The United States has reported conducting a new airstrike against al-Shabab in Somalia on January 23, killing two militants. 

In a statement, the U.S. military’s Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, said it conducted a “collective self-defense” strike against al-Shabab following a request from the Somalian government.

The strike was in support of Somali National Army engagements against al-Shabab, AFRICOM said. 

The strike occurred in a remote area near Harardhere, approximately 396 kilometers northeast of Mogadishu where Somali forces were conducting operations.

“Given the remote location of the operation, the initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed,” the statement said. 

Harardhere is a coastal town and former pirate hub captured by Somali government forces on January 16. Somali Defense Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur and Galmudug state leader Ahmed Abdi Karie, nicknamed Qoorqoor, posted pictures of themselves, accompanying Somali forces conducting military operations in the Harardhere area. 

It’s the second U.S. strike against al-Shabab in recent days. On January 20, the U.S. conducted another “collective self-defense” strike against al-Shabab near the town of Galcad in Galmudug, killing 30 militants. 

AFRICOM said Friday’s strike followed an al-Shabab attack on Somali government forces based in Galcad. That attack led to the death of at least seven government soldiers including one of the commanders of the Somali Danab, or lightning, elite forces trained by the United States.

“The U.S. is one of several countries providing support to the federal government of Somalia in its ongoing campaign to disrupt, degrade and defeat terrorist groups,” AFRICOM said.  “Rooting out extremism ultimately requires intervention beyond traditional military means, leveraging U.S. and partner efforts to support effective governance, promote stabilization and economic development, and resolve ongoing conflicts.” 

Despite the operations, al-Shabab has been conducting raids and complex attacks against Somali military camps and government installations in the capital, Mogadishu.

The militants fired mortars at the Mogadishu city center Tuesday. The group claimed that it fired nine rounds of mortars in the vicinity of the presidential palace. Residents reported hearing explosions. There are reports that one person suffered a minor injury as a result of the indirect fire.

This past Sunday, the militants stormed a compound housing the mayor’s office and other local government facilities in the capital, killing five civilians. Security forces ended the raid, fatally shooting all six attackers.  
…

Police in the U.S. state of California said seven people were killed Monday in two related shootings at agricultural facilities. 

The shootings happened in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. Authorities said at a news conference that four people were found dead and a fifth person had gunshot wounds at one site, while another three people were found dead at the second site several kilometers away. 

San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus identified the suspected shooter as 67-year-old Chunli Zhao, and said he worked at one of the shooting locations. 

Authorities said the suspect was arrested after apparently driving to a police station parking lot to turn himself in. A weapon was found in the vehicle. 

Corpus said the suspect was cooperating with investigators, but that a motive was not yet clear. 

“We’re still trying to understand exactly what happened and why, but it’s just incredibly, incredibly tragic,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, who represents the area and called it “a very close-knit” agricultural community. 

Monday’s shooting followed a mass shooting Saturday in the southern California city of Monterey Park that killed 11 people and wounded nine others. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that he was at a hospital meeting with those hurt in the Saturday shooting when he heard about the Monday attacks. 

“Tragedy upon tragedy,” he wrote. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

The death count has risen to 11 in Saturday’s shooting near the small city of Monterey Park near Los Angeles. Nine others were injured in the attack at a dance club that was popular with older Chinese Americans as Chinese New Year celebrations got underway. The suspected gunman, who was also Asian, died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Mike O’Sullivan spoke with residents about the tragedy that has shaken the quiet community.
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Human rights activists are welcoming the United States’ appointment of an envoy for North Korean human rights, a position that had been vacant for six years. 

The White House late Monday announced it would appoint Julie Turner, a veteran State Department foreign affairs officer, who has long focused on North Korea human rights issues.  

Turner, who must be confirmed by the Senate, is currently the director of the East Asia and Pacific office of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.  

She has worked in the office for 16 years, during which she has “primarily focused on initiatives related to promoting human rights in North Korea,” according to a White House press release. 

Under a law initially passed by Congress in 2004, the U.S. president must appoint a special envoy for North Korean human rights. However, no one has served in the position since 2017, when U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy stepped down.  

Former President Donald Trump, who prioritized his personal relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, never appointed a North Korean human rights envoy. Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, at one point proposed eliminating the position. 

It’s unclear why it took President Joe Biden two years to name an appointee, especially since Biden has said he will prioritize human rights issues. Nonetheless, activists praised the move, calling Turner an ideal fit.  

Turner is “terrific, with full awareness and understanding about the North Korean human rights situation,” according to Lee Shin-hwa, South Korea’s human rights envoy for North Korea.  

“I am so pleased to get the news and look forward to closely cooperating with this highly capable lady,” Lee told VOA.  

Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director for the Washington D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said Turner is “a truly great scholar and champion of North Korean human rights.”  

Once confirmed, Scarlatoiu said he hopes the new envoy will adopt a “human rights up front approach” to North Korea.  

North Korea is a totalitarian state that tightly restricts nearly every aspect of its citizens’ civil and political liberties, including freedom of expression, assembly, association, religion and movement. It consistently ranks at or near the bottom of global human rights rankings.  

Activists say the situation has worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been used as a pretext to sever the country’s already fragile links to the outside world.  

“It’s the darkest period in the history of human rights in North Korea, believe it or not,” Scarlatoiu said.  

During Turner’s time at the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the office has been involved with several projects that aim to promote the free flow of information into and out of North Korea and raise awareness of North Korea’s rights violations. 

North Korea has not reacted to Turner’s nomination. It often becomes enraged when other countries or international bodies mention its rights violations. 

However, at various points, North Korea has interacted with the U.S. human rights envoy — including in 2011, when Ambassador Robert King led a mission to assess North Korea’s food situation. 

It’s unclear whether any similar humanitarian initiatives can succeed now. In recent years, North Korea has ignored U.S. offers of pandemic assistance, shunning virtually all contact with U.S. officials. 

While placing human rights at the forefront of engagement with North Korea is not easy, Turner is “precisely the sort of savvy and strategic representative to get difficult things like this done,” said Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.  

“Turner has excelled on promoting and protecting human rights across her portfolio,” Robertson said, “And she is precisely the kind of dogged advocate that rights issues in the DPRK require for any sort of change to occur.” 

Activist groups have long complained that human rights were not discussed during the Trump-Kim talks, which instead focused on eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons and improving Pyongyang’s relations with Washington and Seoul. 

The talks broke down in 2019. North Korea has since resumed major weapons tests and says it will not resume talks until the United States drops what it calls its “hostile policy.” Specifically, North Korea objects to U.S.-led sanctions that have battered its economy and the heavy U.S. military presence in the region. 
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing switching to an annual COVID-19 vaccination campaign for the country, similar to the flu shot.

In documents posted online Monday, the agency said the new strategy would provide a simplified approach to the coronavirus vaccine. The proposed plan is set to be discussed at a meeting this week of FDA scientists and the agency’s panel of external vaccine advisers.

