kind of white lies that have a positive spin,” says Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University. “And what’s the harm there? It teaches children the value of honesty.”

The real harm comes, Kruse says, when lies or myths impact U.S. government policy. Kruse and fellow Princeton historian Julian E. Zelizer put together a collection of essays for their book, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past.”

In the anthology, 20 mainly liberal historians take on what they see as conservative distortions of the history behind hot-button issues like border security, voter fraud, police brutality and the backlash against civil rights protests in the aftermath of the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, a Black man.

Glenda Gilmore of Yale University writes that a sanitized, somewhat one-dimensional image of civil rights activist Martin Luther King, leader of “good protests,” obscures his relevance to the Black Lives Matter protesters who took to the streets in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.

“[Martin Luther King, Jr.] was much more searing in his denunciations of capitalism [and] militarism,” Kruse says. “King has been shorn of all that controversy and complications, reduced to this non-offensive figure who simply stood up and said, ‘Well, racism is bad and everyone agrees.’

“As a result, that seals him off from any connection to the present. That example of the good civil rights protest is constantly held up in contrast to bad civil rights protests to shame people involved in Black Lives Matter for not being like King when, in fact, they’re actually a lot like King.”

Northwestern University historian Geraldo Cadava writes that Americans who are worried about policing the southern border with Mexico have “displaced anxieties about imperial and national decline, economic fragility, and demographic change.”

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a professor of history at The New School, challenges the notion that feminism embraces anti-family values by exploring how feminists have historically defended the traditional family.

Eric Rauchway, a history professor at the University of California, Davis, has studied the New Deal, a series of programs, financial reforms and regulations signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s to help America recover from the Great Depression. In the book, Rauchway challenges the assertion of some conservative politicians that the New Deal was ineffective.

“If we believe, wrongly, that the New Deal was a failure, that discourages us from any kind of economic action along that line. You constantly see historical tropes trotted out in ways that close off options. Our sense of what happened in the past deepens our understanding of what is possible in the future,” Kruse says.

“If we firmly believe that this kind of approach failed, or this got us nowhere, we’re much less likely to try it again. So we need to understand where we’ve been if we want to understand where we’re going to go.”

The book and its assertions have been dismissed by some conservatives who say the “highly partisan” analyses are hobbled by “leftist myths.”

An essay in the National Review suggests, “The book does not debunk any myths; it merely promulgates different, radically progressive ones.”

Writing for the American Institute for Economic Research, Michael J. Douma maintains that history is an ongoing discussion that historians often don’t agree on.

“When you see your opponents’ views as all lies, myths, and legends, it might say more about the way you engage your opposition than the content of their arguments,” writes Douma, who is an associate research professor at Georgetown University.

Kruse counters such criticism by asserting that he and his co-contributors are responding to the moment.

“I understand we live in an era in which there’s going to be a kind of a reflexive desire to create an equivalence on both sides right now.” Kruse says. “No. The real challenges to American history are coming from the right and so that’s where we directed our attention.”
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SpaceX is a big step closer to sending its giant Starship spacecraft into orbit, completing an engine-firing test at the launch pad on Thursday.

Thirty-one of the 33 first-stage booster engines ignited simultaneously for about 10 seconds in south Texas. The team turned off one engine before sending the firing command and another engine shut down _ “but still enough engines to reach orbit!” tweeted SpaceX’s Elon Musk.

Musk estimates Starship’s first orbital test flight could occur as soon as March, if the test analyses and remaining preparations go well.

The booster remained anchored to the pad as planned during the test. There were no signs of major damage to the launch tower.

NASA is counting on Starship to ferry astronauts to the surface of the moon in a few years, linking up with its Orion capsule in lunar orbit. Further down the road, Musk wants to use the mammoth Starships to send crowds to Mars.

Only the first-stage Super Heavy booster, standing 230 feet (69 meters) tall, was used for Thursday’s test. The futuristic second stage _ the part that will actually land on the moon and Mars _ was in the hangar being prepped for flight.

Altogether, Starship towers 394 feet (120 meters), making it the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. It’s capable of generating 17 million pounds of liftoff thrust, almost double that of NASA’s moon rocket that sent an empty capsule to the moon and back late last year.

SpaceX fired up to 14 Starship engines last fall and completed a fueling test at the pad last month.

Flocks of birds scattered as Starship’s engines came alive and sent thick dark plumes of smoke across the Starship launch complex, dubbed Starbase. It’s located at the southernmost tip of Texas near the village of Boca Chica, close to the Mexican border.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ effort to strip the Walt Disney Co. of its long-held right to self-govern the land where it has built a large complex of theme parks and hotels came closer to completion this week, as state legislators began the process of approving a bill that would finalize the changes.

The move is widely seen as an effort by DeSantis to punish the entertainment conglomerate for its public opposition, last year, to a state law limiting the degree to which schools can instruct students about issues related to sexual orientation or gender identity. The measure is commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

“This is obviously now going to be controlled by the state of Florida, which is no longer self-governing for them,” DeSantis said in a press conference Wednesday. “So, there’s a new sheriff in town and that’s just the way it’s going to be.”

Disney is widely expected to sue the state of Florida if the bill is passed and DeSantis signs it, meaning that the controversy could continue for some time.

New name, new government

The land that is the subject of the bill is called the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), a 101-square-kilometer region in Orange and Osceola counties that was created in 1967 at the request of Disney, which was laying plans for a new theme park there.

Since then, the company has built a complex of four theme parks, two water parks and dozens of hotels, restaurants and other entertainment venues that attract tens of millions of visitors every year and employ more than 75,000 people.

Since 1967, the RCID has been managed by a board, the members of which are appointed by Disney. The board has all the authorities that a county-level government would possess, including the ability to levy taxes and incur debt. It also manages police, fire and emergency services, roadways, the electrical and sewer systems, and handles an array of other responsibilities that a local government typically undertakes.

Crucially, the RCID was created to be exempt from numerous state regulations, including building codes and land use rules.

Under the bill moving through the legislature, the RCID would be renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. The board currently governing the RCID would be replaced by a five-person board, all members of which would be appointed by the governor.

Disney, however, would remain responsible for the debt taken on by the district, in the form of more than $1 billion in bonds. When legislators first proposed abolishing the RCID, some experts warned that the district’s debts would devolve onto the taxpayers of Orange and Osceola counties. The bill making its way through the House makes it clear that Disney, through taxes collected by the new governmental entity, will service the debt.

Future unclear

Whether the change in governance of the land on which the Disney theme parks operate will translate into actual changes at the company’s attractions remains unclear.

Richard Foglesong, an emeritus professor at Rollins College in Florida and author of the 2003 book Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando, told VOA that DeSantis and his fellow Republicans in the legislature have not articulated a plan to change the way Disney operates in the state, primarily because the impetus behind the change had little to do with the theme parks themselves.

“This started because the governor wanted to punish Disney for coming out against his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ legislation,” Foglesong said. “It didn’t start with complaints about how Disney was using its special powers.”

Foglesong said that whether the board will attempt to reach into the day-to-day operations of the park will have much to do with the composition of the board that DeSantis appoints.

One factor raising some concern, he said, is a provision in the proposed bill that would bar anyone who has worked in the theme park industry or the entertainment industry more broadly within the past three years from serving on the new board.

“That raises the question whether the board is going to have the expertise to run the park,” he said. “But it also raises the question of whether they’re going to continue the culture war against Disney.”

War on ‘woke’

DeSantis is widely expected to run for president, perhaps challenging former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, in 2024. His fight against Disney is just one example of his battle against what he describes as “woke ideology,” which he has been using to raise his profile on the national stage.

There is no clear definition of “woke ideology,” but DeSantis has used the term to attack academic programs that advocate broad acceptance of LGBTQ people and those who teach that there is a problem of systemic racism in the U.S. He has accused the latter of teaching young people to “hate America” and of wrongly forcing white children to feel guilt for historic wrongs, such as slavery.

While many progressives see the furor surrounding “woke ideology” as engineered by social conservatives for political gain, DeSantis supporters are backing the governor’s stance against Disney wholeheartedly.

“Disney executives thought they could go into political overdrive with no repercussions. But they were wrong and Disney has been losing to Ron DeSantis ever since,” Gabriel Llanes, executive director of Ready for Ron, a political action committee backing DeSantis for president, said in a statement emailed to VOA.

“As long as Disney tries to play the ‘woke’ game, DeSantis should strip the company of any special privileges it once had and stand up for the tens of millions of Floridians who are sick and tired of woke politics,” Llanes wrote. “While corporate elites pander to the radical Left, DeSantis continues to be a conservative champion of the people.”

In a statement issued to the media, Disney World President Jeff Vahle said, “We are monitoring the progression of the draft legislation, which is complex given the long history of the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

“Disney works under a number of different models and jurisdictions around the world, and regardless of the outcome, we remain committed to providing the highest-quality experience for the millions of guests who visit each year,” Vahle said.

