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New York — Women in the U.S. have saved just a third of the amount that men have set aside for retirement, setting up a potential crisis among female retirees, according to a Prudential Financial survey released on Monday.  

On average, men had saved $157,000 for retirement, while women had only put aside $50,000 according to a survey of 905 U.S. adults between the ages of 55 and 75.  

“The financial futures of certain cohorts – such as women – are especially precarious,” Caroline Feeney, CEO of Prudential’s U.S. Businesses, said in a statement. “Women have a more challenging time saving for retirement,” she added, citing inflation, housing prices and changes in tax policies as the main barriers.  

Compared with the men surveyed, women were three times more likely to be focused on providing for their families and children than saving.  

Of the respondents, 46% of men said they were looking forward to retirement and had more plans, compared with 27% of women polled, the survey showed.
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New York — In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned women’s constitutional right to abortion, political contributions aimed at protecting abortion rights have far outstripped those to support anti-abortion causes.

In the 2023-2024 election cycle leading up to the Nov. 5 vote, pro-abortion rights interests have given $3.37 million to federal candidates, political parties, political action committees (PACs) and outside groups, compared to about $273,000 from anti-abortion interests, according to data from OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics.

The level of spending by pro-abortion rights interests is expected to offer a financial boost to the campaigns of some Democratic candidates including U.S. President Joe Biden, who has made protecting abortion rights a central part of his campaign message for reelection.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, in 2022 overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent that had legalized abortion nationwide, prompting 14 states to since enact measures banning or sharply restricting the procedure.

Groups like super PACs received 65.8% of contributions from those backing abortion rights in this election cycle, according to a Reuters analysis of OpenSecrets data.

Republican candidates and party committees got the bulk — about 75.9% — of contributions from anti-abortion rights interests.

PACs are typically set up to gather funds for candidates or political causes. They differ from outside money groups like super PACs, which can receive donations of unlimited size but cannot coordinate with campaigns directly.

So far this election cycle, PACs and super PACs allied with anti-abortion causes have raised $3.54 million, while abortion rights groups have raised $15.3 million, OpenSecrets data showed.

“The balance of spending between pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion rights groups always reflected the fact that there are more people who support abortion rights than who don’t,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at University of California, Davis.

Ziegler said she would not be surprised if political donations to support or oppose abortion rights rose for the 2024 election cycle compared to the 2020 election cycle.

2020 election cycle set records

The sums reported so far are dwarfed by those in the 2020 election cycle, in which abortion rights interests poured in $11.33 million in political contributions, with spending in the 2022 midterm election cycle coming in second with $10.67 million in contributions, OpenSecrets data showed.

Contributions from anti-abortion interests totaled $6.41 million in the 2020 cycle, and $2.7 million in the 2022 midterm cycle, during which the outcomes for ballot measures and competitive races seemed to suggest that voters were eager to protect abortion access at the state level.

With more than four months to go before the November election, it remains to be seen whether contributions this election cycle from abortion rights and anti-abortion causes will outstrip those in the 2020 cycle, when Biden beat the incumbent Donald Trump, a Republican.

The impact of political contributions on race outcomes is complicated, Ziegler said, as voters have various priorities at the ballot box.

“You can’t dismiss the importance of it, but it’s not like [more contributions] definitely means ballot initiatives are going to pass, Democrats are going to win, etc. It’s not that simple,” Ziegler said.

During Trump’s term as president, which started in 2017, he appointed a third of the current members of the Supreme Court and half of its conservative bloc, with all three of his picks coming from a list compiled by conservative legal activists.

Trump’s campaign earlier this month said he supports the rights of states to make decisions on abortion, supports exceptions for abortions in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother, and also supports protecting access to contraception and in vitro fertilization.

Two of the top contributors to candidates and groups are Planned Parenthood – which advocates for abortion rights — and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America — which lobbies against abortion rights.

So far this election cycle, Planned Parenthood has contributed $2.53 million, most of that to liberal groups, the Democratic party and its candidates.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has contributed about $92,600, almost all of it to Republican candidates and their party.
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CROMWELL, Conn. — Six climate protesters stormed the 18th green while the leaders were lining up their putts for the final hole of regulation at the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship on Sunday, spraying smoke and powder and delaying the finish for about five minutes.

The protesters waved smoke bombs that left white and red residue on the putting surface before Scottie Scheffler, Tom Kim and Akshay Bhatia finished their rounds. Some wore white T-shirts with the words “NO GOLF ON A DEAD PLANET” in black lettering on the front.

“I was scared for my life,” Bhatia said. “I didn’t even really know what was happening. … But thankfully the cops were there and kept us safe, because that’s, you know, that’s just weird stuff.”

The PGA Tour issued a statement thanking the Cromwell Police Department “for their quick and decisive action” and noting that there was no damage to the 18th green that affected either the end of regulation or the playoff hole.

Scheffler, who recently was arrested during a traffic stop at the PGA Championship, also praised the officers.

“From my point of view, they got it taken care of pretty dang fast, and so we were very grateful for that,” said Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 player, who beat Kim on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff for his sixth victory of the year.

“When something like that happens, you don’t really know what’s happening, so it can kind of rattle you a little bit,” Scheffler said. “That can be a stressful situation, and you would hate for the tournament to end on something weird happening because of a situation like that. I felt like Tom and I both tried to calm each other down so we could give it our best shot there on 18.”

Extinction Rebellion, an activist group with a history of disrupting events around the world, claimed responsibility for the protest. In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, the group blamed climate change for an electrical storm that injured two people at a home near the course on Saturday.

“This was of course due to increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather conditions,” the statement said. “Golf, more than other events, is heavily reliant on good weather. Golf fans should therefore understand better than most the need for strong, immediate climate action.”