The FDA said most Americans would need only one annual vaccination to help protect them against the coronavirus, while others — including the elderly, the very young and those with weakened immune systems — might need a two-dose inoculation for additional protection.

Under the current vaccination system, a person must get two doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine, which targets the coronavirus that emerged in 2020. Following that, booster shots have been recommended at periodic intervals, with the latest boosters targeting both the original virus and the omicron variant.

The proposed FDA changes would do away with the system of primary vaccinations and boosters and would instead recommend for most Americans a single vaccine dose that is developed annually.

As with the flu shot, vaccine makers and independent experts would aim to develop a shot that targets the virus strains most likely to dominate in the winter season. The targeted strains could be changed every year.

The FDA is also considering making the shots interchangeable, so people would not have to keep track of which vaccine brand they receive.

The agency is hoping the changes will make it easier for Americans to continue with their COVID inoculations amid a waning interest from the public to receive repeated booster shots.

While more than 80% of the U.S. population has had at least one vaccine dose, only 16% of eligible Americans have received the latest booster shot, according to The Associated Press.

The proposed FDA changes also come as experts have been publicly debating how effective the latest booster shots have been at increasing protection against COVID-19, especially in healthy adults.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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A U.S. man who posed for photographs with his feet on the desk of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot has been convicted of all eight charges.  

A jury in Washington Monday convicted Richard Barnett on charges including civil disorder, interfering with police officers and obstructing an official government proceeding.

Photographs of Barnett, who is from the southern state of Arkansas, were among some of the memorable images of the day when Congress convened to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 3, 2020, presidential election.  

While in Pelosi’s office, Barnett took an envelope the speaker had addressed to another member of Congress and left a note for the congresswoman that included a profanity.

Barnett was convicted of theft for taking the envelope, as well as concealing a dangerous weapon — a stun gun he carried in a collapsible walking stick.  

The defendant took the stand in his own defense during his two-week trial in U.S. District Court in Washington.  

After the verdict, Barnett told reporters outside the courtroom that his conviction was an “injustice” and said he would appeal. He cited the judge’s decision to reject his request to move the trial from Washington to Arkansas.  

“This is not a jury of my peers,” he said.  

Lawyers for Barnett argued that their client did not know that Congress was certifying Biden’s victory on the day of the riot and said Barnett was pushed into the Capitol by the mass of people.  

Prosecutors accused Barnett of repeatedly lying on the witness stand and said he had a history of attending political demonstrations with weapons.

Barnett will be sentenced in May and remain on home detention in Arkansas until then.  

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press.
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A former senior FBI agent who once investigated Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has been arrested for receiving secret payments from the Russian billionaire in return for investigating a rival, the Justice Department announced Monday. 

Charles F. McGonigal, who headed counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York field office, and Sergey Shestakov, a former Soviet diplomat and an associate of Deripaska, were arrested Saturday on sanctions violations and money laundering charges.

According to court documents, McGonigal and Shestakov in 2021 investigated an unnamed rival Russian oligarch in return for concealed payments from Deripaska, violating U.S. sanctions imposed on Deripaska in 2018. 

In an earlier scheme in 2019, McGonigal and Shestakov allegedly unsuccessfully tried to have the sanctions against Deripaska lifted, according to court documents.

Before retiring from the FBI in 2018, McGonigal, a veteran special agent, led and participated in investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska, according to the Justice Department. 

Shestakov was a Soviet and Russian diplomat before becoming a U.S. citizen and a Russian interpreter for U.S. courts and government offices, according to the Justice Department.

According to court documents, the duo tried to conceal Deripaska’s involvement in the investigation of his rival by using shell companies, not naming the businessman in communications and forging signatures.

In September, Deripaska, an aluminum magnate with suspected ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and three associates were indicted on charges of evading U.S. sanctions and obstruction of justice. 

Deripaska remains at large. 
…

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield will travel to Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya this week to advance joint priorities following December’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. 

Her tour, from January 25 to 29, will focus on regional security issues, food insecurity, humanitarian issues, and supporting African efforts to mitigate climate change, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday.  

Thomas-Greenfield’s trip is happening in tandem with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s ongoing mission to Senegal, Zambia and South Africa that will continue through January 28. Yellen is seeking to deepen U.S.-Africa economic ties, including by expanding trade and investment flows.   

President Joe Biden announced over $15 billion in two-way trade and investment commitments, deals and partnerships at the three-day December summit that drew delegations from 49 African nations to Washington.   

Russia’s war  

Africa has deeply felt the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as fuel, food and fertilizer prices rose in its aftermath. This year, U.N. agencies have warned that the impact of the fertilizer crunch could reduce the size of harvests on the continent.   

The U.N. and Turkish-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative has seen more than 18 million metric tons of Ukrainian wheat and other food stuffs exported to international markets since it was signed in mid-July.  

The Joint Coordination Center that oversees the deal says nearly 44% of the wheat exported has been shipped to low and lower middle-income countries. The U.N. is also working with Russia to remove remaining impediments to exporting its food and fertilizer products.  

But the U.S. blames Russia for impeding the export of Ukrainian grain, saying it is not at the level it should be. 

“Russia has deliberately slowed down inspections of these ships and essentially throttled the operation of this corridor,” the senior administration official said of the ships sailing in the Black Sea. “That is having an impact obviously not just on Ukraine but for the entire world.” 

As of Sunday, the Joint Coordination Center said 35 ships are awaiting inspection. Five of them are waiting to enter Ukrainian ports and 30 are loaded with cargo waiting to leave for their destinations. 

International support has been strong for Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly, but African nations have repeatedly abstained on resolutions that might upset Russia.  

Thomas-Greenfield, who previously served as a U.S. ambassador to Liberia and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, is making her third trip to the continent since becoming U.N. ambassador in February 2021. 

During her trip, she will be visiting two current Security Council members — Ghana and Mozambique — offering the opportunity to address the issue of reforming the U.N. Security Council. 

For decades, countries have said the 15-nation body needs to be expanded to reflect current realities, not those of a post-World War II world. 

In September, Biden said the United States supports increasing the number of permanent seats on the council, including one for Africa. There are currently five seats — Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. 
…

On the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, a gunman opened fire at a dance hall in a predominantly Asian community of Monterey Park, California. At least 10 people died during and 10 were injured. Officials said a 72-year-old man suspected of carrying out the shooting was found dead the next day with self-inflicted gun wound. The motive for the attack is unclear. Genia Dulot reports.
…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Zambia on the second leg of her African tour, a stop aimed at promoting American investment and ties while she’s in a capital city that is visibly dominated by Chinese dollars. 

Visitors to Lusaka arriving at the renovated Kenneth Kaunda International Airport see a facility expanded in 2015 with Chinese financing. A ride into the city passes billboards and newly built firms bearing Chinese signage, more evidence of Beijing’s influence and increasing competition with the U.S. 

But the growth that the country has experienced has come with a heavier debt burden. Zambia became Africa’s first pandemic-era sovereign to default when it failed to make a $42.5 million bond payment in November 2020. Negotiations over how to deal with the debt load have been ongoing. 