Opposing voice in Legislature

State Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat whose legislative district includes the area around Walt Disney World, has been a vocal critic of DeSantis’ battle with the entertainment conglomerate, accusing the governor of launching a “power grab.”

Eskamani offered several amendments to the bill moving through the Florida House, all of which are likely to fail. One would expand the board overseeing the district to make three local mayors and one local county official ex officio members.

She also offered an amendment to change the new name of the district from the proposed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District to “Florida’s Attempt to Silence Critical and Independent Speech and Thought,” which would carry the acronym “FASCIST.”
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The tea tasted bitter and earthy, but Lorenzo Gonzales drank it anyway. On that night in remote Utah, he was hoping for a life-changing experience, which is how he found himself inside a tent with two dozen others waiting for the psychedelic brew known as ayahuasca to kick in.

Soon, the gentle sounds of a guitar were drowned out by people vomiting — a common downside of the drug.

Gonzales started howling, sobbing, laughing and repeatedly babbling. Facilitators from Hummingbird Church placed him face down, calming him momentarily before he started laughing again and crawling.

“I seen these dark veins come up in this big red light, and then I seen this image of the devil,” Gonzales said later. He had quieted only when his wife, Flor, touched his shoulder and prayed.

His journey to this town along the Arizona-Utah border is part of a growing global trend of people turning to ayahuasca to treat an array of health problems after conventional medications and therapy failed. Their problems include eating disorders, depression, substance use disorders and PTSD.

The rising demand for ayahuasca has led to hundreds of churches like this one, which advocates say are protected from prosecution by a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In that case, a New Mexico branch of a Brazilian-based ayahuasca church won the right to use the drug as a sacrament — even though its active ingredient remains illegal under U.S. federal law. A subsequent lower court decision ruled Oregon branches of a different ayahuasca church could use it.

“In every major city in the United States, every weekend, there’s multiple ayahuasca ceremonies,” said Sean McAllister, who represents an Arizona church in a lawsuit against the federal government after its ayahuasca from Peru was seized at the port of Los Angeles.

The pro-psychedelics movement’s growth has sparked concerns of a government crackdown. In addition to ayahuasca shipments being seized, some churches stopped operating over fears of prosecution. There are also concerns these unregulated ceremonies might pose a danger for some participants and that the benefits of ayahuasca haven’t been well studied.

It was dark as the Hummingbird ceremony began on a Friday night in October, except for flickering candles and the orange glow of heaters. Psychedelic art hung from the walls; statues of the Virgin Mary and Mother Earth were positioned near a makeshift altar.

Participants sat in silence, waiting for Taita Pedro Davila, the Colombian shaman and traditional healer who oversaw the ceremony.

A mix of military veterans, corporate executives, thrill seekers, ex-members of a polygamous sect and a man who struck it rich on a game show had turned up for the $900 weekend. Many appeared apprehensive yet giddy to begin the first of three ceremonies.

The brew contains an Amazon rainforest shrub with the active ingredient N, N-Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, and a vine containing alkaloids that prevents the drug from breaking down in the body.

Those who drink ayahuasca report seeing shapes and colors and going on wild, sometimes terrifying journeys that can last hours. In this dreamlike state, some say they encounter dead relatives, friends and spirits.

“You were invited for a weekend of healing,” Davila told the group, before people lined up for their tea.

Locking eyes with each participant, Davila uttered a prayer over the cups before blowing on them with a whistling sound and handing them over to drink.

Gonzales and his wife, Flor, were among the ayahuasca newcomers.

They had driven from California, hoping for relief for 50-year-old Gonzales. He’d battled drug addiction for much of his life, was suffering the effects of COVID-19 and had been diagnosed with early stage dementia.

“My poor body is dying and I don’t want it to die,” said Gonzales, who rarely sleeps and is prone to fits of anger.

Maeleene Jessop was also a newcomer but grew up in Hildale, the Utah town where the ceremony was held. She is a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, a polygamist offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Hildale was the group’s stronghold. The ceremony was held in a tent on the grounds of a house once owned by a former FLDS member.

Jessop, 35, left the church after its leader, Warren Jeffs, was arrested for sexually assaulting girls he considered brides. He is serving a life sentence in federal prison. Jessop has struggled to adapt to her new life, battling depression and haunted by the physical and sexual abuse she endured as a child.

The roots of ayahuasca go back hundreds of years to ceremonial use by Indigenous groups in the Amazon. In the past century, churches have emerged in several South American countries where ayahuasca is legal.

The movement found a foothold in the United States in the 1980s and interest has intensified more recently as celebrities like NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Hollywood actor Will Smit h talked about attending ceremonies.

Some spend thousands of dollars to attend five-star ayahuasca retreats in the Amazon. But in the U.S., the movement remains largely underground, promoted by social media and word of mouth, with ceremonies held in supporters’ homes, Airbnb rentals and remote areas to avoid law enforcement scrutiny.

Like many of these, Hummingbird won’t be mistaken for a traditional Western church.

It has no written text and relies primarily on Davila’s prayers, chants and songs to guide participants through the ceremony. Davila follows traditions learned from his grandfather.

Courtney Close, Hummingbird’s founder who credits ayahuasca with helping her overcome cocaine addiction and postpartum depression, believes the designation as a church helps show that participants are “doing this for religious reasons.” But when it comes to defining it as a religion, Close stressed that depends on individual participants’ experience.

“We just try to create a spiritual experience without any dogma and just let people experience God for themselves,” she said.

Back in California, Flor Gonzales is convinced ayahuasca is behind her husband’s improvement. “I just feel like we have a future,” she said.
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During the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, millions of people adopted dogs for comfort and companionship, and because they had the time to care for them at home since they were not commuting to work.

As many companies reopen to a hybrid work schedule — allowing their employees to work both at home and in the office — many pet owners want to keep their canine companions nearby and are taking them to work.

“Our pets are becoming our families, and it makes sense they should come to work with us,” said Steve Weinrauch, chief veterinarian at Trupanion, a pet insurance provider based in Seattle.

“It’s really important to me to be able to bring my dogs to the office,” said Diana Cross, partner support manager at Trupanion. “I love having both of them here, so I can pet them and play with them.”

Trupanion, like some other companies, allows well-behaved dogs to join their owners at the office during the workday. Trupanion was even doing that before the pandemic.

“As we go back into the office environment, the dogs are helping people adjust,” said Bridger McGaw, executive director of global security and services at athenahealth, an electronic medical records software company near Boston. He told VOA that pets are also beneficial to the company because they help build camaraderie and people are more engaged at meetings when the pets are there.

Helping to improve morale

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, began its Dogs at Work program more than 25 years ago at its headquarters in Seattle. Today, some 10,000 dogs are registered at more than 140 Amazon buildings, according to Amy Neumeister, global services senior manager.

Having pets in the office helps with “morale and engagement at work and provides emotional support from bringing your best four-legged friend to work,” she told VOA.

They also bring joy to colleagues who may not have a dog.

“It brings smiles to people’s faces when they see a dog rolling around or chasing its tail,” said Weinrauch.

“During meetings, folks will drop in to see the dogs and get a cuddle, and I think that’s important in the workplace,” McGaw said. He noted the company even hosts “yappy hours” — a happy hour for employees and pets— which includes special dog treats.

Lorelei Pate, a program manager at Amazon’s Herndon, Virginia office, said she will be bringing in her dog soon. “After working remotely and then returning to the office part of the time, this will help maintain the balance between my work and personal life.”

Social benefits

Having a dog in the office can also be an ice breaker.

“It’s been awesome bringing in my green-eyed Labrador named Pistachio,” said Logan Cunningham, a senior financial analyst at Amazon’s second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. “As a newer employee, Pistachio has allowed me to meet a ton of new people since dogs are usually a great conversation starter.”

“I have met people at work who I didn’t know because they came up to me and said they would like to pet my dog, Chai, an adopted pit bull, who wears a pearl necklace,” said Molly McLaughlin Soha, a senior marketing associate for athenahealth.

Health benefits as well

Studies have shown that pets can improve mental and physical health by reducing loneliness, relieving anxiety and lowering blood pressure.

A study by Virginia Commonwealth University found that employees who brought their dogs to work experienced less stress during their workday and had a higher level of job satisfaction.

“My dogs bring me comfort, especially if I’m having a hectic day with a lot of phone calls or meetings,” Trupanion’s Cross told VOA. “Taking a few minutes to snuggle or play fetch with them is really relaxing.”

“The animals offer real value to athenahealth,” McGaw said, “by lowering the stress in the office and helping people to really connect with each other.”

Keeping employees

Having dogs in the office may also encourage employees to stay at their workplace.