After the protesters were tackled by police and taken off, Scheffler left a potential 26-foot clincher from the fringe on the right edge of the cup, then tapped in for par. Kim, who trailed by one stroke heading into the final hole, sank a 10-foot birdie putt to tie Scheffler and force the playoff.
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NEW YORK — New Zealand came out victorious in the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix, the “world’s most exciting racing on water,” on New York’s Hudson River Sunday.

The two-day event was the penultimate race weekend of Mubadala SailGP before the competition’s fourth season concludes in San Francisco in July.

SailGP is an international sailing competition in which F50 foiling catamarans compete at 13 global destinations for a season of grand prix races. Some of this season’s previous destinations included Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Sydney, Australia.

Each grand prix consists of separate “fleet races” before the three highest-scoring teams compete in a final race to decide the champion.

This SailGP season consists of 10 world-renowned teams: Australia, Canada, Emirates Great Britain, France, Germany, New Zealand, Rockwool Denmark, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

On Friday, Coutts announced that SailGP Season Five would feature a Brazil team, the competition’s first-ever team from South America.

“As a league, it’s an awesome place to be,” said Phil Robertson, Canada’s driver. “You got new teams and a lot of interest from a lot of countries so to have Brazil on the start line is very special and cool to expand to South America.”

Coming off its last race in Halifax, Canada, earlier this month, SailGP completed its 12th stop around the world this season in the waters between New York and New Jersey in which Canada placed second and Emirates Great Britain placed third.

The last time SailGP raced in New York was its debut season in 2019.

“Looking back on that inaugural event is like reflecting on a totally different stage in our journey,” Russell Coutts, CEO of SailGP, said in a press conference Friday. “We had just six national teams in a five-event calendar and now nearing the end of Season Four, we have 10 teams with the best of the best athletes in the sport, competing in a 13-event calendar, broadcast in 212 territories around the world.”

Approximately 9,000 ticketed attendees gathered on Governors Island and on the water Saturday and Sunday to watch the races.

Taylor Canfield, driver for the U.S. team, spoke on the significance of sailing in front of home fans in New York City and in San Francisco next month.

“It’s so cool to be here in the U.S. and these two iconic cities in New York and San Francisco,” Canfield said in Friday’s press conference. “It’s going to be amazing conditions and just perfect weather. This is the most iconic city in the world and it’s going to come alive so we’re excited about that.”

Looking forward to the final races in San Francisco next month, team Australia — reigning champion of SailGP seasons one, two and three — faces pressure to take home another win.

“It’s exciting to be in this position,” Tom Slingsby, driver for Australia, said. “For sure there’s a bit more adrenaline and there’s a bit more on the line knowing that every race really counts at the moment but I have full faith in my team. We’ve performed under pressure, we’ve won three one million dollar races.”

On July 14, one team will walk away with a $2 million prize and the title of SailGP’s season four champion.
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Espargos, Cape Verde — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mutual defense agreement with North Korea has the potential to create friction with China, which has long been the reclusive state’s main ally, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday.

“We’ve got someone else who’s kind of nudging in now, so that may drive a little bit more friction between (China) and Russia,” Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during an overseas trip.

“So, it’ll be interesting to see how these three countries — how this plays out.”

Analysts said the pact, signed Wednesday, could undercut Beijing’s leverage over its two neighbors and any heightened instability could be negative for China’s global economic and strategic ambitions.

On Thursday, Putin said Russia might supply weapons to North Korea in what he suggested would be a mirror response to the Western arming of Ukraine.

Brown acknowledged U.S. concern about the deal.

But he also tempered those remarks by noting apparent limitations to the accord and expressing doubt Moscow would give North Korea “everything” it wanted.

U.S. officials have said they believe North Korea is keen to acquire fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, ballistic missile production equipment or materials, and other advanced technologies from Russia.

“The feedback I have on the agreement — it was a broad agreement that’s not overly binding, which gives you an indication (that) they want to work together but they don’t want to get their hands tied,” Brown said.

The treaty signed by Putin and Kim on Wednesday commits each side to provide immediate military assistance to the other in the event of armed aggression against either one of them.

Putin has said Moscow expected that its cooperation with North Korea would serve as a deterrent to the West, but that there was no need to use North Korean soldiers for the war in Ukraine.

The United States and Ukraine say North Korea has already provided Russia with significant quantities of artillery shells and ballistic missiles, which Moscow and Pyongyang deny.
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Washington — U.S. prosecutors are recommending to senior Justice Department officials that criminal charges be brought against Boeing after finding the planemaker violated a settlement related to two fatal crashes, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Justice Department (DOJ) must decide by July 7 whether to prosecute Boeing. The recommendation of prosecutors handling the case has not been previously reported.

In May, officials determined the company breached a 2021 agreement that had shielded Boeing from a criminal charge of conspiracy to commit fraud arising from two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving the 737 MAX jet.

Under the 2021 deal, the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute Boeing over allegations it defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration so long as the company overhauled its compliance practices and submitted regular reports. Boeing also agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle the investigation.

Boeing declined to comment. It has previously said it has “honored the terms” of the 2021 settlement, which had a three-year term and is known as a deferred prosecution agreement. Boeing has told the Justice Department it disagrees with its determination that the company violated the settlement, Reuters reported this month.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment.

The two sides are in discussions over a potential resolution to the Justice Department’s investigation and there is no guarantee officials will move forward with charges, the two sources said. The internal Justice Department deliberations remain ongoing, and no final decisions have been reached, they added.