How Zambia’s debt is renegotiated with the Chinese will provide a test case for how lenient China will be with other overextended nations that face debt distress.  

Debt will be a topic of conversation Monday when Yellen meets with Zambia’s president and finance minister to push for the Chinese to continue negotiations. She will also tour pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities benefiting from American investment to showcase what she sees as a model of success. 

“Many African countries are now plagued by piling, unsustainable debt. And that’s undeniably a problem. And much of it is related to Chinese investments in Africa,” Yellen said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press in Senegal, the first leg of her African trip.   

Still, Yellen insists her trip is not about competition with China.   

“We want to deepen our engagement,” she said, “We see a rapidly growing young population that needs opportunities and economic growth.”   

“We have many government programs and international programs that are oriented to help efforts to build infrastructure,” she said. “And when we do that, we want to make sure that we don’t create the same problems that Chinese investment has sometimes created here.”   

Yellen said the U.S. wants to invest in companies with contracts that “have transparency, that we have projects that really bring broad-based benefits to the African people and don’t leave a legacy of unsustainable debt.” 

Experts say a prolonged debt crisis could permanently prevent countries like Zambia from recovering, lead to an entire nation sliding deep into poverty and joblessness, and exclude it from credit to rebuild in the future.   

To showcase the U.S. effort, the first stop of Yellen’s Zambia visit was to be a tour of Mylan Laboratories, a subsidiary of American pharmaceutical manufacturer Viatris. The lab opened in 2010 with a $10 million investment and manufactures drugs that treat malaria and HIV in the country and region.   

She also planned a stop at the Zambia National Public Health Institute, considered a model of its kind. 
…

It was a joyful kickoff to the first Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park since before the pandemic, with large crowds filling the streets in the majority Chinese American city near Los Angeles for live entertainment, carnival rides and plenty of food.

But the celebrations were marred by tragedy Saturday night after a gunman entered a ballroom dance hall and opened fire, killing 10 people, wounding 10 more and sending panicked revelers into the streets.

The shooting that left five men and five women dead brought a jarring end to the planned two-day party to ring in the Year of the Rabbit, which featured dragon dancers parading through downtown streets decorated with red lanterns.

Sunday’s festivities were canceled, though some Lunar New Year celebrations went on in neighboring cities also home to large Asian American populations.

“We haven’t had a celebration like this in three years, so this was momentous. People came out in droves,” said Mayor Pro Tem Jose Sanchez, who was there with his 6-year-old daughter. He estimated 100,000 people attended Saturday, and the festival is typically one of the largest Lunar New Year celebrations in the state.

The massacre sent shock waves through Asian American communities around the nation, prompting police from San Francisco to New York to step up patrols at Lunar New Year celebrations in their own cities.

No motivation for the crime has been given and authorities said the suspect was a 72-year-old Asian man. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Sunday the man killed himself as police officers closed in on the van he used to flee.

But Asian American advocacy groups said it was another blow after years of high-profile anti-Asian violence around the country.

“Regardless of what the intent was, the impact on our community has been really profound,” said Connie Chung Joe, CEO of the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California. The nonprofit had a booth set up at the festival and she had planned to attend Sunday.

“Having this tragedy on one of our most important holidays … it feels very personal to our community,” she said. “There is still that feeling of being targeted, and being fearful, when we hear about a shooting like this.”

The San Gabriel Valley is home to a diverse array of Asian-American communities, including people of Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino descent.

Yingying Guan, 29, saw a mass of police cars Saturday night in Monterey Park and heard helicopters overhead. She didn’t learn it was in response to a shooting until she awoke to news of the shooting Sunday morning.

Guan doesn’t know anyone involved but said she is devastated for her community.

“It’s supposed to be families gathering together to enjoy and to just have some time to get together,” she said. “So many innocent victims.”

Investigators said the gunman shot up the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, killing 10 people, Luna said. Then 20 to 30 minutes later, he entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra, before people there wrestled the weapon away from him and he fled, Luna said.

“When something like this happens – and I never thought it would happen in our community – it’s very hard to process,” said Sanchez, who teaches in the city’s schools. “There’s so much grief.”

Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles where nearly 70% of residents are Asian, mostly of Chinese descent. The area became a destination for Asian immigrants during the 1970s and ’80s after a real estate entrepreneur named Fredric Hsieh bought land and advertised its rolling hills and warm climate in Chinese-language newspapers.

The city’s Lunar New Year celebration has become one of California’s largest. Sanchez, who is Mexican American, said it’s a Chinese tradition that everyone enjoys and reflects the diversity of greater Los Angeles.

Its festivities were canceled, but several other events throughout the region, including a parade in the city of Westminster, went on as planned, but with extra security.

The dance studio where the shooting occurred is located a few blocks from city hall on Monterey Park’s main thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is dotted with strip malls of small businesses whose signs are in both English and Chinese. Cantonese and Mandarin are both widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated, and Chinese films are screened regularly in the city.

Lynette Ma, 28, woke up to text messages from worried friends asking if she was OK. She had planned to take her mother to the festival on Sunday, but instead they sat in a city park coming to terms with the tragedy.

“It was just the most terrible thing,” she said. “It’s just awful because you never expect it to happen somewhere so close to home.”

She said her family will go out to eat to mark the holiday, but it won’t be the same.

Sanchez said a public vigil for the victims will be held in the coming days.
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Women’s marches demanding abortion rights drew thousands of people across the country on Sunday, the 50th anniversary of the now-overturned Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established federal protections for the procedure.

Organizers focused on states after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe in June unleashed abortion restrictions and near-total bans in more than a dozen states.

“We are going to where the fight is, and that is at the state level,” reads the website for the Women’s March. The group has dubbed this year’s rallies “Bigger than Roe.”

The main march was held in Wisconsin, where upcoming state Supreme Court elections could determine the court’s power balance and future abortion rights. But rallies were held in dozens of cities, including Florida’s state capital of Tallahassee, where Vice President Kamala Harris gave a fiery speech before a boisterous crowd.

“Can we truly be free if families cannot make intimate decisions about the course of their own lives?” Harris said. “And can we truly be free if so-called leaders claim to be … ‘on the vanguard of freedom’ while they dare to restrict the rights of the American people and attack the very foundations of freedom?”

In Madison, thousands of abortion rights supporters donned coats and gloves to march in below-freezing temperatures through downtown to the state Capitol.

“It’s just basic human rights at this point,” said Alaina Gato, a Wisconsin resident who joined her mother, Meg Wheeler, on the Capitol steps to protest.

They said they plan to vote in the April Supreme Court election. Wheeler also said she hoped to volunteer as a poll worker and canvass for Democrats, despite identifying as an independent voter.

“This is my daughter. I want to make sure she has the right to choose whether she wants to have a child,” Wheeler said.