A recent survey by Rover.com found that 75% of dog owners said they were more likely to remain with an employer that lets them bring their pet to work.

Amazon’s Cunningham said being able to bring a dog to the office “was a big selling point” when she accepted her position. She said it’s been nice making friends with some colleagues who take a break from their work to play with her dog.

McGaw at athenahealth is encouraging other companies to consider allowing dogs at work.

“I think it helps with the recruitment and retention of employees and provides a valuable benefit for employees with the care of their pets,” he said.
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The White Lotus actress Jennifer Coolidge is being celebrated Saturday as the 2023 Woman of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

As the oldest theatrical organization in the nation and one of the oldest in the world, since 1951, Hasty Pudding Theatricals has bestowed this award annually on women “who have made lasting and impressive contributions to the world of entertainment.”

Coolidge, who saw a career resurgence following her Emmy-winning turn as Tanya McQuoid-Hunt in the acclaimed HBO series The White Lotus, headlined a parade through the streets of Cambridge Saturday afternoon. Dressed in a leopard print coat and donning a fluffy pink hat, she waved to the crowd that had come out despite unusually frigid temperatures.

Coolidge, who also played Stifler’s sultry mom in American Pie and sage manicurist Paulette in the Legally Blonde movies, grew up in the Boston area. Later in the evening, she will attend a roast where she will be presented with her Pudding Pot award.

“It is an absolute dream for us to honor Jennifer Coolidge as our Woman of the Year on the heels of her recent accolades for The White Lotus,” Producer Sarah Mann said in a statement. “We know our Pudding Pot will look phenomenal alongside her new Golden Globe, and we swear we won’t whisk her away to a palazzo in Palermo!”

Her other film credits include roles in Best In Show, A Mighty Wind and Shotgun Wedding, and she has appeared in multiple television shows, including Seinfeld, 2 Broke Girls and Nip/Tuck.

Previous winners of the Woman of the Year Award include Meryl Streep, Viola Davis and Debbie Reynolds.

On Thursday, award-winning actor and bestselling author Bob Odenkirk was honored as the 2023 Man of the Year. Odenkirk, best known as shady lawyer Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, received his Pudding Pot award at the celebratory roast ahead of a preview of Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 174th production, COSMIC RELIEF!
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Grounded in sand bars, adrift in the sea or washed onto private beaches, the boats keep piling up: rafts made from Styrofoam, sailboats, hollowed-out drums attached to ironing boards.

Four months ago, Hurricane Ian turned boardwalks into piles of debris and moved boats miles from where they had been docked. Hurricane Nicole arrived on the east coast one month later to shake loose what Ian had not.

With the hurricanes, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the agency in charge of tracking down abandoned or derelict vessels, already had its hands full.

Now, however, the vessels left behind by migrants intercepted along Florida’s shores have become the latest emergency undertaking by the FWC, part of a new effort by the state government to assist local municipalities and private citizens who can’t afford to haul off the boats themselves but are often the ones left to deal with them.

The boats have become physical reminders of the immigration crisis, often more difficult to remove from the state’s borders than the occupants themselves.

They are rarely salvageable.

Most migrant vessels are already in such poor condition that the Coast Guard has to rescue those on board from drowning, according to Petty Officer Nicole Groll, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard’s Seventh District.

“We say rescue and save lives, we mean rescue and save lives,” Groll said. “We usually get them as they’re bailing water.”

A look at the numbers

At the end of June, prior to Hurricanes Ian and Nicole, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported more than 400 active abandoned or derelict vessel cases.

As of January, the total number of active cases in the FWC’s derelict vessel database surpasses 1,000. That doesn’t account for the hundreds of derelict vessels that FWC had already identified and removed during hurricane recovery efforts over the course of the last six months.

It is unclear what percentage of current cases are migrant vessels, though many recent cases in the database are listed with unknown registration numbers or do not have a registration number at all.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management announced on Jan. 13 that it had removed 40 migrant vessels in the Florida Keys and identified another 250 for removal. FWC removes more derelict vessels from Monroe County, where the Keys are located, each year than any other area of the state, the agency said in 2022.

The number of migrants attempting to reach Florida by boat has skyrocketed in the past year. The Coast Guard interdicted over 6,000 Cubans and over 7,000 Haitians in 2022 compared to over 800 Cubans and over 1,500 Haitians in 2021. The agency does not have numbers on the number of vessels it encounters.

What happens to migrant vessels?

The fate of an abandoned vessel depends on where it washes up, if it does at all.

Two weeks ago, if a boat landed on your front yard in Florida, you would have to remove it yourself and foot the bill.

That is still the case, unless the vessel is a migrant vessel. On Jan. 11, days after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order mobilizing the Florida National Guard in response to the surge of migrants arriving on Florida’s shores, the Florida Division of Emergency Management announced in a tweet that the state would now handle abandoned migrant vessels on private property.

“Abandoned vessels under Mass Migration EO 23-03 are not your problem,” the tweet read, referring to the order. “If an abandoned vessel lands on your property, you are not responsible for its removal. The state will remove these vessels for you free of charge.”

The state’s announcement came one day after WSVN reported that residents of a home in Key Colony Beach had discovered an abandoned vessel docked on their property that they had to pay thousands of dollars to remove, the result of a state law that declares the finder of an abandoned vessel on private property responsible for its removal.

“For a vessel in public waters, any authorized, jurisdictional agency has the legal authority to follow protocol for the vessel’s ultimate disposal,” read a letter City of Key Colony Beach sent to residents, dated Jan. 5, six days before the state’s announcement. “This does not change a property owner’s responsibility with regard to derelict vessels on private property.”

On Jan. 12, the day after the state’s announcement, the city sent out another letter.

“As of the governor declaring a state of emergency the following program has been put into place,” the letter read, attaching a picture of the Jan. 11 tweet.

A costly, complicated process

Removing abandoned or derelict vessels on public land can be a lengthy, expensive process involving multiple jurisdictions on both state and federal levels.

Florida Fish and Wildlife, the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, local city and county governments and private citizens can all be on the hook for handling abandoned or derelict boats.

“The FWC, City, County and other Municipal Governments work together to hire marine contractors to perform removal, destruction and disposal work,” said Ashlee Sklute, a spokesperson for the FWC. “Per Florida statute, vessels that have been rendered derelict must be destroyed and taken to a landfill.”

Migrant boats are often in derelict condition, but they don’t always make it to a landfill.

The Coast Guard is often the first agency to respond, handling all incidents that occur in the water before migrants set foot on shore. After Coast Guard crews interdict migrants at sea and return them to their country of origin, some of the vessels remain, indefinitely, in the ocean.

The Coast Guard destroys what it can and leaves what it cannot, according to Petty Officer Groll.

Vessels made of Styrofoam, for example, cannot be destroyed without harming the environment, Groll said. Crews will also make sure that all the gasoline is off a boat before leaving it.

“We do our best to take care of it then and there,” Groll said. “We try to destroy it if we can destroy it. If we can’t, they’re left adrift, and we mark it so people know it’s not in distress.”

Some vessels wash ashore and become part of the landscape.

For example, Coast Guard crews interdicted an overloaded sailboat carrying hundreds of Haitian migrants off Ocean Reef, a private club in Key Largo, in August. The Coast Guard repatriated many of the occupants, while Customs and Border Patrol took those who made it to shore into custody.

The sailboat itself ran aground, where it remains, Groll said, on a “more permanent sandbar-type situation.”

Many derelict vessels with and without registration numbers have stayed in “under investigation” or “pending removal” status for months, even years, in the FWC database. Part of the delay is due to the fact that authorities must conduct monthslong investigations to identify the owner of the vessel before they remove it, though this does not apply to migrant vessels.

Sklute, the FWC spokesperson, did not say whether the agency is prioritizing the removal of migrant vessels over other boats.

Vessels also often require “special salvage techniques,” said Sarah Ladshaw, the Southeast Regional Coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which helps fund vessel removal projects. The complexity of removing the boat depends on the habitat in which it is found. Sometimes agencies need permits before they can begin the work.

“If they’re impacting natural resources that are important, there are special techniques to do as little harm as possible,” Ladshaw said.

Some boats can simply be tied and floated out, she said. Others that have sunken have to be raised and drained, and divers may have to get involved.

Cost of removal

The cost of removing a single vessel can reach the tens of thousands, Ladshaw said, depending on the boat’s location and condition. The state of Florida has ramped up its spending on the removals, allocating over $8 million in 2022, a $5 million increase from 2021.

Right now, the money for the new migrant vessel removal operation comes from the Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund, according to Marnie Villanueva, a spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The fund was established in 2022 as a source of readily available money that DeSantis can use on declared emergencies without approval from the Legislative Budget Commission.

Much of that money has gone to restoration after Hurricane Ian. The Florida Division of Emergency Management announced on Jan. 19 that it had committed more than $500 million to recovery efforts.