Criminal charges would deepen an unfolding crisis at Boeing, which has faced intense scrutiny from U.S. prosecutors, regulators and lawmakers after a panel blew off one of its jets operated by Alaska Airlines mid-flight Jan. 5, just two days before the 2021 settlement expired.

The sources did not specify what criminal charges Justice Department officials are considering, but one of the people said they could extend beyond the original 2021 fraud conspiracy charge.

Alternatively, instead of prosecuting Boeing, the DOJ could extend the 2021 settlement by a year or propose new, stricter terms, the sources said.

In addition to financial penalties, the strictest settlements typically involve installing a third party to monitor a company’s compliance. The DOJ can also require the company to admit its wrongdoing by pleading guilty.

Boeing may be willing to pay a penalty and agree to a monitor, but believes a guilty plea, which typically incurs additional business restrictions, could be too damaging, said one of the sources. Boeing derives significant revenue from contracts with the U.S. government, including the Defense Department, which could be jeopardized by a felony conviction, one of the sources said.

Relatives of the victims of the two fatal 737 MAX crashes have long criticized the 2021 agreement, arguing that Justice Department officials should have prosecuted the company and its executives.

At a Senate hearing in June, Chief Executive Dave Calhoun acknowledged the company’s shortcomings on safety and apologized to the families who lost loved ones.

Last week, the families pressed prosecutors to seek a fine against the planemaker of nearly $25 billion and move forward with a criminal prosecution.
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Chicago — One of Chicago’s most popular tourist attractions known as “The Bean” reopened to the public Sunday after nearly a year of renovations and construction.

Construction started in August last year, and fencing around the iconic sculpture limited closeup access to visitors. The work on the plaza surrounding the sculpture included new stairs, accessible ramps and a waterproofing system, according to the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

The bean-shaped sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is formally known as “Cloud Gate” and weighs 110 tons (99.8 metric tons).

It’s a busy tourist hub near Michigan Avenue, particularly for selfies with its reflective surface inspired by liquid mercury. Views of skyscrapers and crowds are reflected on the Millennium Park sculpture.

“Visitors can once again have full access to Chicago’s iconic Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor,” city officials said in a Sunday statement. “Come back and get your #selfie!”
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Some 175 years after the U.S. government stole land from the chief of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation while he was away visiting relatives, Illinois may soon return it to the tribe.

Nothing ever changed the 1829 treaty that Chief Shab-eh-nay signed with the U.S. government to preserve for him a reservation in northern Illinois: not subsequent accords nor the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which forced all indigenous people to move west of the Mississippi.

But around 1848, the U.S. sold the land to white settlers while Shab-eh-nay and other members of his tribe were visiting family in Kansas. 

To right the wrong, Illinois would transfer a 1,500-acre (607-hectare) state park west of Chicago, which was named after Shab-eh-nay, to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. The state would continue providing maintenance while the tribe says it wants to keep the park as it is. 

“The average citizen shouldn’t know that title has been transferred to the nation so they can still enjoy everything that’s going on within the park and take advantage of all of that area out there,” said Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick, chairman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation based in Mayetta, Kansas.

It’s not entirely the same soil that the U.S. took from Chief Shab-eh-nay. The boundaries of his original 1,280-acre (518-hectare) reservation now encompass hundreds of acres of privately owned land, a golf course and county forest preserve. The legislation awaiting Illinois House approval would transfer the Shabbona Lake State Recreation Area.

No one disputes Shab-eh-nay’s reservation was illegally sold and still belongs to the Potawatomi. An exactingly researched July 2000 memo from the Interior Department found the claim valid and shot down rebuttals from Illinois officials at the time, positing, “It appears that Illinois officials are struggling with the concept of having an Indian reservation in the state.”

But nothing has changed a quarter-century later.

Democratic state Rep. Will Guzzardi, who sponsored the legislation to transfer the state park, said it is a significant concession on the part of the Potawatomi. With various private and public concerns now owning more than half of the original reservation land, reclaiming it for the Potawatomi would set up a serpentine legal wrangle.

“Instead, the tribe has offered a compromise, which is to say, ‘We’ll take the entirety of the park and give up our claim to the private land and the county land and the rest of that land,’” Guzzardi said. “That’s a better deal for all parties involved.”

The proposed transfer of the park, which is 68 miles (109 kilometers) west of Chicago, won Senate approval in the final days of the spring legislative session. But a snag in the House prevented its passage. Proponents will seek endorsement of the measure when the Legislature returns in November for its fall meeting.

The Second Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1829 guaranteed the original land to Chief Shab-eh-ney. The tribe signed 20 other treaties during the next 38 years, according to Rupnick.

“Yet Congress still kept those two sections of land for Chief Shab-eh-nay and his descendants forever,” said Rupnick, a fourth great-grandson of Shab-eh-nay. “At any one of those times the Congress could have removed the status of that land. They never did.”

Key to the proposal is a management agreement between the tribe and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Rupnick said the tribe needs the state’s help to maintain the park.

Many residents who live next to the park oppose the plan, fearing construction of a casino or even a hotel would draw more tourists and lead to a larger, more congested community.

“Myself and my family have put a lot of money and given up a lot to be where we are in a small community and enjoy the park the way that it is,” resident Becky Oest told a House committee in May, asking that the proposal be amended to prohibit construction that would “affect our community. It’s a small town. We don’t want it to grow bigger.”

Rupnick said a casino doesn’t make sense because state-sanctioned gambling boats already dot the state. He did not rule out a hotel, noting the park draws 500,000 visitors a year and the closest lodging is in DeKalb, 18 miles (29 kilometers) northeast of Shabbona. The park has 150 campsites.

In 2006, the tribe purchased 128 acres (52 hectares) in a corner of the original reservation and leases the land for farming. The U.S. government in April certified that as the first reservation in Illinois.