Madison Abortion and Reproductive Rights Coalition for Healthcare hosted the rally with the support of more than 30 other pro-abortion rights groups, including advocates from neighboring Illinois. Buses of protestors streamed into the state capitol from Chicago and Milwaukee, armed with banners and signs calling for the Legislature to repeal the state’s ban.

Abortions are unavailable in Wisconsin due to legal uncertainties faced by abortion clinics over whether an 1849 law banning the procedure is in effect. The law, which prohibits abortion except to save the patient’s life, is being challenged in court.

Some also carried weapons. Lilith K., who declined to provide their last name, stood on the sidewalk alongside protestors, holding an assault rifle and wearing a tactical vest with a holstered handgun.

“With everything going on with women and other people losing their rights, and with the recent shootings at Club Q and other LGBTQ night clubs, it’s just a message that we’re not going to take this sitting down,” Lilith said.

The march also drew counter-protestors. Most held signs raising religious objections to abortion rights. “I don’t really want to get involved with politics. I’m more interested in what the law of God says,” John Goeke, a Wisconsin resident, said.

Freshly galvanized anti-abortion activists are increasingly setting their sights on Congress with the aim of pushing for a potential national abortion restriction down the line. Tens of thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Friday for the annual March for Life — the first to be held since Roe was overturned.

In the absence of Roe v. Wade’s federal protections, abortion rights have become a state-by-state patchwork. In some states, officials have grappled with laws banning abortion that dated from the 1800s.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, with the support of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, filed the challenge to the 1849 ban in June in Dane County, where Madison is located, arguing that it is too old to enforce. Both sides have been trading briefs since and it’s unclear when a ruling may come, but the case looks destined for the state Supreme Court.

Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court, which for decades has issued consequential rulings in favor of Republicans, is likely to hear the case. Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but candidates for years have aligned with either conservatives or liberals as the contests have become expensive partisan battles.

Women’s rallies were expected to be held in nearly every state on Sunday.

The eldest daughter of Norma McCorvey, whose legal challenge under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” led to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, was set to attend the rally in Long Beach, California. Melissa Mills said it was her first Women’s March.

“It’s just unbelievable that we’re here again, doing the same thing my mom did,” Mills told The Associated Press. “We’ve lost 50 years of hard work.”

The Women’s March has become a regular event — although interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic — since millions rallied in the United States and around the world the day after the January 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump.

Trump made the appointment of conservative judges a mission of his presidency. The three conservative justices he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — all voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
…

A new poll indicates 64% of Americans view U.S. President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents as “inappropriate.” The results of the ABC/Ipsos poll were released as even more documents with classified markings were found at Biden’s residence in Delaware. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details. Video editor – Marcus Harton.
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Hundreds of mourners gathered at Graceland on Sunday morning to pay their respects to singer Lisa Marie Presley in a memorial service at the mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, she inherited from her father, rock legend Elvis Presley.

Presley died on Jan. 12 at the age of 54. Earlier that day, she had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital after reportedly suffering cardiac arrest at her home.

“Our heart is broken, Lisa, and we all love you,” her mother, Priscilla Presley, said at the service on the front lawn of Graceland. “Lisa Marie Presley was an icon, a role model, a superhero to many people all over the world.”

Singers Alanis Morissette, Billy Corgan and Axl Rose performed.

Lisa Marie Presley is survived by her daughters, actress Riley Keough and 14-year-old twins Finley and Harper Lockwood.

Two days before her death, she had appeared with her mother, Priscilla Presley, at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California, where actor Austin Butler won the best actor award for portraying her father in the film “Elvis.” Butler paid tribute to both women in his acceptance speech.

Presley began her music career in the 2000s with two albums, “To Whom It May Concern” and “Now What,” that made the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart.

She was married and divorced four times, including to pop star Michael Jackson and actor Nicholas Cage.

She was the only child of one of the greatest stars in American music, and was 9 years old when Elvis Presley died of heart failure at age 42 in 1977 at Graceland. The mansion is now a popular tourist attraction.

Elvis Presley and other members of his family are buried at Graceland’s Meditation Garden.

Lisa Marie Presley was buried there before the memorial service alongside the grave of her son, Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020 at age 27, a death ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles County coroner. In a recent essay, she had described herself as “destroyed” by her son’s death.

After the memorial service, mourners were due to form a procession past Lisa Marie Presley’s grave.
…

Ten people were killed in a mass shooting in the city of Monterey Park, California, at a ballroom dance venue late on Saturday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. 

The suspected gunman fled the scene, and police were still trying to find him, the department said early on Sunday morning. 

There was no information yet about a motive for the attack, the department added. 

Another 10 people were taken to local hospitals to be treated for injuries, and at least one was in critical condition. 

The shooting took place after 10 p.m. (0600 GMT on Sunday) around the location of a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration held in Monterey Park, U.S. media reported. Monterey Park is a city around 11 kilometers from downtown Los Angeles. 

Footage posted on social media showed injured people on stretchers being taken to ambulances by emergency staff. Around the scene of the shooting police guarded cordoned-off streets, the video showed. 

“Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones tonight in our neighboring city, Monterey Park, where a mass shooting just occurred,” Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia said in a tweet. 

Tens of thousands of people had attended the festival earlier in the day. 

The Los Angeles Times quoted the owner of a nearby restaurant as saying that people who sought shelter in his property told him there was a man with a machine gun in the area. 
…

One of the world’s most prestigious and storied surfing contests is expected to be held Sunday in Hawaii for the first time in seven years.

And this year female surfers will be competing alongside the men for the first time in the 39-year history of The Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational.

The event — alternatively known simply as The Eddie — is a one-day contest held in Waimea Bay on Oahu’s North Shore only when the surf is consistently large enough during the winter big wave surfing season from mid-December through mid-March. The wind, the tides and the direction of the swell also have to be just right.

“Large enough” means 6 meters by Hawaii measurements. That’s equivalent to about 12 meters when measured by methods used in the rest of the U.S. Before this year, conditions have only aligned for it to be held nine times since the initial competition in 1984.

Organizer Clyde Aikau said at a news conference Friday that he was expecting waves to reach 7.6-9 meters by Hawaii measurements or 15-18 meters on the national scale.

“Yes, The Eddie will go on Sunday,” he said.

Other places around the world have big wave surfing events: Mavericks in California, Nazare in Portugal and Peahi on Hawaii’s Maui Island. But author Stuart Coleman says The Eddie is distinguished by how it honors Eddie Aikau, a legendary Native Hawaiian waterman, for his selflessness, courage and sacrifice.

“What makes this contest the most unique is that it’s in memory of a particular individual who really has transcended his time and place when he lived,” said Coleman, who wrote Eddie Would Go, a biography of Aikau.

Edward Ryon Makuahanai Aikau rose to prominence as the first lifeguard hired by Honolulu to work on Oahu’s North Shore and was revered for saving over 500 people during his career. He’s also famous for surfing towering waves that no one else would dare ride.