It is unclear how much money remains in the fund or how much has been specifically allocated towards vessel removals. The Florida Division of Emergency Management has not yet provided that information to the Sun Sentinel newspaper.
…

Union members voted down a contract proposal covering tens of thousands of Walt Disney World service workers, saying it didn’t go far enough toward helping employees face cost-of-living hikes in housing and other expenses in central Florida.

The unions said that 13,650 out of 14,263 members who voted on the contract Friday rejected the proposal from Disney, sending negotiators back to the bargaining table for another round of talks that have been ongoing since August. The contract covers around 45,000 service workers at the Disney theme park resort outside Orlando, Florida.

Disney World service workers who are in the six unions that make up the Service Trades Council Union coalition had been demanding a starting minimum wage jump to at least $18 an hour in the first year of the contract, up from the starting minimum wage of $15 an hour won in the previous contract.

The proposal rejected Friday would have raised the starting minimum wage to $20 an hour for all service workers by the last year of the five-year contract, an increase of $1 each year for a majority of the workers it covered. Certain positions, like housekeepers, bus drivers and culinary jobs, would start immediately at a minimum of $20 under the proposal.

“Housekeepers work extremely hard to bring the magic to Disney, but we can’t pay our bills with magic,” said Vilane Raphael, who works as a housekeeper at the Disney Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa.

The company said that the proposal had offered a quarter of those covered by the contract an hourly wage of $20 in its first year, eight weeks of paid time off for a new child, maintenance of a pension, and the introduction of a 401K plan.

“Our strong offer provides more than 30,000 Cast Members a nearly 10% on average raise immediately, as well as retroactive increased pay in their paychecks, and we are disappointed that those increases are now delayed,” Disney spokesperson Andrea Finger said in a statement.

The contract stalemate comes as the Florida Legislature is prepared to convene next week to complete a state takeover of Disney World’s self-governing district. With the support of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the Republican-controlled legislature last April approved legislation to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District by June 2023, beginning a closely watched process that would determine the structure of government that controls Disney World’s sprawling property.

The contract with the service workers covers the costumed character performers who perform as Mickey Mouse — as well as bus drivers, culinary workers, lifeguards, theatrical workers and hotel housekeepers — representing more than half of the 70,000-plus workforce at Disney World. The contract approved five years ago made Disney the first major employer in central Florida to agree to a minimum hourly wage of $15, setting the trend for other workers in the hospitality industry-heavy region.

A report commissioned last year by one of the unions in the coalition, Unite Here Local 737, said that an adult worker with no dependents would need to earn $18.19 an hour to make a living wage in central Florida, while a family with two children would need both parents earning $23.91 an hour for a living wage.

While a wage of $15 an hour was enough for the last contract, “with skyrocketing rent, food, and gas prices in the last three years, it’s no longer possible to survive with those wages,” the report said.

With inflation causing the price of food and gas to shoot up, an employee earning $15 an hour full time currently makes $530 less than the worker would need for rent, food and gas each month, the report said.

Last month, food service and concessions workers at the Orange County Convention Center voted to approve a contract that will increase all non-tipped workers’ wages to $18 an hour by August, making them the first hospitality workers in Orlando to reach that pay rate.
…

A train derailment and resulting large fire prompted an evacuation order and a declaration of a state of emergency in an Ohio village near the Pennsylvania state line, covering the area in billows of smoke lit orange by the flames below.

About 50 cars derailed in East Palestine as a train was carrying a variety of freight from Madison, Illinois, to Conway, Pennsylvania, rail operator Norfolk Southern said in a statement Saturday. There was no immediate information about what caused the derailment. No injuries were reported.

Mayor Trent Conaway of the village of East Palestine declared a state of emergency, citing a “train derailment with hazardous materials.” Air quality was being monitored throughout a one-mile zone ordered evacuated and there had been no dangerous readings to report, he said.

Norfolk Southern said the train was carrying more than 100 cars, 20 of which were classified as carrying hazardous materials, defined as cargo that could pose any kind of danger “including flammables, combustibles, or environmental risks.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday that it was “launching a go-team to investigate” the derailment, and board member Michael Graham would “serve as spokesperson on scene.”

Firefighters had been pulled from the immediate area and unmanned stream devices are being used protectively while crews try to determine which cars were still actively burning, village officials said in a separate statement Saturday that warned residents that they might hear more explosions as the fire burns.

A high school and community center were opened to shelter dozens of people, while residents beyond that radius were urged to stay inside. The few dozen residents sheltering at the high school included Ann McAnlis, who said a neighbor had texted her about the crash.

“She took a picture of the glow in the sky from the front porch,” McAnlis told WFMJ-TV. “That’s when I knew how substantial this was.”

Conaway said firefighters from three states responded. The derailment happened about 82 kilometers northwest of Pittsburgh and within 32 kilometers of the tip of West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. Freezing temperatures in the single digits complicated the response as water being pumped from trucks froze, he said.

Norfolk Southern said it has personnel on-site coordinating with first responders. The fire created so much smoke that meteorologists from the region said it was visible on weather radar.
…

The Biden administration is considering a plan to shoot down a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on the U.S. military by bringing it down once it is above the Atlantic Ocean where the remnants could potentially be recovered, according to four U.S. officials.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation, said it was unclear whether a final decision had been made by President Joe Biden. In a brief remark Saturday in response to a reporter’s question about the balloon, Biden said: “We’re going to take care of it.”

The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the Atlantic coast.

Biden had been inclined to down the balloon over land when he was first briefed on it Tuesday, but Pentagon officials advised against it, warning that the potential risk to people on the ground outweighed the assessment of potential Chinese intelligence gains.

The public disclosure of the balloon this week prompted the cancellation of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing scheduled for Sunday for talks aimed at reducing U.S.-China tensions. The Chinese government Saturday sought to play down the cancellation.

“In actuality, the U.S. and China have never announced any visit, the U.S. making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday morning.

China has continued to claim that the balloon was merely a weather research “airship” that had been blown off course. The Pentagon rejected that out of hand — as well as China’s contention that it was not being used for surveillance and had only limited navigational ability.

The balloon was spotted over Montana, which is home to one of America’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base.

Meanwhile, people with binoculars and telephoto lenses tried to find the “spy balloon” in the sky as it headed southeastward over Kansas and Missouri at 60,000 feet (18,300 meters).

The Pentagon also acknowledged reports of a second balloon flying over Latin America. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Brigadier General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a question about the second balloon.

Blinken, who had been due to depart Washington for Beijing late Friday, said he had told senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call that sending the balloon over the U.S. was “an irresponsible act and that (China’s) decision to take this action on the eve of my visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.”

Uncensored reactions on the Chinese internet mirrored the official government stance that the U.S. was hyping the situation.

Many users made jokes about the balloon. Some said that since the U.S. had put restrictions on the technology that China is able to buy to weaken the Chinese tech industry, they couldn’t control the balloon.

Others called it the “wandering balloon” in a pun that refers to the newly released Chinese sci-fi film called “The Wandering Earth 2.” In a sign of censorship, the “wandering balloon” hashtag on Weibo was no longer searchable by Saturday evening.

Still others used it as a chance to poke fun at U.S. defenses, saying it couldn’t even defend against a balloon, and nationalist influencers leapt to use the news to mock the U.S.

“The U.S. is hyping this as a national security threat posed by China to the U.S. This type of military threat, in actuality, we haven’t done this. And compared with the U.S. military threat normally aimed at us, can you say it’s just little? Their surveillance planes, their submarines, their naval ships are all coming near our borders,” Chinese military expert Chen Haoyang of the Taihe Institute said on Phoenix TV, one of the major national TV outlets.

China has denied any claims of spying and said it is a civilian-use balloon intended for meteorology research.

On Saturday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs again emphasized that the balloon’s journey was out of its control and urged the U.S. not to “smear” it based on the balloon.

Wang said China “has always strictly followed international law, we do not accept any groundless speculation and hype. Faced with unexpected situations, both parties need to keep calm, communicate in a timely manner, avoid misjudgments and manage differences.”

Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, said China’s apology did not appear sincere.

“In the meantime, the relationship will not improve in the near future … the gap is huge.”
…

South Korea’s top nuclear envoy said an agreement with the United States to jointly bolster “extended deterrence” against North Korea gives the Yoon administration needed confidence that the alliance will be able to effectively defend against aggression from Pyongyang.

The U.S. commitment, laid out in a joint statement by the two countries in mid-September, includes an affirmation that a North Korean nuclear test “would be met with an overwhelming and decisive response.”

It adds that the two countries will “continue and strengthen close Alliance consultation regarding U.S. nuclear and missile defense policy.”