Guzzardi hopes the Potawatomi don’t have to wait much longer to see that grow exponentially with the park transfer.

“It keeps this beautiful public asset available to everyone,” Guzzardi said. “It resolves disputed title for landholders in the area and most importantly, it fixes a promise that we broke.” 
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Tucked inside the West Virginia Statehouse is a copy of a petition to lawmakers with a simple request: Let the voters decide whether to reinstate legal access to abortion.

The request has been ignored by the Republican lawmakers who have supermajority control in the Legislature and banned abortions in the state in 2022, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to the procedure.

The petition, with more than 2,500 signatures, is essentially meaningless given the current makeup of the Legislature. But it illustrates the frustratingly limited options millions of Americans face in trying to re-establish abortion rights as the country marks the two-year anniversary since the Supreme Court’s ruling.

West Virginia is among the 25 states that do not allow citizen initiatives or constitutional amendments on a statewide ballot, an avenue of direct democracy that has allowed voters to circumvent their legislatures and preserve abortion and other reproductive rights in a number of states over the past two years.

Republicans there have repeatedly dismissed the idea of placing an abortion-rights measure before voters, which in West Virginia is a step only lawmakers can take.

“It makes you wonder what they’re so afraid of,” said Democratic Del. Kayla Young, one of only 16 women in the West Virginia Legislature. “If they feel so strongly that this is what people believe, prove it.”

The court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade was praised by abortion opponents as a decision that returned the question to the states. Former President Donald Trump, who named three of the justices who overturned Roe, has repeatedly claimed “the people” are now the ones deciding abortion access.

“The people are deciding,” he said during a recent interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “And in many ways, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.”

But that’s not true everywhere. In states allowing the citizen initiative and where abortion access has been on the ballot, voters have resoundingly affirmed the right to abortion.

Voters in seven states, including conservative ones such as Kentucky, Montana and Ohio, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to curtail them in statewide votes over the past two years. Reproductive rights supporters are trying to put citizen initiatives on the ballot in several states this year.

But voters don’t have a direct say in about half the states.

This is particularly true for those living in the South. Republican-controlled legislatures, many of which have been heavily gerrymandered to give the GOP disproportionate power, have enacted some of the strictest abortion bans since the Supreme Court ruling while shunning efforts to expand direct democracy.

States began adopting the initiative process during the Progressive Era more than a century ago, giving citizens a way to make or repeal laws through a direct vote of the people. Between 1898 and 1918, nearly 20 states approved the citizen initiative. Since then, just five states have done so.

“It was a different time,” said John Matsusaka, professor of business and law at the University of Southern California. “There was a political movement across the whole country when people were trying to do what they saw as good government.”

Some lawmakers argue citizen initiatives bypass important checks and balances offered through the legislative process. In Tennessee, where Republicans have gerrymandered legislative districts to give them a supermajority in the statehouse, House Majority Leader William Lamberth likened ballot measures to polls rather than what he described as the legislature’s strict review of complicated policy-making.

“We evaluate bills every single year,” he said.

As in West Virginia, abortion-rights supporters or Democratic lawmakers have asked Republican-controlled legislatures in a handful of states to take the abortion question straight to voters, a tactic that hasn’t succeeded anywhere the GOP has a majority.

“This means you’re going to say, ‘Hey Legislature, would you like to give up some of your power? Would you like to give up your monopoly on policymaking?’” said Thad Kousser, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. “You need a political momentum and then have the process cooperate.”

In South Carolina, which bans nearly all abortions, a Democratic-backed resolution to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot never got a hearing this year. Attempts to attach the proposal to other pieces of legislation were quickly shut down by Republicans.

“If you believe you are doing the right thing for all the people of South Carolina — men and women and babies — you should have no problem putting this to the people,” said Democratic Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, alleging that Republicans fear they would lose if the issue went directly to voters.

In Georgia, Democratic Rep. Shea Roberts said she frequently fields questions from her constituents asking how they can get involved in a citizen-led ballot measure. The interest exploded after voters in Kansas rejected an anti-abortion measure from the Legislature in 2022 and was rekindled last fall after Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment codifying abortion rights in the state’s constitution.

Yet when she has brought legislation to create a citizen initiative process in Georgia, the efforts have been ignored inside the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“Voters are constantly asking us why we can’t do this, and we’re constantly explaining that it’s not possible under our current constitution,” Roberts said. “If almost half of states have this process, why shouldn’t Georgians?”

The contrast is on stark display in two presidential swing states. Michigan voters used a citizen initiative to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitution in 2022. Voters in neighboring Wisconsin don’t have that ability.

Instead, Wisconsin Democrats, with a new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court, are working to overturn Republican-drawn legislative maps that are among the most gerrymandered in the country in the hope of eventually flipping the Legislature.

Analiese Eicher, director of communications at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, said a citizen-led ballot measure process would have been especially valuable for her cause.

“We should have legislators who represent their constituents,” she said. “And if they don’t, there should be another option.”

In West Virginia, Steve Williams acknowledges the petition he spearheaded didn’t change minds inside the Legislature.

But the Democratic mayor of Huntington, who is a longshot candidate for governor, said he thinks state Republicans have underestimated how strongly voters believe in restoring some kind of abortion access.  

Republican leadership has pointed to a 2018 vote in which just under 52% of voters supported a constitutional amendment saying there is no right to abortion access in the state. But Williams said the vote also had to do with state funding of abortion, which someone could oppose without wanting access completely eliminated.

The vote was close, voter participation was low and it came before the Supreme Court’s decision that eliminated a nationwide right to abortion. Williams said West Virginia women weren’t facing the reality of a near-total ban.