Aikau died in 1978 at the age of 31 during an expedition to sail a traditional Polynesian voyaging canoe from Honolulu to Tahiti. Just hours out of port, the giant double-hulled canoe known as the Hokulea took on water and overturned in stormy weather. Aikau volunteered to paddle several miles to nearby Lanai Island on his surfboard to get help for the rest of the crew but was never seen again.

The U.S. Coast Guard rescued the remaining crew a few hours later after being alerted by a commercial plane that spotted the canoe.

Coleman said The Eddie is about the best of big wave surfing and the best of Hawaiian culture.

“They always say at the opening ceremony, where they gather to launch the holding period, ’This is not just a contest. We’re not surfing against each other. We’re surfing in the spirit of Eddie,’” Coleman said.

This year organizers have invited 40 competitors and 18 alternates from around the world, including Kelly Slater, who has won a record 11 world surfing titles. John John Florence, who hails from the North Shore and who has won two back-to-back world titles, has also been asked to join.

Keala Kennelly of Kauai, a women’s big wave surf champion, is among the female invitees.

Mindy Pennybacker, a surf columnist for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and author of the upcoming book Surfing Sisterhood Hawaii: Wahine Reclaiming the Waves said there’s long been an assumption that Waimea was too dangerous for women and they couldn’t surf there.

She said they’ve had to fight to be included and have meanwhile shown that they could handle big waves in spots around the world.

“To see women — not only women surfing Waimea but women and men sharing the same event together, with mutual respect and equality — I’m just really thrilled at the thought,” Pennybacker said.

The contest is expected to attract tens of thousands of spectators to the two-lane highway winding through the North Shore and the small towns that dot the coastal community.

Kathleen Pahinui, the chairperson of the North Shore Neighborhood Board, said it will be good for businesses, restaurants and shops. She urged visitors to carpool and take the bus because the roads will be congested.

“I wish all the participants the best of luck,” she said.
…

“I’ve always been able to understand how people feel and to see their perspective,” said Luisa Piette, who lives in Cool, California. “I feel their pain, whether it’s people going through a difficult divorce or an acquaintance who couldn’t pay their rent. I’ve been there to lend an ear and to empathize with them.”

Piette has a daughter and a granddaughter.

“I think women better understand what it feels like to put themselves in other people’s situations,” she told VOA.

Piette could be a textbook case on what studies on empathy have shown and what many people already suspect — women tend to be more empathetic than men.

A study released last month by researchers at the University of Cambridge surveyed tens of thousands of people worldwide. Like other studies, it indicated that women are much better than men at empathizing with others, regardless of any familial or cultural influences.

“Our findings provide some of the first evidence of the well-known phenomenon that women are, on average, more empathetic than men,” said David Greenberg, the study’s lead scientist.

Cognitive empathy

The scientists sought to measure cognitive empathy, which is when someone intellectually understands what another person may be thinking or feeling and then predicts how they will react.

For example, a friend tells you they are upset because they had an unpleasant disagreement with someone. If you have cognitive empathy, you will understand how your friend feels by putting yourself in their shoes.

The Cambridge study was the largest to date on the topic. Participants totaled about 306,000 men and women from 57 countries, including Egypt, India, Croatia and Saudi Arabia. On average, women showed much higher cognitive empathy in 36 countries and a similar amount to men in 21 others. In no country did men show greater empathy.

“This study clearly shows broadly consistent gender differences across countries, languages and age groups,” said Carrie Allison, director of research strategy at Cambridge University.

The authors of the report point out the results are just averages, with some men being better at empathizing than some women.

Sandra Murphy, a social scientist in Takoma Park, Maryland, said she doesn’t fit the stereotypical image.

“I’m more analytical, and my husband, who is a lawyer, is more empathetic,” she said.

Jack Murphy agreed.

“I tend to be more sensitive to people’s emotions and feelings,” he said.

Researchers found that empathetic capacities typically rise during adolescence and decrease during adulthood.

Olivia Mickelson, a high school student from Fairfax, Virginia, said, “I think my girlfriends are a lot more understanding and empathetic than my guy friends.”

Eyes test

To measure participants’ cognitive empathy, researchers used what they call the Eyes Test to measure a person’s ability to recognize someone else’s mental or emotional state.

Study participants examined photos of people’s various facial expressions and focused on what they thought a person may be thinking or feeling by looking at the area around their eyes. Participants were then given a limited list of words to describe what they saw.

“The results of the study prove what I’ve seen in my practice about women being more empathetic,” said therapist Cynthia Catchings, executive director of the Women’s Emotional Wellness Center in Alexandria, Virginia. “I think a lot of it has to be with upbringing, with women experiencing more socialization and many having close friends who are women.”

Sara Hodges, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of Oregon, agrees.

“The reason why people think their mother or best friend is empathetic is because they seem to know what they are thinking and feeling and would act with their interests at heart,” said Hodges, who is also director of the University of Oregon’s Social Cognition Lab where research includes empathy.

Hodges said the lab’s research, as well as other studies, appear to indicate gender differences in cognitive empathy may stem from social as well as biological factors.

“Women are better at decoding nonverbal, emotional communication,” she said.

At the same time, she thinks Eyes Test studies have their limitations in measuring empathy, a complex psychological phenomenon.

“They may not necessarily reflect that people are seeing empathy,” Hodges said, adding that empathy can be used for altruistic reasons or to influence others.

“Some people may be better at reading people’s facial expressions and are not necessarily doing that for compassionate reasons. They may be trying to get someone to do something they may not want to do,” she said.
…

Taiwan has learned important lessons from Ukraine’s war that would help it deter any attack by China or defend itself if invaded, the self-ruled island’s top envoy to the U.S. said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press.

Among the lessons: Do more to prepare military reservists and civilians for the kind of all-of-society fight that Ukrainians are waging against Russia.

“Everything we’re doing now is to prevent the pain and suffering of the tragedy of Ukraine from being repeated in our scenario in Taiwan,” said Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s representative in Washington.

“So ultimately, we seek to deter the use of military force. But in a worst-case scenario, we understand that we have to be better prepared,” Hsiao said.

Hsiao spoke at the quiet, more than 130-year-old hilltop mansion that Taiwan uses for official functions in Washington. She spoke on a range of Taiwan-U.S. military, diplomatic and trade relations issues shaped by intensifying rivalries with China.

No Taiwanese flag flew over the building, reflecting Taiwan’s in-between status as a U.S. ally that nonetheless lacks full U.S. diplomatic recognition. The U.S. withdrew that in 1979, on the same day it recognized Beijing as the sole government of China.

The interview came after a year of higher tensions with China, including the Chinese launching ballistic missiles over Taiwan and temporarily suspending most dialogue with the U.S. after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August.

Asked if new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy should make good on his earlier pledge to visit Taiwan as well, Hsaio said: “That will be his decision. But I think ultimately the people of Taiwan have welcomed visitors from around the world.”

Beijing’s leadership, she added, “has no right to decide or define how we engage with the world.”

Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949 during a civil war, is claimed by China. The decades-old threat of invasion by China of the self-governed island has sharpened since China cut off communications with the island’s government in 2016. That was after Taiwanese voters elected a government that Beijing suspected of wanting to take Taiwan from self-rule to full independence.