Kim Gunn, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, reiterated a recent statement by South Korean President Yoon Suk on the matter during a Friday interview with Washington Talk, a weekly on-air discussion on North Korea by the VOA Korean Service.

“In his recent interview, my president made it very clear that we have confidence in the U.S. extended deterrence,” he said. “We are having a very close coordination [with the U.S.] on how to strengthen the effectiveness of our extended deterrence.”

On January 11, Yoon received widespread attention with a suggestion that Seoul could respond to the North Korean nuclear threat by building its own nuclear weapons or having U.S. strategic assets redeployed to South Korea.

His remarks came amid growing concern among the South Koreans over the U.S. commitment to defend their nation against growing North Korean threats. But Kim Gunn said on Washington Talk that the alliance’s focus on bolstering the extended deterrence should allay the public concern.

Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for North Korea, who appeared on the show with Kim Gunn, also seemed to play down speculation that South Korea is contemplating the development of its own nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.

“President Yoon has made clear that the ROK is not interested in pursuing a WMD program but is instead working very closely with us in all levels to make sure that our defense and deterrence are as strong as it needs to be,” he said.

The ROK stands for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.

The U.S. envoy continued, “That includes engaging in a very serious dialogue about how we strengthen extended deterrence, including things like looking at the frequency and intensity of U.S. strategic deployments on the peninsula.”

Bolstering extended deterrence

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup agreed at their meeting on January 31 in Seoul to boost deterrence measures including ways to expand information sharing and to respond to North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons through tabletop exercises scheduled for later this month.

The U.S. conducted joint military drills with South Korea on February 1 involving U.S. B-1B long-range strategic bombers and stealth fighters as a show of force to provide “credible extended deterrence against North Korea,” according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry.

In response, North Korea released a statement Thursday saying the combined drills have “reached an extreme red-line.” It vowed to “take the toughest reaction to any military attempt of the U.S. on the principle of ‘nuke for nuke and an all-out confrontation for an all-out confrontation.’”

At the same time, Pyongyang rejected any prospects for dialogue.

North Korea launched more then 90 ballistic and cruise missiles last year, including several intercontinental ballistic missiles. In September, it codified into its law the right to use nuclear weapons preemptively against threats it perceives as imminent.

Diplomatic outreach

Both envoys said North Korea largely dismissed calls by their nations for talks despite efforts made to engage Pyongyang.

Sung Kim said, “I can assure you that we have sent multiple messages to Pyongyang through various channels, including the New York channel.” The New York channel is the Permanent Mission of North Korea to the United Nations.

He continued, “Unfortunately, North Koreans have shown no interest in diplomatic engagement with us, but we will continue to remind them that our position has not changed, that we are, in fact, willing to engage in dialogue with them without preconditions.”

Kim Gunn said, “I think it’s obvious North Korea does not heed our call for dialogue.”

Despite Pyongyang’s lack of interest in engaging in talks, both envoys said the policy of Washington and Seoul to seek North Korea’s denuclearization has not changed.

When asked if he believes denuclearization is possible without changing the regime headed by Kim Jong Un, Sung Kim said yes. “We believe so.”

He continued, “That’s why our aim remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

China and Russia

Sung Kim, who also serves as the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, said China and Russia have said they share the goal of denuclearization, but he emphasized that neither has made commitments toward that goal.

“They have a responsibility to faithfully implement U.N. Security Council resolutions,” he said. “And we have seen a lot of information suggesting that both Russia and China are helping the DPRK evade sanctions.”

North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

China and Russia blocked on May 26 a U.N. Security Council resolution drafted by the U.S. calling for strengthened sanctions on North Korea in response to its renewed ballistic missile tests, including an ICBM launched the previous day.

Again, on November 4, China and Russia blocked a U.N. action on North Korea by providing Pyongyang with “blanket protection,” according to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield. The remarks came a day after North Korea launched an ICBM, which apparently failed.

Kim Gunn stressed the importance of China’s role in persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal.

Despite China’s increasingly assertive role in the region, a South Korean Indo-Pacific Strategy released in December described China as “a key partner.” Asked during the Washington Talk show about his country’s reasoning, the South Korean envoy said, “China must be our partner to persuade North Korea to give up [its] nuclear weapons.”

Human rights

Also on the show, Sung Kim lauded President Joe Biden’s January 23 nomination of Julie Turner, a longtime State Department official, as the special envoy for human rights in North Korea. The position has been unfilled for the past six years.

“The signal it sends is to demonstrate [Biden’s] strong commitment to improving the lives of North Korean people, because we know that the human rights situation in North Korea remains very troubling,” said Sung Kim.

The Biden administration has maintained that human rights concerns are at the core of its foreign policy since it took office in January 2021.
…

America’s urban youth may not live in war zones, but some face staggering death rates from gun violence that exceed the mortality rates of U.S. troops in recent wars, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers focused on gun-related deaths among young men in four major U.S. cities: Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles. The death rates for men ages 18 to 29 in two inner-city postal zones were higher than those faced by U.S. military personnel while serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“These results are an urgent wake-up call for understanding, appreciating and responding to the risks and attendant traumas faced by this demographic of young men,” said Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, who was one of the researchers.

The study comes as firearms surpassed motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death for children, adolescents and young adults in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. public health agency said 3,597 children died by gunfire in 2021.

Overall, gun violence remained endemic in the United States in 2022, including 648 mass casualty shootings, a near-record, according to Gun Violence Archive, a Washington organization that tracks firearms violence. The first month of 2023 saw more than 50 mass shootings across the nation, defined as an incident in which four or more people were wounded or killed, not including the shooter.

While the JAMA report focused on four of America’s largest cities, gun violence claims eye-popping numbers of lives in many other U.S. metropolises as well.

Young lives taken

In Washington, firearms casualties involving young people are a near-daily occurrence. The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department reported a surge of gun violence at the start of 2023, including eight adolescents shot in five separate incidents on a single day in January.

“I’ve seen it all too often,” said Metropolitan Police 7th District Commander John Branch, speaking at a late-night news conference last month after the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old and the wounding of a 14-year-old. “I’m tired of having to come to these shootings. We must learn as a community how to resolve our problems and our issues peacefully and without gun violence.”

Days later, three people, including a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old, were wounded during an exchange of gunfire between two teenagers.

Last year, 105 juveniles were shot in the nation’s capital — 18 fatally — according to Lindsey Appiah, Washington’s deputy mayor for public safety.

In Baltimore, Maryland, a shooting last month left one man dead and three young people injured. After being shot, a young female motorist crashed her car, injuring a 3-year-old boy and a 2-month-old infant.

“I see a lot of folks out here acting like they are tough, but they are really weak,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott during a news conference after the shooting. “Only weak people shoot somebody when they know children are right there.”

Five high school teens were shot in Baltimore last month, one fatally across the street from their school.

In Baltimore and many other U.S. cities, communities are demanding an end to the carnage while political leaders promise change.

“We will make sure that our communities and our children are safe, and they have a right to be safe in their own homes,” said Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, addressing a recent anti-gun-violence rally in Annapolis.

Maryland’s legislature is considering several gun control proposals, including mandating that gun owners ensure their weapons cannot be accessed by anyone younger than 18. Another measure would increase the minimum age to legally own a rifle or shotgun in the state from 18 to 21.

Mark Pennak, president of Maryland Shall Issue, a gun rights advocacy group, called the proposals unconstitutional.

“Similar legislation has already been struck down by federal courts in New York and New Jersey,” Pennak said in a statement. Other groups have vowed to fight any new gun control laws via the court system.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has called youth violence an emergency and pledged more resources for law enforcement as well as establishing alternative justice programs for young criminal offenders.

“We need to make sure there are consequences to committing crime,” Bowser told reporters after a meeting with community leaders earlier this week. “Consequences in many cases can be a way to stop a kid from graduating to more violent offenses,” she said.

Bowser recently vetoed legislation by the D.C. Council that revised the criminal code to reduce maximum sentences for some serious crimes. Her veto was overridden.

“We don’t make ourselves safer by necessarily having a very aggressive, tough-on-crime response to everything,” said Brian Schwalb, attorney general for the District of Columbia, in an interview with WJLA-TV.

While there may be no single cure for gun violence afflicting urban youth, communities in Washington and elsewhere are looking to boost engagement with at-risk youngsters.

“We have got to give these kids and young people something meaningful to do,” said Ron Moten, a community activist. “We have to give youth the platforms they need to succeed so they will reject turning to crime.”

Others are simply pleading with young people to stop the gun violence.

“If you need a job, we will get you one. If you need support or mentoring, we’re here for you, but you got to make the change,” said D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George during a recent demonstration to address the rash of shootings. “Killing and shooting in our neighborhoods is unacceptable, especially when our babies are being shot and some killed.”

Federal legislation

Last June, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law the first major federal legislation limiting firearms in a generation. A major component of the law seeks to deny firearms to those deemed to be a threat to public safety.