“Let’s face it: Life in 2024 is a heck of a lot different for women than it was in 2018,” he said. 
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washington — Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals they “cannot afford to sit on the sidelines” of the 2024 election, imploring them at one point to “go and vote, Christians, please!” 

Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington on Saturday. He drew cheers as he invoked a new law signed in Louisiana this week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. 

“Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,” Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. “They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.” 

Trump a day earlier posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG???” 

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee backed the move as he seeks to galvanize his supporters on the religious right, which has fiercely backed him after initially being suspicious of the twice-divorced New York City tabloid celebrity when he first ran for president in 2016. 

That support has continued despite his conviction in the first of four criminal cases he faces, in which a jury last month found him guilty of falsifying business records for what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies. 

Trump’s stated opposition to signing a nationwide ban on abortion and his reluctance to detail some of his views on the issue are at odds with many members of the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump’s base that’s expected to help him turn out voters in his November rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden. 

But while many members of the movement would like to see him do more to restrict abortion, they cheer him as the greatest champion for the cause because of his role in appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned national abortion rights in 2022. 

Trump highlighted that Saturday, saying, “We did something that was amazing,” but the issue would be left to people to decide in the states. 

“Every voter has to go with your heart and do what’s right, but we also have to get elected,” he said. 

While he still takes credit for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Trump has also warned abortion can be tricky politically for Republicans. For months, he deferred questions about his position on a national ban. 

Last year, when Trump addressed the Faith & Freedom Coalition, he said there was “a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life” but didn’t offer any details beyond that. 

In April of this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it was passed by Congress. He has still declined to detail his position on women’s access to the abortion pill mifepristone. 

About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, according to polling last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 

Attendees at the evangelical gathering on Saturday said that while they’d like to see a national abortion ban, Trump isn’t losing any of their deep support. 

“I would prefer if he would sign a national ban,” said Jerri Dickinson, a 78-year-old retired social worker and Faith & Freedom member from New Jersey. “I understand though, that as in accordance with the Constitution, that decision should be left up to the states.” 

Dickinson said she can’t stand the abortion law in her state, which does not set limits on the procedure based on gestational age. But she said outside of preferring a national ban, leaving the issue to the state “is the best alternative.” 

John Pudner, a 59-year-old who recently started a Faith & Freedom chapter in his home state of Wisconsin, said members of the movement feel loyal to Trump but “we’d generally like him to be more pro-life.” 

“I think a lot, you know, within the pro-life movement feel like, well, gosh, they’re kind of thinking he’s too far pro-choice,” he said. “But because they appreciate his Supreme Court justices, like that’s a positive within the pro-life community.” 

According to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump in 2020, and nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters identified as white evangelical Christians. White evangelical Christians made up about 20% of the overall electorate that year. 

Beyond just offering their own support in the general election, the Faith & Freedom Coalition plans to help get out the vote for Trump and other Republicans, aiming to use volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors in battleground states. 

Trump on Saturday said evangelicals and Christians “don’t vote as much as they should,” and joked that while he wanted them to vote in November, he didn’t care if they voted again after that. 

He portrayed Christianity as under threat by what he suggested was an erosion of freedom, law and the nation’s borders. 

He returned several times during his roughly 90-minute remarks to the subject of the U.S.-Mexico border and at one point, when describing migrants crossing it as “tough,” he joked that he told his friend Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to enlist them in a new version of the sport. 

“‘Why don’t you set up a migrant league and have your regular league of fighters. And then you have the champion of your league, these are the greatest fighters in the world, fighting the champion of the migrants,'” Trump described saying to White. “I think the migrant guy might win, that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much.” 

His story drew laughs and claps from the crowd. 

Later Saturday, Trump plans to hold an evening rally in Philadelphia. 
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How a U.S. congressional district north of New York City votes in the June 25 primary race could reveal how much the war in Gaza is on the minds of Americans. The outcome could inform Democrats trying to regain control of the House of Representatives in November. Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
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Washington — The Biden administration will again allow Iran to run absentee voter stations on U.S. soil for next week’s Iranian presidential election, VOA has learned, prompting the Islamic republic’s critics to denounce the plan as absurd and shameful.

Iranian Foreign Ministry official Alireza Mahmoudi told state media on Sunday that Tehran is planning to set up more than 30 ballot stations across the United States for the June 28 vote to replace Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.

Mahmoudi said ballot boxes for Iranian absentee voters would be set up at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and in New York but did not identify other locations.

Iranian state media say the United States is home to the largest proportion of overseas-based Iranians at 30%. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates there are about half a million people born in Iran or of Iranian origin in the U.S., while the Iranian American nonprofit group National Union for Democracy in Iran, or NUFDI, says it has a higher estimate of more than 1 million.

Canada and Turkey follow with 12% shares of the Iranian diaspora, according to Iranian state media. Mahmoudi said Iran is arranging absentee voting in other diaspora locations as well.

In a statement reported exclusively by VOA, the U.S. State Department said on Friday it has no expectation that Iran’s presidential election will be free or fair. The Islamic republic’s ruling clerics permit only loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for offices such as president and parliament, which are subservient to him on key policy issues.

Iran’s last parliamentary and presidential elections, in March and 2021, respectively, drew record-low official turnouts, with the lack of choices leaving much of the electorate disinterested.

Opponents of Iran’s clerical rulers at home and abroad repeatedly have called for boycotts of Iranian elections, which they view as shams, and they have done so again for the June 28 vote. They also have noted that the Islamic republic seeks legitimacy for its 45-year authoritarian rule by trying to boost turnout for such elections.