In Washington, Taiwan’s self-rule is one issue that has strong support from both parties.

U.S. administrations for decades have maintained a policy of leaving unsaid whether the U.S. military would come to Taiwan’s defense if China did invade. China’s military shows of force after Pelosi’s visit had some in Congress suggesting it was time for the U.S. to abandon that policy, known as “strategic ambiguity,” and to instead make clear Americans would fight alongside Taiwan.

Asked about those calls Friday, Hsiao only praised the existing policy.

“It has preserved the status quo for decades, or I should say it has preserved peace,” she said.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly volunteered in public comments that the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense, only to have aides walk that back with assurances that strategic ambiguity still prevails.

Meanwhile, after watching the Ukrainians’ successful hard-scrabble defense against invading Russian forces, Taiwan realizes it needs to load up on Javelins, Stingers, HIMARS and other small, mobile weapons systems, Hsiao said. The Taiwanese and Americans have reached agreement on some of those, she said.

Some security think tanks accuse the U.S. — and the defense industry — of focusing too much of the nation’s billions of dollars in arms deals with Taiwan on advanced, high-dollar aircraft and naval vessels. China’s mightier military could be expected to destroy those big targets at the outset of any attack on Taiwan, some security analysts say.

Taiwan is pushing to make sure that a shift to grittier, lower-tech weapon supplies for Taiwanese ground forces “happens as soon as possible,” Hsiao said. Even with the U.S. and other allies pouring billions of dollars’ worth of such weapons into Ukraine for the active fight there, straining global arms stocks, “we are assured by our friends in the United States that Taiwan is a very important priority,” she said.

At home, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen announced last month the government was extending compulsory military service for men from four months to a year, and Taiwan is increasing spending on defense. Hsiao would not directly address a report by Nikkei Asia on Friday that U.S. National Guard members had begun training in Taiwan, saying only that Taiwan was exploring ways to work with the U.S. Guard members to improve training.

Ukraine’s experience has had lessons for the U.S. and other allies as well, she said, including the importance of a united allied stand behind threatened democracies.

“It’s critical to send a consistent message to the authoritarian leaders that force is never an option … force will be met by a strong international response, including consequences,” Hsiao said.

Hsiao also spoke on the United States’ push under the Biden administration to boost U.S. production of computer chips. Supply chain disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic have underscored semiconductors’ crucial importance to the U.S. economy and military — and the extent of U.S. reliance on chip imports.

Greater U.S. production will push the nation into more direct trade competition with Taiwan, which is a global leader, especially for advanced semiconductors. Concern that China could interfere with semiconductor shipping through the Taiwan Strait has helped drive the United States’ new production effort.

Hsiao pointed out that Taiwan’s computer chip industry took decades to develop and expressed confidence it “will continue to be an indispensable and irreplaceable contributor to global supply chains in the decades to come.”

She noted Taiwan’s investment of $40 billion in a new semiconductor plant in Arizona, a project big enough that Biden visited the site last month, and expressed frustration at what she called a continuing U.S. financial penalty for Taiwanese companies doing business in the United States.

The United States’ diplomatic non-recognition of Taiwan as a country means that Taiwan – unlike China and other top U.S. trading partners – lacks a tax treaty with the U.S. and thus pays extra taxes.

Surmounting hurdles to fix that would make U.S.-Taiwan business investments “much more successful and sustainable in the long run,” she said.
…

The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday and found six additional documents containing classified markings and also took possession of some of his notes, the president’s lawyer said Saturday. 

The documents taken by the FBI spanned Biden’s time in the Senate and the vice presidency, while the notes dated to his time as vice president, said Bob Bauer, the president’s personal lawyer. He added that the search of the entire premises lasted nearly 13 hours. The level of classification, and whether the documents removed by the FBI remained classified, was not immediately clear as the United States Justice Department reviews the records. 

The extraordinary search came more than a week after Biden’s attorneys found six classified documents in the president’s home library from his time as vice president, and nearly three months after lawyers found a “small number” of classified records at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington. It came a day after Biden maintained that “there’s no there there” on the document discoveries, which have become a political headache as he prepares to launch a reelection bid and undercut his efforts to portray an image of propriety to the American public after the tumultuous presidency of his predecessor, Donald Trump. 

“We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden told reporters Thursday in California. “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department.” 

Biden added that he was “fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.” 

The president and first lady Jill Biden were not at the home when it was searched. They were spending the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. 

It remains to be seen whether additional searches by federal officials of other locations might be conducted. Biden’s personal attorneys previously conducted a search of the Rehoboth Beach residence and said they did not find any official documents or classified records. 

The Biden investigation has also complicated the Justice Department’s probe into Trump’s retention of classified documents and official records after he left office. The Justice Department says Trump took hundreds of records marked classified with him upon leaving the White House in early 2021 and resisted months of requests to return them to the government, and that it had to obtain a search warrant to retrieve them. 

Bauer said the FBI requested that the White House not comment on the search before it was conducted, and that Biden’s personal and White House attorneys were present. The FBI, he added, “had full access to the president’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades.” 

The Justice Department, he added, “took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the president’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as vice president.” 

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed former Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate any potential wrongdoing surrounding the Biden documents. Hur is set to take over from the Trump-appointed Illinois U.S. Attorney John Lausch in overseeing the probe. 

“Since the beginning, the president has been committed to handling this responsibly because he takes this seriously,” White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Saturday. “The president’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the special counsel to help ensure this process is conducted swiftly and efficiently.” 

The Biden document discoveries and the investigation into Trump, which is in the hands of special counsel Jack Smith, are significantly different. Biden has made a point of cooperating with the DOJ probe at every turn — and Friday’s search was voluntary — though questions about his transparency with the public remain. 

For a crime to have been committed, a person would have to “knowingly remove” the documents without authority and intend to keep them at an “unauthorized location.” Biden has said he was “surprised” that classified documents were uncovered at the Penn Biden Center. 

Generally, classified documents are to be declassified after a maximum of 25 years. But some records are of such value they remain classified for far longer, though specific exceptions must be granted. Biden served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009. 
…

Ron Klain, President Joe Biden’s White House chief of staff, plans to leave his post in the coming weeks, sources familiar with the matter said on Saturday, a major changing of the guard.

Klain has informed Biden of his plans, the sources said, confirming a New York Times story that said the long-serving aide would likely depart after the president’s State of the Union address on February 7.

Klain, 61, has a long history at the White House, having served as chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore and to Biden when he was vice president under President Barack Obama.

His departure is coming as Biden prepares to declare whether he will seek a second four-year term in 2024, an announcement anticipated after the State of the Union address.

The Times cited a lengthy list of possible successors to Klain: Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; former Delaware Governor Jack Markell; Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn, counselor to the president Steve Richetti, former pandemic coordinator Jeff Zients and domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The news broke as Biden spent the weekend at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home.