Congress passed the gun safety bill with bipartisan backing one month after an 18-year-old gunman wielding a semiautomatic assault weapon killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

“We have to find out a mechanism that will make a family member see they need to step in” and try to stop a relative who might pose a threat of gun violence, said Northeastern University criminology professor emeritus Jack McDevitt.

“That person should have their guns taken away, at least temporarily,” he told VOA. “We don’t see that being exercised as much as we think it might be, based on the number of guns out there.”
…

A powerful arctic blast swept into the U.S. Northeast on Friday, pushing temperatures to perilously low levels across the region, including New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, where the wind chill dropped to -79 Celsius, forecasters said.

Wind-child warnings were posted for most of New York state and all six New England states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine — a region home to some 16 million people.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said the deep freeze would be relatively short-lived, but the combination of numbing cold and biting winds gripping the Northeast would pose life-threatening conditions well into Saturday.

Schools in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, New England’s two largest cities, were among those closed Friday over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite for children walking to school or waiting for buses.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency through Sunday and opened warming centers to help the city’s 650,000-plus residents cope with what the NWS has warned was shaping up to be a “once-in-a-generation” cold front.

The bitter cold forced a rare closing of a floating museum that presents a daily reenactment of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when a band of colonists disguised as Native Americans tossed crates of tea taxed by the king into Boston Harbor in protest.

“It’s too cold for that, we’re closed,” a receptionist at the museum said Friday.

Early Friday, the arctic surge flowing into the United States from eastern Canada was centered over the U.S. Plains, weather service forecaster Bob Oravec said. Kabetogama, Minnesota, near the Ontario border, was America’s coldest spot at 1 p.m. EST, with a temperature of -39.5 Celsius.

Sub-freezing, blustery conditions spread eastward through the day, sending wind-chill factors — measuring the combined effect of wind and cold on the body — plunging into the –40s across much of Maine, NWS meteorologist Brian Hurley said.

In Mount Washington State Park, atop the Northeast’s highest peak, temperatures fell to -43 Celsius on Friday evening, with sustained winds of 145 kph driving wind chill to -76 Celsius, according to Hurley.

By comparison, air temperatures in Eureka, Canada’s northernmost Arctic weather station, were hovering at -40 Celsius on Friday morning.

Boston was at -13 Celsius on Friday evening, while in Worcester, Massachusetts, 64 kilometers to the west, the mercury hit -16 C, with temperatures expected to fall even lower, Hurley said.

Record cold was expected in both cities Saturday.

Forecasts called for a low of –21 Celsius in Boston, exceeding an 1886 record –19 Celsius for the date. Worcester was headed for a low of –24 Celsius on Saturday, which would break its previous 1934 record of -20 for the date.

‘Before the real cold hits’

Despite the extreme cold, Nhon Ma, a Belgium native, was out Friday with his Zinneken’s food truck near Boston University selling Belgian waffles made from homemade batter and keeping warm with three or four waffle irons going at once.

“Those create heat, but of course it’s cold, it’s going to be cold, but we’re here,” Ma said.

In a frigid Biddeford, Maine, about 150 kilometers north of Boston, Katie Pinard, owner of a coffee and book shop, said business was brisk as customers came in from the cold, with some opting to work from her shop, Elements: Books Coffee Beer, rather than commute.

“Yeah, Mainers are pretty hardy, but talk to me tomorrow and we’ll see if we’re busy or not,” she said, looking ahead to Saturday morning, when temperatures were expected to drop to -28 Celsius. “I think people are out and doing what they need to get done before the real cold hits.”

While the Northeast was hunkering down, Texas and parts of the South were starting to warm up in the aftermath of a deadly winter ice storm that brought days of freezing rain, sleet and ice, causing massive power outages and dangerously icy roads.

But the weather was warming up, with temperatures in Austin, Texas, expected to hit 11 Celsius on Friday and 22 Celsius by Monday, forecasts say.

Meanwhile, a Pacific storm was expected to bring another round of heavy snow to California’s Sierra Nevada mountains Saturday night. Periods of moderate rainfall were forecast in lower elevations of central and northern California and the Pacific Northwest through the weekend.
…

The U.S. Defense Department said Friday another Chinese surveillance balloon is sailing over Latin America, two days after a similar high-altitude balloon was discovered traveling over the United States.

Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder said in a statement to media outlets “we are seeing reports of a balloon transitioning Latin America.”

“We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” he said.

Earlier Friday, Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon that the balloon sailing over the United States is there for surveillance — in violation of U.S. airspace and international law – despite China’s insistence it is designed for meteorological research.

He said he could not go into specifics but said that U.S. defense officials know it is a surveillance balloon and have conveyed their displeasure to Chinese officials “at multiple levels.”

Ryder said they continue to monitor the balloon flying over the United States closely, and while he would not give its specific location, he said it was over the center of the continental United States and moving eastward. He said it does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground at this time.

U.S. defense officials first discovered the balloon Wednesday over the northwestern state of Montana, which houses one of the three U.S. Air Force bases that operate and maintain intercontinental ballistic missiles. Air traffic out of the Billings, Montana, airport briefly came to a halt Wednesday as the U.S. mobilized fighter jets to track the balloon.

On Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said the craft was a force majeure, citing a legal term to refer to events beyond one’s control. It accused U.S. politicians and media of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China.

“China has always strictly abided by international law and respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries,” the ministry said in a statement.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed Friday the balloon over the United States did, in fact, belong to China. The spokesperson said it was civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research and “had deviated from its planned course.”

The spokesperson said China regrets the unintended entry into U.S. airspace and would continue communicating with the United States on the matter.

Following confirmation that the balloon belonged to China, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a trip to China just hours before he was set to depart.

Blinken said he told China’s top diplomat Wang Yi in a phone call Friday that the presence of the surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace is a “clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law,” and called it “an irresponsible act.”

Speaking a press conference Friday alongside visiting South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, Blinken said China’s “decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.”

Blinken, however, said the United States remained committed to engagement with China and said he would visit Beijing when conditions allowed.

China’s foreign ministry said Saturday that China and the United States had not announced any visit by Blinken and that “the U.S. announcements are their own matter and we respect that.”

In an interview with VOA’s Mandarin Service, Timothy Heath of the Rand Corp. said the use of such balloons is considered a relatively outdated mode of collecting intelligence as most nations use satellites to collect such data.

But Heath said new technologies allow balloons to be more easily controlled, and they are often harder to detect by radar. He said the balloon, which is roughly the size of three school buses, can also hover over an area for longer periods of time.

In a separate interview, the Hudson Institute’s Patrick Cronin told VOA’s Mandarin Service the balloon is a “clumsy act of intelligence gathering by the Chinese,” and said the United States should prepare an “appropriately sharp response” to the action.

Experts say both the U.S. and the Soviet Union used similar surveillance balloons during the Cold War.

Spy balloons usually operate at 24,000- to 36,000 meters, far above the operating levels of commercial airline traffic and fighter jets.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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European Union officials pledged their unwavering support Friday to help Ukraine rebuild its infrastructure against Russia’s ongoing war, while the U.S. announced a fresh round of security assistance worth more than $2 billion.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv for the 24th EU-Ukraine Summit. The EU officials said the union will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

In a joint statement Friday, the officials promised to help rebuild Ukraine’s devastated critical infrastructure, providing energy support and services for the country “to get through the winter,” and beyond. They said that so far, the EU and its member states have provided assistance worth $570 million in the area of energy and reconstruction, and another $525 million for humanitarian efforts.

The officials underscored their commitment to promote Ukraine’s integration in the European Union, but they said there was no promise of fast-track membership.

Kyiv applied to become an EU member shortly after Russia’s invasion and wants to start formal accession talks as soon as possible.

“There are no rigid timelines, but there are goals that you have to reach,” von der Leyen told the news conference in response to a question about Ukraine’s accession drive. One of the conditions for Ukraine’s EU integration is its fight against corruption. The EU Commission president praised Kyiv for its expanded efforts to clamp down on graft.

Michel and von der Leyen condemned Russia’s escalating war against Ukraine and its citizens as “a manifest violation of international law, including the principles of the U.N. Charter.”

They emphasized the need to establish a Special Tribunal at The Hague for the investigation and prosecution of war crimes against Ukraine.

They also emphasized that the EU will never recognize as lawful any illegal annexation of Ukraine by Russia.

In addition, the EU officials unveiled a new package of sanctions, the 10th, against Russia. It will target the trade and technology that supports its war against Ukraine, von der Leyen said.

“With our partners, we must deny Russia the means to kill Ukrainian civilians and destroy homes and offices,” she said in a tweet.