VOA asked the State Department how authorizing ballot stations in the U.S. for Iran, whose poor human rights record it has strongly criticized, is consistent with the U.S. view of Iranian elections as neither free nor fair.

A spokesperson responded by noting that Iran set up U.S.-based ballot stations for previous presidential elections, in 2021 and 2017, with approval from the Biden administration and its predecessor, the Trump administration, respectively.

“This is nothing new,” the spokesman said, in reference to the planned ballot stations for next week’s vote.

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser to the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, countered that permitting Iran to engage in another round of absentee balloting on U.S. soil is a “theater of the absurd.”

In a statement to VOA, Goldberg wrote: “How and why we would facilitate such a charade for a state sponsor of terrorism that is hunting Americans every day is beyond me.” He also questioned who would be operating Iran’s ballot stations in the U.S. and what relationship they have to the Iranian government.

VOA put those questions to Iran’s U.N. mission, which responded by saying it declines to comment because it “believes the issue is not of interest to an American audience.”

A day before Iran’s 2021 presidential election, the Iranian Interests Section in Washington published an online chart showing the addresses of ballot stations in 29 U.S. cities where Iranian citizens could vote. Besides the Interests Section, the other listed venues included 20 properties of U.S. and British hotel companies and eight Islamic centers. There was no indication of who operated the stations.

VOA contacted three hotels that hosted the 2021 ballot stations on Friday to ask if they were planning to host such stations again next week. Staff members who answered the phones at the Marriott Spring Hill Suites in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and at the Hilton Garden Inn Irvine-Orange County Airport in California said they had no record of such events on their schedules. A woman who answered the phone at the Comfort Inn Sandy Springs in Atlanta, Georgia, repeatedly hung up when asked if it is hosting an event next Friday.

Cameron Khansarinia, vice president of the Iranian American group NUFDI, told VOA that diaspora Iranians have a responsibility to protest the Islamic republic’s “shameful” absentee voter stations wherever they are set up.

In reference to those who operate and vote at the planned ballot stations, Khansarinia said, “While we should respect the physical safety of these individuals and U.S. law, they deserve to be publicly shamed for their absolutely amorality.”

VOA also asked the State Department whether U.S. authorities have granted licenses to businesses and nonprofit groups that plan to host the Iranian ballot stations to exempt them from U.S. sanctions that generally prohibit the provision of commercial services to Iran.

The spokesperson replied, “Foreign governments carrying out election-related activities in the U.S. must do so in a manner consistent with U.S. law and regulations.”

The Treasury Department did not respond to similar questions sent by VOA on Tuesday, regarding the granting of licenses for Iranian ballot stations.

Brian O’Toole, a former senior adviser in the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, told VOA it is a gray area.

O’Toole, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, identified two U.S. regulations, OFAC’s General License E and the Code of Federal Regulations section 560.545, as potentially permitting election activity and democracy-building in Iran.

“Despite the Iranian government’s issues with elections, the U.S. has a clear interest in promoting democracy,” said O’Toole, who managed OFAC’s sanctions program during former President Barack Obama’s administration.

“What this administration probably would lean toward is the principle that people who are eligible to vote [in Iran’s election] should make the decision as to whether they should or should not,” he said.
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LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO — Heavy rain and flash flood warnings in the U.S. state of New Mexico prompted officials to order mandatory evacuations Saturday, with shelters set up for displaced residents.

The National Weather Service announced a flash flood emergency on Friday night through early Saturday. The impacted areas included the city of Las Vegas and communities near Albuquerque.

Up to 5 centimeters (2 inches) of rain had fallen by late Friday, with additional rainfall up to 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) expected overnight, the weather service said.

There was flash flooding with multiple road closures on the north and west sides of Las Vegas, the weather service said.

The Las Vegas municipal government announced mandatory evacuations of parts of the city in social media posts, warning residents to prepare for overnight stays. The city said it established shelters for residents on the west and east sides of the city.

The city government asked residents to limit nonessential water use, while also clarifying that online rumors suggesting the city’s dams had broken were false and that the dams “are currently intact.”

New Mexico also suffered devastating wildfires this week that killed at least two people and forced thousands to flee from the flames. The South Fork and Salt fires in south-central New Mexico destroyed or damaged an estimated 1,400 structures. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham planned to tour the disaster area Saturday.
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SEOUL, South Korea — A nuclear-powered United States aircraft carrier arrived Saturday in South Korea for a three-way exercise stepping up their military training to cope with North Korean threats that escalated with its alignment with Russia.

The arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in Busan came a day after South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to protest a pact reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week that pledges mutual defense assistance in the event of war. South Korea says the deal poses a threat to its security and warned that it could consider sending arms to Ukraine to help fight off the Russian invasion as a response — a move that would surely ruin its relations with Moscow.

Following a meeting between their defense chiefs in Singapore earlier in June, the United States, South Korea and Japan announced Freedom Edge. The new multidomain exercise is aimed at sharpening the countries’ combined response in various areas of operation, including air, sea and cyberspace.

The Theodore Roosevelt strike group will participate in the exercise that is expected to start within June. South Korea’s military didn’t immediately confirm specific details of the training.

South Korea’s navy said in a statement that the arrival of the Theodore Roosevelt demonstrates the strong defense posture of the allies and “stern willingness to respond to advancing North Korean threats.” The carrier’s visit comes seven months after another U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, came to South Korea in a show of strength against the North.

The Theodore Roosevelt strike group also participated in a three-way exercise with South Korean and Japanese naval forces in April in the disputed East China Sea, where worries about China’s territorial claims are rising.