The chief of staff position is one of the most important at the White House, the senior political appointee responsible for driving the president’s policy agenda and ensuring appropriate staff members are hired.

The job can have a high burnout rate as the long days pile up. Klain’s tenure has been fairly lengthy comparatively speaking. Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, burned through four chiefs of staff in four years including his first, Reince Priebus, who lasted 192 days.
…

As damaging as it was for more than 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow to fall on California since Christmas, a worst-case global warming scenario could juice up similar future downpours by one-third by the middle of this century, a new study says.

The strongest of California’s storms from atmospheric rivers, long and wide plumes of moisture that form over an ocean and flow through the sky over land, would probably get an overall 34% increase in total precipitation, or another 11 trillion gallons more than just fell. That’s because the rain and snow is likely to be 22% more concentrated at its peak in places that get really doused, and to fall over a considerably larger area if fossil fuel emissions grow uncontrolled, according to a new study in Thursday’s journal Nature Climate Change.

The entire western United States would likely see a 31% increase in precipitation from these worst of the worst storms in a souped-up warming world because of more intense and widely spread rainfall, the study said.

Scientists say the worst-case scenario, which is about 4.4 degrees Celsius (7.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, looks a bit more unlikely since efforts are being undertaken to rein in emissions. If countries do as they promise, temperatures are on track to warm about 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Climate Action Tracker.

The National Weather Service calculated that California averaged 11.47 inches of precipitation statewide from Dec. 26 to Jan. 17 — including 18.33 inches in Oakland and 47.74 inches in one spot 235 miles north of San Francisco — because of a series of nine devastating atmospheric rivers that caused power outages, flooding, levee breaks, washouts and landslides. At least 20 people died.

“It could be even worse,” said study author Ruby Leung, a climate scientist at the U.S. Pacific Northwest National Lab. “We need to start planning how would we be able to deal with this.”

Leung used regional scale computer simulations to predict what the worst of the western winter storms will be like between 2040 and 2070 in a scenario where carbon emissions have run amok. She looked at total precipitation, how concentrated peak raining and snowing would be and the area that gets hit. All three factors grow for the West in general. California is predicted to get the highest increase in peak precipitation, while the Southwest is likely to see more rain because of a big jump in area of rainfall. The Pacific Northwest would see the least juicing of the three areas.

Overall precipitation is a bit lessened from adding all the factors, because just as the peak rainfall grows the rainfall on the edges of the storms is predicted to weaken, according to the study.

There are two types of storms that Leung said she worries about: Flash floods from intense rain concentrated over a small area and slower, larger floods that occur from rain and snow piling up over a large area. Both are bad, but the flash floods cause more damage and hurt people more, she said.

And those flash floods are likely to get worse from what Leung’s paper calls a “sharpening” effect that happens in an ever warmer world. That means more rainfall concentrated in the central areas of storms, falling at higher rates per hour, while at the outer edges rainfall is a bit weaker.

This happens because of the physics of rain storms, Leung said.

Not only can the atmosphere hold 4% more moisture per degree Fahrenheit (7% per degree Celsius), but it’s what happens in the storm that changes and makes the precipitation come down even more, Leung said. You’ve got air rising inside the storm with more water vapor condensing to produce rain and snow; it then releases heat “that kind of causes the storm to become more vigorous and stronger,” she said.

When water vapor condenses it comes down as rain and snow along the edges of the storm, but heating sort of squeezes that falling precipitation in toward the middle, Leung said.

“The concepts and impacts of how precipitation features are likely to change are well quantified and well explained,” said David Gochis, an expert in how water affects the weather at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who wasn’t part of the study.

When she used computer simulations, Leung chose the most severe worst-case scenario for how the world’s carbon emissions will grow. It’s a scenario that used to be called business as usual, but the world is no longer on that track. After years of climate negotiations and the growth of renewable fuels the globe is heading to less warming than the worst case, according to climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth.

“We are providing more of a worst-case scenario, but understanding that if we do take action to reduce emissions in the future, we could end up better,” Leung said. “If we control the emissions and lower the global warming in the future, we can limit the impacts of climate change on the society, particularly flooding and extreme precipitation that we are talking about in this study.”
…

During seventh grade at Phoenix Indian School, Pershlie Ami signed up to go on what the school called an “outing” — promoted as opportunities for Native American students to earn spending money off campus.

They were opportunities — for cheap labor.

Ami said most people have no idea that the school staff would send students out to work, often doing menial tasks, for strangers whose backgrounds weren’t checked.

“A family came and picked me up and took me to their home. The task that they wanted me to do was pick up dog poop in their house,” Ami said during a listening session Friday in the Gila River Indian Community just south of Phoenix overseen by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

The session is part of a yearlong “Road to Healing” tour for victims and survivors of abuse at government-backed boarding schools. It is the fourth stop for the nation’s first and only Native American Cabinet secretary after previous stops in South Dakota, Oklahoma and Michigan.

Ami, who’s Hopi, is now 67 and living in nearby Laveen. She still remembers vehemently refusing to clean the house — and the fallout.

“I got severely punished for not doing what that family had asked me to do. I was never allowed to go out on another outing,” she said. “Then I started to wonder what happened to some of these kids that went out on these outings, that nobody ever followed up on them.”

Ami was one of several people who spoke during Haaland’s visit to Arizona before a large audience that included Gov. Katie Hobbs and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.

Several testimonies addressed issues in addition to abuse, such as losing one’s culture and language. The session took place in the multipurpose room of Gila Crossing Community School, where artwork and banners reflected the heritage of the local tribe.

“This is one step among many that we will take to strengthen and rebuild the bonds with the Native communities that federal Indian boarding school policies set out to break,” Haaland said before the session.

Starting with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the U.S. enacted laws and policies to establish and support the schools. The stated goal was to “civilize” Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, which was often carried out through abusive practices.

In Arizona alone, there were 47 federal Indian boarding schools — and that number does not even include the religious and private institutions that received federal funding to run schools.

“My ancestors and many of yours endured the horrors of the Indian boarding school assimilation policies carried out by the same department I now lead,” Haaland said.

“This is the first time in history that a United States Cabinet secretary comes to the table with a shared trauma. That is not lost on me.”

Haaland has prioritized publicly examining the trauma caused by these schools. In May, the Interior Department released a first-of-its-kind report pointing out 408 schools the federal government supported that stripped Native Americans of their cultures and identities. At least 500 children are known to have died at some of the schools. But when more research is done, that statistic is likely to rise.

A majority of the speakers were descendants of boarding school survivors. They shared how their parents had a hard time learning how to be good parents because they were separated from their own — some at a very young age. Ami, whose father also went to a boarding school, remembered how he would refer to himself as “just a dumb Indian.”

“I think he did eventually get rid of that image of being ‘a dumb Indian,’” Ami said. “But he never stopped using that phrase in reference to himself.”

The vulnerability of victims has spurred tears at all these sessions. However, Deborah Parker, chief executive of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and a member of the Tulalip Tribes, said there’s a feeling of hope, too.