US defense assistance

The United States announced Friday it would provide an additional $2.175 billion worth of military aid for Ukraine, including conventional and long-range rockets for U.S.-provided HIMARs, as well as other munitions and weapons. According to a U.S. official, the longer-range precision-guided rockets would double Ukraine’s strike range for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told a news briefing Friday the package includes “critical air defense capabilities to help Ukraine defend its people, as well as armored infantry vehicles and more equipment that Ukraine is using so effectively, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, artillery ammunition.”

Ryder added that “as part of the USAI [Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative] package, we will be providing Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs to Ukraine.”

Friday’s aid package opens the door to many more deliveries of Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs, which have a range of 94 miles, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

USAI is an authority under which the United States procures capabilities from industry rather than delivering equipment that is drawn down from Defense Department stocks. This announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional capabilities to Ukraine’s Armed Forces as part of U.S. efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s military over the near and long-term.

In total, the United States has now supplied nearly $30 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, the Defense Department reports. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $32 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, and more than $29.3 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

Wagner Group recruitment

Meanwhile, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday the Wagner Group’s recruitment of convicts has dropped significantly. The ministry said the Russian Federal Penal Service experienced a decrease of 6,000 inmates since November. In comparison, the penal service had reported a drop of 23,000 inmates from September to November 2022.

“Wagner recruitment was likely a major contributing factor to this drop,” the British ministry said.  

The Ukrainian presidential office said overall in the last day, Russian shelling in Ukraine had killed at least eight civilians and wounded 29 others. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the US and NATO drastically ramped up defenses across eastern Europe. In Romania, for example, US troop numbers tripled, from approximately 1,000 troops in January of last year to about 3,000 today. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb joined up with some of those soldiers for a first-hand look at how the closest US troops to the war in Ukraine are holding the line with NATO allies.
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The Biden administration took a first step Friday toward ending federal protections for grizzly bears in the northern Rocky Mountains, which would open the door to future hunting in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said state officials provided “substantial” information that grizzlies have recovered from the threat of extinction in the regions surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

But federal officials rejected claims by Idaho that protections should be lifted beyond those areas, and they raised concerns about new laws from the Republican-led states that could potentially harm grizzly populations.

“We will fully evaluate these and other potential threats,” said Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Friday’s move kicks off at least a year of further study before final decisions about the Yellowstone and Glacier regions.

State officials have insisted any future hunts would be limited and not endanger the overall population.

However, Republican lawmakers in the region in recent years also adopted more aggressive policies against gray wolves, including loosened trapping rules that could lead to grizzlies being inadvertently killed.

As many as 50,000 grizzlies once roamed the western half of the U.S. They were exterminated in most of the country early last century by overhunting and trapping, and the last hunts in the northern Rockies occurred decades ago. There are now more than 2,000 bears in the Lower 48 states and much larger populations in Alaska, where hunting is allowed.

The species’ expansion in the Glacier and Yellowstone areas has led to conflicts between humans and bears, including periodic attacks on livestock and sometimes fatal maulings of humans.

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte welcomed the administration’s announcement and said it could lead to the state reclaiming management of a species that’s been under federal protections since 1975. He said the grizzly’s recovery “represents a conservation success.”

The federal government removed protections for the Yellowstone ecosystem’s grizzlies in 2017. Wyoming and Idaho were set to allow grizzlies to be hunted when a judge restored those protections in 2018, siding with environmental groups that said delisting wasn’t based on sound science. Those groups want protections kept in place so bears can continue moving into new areas.

“We should not be ready to trust those states,” said attorney Andrea Zaccardi, of the Center for Biological Diversity.

U.S. government scientists have said the region’s grizzlies are biologically recovered but in 2021 decided that protections were still needed because of human-caused bear deaths and other pressures. Bears considered problematic are regularly killed by wildlife officials.

A decision on the states’ petitions was long overdue. Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Thursday had filed notice he intended to sue over the delay. Idaho’s petition was broader than the ones filed by Montana and sought to lift protections nationwide.

That would have included small populations of bears in portions of Idaho, Montana and Washington state, where biologists say the animals have not yet recovered to sustainable levels. It also could have prevented the return of bears to other areas such as the North Cascades region.
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America’s employers added a robust 517,000 jobs in January, a surprisingly strong gain in the face of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive drive to slow growth and tame inflation with higher interest rates.

The unemployment rate dipped to 3.4%, a new half-century low.

Friday’s government report added to the picture of a resilient labor market, with low unemployment, relatively few layoffs and many job openings even as most economists foresee a recession nearing. Though good for workers, employers’ steady demand for labor has also helped accelerate wage growth and contributed to high inflation.

January’s job growth, which far exceeded December’s 269,000 gain, could raise doubts about whether inflation pressures will ease further in the months ahead. The Fed has raised its key rate eight times since March to try to contain inflation, which hit a four-decade high last year but has slowed since then.

Companies are still seeking more workers and are hanging tightly onto the ones they have. Putting aside some high-profile layoffs at big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others, most workers are enjoying an unusual level of job security even at a time when many economists foresee a recession approaching.

For all of 2022, the economy had added a sizzling average of 375,000 jobs a month. That was a pace vigorous enough to have contributed to the painful inflation Americans have endured, the worst such bout in 40 years. A tight job market tends to put upward pressure on wages, which, in turn, feed into inflation.

The Fed, hoping to cool the job market and the economy — and, as a consequence, inflation — has steadily raised borrowing rates, most recently on Wednesday. Year-over-year measures of consumer inflation have steadily eased since peaking at 9.1% in June. But at 6.5% in December, inflation remains far above the Fed’s 2% target, which is why the central bank’s policymakers have reiterated their intent to keep raising borrowing rates for at least a few more months.

The Fed is aiming to achieve a “soft landing” — a pullback in the economy that is just enough to tame high inflation without triggering a recession. The policymakers hope that employers can slow wage increases and inflationary pressures by reducing job openings but not necessarily by laying off many employees.

But the job market’s resilience isn’t making that hoped-for outcome any easier. On Wednesday, the Labor Department reported that employers posted 11 million job openings in December, an unexpected jump from 10.4 million in November and the largest number since July. There are now about two job vacancies, on average, for every unemployed American.

The Labor Department’s monthly count of layoffs has amounted to fewer than 1.5 million for 21 straight months. Until 2021, that figure had never dropped so low in records dating back two decades.

Yet another sign that workers are benefiting from unusual job security is the weekly number of people who apply for unemployment benefits. That figure is a proxy for layoffs, one that economists monitor for clues about where the job market might be headed. The government said Thursday that the number of jobless claims fell last week to its lowest level since April.

The pace of applications for unemployment aid has remained rock-bottom despite a steady stream of headline-making layoff announcements. Facebook parent Meta is cutting 11,000 jobs, Amazon 18,000, Microsoft 10,000, Google 12,000. Some economists suspect that many laid-off workers might not be showing up at the unemployment line because they can still find new jobs easily.
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The northeastern region of the U.S. is experiencing an Artic blast and the frigid temperatures are expected to last into Saturday.  

The National Weather Service said numerous low temperature records could be set in the New England area.  

Weather forecasters predict the temperature Saturday in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, could get as low as 23 degrees below zero Celsius, which would set a new low record for the date.  

Meteorologists are predicting 21 degrees below zero Celsius for Boston, which would also set a low record for the date.

The NWS said wind chill warnings and advisories are already in effect for all of the New England region.  
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On a freezing, windy day in eastern Romania, U.S. Army Sergeant Chase Williams is urging a team of soldiers to jump out of a hovering Blackhawk and rappel 25 meters to the snow-covered ground below.

“You know you just got to get over that fear. You just got to get over that ledge the first time,” Williams says of the 101st Airborne Division’s Air Assault course, a grueling program that some soldiers refer to as “the 10 toughest days in the Army.”

Williams and his fellow trainers have taught the 10-day program several times since last summer when 4,700 troops with the 101st Airborne Division deployed across eastern Europe, but the iteration completed this week was unique. For the first time ever, soldiers in the division offered their punishing air assault course to partners on European soil.

Graduates from the course at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base included U.S., Romanian, Dutch, French and Slovak soldiers.

It’s the latest example of how the division, deployed to Europe for the first time since World War II, is bolstering NATO’s eastern flank in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In Romania, U.S. troop numbers have tripled from approximately 1,000 troops in January 2022 to about 3,000 today. A high-end missile launched from Russian-controlled Crimea could reach the soldiers based along the Black Sea in about seven minutes, according to U.S. Army Colonel Ed Matthaidess, commander of the 101st’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team.

“We are the closest U.S. Army formation to the fight in Ukraine right now,” Matthaidess told VOA.

Since their arrival, the 101st has spread out to fortify its positions across the country, and in other nations on NATO’s eastern flank.

“We’ve prepared our force for whatever eventuality, so we’ve reinforced protection around Mihail Kogalniceanu. We’ve dispersed our forces so we’re not a single target,” Matthaidess said.