In the face of growing North Korean threats, the United States, South Korea and Japan have expanded their combined training and boosted the visibility of strategic U.S. military assets in the region, seeking to intimidate the North. The United States and South Korea have also been updating their nuclear deterrence strategies, with Seoul seeking stronger assurances that Washington would swiftly and decisively use its nuclear capabilities to defend its ally from a North Korean nuclear attack.
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PITTSBURGH — Last week in Parkland, Florida, wrecking equipment began demolishing the building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where a gunman’s rampage in 2018 ended with 17 people dead. As the rumble of destruction echoed, people in the community set to explaining exactly why ripping the building down was so meaningful — and so crucial.

From former student Bryan Lequerique: “It’s something that we all need. It’s time to bring an end to this very hurtful chapter in everyone’s lives.” And Eric Garner, a broadcasting and film teacher, said: “For 6½ years we have been looking at this monument to mass murder that has been on campus every day. … So coming down, that’s the monumental event.”

Parkland. Uvalde. Columbine. Sandy Hook. A supermarket in Buffalo. A church in South Carolina. A synagogue in Pittsburgh. A nightclub in Orlando, Florida. When violence comes to a public place, as it does all too often in our era, a delicate question lingers in the quiet afterward: What should be done with the buildings where blood was shed, where lives were upended, where loved ones were lost forever?

Which is the appropriate choice — the defiance of keeping them standing, or the deep comfort that can come with wiping them off the map? Is it best to keep pain right in front of us, or at a distance?

How different communities have approached the problem

This question has been answered differently over the years.

The most obvious example in recent history is the decision to preserve the concentration camps run by Nazi Germany during World War II where millions of Jews and others died — an approach consistent with the post-Holocaust mantras of “never forget” and “never again.” But that was an event of global significance, with meaning for both the descendants of survivors and the public at large.

For individual American communities, approaches have varied. Parkland and others chose demolition. In Pittsburgh, the Tree of Life synagogue, site of a 2018 shooting, was torn down to make way for a new sanctuary and memorial.

But the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York, and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where racist mass shootings happened, both reopened. And Columbine High School still stands, though its library, where so much bloodshed occurred, was replaced after much impassioned debate. “Finding a balance between its function as a high school and the need for memorialization has been a long process,” former student Riley Burkhart wrote earlier this year in an essay.

What goes into these decisions? Not only emotion and heartbreak. Sometimes it’s simply a question of resources; not all school districts can afford to demolish and rebuild. Sometimes it’s about not wanting to give those who might support the shooter a place to focus their attention.

“Denying such opportunities for those who celebrate the persecution and deaths of those different from themselves is a perfectly sound reason to tear down buildings where mass killings occurred,” Daniel Fountain, a professor of history at Meredith College in North Carolina, said in a email.

Perhaps the most significant driving force, though, is the increasing discussion in recent years about the role of mental health.

“There are changing norms about things like trauma and closure that are at play that today encourage the notion of demolishing these spaces,” said Timothy Recuber, a sociologist at Smith College in Massachusetts and author of “Consuming Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America’s Decade of Disaster.”

For many years, he said, “the prevailing idea of how to get past a tragedy was to put your head down and push past it. Today, people are more likely to believe that having to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak, is liable to re-inflict harm.”

In Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a fence masks the site where the Tree of Life synagogue stood until it was razed earlier this year, more than five years after a gunman killed 11 people in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

David Michael Slater grew up across the street from the synagogue. He understands the ambivalence that can come with choosing whether to knock down.

“It’s easy to see why decision-makers might have chosen one path or the other. And to me, it seems presumptuous for anyone not part of, or directly affected by, the choice to quibble with it,” said Slater, who retired this month after 30 years of teaching middle and high school English. “That said, the decision to demolish such sites, when seen in the context of our escalating culture of erasure, should raise concern.”

The power of memory cuts both ways

From World War II to 9/11, the politics of American memory are powerful — and nowhere more intricate than in the case of mass shootings. The loss of loved ones, societal disagreements over gun laws and differing approaches to protecting children create a landscape where the smallest of issues can give rise to dozens of passionate and angry opinions.

To some, keeping a building standing is the ultimate defiance: You are not bowing to horror nor capitulating to those who caused it. You are choosing to continue in the face of unimaginable circumstances — a robust thread in the American narrative.

To others, the possibility of being retraumatized is central. Why, the thinking goes, should a building where people met violent ends continue to be a looming — literally — force in the lives of those who must go on?

It stands to reason, then, that a key factor in deciding the fates of such buildings coalesces around one question: Who is the audience?

“It’s not a simple choice of should we knock it down or renovate or let it be,” said Jennifer Talarico, a psychology professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania who studies how people form personal memories of public events.

“If we’re interested in the memories of the people who directly experienced the event, that physical space will serve as a specific and powerful reminder. But if we’re talking about remembering or commemorating an event for other people, those who did not experience it, that’s a slightly different calculus,” Talarico said. “Remembering and forgetting are both powerful forces.”

Ultimately, of course, there is a middle ground: eliminating the building itself but erecting a lasting memorial to those who were lost, as Uvalde and other communities have chosen. In that way, the virtues of mental health and memory can both be honored. Life can go on — not obliviously, but not impeded by a daily, visceral reminder of the heartbreak that once visited.

That approach sits well with Slater, who has contemplated such tragedies both from the standpoint of his hometown synagogue and the classrooms where he spent decades teaching and keeping kids safe.

“Like every problem in life that matters, simple answers are hard to come by,” Slater said. “If what replaces the Tree of Life, or Parkland, or the next defiled place of worship or learning or commerce, can be made to serve both as proof of our indomitable spirit and as memorialized evidence of what we strive to overcome, perhaps we can have the best of both worst worlds.”
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Miami, florida — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview posted Thursday he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges, a sharp departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoric he typically uses on the campaign trail.

Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the “best and brightest” in a podcast taped Wednesday with venture capitalists and tech investors called the “All-In.”

“What I want to do, and what I will do is, you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges, too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years,” he said, vowing to address this concern on day one if he is elected president in November.

Immigration has been Trump’s signature issue during his 2024 bid to return to the White House. His suggestion that he would offer green cards — documents that confer a pathway to U.S. citizenship — to potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would represent a sweeping expansion of America’s immigration system that sharply diverges from his most common messages on foreigners.

Trump often says during his rallies that immigrants who are in the country illegally endanger public safety and steal jobs and government resources. He once suggested that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if elected.

Trump and his allies often say they distinguish between people entering illegally versus legally. But during his administration, Trump also proposed curbs on legal immigration such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.

Right after taking office in 2017, he issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing Cabinet members to suggest reforms to ensure that business visas were awarded only to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers.

He has previously said the H1-B program commonly used by companies to hire foreign workers temporarily — a program he has used in the past — was “very bad” and used by tech companies to get foreign workers for lower pay.

During the conversation with “All-In,” Trump blamed the coronavirus pandemic for being unable to implement these measures while he was president. He said he knew of stories of people who graduated from top colleges and want to stay in the U.S. but can’t secure visas to do so, forcing them to return to their native countries, specifically naming India and China. He said they go on and become multibillionaires, employing thousands of workers.

“You need a pool of people to work for your company,” Trump said. “And they have to be smart people. Not everybody can be less than smart. You need brilliant people.”

In a statement released hours after the podcast was posted, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “President Trump has outlined the most aggressive vetting process in U.S. history, to exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges. He believes, only after such vetting has taken place, we ought to keep the most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America. This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”
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fort pierce, florida — Lawyers for Donald Trump argued Friday that the Justice Department prosecutor who charged the former president with hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate was illegally appointed and that the case should therefore be dismissed.

The challenge to the legality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment kicked off a three-day hearing that will further delay a criminal case that had been scheduled for trial last month but has been snarled by unresolved legal disputes. The motion questioning Smith’s selection by the Justice Department is one of multiple challenges to the indictment the defense has raised, so far unsuccessfully, in the year since the charges were brought.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon heard hours of arguments Friday from lawyers for both sides, with Trump attorney Emil Bove asserting that the Justice Department risked creating a “shadow government” through the appointment of special counsels to prosecute select criminal cases. Prosecutors say there was nothing improper or unusual about Smith’s appointment, with James Pearce, a member of Smith’s team at one point saying: “We are in compliance. We have complied with all of the department’s policies.” 

Cannon did not immediately rule, but in an apparent sign that she was taking seriously the Trump team motion, she grilled Pearce on what oversight role Attorney General Merrick Garland — who appointed Smith — had in seeking the indictment.

Pearce said he was not in a position to answer the question but noted, “I don’t want to make it seem like I’m hiding something.”

Even as Smith’s team looks to press forward on a prosecution seen by many legal experts as the most straightforward and clear-cut of the four prosecutions against Trump, Friday’s arguments didn’t concern the allegations against the former president. They centered instead on arcane regulations governing the appointment of Justice Department special counsels like Smith, reflecting the judge’s continued willingness to entertain defense arguments that prosecutors say are frivolous and meritless, contributing to the delay of a trial date.

Arbiter’s review ordered

Cannon, a Trump appointee, had exasperated prosecutors even before the June 2023 indictment by granting a Trump request to have an independent arbiter review the classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago — an order that was overturned by a unanimous federal appeals panel.

Since then, she has been intensely scrutinized over her handling of the case, including for taking months to issue rulings and for scheduling hearings on legally specious claims — all of which have combined to make a trial before the November presidential election a virtual impossibility. She was rebuked in March by prosecutors after she asked both sides to formulate jury instructions and to respond to a premise of the case that Smith’s team called “fundamentally flawed.”

The New York Times, citing two anonymous sources, reported Thursday that two judges — including the chief federal judge in the Southern District of Florida — urged Cannon to step aside from the case shortly after she was assigned to it.

The hearing is unfolding just weeks after Trump was convicted in a separate state case in New York of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor who has said she had sex with him. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is poised to issue within days an opinion on whether Trump is immune from prosecution for acts he took in office or whether he can be prosecuted by Smith’s team on charges that he schemed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

At issue in Friday’s hearing was a Trump team claim that Smith was illegally appointed in November 2022 by Garland because he was not first approved by Congress and because the special counsel office that he was assigned to lead was not also created by Congress.

Smith’s team has said Garland was fully empowered as the head of the Justice Department to make the appointment and to delegate prosecutorial decisions to him. They note that a similar argument failed in a challenge to the appointment of Robert Mueller, who was tapped as special counsel by the Trump administration Justice Department to investigate potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

On Monday, the two sides will again discuss matters related to Smith’s appointment, as well as a limited gag order that prosecutors have requested to bar Trump from comments they fear could endanger the safety of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials involved in the case.

The restrictions were sought after Trump falsely claimed the agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents in August 2022 were prepared to kill him even though he was citing boilerplate language from standard FBI policy about use of force during the execution of search warrants. The FBI had intentionally selected a day for the search when it knew Trump and his family would be out of town, and the policy he was citing is meant to limit, rather than encourage, the use of force.

Trump’s lawyers have said any speech restrictions would infringe on his free-speech rights. Cannon initially rejected the prosecution’s request on technical grounds, saying Smith’s team had not sufficiently conferred with defense lawyers before seeking the restrictions. Prosecutors subsequently renewed the request.
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