“There’s a sense of encouragement. Yes, we can finally tell our stories and maybe we can begin to heal,” Parker said. “Those tears help cleanse emotions that we’ve been keeping inside of us for sometimes generations.”

Congress is planning to reintroduce legislation to establish a boarding school “truth and healing commission,” according to Parker. It would be similar to one established in Canada in 2008. If passed, it would have a broader scope than the Interior Department’s investigation into federally run boarding schools and subpoena power.

Meanwhile, a second report is pending in the school investigation launched by Haaland, who is a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. It will focus on burial sites, the schools’ impact on Indigenous communities and try to account for federal funds spent on the troubled program.
…

The White House on Friday announced it will designate the Wagner Group, the Russian private military company supporting Moscow’s war on Ukraine, as a Transnational Criminal Organization, hitting it with sanctions and limiting its ability to do business around the world.

Declaring Wagner a TCO freezes its assets in the U.S. and prohibits Americans from providing funds, goods or services to the group.

“It will give us more flexibility,” John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said in a Friday interview with VOA.

“We were already sanctioning Russia writ large across the board, and some of those sanctions and export controls we know also tangentially had an effect on private military contractors like Wagner, but this is really targeted towards Wagner specifically,” he said of the sanctions that will be put in effect by the U.S. Treasury Department next week.

Kirby said the U.S. is urging other countries to target the group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In recent years the group has significantly increased its footprint not only in Ukraine, but also in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Mozambique and Mali and has been accused of human rights violations in countries where it operates.

The Biden administration also released newly declassified photos of what it says are Russian rail cars delivering infantry rockets and missiles from North Korea in November for use by Wagner forces. The administration submitted the imagery to the U.N. Security Council panel charged with enforcing North Korea sanctions to push for action on what it says is a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on arms transfers.

“The North Koreans had just been baldly lying about their support to Russia,” Kirby said, adding the U.S. wants to “lay out demonstrable evidence” of Pyongyang’s support.

40,000 Russian convict fighters

Last month the White House confirmed that Wagner deploys about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, 40,000 of them recruited from Russian jails.

Olga Romanova, executive director of the civil rights movement Russia Behind Bars, told VOA that prisoners who agree to sign the contract with Wagner are paid about $3,000 a month.

“By the end of 2022, the desire to go serve in Wagner group in Ukraine has diminished significantly among the Russian convicts,” she told VOA, citing extrajudicial executions, unfulfilled promises and extremely high casualties.

Experts who study the group say up to 80% of Russian convicts used by Wagner die in Ukrainian battlefields. Out of thousands of Wagner-recruited convicts, only 106 were pardoned and allowed to go home after the fulfillment of their six-month contracts, Romanova said.

Prisoners are deployed without training, organizational capability, or command and control, Kirby said.

“They’re just throwing them into this meat grinder in the Bakhmut and Soledar areas, and they’re paying a heavy price for it,” he said, referencing two Ukrainian towns that are the focus of recent intense fighting.

Kirby spoke of mounting tensions between Prigozhin and the Kremlin, accusing the Wagner founder of making himself “seem more relevant and more viable than even the Russian military” while “trying to fill his own coffers.”

The Wagner group posted a picture of Prigozhin and his fighters in Soledar, which the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have captured last week without mention of Wagner’s role.

Foreign terrorist organization

Kirby would not confirm whether the U.S. is aiming next to designate the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In December a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced the Holding Accountable Russian Mercenaries (HARM) Act, bipartisan legislation that would require the Secretary of State to designate Wagner as an FTO. A similar measure has been introduced in the U.S. Senate.

In November, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging the European Council to place Wagner on the EU terrorist list.

Designating the group as a terrorist organization would not only freeze its assets, ban recruitment, financing and travel of its members said Méryl Demuynck, research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

“It would send a very strong message and has a symbolic function, not only to Russia,” she told VOA. “But also to countries that are already resorting to the group or considering resorting to it.”
…

From New York to Los Angeles, hate crimes continued to rise in major American cities last year, with preliminary police data showing that at least six metropolitan areas recorded levels not seen since the 1990s.

That’s according to a new report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.

The unpublished report, based on data from 20 police departments, was exclusively shared with Voice of America and comes months before the FBI is due to release its annual hate crime report for 2022.

Brian Levin, director of the research center, said while national hate crime trends generally mirror those of big cities, his data show a more modest uptick of 1.2% for the 20 cities surveyed.

“If current data hold, the FBI report is likely to be up when compared to the incomplete report for 2021,” Levin said.

Last month, the FBI released its annual hate crimes statistics, which showed there were 7,262 hate crime incidents in 2021; however, the report excluded data for New York City, Chicago and most of California.

Of the 20 cities surveyed by the research center, six posted multidecade highs in hate crimes.

Up 18% in New York City

In New York City, the nation’s largest city with about 9 million residents, police investigated 619 hate crimes, up 18% for the year and the most since 1992.

In Los Angeles, the second most populous U.S. city, police recorded a total of 643 hate crime victims in 2022, up 13% from 2021 and the highest number since 2001. In contrast to most other police agencies, the Los Angeles Police Department counts hate crimes by the number of victims rather than incidents.

Other major cities that saw multidecade highs in reported hate crimes include Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Austin, Texas.

Levin said improved hate crime reporting was partly responsible for last year’s spike in reported incidents.

“There was a real scramble by not only law enforcement but by many NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and advocacy groups to get victims’ experiences reported,” he said.

Many definitions of hate

The FBI defines a hate crime as a criminal offense “motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.”

The bureau has been collecting and publishing annual hate crime statistics submitted by police departments since 1991.

In the decades since, most hate crimes have been motivated by racial bias, with African Americans the top target. That remained the case last year in most cities studied by the research center. Among the most horrific anti-Black hate crimes last year: An 18-year-old white supremacist gunman shot and killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in May.

Elsewhere, a wave of antisemitic attacks remained unabated. In New York City, home to the largest Jewish population in the U.S., nearly half of all reported hate crimes involved Jewish victims, with the total number of antisemitic criminal incidents jumping 31% to a record high of 271.

“It’s very shocking but perhaps not surprising for those who deal with this every day,” said Scott Richman, the New York and New Jersey director for the Anti-Defamation League, commonly known as the ADL. “I can tell you that we literally respond … to antisemitic incidents every single day in this region.”

The ADL tracks both hate crimes and hate incidents, which do not rise to the level of a crime.

“There are many things that happen that are antisemitic and very troubling that don’t rise to the level of a crime that we deal with,” said Richman.

Decline in anti-Asian hate crimes

Anti-Asian hate crime, which rose sharply during the pandemic because of the perceived association of the COVID-19 virus with China, was the only category to see a decline in most cities. In New York, anti-Asian hate crime fell from 133 to 86 incidents; in Los Angeles, from 42 to 32.

Despite the decline, Levin said, anti-Asian hate crimes remain at “disturbingly elevated levels when compared to pre-pandemic [levels].”
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