During a helicopter ride along Romania’s coastline to the border with Ukraine, Matthaidess showed VOA how U.S. forces are holding the line with NATO allies.

“We’re taking it as close as we can to combat, right? So, we’re preparing for large-scale operations,” he said. “We’re exercising on the ground with which we might fight if we have to defend NATO.”

At a forward operating post just a few kilometers away from Ukrainian territory, several Humvees — some capable of carrying TOW antitank missiles, others equipped with a heavy machine gun or heavy grenade launcher — were gathering at a range for target practice.

Further south at an outpost filled with old farm buildings, U.S. soldiers trained Romanians on how to maneuver in urban terrain, going door-to-door clearing the area.

Matthaidess said the U.S. team has been watching Russian tactics in neighboring Ukraine “closely” and has adapted their training with partners to better suit what they see on the battlefield.

“We just got done with a big series of live fires, where we were attacking some trench lines that look very similar to what you might see across the border,” he told VOA.

The team also started incorporating small drones in some exercises, shooting down systems “very similar to what’s flooding the battlefield right now” in Ukraine, he added.

The 2nd Brigade Combat Team will leave Romania in a couple of months, but the Pentagon recently confirmed that the U.S. military’s increased presence in the country will continue at least through this year. The 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is set to replace Matthaidess’ team in what is expected to be a nine-month deployment.

That’s reassuring to Major General Ciprian Marin, chief of the Romanian military’s Operations Directorate, who says he wants more U.S. troops and more partnered training.

During the 101st Airborne Division’s deployment, Romanian forces have been honing their existing defense skills with the Americans, while in the case of the air assault course, acquiring a new capability that Romanian ground forces didn’t have before this week.

“With war, it’s about life and death, and [working together] makes the difference between failure and success. So, if you want to be successful, we are to be together, to stick together, and build this interoperability,” Marin said.
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The president of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan is calling China’s response to the possibility of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s visiting Taiwan “excessive,” saying that exchanges between Taiwan’s unicameral legislature and the legislatures of the United States, Europe, Japan and other countries are the norm in democracies.

Washington’s Punchbowl News, which specializes in political news, reported on Jan. 23, citing officials familiar with the matter, that the Pentagon was making preliminary preparations for McCarthy’s travels this year, including a visit to Taiwan this spring. Because former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August triggered China’s large-scale military drill focused on Taiwan, planning for McCarthy’s visit would need to consider China’s possible response as well as more routine security and logistical arrangements.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Monday, “China opposes any form of official interaction between its Taiwan region and countries having diplomatic ties with China. We hope U.S. lawmakers will abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués and refrain from doing things detrimental to China-US relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” China sees self-governing Taiwan as a rebellious province.

You Si-kun, who was in Washington to deliver a speech on Taiwan’s democratic journey at the 2023 International Religious Freedom Summit (IRFS) on Wednesday and the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday said after the first event that Beijing’s reactions “are very excessive. Sometimes they [China] say they are a democratic country, but in a democratic country, congressional exchanges are very normal. Their reaction, on the contrary, proves that they are not a democratic country.”

He continued, “Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan maintains very close communication with the U.S. Congress and American executive officials. Not only that, but Taiwan also maintains close communication with the European Congress and Japan. Any communication or visits by U.S. congressional members or the speaker to Taiwan is very normal in democratic politics.”

He also stressed Taiwan’s strategic importance at the center of key global sea lanes and as an important producer of semiconductors.

“So it’s very important to safeguard Taiwan, especially its democracy,” he said.

“If Taiwan falls into the sphere of influence of CCP, then the beacon of democracy will be destroyed. And China may invade the first island chain, and will cause a threat to the entire world,” You said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party and its ambitions in the Pacific region.

You said China will react to whatever Taiwan does. He said during a recent visit to Europe, the Chinese embassies protested his presence at each stop because if they hadn’t, they would “be unable to survive or get promoted.”

You told VOA Mandarin that he will continue, as he has since 2018, to advocate in favor of the U.S. recognizing Taiwan and establishing diplomatic relations with Taiwan. He said this idea is gaining ground among members of Congress.

There is growing bipartisan support for the United States to sign a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan, and in September, President Joe Biden approved $1.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, a move that China condemned.

At the religious freedom summit, You said Taiwan’s political development has made the island a “beacon of democracy for Chinese-speaking peoples.” He contrasted that with sentiment attributed to former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, holding that “human rights and democracy are imported from the West and not suitable for Asian countries.”

“Taiwan has shown that democracy, born of the West, can indeed flourish in Chinese-speaking regions,” You said.

During his speech, You criticized the CCP’s persecution of religious minorities and said the international community should pay attention to China’s lack of religious freedom, because it’s the cornerstone of human rights and the core of democratic values.

Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s representative to the U.S. who accompanied You, said exchanges between Taiwan’s Yuan and other countries’ legislatures have been going on for decades, and are in line with international standards.

Hsiao also said it is important to keep peace in the Taiwan Strait.

“The people of Taiwan — and I believe the people of the U.S. as well — feel strongly that our freedom and democracy must be guaranteed. We need an environment of peace, an environment that does not allow the use of force to change the status quo. I think that is a very important part in our common interest.”
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A Biden administration task force designed to reunite children separated from their families during the Trump administration has reconnected nearly 700 children with their families, officials said Thursday.

President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office to reunite families that were split up under Trump’s widely condemned practice of forcibly separating parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border to discourage illegal immigration. Thursday marked the two-year anniversary of the task force.

According to figures released by the Department of Homeland Security, 3,881 children were separated from their families from 2017 to 2021. About 74% of those have been reunited with their families: 2,176 before the task force was created and 689 afterward.

But that still leaves nearly 1,000 children. Of those, 148 are in the reunification process. The department pledged to continue the work until all separated families that can be found have the opportunity to reunite with their children.

The Trump administration separated thousands of migrant parents from their children as it moved to criminally prosecute people for illegally crossing the southwestern border. Minors, who could not be held in criminal custody with their parents, were transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. They were then typically sent to live with a sponsor, often a relative or someone else with a connection to the family.

Hundreds of families have sued the federal government.

Families can register for reunification services through a website and can get help with steps such as applying for humanitarian parole that would allow them to come to the U.S., as well as for behavioral health services to help them.

During a meeting Thursday with reporters, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas discussed efforts to address “the wounds” the separations had caused.

He described meeting the mother of a teenager who had been separated from her mom when she was 13 and then reunited with her when she was 16. But Mayorkas said, the woman relayed how her teenage daughter “still could not understand how her mother would let her be separated. She didn’t understand the force behind the separation.”
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CIA Director William Burns said Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitions toward Taiwan should not be underestimated, despite him likely being sobered by the performance of Russia’s military in Ukraine.

Burns said that the United States knew “as a matter of intelligence” that Xi had ordered his military to be ready to conduct an invasion of self-governed Taiwan by 2027.

“Now, that does not mean that he’s decided to conduct an invasion in 2027, or any other year, but it’s a reminder of the seriousness of his focus and his ambition,” Burns told an event at Georgetown University in Washington.

“Our assessment at CIA is that I wouldn’t underestimate President Xi’s ambitions with regard to Taiwan,” he said, adding that the Chinese leader was likely “surprised and unsettled” and trying to draw lessons by the “very poor performance” of the Russian military and its weapons systems in Ukraine.

Russia and China signed a “no limits” partnership last February shortly before Russian forces invaded Ukraine, and their economic links have boomed as Russia’s connections with the West have shriveled.

The Russian invasion had fueled concerns in the West of China possibly making a similar move on Taiwan, a democratic island Beijing claims as its territory.

China has refrained from condemning Russia’s operation against Ukraine, but it has been careful not to provide the sort of direct material support that could provoke Western sanctions like those imposed on Moscow.

“I think it’s a mistake to underestimate the mutual commitment to that partnership, but it’s not a friendship totally without limits,” Burns said.

As Burns spoke, news came from U.S. officials that a suspected Chinese spy balloon had been flying over the United States for a few days, and that senior U.S. officials had advised President Joe Biden against shooting it down for fear the debris could pose a safety threat.

Burns made no mention of the episode but called China the “biggest geopolitical challenge” currently faced by the United States.

“Competition with China is unique in its scale, and that it really, you know, unfolds over just about every domain, not just military, and ideological, but economic, technological, everything from cyberspace, to space itself as well. It’s a global competition in ways that could be even more intense than competition with the Soviets was,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from China’s Washington embassy about the remarks from Burns or the balloon flight.

On other topics, Burns said the next six months will be critical for Ukraine, where Moscow has been making incremental gains in recent weeks.

He also said Iran’s government was increasingly unsettled by affairs within the country, citing the courage of what he described as “fed up” Iranian women. 
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